John Arts Abundant Living www.johnarts.co.nz

Welcome to our many visitors to the beautiful Bay of Plenty during the festive season.

For those readers new to The Weekend Sun I have written more than 400 complementary health columns and have covered almost every health topic imaginable. If you would like to continue to receive this column by email, just follow the links at the end of the column.

Holidays are the perfect time to reflect on your health. A good way to review your health is to think of your body systems and give each a grade out of 10, with a 10 being fantastic, a 0 terrible; then a final grade out of 10.

Consider your skin, hair and nails, then your muscles and skeleton, including your joints. Next check your heart and general circulation, followed by your nervous and respiratory system, including you breathing and sinuses. Think of your immunity, including how often you are unwell and how well you recover.

We generally notice our digestion and elimination but consider any problem affecting your mouth, oesophagus, stomach, intestines including bowel habits, then review your urinary and reproductive and hormonal systems. Finally rate your overall energy and wellbeing with a final health score out of ten.

If you are less than 8/10 you should take some active steps, starting with a full check-up with your GP. The next step is to get a full nutritional assessment that can help you set and achieve goals with a view of lifting your health score to where you would like it to be. In most cases it is a matter of fine-tuning with food choices appropriate for your health issues, targeted supplementation and lifestyle choices.

For example, most diseases have an inflammatory component. If you have any disease with the suffix ‘itis' then it is an inflammatory disease. Unwanted inflammation is often caused or worsened by diet. If you would like a full discussion on the subject, send me an email request for my ‘Anti-Inflammatory Nutrition' guide. This deals with the processes of inflammation and the role of nutrients in causing and reducing inflammation and many of the practical steps, including diet and changes. Give me a call if you need help. To join my weekly newsletter go to www.johnarts.co.nz and visit www.abundant.co.nz I wish you all a healthy and refreshing holiday season.

John Arts is the founder of Abundant Health. To contact John phone (local) 578 9051 or 0800 423 559.