Autoimmunity Basics & the Need for Health Coaching
Robyn DeVoe, NBC-HWC, FMCHC
What is autoimmune disease?
I love to cook. So, naturally, I like to think of autoimmunity like a recipe. With the right components influencing each other, autoimmunity can result. But if one or more of the ingredients is improved, a state of health can be restored. The ingredients consist of:
1) intestinal permeability (“leaky gut”)
2) environmental exposures (traumas and toxins)
3) both of which influence how our genes are expressed (our exposures can either “turn off” or “turn on” a certain genetic expression leading to disease or health)
Trauma, for example, can literally change the cellular makeup in our bodies, leading to the body’s state of overwhelm and confusion about who is friend vs foe and becoming overly reactive to threats to the point that good cells are attacked.
If one or more of these factors is restored to a healthy state, we no longer have autoimmunity at play. Now that gives us something to grasp and work on!
Why is this the focus of my work?
Autoimmune disease is on the rise worldwide 5-10% each year, and it affects many of the clients who work with me. And over 40% of children today have a chronic condition. This is just the reality of living in our modern toxic and traumatized world. People are hurting and looking for relief and to claim some form of energy to get through the days with even just a little more ease. I know the feeling of suffering, and I also know that there is another side - that we can all achieve vibrant health with the right tools.
How can health coaching help me with all of this?
Everything about our health is based on the foundation of our daily choices, our past and present exposures, and mindsets. I help my clients smooth out their foundations so that everything else can fall into place naturally. Are you sleeping? Pooping? Stressed out? Moving your body? What are the relationships like in your life? Do you have a sense of meaning and purpose? What environmental exposures do you encounter on a daily basis? It's not all about what you're eating and what supplements you're taking. While yes, those can be beneficial, they'll only go so far if you don't have these foundations in place first. That’s where, as a health coach, I come in to really habit-hack with my clients to work on these pieces. This allows the body to rebalance naturally and opens the doors for everything else (like supplements) to work more efficiently.
One of the most important foundational pieces to focus on:
Stress and the nervous system. In order to get into that “rest and repair” state we have to slow down and do things that bring pleasure and take our minds off our suffering. Simply having stress about having a condition can make the effects exponentially worse! We work together to bring awareness to stressors and break them down so they have less impact and burden so healing can take place unhindered.
What this looks like in practice:
Every day my clients experience little wins, from choosing healthier foods on a road trip, to having ah-ha realizations of what triggers their migraines. From learning how to best support their bodies knowing what genes they have, to being able to tolerate foods they couldn't previously. As the body heals and repairs given the right tools (or sometimes by getting out of the way!), my clients reach a state of freedom and empowerment in their health.
If you take anything away from this, let it be this:
Supplements and food alone won’t get you back to a state of vibrant health. There are more factors at play. To get to that place where you feel better than you’ve ever felt before, it takes a vision, it takes reconnection to your values, it takes work, but it does NOT have to be hard! With a coach, these things can be broken down into manageable steps, swapping, or habit stacking in a way that makes sense for you and your life. That’s where we see the scale tip in the direction of your ultimate self. That version of you is within reach, waiting for you, and you hold the keys to getting there.