Choose Life--How to Create and Live the Healthy Life

CHOOSE LIFE…by Dr. Drew Rubin

A Blog about Creating and Living

the Healthy Life

Chapter 1

Your Body is like a Bank Account

Modern science has documented that every year you get a brand new body. Every cell, all 700 trillion of them, is replaced. The kind of new body you get depends on what you do with your body right now. It’s like a bank account. If you put money in the bank regularly, you wouldn’t be stunned when the money multiplies, due to the miracle of compound interest. Conversely, if you don’t put money in the bank regularly, there should be no shock when you go to the bank account and it’s empty. The same holds true for your health and your life. These are like bank accounts too. If you don’t put regular deposits in your health and life accounts, why be surprised when your health and your life are overdrawn? If you don’t put deposits in, don’t expect returns back. But if you choose life, and with it choose health, expect incredible rewards to come your way.

Today, in the 21st-century, people are so stressed about money that they are terrified of their future. With the stock market’s erratic behavior, countless large businesses admitting to fraud from one degree to another, thousands of people facing layoffs and downsizing, and the threat of terrorism still looming in the air after 9/11, America has become highly agitated tense and stressed out. Like Donkey says in the blockbuster movie, Shrek, “I’m a donkey on the edge.” We have been driven to such excess that we are on the edge all the time.

We are asked, while at work, to do 3 people’s jobs because of recent lay-offs. We have 10,000 errands to run every day, while being taxi service to our children, who are so over-involved because nobody plays in their own neighborhoods anymore. We are sold by the media all day, every day, to buy this, that and the other thing. We lay out our hard-earned cash for momentary pleasures or major purchases that suck away huge portions of our income, and still end up feeling like it’s not enough.

Do Saber Tooth Tigers Cause Stress?

Hans Selye, the father of the research on ‘stress’, uncovered that it was the fight or flight response that, when harnessed improperly, causes stress in the body. Thousands of years ago, when Saber-tooth tigers were lurking around our villages, and when snowstorms meant many of your tribe were going to freeze to death in the next few days, this fight or flight mechanism served us well. We either fought the Saber-toothed tiger or ran like heck away from it. Either way our muscles got involved, and when faced with danger, we physically did something to change the situation. That is fight or flight!

Today, sitting behind a computer for 8-12 hours per day, with your boss breathing on top of you about the deadline for his project which takes precedence over the deadline for your project which now makes you late to pick up your kids and get them to cheerleading practice and to gymnastics which are on the opposite sides of town and they were both already warned that being late again will prevent them from being in the competition this weekend (whew…isn’t this how it feels?), your body activates the fight or flight system. It is the same system that goes to work when encountering a life-threatening problem, only sitting in our cubicle doesn’t require us to engage in combat or run.

The problem with this kind of stress occurs because we don’t fight or flee; we just sit and fester, madly cursing away, attempting to get everything done while wondering what you are going to say to your boss, your kids, your kid’s coaches, and your spouse, who is also stuck working late. ..this is pressure!!!

The anxiety we face today in the 21^st century is not the like it was years ago, with a Saber-tooth tiger potentially having our family for a meal. It’s our own bodies eating itself up due to improper management of stress. Stress hormones are being manufactured when we are in this fight/flight mode, WHETHER WE GO INTO MOTION OR NOT! If these hormones aren’t utilized properly because we don’t respond with a physical evasive action, then we open ourselves up for eventual heart attacks, cancer, strokes, and diabetes (the top four killers in this country).

Now, in the 21^st century, it is time to get a grip on this rampant murderer called stress, and unfortunately, it is not possible to sling hand-carved spears into the Saber-toothed tiger. As a matter of fact, we cannot slaughter it at all. Rather we must embrace our stress and redirect it, much as a large stone placed in a stream redirects the flow of water.

Water and Stress

Water doesn’t get stressed out when it meets opposition. Water will not stop in front of the rock and say, “I can’t believe it. You are blocking my way. I’m late to meet the water molecules down the bend. I really don’t need this headache.” Water, in a mere fraction of a second, finds a new path, and an instant later, has circumvented the obstacle and is on its way.

That is what Choose Life offers you; a new way to embrace and redirect your stress by building such a strong body and mind that, although the stress may still come at you from all different angles, you become resilient to it. It bounces off of you rather than absorbing it. Choosing life asks you to make your life a prioritized one.

It is time to realize that our very security lies not in the almighty dollar, but in the vastness of the universe. There is 'abounding prosperity' available to each of us, if we choose life. We can be 'blessed or cursed' depending upon our choices (paraphrasing some biblical phrases).

Einstein said years ago: “The only thing that is constant is change”, and change begins one choice at a time and will eventually encompass everything we do. Every choice we make matters. Together in this blog we will journey as we take choosing life to a whole new level, a 21st-century peak in which ‘everything matters.’

The Big Decision

There is one thing you must do to make the Choose Life plan work. You've got to make a decision. A decision that will affect the rest of your life.

Like a freight train with 100 cars going 70 mph: if you want to turn that big train around, you can’t stop it on a dime. You've got to slow that mountain of train cars down; those thousands of tons of steel may take a mile or more to stop completely. That is called the principle of Negative Momentum. It is based on Newton’s law that states: A body in motion tends to stay in motion; a body at rest tends to stay at rest. To change something going in one direction, you must first slow it down and stop it. Then and only then can its course be redirected.

But the decision to stop-- that happens in an instant. What do you have to decide right now? You must answer the question: do you choose life? If you do, join me on this path of discovery.

This blog is designed not to just be read, but as an open dialogue, a creation in progress, that YOU get to contribute to. Comment on the posts. Put links in your posts that support your point. Let’s create a living, breathing blog on how you used Choose Life, or your own version of it…

The Mission of this Blog

In one word: empowerment. That is the key to living a healthier life, to choosing life. Being empowered. Trusting in your (and your children’s) innate, inborn wisdom. But first we have to build that body strong. When the child is weak because he’s had 6 ear infections a year, every year, first we have to stop that negative momentum. Then, once the pattern is interrupted, a new healthier pattern can be overlaid over the old, not-healthy one and a new child emerges.

Ultimately, I want to see a healthier planet, one person at a time. Our present health care system isn’t doing it for us. Maybe this blog might start you in a different direction. Then it has fulfilled its mission.

For more information, email us at rubinchiropractic@gmail.com, call us at 770-937-6300, or visit us on the web at www.theadjustment.com.

Please note: The chiroblogtic, Choose Life series will have a new chapter posted once per month, by the end of each month (ie, Chapter 2 posted by 9/30/08).

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