For all practical purposes Dr. Dean Ornish is the founder and godfather of diet and exercise as the best most effective method for both preventing and treating heart disease – even severe “get-to-the-hospital-today” cases. From both an experience and research perspective, no one else comes even close. So a few years ago he decided to put his staff to work on an exhaustive review of all the research ever done on health and longevity. Obviously he was expecting to end up with even more scientific support for his own research on the value of diet and exercise. So you can imagine his shock and amazement when he discovered something completely different. What he learned was that the number one predictor of health and longevity is not some special diet, exercise, magic bean, or any other snake-oil. Rather, the most common predictor of a long life is… are your ready for it? LOVE; being surrounded by people you know you can count on for help and support if and whenever you might need it. Surprised you too didn’t it? So impressed was he that he wrote a book about it (Love and Survival). And love now plays a significant role, one of four key pillars (Eat Well, Move More, Stress Less, and Love More) in his world-famous lifestyle medical practice.
“There is a deep spiritual hunger in this country. The real epidemic in our culture is not only physical heart disease, but also what I call emotional and spiritual heart disease.”
– Dr. Dean Ornish
Just last week I attended a three-day seminar devoted almost exclusively to the connections between your mouth and the rest of your body. In short, they are huge! It is these connections that are the reason behind some of the “unusual” questions and tests you may have experienced at our office. Questions like “How much do you snore? What do you usually eat? How much exercise do you get?” Or perhaps we’ve asked you to spit in a test tube or go have some blood drawn. As a dentist, I’m used to people raising their eyebrows when I start asking “medical” questions. But the truth is, often I can’t do my job – helping you get your mouth back to stable health – unless we address the possibility of systemic issues that may be getting in the way. (On the flips side, more and more educated physicians are guiding their patients to address dental health issues because the disease issues they are addressing won’t resolve either unless they do.)
MORE IMPORTANT THAN A HEALTHY MOUTH?
Here at the office, if we really want to see someone squirm, all we have to do is ask them how things really are at home, or at work. Either verbally or simply with their defensive body language, the most common reaction is “Fine. Leave me alone! Get back to my teeth!” But that is in fact what we are trying to do. If your mouth is not responding to treatment, if it is continuing to show signs of disease, infection, or inflammation, there has to be a reason. And if that reason happens to be loneliness, isolation, lack of purpose, or fear of the future, your dental health will continue to suffer until you address it. As may your heart, your kidneys, your mind, or that cancer. So yes, love is both more important than, and key to, a healthy mouth. Remember the “Two Crosses” we talk about here? The two guides to whole-health/wholistic dental health care? See the anchor there to the Cross of Health?
WE ALL NEED MORE LOVE
In one way or another, we all need more love in our lives. In fact, I’d submit that when you peal back all the layers and get right down to the heart of things, that is in fact the central purpose of each of our lives – to see how much love we can learn to share. So if living life well – healthy, happy, and with meaning – is important to you, or if you are suffering from some chronic disease that just won’t resolve, including dental issues like periodontal disease, TMJ Dysfunction, or accelerating tooth loss, give these four tools a try.
- ADMIT IT. We all have relationships that need improvement.
- ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY. If you want more friends/love, you need to be more friendly/loving. You are the only thing you can control. So quit pointing fingers and start working on yourself.
- PERFORM ONE EXTRA UNEXPECTED SELFLESS ACT OF SERVICE EVERY DAY. Put yourself in someone else’s shoes, and then do for them what you would want them to do for you if your roles really were reversed.
- MEDITATE 15 MIN/DAY ON CHRIST’S SERMON ON THE MOUNT. You don’t have to be a Christian to do this. Gandhi, a Hindu, actually did this for 2 hours a day. The fact is that “As a man thinketh so is he”, and Christ’s Sermon on the Mount just happens to be the most the most penetrating and insightful treatise on Love ever written. Want to be more loving? Think about it more.
Until next time, be healthy and happy!
‘There is not a definition of a successful life that does not include service to others.”
-Geo. H. W. Bush
Dr. Lon Peckham provides comprehensive and wholistic dental care in Priest River, Idaho. He is a consultant certified in Lead Management and Choice Theory, Advanced Dental Implantology, as a Lifestyle Health Facilitator, and is currently pursuing certification by the American Board of Lifestyle Medicine. He helps Patients and Dentists successfully incorporate whole-health into their lives and practices.
