Adaptation Interference in Botanical Medicine

Botanical medicine is similar to exercise in that they both signal changes in the body.

Responding to these changes takes energy. It also takes time.

It is inefficient to attempt to be a powerlifter, a rock climber, and an endurance athlete all over the course of a two week period.

Trying to do too much at once can be counterproductive.

The signals and needs of the body will be vastly different. Trying to adapt to one change may interfere with other adaptations. This is called "adaptation interference". It is as true in medicine as it is in athletics.

If you take someone who is out of shape with weak ligaments and tendons, lowered bone density, poor intracellular communication, and tensegrity in the body and attempt to get them in shape by forcing them to run a marathon, you are certain to exacerbate their chronic injuries and you may even give them a heart attack resulting in their death. 

 

It sounds extreme and yet the incorrect application of botanical medicine is no less harmful than the incorrect application of exercise.
 
If you wanted to prevent injury, the first step would be to help them warm up and work on muscle balance . The minimum time you may expect to see a significant change would be around two weeks. Completing a marathon without being hurt may require 9 months or more to allow the body to adapt to greater structural and metabolic demands.

We must extend this same intuitive sense and lived experience to botanical medicine. Just as no special stretch would magically get someone in shape and ready to run a marathon, no botanical medicine will magically heal the body. It can simply guide your body to heal through its own cycles of movement and stillness. Most efficiently it begins with relaxation, breathing, and alignment. This is exactly how formulas like "Peak" and "Wind" work. They work through relaxation and settling the shaoyang, opening the lung, and restoring the balance between the liver and lung. This is functioning at the level of the organs, channels, and physical posture all at the same time. 

The process we take going from sedentary with muscle imbalances and chronic injuries to restoring our natural athleticism requires relaxation, breath, and alignment. It's only then that we can really get moving.

Next it is good to focus on core strength and integration of movement chains

Botanical medicine follows the same strategy. It focuses on communication between networks in the body and restoring healthy microbiomes.

The biggest mistake people make with botanical medicine is assuming that everyone is at the stage where they can use herbs as supplements. What they fail to realize is that fact skipping the first two stages is like taking someone who is obese and in chronic pain and forcing them to run a marathon. They need the proper foundation before they can begin such specialized adaptations.

There are herbs that increase hormones, yet the cells may not be fit to increase their hormonal receptor sites and the liver may not be catabolizing the hormones fast enough. In this case more is not better. Hormones lingering in the blood can turn it into carcinogenic soup which is often seen in Chinese medicine as “blood heat.” Adding before the body is ready is far worse than doing nothing at all. The body must be prepared to accept such treatments in order to prevent and reduce side effects.

Once the body’s systems are in a relatively healthy state of balance, you can begin to work on strengthening the central axis.

Within the realm of exercise this is the core muscles which link breath and motion and in particular the cultivation of the dan tian in the pelvic girdle. With the realm of botanical medicine this would be the tonification stage where you begin to strengthen and warm the core from the inside out via the microbiome and gasotransmitters in the lower intestine. 

As the aerobiome of breath and microbes merge with movement and posture the body naturally begins to strengthen. 

For those who are already through the first few stages and enjoy reasonable health, it's fine to use botanical medicines as supplements to boost performance. They have a healthy foundation to allow their body to endure greater stresses and adaptations.

Most of these adaptation is actually done while sleeping. Exercise only works when you sleep enough and the same is true of botanical medicine. Movement practices are just as important for the body as stillness practices. A yang boosting herb really comes to life when we move, and you truly nourishing yin with stillness and sleep.

A good practitioner looks at the adaptation of the body’s systems with the detail of an olympic trainer. They will consider times of fast adaptation, times of slower maintenance, and also when to give the body a break altogether. 

What is your personal healing strategy today? Is it aligning and relaxing? Removing excess? Nourishing? Will you use herbs to do this? Will you use movement or stillness? So long as you are following the right strategy the tools you choose to use become less important. The main thing is that you stay on course until its time for the next phase. Respect that trillions of microbial and mammalian cells within you will need to respond to any changes. Let one wave come to completion before starting on the next and you will enjoy greater flow. Breaking rhythm to do it all at once is counter productive and clumsy. By staying the course of treatment, you stay in rhythm. Enjoy the flow. Enjoy the dance. Enjoy your life.

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