Sleep

What are the 4 pillars of health? Most would readily agree that they are: Nutrition, exercise, sleep, and healthy mental well-being.

As one of these 4 pillars of health, I am starting the discussion with sleep. Because without it, the other 3 pillars are impossible.

Do you know how it feels to get a great night's sleep and wake feeling refreshed and invigorated? Most of us have experienced that at least at some point in our life, but increasingly in our society we do not. This lack of refreshing sleep is ubiquitous in the chronic illness community. You want sleep, you need sleep, you just can't get sleep.

In chronic illness, sleep deprivation is common and there are often underlying, deeply entrenched root causes of this insomnia or poor-quality sleep. These can include heavy metals in the brain, especially inflammatory ones like nickel, mercury, and aluminum. Neurological infections such as Lyme Borrelia and other borrelia, Toxoplasmosis, Filaria, etc. Fat soluble toxins in the brain such as pesticides, glyphosate (Round-up), or mold mycotoxins, or biotoxins from infection.

All these result in brain inflammation and key deficiencies in sedating brain chemicals such as GABA, serotonin, and melatonin. The end result being you lay awake, tossing and turning, and/or getting low quality sleep, and awaken feeling exhausted.

I myself, and some of the patients I work with, have actually been hospitalized for suicidal ideations after many days unable to sleep, even while taking herbs and sleeping meds. Yes, going day after day and night after night without sleep can make you want to kill yourself. That's how bad it can get!*

Although that was decades ago, this is clearly not a casual subject for me. Recent research shows that the brain's glymphatic system, or toxin removal system, only functions during deep sleep. The tiny vessels called the glymphatic system are similar to our body's lymphatic system and these dilate and contract about once per minute during deep sleep, actually pumping metabolic waste products out to cleanse the brain.

People who have gone without sleep for days have a brain that is bathing in days of accumulated metabolic poison. It's a vicious cycle. Research also shows sleep deprived individuals can be as impaired as a drunk driver. It’s no laughing matter.

Thankfully, most will never go through a hellish experience of prolonged and severe insomnia, but the subject is still important to anyone who is recovering from a chronic illness as well as anyone wanting to optimize health. And make no mistake about it, insomnia is NOT NORMAL! Anytime someone lays awake unable to fall asleep or falls asleep and wakes up, often unable to go back to sleep, or wakes up tired, something is physically wrong. The good news is it's fixable.

So how do we identify the underlying root causes of insomnia, both from a lifestyle and natural therapy intervention standpoint, and what are some amazing results we have gotten using these? Some of the info of my upcoming book “Lyme disease and the 4 pillar of Health” will include the value of early morning sunlight, nighttime blue light avoidance, sleep supplements, timed exercise, and how we specifically identify and resolve each patient's underlying deeper root causes of insomnia.

*anyone considering suicide due to insomnia should immediately contact their primary care doctor or seek help from a qualified mental health provider or suicide hotline. Remember, there is hope and insomnia can be successfully reversed.

Exercise

Regarding the subject of exercise as a pillar of health and especially how someone with a chronic illness can successfully begin an exercise program, it is not so simple. Now to be clear, there is no information on exercise on the internet, no conflicting information and opinionated influencers talking about it, and the few discussing it are all in agreement. I’m kidding of course. There is an information overload about the subject to say the least The purpose of this webpage is to discuss how someone can use exercise cautiously to recover from a chronic illness.

To explain further what I mean by the phrase the 4 pillars of health, a pillar of health means that no person can maintain good or optimal health if that pillar is missing or lacking. And no chronically ill person can possibly get well without attention to that pillar of health. This can be despite heroic efforts with treatments, natural or otherwise. Our bodies are made to move and will deteriorate without it. There are no exceptions. Thus, exercise is one of the 4 pillars of health.

But unfortunately, chronic illnesses prevent and limit exercise. My own personal experience in this is as follows: very active as a young person, in a variety of physical activities such as hunting, fishing, camping, and working multiple jobs that were hard physical labor.

Later, I joined the military and reached a new level of fitness in Army boot camp and other physical training. This primarily instilled a love of running. After military service I ran on my own. In my late 20's and early 30's after contracting Lyme disease and various other debilitating conditions, exercise of any kind stopped. I was in bed or on the couch seven days a week and too sick to work.

This is a common experience with people who develop chronic illnesses, especially Lyme disease, or at least ones who were once ultra fit before illness. They go from 100 to zero. It can be incredibly discouraging. And quite likely most of them, like myself as they succumb to illness, at times tried to exercise their way back to health. It's like you wake up one day and decide "I don't want to be sick and exhausted anymore. I am going to run five miles (or whatever workout you used to do) so that I feel like I used to!" You find out quickly that this doesn't work out so well.

I made several attempts that way and still at one point ended up virtually bedridden with Lyme disease and associated issues. A condition that to me was almost as bad as death… or seemed so. That was part of my intense and relentless motivation and efforts at recovery. The story of going from extreme fitness to bedridden is common in Lyme disease, chronic fatigue, and similar groups. But of course, this is about hope!

In an upcoming book on this subject, I am going to give a detailed breakdown on how someone, even a very ill person, can use exercise and movement to sensibly speed their recovery. How I did it, and how my patients have done it. Here are some tidbits.

Nutrition part A: food

The subject of diet and nutrition and the critical role it plays in recovery from chronic illness is a vast subject of course. But for brevity in regards to chronic illness, nutrition can be divided into 2 categories: food and nutritional supplements. Regarding chronic illness, both of these are critical for getting well. This is because all chronic illnesses involve nutrient deficiencies and imbalances to some extent. There is clear evidence that key mineral nutrients in our soil have been progressively depleted in modern, fertilizer dependent farming. This is a big problem and affects everyone.

Other factors involved in poor nutrient status include the inability of a sick person's weakened digestive system to fully extract nutrients from food, and the inability to absorb and deliver them to the cells. The stress of illness also tends to cause nutrient wasting via urine, magnesium, and other minerals being an example. And finally, sick bodies need optimal levels of nutrients to heal. Nutrients are used up faster when ill, because you are in a state of constant repair to restore homeostasis.

But let’s start by discussing diet and then nutritional supplements. Two components of the same pillar of health and my story with the former: diet.

In 1993 I had recently returned from the Mayo clinic in Minnesota where I had spent three days of extensive testing for digestive problems. I was told by my doctor at Mayo that I was healthy and to stop following special diets. Yet I was pale, emaciated from 30 pounds of weight loss, constantly sick with infections, and had severe digestive symptoms from most foods I ate, especially sugar. My older brother Taylor, who had driven me to the Mayo clinic in Minnesota and was there for the three days of testing, was furious. He stood up when the doctor said I was healthy. He said, “Are you #*@& kidding me? He's healthy? Look at him!’'(pointing to me). His response was so strong this elderly Harvard trained doctor was visibly scared.

I sat silently trying to absorb what had just been said. That they couldn’t find the root cause. Having seen so many doctors before this Mayo clinic doctor, I honestly was not mad at him. He was telling me what other doctors had said. His motives seemed good and he was less arrogant than most I had seen.

My family and friends knew I was sick and I knew I was sick, though it was difficult to openly acknowledge this. It is difficult for a man to acknowledge weakness, especially in one's prime of life. Especially when no one you know, no friends or family have EVER been sick. Not while still that young.

It was about then, or shortly after, that I first ventured into a well-known health food store in Fort Smith, Arkansas to browse books. Having been failed at being told what was wrong by the supposed best diagnostic clinic in the world, naturally I began to turn elsewhere.

Having read dozens of diet and nutrition books since that time over the past 3 decades, many of them (if not most) gave conflicting information. For example, or even for a laugh, here is some conflicting information:

Other books that advise how to customize diets to our individual needs include The Metabolic Typing Diet (Wolcott), Eat Right for your (blood) Type (D'Adamo), The DNA Restart (Moalem) and the list goes on.

Most people are aware of this tendency of diet books to contradict one another. So then which diet book is best? Which is right and which is wrong? The truth is they are all right and they are all wrong! Yes, you read correctly. There are some aspects of nutritional health benefits and truth in all of them and frankly some degree of exaggeration, scientific cherry picking, and in many cases, excessive fear mongering of otherwise healthy foods. Fear sells, fear gets our attention. Just ask CNN.

One thing I have (jokingly) told my patients is that if you read enough diet books you may starve because they all tend to vilify specific foods. There is also the psychological aspect of feeling fear each time you eat a meal, and the negative effects on digestion (more on this later).

On a more positive note, when you read a diversity of books with a balanced attitude, you can combine the best components of each and every book and create an amazingly beneficial diet tailored just for you.

In an upcoming book, Lyme disease and the 4 pillars of health, I will help you navigate that journey and also not have to read every single book yourself. I will tell you, at least based on decades of experience, how to do that. Not a specific diet, but the principles of how to create your best individualized diet. You can cut through the confusion. It can be done.

A health restoring diet for someone overcoming chronic illness is of crucial importance, but it can and should be delicious, nutrient dense, not insanely expensive, and not overly difficult to prepare. All are attainable!

The truth is that a couple hundred years ago, food was innately healthy, higher in nutrients, organic, and natural. This is not the case anymore. My book will also describe toxin avoidance in modern food such as heavy metals (e.g. mercury in fish), mycotoxins, pesticides and herbicides like glyphosate (Roundup), GMOs, microplastics, and last of all, PFAs. These are forever chemicals, which is a HUGE current problem. With a little thought and care you can protect yourself and your family from these modern food contaminants. You very much need to be aware of food toxins, natural and manmade.

A discussion of nutrition would not be complete without talking about nutritional supplements.

If you Google the question "How is American health care rated compared to the rest of the world" you may see a 2000 study that rated the USA as 37th by the World Health Organization. Other more recent studies by various watchdog agencies consistently rank American healthcare last among all high-income countries when it comes to health outcomes, access, equity, administrative efficiency, infant mortality, and cost. Yes, the U.S. pharma based medical system is failing most Americans. Badly! It seems the only thing American healthcare is #1 in is cost. There are of course many hardworking professionals in that system with a sincere desire to help the sick, but they didn't exactly have a say in how the healthcare system itself was designed.

It is in this environment that American nutritional supplement companies are experiencing a boom as an alternative to this failing medical system. This competitive environment is creating some of the most beneficial, diverse, high quality, purest nutritional supplements available in the world. That's right. In previous years, countries like Japan, UK, and Germany were arguably making superior products, but not anymore.

For naturopathic doctors, nutritionists, functional medicine M.D.s, and chiropractors, it takes a lot of time and devotion to keep up with all the new, cutting-edge products hitting the market. At the same time, it is interesting and exciting because we see the benefits of this ever-growing list of cutting-edge products for our patients.

But getting back to the subject of Lyme disease (or any chronic illness), and how the use of high-quality nutritional supplements can speed up recovery, consider my early foray into trying to understand what supplements would help me get well.

When I was a Lyme patient (who, at the time, had not even been diagnosed) searching for answers in the early 90s, I was directed by the local health food store in Fort Smith Arkansas to a chiropractor in Oklahoma. I spent no more than a few minutes with this doctor and he gave me a hair sample mineral analysis kit. I dutifully sent the kit off and some time later received the report in the mail.

The report showed severe deficiencies of every single mineral tested and also excesses of toxic metals. “O.K”, I thought. “Well at least one lab test has finally shown something wrong with me. It’s a start.” I called the chiropractor’s office in Oklahoma to ask what this test meant. What should I do? The office employee asked me to hold a minute and then came back with profound advice. "He said you need to take a mineral supplement.”

I won't get into a discussion here about my encounters with bad or poorly trained alternative practitioners and poorly run clinics, but suffice it to say that there was at least some value to the advice. My body did not have enough minerals, despite my efforts at eating healthy. Thus, the need for mineral supplements. Knowing essentially nothing about health at this time, at least it served to point me in the right general direction.

I do not believe that I could have possibly recovered from Lyme disease without high quality supplements. And in all honesty, most people cannot recover from illnesses such as Lyme of a chronic nature and similar conditions without high quality nutritional supplements. They are invaluable. Essential.

When chronically ill patients tell me they don't want supplements, need to limit them, or just get what they need from diet, my response is that in a perfect world you would get all needed nutrients from diet.

That's ideal of course. But sick bodies that are nutritionally depleted need those additional nutrients to heal. Practitioners must choose pragmatism over patient idealism. Some deficiencies simply aren't going away without precise supplementation. As discussed previously on the subject of diet, a sick body requires far more nutrients to heal than a healthy body needs to stay that way.

The explosion and diversity of new and cutting-edge supplements is a good thing, but to many it can also seem overwhelming. You want the benefits, but where do you start and what should you take? Supplement companies add to this confusion with aggressive marketing and oversimplification (i.e. you only need our supplements). In the near future, my book on Lyme disease and the 4 pillars of health will discuss how you can navigate this jungle. It will discuss:

Positive mental well-being/outlook

To close out our discussion of the 4 Pillars of health we will discuss positive mental well-being. Brevity prevents a detailed commentary on this subject, but hopefully you'll find a pearl or two to help you or a loved one get well.

How can you predict from a group of patients who are all battling a similar, serious health challenge, or even a life threatening one, who will get well and who will not? This is a question everyone connected to a serious illness wants to know, especially those sick people. After all, if the normal life they once knew has been replaced by disability, financial loss, chronic pain, a host of symptoms, and even a legitimate fear of death, there is no question more important to them than the simple question "Will I get well?".

I pondered this question as I fought end stage Lyme disease, mercury poisoning, severe life-threatening weight loss from 155 down to 98 pounds, and multiple life-threatening staph infections between 1997 and 1998. My family and friends also wondered if I would live. Honestly, my family, although extremely supportive of my efforts to fight Lyme disease, thought I was dying. They had discussed funeral plans. Also, years later, a holistic doctor that I worked with in Dallas, Texas told me he also did not think I'd survive. His exact words were "I know death when I see it." Of course he only told me this after I was on the other side of it. He had the compassion not to say that while I was fighting for my life. A lesson for any doctor, or it should be. Don’t take away hope when there is still hope.

The truth is, I never planned on dying. I was 30 years old and had too many things left to do. I don't say that flippantly. As if anyone can just will their way out of a life-threatening illness. But to be sure, mental outlook matters and can mean the difference between beating an illness or succumbing to it. Succumbing not just to death of course. It could also mean succumbing to a life of chronic illness and suffering, when genuine healing and recovery were quite possible. A fighting spirit matters.

Of course I did not create this success story on my own. There were many factors. In my case there was family support, some incredible doctors and knowledgeable mentors, and in the end, lifesaving medical and holistic interventions.

I don't think about those times much anymore. They were bad and traumatic, but they are well in the past. After studying natural health for 30 years and 18 years in clinical practice as a naturopathic doctor, my focus now is on how mental outlooks can help my patients. Below I am going to list some commonalities that I have seen in those who beat severe illnesses, get well, and stay well against the odds.

Before I do, I want to make one thing clear. No one should ever be judged on how they choose to deal with a chronic, severe, or life-threatening illness. It is a fact that there are congenital and genetic diseases that are lifelong and chronic, and this discussion is not meant to insult those people. This is in regards to illnesses that people can recover from. And it's a person's fundamental right to choose their own path when confronted with a serious illness. The list below is not about passing judgement, it is just my own experience and observations of how one's mental outlook can lead to getting well or prevent it.

Common traits of survivors and people who get well:

That last bullet requires help from someone trained to assist you in this. In my upcoming book Lyme disease and the 4 Pillars of health, I'll discuss some of the things that are available to date and what things seem to truly help. Including certain powerful spagyric remedies designed to help us process trauma. They dramatically helped me. I would not have been able to practice natural medicine without first taking those remedies. Otherwise, every time a severely ill Lyme patient walked in the door I would have immediately gone back to my memories of being that way. Healing subconscious trauma of illness allowed me to practice without that PTSD reaction.

Aside from the psychological approaches specifically related to fighting an illness, there are other things such as joy, self-forgiveness, giving to others, purpose/accomplishing things, hope, and yes, love, to mention a few. Each person has to find his or her own way down that path. Summing up this entire webpage, mental well-being is a pillar of health. No one can get well while stewing in anger, guilt, fear, hate, helplessness, and hopelessness. There's a better way.

*anyone considering suicide due to insomnia should immediately contact their primary care doctor or seek help from a qualified mental health provider or suicide hotline. Remember, there is hope and insomnia can be successfully reversed.