 So I think one of the most damaging aspects of conventional care versus integrative or holistic medicine, whatever term you want to use, is that typically if you see your physician in a conventional care scenario, they're only looking at one piece of your problem. And some of that is another fault. Some of that is the system they're in and the sheer limitations of being incredibly busy seeing all the patients they have to. But I think this metaphor of your life and your health as a web is one of the most useful metaphors I described to my patients to help them understand how all the parts of their life, the material and the immaterial, may be affecting their health and their illness. Hey guys, Dr. Alex Hine, Chinese Medicine Doctor, acupuncturist and author of the health book, Master of the Day, and I've included two very important links below this video. The first is if you'd like to become a patient of mine, there's a link to my clinic below the video. And the second is a free download which is four daily rituals that can help you add years to your life with traditional Chinese medicine. Check that out right below this video. So I like to use this analogy of everything in your life being like a web, right? You have this health problem you may come in to see me with, for example. Maybe you're struggling with anxiety or depression. Maybe it's something related to your digestion, something related to your menstrual cycle, whatever it is. But we can become so myopic and so focused on the problem that we forget that it's related to everything else. So imagine like there's a spider web and it's your life, right? And you are somewhere in the middle here, right? Alex is in the center. And we can forget that this main problem, whatever it is, let's say it's my digestion, also has other parts of the web that are immaterial. Like do I love my job? Do I hate my job? Is this a great relationship or is it something that every time I walk into the house, I am already walking on eggshells? That's the immaterial side. As well as if you feel like your life is meaningful and purposeful. Now on the material side, that can be all the things we typically think of, right? Your diet, your exercise, medications you take, all these tangible aspects. But the problem is that because they are all a web, they all tug on each other. So you may adjust your diet and it affects something about your psychology or your emotional state on a daily basis. You may adjust your diet and you sleep better or you sleep worse. Whereas it's easy to think that the material things just affect the material aspects of your life. Or that the immaterial aspects just affect the immaterial aspects. But because they're all related, they're literally all connected. You tug over here, something tugs over here. And you tug over here, pull it up, something tugs over here. And it's the job of not only the skilled physician or the skilled healer, whatever term you want to use, but also you yourself as the patient or the person going through something to observe, if I tug here, what happens over here? So the reason this is so essential is that you can't change just one thing and expect just one thing to change. You know, let's say for example we talk about your job and you go from working 30 hours a week to more than 70 hours a week. Now that's a material change, right? It's you're physically working or you're intellectually, mentally working. But what does that do to your diet? Maybe your diet has gotten incredibly sloppy because now you're super busy, you're super stressed. Or maybe on the other side, maybe you have a lot more money and so you can afford to eat out a lot more food. Or maybe you're a business person and so you're going out every night and getting three glasses of wine with a huge plate of pasta. But that's just the material side. Now what is working those long hours do to your psychology? Maybe it turned you from a light-hearted easy-going guy or girl into someone that's pretty high-strung and who doesn't sleep well all the time. And those were historically never problems for you. What about what it does to your digestion? Even if you still eat healthy, working long hours for a lot of people ends up resulting in them ultimately having lots of bloating or miss bowel movements or even just having food sensitivities that they never had prior in their life. So these are all very common clinical symptoms that I see. Just taking that job, it pulls on all these different parts of the web but you don't always know right at the moment. Sometimes it takes a couple of years to see that. So for me the big lesson here that I often share with my patients is that we often fool ourselves into thinking that we just do one thing and it only affects one part of the web. My diet just affects my belly right. But in reality it also affects your sleep and your mood and your productivity and the way you interact with the person you're dating or you're married to. Or you just take those antidepressants and it just affects your brain right. Not at all. It affects all the other parts of you. Your weight, your sexual function, your libido, it affects your appetite, it affects everything, it affects your whole life. So I think just as a general thinking point and reflection point just remember that every action is tugging on the web in a different spot. And a lot like if you've ever actually played with the spider's web you may pull here but it also pulls there. And if you pull up here it also pulls down here. And if you operate behavioral change and habit change and even the medications you take with this perspective it can help you understand how everything is really all related. So that's what I have for today. Again if you'd like to become a patient of mine locally or via telemedicine check out the link below the video which is a link to my clinic. And there's also a free guide which is four daily rituals to help you add years to your life with traditional Chinese medicine. Then before you go I have two related videos for you here.