By Teri Jaklin ND

Good health is a state of balance that, like your garden, requires persistent care and regular maintenance to thrive.  It permits you to enjoy life, achieve your goals, and strive for your ultimate state of existence. It is also something that as a society we largely take for granted. After all, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it - right?  Further, we have been inundated for many years with health information that we accept as truth, even though it is actually marketing or public relations from self-interested parties, who are ultimately trying to sell you something.

When new symptoms begin to appear or you’re diagnosed with disease, the first thought for many is “why me?” And, in our reductionistic world, we often look for the single thing that caused our apple cart to tip. In reality, many things have contributed over time. Lifestyle and nutritional choices, the suspect genetic threads, environmental influences, and emotional/psychological states all come together to ultimately affect individual physiology and influence your state health.  In the garden analogy, each influencing factor affects the soil or terrain, the basis for a good (or bad) crop.  In addition, different types of plants in the crop are affected differently by the soil conditions, just as no two people experience exactly the same condition of health when exposed to different conditions.

In reclaiming your good health, your first step is to consider how far you are from that optimal condition. How contaminated is your soil? The good news is that as you start to make even the smallest changes you generally begin to notice positive results. Understanding that this is a process, a journey, can help you let go of the futile search for a quick, “magic bullet” fix, and work on restoring normal physiology to truly reclaim good health.

As Naturopathic doctors we work with you to remove obstacles to a better quality of life and develop an individualized plan that helps your body’s own ability to self-regulate.

Who’s on Your Healthcare Team?

The human body and the human experience are both very complex. True to this thought, healing also happens on many levels. Your healthcare team should represent where you are on your journey. You’ll probably find that your needs are dynamic – changing as you do – so your work with different practitioners will vary too – whether it’s your naturopath, family physician, osteopath, masage therapist, spiritual healer, counselor etc. no one practitioner can possibly hold all the cards.

It is also important to understand the breadth and depth of the education each member of your health care team holds to ensure they can adequately meet your needs. Naturopathic Doctors are licensed and regulated in the province of Ontario. To learn more on how NDs are educated check out www.ccnm.edu the website for the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine.