BALANCE AND HOMEOSTASIS

The body is designed for wellness. All of its innate functions and processes are focused on one thing - maintaining the health of the organism. Long-term health is the goal behind the principle of homeostasis. Homeostasis is essentially the management of internal affairs, a dynamic and complex mechanism of checks and balances that strives 24 hours a day to keep the body in balance. In this respect, balance and wellness are inseparable. Both are concerned with the preservation of health and the body's will to survive. The vast majority of imbalances are corrected uneventfully without our awareness, but in the pursuit of long-term health, sometimes short-term imbalances must be experienced in order to meet the primary objective.

Imbalances in the system casued by genetics are in the minority, and clearly so. Imbalances can be caused by the stress of relationships, worries, financial concerns, toxic emotions, toxic foods and pollution. They all take their toll and will eventually extract payments from the body. If it cannot keep up the payments ill health will occur.

The body will reorganize, downsize and declare bankruptcy if necessary for the greater good of the organism. Acute symptoms and illnesses are all part of the management plan. If imbalances are not properly corrected, and if the stresses continue to mount, they get factored into the plan and become constraints, hindering future attempts to correct further imbalances. As chronic stress continues for a long period of time, and this deep imbalance predominates, the cycle begins to spiral down toward degeneration and disease. At the extreme end of the plan the cancerous tumor is the body's attempt to isolate toxicity in order to maintain overall homeostasis or balance. Everything from allergies to angina to lymphomas is an indication of the body's efforts to respond to a long-term stress that is creating an imbalance. The body is doing the best it can, with what it has in order to maintain life as long as possible.

It may sound ruthless and self-defeating, but the body will utilize all of its available resources (note: available resources), and, if necessary, will even sacrifice one piece or process at a time in order to survive. Dr. Bernard Jensen states that stress uses up valuable nutritional resources that the body has need of elsewhere.

HOMOTOXINS AND HEALTH
The term homotoxin (homo=human; toxin=poison) refers to any substance to which the body has an adverse or toxic reaction. Such substances include metabolic waste, hazardous environmental material and by products of viruses and bacteria. Toxins that cannot be eliminated from the body are at the root cause of illness and death. The ideal healthy body- one that is stress controlled, nourished, and balanced physically, mentally and emotionally - will avoid disease, having minimal susceptibility to toxins because it has the resources available to thoroughly eliminate toxins from the system before they have any long-term impact. Homotoxicology - the study of the effects of toxicity on the balance and harmony of the human organism - provides significant insight into life extension practices and freedom from disease.

HARMONY AND HOMEOPATHY
The Eastern or Chinese model of medicine sees health as a state of harmonic balance, supported by the uninterrupted flow of life energy throughout the organism. The objective of a wellness practitioner is to offer the patient the tools by which balance and harmony can be restored. Homeopathy is just such a tool. Using dilutions of natural substances to stimulate the body's self-healing processes, homeopathy provides the support that allows the body to rebound and return to its natural state of balance. The principles of homeopathy therefore align with the Eastern model of harmony and health, where a balanced state of being provides the greatest opportunity for achieving and maintaining optimal wellness.

THE EASTERN MODEL OF MEDICINE
chinese medicine is based on an energetic perspective of the body/mind. According to this model, there are five basic qualities or elements of energy: wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. Each element symbolizes a deeper quality of energy that relates to specific organs in the body. The relationships between the elements and organs are called spheres of influence. When the spheres are in balance with each other, a state of health persists, while an imbalance anywhere between the spheres can indicate a potential state of illness or disease. It's difficult to argue with the effective benefits of such an outlook, in consideration of the considerably higher success rates enjoyed by those who have been using this outlook for some forty-five or more centuries.

Organized and disorganized states of life energy are classified according to the basic shape of the patient's pattern of disharmony. This inwardly simple yet outwardly complex categorization of life energy, in use since ancient times, in only now beginning to be understood by Western medicine. It shifts one's attention to the true meaning of preventative medicine - not the early detection of pathology, but rather a pro-active commitment to lifestyle practices that promote longevity.