Articles

For more than 50 years we women have been sold birth control pills. I first came upon it when I was 21 years old. Having given birth to a little girl my second child—and I was concerned about not becoming pregnant again. At that time birth control pills were dolled out for free to women. You just showed up at the Margaret Sanger Clinic, then housed in a building at 17 W. 16th St in New York not far from where I lived. I went there believing this new discovery—the birth control pill—would prevent me from having any unwanted pregnancies in the future. I was given a container of pills and told to take one each day. Believing in this wondrous new discovery, I returned to my apartment and took the first pill. Within two or three hours I felt quite sick. But, trying to be a good girl, I persisted. Over the next three days I swallowed the second and third pill as well. I spent those three days sitting in my king-size bed literally moaning because I felt so unwell. It was at that point I realized that this marvelous new discovery was most certainly not for me. I never touched the birth control pill, or any other pharmaceutical akin to it from that day until this. Meanwhile, over the next 30 years "The Pill" became a worldwide success. Or so it seemed. In the early 1980s "Direct To Consumers" advertising came into being. Women everywhere began to be bombarded on television and in magazines with a lot of hyped information about a wide variety of birth control pills and other artificial drugs, all of which were full of artificial hormones. By now of course birth control pills have become a multi-billion dollar industry. In fact, 50% of all oral contraceptive drugs are now sold worldwide. There's no question that being able to take a pill to prevent pregnancy can be convenient. But at what cost to the health of any woman who takes them long term? It’s essential that women learn to balance the risks of taking these pharmaceuticals with their supposed great benefits and convenience. These days, contraceptives are offered in many forms. Most women are prescribed an IUD containing artificial hormones. These are widely used in the UK. Meanwhile, in a few European countries—from Denmark and Sweden to Norway and the Czech Republic—hormone-free intrauterine devices are available. Some of these non-hormonal products are given free in countries with universal government health insurance. In the United States, however, there is only one nonhormonal IUD. It's known as Paragard. And it is by no means the top seller. There all sorts of other products you can use for family planning. These include condoms, diaphragms, spermicides, and other non-hormonal birth control methods such as regular injections and permanent sterilization. So what's the problem? Let’s start here: In 2012 a huge study was carried out on Depo-Provera. This is a contraceptive injection based on an artificial hormone called a progestogen. It found that women who received prescribed shots of Depo-Provera every few months more than doubled their risk of developing breast cancer. Of course birth control is not the only reason that women take "The Pill." Many, especially teenagers, are prescribed "The Pill" in an attempt to make their experience of menstruation more bearable hopefully easing monthly cramps and helping to alleviate premenstrual syndrome. What few women regardless of age are aware of—especially young women—is that using artificial hormones, in the form of “The Pill” or any other form, which are doled out almost like candies these days, can seriously undermine their health long-term and do damage to their lives. Austrian geneticist Josef Penninger discovered that there is a dangerous connection between progestin—an artificial hormone used in many birth control pills—and conventional HRT significantly increases a woman’s risk of breast cancer. Researchers at the Institute of Molecular Biology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences have identified the mechanism that allows synthetic sex hormones to influence these cells. It can switch on a hormone in your body known as RANKL within the cells—especially your breast cells—which makes them divide and multiply. It can also prevent cells from dying as they are supposed to in order to make room for new healthier cells. And since stem cells in the breast have the ability to renew themselves, this can make you prone to breast cancer. As Penninger says, “I have to admit it completely surprised me just how massive the effects on the system were. Millions of women take progesterone derivatives in contraceptives and for hormonal replacement therapy.” There are lots of natural alternatives to clearing PMS and the monthly menstrual agonies that women—particularly young women—experience. Homeopathy, acupuncture, and chiropractors can be of tremendous help. Simply supplementing your diet with a good form of magnesium can make a huge difference. Steering clear of plastic water bottles that contain dangerous BPA (Bisphenol A) is also important. So can making simple changes in what you choose to eat, like avoiding packaged convenience foods of all kinds. For many women, just giving up cows milk products including cream, cow’s milk yogurt, and cows milk cheese makes a huge difference in clearing up cramps and PMS. Also, stay away from carbohydrates that come from grains and cereals and refuse to take sugar in any form. Sheep, goat, and buffalo milk make wonderful cheeses, yogurts, and other products. Finally, eat REAL FOODS—proteins from animals that have been raised on green grass, together with organic vegtables and a few fruits. Do this for as short a time as three weeks to a month, and your health can literally be transformed. Try it and find out for yourself.

Color matters. Seeing, wearing, or being exposed to a color - whether in the form of cloth or pigment or light - affects you below the level of your conscious mind. It can make you feel happy or sad, aggressive or peaceful, determined or indifferent. Each color has its own personality, and appears to offer a particular quality of energy for work as well. Researchers have found, for instance, that the color green can help provide 'elasticity of will' which makes you able to persist despite opposition or setbacks to finish a task. Exposure to green can also enhance your sense of self-esteem. Red's "workforce" is different altogether. The color red represents the power of will to strive for effective action, and exposure to it can help develop the will power. Yellow, the other color particularly useful for work, brings the spontaneous enjoyment of action and the ability to project yourself beyond your present work goal towards the future. Colors also have strong emotional or symbolic qualities. Blue symbolizes the feminine and the mystic. It is a color that tends to make people feel peaceful and calm. Red incites sensuality, voluptuousness and sometimes anger. Yellow makes you more cheerful. Violet symbolizes the magical; black, renunciation. And color's affects are not just psychological either. Because of the complex way in which exposure to various colors acts via the brain upon the autonomic nervous system, exposure to a specific color can even alter physiological measurements such as blood pressure, electrical skin resistance, and glandular functions in your body. color as energy Like both light and heat, color is an easily defined part of a whole gamut of energy, which comes to us from the sun and other sources. It is the part that makes itself easily perceptible to the human senses by reflecting off or interacting with matter. While heat is the perceptible effect of disturbed oscillation of atomic particles, light is the visible reflection off the particles in the atmosphere. Color makes up a band of these light wave frequencies from red at 1/33,000th's of an inch wavelength to violet at 1/67,000 of an inch wavelength. Below red lie infrared and radio waves; above it you find the invisible ultraviolet, x-rays, and gamma rays. The colors we see are nothing more than the vibrationary rebound of frequencies which a particular object has refused to absorb. For instance, black hair absorbs all the color rays and gives back none, while snow rejects them giving them all back. That is why it appears white. A red flower has absorbed all except that which we interpret as red, and so on. The colors we see are wavelengths of energy that our brain interprets as seven basic shades or hues: red, yellow, green, blue, white, black and violet. And the experience of these frequency rebounds affects us profoundly and subliminally. As one highly respected color researcher puts it: Colors are not only and usually, not even primarily 'recognized', but they are felt, as exciting or soothing, dissonant or harmonious... joyous or somber, warm or cool, disturbing and distracting, or conductive to concentration and tranquility. And one of the remarkable things about the affective and biochemical powers of color is that they do not appear to be dependent on a person or animal seeing a color for it to work its magic. Russian scientists experimenting with the blind have found that earlobes and fingertips are highly sensitive to color. So probably are other parts of the body. And many studies show that even a blindfolded animal or person exposed to specific colors by having pigments rubbed on them, by shining light on the skin, or even being made to live in an environment of a carefully chosen shade will register predictable physiological and psychological responses. Learning about color's affective qualities and putting color to use can not only enhance your spirits and improve your looks; it may even improve your health and expand your consciousness. ancient color practices Although color effects are now beginning to be studied and described in biochemical terms or in the language of modern physics, the health benefits and consciousness-altering effects of color being used by these color therapists are not a new discovery. Celsus, the famous Roman physician of the first century AD, used colored plasters on the skin to promote healing, and prescribed medicines in specific colors to treat different ailments. In the Middle Ages different colored rooms were "prescribed" to heal various sicknesses. And ancient religious traditions reflect a clear awareness of the energy variations we now measure as wavelengths of different colors. They knew, for instance, that red has the slowest rate of vibration and the longest wavelength, while violet was energy vibrating at the highest rate with the shortest wavelength. And they associated the different colors and their vibrations with the specific energy centers or chakras in the body - three dimensional pulsating wheels which can be seen by clairvoyants, and are said to be centers in the energy body that govern physical and emotional changes in a person. Chakras are much represented in Eastern religions. (Even Christian art traditions acknowledge chakra energy when they depict saints radiating a halo from the head.) The halo represents the highest chakra - what the Buddhists call the "Thousand Petal Lotus" - but there are said to be seven chakras in all, each believed to be responsible for regulating energy in specific systems and parts of the body. Red is said govern the lowest reproductive chakra at the base of the body, and to impart a strong physical energy. The orange related chakra at the navel is concerned with digestion, while the yellow chakra at the solar plexus is said to be linked with certain emotional states and associated with the functions of organs such as the pancreas and the liver. Green is the color linked to the heart chakra, and with the qualities of courage and love. The blue center in the throat is known as the chakra of higher creativity and of self- expression. The color indigo belongs to the brow chakra, and is said to be concerned with such qualities as intuition, and right-brain-dominated thinking. The violet chakra, which is supposed to be situated at the crown of the head, is said to be linked with the body via the pituitary gland and the endocrine system as a whole. And, while color therapists who claim to work with chakra energies are quick to point out that many different colors can appear in the various chakras at the same time, visualizing or being exposed to the colors most associated with each, they say, can dramatically improve the functioning of that chakra and those physical and psychic links with it. We use color a great deal in our lives - to change our moods or to intensify them, and to explore different kinds of feeling and response. Following the ancient color chakra guidelines, you can buy color gels and place then on lights or windows where the natural light shining through creates wonderful prisms. You can experiment with different colors of fabric stretched over home made frames, or with huge pieces of brightly colored paper hung on the walls and changed frequently. You can play with color changes in what you wear and see how different this makes you feel and how different colors seem to bring out different parts of your nature. We like to color old tee shirts using fabric dyes in different shades such as clear green, yellow, apricot and brilliant orange. It is remarkable how changing the colors you wear can alter the way you feel and your sense of your self. And not only is exploring the effects of color rewarding in terms of exploring your own physical and psychic energies, the experience of playing with color can be sheer delight.

Within each one of us, thin or fat, there lives a joyous creative spirit. It is the spirit of the child - of life itself - a completely individual nature which is constantly seeking freedom simply to be what it is and to do what it wants to do. The world we live in as we grow up seldom leaves space for that unique spirit to develop fully. Our parents, our education, our culture is continually feeding us with rules about what we should and shouldn't do - should and shouldn't be. It is a little like getting up each morning and having to put on your straightjacket before you begin the day. For many people—both men and women—weight control has become part of that straightjacket. They worry constantly about how or what to eat or not to eat. They agonize over one or two pounds - or fifteen - gained or lost and they treat themselves like naughty children who need controlling lest they get out of hand and eat something they shouldn't. A person in any kind of straightjacket is a person disempowered. It is a person who does not trust himself or herself and who to a greater or lesser degree lives in fear - fear of food, fear of what he or she might do, fear of disapproval from a society impassioned by notions of thinness. I have known that struggle. I have lived it myself and I see evidence of it all around me in women caught in the jaws of bulimia, anorexia or compulsive eating, and in men who overindulge in alcohol or fatty foods, struck down by a heart attack in the prime of life. This has always seemed a terrible waste. POWER TO TRANSFORM Thirty years ago I began to ask questions like: Why do so many people struggle with weight in our society when the vast majority in other cultures never even seem to grow fat? What causes the distortions to our bodies not only in body size and fat deposits, but in the degenerative conditions, from heart disease to rheumatoid arthritis that come in their wake? Is it really weakness of character or lack of willpower that makes us all eat too much and gain weight? And - most important of all - is there a way of eating and living that enables someone who is carrying too much fat around to eat and live so that whatever distortions have already appeared will disappear quite naturally as part of the process of regenerating the body through food and exercise? MY SEARCH FOR ANSWERS So I read many books and papers, listened to dozens of lectures from physicians and scientists and interviewed a number of doctors personally who claimed to have found answers. Some of their answers were useful, but not until I was introduced to the work of ATW Simeons did I come to understand that even the most genuinely helpful discoveries about why we get fat—and why every slimming diet we follow—almost invariably lead sooner or later back to our regaining weight we have lost. Why? Because each and every one of them, no matter how sincere or well meaning, ignored the most important truth of all: Simeons’ work stands alone even amongst the findings of many brilliant and sincere scientists and doctors—from Atkins to Sir Robert McCarrison who have contributed so much to sound dietary practice. What makes Simeons unique is that he alone discovered that overweight, obesity and all the anguish that accompanies them is in no way caused by a lack of willpower or simple greed. Neither can it be permanently cleared by putting people on a slimming regime. These conditions represent a significant metabolic disorder. Until this metabolic disorder is dealt with we will simply go on forever taking diet pills, shedding fat and then regaining it, along with all the inner grief, disappointment and shame we suffer each time this happens. Even better, Simeons discovered where the locus of overweight lay in the body, and how to create a protocol that would give a man or woman’s overweight body a kind of permission to restore normal balanced functioning to that area in the brain, thereby clearing not only unwanted fat but enhancing a person’s overall health in life-changing ways. THIN FOR WHAT? In the Western world we have long been possessed by an obsession with changing the shape of our bodies, especially trying to make it thinner, using one diet after another. Yet making a body thinner is not always the best thing to do - either for its health or its good looks. A thin body is a wimpish body. It is a body depleted of energy and of power. When you are lean you are strong, you have sleek muscles, good tone, and you can feast heartily on wholesome, natural foods in keeping with your body’s unique food needs, enabling you to stay that way. You are also highly resistant to illness and early ageing as the years pass and you feel comfortable and at ease in your body. This is a very different experience from the anxiety over thinness which disempowers so many men and women. Leanness, created by restoring healthy balance and functioning to the body’s fat and appetite control center, brings a sense of power with it - a sense of being in control of your own life which is a far cry from the inadequacy many feel as they continue to battle against weight gain with conventional slimming diets. I believe it is time we forgot about thin and choose instead to go lean from inside out. This calls for revolution. COME THE REVOLUTION - Diets That Work To revolutionize means to change completely and fundamentally - your body and your life. It is not a word chosen lightly but because it most accurately describes the powerful positive transformation that takes place in how you look and feel when you transform your appetite and fat control center so it works again, throw out convenience foods loaded with bad carbs, hidden sugar, junk fats and chemicals, and begin to feed heartily on the kind of foods your individual body loves, drink large quantities of pure water and strengthen your muscle mass through simple exercise that your body loves, be it dancing, yoga, swimming or what-have-you. The word lean means `muscular...containing little or no fat.' Being lean is as different from being thin as Cura Romana is from all the quick fix slimming diets you may have tried over the years which have slowly but inexorably eroded your energy and increased the sense of disenchantment with your body.

London’s Daily Mail approached me a few weeks ago asking me to write a piece on what it’s like to have 4 children by 4 different men. The idea intrigued me so I did. The piece wasn’t published since, they said, “It’s not written in the Mail style.” This week we sent what I wrote to all lesliekenton.com newsletter subscribers. Since we had an overwhelmingly positive response to this piece, I decided to share it with you as well. (This is the first time we have ever done something like this.) I hope you will also enjoy reading it. It comes as a personal gift from me to you. Struggling to hold back the tears, my daughter’s voice on the crackly phone line was barely a whisper. “Mama, Dan died this morning,” she said. Dan Smith, biological father to my third child, Jesse, was much loved by all of my children. He had been seriously ill with a rare form of leukaemia. We knew he could die any moment. Still, the news that reached me at my Primrose Hill home that cold February morning in 2010 sent shock waves through me. “We’re already organising the funeral,” Susannah went on. “We want to play jazz music, tell fun stories about Dan and celebrate his life. Don’t worry about being 12,000 miles away, we’ll video all of it for you to watch later.” I would love to have been there to celebrate Dan’s life. It had been a good life. He was an honorable man—one who kept his promises. Dan had long adored each of my four children although only one of them was a child of his own body. Four years earlier, Dan had chosen to move to New Zealand to be near the children. Together they had searched for and found a house for him so that all of us—me included—could spend precious time with Dan and care for him so long as he lived. NOT THE MARRYING KIND I had met Dan 53 years earlier when I was seventeen years old. We became friends. Later, in my mid-twenties, we were briefly married. I was never much in favor of marriage, however. That’s probably why I chose to give birth to four children by four different men. Now I’m being called a trailblazer for what is becoming an increasingly popular brand of mothering, commonly referred to as ‘multi-dadding.’ I am supposed to be what is fashionably termed a ‘4x4.’ Mothering children by more than one man recently hit the headlines with the news that actress Kate Winslet is expecting her third child by her third husband, the rock star Ned Rocknroll. Kate, 37, has a 12-year-old daughter, Mia, with her first husband, Jim Threapleton, and a nine-year-old son, Joe, with her second husband, Sam Mendes. The former weather girl Ulrika Jonsson is a 4x4, and the late TV presenter Paula Yates was a 4x2. While supposedly gaining popularity, this style of mothering is still hugely controversial. I am told that the news that a woman has children by more than one man is still met with a mixture of horror and fascination. Maybe I’ve been lucky, but I have never had to deal with either of these attitudes. To tell the truth, I have never much cared what people think about me, how I chose to live my life or the way I have raised my children. Perhaps that’s a good thing, or maybe I am just naïve. One thing is for sure: I’ve always been one of those women so fertile that that a man could almost look at me and I’d get pregnant. I would never miscarry. I rode horses, went surfing and danced all night while pregnant and suffered no consequences. I am told that women like me are often looked upon as monstrously selfish, bad mothers. They are accused of being feckless for having multiple lovers and just plain wrong for not providing their children with a ‘traditional family setup.’ I’m sure some traditional families are genuinely wise, stable and happy. The parents love each other and care for their children with great devotion and joy. But, in my experience, such families are few and far between. KIDS MATTER MOST What matters most in child rearing is neither convention nor family labels. It is the children. Children brought up by a devoted single mother (or single father) who lovingly trusts their own parental instincts and forms honest relationships with each child in their care, thrive. I believe this is far better than desperately trying to hold on to a marriage that doesn’t work ‘for the children’s sake.’ What I find sad is the way an ordinary single woman—not a movie star or media giant—who has children by more than one man and has to bring them up by herself, earning a living and juggling the needs not only of her children but also increasingly of their fathers, doesn't get the attention, sympathy, or anywhere near the admiration she deserves. It’s a challenging job for any woman. I know, I’ve done it. I’ve raised four children all on my own, earned the money for our family, stayed up all night caring for them when they had measles, chicken pox or mumps, then got up the next morning to make breakfast and iron that school uniform about which I was told, “Mama...my teacher says it has to be perfect.” Many a time I worried where the money was coming from to pay for food that week. LION-HEARTED MOTHERHOOD I champion any woman making a life for the children she loves in this way. It is the child that matters most and his or her relationship to a mother, father, or a caring friend. Every woman has a powerful lion-hearted passion to care for and protect her children. Women should trust themselves, give thanks for such power and use it for the benefit of their children. Kids are notoriously smart. They know when they are being fed a line about what they are “supposed” to think and say. They easily distinguish between what’s real and what’s contrived. As parents, if we want to gain the respect of our children we must always tell them the truth and treat them with respect as well as demand that they respect us in return. As far as the fathers of our children are concerned, they deserve the same respect and honesty from a woman as the child does, whether or not she is married to them. I believe that each child needs to get to know its father in its own way and make its own judgements. MY OWN STORY I grew up in a wildly unconventional family of highly creative, unstable people. Until I was 5, I was raised by my maternal grandmother. Later I was raped by my father and had my brain fried with ECT in an attempt to make me forget all that had happened to me. I was always a tomboy. I hated dolls. I loved to climb trees and play football. Yet from 5 years old I was sure that I wanted to have children. When I told my grandmother my plan she said I would need to get married to have children. “What’s married?” I asked. “It’s when you wear a white dress and have a big beautiful cake and promise to love and obey a man,” she said. “Ugh, I’ll never do that,” I replied. “I hate cake.” In any case, I knew she was lying to me since none of our Siamese cats were married, but they gave birth to masses of kittens. At the age of 17, while in my Freshman year at Stanford University, I got pregnant by a 22 year old man named Peter Dau. I rang my father. “I’m pregnant,” I told him. “What are you going to do?” “Give birth and keep the baby.” “You can’t keep the baby unless you get married,” he said. Had I been a little more gutsy I would have told him to get stuffed. But at the age of 17, still wrestling with all that had happened to me in my own childhood, he wielded a lot of influence over me. So I agreed. Peter was all for the idea. Single-handedly I put together an all-white wedding for 250 people in the garden of our Beverley Hills home. I made the decision to wear black shoes under my white satin dress. I felt I was giving my life away by marrying Peter, but I was willing to make the sacrifice since I so wanted this child. As soon as Dan learned of the wedding, he sent me a beautiful sterling silver bowl as a present which I still have. My first son, Branton, was born six months later. When I held this tiny baby in my arms he taught me the most important lesson I ever learned: Love exists. It is simple, real and has nothing to do with highfalutin notions or flowery words. At the age of 18, I realized my life had found its purpose—to love and be loved. PREGNANT AGAIN A year later, Peter and I left California for New York where he was to attend medical school while I went to work as a model to help support us. At that time, Dan left his job as a journalist in Massachusetts and moved to New York to be near us. My marriage to Peter ended amicably three years later. It should never have happened in the first place. Three days after leaving Peter back in California, I stopped overnight at my father’s house in Beverley Hills on my way back to New York. Barry Comden, a man much older than I whom I had known since I was 14 but never had a sexual relationship with, discovered I was in town and came to see me. I made love to him once and knew immediately that I was pregnant again. Marry Barry? No way. I was determined not to make the same mistake twice. (Years later Barry would marry the actress Doris Day.) Nine months later my only daughter, Susannah, was born. It was then that a large tumor growing off of my right ovary was discovered. It had been hidden behind the baby during my pregnancy. It was dangerous and had to be surgically removed. HELP WHEN IT MATTERS Once again Dan appeared in my life. He had always insisted that he fell in love with me from the first day we met. He had written me letters every single day my first year at Stanford. I never answered any of them. I didn’t share his love and I didn’t want to lead him on. He had also sent me book after book which he thought I should read. I read them all and loved them. Dan had always been kind and generous to me. He was always keen to protect and care for me when I needed it. So, when I ended up penniless and alone with two children and in need of major surgery, he offered me a home. I accepted. For several months the four of us lived together in New York. Dan adored Branton and Susannah and treated them as if they were his own. I was longing to leave the United States. I wanted to live in Paris—a city I loved more than any other. Dan was able to arrange a job for himself there as a foreign correspondent. In early 1964 we went. Dan had repeatedly told me that he was sure we were meant to be together forever. I hoped that he was right and believed that if I tried hard enough to be a good wife I would learn to love him as he deserved. On July 29, 1964, we were married in Paris. Like every other man I have ever been close to, Dan knew long before we were married that my children would always come first. I had sat him down and told him that he would have to treat Susannah and Branton exactly the same as he would treat any child of his who might come along. He agreed. On June 12, 1965, Dan’s son Jesse was born. He was delighted. True to his word, never once did he favor Jesse over Branton and Susannah. This was great for all three children who came to know him well and to adore him. When presents were passed out, each child was equally favored. Dan belonged to all of them and they knew it. FATHERS, FATHERS Because Branton’s father lived in America and we lived in Europe, Branton did not see him again until he was 11. By that age I figured he was old enough to make the trip on his own and spend a week or two with Peter. Susannah was not really interested in her father—also in the United States—until she was about 17. She then went to Los Angeles to meet him. A good friendship developed between them which remained until Barry died. A non-traditional, unconventional family? Absolutely, but it worked because there was honesty and there was love—the two most important things in any family, anytime, anywhere. For five years I had told myself that, if only I could learn to love Dan more, then everything would be all right. But I couldn’t. And it wasn’t. Confused and disappointed, at the age of 27, I faced the fact that our marriage had failed. We moved to England and we separated. It was Easter. I went to a Buddhist monastery in Scotland to clear my head. Of course Dan grieved over the failure. But that never stopped him from being a welcome person in our family right up to his death. Years later he would marry Gerda Boyeson, a psychotherapist who died a few years before he did. BLESSED MEN The men who made my life rich after Dan and I divorced were, each in their own way, as special as he had been. Each accepted that my children came before all else in the world to me. I never compromised. I chose men, be they friends or lovers, who brought wonderful things to my children. No man ever came before my children. If any man didn’t understand and accept this, he had to go. One man whom I loved, Graham, taught my children to climb and sail and mountaineer. All my children forged deep bonds with Graham which have remained to this day. Another man, Garth, gave Branton, Susannah and Jesse his much cherished toy collection from his own childhood. Garth took us all on wonderful picnics, introduced us to hidden beaches, sang songs with us and blessed us with his unique brand of joy. Then there was David, a man with whom I lived with for 5 years in my late twenties. David constructed beautiful rooms for each of my children in the tiny house I had bought with the little money that my grandfather had left me, when Dan and I separated. David wrote and recorded songs for each of my children. That was 40 years ago. Last year, Susannah and her partner visited David and his wife in Barcelona where he now lives. AN UNCONVENTIONAL MOTHER Ironically, the only complaint I ever got from any of my children about my not being conventional enough was from Dan’s son Jesse. “Why aren’t you like other mothers?” Jesse asked one day when he was 7. “I don’t know, Jesse, what are other mothers like?” “Oh you know,” he said, “They’re fat and bake cookies.” Jesse even grumbled if, while I was waiting to pick him up from school, I sat on the playground swings. He was adamant that such behavior was not “proper” for his mother. Sixteen years after Jesse was born, I became pregnant for the last time by yet another special man—Paul. I announced my condition to 17 year old Susannah as we were all setting off for a six week holiday in Canada with Graham and his son Ruan. “I’m going to have a baby,” I told her. “Don’t worry Mama,” she laughed, “We’ll say it is mine!” FAMILY CELEBRATION In March of 1981, I gave birth to my fourth child, Aaron, at our home in Pembrokeshire. All three of my other children helped deliver him. While I was in labor, they prepared the most delicious lunch I have ever tasted from fruits and vegetables from the garden. I had insisted on giving birth naturally at home, not in some clinical, cold hospital. Jesse had been born via natural childbirth, at a clinique d’accouchement in Paris. After the experience of natural childbirth I swore if ever I had another child it would have to be this way. As for Dan, one way or another he was always close by. He knew David, Graham, Garth and every other man who was to play a role in my own life and my children’s lives. For many years he spent Christmases with us and with our other male friends when they were there. Dan loved to play saxophone at family gatherings. One year he dressed up as Santa Claus. Aaron, then 5 years old, was completely taken in by the costume and terrified when this rotund man belted out, “Ho, Ho, Ho, little boy, what do you want for Christmas?” It took a lot of reassurance from Aaron’s big brothers and sister to convince him that Santa was really ‘good old Dan.’ UNIQUE & INDEPENDENT As for my children, each of them is totally unique and highly independent. I have always fought hard to encourage them to trust themselves and listen to their own heart instead of doing or saying what the rest of the world tells kids they are supposed to do and say. After graduating with a first class degree from Lancaster University, Branton, now 53, developed a series of successful businesses. Susannah, 50, with whom I have written 5 books and done two television series, is a sought-after voice artist. Jesse, 48, is a highly skilled plastic surgeon. Jesse and I have also written a book together. Aaron, now 32, is a designer and filmmaker. He and I have worked together for the past four years developing Cura Romana—a spiritually based program for health, lasting weight loss and spiritual transformation. Branton and Jesse have been happily married for many years. Both have three children each. As for me, I am probably the world’s worst grandmother. I don't babysit, or do any of the things grandmothers are ‘supposed’ to do. (Including baking those cookies Jesse once complained about.) Why? I’m not sure. I guess because for forty-five years of my life I was a mother. I loved this more than all the books I’ve written, all the television programs I’ve devised and presented, all the workshops I’ve taught, and all the other things I’ve done and enjoyed. Right now, my life belongs to me alone. I love the freedom this brings me. I am passionate about being a catalyst in people’s lives, helping them realize their own magnificence and live out their potentials both for their own benefit and for the benefit of all. Who knows what exciting challenges lie before me. Bring them on!

When World War I ended, manufacturers of chemical weapons did not know what to do with their company’s deadly products. A few inventive scientists—mostly in Germany—came up with the bright idea that these killer chemicals could be used on food crops. After all, since they killed enemies in wartime, surely they could be used to wipe out insects, fungi and other pests on farm crops. Who knows, they might even serve as fertilizers for farmers. CHEMICAL FARMING IS BORN They discovered that a mixture of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium (NPK) would grow big yield crops of good-looking vegetables, grains, legumes and fruits. But little interest was taken in their discoveries until years later, at the end of World War II. At that time, most foods were still grown pretty much as they had always been—by farmers who manured, mulched, and rotated their crops to keep soils rich and in good condition. To put it another way, most food was grown organically, although nobody had even coined the word by then. By the time World War II ended, chemical conglomerates involved in the manufacture of phosphates and nitrates as war materiel found themselves stuck with huge stockpiles. So they went looking for new markets. Aware of the early research into chemical fertilizing, they began to sell them artificial NPK fertilizers at costs low enough to make it all look very attractive. DECEPTIONS BEGIN These purveyors of chemicals spread the false belief that NPK is all you need to grow healthy crops. However, there were unfortunately two very important facts which chemical hawkers left out. Probably they did not even know. (Or perhaps it was not so good for their profit margins to know.) The first is that, although plants grow big on artificial fertilizers, they do not grow resistant to disease. The second is that the health of human beings eating plants grown this way can be seriously undermined. Plants grown only on NPK are deprived of essential minerals and other micro-substances which they need to synthesize natural complexes in roots and leaves that ward off attack by insects, weeds and animals. SOIL LIFE DESTROYED So before long, the new artificially fertilized vegetables and fruits began to develop these diseases. Chemical hawkers were quick to the rescue. The answer to this problem, they told us, was to be found in using MORE chemicals. This is when pesticides, herbicides, nemacides and fungicides came into being, providing chemical companies with yet another exciting business opportunity—especially since the longer you fertilize chemically, the more depleted in organic matter all soils become and the less they contain of the minerals and trace elements needed to synthesize natural protective complexes during growth, so the more pesticides you need. As time went on, more and more pesticides including other even nastier chemicals were sold. Before long, another important fact began to raise its ugly head. It was this: like plants, human beings need a lot more than nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus from the foods they eat to maintain their own health. MINERALS VANISHED Your body cannot make minerals. It has to take them in, in a good balance, from the foods you eat. In addition to nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus, your body requires magnesium, manganese and calcium, selenium, zinc, copper, iodine, boron, molybdenum, vanadium and other trace elements, some as yet undiscovered, to stay healthy. These elements can only come from the foods you eat. This they do, so long as the foods you eat are grown organically in healthy, traditionally fertilized soils. But they are completely missing and unbalanced in the foods we buy today, thanks to our legacy of chemical farming. The organic matter in healthy soil is Nature's factory for biological activity. It is built up as a result of the breakdown of vegetable and animal matter by the soil's natural ‘residents’—worms, bacteria and other useful micro-organisms. The presence of these creatures in the right quantity and type gives rise to physical, chemical and biological properties that create fertility in our soils and make plants grown on them highly resistant to disease. When it comes to human health they do a lot more. GIFT FROM MINERALS The minerals and trace elements you need to trigger your metabolic processes, on which health and leanness depend, have to be in an organic form—this means they have to be taken from living things such as plant or animal foods. You cannot eat nails—inorganic iron—and expect to protect yourself from anaemia, or chew sand—inorganic silica—and be sure to get enough silica, the trace element to help keep your nails and hair strong and beautiful and protect your bones from osteoporosis. It’s the organic matter in soils which enables plants grown on them to transform inorganic iron and silica into the organic form, which is taken up by the vegetables and fruits, grains and legumes which we then eat, making these nutrients available to our bodies. Destroy the soil's organic matter through chemical farming, and inexorably you destroy the health of people and animals living on foods grown on it. Organic methods of farming also help protect against significant distortions in mineral balances—an increase in one or more mineral elements which can alter the availability of others. This can also undermine your health. No such protection is available when your foods have been chemically grown. STRUGGLING TO COPE Your body has a remarkable ability to compensate for a mineral or trace element missing from your food. But, after years of our eating nutritionally-depleted foods, multiple deficiencies are virtually ubiquitous. According to large scale studies, these days almost none of us get the minerals we need to ensure that our metabolic processes work adequately—processes on which health, leanness, and the immune system depend. And the deficiencies we have developed from this, as well as the metabolic distortions that come in their wake, cannot easily be corrected. Popping the latest multi-mineral tablet from your corner pharmacy or health-food store won't do it, by the way. NATURE’S OWN Nutrients in foods exist in complex synergy and affect each other. They also interact and work together in your body. A balance of bio-available minerals and trace elements in fresh, organic foods is infinitely more complex than vitamin fanatics would have us believe. To restore balance once it has been disturbed, you need to return to good wholesome food—supplemented with extra green plants such as kelp, spirulina, chlorella, barley grass or alfalfa. However, this is a slow process taking months and even years. OSTRICHES EVERYWHERE Our indiscriminate use of chemical pesticides, herbicides, insecticides and other chemicals has quite literally poisoned the land we live in, and fostered degenerative diseases throughout the world. It was Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring, who, back in 1947, warned that this would happen. At the time, she was viciously attacked for her brilliant book. Chemical interests did everything in their power to discredit what she wrote. Now, more than half a century later, her prophetic words have turned out to be terrifyingly accurate. Since Silent Spring, many laws have been passed and many official agencies have been set up throughout the world designed to regulate the kind and quantity of chemicals used on the land. They vary greatly in their approach and powers from one country to another. Sadly, they all have one thing in common: an inability to stop or significantly alter the ubiquitous poisoning of lands, people, animals and the earth itself. So the poisoning of our air, land and water continues. In most countries it grows worse year by year. Like ostriches, we often bury our heads in the sand, hoping that what we don't see won't hurt us. Meanwhile, each year, billions of gallons of chemicals are sprayed onto crops. In the US alone, billions of pounds of pesticides are spread over the soils including herbicides, chemical fertilizers, rodentocides, and other chemical contaminants. GO ORGANIC Even better... grow as many of your own fruits and vegetables in the garden, in the windowsill of your kitchen, or anywhere you can find good soil that has not been chemically treated. Organic growing will help protect you from significant distortions in mineral balance. Conventionally grown fruits and vegetables are sprayed with pesticides—petrochemically derived compounds which behave like low-dose synthetic oestrogens in the body. Many are also treated with fungicides or wax. Each one of these chemicals contributes to the toxic overload which ages your body rapidly, putting pressure on your liver and encouraging free radical damage. When it comes to maintaining good insulin balance, you do not want this to happen. A stressed liver has trouble managing glucose and controls insulin poorly. Shop as often as you can in stores which offer organic produce and non-GMO foods. Not only do organic vegetables taste better, the organic matter in healthy soil is nature’s factory for biological activity that, when you eat them fresh, is communicated to you. Organic vegetables supply us with an excellent balance of minerals, trace elements, and vitamins. The organic matter in soil is built up as a result of the break-down of vegetable and animal matter by its natural residents - worms, bacteria and other micro-organisms. The presence of these creatures in the right quantity and type, which you never find in factory farming, gives rise to physical, chemical and biological properties which create fertility in our soils and make plants grown on them highly resistant to disease. This resistance to illness and degeneration is then passed on to us when we eat the foods.

At the moment we have about a quarter of a century allotted to us in which to grow to adulthood. The next forty years are generally directed towards accomplishment in the outside world, realizing the goals of adulthood, procreation and raising a family. Then we tend to slide headlong downhill until we die. The character Vitek in Karel Capek's celebrated play The Makropoulos Secret describes the plight of modern man: . . he hasn't had time for gladness, and he hasn't had time to think, and he hasn't had time for anything except a desire for bread. He hasn't done anything. No, not even himself... What else is immortality of the soul but a protest against the shortness of life? A human being is something more than a turtle or a raven; a man needs more time to life. Sixty years - it is not right. It's weakness, it's innocence, and it's animal-like. Within the confines of our three score and ten years and under the pressures of contemporary social values, modern man and modern woman have become quite extraordinarily obsessed with accomplishment. Since for most of us the time for worldly accomplishment is limited to this middle period we push ourselves forward, often at health-breaking and heartbreaking speed. To many of us the concern with fulfilling ourselves in our career, paying the rent, buying the baby a new pair of shoes, during what are supposed to be the best years of our lives, forces us to postpone the pleasures of a time to dream, a time to think and a time to play - in the very highest sense of the word. If we are to find a means of coping with the problems of our society-problems of poor statesmanship, overpopulation, Third World famine, pollution and economic inequities - we desperately need this time to dream. We need this time to recreate our own world and to take our destiny responsibly into our own hands, aside from the demands of adult life. connectedness - a priority Nobel laureate novelist Hermann Hesse wrote about such a time-expanded world in his Glass Bead Game. There, time's limits become the rules of the game of life and each human being is freed to order his existential choices. Such a time-expanded world could help us draw together our learning and re-synthesize our knowledge. It might enable the coming together of disciplines such as mathematics, physics, philosophy, biology, medicine, psychology, anthropology, art, literature, politics, theology and law - in fact the whole gamut of human concerns and disciplines - into a kind of connectedness which is urgently needed in the excessively fragmented postindustrial society that has become our home. Healthy longevity - ageless aging - would make available to us the steadily maturing wisdom of our old people - people whose experience and awareness have not become distorted by ill-functioning minds and rapidly waning energies. Such wisdom is, I believe, exactly what we need to help guide our species into its further evolution. Moreover, such time expansion takes hold of our personal sense of the present and in a very real way draws it into the future. For when we are able to project ourselves into the future, that future becomes not an abstract consideration but of active concern to all of us. The future of the earth is our future. We become responsible for it and we will live to see it as caretakers instead of irresponsible tenants of a rented property. Ageless aging will help us become its owners and like all owners we are far more likely to look after our property. In George Bernard Shaw's preface to Back to Methuselah - the play in which his character Dr Conrad Barnabas promotes an extended lifespan of 300 years - he writes: `Men do not live long enough; they are, for the purposes of high civilization, mere children when they die.' He then goes on to consider some of the creative possibilities of our being able to lengthen life: This possibility came to me when history and experience had convinced me that the social problems raised by millionfold national populations are far beyond the political capacity attainable in three score and ten years of life by slow growing mankind. On all hands as I write the cry is that our statesmen are too old, and that Leagues of Youth must be formed everywhere to save civilization from them. But despairing ancient pioneers tell me that the statesmen are not old enough for their jobs . . . We have no sages old enough and wise enough to make a synthesis of these reactions, and to develop the magnetic awe-inspiring force which must replace the policeman's baton as the instrument of authority. creators of destiny For me this magnetic awe-inspiring force of which he speaks is nothing less than man's potential to become the creator of his destiny on earth. The situation in which we live with all the global dangers to which we are exposed from the possibility of mass nuclear extinction to world economic collapse - are not accidents of nature. We have created them. And no act of God can suddenly remove their potential destructiveness from our future. Only we ourselves have the possibility of doing that. If we are to succeed, we will need to call forth every resource that we have - intelligence, wisdom, strength, courage, and patience, wit, compassion - and work with them. Ageless aging can help us do that. Life extension, the freedom from mental and physical degeneration, is no curious artifact of twentieth-century science. Who cares if, at the age of 85, we are all capable of running a marathon or if we look 30 years younger? Such things matter little on their own. But the high-level health, mental clarity and wellbeing, which are rewards of ageless aging, are of urgent concern to our future as residents of the earth. They form the foundation on which we as human beings can build if we are to make use of our full potential for creativity. In the full use of such creativity lies the future of our children our planet and ourselves. Again in the words of Capek's Vitek: Let's give everyone a three-hundred-year life. It will be the biggest event since the creation of man; it will be the liberating and creating anew of man! God, what man will be able to do in three hundred years! To be a child and pupil for fifty years; fifty years to understand the world and its ways and to see everything there is; and a hundred years to work in; and then a hundred years, when we have understood everything, to live in wisdom, to teach, and to give example. How valuable human life would be if it lasted for three hundred years! There would be no fear, no selfishness. Everything would be wise and dignified. Give people life! Give them full human life! Capek's Vitek An idealistic plea in the midst of the profound disillusionment with man that is so much a part of modern life? A dream? Perhaps. Yet our dreams become the myths by which we live. And right now we urgently need new myths to give our life direction - dreams which, having been tempered by the wisdom of age and experience, are large enough and rich enough to take us forward. Such dreams have power. They also have a remarkable way of becoming reality: All men dream; but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible. T.E. Lawrence

Sodium bicarbonate—commonly known as baking soda or bicarbonate of soda—is derived from naturally occurring mineral deposits. It’s something that most of us keep around the house for cleaning or, as its name suggests, baking purposes. It’s been used in this way for more than 150 years. I personally use it to clean my teeth, and it works a treat. But this humble powder has many more applications than you might imagine. It can become a common cure for simple maladies, ranging from removing nasty splinters to clearing a common cold. In this day and age, where drugs of questionable safety are thrust upon us for just about every ailment, it’s a relief to know you can call on an inexpensive, old-fashioned natural product for help when you need it. GOOD FOR COMMON COMPLAINTS Chances are, you’re familiar with taking a little baking soda(bicarbonate of soda) in water to clear a sudden case of indigestion. Its alkalinity (or high pH) lends itself well to this purpose when used occasionally. You can also use it to take the fire out of minor burns and sunburns, as its endothermic (heat-absorbing) nature means it can draw heat from the skin. But here’s a less common use for this humble powder. Did you know that it can even be used to fight—as well as prevent—colds and flu? Many attest to its efficiency, though it’s not yet known for sure how it works to ward off ills and chills. One theory is that it stabilizes the pH balance in the bloodstream, strengthening the immune system in the process. It was used as far back as the late 1910s by a Dr. Volney S. Cheney. With the help of plain old baking soda, the good doctor helped many of his patients fight off the dreaded fight swine flu—with quite some success. He then went on to publish his discovery in 1924. You might like to try it for yourself next time you feel you’re coming down with something, and see what happens. It certainly won’t do you any harm. For, unlike pharmaceuticals, Dr Cheney’s treatment carries no nasty side-effects. HERE’S HOW: The recommended dosages based on Cheney’s findings are as follows. Day 1: Take six doses of ½ a teaspoon baking soda in a glass of cool water, with two hour intervals. Day 2: Take four doses of ½ a teaspoon baking soda in a glass of cool water, with the same intervals between. Day 3: Take two doses of ½ a teaspoon of baking soda in a glass of cool water, morning and evening. Thereafter, ½ a teaspoon each morning in a glass of cool water until cold symptoms have cleared. AND WAIT—THERE’S MORE Baking soda’s marvelous healing abilities don’t end there. Got a troublesome splinter? Try making a paste with a tablespoon of soda and a small amount of water, applying to the affected area twice daily until the splinter emerges. Alternatively, you can put the paste onto a bandage and leave it on for 24 hours. This should encourage the splinter to the surface; it may even fall out on its own. Stop an itch. You can also apply this type of paste to insect bites to soothe itching, or to itchy or painful rashes such as from poison ivy. Natural deodorant. Try using it as a natural deodorant—you’ll avoid the nasty parabens and aluminum found in most commercial types. Great foot soak. Add a few tablespoons to a tub of warm to hot water and enjoy a delightful foot soak; or make a paste of 3:1 baking soda to water and use as an all-over body exfoliant. MASTER OF ALL TRADES Is there anything practical that baking soda can’t do? You may well ask. I continue to find new uses for this stuff like freshening carpets with baking soda and some essential oils, mixing it with white vinegar, a bit of dish soap and warm water to create a heavy duty floor cleaner, and mixing a dash of the powder with my shampoo to clear any buildup of impurities, so my hair becomes soft and manageable. It will even remove crayon marks from walls and painted furniture when you apply it to a damp sponge and rub lightly, and will clear the inside of a porcelain cup. Just wet the inside, pour some into the bottom and scrub. Coffee and tea stains disappear. Finally, you can make your nails ready for the perfect manicure by scrubbing them and the cuticles with a paste of 3 parts baking soda to 1 part water. Rub in a gentle, circular motion over your hands and fingers to exfoliate any dead skin. Then rinse with warm water, and apply varnish if you wish. Give a few of these things a try. You may become as enthusiastic about this humble powder as I am.

Inflammation is the most dangerous condition your body has to handle to make you well and keep you that way. It diminishes your immune system. It can trigger a wide variety of serious degenerative illnesses, from early aging and heart disease to diabetes, arthritis, food intolerance and mental disorders. Inflammation is your body’s natural response to infection, injury and tissue damage. It comes in two forms: Acute and chronic inflammation—systemic inflammation, which spreads throughout your body. Acute inflammation is temporary, the purpose of which is to restore good tissue function as soon as possible. Your body creates inflammation as its defense against disturbing homeostasis in an attempt to prevent harm to surrounding tissues. Chronic inflammation is different. It turns into a festering fire causing pain, illness and disability all round. The reactions it brings about in the body are highly complex, involving many cellular and molecular distortions. It acts upon pro-inflammatory immune cells that circulate throughout your body, damaging healthy areas like the linings of your blood vessels in arteriosclerosis, joint tissue in arthritis, gut mucosa in lactose and gluten intolerance, and pancreatic tissue in diabetes. It can even act as a precursor to cancer. SURPRISING DISCOVERY Recently, highly respected cardiologists have pointed out that when it comes to the treatment of many conditions—such as heart disease—the medical profession has been doing it all wrong. Prescribing drugs to lower cholesterol, and telling people to restrict quality fats, do not protect from heart disease as we have been taught. The statins which cardiologists continue to prescribe are not only useless, they say, these pharmaceuticals can be seriously detrimental to your health. It is, they have discovered, inflammation in the arteries that is the real cause of arteriosclerosis and heart problems. Cholesterol can never line artery walls causing heart attacks and strokes unless systemic inflammation is widespread in your body. Dwight Lundell, former Chief of Staff and Surgery at Banner Heart Hospital in Arizona, is one of many outspoken physicians in regard to this mistake. “We physicians with all our training, knowledge and authority often acquire a rather large ego that tends to make it difficult to admit we are wrong,” he says. “I freely admit to being wrong. As a heart surgeon with 25 years’ experience, having performed over 5,000 open-heart surgeries, today is my day to right the wrong with medical and scientific fact.” THE TRIGGERS What causes inflammation in the body? Many things, from genetic inheritance to environmental influences—especially the wrong diet; being exposed to bacteria, inhalants, pollutants; even electromagnetic influences from cell phones, smart meters and towers; not to mention taking long-term courses of powerful drugs—from antibiotics to hormones, anti-depressants, analgesics and sedatives, to drugs like statins, commonly used to treat heart conditions; and other prescriptive drugs, the remains of which literally poison the body, badly polluting its terrain. If you wish to protect yourself from inflammation, you need to become aware of where it’s likely to be coming from. This means examining how you live your life, and making changes to protect yourself from possible causes. The second step is to learn about which foods cause inflammation and which foods can help protect you from it. Then it’s time to throw out every one of the inflammatory foods that line your cupboard and your refrigerator, and forever change how you may have been eating. ANTI-INFLAMMATORY EATING Certain foods, herbs, spices, and supplements help reduce inflammation and protect your body from it in the future. Organic dark green vegetables are high on the list: Spinach, kale, dandelion greens, collard greens, broccoli, bok choy, beet greens, and asparagus are high on the list of protective vegetables. So are organic berries of all kinds, organic chicken, grass-fed lamb, beef, venison, wild salmon, and green-lipped muscles from New Zealand. Foods that cause inflammation which you want to avoid at any cost are all kinds of sugars, regardless of how much they may be promoted as “good for you”; all artificial sweeteners, which are chemically dangerous to your body; and all GMO foods, which can literally be deadly. A large percentage of the population also reacts badly to cow’s milk products—from the milk itself to cow’s yogurt and cheese. Another category of foods that can be highly inflammatory to the body are high-carbohydrate foods, from the common grains and cereals to packaged convenience foods which line your supermarket shelves. They are chock-full of colorants, flavor enhancers and other chemicals which poison your body. It goes without saying that you want to avoid all junk foods, from sugared drinks to pastries, completely. Explore instead using the faux grains, which do not pollute your body and are great for meals and baking. (See: faux grain) SPICE IT UP Certain spices are wonderful for helping to quell inflammatory issues. Always buy organic. Most herbs in supermarkets have been irradiated—sprayed with herbicides and pesticides, which you do not want to allow into your body. Turmeric has been used for centuries as a medicine for treating colds, flu, and liver disease. It contains curcumin which has been used for centuries to reduce inflammation. Cinnamon, in addition to its beautiful smell and flavor, has been shown in many studies to exert anti-inflammatory properties and to ease swelling. Garlic in fresh form eases the inflammation of arthritis, as well as helping to protect you from colds, flu and other ailments. Ginger, in the form of a fresh root which you can grate into your foods and drinks, is fabulous for calming inflammation of upset stomachs, getting rid of headaches and infections. Cayenne, like other chili peppers, contains capsaicinoids which gives it its anti-inflammatory properties and can ease the pain of arthritis and headaches. MAGNESIUM THE ULTIMATE For those in the know, it is magnesium that forms the foundation of both treatment and prevention of heart disease, arteriosclerosis and diabetes by calming the fires of chronic inflammation. Virtually everybody in the western world is seriously deficient in this wonderful mineral. All packaged convenience foods are very low in it. Magnesium deficiency is common in obesity, type 2 diabetes, and the insulin resistance that can trigger cardiac issues as well as the widespread incidence of cancer. Magnesium reduces hypertension, reduces your rate of aging, helps protect from bone fractures, and calms troubled minds. It is as basic as clean air and water for becoming healthy and staying healthy. There are many ways you can take magnesium, from swallowing supplements (not the best way) to bathing in magnesium chloride baths. One of the most effective ways to get more magnesium into your body—something all of us need to help clear inflammation and treat pain—is transdermal magnesium therapy. Get yourself a spray bottle of high quality magnesium chloride and spray it on your body, massaging it in all over. Magnesium chloride is taken right through your skin into the cells. Slowly but surely, doing this three times a day counters inflammation and pain superbly well. Spray it on or have a friend massage it into your body. When it dries, it may leave traces of white powder on the skin surface. This is nothing to worry about. It is some of the magnesium itself, that’s all; you can brush it off. Life Flo Health make a pure Magnesium Chloride Oil, which is inexpensive. It provides 66mg of magnesium chloride for every 4 sprays or 560mg per teaspoon. It is taken from the Ancient Zechstein Seabed, which lies 1600 to 2000 meters beneath the surface of the earth in the Netherlands, and is 100% pure. Magnesium chloride has no equal when it comes to the effectiveness of using magnesium to counter inflammation and athletic pain. It must be 100% pure magnesium chloride, not any other form of the mineral. I use it every day. Clearing inflammation from your body in whatever form it occurs may well be the very best action you can take to help you live a long and healthy life, during which you look and feel your very best at every age. Life Flo Health, Pure Magnesium Pure Magnesium Oil is a highly concentrated spray of pure magnesium chloride-nothing added and nothing removed. Mined deep under the earth's surface from the Zechstein Seabed in the Netherlands, it can be used daily, is non-greasy, and leaves no unpleasant odor. Provides approximately 66mg of elemental magnesium for every 4 sprays or 560mg per teaspoon. Order Pure Magnesium from iherb

Most of what we've been taught about depression and its causes is not valid. Most so called anti-depressant pharmaceuticals don’t work. And, if taken long term they can seriously undermine your health and screw up your metabolism so that it can become very difficult to unwind the mess. A mounting mass of evidence shows that antidepressants are no better than placebos when it comes to the benefits they have long thought to bestow. An amazing 20% of Americans over the age of 12 are still being stuffed full of antidepressant drugs as are older men and women who have often taken these drugs for years. One in 10 Americans still take antidepressants as well as one in four women in their 40s and 50s.  So do 13 percent of pregnant women.  Meanwhile doctors continue to prescribe them—especially selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) despite a growing number of studies showing that these drugs can also put a pregnant woman at risk of giving birth to a child with severe birth defects or autism. SSRIs work by increasing the levels of a brain chemical called serotonin, which plays a key role in mood. Your body produces serotonin and keeps it at a certain level, but SSRI drugs increase serotonin levels in the brain by blocking its re-absorption. Prozac was the first SSRI to appear on the market back in 1988. By 2005 SSRI pharmaceuticals had become the most prescribed drugs in the United States.  Side effects that have been shown to accompany their use include weight loss, fatigue, insomnia, headaches, erectile dysfunction and  inability to experience orgasm in both men and women. The false belief that that depression is the result of a chemical imbalance in the brain which can only be treated by using a drug to increase serotonin levels turns out to be untrue. So what is the truth? Recent research shows that most, if not all of the benefits to depression, anxiety, panic attacks, and personality disorders are the results of a placebo effect—a patient’s belief that taking a potent pharmaceutical drug is what he or she must do. An excellent report in relation to the placebo effect was published not long ago in the journal Zeitschrift Für Psychologie which strongly confirms this. Similar reports going back to 2009 and before also support these findings. New research continue to reverse the notion that depression can be countered by conventional drug treatments, which rely on serotonin reuptake inhibitors. Just the opposite appears to be the case. “Serotonin can increase anxiety not decrease it as was previously assumed,” explains researcher Andreas Frick, in the Psychology Department at Uppsala University in Sweden.  A University of Montreal study published in the 2015 issue of JAMA showed that pregnant women who took antidepressants were 87% more likely to have a baby born with autism. So what can help combat depression? Some of the latest findings may surprise you. For instance, the right nutritional supplements can help banish the blues while improving your health all round. Here are a few tried and tested suggestions of natural origin that many people whom I have worked closely with on Cura Romana report have helped get them off pharmaceuticals and become depression free. Omega-3s are right at the top of the list. And most of us get nowhere near enough of these vital animal-based oils. Harvard psychiatrist Dr. Andrew Stoll was one of the first to write about the value of taking top-quality Omega-3 supplements to counter depression in his book “The Omega—Three Connection." How much Omega-3 oils with the important EPAs and DHAs do you need? Most healthy people get along well by taking between 250 and 500 mg a day. But there are good indications that a larger dose of 2,200 mg a day is much more effective in countering mental and emotional issues from schizophrenia and depression to bipolar disorders. It is essential that you take only a top quality Omega-3 product. These can be hard to come by since there are so many poor quality ones on the market. The one I recommend is Life Extension Omega Foundations Super Omega-3 EPA/DHA with Sesame Lignans & Olive Extract. Of course, if you are taking anti-coagulant or anti-platelet medications consult your health practitioner first. Other nutritional supplements which have shown to improve depression include SAMe, 5-HTP, Vitamin D3+K2, and Vitamin B-12 in particular. Every one of these nutrients is known to offer significant help.   They are well worth trying as a natural alternative to pharmaceutical drugs, which can be ineffective and even seriously dangerous to your wellbeing in the long term. Equally important is the way you eat. Cleansing your body is the first step to releasing blocked creative energy and restoring a biochemical balance that will wash your blues away. Begin a long-term way of eating based on REAL FOODS, not the packaged stuff they try to sell you in supermarkets. Choose fresh spray-free vegetables—many of them raw—and top quality proteins from wild fish, organic meat, free-range chicken, and eggs. Avoid all cow’s milk products, including milk itself, yogurt, and cheese. Butter is OK because it is a fat. It’s milk protein that tends to cause problems for people prone to depression. Explore sheep milk cheeses, and yogurts, goat milk products, or buffalo milk products—my favorites. Must important: Stop eating anything made with wheat or other grains and cereals, including pasta, breakfast cereals, breads, and biscuits. And make all processed convenience foods a thing of the past. A diet free of convenience foods releases you from the sort of metabolic disturbance that causes mood swings and depression. It was just such a diet—one in which at least half of the foods I ate were raw—that cleared my own deep depression. It frees your body and opens up your mind. You start to see life with a much broader view. Slowly you can begin to feel a sense of excitement each day with what you are doing. But be patient. It takes time for the transformation to happen. Week by week, feelings of depression and impossibility melt away like snow drifts in the warmth of a spring sunshine. You begin to experience your own natural energies and a balanced state of mind starts to emerge. More peaceful and centered, you come to see that you are actually able to do whatever it is you want to do. The body is a magnificent system capable of the most incredible regeneration and renewal. Once you learn to live on simple, pure, natural organic foods, this helps transform your whole being physically, emotionally, and spiritually. In effect, you discover who you are at the deepest level of your being, and come to live your life from there. I did it. So have thousands of others who never dreamed this could be possible. So can you. A human being is most certainly “fearfully and wonderfully made.” It’s time to discover this for yourself. See below for my suggested Omega-3 supplement. Life Extension Omega Foundations Super Omega-3