A patient once said to me, “I don’t know why I keep getting colds. I guess a bunch of germs have decided to keep mugging me.”

I told this man that a painter cannot paint until the palette has been prepared: Neither can a builder build until the foundation has been laid nor an airplane land until a landing strip has been built. Disease cannot “strike” until and unless you allow it to.

Yes, we unknowingly invite disease by handicapping, even destroying, our natural defenses. And we’re doing ourselves more and more damage all the time. If we were to reverse this dangerous trend, if we would work instead to bolster our natural defenses, we could practically wipe out heart disease, eliminate much of the cancer striking us down and greatly reduce the incidence of arthritis, strokes, diabetes, colds, flus, depression, fatigue and many other problems that plague us. We could save billions of dollars in medical costs and increase our work productivity. We could add years to our lives and happiness to our years.

But as long as we think of disease as something that “just happens” to us because we’re unlucky, or because we get “mugged” by some germs, we will never take the necessary steps to prevent disease by strengthening our natural defenses. Instead, we’ll continue the many health-destructive habits that most of us unknowingly practice.

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