Hierarchy of Function

I have a simple way of breaking down your body systems that makes healing much easier.  

There are something like 16 body systems including the skin as the integumentary system, and others with more familiar names…digestive, cardiovascular, immune, etc., systems.

Here is an even easier way of looking at it.  

Defense System:  This includes the immune system and barrier systems such as the skin, plus the detoxification systems such as lymphatics, liver, and kidneys. 

Stress System:  This primarily involves the brain, pituitary and adrenals, which is what responds to the stressful situation, but includes all stress changes as well, such as the heart pumping blood to the extremities to fight or flee.  

Thrive System:  This includes all the systems that make energy, such as the thyroid, adrenals (included here too), and pancreas.  But every cell cooperates to make energy, so it isn’t so much a structural division, but a functional division.

Reproductive System:  This includes the human reproductive system, but all of the healing, repair, and cell reproduction function as well.   

Now this complex machine we call a body is much easier to manage.  Instead of 16 structural systems, we have 4 functional systems.  Instead of 1600 named diseases, we have 4 functional problems.  Our system is invaded, stressed out, not making energy, and not healing (reproducing).  

And, there is a clear priority system…If your home is invaded, dinner can wait (thrive).  Same with a flooded basement (stress), you may put off dinner for awhile.  And if any of these are a clear need (invasion, stress, or hunger), well, makin’ babies is on the back burner for now.  

Natural medicine has clear advantages to treating this functional system.  

Take invasion for example.  In medicine, the treatments for immune challenges include antibiotics, steroids, chemo, and radiation.  Antibiotics might sound like a viable option, but pay attention…the people who take the most antibiotics get the most infections.  Again and again in most cases.  

Natural medicine has wonderful resources for helping the body eliminate everything from bacteria and yeast, virus and parasites, to toxins from the environment and within (we produce waste as well).  

Stress?  What does your traditional doctor have for stress?  Antidepressants.  Ok, maybe, but I don’t like the idea with messing with my brain function, and they don’t treat the real changes of stress…adrenaline, cortisol, etc.  

Natural medicine has amazing resources for handling high adrenaline and/or cortisol, as well as stress fatigue, often called adrenal fatigue.  

Thrive?  Medicine has one play…thyroid replacement…and if you don’t qualify by the standards a blood measurement called TSH, well then they just shrug their shoulders.  

Natural medicine has research proven thrive stimulators such as the herb Ashwagandha, which has at least one published research study showing it increases thyroid output.  And that’s just one of many resources to improve energy.  

Healing/reproduction?  Nothing medicine ever offers aids the healing process, except perhaps, their one use of natural medicine.  They use an amino acid called NAC to treat acute poisoning.  Everything else is symptom suppression.  

Everything natural medicine provides is to stimulate the healing process.  Natural medicine includes food, nutrients, and plants, and has published research documenting recovery from liver and pancreas damage, and you can trust that every cell in your body will respond to natural medicine just the same. 

My favorite products for defense systems:  Echinacea, Reishi mushroom, astragalus, usnea, elderberry, to name a few.

Stress:  Phosphatidyl serine, lemon balm, poppy, passion flower, skullcap…

Thrive: Ginseng, ashwagandha, Rhodiola, Cordyceps mushroom…

Repair/Healing: Gymnema, milk thistle, gotu cola, hawthorne, vitex…

These are just names of medications, only natural, versus pharmaceuticals such as abilify, albuterol, acyclovir, deferoxamine, etc., etc.  Odd names unless you study medicine.  

Which one would you rather learn?  How to block the symptoms of an underlying problem, or how to stimulate the natural healing process that we are all born with?