Your body takes care of many, many things simultaneously. You just don’t have time to organize how to beat your heart, breathe, and operate your kidneys all at the same time. And when you lift a glass of water to your lips, you don’t have time to think through all the adjustments that the spinal muscles have to make to stabilize your trunk.

That’s why almost all of what you do is automated.

And to make the automation process even more efficient, your body has evolved two basic operating modes that color your behavior.

Flip an internal switch, and your body will focus on the immediate situation it’s in. You’ll respond to a threat or quickly seize an opportunity.

Flip another switch, and your body will focus on the longer term. You’ll process the food in your digestive tract, build needed protein structures and chemical enzyme systems, and focus on the long term benefit of social relationships.

Here’s how long-term health problems emerge:

You can’t survive and thrive if you only engage one of these two modes and seldom trigger the other. If you’re always in the short-term-focus mode, your body will never take the time to restock its stores of energy or muscle. Your internal organs will literally break down and age prematurely.

Entering too consistently into the longer-term strategy of life doesn’t work entirely well either.  You don’t want to limit your ability to run down the street or lift heavy objects. You’ll find it hard to get your energy organized to rise to the inevitable challenges of life. After all, you can’t avoid stress, you can only do an effective job of making use of opportunities.

Here’s your health-building opportunity:

Hands-on treatment with NeuroTactile® Therapy balances these two systems in your body. Treating the skin over the pelvis, for instance, gives a boost to your long-term operating mode. Treating the skin over the rib cage gives a boost to your short-term operating mode. And a complete NeuroTactile® Therapy treatment strengthens both of these operating modes so you’re prepared with the appropriate action — no matter what life throws your way.

Dr. Lavine has been an innovator in the use of movement and touch to promote health since 1981. He practices in New York City and Princeton, NJ.