In reinstating function to your body’s systems, emphasis is placed on finding the cause of the dysfunction and eliminating it to allow the body’s own healing mechanisms to restore natural function and vitality. Functional wellness is NOT geared towards simply eliminating symptoms.
In the truest holistic sense, you are more than the simple sum of your parts. Therefore, any true holistic wellness philosophy must be aimed at treating you as a whole person, rather than simply where the pain or symptoms lay.

Most Problems Are Dysfunctional In Nature 

When a part of your body is not functioning in its proper capacity, other parts of your body adapt. Quite often this adaptation goes unnoticed by our conscious mind and produces no noteworthy symptoms. However, many times illness or problems can be traced back to a point where you ‘just didn’t feel right.’ The more you slide backwards on the spectrum of health, the more body adaptations start to come into play, and more and more ‘symptoms’ start to be experienced. Quite often there is no pathological evidence of disease or illness quite yet.
Western medicine is quite good at detecting pathology (an abnormal manifestation in the body known as disease). However quite often the tests designed so well to diagnose pathology miss when the body is not at its proper level of function. This can lead to the body slowing developing from a functional imbalance into disease over time. 

Balance All Sides of the Triad of Health 

Functional Healthcare looks at the totality of who you are and who you are capable of being. Functional Healthcare looks at the effects of your environment and lifestyle habits on your health and who you are genetically, in terms of your inherent strengths and weaknesses. Your health can then be protected based on that knowledge. 

Any of the healing arts can utilize a Functional Healthcare approach, though many disciplines within the healings arts will tend to have unique strengths (and weaknesses) in terms of how broadly and deeply they affect the structural, chemical, and mental aspects of a person’s health. 

All sides of the triad of health must be considered for you to experience your fullest expression of health. In reality, there is no separation between structure (body and nervous system), chemistry, and mental (mind and spirit). They all are one. 

Taking Responsibility for your Own Health 
 
Ultimately, the one responsible for your own healing is you. Every day is filled with choices that lead us in the direction of health and wellness or down the spectrum towards dysfunction and disease.
It is vital to understand that you are the most important person involved in your own healing. That means unless you are doing your part to support, nourish and take care of your body with the guidance of a health care professional, the chances of success are reduced. 

Taking responsibility to do the things that bring you health, such as proper sleep, proper nourishment, emotional/mental stress levels, exercise, are not just helpful, but necessary. If a person works 8-12 hours a day, rushes through or skips meals, eats food lacking in good nutrition, gets little sleep, is in a stressful relationship, how is the body expected to be able to heal itself?

Given time, the body can do amazing things! By applying the concepts of functional wellness, you too can experience the benefits of personal optimum health!