Hippocrates’ Wisdom

An Alternative View On Healing

The content of the HealingT1D website is for educational and information purposes only. It does not contain medical advice. The contents of this website are not intended to substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Please always consult with your doctor, physician, or other qualified healthcare professional before making any adjustments to your routine or healthcare regime. HealingT1D and all associated with it will not be held liable for any risks or issues associated with using or acting upon the information on this site.

Summary: Hippocrates, the ancient Greek physician, founded modern medicine and his principles still guide medical ethics today. Exploring his teachings on nature, illness origins, and patient involvement sparks deep introspection into the author’s healing journey. While some ideas challenge, like self-contribution to illness, they offer holistic insights crucial for balanced health and wellbeing.

Who Was Hippocrates?

Hippocrates was a Greek physician who lived in Ancient Greece (c. 460 – c. 370 BC). He is thought of as the founding father of modern medicine, having established it as a distinct practice from the more spiritual practices of the time. Indeed, Hippocrates’ medical assumptions and beliefs still form the foundation of the Hippocratic Oath that new medical practitioners swear to upon completion of their training.

Why Is Hippocrates Relevant To My Healing Journey?

I think there is great benefit looking back at the old masters, when the field of medicine didn’t exist and spirituality and science were mixed in equal measure. Healing is a force that has always been present in human culture and I wonder whether its nuances may have been easier to see in ancient times, when life and medicine were much less complicated and the body and mind were not considered distinct entities.

I have been having a wander through some of Hippocrates’ writings and have fallen into deep inspiration… I’m having an inspiration bath today! I’m grabbing my rubber duck, my favourite soap and a good book for this one because I think I may be here a while!!

So, without further ado, I’m diving into Hippocrates’ observations and teachings to light my way on my journey…

Hippocrates On The Healing Force:

As I have read more and more on cases of spontaneous remissions (which, to be honest, are never spontaneous… They take months or years of hard work by the person involved… It’s just in the doctors’ eyes that the person was ill one day and well the next!), I have come to realise that our intuition is always available to us and is continuously trying to steer us towards better health. We just need to lean in closely and learn how to listen to it.

So I make it a priority to keep asking myself the question… ‘What are my mind, body and soul really asking for today?’.

Hippocrates On Nature:

I think, when Hippocrates talks about nature here, he is referring to it in ways that, today, we would understand as two distinct components. Firstly, there is the nature around us in the world. Trees, plants, forests, lakes, rivers, the sea, deserts, mountains. Being in nature restores me in a way that the modern world of cities and urban landscapes just doesn’t. I am therefore taking the reminder from Hippocrates to access it more. I need to find ways to make it a more consistent part of my life, even in the hot, arid climate I now live in.

Secondly, I think Hippocrates could also be referring to nature as the internal body system we have, made up of cells and organs and tissues. My own body can heal me better than any medicine, if I just let it. And, each time I am living in excess in any part of my life – diet, exercise, laziness, stress, work, too much sleep – I am contravening this natural force. A striving for moderation is key (without, well, striving because that would to excess too!). Balance is healing.

Hippocrates On The Origins Of Illness:

Now this quote really peeked my interest. When my daughter was a year and a half old, her blood sugars started oscillating quite violently. A diabetologist confirmed my worst fears – she was in the latter stages of developing Type 1 Diabetes. He suggested, as a last resort, that we could try giving her a range of vitamins and probiotics to support her gut health since research was starting to suggest that Type 1 Diabetes may in fact be a gut disorder. Roll forward six years, my daughter still takes her supplements each day and is still a non-diabetic.

Hippocrates’ observation that illness results from ‘small daily sins against Nature’ resonates with how I have come to understand my T1D (see my post on allostatic load for a deeper explanation). It’s great to have my thoughts supported by someone in a different country, in a different time. I feel like we’re both somehow tapping into the universal healing that has always existed across time.

Hippocrates On The Patient’s Contribution To Their Illness:

Okay, so now I’m heading into choppier waters. This section is looking at how the patient may have contributed to their illness. I want to make clear at this point that I am in no way blaming myself, or any other Type 1 Diabetic, for creating their own illness. I don’t think any one of us, having any choice in this disease, would have chosen to have this. This is not about objective choice. But I am starting to come around to the idea that maybe, somehow, my body developed the diabetes in me as a way to process the ‘small daily sins against Nature’ that Hippocrates refers to. And I do believe that these ‘daily sins’ are not necessarily just physical in nature, not just what we eat and drink or how much we exercise or rest or sleep. I think they also fall into the mental, emotional and spiritual fields – the ‘thoughts’ that Hippocrates refers to in the second quotation here. So, again, Hippocrates is supporting those small whispers of intuition I have that say that who I am, how I turn up in the world, and how I respond emotionally and mentally and spiritually, are also important in this healing journey. Healing involves all aspects on myself, not just a selected few.

The two latter quotes of this section don’t sit so easily for me. I guess I need to ask myself the question… How much exactly do I have to give up?? I suspect that there may be a lot of unlearning to do before true healing is obtained. Through my years of healing so far, though, I have learned that you are never presented with more than you can contend with at each stage of healing. You are asked to stretch but not to the point of breaking. It isn’t easy, it isn’t pretty but eventually you get there. Like, right now, I feel that I am being asked to give up sugar. Like, totally. It feels like an impossible stretch. But three years ago, the idea of meditating every day was too much of a stretch. One year ago, forgiving anyone for anything was just too hard. Slowly but surely, the process unfolds and I find that I unfold with it.

Hippocrates On Tools For Healing:

I think that Hippocrates seems to offer a fair number of insights for me to pursue on my journey from here. Of course, as I have just mentioned above, I feel that food is important on a healing journey and the next step of mine is asking me to be sugar-free. I am not ready for that yet but I suspect that my future will possibly contain that truth. I am reminded about how it is often cited that our bodies are made up of the food we eat so do we want our bodies to be made of french fries or healthy proteins, fat and carbohydrates? Of course, when put like that, it’s a no-brainer. But maybe this is where the second quote here comes in… I need to apply the warmth, sympathy and understanding to myself with this current struggle of mine. Removing the judgement around my current struggles with what I eat are more likely to lead to a better outcome than continually beating myself up for what I put in my mouth. Perhaps it is that hostility towards my perceived flawed nutrition that requires the healing, rather than the nutrition itself. I suspect better nutrition would naturally result if it wasn’t dragged through such hostility on a daily basis!

Okay, so maybe there is new ground for me to cover here… The spine and astrology! I know that Dr Joe Dispenza, as well as being a respected healer, is a trained chiropractor. Whilst I don’t necessarily want to do all that training, I wonder if an adventure into the world of chiropractics might yield insights for me. Similarly, I know very little about astrology and I’m not quite sure how it may be useful to me but, until I investigate, I won’t know more!

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Natalie Leader

Natalie is a blogger with Type 1 Diabetes. Natalie's special gifts are questioning the status quo and being a rebel. She is using these gifts to question medical 'knowledge' and find a true cure for Type 1 Diabetes.

The content of the HealingT1D website is for educational and information purposes only. It does not contain medical advice. The contents of this website are not intended to substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Please always consult with your doctor, physician, or other qualified healthcare professional before making any adjustments to your routine or healthcare regime. HealingT1D and all associated with it will not be held liable for any risks or issues associated with using or acting upon the information on this site.

Healing Attention Deficit Disorder

Green Tea, Classical Music and Walks In Nature

The content of the HealingT1D website is for educational and information purposes only. It does not contain medical advice. The contents of this website are not intended to substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Please always consult with your doctor, physician, or other qualified healthcare professional before making any adjustments to your routine or healthcare regime. HealingT1D and all associated with it will not be held liable for any risks or issues associated with using or acting upon the information on this site.

Summary: The author explores how dopamine fluctuations, resulting from swinging blood sugars, impacts her ADHD-like symptoms. She links insulin levels to dopamine regulation, noting sugar’s role in affecting mood and motivation. To heal her ADHD symptoms naturally, the author adopts green tea for dopamine, classical music for focus, and nature walks for exercise and emotional balance.

I’m having one of those diabetes days… As I’m sitting here trying to write this, my blood sugars keep dropping. Oh, but wait… They’re up, they’re in range! Oh nope, they’re not. Down again. Yep, yep, got them up… Oh no, I haven’t! Ah, made it! At last, I’m back on point…!! So, anyways… Back to Healing ADD!

As I discussed in my last blog post, I believe that I’ve got Inattentive ADD (although I’ve not been officially diagnosed with it). Dr. Amen discusses in his book ‘Healing ADD’ how ‘dopamine is generally considered the neurotransmitter involved in Inattentive ADD’ (Amen, 2013 p. 104).

What Is Dopamine?

The classic introduction to Dopamine usually includes a spiel about how it is a neurotransmitter, how it works in the brain to enable a person to focus and how it gives a person motivation, desire and drive to achieve a task. Even this preliminary information is still useful to me. Taking Dr Amen’s view that dopamine is involved in ADD, it is easy for me to understand why my motivation is erratic at best and completely absent at worst.

The Other Side Of Dopamine

Knowing that dopamine is impacting my motivation towards healing is all well and good but, for me, that isn’t the full picture. As I already discussed in my post on Candace Pert’s neuroscientific work, there is no clear distinction between the ‘neurotransmitters’ of the brain (which Dopamine is classed as) and the ‘hormones’ of the body. Instead, our body consists of peptides that link communication and action between the nervous, endocrine and immune systems. Indeed, researchers now seem to be garnering support for Candace Pert’s theory…

The Link Between Insulin And Dopamine

I was interested to find a preliminary study conducted in 2007 by a group of researchers at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center that identified insulin as having an important role in the dopamine pathways in the brain

This study showed that, when insulin levels are low in the brain (which occurs when a diabetic has high blood sugar levels), the dopamine pathways in the brain is unable to produce normal levels of dopamine. I would therefore anticipate that, when a diabetic has higher than non-diabetic blood sugar levels (which occurs for most diabetics after every carbohydrate-based meal), dopamine is suppressed and ADD symptoms are likely to be present.

So, as a diabetic with unnaturally oscillating blood sugars, it’s a double whammy. If my blood sugars are out of whack, my dopamine levels are too and my motivation goes down the plughole. So then trying to get motivated to get my sugars back in range is all that bit harder! So how do I square this circle??

Sugar And ADD

I believe that, the majority of time, my dopamine must be depleted. I spend more of my time lacking in enthusiasm and energy, rather than hyperactive and overzealous (although that does occasionally happen too!). Something I also contend with on a daily basis is my cravings for sugar. I crave sugar all the time! And now I understand how these two facts are related…

Sugar provides an exogenous method for increasing dopamine levels in my system. When I eat something sugary, my brain lights up with increased dopamine levels and I get back in my groove. So every time I reach for a piece of chocolate, a slice of cake or some other sugar-rich food, I am finding a way to increase my depleted dopamine levels. But each additional sugar feeding also leads to weight gain. Indeed, it has been found that obese people have a five to ten times increased rate of ADHD than the general population.

As if that isn’t bad enough, each time I eat sugar, I am increasing dopamine levels in my system artificially, by outside means. Therefore, my brain is learning that it needs to make less dopamine endogenously because the sugar will be along soon to increase dopamine again. And so the vicious cycle begins… Dopamine levels are low in my brain, my system waits for the sugar, I eat the sugar, my brain learns it doesn’t need to manufacture its own and therefore makes even less!

How Can I Heal My ADD Naturally?

If I can find a way to naturally increase my dopamine levels, then my ADD is (or at least its symptoms are) likely to reduce or disappear. Having just discussed the benefits of removing sugar (something I did successfully during my Whole30 challenge), eliminating sugar in my diet seems like an obvious first step. But my intuition is saying no to this.

I have eaten a low-carbohydrate diet for periods of my life with success but the longest I have ever achieved was seven months. Then, Christmas came along and the deprivation I felt at not being able to eat the foods I loved was too great. Every time I have tried to eat low-carb since then, the same thing always happens.

In order to achieve great healing, both physically and emotionally, I personally need to do something that does not feel so punitive or restrictive to me. Please don’t misunderstand me… I know of several diabetics that are hugely successful long-term with low-carbohydrate eating and it brings great quality to their lives. I have great respect for their way of life. But I also believe that healing is a very individual journey and you have to respond to what feels right for you as an individual. I know that I need an alternative to low-carbing.

Initial Steps To Healing My ADD

I have a tonne of ideas about where to start with healing my ADD. But, if I’ve picked anything at all up from my reading in this area, I really think, for now (and ever after!), I need to start small. My usual plan is to go in with everything at the same time and then give up or stop with exhaustion within a month.

And most importantly…

What can I commit to now that I will be able to continue to do in the future?

To work out what to do to heal my ADD, I want to tap into my intuition, my inner wisdom. I am sure that my path to healing is already known within me, I just have to listen to it. For now, I am going to focus on only three simple things. These are my first three steps on a road of a thousand miles…

1. Green Tea

My gut instinct is still telling me that Kelly Turner’s research (see my post here) has tapped into the inherent mechanism by which the body heals from any health issue, not just cancer. So I wish to try to use her strategies where possible. Therefore, a first easy step for me is to take follow her protocol to take some herbs and/or supplements. But which ones?

I want to start small yet consistent and I feel that a cup of green tea each morning, before I have breakfast, fulfils those requirements. Green tea contains the amino acid L-theanine. L-theanine not only has a direct effect on your mental alertness, enabling your to relax, but L-theanine is also a building block for dopamine in the brain. All from a good old cup of tea!

2. Listen To Classical Music

I found a piece of neuroscientific research that found that classical music increases dopamine production in the brain.

I am not an expert on classical music, let alone its effects on my brain(!), so I was unsure which pieces of classical music should be on my playlist. Thankfully, the experts over at the ADDitude blog have already put together a list of suitable music!

I have uploaded it onto Spotify as a playlist and called it ‘Classical Music for ADHD’. I am going to hit the play button for 30 minutes every weekday morning as I get ready for my day and hopefully my dopamine levels will rise beautifully!

3. Get Out In Nature

I love nature and really don’t need any excuse to get out in it! Life is always busy and I guess I don’t prioritise doing this as much as I would like to. This one is on my list of action items for multiple reasons.

Firstly, I feel good in nature. Kelly Turner emphasises the need to increase positive emotions and reduce negative emotions as part of your healing journey. Nature does this for me.

Secondly, multiple studies highlight the direct link between exercise and increased dopamine levels. So walking in nature also ticks this box.

Thirdly, this one feels so intuitively right (although, at the moment, it’s a sweltering 30-degrees plus out my window and a part of me just wants to run and hide in a deep freezer rather than go out and walk!!). Therefore, I am going to commit to walking for at least 15 minutes in nature five days each week. Ideally, I would like to do 30 minutes but I want to make sure it is achievable rather than setting myself up to fail.

A Helping Hand…

I discussed above about the vicious cycle that is set up in ADHD where a depletion of dopamine causes you to lack the motivation necessary to make the changes that will lead to you increasing your dopamine. For example, lacking motivation means that you won’t go for that great twenty-minute run that will naturally increase your dopamine. I really struggle with this lack of motivation and therefore I am desperate to find a way to solve this Gordian Knot. And I think I may have found the answer…

Accountability Buddies!

Until I have been doing my dopamine-focussed tasks and activities long enough to have built up a more-naturally-occurring dopamine supply in my system, my motivation is likely to be sporadic or non-existent. So I am going to have to rely on the dopamine, and resulting motivation, of others!! My husband is going to be my main buddy in this but I will also be recruiting my friends into this (unbeknownst to them!). This will particularly be required for getting out in nature.

Drinking my green tea should be fairly straightforward. I have linked it to my first meal of the day. I have put my teacup on top of the plate I usually have for breakfast so hopefully that will work!

Listening to classical music for thirty minutes should be the easiest. I have asked my Amazon Alexa to play my ‘Classical Music for ADHD’ playlist at 8am each morning. So there are no excuses for that one!

Let’s see how this goes!

GET HEALINGT1D’S FUTURE ARTICLES IN YOUR INBOX!

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Natalie Leader

Natalie is a blogger with Type 1 Diabetes. Natalie's special gifts are questioning the status quo and being a rebel. She is using these gifts to question medical 'knowledge' and find a true cure for Type 1 Diabetes.

The content of the HealingT1D website is for educational and information purposes only. It does not contain medical advice. The contents of this website are not intended to substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Please always consult with your doctor, physician, or other qualified healthcare professional before making any adjustments to your routine or healthcare regime. HealingT1D and all associated with it will not be held liable for any risks or issues associated with using or acting upon the information on this site.

Intuition

My True Guide to Healing Type 1 Diabetes

The content of the HealingT1D website is for educational and information purposes only. It does not contain medical advice. The contents of this website are not intended to substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Please always consult with your doctor, physician, or other qualified healthcare professional before making any adjustments to your routine or healthcare regime. HealingT1D and all associated with it will not be held liable for any risks or issues associated with using or acting upon the information on this site.

Summary: This article explores the intersection of intuition and health, challenging the dominance of rationality in medical discourse. It delves into personal experiences where intuition guided health decisions, contrasting scientific objectivity with intuitive wisdom, emphasising its role in holistic healing approaches for conditions like Type 1 Diabetes.

I have been struggling to put this article together for quite some time. For me, this article marks the line between the more academic, rational (respectable…?!) perspective and the more spiritual elements.

I could dive off at this point and talk about all the cognitive psychology research I’ve found that supports the idea of the non-conscious mind in order to try to defend my position. After all, research highlights how the mind only focuses on 5% of the data it processes from its environment, leaving 95% to be processed outside of conscious awareness [1]. But taking that approach and dedicating my blog post to it is not something I feel would not truly honour intuition.

Intuition is not factual and scientific. It is not quantifiable, analysable or even necessarily easy to define. I am doing intuition a disservice if I try to understand it through that lens. Instead, I am going to look inwards and try to reflect on what it means to me. In this post, I want to look internally, into my own mind’s eye, rather than externally, onto data, results and statistics that may hint at what lies within.

What Is Intuition?

Have you ever had the experience of sitting in a doctor’s office when they give you a diagnosis and you immediately know it isn’t right? Or a time when you have met someone for the first time but immediately know that they are not trustworthy? Or the feeling that you must phone a friend, only to find out that, when you do, a hardship has come into their life? That feeling is what I call ‘intuition’. Some people might also refer to it as a ‘gut instinct’, ‘sixth sense’ or ‘God speaking’.

Mateo Sol, on his blog Loner Wolf, discusses how we have three types of inner intelligence: instinct, intellect and intuition:

‘Instinct’ is the base level through which we satisfy our needs, such as our need for nourishment or safety.
‘Intellect’ is our mind, our thought processes. This is the level of inner intelligence from which the majority of people in the Western world function.
‘Intuition’ is the highest of the three levels. It is connected to our souls, our inner wisdom. It is inherently linked to the spiritual and the divine, that which exists outside of ourselves.

Reading Mateo Sol’s post reminded me of the work of the neuroscientist Candace Pert. For me, her concept of a psychosomatic network parallels Mateo Sol’s level of ‘Intuition’. The psychosomatic network connects the mind and body in a holistic, reciprocal way. Indeed, Pert [2] discusses how tapping into this psychosomatic network yields awareness of, and insight into, our internal (emotional) and external (social) environments in a way that our mind cannot come close to understanding on its own.

Why Focus On Intuition?

Kelly Turner identifies ‘Intuition’ as one of the nine key factors that enable people to spontaneously heal from cancer. She discusses how the cancer survivors she interviewed believed that the body has an innate knowledge, its intuition, that can guide the person towards healing.

Intuition And My Health… So Far!

I have witnessed the influence of my own intuition on my health. For example, during my teenage years, I had been doing a lot of running and ended up with pain in my leg. I was diagnosed with a blood clot and put on treatment for three months. However, I was in pain and I intuitively knew that this was not due to the blood clot in my calf. I continued to go back to the doctor and, after much insistence on my part that there was definitely something else wrong, I was eventually diagnosed with a broken leg too!

With my diabetes, I use my intuition on a daily basis. I will sit and calculate my insulin dose for the meal but then intuitively know that the number I have derived is too high or too low. In most cases, my intuition gives me better blood sugar readings than my insulin-to-carbohydrate ratio calculations do!

Using Intuition To Heal My Type 1 Diabetes

My intuition is my guide on this journey to healing. It is guiding me on what to focus on and what to disregard in the multitude of options that promise healing. I know that, if I am going to be able to figure out what I need to do to heal my Type 1 Diabetes, I need to use everything I can… That includes my whole mind! So I am aiming to tap into the 95% of my mind that is non-conscious and therefore indicated by intuition.

So far, my intuition has guided me to start trying to heal my Type 1 Diabetes after having understood years ago that it is incurable. It has since guided me to use Kelly Turner’s [3] nine key factors for healing cancer as a basis for healing my Type 1 Diabetes. I anticipate that my intuition will continue to guide me through this path to healing.

References

1. McGilchrist, I. (2009). The Master and his emissary: The divided brain and the making of the Western world. London, UK: Yale University Press. [Link]

2. Pert, C. B. (1997). Molecules of Emotion: Why You Feel the Way You Feel. London & Sydney: Simon & Schuster. [Link]

GET HEALINGT1D’S FUTURE ARTICLES IN YOUR INBOX!

Get the latest musings and findings straight to your email inbox.

Natalie Leader

Natalie is a blogger with Type 1 Diabetes. Natalie's special gifts are questioning the status quo and being a rebel. She is using these gifts to question medical 'knowledge' and find a true cure for Type 1 Diabetes.

The content of the HealingT1D website is for educational and information purposes only. It does not contain medical advice. The contents of this website are not intended to substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Please always consult with your doctor, physician, or other qualified healthcare professional before making any adjustments to your routine or healthcare regime. HealingT1D and all associated with it will not be held liable for any risks or issues associated with using or acting upon the information on this site.

Hippocrates’ Wisdom

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Healing Attention Deficit Disorder

What can I commit to now that I will be able to continue to do in the future?

Accountability Buddies!

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Intuition

References

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