Addressing the Determinants of Health for True Health & Healing

Where do you begin to support your health when life feels chaotic and overwhelming? Notice I said when and not if, because who doesn’t feel like life is chaotic and overwhelming right now?

In our fast-paced, fad-driven, fact-confused world, we’re given the impression that the answer to our life’s many problems is only a ChatGPT search away. Our lives have become inundated with headlines of the next best “Here’s How!” fad for immediate self-help vying for our strained attention. We’re persuaded into creating vision boards – sending a message to ourselves to magically forget the past and focus solely on the future. We are told to make our bed every day – which means we may need to, first, actually get out of bed and brave the depression that keeps us drowning in the sheets. We can practice meditation, sure  – then risk becoming even more self-critical of our inability to clear our minds for more than five seconds. While each of these practices can be helpful, they are only skimming the surface of healing and do not address the root cause of why, or when, our health began to decline. If we heal symptoms but not affect the cause, it’s quite a bit like trying to heal a gunshot wound with gauze. 

The road to recovery may sincerely benefit from vision boards, a perfectly made bed or daily meditation, but before any of these strategies can be successful it’s imperative we learn how to actually become human again. We need to drink clean water and spend time in the sun because we’re basically a houseplant with more complicated emotions. That may sound ridiculous, but it isn’t too far from the truth! 

Becoming human again requires we lovingly parent ourselves and learn to refocus our attention on our primal needs. Naturopathic doctors refer to these primal needs as Determinants of Health. No treatment plan is created without addressing them first and foremost and healing isn’t successful unless they’re consistently addressed day in and day out. This focus lays the foundation of your health and cannot be ignored when your goal is optimal health and natural healing. If I’m being honest, this is the best and worst part of naturopathic medicine because time heals all wounds. Naturopathic medicine is a slow moving medicine because it’s working with the body and never forces the body. Patience is a virtue - and something we could all use. 

Determinants of Health

1. Air and Breath

   1. Are you a chest breather or a belly breather?

   2. Are you affected by wildfires? Do you have mold in your house?

      1. Do you have an air filter? Do you have house plants?

   3. If working with chemicals, do you wear a respirator?

2. Water and Hydration

   1. Are you drinking enough water?

   2. Does your tap water need to be filtered?

   3. Do you drink from plastic, disposable bottles?

3. Nutrition and Digestion

   1. How many colors of food do you incorporate into each meal?

   2. Do you eat 5-6 handfuls of vegetables and 2-3 handfuls of fruit daily?

   3. Do you have a formed bowel movement daily?

   4. Are you bloated? Do you have heartburn?

   5. How is your appetite? 

      1. Do you graze on food all day or do you eat meals?

      2. Are you multitasking while you eat?

4. Quality Sleep

   1. Are you sleeping 7-9 hours each night?

   2. Do you snore? Have a history of high blood pressure? Been told you stop breathing during the night?

   3. Do you wake up at the same time every night?

   4. Are you dreaming and remembering your dreams upon waking?

5. Vitamin “R”

   1. Do you rest?

   2. Do you surround yourself in nature? 

      1. When was the last time you walked barefoot in the grass, or on the sand?

   3. How do you recover after mental or physical strenuous activity?

   4. Do you allow yourself time to be creative and honor your playful spirit?

   5. Do you surround yourself with community?

How many of these are you struggling with right now? Addressing the Determinants of Health is the foundation of being human and may be the remedy you’ve been searching for. While they shouldn’t be complicated - clean air, clean water, a relationship with the living world, a deep belonging, nutrient-dense food, and enough security to sleep well at night - the modern world has made it increasingly difficult to acquire even a few. When these areas are lacking, we call them “obstacles to cure.” 

Here’s an example:

If you’re being seen for fatigue, brain fog, irritability but you’re waking up between 1am-3am every night - your obstacle to treating the fatigue, brain fog, and irritability is your interrupted sleep that’s likely linked to liver dysfunction associated, in Traditional Chinese Medicine, with waking between 1am-3am and your liver dysfunction may be linked to a high protein, high fat diet because you're a blood type A. So, in the short term, we’ll focus on supporting your sleep with an herbal tincture while addressing the obstacles to cure (i.e. your mis-aligned determinants of health) by adjusting your food choices to be more aligned with your blood type to help resolve your liver dysfunction overtime.

The good news is, once these Determinants begin to come within reach, we can witness authentic healing arise organically and spontaneously; and, by re-establishing the Determinants you are better prepared to focus on the underlying conditions that have been a well-spring for your health concerns. 

The truth is, you were born into health; it is only through biological, physiological physical, emotional, spiritual trauma that we are pushed out of its alignment. Luckily, the vital life force within you is ready, and willing, and created to heal. We just have to get the obstacles out of the way so your inner healer is able to shine through.

It’s time to re-establish your health, it’s time to take your power back, and it’s time to begin living again as the vibrant human that you are.