HEAL: Health Essentials for Abundant Living
"The first wealth is health" –Ralph Waldo Emerson
An immersive intimate Integrative/Functional Medicine group retreat program for those in their Golden Years (age 65+)
Jumpstart or reset your healing journey
lead by Dr. Nathalie Bera-Miller, MD
To be offered again in September 2024 in beautiful San Ramon Valley
10 new patients maximum - RSVP early - first come first serve
Including presentations and conversations with colleagues:
Ben Brown, MD, Medical Director, Ornish Lifestyle Medicine Program for Reversing Heart Disease
and Cynthia Li, MD, physician and author of Brave New Medicine
Looking to reverse/improve chronic medical conditions this year? I have had the honor over many years of guiding and witnessing in my patients wonderful outcomes, including improvement/elimination of:
Fatigue - having more energy for what they want to do in life
Long-standing digestive symptoms
Excess weight that resisted coming off before working with us
Diabetes and hypertension
Autoimmune disease
Osteopenia and osteoporosis
Chronic pain
Depression, anxiety, insomnia, and brain fog
We also know from programs like the Ornish Lifestyle Medicine program that coronary artery disease can be reversed with a rigorous lifestyle medicine program
Day One:
Welcome/ Dr. Bera-Miller’s journey inspiring HEAL
Lifestyle Medicine: reversing heart disease and more, by Ben Brown, MD, Medical Director of the Ornish Lifestyle Medicine Program for Reversing Heart Disease
Overview of Integrative & Functional Medicine (including how it differs from and complements conventional medicine)
The 8 Root Causes of Inflammation (Nervous system, Gut, Immune, Structural, Hormones, Vasculature/Drainage, Toxicity/Detoxification, Mitochondria)
Lab testing options for further evaluation and clarification of root causes
Uncovering your own health trajectory and root causes of inflammation
Day Two:
Welcome/ Takeaways from Day One
Mind-body-heart coherence to potentiate healing, by Cynthia Li, MD, physician and author of Brave New Medicine. Dr Li is a practitioner of QiGong, a key in her own healing journey
Core pillars necessary for healing and health maintenance
Optimizing success: behavior change with self- and health- coaching, by Certified Health Coach Carla Moss
Bringing it all together and next steps
*Day One and Two include breaks for provided lunch, snacks, and mindful movement
Inspired by several effective group medical programs – Dr. Dean Ornish’s Lifestyle Medicine Program for Reversing Heart Disease; Dr. Terry Wahls’ protocol for reversing autoimmunity; the Cleveland Clinic’s Fit for Life Program (developed by leaders at the Institute for Functional Medicine) – I've created HEAL to support San Francisco Bay Area residents with a holistic root-cause approach to reversing chronic inflammatory medical conditions while harnessing the powerful healing effect of community
HEAL was created for you to understand or understand more deeply about Integrative/Functional Medicine, experience ah-ha moments about your own health trajectory and journey, and feel again empowerment and hope in order to heal and blossom. During the retreat you’ll get an easy to understand framework, root cause evaluation, and simple yet impactful and individualized steps and strategies to recover from health challenges and enjoy life more.
Research has shown that being in a group positively affects your healing and health. Isolation has been found in some studies to be as powerful a risk factor to health as smoking. Group learning and interaction have the opposite effect, having been shown to powerfully support immune, hormonal, and overall health. And it’s fun too :)
Group immersive medical programs are more cost-effective versus only one-on-one physician/ health visits. And all participants will receive receipts from each day with appropriate ICD10 and service codes for the Group Medical Visit (GMV) physician sessions. So if you wish to, you'll be able to submit these itemized medical receipts to your (non-Kaiser/non-MediCare) health insurance carrier or to your HSA to request reimbursement.
Testimony from some of our HEAL 2023 participants
“Dr Bera-Miller clearly put a lot of thought and time into planning the program components and then implementing them. She is the kind of doctor most of us seek: kind, knowledgeable, skilled, compassionate, good-hearted, and clearly so committed to supporting her patients in their healing journeys. She made sure the group meetings were a "safe space" for us, which led to a depth of sharing and groups support that contributed to our individual healing. She accommodated my complex medical conditions and sensitivities. And she was very generous with her time. Dr Bera-Miller was very thorough in sharing her abundant expertise, including answering all our questions that arose. Her commitment to giving us a solid foundation in our understanding of functional medicine enabled us to take responsibility for our healing, with her dedicated support. Shauna also went out of her way to be supportive of us, and did all she could to help us with the inevitable difficulties.” -Anonymous
“I’ll admit I was a little skeptical on if the buddy system would be very effective, but it was really helpful. I’m so glad we had that, and my buddy and I met several times over the course of the sessions, and I hope we will continue to do so in the future. The sessions were all useful and I got a lot out of them all. I gained a lot more awareness of the systems that affect everything including mood, stress, gut health, etc., which has helped for lessening of symptoms like stress, gut issues, etc. Also I have been eating much better - not even so much of a major change in types of foods eaten (aside from sensitivities discovered by test results) - since we have been eating pretty healthy at home anyway, including mostly organic, plant-based, etc., but more of a healthy schedule - consistently eating 3 meals a day vs. closer to 1.5 to 2 before - eating relatively normal portion sizes vs. often smaller portions, and gaining some weight, as recommended. While I have [mostly] consistently meditated prior, doing so now more often during the day, instead of just in evening which has been helpful.” -EC, Pleasanton, CA
