integrative health

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

Below you will find a list of good sleep foods and bad sleep foods. good sleep foods Bananas Figs Dates Yogurt Tuna Wholegrain Crackers Nut butter Turkey bad sleep foods Caffeine Alcohol Sugar Cheese Chocolate Sauerkraut Bacon Ham Sausage Aubergine Potatoes Spinach Tomatoes

For ten years I was a vegetarian—a way of eating for which I have the highest respect. My vegetarian diet, at times even vegan, helped my body heal damage that had been done to it when I was a kid. I had been raised on junk food before junk food as we know it today even existed: I was never breastfed. I survived on pasteurized cow’s milk mixed with corn syrup, then as soon as I could wield a spoon, Rice Krispies smothered in sugar. Then I feasted on greasy eggs and white toast in truck driver cafés, usually at 5am. For my father was a jazz musician. I traveled with him from one gig to the next from the time I was 4 or 5 years old, not attending school, often covering 200 or 300 miles a day to get to the next job. As a result I was never well. So, in my early twenties, while living in Paris with my three children, I went looking for health help. And I found it. FUNDAMENTAL RESEARCH I researched the work of gifted British doctor Sir Robert McCarrison, who initiated the first epidemiological investigations into the relationship between diet and the development of disease. I investigated the theories and practices of Max Bircher-Benner MD, creator of the world famous Bircher-Benner clinic in Zürich. There, for almost a century, people suffering from chronic degenerative conditions went to have their lives transformed by changing the way they lived and ate. Bircher-Benner’s work had changed the eating habits of hundreds of thousands by the end of the 19th century, by teaching people to eliminate white bread and meat, and to eat a balanced diet of raw vegetables, fruits and nuts. I was fortunate enough several times to visit the clinic which, for 40 years after his death in 1939, was run by his niece—the charismatic Dagmar Liechti-von Brasch MD. She and I became good friends. At the clinic I learned the principles of good vegetarian eating from Bircher-Benner’s son, Ralph, whose job it was to look after the publications that flowed forth from the clinic and were printed in many languages throughout the world. I learned about the powers of natural healing, then put them into practice, changing my own life and improving the lives of my children as they grew up. DIGGING DEEP Meanwhile, I read many books and papers, listened to dozens of lectures from physicians and scientists, and interviewed scores of doctors personally who were involved in the new exciting field of lifestyle medicine. I was impressed by their work and by the work of many others including Dean Ornish MD, director of the Preventative Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, California. Ornish and his colleagues went so far as to measure the effect of comprehensive lifestyle changes on patients with coronary artery disease. These patients were introduced to a meat, fish and poultry-free, ultra-low-fat vegetarian diet of fruits, vegetables, grains, and legumes, coupled with stress management sessions and regular exercise. By the end of a year, over 80% of the patients had experienced regression of their arterial fatty deposits without the use of drugs. During the same year, the control groups of patients, who had no lifestyle intervention, experienced a substantial progression of their illness. Change a person's way of eating and alter their lifestyle, and you can not only largely prevent degenerative conditions, of which overweight is a major one: you can even reverse degeneration after it has occurred. Certainly, a well-designed vegetarian way of eating can play a major role in the process. HERE’S THE RUB Given the surprising benefits that many people—including myself—have experienced from a properly constituted vegetarian way of eating coupled with lifestyle change, why, then, do so many devout vegetarians eventually become ill, obese and disillusioned with this way of eating? The answer to this is likely to surprise you, since so little has been written about it. I have written a lot about Paleolithic man’s way of eating, our genetic inheritance from him and how important it is that, in choosing the foods we eat, we respect this genetic inheritance for the sake of our health, our mental strength and emotional wellbeing. As you know, until the agricultural revolution took place, Paleolithic man was primarily a hunter. He killed his food—be it animal, insect or fish—then gathered whatever plants, nuts, fruits and vegetables were available to him. He ate mostly fat and protein. He would go for long periods between kills, living off his own fat stores. His body handled the processing of the foods he ate primarily in a ketogenic manner—relying on fats, not glucose, to supply him with energy. ENTER THE GATHERERS At the same time, and after the agricultural revolution began, a large number of people became primarily gatherers. The gatherers got most of their nourishment from what grew out of the ground in the form of fruits and vegetables, herbs, nuts and seeds, most of which they ate fresh and raw. Unlike the hunters, who derived their energy from fats, gatherers relied on glucose from their foods to supply their energy. The early gatherers were vegans. Only when man began to domesticate animals and birds so that eggs and milk were available did some of these vegans become vegetarians. To this day, both vegan and vegetarian diets are practiced in certain cultures throughout the world. Some contemporary vegans and vegetarians stay healthy. But it is common knowledge that more and more these days develop deficiency diseases, experience rapid aging and end up with serious chronic diseases. Why? DANGEROUS CONVENIENCE Because the foods most vegetarians and vegans eat now are a far cry from those that our original gatherers collected and consumed. Like more than 90% of today’s omnivores, the majority of vegetarians and vegans have now come to live on denatured, processed convenience foods. Such foods are just as dangerous to vegans and vegetarians as they are to the rest of humanity. Yet the majority of vegetarians and vegans remain completely ignorant of this. They still think that, by not eating animal products, they are protected from all the chronic illnesses that now plague humanity. What’s worse, for a few of these people, vegetarianism has become a religion—a source of self-righteous congratulation which they ignorantly assume sets them above the rest of us human beings. Here’s the secret and bottom line: If you want to thrive as a vegan or vegetarian, you will need to fashion your way of eating as close as humanly possible to the way our gatherer ancestors did. This means saying no to convenience foods. It also means becoming savvy about how to get enough of the nutrients that are low in vegetarian and vegan diets, and making sure you supplement your diet with them. FOLLOW THE GATHERERS When it comes to spring-cleaning the body, following a vegan or vegetarian diet for a period of time can be a great help. This is how Bircher-Benner and the other great physicians who worked with high-raw diets were able to work their healing wonders. BUT... If you decide to follow a vegan or vegetarian way of eating long-term, you must eat as your gatherer ancestors did. I see serious health problems in some vegetarians and vegans I mentor on our Cura Romana programs—yeast overgrowth, cancers, hypothyroidism, diabetes, leaky gut syndrome, anemia, food cravings, and chronic fatigue to mention only a few. Some people cannot manage a vegetarian diet because of enzyme deficiencies. Others have food sensitivities to grains and cereals or milk products, but do not know it because, like almost 99% of non-vegetarians, they are eating masses of convenience foods which none of our bodies can handle. HOW TO BE A HEALTHY VEGETARIAN Stop eating manufactured foods and processed foods, be they cookies, cakes, crackers, soft drinks, packaged salad dressings and other ready-in-a-minute packaged foods. Replace sugar in all its forms with good quality, pure stevia for sweetening. Avoid all chemical sweeteners. Stay away from anything containing high-fructose corn syrup. Read labels carefully. Never drink sodas or diet sodas. Forsake all “white foods” such as white flour, all products made from it, and white rice. Eat only free range and organic eggs. Buy or grow organic vegetables and fruits. Eat your fruits and vegetables in their fresh raw state as often as possible. Use no food additives such as MSG, hydrolyzed vegetable protein or aspartame. They are full of neurotoxins. Avoid all processed vegetable oils made from corn, soy, canola, cottonseed or safflower. Choose only natural oils such as coconut, extra virgin olive oil and butter from grass fed cows. Never drink fluoridated water. Avoid rancid nuts and grains which you find in granolas and elsewhere, as they block mineral absorption and impair good digestion. Never eat sprayed, waxed, irradiated fruits and vegetables or GMO foods—particularly GMO or non-organic soy. Take only food-state supplements, never chemically-made vitamins. Make sure you supplement any vegan or vegetarian way of eating with extra zinc, vitamin B3, iodine, omega-3 oils and vitamin B12. TO LEARN MORE: Crane, Milton G., Sample, Clyde J., Regression of Diabetic Neuropathy with Total Vegetarian Diet, Monograph, Weimar Institute, Weimar, California, USA. Crane, Milton G., Shavlik, Gerald., ‘Newstart’ Lifestyle Program. A Survey of the Results. Monograph, Weimar Institute, Weimar, California, USA. Fraser, G.E. Vegetarian Diets: What do we know of their effects on common chronic diseases? Am. J. Clin. Nur, 2009: 89: 1607S-12S. Lustig, Robert, Fat Chance. The Bitter Truth About Sugar. Fourth Estate/Harper Collins, London, 2013. Ornish, Dean, Reversing Heart Disease, Random House/Century, London, 1991. `Unusual Heart Therapy Wins Coverage From Large Insurer' New York Times, July 28th, 1993.

The biggest mistake I ever made with my health was listening to a dentist who told me I needed a root canal. This damaged my immune system for years and set me on a search lasting more than a decade to figure out what, as a result of allowing a root canal in my mouth, was undermining my health. For the sake of your health, it is important that I share with you what I’ve learned about one of the biggest medical cover-ups in history. “What’s a root canal?” I asked. “It’s a simple procedure for replacing an infected or damaged tooth,” my dentist said. “We clear out the pulp-filled cavity down to the root of a troubled tooth then replace it with an inert material such as gutta percha. Then you won’t have to have your tooth pulled. After cleaning out infected pulp, we sterilize it, seal it and put a crown on the top.” This sounded to me like a benign procedure. After all, I did not want to have my infected tooth pulled, so I agreed. That was many years ago. Since then, I’ve never forgiven myself for swallowing hook, line, and sinker what I was told. It was not until twenty years later that I learned the truth about the root canal procedure and the terrible damage it can do—not only to your mouth, but to the health of your body as a whole. YOU DESERVE THE TRUTH Your dentist will probably tell you that root canal procedures are safe. This is absolutely untrue. And the irony of it all is that he probably doesn’t even know this himself, since the American Dental Association, together with most dental colleges around the world, have been denying dangers implicit in the procedure for generations. World-renowned researcher Weston A. Price performed exhaustive studies, carried out over generations, on the fundamentals of dental infections and their unequivocal links to systemic bodily infections and degenerative diseases. Price never found one root canal-treated tooth that had not become infected and toxic sooner or later. That was way back in the 1920s. Since then, exhaustive research by cutting edge dentists, who were courageous enough to refuse to buy into official party lines, have confirmed Price’s findings over and over again. ANATOMY OF A TOOTH Most people think of their teeth as things separate from the rest of their body. Not so. Every tooth is a living entity, just like the organs and glands in the rest of your body—your stomach, pancreas, thyroid and so on. Each of your teeth is held in your jawbone by its root. Small teeth in the front of your mouth usually have only one root. Your back molars can have as many as three or more. Each tooth has its own nerve supply and blood supply, rising up its main canal into the inner pulp chamber out of which minor canals extend into the surrounding area and outside of the roots. The inner pulp chamber is a porous structure, made up of a fine network of channels known as dentin tubules. These called lateral canals. Your jawbone itself is made up of a richly porous dentin, which holds a complex network of microscopic tubules so numerous that were you to stretch them out to their greatest length, they would extend out to an amazing two or three miles. These tubules are infinitely small, yet wide enough to feed dangerous bacteria and other toxins into the rest of your body. It’s here in the dentin and these tubules that you discover the crux of what can make root canals dangerous. DEAD AND DEADLY Root canal filled teeth are completely dead. No dead tissue should ever be left in your body. Would a surgeon removing a necrotic organ in your body leave pieces of it in your tissues? Absolutely not! Yet this is exactly what happens. Most dentists, still believe that leaving a dead root canal tooth stuck into your jaw is no problem. When endodontists—highly-trained root canal specialists— perform root canal procedures, this is what they do: They clear out all blood vessels, connective tissue, and infected nerves from the pulp chamber. Then they widen and reshape it in preparation to receive the filler substance. And they attempt to create sterility. But here’s the rub: No amount of medications used to sterilize these tubules has ever shown itself capable of sterilization. So there is no way of eliminating bacteria hidden in the dentin tubules. They can harbour masses of bacteria and diseased tissue. And, since the tooth is completely dead—nothing more than a moribund hunk of material—your jaw becomes the ideal place for toxic by-products to be produced. Because a dead tooth’s blood supply and oxygen supply no longer exist bacteria present in the space between the upper gum and the crown of the tooth easily make their way into the porous dentin tubules, not only infecting the area around the dead tooth but your gums as well, causing gingivitis and then periodontitis. ENDLESS PAIN AND FATIGUE I discovered in my own life just how devastating the seepage of pathogenic bacteria and poisonous by-products can be when I discovered that my body was having to work hard to support my immune system. I was suffering with strong pain in areas of my body for which I could identify no apparent cause. I devoted many months to researching the worldwide root-canal cover-up— reading books and interviewing experts. As a result of all I learned, I finally chose to have two root canals removed by a brilliant, Oral & Maxillofacial Surgeon. Within a couple of weeks the horrible pain I’d had to put up with and the endless fatigue had all but disappeared. When pathogenic bacteria travel to other sites in your body, they create serious health problems, such as inflammation, heart disease—even building up plaque in your arteries. Similar to the Clostridium botulinum bacteria which create the hideous toxin associated with botulism, hundreds of other mouth bacteria, deprived of oxygen behave in a similar way. To quote Robert Kulacz D.D.S. and Thoman Levy MD,” “…the oxygen-starved environment of a contaminated vacuum-packed can of food, the harmless bacteria of the mouth will produce similarly potent toxins when trapped in the oxygen stared environment of the dentin tubules of a root canal treated tooth.” Fair warning. But root canal procedures are good moneymakers. And, each year endodontists are in the Western world carry out a mind-boggling 30 to 40 million root canal procedures a year. RESEARCH IT YOURSELF My plea to you is this: please don’t believe what you are told, regardless of how nice your dentist happens to be. Carry out your own research. Discover first hand the truth behind root canal cover-up. It can change your health and your whole life. Read some of the books I have listed below. Contact responsible organizations for information on root canals, such as the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology. Here are books I highly recommend you to read: Dental Infections and the Degenerative Diseases by Weston Price DDS Chronic Fatigue, ME and Fibromyalgia—The Natural Recovery Plan by Dr Alison Adams—and search for cutting edge information on health and teeth on Alison’s websites: www.mouthbodydoctor.com www.thenaturalrecoveryplan.com Roots of Disease—Connecting Dentistry and Medicine by Robert Kulacz D.D.S. and Thomas Levy M.D Root Canal Cover-Up by George Meinig D.D.S  F.A.C.D It’s All In Your Head by Hal A. Huggins D.D.S. M.S. Whole Body Dentistry by Mark A. Brenner and Stephen Sinatra M.D. The Toxic Tooth: How a Root Canal Can Make You Sick by Robert Kulacz DDS Incidentally, Alison Adams is a courageous, knowledgeable and compassionate woman. You can learn a great deal about teeth and whole-body health from watching her videos. Here’s a short one to get started with but there are many more: [video poster="https://xs3.lesliekenton.com/health/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/09/13030523/root-canal-video.jpg" src="https://asset.artemis.cloud/images/articles/original/watch?v=GCf8Hpy9Xqc" ]

Remember how your mother or grandmother used to tell you to make sure you got “lots of bulk”—and that meant eating oatmeal, muffins, and lots of wholegrain bread? Well, they were partly right and they were terribly wrong. Fiber is a vital part of your diet when it comes to promoting health and protecting the body from degeneration. But cereals, whole-wheat and bran muffins are not the way to go. TRUTH ABOUT FIBER What is the way to go? The answer may surprise you. The healthiest source of fiber does not come from wholegrains—which disturb blood sugar, create insulin resistance, and cause leptin resistance, making many people fat. (These things, by the way, have become a major driver in most chronic degenerative diseases.) The best fiber comes from fresh fruits and vegetables, which are full of both soluble and insoluble fiber. Insoluble fiber: This kind of fiber is found in dark green leafy vegetables, green beans, celery, kale and carrots. It’s the kind of fiber that does not dissolve at all, but adds bulk to your stools. It helps other foods you are eating move rapidly through your digestive tract so that elimination becomes healthier and more regular. Soluble fiber: This kind of fiber attracts water and turns to gel during digestion. You find soluble fiber in seeds, peas, nuts, blueberries and other berries, fresh beans and psyllium seeds. Soluble fiber helps slow down your digestion. It makes you feel full for longer. This is important for people who have a tendency to gain weight and to suffer from food cravings. One of the magic things about good quality fiber is that it actually ferments inside. This is wonderful because it releases something called acetate, which travels from your gut to the hypothalamus—the control center in your brain—and there it helps you stop eating more than your body needs. WHAT IS FIBER? Dietary fiber is a biological unit, not a chemical entity such as a vitamin or mineral. We get the best fiber from eating plant foods—beans, seeds, some pulses, fresh raw vegetables and fruits. Using simple sugars contained within, these plants produce a number of carbohydrate polymers. Some of these serve as energy stores for the plants, and are almost completely digested and absorbed in the intestine when we eat them. These are the soluble fibers. Others—the fibrous or viscous polysaccharides and lignins—lend the plants their structure and form, but we cannot digest them. Instead, they pass through the colon intact, where they are fermented to some degree before being eliminated from the body as waste. These indigestible polysaccharides, which make up the cell walls of plants, are known collectively as “insoluble dietary fiber”. They have a variety of other names, too. EACH IS UNIQUE Each kind of fiber behaves differently and has different benefits for the body: From cellulose, which binds water and increases fecal bulk, to pectin—very rich in apples—which is water soluble; hemicellulose, which shares some of cellulose’s characteristics and helps relieves constipation, aids weight reduction, and clears out carcinogens from the bowel; lignin—the woody fiber that you find in raspberries, strawberries, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, kale, parsley and tomatoes—which helps eliminate the wrong kind of cholesterol and bile acids from the intestine; and the gums and mucilages, which are sticky fibers that food manufacturers make good use of as thickening agents in convenience foods. MASSES OF HEALTH BENEFITS When it comes to enhancing your health, protecting you from degenerative conditions and weight gain, the gifts of fiber are many. First, the right kind of fiber—such as acacia fiber, a soluble fiber—is great for helping people with irritable bowel syndrome. Using an insoluble fiber, such as beans or peas, can reduce the risk of diverticulitis by about 40%. All forms of soluble fiber help slow down the rate at which your body absorbs carbohydrates and sugars, helping to clear sugar cravings and aiding weight loss. Fiber is also great for your skin, especially psyllium husks and seeds. These help clear any overgrowth of Candida albicans—fungi and yeasts—from your body, helping to eliminate food cravings and protecting your skin from acne and rashes. A high-fiber diet helps lower your risk of hemorrhoids, which are caused by chronic constipation. A high-fiber diet also reduces the risk of kidney and gallstones, probably because it helps to regulate blood sugar. Research shows that good quality fibers help heart patients live longer. They are also marvelous for curbing the appetite. One of the surprising ways in which they not only do this, but also help protect us from degenerative conditions, is through fermentation. This process in the gut releases acetate, a waste product that has powerful and positive effects on the body. One of the things it does is to transmit information to the hypothalamus in the brain, which regulates your appetite and tells you when you’ve eaten enough. Research indicates that the appetite-suppressing qualities of acetate are excellent. RADIATION PROTECTORS Some of the best protection from radiation—which we’re experiencing more and more in our increasingly polluted environment—comes from fiber. So make use of it to protect yourself from the kind of radiation poisoning that now contributes to degenerative diseases. Seaweed is also one a great source of radiation protection. Studies have shown that alginate in seaweed and kelp products protect an organism from absorbing radioactive elements such as strontium-90 and cesium, both of which are incredibly dangerous to the body. Amongst other things, strontium-90 tends to replace calcium in the bones, leading to bone disease and cancer. Kelp is helpful in protecting against other kinds of environmental pollutants. The fucoidin it contains helps block the absorption of lead and other heavy metals. There is some evidence that, like pectin—the dietary fiber found in good quantities in apples—it can also help remove much heavy metal poisoning from the body from cadmium, aluminum and lead. Putting seaweeds in soups and vegetable dishes, making laverbread, or even taking kelp tablets can all help prevent the buildup of heavy metals in your body. FIBER 101 Governments recommend that we take in somewhere between 10 and 25 grams of fiber a day. Most people only get half of this, or even less. Because I eat 50% to 70% of my foods raw, I take in at least 40 grams a day. What is interesting is this: Research shows that our Paleolithic ancestors as well as tribal cultures, a few of which still exist on the planet, got somewhere between 35 and 60 grams of fiber a day! Aim for 30 to 40 grams of fiber a day and eat lots of vegetable foods. Your body will thrive on it. You will not find any good quality fiber in manufactured and processed foods. I strongly advise you not to eat such foods. Here are some of the vegetable foods and seeds that are excellent sources of fiber. Flax seeds, chia seeds, and psyllium seed husks Vegetables such as broccoli, Brussels sprouts and kale Macadamia nuts and almonds Berries of all kinds Green beans, peas, onions and root vegetables All the fibers listed above have been shown to help the body protect itself from cancer and other forms of degeneration so common in our world—fibroids, endometriosis, Alzheimer’s disease and heart problems. These fibers can also help tremendously to alter the metabolism of excess estrogen in the bowel—so that more of it is excreted and less of it is reabsorbed. I personally eat lots of green vegetables—most of them raw. My favorite source of seed fibers is twofold: Organic chia seeds and organic whole psyllium husks, which deliver both soluble and insoluble dietary fiber. If you have any sort of irritable bowel issues, I recommend acacia fiber. It is a soluble fiber that is very soothing to the gut. GO RAW What is so special about organic raw vegetables? Plenty. They have powerful protective qualities, which is why diets high in fresh green vegetables are recommended as an aid for protecting the body from degenerative diseases: Arteriosclerosis, arthritis and cancer. This is especially true of raw vegetables. Even more important, a diet high in raw vegetables not only provides you with the best quality fiber that you’ll find anywhere. It actually increases the microelectric potentials of your body’s tissues, making your cells function better, improving intra- and extra-cellular exchange, and imparting high levels of mental and physical vitality to your whole being. Fresh organic vegetables are the best source of natural fiber, vitamins and minerals for high-level wellness. I suggest that at least 50% of what you eat each day be made up of raw vegetables with some of the best low-glycemic fruits, such as the berries. Go raw. You won’t regret it. LESLIE RECOMMENDS Apart from all those wonderful green, organic vegetables you can sprout in your kitchen or grow in your garden, the products that I like best providing wonderful sources of fiber are these: Psyllium husks Chia seeds Acacia fiber BEST ORGANIC PSYLLIUM USDA Organic Non-Irradiated Kosher Certified Organic by QAI Certified Organic Plantago Ovata ForssK. Herbal Supplement Buy Organic Psyllium HEATHER’S ORGANIC ACACIA FIBER A medical food for the dietary management of Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Acacia Senegal is a soluble fiber with a clinically proven prebiotic effect. Studies have shown that soluble fiber, as part of the diet, regulates bowel motility (alleviating both diarrhea and constipation), and relieves abdominal pain from IBS. Acacia Senegal's prebiotic effect stimulates the growth of healthy gut flora, which in turn reduces bloating, gas, and bowel irregularities from the digestive dysfunction of IBS. Heather's Tummy Fiber is unique, because it has a good gastrointestinal tolerance and a proven significantly bifidogenic effect. Heather's Tummy Fiber is formulated specifically for the dietary management of IBS. It is 100% Acacia Senegal, and contains no low grade Acacia seyal. It also has no IBS triggers. 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A few days on apples once in a while can eliminate retained water, revive flagging energy, make your skin look wonderful and your eyes shine. The apple fast for detox was taught to me fifty years ago by Dr Gordon Latto, a Scottish medical doctor who used nothing but food and breathing techniques and a few herbs to heal even the most complex and chronic conditions. Eating as much as you want – but only apples – in place of your regular meals, and in between too if you like, for two days cleans your body, helps clear away food sensitivities, and banishes the ravages of unnatural appetite. For two days all you have to do is to eat apples, and nothing but apples. Your body will do the rest. It’s a time to be luxuriously lazy and self-indulgent, to enjoy the process of getting rid of all those wastes you really don’t want hanging around in your system making you look and feel low. No pregnant or breast-feeding woman should do an apple fast: neither should anyone with a kidney, liver or heart complaint, for in such cases any sudden change of diet carries with it potential dangers to health. But if you are generally well, a short apple fast is a great way to clear away the cobwebs. Check with your doctor first if you have any doubts. HEALING DISCOVERY It was the apple which first led the great Swiss physician Max Bircher-Benner to develop his system of treatment based on living foods. Bircher-Benner was himself ill with a liver ailment, which made it virtually impossible for him to digest anything. One day, as he lay in his bed unable to rise or eat, his wife slipped a piece of fresh raw apple between his teeth. He tasted it, and to his surprise he found he could tolerate it. Several days – and many raw apples – later he found himself well again. He never forgot the humble apple or what it could do to detoxify the body and to help restore normal functioning to digestion, cells and the circulation. He used apples regularly in his dietary treatments of obesity and other illnesses. In fact, they formed the basis of his Bircher Muesli, which has become world famous. WEEKEND RETREAT My two day apple fast is designed to be done over a weekend is not even a fast, for you can eat as much as you like – but only apples. The reason the apple fast is done over a weekend is that the process of elimination can use up a lot of energy, so it’s a good idea to do it over two days when you are not working. The apple has long been known as a health tonic, medicine, cosmetic and bowel-regulator all wrapped up in one skin. When eaten, it stimulates the secretion of digestive juices. It contains natural substances that help prevent digestive and liver troubles. Where unsweetened apple juice is the traditional drink among country people, there tends to be no incidence of kidney stones. The simple apple is traditionally used for eliminating obesity, as well as being a folk treatment for skin problems, bladder inflammation, anemia, insomnia, intestinal parasites and bad breath. QUEEN OF CLEANSING The adage ‘an apple a day keeps the doctor away’ is not just an old wives’ tale. The apple is quite rightly known as the queen of fruits. In its natural whole state, it supplies valuable fruit sugar and vitamins in a superb balance to ensure that your body can efficiently digest and use them. The apple is our richest fruit source of vitamin E and also provides a good supply of biotin and folic acid – two B-complex vitamins important in preserving energy, emotional balance and in keeping your digestive system clean and functioning well. It is also a fine source of vitamins A and C, which are both natural antioxidants – powerful anti-agers – not to mention more than a dozen minerals including sulfur, potassium, iodine, silica, magnesium and calcium, and even essential amino acids in small quantities. Apples are low in acidity to help balance stored bodily wastes which tend to be acidic. They stimulate the flow of saliva in the mouth, and clear away debris from the teeth. Eating a raw fresh apple stimulates circulation in the gums too. Finally, apples are rich in a very special form of soluble fiber called pectin which helps to clear out the dangerous heavy metals such as lead and aluminum that we all pick up from our city air, food and water. OUT WITH THE UGLIES Heavy metals in your body are something you want to get rid of. These elements, the concentration of which has increased dramatically in our air, foods and water since the Industrial Revolution, can seriously interfere with your body’s metabolic functioning. Mercury tends to suppress the levels of white blood cells in the immune system. Cadmium displaces the essential element zinc needed for a great many of your body’s enzyme systems, and renders them inefficient and even inactive. In the West we now have a concentration of lead in our bodies some 500-1000 times that of our pre-industrial ancestors. High levels of this heavy metal age us prematurely, interfere with our mental processes, suppress immunity and contribute to depression. Aluminum, another heavy metal, detrimentally affects the central nervous system. The presence of all these elements in excessive quantities (and their concentrations in the human body appear to be increasing with each passing decade) generally interferes with your body’s metabolic processes. The ability of apples to remove heavy metals from your system is one of the best reasons for doing an apple fast, particularly if you live in a city. RADIANT FIBER The fiber that apples contain really is remarkable. In addition to cellulose (the most common kind of fiber, which binds water and increases fecal bulk), the apple is also rich in pectin – a very special kind of fiber with quite exceptional detoxification properties. So different in texture and character is pectin from other forms of fiber that it is sometimes surprising to think that they are classified in the same group. Unlike cellulose, pectin does not bind water, it is water-soluble. It has no influence on fecal bulking, but it appears to be an excellent substance for lowering cholesterol. It may also help eliminate bile acids from the intestines, thus short-circuiting the development of colon cancer and gallstones. It is also useful as a natural chelating (binding) agent which is why it is so good at mopping up unwanted heavy metals, such as aluminum, from the tissues and eliminating them from the body. This can be very important when it comes to detoxification for weight loss. READY SET GO Get yourself a big bag of the freshest apples you can find – perhaps three or four different kinds for variety. If you don’t like the look of your apples you won’t want to eat them, so be picky. Buy a box of apples if you like, your greengrocer might give you a discount. On this pre-cleanse day it is a good idea to get your system ready. Avoid tea, coffee, alcohol and soft drinks. Steer clear of bread and cooked carbohydrates such as pasta and cereals, and make your last meal of the day a large raw salad made of fresh fruits and vegetables. Don’t have anything else to eat after your salad, except perhaps a cup of herb tea before bed. This will give your body a good 12 hours head-start on the elimination process and it will thank you for it. THE APPLE FAST There’s really nothing to it. Over the two days you have chosen, tuck into your apples. Eat as many as you like at any time of the day or night. You must eat the whole apple including the peel, the seeds and the core. Don’t worry about the belief that apple seeds are poisonous. Any expert in natural medicine detox will tell you they are not only perfectly safe but an important part of the cleansing process. Chew well, until the last drop of flavor has been extracted from the fruit. The only part you throw away is the woody stem. You must eat your apples raw. You can munch them whole, or grate them and sprinkle a little cinnamon on top. You can even put them in the blender with spring water to make a drink. Eat nothing else during this two-day period, but eat them whenever you are hungry. Do not drink tea or coffee. You may have a herb tea or two such as peppermint, lemon balm or chamomile with a few drops of the best stevia if you wish. Drink lots of pure filtered water, but nothing else. BLISSFUL RELAXATION Be lazy and luxurious.  During these days indulge yourself doing whatever is pleasurable for you. Many people find their sexuality is heightened during these days. If so, enjoy it. Apples are great to munch in bed. In many ways, the most useful thing about the apple fast is the way you can call on it when you most need help to get you back on the rails again. We all slip up sometimes – we over work or over indulge and live to regret it the next day. A two day apple fast, or even just a day spent eating only apples, is an excellent ‘quick corrector’. Spend even just one day munching apples and it will help set all to rights again, so that when you awaken next morning you feel more like your old self and ready to face the day full of energy. RENEWED VITALITY Apple fasting gives you the chance to step back regularly and take a look at your lifestyle, instead of mechanically going on day after day without being aware of where your energy is going. Set aside two days, three or four times a year – a weekend is best – for an apple fast. This will spring clean your body from the inside out. Even apple fasting for one day a week is a great boost to vitality and good looks, because it helps detoxify your body of wastes accumulated as a result of drinking or eating too much, or consuming the wrong kinds of foods. It can also help calm the ravages of an over-enthusiastic appetite, which many people suffer as a result of food sensitivities or over-stimulation of the digestive system. Furthermore, it is an excellent discipline: such a practice helps you break through ingrained habit patterns, which can make us largely unaware of how we are eating.

Widespread overweight is a relatively new phenomenon. So is adult-onset diabetes, kidney stones, hypertension, coronary heart diseases and cancer of the bowel. Together with many other chronic degenerative ailments, these belong to a group of illnesses now known as Diseases of Western Civilization. These conditions are hard to treat—so hard that, despite all the sophisticated drugs and leading-edge techniques of modern medicine, we have been unable to halt their spread. For, unlike the microbe-generated infectious diseases like typhoid and tuberculosis, Western Diseases are lifestyle-caused. Thanks to pioneering works from scientists such as Sir Robert McCarrison—who did the first epidemiological studies on the relationship between diet and health—and Drs Weston Price, Dennis Burkitt and Hugh Trowell, it is now widely accepted that degenerative conditions including obesity have developed as a direct result of the massive changes that have taken place over the last 150 years in how we live—especially in the way we eat convenience foods. Convenience Foods - NO WONDER WE’RE IN TROUBLE A lot has happened to our foods in the last century to produce this state of affairs. First, they are grown differently than the way our ancestors, for thousands of years, grew theirs. We grow food on chemically fertilized soils in which the organic matter has been degraded or destroyed. Eating foods this way leads to a depletion and imbalance in the minerals and trace elements available to our bodies—both of which we need in good quantities, to support complex metabolic processes on which health and leanness depend. Second, our foods are now highly processed. Raw foodstuffs, instead of being made into meals in home kitchens as they were in our grandparents' time, are sent to food manufacturers where they are fragmented—literally broken apart physically and chemically—then put through complex manufacturing processes to alter them out of all recognition. Third, our foods are shipped over long distances and stored for long periods of time, both of which lower their nutritional value. These modern practices destroy food's wholesomeness—a property very hard to measure, except in terms of the degenerative effects that eating such foods has on our bodies. Destroy a food's wholesomeness and you destroy a food's ability to support the highest levels of health. And once the health-giving integrity of any food has gone, it has gone for good. It can never be compensated for by vitamin and mineral supplements, or by eating cereals to which extra fiber and vitamins have been added. FOOD’S NATURAL STATE Our great-grandparents—whether they were Africans, Indians, Orientals or Europeans—had two important things in common. Their meals were mostly prepared from foods of animal and vegetable origin, and the foods they ate were little processed. They were eaten whole, as closely as possible to their natural state. Such foods form the basis of a way of eating that rejuvenates the body and restores healthy functioning. This kind of eating helps prevent the development of obesity and other degenerative conditions—even if you happen to have inherited a tendency towards them. This way of eating can free people of all ages from much suffering caused by degenerative conditions such as high blood pressure, arteriosclerosis, diabetes, diverticulitis and other Western diseases. FORGIVE YOURSELF NOW There is one more major change that has taken place: today we also swallow a kaleidoscope of chemical colorants, flavorings additives and `enhancers', not to mention pesticides, herbicides and fungicides, which our ancestors never imagined in their wildest dreams. We slurp down chemical pollutants with each sip of our diet cola and every bite of our pre-cooked meals. Such is the Western diet. So next time you upbraid yourself for what you perceive to be your lack of willpower as you reach for yet another biscuit and feel guilty about it, let the guilt go. It does not belong to you. The denatured, degraded, food we eat bears the lion's share of blame for the fat state we find ourselves in, as well as for how hard it is in our culture to stay lean and to remain healthy.

Almost everybody has heard of death curses: psychological literature is laced with accounts of how Aboriginal witch doctors have quite literally brought about the death of the young and healthy by cursing them. No sooner do these people learn of the fate which has been cast for them than they begin inexplicably to sicken and eventually to die. It appears that through complex biological processes, their simple belief in the curse brings about destruction of their organism. modern-day death curses In civilized society we tend to look upon such phenomena as anthropological curiosities - products of primitive superstition which simply don't touch us in our more enlightened age. What we are not aware of however is that many of us in the civilized world are also under our own brand of `death curses'. They may be subtler than those issued by witch doctors but they can be every bit as potent in bringing about the physical and mental decline which we have come to associate with aging. Common (and usually unconscious) notions such as `retirement', `middle-age', `It's all down hill after forty', and `At your age you must start taking things more easily', are widely held. They can exert a powerful effect on the process of aging by creating destructive self-fulfilling expectations about age decline. Instead of facing the future full of confidence and excitement about what lies ahead, optimism is replaced by anxiety as we are warned to `Be careful', or `Don't take chances on a new career at your age.' The list of commonly proffered `sensible' advice is a long one. Such well-meaning suggestions often lead people to make changes in their lifestyle which encourage physical decline - for instance decreasing the amount of exercise they get, altering their eating habits away from fiber-rich natural foods towards `softer' foods, and even decreasing the amount of social and intellectual stimulation they have been used to. Even worse, this kind of advice can undermine your self-image and destroy self-confidence, which in turn interferes with the proper functioning of the immune system which plays such a central role in protecting your body from aging. An essential ingredient in ageless aging is a strong awareness of just how powerfully your emotions, state of mind, and your unconscious assumptions can influence both your susceptibility to illness and the rate at which you age. Once that awareness has penetrated your consciousness then you can begin to make use of some simple and pleasant mind-bending techniques in aid of ageless aging. mind-body connections The notion that your state of mind can influence your health and the rate at which you age was once something which had to be taken on faith. Now it is not only being scientifically proven, it is even being put into effective practical use thanks to a rapidly developing scientific discipline with a tongue-twisting name: psychoneuroimmunology (PNI). PNI has discovered that your body's immune system, that bulwark of defense, is undeniably affected by your unconscious assumptions, your emotional states and your behavioral patterns. They can lead either to an increased resistance to aging or to an increased susceptibility to degeneration and illness. In simple terms the happier you are, the better you feel about yourself and the more positive are your expectations about the future, the more likely you are to age slowly and gracefully and the less likely you are to fall prey to degeneration and illness of whatever sort - from a common cold to a life-threatening disease. No area of ageless aging is more fun to explore than this one. I always think of its positive side as `Zorba the Greek' consciousness. It can make possible the most amazing physical and mental feats by quite ordinary people living quite ordinary lives. Take the man who is able to work eighteen hours a day, drink whisky by the tumblerful, dance on tables until the early hours of the morning and still live to be 110 thanks to the sheer joy of his experience of life. I have seen it too amongst saints and holy men who carry out their day-to-day activities, from writing letters to peeling potatoes, in a state of bliss - samadhi. Take a look at their superbly unlined faces. They could as easily be thirty as seventy. Psychoneuroimmunologists are working to find out why. So new is the PNI discipline (the name was only coined in 1981) that the average physician is unlikely even to have heard of it. But so profound and wide-reaching are the consequences of its findings that they threaten to revolutionize medical theory about the origins and development of degeneration. Research into psychoneuroimmunology is already describing the pathways through which mind and body are inextricably bound together. These pathways include neurological connections linking glands and organs with the brain, the antioxidant system and the blood, thanks to hormonal secretions triggered by thought patterns and emotions and - most important of all - via the immune system. PNI researchers have discovered for instance that several kinds of lymphocytes involved in your body's immune response carry receptors which recognize hormones found in the brain that alter mind and mood. They have also found that some of these neurotransmitters or peptide hormones stimulate T-cells to produce more lymphokines such as interferon while others have the opposite effect. In fact listening to leading PNI researchers talk about mind-body connections makes you realize there is probably no state of mind which is not faithfully reflected by a state of the immune system. beyond psychosomatic consciousness Western medicine has long acknowledged that emotional states such as anxiety and depression can make a limited number of illnesses worse. These include asthma, diabetes, peptic ulcer, ulcerative colitis, migraine and cardiovascular problems. But until the advent of PNI it has paid little attention to examining the nature of their psychological components nor has it explored ways and means of improving these conditions by altering a patient's mental state or behavioral patterns. Meanwhile it has almost completely ignored possible psychological components in the vast majority of other illnesses - from lung disease and cancer to rheumatism and allergic reactions - treating them instead as pure physiological occurrences little affected by whether the patient experiencing them felt good or bad in himself. This is mostly because Western medicine, bound by the Cartesian notion of a split between mind and matter, has failed to consider the people it treats as psychobiological units - total beings whose feelings, thoughts, expectations and perceptions are intimately bound to their physiology and biochemistry. Happily this is now changing in no small part thanks to a few visionary scientists who began asking some penetrating questions. Why for instance do some people who smoke forty cigarettes a day for twenty years end up with lung cancer while others following exactly the same pattern don't? The first, most obvious answer is that the former have an hereditary disposition to the disease. True, genetics are important, but these scientists found that they were by no means the whole answer. A large and very important piece of the puzzle was still missing. So they began to look at psychological factors. let go and live longer In a pioneering study carried out over twenty years ago, Scottish researcher Dr David Kissen examined more than 1000 Glaswegian industrial workers suffering from respiratory complaints. Before diagnosing them he gave each man a psychological test designed to delineate personality patterns. He came up with some quite fascinating and highly significant results. He discovered that those who were later found to have cancer showed a striking inability to express their emotions. Intrigued by Kissen's study and other similar investigations which suggested that emotional repression was an important component in the development of cancer, two doctors, R.L. Horne and R. S. Picard, at the Washington University School of Medicine in the United States, decided to carry out an in-depth study of the psychosocial risk factors in lung cancer as measured on a psychological scale developed from the findings of previous studies including Kissen's. They confirmed that emotional repression was indeed the central component of a complex personality pattern which led to the development of the disease. In fact, so important were the relationships between psychological states and the development of lung cancer which they uncovered that the two researchers found they could predict with an amazing 73 per cent accuracy which men had cancer and which men had simple lung disease, from psychological testing alone. They discovered that cancer sufferers, because of their emotional repression, tended to find great difficulty coping with life's challenges and sorrows. After losing an important relationship such as a job or a wife the cancer victims often suffered profound depression for from six to eighteen months before the discovery of the illness. These findings have been confirmed by others. mind and biochemistry Similar studies linking other psychological factors to other diseases, including infections, arthritis, allergies and premature aging, have also recently appeared. One of the best known is that done by Meyer Friedman and Ray Rosemann which demonstrated that what they called `type A behavior' - a behavior pattern characterized by a fierce and unrelenting struggle to do ever more things in less time against harsh competition - appears to cause a number of bodily changes predisposing one to coronary heart disease. They include alterations in blood-fat and blood-sugar levels, changes in circulation and increased levels of the hormone noradrenaline. And each disease is beginning to appear to have its own collection of psychological characteristics. Studies have now established that psychological factors are primary determinants in a host of illnesses while in others psychological factors appear to interact with biological ones determining whether disease tendencies, initiated either by heredity or your environment or both, will in fact turn into degeneration or whether your body will be able to fight them off. But how does it all work? Through what physiological mechanisms do emotional repression in the case of cancer, a frustrated power drive in the case of high blood pressure, and all the various other psychological and behavioral traits linked with their illnesses help create their respective illness and age decline? Perhaps even more important, once one can find these physiological mechanisms how can we make use of them first to prevent aging and even perhaps to reverse some of its processes once they have occurred? The key to both questions appears once again to lie in the immune system. mysteries of mind and immunity The immune system has two major branches, each with its own particular kind of defense cells or lymphocytes. It also includes other less important factors such as large scavenger-type cells called macrophages which gobble up antigenic material. The first branch confers on your body what is known as cell-mediated immunity and is responsible for about half of your body's resources for defense. It is centered around T-cell leucocytes - warrior cells produced in the thymus which battle the thousands of potentially lethal organisms, cancer inducing ultraviolet radiation from the sun and toxic chemicals from our highly industrialized environment. T-cells also produce a group of hormone-like substances such as interferon. They are called lymphokines and are considered the immune system's natural drugs. Some are poisonous to foreign tissue, others trigger white blood cells to keep an immune reaction going. The second branch of the immune system offers humoral-mediated immunity. It relies on what are known as B-cell lymphocytes, which produce antibodies specific to whatever invaders the body is being challenged by. B-cells are carried in the blood. They can combine with antigens in the body and neutralize them or they can coat them, making it simple for white blood cells to destroy them. The actions of both T and B cells are mediated through the thymus gland - often called the master gland of immunity. As we have seen, the rate at which you age appears to be very much influenced by the function of the thymus gland and the state of the immune system which it governs. It has also been well established that immune functions can be disrupted or depressed by such things as malnutrition, free radicals, infection and certain drugs. Recent research shows too that lymphocytes from people suffering from all kinds of stress and from grief, say after the death of a close relative, have a markedly decreased ability to rise to the occasion when challenged by antigens threatening the health of the body. What psychoneuroimmunologists are now trying to explore in experiments with animals and in studies of people are the pathways between brain and body through which this occurs - to delineate the means by which mind affects immunity both as a result of direct input from the brain and the indirect influence of hormones associated with specific emotional states and personality patterns. stress and immunity One of the questions currently being most seriously investigated by PNI researchers is how biological changes associated with stress diminish immune response and increase susceptibility to illness. Stress of any kind triggers the `fight or flight response' - a matrix of hormonal reactions designed to prepare the body for action. Adrenaline is released, for instance, and corticosteroid hormones from the adrenal glands. They in turn trigger other hormonal reactions. PNI researchers have now found that within fifteen minutes of its hitting the bloodstream even a small dose of adrenaline challenges the immune system and triggers the release of lymphocytes. It also inhibits the function of mature white blood cells needed to ward off invasion. Other studies have shown that the corticosteroids can also seriously depress immune functions and increase your susceptibility to disease. They inhibit the functions of both lymphocytes and macrophages and they undermine the ability of lymphocytes to reproduce themselves in the body. In fact if stress is prolonged enough and the levels of corticosteroids become high enough in the body they even cause a withering away of lymphoid tissue altogether. At St Luke's Medical Center in Chicago, Dr Richard Shekelle headed a research project which examined death certificates of more than 2000 men who had been tested psychologically for depression and other emotional states seventeen years before. He found that the death rate of men who had been very depressed at the time of testing was twice that of the rest. One of the most widely held theories about cancer states that each of us develops small malignancies all the time in our body but that these are rapidly destroyed in a healthy person thanks to the actions of the immune system. If, however, you have strong feelings of helplessness or depression this can result in elevated corticosteroid levels and other changes which impede your immune system from doing its proper job and rejecting the cancer cells before they can take hold. pni alters paradigms The mind-body links which PNI research is uncovering are beginning to have far-reaching consequences, consequences which ultimately will go far beyond helping people avoid life threatening diseases and slow the aging process. There is a strong resonance to be found between PNI and much of the new physics which is busily exploring the view that the observer is essential to the creation of the universe just as the universe is creator of the observer. As Nobel laureate Roger Sperry has said, `Current concepts of the mind-brain relation involve a direct break with the long-established materialist and behaviorist doctrine that has dominated neuroscience for many decades. Instead of renouncing or ignoring consciousness the new interpretation gives full recognition to the primacy of inner conscious awareness as a causal reality.' It is a causal reality that you can begin using to your advantage right now. For just as prolonged unmitigated stress, depression and anxiety can suppress immune functions, a positive frame of mind and a sense that you can cope with whatever comes your way offers potent protection against illness and age-degeneration. At Beth Israel Hospital, another researcher, Dr Stephen Locke, has used psychological tests to evaluate students' abilities to cope with the shocks and challenges of their lives. He has found that the `poor copers' - those who tend to succumb to anxiety, depression and a sense of helplessness when life difficulties arise - show suppressed immune functions, while the `good copers' - people who feel they can deal effectively with whatever comes their way - had normal immune functions even when faced with major life changes. Meanwhile in a well controlled study of women suffering from breast cancer who underwent mastectomy, British researcher Dr Steven Greer discovered that women who react to their diagnosis with a denial that they are ill or with a determination to conquer the illness are far more likely five years later to be free of the disease than those who stoically accepted the diagnosis or who felt hopeless or helpless. making immunity work for you What can you do, starting right now, in the way of using your mind as a tool for ageless aging? You can begin by exploring the benefits of mind/body techniques which can help alter your mental attitudes and emotional states from negative to positive and therefore encourage good immune functions and hence slow down the rate at which you age. There are many. Dr Herbert Benson of Harvard Medical School developed the simple meditative technique, called the relaxation response, which consists of sitting with your eyes closed for fifteen or twenty minutes morning and night and repeating a single word - say `one' or `peace' - over and over again silently. Practiced regularly it will not only counter the immunesuppressing tendencies of stress but even bring about major psychological shifts in belief systems that can gradually change a self-defeating `poor coper' into an optimistic `good coper'. Contrary to popular opinion only 2 or 3 per cent of old people are institutionalized because of psychiatric disorders. Neither do the vast majority of old people have memory defects. Most people over sixty-five continue to be interested in sex, and sexual relations continue well into the eighties between healthy men and women. Studies made of morale and happiness amongst the elderly show no difference between their enjoyment of life and that of younger people. People over sixty-five have fewer accidents per person driving than do younger drivers. They also have fewer accidents at work. The majority of old people are not set in their ways although it does take them longer to learn something new than the young. Studies show that few old people suffer from boredom. Neither are they socially isolated or lonely. More than 10 per cent of old people work and two-thirds of those who don't would like to. Finally old people are seldom irritated or angry. This has been determined by three separate studies. visualize age anew Becoming aware of false assumptions about aging is a good first step. The next is to create a new vision of what it means to have time passing. Make use of creative visualization techniques where in a state of relaxation you allow your mind to play on positive images of yourself five, ten, thirty years from now. There are some excellent books available on the subject which you can use as a guide. But really the technique is very easy. It is only a matter of letting yourself indulge in positive daydreaming. Or practice a meditation or deep-relaxation technique a couple of times a day and finish off by repeating silently to yourself Coue's formula for personal growth and healing, `Every day in every way I am getting better and better.' It is exquisitely simple yet enormously powerful when practiced daily in a deeply relaxed state so that it is your imagination rather than your will which is brought into play. affirm youth and well-being Another simple technique which has real power for altering unconscious expectations and creating new realities is that of writing out `affirmations' - seven times seventy - for a week or two. This can be something as simple as `I am well and will continue to be so as the years pass' or `I let go of past confusion and day by day make my life anew.' The mere act of writing out such words over and over for several days helps break through old thought patterns and negativity that may be hampering you from realizing your full psychobiological potentials. You might be surprised at how quickly they penetrate your consciousness and bring about positive shifts in expectations and in your reality. For they can generate positive mental states and emotions and make them your common everyday experience of reality. And, just as PNI researchers have been discovering, it is the simple positive experiences and emotions like love, hope, faith, laughter, playfulness and creativity which can not only make life worth living, they can actually keep us alive, youthful and well. As effective as massive doses of antioxidant nutrients, fresh-cell therapy and all the other biological methods of age retardation available to you? Very probably. Besides they'll cost you absolutely nothing but a smile.

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 ]