Everything that happens makes history, but some events are so major that they go into the history books. We have lived through one — the attempted assassination of a past United States president and presidential candidate. The events of that day are still being examined, but the main event was broadcast live and then plastered all over the news media. Most of the country and much of the world saw it.
One undeniable event occurred which, regardless of the politics, was extremely remarkable and rarely happens: someone who had just been shot, who could not have yet known how badly he had been wounded, overrode natural instinct, got to his feet, pushed aside secret service agents enough to be visible to the audience and cameras (opening himself up to possible further attacks) and insisted on communicating a message to the crowd instead of protecting his own health and safety.
President Trump portrayed a certain determination, resolve, and purpose that day. Some have compared his actions to movie Braveheart. He swept aside nature for a greater purpose that was not what his feelings, pain, and self-preservation instincts would normally allow. Imagine if you were speaking publicly, just making your presentation, and suddenly a sharp pain strikes the side of your head. You realize you are under attack and drop to avoid fire, but you have only your pain to tell you the extent of your injuries. Do you let the crew just take care of you and cart you away to safety, or do you stand up, push them aside, and signal to the crowd? Which would be your natural inclination?
Something else was equally remarkable that day, and against instinct. At virtually every event where a live shooter attacked, the crowd panicked and stampeded to the exits. Those stampedes have usually been deadly. They happen because the instinct is for self-preservation, but people get trampled in the process. Trump said, when he was on the ground, that he saw worry and concern for him sweep the crowd, and he just had to calm their concern — that propelled him to his feet. But the crowd didn’t run because they were focused on Trump more than themselves. That is why they didn’t follow instinct, and many lives were saved.
By worrying less abut themselves, they saved themselves.
This is what gains the respect of people, because we know how difficult it is to go against nature. Simply put: we usually do what feels comfortable, not what is best for us. Our own instincts and desires don’t always serve us well. Can anyone argue that we find it a lot easier to relax on the couch than go exercise, yet we really need the exercise instead? Doing just what feels good often, ironically, hurts us.
This is personal
This proverb sums it up. “A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come on you like a thief and scarcity like an armed robber.” Proper sleep and rest is vital, but our bodies would be lazy if we let them rest more than they should.
A health proverb might go something like this: a little restraint, a little pushing beyond your comfort, a little discipline, and health will come upon you silently and strength will overtake you.
If you eat whatever you like, when you like; if you don’t make an effort to push hydration; if you aren’t disciplined about going to bed; if you don’t exercise — you will degenerate. This is the rule for all of us. A healthy lifestyle takes consistent effort. It doesn’t feel natural until it becomes a rhythm. Our bodies respond to adversity, so long as that adversity is not overwhelming. Modern living does not bring on physical challenges like our ancestors experienced, so we have to manufacture that adversity. They got exercise by living, but we have to manufacture exercise. So be it — modern life can’t be our excuse to degenerate.
The irony of exercise
Exercise tears down muscle tissues, yet in the long run muscles are stronger. Exercise is work that requires sudden use of energy, yet the body learns to handle its energy resources better through it. Exercise makes us tired, yet it gives us resilience, even energy, over time. When sick, exercise takes energy that might be better spent on recovery, yet if done appropriately it will speed recovery. Exercise appears to be a paradox, and at first our bodies resist and tell us to relax instead. But we are in control, and can tell our bodies to override natural desires, if we choose to do so.
Research tells us the value of exercise, beyond the obvious strength-building benefits. Published in Cell Metabolism is an extensive presentation of how exercise staves off cancer incidence, inhibits cancer growth, and how it fires up the immune system. Not just any exercise, but interval training with high activity followed by modest activity or rest does this best. Researchers from the University of Copenhagen and the Copenhagen University Hospital in Denmark conducted studies in which tumor-carrying animals showed over a 60% reduction in further tumor incidence and growth over five different tumor models resulting from an exercise program. These results were visible within four weeks. (1)
Don’t we tell cancer patients to take it easy and conserve energy? And would you expect that exercise could have such a profound impact on cancer? This study showed that the immune system is greatly improved by exercise. Natural Killer (NK) cells, mobilized by epinephrine released through exercise, were more effective in infiltration, or penetration, of tumors. IL-6 (interleukin 6), an inflammatory cytokine, is released during exercise, and this also mobilizes NK response through ?-Adrenergic signaling to attack cancer cells. The ?-Adrenergic receptor transfers signals across the cell membranes, so NK cells with these receptors quickly receive activation messages. Therefore the exercise almost immediately revs up the immune system through inflammatory processes.
Wait a minute! Isn’t inflammation bad? Well, chronic inflammation is, and high sustained IL-6 blood levels are a major warning sign. Chronic stress brings on chronic inflammation, which is the body attempting to fix an unfixable problem. But for short term, properly functioning inflammation is a healing mechanism. An area swells up when you get cut as your immune system gets to work healing the wound. Exercise fires up the immune system so it can go looking for a proper enemy to attack. Cancer is such an enemy: besides the simple fact that exercise quickly increases circulation so good nutrients and oxygen can get in and toxins can be cleared, cancer appears in many ways as a wound that needs to heal, and your immune system responds to that wound.
These effects increase as the exercise intensity increases. This makes high intensity interval training (HIIT) the best form of exercise. If you don’t feel much like doing modest exercise, HIIT is harder to do initially because you are working all-out for a period of time. The good news is that you don’t have to spent a lot of time going all out, and in fact HIIT requires slowing to a low intensity level or resting as part of the discipline. You can’t sustain the high intensity, so you give your body vital recovery time. There are plenty of HIIT workout programs available, but the idea is to get your heart rate up to near maximum rate, and then let it slow and recover before going again.
The CDC (Centers for Disease Control) estimates that 8.3% of deaths every year can be attributed to a lack of sufficient physical activity throughout life. Sometimes, however, you may get too much exercise. There is an optimal point. In a comprehensive data review study published in Missouri Medicine, researchers from the University of Missouri and the University of Kansas Medical Center introduce the “J-curve”, which shows how exercise benefits increase up to the optimal point and then reverse beyond that. (2) They suggest that there is no single formula that is universal for everyone, but generally 2.5 to 5 hours per week of moderate and vigorous physical activity gives the maximal benefits, and that greater than 10 hours per week is likely excessive. Exercise is meant to push the body to improve, but not push it over the edge. The inflammatory effects of exercise must be temporary, and rest is required to heal up from the temporary damage done.
The point is: we need to intelligently choose to press our bodies out of our comfort zones, but not become fanatic about it. We don’t accept the complaints of a body that is being a bit lazy, as nice as that feels. Then we also don’t ignore loud cries of a body that is warning of overuse. We owe it to ourselves, and to our families, to do what we can to improve our health and longevity.
Your purpose driven life
When the crowd had more concern for the president’s life than their own safety, they saved themselves. When President Trump saw the crowd and pushed aside secret service agents, while wounded and opening himself up for further possible attacks, to signal to everyone he was alive and still with them, he earned the respect of many people across the country. We saw purpose over self-comfort. And that is how we can live daily.
If your purpose is to just get through every day and be as comfortable as you can, what kind of life is that? So many of us just exist, when we should be living life fully. If you don’t care about your health as an investment in your future self, how about for the sake of those around you? It all comes down to purpose. Purpose comes from outside of ourselves, but that drive enables us in the present, and ironically comes back to us in the form of health in the future.
Is your purpose to just exist and be comfortable, or do you chose to live as long as you can, investing in good health so you can do what you’ve been put in this world to do? That path is the narrow path; it’s not the wide, easy path. The path to fulfillment is not seeking personal enrichment, but instead seeking the good of others, and in that you are also blessed.
Dr. Nemec’s Review
A key point in this study on exercise in the Cell Metabolism journal was that the exercise was VOLUNTARY, not forced. This is extremely important to understand. Those that exercise by their choice, not because it’s forced upon them, receive the greatest return on their investment into their total health. You can receive what we are saying and respond with, “I should start exercising — I don’t really want to, but I can force myself for a short time and see if I like it.” This can be one response; the other is that it resonates with your heart, with your spirit, and choosing to start exercising is just naturally right — it is time. You’re not doing it out of guilt or condemnation, you’re not doing it because you have to: you’re doing it because you actually down deep want to. This is the greatest blessing: to do everything you do in life because they’re in you, not because you have to. We were designed from the beginning to exercise, to move. This is a part of our physiology and we have deviated away from this with our modern technology, but inherently, within each one of us, is the natural tendency to exercise and move because it’s right and it’s the way it is always been the way we were from the beginning.
So exercise can be seen as connecting with your original design, with the way you were created — the way you were meant to live.
The great man of God, Moses, said to the people of Israel: I set before you life and death, blessing and curses — now it’s up to you to choose so chose life.
What Moses was telling the people is what we’re telling you today: you have a choice in everything. You can choose to be in the highest level of health and vitality, but this choice is going to have some discomfort involved with it. You are definitely going to go out of your comfort zone to follow this path, but when you do, you will reap a tremendous benefit of not only increased vitality, but also increased longevity.
As this research showed, the tumors decreased by 60% within four weeks. What a powerful therapy! Exercise can reduce tumors by 60% in just one month. The key is having a customized exercise program. This is what we do with every patient at Revolution New Medicine, because as the second study showed, if you do too much exercise — and we will also add to this the wrong type of exercise — It has the reverse effects: it stresses the body, weakens the immune system, and makes tumors grow faster. So exercise is one of our Seven Basic Steps to Total Health and Longevity and a very important step for these obvious reasons; but having a health challenge, like the diagnosis of cancer or any other chronic disease requires the experienced wisdom and knowledge and advanced scientific testing to formulate an exercise routine that will maximize immune function and increase vitality and longevity. So more is not necessarily better and just doing any exercise can potentially be either detrimental or beneficial. This is why we do such advanced scientific testing and genetic analysis, to make sure we address each patient uniquely for an optimized outcome.
So the take-home message is this:
Do not let comfort be your guide. Do not let pleasure rule you. Instead seek life — and purpose in that life — and then you will voluntarily choose whatever path is necessary to bring you to your destiny. You will be willfully choosing life and blessing your life with energy, vitality, and increased longevity to do all that you’ve been called to do, doing this in body, mind and spirit.
Here are the ways we can help you in your health journey:
- Outpatient Comprehensive Teaching and Treatment Program-has the most benefit of teaching, treatment, live classes and personalized coaching. This program has the most contact with Dr. Nemec with 3- 6 month programs that can be turned into a regular checking and support program for life. This is our core program that has helped so many restore their health and maintain that restoration for years.
- Inpatient Comprehensive Teaching and Treatment Program-is our four-week intensive inpatient program for those that are not in driving distance, usually over 4 hour drive. This is the program that is an intensive jumpstart with treatment, teaching, live classes and coaching designed for all our international patients along with those in the US that do not live in Illinois. This program is very effective especially when combined with our new membership program support.
- Stay at Home Program-is offered to continental US patients who cannot come to Revolution New Medicine but still want a more personal, customized plan to restore their health. This program also includes our Learn Membership Program.
- Membership Program is our newest program offered for those that want to work on their health at a high level and want access to the teaching at Revolution New Medicine along with the Forums: both Dr. Nemec’s posts and other members posting. And also, to have the chance to get personalized questions answered on the conference calls which are all archived in case you miss the call. The Membership Program has 3 levels to choose from: Learn, Overcome and Master. The difference is at the Overcome and Master levels you received one on one calls with Dr. Nemec personalizing your program for your areas of focus.
(1) Pedersen L, Idorn M, Olofsson GH, Lauenborg B, Nookaew I, Hansen RH, Johannesen HH, Becker JC, Pedersen KS, Dethlefsen C, Nielsen J, Gehl J, Pedersen BK, Thor Straten P, Hojman P. Voluntary Running Suppresses Tumor Growth through Epinephrine- and IL-6-Dependent NK Cell Mobilization and Redistribution. Cell Metab. 2016 Mar 8;23(3):554-62. doi: 10.1016/j.cmet.2016.01.011. Epub 2016 Feb 16. PMID: 26895752., https://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/fulltext/S1550-4131(16)30003-1?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS1550413116300031%3Fshowall%3Dtrue#%20
(2) O’Keefe, Evan L et al. “Training for Longevity: The Reverse J-Curve for Exercise.” Missouri medicine vol. 117,4 (2020): 355-361., https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7431070
