Hi everybody, Dr. Rick here. Today, I want to dive into a fascinating topic that plays a crucial role in your health and wellness: your immune system—specifically, the differences between adaptive and innate immunity.

Why Should You Care About Immunity? You might be wondering why we’re talking about this. The truth is, understanding your immune system can directly influence your health, your wellbeing, and your life. Your immune system is an incredibly sophisticated and cool system that has evolved over millions of years to protect you from a myriad of threats. So, let’s break it down.

Innate Immunity: Your Body’s First Line of Defense. Think of your innate immunity as the body’s built-in, genetic defense system. It’s like a library of pre-programmed responses that your body has at the ready. When something foreign, like a virus, bacteria, or toxin, enters your body, your innate immunity kicks in. It’s fast, efficient, and designed to keep you safe from a broad range of pathogens.

This system is always on the lookout, identifying threats and neutralizing them before they can do harm. It’s really brilliant in its simplicity and speed. But sometimes, this system isn’t enough to fully protect you.

Adaptive Immunity: The Specialist in Your Immune SystemWhen your innate immunity encounters something it can’t handle alone, that’s when your adaptive immunity comes into play. Adaptive immunity is more specific and targeted. Unlike the generalist approach of innate immunity, adaptive immunity tailors its response to the particular pathogen it’s dealing with.

This system takes a bit longer to activate, but it’s incredibly powerful because it learns and remembers. Once it has dealt with a pathogen, it stores that information, allowing your body to respond more quickly and effectively if it encounters the same pathogen again in the future.

The Nervous System Connection 
Now, why am I talking about this in the context of your overall health? Because your immune system is deeply connected to your nervous system. When your nervous system gets dysregulated—whether due to stress, illness, or other factors—it can throw a monkey wrench into your immune system’s operation.

A dysregulated nervous system can impair both your innate and adaptive immunity, making it harder for your body to fight off infections and stay healthy. This connection was particularly evident during the COVID-19 pandemic, where the state of your nervous system could significantly impact how well your immune system functioned.

The Path to Radical Wellness 
So, what can you do about this? One of the primary focuses of our work is helping you regulate your nervous system. By addressing the root causes of dysregulation, we can support your immune system, helping you maintain better health and resilience.

This approach is part of a broader concept we call radical wellness. It’s about taking a holistic view of your health, addressing all the systems in your body to achieve true wellness. Because honestly, that’s what it’s going to take for all of us to find our way to a true level of health and wellness.

Thank you for joining me today, and here’s to your health!

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What path was followed in ordered to provide the offerings, services, and HEALTH care that is offered at Colorado Health and Wellness Center. 

Why the previous providers and protocols you have followed have not been able to produce your desired health outcomes. 
(transcript below)

 What is health and wellness? It's a question that seems simple but delves deep into the core of our well-being. Traditionally, health has been defined as the absence of illness or injury. But does this definition truly encompass what it means to be healthy? The World Health Organization took a step forward by including mental and social health in their definition, bringing us a bit closer to a holistic understanding. However, looking at the statistics in the United States, it's evident that we're still far from true wellness.

The reality is stark: Nearly half of the U.S. population suffers from a chronic illness. In children, the prevalence of autoimmune conditions has skyrocketed from 1.2% in the 1960s to a staggering 54% today. This isn't just unhealthy; it's a crisis. Clearly, something isn't working in our current healthcare system, which is predominantly focused on treating diseases rather than preventing them. It's akin to letting a house burn down and then installing smoke detectors—an approach that's reactive rather than proactive.
 
Enter Radical Wellness. This concept moves beyond the traditional fix-it 

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Hi everybody, Dr. Rick here. I've been focusing a lot on this particular book. It's called The Forever Dog. I highly recommend it to anybody who has a dog and loves them and wants to keep them around for a while. There's some really really strong parallels between canine and human health. Now, I know we've touched on that before. I just wanted to go a little further into depth about another key component that a lot of us may not even be looking at. ​

 A lot of this comes from my own personal experience with my dog Kayla who has taught me tremendous amounts about unconditional loving and being empathic because she is,  and most dogs I found really are. When we first met Kayla, she  was a rescue dog. She was really fearful, anxious, and would cower if I moved too fast near her. It broke my heart. Then my wife begged me to start doing Network Care on her, which I had to learn from the creator of Network  Spinal Analysis  Donny Epstein, and a few other practitioners. Dogs spines are totally different from human spines. And lo and behold, after beginning treatments she really started to come back. Kayla was given a safe, stable environment. She was given Network Care. She was given exercise. Everything that we could do for her and she completely changed. She became the strong, confident, friendly, outgoing, and also fierce dog that she is today.

I wanted to just touch on that so that you know this is not only coming from a book, this is also coming from my personal experience. There's some key factors in a dog's life and just like there are in ours. So what are some of those key factors if you want to keep your dog healthy?

Number one diet. What are you feeding him?
Number two, exposure to toxins, environmental toxicity.
Number three, exercise.
Number four, socialization. 
Number five is mental health.

I'm going to focus on this last one right now. So when we talk about mental health for dogs, what does that even mean? Well, let me just kind of give you that same parallel between humans and dogs again. I'm just going to read you some statistics here.

• So with humans there's been a 400 % increase in antidepressant prescriptions since 1990
  
• The suicide rate has become increasingly high especially among young people teens and even younger specifically.
  
• Insomnia affects one quarter of the population in the United States.
  
• Three out of five people have admitted to feeling lonely or out of place
  
• And interestingly enough there's also been a massive decrease in exercise and movement overall generally among the population.
  

Guess what? Dogs are the same thing. They reflect us really, really well. And one of the key points that I wanted to bring up here in terms of mental health and socialization for dogs: imagine if you took your dog, right, and they mirror you. They feel everything you're feeling, right? If you're stressed, they're stressed. And then their normal ways that they're able to dissipate that stress is through walks or playtime or hikes or laying out in the sun. It's just basically being a dog.

But now imagine that same dog is kept in an apartment and the only time they get to go out is just for brief walks to do their business and then boom, they're right back in the environment. Maybe that environment isn't even healthy. You can see how that's really going to affect them. Some may become aggressive, some may become anxious. These are the kind of symptoms we see in dogs when their mental health isn't doing so good. So what do we do about that?

Well, it's the same for us. We need to take care of our nervous systems. . One of the best ways you can take care of them is take care of yourself. So that's where the Network Care comes in. That's where taking care of your own nervous system, finding a ways to manage and dissipate your own stress and hopefully even use that stress as a vehicle to help your own being evolve, in order to become more adaptable, more flexible. When you take care of yourself, your dog is going to sense that. Dogs are pack animals. They're used to being connected with the pack, and you can bet that if you're taking care of your pet, they're looking to you as pack leader.

If you're anxious or nervous or depressed or stressed out, it's completely going to unravel them. So one of the primary things you can do for yourself and for your pet, get outside. Get some exercise get some playtime get some socialization. The other amazing thing that Kayla taught me is that it's not just physical exercise that dogs need. They also need mental stimulation that means games or playing fetch. We have this game where we would hide little treats around the house and not let Kayla see. Then we let her go and she has to find them. So she's got to use her brain and her nose to really figure this out. She loves that game, by the way. These are just some tips for how you and your furry friend can stay healthy and happy together. Thank you.