For a long time, conventional medicine has viewed health from the perspective of the development of diseases. Increasingly, the realisation is spreading that it might be wiser to ask the question differently. Instead of asking how disease arises, one could also ask how health arises.
As an expert on the fundamentals of physical and mental fitness, I am also interested in the influence our diet has on the development of health. Is there really only the anti-principle? Do I have to fight illness with the help of medicine? Or could I also increase my own fitness and thus not get sick in the first place or get better faster?
Fitness is based on training. In stress research, a distinction is made between negative and positive stress. Negative stress, so-called "distress", harms us because it overloads us. Positive stress, on the other hand, so-called "eustress", strengthens us. We challenge ourselves without overburdening ourselves. We recover from the stress and are now stronger than before.
Now, is the repeatedly observed effect of Artemisia based on the fact that its ingredients destroy parasites? Then it would be a medicine. Or is the effect based precisely on the fact that our body overcomes the bitter and disgusting-tasting ingredients of Artemisia and becomes stronger as a result?
If I solve an arithmetic problem with a calculator instead of using my brain, then I have comfortably solved the problem but - have I learned something new? If I eliminate my illnesses with medicine, mostly temporarily, have I come closer to my humanity, my purpose, MY specific health?
Maybe then illnesses are no longer curses that plague us but the exact opposite: namely the invitation to grow, to overcome ourselves and thus to become stronger every day. Then illnesses would be "gifts from the good gods" - a message in a bottle from the future to ourselves.
