Dr. Doug Fullington

10,000 Hours to Health Mastery

The most effective way to improve your health is to immerse yourself in the culture of being healthy. What I mean by this is that you should think about being healthy all day long. You should think about it, read about it, talk about it and do it all day long. In the last newsletter, I described Malcolm Gladwell's concept of it taking 10,000 hours of practice to master any area of expertise. He described in his book, Outliers: The Story of Success, that talent only accounts for a small part of success - true mastery comes only with dedicated practice for years. I have spent at least that long learning and applying what it takes to master my own health. It is only recently that I feel like I am making significant progress.

Before you get discouraged about it taking you 10,000 hours to master your health, let me explain why I think Gladwell is only partially correct. While it does take time to become an expert, your goal may not be expertise. You are not training for the Olympics (if you are, you probably do not need to read this newsletter), and you don't have to have 5% body fat and eat only spinach to improve your health. You simply need to begin the process of making incremental changes in your health behaviors. Instead of trying to discover all the knowledge yourself, you can learn from the experts. You are wasting your time if you try to research all of the scientific studies ever written about health. You do not need to read hundreds of books or articles about health to learn how to be healthy. You can learn from those who have already invested 10,000 hours in becoming health experts.

10 Hours to Great Health

What you can do is invest 10 hours reading an informative book or talking to an expert to discover the principles and practices that will help you become the healthiest person you can. Take what you learn, apply it, modify it and then keep learning and applying what you learn. Invest some time acquiring the best knowledge, but realize that you do not have to spend 10,000 hours before achieving meaningful results.

While a necessary tool, knowledge alone will not make you healthy. You must apply what you learn. Nothing happens without action. You must exercise, you must eat healthy foods and you must avoid unhealthy behaviors if you want to feel well and be well. You will only learn what works for you by doing it. Engaging in healthy behaviors every day is the only way to be healthy.

It will not take 10,000 hours to be healthy, but it is necessary to make being healthy an integral part of your day. Immersing yourself in the culture of health is the quickest and most effective path to success. You need to create an environment in your mind that will reprogram your habits. Most of what you do every day is habitual. You don't have to think about taking a shower, eating breakfast, or going to work because you do these things so frequently that they happen automatically. Unless you are already exercising regularly or making the healthiest food choices with every meal, you will need consciously to change your current habits. Even if you know that smoking is unhealthy or that eating too much fast food is contributing to your heart disease or diabetes, you continue to engage in these unhealthy behaviors precisely because they are habits.

Reap a Habit

Nineteenth century Transcendentalist author Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, "Sow a thought and you reap an action; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny." Your journey to maximum health should follow his concept. You must think about your health all day. Your waking thoughts should include plans for exercise, healthy food and time for rest. As you go through your day, you should be thinking of your health. You have to reprogram your mind to make healthier choices until you reap the habit of doing it. Surround yourself with people who have healthy habits, discuss and cultivate these habits until you reap the character of someone who is healthy. Your natural destiny is one of abundant good health. You become unhealthy from years of damaging behaviors that your body eventually cannot overcome, but your body has the amazing capacity to heal itself. Your body is designed to be well. If you exercise it, feed it properly, and give it plenty of rest it will last for 100 years or more. Reap your healthy destiny now. Immerse yourself in the culture of excellent health.

My Top 10 Most Influential Health Books

1. Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease: The Revolutionary, Scientifically Proven, Nutrition-Based Cure by Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn.
2. Eat to Live: The Revolutionary Formula for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss by Dr. Joel Fuhrman
3. The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-term Health by T. Colin Campbell, PhD
4. The Okinawa Program : How the World's Longest-Lived People Achieve Everlasting Health--And How You Can Too by Bradley J. Willcox, et al.
5. Dr. Dean Ornish's Program for Reversing Heart Disease by Dr. Dean Ornish
6. Aerobics Program For Total Well-Being: Exercise, Diet , And Emotional Balance by Dr. Kenneth Cooper
7. Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy: The Harvard Medical School Guide to Healthy Eating by Dr. Walter Willett
8. Healthy at 100: The Scientifically Proven Secrets of the World's Healthiest and Longest-Lived Peoples by John Robbins
9. In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan
10. Dr. Neal Barnard's Program for Reversing Diabetes: The Scientifically Proven System for Reversing Diabetes without Drugs by Dr. Neal Barnard