How to Step Off the Sickness Treadmill: Caring Today for Your Health Tomorrow

By Dr. MaryAnn Franko and Raymond Aaron

Announcing the release of a new book from Dr. MaryAnn Franko titled, How to Step Off the Sickness Treadmill.

This informative book takes a fresh look at healthy living, and new ways to give yourself the best life without having to deviate according to each and every health trend that comes your way.

Coming from a spiritual background, Dr. Franko looks at the natural side of health to give you her simplified perspective on life. She explains that the systems in place have made it so that we look towards different medicines to cure us of specific ailments. Looking deeper though, there are also paradigms that she looks to for the holistic path for supporting one's health. She not only discusses the ways you can improve your approach to health from the outside, but also what may help you to heal from the inside out, including the foods you eat.

Dr. MaryAnn Franko gives to you her wisdom from 40 years of clinical practice to empower you to better manage the stress of daily life and live a healthy lifestyle, naturally and simply.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Aug 20, 2020
• ISBN: 9781772773712

Book preview

Author

Introduction

A New Beginning

If you’re an average adult, one of your biggest daily challenges is probably your ongoing struggle to stay healthy. Your whole life, you’ve had nutritionists, doctors, teachers, relatives, journalists, and experts of every stripe giving you their own ideas of what’s considered a healthy lifestyle. Every week, there’s another article telling you all about the new hot diet trend that upends everything you were taught in health class, or a miracle drug that’s going to turn the pharmaceutical industry upside down. And then, a week later, there’s another new article calling the first one a complete hoax. Undoubtedly, this whole phenomenon has left you confused, frustrated, and unsure of who to trust.

Let me put it this way; imagine your mind as a sheet of paper. It starts out blank, but it doesn’t stay that way for long. The moment you learn to read is the moment that everyone around you starts scribbling their notes all over the paper. Some people actively try to cross out what others have written. By the time you reach adulthood, the sheet of paper has become a jumbled, discombobulated, indecipherable mess of text, riddled with inconsistencies, contradictions, and ambiguities.

And, worse still, nothing on that sheet of paper is helpful in dealing with whatever ailments and illnesses you may have. I propose that you may be able to let go of some or even all of those illnesses by following a path of more healthy living, along with a dose of humor and lightheartedness (as evidenced by Dr. Norman Cousins, who healed himself with laughter). You may have to make some drastic changes in your life, but I assure you it will be worth it.

Before reading this book, step back, take a deep breath and give yourself some time to clear your mind. Imagine laying the sheet of paper I spoke of in the earlier paragraph out in front of you and erase every note you see until nothing but a blank slate is left. Take all of the rules, guidelines, and truisms you’ve been taught about healthy living and cast them aside. (Take as much time as you like; this process isn’t always easy.)

Why am I asking you to do that? Because the model of healthy living I’m about to present to you is neither a refutation nor a vindication of conventional medical science. It exists entirely on its own, as a separate entity. It’s a totally new way to live.

Furthermore, I don’t want you to treat me as the ultimate authority on health. Nowadays, everyone with a Ph.D. and a blog claims to hold that title. All I am is a human being who wants to extend the benefit of good health to as many people as I can, by teaching them about a lifestyle model that’s worked wonders for me. This book is about a way to live healthily, not the only way.

But, before we get into the details of the model, I must introduce you to its guiding principle. Remember that sheet of paper you mentally erased earlier? Now I want you to take it back out, lay it in front of you, and write this at the top of the page:

Give back to the earth.

Everything I’m going to discuss in this book can be traced back to this principle. We, as humans, need to consume earthly resources in order to stay alive; there’s no getting around that fact. But you must be careful not to take any more than you need to survive, and always remember to pay it back with interest. My philosophy is one that embraces charity, temperance, and moderation while eschewing gluttony and waste.

This may seem a bit odd, at first glance. It certainly seems like a principle more closely related to ecology than personal health. Furthermore, you may think, if you gave more than you ever received, wouldn’t you be worse off than you were before? But that’s the kind of thinking that perpetuates the gluttonous nature of our society.

The fact is, your body needs far less to survive than you think it does. By learning to live with less, you avoid the risk of clogging your body and soul with unnecessary (and let’s not forget addictive) substances. Furthermore, as I’ll demonstrate later on, Mother Earth has a way of rewarding the people who give her the respect she deserves. To quote the musical Chicago, If you’re good to mama, mama’s good to you.

I find it very encouraging to see that so many young people are turning away from the economic bottom line approach to life and prioritizing value over profits in their decision-making process. And, there are companies showing that profit and value are not mutually exclusive. I am especially heartened by entrepreneurs who sacrifice huge profits for earth sustaining products and services.

We can all learn from their example by adopting a lifestyle of clean-living. You are never too old to make this change, as earth-shattering as it might seem. I promise you, it can be easier than you think. Furthermore, you can heal yourself and the earth by changing to a sustainable lifestyle. Start by recognizing that you may be addicted to at least some of the products that advertisers have been pushing on you for years – and if you are, it’s in no way your fault. That’s the first step in letting go of those bad habits and foods that make you sick. As they say, before you can solve a problem, you must admit that you do, in fact, have a problem.

May this book give you hope and the support you need to make the changes necessary in your life. May you be inspired to strive for sickness-free living. May you free yourself into a lifestyle that benefits you, your friends, and the entire human race.

We are in this together. Get ready to begin your happier, healthier, drug-free life.

Chapter 1

Whole, not Holes

Most of what we call health care is actually sickness care, in that it is about treating medical problems and symptoms. The treatments, drugs, and remedies offered by doctors provide us with temporary relief from any given affliction. There’s nothing wrong with this, as you may need immediate short-term relief to continue going about your daily life. But to truly improve your long-term health, you need to get on a permanent path towards better health so you can prevent or naturally improve a lot of these ailments.

First and foremost, taking that new path is a matter of knowing yourself. After all, if you’re not familiar with your own being, how can you accurately judge what you need? You may be inclined to say that