How Purpose Promotes Health
If you asked me what my passion is, it would be difficult to capture with one word. My passion is an assortment of interests that have manifested in “nutrition”. But my passion is not “nutrition” per se, even though you likely know me as a nutritionist who is very passionate about the work I do.
My passions are actually art and design. The perceptual and the sensual. The way things come together and intersect. Growth and the elegance (and sometimes messiness) of feedback loops. Context! I love context. I can’t really think or solve a problem without understanding the terrain in which a concern or obstacle exists. Any other route to resolution seems flat, shallow, and depreciated. A mistake.
Light
Dark
Ultimately, these passions took shape within my life’s purpose – a purpose that stemmed from the disillusion of witnessing my late husband navigate a healthcare system that displayed herculean methods of intervention alongside disregard for the humanity of the patient. Isamu was not just his diagnosis. He was not a case. He was so much more. And to me, he was everything.
Experiencing the disjointed mechanisms of medicine at such close proximity established my intent. No more should people suffer as he did – or be unseen like he was. Although it took time to discover, that conviction prescribed my life’s purpose.
Life’s purpose as an antidote
Passion and purpose are two focal points in the 5-P model that I developed and teach to practitioners at Functional Nutrition Alliance – practitioners who are working to overcome self-imposed obstacles to pursue their ambitions to help those in need. I also believe these same 5-P theories support our personal health and health outcomes.
The 5-Ps include:
Passion
Permission
Purpose
Persistence
Perseverance
It may feel challenging, or even like a big waste of time, to sit down and consider the questions: “what am I passionate about?” and “what gives my life purpose?” – as opposed to the quest for those other provocative Ps in healthcare, the pills, the protocols, and that all-knowing practitioner. But research shows that we may be missing some important pieces to the healing puzzle.
A recent review and meta-analysis in Science Direct reveals that purpose in life is associated with a reduced risk of dementia. Got brain fog? Read on.
According to the review, purpose is considered a positive psychological construct (PPC). The study aims to synthesize evidence between those PPCs and later risk of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and dementia. There is accumulating evidence associating negative psychological conditions such as depression, anxiety, pessimism, and hopelessness with increased risks of compromised brain function. But there is less research into the PPCs and the balance they may provide in the realm of prevention.
As I’ve been diving into the frustrations that so many of us feel with our unresolved symptoms as well as with the medical model when struggling with chronic health challenges, I’m struck by the quagmire in our current healthcare system. What aims to support may actually make you sicker (in more ways than one). The system itself may be thwarting valiant efforts toward prevention or slowing the progression of an underlying disease state. And this dilemma is multiplied for those standing at the margins of medical understanding, or those with histories of discrimination and distrust.
How many are experiencing anxiety, pessimism and hopelessness related to their symptoms or medical care? I fear it’s more than we’re willing to admit. If the evidence shows that these mental states are correlated with cognitive decline, what are we doing to counteract those adverse influences? And how do passion and purpose play a part?
Permission for your passions to drive your purpose
It’s important to recognize that purpose isn’t something that comes with the snap of our fingers. Knowing your purpose may seem as elusive as the resolution to your memory loss, confusion, brain fog, or any other symptom that just won’t go away. And a discussion of your life’s purpose may feel as hopeless as the many dietary interventions or supplement regimes you’ve tried to no avail.
I didn’t know my purpose until I felt it rumbling through my core. And my lived-life delivered it to me – meaning there wasn’t a thread I could trace back to my childhood, (that’s where passion comes in).
The shape, texture and flavor of my purpose was not apparent for many years. And it’s not static either. It evolves. At times it can feel like walking through a dense forest in the dark, barely seeing my way. Direction only comes from putting one foot in front of the next while following the illumination of the north star in the sky above. My north star is to address the injustices experienced by those suffering with chronic health challenges while working alongside that selectively significant yet flawed system of care we’ve all come to rely upon.
It also took me time and permission (along with persistence and perseverance) to think outside the box. I could have told myself “the system is broken, so I’ll become a doctor and be different than so many others.” But had I done that, I would not have been appreciating what psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls “flow”.
“A joyful life is an individual creation that cannot be copied from a recipe.”
I discovered that my passion for context was a key ingredient in living my life with purpose. I had to grant myself permission for that passion to inform my purpose. It was not only knowing that context is how I make sense of the world, but understanding that I had to pay attention to it so that it could become an integral part of my inner wisdom and practical application. Knowledge is from my learnings. Application is my practice. Wisdom is the whole.
If finding your purpose is a daunting proposition, let it go. Start with your passions.
When I was completing my BFA, I encountered two kinds of art history professors. One made us discuss paintings from the Medieval and Renaissance periods and, during our final exam, identify the artist and relative date of a painting we had never seen. The other talked about the cultural and sociological challenges of the time – the circumstances and context that informed the art, and the habitat the artist lived in. The former elicited a stress response that caused me to freeze like a deer in the headlights, save for the tears quietly streaming down my face during an exam I knew I, an otherwise good student, would fail. The latter enlivened my curiosity and desire to engage in discussion. One made me insecure, the other confident. And yet both courses were in art history.
The lesson was not about labeling myself or one of the instructors bad or good, dumb or smart. Both professors were published and well-respected in their field. Instead, the lesson was about decoding what makes me tick, what spurs my interests and excitement. This gave me permission to layer that understanding onto my purpose and come up with my own operating system, even if my operating system looked different than the standard perception of the field. Or even the word: Nutrition.
Reframing “nutrition” (and my purpose)
This brings me back to the subjects you might expect me to write about. Food. Recipes. You may assume you’ll see photos of me at the farmer’s market or in my kitchen whipping up an enviable meal. But I found those pursuits and depictions never actually explained what I do. And yet diet and lifestyle modifications were some of the places we experienced gaps in my late husband’s care. They were the areas I saw were necessary to address, in tandem with all the other interventions he was receiving.
Since the prognosis was grave for his type of brain tumor (a glioblastoma multiforme or GBM), we had to borrow our approaches for TAKING care from other areas of health and science (Note: This was over 20 years ago). Breast cancer patients and survivors had mobilized around the benefits of adjunct care. Integrative doctors were speaking out about the influences of complementary therapies. Functional Medicine was present, but not known to us. And Precision Medicine practices were just making their way onto the cancer scene in the ways we now understand them (Head over to this post to learn more about these terms). What was offered to us were the standards of medically revolutionary care – craniotomies, targeted radiation therapies, chemotherapeutic agents in clinical trials, new uses of antiangiogenics. We were the lucky ones – with insurance and access to the best medicine had to offer. And yet what was not being discussed was the terrain (and context) in which the tumor was growing. OR what we could do about it.
While my passion for nutrition started with a desire for some control in an otherwise out-of-control situation, that passion is now only partially related to food. Yes, no. Right, wrong. Macros. Phytochemicals. Ratios on the plate. Meh. I don’t really care what you eat. I’m not invested in a prescription, a diet plan, or a protocol. Keto, intermittent fasting, macrobiotic, plant-based. Nutrition just doesn’t work like that. Literally… it doesn’t work. At least not for any good length of time, or without other core work upon which sustainable results depend. Part of that core work is understanding the context into which the food goes… the context of your body. In other words, I care more about you than your food. You, and your health outcomes are my purpose.
Nutrition, by definition, is about growth, metabolism, and repair. Food alone isn’t going to support those biological functions. Instead, it’s about the chemistry of where two (or more) contributing factors intersect. The PPCs – those positive psychological constructs – could be among those factors. And there’s a plethora of others to consider as well.
Where is my passion?
Though the research is showing that purpose may be a part of the prescription, if you don’t know it, don’t fret. Worry can lead to one of those negative psychological constructs that works against us. Your formula for using purpose as a path to preventing or reducing cognitive decline starts with your passions. They may pop into your head as a thing you love to do (play music, take photos, walk in nature), or, like me, a way you like to do those things (through research, writing, contextual understanding – zooming in to zoom out and zooming out to zoom in).
Or you may find that your passions are not clear to you, either. That can happen too!
Either way, take a moment to wind back the clock. Whether that’s back to a moment in your childhood or young adulthood where you developed an understanding of yourself and found your flow, identify something that made (or makes) you tick. Release the need to put a label or meaning to it, or to carry the weight that it is your savior. Instead consider how it manifests in your life, or how it can manifest as part of a new daily practice. It may be in a coloring book or in a deep connection with a friend. It may be in brainstorming your vote on the next ballot with your neighbors as a way to make a difference. Or perhaps it’s in brewing a cup of tea or a pot of broth for a sick child. Watch. Listen. Practice. And let your passion guide your path to purpose and brain power.
“The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.”
References
Bell, Georgia, et al. “Positive Psychological Constructs and Association with Reduced Risk of Mild Cognitive Impairment and Dementia in Older Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.” Ageing Research Reviews, vol. 77, 2022, p. 101594., https://doi.org/10.1016/j.arr.2022.101594.
Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Harper and Row, 2009.
Korthauer, Laura E, et al. “Negative Affect Is Associated with Higher Risk of Incident Cognitive Impairment in Nondepressed Postmenopausal Women.” The Journals of Gerontology: Series A, vol. 73, no. 4, 2017, pp. 506–512., https://doi.org/10.1093/gerona/glx175.
Sutin, Angelina R., et al. “Sense of Purpose in Life Is Associated with Lower Risk of Incident Dementia: A Meta-Analysis.” Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, vol. 83, no. 1, 2021, pp. 249–258., https://doi.org/10.3233/jad-210364.
