Your Body is a Big Beautiful Machine

I use an analogy with patients all the time in the office.

Your body is a big, beautiful machine.

It is an absolutely astonishing machine.

It has electrical wiring running throughout it: your nerves.

It has scaffolding that gives it structure and allows it to move: your bones, joints and muscles.

It has a pump that runs every second of every day without you ever having to think about it: your heart.

It has an elaborate hydraulic system moving blood, oxygen, nutrients, hormones and immune cells throughout your body.

It has a remarkable processing system that takes in food, sorts through what you need, absorbs the useful pieces and gets rid of the waste.

And overseeing the whole operation is the most extraordinary computer we know of: the human brain.

It is complicated.

It is resilient.

It is beautiful.

And sometimes, parts of it break.

Somehow, we made that a moral problem

This is where humans get a little strange.

When something goes wrong with our bodies, we often don't respond as though a piece of complicated biological machinery needs attention.

We respond as though we've done something wrong.

Our cholesterol goes up.

Our blood pressure goes up.

We develop diabetes.

Our knees wear out.

Our hormones change.

Our brain struggles with anxiety or depression.

Our weight changes.

And instead of simply asking, Okay, what does my body need now?, we start looking for the transgression.

What did I do wrong?

Was I lazy?

Did I eat the wrong things?

Should I have exercised more?

Did I fail to manage my stress?

Why couldn't I prevent this?

There can certainly be things we can change to improve our health. That's an important part of medicine.

But needing healthcare is not evidence of a character flaw.

Your body did not commit a sin.

Something in a remarkably complicated machine needs attention.

So let's take care of it.

I am a 1980 model

I was born in 1980.

And if I owned a gorgeous 1980 Cadillac convertible, I would expect that car to need a little more maintenance than a brand-new car rolling off the lot.

That wouldn't make it a bad car.

Frankly, I might love it even more.

But I wouldn't expect to drive it for decades without ever opening the hood.

If a hose cracked, I'd replace it.

If the oil needed changing, I'd change it.

If something started making a strange noise, I'd probably want someone to figure out why.

And if I wanted that beautiful old Cadillac to still be cruising around town decades from now, I'd take really good care of it.

I wouldn't stand in the garage yelling at it for having the audacity to need maintenance.

Yet we do that to our bodies all the time.

I want you to be a spunky 95-year-old

Human beings are asking our bodies to carry us for a very long time.

And I want that for you.

I want my patients to become spunky 95-year-olds whose families have absolutely no idea what they're getting up to.

But if we're going to ask these incredible machines to keep running for decade after decade, we're going to have to maintain them.

Sometimes we need to unclog the pipes. Maybe that means taking a statin to lower cardiovascular risk.

Sometimes the pressure in the hydraulic system is too high. We treat the blood pressure.

Sometimes the fuel we're putting into the machine isn't giving it what it needs, so we work on nutrition.

Sometimes the metabolic machinery isn't operating as efficiently as we'd like, and medication such as metformin helps the system work better.

Sometimes the scaffolding needs physical therapy.

Sometimes the computer needs therapy or medication.

Sometimes a worn-out part needs surgery.

And sometimes everything is working beautifully and our job is simply to keep checking under the hood.

None of those things represents failure.

They represent maintenance.

Take care of the machine

I want you to exercise.

I want you to eat food that nourishes you.

I want you to sleep.

I want you to stop smoking.

I want you to take your medications when they're appropriate.

I want us to monitor the things that need monitoring and fix the things we can fix.

But I don't want you doing any of those things because you are ashamed of your body.

I want you to do them because you love it.

When a beloved old car breaks, we don't decide it has failed morally.

We fix it.

We maintain it.

We care for it.

And then we put the top down and keep driving.

Your body deserves the same grace.

It is the only machine you will ever have that has carried you through every single day of your life.

Let's take good care of it.

We have places to go.