Storytelling Our Medicine
- May 1, 2020
- Posted by: NLP
- Category: Voice of the Elders
In health care, storytelling promotes learning not only mentally but also through our senses and emotions as we can use our imagination to understand what is happening and what we can do about it.
When the learning goes through our creative imagination it is easier to remember. When I teach my clients by a story about their health status and what they can do to optimize it, it is much easier for them to understand the context of their symptoms, how the modalities being used in their care promotes homeostasis and remember to do what I am recommending.
Telling Stories in the Patient Visit
One example is drinking adequate water.
A current recommendation is to drink half the ounces of your weight in pounds, so if you weigh 180 lbs. you would drink 90 ounces of room temperature, clean naturally mineralized water, sipped not force-fed.
Putting the water in a see-through container so that you can see the water, helps to remind you to sip the water, i.e. by your bed, on your desk, in your car or carry bag.
It also helps to envision that our body is approximately 70% water. The blood is largely water and carries our nutrients to and debris way from our trillions of cells.
Storytelling is a way to ’embed’ generational health knowledge and wisdom taught by the elder grandparents to grandchildren.
By Dr. Verna Hunt, BSc DC ND