Commentary: Regeneration: Your health is in your hands
As I write this, Delaware is averaging thousands of cases of COVID-19 daily. How to protect our health is on everyone’s minds when with the cold weather we are forced indoors to escape the elements. How do we keep ourselves, and the delicate ecosystem of our bodies, healthy through such an onslaught?
I know full well the anxiety that comes with a health crisis. In October of 2016, I was struck with a mysterious illness, including severe flulike symptoms, that came out of nowhere and kept me bedridden for days and weeks. I went to and from my family doctor several times, who ran a battery of tests and bloodwork, only to find no conclusive results.
Over the next few months, I would get well enough to go back to work for a few weeks only to crash again, each time a little bit harder. By the time Christmas rolled around, I was completely depleted and forced to go on medical leave. The same family doctor who I had been seeing for the past three months finally diagnosed me with “depression and anxiety.” He released me from his care, told me that there was nothing more that he could do for me.
I felt hopeless beyond despair, isolated and alone. I suffered from intense fevers, night sweats, chills, hallucinations, body aches and panic attacks. I felt like I was losing my mind, and I was terrified because no one could give me a reason for my health collapse.
It was a season of uncertainty and isolation, much like we are experiencing today.
At that point, I realized that if I was going to get better, I was going to have to become my own health advocate. My health was in my hands. And thus, the journey to regeneration began.
A new approach
A friend of mine referred me to a functional-medicine doctor to whom I am forever grateful. Functional medicine is a systems- and biology–based approach to health care that focuses on identifying and addressing the root cause of disease. Essentially, functional medicine is like the “organic-farming” approach to health care — holistic and focused on the big picture.
My new doctor began to search root causes of my health collapse, which he ultimately identified (through proper testing) as Lyme disease.
Delaware is one of only 15 states in the nation that was labeled with a “high incidence” of Lyme disease by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2019, while my home state of Pennsylvania is far and away No. 1 for Lyme disease cases. While some Lyme disease symptoms can be treated with antibiotics, many life-altering symptoms become chronic and resistant to treatment, for reasons unknown by medical professionals.
An ecosystem in balance
My doctor helped me to understand how the body operates as an ecosystem and that my job was to bring the ecosystem back into balance. Essentially, “farming” my body back to full health. Rather than further decimating my microbiome and immune system with traditional antibiotics, he used a combination of natural therapies, along with a diet and lifestyle plan to get me on the path to recovery.
What he helped me to see and understand is that overcoming Lyme disease (or any chronic illness) had to become a new way of life. So I began to treat each decision each day as an incremental step towards full health. My health was now in my control.
My approach to healing became a daily rhythm: morning meditation, journaling, prayer, movement, proper rest and sleep, and deep breathing. I focused on making nourishing, organic meals that restored my energy and well-being, and drank plenty of pure water.
Little by little, I recovered to full health, and as a result, my entire life was set in a new direction, a more beautiful and healthier life than I ever thought possible. Ultimately, that experience led me to do the work that I am doing today with Rodale Institute. This season of darkness, despair and isolation led me to a new community. A sense of wholeness and belonging. I was healed to be a healer.
But I would challenge all of us to see this season as a time to slow down, to pause, to reflect and to heal. We can all use this time to focus on our health, to begin to regenerate our bodies and to create more resilience and vitality. If we do not create these rhythms in our life, they get forced upon us. Sometimes, for good reasons and sometimes, for really scary reasons.
If we embrace the principles of regenerative organic agriculture and apply them to our own bodies, we can take control of our health. We are all being called to farm our bodies right now and to focus on our well-being. We are being invited to change the way that we live. To stop consuming and to regenerate. To turn this moment of isolation into a new kind of community, a rebirthing moment for humanity.
What if we all took this season as a moment to reinvent human and planetary health, one person at a time?
Your health is in your control. Here’s what you can do right now:
- Drink 64 ounces of clean water daily to flush toxins from the body and revitalize your cells.
- Consume fresh, organic, nourishing food.
- Visit a local farm or farmers market to build a local food community.
- Reconnect with nature.
- Rest, rejuvenate, meditate, get quiet, pause.
- Connect with a community.
You are not alone, we are in this together, and we will reclaim our vitality and wholeness. Because our health is in our hands.
Jeff Tkach is chief impact officer at Rodale Institute, where a version of this was first published.
