We live in a time where people are sicker than ever at younger ages than ever. The world is spewing all kinds of advice for how to improve your health. In my opinion, most of the health advice out there is not helpful and even sometimes harmful.
If/when you research health topics, use common sense and apply Biblical wisdom and principles. How did God create us to live? Does modern health advice line up with what His Word says?
After 12+ years of studying health and nutrition, I find it funny that the foundation of good health really starts with such simple things that we all know we need, but few people get enough of. We like to look for fancy answers or think that good or bad health “just happen” to us, but the truth is that we reap what we sow.
Here is an old nursery rhyme that succinctly communicates the best and cheapest methods of improving everybody’s health! It applies to plants, animals and people.
The Best Six Doctors
The best six doctors anywhere, and no one can deny it,
Are sunshine, water, rest, and air, exercise and diet.
These six will gladly you attend, if only you are willing
Your mind they’ll ease, your will they’ll mend, and charge you not a shilling.
If you’d like to know what we’ve done to take care of each of these six areas of our lives, read on.
Dr. Sunshine
I know it sounds obvious, but to get more sunshine we go outside more. Even on cloudy days.
We try to get outside in the morning, noon-ish – when the sun is high in the sky (for vitamin D), and in the evening. The sun has so much to do with regulating our circadian rhythm (sleep/awake cycles) through exposure to our eyes and skin.
We do not wear eyeglasses or sunglasses anymore. We use caps or hats to shade our eyes as needed. We do not use sunscreen because it blocks our bodies’ ability to make vitamin D.
Dr. Water
Last year my husband did a deep dive into water filtration, purification, and structuring. He decided to purchase the whole-house Radiant Life water system and structured water devices for household and garden use.
I don’t know much about the science, but I can testify that my houseplants are much healthier since he installed the new system! I’ve also noticed that our chicken broth is much more gelatinous since we started using structured reverse osmosis water to make it.
Using water for health can also include things like swimming in unpolluted natural waters and taking detox baths!
Dr. Rest
Before we had children I knew that I wanted to train them to go to bed early and rise early. “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”
I’m the night owl of the family, but I’m working on going to bed earlier. Our bodies heal when resting and the best sleep happens in the hours before midnight. I’ve learned that choosing to rest or nap during the day usually makes me much more productive later in the day when I’d usually be more tired.
Manmade electromagnetic frequencies cause a lot of sleep disturbance. We chose to not have wi-fi in our home and use hardwired internet instead. We’re in the process of evaluating our home’s EMF situation to make sure that the areas where we spend the most time are far away from or protected from EMF radiation. Our first priority is the bedrooms since we spend so many hours sleeping there.
Dr. Air
We have a blog post about how air is the most important thing for healthy soil. The same goes for animals and people. We all need lots of oxygen!
Like sunshine, the most obvious solution to get more fresh air is to go outside more! We love to walk or hike where there are lots of trees because trees and plants breathe in CO2 and breathe out oxygen.
The most obvious solution to get fresh air inside your home is to open the windows. My opinion is that indoor air quality has declined since people started using climate control year-round. We keep the windows open as often as possible. We all sleep better with fresh air wafting through the house. Decades ago my husband’s grandmother was very diligent to keep her bedroom window cracked just a little, even through our -20* to -30* Celsius winter temperatures!
Houseplants are also known for improving air quality. I have a fun book called “How to Grow Fresh Air” by Dr. D.C. Wolverton. He describes the best houseplants for cleaning indoor air. We plan to increase our houseplant population for fresher air.
Dr. Exercise
Many years ago I was diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. The doctor’s advice was to exercise a little, but not so much that it tired me out. I knew exercise was good for me and I wanted to do more, but could only go for walks occasionally.
Last year, after learning from Barbara O’Neill about rebounding, I got our mini-trampoline out and started gently rebounding just a few minutes per day. I’m up to 10-20 minutes almost daily! My strength and energy are gradually improving.
Rebounding is a very gentle exercise that does not stress the body. If you have trouble with balance, you can buy a rebounder that has a rail to hold onto.
The best exercise I know of besides rebounding is “just” plain old walking!
We try to incorporate movement in our daily lives so that we’re not sitting around for hours per day. Sitting on the floor more and using a hanging bar are a couple ways we do this. Katie Bowman of Nutritious Movement teaches many ways to incorporate movement into daily life.
Dr. Diet
After my health troubles began years ago, diet was the first thing we started learning about. After seeing the book Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon at a friend’s house, I put it on my gift list and received my own copy a few months later.
Nourishing Traditions is the first book I recommend for anyone who wants to learn about a healthy diet. Sally Fallon’s work is based on Weston A. Price’s research which he wrote about in his book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. She answers the question, “What is a healthy diet?” with common sense and wisdom, not the latest modern health trends.
If reading a book is not up your alley, the Weston A. Price Foundation has an excellent website and podcast that teach about health and nutrition.
As an aside – I prefer the term “food” over “diet” because “diet” has a lot of baggage associated with it. Our culture has so many diets to try, which I think leads to a lot of confusion about what is really healthy. The most helpful thing you can do is eat nourishing real food that is properly prepared.
Conclusion
As is the case with most people, there are many things I wish I’d known sooner and done sooner. We can’t all learn everything at once, though. I’m thankful to know these “Six Best Doctors” now and we talk about what we’re learning with our children so they know these things much sooner than we did!
If I could go back, I think I would have fixed our indoor air situation FIRST because it is the most important on the list (and we’re inside more due to long cold winters). Our bodies do not function well without enough oxygen! Then I would have moved on to sunshine, water, rest, diet, and, finally, exercise.
Isn’t it wonderful how these simple things are the answer to so much trouble? The Lord knows what we need and we can do so much to improve our families’ health with what we already have. It’s good to live in the ways He intended for us to.
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