6) Chronic Dehydration

When we don't drink enough healthy fluids we become dehydrated. The problem is that it's possible to be dehydrated more or less continuously for many years and not even know it. This in turn creates chronic and severe hormonal stress that leads directly to pain and disease. Research indicates that a simple water deficiency afflicts many millions of Americans.

7) Touch Deprivation

Detachment style parenting, body issues, and neglect of body promotes a condition known as 'touch deprivation'. For millions of people this is a condition to simply accept. However, stress and pain that results is more than many people can bare and drives them to extreme and desperate behavior in an unconscious effort to remedy a touch deficiency. However, there is no substitute for touch. Without enough skin to skin contact human beings become extremely imbalanced, and mentally and physically diseased.

8) Tissue Oxygen Starvation

Ninety percent of Americans are oxygen starved and eighty percent of these don't even realize it. The cause for this widespread problem is twofold. First, few if any of us are actually taught healthy breathing habits, we simply ignore it all together. The second reason is due to a predominantly indoor (and sedentary) lifestyle. Living inside schools, offices, homes, cars, and shopping malls combined with unconscious shallow breathing creates hypoxia, and hypoxia is an anaerobic condition that breeds infection, cancer, heart disease, inflammation/pain and chronic fatigue.

9) Chronic Inflammation, Lesions and Restrictions

Most, if not all, people suffer with multiple inflammations, lesions and restrictions in their various membranes, connective tissues, muscles, ligaments, tendons and organs. Not only do these inflammations and lesions limit mobility and motility, they also add substantially to body's total stress load, and frequently become site for accumulated toxins and future cancers. Preventing disease and creating optimal health necessitates that we locate and eliminate these physical problems.

10) Structural Subluxations

Gravity, injuries, sitting in chairs, bad shoes, and poor posture can all cause spinal and joint mis-alignment, which in turn leads to neuro-muscular, multiple organ and system dysfunction. Autopsy research indicates that in most cases, diseased organs are directly linked to subluxated vertebra. Subluxations of cranial joints (sutures) have also been shown to cause serious dysfunction in body, mind and behavior. For optimal health and disease prevention, alignment of whole body is vital.

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Secondary Processes:

11) Endocrine Dysregulation

The endocrine (or hormonal) system is one of master systems of body, controlling all basic metabolic processes. As roots of disease take hold in body hypothalamus, pituitary and adrenal (HPA Axis) becomes imbalanced and body begins to lose capacity for self-defense and self-repair. Thyroid, pineal, pancreas, ovarian and testicular problems will develop manifesting excessive and deficient cycling of hormones. The spectrum of symptoms that result from endocrine dysregulation is vast.

In general, if you have hormonal problems, it is a mistake to assume that primary problem is with gland itself. For example, thyroid problems are common, but it is wrong to assume that it is a primary thyroid disease, as this is rarely case. When deeper (upstream) imbalances have been corrected, our hormonal system can return to balance. Ignoring roots of disease and taking hormones is wrong approach. Balancing endocrine dysregulation by pulling deeper roots of disease, is correct approach.

12) Immune Dysfunction

The body does not 'have' an immune system as much as it 'is' an immune system. When ALL our body's systems are functioning properly we are immune to infection, illness and disease. And when our body systems are deeply imbalanced we are unable to effectively resist infection, illness and disease. Building a powerful immune system therefore suggests that we need to pull all roots of disease and take care of WHOLE person.

13) Inherent Weaknesses

This is where our genetic constitution enters picture. If our family tree suggests a history of weak lungs, livers, kidneys, chances are we have inherited these same weaknesses, whatever they are. In other words, you don't just have your daddy's eyes and your mommy's chin, you have their liver and spleen too! It is said that 'we die from our inherent weaknesses'. This means that as imbalances in our body's persist, wear and tear on our organs and systems is not equal throughout. Eventually, it will be our weakest link that finally snaps. Even if our heart had another twenty years of function left in it, when our weakest link finally breaks, it brings rest of body down with it. It helps to know your inherent weaknesses so you can be mindful and adjust your self-care routine accordingly.

==================================================== LIFELONG HEALTH MANAGEMENT: YOUR WELLNESS LIFESTYLE ====================================================

1) Self-Awareness & Self-Regulation (SA/SR)

Face it. Your body is a lifelong responsibility. Therefore, if you intend to take care of it way you should, a little knowledge is indispensable.

Your body is very much like a GARDEN. Neglect it and roots of disease will take over and destroy it's inherent design, health and beauty. However, tend it with appropriate Wellness Tools and enjoy health, beauty and vitality that is yours to enjoy.

For your Wellness Lifestyle to be effective, it will necessarily have to include some self-awareness and self-regulation in following areas. This just means that you need to think about these four areas every so often and make sure that your doing a pretty good job keeping each area balanced. Imbalances in one or all of these four areas will have you running to a doctor, so more you keep an eye on it yourself, more self-reliant and healthier your GARDEN will become.

Think of your body and your health as involving four key areas. These are four areas for which you are already responsible, whether you want to be or not. Sounds harsh, but there's nothing any of us can do about it.

a) Metabolic Self-Management

b) Nutritional Self-Management

c) Mental/Emotional Self-Management

d) Structural Self-Management

2) Turning Wheel of Healing

The Wheel of Healing is principle model for effective natural health care and healthy aging.

a) Detoxification

Reduce body's toxic load with wholistic interventions that support all channels of elimination and safely remove accumulated debris from your system

b) Fortification

Achieve nutritional competence by furnishing body with essential raw materials needed for normal function.

c) Relaxation

Dispel biological distress with proven techniques and tools that remove layers of tension from mind and body.

d) Mobilization

Cultivate vigorous circulation, powerful nerve force, balanced musculoskeletal strength, and visceral health with daily therapeutic movement and low-stress body alignment exercises.

3) Wellness Tools

As there are many and diverse ways to turn Wheel of Healing, Four Mountains has cataloged and innovated approximately eighty Wellness Tools specifically to facilitate these four vital processes. Our Wellness Tools are bricks and mortar of our Wellness Programs, designed to provide maximum care for your body's twelve systems.