10/29/2025
🐂 What I think about during my quiet cow time… For so long, medicine has been built around “pathogenesis” — the study of how disease takes root + unfolds.
It’s a valuable framework, I suppose, especially when someone is in crisis — when infection strikes, when trauma happens, when emergencies arise. In those moments, we need precision, protocols, & fast answers. I mean, that’s what Yale and a whole lotta tuition taught me right, Right?
But what about when it comes to chronic illness, a purely pathogenesis mindset keeps us circling the question 🙋🏼 :
What went wrong? ….. rather than how can we make it right again?
Sooo as providers … we end up managing disease (dis-ease) instead of cultivating health. 🙈 
And if we look honestly at where that has brought us, the statistics are sobering:
📊 Over three-quarters of adults live with a chronic illness.
👧 Four in ten children already face chronic disease.
👵 Nearly all adults over 65 manage at least one chronic condition.
❤️ Seventy percent of all deaths are linked to chronic disease.
🧬 And perhaps most revealing — 93% of adults are metabolically unhealthy.
Even more striking is that so much of this burden — between 40% and 80%, depending on the condition — can be traced back to “modifiable lifestyle choices.”
Pathogenesis can name the problem, but it cannot teach us how to restore wholeness. It points out the brokenness but not the rebuilding. And I believe — that we were created with the ability to heal.
This is where “salugenesis” comes in — the study of how the body is designed to return to health. It’s the divine rhythm of repair, the natural healing cycle God wove into every cell.
When the body faces an insult — infection, toxin, trauma, or stress — it activates a sacred sequence of renewal, orchestrated by the mitochondria, the little powerhouses that give life to our cells.
True healing moves through 3 seasons: inflammation,
proliferation,
and differentiation.
Each one necessary,
each one sacred in its purpose.
But when the mitochondria are hindered — by infection, poor oxygen flow, nutrient deficiencies, or chronic stress (yes that includes your lack of sleep, and possibly your mother-in-law) — the body can’t move forward in its healing story.
It gets “stuck” in survival mode. That’s when symptoms linger and chronic illness takes hold.
The work, then, is to uncover and gently remove what’s blocking that natural progression — to restore the conditions that allow the body to “”””remember”””” how to heal.
All that to say … that means there is hope.
It means our daily rhythms — how we eat, rest, move, and think — are not trivial; they’re sacred levers of healing. ❤️🩹
4 Ways to Begin Healing Today (Even Before Stepping Into My Clinic)
😱 Stress:
Begin and end your day with stillness. Even two minutes of deep breathing, prayer, or gratitude can shift your nervous system from fight or flight into rest and restore. Peace isn’t something that happens when life quiets down — it’s something you practice right in the middle of the noise. Open up YouTube and see what you think about some vagus nerve stimulation, exercises.
🌙 Sleep:
Protect your rest like it’s medicine, please pretty please — because it is. Dim the lights, silence the noise, and let your body unwind. Aim for 7–9 hours of deep, restorative sleep. Consoder red light at night. Use a sleep app to see what may be going on. It’s in those quiet hours that your body repairs, your mind resets, and your hormones find balance again. If you might like the dude, google Huberman lab and see his thoughts on sleep, caffeine, alcohol & the brain. 
🥗 Diet:
Choose foods that come from the earth, not a factory. Whole, colorful, living foods remind your body how to heal. Eat the rainbow 🌈 each week. Eat slowly. Bless your meal. Gratitude itself is anti-inflammatory. Every bite is a chance to nourish not just your body, but your soul. Every 7 days have a very intentional, family dinner or date with your partner in the home. 
🏃♀️ Movement:
Move daily in a way that brings joy — not guilt (or shin splints.) Walk outside, stretch, dance, breathe. If able, work your way up to lifting some weights. Find a walking buddy. Walk around target without your wallet! The goal isn’t perfection; it’s connection. When you move, you remind your cells that life is still flowing through them — that healing is still possible. A wise chiropractor once told me motion is lotion.
In short, health is not something we force back into being — it’s something we baby step into and allow to unfold when the obstacles are lifted and the body, mind, and spirit are aligned again.
🤷♀️ And full transparency… I’m working on these things, too….
I need to sit with my cows more often 🐄, have a bedtime, eat less carbs like my mexican sweet bread 🍞🙈, and finally get that last bit of mold out of my house 🏡😅.
Don’t expect perfection — none of us can be perfect.
But one baby step at a time, one small act of alignment, moves us closer to the health and peace we were designed for. Just think 🤔 if you do 1 positive change every day ( more water, less salt, sleep hygeine, self care, vit d, stroller walk, etc ) at the end of the year, that’s a 365% positive change for your health!
Kindly,
Dr. Hoff
Dr. Hoff Holistic Health & Wellness
📸:  Highland cows this summer. Tempted to try to sell their pics to Hobby lobby cuz mine are the cutest.
