3 - THE BREAKING POINT

“The pattern of disease or injury that affects any group of people is never a matter of chance. It is invariably the expression of stresses and strains to which they are exposed, a response to everything in

their environment and behavior.” —Calvin Wells, “Bones, Bodies, and Disease”

Two and a half millennia ago, Hippocrates became the first physician to put the concepts set forth in the following pages. He revealed the simple truth of human health and disease.

Hippocrates knew that naming diseases and treating them was next to useless. Instead, he understood the threshold that allowed disease to enter the body. He grasped the idea, then clearly conveyed it, that in order to bring the body to a state of homeostasis, the body’s innate, natural healing abilities had to be ignited through natural processes. Once ignited, the body can heal itself.

Hippocrates was slow in administering drugs because he knew it made the work of a physician and the patient more difficult in the long run. The side effects increase stress in the body, ultimately causing unexpected new breakage along the chain of health, allowing illness to return.

Before Hippocrates, the pervasive healthcare belief was that disease was beyond anyone’s control, and often a cruel curse of omnipotent and uncaring gods. He changed that way of thinking with the radical assertion that health depended on individual responsibility.

He went further to say that disease was the result of too much stress. The body can handle only so much until it falls out of ease. Once a threshold of stress is reached, the breaking point happens.

His solution to maintain and regain health was to address the stress points and remove the stimuli that are creating the disease in the first place. As basic as this may sound, it was a monumental moment for humanity and shook the paradigm of the day.

He was the first to state that diseases were caused by our environment. As a result, he came up with a simple system of diagnosing the root causes of disease and providing solutions for getting rid of them. He warned about the tipping point when living goes awry. He described it “as the point of imbalance in which illness triumphs and the patient succumbs to its effects” and the power of healing diminishes. He referred to this power of healing as “nature.” In other words, nature is the body’s innate power to heal and balance. He explained it can only do so below a specific stress point. He was the first to reveal the secrets of healing in writing, with statements such as “Let food by thy medicine and medicine be thy food,” “Rest is of capital importance,” and “Use only clean water or wine where used on wounds,” which are self-evident today, but were not as clear to human civilization at that time.

Hippocrates taught that when you’re stressed and your body begins to show signs of stress (i.e. fatigue, bad digestion, mood and hormonal swings, pain, cancer, diabetes, etc.), the solution was to eat good food, rest and change your environment (food, air, water, thoughts, etc.) to get back to wellness.

Yet somehow in modern day we have developed a healthcare system that cares nothing about our environment (food, air, water, etc.) We blame our afflictions on genetics and foreign infectious invaders, much like the ignorant ancients blamed their afflictions on angry gods. We have forgotten the simple truths that Hippocrates first spoke thousands of years ago. We have forgotten that our body is a temple and how we treat it determines everything about our lives.

Modern Studies and Research Prove Hippocrates’ Theories Correct

Hippocrates’ observations 2,500 years ago have been repeatedly proven. One modern study that stands out was outlined in a book by Dr.Walt Stoll entitled Saving yourself from Disease-Care Crisis. He tells a story about a study of stress, rats, and rabies.

In this study, rabies was injected into brains of rats to observe its effects. As expected, most of the rats contracted rabies and eventually died. However, some of the rats did not contract the rabies virus and stayed healthy.

The curious researchers further studied the surviving rats. For the second round of the experiment, they added a variety of stressors to the surviving rats, such as irregular feeding schedules, extremes of hot and cold temperatures, flashing lights, loud noises to disrupt sleep cycles, and other implements of rat torture.

Within a short time, all the remaining rats contracted rabies, and perished. What happened? The rats reached their threshold of stress then they broke. They withstood the first round of rabies injections because their healthy bodies were not overly stressed. The other rats went past the threshold that their bodies could handle. That’s why they died in the first round of the study.

During the second round, the scientists ensured that the surviving rats reached their breaking point. They weakened their bodies with additional stressors. As a result, the rats’ health reserves became depleted. Once their health "battery" drained, they succumbed to their weakest link of their health chain, which was the injected rabies virus floating around in their brains and blood. The virus triggered, because the rats’ immunity broke and, unlike the first round, wasn't strong enough to repel it.

A scientist named Hans Selye proved this concept with modern studies. Known as “the father of stress research,” Selye understood stress and its triggers and breaking points. He confirmed Hippocrates’ observations with documented studies on stress and immunity conducted during the ‘50s and ‘60s in America. He identified three phases of stress. His research paved the path for the Whole Body Health formula by introducing a core concept of healing: Reduce and eliminate physiological stress and recover by adding in more things that support the body.

Chronic stress induces a civil war inside the body, and if you are constantly under stress, the casualty ends up being your health. When the body perceives stress either emotionally, physically, or chemically, it instigates a myriad of events to handle it.

Our bodies have developed this strong stress response as a requirement for survival. Evolutionarily speaking, when a stressor, such as a saber-toothed tiger or an invading enemy

tribe showed up, our bodies required an immediate response. Anything short of extreme output from the body equated certain death. Over generations of natural selection, humans became hardwired for stress. An extreme stress response allowed us to preserve our lives. Without it, our ancestors would have died and we wouldn’t be here.

However, modern life has developed an environment that has taken our stress responses to a whole new level. We have no rest. We are under constant bombardment of stressors, many of them invisible to the naked eye, such as toxins, pollutants, and work-related irritations. It never lets up. The result is an epidemic of disease sweeping modern life.

Selye found that there are three phases in stress breakdown from a healthy body to disease. How stressed are you? Keep reading and decide which phase of stress you are in.

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THE SCIENCE OF STRESS

PHASE I—NORMAL RESPONSE AND RECOVERY

In phase I of stress response, our nervous system perceives a need for a response to a stressor. Our nervous system relays a message to the hypothalamus in the brain to produce and release a chemical called corticotrophin (CRH). CRH travels to the pituitary gland, which produces the adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH). ACTH in turn goes to the adrenal glands, which produce a hormone called cortisol. Cortisol is the master stress hormone influencing every tissue in the body.

This system is referred to as the HPA axis (hypothalamus, pituitary, adrenal axis). It is, essentially, the processing system of stress response for the entire body. In other words, this is our “survival instinct.”

Cortisol instigates a cascade of effects. It immediately releases stored sugars from our liver for quick energy to the muscles. It diverts blood flow from our internal organs to our muscles, so they engage in rapid “fight or flight” response. The body shuts down digestion, quickens the heart rate, and shortens the breath.

An example of this could be seen if a terrorist ran into your room right now firing a weapon. In response, you would immediately have a charge of energy to fight him or jump out the window. Either action could save your life, and this is normal, healthy, and essential. It evolutionarily ensured the survival of the human race.

Once stress goes away, the body recovers to a state of balance. Rest helps the body recuperate quickly and fully, and prepare to handle the next inevitable stressful event that life throws our way. Ideally, we cycle between periods of stress and recovery, always returning to a state of homeostasis and health.

In this phase, people don't feel ongoing daily stress. They respond normally to stressful situations and then they recover. In other words, they're healthy.

PHASE II—CHRONIC STRESS

Compared to our evolutionary ancestors, modern living overwhelms us with constant daily stressors, never giving us a chance to recover.

Let’s examine a typical modern day. Many of us start the day off with a blaring alarm after a restless sleep. After our morning routine, which may be harried depending on how many times we hit the snooze button, we consume a high-starch breakfast, a pot of coffee, and jump in a vehicle to fight traffic.

We spend 8 to 12 hours in a work environment that is a minefield of numerous stressors. Then we fight traffic again to get home and numb our stressful day with more stressors like TV and alcohol.

The next day it’s the same. It feels like we’re in a race all day long, every day. Indeed, this is the American ‘rat race.’ Hopefully, nobody’s injecting rabies into your brains.

Life exposes us to obvious stressors, like a fight with our loved ones or rush hour traffic. However, modern living takes our constant stress exposure to a whole new level, accumulating it at an alarming rate. Measurable, yet invisible, stressors such as EMF (electromagnetic frequencies), chemically spiked food and water, and air pollution are ever-present.

Our body has no choice. It responds the same way our ancestors did when they crossed paths with a vicious saber-toothed tiger. All ‘modern stressors’ initiate the HPA axis to respond continuously, without rest. Hormone levels increase and glands enlarge. We live in a constant state of fight or flight, continuously battling invisible tigers and terrorists.

We repeat this daily stress routine, often without ever getting a significant break. In phase II, our body rises to meet the stress effectively, but we are entering a dangerous state of being.

A lot of us actually feel good in phase II. Life's hard, but we somehow manage to keep up, maybe even excel. This phase can last many years, until we feel ourselves coming to the end stages of phase II. We notice symptoms of constant fatigue, pain, or some other

ailment. So we try to compensate with caffeine, sugar, medications, and a host of other stimulants, essentially whipping our bodies like a jockey does his exhausted horse in a last desperate sprint towards the finish line.

Then one inevitable day, something finally breaks.

PHASE III—BREAKING POINT

The reality is that our endocrine system can only handle a finite amount of stress. The body can only take so much before it collapses. Our health plummets as a result of the continuous stress response. Our battery of wellbeing is drained, and only the residue of toxicity accumulates.

Visible negative changes in our body appear. Seemingly overnight, we look and feel old. Joints hurt. Libido disappears. Exhaustion, inflammation, weight gain, and brain fog settle in. The brain malfunctions, making even simple tasks difficult.

Our stress response diverts vital energy to the heart. Stomach acid and enzyme production nearly halts, leading to a downward spiral of poor digestion and lessening nutrient absorption.

We reach a crisis phase. Drained of energy, we magnetize disease. Bacteria, viruses and parasites lick their chops as the weakened body becomes an easy target for their malfeasance.

The body has reached its max allostatic stress load. Disease names, doctor visits and endless medications roll in. Disease overcomes.

This is not theory. Thanks to Hans Selye’s research, it is documented scientific fact.

Allostatic Stress—The accumulation of Bad Stress in the body

Some stress, however, is actually good for the body. This is the basis of the concept of hormesis. With hormesis, you gain after an initial pain. Take exercise, for example. Without 1

stress, nothing on earth could function. Just enough of the right type of stress actually stimulates healing. Author Nassim Nicholas Taleb coined the term ‘Anti-Fragile,’ a concept that precisely

defines and illustrates hormesis. It is an essential concept that must be understood to regain and maintain health, and

achieve peak living. Things gain with disorder and chaos (stress). Anti-Fragile means that something must actually break in order to get better. Countless examples throughout history—in nature, societies, and individuals demonstrate the benefit of a specific, small, or therapeutic dose of anti-fragility.

Muscles are weakened with just enough stress to gain strength in the long run.1

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Cumulative allostatic (The medical term for accumulation of stress in the body) stress, on the other hand, is chronic stress with no benefit. Substances like sugar and alcohol have no benefit. Neither does chlorine, fluoride, mercury, asbestos, cyanide, or lead. Nor do the 80,000 other currently known toxins in our environment, nor the 2,000 new ones introduced each year.

Drinking a sugary soda, breathing polluted air, and showering in chlorinated water all encourage failure somewhere along the chain of health. Allostatic stress load contributes to breakdown, all the time, without exception. It results in dysregulation of multiple physiological systems such as weight gain around the belly, depression, high blood pressure, cancer, etc.

When physiological systems break down, the cellular terrain of the body changes for the worse, reaches a tipping point, and disease quickly ensues. Modern medicine futilely attempts to restore health by diagnosing which link is under the most tension. Then it tries to suppress the symptoms with drugs and invasive techniques. This serves only to transfer the strain to another link in the health chain, actually moving one closer to the final breaking point, thus accomplishing the exact opposite of curing illness. Modern medicine, more often than not, adds to the allostatic stress load.

For example—and this happened to me—repressing acne with a chemical cream manufactured by a pharmaceutical company might repress the acne today without addressing the root of the problem, which is poor nutrition and toxicity. Continued poor nutritional intake along with the side effects of the medicated cream results in worse symptoms down the line; perhaps a candida infection, liver damage, or a colon malfunction…and so it goes, unless the allostatic stress load is reduced by eliminating toxins such as the acne medication itself, and introducing nutritionally dense foods into the diet.

Modern life’s stressors are lesser in ultimate danger (we’re not fighting saber-toothed tigers anymore), but those stressors are relentless and non-stop. Also, modern day stressors have radically increased in the last 150 years or so. A 1987 study showed that the average person in America is exposed to more than 1,000 times the stressors per person per day than people just 100 years ago. How much more have we added in the last 30 years? 2

The Global 2000 Report to the President, Volumes I and II, Blue Angel, Inc. July 19812

This is the most insidious threat to overall wellbeing since the dawn of man. From an evolutionary standpoint, we are incapable of dealing with it. Pick up a copy of any recent medical journal, and it’s replete with studies of soaring obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer rates.