This is the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris.

Hey, gang, as we all know, there are many problems with our medical system today.

I love my doctors, but they tend to be super busy and it can be hard to have in-depth conversations

with them.

Also, there's the fact that most doctors are trained to focus on treating disease with medicine

as opposed to preventing disease and thinking about all the factors that go into why we get sick and how to heal our lifestyle.

In my experience, most doctors really don't have time to go deep on things like sleep, the quality of your relationships, your spiritual life, etc., etc.

That's why integrative medicine is really interesting because it takes into account factors

that many doctors may write off as extraneous or just might not have time to get into,

but that can be key to preventing and treating illnesses.

So today I'm going to talk to an integrative doctor who's got some really impressive credentials

and who, as you'll hear, is a font of useful information. Her central thesis

is that we all have what she calls the rapid recovery reflex. In other words, our bodies are

brilliant at healing. For example, anytime you get cut, you can watch over the ensuing day or two or

three as it heals. It's phenomenal, although many of us take it for granted.

Your body is innately wired for self-healing, and there are evidence-based ways to ramp up your

ability to heal quickly from everything from colds and flus to musculoskeletal pain to heart

conditions, to anxiety, and beyond. We're going to get into all of that today with Dr. Victoria

Mazes. She's the founding executive director of the Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine.

Her new book is called Heal Faster, Unlock Your Body's Rapid Recovery Reflex. In this conversation,

we talk about what integrative medicine is and isn't, how lifestyle, sleep, stress, and relationships

factor into healing. Why, a pill for every ill, a slogan some doctors use often falls short,

...