Andrea Nakayama was 7 weeks pregnant when her husband was diagnosed with a glioblastoma and given 6 months to live.
Horrified by the way terminal and chronic illness was addressed in the medical system in the 90’s Andrea went on a mission to learn how to help others in her situation.
While Andrea’s husband was able to live 18 months past his initial diagnosis and meet his son, many others are not as lucky.
After decades of practice as a functional nutritionist helping clients with difficult cases and teaching health providers about chronic illness through her Functional Nutrition Alliance, Andrea had a realization.
What if the story you tell about your health condition and how it evolved has clues for your recovery?
Columbia University has been researching this concept for 20 years and the results are fascinating.
Want to read more – check out this June 2024 article on the benefits of narrative medicine for clinical care – HERE.
What parts of my story do I need to pay attention to?
Start with things that bring you joy that you’ve stopped doing because of or around the time the symptoms showed up.
More often than not it’s a creative or artistic expression like dancing, drawing, painting, writing, cooking or baking.
Sometimes it’s walking the dog regularly or sipping on water.
If you’re struggling with a chronic health issue and not getting to the bottom of it – perhaps you don’t need another supplement, diet or protocol…what if there’s something you stopped doing around the time you started with symptoms that you could get back to or perhaps it’s something simple like not drinking as much water, eating veggies or fruit.
Looking back on what you’ve been up to lately and what changed around the time your symptom showed up can hold vital clues.
Pause and see if anything comes to mind.
My interview with Andrea Nakayama comes out today and I had a great conversation with her about looking within to discover the root of your symptoms. (Click HERE to listen to our podcast).
Since seeing the benefits of having clients write and tell more on their stories, Andrea has decided to focus on teaching other health practitioners about narrative medicine and the power of writing out your health story.
She’s now hosting writing events to help anyone who’s interested dive deeper. (click HERE to check out Andrea’s website).
Anyone who’s been in my office knows I like to ask questions and talk about what happened around the time symptoms showed up.
What I haven’t done until recently is have clients journal on their health when my questions aren’t getting to an answer.
I’ve seen some really amazing realizations pop up when I’ve had clients do this and I’ve taken 5 minutes a day to write and reflect myself.
If you’re wracking your brain to figure out what is causing a symptom take a few minutes to pause and reflect or write daily to see what you discover.
Here’s to going back to basics on your health!
Dr. Jannine Krause
