What Is Total Load Theory?

Total load theory is a conceptual framework used to understand the synergistic and cumulative impact of many environmental and lifestyle stressors on an individual’s health. It posits that each individual stressor adds to the total “load” a body must manage over time. As a human body only has so many resources and only so much capacity to handle health stressors, there will be a point where the total load is too great, and this is when health symptoms typically emerge.

This theory serves as a unifying theory behind the growing rates of chronic illnesses in children in the modern industrial world. The total number of environmental, physical, biological, lifestyle and other types of health stressors that are experienced by modern children are substantially greater than any prior generation of children in human history. It is the cumulative and synergistic impact of living in the modern industrial world that has resulted in one of the greatest health crises of all time.

When children experience a total load of health stressors that is too great during their critical developmental windows (prenatally through the first 6 years of life), they may exhibit neurodevelopmental or neurobehavioral symptoms and often receive diagnoses like autism, ADHD or learning disabilities.

Cumulative Impact

The basic premise of the total theory is that the human body has a limited capacity to handle stressors. While a single stressor may not be sufficient to cause noticeable health issues, the cumulative and synergistic effect of many stressors over months and years can push the body beyond its capacity to adapt, resulting in illness or chronic symptoms.

These stressors are like drops of water filling up a barrel. From the time a child is conceived, he faces exposure to myriad negative health influencers that each represent drops of water in the barrel. With time, the barrel fills up and eventually overflows. When a child is exhibiting any kind of chronic symptoms (such as stimming, eczema, tantrums, allergies, chronic fevers and more) you can be sure that child’s barrel is too full.

What Are Common Stressors That Make Up Total Load?

The contributors to total load in today’s modern world are diverse and plentiful. Small daily exposures amass over time, pushing the body’s capacity to its limits and leading to a breakdown in health. Notable stressors include:

Physical Stressors

These personal lifestyle choices (what we eat, products we consume, activities we enjoy) and the way we live our lives in the modern world has an impact on health. Read more: The Cost of Modern Living. Physical stressors include:

• Poor sleep
• Nature deficit or the ignoring of natural rhythms (e.g. circadian biology)
• Daily lifestyle stress or a stressful pace of life activities
• Parental stress, stress in the home, work stress
• Screen time
• Financial stress or poverty

Biological Stressors

These types of stressors put too much demand on the body’s resources and capacity to heal and can impede the natural healing process:

• Retained reflexes
• Visual processing issues
• Auditory processing issues
• Other sensory processing issues
• Nervous system dysregulation

Environmental Stressors

Exposure to environmental toxins can significantly contribute to the total load. Toxins are in everything we consume from the air and water to food and medicine. Single stressors might not have profound effects on their own, but the cumulative burden of these toxins can overwhelm a child’s detoxification systems. Exposure to pesticides like glyphosate, chemicals in household products, and pollutants accumulate and strain the body’s detoxification processes. Toxins are in everything we consume from the air and water to food and medicine. Learn more about environmental toxicity. Examples include:

• Dirty electrical fields
• Chemicals in household products
• Synthetic fragrances
• Medications such as steroids, antihistamines, pain killers, antibiotics
• Poor lighting
• Excessive noise

Emotional Stressors

These types of stressors may be less tangible and harder to spot, but they can be a significant part of the total load for a child.

• Generational trauma or harmful emotional patterns
• Lack of social connection, lack of friendships
• Financial stress or poverty
• Not feeling safe in an environment

Educational Stressors

Stressors at school can pile on to a child’s total load of stressors. Work with your child’s teachers and administrators to determine if any of these are affecting your child.

• Overcrowding
• Non-ergonomic furniture
• Artificial lighting (e.g,. fluorescent or LED bulbs in a classroom)
• High levels of EMF in a building

Environmental health doctors have been talking about the total load theory for a very long time and often used it to describe the origins of autoimmune or mental health conditions. In the 2000’s, author Patricia Lemer first applied this concept to children with autism. See Ms. Lemer’s book Outsmarting Autism for more information.

More Than a Theory

When parents use the total load theory as a framework for helping their children overcome health and developmental issues, profound changes can occur. Documenting Hope published a case report in a peer reviewed journal of a family who helped their twin girls overcome their autism diagnosis by applying a total load lens to their children’s life. You can learn more about that case here.

All kinds of health conditions can be improved or overcome by using a total load lens: decreasing health stressors while increasing health supports. You can see many such cases in our database of success stories.

Adding in Supports Reduces Total Load

The other important feature of the total load theory is the role of health supports. While too many stressors can make a body sick, not enough health supports (what the body needs to function and survive) can also contribute to chronic conditions.

Our bodies are designed to heal, and they can, if we remove barriers to healing by removing stressors and adding in healing supports. Following are some ways to add health supports into your child’s life.

Support a Healthy Nervous System

The body cannot heal if it is in a state of fight or flight. It is our contention that most children (and adults) who have a chronic health condition are usually stuck in this stressful state, which can even affect a child’s development and neurodevelopment. Techniques that engage the vagus nerve—such as deep-breathing exercises, mindfulness, and time spent in nature—can help shift the body from this sympathetic state (figth, flight) to the more restful and healing parasympathetic mode.

Enhance Nutritional Support

Whole foods rich in vitamins and minerals can support the body’s natural healing processes. Traditional food preparation methods can enhance nutrient availability and digestibility.

Make Positive Dietary Changes

In general, children and adults cannot reverse a chronic health condition without making significant dietary changes. Eating a whole-foods diet that does not include added sugars is a critical step to healing, as this removes harmful many high-glycemic foods as well as harmful additives such as artificial and natural flavors, preservatives and artificial colors. A whole-foods diet will also have far more health-supporting vitamins and minerals than the Standard American Diet (SAD).

Many children can see profound health benefits by just switching to an unprocessed-foods diet. However, many will need to take it a step further by eliminating foods to which they have developed sensitivities. Most of these children may also need to implement a gut-healing diet and/or specialized diets such as a low-glutamate diet, ketogenic diet or low-histamine diet, among others.

Support Gut Health

The gastrointestinal tract is the seat of both the immune system as well as the manufacturing of nutrients and neurotransmitters that affect brain and body health. Gut function is determined by the quality of food as well as its microbial composition. Microbes within the gut can either help or harm health. Adding in a diverse variety of fiber-rich plant foods, phytonutrients, and fermented foods can significantly improve a child’s gut health by giving probiotic microbes the food they need to thrive while starving out pathogens. Specialized gut-healing diets such as the Paleo diet, the Body Ecology Diet, the Specific Carbohydrate Diet or the Gut And Psychology (GAPS) diet have all been used with great effect to reduce symptoms of chronic health conditions, including neurodevelopmental disorders.

Embrace Natural Rhythms

Aligning sleep patterns with natural light cycles can improve a child’s sleep quality. Ensuring that children get restful sleep, exposure to natural light, time outdoors in nature and physical activity can improve an overall feeling of wellbeing.

Create a Safe and Healing Environment

Creating a supportive and loving environment within yourself as a parent or caregiver as well as inside the home can boost your child’s resilience and self-esteem. Healthy relationships and psychological well-being are crucial for healing.

Create a safe space for a child to grow and develop by removing toxic products from the home and keeping a home free of EMF, wireless technologies (to the best of your ability) and synthetic items. Surround your family with natural furnishings (e.g. rugs and furniture made of wool, cotton or jute instead of synthetic fibers). Use natural, toxin-free products and opt for organic foods to minimize toxin exposure. Filter your house’s air and water.

Add in Restorative Therapies and Modalities

There are many therapies and healing modalities that can be used to restore health. Example of such therapies are numerous sensory therapies such as vision therapy, reflex integration, auditory therapy and others that can rewire the body and brain back together. Healing modalities include Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), naturopathic medicine, homeopathy, herbal medicine and homotoxicology, among others.

Breaking Down Total Load for Better Health

The total load theory emphasizes a paradigm shift from symptom-focused treatments to a holistic understanding of cumulative stressors. This theory provides a comprehensive lens through which the modern epidemic of chronic health conditions in children can be more effectively addressed. By recognizing and mitigating the various stressors from our environment, diet, and lifestyle, we can reduce total load, thus paving the way for healthier futures for our children. At the heart of it, our planet is sick, and so are the people who inhabit it. Read more: Sick Planet, Sick People.

Reducing total load and increasing health supports are essential for improving and maintaining children’s health. We advocate taking a detective approach to understanding each child’s specific stressors and supports. By doing so, interventions can be more personalized and effective.

Research Supporting Total Load Theory

Documenting Hope is dedicated to testing the total load theory in a rigorously scientific way. We have developed a research program to test whether reducing children’s total load by reducing stressors and adding supports can contribute to genuine health transformations.

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