Is Your Doctor Awake?

Well, if you’ve visited our shop and clinic in the past couple of weeks, congratulations! We have some pretty serious construction work going on out the front. Every morning it’s a bit of a challenge to find the entrance to our shop. I feel a bit like a mouse in a maze weaving through the barriers trying to find my cheese.  I’ve had to abandon the front room upstairs for Hypnotherapy clients as you never know when a jackhammer might start up. The good news is that we’re getting a gorgeous new footpath, landscaping and seating etc. all along our side of Tunstall Square.  

Although it’s a challenge to find us we’re managing surprisingly well and our back rooms are as serene as ever so don’t hesitate to make an appointment.  As an added incentive we have 20% off all products til the end of the month.  But wait there’s more.  This Thursday only we’re offering half price Remedial Massage with one of our new massage therapists, Paul Edwards.  I had a massage with Paul last week and it was amazing. He found all my sore spots plus more and I felt great.  Paul’s also offering 15 minute seated massage in the shop on Thursday and Friday.

We’re looking forward to our fresh new frontage which should be finished by the beginning of July.

We’re keeping our fingers crossed that all goes according to plan because July 9th is our thirteenth birthday and we’re planning a week of celebrations.  I’ll let you know what’s on as soon as our program is finalised.

I find it hard to believe that we’ve been here for 13 years.  As you may know Simply Natural Therapies started upstairs and about 5 years later I took over the Fish and Chip shop downstairs.  For a brief time I was the proud owner of a hamburger grill, some deep fryers, a freezer room and cool room and a very fishy business.  My amazing husband did the shop fit-out and later built the rooms in the back of the shop.  From humble beginnings we now have 5 treatment rooms and our shop and classroom with various classes and workshops almost every day.

The interest and need for natural therapies is growing every year and I’m proud to say that we’ve helped thousands of people to get their lives back on track. One of the things that I wanted to talk to you about today is the shift towards natural health care. Did you know that 90% of GPs have referred their patients to at least one complementary health practitioner in the past year? We currently get lots of referrals from our local GPs which is fantastic. Mind you we tend to get people in their “too hard basket” but at least they are open minded to what we do.

Six years ago Harry and I met a newly graduated doctor while we were on holidays in Central Australia. We asked him what his training had taught him about diet and nutrition. We were gobsmacked when he told us that diet was only important if someone had a digestive issue like Coeliac Disease.  It seemed that he truly had no understanding of the role of food in health.  To me that’s like saying that the health of a pot plant has nothing to do with the quality of the soil or the health of your goldfish has nothing to do with what you put in the water.  Anyway, conventional medicine is slowly starting to wake up.  More and more doctors are referring patients to stress management programs, recommending mindfulness meditation, exercise and yoga and prescribing counselling for depression and anxiety alongside, or before, prescribing medication.

We love that many of our local doctors are sending their patients to us.  There is also a growing trend in the US of doctors leaving the system to work in Integrative Clinics where they can really support their patients. They are then free to spend quality time with a patient and get to the true cause of a problem.  They can introduce lifestyle medicine and nutrition rather than just diagnosing a disease and prescribing pharmaceutical medications according to a schedule.

Of course doctors wake up more quickly when their patients actually talk to them about the natural therapies they’re using and the results they are getting.  When I have great outcomes with people I ask them to tell their GP and give her/him some business cards.  And if your doctor is not supportive of you exploring natural therapies (which are basically therapies to help you eat well, manage your stress, detox your body, make peace with your past and heal your heart and soul) then you might want to shop around for another doctor.

I recently re-watched one of my favourite TED talks with Dr Lissa Rankin.  She starts by asking the audience what they think the most important part of health is….    Is it diet, sleep, exercise, vitamins, regular check-ups? She goes on to say that these things are actually the least important part of health.  What really matters are things like the state of our relationships, how we feel about our work, our fulfilment, our creativity, our connection with our spirituality, our heart and soul.  She says the data on these things is unbelievable and it’s published in mainstream scientific journals. Clearly when doctors say there is no evidence that natural therapies work haven’t looked very deeply.  What Dr Rankin found blew her mind!  You can watch her talk HERE

Ironically, perhaps that young doctor we met in Central Australia was right. According to Dr Rankin what we eat isn’t nearly as important to our health as how at peace we are with ourselves.  The science is now showing us that our health is multi-dimensional and the work of Louise Hay, author of You Can Heal Your Body and Inna Segal who wrote The Secret Language of Your Body says that dis-ease starts at a mental, emotional and energetic level.  It’s becoming clear that in addition to taking care of your body on a physical level that its vital to do the mental, emotional and energy work and that there is a huge and growing role for natural therapies if we want to reverse our health crisis. (By the way, Inna Segal is running a workshop for us next month. See the right hand column for details)

Although more and more doctors are waking up it seems that politicians are a little slower and there’s a big move to cut rebates for most natural therapies. So there are two things I want to ask for your help with. The first is to tell your doctor how natural therapies have helped you and give him/her our brochure, the other is to take a look at the Health Australia Party before the election.  One of their fundamental principles is Healthy People: Build a health-creation system, not a disease-management system. Use the best of proven natural and pharmaceutical medicine. Expose and remove the influence of multinational pharmaceutical companies. Targeted spending using evidence from unbiased real-world clinical studies.

It would be so awesome to have a voice in the Senate that supports common sense when it comes to natural therapies.  I have enormous respect for Isaac Golden who is their Victorian Representative. Their policies are very much aligned with what I’ve been talking about for year.  Hmm…  maybe they’ve been reading my Enews. And don’t be fooled by mainstream media, they are no anti-science or anti-vaccines, they are simply pro-integrity.  They’ll certainly be getting my vote.  Check them out and if it feels right here’s a how to vote card.

The other thing I want to remind you about is a talk by Dr. Chris Corcos at Simply Natural Therapies this Friday night. Chris is an integrative psychiatrist (which is a rare find) and he’s talking about “Re-Thinking Anxiety and Depression”  Hopefully I’ll see you there.

Have a great week,

Warm Regards,

Alison Burton

Health and Happiness Guru

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