We can’t be healthy alone

In America, we frame our ability to succeed in terms of our own skills and hard work. We are typically incentivized to win, to become that next big star, to reach that next milestone, or to become famous.

This constant competitiveness creates an us vs. them mentality. It has made us reward and idolize those that have made it, and neglect those that struggle.

And for those who have made it, well, it’s been great for them. But meanwhile more and more of us are living paycheck to paycheck. More and more of us are facing homelessness. More and more of us are becoming depressed, addicted and suicidal.

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A New Discovery about the link between Stress, Sleep and Healing

If a client is struggling with several chronic conditions where their problems are growing, I often find out that they aren’t sleeping well.

Sleep is vital for our bodies to repair.

Why?

Our bodies operate in two main modes. We have an autonomic nervous system that operates either in a rest and digest state, called the parasympathetic nervous system, or the fight and flight state, called the sympathetic nervous system. Our bodies cannot operate in both modes simultaneously. By default, the parasympathetic nervous system turns off the sympathetic nervous system.

Our bodies need to be able to default to the parasympathetic state in order to heal. And a lack of sleep might indicate that we can’t relax enough for our bodies to repair. Our bodies cannot both be in fight or flight, and rest and digest at the same time.

We have also known that sleep helps solidify what we’ve learned, and that our brains detoxify during sleep.

But recently, a new discovery at the University of Rochester shows a clear demonstration of how stress inhibits both our ability to sleep, and our ability to heal.

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Three Important Discoveries from Nature’s Medicine for your Brain and Mood

Ever since I immersed myself in the field of health sciences over 25 years ago, I’ve been passionate about understanding how regular day-to-day exposures and habits affect our mental and cognitive health.

With the closing of a decade, I thought I might mention 3 discoveries/areas of research in natural medicine, or actually nature’s medicine, that have the capacity to offer profound benefits to our health, if widely shared.   What are they?

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Changing Minds and the BackFire Effect

I Couldn’t Believe!

I remember a few years ago when talking to a chiropractor, he told me about John of God from Brazil.  John of God is a healer who channels many spirit guides to commit a huge range of medical miracles.  The chiropractor told me that John of God attracts thousands of people from all over the world.  He told me about the experience, how he had to wait in long lines to see him.  He described the “visible operation” he had chosen, and told me that he had been cured.   The story seemed so beyond my belief system that I developed an unfavorable view of this chiropractor.   I was so uncomfortable with the story that I wanted to roll my eyes and run away.   I kept my distance from him (for other reasons as well) after that.

This isn’t the only time I’ve run from information presented to me.  I rolled my eyes at the Law of Attraction for years!  And when someone told me in the early 90’s that physicians had done a hemispherectomy on a child, and that it wasn’t expected to result in serious consequences, again, I rolled my eyes, and decided that he was rather naive.

I’m not the only one that runs from information that falls outside of their belief systems!

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The Causes of Autoimmune Disease

 My Fountain of Youth:  Interrupted

I spent the week of Christmas of 2018 doubled over in pain, with horrible stomach cramps and diarrhea. The mold I had inadvertently ingested along with my tomatoes was wreaking havoc on my digestive system.  This was not how I wanted to spend the holiday!    Then when I did recover,  the problems would resurface whenever I ate tomatoes.  Had a developed an allergy or intolerance to tomatoes?

After that bout of mold toxicity, my body seemed to continue to decline from there.   It began with the reoccurring illnesses. I used to claim to only rarely get sick.   But now it seemed like every week, I was fighting yet another infection!   Why I wondered,  was I all of a sudden so vulnerable to getting sick?

Aging Fast

Around that time,

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The Power of Addressing the Metaphysical Causes

My new client came to me with a list of concerns he wanted to address. As I customarily do, I ask if he’d like to me to ask his subconscious where to start. He agreed, and when I did, I got that we needed to address pain, which was not on his list! When I asked him about it, he said, oh yes, with my MS (multiple sclerosis), I have regular back, neck and shoulder pain.  His lower back pain could be so bad that sometimes he couldn’t get out of bed for over 10 minutes! He rated the pain as a 8.5/10! When I asked him when he hadn’t put it on his list, he said, that it has become such a normal part of his life, that he had just accepted it as a part of who he had become!

He agreed to let me proceed, and as I often find with clients with autoimmune conditions, there was a metaphysical question underlying the pain that needed to be addressed.

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