Unstress 2020: Episode 1: Dr Ron Ehrlich

Dr Ron Ehrlich: Hello and welcome to Unstress. I’m Dr Ron Ehrlich and a happy new year. This is 2020, now 2020 interestingly is a term that is often used to describe perfect vision and I hope it describes what 2020 will be for all of us – clearer, perfect vision about where we are headed as an individual, as a community and as a nation, and as a global community as well.

This is an opportunity for me to kick start the year with a short podcast which outlines where we are. I mean, the mission statement as I articulated two years ago when I started doing this Unstress podcast was simply this. I see life as a balancing beam if you like, on one side of the balancing, beam are the stresses in life that have the potential to break us down. Anything I do, I believe that has the ability to compromise our immune system or to promote chronic inflammation is a stressor.

And to that effect, I’ve been focusing on the five stressors, which has guided my clinical practice over the last 35 years. It has also guided the book that I wrote ‘A Life Less Stressed: the five pillars of health and wellness. On the one hand there are five stresses and they are emotional, environmental, postural, nutritional and dental stress. And to my regular listeners, you will be familiar with why that is important.

So that’s one side of the balancing beam on the other side of the balancing beam, are the pillars of health that build resilience. And arguably there’s never been a more important time in our world, in our lives to build resilience and we need a structure to do that as well. So focusing on the five pillars of health, which include sleep, breathe, nourish, move, and think are an excellent way of building health and wellness into your life.

So on one side we’re identifying and minimizing the stresses in life that have the potential to compromise our health. And on the other side we have those factors which will help us build resilience. And in between that, the pivot on which that balancing beam exists is our genes. And, and we are not victims to our genes because another aspect of our genes is epigenetics. And that is the way our genes express themselves. Now if thoughts are things and they are, there are transmitters which attach onto cell membranes and cause our genes to express themselves in a particular way.

Then on the other side of the scale, uh, nutrients and environmental toxins that also have the potential to attach onto cell membranes and cause our genes to express themselves in a certain way. So that if you like is the balancing beam. Now another aspect that has always intrigued me and living in Sydney, Australia, living in Australia in this time where we are ravaged by the reality of climate change.

I also have been interested over the last 10, 15 years or more to explore the politics of healthcare and the influence of the chemical food, fossil fuel and pharmaceutical industry in all levels of healthcare and government. And I think that is something which we should all be engaged in and be aware of. Now while reflecting on last year, I noted, and if you go back to the last episode of last year where we did the year in review, I focused on regenerative agriculture. Uh, primarily last year.

In fact, I did. I think we did nine or 10 episodes on that very subject. And I honestly believe we each need to be in engaged in agriculture because you know, every single day we put food into our mouths and that food has come from agriculture and that agriculture determines whether we are eating nutrient dense foods or not, how many chemicals we exposed to where the soil is being degraded in that process.

And what kind of world are we leaving, not just for ourselves but for our future generations. And I have children and I have grandchildren and I would like to think that I am leaving them a better world than I found in it at the moment. I honestly can’t say I’m doing that. So this is a journey for me, which I’m sharing with you. I’m not pretending that I have all the answers that is most certainly not the case.

And when I wrote this book A Life Less Stressed, I also had to remind people that looked at me and said, wow, that’s so impressive, Ron, you’ve written this book. And I go, yeah, look, it’s aspirational. It’s not autobiographical. So listen, I’ve only been in clinical practice for 40 years, so I am not going to pretend that I have all the answers. I am still on a very steep learning curve, but this year we are going to be focusing on unstressed, the podcasts where I continue to interview people in all of those areas of stressors, of pillars, of politics, of public health that I want to share with you.

And I’m also going to be doing two other shorter things, which I will be putting out on the same platforms. And that is Good Bytes and Green Bytes, which we’ll explore without guests, just articles that I’ve read or for that matter that you’ve read and want to share with the broader community. So I really invite you to communicate with me cause I want this community to grow and I want this community to be part of the solution.

So Good Bytes will be about interesting articles which follow that, that framework that I’ve outlined in my mission. And I also want to do Green Bytes because again, I am on a steep learning curve. I have been doing things which I hope are environmentally friendly that make a difference to not just my health but the, the world, the public health and, and world health because they’re all interconnected.

So if there are things that are coming up in my life that are making a difference, I want to share them with you. But Hey, this is a community and we can build on that community. So if you have good ideas, I will share them with our community and they will be called Green Bytes. So also this year I’m going to have an online course, but I am determined in the second half of the year to run wellness retreats and invite some of the guests that I’ve had on my show to join me in these wellness retreats.

And we’ll be doing some live workshops, which I think are going to be really exciting and really inspiring and spreading that message of if the change is going to come, it has to come from the ground up. And I just want to be part of that conversation. So look, that’s the first episode for 2020 a year of perfect. Well, perfect. But let’s hope clear a vision. 2020 vision. And let’s look at what we have available to us now. We do not need, well, new innovations are always welcome, but we have enough now to make a big difference. So let’s get this thing going. So until next time, this is Dr Ron Ehrlich, be well.

This podcast provides general information and discussion about medicine, health, and related subjects. The content is not intended and should not be construed as medical advice or as a substitute for care by a qualified medical practitioner. If you or any other person has a medical concern, he or she should consult with an appropriately qualified medical practitioner. Guests who speak in this podcast express their own opinions, experiences, and conclusions.