7 Prescriptions (That Aren't Medicine) You Should Take Now

While you are doing your best to live a “Honest” life, you’ll notice that more and more children are suffering from asthma, allergies, ADHD, autism, and autoimmune diseases like diabetes. The conventional health care solution has been to prescribe more medications, a one-ill-one-pill approach that is increasingly expensive, ineffective, and unsafe.

Time for a paradigm shift!

In my integrative pediatric practice, I choose instead to prescribe deceptively simple yet profoundly transformational lifestyle changes that are effective, safe, and inexpensive. These solutions are truly preventive rather than reactive, helping families create health and wellness.

1. Rx Food.

Eat real food, not a long list of processed ingredients mashed together masquerading as food. Realize that food comes from the earth, not from a can. Grow and prepare your own food. Cultivate a garden or a farm. Know that eating is a mindful process, not only about ingesting calories but also about nourishing your body, mind, and soul. Eating is and ought to be a community activity.

2. Rx Activity.

Move your body. Start with something – any amount, as much as you are able, and build on that foundation. Get your heart rate moving and see what it feels like to be so active that even your hair sweats. School recess is a right, not a privilege.

3. Rx Nature.

Get outside. Go on a hike. Go jump in a lake. Explore the nearest nature center. Spend more time playing, freely, in natural settings. Refuse to suffer from Nature Deficit Disorder.

4. Rx Creativity.

Be silly. Sing and dance like no one’s watching. Color outside of the lines. Build something with your own hands. Paint using every color you’ve ever known. Make up stories and tell anyone who will listen.

5. Rx Rest.

Make sleep a priority. Create opportunities for rest. Learn to love downtime. Find a quiet, calm place for restful activities. Take time to simply be. Unplug and recharge. Know that sometimes it’s okay to stop.

6. Rx Mindfulness.

Be here now. Right here. Now. Pay attention to the process. Build your stress-coping toolbox. Try yoga and meditation. Be willing to sit in the mud until it settles and the water clears.

7. Rx Connection.

Realize that we are all connected, and that our relationships make us stronger and healthier. Be courageous enough to be vulnerable, and let others see you for who you really are. Look through someone else’s eyes as if they are your own.