a Creative Commons license.

Health Insider Reveals the 5 Hidden

Secrets Your Doctor Prays You’ll
Never Find Out About
Jed Diamond, Ph.D. has been a health-care professional for the last 45 years.
He is the author of 8 books, including Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places,
Male Menopause, The Irritable Male Syndrome, and Mr. Mean: Saving Your
Relationship from the Irritable Male Syndrome. He offers counseling to men,
women, and couples in his office in California or by phone with people throughout
the U.S. and around the world. To receive a Free E-book on Men’s Health and a
free subscription to Jed’s e-newsletter go to www.MenAlive.com.

In 1965 I graduated from U.C. Santa Barbara and began medical training in
Northern California at U.C. San Francisco Medical School. I was young,
idealistic and wanted to heal the world. After the first semester I dropped out…
well, at least I tried to drop out. Before they would let me leave I had to see a
psychiatrist.

Then, as now, it wasn’t easy to get into medical school and I had a 4 year, full
tuition fellowship which was even more difficult to obtain. Clearly you had to be
“crazy” to throw that away and walk out. But that’s what I did. In the larger
scheme of things, being a doctor wasn’t right for me (though my family was sure
that having “a docta” in the house would be good for everyone), but two incidents
turned my head around.

The first occurred just before classes began. All the new medical students
who were on scholarship, presumably the cream of the crop, were invited to have
dinner at the home of one of the top doctors at the school. I had envisioned an
intimate gathering at the doctor’s apartment in San Francisco. All us bright-eyed
new students discussing health issues of the day while we drank beers and
watched the sun set over San Francisco.

But where we were taken was to an “estate” in Marin County across the bay
from San Francisco. We were wined and dined and clearly the message was
“join the team, follow the rules, and this will be yours in a few years.” Well, I’m
sure the message got through to most and many I’m sure liked what they were
receiving.

I, on the other hand, was beginning to become disillusioned--really a good

thing, since giving up my illusions about medicine was an important step in my
education. As the only son of socially progressive parents, I distrusted those
who were in the “helping professions” but so obviously were wedded to making
money and building monuments to their success.

The second blow to my view of medicine came after one of our major exams.
I still remember the test. We were supposed to look through our microscopes
and identify different tissue samples. It all looked like chopped liver to me, but I
had studied hard and passed the test. I learned there was a “make up” exam for
those who failed. These students were allowed to do the test over after they had
learned the correct answer.

I was shocked. “That’s not fair,” I told one of my friends. He explained that
there were two kinds of medical schools. One kind took in a lot more students
than they had room for, then flunked out a group of them after the first semester.
A type of trial by fire, I guess. The other kind screened their students carefully
and then went out of their way to keep all those who were selected. I never knew
about these different philosophies of education.

I had a rather rigid view of “right” and “wrong” and it seemed wrong to let
someone who would have other people’s lives in his hands (there weren’t many
women in medical school back then) slide by so easily. I decided medical school
wasn’t for me, saw the psychiatrist, dropped out, and enrolled at U.C. Berkeley
School of Social Welfare.

What I Learned in Medical School

Although I didn’t stay long in medical school I did learn the foundational roots
of modern western medicine including the following:

1. Focuses on treating disease, not preventing it.

2. Relies heavily on surgery, pharmaceuticals, and over-the-counter drugs.
3. Uses lots of high tech machines and tests.
4. Looks at separate organs and systems, not the whole person.
5. Separates mind from body.
6. Teaches little about nutrition and exercise.
7. Costs a lot of money for the results it delivers.
8. Has a hidden “code of conduct” that benefits insiders.

Become a Community Organizer or a “Shrink.”

Berkeley was my kind of place in 1965. I was 21 years old, already a medical
school dropout, which had a certain cachet, and ready to save the world…again.
The Vietnam war was revving up and I wasn’t sure which side I should be on. It
was confusing. My parents clearly were opposed to the war. But they were
opposed to all wars. I was clearly my parents child, which meant I needed to
rebel. I had dropped out of medical school against their wishes. And it seemed
only right that if they were against the war, I should be in favor.

I decided the best way to resolve my dilemma was to find someone to teach
me all the reasons we should be fighting there and someone else who could
teach me all the reasons we should not be fighting there. It didn’t take long for
me to be clear that opposing the war was the right thing to do, even if it did
coincide with what my parents believed.

Graduate School was an interesting time for me. There were two main areas
of study for those of us who wanted to be “health care professionals.” We could
become “community organizers” or we could become “psychotherapists.” I
wanted to be a community organizer, but after participating in an anti-war
demonstration I knew I couldn’t do it.

When the police began pounding us with clubs because we didn’t disperse
quickly enough, I flew into a rage. I knew if I could have gotten a hold of a
policeman I was angry enough to kill him. My feels scared me. I remembered a
button I had seen recently. It said: “Support mental health or I’ll kill you.”

I decided I’d better learn everything I could about my psyche, if I was going to
be any use to helping others. I graduated in 1968 and became a psychotherapist
who is trying to get his “head together” so he can organize.

Like most people I’ve learned a lot more about health and healing since I left
school. A lot has changed over the years and there are things I believe you need
to know that your doctor is not likely to tell you. Here are a few of the things I
have found to be most important. They won’t cure all your problems and there is
a place for modern medicine in treating disease. There is scientific evidence to
show that the following techniques can be extremely helpful. But you’re not likely
to hear about them from your doctor.

1. Learn to breath.

Stress is one of the major causes of illness today. And we don’t need
expensive drugs or psychotherapy to combat it. According to Andrew Weil, M.D.,
a world-wide expert on integrative medicine, and author of many books including,
Why Our Health Matters: A Vision of Medicine That Can Transform Our Future,
“this is an example of an extremely low tech, free and simple technique that is
spectacularly effective.”

This breathing exercise is utterly simple, takes almost no time, requires no

special equipment, and can be done anywhere. How many doctors are going to
tell you about this? Here’s what doctor Weil tells us about how to do it.
 Although you can do the exercise in any position, sit with your back straight
while learning the exercise. Place the tip of your tongue against the ridge of
tissue just behind your upper front teeth, and keep it there through the entire
exercise. You will be exhaling through your mouth around your tongue; try
pursing your lips slightly if this seems awkward.

• Exhale completely through your mouth, making a whoosh sound.

• Close your mouth and inhale quietly through your nose to a mental count
of four.
• Hold your breath for a count of seven.
• Exhale completely through your mouth, making a whoosh sound to a
count of eight.
• This is one breath. Now inhale again and repeat the cycle three more
times for a total of four breaths.

Note that you always inhale quietly through your nose and exhale audibly
through your mouth. The tip of your tongue stays in position the whole time.
Exhalation takes twice as long as inhalation. The absolute time you spend on
each phase is not important; the ratio of 4:7:8 is important. If you have trouble
holding your breath, speed the exercise up but keep to the ratio of 4:7:8 for the
three phases. With practice you can slow it all down and begin inhaling and
exhaling more and more deeply.

Since stress is with us every day, you should do this exercise everyday. Try
it. You’ll like it. I promise.

2. Learn to walk.

What we call depression has likely been around before recorded history and
has been recognized for thousands of years. Hippocrates, the Greek physician
who was regarded as the father of medicine, was well aware of the disease of
depression and called it melancholia. Data developed by the Global Burden of
Disease study conducted by the World Health Organization shows that
depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide among persons age five
and older.

If you see a doctor for symptoms of depression, they are likely to suggest an
anti-depressant drug or some kind of talk therapy. What they won’t tell you is
that there is a simple, yet effect way to treat depression. It’s called walking. In
his book, Walking Your Blues Away: How to Heal the Mind and Create
Emotional Well-Being, Thom Hartmann says, “Our bodies heal rapidly from
illness, injury, or wound. Yet our minds and hearts often suffer for years with
debilitating symptoms if distress or upset. Why is it so hard for our minds and
hearts to heal? One simple key to healing them can be just a short walk away.”
 Simple walking is the original “bilateral therapy.” That is, it allows us to
balance both the left and right sides of our brains. Anxiety, anger, and
depression have been with us throughout human history. But it has only been in
recent time that rates of emotional illness have skyrocketed. Throughout most of
human history, we walked every day. Now, most people rarely walk any
distance. Could walking help treat mental illness (as well as obesity)? Hartmann
thinks it can and has the evidence to prove it.

Here’s how it works. Normally the brain converts our daily experiences into
long-term memories. However, a traumatic experience can get “stuck” in the
brain, unable to be stored as “memory” and persisting in the brain as if it were
still a present-time event.

When we walk, which engages both sides of the body, we simultaneously

activate both the left and right sides of the brain. This allows the brain’s two
hemispheres to join forces to break up brain patterning and allow the sufferer to
release these distresses—from extreme but brief upsets to chronic conditions
such as pot-traumatic stress disorder and depression.

To achieve these results, Hartmann shows how we must learn to walk

consciously, holding an awareness of the distress (or desire we hope to attain) in
mind as we move. This deceptively simple exercise actually works. Many have
used it to restore mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being as well as rejuvenate
our body’s health.

3. Learn to eat.

"Let Food Be Your Medicine and Medicine Be Your Food.” These words of
wisdom are attributed to Hippocrates, the father of medicine 2500 years ago.
Think for minute how profound these words are. Modern science now confirms
that eating right can prevent and cure most diseases. We don’t need all the
drugs being touted by the pharmaceutical industry. And we don’t need the
unhealthy, high calorie, refined “foods” which are pushed on the public by the
government/corporate food complex.
 According to Walter C. Willett, M.D., chairman of the Department of Nutrition
at the Harvard School of Public Health, “the USDA guidelines—the famous food
pyramid—is not only wrong but also dangerous.” After I left medical school I
learned how much the official government guidelines on health are influenced by
big business, including the meat and dairy industries. Here’s the Harvard
Healthy Eating Pyramid:

1. Start with exercise. A healthy diet is built on a base of regular exercise, which keeps
calories in balance and weight in check. Read five quick tips for staying active and
getting to your healthy weight, and a dozen ideas for fitting exercise into your life.

2. Focus on food, not grams. The Healthy Eating Pyramid doesn’t worry about specific
servings or grams of food, so neither should you. It’s a simple, general guide to how you
should eat when you eat.

3. Go with plants. Eating a plant-based diet is healthiest. Choose plenty of vegetables,

fruits, whole grains, and healthy fats, like olive and canola oil. Check out these delicious
healthy recipes that bring the Healthy Eating Pyramid into your kitchen.
4. Cut way back on American staples. Red meat, refined grains, potatoes, sugary
drinks, and salty snacks are part of American culture, but they’re also really unhealthy.
Go for a plant-based diet rich in non-starchy vegetables, fruits, and whole grains. And if
you eat meat, fish and poultry are the best choices.

5. Take a multivitamin, and maybe have a drink. Taking a multivitamin can be a good
nutrition insurance policy. Moderate drinking for many people can have real health
benefits, but it's not for everyone. Those who don’t drink shouldn’t feel that they need to
start. Read about balancing alcohol's risks and benefits.

4. Learn to give hugs not drugs.

“There is no single effort more radical in its potential for saving the world than
a transformation of the way we raise our children.” --Marianne Williamson

According to John Robbins, author of Reclaiming Our Health: Exploding the

Medical Myth and Embracing the Source of True Healing, “3 to 5 percent of
American school children take a mind-and behavior-altering prescription drug
called Ritalin. They do so because they have been diagnosed as having a
‘disease,’ called ‘Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).”

The assumption is that these children have a brain dysfunction or disease.

Yet doctors prescribing Ritalin, and other related drugs, rarely, if ever, perform
neurological tests. Instead they take the word of parents or teachers, whose
judgments are invariably subjective.

And which kids are put on Ritalin? Most are boys. These boys are
hyperactive, disruptive, and angry. But do they really have a “brain disease” or
are they reacting to a school and home environment that doesn’t understand the
need for males to roughhouse and play active games? As Robbins points out,
“Many are simply children who have a strong sense of their own inner rhythms
and timing. These youngsters are often frustrated in authoritarian situations, and
conforming to the rules of a classroom or of autocratic parents can be difficult for
them.”

Many of these kids are eating junk food or foods laced with additives, which
contributes to their excitability. In 1985, Lancet published the most convincing
evidence of the relationship between certain foods and hyperactivity. In an
extremely well designed study, 79 percent of hyperactive children improved when
suspect foods were eliminated from their diets, only to become worse again
when the foods were reintroduced. Artificial colorings and flavorings were the
most serious culprits. Sugar was also found to have a noticeable effect.

“What would happen,” Robbins concludes, “if instead of cozying up to the junk
food industry, our medical authorities stood up and demanded that our children
be fed a healthy, natural, and uncontaminated diet? Our children might have a
better chance to grow up calm and clear.”

My own research indicates that children (and adults) need loving touch and
emotional support throughout their lives. Studies show that male children don’t
get held as much or as often as female children. Further, male children are
treated more roughly and are forced to be “big boys” and not to cry when they
are hurt.

We could go a long way to creating healthy and happy human beings if we

started early and treated our children, particularly our sons, with more loving
hugs and fewer mind-altering drugs.

5. Learn to balance your hormones.

“Nothing in the universe exceeds the power of your hormones,” says Abraham
H. Kryger, M.D., author of A doctor’s guide to Sex, Love, and Long Life. “From
the instant you were conceived, your hormones have been driving your body and
influencing your every thought. Without hormones you would never feel a
longing for sex or a thousand other desires, and life, as we know it, could not
exist.”

Even if most people are not aware of the importance of hormones in our
lives, women have learned about the profound changes that occur when they
approach the menopause years. However, until I wrote my book Male
Menopause in 1997 much less attention had been focused on the changes that
occur in men.

I reported on a survey conducted by Roper Starch Worldwide. They asked

more than one thousand adult men in the U.S. to discuss their knowledge of
testosterone and hormone replacement therapy. The survey showed that 68
percent of men cannot cane a single symptom or condition associated with low
testosterone. Only 15 percent cited a decreased sexual drive, 6 percent named
fatigue, and 3 percent cited a decrease in lean muscle mass as symptoms
associated with low testosterone. Less than one percent linked low testosterone
levels to a loss of bone density.

I’ve found that things haven’t improved a great deal since then. Although the
advent of drugs such as Viagra have focused more attention on sexuality and
mid-life sexual dysfunction, there is still little focus on hormones and their
importance for men and women as we age. This is a real tragedy since the
population continues to age and our ignorance about hormonal changes causes
men and women over 40 needless miseries.

“In my over 20 years of caring for patients and conducting clinical research in
reproductive endocrinology,” says Nancy Cetel, M.D., author of Double
Menopause: What to do when both you and your mate go through hormonal
changes together, “I continue to observe and respect the undeniable link
between hormones and midlife dynamics.” Doctor Cetel recognizes the critical
importance of keeping our hormones balanced. “As a gynecologist and
reproductive endocrinologist, I believe that hormones make the world go round.
And when they are out of whack, so, too, is our personal world.”

There is help for the millions of men and women going through “the change
of life,” but you aren’t likely to hear about it from your family doctor. You have to
dig to find experts who understand what’s “out of whack” with our hormones and
what to do about it. One such expert is Travis Deuson, M.D. of BodyLogicMD in
Encino, California.

Here are Dr. Deuson’s suggestions of how we should choose a doctor who is
truly expert in dealing with hormonal issues. “Look for a doctor who is certified
and specializes in hormonal balance using bioidentical hormones,” he says. He
also recommends a doctor who takes “An integrated approach that includes
nutrition, exercise, healthy lifestyle choices and hormonal balance.” He
concludes that “The synergy created by eating right, exercising, limiting stress
and balancing hormones leads to amazing improvements in vitality, energy,
appearance and wellbeing.” I couldn’t agree more.

Conclusion:

I’ve used all these “low tech” approaches and have found them very helpful.
This doesn’t mean I have turned by back on traditional western medicine--Far
from it. A few years ago I was walking in back of my house and felt a sharp pain
in my leg. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but later that evening it was still
hurting. My intuition told me something wasn’t right.

I went to see my doctor. She’s a small-town doctor who takes time to listen to
her patients. After talking to me, she decided to do an ultra-sound on the leg.
Turned out I had a blood clot and I might have died had I not come in. I was
taken by ambulance to a hospital where specialists operated on me, removed the
clot and found that I had a rare blood clotting disease that no one was aware I
had.

I thank my lucky stars that we have all the high tech devises, drugs, and
machines for those once in a life-time emergencies. But for most of my health
care needs, I’m glad I know about hormones and hugs, eating, walking, and
breathing.

For more information about my work you can visit my website at

www.MenAlive.com.