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Natural Awakenings Northwest Florida

What is Lifestyle Medicine: Part 2

Jan 31, 2023 05:36PM ● By Erin Mayfield, DO, DipABLM, DipAOBOG

In the January issue, we introduced the Six Pillars of Health in my article What is Lifestyle Medicine on page 20. Three of the pillars—plant-centered eating, restorative sleep, and exercise—were covered in that article. Let’s continue our journey and explore the remaining three pillars—stress reduction, avoidance of risky substances, and positive relationships. 

Stress Reduction

We are surrounded with environmental pressures: our job, overuse of electronics, lack of sleep, poor diet, and sedentary lifestyle. It is a vicious cycle.

Getting caught in this cycle contributes to stress and our reaction to those stresses is critical. However, we have a lot more control over how we react to stress than we realize.

Did you know that stress changes our genetics? The way stress is managed can lengthen or shorten the ends of our chromosomes; the area known as the “telomeres.” Longer telomeres equal a longer, healthier life.

Meditation alone has been shown to change gene expression, lengthen telomeres, and decrease inflammation—with improvement seen in as little as eight weeks. With regular practice, our brains can form new neural connections, allowing us to feel calmer—even with the busy lives that we lead. 

Avoidance of Risky Substances

Risky substances include any category of chemicals—legal or illegal—that has a destructive effect on our bodies and alters the chemical balance in our brains.

The list is long—the obvious ones include alcohol, cigarettes, and illegal drugs such as cocaine or heroin. Prescription opioids and fentanyl—along with the equine tranquilizer xylazine—have been mixed with street drugs to cause increasing numbers of overdose deaths. The less obvious substances are marijuana, kratom and the inhalants in glue, gasoline and cleaning solvents—to name a few. 

Positive Relationships

Positive, loving relationships are an essential component of our lives and spiritual well-being. Meaningful connections help buffer stress, lift us up, and are emotionally sustaining. Opening our hearts to others is nourishing to our souls and helps us build resilience and strength. 

Group support sessions are an integral part of lifestyle medicine. It builds trust and connection and is meant to be a safe place where we can openly express ourselves without fear. 

The most healing ways we can approach others are with kindness, compassion, understanding, tenderness and patience. The more joy, peace and unconditional love we can cultivate in our lives, the better our relationships will be with others. 

Modern technology has gifted us the ability to study the most microscopic changes in our tissues and cells to understand what drives disease formation and how we can personally impact our future health and longevity. Our everyday activities have the most profound effect on how we feel and function—even from hour to hour. 

Our habits not only affect our lives, but they affect our friends, our loved ones—even the future generations of our families. The better we feel, the more peace we will have, and the more love we will have to share.  

Lifestyle Medicine is for Everyone

The Six Pillars of Health are for everyone. They include whole plant-centered eating, physical activity, healthy sleep, stress management, avoidance of risky substances, and loving relationships.  Lifestyle Medicine science is grounded in decades of evidenced-based research and clinical application. It’s the medical specialty that provides the missing link between traditional medicine and true restoration of health.

Lifestyle changes all work together to improve resiliency, health and longevity. It’s time to give ourselves the gift of health. 



Erin Mayfield, DO, DipABLM, DipAOBOG, Harvard certified Chef Coach, is the new Medical Advisor for the Northwest Florida edition of Natural Awakenings magazine.  She created her private lifestyle medicine practice at the beginning of the pandemic in early 2020, delivering programs through a telemedicine platform so people can access services in the privacy of their homes. The coaching program includes live sessions and cooking classes. New offerings include on-site culinary medicine workshops and classes being held at Ever'man Cooperative Grocery and Cafe in Pensacola, FL, in addition to corporate wellness packages. For more information, visit LifestyleMedicineWellnessandRecovery.com


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