Whether or not you obtain relief from naturopathic or alternative medicine, now also referred to as "complementary medicine," consider how much you spend on health care. Whether you personally are over or under the average, you might want to sit down for this. Really and truly. As in feet flat on the floor and someone near by just in case.

Most of us can honestly state that we have, individually and as families, gone past the point of spending many thousands of dollars on medical costs in a lifetime. Almost certainly more thousands of dollars than you may be considering it is, has been, and will be in your personal case. This is not a general article, it's written directly to and about you.

Like all of us, you are subject to environmental conditions that affect your health and will affect your Longevity. Unless you are physically confined against your will, there is a degree of control retained by you personally with respect to how long, and how well you live. Before going any further, it is hoped that this point is perfectly clear in the most definitive way. Lip service is insufficient because in this case it's quite clearly life and death playing out up on your stage.

Perhaps surprisingly, it's not the catastrophic chunk that drives our lifetime medical costs into the upper thousands, it's the little dribbles along the way. The largest portion of consistently healthy people in America shortly after the turn of the 21st century appears to be those people who invest their medical dollars into preventative, restorative, natural health and wellness-balancing items, from broccoli or Bodyscans to bean sprouts or Viacreme, an extremely intelligent and happily effective alternative to Viagra.

You may remember that Ben Franklin wrote dozens of the most intelligent statements ever issued by mankind, many of them condensed from our wisest masters of the centuries. One of them that many of us first hear about in elementary or junior high school is, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." Like all great powergems of wisdom, this time-tested method has worked for so many people so much of the time that those who aren't making practical and everyday use of this wisdom will get instant savings of pain, money, unnecessary suffering and distraction from more important things, including pleasure just from making one or two of the tiniest changes in decision-making.

For example, putting on a coat tends to prevent catching a cold, particularly when there's either a foot of snow on the ground, or at the other end of the spectrum, that deceiving near-warmth that blows the occasional -- and still useful for starting a cold or flue -- gust of chill winds of March or October every few years or so. Putting on a coat may be annoying, but it's worth avoiding a more expensive cold, in terms of at least time, work, rest, play, and everything else you don't enjoy when you've got a cold or flu.

"Hold on, " you exclaim, "I've caught plenty of colds even when I did bundle up warmly." The fact that this is true for at least ninety or more percent of us tells us clearly that bundling up warmly is just one of the ounces of prevention available to us. Boosting the immune system by strengthening each of the known and clearly identified components of the immune system means avoiding the colds and flu far closer to perfectly than when we rely upon anything that is not part of our genetic makeup, or grown from the ground.

With the advent of devices such as the Phazx Bodyscan2010, which measures precise sensitivities to some 16,000 substances WITHOUT drugs or surgery, or stressful procedures, we receive better information on "prevention of disease."

When you and your primary care provider know precisely what you're sensitive to, it provides an instant set of tools - knowledge tools - with which to get you back on course for good and balanced health. In fact, we are seeing in this century the most photographic-like evidence that naturopathy works faster, better, and without intrusion to enhancing and extending our Longevity, than any insertions or surgical invasions involving sharp instruments and human flesh (uuggh!). Zero stress or chemical risks ever identified at any time in. More and more the human race is beginning to accept that when you screw with Mother Nature, you can be irretrievably certain that Mother Nature will screw with you. The human body responds to items and substances that occur in nature. How hard is this to take in?

Yes, penicillin was wonderful when Alex Fleming developed it (as a direct result of having saved the life of a rich young child in a drowning scare some thirty-five years earlier, affording him a college education that was otherwise not going to happen). Yes, it was wonderful that he established penicillin as a viable antibiotic when he got to save Churchill's life a second time with that first manmade antibiotic. The fact is, Churchill's life was in danger from bacterial infection, and it worked. Unfortunately, most Americans have taken sufficient antibiotics that most of the life forms killed off by the result of penicillin are now immune to it, as well as immune to even stronger antibiotics. Those people who rushed to take what is now called "Cipro" after the inhalation anthrax scare of 2001 learned the hard way that their immune systems were permanently compromised by taking this obscenely potent chemical.

Remember, the sole purpose of an antibiotic is not to boost your immune system. It is solely designed to depress your immune system to where the threat of death is so significant that the body's natural survival functions are sufficiently over-stimulated to produce unprecedented amounts of your immunosuppressants, the actual soldiers that do the fighting. Unfortunately, the intimacy of combat is such that the two enemies get to know each other, and the next time they encounter each other, there is no resistance available against the invading agent.

Treat every day as if it's your last; because one of these days you'll be correct. Health and wellness are attitudes and decisions as much as they are products and food items. How long do you want to live?

The Shortcut Zen of Mastery is self-explanatory. Blending the most documented and empirical examples of health, wellness, and Longevity with modern technology's most proven methods and devices, the NY National Health and Wellness Center is committed to empowering others to empower themselves, taking control of the medical decisions that affect how long and how well each of us lives. It is matter of practical application of the best things for our bodies, our minds, our very Longevity.