I just got back on Sunday from a wonderful conference in New York City. Many amazing speakers presented at the Integrative Healthcare Symposium: Mark Hyman, MD, Mimi Guarneri, MD, Jeffrey Bland, MD, and David and Austin (son of David) Perlmutter, MD. All of them are bright lights in the world of holistic and integrative medicine.
I think that the most important lesson I learned from this conference came from a presentation called: The Role of Lifestyle Choices in Decision-Making: Becoming a Conscious Architect of Your Brain. Drs. David and Austin Perlmutter, MD presented the neuroscience behind proper self-care and why it is important for us as physicians to both live and teach it. Read on for more details!
Gold Nuggets from the Integrative Healthcare Symposium 2020
The most important take-aways from an awesome conference
Sleep. Walking through nature. Meditation. Healthy eating habits. These basic, foundational choices lead to either health or disease (dis-ease). David and Austin Perlmutter's presentation provided the neuroscience to substantiate the importance of these choices—something commonsensical that we've known all along, but never felt comfortable doing due to harmful social pressures.
In their new book Brain Wash, Drs. Perlmutter teach us that when we get enough sleep, meditate, and walk through nature, we allow our prefrontal cortex (the adult in the room) to manage our amygdala (the impulsive, aggressive child in the room). Not only that, we are better able to have compassion and empathy for others.
When the amygdala becomes activated, it creates anxiety and agitation that eventually travels to the adrenals. Adrenaline, a highly toxic chemical, is released into the body, setting off hormonal alarms that shift us from a rest-and-digest mode to a fight-or-flight mode.
So, get your eight hours of sleep. Meditate daily. Take time to enjoy nature. If you're to maintain your health and longevity, there is now science to support these important choices.
Drs. Perlmutters' presentation reminded me of a poem I wrote years ago that describes how I regularly visited an Arboretum to help maintain my humanity and compassion during medical school. I didn't know the science behind it then, but being in nature really did save my soul.
The Garden Where Everything Matters
It’s too late now to see color at the Arboretum,
only the moonlight in a dark and silent world
of trees, sage, flowers, stream, grass, and mulch.
I walk among the labeled specimens, a shadow of myself.
I have been studying all day, all week, all month,
then tested and retested, until I am filled with fear and loathing.
Anatomy, biochemistry, physiology, immunology.
Information: I am buried beneath it.
Medical training is the line that drags me, gags me, tags me,
like a fish caught on a hook, gasping on the dock.
I have been running—a duck among leopards—
straining to keep up, my wings forgotten.
What has become of me?
I have died and no one cares.
But tonight I return to pay my respects,
to the tender part of me that is gone.
I knew this garden once when it glowed in the sunlight,
and breezes blew through cherry blossoms and rippled the stream.
I watched the bright koi swim among the clouds reflected in the water,
and the rhythm of my heart felt as tranquil as my breath.
Can the dead recreate life's tapestry with just one thread?
I am wasting my time. This doesn't matter.
Then a thought arrived as if it were my own:
Everything matters.
A bolus of awareness fills me, and i vanish.
I become this Presence and am its knowing.
It lifts me and the moment out of space-time
and illuminates my soul with solace and peace.
Over time, the rigors of training transform
many doe-eyed healers into tin soldiers,
marching smartly in line, doing what they're told,
stoic under stress and numb to feeling.
I visit the garden to wander through who I am.
Its fragrance, beauty, and peace shelter me
and nurture the sacred within my soul,
where sensitivity and creativity grow.
Decades pass, and yet I cherish still
the space the arboretum saved for me:
a place where everything matters,
and the invisibles flourish and flower.