Welcome to the foundation episode of the Unstress podcast. Here you will find my mission statement and what I am trying to achieve.

As you may know, I’ve written a book called A Life Less Stressed: The Five Pillars of Health and Wellness. The book is what I describe as an exploration of the 5 stresses in life that can compromise our health; emotional, environmental, nutritional, postural and dental. I also explore the 5 pillars of health that can build resilience; sleep, breathe, nutrition, movement and thought. I call it an exploration because it such a huge topic that I’m not even going to pretend it’s a complete guide.

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Once something is written, it’s written. The idea of the podcast is that if I can expand on any topic, explore it in more detail and talk to world leaders and ask them some questions, then that’s what the podcast is all about.

I also want to explore the role of the chemical, food and pharmaceutical industries in all levels of health, from government policy and regulatory bodies, professional health associations, public health messages right to the ‘coal face’ of the doctor’s surgery. Exploring why public health messages are so confusing and often contradictory….it’s a story that is easy to miss but difficult to ignore.

Ultimately the Unstress with Dr Ron Ehrlich is a podcast to empower you to take control, build resilience and be the best you can be.

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Transcription

Dr. Ron Ehrlich: Hello and welcome to Unstress, the podcast. Yes, this is the mission statement. My name's Dr. Ron Ehrlich. I welcome you to the podcast. I wanted you to get an idea of what this is all about and why we're doing it. As you may know, I've written a book called A Life Less Stressed: The Five Pillars of Health and Wellness. The book is what I describe as an exploration of the stresses in life that can break us down and the pillars of health that can build us up. I call it an exploration because it's such a huge topic that I'm not even going to pretend it's a complete guide. The idea of the podcast, of course, is that once something is written, it's written. If I wanted to expand on a point, explore it in more detail, talk to other people, world leaders, then I want to flesh out these topics, and that's what the podcast is all about. Let me tell you a little bit about the book, and that in turn will give you an idea of the structure or some of the topics we're going to cover in the podcast.

The book is divided up into three sections. Part one is really about understanding public health messages, and I explore what holistic actually means. I am a holistic dentist. The most common question I am asked is, what is a holistic dentist? How does that differ? I simply say dentists focus primarily on the oral cavity, but as a holistic dentist I also realize that there's a whole person attached to the oral cavity. That whole person has a digestive system, has a respiratory system, has a nervous system, has a whole lot of other systems. I need to respect those and understand how their oral health impacts on their general health, and how their general health impacts on their oral health, and what other factors are affecting their health.

I really want to explore in the book and in the podcast series the idea of what holistic actually means. It's not some new age philosophy. It's not some kind of crazy new alternative. Holistic is the way the body works. It's the way the world works. The sooner we become holistic citizens, holistic thinkers about our own body and our own health and the relationship that that has to the rest of the world is a better thing. Holistic is one thing. I share a personal journey, which actually, here's a story. If you want to do something stressful, write a book. If you want to do something even more stressful, write a book about stress. If you want to do something even more stressful, then get a diagnosis of prostate cancer while you'r...