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Well over 20 years ago, Catherine Clinton was in naturopathic medical school when the long hours caught up with her and she was diagnosed with two autoimmune conditions and Lyme disease. She had access to all kinds of healing modalities, yet the model was the same chemical and mechanical one modern medicine uses today. A physician she worked under during clinical rotations urged her to look into psychoneuroimmunology- how our thoughts and emotions impact our health- and at the same time she came across research on quantum biology. It all came together in an aha moment: the body isn’t just chemical and mechanical and physical, it’s energetic. Today Dr Clinton is a licensed naturopathic doctor and the author of Optimize: A Groundbreaking Seven-Step Plan to Health and Longevity Through Quantum Biology.
Symptoms are messages
Dr Clinton believes the body is brilliant, and that symptoms are signals rather than faults. Environmental stressors are danger signals, and the body is responding appropriately to the information it receives. Rather than quieting the symptoms and killing the bugs, which she sees as a militaristic view of the body, she suggests tweaking the landscape, both externally and internally, so the body no longer needs to respond. Our cells are always listening, she says. Our mitochondria, our DNA, our fascia and our nervous system are always listening for signals of safety or danger, and our thoughts are one of the primary signals, running 24/7.
Energy first before chemistry
Our cells run on a negative electrical charge, Dr Clinton explains, and she points to research showing that when we lose that charge we start to see pain, inflammation and immune system dysregulation. We are electric beings. She has had patients on supplements for years that helped a little, and found those supplements worked much better once the electrical capacity of the body was addressed. Pain, inflammation and fatigue are broad markers of an energetic component, and tending to the mitochondria looks like movement, natural light, being circadian aligned and tending to our thoughts and emotions. Much of it, she says, is free and accessible.
Remembrance, not willpower
Mind over matter, Dr Clinton says, is hard when we are sick. Instead, she returned to the relationships humans have evolved with over millennia: the rising and setting of the sun, the trees, the ground beneath our feet, birdsong and our own internal joy. In her words, it is less a matter of willpower and more a matter of remembrance. She sees a kernel of disconnection at the root of so much suffering, and coherence as the conductor of health, like a symphony where every instrument finally plays the same song.
An antenna, not a machine
The first idea in her book is that our body is an antenna. We’ve been taught to think of it as a machine, she says, and that’s not what it is. It is always receiving signals and information from our external and internal environment. Water in the body can take on a liquid crystal structure that holds information, which is why, for Dr Clinton, hydration isn’t just drinking water. A little mineral content helps water get into the cell, and she points to research, including work by Professor Gerald Pollack and his team at the University of Washington, on energising water with sunlight, infrared, stirring, tea and some traditional Ayurvedic remedies.
Nobody’s talking about rest maxing
A little stress can be good, Dr Clinton says, but modern life rarely stops at a little. We live in a biohack hustle culture where we are trying to maximise every single thing, and nobody’s talking about rest maxing, the pause, silence or the power of not doing. She finds it ironic that gym lighting can change our metabolism in the very place we go to change it, and that health checklists can override the intuition that says today rest might be better. Cells do not heal, she says, if they are not in a parasympathetic state or a sense of safety.
Dr Clinton left us with three shiny golden nuggets. Align with the rhythm of the sun: go outside within 30 to 45 minutes of waking, take little light breaks through the day and lower the lights at night, rather than reaching for a phone whose bright LED light tells your body it’s noon. Be conscious of your water, drinking with gratitude, adding minerals and supporting the water in your body with movement, warm baths and sauna. And work on your internal coherence through gratitude, a heart coherence or mindfulness practice, or simply a pause. Her own non-negotiable is a gratitude practice before she even opens her eyes.
Watch the full conversation on YouTube
Find Out More About Dr Catherine Clinton
Website: https://www.drcatherineclinton.com
Instagram: @dr.catherineclinton
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dr.catherineclinton
Facebook: @dr.catherineclintonnd
Ready to turn your gift for helping people into a real coaching career? Visit: https://riseandthriveglobal.com/positive-psychology-coaching/