James M. Rippe, an American cardiologist and founder and director of ‘the Rippe Lifestyle Institute’, created the term “Lifestyle Medicine” in 1999.
According to Dr. Guthrie – president of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM) – Lifestyle Medicine is the fastest growing area of medicine at the moment.
What exactly is Lifestyle Medicine?
Lifestyle medicine is a branch of medicine, which deals with researching, preventing, treating and even reversing chronic diseases and autoimmune conditions, caused by lifestyle factors. (American College of Lifestyle Medicine, ACLM)
Now, if you are confused by the medical terminology, don’t worry, we will get into everything and, hopefully, make it clearer to you by the end of this article.
Let’s return to the medical terminology one more time…
Lifestyle medicine believes in bettering 6 pillars of your lifestyle, in order to take control and bettering your life and health as a whole.
These vary from nutrition, physical activity, to also chronic stress.
According to the ACLM, all pillars are all fundamental pieces in the optimal equation for health. (American College of Lifestyle Medicine, ACLM)
These 6 pillars, according to ACLM, are as follows:
Nutrition
1. Nutrition: Lifestyle medicine believes in a well-rounded diet, filled with plant based foods, rich in fiber and nutritional value. These include vegetables, fruit, beans, whole grains, nuts and seeds. (American College of Lifestyle Medicine, ACLM)
Exercise
2. Exercise: Fundamental to overall physical and mental health. (American College of Lifestyle Medicine, ACLM)
Stress
3. Stress: Lifestyle medicine believes in helping individuals to use relaxation techniques to cope with the negative stress triggers, whilst using the positive ones to increase productivity. (American College of Lifestyle Medicine, ACLM)
Sleep
4. Sleep: Not enough sleep or poor quality sleep can lead to strained immune system and, according to ACLM, there is a need to identify and eradicate our behaviors that reduce the effectiveness of sleep. (American College of Lifestyle Medicine, ACLM)
Substance abuse
5. Substance abuse: Using damaging addicting substances, such as smoking and alcohol, can increase the risk of cancers and heart disease.
Therefore, by eradicating smoking and limiting the use of alcohol, overall health can be bettered. Instead, positive behaviors should be implemented. (American College of Lifestyle Medicine, ACLM)
Relationships
6. Relationships: ACLM mentions social interactions as “emotional resiliency”. Reducing isolation and bettering the at home and community environments can increase overall health. (American College of Lifestyle Medicine, ACLM)
Where Orbis comes in…
We’re here to make sure that the world is aware of the beauty of good lifestyle choices and life changing effects that bad choices and behaviors have on the overall health of individuals.
We want to bring lifestyle medicine to the world, with our online platform and our creation of a real “lifestyle medicine movement”.
We have slight differences to the official lifestyle medicine pillars, as we wanted to bring two additional pillars to life.
The aspects and pillars of lifestyle medicine for us at Orbis are as follows:
Nutrition
Nutrition
1. Nutrition: Which relates to dietary supplements, medical foods, and functional foods.
Exercise
Exercise
2. Exercise: This is defined by the entire spectrum of movement, from anaerobic to aerobic or from mild to vigorous.
Stress Management
Stress Management
3. Stress Management: How that affects behavior, such as mind body medicine, psychosocial influences, and social networks.
At Orbis we decided to combine stress and sleep into one singular pillar, “Stress Management”.
Environment
Environment
4. Environment: The exposure to contaminants and toxins present around us in our environment and nature, can lead to what is called “toxin burden in physiological systems”. Therefore, environmental impact is also considered at Orbis.
This relates directly to chronic diseases and we aim at decreasing said burden and; therefore, doing our best to decrease the overall negative toxins and contaminants, or the effects of them, present in our bodies.
Relationships
Relationships
5. Healthy relationships: This pillar makes sure that mental health is looked after just as much as the physical, through healthy and happy relationships.
Anti Aging
Anti Aging
6. Anti Aging: Chosen to be on Orbis Lifestyle’s pillars list by us. We decided to base this pillar around making individuals focus on how to increase their longevity. This way, one can be beautiful on the inside just as much as the outside.
What we wish for with Lifestyle Medicine
By implementing lifestyle medicine to individuals, making them more health conscious and apart of something bigger, is our purpose.
We truly believe that not only us as individuals, but the entire world can benefit from the “lifestyle medicine movement” that we at Orbis wholeheartedly believe in.
Help us make this into a reality and live life at 360°!
