Wait for It
How Patience Can Transform Your Health
Last week I wrote about the quick and sloppy way to improve your health: change anything. If what you’ve been doing isn’t working, just throw something new at the wall and see if it sticks. Today I want to talk about the other end of the spectrum—the slow and scientific way to improve your health.
Insomnia. Digestive problems. Weight gain. Hormone balance. Frequent yeast infections or frequent UTIs. These are problems which usually don’t have a quick fix. And if they did, you would have found them already. Solving these problems involves something we don’t talk about much in healthcare. Something that’s certainly not a feature of the modern medical system: patience.
Humans are not inherently patient. Patience, you may have heard, is a virtue. It’s a virtue because it doesn’t come naturally. It’s something we have to cultivate. When I was a midwife I would encourage women in labor let go of time, to let go of wondering how long it would last. The body works on horticultural time; not clock time. You can’t schedule when a peach will be ripe. And you can’t schedule when labor will start, or when it will end.
It’s the same with other aspects of health. You body is slow. It’s so much slower than your mind wants it to be. When you make a change to your diet, start a supplement, or try a new exercise routine, it takes several months to see the full benefit.
Not only does it require patience to make a change, but it often requires patience to even find the change that works. You need to be methodical about it, make a list of all possible solutions and try them one by one, crossing each one off the list as you go.
Poor sleep, for example, can have so many causes and so many solutions. Very often I see patients who have tried one or two, or maybe four or five, solutions and then stopped. Life gets busy. They become discouraged. They think maybe this is just the way it is and they’ll never find a solution. Maybe. But probably not. There’s probably something out there for you. But it takes patience and discipline to find it, as well as the belief that change is possible.
That’s what I offer my patients. I start with the belief that there is a solution. This is the most important part. And we go from there, ticking things off the list and giving each thing a real shot to work. We let it take as long as it takes, until we find the way that works for them. And if we can’t find it, at least we’re somewhere new. The patient is no longer eddying in “what ifs” and self-diagnoses and incomplete information. At the very least they have a partner in their search, but more often than not they have finally found a solution that works.
If you have a health problem that you have not been able to crack, and would like support in a methodical approach to solving it, come see me. It’s slow healthcare. Slow and steady for the win.
About Wise Body Women’s Health
Wise Body Women’s Health is an integrative gynecology practice in New York City founded by Jane Riccobono, CNM, WHNP. Appointments blend evidence-based medical care with attention to the body’s deeper signals—intuition, emotion, and the wisdom often dismissed by conventional medicine. Whether you’re navigating perimenopause, chronic symptoms, or simply want a provider who sees the whole picture, Wise Body offers unhurried, whole-person care. We are currently accepting new patients for both telehealth (anywhere in New York State) and in-person visits in NYC. Learn more here.