Read an Excerpt: "The Source"

Sept. 30, 2008 — -- Many people complain of feeling tired and drained, and according to Dr. Woodson Merrell's new book, "The Source," the problem could be a loss of connectivity with your inner energy that serves as the source of healing.

Merrill's book tackles the problem of exhaustion and tells readers how they can power up. Find out where you rank by taking this power up quiz and then read an excerpt of "The Source" below. Also, check out more books from the "GMA" library.

Introduction

June's problems were sporadic, but frequent enough to keep her from feeling well much of the time. ­She'd had a series of colds that deteriorated into chronic sinus congestion. After numerous visits to ear, nose and throat specialists, ­she'd had surgery for nasal polyps, which gave her some relief, but she continued to suffer from sinus infections every few months. She subsequently developed intermittent digestive problems with bloating and cramping, and trouble sleeping. For the past year she said ­she'd felt constantly fatigued. Too tired to exercise, June was overeating just to keep herself going.

Trying to make sense of all of the pieces of her puzzling fatigue, I looked for an overarching illness that could explain what had brought her to me with a sense of urgency over wanting better health, and especially more energy. But I, like the many physicians she had seen before me, ­couldn't find anything specifically wrong with her. I took almost every moment of that one-­hour first visit to elicit the details of her medical history, but, looking back, I now see that one of the most important moments was when I asked her what had occurred in her life when the troubles began. Initially, she said everything was fine—successful marriage, two children, thriving real estate career—but it turned out she was not leading the charmed life she tried to present to the world. She became quite emotional as she related to me that ­she'd grown in a different direction from her husband, was relatively estranged from her mother ­who'd recently died from breast cancer, and harbored guilt over not spending enough time with her children.As our time ran out I realized with frustration that I ­didn't have much to add in terms of conventional diagnoses. Wanting to say something positive I told her that over the weekend she needed to think about how to reduce the stress in her life. I asked her to return for a follow-­up Monday to go over the few tests I could think of that had not been done—and I hoped I'd have a diagnostic brainstorm in the interim.

What happened when she came back three days later set my practice on a new course. And ultimately this new direction for treating patients evolved into the program at the heart of this book. On Monday, June walked into my office, dramatically more buoyant. She thanked me profusely for my time Friday, and said she had not felt this good in years. I tried not to let my jaw drop—by medical school standards I'd done virtually nothing. She said that being able to open up about the stressors in her life was the best medicine she had had in four years. She felt as if an energy switch had flipped on inside her. She had felt so much better after admitting that she had these stresses that on Sunday ­she'd even gone out for a light jog. Having named some of the energy-­draining situations in her life, she was now determined to face them and take charge of her life again.I worked with June to overhaul her diet, to help her stick with a regular exercise program, to reduce her stress, and to evaluate her home and office for potential environmental triggers of sinus infections. I also recommended that she use a few nutritional supplements. After two months, the sinus problems and bowel complaints disappeared, her sleep improved markedly, and June had more energy than ever before. Reflecting on the healing experience ­she'd been through, June told me that the most important part of her journey was that this new energy helped her feel connected again—to her family, to herself (with a better lifestyle) and to the world around her.

Since then, I have been constantly seeking ways to increase ­people's innate healing energy so that they can return to wellness. I have worked with thousands of people who, like June, came to me after visiting many other doctors, often finding little improvement. Many of them have had one medical problem lead to another until they find themselves with a host of chronic issues that drain their energy and keep them from living life to the fullest. Many people who come to me are not sick, but ­they're working on getting there, for example, with recurring colds or headaches, nagging fatigue, digestive problems, and unremitting stress that weaken them and make them susceptible to more serious illness. Many others are just pushing themselves way too hard, hoping not to get sick, but undermining their health in ways that will inevitably catch up to them. Sound familiar?

I did finally find the common thread that tied together all ­June's varied problems—and most other people's chronic complaints. That common link is energy. My patients were losing vital, health-­giving energy in, at first, little, and then, increasingly, big ways. They ­weren't really sick, but they ­weren't well, either. They needed to stop leaking energy and shore up their bodies, minds, and spirits.In order to develop a true healing program to treat this widespread energy deficiency, I needed methods that worked quickly as well as methods that kept working long-­term. There was no single medicine or magic pill—and to this day there is no single medicine or magic pill—that could cure any deficiency of vital healing energy. So I looked into the latest medical and scientific studies on energy to find out more about what energy is and why my patients ­didn't have enough of it. If I could figure out where energy comes from—the source—if I could figure out how we make energy and how we lose it, maybe I could help my patients get and create more of it and increase their capacity to heal and achieve their optimum potential. I immersed myself in the sciences of metabolism (how the body extracts energy from food) and cellular respiration (how cells make energy) and psycho-­neuro-­immunology (how the body communicates its needs across systems, for example, from the nervous system to the immune system). I examined the growing research about the effects of our emotions and psychological states on our health, and also investigated the latest science on the effects of environmental toxins on various systems in the body.

I uncovered a lot of connections between physical energy and mental energy that had not been part of my Western medical school curriculum at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, or my internship and residency at New York ­City's Roosevelt Hospital. It became clear that people needed to urgently identify their underlying energy problems in order to improve their health. I also delved into other cultures' ancient methods for creating energy. I learned profound, beautiful ways that indigenous cultures view health—in all of which energy is at the core of their philosophy and practice. I sat at the feet of some great masters of Tibetan, Native American, Ayurvedic (Indian), and traditional Chinese medicine. Their systems see body, mind, and spirit as a whole, a single-­energy system. Their treatments, including meditation, herbs, acupuncture, and tai chi, have simple physical components but deep overall effects—especially on energy. I have found them to be surprisingly compatible with a modern Western medical practice and daily lifestyle.

Besides these ancient traditions, I also trained in newer complementary approaches such as homeopathy, functional medicine (the nutrition science that studies food's effect on cell function and energy), and manipulative body work. And I kept going deeper into my study of energy until I arrived at the convergence of quantum physics and spirituality—two fields that actually share many views of the interconnected nature of energy and reality. Quantum physics has shown that matter at its most fundamental level operates as a web of interconnected energy fields in constant communication with each other.

Ultimately, I pulled everything I learned in my quest into a practical program for creating healing energy and for optimal health for my patients. For the last twenty years I have worked with many extraordinary people and helped them win back their health and regain a youthful, vital energy. Now, I want you to have that same experience—to feel as good as you can, and even better than you ever have. I want you to have The Source of health and energy. The Source presents the long-­lasting six-­step program that I developed for my patients to increase their energy, as well as a complete 21-Day Plan for revitalization.

My goal for every patient—and now for you as you embark on the healing journey of The Source—is to help you transform from being an energy consumer to being an energy producer. You can live a fully sustainable life—without stimulants or cravings or prescription drugs or feelings of total burnout. I will show you how.

I've seen from my own practice—and from reading decades of other doctors' and researchers' concerns in the medical literature—that more people than ever before need the help that The Source provides. There is an epidemic of fatigue in the United States. While fatigue is not classified as a disease, it is debilitating and makes you more vulnerable to developing a disease. No fewer than 75 million people admit to feeling "extreme fatigue" at work. Epidemiologists estimate that 38 percent of the workforce is fatigued, directly contributing to $100 billion in additional healthcare costs, accidents, and lost productivity for corporations. (Fatigue triples the chance that a worker will lose productivity.) Almost 1 million people have been diagnosed with the most severe form of fatigue, chronic fatigue syndrome, which is not well understood but is thought to be an immune system disorder—when the body ­doesn't have the energy to heal itself—with possible viral origins. The accepted practice of running on empty in our twenty-­four hour consumer society is a major health and economic issue. Pundits have quipped that ­it's taboo to say ­you're tired, but I think ­it's time to alter the national dialogue and begin to solve this pervasive problem and bring back our greatest natural resource—human energy.The most common solutions to the perplexing dilemma of energy loss are counterproductive self-­treatments—240 million pounds of coffee beans were sold last year; Americans consumed $3 billion worth of caffeine-­packed energy drinks like Red Bull; sleeping pill prescriptions were up 60 percent; and the new drug to increase alertness (Provigil) racked up $800 million in sales in its first year on the market. But these things ­don't address the sources of your energy drains and they ­don't rejuvenate your inner source of natural energy.

Loss of energy is one of the top five complaints to doctors, but ­that's only the tip of the iceberg. ­It's been estimated that 66 percent of people who visit their doctors while experiencing debilitating exhaustion never even mention the problem! This is primarily because of a widespread belief (mostly accurate) that doctors ­don't have a treatment for being tired. The truth is that only 3 percent of people with fatigue are found to have anything wrong with them when they are tested for the many things that can cause fatigue—a hypothyroid condition, anemia, heart disease, nutritional deficiencies, infectious diseases, immune deficiencies, or autoimmune diseases. Physicians are trained to stay within the precepts of Western medicine, using pharmaceuticals and surgery as their main tools. As a result, questions and recommendations about factors in their patients' lifestyles that should be a cornerstone of healthcare are often neglected. So many physicians have a difficult time helping their deeply tired patients—who often ­don't have an underlying medical disorder.

With The Source I offer a fresh, unique perspective on the possibility of energy creation that unifies Western medical science with Eastern mind-­body and energy practices. As a doctor of internal medicine with a busy private practice, as well as an educator and researcher at both Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and Albert Einstein College of Medicine, I have helped lead the development of a new medical discipline, integrative medicine. This new approach to health and healing, which emphasizes a partnership between doctor and patient, utilizes the best of indigenous, complementary/alternative, and conventional approaches, which we individualize to each ­person's needs. Integrative doctors look at the whole patient, not just the disease, and we consider the emotional, spiritual, dietary, environmental, and lifestyle influences that can affect health and healing. I would never tell a patient just to cope with exhaustion because, to me, living each day with full vital energy is the essence of being well. I'm not a disease mechanic. My job description, and the goal of this book, is to promote your well-­being. Energy is at the core of our quest for optimum health.Many of the most common illnesses—such as hypertension, coronary disease, diabetes, and high cholesterol, as well as functional problems such as headaches, irritable bowel, and arthritis—originate in your lifestyle. Patients beginning to slip into diseases primarily created by lifestyle mismanagement often come to me after ­they've seen a conventional doctor ­who's addressed the developing problem with a pharmaceutical and, sometimes, general advice on how to lead a healthier life. My patients and I have usually been able to prevent or reverse these problems with exactly the program I put forth here in the 21-Day Plan. The lifestyle changes you need to make are really quite simple: they focus on balancing and regenerating energy. I get such great satisfaction when a person who thought he was sentenced to a lifetime of disease-­management medications (such as statins for high cholesterol or steroid inhalers for asthma) makes transformative lifestyle changes that allow him to taper off, and eventually stop, the medication merry-­go-­round.

Over the years I have found that many people have a difficult time believing in the connection between energy, health, and lifestyle—until they begin to understand that their mind, body, heart, and spirit are part of an interconnected web, rather than a collection of parts. Every thought, every emotion, every heart beat has the potential to resonate throughout the body due to the nearly instantaneous communication between cells that constantly takes place. Complex as these interconnections are, the process of making energy in the body has been very clearly demonstrated.

From THE SOURCE by Woodson Merrell, M.D. with Kathleen Merrell. Copyright © 2008 by Woodson Merrell, M.D. Reprinted by permission of Free Press, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc, NY.