Time as a factor in health

“Time is the great healer”

How long will it take me to get better? Why isn’t my health better already? Is there such a thing as instant healing? Why should I go through a long process when a pill can relieve my distress in an hour?

I don’t remember how many times I have already heard these and similar questions from my patients over the past 25 years of my practice. It is clear to me that time is a loaded issue and this is the reason I decided to write about it. My purpose is to promote a shift in attitude in regards to time in health. I recall a patient that came to me with a complex matter many years ago. It was to be her first acupuncture session and so I decided to treat her for one of the many issues only and with one needle so as to make it less challenging for her. A week later she came for her second appointment only to say thank you. Her health was all fine… For me it was a pleasant shock. I was happy for her of course and maybe someday I will be old enough and experienced enough to repeat that success. In the mean time I understand that often it is unrealistic and at times even wrong for the process to be this fast – lessons need time to be learned more often than not.

So what do I want to say about time?

I shall start with prevention – after all, a minute of prevention can save hours and days of healing.

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I don’t have time to prepare breakfasts. I have no time for sports. I cannot find time for a massage once a week. I don’t have time for meditations or breathing exercises…

The above sentences represent a central question in preventative medicine: “How do we cope with the idea that we have no time to spare in modern times when contemplating preventative habits?”. The first thing we need to establish is the understanding that there is no such thing as “no time”. We have 24 hours every day and the right question is how do we use up our time wisely? It's all about priorities. It’s not always simple to reorganize our priorities but it is often a crucial step for the process of change.

Another important factor: With every passing year our body becomes less and less forgiving towards our mistakes. It becomes more evident the older we get. When young people go out on the town and go to sleep very late the worst they feel is tired the day after. At the age of 40+ it might wreck the next day. At 50 it could take a few days to recover. There is a beautiful lesson to be learned here – our body expects us to be wiser as we age – and show it by making wiser choices J. It is also less forgiving.

In an age of a fast pace race after money, preventative medicine is confronted with a major obstacle. It is very hard to quantify. In the field of insurance it is calculated but out of the assumption that people don’t change. Understanding that where there is a will there is a way, a challenge of mine is to get the message through that preventative medicine is good for the economics. Maybe when people realize there is a lot of money in health they will start investing in health daily… It is very simple to understand the role of exercise or nutrition in prevention. Everyone knows ample rest is crucial for healthy functioning in every aspect of life. Tomorrow it can never happen. If it is important it has to start today. Right now. In prevention time is a vicious foe. You delay for a moment and by then it hurts.

It is time to start acting on what you know and believe that can prevent you from becoming sick. If you are not sure about something or what is best to do come and let’s talk about it. Today is the best time to start. Right now!

Next let’s talk about time and acute diseases

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I don’t have time to take a day off in bed. Work will not wait. My students expect me in class. It is not that bad, I will drag along for a few days and it will blow over. I have plans for this weekend, I can’t just cancel it all and rest.

Acute diseases are short lived, usually dramatic in nature and tend to blow over even without meaningful assistance. They usually behave this way due to us having a reasonable level of vitality. If not it would quickly turn chronic. These diseases are only slightly challenging timewise. They are short and so require only a few days of cooperation on the patients’ part. Weeks at worst case. Despite this, most people rush out and seek the easy way out. A quick fix / pill for their illness. Usually pricy in terms of health. What is our body asking of us? Is it so much to ask that we take a break for a day? A week? A little tender loving care?

I have seen many cases where a neglected or mistreated acute disease – where all the body needed was a little rest or such, gets complicated by lack of cooperation and deteriorates into a more complicated disease. When the body is clearly asking for attention it is important and wise to comply.

A day or two invested in health can save many more in disease.

And if we already deteriorated?

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I am tired of constantly taking care of my health. It is hard for me to be so busy mostly with my health – I have no time for life itself. I have been sick for so long, when will it end? How long have I got?

In degenerative and chronic diseases (Longer and usually more complicated by nature) time becomes a much heavier issue. Especially when the disease gets worst with time.

Time spent talking and not advancing, tires. Time well spent, often bringing the rewards of improvement, uplifts. Knowing how to translate the process of illness and health correctly will most often make the difference above (Learning to recognize the positivity of some signs that could be misconstrued as setbacks but are really positive on the long run are one example – such as the positive meaning of raising a high fever as a sign of high vitality in children). Sometimes taking a pause from therapy can mean deterioration and at other times much needed rest can help the process along. Time in chronic illness management can be both a hindrance and a great tool – it’s all about how well you understand time in the bigger picture.

There are varied techniques for working with the toll of time – including them in long healing processes is crucial. It is very possible and realistic to cope with the experience of time during therapy and the right translation can make all the difference in the world.

Predicting what time will bring – now that is much more difficult. Answering the question “How long the treatment will take” requires a prophetic ability… Knowing how long a patient has left to live? Not among my talents… (And it has been proven that such knowledge can be a self-fulfilling prophecy). Knowing how to cope with these questions is a whole different ballgame. Learning to live in the here-and-now can be very helpful (one technique) especially with the “how long do I have left” question. This perspective helps teach the value of the moment and thus promotes a positive pro-active attitude to help us get to the next “now” as best we can. The right philosophical outlook can change the very fear of death. Fear is one of the strongest time-stress factors. The budhistic philosophy, for example, sees the end of a life as the beginning of another (Re-incarnations) and thus the fear of death is greatly reduced. Another wonderful philosophy is the one Ekhart Tole teaches in his book “The Power of Now”. A life focused on the here and now allows much better coping with life as a whole and especially disease.

There are several more time related conflicts we can talk about:

1. How many treatments do I need in order to heal?

2. How about instant healing treatments? What value and what dangers do they offer?

3. What could possibly be bad about instant relief from discomforts and symptoms? (Mind you, I’m not talking here about making an illness go away instantly, only the symptoms), what benefits can there be here?

4. Treatment frequency – the rights, wrongs and maybes in planning a therapeutic plan.

I will talk of these issues and more in a future article