Currently viewing the tag: "wellness"

When I was a kid, a commercial for Paul Masson wines aired on television nightly; it featured the great Orson Welles reciting in his baritone voice, “Some things can’t be rushed: good music and good wine… Paul Masson wines taste so good because they are made with such care. What Paul Masson himself said nearly a century ago is still true today: We will sell no wine before its time.” Now forget that Paul Masson wines were mass produced like Budweiser, and likely spent little time between production and sales. But what’s important is the message: All worthwhile things take time.

Whether we are talking about the development of a skill, like music or cooking, or the accumulation of great (and stable) wealth, time is one component which cannot be compromised. We have all heard stories of miraculous overnight successes, but what we don’t hear is the background story of thousands of hours of practice. It’s true that one can become a master of their craft within a relatively short period of time – that is, if they increase their daily practice hours to twice of what they would do otherwise. But it is time that makes a great master, and to dedicate oneself in time, one needs discipline.

Discipline is the key to all greatness. It is the foundation by which one is driven to put in the hours of practice, study, or work necessary to master one’s craft. Without discipline, it is impossible to reach mastery in less than half a century. Love of the craft helps for sure, but it is discipline that takes you beyond what the joy of performing brings to the lover of any art. Basketball, dancing, hair styling, photography, and writing all require time. Love is what brings you to the art – discipline is what shapes it.

discipline - Dream Design Los AngelesEvery example I have given thus far has been somewhat evident. Likewise, though, are those who wish to express health, wellness, style and beauty; they must also dedicate time and energy to their endeavors. Make no mistake about it: people who consistently look fashionable and attractive put in the work to achieve them. Even making it onto the cover of a fashion magazine takes years of mental preparation. Nobody is simply “lucky” in how they look. Maintaining a fit, healthy, beautiful body takes hours of sculpting. And healthy physiology requires rock-solid discipline – from overeating, from over-indulging in sugar, from drinking to excess, from smoking and doing drugs. People who practice discipline with regard to their physical bodies get rewarded with feeling good, looking good and all other athletic and sexual amenities which come along with this area of attention.

One thing that always amuses me is the young professional who thinks he will be a millionaire shortly after hanging his shingle. He has not yet learned that it will take hours of knocking on doors, meeting people, hustling, networking, sending referrals to other professionals, giving free talks, buying lunches, and cleaning toilets (yup) before he even begins to work. Of course, there are some who get lucky out the gate and encounter some success early on, but these stories are rare, and they seldom last forever. I had a colleague with whom I went to school. He had a foreign girlfriend who helped him market to students of the same national origin. As it turned out, these students had medical insurance policies from their home countries that covered their care to a tee. The trust and comfort provided by the girlfriend – a compatriot in a distant land – led to the students pouring into this doctor’s office for care. As a result, he made big money rather quickly, and this led him to believe that he had “made it” professionally too. He became arrogant to his friends, bought a house far bigger than he needed, and expanded his business too quickly. After one year, the foreign insurance company changed its covered services (probably due, in part, to my colleague’s billing practices) and shut off. My colleague ultimately lost it all. He simply couldn’t maintain the false growth. We must build up to business and financial growth in time, energy, and capital. Remember: all worthwhile things take time.

discipline - Dream Design West HollywoodParents of grown children know this. How people function as adults is directly related to the time and energy provided to them by their parents. Both mothers and fathers are extremely important to the growth and development of a child. Research shows this; and although children certainly adapt to the absence of one parent, there is no doubt that children do enormously better when both parents are present in body, mind, and spirit. In other words, parents need to be physically present with their children, regularly; they must give the children undivided attention more often than not, and they must show love and appreciation for the blessed honor to do so. Our children require our time and energy, and every parent can attest that along with juggling career and business, physical health, hobbies, and intellectual pursuits, it takes unshakable discipline to give our children the best of us every day. But that is what is required.

discipline - Dream Design West HollywoodFinally, and to me the most important, is the time and energy necessary for spiritual self-development. All other endeavors emanate from this essence of our true selves. Spiritual development is what some call “coming to know the self,” and it is the highest effort in which one can engage. A great challenge, however, is that the path often appears as long and arduous, and it can most certainly be. Very likely, for the average person, spiritual development takes the greatest hours of attention, and to move the shortest distance; yet the rewards are also the biggest. Nothing can be as effectively appreciated as through the lens of the soul, what we might call our authentic self. Hundred of thousands of people try meditation (or prayer, or japa, or psychedelics) and never attain what they aspire to; NOT because it is ineffective, but because they have not yet ripened the mind to allow their spirit to flow. I understand this is an esoteric concept, but to know you have to do…and this requires practice. The yogis liken the mind to unripened fruit. When fruit is in this state, it is not pleasant to eat – it will remain on the tree, hard, sour, and undeveloped. Only when the fruit becomes mature, ripened, will it then fall from the tree and open itself to the sweetness that life has to offer. Your mind, like fruit, will not ripen until its time. This time comes over the course of long, arduous spiritual work.

discipline - Dream Design Beverly HillsAll worthwhile things take time. What you would love to achieve in life will not happen overnight – and you don’t want it to. We all want a long biography, filled with experience, pleasure, pain, and love. This is what we call living. Who you would love to be, how you go about achieving it, as well as what you get to enjoy along the way, all come down to the attention you put into your art(s). But never forget, the greatest aspiration is of self-knowledge or spiritual development. Like fine wine, you will fully appreciate your divine essence when you ripen mentally and spiritually in love and gratitude. I can almost hear it rolling off Mr. Welles tongue: “No mind will align with the divine until its time.” And so it is.


The Wellnss Journey

Later today I will be interviewed (archived podcast here) on The Wellness Journey with Lynnis Woods-Mullins (@PraiseWorks), and we’ll be discussing the wellness aspect of social media. Wellness and social media? You bet. Social media is simply an extension of our already hard-wired nature to form social groups. The stronger (and for some people bigger) the groups, the more mental and physical advantages one has. There may even be a connection to longevity. Dang! Yes, being social is a part of the human evolution.

Our strongest advantage as a species is our ability to organize and manage large groups. We learned early on that we would be more powerful as one thousand than as simply one or a few, and so we took advantage of our capacity to cooperate and form civilizations. Now cooperation is not a purely human phenomenon, as many animal species do it, but in sheer capacity and sophistication, humans take the cake. We’ve expanded our social organization progressively from the beginning of existence, moving from hunter-gatherer tribes to the internet. Social media is just the next leg of that human social evolution.

Scientist have recently become increasingly interested in the social benefits to health. Several 2008-2009 studies showed promising results:

  • computer-cc36a4c4552c434fd40d98e79fa1dabeddea202a-s6-c10 (Copy)A 2008 study of stroke sufferers showed that being able to maintain valued group memberships played as important a role in positive recovery as an ability to overcome cognitive difficulties (e.g., problems with memory and language). After their stroke, people’s life satisfaction increased by 12% for every group membership that they were able to retain.
  • A 2009 study of residents entering a new care home. This showed that those who participated as a group in decisions related to the decoration of communal areas used those areas 57% more over the next month and were far happier as a result. In contrast, the use of space by residents in a control group declined by 60%. Moreover, these differences were still apparent three months later.
  • Another 2009 study looked at the impact of group interventions on the health and well-being of 73 people residing in care. After a period of six weeks the researchers found that people who took part in a reminiscence group showed a 12% increase in their memory performance, while those who received individual reminiscence or a control intervention showed no change.
  • Another 2009 study also studied nursing home residents and looked at the relationship between their sense of identity and well-being and the severity of their dementia. The study’s key finding was that a strong sense of identity associated with perceived membership of social groups, was a much better predictor of residents’ well-being than their level of dementia.

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Professor Jolanda Jetten from the University of Queensland, Australia commented on the findings from these studies: “New research shows just how important groups and social identity are to well-being. This is something that people often overlook in the rush to find medical solutions to problems associated with ageing, but it is time that these factors were taken much more seriously”.

And says Dr Catherine Haslam of the University of Exeter in the U.K.: “On the basis of what is now a very large body of research we would urge the medical community to recognize the key role that participation in group life can play in protecting our mental and physical health. It’s much cheaper than medication, with far fewer side effects, and is also much more enjoyable.”

Other studies that I have reported on in this blog also show the wellness benefits to social interactions. One study (2008) showed that people with large and strong social networks fared better following surgery—in healing time and extent. Another study (2008) showed that our sociability is actually a biological/neurological  trait, giving further evidence to its role and interdependence in human evolution.

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Another in 2009 which showed that repressed emotions can lead to greater risk of dying from a cardiac event, while a 2010 study showed that having strong social networks and interactions actually decreased death, in general, by 50%.

These studies simply confirm why using social media to remain connected, and thus in wellness, is the wisest practice people can adopt. Social media isn’t just digital narcissism, as some skeptics have defined it. It is real interactions, in real time, with real people (and if you really can’t tell the difference, then you really do need to get out more)—the perfect ingredients to rich social health and wellness. Keep Tweeting.


Here’s a question: What medical treatment improves health? Chemotherapy? Heart bypass? Prozac? What? Feel free to answer below–all comments welcome. I really want to know, because if improving health is a goal of health care reform–and it certainly should be–then shouldn’t we define which aspect of today’s health care system is improving health?

Former Health and Human Services Secretary appointee, Tom Daschle had it right when he spoke of the importance of making “wellness cool”. But wellness comes from lifestyle behaviors, not medical procedures. If you’ve read my book, The Six Keys to Optimal Health, then you know where I place medical care on the health care spectrum–it’s for saving lives. And in saving lives, nothing beats American medicine.

But health giving? Yeah, what? One gentleman told me about his doctors visit where they found his thyroid to be under-functioning. “And that is medical prevention or wellness,” he said.

“What was prevented,” I asked.

“My thyroid becoming a problem.”

“But it’s already hypothyroid–that doesn’t change. The medicine or treatment prevents you from becoming lethargic. It’s saved your life–at least the quality, that is.”

I know that’s a tough point for people to accept, but it’s true. Antibiotics don’t kill bacteria; they simply poke holes in the cell walls of bacteria or stop their growth, and so they leave the bacteria susceptible to attack from the white blood cells of the immune system. Chemotherapy doesn’t bring the body back to health–it kills all the cells in the body, and the body must build itself back up through its own faculties.

Here’s the point: Nothing heals the body but the body itself. It can be helped along through medical procedures, but ultimately it must self-heal and self-regulate. The only way to nurture the body’s innate healing ability is through practicing healthy lifestyle habits.

With this in mind, how is providing universal health coverage going to “improve” the health of Americans? The only real way to improve the health of the masses is by teaching, encouraging and rewarding healthy behaviors. This doesn’t mean punishing business that provide junk–it’s everybody’s responsibility to know what’s healthy and what’s not. Instead, why doesn’t the government provide tax breaks for gym or yoga studio memberships? How about covering chiropractic and massage therapy in every health plan? Twelve a year–how ’bout it Obama? How about really making wellness cool. Or do we just have to hear the rhetoric, and see another law passed that helps the rich (insurance industry).

If what the President says is true, that a universal health plan should “place the American people’s interests above the special interests,” then shouldn’t it do more than just provide us with life-saving coverage. Shouldn’t we take the cool wellness concept to heart? It’s really the only way to bring health care costs down.

Copyright © 2013 Dr. Nick Campos - All Rights Reserved.