Be Part of the Change by Taking Control of Your Health

No matter what kind of physician you're working with, take an active role in your health.  After all, you're the one who must live with the outcome of any chosen treatment, for better or worse. You have far greater control over your health than you think. Leading a common-sense, healthy lifestyle is your best bet to achieve a healthy body and mind. And if you struggle with a health problem, there are almost always simple strategies that can be enormously beneficial and helpful, if not outright curative. While conventional medical science may vacillate in its recommendations, you can take control of your health with the following approaches:
  

1. Make healthy food choices: Focus your diet on whole, ideally organic, unprocessed foods. Avoid sugar, as all forms of sugar have toxic effects when consumed in excess, and drive multiple disease processes in your body, not the least of which is insulin resistance, a major cause of chronic disease and accelerated aging.
I believe the two primary keys for successful weight management are severely restricting carbohydrates (sugars, fructose, and grains) in your diet, and increasing healthy fat consumption. This will optimize insulin and leptin levels, which is key for maintaining a healthy weight and optimal health.
2. Exercise effectively and efficiently. High-intensity interval-type training is particularly beneficial for optimal health, as it boosts human growth hormone  (HGH) production.
3. Address your stress: You cannot be optimally healthy if you avoid addressing the emotional component of your health and longevity, as your emotional state plays a role in nearly every physical disease -- from heart disease and depression, to arthritis and cancer. Meditation, prayer, social support and exercise are all viable options that can help you maintain emotional and mental equilibrium. I also strongly believe in using simple tools such as the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) to address deeper, oftentimes hidden, emotional problems.
4. Drink plenty of clean water.
5. Maintain a healthy gut: About 80 percent of your immune system resides in your gut, and research is stacking up showing that probiotics—beneficial bacteria—affect your health in a myriad of ways; it can even influence your ability to lose weight. A healthy diet is the ideal way to maintain a healthy gut, and regularly consuming traditionally fermented foods is the easiest, most cost effective way to ensure optimal gut flora.
6. Optimize your vitamin D levels: Research has shown that increasing your vitamin D levels can reduce your risk of death from all causes.
7. Avoid as many chemicals, toxins, and pollutants as possible: This includes tossing out your toxic household cleaners, soaps, personal hygiene products, air fresheners, bug sprays, lawn pesticides, and insecticides, just to name a few, and replacing them with non-toxic alternatives.
8. Get plenty of high quality sleep: Regularly catching only a few hours of sleep can hinder metabolism and hormone production in a way that is similar to the effects of aging and the early stages of diabetes. Chronic sleep loss may speed the onset or increase the severity of age-related conditions such as type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, and memory loss.

~Thanks to Dr. Mercola