Wellness and the myth of balance, part three: your body is actually quite clever

In this series, I explore the concept of “balance” as it is peddled in the multi-trillion dollar wellness industry. I explore why I think balance as a goal is unrealistic, false, and sometimes dangerous.

In part one of this series, I explained why perfect balance is philosophically unsound. In part two, I explored how our pre-industrial ancestors did not have balance. The remainder of this series will explore how we attain the kinds of balance we ultimately need.

Despite my cherished rant about the wellness industry’s obsession with perfect balance, the idea is not entirely wrong. The wellness/ peak performance people want us to adopt all the small things shown to optimize wellbeing across multiple facets of human life. As a healthcare provider, I understand that excesses in lifestyle can lead to disastrous outcomes. Our nation remains plagued by addiction, malnutrition, an ongoing national mental health crisis, and unsustainable wealth disparity. It is clear our spinning top is wobbling at a dangerous angle. So how should we strive for balance? That is what I will explore in this and subsequent essays.

In part one, I explained about taking pie slices from the Yin Yang symbol, and seeing the dominance of Yin or Yang in any slice, depending on where you take it. Ultimately, however, Yin and Yang are perfectly balanced over the course of the entire cycle. I referenced this idea of balance over time again in part two, noting our ancestors cycled between periods of intense activity, and periods of relative rest. Now I want to explore how your body is made to handle the rise and fall of Yin and Yang.

Your body is packed with systems that have adaptability and resilience built in. For example, your blood sugar balancing system is made to handle an influx of fuel when food is available, and pull fuel from storage when food is not. We are not bound to keep a constant drip of fuel going by mouth because our body has this store and retrieve capacity. Our body also shifts resources around based on what we are trying to do. If we are trying to hunt our next meal, our body sends more blood and fuel to the extremities, where we need our muscles at full strength and endurance to chase down whatever beast looks delicious. When we are resting and trying to digest that meaty, fatty beast, our body sends more resources to the digestive system. Many peoples around the globe historically were subject to periods of food scarcity, and these systems of resilience are what allowed our ancestors to survive the vagaries of food availability. Our ancestors’ lives were often marked by periods of overeating and under-eating.

We also now know we can not only endure periods of fasting, but also benefit from them. From ancient traditions of religious fasting to the modern concept of intermittent fasting, research is piling up on how limited periods of food scarcity improve our bodies across multiple systems.

Many of us think of our hearts as being critical organs subject to stopping without notice. That’s not wrong, but your heart is also capable of continuing to work under very sub-optimal conditions. The ideal heart has great valves, enough and open arteries for fuel supply, strong muscle but not too strong, and a great sense of rhythm. Plenty of hearts on this earth are operating with bad valves, blocked arteries, weak or dead muscle, or poor rhythm. Your heart is actually quite tolerant of a lot of different conditions. It responds to periods of increased demand with a faster rate, and will even increase its capacity over time if you ask for that, such as with athletic training.

Totally willing to work under appalling conditions

Even our moods have long term resilience and adaptability built in. Your body does not want you to be too happy or too sad for very long. If you feel very sad, your brain makes adjustments to bring you back to center. If you feel very happy, it does the same. These are just a few examples from a truly glorious expression of natural adaptation. Taken altogether, these systems create what biology terms homeostasis, or the tendency of a biological system to return to a state of balance. Our bodies are so much tougher and more resilient than micro-managed wellness practices give them credit for.

Not only are our bodies astonishingly adaptable to the cycles of Yin and Yang, mounting evidence suggests our bodies benefit from some kinds of stress. Our ancestors did not live placid, balanced lives in perfect harmony with nature. They lived in a changing, cyclical world full of danger, scarcity, and challenge. You have the same body.

I must pause to talk about disease. Not everyone has as much resilience in every system as I describe. Some of us, sadly, got a lemon. Some people have hearts that just can’t handle much. Some people have brains prone to mood disorders. Some people survive terrible events, but their adaptability is forever diminished. This discussion of balance over time is in no way meant to suggest that people who must carefully balance their lives to accommodate a weakened system merely lack faith or fortitude. Truly, modern medicine has allowed us to survive events or weaknesses that would have been fatal for our ancestors, and survivors of those events must needs pay closer attention to day to day balance. For the rest of us, however, we need to show greater respect for just how strong we are.

Where, then, do we draw the line?

For me, this question often comes down to two considerations. One, what are you here to do? And two, how high is the cost?

Peak performance, a life dedicated to doing every one of those wellness practices, is a full time job. Rising early because the most productive people do that, using tech, minimizing tech, cooking all your own food, buying organic everything, intermittent fasting, meditation, yoga, strength training, cardio, skin care, satisfying hobbies, etc., takes an enormous amount of time, money, and effort. What else are you doing with your life? Are you here to spend all your time optimizing your physical body? Or are you here to be a family and community member, interacting with and contributing to others, sharing your sparkly soul qualities with your friends and neighbors?

What are you willing to sacrifice for peak performance? Are you giving up any social activities that involve food because of your dedication to clean eating? Do you lack time for the people and activities you love because you are overscheduled with wellness activities? Are you stifling your creativity because you don’t have time to engage the boredom that leads us to creative thought?

It is my belief that we are here for more than just optimal wellness. How we spend our time and effort should manifest our soul’s purpose. Our bodies are the indispensible vehicles that allow us to express that purpose and share it with others in this world. For that reason, we should respect and care for the body in its holy position as the dwelling of our souls. But the wellness drive for balanced perfection does our souls a disservice by elevating the body to its own end, devaluing the tremendous resilience of the body, and depriving us of genuine human happiness by imposing an overly-structured and restricted way of living.

Any particular day may have over or under-eating, working hard or taking it easy, staying up too late or sleeping in, too much of one kind of food and too little of another. But our bodies are made for precisely that, and our brilliant homeostatic systems, over time, will balance the whole thing quite nicely. Maybe that will free up some time to be an awesome parent, partner, or best friend.