Breaking Down the Pyramid of Health to Understand What Affects Your Well-Being

There’s a reason why the Pyramid of Health is displayed so prominently at Natural Healthcare Center. I wrote the Pyramid of Health and created this model from top to bottom as an illustration of how I think in clinical practice, and how our entire team approaches healthcare.

We all share the same Goal – to feel better, function better, and live longer. Most people focus on the Daily Activities that determine whether they’ll achieve that goal – how they exercise, what they eat, and how to limit stress.

This is the kind of stuff you see in marketing from providers who claim to be “health and wellness” practitioners. While it’s important to have a goal and our daily activities do indeed affect our health, you have to go much deeper to find out the true state of an individual’s health, what problems exist, and how to fix them.

The blue and green levels of the Pyramid of Health take a lot of time and energy to explore and understand. These three levels are:

• The Triad of Health, the physical, nutritional, and psychological aspects of health, all of which must be addressed and in balance to be truly healthy.
• The Topics that have the greatest impact on our health, beginning with a healthcare system that reacts to sickness instead of maintaining health. This has led to a chronic illness epidemic in our country. Environmental xenobiotics refers to harmful toxins in the air, water, and soil that make us sick, while industrial farming includes everything from pesticides to antibiotics to genetically modified organisms (GMOs) that are used in farming and make their way into our food supply.
• The Foundation includes eight basic elements that must be considered to achieve the goal of feeling better, functioning better, and living longer. These foundational elements include detoxification, epigenetics, immunity, inflammation, digestion, structural integrity, stress, and energy. Our fragmented healthcare system typically deals with most of these elements separately instead of recognizing how they’re all related when evaluating and treating an individual’s condition.

The fact is, healthcare isn’t easy. We have to get deep in the weeds and do the hard work. That’s what functional medicine is all about – identifying and treating the root causes of disease and dysfunction and fixing the problem at the source, rather than prescribing medication that only provides temporary relief from symptoms.

In addition to applying these principles in clinical practice at Natural Healthcare Center, we educate our patients about the Topics and Foundation elements at the bottom of the Pyramid of Health. Our job is not only to help you discover what it feels like to be truly healthy, but also to empower you with knowledge to make better health and lifestyle choices so you can stay healthy.

When you apply the Pyramid of Health in your own life on a daily basis, you remove obstacles to good health and gradually move closer to the ultimate goal at the top of the pyramid.

Ask yourself this question. When you’re sitting there with your doctor, are you both looking at your health through a narrow lens, or are you taking a multidimensional approach that accounts for the many different factors that affect your well-being?

If you’d like to learn more about the Pyramid of Health and our approach to healthcare, schedule a complimentary consultation at Natural Healthcare Center. Bring your health records, diagnostic imaging, test results, prescriptions and nutritional supplements. We’ll review your records, discuss your history, answer your questions, and offer recommendations – all at no charge.