What Role Does Our Intelligence Play in Our Health?

    This is a double sided coin. Does health affect intelligence? Yes. Does intelligence affect health? Yes. This is one of those wonderful situations where the cause and effect works both ways. What happens in one area, will generally affect the other.

    It is a known and proven fact, that the eating and health habits we use as children, directly affects our level of development. This includes the brain. Protein, one of the most important basic life building blocks, works directly in the brain’s development. No protein, no proper development.

    Well, it doesn’t take very much intuition here, to notice if the brain doesn’t develop to optimal operation levels, you will not have a health conscious individual. Generally, you do not have individuals develop to become productive, prosperous citizens, and certainly not healthy, productive, prosperous citizens.

    Past the consideration of intelligence development, our level of education and intelligence plays a tremendous role in our ability to educate ourselves about the health options we should exercise. With generations prior to the 20th century, physical energy expenditures used up whatever nutritional resources you had provided earlier. Physical work and a real lack of nutritional supplements kept the body in constant need of nourishment. That is a time past. Today, with the advent of the computer, physical activity is no longer a part of the work equation. We no longer lack for vitamins and minerals, thanks to the boom in the vitamin market.

    Today, we must determine how much nourishment we need, how much physical exercise we need, and how best to accomplish those ends. Calorie needs, nutritional needs, physical needs, and education about those needs now is information we should all understand, at least as it applies to our individual self.

    Our level of income directly affects our health. Did you know that? How much money you make helps to determine how healthy you will be. Doesn’t really make sense, if you don’t’ look at the broader picture. In the big picture, however, here is the view: you are educated, have a degree, and are exposed to tons of information during your college years. You are exposed to health classes, athletes, and all sorts of professional people who already understand the importance of health in your life.

    You graduate college, your income levels are quite nice, and you have the opportunity to purchase magazines, health and fitness of course. Can you see how your education and intelligence levels affect your health now? This is a generalization that has proven itself time and again. All you have to do is observe your developed countries versus the third world, underdeveloped countries. Standard of living and health are directly related.

    If the evidence presented above is not enough to satisfy your curiosity concerning the role intelligence plays in our health, take the time to visit the US Census. This information is available through the internet. There you will find all kinds of statistics, from income averages in areas of the United States, to education levels in those same places. Also available is information related to the household. Check for yourself. You can see a direct relationship in many areas of the country between income levels and health statistics for that area.

The Yin and Yang of the Healthy Individual

    The Chinese believe our bodies are complete halves, one side being the passive and the other being the aggressive, and it only through the successful union of the halves, that we have the healthy whole.

    Western medicine has so far, not subscribed to this theory, in whole. There is compelling evidence to support many of the Chinese theories on the joining of the body’s energy forces and balancing our flow of energy through the entire body.

    Chiropractic and acupuncture philosophies base their entire practice on the successful correlation of the body’s energy flow, nervous system impulses, and skeletal alignment.

    What we do know, about individuals is that the entire system must be in balance for attainment of true wellness and health. Our physical, mental, and spiritual existence must be aligned and working as a whole. To better understand this principle, we need to take a closer look at some of the ancient healing techniques and philosophies. Perhaps then we can develop a better understanding of how our body works with itself to heal.

    In the tradition of acupuncture, the vital energy flow occurs along pathways known as meridians. These meridians connect over 2,000 acupuncture points along the body. There are 12 main meridians, and 8 secondary meridians. Although traditional western medicine does not completely understand how acupuncture works, the proof that it does work has been shown in several studies conducted by western medical facilities.

    The very nature of chiropractic care is the belief in the body’s own healing properties. Quite often, we can have small problems in one area of our body, and not even realize it until the effect is felt in a much larger way, somewhere else.

    The practice of chiropractic care focuses on the relationship between your spine and your nervous system. The spine is the structure, and the nervous system is the function. Chiropractic believes these two systems work in unison to keep and then restore your body’s health. The word “chiropractic” is taken from Greek, and means “done by hand”.

    If you take the basic premise from each form of healing, and apply it to the knowledge that we have about the interaction of the mind, body, and spirit, you can see that these ancient healing philosophies are very accurate in their belief about treatment and how the body works. They were able to discern this hundreds of years before science could actually provide the proof.

    The amazing part thing to me is that with all of this knowledge, and all the opportunity for self-help and healing that we have available, we still have individuals who suffer simply because they aren’t willing to put forth the effort to learn and participate. We have every possible venue for healing options available, for the low-income, for the middle-income, and for the wealthy. There is no bias when it comes to availability. We simply need to take advantage of the yin and yang of our opportunity. Part of the halves is in place, now we just need the participants.