health

Many of the most beautiful meals will be found on the ageless aging table. The variety of colors, textures, tastes and culinary experiences which delicious natural foods offer to anyone with an interest in food preparation and a love of fine cuisine at the very least equals the best traditional cooking. Eating fresh foods rich in `life force' in a high-raw way of eating means that your taste-buds, sense of smell and aesthetic awareness of food become dramatically heightened so that the appreciation of all that you eat can be greater than ever before. From being someone who used to love fresh cream and rich sauces I've become infinitely more appreciative of the fine flavors implicit in ageless aging cuisine. And I love it. Not only because I look younger, feel better all round and have infinitely more energy than before, but because the experience of eating itself has become so much more delightful. Most of us eat far too much and we dull our senses and our appreciation of food in the process. Even the most subtle of Beethoven's late quartets begins to dull the senses when you have too much of it. So can too much food even if it is the very best. Ageless aging cuisine revives them. Put your kitchen scales away and forget the complex routine for preparing a béchamel sauce.  It’s not conventional directions that matter when preparing foods, it is a passion for the foods themselves – a feeling reflected in our passion for the earth and life itself.  It’s good because it tastes good.  Such passion, which is visual, visceral and luscious, becomes the inspiration that, in food preparation, leads you automatically to make certain choices.  Open wide your kitchen window.  Welcome in the breezes of experiment, wit and spontaneity.  Inside, you find the traditional meal of roast meal and boiled Brussels sprouts topped off with a piece of sticky toffee pudding replaced by something far more hedonistic: slivers of raw Pacific salmon, luscious garden-fresh salad, followed by a winter sorbet of cranberry and mint.  The real joy in eating fresh, light foods lies in their taste, their texture and the remarkable ability they have to bring excitement to a palate jaded by too many highly processed, unimaginatively seasoned or over-cooked dishes. sheer energy I look on food as a source of both delight and life-energy which is passed on to us from the earth.  I believe this energy needs to be preserved by not cooking food too much, by eating it fresh and by respecting its essential nature.  Food eaten this way becomes a medium through which we build our own vitality – energy to protect the body from premature aging and illness, to enhance good looks and to keep the mind clear.  It is the life-energy present in abundance in fresh foods and the clean, simple protein from fish, game, organic meat and poultry that makes these foods irresistible and helps us look and feel great. The most significant change to human diets in two million years began with the agricultural revolution, when man went from a carbohydrate-poor to a carbohydrate-rich diet.  The more that these carbohydrates have become refined in the past 300 years, the more problems they have caused us, not only in terms of burgeoning obesity worldwide but also in the development of the chronic degenerative diseases of civilization.   The thing to remember is that when you eat low-starch vegetables such as broccoli, spinach, asparagus and cauliflower, or proteins such as fish, meat and eggs, the levels of glucose in the blood (blood sugar) rise very slowly and modestly.  On the other hand, when you eat what are known as high-glycemic foods - starchy foods, simple carbohydrates, sugars - like a muffin, pasta, breakfast cereal or ice cream, blood sugar soars, then crashes as insulin is released in order to lower your blood sugar.  You can end up feeling hungry even though you've just eaten a meal, crave sweets and biscuits, and reach for a cup of coffee and a cake mid-morning just to keep going.  High insulin levels, by the way, suppress human growth hormone essential for healthy muscle tissue, making you look flabby and older. The most important foods are fresh non-starchy vegetables, fresh fruits, and proteins like meat, seafood, eggs and game.  A little unprocessed cheese is fine too and a few nuts and seeds.  Go for nothing but the best.  Here are a few guidelines: Choose natural whole foods – organically grown/raised if possible Your foods need to be as fresh as possible and eaten as close to a living state as you can.  This allows little time for the deterioration that occurs as a result of oxidation. All the foods you eat should be non-toxic and non-polluting to your body.  They should contain no synthetic flavours, colors, preservatives or other additives used to ‘enhance’ them cosmetically.  Stay away from convenience foods. Try to vary the foods you choose from day to day and week to week.  All through our evolution the human body has adapted to a wide range of foods offering a broad spectrum of nutrients. Use fresh garlic and herbs often.  They bring high-level support for cellular regeneration and immune support. Eat what you enjoy and enjoy what you eat.  Eating is one of life’s great pleasures – make it one of yours. make way for a new lifestyle Eating for ageless aging leads most people to a totally new way of living. You become more alert and more active. You will probably sleep less yet far better than before. This is because your whole system will be far clearer of toxicity than before and you will need less time for tissue repair and restoration than you do on a normal diet. You will also probably find that you are better able to deal with stress than ever. This way of eating provides you with high levels of potassium and rapidly restores the sodium-potassium balance in most people. This leads to increased resistance to fatigue and a greater feeling of calm stability day in day out. It may also set you slightly apart from your gravy-eating, hard-drinking friends and may even have them feeling slightly suspicious of you in the beginning. But it has been my experience that as soon as they find you are not trying to sell them anything - that you have a live-and-let-live attitude to whatever they do - they show a similar respect for your new lifestyle. In fact, the people who have been the most resistant to what you are doing and the most opinionated are very often the ones who are first to become intrigued about what an ageless aging lifestyle might offer them. And they are usually the ones with the energy and interest to carry it out. Day 1 RAW DISHES: melon; cauliflower and tomatoes mixed with red peppers and lettuce salad topped with Avocado Delight Dressing (see blow). COOKED DISHES: Steamed fish; wok-fried beans and peas; brown rice. Day 2 RAW DISHES: lamb's lettuce, celeriac and wild-herb salad topped with chopped egg dressing; fresh pears and plumped raisins. COOKED DISHES: Garlic Chicken Soup; steamed baby carrots and basil; young peas with mint. Day 3 RAW DISHES: mushrooms, watercress and chicory salad topped with Basil and More Basil Dressing; Mulled Stuffed Apples (see below). COOKED DISHES:  Fabulous Fish Soup. Day 4 RAW DISHES: `Sunburst' platter of avocado, beetroot, cos lettuce, mushrooms, tomatoes, celery and peppers served with raw humus (see below). COOKED DISHES: carrot and coriander soup; or venison burgers; Scottish oatcakes; Pineapple Blackberry Frappe. Day 5 RAW DISHES: `Jungle Slaw' salad made from cabbage, tender green beans, carrots, spring onions, red or yellow pepper and almonds served with a citrus dressing. COOKED DISHES:  Lightly grilled salmon and steamed green beans. Day 6 RAW DISHES: gazpacho; pineapple salad stuffed with orange, mango, papaya and strawberries and topped with coconut. COOKED DISHES: Hand Made Sausages (see below). Day 7 RAW DISHES: `Sandstone Loaf' made from carrots, lemon juice, almonds, pumpkin seeds, tahini and herbs; apple and ginger salad; home made blackberry sorbet. COOKED DISHES: Flax Crackers (see below) with humus. small meals For breakfast - or for that matter instead of lunch or supper when you want a small meal - you can't do better than a bowl of fruit muesli. If you have never tasted real muesli (and it bears no resemblance to the flaky sweet stuff you can buy on the shelves of supermarkets) you have a real treat ahead of you. Fruit muesli was the invention of Swiss physician Max Bircher-Benner who devised it as the perfect light meal. It is a delicious and easy-to-digest completely uncooked dish which can contain all of the essential vitamins and minerals, and which is an excellent source of high-quality complete proteins and essential fatty acids. It can provide you with sustaining energy but will never lie heavily in your stomach. And it can be made low in calories. Real muesli (often called Birchermuesli after its inventor) is not a grain-based but a fruit-based dish with only a very small quantity of top-quality fresh wholegrain flakes in it. It is usually made with apples and oats but there are so many varieties which you can make, calling on whatever fresh or dried fruits and whatever kinds of grains, nuts and seeds you have available, that you could quite literally eat it twice a day all the year round and never get tired of it. Children absolutely adore Birchermuesli both as a complete breakfast and as a sweet after a main meal. A small bowl of muesli in the morning will keep you going all the way to lunch with none of the `elevenses slump' that has many people reaching for a cup of coffee and a pastry or a chocolate bar. It is also an excellent food to eat in the evening since it is so easy to digest that it never interferes with sleep. I do a lot of traveling and for many years I dreaded having to stay in hotels because the food available in so many hotel dining-rooms is so poor. I have got into the habit of carrying with me a small `muesli bag' with a hand grater in it plus some grain flakes and minced nuts and a small bowl so I can make my own breakfast or supper whenever I want and not be forced to eat what I don't want just because there is nothing else. Here is the basic recipe: bircher muesli For each person you'll need: I level tablespoon rolled oats soaked in 4 tablespoons water I heaped tablespoon raisins or sultanas I tablespoon lemon juice 3 tablespoons natural unsweetened yogurt I large apple ½ banana I teaspoon raw honey (if desired) or pure stevia to taste I tablespoon minced hazelnuts and almonds or other mixed seeds and nuts I pinch cinnamon (if desired) Soak the rolled oats and raisins in water, preferably overnight. This begins to break down the starch present in the grains and turn it into natural sugar so it is easily assimilated. If you have no time to soak the grains then simply mix with the water (you will need slightly less water in this case) and carry on immediately. Wash the apple(s) and remove core and stem but don't peel. Then, using a stainless-steel hand grater or a food processor, grate the apple into the mixture and, stirring, add lemon juice to protect it from discoloring. Cut the banana into small cubes, add to the mixture with the honey (if desired) and mix with yogurt. Sprinkle the top with the minced nuts and a little cinnamon if you like. Instead of rolled oats you can use other cereal flakes such as barley, millet or buckwheat. These are available from wholefood shops. I find I don't usually add honey to my muesli because it is so beautifully sweet already, thanks to the soaked grains and fruit. You can also make muesli with soft fruit such as strawberries or raspberries, loganberries, red and black currants, blackberries or blueberries as well as with apricots, cherries, peaches, plums or greengages. Or you can mix your fruits together. Also you can make the muesli from dried fruit which has been soaked for twelve hours or overnight in spring water. But make sure you get sun-dried not sulfur dried fruits to which no glucose has been added (it is commonly added to figs for instance) or you can end up with a gastrointestinal upset. seasoning and spices Make use of all of the wonderful culinary herbs that are available: And the list of seductive possibilities seems almost endless: caraway, fennel, dill, chervil, parsley, lovage - the Umberiferae; summer savory, marjoram, the mints, rosemary, and thyme-the labiates, which have a strong aroma and are particularly useful for seasoning; the Liliaceae such as garlic, onions, chives and leeks; and three of my favorites, basil and tarragon and horseradish. Herbs have a special role to play in any ageless aging regime. They contain pharmacologically active substances such as volatile oils, tannins, bitter factors, secretins, balsams, resins, mucilages, glycosides and organic vegetable acids each of which can contribute to overall health in a different way. The tannins, for instance, which occur in many common kitchen herbs, are astringent and have an anti-inflammatory action on the digestive system. They help inhibit fermentation and decomposition. The secretins stimulate the secretion of pancreatic enzymes - particularly important for the complete breakdown of proteins in foods to make them available for bodily use. Organic acids have an antibiotic action and are helpful in the digestion of fats and the bitter factors, which are found in good quantity in rosemary, marjoram and fennel. They also act as a tonic to the smooth muscles of the gut and boost secretion of digestive enzymes. Use herbs lavishly in your meals and you will find you can create the most remarkable combinations of subtle flavors and aromas. drink yourself younger Coffee, although not completely forbidden on any serious program of ageless aging, is not something to drink daily. The occasional cup after dinner is not likely to do much harm. More than that and you are really undermining your potential for age-retardation not only because it contains mutagenic and carcinogenic compounds which cause oxy-stress and free radical damage but also because regular coffee tends to make cadmium (one of the heavy metals) build up in your system and can interfere with proper pancreatic functioning. It also leeches calcium from the bones. Tea is OK in moderation - no more than a cup or two a day - but there are other drinks which are not only good for you, they can be highly enjoyable as well. Alcohol is another substance you want to go easy on. Not only is it very high in calories yet practically worthless in terms of the nutrients it supplies, it also causes your liver to produce one of the most potent cross-linkers known - acetaldehyde. A glass or two of wine can be easily accommodated. More than that as a daily intake is likely to seriously undermine your effort. And make sure it is good wine. The run of the mill vin de table is full of toxic substances which your cells can do without. You'll find some delicious mixtures of herbs in ready-made tea bags if you comb through a few delicatessens and healthfood stores. Some of my favorites have names like Cinnamon, Rose, Almond Sunset, Creamy French Vanilla, and Red Zinger. They are great to drink for pleasure and refreshment the way most people drink coffee and ordinary tea. But there are others which are quite wonderful simply because they affect the body in specific ways. Lemon verbena, for instance, is a refreshing sedative, chamomile soothes the digestive tract, and both horsetail and solidago (goldenrod) are excellent natural diuretics. The teas I like best just before bed are orange blossom, which you make by boiling a few blossoms for 2-3 minutes in two cups of water, red bergamot and lemon peel, all of which are natural sedatives. This last tea comes from an Italian tradition. You make it by peeling the outer yellow skin off a lemon (which has been washed well) with a potato peeler. Pour boiling water over this and let steep for 5 minutes. Then strain and drink. a few recipes to play with Avocado Delight Dressing 1 avocado, peeled and stoned Juice of 1 lemon Juice of ½ orange 1 small onion, chopped finely 1 garlic clove, chopped finely Handful of fresh herbs – mint, parsley or basil Freshly ground black pepper to taste Blend all the ingredients in a food processor or blender and serve. Italian Herb Dressing 100ml extra-virgin oliv oil 3 tbsp fresh lemon juice 1-2oz fresh basil, chopped 1 tsp Marigold Swiss Vegetable Buillon or Rapunzel Organic Vegetable Bouillon Powder Freshly ground black pepper to taste Mix all the ingredients in a food processor until smooth, adjusting the flavour as necessary. Garlic Chicken Soup (serves 1) 150g lean, skinless chicken breast, but into small cubes 1 tsp fresh chopped garlic 1 level teaspoon Marigold Swiss Vegetable Bouillon or Rapunzel Organic Vegetable Bouillon Powder 2 teaspoons chopped parsley and/or ½ teaspoon lemongrass or ½ teaspoon mild curry powder 180 ml water Place all the ingredients in a saucepan and bring to the boil.  Simmer for 3-5 minutes and serve. Fabulous Fish Soup (serves 1) 360ml water 1 teaspoon Marigold Swiss Vegetable Buillon or Rapunzel Organic Vegetable Bouillon Powder ½ tsp fresh chopped garlic ½ tsp chopped onion 1 tablespoon fresh chopped basil or ½ tsp dried basil 1 cup broccoli 150g white fish ¼ tsp paprika Himalayan or Malvern salt to taste Pepper, to taste Put the bouillon powder, water, garlic, onion and basil in a saucepan and bring to a simmer.  Add the broccoli and cook for 5 minutes with the lid on.  Place the rish on top of the broccoli and sprinkel with paprika, salt and pepper.  Put the lid on and cook for another 5 minutes. Raw Humus 2 cups sprouted chick peas Juice of 3 lemons 1 tsp Marigold Swiss Vegetable Buillon or Rapunzel Organic Vegetable Bouillon Powder 1 clove garlic, finely chopped 3 tbsp tahini 3 tbsp chopped spring onions or chives Water to thin if too thick Put the ingredients, except the onions or chives, in a food processor or blender and blend thoroughly.  Top with the chives or onions. Hand-made Sausages 350g lean minced pork, chicken, lamb, beef, venison or wild boar 1 tsp Himalayan or Malvern salt, to taste 2 tbsp gram flour (chickpea flour) 4 cloves garlic (optional) 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley, coriander or sage ½ large onion, finely chopped Combine all the ingredients in a big mixing bowl and ix thoroughly with your hands.  Refrigerate until well chilled then separate into patties and cook in an oiled skilled until crunchy on the surface and cooked through. Flax Crackers 240g faxseed meal (or buy whole flaxseeds and grind them) 240ml water 30ml tamari or Bragg’s Liquid Aminos or Soy Sauce Himalayan or Malvern salt, to taste Fresh minced herbs A little chopped garlic Ginger, chilli powder, or cayenne pepper (optional) Combine the flaxseed meal with the water and let it soak for 1 ½ hours.  The water will change to a sort of gelatinous state.  Add a little more water if necessary, you want it to be gooey but not too runny or too thick.  Add the tamari, salt, herbs and garlic (or other flavourings).  Blend together.  Spread the mixture out, about 1/8 inch thick, and cut into squares.  Carefully lift the squares onto a wire mesh and bake in a slow oven until crunchy.  You can also make them in a dehydrator - dehydrate them for 4-6 hours, turn the mixture and dehydrate for a further 3-4 hours. Mulled Stuffed Apples (serves 2) Most of the nutritional value of an apple lies in its skin, or just below it, so wash apples well but don’t peel them. Softish apples are best for this recipe as their insides have to be scooped out. 100ml grape juice or red wine ½ tsp cinnamon 2 cloves ¼  tsp nutmeg 1 crushed white cardamom pod ¼ tsp allspice 75g blanched almonds 2 large apples Squeeze of lemon juice handful dates or raisins ‘Mull’ the grape juice or wine by putting it in a bowl with the spices and leaving for at least an hour.  Discard the cloves and cardamom and blend the remaining mixture with the almonds in a food processor or blender.  Slice the tops off the apples and keep them.  Remove the cores, saving small pieces to plug the bottoms.  Scoop out the apple pulp, leaving a shell about 1cm thick. Lightly blend the pulp with the juice and the almond mixture until smooth, adding a squeeze of lemon juice.  If the mixture is not thick enough, add a few more ground almonds.  Chop the dates or raisins and fill the apple shells with the dried fruit and almond mixture.  Replace the ‘lids’. Or, make stuffed apples with apple sauce and blackberries.  Blend the apple pulp with a little lemon juice, stevia and spices then combine it with the blackberries and spoon into the apple shells. Pineapple Blackberry Frappe This makes a wonderfully refreshing dessert as it stands, or it can be chiled to serve as a cool sorbet on hot summer days. 2 cups fresh pineapple chunks ½ cup blackberries Juice of ½ lime Place all the ingredients in a blender and liquidise.  Serve immediately.

Your body. A burden? A joy? An object to be admired and pampered? A source of shame better neglected and hidden? Both men and women are funny about their bodies. The media is full of advice on how we are supposed to look, smell and feel, how we should exercise, reshape, renew and bring our bodies into line with consensus values about size and shape. Seldom is much of it of use. For most of what is written and taught about the body comes from the prevalent (albeit unconscious) notion of the body as thing. Carried in the wake of this mechanistic approach to the body, which books, magazines and media programs take, is the notion that every human being needs the same sort of food, the same sort of exercise, the same sort of treatment. Nothing could be further from the truth. Your body is most assuredly not a thing. It is a living energetic organism which in its shape and form and texture has become a reflection of your attitudes towards yourself and becomes a map for the way you live as a result. If you feel uneasy about your body, or foreign from it, or narcissistic about it, this shows in how you look, behave, and in the way you limit your experience of joy and creativity in day-to-day life. Shift those attitudes and gradually you will alter the way you look and feel dramatically. We forget that the body is also the medium through which each human being experiences all reality - from the most exciting theoretical thought to the most instinctual animal passion. This is an important theme I want to explore in depth in future blogs. I want to share with you ways of setting the body free from all that binds it and therefore all of us from whatever restricts us from feeling fully alive and free just to be who we are—instead of trying to fit in with consensus reality and other people’s rules. Anybody who has read anything I have written, or been to one of my workshops, or taken a CURA ROMANA JOURNEY with me, knows I have zero tolerance for blind conformity and a passion for authentic freedom. Guess what...the greatest joy for any of us is beginning to live out this kind of authenticity is experienced, not in your mind but through your physical body.

Leslie Kenton’s New Cura Romana Weightloss Plan is out now. A thick handbook in bright orange, this little gem is no simple revision of the earlier book. It breaks new ground for weight loss while exploring territory in the exciting realm of quantum wellbeing. The book brings together Leslie’s hands-on experience with thousands of men and women on the Cura Romana program, merging it with stunning up-to-the-minute discoveries about optimal nutrition and disease prevention. It guides you through Cura Romana’s next-generation protocol for effective, hunger-free weight loss, then reveals practical secrets for becoming radiantly healthy and lean for life. THREE STEP PROCESS The combination of Essential Spray and the easy-to-follow, exacting dietary plan fosters good functioning in the brain’s control centers—for appetite, fat burning, hormone regulation, emotional balance, and self-confidence. This automatically triggers natural fat-burning. Specific guidance on banishing addictions, rejuvenating the body and clearing food cravings comes next. Then, transformative breakthroughs in body, mind and spirit begin. Many who have experienced this three step Cura Romana process on The Journey Program or The Inner Circle Gold say it can be life-changing. LIES, DAMN LIES AND STATISTICS Some of what you read in Leslie Kenton’s New Cura Romana Weightloss Plan is likely to shock you. Since the early 1950s, most of what the powers-that-be have led us to believe about what constitutes a healthy diet has been totally wrong. It has been based not on reliable research but on woolly conjecture, misinformation, and plain old lies. Most of us have conscientiously swallowed their advice. So has the media and even the medical profession. As a result, in the past sixty years, obesity and associated illnesses have reached epidemic proportions worldwide. HORRIFIC ADVICE They taught us that natural fats like butter, extra virgin olive oil and coconut oil are supposed to be dangerous. Wrong. They directed everyone to eat a low-fat-high-carb diet, full of grain-based carbohydrates such as cereals. We need lots of carbs for energy, they insisted. Wrong again. We unknowingly trusted guidance from these so-called experts. We ate baked potatoes instead of fries and started buying all sorts of packaged foods thinking that we were making “healthy option” choices. PERILS OF CONVENIENCE Food manufacturers were quick to seize upon governments’ nutritional directives. They whipped up high-carb, low-fat convenience fare. There was one major draw back to all of this: When you remove fat from a carbohydrate food it tastes like cardboard. So, in order to make their packaged goods acceptable to the public, they were forced add masses of sugar. Conscientiously, we continued to eat the foods they were selling—much to our detriment—all the while believing that we were doing the right thing. For decades, the FDA’s infamous food pyramid—to which all developed countries turn for guidance—ruled supreme. Meanwhile, the incidence of Diseases of Civilization—from obesity and heart disease, to cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, mental disorders and depression—has soared exponentially. All of which has earned billions for multi-national food manufacturers but created terrible human suffering. LET TRUTH BE TOLD Leslie Kenton’s New Cura Romana Weightloss Plan sets the record straight. It not only covers significant facts in relation to weight control, it also introduces a whole new way of eating and living to protect from early aging and chronic illness while enhancing wellbeing all round. It reveals truths about weight gain and weight loss. (They have nothing to do with calories in, calories out as we’ve been told.) Cura Romana’s redeveloped Consolidation process guides you step-by-step through procedures that can make a new slim body last. The new, advanced Consolidation program gleans its power and effectiveness from valid, accurate, independent research projects destined to turn the dangerous misinformation we’ve been fed for half a century on its head. The information from such truth-telling has only begun to appear in the last three or four years. It is still little-recognized publicly. But it was tried and tested for three years with the help of hundreds of willing participants on Cura Romana’s web-based programs before being incorporated into the next-generation protocol which you will learn about in this book. BREAKTHROUGHS While developing and testing this new program, it became clear that the gifts it brings go further than helping people recover their body’s natural shape and weight. It enables participants to experience not only a transformation in weight and health but an enrichment in one’s quality of life—physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Incidentally, since Cura Romana’s inception almost five years ago, these intentions have always been the foundation on which all of its programs are built. In Leslie’s words: “The ways and means of living a lean and healthy life must no longer be reserved for a privileged few. During my 45 years of researching, teaching and writing about natural health, the most important thing I’ve learned is this: Each one of us, regardless of age, can transform our current life circumstances into an experience of expanded wellbeing, creativity and purpose. We are free to draw on the work of visionary thinkers, and be guided by the valid discoveries of independent pioneers in human health and growth. It is only thanks to the endless generosity and encouragement of such people, and to the support of my visionary publisher, Brenda Kimber, that I am able to share with you my Cura Romana next-generation program. It’s my hope that this new handbook will bring as much benefit to your own life as the research and testing needed to create it has brought to mine. Every blessing... The New Cura Romana Weight Loss Plan Book Award-winning writer Leslie Kenton is renowned for her expertise in all matters relating to wellbeing. Her New Cura Romana Weightloss Plan is the culmination of her forty years of research, experience and expertise in life-transforming weightloss. ·You have known forever that the essential you is slim, healthy and full of life. It is time to experience this for real...time to say goodbye to struggles and self-criticism... time set yourself free. ·Now you can discover how to look and feel ten years younger and have more vitality, emotional strength, mental clarity and joy by making simple but powerful changes in how you eat and live. Buy The New New Cura Romana Weight Loss Plan Book At Amazon

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

I am shocked and horrified by the guidelines just issued by the American Heart Association and American College of Cardiology which speak of giving statin drugs to well people. The “experts” who have issued the new directives claim that healthy people should take statin drugs as a “preventative against possible future illness.” They want to see one third of all adults in the United States on statin drugs—44% of all men and 22% of all women. One in four Americans over 45 are already on statins, despite more than 900 studies reporting dangerous side effects from these drugs. Reported side effects of statins range from heightened risks of cancer and diabetes to sexual problems, neuropathy and liver dysfunction, as well as immune system suppression—even a higher risk of cataracts. In Britain, statins are the most commonly prescribed drugs already. Currently between 6 and 8 million people are taking them. If the new directives are accepted by the UK medical establishment—as they are likely to be—the numbers of men and women being prescribed statins could well become legion. WHAT ARE STATINS? Statins are a group of drugs prescribed to lower cholesterol levels by inhibiting the enzyme HMG-CoA reductase, which plays a central role in the production of cholesterol in the liver. They have many different names such as Lipitor, Lescol, Mevacor, Altocor and Zocor, to mention only a few. These drugs are prescribed on the assumption that they lower the risks of cardiovascular events and strokes. The new directives assert that, if given to healthy people, they could help protect the population from heart attacks and strokes at some time in the future. Happily, a growing number of cardiologists are strongly opposed to the new directives. These cardiologists insist that the new directives should be suspended. Sadly, few media outlets have so far reported on the negative assertions to the new directives from physicians who oppose them. The U-T San Diego newspaper is a welcome exception. It reports, “Doctors assail new guidelines for statins.” Then it goes on to say that “Many physicians have since come out and said that the risk calculator [used in the new directives] was based on bad information, and that if it is used, millions of people who don’t need statins will be urged to take them.” WELCOME NEWS Last year, Dr Eric Topol, highly respected cardiologist and professor of genomics at Scripps Research Institute in California wrote an excellent article for the New York Times Opinion Page on February 29, 1912. In it he warns that “We’re overdosing on cholesterol-lowering statins.” Topol is especially concerned about the sharp increase in the prevalence of Type 2 Diabetes that is occurring in people using them. He writes, “Statins have been available since the 1980s but their risk of inducing diabetes did not surface for nearly 20 years. When all the data available from multiple studies was pooled in 2010 for more than 91,000 patients randomly assigned to be treated with a statin or a sugar pill (placebo), the risk of developing diabetes with any statin was one in every 255 patients treated. But this figure is misleading since it includes weaker statins like Pravachol and Mevacor—which were introduced earlier and do not carry any clear-cut risk. It is only with the more potent statins—Zocor (now known as simvastatin), Lipitor (atorvastatin) and Crestor (rosuvastatin)—particularly at higher doses, that the risk of diabetes shows up. The cause and effect was unequivocal because the multiple large trials of the more potent statins had a consistent excess of diabetes.” Meanwhile, a recent study in the Journal of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention by Jean A McDougall and her colleagues reveals that long-term use of statins increases the risk of both lobular and ductal breast cancer in women between 55 and 74. BOTTOM LINE In the past four and a half years, I have worked with hundreds of men and women whose doctors had been prescribing statins as they began their Cura Romana Journey Program. I always insist that they let their health practitioner know what they are doing, so that he or she can monitor carefully the dosages they are prescribing while they are following the program. This is essential, since no physician wants to prescribe more of any drug than is absolutely necessary, and the need for statins and other medications tends to decrease dramatically on the Cura Romana experience. At the end of their CR program, participants regularly send us reports like this one: “Before Cura Romana I had been taking 50mg of Levothyroxine per day as well as 40mgs of Simvastatin per day. I had chronic constipation, hemorrhoids, raised cholesterol etc. Now, not only am I free of the drugs, I no longer experience any of these conditions,” writes Debbie in the UK. I am no doctor, but what I have learned during my more than forty years of writing and broadcasting on health is this: When a body is restored to healthy functioning naturally, the need for medication is either dramatically reduced or, more often than not, eliminated altogether. Statins, like most pharmaceuticals, treat symptoms—they do not heal. Only nature can heal from within. My advice to anyone thinking of accepting the new directives is this: Before you agree to take statins, be sure to research well the implications of doing so. There are other natural ways of clearing cholesterol issues. Learn as much as you can about statin drugs as well as the natural alternatives. Here are just a few suggestions about where you can begin finding out more. RESOURCES U-T San Diego “Doctors assail new guidelines for statins: 18 November, 2013 Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention; Published Online First July 5, 2013; doi: 10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-13-0414 This is an excellent compilation of dangers from statin drugs with links to abstracts. Click Here JAMA Ophthalmol 2013 Nov 1;131(11):1427-34. doi: 10.1001/jamaophthalmol.2013.4575. Association of statin use with cataracts: a propensity score-matched analysis. This is a good source of information on the use of statins for the elderly.Click Here Sultan and N. Hynes, "The Ugly Side of Statins. Systemic Appraisal of the Contemporary Un-Known Unknowns," Open Journal of Endocrine and Metabolic Diseases, Vol. 3 No. 3, 2013, pp. 179-185. doi: 10.4236/ojemd.2013.33025. I also recommend visiting Mercola.com and typing in “statins” since you will find some good information here too.

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

The more I get to know flowers—living with them, healing with them, photographing them, practicing and teaching flower meditation with them—the more I sense the deep compassion and affinity they have for human beings. This affinity is carried in the energetic architecture of their form. Woven into it also is a great desire to help human kind. SOUL BEAUTY Flowers love to give of their beauty. They love to share their soul energies with our own. And the healing they bring us takes place in a highly personal way. Imagine being at a concert of expertly played classical music. Although we all hear the same music, each of us in the audience will be affected in a different way. Some will be deeply moved, others uplifted, still others calmed and quieted—depending on our individual response, and on whatever need the music fulfils for us. If the same symphony is played by another orchestra with a different conductor, the same collection of people will experience further shades of meaning. So can it be with flower essences created by different makers. There are now more than three thousand flower essences made worldwide. You need only a handful to benefit from their gifts. The most famous of all is Rescue Remedy. Not a single essence, but a mixture of five flower essences, it was created by Dr Edward Bach. Hundreds of thousands of bottles of it are sold each year. Many who use it regularly are not aware of how it is made from flowers, and have little idea how it works. They only experience its benefits. Bach’s Rescue Remedy is one of the most useful things you can give to anyone who has suffered a shock—from a skinned knee to the death of a family member. It helps restore mental, physical and emotional balance in the face of any trauma. Taking any flower essence is a gentle, yet profound, experience. Before deciding on which essence or essences are right for you at a particular moment in your life, take time to become aware both of what is going on inside you as well as whatever physical symptoms you may be experiencing. A practitioner trained in flower medicine can be a great help here—especially if you are wrestling with deep depression or chronic physical illness. He or she will take into account your history, your work, your relationships, your strengths and weaknesses, and your future goals. If you are choosing an essence for yourself, think about all of these things. Look at photographs of flowers, or better still, seek out the flowers themselves in a garden or the woods. Get to know a little of the character and the healing properties of each flower and notice any that seem relevant to you, or which attract you. WHERE ARE YOU Then take a gentle, compassionate look at what is going on with you now. There are two ways to do this. You can begin by looking through a flower essence materia medica to find out what conditions different flower essences are designed to alleviate. You may discover that some essences leap out at you as you recognize descriptions of behavioral or emotional patterns that fit. Write all this down. Then work from the list you have when making your choices. When you get to know the flower essences you are drawn to, explore each flower essence company’s lists. This is easy to do by looking them up on the internet. You really don’t need to know a lot of different essences to find the help you need. For many different essences can often help the same conditions. The other method for ‘self diagnosis’ takes a bit longer, but works even better. For a week, observe your reactions to what is going on around you day after day. Make a note of any emotional reactions that repeat in your life again and again—if you feel anxious, nervous, angry, tense, or upset, for instance. Write all this down in a notebook. Also record what seems to trigger these feelings. See if there are one or more emotional patterns or tendencies that appear more often than others. Record any keywords or phrases that come to mind. For instance, “I am often irritable. This makes me impatient. Sometimes my body gets tense, and I feel anxious. I suppose people think I’m intolerant.” You might talk to your partner or to a close friend about what you have observed and recorded. See if they agree. Ask if they have other observations about you that might be helpful. Then, armed with your description of your emotional states and traits, go through the descriptions in a flower essence material medica and match your key words and phrases with theirs. Make a list of all the essences that you think might apply to you. TRUST YOUR INSTINCT Narrow your list down to no more than 3 to 6 essences— those which best match the way you feel, or want to feel. Using your intuition, see if you can identify one or two essences which you think, more than any of the others, seem to ‘fit’ with your needs. If you have a healthfood store or pharmacy nearby that sells flower essences, it can useful to handle the bottles of essences themselves. Hold each one you think might be helpful in your hand for a moment or two, close your eyes, and see how you feel. Always trust your instincts to discover which ones most call to you. Flower essence therapy is the safest form of natural treatment in the world. It is impossible to over-dose on it. Should you happen to choose the wrong remedy, your body’s energy will simply not resonate with it and you will get no effect from it. LESS IS MORE Sometimes the best way to use flower essences is to work with one remedy at a time. But if you feel you want to use more than one, then choose a ‘theme’—remedies that deal with a single emotional state: A combination of peppermint and nasturtium, for instance, helps clear mental fatigue. Crab apple and buttercup can help build self-esteem. You can mix them together. If two quite different emotional ‘traits’ emerge from your self-examination—for example, anger and a need to release more creativity, you can deal with both issues at the same time, if you wish. In this case, take one essence or a mixture of essences for the one condition in the morning, and those for the other in the evening. With any flower essence the adage ‘less is more’ applies. Although you cannot overdose on a remedy, you are more likely to see benefits from taking smaller amounts than larger ones. Also remember that there is tremendous power even in the ritual of taking a flower essence. As you take it, focus your mind gently on the positive healing you seek. Be sure to allow plenty of time for an essence to do its work. Give it at least a month before you consider replacing it with another. You will sense its effects and know if you should continue to use it. HOW TO USE FLOWER ESSENCES Flower essences that you buy come in glass bottles containing stock concentrates. The stock concentrate or ‘stock’ has been made from the mother essence, which in turn has been made from the vibration water plus a little alcohol to preserve it. It can be a lot of fun and very rewarding to make your own flower essences. Here’s how it works. The sun impregnates water into which a flower is introduced, creating vibrational water. ½ vibrational water + ½ brandy makes the mother essence (sometimes also called mother tincture.) 7 drops of mother essence in a bottle of 20% alcohol and 60-80% pure water creates a stock concentrate of the flower. (This is what you buy in stores and make your own dosage bottles from.) 2-4 drops of one or more stock concentrates is added to a 30ml bottle filled ¾ of the way up with pure water and then topped up with brandy to make your dosage bottle. Put four drops under your tongue at intervals throughout the day or add them to a small glass of water and sip it. Carry your dosage bottle around with you. Take your essence from it four times a day. Making your own decanted bottle also enables you to use more than one essence at a time. You simply add 4 to 6 drops of each mother tincture to the dosage bottle when preparing it, thereby creating a special mixture just for you. You can also mix your stock concentrate directly into a bottle of spring or distilled water and drink this mixture throughout the day. I like to do this when using the Bach Flower Remedy Crab Apple, which is helpful for detoxifying the body. I take a liter or a liter and a half bottle of pure water, add 6 drops of stock concentrate to it and mix it up, then put it on my desk while I am working, and sip it throughout the day. (Be sure to label each blend you create.) Flower essences work best when taken regularly—say four times a day—as much as possible at around the same times (but don’t get neurotic about this if you can’t.) Whenever you can, take them as you would a homeopathic remedy, in a ‘clean mouth’—at least 20 minutes before eating, or at least a couple of hours after. Take a moment or two each time you take an essence to remember its healing qualities and to give thanks to the flowers from which it comes. This makes you more receptive to what is given. GREAT USES OF ESSENCE DROPPER BOTTLE: Fill a 30ml dropper bottle with ¾ spring water and ¼ brandy. Add 4 drops of flower essence from a stock concentrate bottle. Shake or tap the bottle against your hand several times vigorously before taking to potentize it. Place 4-6 drops of your mixture directly under your tongue. Alternatively, place these drops into a glass of spring water and drink. STOCK DIRECT: Put 4 drops of the concentrated stock essence directly under your tongue. ESSENCE WATER: Place 6 drops of one or more essences from their stock bottles directly into a large container of mineral water or distilled water and drink throughout the day. Swirl the bottle round clockwise before using each time to potentize the water. ESSENCE BATH: Add 25 drops of stock concentrate of essence directly into a warm (not hot) bath. Swish it all around for a minute or so and then soak for at least twenty minutes, topping up the bath with warm water if you start to feel chilly and topping up with cold water if you get too warm. Use this time to expand your consciousness through meditation. It’s a great way to prepare for a blissful night’s sleep. ESSENCE MASSAGE: Add 10 to 12 drops of stock flower essence to your massage oil or face or body creams and then use them as you normally would, directing your intention towards bringing healing and wholeness. You can mix an essence this way with aromatherapy treatments, combining both the vibrational aspects of a flower with the physiological benefits of an essential oil. ESSENCE MISTERS: To a clean 100ml spray bottle of pure water, add 20 drops of stock concentrate flower essence. Shake well before spraying. Spray your face, your body, the air around you while opening your awareness to the flower healing that is being offered. However you choose to use the flower essences, remember that your intention and the compassion that you have for yourself or for another while using them play an important part in receiving their vibrational healing power. Let each time you use an essence be a moment of pleasurable receptivity, where you open yourself to the grace of flower blessings and give thanks for the generosity of spirit they bring to enhance your life.

There are two kinds of sleep: orthodox sleep, which is dreamless - sometimes called `synchronized slow-wave sleep' because of the brain wave patterns that accompany it - and paradoxical sleep, during which dreaming occurs along with rapid eye movement (REM), sometimes called desynchronized sleep. Orthodox sleep is vital for physical restoration of the body while paradoxical sleep is essential to your mental and emotional stability. Research into sleep measured by electroencephalograms has shown that all of us spend our sleep time moving in and out of these two stages in predictable rhythmic patterns. If for any reason these patterns are repeatedly disturbed, we suffer. There are four levels or depths to orthodox sleep. When you fall asleep you move into the first level, characterized by low-amplitude fast-frequency brain wave patterns. Sometimes sleep starts with a sudden twitching movement called a myoclonic jerk. This is the result of a sudden flare-up of electrical activity in the brain, as in a minor epileptic seizure. Then, as you move to level two and even deeper into levels three and four, there is a general slowing of the frequency, and an increase in the amplitude of your brain waves. pure contradiction REM sleep, which is diametrically opposite to orthodox sleep in many ways, is just as vital. It more than earns its name `paradoxical' by being a mass of contradictions: although the body is virtually paralyzed during the REM state, the fingers and face often twitch and the genitals become erect. Breathing speeds up to the level of your normal waking state. Heartbeat rate, blood pressure and temperature rise, and adrenaline shoots through the system. Beneath the lids your eyes move rapidly from side to side as though you were looking at a film or tennis match. And this is exactly what is happening - you are viewing images that come rapidly in succession. Your brain waves in the REM state show a marked similarity to the rapid, irregular patterns of being awake. Although the exact purpose of REM sleep remains a mystery, researchers know that it is essential for maintaining one's mental and emotional equilibrium. The need for paradoxical sleep also varies from one person to another. How much you will need is related both to your personality and your general psychological state. Longer periods of REM sleep and more of them throughout the night take place in times of psychic pain, or when your defense patterns are being challenged by new demands. Women tend to have increased REM sleep during the three or four days before the beginning of a period. For most women this is a time of increased anxiety, irritability, mood changes, and unstable defense patterns. But there is a lot that is not known about the function of paradoxical sleep. Well-known French researcher Michel Jouvet, who has done extensive studies of the REM state in animals and their unborn young - in which it occurs as well - believes it is a kind of practice of the genetic code in which lower animals run through their instinctive behavior patterns. In mammals and man, he thinks, it is a time when we are probably practicing our learned behavior, as each night we go through the process of integrating new information with the knowledge we already have. Normally you fall asleep and remain for a short time at level one and two, and then plunge into levels three or four to stay there for seventy to one hundred minutes. At that point comes your first period of REM or paradoxical sleep when dreams begin. This dream period of REM lasts only ten to twenty minutes. It is repeated again at about ninety-minute intervals throughout the night with orthodox, undreaming sleep in between, culminating in the longest period of REM - usually about half an hour - just before you wake up. During orthodox sleep your body is quiet, heartbeat slows, blood pressure falls slightly, and your breathing gets slower and more regular. Even your digestive system winds down. In the deeper levels of orthodox sleep, brain waves gradually become more synchronized, as if everything is at peace. At such times your body's restorative processes come into their own, rapidly repairing damaged tissues and cells, producing antibodies to fight infection, and carrying out a myriad of other duties necessary to keep you healthy. Without orthodox sleep in all its different stages, this important vegetative restoration does not take place properly and you become more prone to stress-damage, illness, early aging, fatigue and muddled thinking. Orthodox sleep is the master restorer. psychic necessity When scientists disturb sleepers in the orthodox state, they find that deprivation of orthodox sleep doesn't lead to any psychological disturbances. But after being deprived of REM sleep for several days,  sleepers become desperate for it. Their normal sleep patterns alter so that they slip into REM immediately on falling asleep and then experience twenty to thirty periods of it each night instead of the usual three. Psychologists refer to this phenomenon as `REM rebound'. It is often accompanied by fierce nightmares as psychic imagery, too long repressed, seeks strongly to reassert itself. Sleeping pills repress this REM phase, and repression can result in lasting psychological damage to the pill popper. After taking sleep-inducing drugs regularly, when you come off them you may fear you are going crazy as you start to experience the REM rebound. Vivid and frightening hypnagogic images and nightmares appear, as the body hungrily tries to make up for what it has been denied. There are other reasons to steer clear of sleep-inducing drugs too. Both barbiturates and non-barbiturates prescribed for sleep are physically and psychologically addictive - barbiturates to an even greater degree than heroin. They can be fatal, even at low dosage, when mixed with alcohol in the bloodstream. Finally - something that few people realize - they are also not very effective over the long-term. Sleeping pills can be successfully used to bring on sleep only for the first week or two. After that, dangerously increased doses are needed to work. When sleeplessness becomes chronic it can leave you feeling exhausted, hopeless and washed out, in which case something needs to be done about it. Sleeping pills are not the answer. Their side-effects include digestive problems, poor concentration, disorders of the blood and respiration, high blood pressure, liver and kidney troubles, problems with vision, depression, dizziness, confusion and damage to the central nervous system. Using them can even lead to worse insomnia. There are better ways. For many people who rely on sleeping pills, the power of suggestion brought about by putting one in the mouth and swallowing it is far more useful than the drug in introducing sleep. The drug itself can only do harm in the long run, sleeping pills themselves put your body under continual stress. There are safer and more effective ways of getting to sleep using nature's sleep aids. how much sleep? The amount of sleep you need varies tremendously from one person to another. It also varies from one day to the next. There is no truth in the idea that you need eight hours of sleep to stay well and feel energetic. You might need ten hours, while another person gets on very well with four and a half. One study showed that short sleepers tend to be active, outgoing people who are sociable, flexible in their personalities and more conformist socially. Those wanting longer periods of sleep are more introverted and creative and are particularly good at sustained work. Often the more stress-filled your day, the more sleep you will need to balance it. As we get older we tend to sleep less. Many sixty and seventy-year-olds get by on a mere three or four hours a night. Occasionally you meet someone who sleeps as little as half an hour to an hour each night, yet appears to be perfectly normal. The amount of sleep you need depends so much on your biological and psychological individuality that you can't make hard and fast rules about it. Many high achievers and great minds throughout history - Napoleon, Freud, and Thomas Edison, for instance - have been poor sleepers, while others like Einstein could sleep the day away. Many people who consider themselves insomniacs are really victims of general propaganda about sleep rather than true non-sleepers. And many people seek treatment because they can only sleep four or five hours a night, although that may be all they need. Forget insomnia. But the idea that you need a certain amount of sleep each night to stay well is a powerful one. For many people it is so embedded in their unconscious that if they only get seven hours one night instead of eight, they are convinced they will be tired next day and soon develop all the signs of it. If you are one of these people, try re-examining your premises, and experiment - sleep less and see what happens. You may find that how you feel after a certain amount of sleep depends more on your own choice than on the time spent in bed. Try sleeping less for a few days. Many people find when they do, they actually have more energy. Although it is best not to go to bed on a full stomach, some people find it helpful to have a little something before retiring. Some foods help promote sleep because they contain high quantities of the amino acid tryptophan - a precursor to the calming brain chemical serotonin - or because they encourage the conversion of tryptophan to serotonin. Others taken at bedtime can disrupt sleep, because they stimulate or because they contain high quantities of the chemical tyramine, which increases the release of noradrenaline - a brain chemical which excites the nervous system. Find out what bedtime snacks work for you. hydrotherapy Water, applied to your body, can `stress' your system in very positive ways - ways which make you stronger and more resistant to illness and which can increase overall vitality. It can improve biological functioning and provide a healthy mental stimulation which takes you away from the habitualized ways of thinking which can result in boredom, stress, and sleeplessness. Sebastian Kneipp, after whom European hydrotherapy is named, was born in Bavaria in 1821, the poor son of a humble weaver with an ambition to become a priest. While studying for the priesthood he contracted tuberculosis: his physicians pronounced him incurable. But Kneipp was unwilling to accept their judgment. He came across an old book written by a German physician on the curative powers of water and began to experiment on himself by applying water in various ways. This, coupled with a growing awareness of the body's own ability to heal itself in accordance with certain laws of nature, brought him back to full health. He went on to develop hydrotherapy into the remarkable therapeutic and preventative system which bears his name. In a world where the benefits of an invigorating, quick shower are more and more appreciated, it is easy to forget the bliss and the relaxation of a long lazy bath. Water - especially when it has been fortified with plant essences - has the power to soothe, heal and relax a tense body, to lift a fatigued spirit, and to put you in just the right frame of mind for sleep.  See A benevolent bath. Several herbs act as safe and natural tranquilizers which can help relax your mind and body for sleep. One of the most popular is passionflower, or passiflora; others include hops, valerian root and skullcap. You can swallow them in pill or capsule form or make a herbal tea night cap. The classic bedtime herbal tea is chamomile, or you could try a tablespoon of orange flower water stirred into a cup of hot water with a little honey. See Herbal help. You've counted a hundred sheep, told yourself to relax, tried the left side, the right side, the back, the front, turned the light back on, read your book, done the crossword, turned the light off again and still you're wide awake. Your mind is racing. So why lie there and let it? Rather than try to block all your thoughts out of your head, face them. See Write It Out.

YOU NEED MINERALS Your body cannot make minerals. It has to take them in, in a good balance, from the foods you eat. In addition to nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus, it requires magnesium, manganese and calcium, selenium, zinc, copper, iodine, boron, molybdenum, vanadium and other elements—many as yet undiscovered—to stay healthy. These elements need to come from the foods you eat. Generally they do, when foods are grown organically in healthy, traditionally fertilized soils. But they are increasingly missing and unbalanced in the foods we buy today thanks to our legacy of chemical farming. High-tech farming methods have destroyed so much of the organic matter in our soils that fruits and vegetables no longer contain a good quantity of minerals and trace elements. Commercial food processing wipes out most of what’s left. Buy organically grown fruits and vegetables whenever you can. Herbs can help redress the balance. Take dandelion, for instance. Dandelion is rich in iron, silicon, magnesium, sodium, potassium, zinc, manganese, copper and phosphorus in an unbeatable synergistic balance. Put dandelion leaves in your salads. Drink dandelion tea often. It will help restore your body’s lost minerals, and you will also be getting an extra dose of vitamins A, B, C and D in the bargain. DRINK THE DANDELIONS Dried dandelion root is easy to come by—you can even find it in tea bags and is one of the great mineral supplements. Or you can dry your own and grind it in a coffee grinder or pestle and mortar. DANDELION TEA HERE’S HOW Use 2-3 teaspoons of dried dandelion root to one cup of water. Simmer it in a pan for fifteen minutes. Strain. Drink as much as three cups a day. GIFTS FROM A HORSE’S TAIL Silica is another essential trace element. Our daily requirement for it is high, at 20-30 mg. Unless we eat organically grown food, we simply don’t get enough—often not even when we do. Silica binds to minerals needed for strong nails, hair, and bones, making them available to our bodies. It is also essential to the production of our skin’s connective tissues—collagen and elastin. The delicate horsetail plant is one of the world’s earliest forms of plant life, and one of the richest sources of bioavailable silica you will find anywhere. Horsetail also boasts an amazing 15 other minerals and is a good source of bioflavonoids too. Drink horsetail tea as often as three times a day. HORSETAIL TEA—HERE’S HOW Put 2 teaspoons of the dried plant in a tea pot. Pour a cup of boiling water over it and allow it to infuse for 15-20 minutes. Strain, and drink. Be patient when learning to use the plant powers. Remember, it may have taken years for your body to become depleted in essential minerals and trace elements. A few weeks of herbal help is not so long to wait to restore your nails, hair, skin and body as a whole to a healthy balance. Besides, it is so much fun to learn to use plant power. The gifts these humble plants offer us are worth their weight in gold, and the plants are everywhere—just asking us to get to know them and use them.