Sept Oct 2017 Plus Size Wellness Mag

Why I Left
Conventional
Western Medicine
To Find Fulfillment
By Deepak Chopra
Like every other young doctor in
the 1970s, I came of age in
medicine knowing absolutely zero
about the mind-body connection.
My medical specialty was
endocrinology, the field that deals
with hormones. As a young doctor I
was fascinated with how the tiniest
secretion of chemicals could make
someone afraid, courageous, angry,
sexually aroused, or hungry in a
matter of seconds. The secret to Dr.
Jekyll becoming Mr. Hyde lies in a
molecule! That discovery sparked
my imagination, and I originally
thought I’d be content to stay in the
laboratory examining the effects of
hormones, because their actions
and interactions are astonishingly
complex.
But when I went into private
practice, I saw the devastating
effect of hormones firsthand. Stress
hormones were culprits in disorders
that could ruin people’s lives, often
in cruel social ways. “He’s lazy and
dull” is the stigma attached too
often to thyroid deficiency. Soldiers
have been anxious about seeming
to be cowards for centuries, but
another hormone, adrenaline, leads
to flight as much as fight. In
addition, when the adrenaline rush
is over, the body is physically
depleted.