The Importance of Maintaining Balance

Lacey Fritzler

Curated Paper 1

October 9, 2020

The Importance of Maintaining Balance

Bill Gates once said, “The human body is the most complex system ever created. The more we learn about it, the more appreciation we have about what a rich system it is.” Bill Gates is the co-founder of Microsoft and understands complicated computer systems. The body is more complex than that. There are many pathways and signals that all play a major role in maintaining balance to keep the body healthy. Some examples of this are regulating temperature, blood sugar, and pH. If something goes to either extreme, the body may not be able to function or, depending on the severity, may cause death. Body balance has to be maintained. One practice of keeping balance is called Ayurveda.

Ayurveda at the very core is balance. It is the balance between mind, body, and spirit. How does mental health affect physical health? Will mental trauma lead to physical pain? Can a good mood be healing? It is the oldest medical practice and stemmed from cultural and religious beliefs which has been growing in popularity over time. According to an article posted Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine called Ayurveda: Between Religion, Spirituality, and Medicine has been growing in popularity and is starting to be recognized as a Whole System of Medicine. It started as traditional medicine in South Eastern Asia countries and fully practiced  alongside traditional medicine. They have registered Ayurvedic physicians who were taught in special universities to practice Ayurveda (Kessler et al., 2013). The practice of Ayurveda is said to help with any diseases whether physical or mental. 

Psychosomatic symptoms are real symptoms that can be felt as a result of the mind and not an actual physical thing issue. For example, someone may get stomach ulcers after an extremely stressful event. These are very hard to treat because it is something that is mental and, therefore, may not be completely cured in the usual way. However, Ayurveda can be a possible answer and treatment. The Psychosomatic Disorders and Their Management in Ayurveda which was originally published in Ancient Sciences of Life talks about how Ayurveda can help in two ways: prevention and treatment. For prevention, it mentions that the environment has to be changed and the personality has to be trained. Yoga is a good way to do this because it helps to strengthen someone physically and mentally which can help prevent these psychosomatic disorders. That being said, any moral and spiritual teachings or “psychosomatic health promoting practices'' can help. As for treatment, there are two parts. The first is psychosomatic treatments and the correction of the environment. These help control stress and manage where the problem is stemming from. The second part is medical and surgical treatments in the event they are needed (Singh et al., 2016).  Sometimes, a problem arises that can not be fixed so easily and so some interventions have to be taken.

The mind is extremely powerful and complicated. It makes you breathe, your heart beat, keeps digestion going, regulates body temperature, fights disease, and more all without a conscious thought. It maintains homeostasis and keeps you from getting killed. Even with all that power and ability, the brain can struggle. For example, there are many factors someone may cause self-harm including psychiatric and psychological factors. Furthermore, the people who are most at risk for doing this are the people who have negative or traumatic experiences in their life. They are self-destructive because it is a way to deal with the mental anguish they experience. That is physical pain as a result of mental pain. The same can be said about how mental issues can manifest physically by disease. In a TED talk given by Dr. Nadine Burke Harris said that the CDC in the nineties found that people who have experienced significant childhood trauma “have triple the lifetime risk of heart disease and lung cancer and a twenty year difference in life expectancy” (Harris, 2015). That is mental pain that manifests physically by disease. On a slightly different vein, being mentally impaired can influence a person’s ability to overcome a disease. Sigmund Freud, a famous psychologist, believed that stress, for example, impairs someone’s ability to heal. He has been proven right over and over again. In short, there is a definite connection between the mental and physical parts of the body, but there is also an undeniable connection between all the physical pathways that make the body function.  

Metabolism are the chemical processes that happen in cells to maintain life. There are two different types, anabolic and catabolic pathways. Anabolism is the building of compounds that the cells need while catabolic pathways are the ones that break down molecules to use them as energy. These are important to living organisms because it keeps them alive and healthy. Metabolism is a tightly regulated system that is made up of many different processes which are full of checks and balances. They are managed through positive and negative feedback loops. Positive feedback loops are when there is a change in one direction that makes it continue in that direction. Negative feedback loops, however, are when a change in one direction causes a trigger that moves it back in the other direction. If something were to go wrong in a feedback loop, it would throw off metabolism. One example of a process that does not work properly is diabetes. 

Diabetes is an imbalance in the body's ability to process and store glucose. There are different types of diabetes and it is important to understand them all, but to do that, it is essential to understand what is supposed to happen normally. Blood sugar is a negative feedback loop which means the body is constantly adjusting to maintain homeostasis. When a person eats, the body gets glucose which raises the person’s blood sugar. This triggers the beta cells in the pancreas to release insulin into the bloodstream. The insulin triggers the cells to open up and use a glucose transporter protein to take glucose into the cell. This lowers the blood sugar to the desired level. Any leftover glucose is stored in the liver as glycogen. When the blood sugar falls below the desired levels, the alpha cells in the pancreas are triggered and these release glucagon which goes to the liver causing it to break down glycogen into glucose. This gets released and the blood sugar levels are increased. This is an important feedback loop because it keeps the body in homeostasis and makes sure the cells have enough energy to function. This is also a complicated process with many steps. The blood sugar is also constantly being monitored so these steps could be triggered at any point. With all these steps, if something were to go wrong, the whole system would not function correctly. The different types of diabetes affect this loop.  

Diabetes is an epidemic because there is a high mortality rate and many people have or will have it. People of all races, genders, and economic status can develop diabetes (Bassett, 2005). However, diabetes is not the only problem. There are other metabolic disorders that occur when a person is not eating correctly, not exercising, or partaking in other risky behaviors. All metabolic disorders have greater implications. It can not be ignored and more advocacy is needed. Advocates for better treatment and therapies for those who have it. Advocates for people choosing a healthier lifestyle so they do not end up sicker or dead. 

The body is truly amazing. There are so many metabolic pathways that make a person function and live. There are checks and balance systems put in place to make sure nothing is too extreme or out of control. Metabolism keeps the body in homeostasis. And all of this, is run and monitored by the brain. As discussed with Ayurveda, a healthy body means a healthy mind and a healthy mind keeps a healthy body. If the mind or body is not healthy, other problems could arise that are hard to reverse or cure. So it is vital that everyone does all they can to help keep themselves healthy and balanced.

References

Bassett, M. (2005, September). Diabetes is epidemic. Retrieved September 30, 2020, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1449387

Harris, N. B. (Director). (2015, February 17). How childhood trauma affects health across a lifetime [Video file]. Retrieved September 18, 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95ovIJ3dsNk&t=392s

Kessler, C., Wischnewsky, M., Michalsen, A., Eisenmann, C., & Melzer, J. (2013). Ayurveda: between religion, spirituality, and medicine. Evidence-based complementary and alternative medicine : eCAM, 2013, 952432. 

Singh, A. K., Panda, R. K., Singh, M., & Parida, A. N. (2016). Psychosomatic disorders and its management through Ayurveda. Ancient Science of Life, 5(01), 4764. 10.21746