The Secret to Total Health

More Than Medicine

The Secret to Total Health

From Alternatives Newsletter May 2007

Part 2

The last issue of Alternatives’ newsletter examined how our beliefs and thoughts influence our total health.  In this issue Dr. Patricia Ryan, founder of Alternatives:  A Center for Conscious Health, discusses practical ways to put positive thoughts into action.

The popular movement The Secret, which features Rhonda Byrne’s DVD, book and soundtrack, focuses on how the laws of attraction can impact our happiness.  If we align what we believe to be true with our thoughts and feelings, we can attract what we want. 

“That’s the first step to total health, and the next is to put that philosophy into action in practical ways,” said Dr. Patricia Ryan, Alternatives founder.  “So many people come to me because they want to have a better lifestyle and to have the stick-to-it-ness to achieve better health,” she said.

“But most of my patients do have roadblocks to achieving their goals.  That’s because we often don’t make our own health a priority.  Lifestyle changes must start in our minds with the desire to improve our situation,” Dr. Ryan said.  “Along with that desire comes the realization that we sometimes have no control over what happens to us.  We must trust the plan that God has for us and do what we can to nurture ourselves.

“And that means consciously making an effort to love ourselves enough to treat our bodies like temples.  For example, studies have shown that people eat for security when they feel unsafe.  Instead, concentrate on finding other outlets for frustration, and find a diet that works and exercise you enjoy.”

Healing, Dr Ryan says, involves a synergy between mind, body and spirit.  “You can’t separate the three.  You must care for the whole person.  In practical ways, that means cleansing your body of toxins, making efforts to maintain a hormonal balance, eating nutritious food that’s free of hormones and preservatives, adding back vitamins and supplements that have been depleted from your body and getting an adequate amount of sleep and exercise.

“Those habits, along with meditation and prayer, are the beginnings of lifestyle changes that can make a real difference in you,” Dr. Ryan said.

For more information about the secret to total health, contact Dr. Ryan and her staff at Alternatives: A Center for Conscious Health at 827-9450.