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At its most fundamental and primitive level, life depends upon surviving in the jungle. Those individuals who adapt to their environment will survive and thrive through natural selection. Ideally, their bodies will function at optimal levels, in balance with the environment and in an efficient state of homeostasis. Hopefully, they will also be conforming to the definition of health as described in Webster's dictionary, which is "an optimum state of physical, mental and social well being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity." If a person is not functioning or feeling well physically, however, they will not be in a state of physiological balance and this will have a negative effect on their clarity of thought and action. Their relationships with family, society and their environment will also start to suffer - in other words, they will not to be able to survive as well in the jungle.

When you examine the "jungle" from a modern or even an historical perspective there are only three main categories of stressors that affect us. They are the structural, the chemical and the emotional - which is why I follow a model called the Triad of Health. Simply put, the Triad of Health looks at these three broad areas of external influence which feed into our human computers and affect the way we think, feel and act. When in balance these forces form an equilateral triangle as seen here.

Whenever a person experiences poor health, however, one of these variables is out of kilter. In the case of a severe health challenge or chronic problem, two or even all three may be skewed and contributing to the situation of ill health. A simple example would be the case of an athlete who pulls a muscle in his mid-back which results in a spasm that pulls the fifth thoracic (a mid-back vertebra) out of alignment. The nerve passing through this location is partly responsible for supplying energy or power to the liver. Irritation and injury in this region may compromise liver function, which includes cleansing the blood of toxins or impurities. In other words, this injury to the back may now result in the patient not being able to tolerate certain foods or environmental stressors and gradually becoming more toxic as he cannot eliminate properly.

This example can also work the other way around because nerve pathways are two-way streets. A person who is drinking too much coffee (a toxin of the bloodstream), sugar, or meat may place excess stress on their liver which then causes increased or hyperactivity to the pathway from the liver to the spinal cord to the brain. This can result in weakness at the level of the fifth thoracic vertebra, which then leads to a chronic backache. I've seen many patients who have fruitlessly visited a plethora of health professionals to cure their sore back, when the solution was as simple as cutting back on coffee or adjusting their diet. I have also seen many patients whose food sensitivities disappeared when their back problem was corrected.

When correcting the cause of any imbalance all three factors - structural, chemical and emotional - must be taken into account so that therapeutic efforts can be targeted at the underlying cause of a problem. This is the consummate beauty of Applied and Specialized Kinesiology. Its techniques enable me to evaluate the triad's state of balance, trace the problem back to its precise root, and assist the body to repair itself. It is vital to understand that a physical symptom may have an emotional or chemical cause, or vice versa. The bottom line is: If the primary factor remains untreated, the condition will persist or even worsen, requiring repeat treatments which are costly and time-consuming to the patient, not to mention ineffective in the long run.

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