“In a few decades, we’ll look back and realize how one new habit transformed healthcare”.
Johannes R. Fisslinger, Founder Lifestyle Prescriptions® University
In 2011 I woke up one morning in a dream-like state and thought to myself “Why is nobody writing Lifestyle Prescriptions®“? Even though I’ve been training healthcare providers in Health Coaching and Root-Cause Analysis over the last 2 decades, the concept of prescribing Lifestyle Medicine was new to me.
Typically, I forget my dreams or inspirational ideas quickly. But not this one.
I rushed to my laptop and googled “lifestyle prescriptions” or “prescribing lifestyle” and to my surprise, I could only find a few references mostly focused on green prescriptions being used in a pilot project in New Zealand.
Over the next days and weeks, the “Lifestyle Prescription®” idea just got stronger and stronger and I started to visualize a healthcare system where healthcare providers would provide choices to their clients/patients:
Since 2011, we’ve developed the concept further and integrated Lifestyle Prescriptions® into our health coach training. We created a system that can be integrated by traditional and complementary practitioners with ease and without changing complex workflows.
I am deeply grateful that prescribing Lifestyle Medicine (and writing micro-habit and symptom-specific lifestyle-based prescriptions) has picked up steam and is finally finding its way into healthcare.
What’s the difference between Prescribing Lifestyle Medicine and Lifestyle Prescriptions®?
Prescribing Lifestyle Medicine
The term “Prescribing Lifestyle Medicine” is used by a variety of organizations and healthcare providers globally. Based on clinical evidence showing that the majority of chronic symptoms are a product of our lifestyle health professionals prescribe lifestyle modifications to empower patients and help them improve their lifestyle habits.
One essential component of prescribing Lifestyle Medicine is giving patients the power to influence their own health and treatment, which is a fundamental change to traditional mainstream medicine.
Other commonly used names to prescribe lifestyle medicine are Lifestyle Medicine Rx, Green Prescriptions (prescribing exercise), Healthy Prescription (mostly focusing on healthy foods), Social prescriptions (focused on social lifestyle improvements), Nature prescriptions (like walking in nature), Nutrition Prescriptions (food and diet based).
Lifestyle Prescriptions® – Micro-Habit Root-Cause Based
Prescribing the 4 pillars of Lifestyle Medicine which include diet, exercise, stress management, and social support is an excellent strategy and a great starting point.
The challenge with this approach is that its rather generic and similar protocols are used for a wide variety of chronic health issues (from digestive issues, eczema to anxiety).
Lifestyle Prescriptions® take the concept of prescribing lifestyle medicine several steps further by adding the sciences and application of Organ-Mind-Brain Anatomy, Micro-Habits, and Root-Cause Analysis to the mix.
The two foundational principles that allow Lifestyle Prescriptions® Practitioners to be extremely precise and to coach clients to achieve impressive health outcomes are:
- Root-Cause Analysis: Knowing which specific stress trigger, emotion, belief & lifestyle habits affect a specific chronic organ tissue symptom is invaluable and the most important step for sustainable health improvements.
- Organ-Mind-Brain Anatomy™: A new science adding psychosocial components to anatomy & physiology diagnostics.
- Micro-Habits: Patient compliance is one of the biggest challenges when establishing new healthy habits. Writing root-cause and micro-habit-based lifestyle prescriptions® radically improves compliance and health outcomes.
What’s the research?
Research showing the efficacy of prescriptions lifestyle medicine includes:
- Making sense of social prescribing
- Lifestyle Medicine: A Primary Care Perspective
- Lifestyle Prescriptions for Physical Activity: A Review of the Clinical Evidence
- Prescribing healthy food
- Green Prescription (Ministry of Health New Zealand)
- The Long-Term Effectiveness of the New Zealand Green Prescription Primary Health Care Intervention
- Green Prescriptions and Their Co-Benefits:
- Nutrition Prescriptions
* To clarify, the term Lifestyle Prescriptions® is the exclusive worldwide trademark of Lifestyle Prescriptions® University and can only be used after completing the Writing Lifestyle Prescriptions® Course and being approved by the non-profit accreditation organization Lifestyle Medicine University Foundation.
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