The ANH (Alliance for Natural Health) newsletter started with this:
“This week’s Heartbeat leads with Rob Verkerk PhD’s launchpad for his thoughts towards a unified theory of health — one that is overtly health, not disease-centric, and focused on the most fundamental elements needed to create a healthy underlying terrain that promotes resilience and flourishing, while avoiding the evolutionary mismatches that make us age prematurely and become increasingly susceptible to disease.”
I was struck at how close that seems to click with that chapter on ‘The Levers of Optimal Health’ from my book ‘How To Live The Healthiest Life’. These are the key factors I have identified that contribute to optimal health. Here is that chapter in its entirety. Hope it helps you.
The Levers of Optimal Health
We normally think of a lever as a piece of wood or metal with which to increase the force we can apply to move something.
Additionally, from the Miriam Webster dictionary, definition 1b of lever: an inducing or compelling force. Definition 1a of induce is: to move by persuasion or influence, and 1b is: to call forth or bring about by influence or stimulation.
So what I have identified are these different forces you can apply to compel, influence or stimulate a return to or continuation of your good health.
Once you have ticked the 4 boxes in the previous chapter (3-5 servings of fruit or vegetables, 17 minutes of exercise, maximum of 2 or 3 alcoholic drinks a day and quit smoking), give yourself a pat on the back! You have moved 4 of the primary levers in the right direction.
My reading has led me to the conclusion that you can use the following levers to make a difference to the health of your body and the quality and length of your life. These levers fall into categories.
Body Fuel Levers
Air – Properly inhaled, clean air.
Water – Adequate hydration.
Nutrition – Food and supplements to ensure optimal nutrient intake & absorption for your body at this stage of your life.
Toxin Levers
Physical Toxins – Zero toxin intake (airborne, water borne, personal care products, clothing, medical/recreational drugs, vaccinations, smoking, alcohol and food toxins and additives.)
EMF Toxins – Limiting or countering your Electromagnetic Frequency exposure.
Lifestyle/Environmental Levers
Sleep/Rest and Recovery – Adequate, restful sleep and rest.
Activity – A level of fitness adequate to your age & body use.
Location – The country you live in, the state, county and suburb all make a difference to your health prospects.
Circadian/Lunar Rhythms – Aligning activities with natural cycles.
Sun/Red Light Therapy – Optimal exposure to the sun/red light.
Grounding – Walking barefoot on the earth has a measurable beneficial effect on the body.
Frequency – Different frequencies have an effect on the body.
Vibration – Vibration plates have a documented effect on the body.
Spiritual/Mental Levers
Spiritual Awareness – Being aware that you are a spiritual being, that you are in charge of your body and life.
On Purpose – Knowing and pursuing your basic purpose in life.
Intention – The degree of willingness you are prepared to exercise to overcome inertia, barriers/obstacles and distractions to obtain a desired result.
Sustained Desire For Continuous Improvement – Not letting any area of life go downhill but taking effective action to correct departures from optimum.
Knowledge – If you do not know how to do something you are the effect of that thing, not cause over it.
Attitude – Positive mental attitude or optimism is a key part.
Personal Integrity – The net result of the next three abilities.
Confront – The ability to look and see what is actually there. Not what you would like to be there or wish was there but what IS there.
Self-Discipline – Putting into practice what you know to be optimum despite inconvenience, objections and distractions.
Ethic Level – A result of knowing what is right and having the discipline to do it, regardless of invitations to do otherwise.
Granting Beingness – Allowing the other person to be who they are. This involves kindness, courtesy and eschews invalidation and evaluation.
Relationship Levers
Stress – Experiencing as near as you can, zero stress/suppression.
Being Married – Yes, despite the problems many of us have in this area of our life, divorced and single people do not live as long as married ones.
Friends – Having 5+ close personal friends lengthens your life.
Social Interactions – According to a 2018 study, the more social interactions you have each day, the longer you live.
Whatever is going on with your body, these are the primary levers with which you can work to reduce symptoms, improve body functions and maximize your health. Some levers are positives that will increase your overall health and happiness. Some are negative levers that will lower your overall health score.
You could make a good case for arguing that it is more important to handle the negatives in your life before you push the positive levers. Otherwise the negatives will keep you from attaining the benefits from the positives. Pointless doing a detox without first stopping the intake of toxins.
Many of these levers will be covered in detail as you go through this book but don’t wait to read up on it before starting to make some improvements in these areas. The podcast from where I got the idea of these health factors as levers included Blood Sugar and Inflammation as levers but they are more properly labeled markers of how well you are doing as they are influenced by the levers.
Individually, any of these factors being severely out can reduce the enjoyment in your life substantially and shorten it considerably. So these items are not like blocks stacked on top of one another, the more blocks you have, the higher you go. Or you take one block off and it only reduces your overall quality or length of you life by that one.
It’s more like a team game of ten pin bowling, where each of individuals has a turn and the score of the team is the value of the lowest scoring team member – the weakest link.
Another way to look at it is like you are sailing through life’s tempests in a wooden rowboat, with or without a map (purpose or goal), a compass (moral guide), a sail (intention). You start taking in water as soon as one of them starts to fail. The bigger the failure, the more water you take in, the faster you sink!
So do not ignore any of the levers. In this book I will cover much data I have learned relating to each of them.
If you are firmly convinced that nothing would change your mind that you are nothing but a meat body and there is no spiritual side to life, just skip this concept and apply the others to the best of your ability. If you need more help with one of these lever than this book provides, contact me!
Just in case you wonder why I include medical drugs under toxins to avoid, here’s a quote from the father of modern medicine…
…and although it is often omitted as an item from the leading causes of death iatragenic illness (caused by the medical profession) is the third leading cause of death in the USA.
TARGET: Pick the lever you feel is most needed to be pushed and alter what you are doing in that area of your life.
TARGET: While doing that, look over the rest of the levers and list for each lever, one or more things that you can do to improve that aspect of your life. Rank each of those items as Vital, Desirable or Trivial and progressively add the vitals into your weekly game plans.
