My journey with natural health - A blog-post for Health2000

Below is a blog written for Health2000's website which I thought I'd share here also.. A little insight into what made we want to get into natural health and nutrition and how I wish to use this qualification one day! A quick one this week - Enjoy xx My name is Vaida and I’ve been a Registered Nurse for coming up three years now. Over this time, I’ve spent the majority of doing ward nursing and, more recently, have switched to emergency nursing. Nursing is rewarding, challenging, hilarious, exhausting and heart-wrenching at times. It is such a special career which has brought me many experiences, tears, laughs and people I will never forget. But, it has also brought with it its fair share of challenges, and being at the front line has taught me a thing or two about our health system.

The problem with the current system It is very apparent that, as a society, we are becoming less and less healthy as time goes on. Time and time again, this is linked to the lifestyles we lead. We can use an app to have whatever food we like arrive right at our doorstep, exercise machines advertised on infomercials cheat the system by involving no physical movement or effort on our behalves, and our foods contain more and more ingredients that our bodies can’t digest. It is no wonder our health is deteriorating!  Working in a ward opened my eyes to just how unhealthy our population is becoming. My time in a ward setting has already seen chronic disease from eczema to diabetes, eating disorders, renal failure to heart failure, and often we would see the same people back time and time again with the same symptoms or potentially progression of their disease.  In each of these conditions, I see the potential for holistic solutions - lifestyle and dietary changes which could improve outcomes. It all starts with you, but so many people don’t seem to understand this or had never been taught this, and from my perspective this is so frustrating to see. I feel as though the missing piece within our health system has become more apparent. As a health system we deal with acute illness extremely effectively however, the re-presentation after re-presentation of chronic disease sufferers highlights a gap in the system.  There seems to be huge gap in education regarding how at-risk people could actually live healthier lives to improve their outcomes through changes to their diet and lifestyle. So, how are these people ever going to break this cycle? The sad truth is most of them don’t.   Why naturopathy? Amidst my first few years of nursing, I too had some health troubles which I sought help from a naturopath for and I witnessed first-hand the power of holistic medicine. Simple, guided lifestyle and dietary changes in conjunction with herbal medicine helped me to beat gut dysbiosis and completely revamp my gut microbiome. This fixed my problematic skin, my energy levels and helped me to regain a regular menstrual cycle after being diagnosed with Poly-Cystic Ovarian Syndrome and being told I’d need medication if I ever wanted to have babies or have a regular cycle.  Of course, these are minor concerns when compared to some chronic diseases, but it showed me the huge impact holistic health can have. I have complete faith that with commitment and dedication to holistic health interventions, people can improve their quality of life and health. Witnessing the vicious cycle of chronic disease first-hand and experiencing such benefit from my own naturopath and commitment to holistic health is what encouraged me to embark on studying naturopathy and nutrition myself. With this qualification, I hope to one day combine my scientific, westernised, medicine-based medical knowledge with my new holistic health perspective for a well-rounded, sustainable and both mentally and physically enhancing manner.