Health Trends + the Wellness Industry

The current state of affairs on social media in and around health is concerning. I have been receiving text messages from friends sending me things about parasites in jars, promising the perfect decoction to cure the beasts living in your body.

We are obsessed with being impure and needing to detox, and it’s simply not true.

Let me break this down. This is conditioning. It’s original sin wrapped in wellness.

Remember, the wellness industry is a $7.4–8.5 trillion dollar industry annually, growing at a rate of 4–8.7%. Let’s just pause there. The amount of misinformation is alarming, and most days I am debunking things my patients, friends, and family have heard on the internet. I rest in research-backed ancient practices that have stood the test of time and treat the whole person without shoving a 10-step morning routine in your face.

This is why I chose Chinese medicine. Yes, I would be remiss not to acknowledge that I am a white woman practicing a cultural medicine that is not of my own ancestry. And yes, I will also acknowledge that I also run a wellness business.

It’s all mixed in there, but this is how I see it:

I see humans not profit, and I am not sure everyone sees through that lens.

Here are two things I have been hearing about a lot lately:

Parasites + Cortisol

Let’s start with the scary little critters that we are told most people have if they have ever walked barefoot, had a cat, travelled internationally or eaten raw fish. Maybe and maybe not.

If I filter this “EVERYONE HAS PARASITES” marketing scheme through the wisdom of TCM, it tells me that couldn’t be true because it always depends on the strength of the host. In Chinese medicine, we have Zheng Qi, the upright Qi of an individual that protects against pathogens, and Xie Qi, or pathogenic Qi. The interplay of these two forces helps determine whether a body will become a host for a given pathogen.

If a person is robust in Qi and Blood and their immune system is strong, then even with exposure they may not contract a pathogen (parasite). With extremely virulent pathogens like malaria, however, it is far less likely that the person wins the battle. As we often say in Chinese medicine “it depends”.

So, if you think you have a parasite, please go get tested to be certain what you are treating. Taking an extreme herbal dosage or a prolonged parasite cleanse without a confirmed diagnosis can cause a whole other cascade of problems in the body. Get a confirmed diagnosis from a medical professional and then choose your treatment options carefully.

Now, stress and cortisol.

It is absolutely true that living in chronic stress affects our health. Chronic states of hyperarousal and elevated cortisol have a ripple effect of negative consequences that show up uniquely in each person.

And yet, fearing a natural hormone that our bodies produce through an ancient nervous system hardwired to assess threat is another way of making us hate our bodies and be at war with ourselves.

We are not meant to be calm all the time.

Our nervous systems are designed to fluctuate and oscillate between states. The issue arises when we get stuck in one setting: fight/flight, freeze, or fawn.

In terms of trauma and the nervous system, polyvagal theory is one of the best frameworks I have found for understanding this evolutionary hardwiring that governs so much of our behaviour. In short, we have the autonomic nervous system and its branches, including the sympathetic (fight or flight or mobilization), dorsal vagal (state of freeze, fawn or shut down) and ventral vagal (a state of safety, connection and well-being) which influence our physiological states.

We are biologically tuned to fluctuate. Just as a deer exposed to danger will shake and then trot off, we too have mechanisms for processing and discharging stress. A stressful event happens, we shake it off, and then go about our lives.

In modern life, however, we have changed our rhythms so dramatically that we are often out of touch with nature. Our ancient systems can become confused. When do we sleep, eat, play, love, and rest? It can be a bit of a mess.

So rather than falling into the trap of wanting to avoid all stress and be perfectly “regulated,” perhaps we begin to rebuild a relationship with the rhythms of nature, including seasons, cycles, rest, digestion, activation, and recovery, without making ourselves wrong for getting stressed.

We can be kind to ourselves and tend to what is present and support the return to baseline. This process will be completely unique for each person because each of us has different nervous system patterns and different life experiences. What brings me back into my body may be triggering for you.

This is why someone else’s 10-step morning routine that they are selling you often doesn’t work, or why you cannot maintain it. When we are talking about women’s health, we also have to look through the lens of hormones and the changing menstrual cycle, the dynamic current that governs so much of our inner and outer worlds.

In short, please do not fear your body or make it wrong. Build a relationship with it through compassionate attention and honest communication.

The point of me writing this is to educate, so that you can see through the cyberstorm of bullshit attacking all of our senses and marketing itself through the core wounds and insecurities that keep us stuck, small, and in pain.

I don’t want that for myself or anyone else.

I did my time believing in the saga of self-improvement. I tried all the trends: veganism, vegetarianism, and countless workshops that promised transformation. I spent thousands of dollars trying to escape the suffering that comes with the reality of being human.

While I had many beautiful experiences, I honestly burned out from the habit of making myself a project, dressed up in spirituality.

For me now, setting healthy boundaries around where I place my resources and spend my time is integral to being well in a world that tells us we will never be enough or have enough, always selling us the next best thing to solve all our problems.

May you honour the unique expression of Qi, Blood, Shen, and Essence that is you. I am here walking with you, navigating it all.