Andrew Weil Quotes

I have argued for years that we do not have a health care system in America. We have a disease-management system - one that depends on ruinously expensive drugs and surgeries that treat health conditions after they manifest rather than giving our citizens simple diet, lifestyle and therapeutic tools to keep them healthy.

Many exercise forms - aerobic, yoga, weights, walking and more - have been shown to benefit mood.

If you have difficulty sleeping or are not getting enough sleep or sleep of good quality, you need to learn the basics of sleep hygiene, make appropriate changes, and possibly consult a sleep expert.

Practicing regular, mindful breathing can be calming and energizing and can even help with stress-related health problems ranging from panic attacks to digestive disorders.

Remember that breath walking - as with any meditation technique - should not be pursued with a grim determination to 'get it right.' The point is to cultivate openness, relaxation and awareness, which can include awareness of your undisciplined, wandering mind.

We're all affected by music. It has the power to inspire, uplift us, change our moods, and even alter consciousness.

Most American diets, even bad ones, provide more than enough calcium for bone health, especially for men.

I've always been called "controversial." I think if I were not controversial I wouldn't be doing my job.

Alternative models are neither right nor wrong, just more or less useful in allowing us to operate in the world and discover more and better options for solving problems.

There's no single more powerful or simpler daily practice to further your health and well being than breath work.

Shorter daylight hours can affect sleep, productivity and state of mind. Light therapy, also known as phototherapy, may help. It uses light boxes emitting full-spectrum light to simulate sunlight.

Our feet are our body's connection to the earth.

Dreaming is a phenomenon of purely individual consciousness, and consequently impossible to thoroughly deconstruct by a community of researchers. But dreaming matters.

Whenever the immune system deals successfully with an infection, it emerges from the experience stronger and better able to confront similar threats in the future. Our immune system develops in combat. If, at the first sign of infection, you always jump in with antibiotics, you do not give the immune system a chance to grow stronger.

In the world at large, people are rewarded or punished in ways that are often utterly random. In the garden, cause and effect, labor and reward, are re-coupled. Gardening makes sense in a senseless world. By extension, then, the more gardens in the world, the more justice, the more sense is created.

In my view, prescribing antidepressant drugs is too often a quick and easy substitute for developing treatment plans that address the totality of health concerns and lifestyle factors that have an impact on wellness, including emotional wellness.

If I had to limit my advice on healthier living to just one tip, it would be simply to learn how to breathe correctly.

The more easily digestible and refined the carbohydrates, the greater the effect on our health, weight and well-being.

By keeping my hand in that, it's the way I keep learning. The main way you learn in medicine is by practicing and working with patients.

It is unrealistic to want to be happy all the time.

Limit or eliminate late-night computer and television viewing. A computer or TV screen may seem much dimmer than a light bulb, but these screens often fill your field of vision, mimicking the effects of a room filled with light.

Conscious breath control is a useful tool for achieving a relaxed, clear state of mind.

Your body can heal itself. It can do so because it has a healing system. If you are in good health, you will want to know about this system, because it is what keeps you in good health and because you can enhance that condition. If you or people you love are sick, you will want to know about this system, because it is the best hope for recovery.

My personal opinion is that the neutral position on the mood spectrum—what I called emotional sea level—is not happiness but rather contentment and the calm acceptance that is the goal of many kinds of spiritual practice.

I think integrative medicine, something I've pioneered, is the way of the future. Its great promise is that it can reduce healthcare costs by shifting the whole focus of healthcare away from disease management to health promotion and prevention. They can do that two ways: first, by focusing attention on lifestyle medicine, which is very deficient. And second, by bringing into the mainstream treatments that are lower cost because they are not dependent on expensive technology.

Fitting a walk into a busy life can be challenging, so I suggest walking rather driving to work or to run errands as often as you can - in other words, think of walking as alternative transportation.

True, nuts are high in fat, but most of them contain monounsaturated fat that is good for the heart. In fact, eaten in moderation, nuts can lower your risk of heart disease and heart attack.

I don't think you can live without stress; I think the human life is stressful, and it probably always has been, although the forms of stress may change from culture to culture, and from time to time.

The underlying idea is that you can prevent disease by balancing your body's pH... None of these claims are true. Furthermore, your body needs absolutely no help in adjusting its pH. Normally, the pH of blood and most body fluids is near seven, which is close to neutral. This is under very tight biological control because all of the chemical reactions that maintain life depend on it. Unless you have serious respiratory or kidney problems, body pH will remain in balance no matter what you eat or drink.

A beautiful bouquet or a long-lasting flowering plant is a traditional gift for women, but I have recommended that both men and women keep fresh flowers in the home for their beauty, fragrance, and the lift they give our spirits.

I'm not against high-tech medicine. It has a secure place in the diagnosis and treatment of serious disease.

Improper breathing is a common cause of ill health.

Even low-calorie diets and vigorous exercise fail to work in the long term for at least some people.

My passion for gardening may strike some as selfish, or merely an act of resignation in the face of overwhelming problems that beset the world. It is neither. I have found that each garden is just what Voltaire proposed in Candide: a microcosm of a just and beautiful society.

We need to accept the seemingly obvious fact that a toxic environment can make people sick and that no amount of medical intervention can protect us. The health care community must become a powerful political lobby for environmental policy and legislation.

Genuine happiness comes from within, and often it comes in spontaneous feelings of joy.

I tried to change the conventional paradigm, for example, by insisting on the reality of mind-body interaction, by stressing the importance of natural therapies, by focusing attention on lifestyle issues, by looking at worthwhile aspects of alternative medicine. Many people have been threatened by that. Doctors especially tend to think that they know everything about the human body, and don't realize that medical education has really omitted many very important subjects.

Drugs don't have spiritual potential, human beings have spiritual potential. And it may be that we need techniques to move us in that direction, and the use of psychoactive drugs clearly is one path that has helped many people.

Please keep in mind the distinction between healing and treatment: treatment originates from outside, whereas healing comes from within.

Pay attention to your body. The point is everybody is different. You have to figure out what works for you.

Short naps are good. Given modern workplace demands, this is not possible for many people - but if you have the option, try napping for ten to twenty minutes in the afternoon, preferably lying down in a darkened room.

Whole plants differ in their effects from refined drugs (:)...Plants are dilute preparations (of) the active principles...Plants usually go into the body through the mouth and stomach, whereas purified chemicals can be put...by snorting or injecting...directly into...bloodstreams without giving...bodies a chance to process them. Other compounds in drug plants...may modify the active principles, making them safer.

The notion that a human being should be constantly happy is a uniquely modern, uniquely American, uniquely destructive idea.

I think instead [of happiness] we should be working for contentment... an inner sense of fulfillment that's relatively independent of external circumstances.

I've always been willing to take risks and chances. Often I'm on talk shows and hosts will ask 'How do you feel about it, when people say you're controversial?' And I say that, 'I think if I stop being controversial, I wouldn't be doing my job.

Another aspect of the psychedelic vision for me that has been very profound, is the sense that every-thing is alive or at that at least, there is no distinction between what we call living and non-living.

Any drug can be used successfully, no matter how bad it's reputation, and any drug can be abused, no matter how accepted it is. There are no good or bad rugs; there are only good and bad relationships with drugs.

I expect that essential oils may some day prove a vital weapon in the fight against strains of antibiotic-resi stant bacteria.