Information

Course Objectives:
1. Gain an understanding of what inflammation is and how it relates to the development of disease.

2. Develop a framework to view behaviors and coping and how they increase or reduce inflammation.

3. Use nutrition to boost your health and reduce the risk or severity of chronic diseases.

4. Understand how mindfulness practices can boost healing and reduce inflammation and how meditation can be a crucial tool.



Transcript:
Are you interested in learning more about how we can achieve optimal wellness by powering our behaviors toward healing and away from inflammation?

The course will provide an overview of the association between behavior and disease, ways to leverage nutrition to benefit health, and the importance of mindfulness practices to fortify healing and reduce stress and illness.

A disease is not merely the result of chance and “bad genes.” Much of our genomic expression relates to environmental exposures that enter our bodies, some of which lead to inflammation. Our behaviors can guide us toward or away from substances, including food, drink, substances, and harmful practices – some of which turn on the fires that damage our vascular system. 

Inflammation is the mechanism behind all diseases. The four cardinal signs of inflammation are rubor (redness), calor (heat), dolor (pain), and tumor (swelling). On a molecular level, the body seeks to restore stability, referred to as homeostasis, after an insult that leads to damage and impaired cellular respiration.

Behavior is a developed, tested response to a trauma or other environmental trigger (stimulus). As we grow more experienced, our brain develops a rapid, pattern-recognition adaptation, unique to every individual, that protects us from harm or stress. When we face a stressor, our behaviors dictate how we handle them. Some of these may lead us to exposure to harmful substances or practices as coping strategies. Gaining knowledge of these events can help us develop metacognition, an ability to understand our reactions, to hone our behaviors to take us in the direction of optimal wellness.

Optimal nutrition represents one of the most significant forces leading to health and longevity—a diet high in vegetables and fiber-rich shields our vascular systems from injury and inflammation. Many diseases, including autoimmune, rheumatologic, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer, can be modified or prevented by maintaining a high-fiber, low processed food, low simple sugar diet.

Our fate is not sealed when we receive a diagnosis. We can develop practices that forge a path toward wellness and away from disease. It often begins with a step toward a greater understanding of our intuitive sides, the reason we make decisions, choose people or things that ultimately harm us or stifle our growth, and bring us back into a cycle that seems almost unbreakable.

Mindfulness practices, such as meditation, art, music, and movement, can rewire our brains away from these destructive cycles and allow our bodies to heal – as we let go of the hold that traumas have on the brain. As we grow in these new practices, the trigger to resort to past behaviors weakens, enabling us to live in this present moment. As we transform, we bolster new patterns that place our healthy and flourishing selves as the priority.


Welcome to this course!

Course Instructors
Christopher M. Cirino, DO MPH
Iris Briand, RDN
Sydney Bright, MS




Learn more about each of the presenters by reviewing their websites:
1. Christopher M. Cirino, DO MPH
yourhealthforumbydrcirino.org
2. Iris Briand, RDN
solfoodnutrition.com
3. Sydney Bright, MS
themindfulinquisitor.com