We believe that health is an interconnected concept. First, we(humans) are bifaceted in constitution: physical and non-physical. Secondly, there is a sheer variety and probability of interactions we can have with the environment and ourselves, that create dis-ease. It follows then that if we speak of health, we must be able to tie all the parts together in harmony.

On the physical front, the medical sciences have done a great job at shedding light on what we can do to stay healthy. However, there are societal forces that place profit over people and complicate the ability for humans to achieve the wise and simple goal of good health, ceteris paribus.

Our biology is primed through evolution to feed on nature and to move. Essentially, to be a nature-friendly, calorie-efficient machine. Industrialization and modernization have reversed this trend, setting us up for the contemporary metabolic health crisis in which we find ourselves. At Spiritual Wellness and Being, we believe that prevention is foundational to health and that we must make the effort to return to the basics. This means eating fruits and vegetables frequently, staying active, and rebelling against the entrenched cultural programming of convenience feeding. Doing this alongside avoiding tobacco exposure gets rid of most preventable diseases tied to metabolism, like heart disease, cancers, diabetes mellitus, and stroke. We also support screening to keep people aware of their health and to stay a step ahead by mitigating cost and death through early treatment once a disease is present. That is why we partnered with Obiverse LLC to create the “PreventNow” platform. “PreventNow” is a smart query system that informs you about the screenings you need. You input basic, non-identifying data about yourself — age, weight, height, sex, and smoking status. Then it returns information in a split second about the screenings you need, how often to do them, and a map of nearby service centers. Its database is sourced from the recommendations of the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), which sets the evidentiary standard for preventive care advisory in the US. You can access the “PreventNow” app by downloading it from the Apple App Store.

‍ ‍Concerning the non-physical perspective, human health is largely approached from what is described as the bio-psycho-social model. This means that it is believed that mental health problems are the result of a mix of biological, psychological, and social factors. As salutary as the concept and its benefits in diagnosing and treating mental illness are, we insist on a prevention from first principles approach, as we discussed with physical health above. We believe that, apart from external stressors, mostly tied to modern society, a lack of understanding of how one’s inner world functions is more critical to the most common mental health issues we see today(anxiety and depression). That’s why we emphasize exploring the concept of “being” and the workings of the inner world as the centerpiece to a more robust mental health and the antithesis to suicidality.