A New Approach to Creating Wellness: A Behavioral Pharmacy

When your doctor prescribes medication, they say something like, “It will be ready at the pharmacy, your insurance will cover it, and the pharmacist will help you understand the dosing.” Great! Yet, what about the behavioral-change prescriptions (advice) you are given, such as exercise more, eat better, and reduce stress? Too often, the doctor gives you behavioral-change ‘prescriptions’ and says, “Good luck. See you in 6 months.” Leaving you with thoughts like ‘well, that sounds good, but how do I start?’ Or ‘I thought I was eating properly?’ Without the right behavioral-change setting, these types of behavioral prescriptions, while well-intended, go no-where. 
Our guest has co-created a solution to ease the implementation of those behavioral-prescriptions. Elizabeth Markle, Ph.D., is co-founder of Open Source Wellness, a nonprofit place-based space offering experiential behavioral health and wellness. She shares with us this powerful wellness model designed to function as a ‘Behavioral Pharmacy.’Open Source Wellness’ mission is community-as-medicine. They strive to leverage the power of a community to transform health outcomes by preventing and reversing chronic disease through a clinically-proven, low-cost, long-lasting behavior change program. Dr. Markle shares many of the techniques Open Source Wellness clients have implemented to create successful behavioral change, including tips on the ‘big-four’ behavioral prescriptions: - Exercise more - Eat Better - Reduce your stress- Get some social support plus so many great implementation and success strategies for well-being….More about our guest: Elizabeth Markle, Ph.D., is dedicated to multi-theoretical and multi-level approaches to individual and community health and healing. Her research has focused on social support, social capital, and social sustainability in the context of intentional community. Elizabeth’s current area of study and innovation is around combining clinical expertise with social entrepreneurship to create sustainable, thriving cultures of health and wellness. Learn more at www.OpenSourceWellness.org and listen to this intriguing chat with Dr. Markle on the wellness model that’s creating excellent health outcomes Friday, January 3rd, at 7 PM ET at www.UnderstandingAutoimmune.com/MarkleBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-autoimmune-hour--2935987/support.