Unless you hide from media sources as if they are the plague, then you have likely heard about the healthcare reform efforts currently under way by the U.S. President and Congress. The issue of healthcare reform is so large, that it seems to have sucked the collective attention from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and is adding further anxiety to our ongoing fiscal crisis. We spend millions of dollars every week on war and keeping ourselves out of an abyss of financial ruin, and now we are told we need to spend TRILLIONS on fixing health care? Why is this such a monumental problem?

Healthcare currently makes up over 17% of our gross domestic product. In 2007 we spent the equivalent of $7,900.00 per person in the U.S. for healthcare, and this has only continued to rise. In the same year, $2.1 trillion was spent on medical care "and 95 cents of every medical-care dollar went to treat disease after it had already occurred." The cost of not taking care of our bodies by following a healthy lifestyle is enormous, and reaches far beyond our lives, into the lives of others and the lives of our children and their children and so on. While the cost of following a healthy lifestyle, including proper and healthy nutrition may seem more expensive when you write a check at the grocery store, the payoff comes over the long haul, by helping to prevent chronic disease such as type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease. Consider that while you may pay more for proper nutrition now, you will likely pay much less on doctors visits, medications with unpleasant side effects, surgeries, and other disease-care costs.

Start yourself on a more nutritious diet through nutritional cleansing. For more information, visit www.fit.org.

A cornerstone of disease prevention, living a healthy and vital lifestyle, is physical activity and exercise. Instead of watching a sitcom on TV or renting another movie, pull weeds in the yard, go for a walk, go dancing or take dancing lessons. Move your body and eat healthy to prevent disease and all the associated complications of those diseases. Consider that "in a 1993 study, 14 percent of all deaths in the United States were attributed to activity patterns and diet. Another study linked sedentary lifestyles to 23 percent of deaths from major chronic diseases." If you want to live longer and also have a better quality of life, get up and exercise. You'll also be doing future generations a big favor, not only by being around longer and livelier than you would be living a sedentary lifestyle, but also by improving our economy and setting a new standard for living.

20 to 30 minutes of physical activity 4 to 6 times a week can help prevent the risk of dying prematurely from heart disease, reduces the risk of developing diabetes, high blood pressure, colon and breast cancer, feelings of depression and anxiety, and many other health concerns. With regular exercise you increase blood flow to the brain and major organs helping to flush out toxins from the body while transporting nutrients and minerals to those tissues. You increase or maintain bone density, muscle tone and strength, lung capacity, and cardio-vascular health, and help to maintain a healthy balance of hormones and endorphins and other chemical relationships within the body. Exercise also improves your immune system to help ward of minor viral illnesses such as colds and flu that could otherwise lead to expensive doctor visits and potentially unnecessary treatments. So get up from the computer and do something active.

We live in a fast paced world; we run from one event to the next. We go to work often longer than eight hours a day, perhaps squeeze in some exercise, juggle events such as kids' soccer games, homework, and school functions. If we are fortunate, we find time for a healthy meal with our families each day, then we clean it up, throw in a load of laundry, iron the load from the night before, bathe the kids, toss in a periodic date night with the spouse, and attend religious functions. At the end of it all, we perhaps catch a few hours of uninterrupted sleep. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Day in and day out it is a non-stop cycle of stress, which of course is a well known contributor to many physical ailments; high blood pressure, sleeplessness, body aches, fatigue, and irritability to name a few. Over an extended period of time, these symptoms can lead to serious, sometimes fatal disease.

But there is good news - you can stop stress in its tracks. Meditation has been shown to lower levels of stress hormones in the body, support the healthy functioning of the immune system, and increase positive hormones such as serotonin.

By setting aside just 20 minutes per day to meditate, you can lower your blood pressure, improve your sense of well being, and enhance your body's natural immunity against disease. Combined with proper nutrition and frequent exercise, you dramatically increase your body's ability to remain healthy.