The naked man lies on a table surrounded by gloved surgeons’ hands holding scalpels, ready to cut on the word ‘Go’.

“ONE WORD THAT WILL SAVE YOUR LIFE” screams the headline of that paragon of generic American thought, Newsweek magazine, dated August 22, 2011.

Even more interesting is what that word is: “NO!” The next line of the article continues, “New research shows how some common tests and procedures aren’t just expensive, but can do more harm than good.” The article opens with examples of medical doctors declining tests for themselves because they are aware of this.

A later example in the article tells the story of a woman “with chest pain (who) had so many interventions, she needed a heart transplant.” Though we decry its cost, Americans tend to believe that we still have the best health care in the world. We attribute this to our widely available tests, advanced imaging, and multiplying technologies that are available to us, at least to those of us who have good enough insurance or can afford it.

But when life expectancy in America ranks among the lowest in developed nations, we could ask what our expenditures are actually giving us. Expenditures for health care are currently up to twice as large a percentage of our gross national product as they are in other developed nations such as Australia and Britain.

A University of Texas geriatrician at the University of Texas Medical Branch says, “We’re killing more people than we’re saving with these procedures. It’s as simple as that.” The procedures he refers to include PSA tests for prostate cancer, surgery for chronic back pain to simple antibiotics for sinus infection to what Newsweek calls “a remarkable number and variety of tests and treatments that are no proving either harmful or only as helpful as a placebo.”

If ever increasing tests and diagnostics are not predictive of the maintained and improving health we all seek, then what is?

As Einstein is so often quoted as saying, “We will never solve a problem from within the consciousness that created the problem.”

Is it time to develop a new paradigm of health and health care? A study by Columbia University researchers published by the Commonwealth Fund suggests it is the American health care system itself that is damaging our health, rather than obesity, smoking, and other “risk factors” usually assumed to decrease life expectancy.

Of course at this point we’re legally required to suggest you consult your medical doctor before making any changes in your health care practices or medications.

The public is clearly weary of relentless news about newly discovered carcinogens, as well as miracle cures in the form of one supplement or another. What would a new approach to caring for our bodies really look like? Would we recognize it when we saw it?

Gary Douglas, best-selling author and founder of Access Consciousness™, and his business partner, Dr. Dain Heer, suggest a radically different approach: considering the greatness of embodiment. As they describe it, this includes a sense of oneness with one’s body, a gratefulness for it, and a willingness to consult it about matters concerning it. In Douglas and Heer’s view, we are infinite beings, and our bodies are in us. There is a difference between us and our bodies, though we the beings constantly over-ride the wisdom of the body.

One of the effects of recognizing this difference would be to recognize what activities are actually in the realm of the body, rather than of us the beings.

“You don’t eat, your body does,” says Heer. “You don’t exercise, your body does.” “You don’t have sex, your body does.”

The opinion of your body on these activities could be very different from yours, they point out. The remedy for this is to consult your body on these issues. Clearly, this is something that most have not even considered. Yet Douglas and Heer can point to some stunning successes with those who have used this.

This is not a totally novel approach, as those practicing muscle testing or applied kinesiology have been using it for years. This approach can certainly provide a way to get answers from your body. Muscle testing is also subject to influence by the pre-conceived notions of those performing the test and those upon whom the test is performed. The belief that sugar is harmful to all bodies, for example, is so prevalent among the naturally-inclined who perform and use muscle testing that finding refined sugar could make a body stronger under any circumstances is virtually inconceivable to most.

Douglas and Heer approach this process of asking the body with less pre-conceived notions. In their approach, asking the body is asking the body and listening to the answers it give, no matter what they are. These answers can change moment by moment, even in the case of remedies and prescriptions given on a standardized basis.

“If what your body really requires is sugar, isn’t it just as cruel to deny your body sugar as it is to give it too much sugar when it doesn’t require it?” asks Heer.

Douglas underscores this lack of prejudice against this vilified (and surely often over-consumed) substance. He met with a biochemist who informed him that the body requires glucose, the majority of which is used by the brain. “The body doesn’t care what form that glucose comes in,” the biochemist

told him.

Never having mastered muscle testing himself, Douglas recommends methods of tapping into the body’s wisdom that are even simpler. While they may seem strange or foreign at first, they are skills that can be developed. Your body is used to you ignoring it. It might take you both a little while to get back on the same page.

When going into a restaurant, Douglas lets his body let him know what to eat by ordering whatever first pops out of the menu at him—whether he thinks it’s what he would like to eat or not. He has had so many experiences when he noted his body’s request, ordered something else because he thought he didn’t like his body’s choice, and had the server bring his body’s original choice anyway that now he just goes along with his body’s opinion. The result, he has found, is usually delicious no matter what he the being might have thought of the choice.

Your body will easily tell you when it’s finished eating, too. Far from wishing to belong to the clean plate club, your body may require far less food than you’re currently jamming into it. Douglas recommends chewing each bite slowly, circulating the food so it contacts every taste bud on your tongue. After less bites than you might suspect—usually 3 to 9—suddenly the food that was previously delicious will taste like cardboard. That is your body’s message to stop eating. It may not be as “scientific” as counting calories but it’s a whole lot easier and doesn’t require any charts to carry with you to count those calories.

Another way to ask your body what it would like to eat is to put your feet together and stand holding the food you’re asking about in front of you. Ask your body, “Body, would you like to ingest this?” If your body leans towards the food, that’s a yes. If it leans backwards, that’s a no. If it leans backwards you need to ask a different or more precise question.

One of Douglas and Heer’s clients used this method for a medication he was given. When he asked his body if it wanted the medication, it leaned back so forcefully that he was practically thrown against the wall behind him. This 70-year-old called Douglas, asking what to do, and Douglas recommended getting a second opinion from another medical doctor. It turned out the man required an immediate coronary by-pass, and if he had taken the medication prescribed by the first doctor, it would have killed him.

Another thing Douglas and Heer have found in their years of listening to bodies, and teaching others worldwide to do the same, is that bodies hate to exercise.

“It sounds like you’re saying ‘exorcise’ to them,” notes Douglas. But bodies love to move, they have found. So selecting an exercise program that you might enjoy and stay with long enough to benefit from could be as easy as asking your body how it would like to move.

Douglas and Heer have also developed a plethora of hands-on energy healing methods for the body. These can be used to multiply the effects of exercise, while lessening the amount of time required to get a similar result. These methods are taught by licensed facilitators worldwide in the basic core classes of their seminars in Access Consciousness, as well as in three-day classes specializing in hands-on work.

One of Douglas’s employees recently shared just one of these methods with her father, who was on a list to receive a heart transplant after his heart was determined to be working at only 30% of its capacity, despite the 49-year-old’s dedication to healthy living and exercise. He used these techniques on himself for 6 weeks, to the amazement of his doctors who recently diagnosed his heart as now functioning at 100%.

Controversial? Certainly. Recommended for everyone? Only if it feels right to you. But when the number of people killed by medical errors in the US alone surpasses the number killed in the entire history of the Vietnam war—the equivalent of two jumbo jets crashing every single day—mightn’t it be time to start looking at keeping our bodies healthy from a different angle?

Dr. Dain Heer is the author of Embodiment, the Manual You Should Have Been Given When You Were Born, as well as the recently released Being You, Changing the World which combines his unique approach to consciousness with physical and energetic work on bodies. He and Douglas facilitate classes worldwide. Their schedules can be found on www.accessconsciousness.com.