beauty

Pain is what many of us fear most. We all know the misery that can come from a sore back, a throbbing headache or toothache, not to mention children’s earaches. All too many also know the immobilizing pain of migraine. Herbs and essential oils can reach out and help when pain strikes, and without the upset stomach and muzzy heads that over-the-counter treatments can bring in their wake. We’ve all done it—picked up something too heavy or twisted awkwardly—and suffered the pain of an indignant back. Essential oils really come into their own with back pain; use them to relieve muscle spasm and ease your mind. Essential oils of sage, thyme and rosemary all contain thymol and carvacrol, which are excellent muscle relaxants. Rosemary has the added advantage of being anti-spasmodic. Clary sage is also used traditionally to ease the pain of a pulled back. You can mix a few drops of one of these essential oils with a couple of tablespoons of almond oil, coconut oil, or walnut oil. Either massage it into the sore spot yourself, or allow someone you trust to do this gently for you. A warm bath will also help ease the tightness out of strained back muscles. Put a few drops of essential oil of rosemary or clary sage in the bath, plus 2 cups of industrial grade Epsom salts—simple magnesium sulfate—which you can find at a pharmacy in kilo packages or order much more cheaply over the net in big 25kg bags. Allow the essential oils to vaporize on the steam to help you relax all over. Stay in the bath for half an hour, topping up with warm water, to let the Epsom salts do their muscle-relaxing work. Then get out of the bath, dry yourself gently, and crawl into bed or lie down for 30 minutes with a good book. For my family, Epsom salts in huge bags are always in good supply. Aaron and I take an Epsom salts bath daily. It’s a practice which is not only health enhancing but deliciously pleasant.

To understand cellulite it is important to understand how your flesh is structured. Let's look at the deeper layers first. They are known as subcutaneous tissues. In your thighs, these are made up of three layers of fat with two planes of connective tissue and ground substance in between. This brings us to one of the interesting things about cellulite: It is almost always a female complaint. With a very few remarkable exceptions, men simply do not get it. In part this is hormonal. A woman's body is rich in female hormones such as oestrogen, which encourage the laying down of fat. (For years farmers injected oestrogen-like substances in cattle and chickens to fatten them rapidly for market.) This is also why cellulite tends first to appear during times of intense hormonal change such as puberty, pregnancy or when she goes onto a birth control pill. In part, however, cellulite is a woman's condition because the basic construction of subcutaneous tissue of the thigh differs in men and women. In women, the topmost subcutaneous layer is made up of what are termed large 'standing fat-cell chambers', which are separated by radial and arching dividing walls of connective tissue attached to the overlying tissue of the dermis or true skin. The uppermost part of the subcutaneous tissue of men is different. It is thinner, and there is a network of crisscrossing connective tissue walls which makes it harder for a man's body to lay down large fat cells and to trap stored wastes and water in the tissues. Also the corium - the connective tissue structure between the true skin and the deeper layers or hypodermis - is thicker in men than in women. You can check on these differences yourself by carrying out a 'pinch test'. It is only pinching the thighs of women that results in the 'mattress phenomenon' with its pitting, bulging and deformation of skin. Pinch the thighs of most men and you will get gentle skin folds or furrows, completely without bulges or pits. beware the ravages of time Age-related changes in women also encourage the build up of cellulite. For instance, as women get older, their skin gets progressively looser and thinner. This encourages the migration of fat cells into this layer. The connective tissue walls between the chambers of fat cells also get thinner allowing the fat-cell chambers to enlarge - a condition known as hypertrophy. This progressive thinning of connective tissue structures is another major factor in the development of cellulite and creates the granular texture and buckshot feel of much cellulite-riddled flesh. An examination of cellulite tissue under the microscope also reveals that a number of histological changes have taken place. They include a distension of the lymphatic vessels of the upper skin, for instance, and a decrease in the number of elastic fibers. The circulation of blood, too, has been slowed, and the connective fibers have undergone a sclerotic hardening, so that the fluids and the wastes they contain become trapped in an unpleasant network which pinches nerve endings (hence the pain in well developed cellulite) and create stasis in the tissue - rather like a polluted swamp - where energy exchange is reduced. The whole area takes on a deadened quality - a sure sign of poor body ecology.

A detox can work miracles after a spate of too much work and too little sleep, after the over-indulgences of Christmas, in spring when all life is renewing itself, before you hit the beach in summer, or whenever you need a lift. Detoxification is just a long word for clearing out your system. A process which stimulates your body’s natural ability to get rid of the toxic waste products that build up in your cells, tissues and organs over months and years of living on the Western fare of convenience foods and polluted air. You can spend hundreds of hours and thousands of pounds on lotions, potions and treatments to improve the look of your skin, to firm your flesh and to renew your body. But none of these things is likely to bring you the same benefits as simple, natural methods for periodic internal spring-cleaning. You might think of spring cleaning in terms of carting out boxes of junk from the attic. In a way, an internal spring clean does the same thing. The human body is magnificently designed to cleanse itself automatically without ever giving thought to the process. The trouble is that the kind of food and drink most people in the West put into their bodies, the tendency we have to lead stressful but sedentary lives, and the increasing number of pollutants to which we are exposed through the air we breathe and the water we drink, have created a situation in which often far more toxins are taken into the body, and far more metabolic wastes produced in it, than we can effectively get rid of. In other words, your body is continually having to cope with more poisons than it can eliminate in the normal day-to-day course of events. Instead they are stored in the tissues where they lower vitality, encourage the development of degenerative diseases and early aging and rob the system of nutrients necessary to keep your whole body looking its best. garbage gathering Dr Dwight McKee, Medical Director of the International Health Institute in America, put it rather bluntly when he said: "anybody who has lived the mainstream American lifestyle for ten or more years has 70 trillion garbage cans for cells." McKee believes, as do a growing number of physicians, that the cells of anyone living in the West are literally chock full of metabolic and environmental wastes gathered over a lifetime. To live at a high level of health and vitality, not to mention being able to make the most of your potential for good looks and prolonged youth, we need to get rid of them. Beautiful skin, a firm and healthy body, and a clear mind are all dependent on your system being able to efficiently and effectively get rid of bodily wastes and toxins before they have a chance to do any damage. This principle forms the foundation of the long European tradition of natural medicine. Remove some of the burden of what is creating excess toxicity in your system by laying aside coffee, alcohol, and over-processed foods complete with chemical additives for a time, and you’re halfway there. Add to that a very simple and temporary regime designed to trigger rapid detoxification and quite naturally you trigger your body’s own mechanisms for clearing out the junk in the attic. good looks from within So what do you get out of it? Giving your body the chance to clear out the rubbish it has been carrying around, sometimes for years, will encourage weight loss if there is weight to be shed, will start you on the road to getting rid of cellulite, will improve the look and texture of your skin, minimize lines on your face, improve overall muscle tone, and increase your sense of vitality and well-being. It cleanses the digestive system, restores a good acid/alkaline balance to the body and generally stimulates the proper functioning of organs and tissues. In short, it puts you through the kind of transformation which leaves you sparkling with vitality. Regimes like this keep world-famous health-spas making money hand over foot as they take in worn, tired, stressed people and transform them using healthy foods and natural treatments into more energetic, younger looking, better functioning versions of themselves. Yet you, too, can get that health-spa lift by doing a simple detox in a weekend at home for – believe it or not – the price of a few pounds of apples. Following such a regime two or three times a year can be enormously helpful in transforming the way you look and feel, reducing excess weight, increasing your energy, and generally getting you back on track. It is particularly useful when you have been under a lot of stress, when you have overindulged, or to get you looking and feeling your best before exposing your body on holiday. Detoxification can bring you a new sense of vitality and regenerate all your systems for maximum good looks and energy. The theory is simple. Stop putting into your body as much as possible those foods which encourage the production of toxic wastes which clog the system. Take two days – a weekend - to relax, spoil yourself, and get your natural elimination processes going with an apple fast. Follow with a few days of taking in lots of delicious living foods to really put you on top form. It’s a cheap, effective program which fits perfectly into a normal working week.  Too good to be true?  Check out Apple Magic and find out for yourself. To Find Out more About The Apple Detox Click Here

How often do you rejoice your body? How often do you feel absolutely at ease in your skin, at peace in yourself and in harmony with your world? For many the answer is seldom. Instead we tend to us put up with the body rather like some slightly cumbersome baggage we carry with us as we go about. Yet all thought, all feeling, every response to beauty and to horror is mediated through the body. In fact your body is the medium for experiencing everything in life. As any healthy two year old knows, when it is fully alive you are fully alive. This aliveness is something we often have to rediscover. Television, films and advertising are replete with photographs of long legged pencil-thin females who are meant to be paragons of womanhood against whom we measure ourselves. Magazines and newspapers spend a large part of their time giving us advice about diets, clothes, exercise which supposedly will help the bodies of their readers more closely approach whatever shape, size and texture body the general consensus at any moment in time considers ideal. Meanwhile millions of women who, because of the way they are built, their personalities, and their own values (whether or not these values operate consciously or unconsciously) have not a hope in hell of ever looking like that ideal. And they suffer. This suffering goes deep - far beyond the simple (yet often painful) feelings of inadequacy which come with having been built with broad shoulders, big feet or a flat chest when the world you live in tells you you are supposed to be different. (Some of us alas have the misfortune of being blessed with all three). For implicit in the whole way in which the body is presented in almost everything we do and think are two far more crippling assumptions: That the body is separate from the spirit or person and that it is ultimately inferior. These assumptions are anchored deep into the belief systems from the Greco-Roman and Christian traditions in which our society has developed. They have led us to view the body either as something not to be trusted - like a wild animal that needs taming lest it gets out of hand or like a physical object outside ourselves to be watched, studied and manipulated. For most Western women their bodies are things separate from themselves, either to be prodded, criticized, and hidden or narcissistically exposed as a sexual object - something useful in gaining attention or drawing to oneself what one needs (or think she needs). In either case there is a sense of estrangement not only from the body but at a deeper level from ones self. Out of this estrangement comes a sense of powerlessness so that one begins to think that what one needs to be happy, to be complete, to be fulfilled can only be found outside oneself - by accomplishment in the world, or wearing the right clothes, by earning the love of a man or by conforming to some abstract ideal. So long as one is driven by a sense of separateness from ones body whether you succeed or fail in getting what you want from the outside world is irrelevant. For neither success nor failure bring you any closer to living freely with real health and beauty. Rediscovering the aliveness of the child and the innocence of bodily freedom can. It helps heal the wounds of separation and free a woman to live in the fullness of her own being.

For generations, we’ve been urged to eat soy-based foods. We’ve been told that soy foods are great for our own health and the health of our families. In fact, in the late 90s, soy became every aggressive marketer’s dream. The ignorant FDA informed the entire world that “Diets low in saturated fat and cholesterol which include 25 grams of soy protein may reduce the risk of heart disease.” This was another of their potentially dangerous pronouncements. As if from nowhere, soy food sales skyrocketed, rising from $300 million a year to an astounding $4 billion by 2006. Thanks to massive advertising campaigns, the whole world started swallowing soy foods, drinks, powdered sports supplements and oils, as well as a thousand other soy products which every one of us would have been better off without. Of course, Monsanto loved it and started growing GMO soy everywhere they could get away with it. Did you realize that as much as 95% of all soybeans in the world are now genetically modified? The last thing you want to do is feed yourself or your children on GMO anything. Not only this, but soy foods are incompatible with your body for all sorts of other reasons too. Most soy grown nowadays contains dangerous quantities of glyphosate—the main ingredient in the weed killer Roundup. Soy is also full of potentially destructive levels of manganese and aluminum—both known to reduce brain function. Even non-GMO soy carries many anti-nutrient inhibitors, known to interfere with the proper functioning of the enzymes needed for good digestion—l.ike hemagglutinin, which causes red blood cells to clump together and inhibits your body’s ability to take up oxygen. It also contains goitrogens, which interfere with thyroid functions and phytates, which depress the body’s ability to absorb important minerals such as zinc, iron, magnesium and calcium. Nevertheless, you will still find soy in one form or another in a majority of the convenience foods and drinks which line our supermarket shelves, including many foods which have nothing to do with soy like ice creams, sausages, breads and sauces. For me, the saddest news is that a huge percentage of babies continue to be fed on soy formula all over the world. When it comes to infant formulas, soy is something you want to avoid at all costs. It is dangerous to your child. The very best care you can give to both yourself and your baby is to breastfeed. If possible, let your child decide when he or she is ready to give up nursing. Your baby will get life-long health gains from breastfeeding. Not to mention that the closeness which develops between the two of you is a lifelong blessing. Here are some of the health benefits that breastfeeding confers upon a child: Decreased risk of obesity Decreased risk of eczema and other skin problems Fewer middle ear infections Better respiration Added protection against diabetes, asthma, allergies and heart disease Improved immune function Better brain function. We’ve long been told that soy must be good for us since Asians consume huge amounts of it. The truth is, the Chinese and Japanese eat surprisingly little soy—on average, only about 10 grams—about to two teaspoons per person—per day. And they eat soy only as a condiment, never as a replacement for animal proteins. The eating of soy foods began during the late Chou dynasty in Japan and China (1134-246 BC). This was only after the Chinese had mastered the art of naturally fermenting soy beans. They began to make foods like tempeh, natto, and tamari, all of which were made from traditionally—read: organically grown— soy beans. These fermented soy products are indeed healthy for you, since fermenting neutralizes the toxins in soybeans. By contrast, eating unfermented soy not only denatures the small quantities of protein soybeans contain, it actually increases the levels of carcinogens present. If you are vegetarian, you’ve probably been told that soy foods provide your body with complete proteins. This is untrue. So is the notion that eating soy foods will supply Vitamin B12 to vegetarian diets. If you wish to eat soy, eat only fermented foods made from organic soybeans: natto, tempeh and tamari. Stay away from all soy milk products which are not fermented and not organic. Vegetarian or not, it’s time to let go of the belief that any soy product will give you all the protein you need to live at a high level of health and resistance to early aging. They won’t. Want to learn more? Check it out online at the Weston A. Price Foundation. There you can discover and learn which naturally fermented soy products are available. http://www.westonaprice.org/soy-alert/

Last week we looked at intermittent fasting for clearing cellulite deposits and keeping them away. It’s an enormously valuable tool. But the important first step for creating a cellulite-free body is to clear as much of the tissue sludge that creates it as quickly as possible. How? By using the most powerful natural detox protocol I have ever found, for 2 or 3 days. Then, in CELLULITE PART 3 next week, I’m keen to share with you how to go about creating in your own life an on-going intermittent fasting food style which helps make peau d’orange a thing of the past while rejuvenating you—mentally, emotionally and spiritually. IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER Cellulite is always a manifestation of the wrong kind of lifestyle for health and beauty: eating wrongly (or too much), living under prolonged stress, hormonal imbalances, being exposed to too many pollutants, and all the other things that we often assume we can get away with, but never really do. Also, cellulite exists—whether or not one wishes to call it cellulite or something else—despite the fact that the majority of adamant medical voices loudly deny its existence. It is real enough for the woman who, in spite of being lean and well, reaches down and pinches her thigh only to find it puckers, ripples, and looks like the skin of an orange. Cellulite differs from normal fat in three ways: It doesn't disappear just because you slim down and exercise regularly as ordinary fat does. Cellulite areas hold different kinds of fat than ordinary fat tissue. Radioisotopic examinations show that, while the components of ordinary fatty tissue change every eight days, gel-like cellulite remains almost stagnant. CLEAR THE SLUDGE Quite simply, cellulite is a pollution problem. It is the result of a build-up of wastes settle in specific areas of a woman’s body. Where distortions in female hormones are present, we tend to collect cellulite deposits as part of our secondary sex characteristics—on our thighs, hips, buttocks and so forth. Cellulite areas not only contain fat. When you examine a layer of cellulite under a microscope, you find that the fat imbued with water and wastes is held there by a fine network of hard fibrous adhesions. Settling in the subcutaneous (subsurface) layer just beneath the skin, cellulite areas have been surrounded by a cushion-like network of connective tissue known as septa. When the septa tighten down on fat cells present in the area or when fat cells push upwards this forms adhesions—a kind of sclerosis of the connective tissues, which get worse with the passage of time. You can liken it to an overstuffed cushion which, with wear and tear, bursts out above the structural support, tightening down even more on the support. All of this leads back to an impaired lymphatic system. When blood and lymph flow in the body becomes restricted as a result of sludge stored in the body, septa fibers continue to thicken while cellulite deposits in the subcutaneous layers of the skin get worse. It’s time to begin the process of clearing this sludge. It’s time to activate the body’s ability to deliver fresh nutrient-rich blood to skin, and restore good lymph flow so it carries away wastes and toxins from the tissues. THE AMAZING ROHSÄFTE-KUR In my opinion, the best contribution German nature-cure experts ever devised for this is called Rohsäfte-Kur. It’s a protocol you can also use when you find yourself feeling "dead" because of too much stress, too little sleep, or fatigue. It is also the best way to begin clearing cellulite. What is it? It’s a raw juice fast, in many ways superior to a water fast. On it you drink plenty of freshly made raw fruit and vegetable juices. These raw juice meals have remarkable properties, in no small part thanks to the living enzymes they contain in high concentration. The program can make you feel super-alive—mentally clear and sparklingly aware of the world around you. A Rohsäfte-Kur as short as two or three days can make a woman look years younger. It is the best way I have ever found to begin eliminating tissue sludge quickly. Of course you must consult a professional practitioner before beginning—especially if you are on any pharmaceutical drugs. You should not stay on it for more than two or three days unless you are under proper supervision. All that being said, we’re ready to get the ball rolling. In addition to their enzyme content, raw juices made from organic fruits and vegetables are rich in vitamins, minerals, and trace elements to help bring biochemical balance to the cells of skin and muscles, since on your Rohsäfte-Kur the assimilation of these nutrients becomes almost total. To do a Rohsäfte-Kur properly, you need a juice extractor—an excellent investment for long-lasting health and beauty. Some juicers have attachments so they can be used as a blender and shredder for vegetables, although I prefer dedicated juice extractors—either centrifugal or masticating juicers—which are slower speed but reduce oxidation. HERE’S HOW The day before you begin, eat lightly. Have some low glycemic fruit such as berries for breakfast and a salad for lunch and dinner, perhaps with a little cottage cheese or some yoghurt. This helps prepare your body for the juice fast. You can also take a mild laxative the night before if you wish. FIRST THING IN THE MORNING: A tisane: take a cup of herb or flower tea such as Maté, peppermint, camomile, nettle, rose-hip or solidago— goldenrod—which is particularly good, but often hard to come by, for eliminating excess water from the tissues if you tend to retain it. BREAKFAST Prepare a 250ml glass of organic fresh fruit juice chosen from berries such as strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, apples or pears. Dilute this with enough clean filtered water to make two glasses. Sip slowly until you've drunk both glasses. MID-MORNING Drink a glass of herb tea or homemade vegetable broth if desired. Here is my favorite recipe: Leslie’s Home-made organic vegetable bouillon or vegetable broth. You can use green vegetables to make your own, such as broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, bean sprouts, asparagus, mustard greens, spinach, watercress, ginger, garlic. Bring to the boil and simmer for 15 minutes. Season with herbs and sea salt as desired then store in the fridge, reheating as needed. This is a good drink if you're feeling weak or headachy when your body begins the natural process of cleansing itself after years of following the inaccurate advice we have all been given. LUNCH A 250ml of fresh vegetable juice made from organic vegetables such as carrot, celery, spinach, kale or cucumber, or a mixture of these. Again dilute with half clean water to make two glasses and drunk slowly. MID-AFTERNOON Another herb tea or homemade organic vegetable bouillon as desired. DINNER Same as lunch. BEFORE BED If you are hungry, take a few raisins (not more than a dozen) chew each one slowly, and another tisane, or glass of spring water if you prefer. OVERVIEW In other words, throughout the day you will be drinking between one and a half and three pints of juice, teas or homemade vegetable broth, depending on how much you feel you want. The reason that half of the juices are vegetable and half of them fruit is that fruits are the natural cleansers of the system and the vegetables are the revitalizers. As with any true fast, if you experience feelings of discomfort such as headache (a sign that you are quickly eliminating wastes), take whatever pain killers you feel you need and tuck yourself away in a dark room to rest until it passes. If you take a lukewarm bath (not hot) in the evening; this will help you to sleep well. It is important that all the juices you drink be freshly made and drunk right away. If they are allowed to stand in a room for a few minutes they oxidize and lose much of their therapeutic and nutritional value. When you choose your vegetables and fruit, make sure they are fresh and carefully washed in running water. You can mix juices in delightful ways, and as a final addition, try a teaspoonful of fresh lemon juice or fresh cream added to each glass. Fresh finely minced herbs such as basil or chives sprinkled in also add something special. GREAT HERB TEAS Here are a few herb teas that are particularly good for helping to clear cellulite, either because of their blood purifying capabilities or because they are natural diuretics and encourage the elimination of excess water from the tissues. Maté Tea is a tonic for the kidneys, a tension soother, and is so satisfying to drink that you feel less inclined to eat. It is nice taken plain or with a squeeze of lemon in it. Solidago Tea (wild goldenrod) is an excellent natural diuretic and a mild stimulant. It is a favorite for spring-cleaning the system at the Bircher-Benner Clinic in Zurich but it can be hard to find these days. Nettle Tea is another diuretic and tonic, excellent for the lymphatic system. It doesn't taste as nice as solidago, so needs to be sweetened with a little stevia. COMING NEXT WEEK Next week, we will not only look specifically at how, after carrying out a Rohsäfte-Kur, you can create for yourself a simple, doable way of spacing meals that can help clearing cellulite long-term and keep it away. We will also expose as yet little-known nutritional mistakes most everybody makes which need to be corrected—not only for keeping cellulite at bay, but for protecting you from early aging and all those degenerative diseases which now plague the Western world. See you then... I have also included some great tea's to try below: The Tao of Tea, 100% Organic Famous South American Herb, Roasted Maté Maté (Ilex Paraguariensis) is an evergreen plant of the holly family (Aquifoliaceae). Although the plant does produce small flowers and fruit, only the distinctive oval shaped leaves and stems are plucked for processing. Toasty, smooth and full-bodied with light cacao taste. Will provide at least 3-4 infusions. Maté contains vitamins (A, B1, B2, C and E), mineral salts, 15 amino acids and high levels of antioxidants. Its chemical constituents also include alkaloids (such as caffeine). Maté is known to help cope with stress and is beneficial for the nervous and immune systems. Order The Tao of Tea: Roasted Maté from iherb Traditional Medicinals, Organic Nettle Leaf Herbal Tea, Caffeine Free Nettle plants grow in the wild throughout much of Europe and North America and are now also grown on farms. Fresh pressed juice of the herb, and tinctures or tea infusions of the dried leaves are commonly used in Europe. Organic Nettle Leaf has a pleasantly refreshing and slightly bitter taste. For maximum benefit, herbal tea must be properly prepared. Pour 8 oz. freshly boiled water over 1-2 tea bags in a cup. Cover cup and steep 10 minutes. These steps directly influence the amount of beneficial components that will end up in your teacup! Gently squeeze the tea bag to release the remaining extract. Drink 3-4 cups daily. Order Organic Nettle Leaf Herbal Tea from iherb BEST LIQUID STEVIA Wisdom Natural, SweetLeaf, Liquid Stevia, English Toffee Sweet Leaf liquid stevia with all natural flavors is convenient and easy to use. As a supplement, add this nutritious stevia to water, tea, coffee, milk, sparkling water, protein shakes, plain yogurt or anything else you can imagine. It comes in many different flavors including lemon but English Toffee flavor is the best by far. Order SweetLeaf Liquid Stevia from iherb ORDERING FROM IHERB.COM: If you decide to order any products from Iherb.com, you will automatically receive $5 or $10 off your first order. Their products are the cheapest and best in the world…I use them for everything no matter where I am. Get it sent to you via DHL. It will be with you in three to four working days… iHerb.com ship all over the world very cheaply. IMPORTANT - Do not be fooled by the artificially made Stevia products such as Truvia and Purevia. These products are not the natural Stevia plant. To learn more read my post here called beware of Truvia. Click here To View Part 3 – Cellulite: How To Live Cellulite Free

Hydrotherapy is a powerful external tool for rejuvenation. The Germans are masters at it. Thanks to the electrical properties of water, using alternate hot and cold water on the body can alter the electrical charges of molecules in the body—particularly the low-level voltages which regulate lymphatic drainage—by alternately increasing and decreasing them. In physiological terms this opens up the capillaries increasing blood flow and helping to stimulate the elimination of wastes through the blood and lymph systems. It also relaxes and tones muscles and helps you feel energetic. Here's how: After standing under a hot shower for 3 to 5 minutes so that your body is warm and comfortable, alternate hot and cold water—2 minutes of hot followed by 30 seconds of cold—three times, finishing off with cold. Once you get used to the Blitz Guss protocol you are likely to find that you want to increase the time your body is exposed to cold water just because it makes you feel so good and so alive. Don't do this just before bed or you may feel so energetic that you can’t sleep. And, of course, if you have a pacemaker or any sort of heart condition it is essential that you check with your medical practitioner and get his or her OK before you try it. Be sure to check out the video below: [video src=http://d1vg7rm5xhtxe9.cloudfront.net/video/sd/blitz-guss.mp4 poster=http://d3oy45cyct8ffi.cloudfront.net/health/into-the-bliss/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2012/02/lk-video-blitz-guss.jpg ]

For most people, the face is the focus of attention and the most immediate expression of a woman's beauty. It is certainly the area of the body women most worry about. They spend a great deal of money looking after it with creams and lotions, cleansers and toners and masks, and of course the traditional facials, special treatments, and face-lifts. Everything seems to depend on the face. And all of this is done in an attempt to make sure skin stays smooth and young-looking, well colored, and free from blemishes. Skin is one of the most important criteria for sexual attraction between men and women. Perhaps this is the main reason the face seems so important. the craft of skin care A living, breathing thing, skin is far more than just a superficial covering for your body. It is your largest organ. It covers a surface area of about 17 square feet and weighs between six and eight pounds. So complex is this stuff called skin that a piece of it with the surface area of your thumbnail boasts a yard of blood vessels, twenty-five nerve endings, one hundred sweat glands, and over three million cells. Lasting skin beauty is a question of lasting care, just not spending lavishly on fancy creams and treatments. It is the everyday way you treat skin that matters year after year. But to know how to look after your skin you must first know something about it - what it is and isn't, what it's meant to do, and the many things that affect it for better or worse. For then you can see that its needs are met from day to day. In return it will give you what you desire: beauty that at the very least is skin deep. how your skin works Your skin is a world all its own: living tissue composed of billions of cells bathed in a lake of liquid with the same salt content as seawater. Each skin cell is separated from its neighbor by a membrane through which nutrients and respiratory gases pass, and all skin tissue is nourished by the myriad of tiny capillaries which bring fresh oxygen and nutrients to the cell. Cell growth and reproduction go on unceasingly in each of these microcosms. Life is sustained, wastes eliminated to be carried away via the lymph and blood, so that all of these cells can work together to perform the many vital functions that your skin carries out: It protects your body from invasion by bacteria, virus, or fungus. It helps eliminate the waste products of the metabolism directly through its surface. It conveys information about the outside world by way of a vast network of complex sensory nerve endings. It helps guard the inside of your body from the destructive ultraviolet rays of the sun. And it registers pleasure and pain from your environment. Your skin both depends on the rest of your body for its healthy existence and also offers help to it. And like all live things, in order to function well and look beautiful, it has to be free to carry out all its duties unimpaired by lack of proper nutrients or oxygen, poor circulation, illness, internal pollution, or prolonged stress, all of which threaten its integrity. Real skin care is not just skin deep. skin comes in layers Skin is made up of three layers: the stratified cellular epidermis (the part you see when you look into the mirror); an underlying dermis, made up of connective tissue, nerves, blood, and lymph systems, which also contain the sebaceous, or oil, glands, and sweat glands with ducts leading to its surface; and finally a fatty layer of subcutaneous tissue. The outermost layer, the epidermis, consists of two parts: an inner part of living cells called the stratum Malpighii, and an outer part of anucleated (meaning they have lost their nucleus) horny cells, the stratum corneum. The inner part is in direct contact with the dermis, beneath it. the outer skin Here, at the base of the epidermis, is the stratum Malpighii.  A single layer of cells known as the basal layer forms new cells for the rest of the epidermis by continuous cell reproduction. As they are formed, these new cells constantly push outward and upward towards its surface. In the process, they synthesize an insoluble protein called keratin, lose their cell nuclei, die, and dry out, becoming mere shells on the skin's surface. Once there, they are forever being sloughed off and replaced by new arrivals from below. Most skin care products concern themselves only with the treatment of this stratum corneum, making sure it does not dry out excessively (moisturizer); that the dead cells are periodically sloughed off (exfoliater, which stimulates the basal layer to produce more fresh cells and leaves the skin looking more translucent); and finally, that it is covered with a chemical or physical sunscreen to guard the deeper layers of the skin from damage as a result of exposure to sunlight. When the layers of dead cells in the stratum corneum lie flat and smooth against each other, the skin refracts light well, making your skin look beautifully smooth and silky. If, instead, they are turned up at the edges, then the skin looks dry and lacks smoothness. For they are the outermost manifestation of skin beauty and health. On the stratum corneum, that is on the surface of your skin, there is also a hydrolipidic film composed of water from the sweat glands and oil from the sebaceous glands in a kind of oil-in-water emulsion. This film acts as a natural moisturizer, maintaining acidity (referred to as the pH of skin) to help guard the body against invasion of any kind, and to protect it from chemical onslaught. The natural pH of your skin is between 4.5 and 5.5, which means that it is slightly acid. It is important to maintain this acid mantle. It can be disturbed by the use of soaps, most of which are strongly alkaline, and cosmetics which are not acid-balanced. This is particularly true if your skin is sensitive by nature, tends to be either excessively dry or excessively oily, or if it often breaks out in acne. the living skin Beneath the epidermis, in the dermis, or true skin (which unlike the epidermis is entirely a living thing), are found the nerves. They register pleasure, pain, touch, heat and cold. Here, too, is a rich supply of blood vessels and lymphatics plus all the various skin appendages: the hair follicles, with their sebaceous glands, and the sweat glands. Also important in the dermis is an elaborate network of fibers, made by special cells called fibroblasts. These fibers look like the warp and weft of fine cloth. They are collectively known as connective tissues, and are made up mostly of protein called collagen together with about 2 percent elastin. This network gives your skin its form and resilience. So long as it remains smooth and ordered, your skin stays young-looking and firm. When its fibers start to bunch up and harden or to cross-link and become disorganized, your skin rapidly begins to sag, to wrinkle, and to age. This aging process has many causes. It can occur as a result of exposure to the sun, internal wear and tear from illness, or an insufficiency of certain vitamins and minerals (particularly vitamin C and the trace element zinc), or exposure to cigarette smoke and pollution. It also appears to be part of your genetic programming. Much of the beauty and health of your skin depends on the dermal layer. The things it needs to stay strong and healthy come as much - if not more - from the inside than from what you apply to skin. This internal aspect of skin care is what is most ignored. Few women even consider it, and yet without ensuring that the dermis gets all it needs through optimum nutrition and regular exercise (not only for the face but also for the body as a whole), there is no way you can prevent or correct the disorganization of connective tissue, its consequent loss of tone, and the resulting deep line formation on the face. the subskin Underneath the dermis, in the subcutaneous tissue, are layers of muscle and fatty tissue which act as insulation to the body and which also give young female skin its characteristic (and very attractive) padding. When this padding starts to go, either because of hormonal changes that come with age or because of simple neglect, your skin loses tone and firmness. Looking after this layer of skin is a whole body challenge. Particularly important to it is the health of your endocrine system, in which constant regular exercise plays a vital part. Truly effective skin care has to ensure the continuous health and proper functioning of all three layers, to preserve beauty. This means treatment and protection from the outside of the epidermis. It also means treatment of the dermis through first-rate nutrition, vitamins and minerals, rest and exercise, and perhaps, too, the application of specific essential oils, fatty acids such as gamma linolenic acid (GLA), certain vitamins such as vitamin E, and/or other active substances which can be absorbed through the skin's outer layers into the dermis to stimulate cell metabolism, encourage waste elimination from cells, and help protect and preserve the collagen and elastin fibers. Finally, the subcutaneous layer has to be kept intact by maintaining a firm and well-used, healthy body. In other words, really good skin care for lasting beauty has to tackle the challenge simultaneously from within and without. And there are no shortcuts.

How do you feel about your body? Is it a source of pleasure and pride? A burden to be borne? A matter of indifference? Does it feel like a ‘good runner' which always seems to do what you ask of it? Or is your body something on which you don’t think you can depend? I find that most men and women in the Western world feel uneasy about their bodies. The cultural models which our culture has inherited from the ancient Greeks separates ‘body’—our physical presence—from ‘soul', the so-called ‘real' person, creating a schizoid attitude towards ourselves. Often we treat the body as an object. Then we alternate between narcissistically indulging it and continually neglecting it. Sometimes, we seem to dissociate from it altogether. QUANTUM RADIANCE NOW The body is the medium through which we experience reality. This is a truth most people forget. Your sense of aliveness and vitality, peace and relaxation, joy, sexuality, power—even intellectual enjoyment—are all experienced through your physical body. The more vital it is, the more intense are your sensibilities, and the richer your experience of being alive. The right treatments carried out on the surface of the body using simple substances such as water, oils, clays—even doing dry skin brushing—profoundly influence your state of wellbeing, both mentally and physically. Some techniques improve lymphatic drainage, clearing away wastes stored in the system. Others pep you up when you're tired, or relax you when you're stressed. They contribute to an experience of quantum wellbeing. The body is a finely-tuned instrument. It becomes more sensitive and stronger as you use it. The radiant body feels comfortably in tune with the earth on which it stands, yet free to move, to dance, to feel, and to experience joy and pain fully. This is what being fully alive is all about, no matter what your age. Ideally, the body should always have been this way. A child born naturally, without trauma or drugs, who enters a safe and welcoming world and has a good bond with its mother already has such a body. It moves fluidly, experiences emotions and physical sensations deeply. This makes it fully expressive both in shape and movements of the innate essence of the unique being. Sadly, for most of us, our natural aliveness and bodily freedom have become distorted or truncated. Traumas which we experience tighten muscles, damping down our sensory input. Some people find themselves oppressed and overwhelmed by living in a world which is anything but life-nurturing. This is a not-uncommon feeling for children and young adults. All of these experiences which are felt through the body leave their ‘scars' since they are held in the tissues. Then, instead of maintaining the sensitivity and responsiveness which is our birthright, the body gradually becomes ‘deadened’. This deadness can express itself in many ways—from rigidity or strange postural attitudes and gaits to flaccidity, muscles which seem lifeless and lackluster skin, even low self-esteem, depression, and a sense of impossibility about one’s life. BODY MAGIC The most remarkable gift of the human body is its natural plasticity. It is more than capable of transforming itself. Unlike a machine, your body is continually in flux. It changes its shape and ways of functioning from day to day and moment to moment. It can collect poisons in the tissues which decrease vitality and promote illness, and it can easily be encouraged to eliminate these poisons, becoming more alive, strong and beautiful. This in turn improves your whole way of experiencing life. You can work with a twisted, strained body, or one without a great capacity for feeling physical pleasure. Gradually, over a period of months, you can help it reclaim its ‘aliveness' and its natural good looks. There are a number of simple but powerful techniques for bringing this about. Regular exercise is one. So is the Alexander Technique. Yoga too can be useful—if it is practised well. And there are other professional disciplines which can help, like the bio-energetic therapies, touch for health, and Rolfing or structural integration. There are also many wonderfully effective practices which you can do for yourself day-to-day to help reawaken vitality, improving the way you look and feel. They can alter the way you move, as well as the way you feel about yourself and your life. For, when your body feels more alive, more responsive and stronger, so do you. DO IT YOURSELF The healing of our culturally inherited mind-body split is a slow but totally necessary process, in order to achieve the kind of integration which makes quantum wellness possible. Many of the techniques useful for bringing it about—such as the clay and sea-plant treatments, massage, water therapy, breathing exercises—can be a lot of fun and leave you feeling great when you use them, as well as the long lasting benefits each promises. Also, making time in your life to practice them can be an excellent method of de-stressing, allowing you to get away from any leaning towards becoming an `automaton'—a tendency we all have to some degree— and become more conscious of who in essence you really are, and where you are going. This is an important part of a quantum way of life. TAKE THE PLUNGE A simple thing like water, which you come in contact with every day, is ideal for beginning transformation and heightening vitality. Applications of hot and cold water used to be a standard therapy for aches and pains and for revitalizing. We know this thanks to the pioneering work of Father Sebastian Kneipp, the Bavarian parish priest who strengthened his own less-than-hearty health with the healing powers of water, and then went on to develop a whole system of treatment using it to dissolve toxic wastes while strengthening the entire organism. Many of Kneipp's techniques—which I wrote at length about a few weeks ago—are great for bringing you more vitality and a growing experience of aliveness. He insisted that the easiest way of ‘hardening and bracing the system' is to walk barefoot—on wet grass or stones, on freshly fallen snow, or in cold water up to your knees. This may sound strange to someone who has never tried it, but it can be enormously invigorating—even on winter mornings. I do it at some time every day, come rain or shine. I learned of its power from doctor friends who use it to increase a patient's resistance to illness with excellent results. The secret is to spend only a few minutes (from 3-5) walking barefoot in this way, making sure that you keep shoes and socks dry, so you can put them on immediately afterwards. If they too are allowed to get damp you miss out on the stimulating effect of the contact with the cold dampness. This can deplete your body of energy instead of revitalizing and strengthening it. This, by the way, is the secret for using any cold water applications on the body. You must be warm to begin with and you must keep warm and dry afterwards. Contact with cold water under these circumstances first causes constriction of the blood vessels, momentarily driving the blood inwards. Then, the moment it is stopped, the blood rushes to the surface of the skin, warming it. BRUSH FOR BLISS The same principles apply to hot and cold showers or cold sitz baths. One of the best possible ways of waking up each morning and getting yourself going for the day ahead is to brush your dry skin down well with a dry hemp glove or a natural vegetable bristle bath brush. Then step into a warm shower. As soon as the warmth of the water has suffused your body so you are warm and comfortable, switch from `warm' to `cold'. Remain under cold water for only half a minute (no more), making sure that your body all over gets covered with the cold spray. Emerge from the shower, dry yourself briskly and dress warmly. It is important that the bathroom is always warm and that you begin very slowly with only, say, 10 seconds of cold water at first, gradually increasing it to half a minute as you become used to it. I think you will be surprised at how quickly this adaptation takes place. It will make your body feel alive and tingling, increase your stamina and, according to the European doctors who still use it regularly with their patients, heighten your resistance to colds and flu. SITZ BATHS FOR SLEEP Here’s a variation on the cold water theme that will surprise you. A cold sitz bath is one of the best ways of relaxing quickly and preparing your body and mind for sleep. It is another technique the effectiveness of which you won't believe until you have tried it several times yourself. It is a great blessing for people who suffer from insomnia because their minds race and they can't turn off mental energy when they go to bed. Here's how: Fill a bath with 3"-4" of cold water from the tap. Make sure the bathroom is warm and that you have done all of the things you need to do before retiring. Wrap the top half of your body in a sweater or dressing gown which you can tuck up so that when you sit in the water it won't get wet but it will keep the upper part of your body warm. Now immerse your hips and bottom in the tub for 30 seconds. You can do this either by letting your legs hang over the side of the tub or by sitting in the bath and allowing your heels to go into the water to steady your body. Get out, dry yourself well, then climb into bed. The technique draws the body energy away from the head and brings a marvellous sense of peace and relaxation. Next week we’ll look at more simple do-it-yourself techniques for quantum radiance, such as the health-enbhancing magnesium chloride flakes and gifts from the sea. See you then...