The Self-Healing Human Body Only Needs A Mechanic When Something Is Broken

Doctors, particularly surgeons, can truly be seen as mechanics when someone has been in an accident of some kind and bones are broken or organs are bleeding, or when someone is having a heart attack. This is also the case when someone is born with a defect and requires plastic surgery to repair a cleft palate or other abnormality.  Other than that, the body is a self-contained, self-healing instrument. Even after surgery, the body heals itself. However, most people regularly turn their bodies over to doctors at the slightest hint of pain, the same way we turn our cars over to a mechanic.

The unfortunate truth is that despite a schedule of regular doctor visits, most people do not heal. In fact, they are scheduled for more visits, given more prescriptions and encouraged to undergo surgeries. And all of these rituals serve to create stress. And, as it turns out, chronic stress is the one condition that the self-healing body will eventually succumb to and seem to lose its healing abilities.

 

Turn Off The Stress Response Turn On The Relaxation Response

Disease, or better yet, dis-ease is not necessarily an indication that something is broken. It is more likely an indication that something is missing such as a nutrient, or there is too much continued stress on the system, such as the body is being overburdened by incorrect dietary habits, not enough restful sleep, unknown and unsuspected toxic exposures (chemicals and metals in our environment), worry about finances, work or family matters, ad infinitum. If not identified correctly and adjustments made, the dis-ease becomes worse, which can then lead to more severe pain and even greater stress due to fear.

 

Weak Not Broken

It is a fact that if a doctor treats the symptom without identifying and treating the underlying cause of the disease, the symptom will keep coming back. It might diminish for a little while, but it will return.

Stress can deplete the adrenal glands. It can cause dizziness, heart palpitations, digestive problems, high blood pressure, and chest pains – in fact, almost any symptom or discomfort can be created or worsened by stress. Go to a regular doctor for any of these symptoms and you are more likely to be stepping onto the medical merry-go-round from which there seems to be no escape.

 

Integrative Physicians Help Patients Get Off The Medical Merry-Go-Round

Go to an Integrative Physician and you are likely to be questioned about every aspect of your diet and lifestyle habits more intensely than you’ve ever been questioned before. You’re likely to spend a great deal of time with the doctor than you are accustomed to spending with your regular doctor or specialist. You are likely to be told that your problem can be solved without going to the pharmacy to fill a prescription or without signing up for a surgical procedure. The truth is, most people are not broken, but merely weakened from the everyday stresses of life.

An Integrative Physician is most interested in helping his or her patients turn off the stress response in the body and turn on the relaxation response. An Integrative Physician is interested in making you feel confident in your own body’s innate and powerful healing abilities. An Integrative Physician will help you get off the medical merry-go-round, which, let me remind you is not very merry at all.

Critics might say that, “Dr. Trowbridge is just another doctor, he doesn’t really know what he’s talking about.”  Well, one of my lab directors when I was doing immunology research as a pre-med student at Stanford wrote the very first paper on “psycho-neuro-immunobiology” which started fantastic research into the importance of “mind-body medicine” (a much easier phrase to remember!) In 1984, I wrote an article for the Rotarian magazine, The Best-Stressed Executive, so popular that it was reprinted in 19 languages for members of Rotary International around the world.  Remember: when I say something, it’s real, it’s true, it’s right. Unlike some others featured in the media today, I’ve never retracted one word of what I have written over a 50-year career.