Total Wellness: The Competition Within

By Brent Swartzlander

Total Wellness: The Competition Within is a new release for those seeking real answers to their questions about wellness. “Find what you are looking for in life”. This book will help you find what you thought was missing in your life. You will discover how to become more fulfilled, more content and less stressed. You will not need a personal life coach or a tragic life event to understand that you have the power within. You will discover how to refocus your energy on what truly matters in your life. Find out how to change your thinking in stressful areas of your life. Learn to appreciate the relationship between mind, body and spirit. Use your strengths to build up your weaknesses. Achieve your goals and be successful on your terms. You were born with the power inside of you. All you need is a guide back to that place. This book will ensure that you win your personal “competition within”. Brent Swartzlander P.T., D.P.T, O.C.S., Wellness Coach has dedicated his life to helping others heal themselves. Over the past 25 years of healing their bodies he has learned the lessons of the mind, body and spirit. Besides obtaining an advanced doctoral degree in physical therapy, he has studied extensively the connection of the mind, body and spirit and the potential of each to positively or negatively affect the other. The interdependence between mind, body and spirit is the key to changing your life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brent Swartzlander
• Release date: May 12, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301316786

Brent Swartzlander

Brent Swartzlander, PT, DPT, OCS is a 1987 graduate of the University of Illinois at Chicago physical therapy program. He has practiced in several different settings with emphasis on outpatient orthopedics. In 1999 & 2009 Brent earned his Orthopedic Certified Specialty recognition from the American Board of Physical Therapy Specialties. He completed the Transitional Doctor of Physical Therapy Degree Program at St. Louis University in December of 2005. Brent is a practicing outpatient physical therapist and teaches evidence based seminars nationally with theraPTeach seminars Inc. He has dedicated himself and his career to educating professionals and the public on health, wellness and wellbeing.

Book preview

Total Wellness

Brent Swartzlander P.T., D.P.T., O.C.S.

This book will help guide you on your personal path to wellness

Copyright 2012 Brent Swartzlander

Published on Smashwords

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All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

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Special thanks to my wife Michele and our three kids who put up with my obsessions.

My brother Ric, the true artist in the family, who helped me organize these thoughts.

Also to Paula Becker who makes it appear as though I can use the English language appropriately.

Cheryl at Serpentine Design for her guidance and support.

……….and Granny.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

Chapter 1

CONNECTING MIND, BODY AND SPIRIT

Chapter 2

THE MIND SYSTEM

Chapter 3

THE BODY SYSTEM

Chapter 4

THE SPIRIT SYSTEM

Chapter 5

THE COMPETITION WITHIN

Chapter 6

ENLIGHTENMENT

Chapter 7

SELF MOTIVATION AND GOAL FINDING

Chapter 8

OBSERVATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

Chapter 9

NOW WHAT?

MATERIAL TO HELP YOU ON YOUR PATH

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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INTRODUCTION

I believe we have, over the last decade or two, been thoroughly overloaded with what we should do to stay or get healthy, yet the epidemic continues. Everyone hears this specific food is good for this disease or that, yet diabetes and obesity continue to be prevalent. Everyone has been told exercise is healthy and helps control weight and chronic disease. Does anyone need to hear one more time that smoking is not healthy and leads to lung disease? Yet, most every book and web page relating to wellness is cluttered with these types of discussions. Eat this to be healthier, eat that to stave off cancer. Exercise this way or that for a better body. Despite all of this specific, overwhelming and sometimes even contradictive information, as a society, we continue with unhealthy habits and inactivity as a routine. The problem does not seem to be with the knowledge or information disseminated to the masses. The problem is how this knowledge is put to use or perhaps not put to use. The main piece of this dilemma is that there is no one-size-fits all diet, exercise routine, smoking cessation system, stress reducer or mind enhancer. Yet again, as a society, we are willing, even desperate, to buy the package that someone, anyone, tells us will do just that. Rather than try to sell a package to fix yours and everyone else’s problems, I plan to help you discover your own personal system of wellness.

I will discuss the most current research and evidence that is available about what works and what does not work. I want to arm you with the general knowledge to help you decide what will specifically work for you, not what I think works with everyone. I will help you set goals, initiate positive change and maintain these changes. What that change actually is must come from you, not from me or anyone else, yet this is exactly what other health and wellness programs try to sell you on. This book and my web page are dedicated to breaking this cycle, this culture.

This nation is the unhealthiest it has been in decades. Adults and children alike are becoming progressively overweight and inactive. This is fueling a medical emergency with skyrocketing expenses to care for chronic disease that could easily be prevented. Diet and activity levels, along with smoking and stress, have created a whirlpool of destruction that is pulling us deeper and deeper into an unhealthy state. It is truly a spiral: eating poorly and not moving enough to becoming overweight or obese, on to high blood pressure and diabetes, then heart disease, stroke, kidney failure, blindness, amputations, and even premature death.

People want a quick fix, a magic bullet, an elixir to give them benefit with little or no effort. It is kind of like the little kid who thinks he or she will run faster and jump higher if he or she buys a new pair of tennis shoes. Compare this with companies who are making a fortune selling diet supplements, energy drinks, exercise programs and equipment that bring little or no more results than those new sneakers. There are fortunes being made in telling people what they need to get themselves healthy. We have been lulled into believing that someone will give us what we need to bring ourselves back to health, out of the slump and back into the game. One example of this is the pharmaceutical companies. They develop a pill for type 2 diabetes and it is taken by the patient. The patient is lulled into thinking I’m doing what I need to be doing to address my diabetes. There is nothing further from the truth. The pill is a stopgap measure to address the body’s current decreased function and slow the progression of the disease. It addresses the symptoms but does not change the underlying problem. The cure is proper diet and activity to prevent getting the diabetes in the first place. Diet and activity can even improve the condition once you have it. This is also the case with high blood pressure. Once the doctor gives the patient a blood pressure pill, it is as if the problem is solved. The blood pressure pill addresses symptoms, but the disease often progresses requiring stronger or multiple medicines. This is because the lifestyle has not changed. They are giving me what I need. We wait for someone else to convince us of what we need when what we really need is to decide for ourselves. No one will ever complete or maintain what someone else has laid out for them. The program is unnatural and does not fit and therefore fails.

Most wellness books and websites have volumes on what is healthy and what is not. There is no cookie cutter approach. That is why, when a book or website suggests that to get healthy and happy you must follow their exercise and diet plan, it fails. The truth is, to get healthy and happy you must follow your exercise, diet, stress reduction or mind enhancement plan. I know your knee jerk reaction is I don’t have a plan, that’s my problem. I will help you solve your problem, your unique and personal problem. I will explain research and reasoning as few books have done. Then I will do one more very important thing, and that is to help you decide what path to health and wellness will work for you. You evaluate, design and implement what will work for you. By examining your own individual circumstances of mind, body and spirit, I will help you develop attainable goals that you set, not someone else. You are the only one that can decide when, where and how to change you. Let’s get started.

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Chapter 1

CONNECTING MIND, BODY AND SPIRIT

Worry affects circulation, the heart, the glands, the whole nervous system, and profoundly affects the heart. I have never known a man who died from overwork, but many who died from doubt.

This book has been the hardest thing I have ever done. There are so many things I want to say, but at the same time I do not want to push my ideas on the reader. There have been many before me who have told the reader how they should proceed. My goal is not to tell you what I think is working for me or what worked for your neighbor, but instead to help you to discover which path is going to work for you. It is inside each of you. For me or anyone else to tell anyone else this is your path to total wellness is disrespectful of the diversity of humanity. I am not a guru or the mystical sage. I am a person just like you. I started this quest somewhat unknowingly when I entered college back in 1982. As I began my journey to become a physical therapist I also began my quest to discover total wellness. This quest has become an obsession. I have listened to lectures and studied books and research on health. I have studied wellness and become a wellness coach. Exercise, spirituality, meditation, breathing techniques and mind-body connection are just a few areas that I have dedicated my studies to. I have gone as far as to become a certified hypnotherapist just to learn about hypnosis. I have worked with patients in pain my entire career as a physical therapist, and I have learned many things from them. I have a doctoral degree and a specialty certification in orthopedic physical therapy. I did not do all of these things to become your leader. I did it to answer my own personal questions and become a better therapist. The interesting thing about this quest is I do not believe I will ever be finished. With each answer there comes another question. It appears there is truth in what I have always said. The more I learn the more I realize how much I do not know. This phrase has been