We Can’t Control the Wind… Or Can We?

Rethinking Healing and the Brain Beyond “Adjustment”

Dolly Parton once said, “We can’t control the wind, but we can adjust the sails.”

It’s a timeless piece of wisdom about resilience and acceptance about learning to adapt when life throws us something beyond our control. But when it comes to healing the body and especially healing the brain, I’d like to gently challenge that notion.

Because what if, in some cases, we actually can influence the wind?

The Wind and the Sails: A New Perspective on Healing

In this analogy, the wind represents the seemingly uncontrollable forces like genetic predispositions, environmental factors, or disease processes like dementia that seem to blow through our lives without warning. The sails represent how we adapt: through lifestyle changes, therapies, and emotional resilience.

For too long, dementia and other degenerative brain conditions have been viewed as the unchangeable “wind” that we must adjust to and that happens to us, which we can not change. But that’s not the whole story.

Emerging research shows that even in the face of neurodegeneration, we have remarkable capacity to influence the body’s internal environment and even the expression of our genes to change the trajectory of disease.

Neuroplasticity: The Brain’s Built-in Adaptability

Neuroplasticity is often described as the brain’s ability to rewire and form new connections. But this process doesn’t stop at the level of brain tissue it’s a whole-body phenomenon. The same adaptive principles apply to how our cells repair, how our genes express, and how our systems communicate.

Every cell in the body is part of a vast, dynamic conversation. And that means every choice we make — the food we eat, the air we breathe, the water we drink, the thoughts we hold, the toxins we clear, influences the tone of that conversation.

When we remove burdens then nourish, detoxify, and restore balance to the body, we’re influencing both the wind and the sails!

The Science of Influencing the “Wind”

Here’s how we do that:

• Genetic Expression:
  Epigenetics shows us that genes are not fixed. Nutrients, plant compounds, and even lifestyle factors can turn on or turn off pathways involved in inflammation, detoxification, and repair.
  
  

• Gut-Brain Connection:
  Healing the gut restores the microbiome’s ability to produce neurotransmitters, regulate immunity, and reduce neuroinflammation which are all critical for cognitive health.
  
  

• Detoxification:
  Supporting liver, lymphatic (& glymphatic), and cellular detox pathways helps clear neurotoxic compounds like heavy metals, pesticides, and metabolic byproducts that can accelerate degeneration.
  
  

• Nutrient Optimization:
  Ensuring macro- and micronutrient sufficiency from omega-3s and B vitamins to magnesium and antioxidants provides the raw materials for neurotransmission, energy metabolism, and neural repair.
  
  

• Reducing Environmental and Stress Burdens:
  Chronic stress, poor sleep, and environmental toxins are among the biggest disruptors of brain health. Addressing these restores the body’s natural repair rhythms.
  
  

• Restoring Innate Rhythms:
  The body’s internal clock governs everything from hormone balance to cellular regeneration. When we restore circadian alignment through light, movement, and rest, we create the optimal environment for healing.
  
  

A Whole-Body Approach to Brain Regeneration

A dementia diagnosis doesn’t mean you should take a passive approach or surrender to its supposed fate. It means something within your body and brain has fallen out of balance and this diagnosis can serve as a powerful wake-up call. It’s an invitation to take charge of your healing journey and recognise that the relationship between body and environment, between genetics and behaviour, between what is and what can be changed, is profoundly real.

At any stage, even in dementia we can influence both the wind and the sails. We can work with nature, rather than against it, to create conditions where the brain can reawaken, repair, and reconnect.

Re-writing the wind

So perhaps we can keep Dolly’s wisdom, but evolve it:

We can’t always control the wind that life brings… but sometimes, with the right tools, we can calm the storm and chart a new course.

Through the right nutrition, targeted phytochemical medicine, detoxification, and lifestyle interventions, we can influence the forces that shape our health in profound ways.

Healing is less about fighting disease and more about creating the right conditions for the body to do what it’s designed to do - repair and restore balance (homeostasis). My job is simply to help the body do it.