VITALISM

Stress

Let's face it living in New York City is stressful! Do you ever hear of anyone coming to New York to relax? Of course not. People usually find it necessary to leave the city to unwind. Why? We are constantly bombarded with noise, pollution, crowds, pollution, deadlines and other daily pressures. Sometimes the stress we encounter is more than we can handle. Your body’s nervous system, which coordinates every function, may "short circuit" and get stuck in a stress-response pattern even after the stress is over. One way to think about these "short circuits" is to think of them as programs in a computer. When the system is overloaded, it creates a new pathway (or program) to deal with the stress. The new pathway is less effective than the original one, but allows us to function with the new demands being placed on us. Ideally, with rest and recuperation we can return to our original way of being.

If, however, that stress continues for a long time or we don’t get to recuperate properly, we may never return to that original state and remain in the compromised pattern by default. As a result the body will have to work harder because this pattern is less efficient. We may begin to use muscles inappropriately and begin to develop tension, pain or limited motion. Our internal organs also working harder will require more nutrition or may start to function poorly. To top it off, the first thing we tend to do when stressed is to eat poorly and get less sleep; we cut corners on our good health habits. So now what we have is a body which is using a less-efficient program and getting poorer quality fuel to run on. This is not a formula for good health. Now, imagine this sequence of events happening a few times per year. After a few decades of this scenario, you have a body struggling to operate efficiently with many layers of “bad programming” running the show.

Enter Vitalism

Vitalism is a process of re-education. The focus of Vitalism is very simply to help you become more vital. That means teaching your body to unlearn layers and layers of bad programs. Unlike some forms of health care, Vitalism does not focus on eliminating symptoms. Symptoms can result from an “old program” or distortion pattern somewhere in the body. By trying to eliminate a symptom (usually, a secondary compensation to a stress), the body will compensate in some other way and potentially bury that stress somewhere else.

What makes the Vitalism approach unique is that it uses an evaluation process which determines which old program is currently operating and then isolates that program’s primary cause. Finding the cause of the pattern is the key. By focusing on the cause with the aid of body positioning and breathing, the body can delete it and the entire pattern, simply and completely. After a pattern is “unlearned” the body begins a cascade of corrections, which may last days to weeks to months depending on the overall health of the individual. During the Vitalism process, issues such as parasites, digestion, detoxification, muscular trigger points, and tissue adhesions are addressed in the appropriate sequence so the body can deal with them most effectively.