beauty

Clay is a pelloid—from the Greek word pellos, meaning mud. The pelloids are a class of earth substances derived from magma deposits. Amongst natural materials, they are unequalled for their therapeutic and health-promoting properties. In Europe they have been used for generations to treat skin, to heal pain and deep cleanse the body by drawing wastes through the skin's surface. Some pelloids are taken internally in small quantities to clear the body of heavy metals and toxic wastes. In short, these substances found in nature are not only some of the most useful tools for bringing great radiance to body, mind and spirit. They can also be some of the most inexpensive yet powerful treats and treatments on the planet. ANCIENT HEALING POWER Pelloids are formed by the earth through biological and geological processes over long periods of time—at least 20,000 years. They are made up of both organic and inorganic elements. The ‘mostly-organic' pelloids include the sapropelic bituminous muds, and the moor or turf pelloids from places like Techirghiol Lake near the Black Sea, or Neydharting Moor in Austria. These pelloids form the basis of some of the best natural treatments in the world for arthritis, rheumatism, and gout. They are also wonderful for athletic aches and pains, as well as for eliminating stiffness from creaky bodies. TRANSDERMAL TREATS & TREATMENTS Moor Bath treatments are ideal for any rejuvenation program. Use them consecutively for 7 to 21 nights just before bed. Here's how: Immerse yourself for 15-30 minutes in a tepid bath to which 2/3 of a teacup of Moor Bath has been added. Top up with hot water when necessary. Afterwards, don't dry yourself as you normally would. Instead, pat yourself down gently and go right to bed. Should you get any of the residue from the bath on your sheets, don't worry; it easily washes out. European scientists at the Institute of Balenology in Bucharest, and at other centers in Europe and Russia, have studied the actions of pelloids using biochemical, histochemical and clinical methods. Examining the properties of the aqueous phase of moor and turf pelloids, they have discovered that these liquids stimulate oxygenation of cells and enzymatic activities in the body. They are able to boost endocrine system functions without interfering with the balance between different glands, and they dramatically improve overall circulation. Used in a bath or directly on the skin, such pelloid extracts penetrate the skin. Adding them to your bath after a hard game of squash or a long work week in which stress levels have been high can both calm you and regenerate your vitality, while they improve the look and feel of skin all over. VOLCANIC DETOXIFICATION The best known pelloids are those which contain mostly inorganic elements—the clays. Therapy using clay, both internally and externally, has a long history. The Egyptians, the Greeks and the Romans used these earth treatments internally to improve health, and externally to treat athletic aches and sprains, and to make skin and hair look and feel more beautiful. Ancient physicians including the Arab Avicena, Galen the Greek anatomist, and Paracelsus all prescribed clay internally to clear their patients' ailments. During the First World War, every Russian soldier was issued 200 grams of clay in his food rations. The French had it added to their mustard knowing that it helps protect the body from amoebic dysentery, which was then so widespread. Great German naturopaths such as Adolph Just used clay to make poultices for wound healing. The practice of using specific clays internally as a means of detoxifying the body and increasing natural energy levels is very much alive amongst doctors who shun drugs in favor of more effective natural treatments. Clay comes in many varieties—from kaolin, the pure white powdery stuff that goes into cosmetic products—to the heavy black clay used in the Middle East to treat wounds and bruises. Each has specific qualities and is best for particular purposes. Together they have a number of remarkable things in common. All clays contain a wide range of minerals and trace elements such as silica, magnesium, titanium, iron, calcium, potassium, manganese, and chromium. These minerals and trace elements are important in the dynamic healing and cleansing actions clays can exert on the body. Clays carry a negative electrical attraction for particles which are positively charged. This is one of the main reasons why it is so good at cleansing both the skin's surface as well as the digestive tract. MEET BENTONITE Bentonite, the medicinal powdered clay also known as montmorillonite, comes from deposits of ancient volcanic ash. Used internally, it absorbs heavy metals, pesticides, and other poisons, carrying them out of the body like a sponge. It is the electrical aspect to bentonite that gives it the ability to bind and absorb toxins. The clay’s minerals are negatively charged while toxins are primarily positively charged. Bentonite is made up of an enormous number of tiny platelets, with negative electrical charges on their flat surfaces and positive charges at the edges. So, when combined with water, the clay works on waste products the way a magnet, does when exposed to metal shavings. Bentonite has an enormous surface area to volume ratio. A single liter bottle offers a total surface area of an amazing 960 square meters. Clays which the Europeans and Americans use for internal cleansing are mixed with water, often the night before, then taken by mouth on an empty stomach—usually one teaspoonful in half a glass of water—once to three times a day. These clays are very fine. They are able to pick up many times their weight in positively-charged particles. In Europe, fine green clay is most often used internally in this way. In America and Britain, it is usually bentonite. The greater the surface area, the higher a clay's capacity for picking up positively-charged wastes. Ramond Dextreit, a French expert in the use of clay, claims that the purifying capacities of the green clay he uses are not limited to its actions on the digestive system. He insists that, used in this way, the clay is even able to absorb impurities suspended in the body’s fluids, like blood and lymph as well, and eliminate them. EXPLORING CLAY HEALING If you have not before used these internal clays, it’s best to start with one rounded teaspoon daily, mixed with a small amount of pure water. Observe the results for a few days, then gradually increase the dosage to no more than three teaspoons a day, in divided doses. Drinking clay can be an annual spring cleaning of your gastrointestinal tract or it can be a symptom-focused, self-care method. It’s a real boost to radiance on just about every level. Here are some of the best and purest products: Yerba Prima, Great Plains, Bentonite, Detox Great Plains Bentonite is specially formulated to provide the maximum benefits of bentonite. Great Plains is a mineral source dietary supplement that traps and binds unwanted, non-nutritive substances such as herbicides and other potentially harmful substances so that they do not remain in the body. Buy Yerba Prima, Great Plains, Bentonite, Detox Now Foods, Solutions, European Clay Powder For oily skin, mix 1 tablespoon of NOW European Clay with one teaspoon of water. For dry skin, add a few drops of NOW Jojoba Oil and/or NOW Lavender Essential Oil to the mix prior to applying. Thoroughly cover the face and neck avoiding sensitive areas and the eyes, allow to set for 15-20 minutes, rinse off and apply moisturizer. Buy Now Foods, Solutions, European Clay Powder Neydharting Moor Body Bath This can be hard to come by in Britain at the moment but it is well worth the search. In the US you can order it from Amazon.com: Neydharting Moor Nature's Code, Skin. Health. Life. Body Bath, 32 Oz Buy Neydharting Moor Body Bath

I have little patience with the nonsense talked about cellulite. The prevailing opinion still seems to be that it is merely a ‘normal’ condition of 80-90% of post-pubertal females. The silly debates about whether or not it exists and the trivial yet often painful treatments designed to banish it miss the point. I have learned a lot about cellulite through working with women on Leslie Kenton’s Cura Romana®, many of whom have calmly told me when they start the program that nothing will help their cellulite. I have such a passion to lay bare the truth about cellulite, its cause and its cure that I have just finished a book on it which will be available on line in the next three months. In the meantime, I’m keen to share with you some important stuff related to it here. INTERNAL POLLUTION What they haven’t understood is that cellulite is no simple cosmetic problem of concern only to vain women who have been sold a bill of goods by the beauty industry. It is a sign that internal pollution is present in parts of your body which not only reduces your energy levels and mars physical beauty. These women are often shocked to experience their lumpy thighs transforming into sleek flesh while following my internet-based Cura Romana Journey Program. Here’s the bottom line: Whether or not you care passionately about having smooth sleek thighs, if you see cellulite developing you can be sure your body is telling you that something within needs attention. Just as the appearance of slime in a river bed indicates that the ecology of the earth is disturbed, a peau d'orange thigh tells a woman that the ecology of her body is out of whack and if you want to shed your cellulite nothing short of a revolution in body ecology is called for. END CRASH DIETS Many women with cellulite have gone on and off slimming diets where they lose weight then regain it in a cyclic pattern year after year. This does more than practically anything else to encourage the buildup of cellulite in the body. Crash dieting is the worst thing you can do if you want to get rid of cellulite. High-carb, low-fat diet programs result in your losing large quantities of water, electrolytes, minerals, glycogen stores and other fat-free tissue including muscle, with only minimal loss of fat from your body. Thanks to some very dodgy food dogma that came out in the 1960s, we’ve long been led to believe that a high-carb, low-fat way of eating is the right one for health, for energy, and to keep our bodies running properly. This will surprise you: IT JUST AIN’T TRUE! The rising rates of obesity and diabetes world-wide in the past half century attest to this fact. The powers-that-be, including most so-called scientists, the lion’s share of the medical profession and the mainstream media are still churning out the same old advice: “Eat carbs for energy and cut out the fat from your diet.” Ignore it. If you want to clear cellulite from your body, it’s time to wake up to the truth. REVOLUTIONARY STUFF Cellulite as well as weight gain and degenerative illness results from the carb-based foods we have been taught to eat—grains, cereals and all that packaged convenience stuff we have been devouring for half a century. High-carb, low-fat eating not only breeds puckered thighs, it depletes your vitality. It makes people who have inherited a tendency to put on weight obese. This way of eating is also largely responsible for the development of virtually all degenerative illnesses from heart disease, cancer, arthritis and the rest. If you want a lean, strong body, lots of energy and great protection against early aging, cool the carbs—you don’t need them. Instead, eat sufficient top-quality proteins, lots of green vegetables as well as…wait for it…THE RIGHT KIND OF FAT. Yes, the right kind of fat, provided your grains, cereals and sugars are kept very low indeed, can not only prevent cellulite, it can gradually eliminate it. Now this is revolutionary stuff. More about all this to come soon. BANISH TOXICITY Crash dieting depletes your body of its supply of nutrients that are necessary to fuel the exact metabolic processes on which the elimination of cellulite depends. It also breaks down the muscle tissue in your body on which firm flesh depends and gradually replaces it with fat and sludge which turns into more cellulite. In the process you can experience disturbances in blood sugar regulating mechanisms so you suffer periods of fatigue during the day and then have to fight with so-called 'will power' to keep from eating cookies and drinking coffee just to keep going (all of which further pollute your body, deplete your energy reserves and contribute to the buildup of yet more tissue sludge and cellulite). If losing fat needs to be part of your own anti-cellulite program stay away from conventional slimming programs. What is a desirable weight-loss program? It is one which transforms metabolism and teaches you how to prevent regain permanently. Take a look at my Leslie Kenton’s Cura Romana® programs (HURRY Get 10% off any of our Journey program before April 1st). These programs bring about rapid, hunger-free weight loss while at the same time building strong, sleek, firm muscles to replace the pockets of tissue sludge and cellulite so many people have gone on crash diets to try to get rid of. In the years that I have been mentoring people through Cura Romana, I have discovered that when you provide the body with what it needs in order to shed fat and heal itself, in time cellulite ceases to be a problem.

Corrupt information about sugar from advertisers, multinational food corporations and mainstream media abounds. Meanwhile, an unsuspecting public often swallows what they’re told, hook line and sinker. For the sake of your health, you need to become ever more savvy about which products you can feel good about buying and which to avoid completely. Bear with me. I’ll lay out the bare bones of what you need to be aware of as you wend your way around the continually expanding selection of sugar-related products deceptively disguised as “good for you.” SWEET TRUTHS Sugar purveyors have got away with murder. Along with governments who have been supposed to guide us on what to eat to stay healthy, they have for decades wrongly told us that eating fats is dangerous for our health. Multinational food and drink manufacturers cunningly decided to replace fats in the convenience foods they sell with sugar to make their wares more palatable. The vast majority of shoppers, consciously attempting to follow “official” advice, wholeheartedly embraced all the sugar-filled packaged foods they were offered. Many shoppers are now waking up to how dangerous sugar is to their health and their life. But we have a long way to go. Sugar is the most damaging of all the carbohydrates. Ordinary table sugar consists of 50% glucose and 50% fructose. The glucose part gets digested in your stomach. Then it enters your bloodstream, where it makes your blood sugar rise. This triggers insulin release—a major cause of the development of insulin resistance. The other 50% component of table sugar—fructose—acts differently in your body. It does not affect your blood sugar, and we do not yet know for sure what part fructose may play in the release of insulin. So we are still being taught that eating and drinking fructose fine. This makes fructose healthy, right? Wrong! WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW When you eat a piece of fruit—say, an apple—the fruit sugar it contains comes wrapped up in natural fiber including pectin, a soluble fiber which helps your body eliminate heavy metals from your system. It can take you 10 minutes or so to munch your way through an apple. It takes even more time for your body to break down the fiber and absorb it. This means that the fructose in the apple you eat is released relatively slowly. As a consequence, its fructose can be processed a little at a time by the liver, which is the organ that handles fructose. However, when you drink a nice big glass of apple juice or a soda (which contains 10 times more fructose than an apple) it can take as few as 10 seconds for you to swallow it all. Then your liver gets bombarded with a very dangerous form of fructose known as high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). An excellent article published in the prestigious journal Nature, “The Toxic Truth About Sugar,” points out that the consumption of the fructose in high-fructose corn syrup has increased one hundred fold since 1970. “We’re being poisoned to death,” says Robert Lustig, MD. “That’s a very strong statement, but I think we can back it up with very clear scientific evidence.” Lustig and his colleagues suggest that sugar be regulated in the same way alcohol is regulated. The human body, especially the liver, never evolved to handle the kind of fructose load that it is now getting. What does it do? It responds by turning much of the fructose you take in into fat deposits. It also makes you highly prone to cancer, Alzheimer's disease, heart disease, hypertension, dementia and type 2 diabetes. SUGAR INFESTATION In the 19th century, we ate between 10 and 20 pounds of sugar per person per year. Today, each of us consumes between 150 and 200 pounds of it a year—much of it hidden in convenience foods, fruit juices and sodas. Because sugar, added to so many processed foods, is everywhere, it is virtually unavoidable. Millions of poorly informed people continue to consume 500 calories or more every day in added sugar alone. What few people yet know is that sugar acts upon the same areas of your brain as alcohol, cocaine and cigarettes do, creating cravings, unnatural hunger and an addiction for yet more sugar. The excessive amount of “stealth” sugar in processed foods has become the backbone that supports the profitable disease care business worth billions. Chronic high blood sugar and insulin don’t just make you fat and predispose you to chronic diseases, they age you. Sugar also undermines the integrity of your skin. When you eat a diet full of non-vegetable carbohydrates—grains, cereals and sugars of any kind—your body gets busy fabricating wrinkles, sags, a puffy face and a lackluster complexion. And, as a result of the chronic high blood sugar and insulin resistance which develops over time, you can end up without the energy to do anything to change it. HEALTH DESTROYERS High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is something food and drink manufacturers have used in ever-increasing quantities since 1978. It was originally a worthless by-product of the corn industry. That is, until someone had the bright idea of turning it into syrup and pouring it into sodas, cakes, breads, cookies, ready meals, even smoked meats and fish—you name it. Nowadays you can find HFCS just about everywhere in packaged foods and drinks—juices, sodas and fruity yoghurts, luncheon meats, even in smoked fish. Foods that most people still believe to be “healthy” are now riddled with this cheap, dangerous stuff. Not surprisingly, HFCS is ultra-sweet—55% fructose and 45% glucose. Because nothing raises blood sugar levels and triggers insulin release more quickly than sugar in its many forms, eating anything full of sugar gives you an immediate ‘high’. Then, it can just as quickly bring you down, leaving you craving something else sweet to keep going. Want to do one thing which can dramatically improve your health, your weight and your good looks? Just stop eating sugar, including fructose, in any form, as well as any foods or drinks that contain it. Beware of what you buy because it is often not even listed as an ingredient on labels. HOW TO CUT YOUR SUGAR INTAKE It’s easy. Change your way of eating from a diet of packaged convenience foods to pesticide-free, whole organic foods that are unprocessed. Never use canned fruits in recipes that need sweetening. Instead go for fresh, low glycemic fruits or top quality stevias. Use organic seasonings to create great flavors for your dishes. Most often, the sugar content of a food has been deliberately hidden by food manufacturers by giving it a name that shoppers will not recognize. Given the dangers implicit in using sweeteners, it’s equally important to be cautious when looking for alternatives to sugar itself. These fall into three main categories: Artificial sweeteners—which you want to avoid like the plague. Sugar alcohols. Natural sweeteners. All artificial sweeteners are harmful, each in its own way. These include aspartame—the worst of the lot. You’ll find it in Equal and NutriSweet; sucralose, which you’ll find in in Splenda; saccharine, which you’ll find in Sweet and Low, as well as many other artificial sweeteners by different names. There is much evidence to back up how dangerous these are. Avoid all of them if you care about your health. Sugar Alcohols with “ol” in their name such as xylitol, sorbitol, maltitol, mannitol, glycerol and lactitol can spike blood sugar but beware. Just because some product label says “sugar-free” this is not necessarily the truth, nor can you be sure it is calorie-free or low-sugar. Probably safest of them is xylitol, but only if you use it occasionally and very sparingly. (By the way, it is deadly for cats and dogs.) “Natural Sweetener” does not necessarily mean natural. Agave Syrup and Agave Nectar can be even worse than HFCS. It’s a misnomer to refer to them as “natural”, despite the advertising hype that has most of the world still believing they are. Higher than any other sweetener on the market, Agave has virtually no nutritional value. As for honey, which has become seriously distorted as a result of the hideous damage being done to bee colonies, it too is to be avoided unless you happen to gather it from your own hives. The Safest Choices: Stevia is an exotic herb which grows in subtropical areas of South America. This plant has been used to sweeten herbal drinks since pre-Columbian times. It’s a godsend for enhancing health and reducing your sugar intake. It’s great for sweetening drinks and baking dishes. But make sure you use only the best. All sorts of so-called stevias such as Truvia and Purevia continue to be promoted by multinational corporations. They call themselves “all-natural sweeteners”. In reality, they have been manufactured only from “certain active ingredients” in the stevia plant, not from the whole plant. As a result, they are distortions of the real thing. Don’t use them. Another good natural sweetener is Lo Han Guo, which comes from a Chinese fruit. It too is good, but more expensive than stevia. Spoonable Stevia By Stevita: Spoonable Stevia by Stevita uses only stevia extract with at least 95% pure glycosides (extremely sweet tasting ingredients of the Stevia herb leaves), and a little erythritol, a crystal granulated naturally produced filler found in fruits, vegetables and grains. It is best for baking and sprinkling. Order Spoonable Stevia By Stevita from iherb ENGLISH TOFFEE 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 English Toffee Stevia from iherb

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...

Lymphatic drainage is vitally important to making sure metabolic processes run cleanly and efficiently. Your body's lymph system is, amongst other things, a kind of metabolic rubbish dump. It helps the body rid itself of dead cells, toxins, metabolic wastes, pathogenic bacteria, foreign substances and other assorted junk the cells cast off. Lymphatic drainage Unlike the circulatory system, in which the circulation of blood is controlled by the pumping of the heart, the lymphatic system has no such pump. The plasma which has seeped through capillary walls gathers in the tissues and then slowly enters the lymphatic channels. These are tiny vessels with one-way valves in them for carrying lymph, along with whatever small bits of foreign matter, wastes and bacteria it has gathered, through the lymph nodes and eventually back into the bloodstream. The normal contractions and relaxation of your muscles and the force of gravity on the body keep the lymph flowing. They act to pump the lymph back through its channels and eliminate these wastes. Regular vigorous exercise encourages this elimination. It brings about a general flushing of the wastes from interstitial fluid and then helps them be carried away through the lymphatic tree of vessels until eventually they empty into the subclavian veins and are eliminated from the body through the actions of all the excretory organs - the skin, lungs, kidneys and colon. In Europe some of the finest natural treatments for healing involve a kind of massage dubbed `lymphatic drainage' which helps the body do this. It is not only used to treat serious chronic illness and fatigue but even as a beauty treatment for women on the face. Skin-brushing stimulates the tissues beneath the skin, encouraging efficient lymphatic drainage. It is an extraordinarily efficient technique for cleansing the lymphatic system and for clearing away waste materials from the cells all over the body as well as those which, as in the case of cellulite in women, have become trapped in interstitial spaces where they are held by hardened connective tissue and where they build up to create pockets of water, toxins and fat that make the skin look like peau d'orange. Skin-brushing is something any woman with cellulite should do twice a day.

Cellulite is a sign that internal pollution is present in parts of your body which can not only reduce your energy levels but mar physical beauty as well. Whether or not you care passionately about having smooth sleek thighs, if you see cellulite developing you can be sure your body is telling you that something within needs attention. I have little patience with nonsense written about cellulite. The silly debates about whether or not it exists and the trivial yet often painful treatments designed to banish it usually miss the point. Cellulite is no simple cosmetic problem of concern only to vain women who have been sold a bill of goods by the beauty industry. Just as the appearance of slime in a river bed indicates that the ecology of the earth is disturbed, a peau d'orange thigh tells a woman that the ecology of her body is out of whack and if you want to shed your cellulite nothing short of a revolution in body ecology is called for. meet the ecology of the planet Ecology is that branch of biology which deals with the relations of living organisms to other organisms and non living things. It deals with extremely complex interactions, relationships, rhythms, chemical alterations, seasons and processes. Scientists who study the ecology of our planet are also interested in energetics. They examine energy pathways and outputs. They explore how the presence of certain chemicals in the environment or alterations in temperature, or the proliferation of specific life forms either supports or interferes with the life processes of other organisms. What we have come to realize in the past twenty years is that the health - indeed the survival - of our planet depends very much on our doing everything we can to reestablish and maintain good ecology whether or not we are dealing in a small way with, say a farm, or woods, or in a large way with a whole continent. The destruction of the ozone layer in recent years, increasing pollution in the air and water, the depletion of organic matter in the soils and widespread deforestation have now disrupted planetary ecology to a degree that was once unthinkable. They have also set scientists frantically searching for keys for helping to reestablish ecological balance. The necessity of good planetary ecology has been further highlighted recently by a growing acceptance of scientist James Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis. Lovelock suggests that the earth, far from being a mass of dead minerals hurling through space at great speed, appears to be an almost infinitely complex organic living system - a system of which we ourselves are a part. what is body ecology? Just as the planet has an ecology on which its health depends, so does your body. Its every cell, every vessel, every tissue interacts in highly complex ways either directly or obliquely with every other part. All of your organs and glands and systems not only speak to each other chemically via the metabolic processes which break down nutrients to make them available for cells to use, produce energy for movement and eliminate wastes. They also communicate via subtle energetic pathways. Some of these were long ago charted by Oriental medicine in the treatment of acupuncture and are still used in the application of pressure at specific areas which form the basis of oriental medicine as well as techniques like shiatsu and reflexology. The vastly complex living system which is your body has a magnificent ability to regulate itself taking into account the food you eat, the air you breathe, the stresses you are under, the physical demands made upon you, your age and all the other factors that come into play in your life - provided of course it is not overburdened by excess fatigue, stress or pollution and provided its metabolic processes have at their disposal a full complement of the essential nutrients on which they run. This ability of the living body to take in and break down nutrients, to channel them into the specific metabolic processes which maintain life and to eliminate wastes is all part of maintaining its ecology. The problem is that pollution in our air, water and food continues to increase placing real burdens on the immune system. At the same time the availability of a good balance of essential nutrients in our over-processed foods continues to decline. One of the many obvious consequences of this decline is the production of cellulite in women's flesh. When the body's ecology is good then your whole body works well and you have plenty of energy. You don't develop cellulite; neither do you show signs of premature aging. And, what is most frequently forgotten, you also experience a high level of awareness and autonomy - you find it easier to be your own person and to make your own decisions from a position of mental clarity and physical power. a 'living revolution' The name 'Cellulite Revolution' (title of one of my books) is no idle hyperbole. For if you are serious about ridding your body of cellulite and keeping it away nothing short of a revolution is called for - a revolution involving how you care for yourself, eat, deal with stress and move - a revolution which leads step by step to a whole new body ecology. When you support and rebalance your body's ecology at the most profound levels through diet, the use of specific complexes from nature, movement, massage and reestablishing connections with the deepest layers of sexuality you can not only banish cellulite. You also empower yourself and make it easier to maximize all your potentials and you will experience for yourself just how potent the life force working through your body is - you will really come to know it from within (something which I think women have a particular ability to do) and, most important, I hope you will come to trust it. You will discover for yourself that, used wisely, all of the techniques and tools for keeping your flesh cellulite free are nothing more than ways of aligning yourself to the deepest needs of your body and supporting its own ecology in the best possible way. The process of getting from here to there is rather like taking a journey - a journey that brings you deeper in touch with the miracle of your living body. It is a journey which offers greater physical beauty, more energy and the expanded awareness which leads to being able to make ever more effective use of your own quite individual brand of creativity. All of these things can be fruits of improved body ecology. In recent years I have come to believe that it is just this kind of energy and creativity that is needed if each of us as women is effectively to make our fullest contribution to the process of caring for the ecology of the living planet.

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 ]

Some of the simplest techniques for supporting your body’s elimination processes also happen to feel wonderful and can bring delicious relaxation in their wake. Your body is working hard to get rid of all that stored waste, so treat it gently and give it some attention. Your mind will benefit too. Your two day apple fast is a not to be passed-up opportunity for some bodily indulgence of the first order. Skin brushing is now frequently recommended by health practitioners and has a long history for health and healing in the annals of European natural treatments. It is a particularly helpful technique to use during a detox, and can do wonders for your skin used daily afterwards. Skin brushing acts both superficially to draw out wastes from the skin, and deeply by boosting lymphatic drainage (more of this later) and helping to break down congestion in areas where the lymph flow has become sluggish and toxins have collected. It improves the look of skin, helps eliminate cellulite, and tones the whole body. It is an extraordinarily gentle yet powerful technique, and it feels wonderful. Using a natural bristle brush, preferably one with vegetable bristles and a long handle (available from pharmacies, natural beauty shops and health-food stores), go over the surface of your body once with long sweeping motions. Brush across the tips of your shoulders and upper back, then down over the neck and shoulders and down the arms and over the hands – always working in a downwards direction and covering the surface of the skin once. Now brush down over the trunk and tummy and down the back until you’ve covered every inch of your upper body. Then, beginning at the feet, brush upwards in the same long sweeping motions up the legs, front and back, and up over the buttocks. Do this slowly and enjoy the feeling of having the skin of your whole body gently exfoliated. Always brush your skin with a dry brush and never brush your face. How much pressure you put behind the brush should depend on how strong your skin is, your age, and how much stimulation it is used to. Go easy to begin with. Your skin will soon become fitter and then you will be able to work far more vigorously. But you should never go too hard too quickly or you risk being counter productive and will miss out on the benefits of steadily increasing skin firmness and fitness. Skin brushing encourages better circulation, brings energy into ‘deadened’ areas of flesh, smooths and softens skin, and encourages better lymphatic drainage. You are also sloughing off dead skin cells with the brush, so encouraging new cells to come to the surface and make the skin of your whole body glow. detox test Being your body’s largest organ and one of the most important for elimination (almost a third of your body’s wastes can be eliminated through the skin), skin that is brushed regularly yields up the most amazing quantity of rubbish. You can check for yourself just how dramatic is the skin’s elimination of wastes by performing a practical experiment with the help of a flannel. Every day before your bath or shower, brush your skin all over for three to five minutes. Then take a damp flannel and rub it all over your freshly brushed body. Hang the flannel up and repeat the process with the same flannel the next day. After a few days, the smell of the flannel will be quite revolting thanks to the quantity of waste products that have come directly through the skin’s surface. Just think how much better off you are without them.

Make up is the icing on the cake. Wear it if you love it. Play with it to discover new ways of expressing the many faces of you. When you don't feel into it, let your face go naked. That, too, is a path to freedom... the colors The idea that makeup color - say an eye shadow - is only to be used on the eyes, or a blusher only on cheeks, is absurd. Color is color, and it doesn't matter what you call a product provided it serves the purposes you want it to. The colors that you use on your face should all give support to each other, so they work together to create an overall effect that is pleasing. the whole process of making up may sound complicated, but with practice it should take very little time - no more than ten minutes from start to finish There are two basic possibilities: warm color schemes and cool ones. The effect of a warm color scheme on the face - which includes the earth colors such as browns, greens, beiges, golds, yellows, apricots, coppers, oranges, and peaches - is to enliven it, making your face look healthier and stronger and more glowing. Warm colors look wonderful on older women, too, because they accentuate youth. This is why some of the best foundations and powders now contain yellow pigments. A little peach or apricot blusher can make almost any face look younger, whereas bluish-pink blusher applied to a face over forty can age it drastically. The cool colors - the blues, purples, pale ivories, silvers, fuchsias, berries, magenta, blue-pinks, and whites give a look of delicate vulnerability to a face, especially when they are applied, as they should be, over a very pale foundation. But to wear them you have to have perfect skin and you have to be young; otherwise they can make you look tired, older, and even unwell. the moisturiser Every good makeup begins with a fine moisturizer complete with sunscreen lavishly applied over clean skin and then given a chance to settle in. You need to wait for your skin to take to the moisturizer before you put on your foundation, otherwise you will end up with a flawed finish and your makeup will not last. `Taking' time is usually between two to five minutes. In addition to the ordinary moisturizers, there are also tinted ones on the market. These products are halfway between moisturizers and foundations. They impart some color and also provide you with some measure of protection from water loss. They give a very light cover but can be a nice way of simply adding a healthy glow to your skin. Some of them also contain sunscreens. When choosing a tinted moisturizer, look for one that is not too far away from your own skin tone or you will find it doesn't blend in and cover well. A green moisturizer will soften a florid skin, toning it down and making it look more neutral. Green will also help conceal red blotches and spots on your skin. A mauve-colored moisturizer can improve a dull complexion and brighten the face of someone who is too pale. An apricot-colored corrective should be used only by the very few women who are really sallow. When you use a corrective, put it on with a sponge that has been dampened and then had all the excess water removed from it by wiping it against a towel. Among the tinted moisturizers are the `color correctives' - products tinted a specific hue in order to change the look of your own, natural coloring. They are worn under your ordinary foundation. the foundation Once your moisturizer has set, you are ready for the foundation. But why all over? Instead you can wear it only on parts of your face such as around the eyes where it gives a good base for eye shadows, on your chin,and on your cheeks. The advantage to this is that you still get the wonderful, delicate shading of natural skin, rather than that all-over deadness that can come from covering your whole face with one opaque color. Or you can wear two shades of foundation: a lighter one in the center of your face (on the nose, forehead, cheeks, and chin) and the slightly darker one of the same tone around the outside (near the hairline and along the jawline). This has the effect of preserving a natural-looking gradation of color and still lending the finished look of a well-made-up face. A foundation is not meant to give strong color to a face. It is supposed to be flat and neutral. About 80 per cent of Caucasian skin should wear one foundation color: a flat, true beige with neither pink nor peach overtones to it. It will look good on all ages of `northern European' skin, because it gives a neutral canvas on which to put your eye and lip colors. If your skin is olive or yellowish or very dark, then choose a foundation as close to its natural color as possible but slightly flatter. When testing out color, put it on your naked face and then again go out into the daylight to look at the results before buying anything. The kind of foundation you choose depends on what kind of skin you have, as well as on personal preference. Dry skin does best with a cream or oil-based liquid foundation. Aging skin needs the finest of liquid foundation. Anything heavily oily collects in the lines and makes you look haggard. Oily skin demands a water-based liquid or cream or a cake or block-type makeup. Put a little foundation in the palm of your hand and then dip the sponge into it and apply it to your face, brushing it lightly over your skin again and again until everything is well blended into your skin. the concealer Now is the time to deal with any problems you want to conceal, such as black circles under your eyes, or discolorations here and there. Concealer creams and sticks are good here, although some of them are greasy and, particularly under the eyes, tend to sink into tiny lines and make matters worse. Put your concealer on with a flat wedge-shaped brush and smooth into the skin until it blends perfectly with the surrounding areas. If you add a little powder here you will get just the finish you need to make the undesirable area fade into the surrounding skin tones. the magic of light and shade The secret of making light and shade work for you is simply to apply both sparingly and only where it matters to your face, and always to blend well into the surrounding area. Whatever part of your face you want to bring out or emphasize, you apply a light color to, and whatever part you want to minimize, you cover with a darker shade. Here are some of the things you can do with shading: To minimize a jaw that is too large or too square, apply darker shade along the jawline, blending it under the jaw and fading into nothing at the sides of the face. To shorten a pointed chin, apply shader to chin only, blending underneath into the neck and fading to nothing at the sides. To fade a double chin, put shader on the double chin and blend it skilfully. This will make it recede into the background and look less prominent. To give more interesting shape to a square face apply shader in the temple area and all around the jawline, carefully blending. To minimize a nose that is too large, apply shader in a single stripe down the centre of the nose, carefully blending into the color at the sides so that no definite line appears. To slim a broad nose apply a shader - preferably a slightly darker foundation or cream - in a stripe down each side of the nose and blend it carefully into the skin to make the nose look narrower. For most women, one of their best features is the eyes. Perhaps this is because eyes reveal so much of what goes on inside. Makeup for eyes should emphasize this and show off the eyes' beauty and color. There are lots of ways to use eye makeup to improve eyes, but all of them begin with the same principles. Use neutral tones such as slabby browns (without red tones in them), flat greys, and greyed greens, or even terracotta, for establishing the shape of the eyes (the darker shades to define the sockets and the lighter beiges or yellow, peach or apricot, or pink, on the lids and under the brows). All eye shadows are best applied to skin that has a foundation on it even if you don't put foundation on the rest of your face, and powder shadows hold best over a light skimming of translucent powder too. All eye shadows are best applied with a brush, whether they are liquid, cream, or powder. You will get a better, longer-lasting finish from them this way. the eyelids Apply the lighter shade of colored shadow you have chosen to the section of the lid nearest the lashes, and then brush it out, fading it away to nothing towards the eyebrows. Now you can have the darker shadow in the socket to define the shape. Remember that colors on the outer edges of your eyes will tend to widen the look of your face and open your gaze. Finally put on your eyeliner. A good way of emphasizing eye shape without looking too obviously made-up is to use a pencil in the same tone you are using for your eye shadow, dotting it all along the upper lashes and then just under the lower ones so the two lines meet at the outer corners and form a little triangle. This kind of liner looks good when it is gently smeared with a brush or fingertip to blend it into the surrounding area and keep it from looking hard. You can also use another color line drawn on the inside of the lower lid if you like. The other way of applying eyeliner is with a brush, in which case you use liquid or cake liner and get a more definite line. It is drawn just above the roots of the upper lashes and just below the roots of the lower ones, again meeting at the corner. Many women use black eyeliner, but usually a gentle grey or slate or muted brown is better. the mascara Mascara makes eyes look more glamorous. It seems to create an aura of mystery about the eyes when lashes are darkened and thickened. Unless you are planning to walk in the rain or to go swimming with your makeup on, you are better off using a mascara that is not waterproof. eyebrow sculpture Before you begin, brush them first one way and then the other to remove any loose hairs or makeup, and clean the skin around the eyes thoroughly. Now put moisturizer in the area, before you reach for the tweezers. Brush your brows into shape and take a good look at them. Start by removing stray hairs between the brows and the stragglers but never pluck from above the eyebrow. And always remove only one hair at a time, pulling it in the direction in which it grows. When you have finished with one brow, apply antiseptic or a simple toner to it before going on to the next one. This will help soothe the irritated skin. Don't try to apply makeup for an hour after plucking. the lips Most women tend to pick lipsticks that are too bright or too pink to flatter their coloring. There is certainly a place for fire-engine reds and vivid fuchsias, but for everyday wear you are probably better off with a muted brownish pink or a softened melon or salmon. Shop around until you find four or five lipsticks in differing tones that look good on you. Frosted lipsticks are for the very young. Older women are usually better off with cream lipsticks, since frosting shows up wrinkles on the lips and the see-through ones don't give enough definition. When applying lipstick, use a pencil or a lipbrush to outline your mouth first, so you get a good, sharply defined edge. Then apply your lipstick and blot it and apply again if you want it to stay. Alternatively use a pencil all over the mouth as well as for outline and then apply a clear gloss. It looks fresh and simple and the color tends to last. the cheeks The best colors for everyday wear for most women are terracotta, apricot-brown or dusky peach, because they make the skin look particularly healthy. Used high on the cheekbones it accentuates a well-sculptured face. Used across the cheeks it gives a simple warm glow. the powder A little translucent powder that imparts no color but gives a smooth, matte finish can actually make a face look younger. It is also an interesting effect to powder only parts of your face, such as the sides below the cheekbones, the nose, and the forehead, and then leave a sheen on cheeks and chin. Always use a powder that gives no color, just a matte, smooth finish, and always brush away every speck of excess once you have applied it. the finishing touches Last of all, after you have applied your makeup completely, you need to set it with water. This step is very useful, for it will make a face last far longer than it otherwise would. Spray your face with spring water from an aerosol can or with a fine mist from a plant-misting bottle. Then blot gently once with a tissue.