• Introduction

I am  Dr. Novick, a chiropractic physician and homeopath who has dedicated herself to studying functional medicine and specializes in restoring health and preventing disease by treating the whole person. I believe in empowering  people by educating them  about the importance of a healthy lifestyle that includes a whole varied food nutrition plan, exercise, stress reduction, emotional balance and the use of vitamins and herbs to achieve optimal health and quality of life as we age.

• Eating Healthy
  

The importance of a whole food varied diet is crucial, consuming whole natural foods is optimal. Our bodies are designed to eat fresh vegetables, fruits, raw nuts and seeds, and lean proteins. Our ancestors the hunter gatherers, survived by roaming around and gathering seasonal foods they found, the majority of what they found consisted of green leafy vegetables, root vegetables, berries, fruits from bushes and trees, nuts and seeds, and they also hunted for wild game and fish. The evolution of our body has not changed significantly since that time, and therefore still requires these natural and varied foods. Consumption of precooked prepared  foods, packaged foods with added colorings and preservatives, and fast foods are full of empty calories as well as being severely nutrient deficient. These undesirable foods lead to weight gain, disturbances of the digestive tract and negatively impact our immune system, never mind not providing our brain with optimal nutrition and serving to damage brain cells.

• Exercise

Engaging in an aerobic and resistance exercise program at least 4-5 times a week is crucial in maintaining a healthy body that will be fit and defy the ravages of aging and degenerative diseases.  They did a study to discover the key factor in healthy people that achieve the age of 100 years around the world. The only commonality that was found, was that every one of these elderly healthy individuals had 90-100% muscle mass, they all had extraordinary amounts of fit toned muscles throughout their bodies, their food habits were all different their lifestyles were unique to each individual. In conclusion, it was determined that the higher the percentage of muscle mass achieved, the higher the levels of production of DHEA, a hormone that your adrenal glands and brain produce and declines in production as we age or long-term stress levels increase. If you have high levels of DHEA production the brain believes your chronological age is that of a younger person(about 30 years old) and continues to instruct your body to create muscles, maintain healthy immune function, digestive function, joint health, heart health, and all other organ system health and maintenance.

Research also shows that engaging in 30 minutes of  aerobic exercise, or 45 minutes of resistance exercise, naturally raises body temperature and triggers a slight fever in the body which in turn stimulates proper and alert function of the immune system to fight and shut down brewing viral and bacterial infections before they manifest as illnesses. Increased muscle mass also increased your natural metabolism allowing your body to burn fat even when you are at rest to successfully maintain a healthy BMI (body/mass index the ratio between muscle and fat in your body). When one exercises regularly it serves in aiding in better and more restful sleep as well as a stress reducer to counter our daily and unrelenting causes of stress.

• Stress Management
  

Stress is ever-present in our lives whether it is of the good or bad kind. One must take measures to counter this daily and constant factor. The adrenal glands are a integral part of our hormonal system and are solely responsible for responding to and managing stress, they produce various hormones cortisol, adrenaline and noradrenaline, these are your fight or flight response hormones that kick in whenever you are under the gun to achieve deadlines, overwhelmed, startled, scared, or angry. If you have short bouts of stress then your adrenals and the rest of your body can recover. When stress does not end and becomes long-term, it wears away at your adrenal glands unbalancing the production of cortisol, DHEA, and over producing adrenaline and noradrenaline which zap you of energy, increase inflammatory processes, interfere with the body’s ability to produce muscles, regulate your blood sugar, hormones, and  prevent or recover from illnesses.

Instituting a stress management plan keeps your adrenal glands healthy. Making sure you take 15 minutes a day for the restorative pose, exercising 4-5 times a week, restful restorative 7-8 hours of sleep, eating healthy foods, taking in vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and essential fatty acids on a daily basis, spending quality time with loved ones, and planning something fun and relaxing at least once a week will go a long way to countering the daily stress factors that tend to wear us down.

• Mood

One of the biggest influences on overall health and wellness is your mood. There has been research that proves that our state of mind directly influences our health and physiology. In the book Love, Medicine, and Miracles, by a doctor named Bernie Siegel, he states that the most important factors in recovering from cancer are a will to live and having a network of support around you. He recounts multiple stories of patients he treated and time and time again, those that went into remission and remained cancer free, had these two things in common. In another book The Molecules of Emotion, by Candace Pert, she proves via studies using molecular biology, that emotions directly impact and change the physiology of the cells in our bodies. If one is in an emotionally distressed state our cells become dysfunctional and can become diseased. They also retain the memories of the stressful traumatic events and cause many unwanted symptoms such as pain, inflammation, muscle spasms, heart burn, diarrhea, and many others.

There are many alternative therapies that address these negative emotions and their unwanted effects on our body, Bach Flower Remedies invented by Edward Bach M.D. in the 1920’s, are essences derived from 38 flowers and plants that address emotional states in the body and help to alleviate and restore balance. These are given in combination or as a single remedy based on the emotional presentation of the person.

There are also techniques that help neutralize the emotional tissue memories held in the body that one can learn to use as self-help modalities, such as Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), and EMDR.

Homeopathic medicines also treat the whole person and address negative emotional patterns and states.

• Vitamins and Herbs

In this day and age our food supply has been depleted of its rich nutritional state due to the stripping of nutrients from the soils caused by over use and not rotating the crops that are planted in the same field, the over use and abuse of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, acid rain from pollution,  and genetic modification. The other factor is that fruits and vegetables are picked green and allowed to ripen in the stores and these unripe foods are devoid of the nutrients of naturally ripened ones.  Research has demonstrated that the currently the food we consume has 50% less nutrients than the foods people consumed 50-60 years ago.

Due to the above facts, we must supplement out nutrients through the ingestion of vitamins, antioxidants and herbal preparations. A food based multivitamin, 1000mgs of Omega 3 oils, a mineral formula, and antioxidants are minimal daily requirements to fully nourish our bodies and maintain optimal health.