I saw this question raised online last week. A woman was inquiring about the dreadful statistics of Americans given that everyone she asks claims to eat healthfully.

It really got me thinking about the state of the world in which people try their best to look after themselves and fail.

Unsurprisingly, I have a lot to say about this!

In fact, I could probably write a book about my thoughts on this subject. I don’t have the energy to do that as I spend some much time on cultivating my own health. But as I pondered, two key factors have floated up to the top of my list of key offenders.

One. Chronic stress. Stress is normalized, even celebrated in our culture. It’s normal for people to spend more than half of their waking hours in a toxic work environment. The more you work, the busier you are, the more stress you have, the better. That’s the upside-down message we receive in this crazy society.

This is not healthy! If this describes your everyday reality, know that you’re going to need to take action to mitigate the effects of chronic stress by learning to regulate your nervous system and/or metabolize the physiological impact of being chronically disregulated.

We now know the damaging effects of a constant cortisol drip, but for many of us, there doesn’t seem to be an alternative. The system is rigged against us. Dropouts, misfits, and revolutionaries are able to escape this insanity, but you need to be a risk-taker to go this route.

Two. We’ve lost touch with our inner wisdom and turn to external “experts” for strategies about health. With so many doctors being specialists in one narrow corner of medicine, few have the big picture of wellness in mind. If you’re lucky enough to be able to afford a functional medicine doctor or homeopath, you’re still having to battle uphill against societal norms.

So often I hear people talking about their “healthy choices” and feel surprised at what they consider to be healthy. Low fat? Low carb? There’s so much conflicting information out there. So many of our strategies are influenced by advertisements sneakily disguised and normalized by repetition.

Milk- it does a body good. Remember this campaign from the 80’s? It an advertisement paid for by the dairy council! Milk may or may not be good for your body- we’re all different. But that isn’t a catchy slogan that people will recall for decades.

Trident- it’s what 2 out of 3 dentists recommend for their patients who chew gum. Another ad from my childhood. It sounds like dentists are promoting sugar-free gum, right? But I don’t think any dentist suggests chewing gum. They are definitely opposed to sugar-laden gum like good-ole Hubba Bubba, but I can’t see that any are promoting gum itself.

And 2 out of 3? Not out of every dentist, just those surveyed. Do you think that Trident was careful in its selection of dentists to survey? Yeah.

I don’t remember much from my college days, but I took Statistics and the professor spelled out all the different ways you can lie with numbers by carefully crafting statements to reflect the preferred outcome.

We’ve been overtly and covertly influenced by information that is designed to mislead us, to make us feed bad about ourselves, to believe that if we just purchase this or that, all will be well. But capitalism is about selling stuff, not creating wellness, and there’s a heck of a lot more purchasing going on by people who want to be well than by people who are well.

Ok, one more reason I can’t ignore.

Three. Our food supply is full of crap. We tinker with the genetic material of plants in a lab. If that doesn’t freak you out, one of the reasons for this tinkering is to make plants strong enough to survive a chemical pesticide that is so deadly, it would kill the plant otherwise. Then those plants are manufactured into “food”, along with residue of that toxic chemical.

Yum.

Labels are deliberately misleading. Recipes are engineered to be super-addictive so people buy more and more and more.

The whole system is whacked.

If you’re struggling with health despite doing your best, it’s not your fault. Billions of dollars are invested to fool you.

Please don’t despair! That’s not good for your health either. The situation isn’t hopeless. I wouldn’t be writing this post just to leave you feeling depressed.

Reiki can help.

It can help relieve stress, detoxify your body, and amplify your connection to your inner wisdom, clarity, motivation and intuition. Every day it helps me figure out my priorities and move in the direction I want to go.

It’s not your fault that this world is so unhealthy. But if you want to have a different experience than the one you’ve been having, it is your responsibility to do something different. That could mean changing your job, shopping at a farmers market and preparing more of your meals at home, or working with a naturopath.

Or schedule a Reiki session for yourself once or twice each month to build up your life-force energy and manage your stress. You don’t even need to go anywhere- distance treatments can be received from wherever you are with very little effort. Just click a few buttons, share your goals, and sit back to soak it all up.