Foundations (noun): a basis (such as a tenet, principle, or axiom) upon which something stands or is supported.
When it comes to being certain about anything in life, foundations are incredibly important. When we don’t have the groundwork in place, any small challenge has the power to collapse our convictions. There is a big difference between believing something and knowing something to be true. When we know and understand what health truly is, we’re much better equipped to withstand external forces that may be acting against our best interests.
The Three Little Pigs help to demonstrate this point:
The first little pig took the easy route and built his house out of straw, an exceptionally weak foundation. He didn’t look very far and used a material that was at hand and didn’t make him have to put in too much effort to build his shelter. It took one puff from the wolf to have it tumbling down around him.
We could compare this to someone who invests no real-time or effort into understanding or promoting their own wellness. Sometimes it’s as short-sighted as wanting to lose weight regardless of whether or not it makes sense, as long as it works. This is where things like the ‘70’s Wine Diet’, which suggested drinking a bottle of white wine per day (starting with a glass with breakfast), originated from. We can easily see how believing everything that we see or hear, without making the effort to understand the subject, isn’t a great way to assess what’s good for us.
The 2nd pig built his house out of sticks, a slightly stronger foundation. He took a bit of extra time and cut the sticks to the required measurements and tethered them together. The wolf had a harder time blowing the stick house down but he found the gaps in the end and the little piggy was left running away from a pile of wood.
Confirmation bias (noun): the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one’s prior beliefs or values.
A very common practice in this Information Age is the tendency to expose ourselves to large amounts of data.
People read study after study and consider themselves well informed. I was guilty of that in the past too: I wanted to eat large numbers of eggs and wanted to believe that it would be good for me to do so. I read every article that agreed with my views and ignored everything that contradicted them. I was guilty of confirmation bias: I assimilated only the information that I agreed with. We’re usually most guilty of this when it comes to matters with a large emotional charge or a deeply entrenched belief. When we’re so narrow-minded and take a little piece out of a large puzzle and examine only that in minute detail while ignoring the bigger picture, it’s easy to see how there may be big gaps in our knowledge and how our foundation would be rather weak.
The 3rd pig built his house on a solid foundation of bricks and cement. He worked hard and put in the effort to understand what building methods would result in the strongest home. The wolf huffed and puffed but was unable to blow the house down.
When we take the time to look at the bigger picture and focus on the long-term outcomes, we’re much better equipped to make important decisions.
We can assess the concept of building houses out of bricks or straw and understand where their inherent weaknesses are because we understand building principles. We can listen to the piggy screaming from the rooftops that all houses should be made of sticks without believing him purely because he speaks eloquently and mixes his message with things that we so badly want to hear. We can extract the information without being tricked by fancy language or fancy titles of the speaker. We can entertain an idea without accepting or rejecting it, but assess it for its merits.
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
Aristotle
If we do this, we won’t be swayed by an argument to build our health on a diet of wine because we understand that true health comes from eating real food and avoiding toxins.
The foundations of health:
- Mental, chemical and physical stressors can put your body’s ability to adapt under strain,
- Mental, chemical and physical nutrients support your body’s ability to adapt and thrive,
- Health is the ability of the body to adapt to its environment dynamically,
- The central nervous system directly or indirectly co-ordinates and regulates the adaptation of all systems in the body,
- Interference with the nervous system leads to lower levels of adaptability,
- Releasing this interference re-establishes adaptability and ushers in the return of health.
There are some great tools out there to assist you in creating strong foundations, here are some of our favourites.
To find out more about how Chiropractic can help build strong foundations, click here.
Bruce H. Lipton PhD – The Shocking TRUTH About Biology
Dr James Chestnut – Eat Well, Think Well, Move Well and Lifestyle Health Risk Assessment
Dr John Demartini – Value Determination Process
Peak Chiropractic Centre located in Claremont are family-friendly chiropractors focused on relieving aches, pains and posture correction. We offer in-house X-Ray facilities.
