We all want to be happy. It’s something that we’ve even written into the Declaration of Independence, “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Evidence reveals that collectively, we are anything but: Current statistics state that one in ten Americans are taking antidepressant medications.
This pervasiveness suggests that something far beyond a simple state of mind is impacting our ability to reach for not only what we see as the holy grail of happiness, but what Integrative Medicine physician Dr. Andrew Weil suggests may be even more important. In his book, Spontaneous Happiness, Dr. Weil makes the assertion that what we tend to label as happiness is not necessarily what we are trying to attain with such fervor. There is something else, more significant, yet simultaneously harder to define, suggested by a sense of resilience. Our normal range of emotions vary, and just like the variability in our heart rate (a healthy heart is not a metronome) that is now understood as an important marker of health and well-being, emotional variability and the ability to feel the full complex of states of mood and mind actually helps us to experience spontaneous happiness.
This state of affairs is one that Dr. Weil examines in Spontaneous Happiness. Considering his background and expertise, it is unsurprising that he approaches with a broad view the question of why people aren’t happy and why they report that they are depressed. After all, he is widely considered to be one of the leading figures in what has been named Integrative Medicine. This Harvard-trained medical doctor is the Founder and Director of the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine, noted speaker, and author of a number of best-selling books with copies in the millions including the seminal and popular Spontaneous Healing that was published in 1995.
Health, as Dr. Weil understands it, is “a dynamic condition of wholeness and balance that allows us to move through life and not succumb to malfunctions of our own physiology or suffer harm from all the potentially harmful influences we encounter.” Resilience and flexibility are important parts of health and the way that we move through life.
Integrative medicine and integrative mental health are the concepts that are foundational to Dr. Weil’s approach to health care, to his writings, to the answers to the questions on the popular “Ask Dr Weil” section of this website and to the very foundation of the fellowship programs at the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine, which trains physicians and students in the precepts of integrative medicine (IM). This approach begins with, as Dr. Weil states in Spontaneous Happiness, “an emphasis on the human organism’s innate capacity for self-regulation and healing. IM views mind and body as inseparable: two poles of one human being. It takes into account all aspects of lifestyle that influence health and risks of disease. It also makes use of all available methods to maintain health and support healing—both conventional therapies and ‘alternative’ ones for which there is scientific evidence of efficacy.”
This view of health, by its very nature, emphasizes the role of the individual in healing, and as he does in many of his other books, such as 8 Weeks to Optimum Health, Dr. Weil outlines an eight-week plan to cultivate all of the different habits, patterns, and practices that have been found to be beneficial from the perspective of Integrative Medicine for us to feel resilience, contentment, and spontaneous happiness. These include everything from emphasizing an anti-inflammatory diet to spending time in meditation, exercising appropriately, use of tested supplements, engaging in patterns of sound sleep, listening to music that elevates mood and spirit, and keeping a gratitude journal, among other practices. Each week includes practices that care for the body, the mind, and the spirit. In the ninth week, Dr. Weil challenges the readerto incorporate the fullness of Integrative Medicine by taking the responsibility to integrate the lessons and practices so they become daily habits that nourish us. In order to find those lifestyle enhancements that strengthen our resilience, we must experiment. So Dr. Weil quotes Ralph Waldo Emerson, “All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.”
In the interest of sharing his secrets, Dr. Weil took some time out between his own experiments to talk to LA YOGA about happiness, gratitude, food, and the fact that we can promote positive change if we reeducate ourselves to believe in our innate resilience and then emphasize practices that promote our ability to heal ourselves.
Felicia Tomasko: Your latest book, Spontaneous Happiness, as well as your other work, emphasizes the fact that the body has the ability to heal itself. Do you feel that the healthcare system today facilitates this? And what do you see as some of the missing pieces that can help facilitate that process of spontaneous healing?
Andrew Weil: Most physicians and many healthcare practices simply don’t understand that healing is an innate capacity and process of the body that is rooted in nature. They think that healing has to come from the outside in. There is this general lack of confidence by people in the body’s innate healing power, so most people seek treatment. I see that as the fundamental problem. To change it means re-educating people.
FT: When we speak of education, we are not only talking about the education that is intrinsic to our healthcare system but also education in terms of how we teach our children in school or what we emphasize in our society as a whole.
AW: The health education I received growing up in public schools was a joke – given by physical education teachers who had no real interest in the subject matter. It would be possible to develop really effective health education for grades K-12 and beyond. For instance, information about nutrition and health could be disseminated in ways that would encourage changes in behavior.
FT: Do you think that we are making any progress in shifting the country’s emphasis on wellness and well-being rather than emphasizing healthcare after the fact?
AW: There is progress. The Arizona Center of Integrated Medicine has graduated almost 1,000 physicians from its intensive training programs. But the practical problem is that as dysfunctional as our healthcare system is, it is generating huge amounts of money that is flowing into very few pockets. Those pockets have total control of legislatures and policy and they include pharmaceutical companies, manufacturers of medical devices, and the big insurers. They don’t want anything to change.
FMT: While we are in this system that is set up to perpetuate the status quo, it is not serving the general population. What is the missing piece? Or maybe the missing piece is everything. That being said, what is the first step that you’d like to see people implement? After all, it is the general public who is paying into and perpetuating the system.
AW: Change has to come from a grassroots movement. It won’t come from elected officials or government—it just can’t happen—there has to be a grassroots movement by people who understand how and why the healthcare system is failing us and are willing to take greater responsibility for their own health. We also have to work to change the nature of medicine.
FMT: After tracking this movement and being involved in training physicians, in what areas do you feel we are collectively gaining ground and in what areas are we sliding?
AW: There is a growing awareness in certain sectors of the public about the forces that are keeping things the way they are – the vested interests that profit from pharmaceutical drugs and invasive treatments. Yet it will be a long-term process.
FMT: What do you see are the most accepted forms of complementary and alternative modalities today and why are these particular ones advancing?
AW: A lot of money is now spent on chiropractic and massage, and the market for herbal products and dietary supplements is booming. There is also a great demand for physicians who are trained integratively and who are open-minded when it comes to unconventional treatments. Integrative medicine is certainly becoming more mainstream and accepted.
FT: In your book, Spontaneous Happiness, you are in essence giving power to the individual and their ability to engage in practices that support healing. It feels like a spark in this revolution and a convincing argument that we do have the opportunity to affect our health and well-being. What do you hope to inspire in people in reading Spontaneous Happiness?
AW: All my work has been designed to give people confidence in their own body’s healing abilities. In writing about emotional health, I want to provide a new definition of happiness. I point out that what our culture sees as happiness is often unrealistic. Rather than happiness, we should be striving for contentment, serenity, balance, and resilience. A great many options exist to help us to achieve this, yet the mental health professions are completely locked into using drugs as the way to manage problems such as depression and anxiety. There are many other ways of achieving optimal wellness.
FMT: In looking at how we define happiness, you discuss the idea that there is a continuum: There is a certain amount of sadness or elation that is part of our human experience; sometimes the range of normal human experience becomes medicalized. It’s not just about being up all the time but balance includes a healthy fluctuation of moods. Could you speak about this?
AW: The fluctuation is very important. It’s not normal to be happy all the time. There is even evidence that mild to moderate depression may serve a purpose: It may foster the kind of inward focus and creative thinking that helps us solve problems. It’s not something that you necessarily want to make go away all the time.
FMT: You do make the important distinction that if somebody has such severe depression that it is interfering for them to be functional in their life that the situation becomes more serious.
AW: Yes, in those situations people need professional help. Spontaneous Happiness is more targeted to people with mild to moderate depression, although I think even people with severe depression can use the information in the book to enable them to get by with lower doses of medication for shorter periods of time.
FMT: You speak to the fact that our health and well-being goes beyond the biomedical model: The food we eat, the activities that we engage in, and our social support also impacts the body’s ability to heal itself. You mention your two dogs and there is a photo of them in the book; can you speak to our relationships with animals and what that means personally to you and how that fits into health and well-being?
AW: There is a great deal of scientific research on the benefits of having companion animals. I’ve lived with dogs for so long that I can’t imagine life without them. When I have periods of being alone, they take me out of myself, they help me not to dwell on negative thoughts, they ensure that I get physical activity, and they demonstrate spontaneous happiness right in front of me much of the time. They are an integral part of my life. It doesn’t have to be dogs; we can receive the same benefits from living with cats, birds, even reptiles. I think that having to take care of another being helps to take the focus off your self.
FMT: Related to taking the focus off of yourself, you speak about the practice of gratitude. How do you see that fitting into health and happiness?
AW: I was very surprised to learn how large the body of evidence is relating feeling and expressing gratitude to positive emotional states.
FMT: Were there other things that surprised you in the process of working on Spontaneous Happiness?
AW: I was also surprised to learn about the connection with inflammation. It looks as if following an anti-inflammatory diet and lifestyle can help prevent and treat depression.
FMT: Speaking of diet, I understand that you have some involvement in True Food Kitchen, which recently opened a location in Santa Monica, and which emphasizes healthy, whole foods that are anti-inflammatory and have strong antioxidant properties. How did you choose which types of foods to emphasize?
AW: The menu is based on my anti-inflammatory diet and pyramid, which is given out to people at the restaurant. It draws inspiration from Mediterranean and Asian cuisines and puts into practice what I have been teaching.
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For more information on True Food Kitchen locations in Phoenix and Scottsdale, Arizona; and Santa Monica and Newport Beach, California, visit: truefoodkitchen.com.
Spontaneous Happiness is released by Little, Brown, and Company
Felicia Tomasko has spent more of her life practicing Yoga and Ayurveda than not. She first became introduced to the teachings through the writings of the Transcendentalists, through meditation, and using asana to cross-train for her practice of cross-country running. Between beginning her commitment to Yoga and Ayurveda and today, she earned degrees in environmental biology and anthropology and nursing, and certifications in the practice and teaching of yoga, yoga therapy, and Ayurveda while working in fields including cognitive neuroscience and plant biochemistry. Her commitment to writing is at least as long as her commitment to yoga. Working on everything related to the written word from newspapers to magazines to websites to books, Felicia has been writing and editing professionally since college. In order to feel like a teenager again, Felicia has pulled out her running shoes for regular interval sessions throughout Southern California. Since the very first issue of LA YOGA, Felicia has been part of the team and the growth and development of the Bliss Network.