Vitalism – a Chiropractic Viewpoint

VITALISM is a term known and understood by few people but yet it is as significant to each and everyone of us as LIFE and DEATH.

We could say that in general the use of the term VITALISTIC describes the sum of a person’s well being. Comparing two individuals to one another in many circumstances, one would conclude how one person is healthier than the other. Or in other words one person is expressing greater vitalism than the other.

We can agree that on a scale of 1 to 10 a person who is a 9 or a 10 would be expressing excellent health; or greatest vitality. As we slide to a 7 or 8 we are now unwell, but not necessarily sickly. Going down the slope to 5 or 6 out of 10 we see how people are occasionally sick, still recovering but only to find themselves sick again.

Continuing to poorly express our vitality in the stages of 3 to 4 we are describing a person suffering from chronic illness / sickness at this stage. Followed by severely ill when vitality is reduced to the 1 or 2 levels. The next step is the eventual demise, at which time all vitality is gone.

It is observed that throughout our lives we may tend to lose our vitalistic state. We don’t describe it that way. What we say is that we just seem to be less healthier as we age. If we look at the World Health Organization’s definition of health as the foundation of how vitalistic we are, it raises interesting questions.

“Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being; and not merely the absence of disease or infirmities.”

We are alive or we aren’t and the span between both extremes is best qualified or quantified by our state of general health. There’s no denying that vitalism or vitalistic forces are present, but we have no way of measuring it separately as a specific finding; that there is no way to measure ones vitalism according to current science. However it does exist!

So until there is an advancement and science that permits its accurate measurement, we will at least acknowledge how critical to life it is, and to support what promotes greater vitalism.

VITALISM exists in books only as a theoretical construct but its existence remains undeniable, in spite of our inability to measure this Vitality. The consequences of us not acknowledging this aspect of life and health will critically impact on our health and well-being.

Yours in Real Health,
docMIKE