The holiday sesaon is upon us! With his unusual sense of humor, Dr. Robert Zee puts the events of the season in quite an interesting perspective. The following is an excerpt from the book Why Am I Sick? And What To Do About It , by Dr. Robert Zee, available on Amazon today. This is a timely message considering the holiday season is just around the corner. Permission is granted to distribute this post in electronic form provided is distributed in its entirety, including this paragraph.
Health and sickness quite predictably follow periodic seasonal patterns. The great yearly downturn in health begins on October 31, but is not readily apparent until a few months later. To kick off the annual down slide of health, all the kids dress up in costumes and go house to house knocking on every door in hopes of bagging the coveted treasure – candy. For the next two weeks, sugar enters their body like a tsunami, paving the way for a Candida albicans yeast overgrowth in the intestines, and creating blood sugar swings that resemble an EKG. This results in mood swings and crankiness, and the parents give in by giving the kids even more candy just to quiet them down. Unknowingly to the kids, the parents sneak some of their candy while they are away in school, desperately trying to reduce the private stash so the kids will not gorge themselves on something that is so unhealthy. Then comes the big feast on the fourth Thursday in November. In preparation for the festivities revolving around the large meal, the hosts make their guest lists, buy all sorts of food – vegetables, bread, pies, cakes, wine, and the twenty two pound bird that will be the centerpiece of the celebration. When dinnertime finally arrives, the whole home is filled with more stress than a bad day on Wall Street. The kids are cranky, the wrong team won the big football game, and the one relative with more than one screw lose somehow showed up at dinner anyway despite many desperate attempts to leave him off the guest list, quite by accident of course.
For the next few days, the menu is the same, with the words "turkey again" seeming to echo around the house. All the desserts that were left over seem to have disappeared first, and everyone is frantically searching around for something to satisfy their sugar craving. In keeping perfect tradition, the stress level rises higher than Mount Everest as the events turn from eating to shopping. Panic arises as everyone wants to be the first in line to get this year’s coveted new toy, Roto-Annihilator, an ugly piece of molded plastic with its head mounted on a turret, a remote control, a computer inside, imported directly from China. With any luck, junior is really not interested in that toy this year and hopefully spare anyone from having to wait in lines or searching the internet to find one. The shopping spree continues for four more weeks, with stress levels rising each day.
In anticipation of the next great celebration at the end of December, choir practice for the Christmas caroling adventure is mandatory, never mind the fact that everyone has sung these songs their entire life, and knows them quite well by now. To make things worse, the kids are let out of school as the parents are trying to arrange dinner plans for the big event. Every spare moment is used frantically to find that Roto-Annihilator contraption from China because, at the last minute, junior decided he needed one because Johnny down the street is getting one. Checking every store, Roto-Annihilator cannot be found anywhere, and the Korean knock off, Roto-Flunkkor, simply will not do.
After returning from church on Christmas Eve, the parents try to get the kids to sleep, which finally happens at 2:00 A.M., and two hours later the parents finally get to sleep. The kids are then up at 5:30 A.M., tearing open boxes and packages, many of which were wrapped only three hours earlier. Within no time, the living room looks like a dump truck backed up and dropped a load meant for the local toy store. A little time later, the remote control toy aircraft somehow flew itself around inside and shredded everything in sight, including the furniture. No one seems to know how the plane could fly by itself, primarily because no one was around when it happened. Right before the crash landing, the plane’s propeller chopped the head off that stupid Roto-Annihilator thing, which, in the future, will prove to be a blessing. The parents try to restore order and clean up the home so it looks presentable when the guests arrive, shoving presents back under the tree and in the corner. As usual, the relative with more than one screw loose arrives late, opens his presents, and wonders why, yet again, he got four brand-new screwdriver sets.
For the next week, the kids are off from school, and everyone’s emotions are running in high gear. Finally, New Years Eve gets here, and in a day or so everything will be back to normal. The adults all go out and get drunk in order to forget about the last three months, only to repeat the same thing next year. Finally, some semblance order seems to be restored when the holiday season is finally over.
However, that is not the end. For the last three months, everyone has been stressed, and the immune system was being compromised and is now most likely functioning at its yearly low. All the refined carbohydrates, desserts, and foods served during the holiday season, which are not typically served during the rest of the year, has taken their toll on the digestive system and immune system, not to mention the mind. As a result, colds, the flu, and other seasonal maladies seem to run rampant, being passed from person to person. Just as one person in the family gets over it, another one gets something else and passes it around. Nevertheless, soon Spring is on its way, and everyone will begin to feel better. Since Spring is bathing suit time, it is time for everyone to go on a diet, and lose those extra pounds gained over the holiday season. The newly discovered diet and a desperate attempt to lose some weight now put the body into a nutritional deficit mode, and everything eaten turns to fat. Severe lack of energy follows, and what looked to be a promising new year starts off as a disaster.
A type of individual, however, can be found that rarely, if ever, gets sick. Oddly, this type of person also rarely, if ever, seeks the advice of any health care professional. How could excellent health be afforded to this group of people considering the fact they are not even searching for it? What are they doing that the majority of society is not? Equally important, what are they not doing that the majority is constantly doing? Do they have a secret? If so, what is their secret? Why are they not sharing it with others? If we can somehow learn their secret, and apply those principles to our life, will it make us healthier too?
Their secret is explored in the book Why Am I Sick? And What To Do About It , available on Amazon today.
