COMPENSATIONS AND ADAPTATIONS – A KEY TO DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS

by Dr. Lawrence Wilson

All information in this article is for educational purposes only. It is not for the diagnosis, treatment, prescription or cure of any disease or health condition.

This article is about the stress theory of disease. It is based on the research of Dr. Hans Selye, MD (1907-1982). His work helps explain many aspects of the development programs we set up.

The basic idea of this article is that our bodies are always compensating and adapting to stress. They do this by continually adjusting the levels of thousands of chemicals such as minerals, vitamins, enzymes, hormones and more.

Bodies also adapt in countless other ways, such as generating sweat on the skin if the body gets too hot, or shivering if the body gets too cold. The ways our bodies adapt are in the millions!

Teleology. The way the body does this is amazing, and has to do with a concept called teleology, which is the healing intent of the body. This simply means that our bodies want to survive and want to survive as well as they can. So they alter themselves in many ways to respond to their environment in ways that will maximize their ability to survive.

Levels of Adaptation. One can adapt at a cellular level, an organ level, an organism level, or at a psychological level. For example, if you are too cold, you can put on a sweater. This is an adaptation or compensation for the cold. If you get too hot, you take it off, another adaptation.

In fast, families, communities, nations and even whole planets are always adapting as well to stress in order to survive. Families may adapt by having both parents work to bring in more money, or by having one parent stay home with the children to save money on child care.

Communities may adapt or compensate for crime by hiring more police, or arming the people. Nations adapt by going to war, adopting austerity measures, passing new laws, and so on. All of this is done to survive better.

WHAT IF ONE CANNOT ADAPT?

Then, generally, the body dies. In other words, adaptation and compensation are so important that if one cannot adapt any more, then one will not survive very well, and will probably die. Cells die, for example, when they can no longer cope, meaning adapt to the environment they live in.

For example, if the pH or acidity of the cellular environment is great, or the nutrient content too low, the cell may not be able to remain alive.

Similarly, organs can become so clogged with toxins, or infected with bacteria, or toxic with metals, or so damaged by something else that they cannot adapt and the organ stops functioning well.

Doctors give these conditions hundreds of fancy names such as heart failure, kidney failure, liver failure, etc. However, the basic process is the same. The organ is overwhelmed and cannot compensate or adapt to it.

Mentally, we must also adapt and change or compensate. If one cannot do this, usually the person becomes very anxious, or depressed, or has a nervous breakdown.

It may be okay to be angry for a short time, but if one remains in anger all of the time, it wears out the adrenal glands and leads to disease.

People who have difficulty adapting mentally are often called ‘fixated’ or ‘neurotic’. These are just other words for an inability to adapt and compensate adequately to stress.

MORE ABOUT THE STRESS THEORY OF DISEASE

Although Dr. Selye wrote about the stress theory of disease about 70 years ago, his work is not fully accepted by either the regular medical profession or even the holistic or naturopathic communitites.

In fact, it is a radical departure from their methods, which are based on the diagnose-and-cure model of thinking. In contrast, the stress theory tells us that rather than try to get rid of symptoms, one should try to figure out why the body is adapting the way it is.

For example, if a person has a fever, the standard medical approach is often to try to lower the fever with Tylenol or Aspirin, perhaps. A naturopath might try to lower it with sponge baths or perhaps a sedative herb. A homeopath might give a homeopathic remedy. An herbalist might do it with an herbal poultice or something similar. A nutritionist might try to do with cooling foods like fruits, or juices.

However, one who understands adaptations and compensations does not rush to lower the fever. Instead, the answer is to figure out why the body is compensating by raising the temperature. A good doctor often does try to find out why the fever is high, but then often the doctor proceeds to try to lower the fever with a remedy.

What we find is that if one can figure out why the body is adapting the way it is, remedies are rarely needed at all. Instead, correct the need for the compensation. Then the symptom goes away on its own, often fairly rapidly.

This principle applies to all symptoms, physical, mental, and emotional. It applies to high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer, heart disease, anxiety, depression, biplolar disorder and all other conditions or ‘diseases’. It is a very powerful healing principle.

Hair mineral testing. The problem, however, is to find out why the adaptation is occurring. While all medical tests have value, Dr. Paul Eck found that a hair mineral analysis, when properly performed and interpreted correctly, offered some amazing insights into the way the body is adapting and compensating.

We use this test in this way – and not as a medical diagnostic test, which is how most doctors use it. Allow me to explain this. Most doctors look at tests and then try to correct the abnormal readings. There is another way to view tests, however. This is to understanding the abnormal readings as adaptations to stress. Then one is often in less of a hurry to just correct the abnormal readings. Instead, one focuses on understanding and correcting the causes of the stress, called the stressors in stress theory. This could be the diet, the lifestyle, nutrient deficiencies or something else that is not directly connected with the abnormal test results.

We assess certain parameters of stress such as the oxidation rate, major ratios, and more, and then correct these. This can seem unusual, but it works and it works consistently and well.

Retests are used to assess progress in a very mathematically precise way, as well.

The cellular biopsy test of the hair tissue allows this kind of assessment. In our experience, blood tests do not allow it as well. This may be because the blood is the ‘transportation highway’ of the body, a different system of the body with different qualities.

So far, urine tests, saliva tests, x-rays or even energy medicine tests like the Vega or Dermatron machines don’t work well, either, for the assessment we need. So, we use the hair mineral test as it works the best for this purpose.

WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN IN PRACTICAL TERMS?

It means that when one views a person or reviews any type of laboratory test, one is really looking at a complex, self-regulating system that is adapting to its environment each moment of the day in complex ways in order to survive.

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