Wellness can be just as contagious as illness and our greatest hope is toย spark a wellness pandemicย that will help us become positively well and realise worldwide wellness.
One of Australiaโs pioneers on integrative medicine and holistic wellness, Professor Marc Cohen, shares how toย thriveย through radical transformation. How toย enhance resilienceย and create communities, lifestyles and environments that enhance wellbeing.
ABOUT PROFESSOR MARC COHEN
Professor Marc Cohen is one of Australiaโs pioneers of integrative medicine and holistic wellness and has made significant impacts on education, research, clinical practice and policy. He is a registered medical practitioner with degrees in western medicine, physiology and psychological medicine along with PhDs in Chinese medicine and biomedical engineering.
In 2002 he became Australiaโs first Professor of Complementary Medicine and Head of the Department of Complementary Medicine at RMIT University, which was by far the largest such department in the country with around 100 staff and 1000 students. He currently leads wellness research within the School of Health and Biomedical Sciences at RMIT University and serves as Program Leader for postgraduate wellness programs along with teaching undergraduate courses on Medical Diagnosis and Medical Examination.
He is a Board Member of theย Global Wellness Summit, Past-President (from 2000-2007) of theย Australasian Integrative Medicine Associationย (AIMA), a member of the RACGP-AIMA Joint Working party and sits on the Editorial Board of five international journals. Prof Cohen has previously held positions as Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Medical and Health Sciences Education at Monash University, Expert Advisor to the TGA Complementary Medicine Evaluation Committee, Member of the NHMRC Grant Review panel on Primary Healthcare, Member of the Scientific Advisory Committee for the National Institute of Complementary Medicine and multiple ministerial appointments on various Registration and Accreditation Panels. He previously held the position as Director of the Centre for Complementary Medicine at the Monash Institute for Health Services Research.
As a medical practitioner and researcher Prof Cohen has pioneered the introduction of complementary, holistic and integrative medicine into mainstream settings. He has been involved in two landmark surveys of Australian General Practitioners and their attitudes towards, and use of, complementary medicines, which were instrumental in the development of the AMA policy on complementary medicine and the establishment of the RACGP-AIMA Joint Working Party on Integrative Medicine. He has also been involved in establishing acupuncture as a form of standard care in emergency department settings and developing hospital policy on practitioner accreditation as well as co-authoring many high level reports including a report for the World Health Organisation on quality assurance in CM education, a report for the National Asthma Council on CM in Asthma, and a report for the Victorian Department of Human Services on the risks and regulatory requirements of naturopathy and western herbal medicine, which was used to inform policy development for the regulation of natural medicine practitioners.
Prof Cohen has published more than 90 peerโreviewed articles, authored more than 20 book chapters and edited 8 books on holistic wellness & health as well as co-authoring the landmark text; โHerbs and Natural Supplements an Evidenced Based Guideโ, with the first two editions being short-listed for an Australian Publishing Award in the scholarly reference section. He is also co-editor with Oxford Universityโs Prof Gerry Bodeker of the landmark text โUnderstanding the Global Spa Industryโ which is the first academic book documenting the global spa and wellness industry. He writes a regular monthly column for Prevention Magazine and is regularly requested to examine PhD thesis from many local and international universities and peer-review articles for numerous international scientific journals.
Prof Cohen has extensive experience in running clinical trials and other multidisciplinary projects. He has been involved in running more than 10 industry-funded randomized controlled trials as well as being CIA on two NHMRC funded trials on the use of yoga for geriatric insomnia and the use of acupuncture for analgesia in Emergency Departments. Prof Cohen is currently involved in research into various aspects of holistic wellness & health including the use of organic foods in reducing pesticide exposure, the use of yoga and meditation for insomnia and stress, and the use of various therapies and lifestyle interventions for detoxification from environmental chemicals.
Prof Cohen is one of the most active people in Australia when it comes to organising conferences on holistic and integrative medicine. He has organised more than 10 International Holistic Health Conferences and in 2003 he chaired the Organising Committee for the First World Congress on Chinese Medicine. He also organised the Complementary Medicine Symposium at the XIIIth World Congress on Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics as well as organising the RMIT School of Health Sciences Research Conferences from 2005-2007. He sat on the Scientific Committees for the Third International Conference on Complementary Medicine Research and National Prescribing Service Scientific Conference and currently sits on the Board of the Global Wellness Summit. In this last role he has been involved in commissioning and conducting landmark econometric research into the global wellness economy and been instrumental in the development and implementation of the free online evidence based portalย wellnessevidence.com
As well as organising conferences, Prof Cohen is a sought after presenter and has been an invited speaker at more than 100 conferences including more than 40 international and 40 national conferences in Australia, Germany, the United Kingdom, India, Indonesia, Turkey, Switzerland, China, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, The Philippines, New Zealand, The United States and Hong Kong. Prof Cohenโs impact on the field is recognised by the media and he has received four consecutive RMIT Media Star Awards as well as the inaugural award for leadership and collaboration from the National Institute of Complementary Medicine.
IN THIS EPISODE WE DISCUSS:
The Biological Implications of Fear and Emergency
Fear comprises the immune system
When stress hormones are released in the body, all your energy is sent to the outside of the body, to the peripheral.
All functions not relating to flight or fight are shut down. Thus, basically no energy is there to fight a bacteria or virus.
The blood vessels in the gut squeeze shut and the blood is pushed to the periphery, the arms and legs, to deal with flight or fight.
This is what โbutterflies in your stomachโ is.
When you fear you shut down growth andย maintenance –ย the visceral functions of maintaining the body – filtering, cleaning, repairing, replacing.
Stress hormones shut down the immune system to conserve energy so it can flight or fight.
Stress response altersย pro and anti-inflammatory cytokine balanceย (small proteins).
At the early stage of stress, the activated hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and sympathetic nervous system (SNS) axis can up-regulate the levels of stress hormones (glucocorticoid (GCs) and catecholamines) (CAs), respectively, and then they in turn inhibit the secretion of pro-inflammatory cytokines directly or indirectly while promoting the secretion of anti-inflammatory cytokines.
The other side of the emergency
To emerge and see.
Balancing hyper arousal from sources such as the main stream news.
Our innate immunes system.
Heat to treat viral illness
- Particularly for envelope viruses like respiratory viruses.
- Keeping a warm humid environment.
- Keep humidity in home before 40-60%. – Please ensure humidity does not exceed this amount because thenย mouldย will become virulent.
- Cooking with the lid of pot open.
- Steam inhalation withย Prandhara.
- Saunas.
- Sipping hot waterย and inhaling the steam.
Dr. Marcs Research:ย Turning up the heat on COVID-19: heat as a therapeutic intervention
Be responsible and careful with heat treatment – stay hydrated and know your body type.
Viruses canโt survive in 55-60 degrees celsius. Viruses donโt have very sophisticated repair mechanism to cope with heat.
The management of humidity inside buildings.
Nasya
The Ayurvedic practice ofย Nasyaย to enhance the health of nasal passage.
Why everyone is going to get this virus.
As it migrates into the collective microbiome.
Control of the media. –ย Positive messages are not able to get out, and oppressive messages are becoming mandated. Disempowerig the population of the world.
Get radical and enjoy yourself during the pandemic.
Make your home a health resort and go out in nature.
Balance the time that you spend in fear with equal (or more) time in bliss – the chemistry that inhabits your brain is one of the most important variables when it comes to a holistic wellness approach.
The psychological benefits sauna.
The importance of good sleep.
Enhancing our water is the most powerful thing we can do to enhance our health
Water filtering and restructuring – key factors that shouldn’t be overlooked in the pursuit of holistic wellness.
Why itโs more important to bathe in clean water than drink it.
People put organic cosmetics on their skin but bathe in tap water.
We are waterย – 99% of our molecules are water.
But this changes as we get older – โdying is drying.โ
Replacing plastic water bottleย – It is estimated we eat a plastic credit card each week in our food chain – due to the prevalence of plastic in our ecosystem, oceans and food chain.
The worlds best water system
ย Extreme Wellness Water Filter
Dr. Marc has sourced all the best components for a water system from around the world. One that filters and restructures.
Tulsi (Holy Basil / Ocimum Sanctum)
- Purifies water – Wells in India are contaminated with fluoride. Tulsi absorbs heavy metals and toxic elements from the water.
- Purifies air – when the Taj Mahal planted thousands of Tulsi plants around the Taj Mahal when it was getting bombarded with polluted air.
- Cognitive awareness.
- Blood sugar, diabetes, metabolic syndrome.
- Relaxation without depression of alcohol.
- Mouth wash, anti-bacterial, disinfectant.
- Travel companion – boosts the immune system.
- Every hotel, room, aeroplane you can get sugar and caffeine drinks.
- Replace sugar, alcohol, caffeine drinks with tulsi and you start to transform consciousness globally.
- You can consume it all year around.
- Every part of the plant is medicinal.
- Even the soil is healthy – the bacteria around the roots and fungi that grow are medicinal.
Soil bacteria: the biggest repository of biological information on earth.
Proper Hydration
Holistic Wellness Trends and Predictions:
- Going on Retreats more Regularly
- Heated hammock and Hydro hammock.
- Steam tent.
- Ultimate eco tourism.
- Creating a Retreat at Home
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