Heal and Soothe Stomach Ulcers without Drugs

(NaturalNews) Stomach ulcers are small holes or sores in the gastrointestinal tract which affect millions of Americans every year. The most common major symptom of an ulcer is a burning or gnawing feeling in the stomach area that lasts from half an hour up to three hours. Usually, the pain occurs in the upper abdomen, but may sometimes occur below the breastbone. Fortunately, there are several natural remedies which can heal and soothe stomach ulcers without the risk of mainstream drugs.

Appetite and weight loss are also common symptoms of ulcers. Other symptoms which may occur include recurrent vomiting, black stool, blood in the stool and anemia. Often ulcer pain is misinterpreted as heartburn, indigestion or hunger. A person with duodenal ulcers may experience weight gain due to eating more to ease discomfort.

Also known as peptic ulcers, stomach ulcers are caused by the destruction of the gastric or intestinal mucosal lining of the stomach by hydrochloric acid, an acid normally present in the digestive juices of the stomach. Infection from the bacterium Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) is thought to play an important role in causing both gastric and duodenal ulcers. H. pylori may be transmitted from one person to another through contaminated food and water.

Chronic use of anti-inflammatory medications, such as aspirin, is another major cause of ulcer. Cigarette smoking is also an important cause of ulcer formation and can contribute to ulcer treatment failure.

Following are some of the best natural remedies for healing and soothing stomach ulcers:

* One of the very best home remedies for ulcers is eating raw cabbage. Juicing the raw cabbage will make it easier to take and mixing it with carrots in the juicer will make it better tasting. Drink half a cup before each meal and at bed time and make sure that it is fresh. Your ulcer may be gone in only a few weeks.

* Eat at least three bananas a day. These fruits contain an antibacterial substance that inhibits the growth of ulcer-causing H. pylori. Studies show that animals fed bananas have a thicker stomach wall and greater mucus production in the stomach, which helps build a barrier between digestive acids and the lining of the stomach. Eating plantains is also helpful.

* Cayenne pepper is wonderful for healing ulcers as well as dulling the pain. It is a bit strong and may take some getting used to at the outset. Start with one-eighth teaspoon of cayenne pepper in a glass of water twice a day and work up to a quarter-teaspoon. You can also take cayenne capsules that you can get at the health food store. Take three a day immediately after meals.

* The bark of slippery elm soothes the mucous membranes that line the stomach and duodenum. It is often taken in powdered form. Some herbalists recommend taking a teaspoon of powdered slippery elm bark added to one cup of warm water three times a day.

* Colloidal silver helps kill the H. pylori bacteria and helps heal injured stomach tissues.

* Raw honey soothes and reduces inflammation of the lining of the stomach and is good for healing as well.

* Garlic's antibacterial properties include fighting H. pylori. Take two small crushed cloves a day.

* Plums and other red and purple colored foods such as berries inhibit the growth of H. pylori.

* Coconut oil kills the bacteria that cause ulcers and gas, but it's mostly a long-term remedy.

A few other good ulcer remedies are: raw goats' milk, barley water, aloe juice, propolis capsules, licorice root or marshmallow root.

Sources included:

http://www.mamashealth.com/Stomach.asp
http://www.treelight.com/health/nut...
http://health.howstuffworks.com/hom...
http://www.tbyil.com/Ulcers.htm

Cholesterol drugs raise diabetes risk

(NaturalNews) A recent report out of the University of Glasgow has revealed that popular cholesterol drugs like Crestor and Lipitor are responsible for increasing user risk of developing diabetes. Published in the journal Lancet, the report quantifies the severity of the side effect for which doctors and researchers have only recently become aware.

The report analyzed 13 different studies about statin drugs, one of which showed a 25 percent increased risk in developing diabetes in those who take AstraZeneca's Crestor. That company funded study and others were aggregated together to arrive at the 9 percent statistic for the entire pool of statin drugs. Over 90,000 patients were evaluated in the various studies.

According to David Preiss, lead researcher of the Lancet study, the benefits gained from taking statin drugs far outweigh their risks. For every 1,000 patients that take a statin drug for a year, one of them develops diabetes while five other avoid heart attack and death. He believes such a statistic validates the safety and effectiveness of statin drugs.

"Even though there is a slight risk more than what we knew before, it's still a reassuring message," he stated in a phone interview with BusinessWeek. "We're not talking a huge risk at all, and what we don't want people to do is take this as a sign to stop taking statin therapy."

In a follow-up editorial to the study, Chris Cannon, a cardiologist from Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, suggested that patients taking statin drugs might benefit from using blood-sugar monitoring devices throughout their course of therapy. He believes patients should regularly be evaluated by their doctors to verify that statin drugs are benefitting them and encourages patients to continue using what he called "this life-saving class of drugs".

Despite all their reassurances about the safety of statin drugs, the alleged "life-saving class of drugs" can cause a host of serious negative side effects. In addition to things like nausea, diarrhea, and irritability, statins lead to much more serious problems like liver and kidney failure, nerve damage, amnesia, and the destruction of CoQ10 in the body.

Drug companies rake in more than $34 billion a year from statin drugs so it is no wonder that the damage control brigade is out in full force to defend statins against studies that paint them in a not-so-good light. Educated individuals will continue to supplement with things like cod liver oil that are rich in omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin C, non-irradiated cinnamon, and other nutrients that naturally keep cholesterol levels in check.

Sources for this story include:

http://www.businessweek.com/news/20...

http://www.webmd.com/cholesterol-ma...

Bananas, Raisins and Bran: Let Your Diet Lower Your Blood Pressure

(NaturalNews) High blood pressure afflicts over 74 million Americans. The cause of high blood pressure, or HBP, is not known in many cases, but diet and exercise have been shown to help reduce blood pressure and improve quality of life. Raw fruits and vegetables can help alleviate many of the symptoms of high blood pressure, and specific foods have been shown to have a more dramatic action on reducing blood pressure. Daily exercise is also an important tool in maintaining a healthy heart.

Bananas Lower Blood Pressure
Research has shown that two bananas a day can lower blood pressure. A study conducted in 1997 concluded that 5 bananas a day had the same effect as blood pressure lowering drugs. Research conducted in India in 1999 showed that two bananas a day lowered blood pressure by 10%. Study subjects at the Kasturba Medical College in Manipal ate two bananas a day for one week to achieve this level blood pressure lowering action from the bananas.

Salt Raises Blood Pressure
The American Heart Association suggests a diet with less than 1,500 mg of salt a day. Raw fruits and vegetables contain very low amounts of salt compared to processed or canned foods. When eating canned foods, rinsing the foods can help eliminate some of the salt added in food processing.

Potassium
Foods containing potassium can offset salt intake, as sodium and potassium work together in the body to help lower blood pressure. The daily recommended intake of potassium is 4,700 mg a day. This averages out to about 5 servings of vegetables or fruits each day.

Raisins Lower Blood Pressure
Raisins are a good source of potassium, as well as iron, and provide a nutritious way to lower blood pressure. Raisins contain a quarter of the daily requirement of potassium and low amounts of salt. A serving of raisins has 1,400 mg of potassium and only 50 mg of sodium.

Wheat Bran Contains Fiber and Lowers Blood Pressure
Wheat bran is another excellent source of potassium and a good food to help lower blood pressure. Wheat bran has over 1,100 mg of potassium per serving. Bran also contains fiber and research has shown that fiber lowers blood pressure. Adding fiber to the diet also helps improve digestion, aids elimination, and reduces high levels of cholesterol in the blood.

Alcohol Raises Blood Pressure
Research has shown that drinking alcohol can raise blood pressure. A study published in the "Journal of Human Hypertension" showed that alcohol consumption raises blood pressure and damages the blood vessel walls as well.

http://www.naturalnews.com/028206_b...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2...
http://www.weightlossforall.com/pot...
http://www.glycemic-index.org/high-...

Milk thistle herb protects liver from damage caused by chemotherapy

(NaturalNews) The herbal supplement milk thistle may prevent liver damage in people undergoing chemotherapy, according to a new study conducted by researchers from Columbia University Medical Center and published in the journal Cancer.

Researchers conducted the study on 50 children undergoing a "maintenance" round of chemotherapy for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), a type of blood cancer. Approximately two-thirds of all children undergoing treatment for ALL usually develop liver toxicity during their treatment, presenting doctors with the choice between scaling back the treatment and risking a resurgence of the cancer, or continuing with treatment unaltered and risking permanent liver damage and lifelong health complications. There is currently no known way of preventing liver toxicity in chemotherapy patients.

Study participants were assigned to take either a milk thistle pill or a placebo capsule for one month. At the start of the study, all 50 children were suffering from liver inflammation due to prior rounds of chemotherapy. By the end, children taking milk thistle had significantly lower levels of two liver inflammation markers than children taking a placebo.

Milk thistle has been used for more than 2,000 years as an herbal treatment for liver and gallbladder problems. Although researchers have looked for evidence that the herb might help prevent or even treat liver damage in people with hepatitis or cirrhosis, results have been inconclusive.

However, recent studies suggest that milk thistle contains an active antioxidant known as silybin that might help block toxins from breaching cell walls.

Milk thistle supplements are already sold over the counter. Striking a cautionary note, however, senior researcher Kara M. Kelley noted that further research is needed before the plant can be recommended as a treatment. She advised against patients self-medicating with milk thistle, noting that all patients undergoing treatment for cancer should always check with their doctors before taking any new kinds of supplements.

Sources for this story include: abcnews.go.com.

listen to your body's informative symptoms

listen to your body and understand what it's really trying to tell you.

In medicine, the word "symptoms" is thrown around as if it were something bad. Doctors talk about the "symptoms of disease" and then they prescribe chemicals to suppress those symptoms. If you have pain, they prescribe painkillers. If you have high blood pressure, they prescribe chemicals to artificially lower blood pressure.

This practice of detecting and then suppressing symptoms is called "mainstream medicine."

But what if that entire approach were wrong? What if symptoms were gifts rather than curses? What if the messages they were sending actually contained important information about your health?

That's exactly what you're about to learn here (if you don't already know this, that is): Symptoms are messengers... cries for help from your body. And learning how to listen to those messages rather than suppressing them may be the key to unlocking your greatest health potential.

Medications dull your body and mind

Conventional medical doctors have been trained that symptoms are things to be suppressed, negated or destroyed. These doctors don't consider symptoms to be a holistic part of your healing experience, but that's in fact exactly what they are.

If you sprain your ankle playing frisbee, for example, your body sends you a pain message. This message contains important information: "This tissue is injured. Do not use it until it is repaired." If you heed the message, you will allow your ankle time to heal. Once it's healed and safe to use again, the pain will disappear. It is now safe to put weight on your ankle again.

In this context, pain is an intelligent regulator of your activities. It can direct you to avoid further injury. But pain killers dull the pain and artificially block the pain messages. They allow you to keep playing on an injured ankle to the point where you are likely to cause further injury, resulting in even more suffering and perhaps permanent damage that cannot be healed.

That's why pain is something to be listened to, not ignored. But pain isn't the only messenger you'll want to pay attention to...

What your skin and nails are telling you

Your skin is also a messenger. What's happening with your skin is a reflection of what's happening with your internal organs. If you have acne on your face, for example, you have much the same thing happening in your digestive tract. Facial acne is a sign to clean up your diet, eliminate all animal products for a while (dairy, meat, etc.) and detox with a plant-based diet.

If your skin is dry, itchy or flaky, it's a sure sign that you're deficient in omega-3 fatty acids and possibly some other key vitamins or nutrients. Increase your intake of omega-3s through fish oils, marine oils or plant-based sources like chia seeds, and add superfoods to your diet to cover any vitamin deficiencies you may have.

Your fingernails can tell a lot about your health, too: Misshapen or discolored fingernails point to chronic nutritional deficiencies in minerals and certain vitamins. If your fingernails have ridges, cracking, discoloration or any other symptoms, get yourself to a naturopathic physician right away. Fingernails, you see, indicate what's going on with the rest of your body because your nails are, of course, grown out of your body. If you have nutritional deficiencies or chronic organ problems, they will be revealed in your nails.

Your tongue can tell a wealth about your health, too. Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioners use tongue diagnosis (and pulse diagnosis) to assess symptoms and clues about what's happening with your internal organ health. Tongue diagnosis is remarkably accurate: A tongue that's discolored, has a layer of mucous, has deep ridges on the sides or other non-healthy characteristics directly indicates problems with your liver, kidneys, heart, lungs or digestive tract.
If you're curious about this, seek out a TCM practitioner for a tongue and pulse diagnosis. Sadly, American TCM practitioners have a watered-down approach where they are afraid to offer any medical diagnosis for fear of being arrested by state medical authorities, but in China, an experienced TCM practitioner can tell you more about your health from a simple diagnosis than you would typically learn from an MRI.

What goes in must come out

To pay even closer attention to your body's symptoms, observe what's coming out of your body:

• Do you have body odor? If so, your diet is unclean. Too much milk, butter and meat.

• Does your breath smell bad? Same problem: Unclean diet or poor digestive health.

• Are your stools too hard, too soft or not healthy looking? Check with a naturopath -- the health of your stools indicates the health of your digestion.

• Does your urine smell strange? It will after eating asparagus, of course, but normally your urine should not have an offensive odor. If it does, go visit a naturopathic physician for some advice.

• Are you hyperventilating at times? It may be a sign of consuming a diet that's too acidic. Or could also mean pre-diabetes. Check with a naturopath.

What comes out of your body, you see, is a very accurate indication of what's going on inside your body. Did you know that physicians actually used to taste the urine of patients? They could diagnose disease just from tasting the urine.

Of course, these days mainstream doctors don't taste your urine anymore. Instead, they give you expensive urine by pumping you full of HRT drugs, psych meds and other expensive pharmaceuticals that you pee down the drain while you're literally flushing your money away.

Listen to your cravings

Your body will also tell you what it wants through cravings. These are little subconscious messengers that direct you to eat something your body needs. Most people, however, misinterpret those cravings and end up eating something bad for their health instead of what the body actually craves.

For example, if your body craves salt -- real salt, not the processed sodium found in junk foods -- you may feel an urge to eat a salty snack food. But that urge is often just a craving for full-spectrum salt. Try eating some fresh nuts dusted with full-spectrum sea salt and see if that takes care of your craving.

Cravings for chocolate may often be just your body crying out for magnesium. Your body sends you the message, "Eat more magnesium!" but your conscious mind mistakenly thinks you just need more chocolate. The problem is that most of the processed, store-bought chocolate on the market today is overly processed and has little or no magnesium left in it. Buy real chocolate if you want it to contain the minerals it's supposed to.

Is your body crying out for water?

Dehydration can cause all sorts of symptoms that are often misdiagnosed as other diseases. Chronic dehydration can appear as all the following symptoms or diseases: Asthma, high blood pressure, hunger, kidney disorders, heart problems and constipation.

Drinking more water on a regular basis (and avoiding dehydrating beverages such as sodas) can solve these underlying problems, and you may actually see many of those symptoms vanish within a few days, weeks or months.

What's beneath the symptom?

If you do go see a regular mainstream doctor, you may in fact receive a quite useful diagnosis of specific symptoms. Western doctors are quite good at determining what's wrong with you on a superficial level even if they have no idea about underlying causes.

So if you receive a diagnosis from a western doctor, you can often take that diagnosis home and do something useful with it. For example, if your doctor says you have high blood pressure and recommends you start taking toxic blood pressure drugs, the best thing you can do for your health is tear up the prescription, go seek a naturopathic physician and ask what you can do to resolve the underlying causes of high blood pressure rather than trying to artificially medicate yourself with chemicals.

Chances are, you have various nutritional deficiencies (lack of omega-3s, often), combined with dehydration and poor dietary choices. Correcting those three things will often resolve blood pressure symptoms. Of course, your specific case may be different, so be sure to check with your naturopathic physician about what's best for you.

Use the symptom as information

Never be tricked into taking a medication that masks the symptom. Use the symptom as a clue to look for root causes that can be corrected through more holistic, natural means. This is how you can listen to your body and interpret its messages in useful ways that lead you in the direction of health.

It takes no intelligence whatsoever to mask symptoms with medications. Any fool can accomplish that by popping pills, much to the delight of pharmacies and drug companies. But an intelligent, mature person will listen to their body's many messages (symptoms) and learn from them to discover what's really going on with their health.

Masking symptoms, in other words, is a childish, adolescent approach to medicine. But listening and learning from symptoms in order to take a more holistic approach to health is characteristic of an intelligent adult. Which approach will you decide to take?

Heal youself in 15 days: A Summary

1.Definition of Healthy Living

Health isn't defined by a range of numbers. It doesn't mean merely shrinking the physical size of a tumor while the patient continues to waste away. Health isn't measured solely by the number of days someone is kept alive on life support equipment...

Health means exactly what you intuitively thought it meant before you were subjected to so much influence and misinformation by drug company advertisements, conventional doctors and friends or family members -- health means quality of life.

And what is quality of life? Being able to sleep at night, walk without pain, eat and enjoy food, have a working memory, and achieve things in your life that mean something to you. Health means time with family, a walk in the woods, a positive mental outlook and an ability to handle stress without flipping out. Health means treating your body with respect and experiencing the joy of feeling it work well in return. Health means vibrant energy, daily optimism and even good sexual energy, too (and much more).

The real answers to health must come from somewhere else... somewhere that's more aligned with the real definition of health that you intuitively know to be more meaningful.

2. your body is a powerful self-healing organism

Healing yourself is automatic, in other words. You don't have to direct blood to the wound, direct the cells to start replicating, direct the molecular waste products to be carried away and decide when cell replication should be stopped. All this happens without your involvement -- even without your awareness! Much of it happens while you sleep, in fact. While your conscious mind is dreaming, your innate body wisdom is working the biochemistry and energetic transformations necessary to repair your tissues.

You can't stop this process even if you wanted to. You could try to focus all your mental power on your skin not healing, and yet your skin would heal itself anyway. That's because your body is a powerful self-healing organism. It heals itself automatically, innately, without your conscious awareness or involvement. Your ability to heal yourself is so powerful that you can't stop yourself from healing!

So keep in mind that your body is always trying to heal itself. "Symptoms" of disease are often just cries for help from your own biology. The wise patient listens to those cries for help, attempts to understand what they mean, and addresses them through self-care. The unwise patient attempts to silence symptoms through chemical intervention: Pain killers, chemical pharmaceuticals, surgery and other interventions. Western doctors are not trained in proper symptom interpretation and rebalancing. They are only trained in symptom "management" which means reducing symptoms through artificial intervention.

Healthy people aren't healthy just because they eat superfoods and drink living juices all day long. They are healthy because they avoid poisoning their bodies with pharmaceuticals, artificial sweeteners, MSG and other processed food ingredients. They avoid the chemicals in cosmetics, personal care products, household cleaning products and lawn care products. They avoid consuming meat from animals who have been pumped full of hormones and antibiotics. They keep their bodies as free from pollution as possible, and as a result, their innate healing powers are always working for them!

3. reduce your consumption of dietary sugars.

Digestion is a complex process. It requires biochemical and physical processes to break down ingested substances into their nutritional components. This process is significantly aided by digestive enzymes which exist naturally in living foods (fresh, raw vegetable and fruit juices, for example).

Heating foods (cooking them) destroys all digestive enzymes. This is one reason why cooked foods steal life away from people while raw, living foods impart life. Living foods usually come with their own digestive enzymes, aiding your digestive processes in breaking down and absorbing nutrients.

Dead foods -- which include anything pasteurized -- stress your liver, pancreas and gallbladder by requiring these organs to produce extra digestive enzymes that are missing from the foods themselves. Because many people suffer from poor digestive organ function, they have difficulties absorbing the nutrients they've swallowed.

By the way, if you want healthy intestinal flora, it's also important to reduce your consumption of dietary sugars. When you consume more sugars, you alter the bacterial population in your gut, causing a shift toward bacteria that feed on sugars. As you alter your diet to exclude refined sugars, the population of bacteria in your gut follows suit, shifting towards a non-sugar bacterial population.

4. Making healthy blood

It stands to reason, therefore, that altering your health outcome depends largely upon altering the composition of your blood. If you want to make someone really healthy for a short time, for example, you can give them blood from a healthy person. Research has already documented that when you take blood from people whose bodies prevent cancer and then inject that blood into people who are suffering from cancer, the anti-cancer benefits of the blood are immediately reflected in the cancer patient (through tumor shrinkage, for example). There is such a thing as anti-cancer blood. And if you eat an anti-cancer diet, you're making anti-cancer blood every single day.

Your blood is largely comprised of the things you ate, drank and absorbed over the last several months. You must consume healthy fats in order to create healthy red blood cells. This means consuming healthful omega-3 fatty acids. From the world of plants, healthful fats come from coconuts, avocados, flaxseed, Chia seeds and other similar sources. From the animal world, the best source for omega-3 fatty acids is, in my opinion, the green-lipped mussels oils in Moxxor, which come from a pristine marine environment.

Consuming damaging fats will harm the health of your blood. Damaging fats include trans-fatty acids and fried fats (such as those used in fried foods). Making healthy blood also requires the right minerals. Red blood cells themselves need iron, but you'll want all the trace minerals, too, so they can be delivered by your blood to your cells. When you lack sufficient quantities of minerals like calcium, magnesium, zinc and selenium, biological functions start to go awry.

Healthy blood also needs plenty of water, of course. Water is the primary fluid of your blood plasma -- it's a solvent that can dissolve and transport all sorts of crucial building blocks for health including water-soluble vitamins like Vitamin C. Without adequate water, your blood turns to sludge blood -- sticky, gooey blood that your heart can't easily pump through your circulatory system. The forceful pumping required to push this blood through your system is frequently diagnosed as high blood pressure.

Human blood also needs many other elements, all of which can be found in a plant-based diet (including the proteins needed for blood).

5. Eat More Raw living foods

Raw living foods offer one of the greatest secrets to disease reversal and lasting health, and nothing beats fresh living foods right out of the garden. So if you can grow any of your own ingredients for this when Spring comes around, definitely make an effort to do so. Otherwise, buy them at a store or farmer's market.

these foods are alive with nutrients and energies. They are live foods, not dead processed foods, and they provide both the nutrients and the energies of life! It's a simple concept, really: If you want to stay alive, eat more living foods. If you want to be dead, eat more dead foods.

The point of today's living foods juice is to both introduce you to the joy of juicing (if you don't already know about it), and to prepare your digestive tract for tomorrow's action item.

How much juice should you drink? Just drink whatever amount you feel comfortable with. I recommend an 8 oz. glass of this juice at minimum, but if you only feel like drinking half that much, that's fine, too. Some people will drink as much as 64 ounces of fresh juice in a day! (Juice Feasting)

You can drink this juice between meals, or during a meal, or any time you want. Just drink it quickly after making it, because fresh juice oxidizes in mere minutes. The nutritional quality of the fresh juice you make literally starts to degrade with each passing second. Ideally, start to consume it within two minutes of juicing it, and finish it in no more than five.

You may feel some "detox" side effects from this juice, especially if you currently pursue a relatively unhealthful diet. But they should be mild. After all, this is just simple juice from simple foods. These aren't drugs or extracts. They are the foods your body was meant to consume.

Fresh living juice is such a powerhouse of nutrition and energy that even when you eat virtually nothing for several days in a row, the juice you had before the fast keeps you alive, healthy and energetic.

But for those who are using juice therapeutically to treat disease under the care of a naturopathic physician, for example, they will probably want no fiber at all. That's because the fiber makes it more difficult for your body to absorb the juice. So for people who are fasting, or treating cancer, or detoxing or whatever, it's often recommended that they discard all the fiber and go for the pure juice.

6.Fasting

Refrain from eating anything (or drinking any beverages other than water) for 24 hours. Your body has plenty of calories stored to carry you through those 24 hours, and the pause from digestion will give your body a chance to focus its healing energies on other parts of your body.

Fasting has been used from Biblical times through the modern world to help purify and heal the body. It can help detox your liver, kidneys and digestive tract. It also encourages you to rethink your eating habits. When you fast for just 24 hours, and you're really committed to it, you'll be shocked to discover how many times you habitually reach for food.

People habitually reach for food in all sorts of circumstances that have nothing to do with actual hunger:

Typically, the worse your diet, the more detox side effects you may experience when fasting.

If you want to make your fasting more tolerable and more cleansing, you also have the option of drinking an 8-oz. glass of fresh vegetable juice in the middle of your fast. I did this during my fast, and it not only gave me more energy to make it through the fast;

So if your fast fails, don't fret. Simply take the next 30 days to improve your eating habits, making them healthier and supported with more fresh food rather than processed food. Work to get safely off all prescription drugs (with the help of your naturopathic physician, of course). Drink more superfoods and fresh juices. Then 30 days later, try the 24-hour fast again and see if you can make it through the entire thing.

If you ever feel extremely weak, ill or you think you might pass out, that's a sign to stop the fast and get some calories. This isn't some sort of "no pain no gain" situation. Fasting should be tolerable and not dangerous. Again, the healthier your diet to start with, the easier your fast will typically be.

Fasting helps free your mind from the enslavement of thinking you have to eat every few hours. It gives you new options, new freedoms and new self discipline. It's about much more than simply not eating food for 24 hours; it's also about self observation and spiritual mindfulness. Why do you think nearly all the great spiritual figures throughout world history fasted as part of their spiritual practice? They did that because too much food messes with your head while fasting clears your head.

Fasting gives you the opportunity to clear the food-induced cobwebs and see things with improved clarity. Now, just as a disclaimer here, please know that you're not going to see God after just a 24-hour fast. When spiritual leaders fast, they often fast for weeks at a time. Some go as far as 40 days. Some "breatharians" claim not to eat food at all, ever! But those are more advanced topics for another day.

7. Don’t Follow The Crowd

Crowds as a whole aren't very intelligent -- even when individual members of the crowd might be highly intelligent on their own! And if you follow the mainstream consumer crowd without thinking for yourself, you can only expect the same outcome the crowd is experiencing: Degenerative disease, pharmaceutical dependency and medical bankruptcy.
That's why achieving lasting health means distancing yourself from the mainstream crowd and in many cases doing the opposite of what they do. When the mainstream crowd pops pills for depression, cholesterol and high blood pressure, do the opposite and take nutritional supplements that nourish the body instead of poisoning it. Basically, watch what the mainstream consumers do and make a conscious effort to do the opposite (in most cases, anyway).

Crowds usually aren't very smart. But YOU are! You have the ability to think for yourself, to change your mind at any time, to improve your decisions, to upgrade or downgrade your lifestyle, etc. Exercise these gifts where appropriate, and don't be afraid to try out new eating habits, new exercise schedules and new approaches to self care. Find out what works best for you, regardless of whether a "crowd" exists that practices the same thing.

Don't be a mindless health nut, in other words. Be mindfully health conscious and go with what works best for you rather than what's popular or cool. So be smart. Be an individual. And be brave enough to reject the crowd and do something different that's probably a whole lot safer and healthier.

Getting sunlight on your skin to generate vitamin D is rejecting the crowd. And yet it's the very best way to prevent cancer for FREE!

8.Stop Making Disease

the first question you might ask is, "How do I stop making disease?"

To answer that question, though, you need to understand how disease is created in the first place. All disease begins with an imbalance in the mind or the body (it can originate in either place and then spread to the other).

Disease can be set off by a nutritional deficiency (not enough vitamin D, for example), or a dietary excess (too much homogenized milk). It can be caused by an emotional state such as anger or stress that then spreads to the tissues and begins to create dis-ease in the physical body.

Most disease that's being "manufactured" in the bodies of people today is created through controllable factors: What people eat, what chemicals they expose themselves too, how much exercise they get (or not), their state of mind, what supplements they take (or don't) and so on.

Disease doesn't appear immediately, of course. It takes many years for the daily poisoning of the body to be diagnosed as disease. But make no mistake about the origins of that disease: The body manufactured the disease over many years!

So when doctors tell patients "There's nothing you could have done to prevent this" they are actually lying to their patients. Of course there's something you can do! You can stop making disease before it gets out of control.

Conventional doctors usually don't like to acknowledge this because it would give patients the idea that they have control over their own health. Most conventional doctors would rather believe the Big Lie that says doctors control your health, or that disease strikes randomly, without cause. And therefore you have no control over your own health and are dependent on western medicine to take responsibility for your health.

It's a belief system specifically designed to entrap you in a system of medical dependency (enslavement). Fortunately, you can free yourself from medical enslavement...

Each day, depending on what you eat, drink, do or put on your body, you are either moving towards disease or away from disease. The way to stop making disease, then, is to halt any actions that move you toward disease and, instead, pursue actions they move you away from disease (and toward improved health).

Once you fill your body with living, healing juices, sunlight and regular exercise, you will shut off all kinds of chemical "disease-making" processes in your physiology. And you'll activate healing processes that move you towards lifelong health. This is how you start making health instead of disease.

The longer you pursue a healthful lifestyle based on superfoods, nutritional supplements, healthy eating and the avoidance of pharmaceuticals, vaccines, mainstream personal care products and other poisons, the faster your healing will accelerate! Beyond the mere halting of manufacturing disease, once your body achieves a certain level of vitality, it will begin to automatically reverse disease. Cancer tumors in your body, in other words, will literally vanish over time. Heart disease can be cured. Diabetes may disappear. Cognitive function will be restored. These are just a few of the many benefits you may experience when self-healing is in full swing.

By the way, following the recipe for health may take more self discipline and maturity than following the recipe for disease, but it's far more rewarding. For one thing, you get to live longer. Better yet, you get to live happier and healthier during all those years. And isn't that essentially why we're all interested in the health in the first place?

9.Spend More Time Outdoor with Nature

But few people in the field of conventional medicine embrace the idea that nature itself a healer, so the message of spending time in nature to improve your health doesn't get much attention.

As you well know, sunlight also causes your skin to generate vitamin D -- perhaps the most miraculous nutrient yet discovered in the modern world. Vitamin D prevents cancer, heart disease and diabetes. It boosts bone density and immune function, and it prevents infectious disease far better than vaccines could ever hope to. To get more vitamin D, simply spend more time in nature!

The natural sounds of nature are, in and of themselves, healing therapy. Simply surrounding yourself with the sounds of real nature causes a scientifically-provable reduction in stress levels and blood pressure.

The most powerful healing sounds in nature seem to be those from water: Waterfalls, water running down a creek or stream, rain and thunderstorms, etc. You can mimic these sounds with "sound conditioning" devices that broadcast sound loops of natural sounds. They're very effective machines, but still nothing equals the healing potential of real sounds experienced directly in the real world.

The colors of nature are, scientifically speaking, different wavelengths of light striking your retina and being interpreted as colors by your brain.These different wavelengths are, in essence, a form of energy medicine. Light is energy, and what your body needs to be healthy is exposure to a diverse assortment of those energy wavelengths. That's why looking at all the various colors of flowers, plants and animals is, by itself, a healing experience. It also stimulates the brain to become more active and more intelligent.

Spending more time in nature allows your brain to explore a more diverse natural reality, causing it to function at a higher cognitive level. Dull people, in contrast, tend to spend a lot of time indoors where the scenery never changes.Being in nature makes physical movement almost mandatory. When you're in nature, you're often walking, running, biking or swimming. And yet because the scenery is so beautiful, it doesn't feel like exercise! It simply feels like fun!

The health benefits of all this movement are tremendous: A boost in circulation, increased bone density and muscle strength, increased flexibility, lymph fluid circulation and much more. And yet being in nature allows you to experience all these benefits without it feeling like hard work.

Exposure to microbes in the real world is hugely important for the healthy balance and functioning of your immune system, and the best place to have exposure to these microbes is out in nature!

Spending time in nature rejuvenates your system, and when city life leaves you feeling depleted, nature can bring your energy back.

In any case, whether you have kids or not, spending more time in nature will vastly improve your health! So make it a point to get outside, soak up some sunshine, breathe in the fresh air and get all the nature you can! You'll be healthier, happier, more fit and even more intelligent for doing so!
Part of the magic of the bio-energy in nature depends on coming into physical contact with nature. Walk barefoot. Hug a tree. Touch a flower. Lie down on the grass. Touch nature as your body intended and you'll create a closed circuit with the planet itself. Some people say that being electrically "grounded" with the earth (through barefoot walking) makes an important difference in reducing the electric "noise" that interferes with your health.

10.Chemical Free Living

Gather up every "chemical" product and throw them all out. (You're poisoning the environment by doing so, of course, but you're going to make up for that by never buying these products again...)

This includes all your conventional cosmetics, soaps, shampoos, fragrance products, cleaning products, laundry products, bug sprays, air "fresheners" and the whole lot. Gather them all up and throw them out. More importantly make a commitment to never buy these products again. That's the only way to enjoy a long-term benefit for your health, of course.

Once this is done, begin to detox your body from these synthetic chemicals using a variety of detox products: Zeolites, chlorella supplements, cilantro, spirulina, etc. Drink a lot of water. Take liver detox herbs to support healthy liver function during all this.

Within just a few days, your chemical burden will start to fall as your body eliminates the chemicals that have been routinely poisoning it. After six months, your chemical load can drop as much as 90 percent, greatly reducing the chemical stress on your liver and kidneys while sharply reducing your risk of cancer and other neurological disorders.

Over time, your health will improve as your exposure to synthetic chemicals plummets. This action, combined with all the other steps in this 15-day self healing series, will vastly improve your health while slowing or even halting the development of many different degenerative diseases such as cancer, liver disease or Alzheimer's.

11.Eat More Healthy Food

The whole point of this "heal yourself by eating MORE" approach is to chill out and get away from the "avoid everything" trap that becomes a psychological obstacle for a lot of people who are trying to improve their health. The demands to avoid everything can seem intimidating and repetitive: Avoid cheese, avoid sugar, avoid diet sodas, avoid processed meat, avoid MSG, etc. For many people, the list of things to avoid becomes so large and confusing that they just give up trying to be healthier.

So I've advocated a totally different approach that's focused on eating more of the right kinds of things and worrying less about all the other stuff. You might call it a more balanced, relaxed approach to healthful living for a more mainstream audience.

For example, one of the action strategies here is to aim to eat three whole fruits per day; one before each meal. So each day, I want you to consume a total of three whole fruits such as apples, pears, peaches, mangos, large plums, etc. But here's the key in all this: You must eat one whole fruit BEFORE each meal.

While you're following this strategy, I don't want you to worry about what to avoid. Eat whatever it is you normally eat, but add three whole fruits per day. (Not dried fruits. They must be fresh, whole fruits of a significant size.)

The reason this strategy works so well to improve your health is because by eating three whole fruits each day -- one before each major meal -- you will tend to crowd out the less healthful foods automatically, without any real effort and without worrying so much avoid what to avoid.

#1) The fruit contains nutrients that will help protect you from the damaging ingredients of cooked foods, processed foods or chemical food ingredients. (Because fruits contain natural medicines.)

#2) The whole fresh fruit will take up more physical space in your stomach, making you feel full faster and causing you to stop eating the other stuff sooner. You may find yourself suddenly unable to finish your Big Mac and fries, for example. You may not even know why but then it hits you: Oh yeah, I ate the fresh fruit before this meal!

Naturally, I hope you choose organic fruit for this, but even if you don't, eating conventionally-grown fresh fruit is better than nothing!

Here's another element in this strategy: I want you to eat a handful of superfood supplements each day, preferably before noon.

By superfood supplements, I mean microalgae like chlorella, spirulina or food-based vitamins like those from Pure Synergy (this could be in the form of powder, tablets or capsules). So at some point each morning -- it could be after breakfast or before lunch -- I want you to swallow an entire handful of these superfood supplements (with water, of course). You may want to do this with food for the first few weeks, to get your body used to these nutrients arriving all at once.

So far, then, we've talked about eating MORE food to improve your health:

• Eat three fresh raw fruits each day (one before each major meal)
• Eat a handful of superfood supplements each day
• Eat more full-spectrum salt (ideally as a replacement for processed "refined" salt)
• Drink a fresh superfood smoothie each day

12.Gratitude and Thankfulness

In just 60 seconds per day, if practiced daily, you will create an attitude of gratitude which will brighten your mood and uplift your day-to-day experience of life because it allows you to refocus your attention on those things you appreciate rather than those things you might despise.

And this, as I hinted at earlier, will result in a very real physiological and biochemical healing effect within your own body.

At the same time, to love something else -- or to express thankfulness towards it -- causes a reflection of that positive energy to be felt inside yourself, too. So the mere act of expressing gratitude is a form of self-healing.

Anger is a very destructive emotion because it causes stress, adrenal depletion and tension throughout the body. But you can learn to replace anger (or other negative emotions) with gratitude, and anger cannot coexist with gratitude.

In this way, gratitude can begin to nudge out the other negative emotions you might be experiencing. This doesn't mean you have to run around blindly thankful for everything without discerning times when criticism or anger might be called for, but the more you can find the gratitude in everyday things, the more you'll activate and support your body's inner healing processes.

So start today and rediscover those things you feel gratitude towards. Express that gratitude either silently or verbally and enjoy the experience of that positive energy being reflected back at you.

50 Tips to Increase Stamina

50 Tips to Increase Stamina

Can there really be 50 ways to increase performance in your favorite sport? Twenty-five push-ups a day do not an athelete make, but combine those exercises you do for strength and endurance with a nutritious diet, aerobic conditioning, weight training, and a healthy lifestyle, and you can be at the top of your form--whatever your sport. Consider the suggestions below; you may be in for a few surprises.

1. Every athlete should have a baseline medical screen from which to work. Overtraining, illness, and stress can all affect performance. Fatigue sets in, and injuries may result. If you are over 40 and beginning an exercise program, make sure you get that physical.

2. Frequency, intensity, and time/duration are the components of a safe, effective exercise program. Mess up any of these, and you risk injury. Experts agree on a few basics: three or more workouts a week, at a heart rate not exceeding 60 to 80 percent of your maximum heart rate, for 20 minutes or longer. Even moderate exercise works to increase stamina.

3. Don't accelerate your training level too rapidly. You need time to build confidence and accustom your muscles to any new activity. A beginner might benefit initially from working with a trainer to find the optimum level of activity. If you run, follow the 10 percent rule: do not increase mileage by more than 10 percent per week.

4. Know your limitations. If you are overweight and out of shape, you will need to lose weight as you shape up. Over age 40? Don't try to run the marathon in two hours. Asthmatic? Don't try to run through an attack. Whatever your health problem, work with it, not against it. Stay in touch with your doctor and/or trainer.

5. If you select activities you enjoy, you will increase your chances of sticking with them long enough to get in shape and feel good. Don't take up running if you hate it; there are other ways to get in shape.

6. For the long haul, select at least one activity you can do anywhere with a minimum of fuss. Walking is great, possible in most climates, easy on the body, adaptable, and a great way to burn off extra calories you might take in at dinner, on vacation, or when on a business trip.

7. Many people benefit by joining an organization built around their sport or reading relevant material. Maintaining this contact helps the athlete take themselves and their sport seriously. Not only does this make the sport more fun, but it helps prevent staleness and encourages maximum effort.

8. Some athletes find that keeping a performance log or other type of progress chart aids them in sticking to their training regimen. Record each workout, and keep track in case you get injured. Looking back over your training and competition log may show you where you went off track.

9. Whatever sport you choose, make sure you don't skimp on equipment. The right running shoe can make the difference between success and failure. Choose a cross-country ski machine that slides evenly, or you may end up with muscle pulls. Don't take up bicycle racing and forget the helmet!

10. Successful athletes plan long-term. Think safety, as in adequate fluid intake, correct clothing for your sport and climate. Acclimate yourself gradually to extreme heat. During your first hot-weather workout, cut intensity by 65 to 75 percent; over the next several days slowly build back to your previous level. Wear reflective gear if you are outdoors after dark.

11. When working out, use the principles of overload, specificity, and progression. Overload is necessary to improve stamina, but don't overdo. Irritability and depression are often the first signs of fatigue. Specificity means you train for what you want to achieve. Progression means that you keep on improving.

12. Work from a prevention perspective. If you have an injury that does not improve, see a specialist promptly. Untreated injuries may otherwise lay you up for long periods, during which stamina and endurance slide.

13. Remember the cardinal rules for every sport: warm up, stretch, and cool down. This is especially important if you are forced to be a weekend athlete. Don't wait until the morning of your mountain climb to begin calf-stretching exercises, or you may find all your enthusiasm for the sport going up in smoke while you cool your heels for the next month.

14. If you are into heavy training for your sport, alternate hard and easy days. Weight training, for example, should not work the same muscles on consecutive days or you will be breaking down tissue instead of building. Long runs should alternate with short. Don't perform an arduous rock climb two days in a row. On the night before that big white-water trip, don't max out on the rowing machine. Moderation is the word!

15. Cross-training is one of the most effective and safe ways to improve stamina and performance level, as well as a great way to avoid injury. Choose two or more activities that complement each other, such as weight training and trail running, or biking and swimming.

16. Rest, as in REST! Rest is as important for improving stamina as any workout. The results of overtraining are almost always bad, and they set you back.

17. The word on dietary supplements is NO. Unless your diet does not supply adequate nutrients you are wasting your money, and the same goes for ergogenic aids, according to Johann Coetzee, M.D., M.P.H., at the Cooper Institute for Aerobics Research in Dallas.

18. Maintain your ideal body weight, which takes into account your height and bone structure. Being significantly underweight is no more healthy than being overweight. Work with your activity level and your diet to maintain that balance. You may need to consult a nutrition expert if you don't have a basic knowledge of nutrition.

19. You can't do what you did 20 years ago--no matter who you are. Think safety, think long-term, think success. Less is more!

20. If all else fails, blame it on genetics. Maybe you just weren't meant to climb rocks. Maybe your knees can't hack running those rocky trails. Pursuing the impossible will not improve stamina; it will generate frustration and pain, and sideline you, the athlete. Pick something you can do.

21. Are you lacking power in your tennis game, or during your morning run? Are you doing sit-ups? Strong abdominal muscles not only help prevent or alleviate back problems; they also provide additional power for any activity involving the torso. Lie down, bend knees, feet on floor. Contract abdominal muscles, press back into the floor, rise to about a 30- to 45-degree angle.

22. Weight machines are great for building endurance for your sport and for shaping muscles. If you are new to weight training, consider joining a health club, where you can learn on variable resistance machines, such as the Nautilus system. These machines compensate for a muscle's changes in strength by utilizing cams or levers to vary resistance, keeping it at a maximum level throughout the full range of motion.

23. Just how fast do you have to walk to qualify as a brisk walker? Four miles per hour is good, according to James M. Ripe, M.D., associate professor at Tufts University School of Medicine, and one of the nation's foremost experts on exercise.

24. One of the best ways to add vigor to your life is to add strength training with weights to your lifestyle. Recent research at Tufts University found that women who worked with weights or weight machines for 45 minutes twice a week for a year emerged physiologically younger by 15 to 20 years than when they began.

The Food and Lifestyle Edge

25. If you follow a vegetarian diet and lead an active lifestyle, be sure you know what you are doing. Vegetarians who don't eat dairy foods or other animal products need to use extra care to monitor their consumption of some nutrients that occur mainly or almost exclusively in animal foods. Vitamin [B.sub.12] deficiency is especially common.

26. Sports Music, Inc., will provide a free catalog of audiotapes for every sport imaginable. Call (800) 878-4764, 9:00 to 6:00, EST, for some new tunes to put the "oomph" back in your workout.

27. Are allergies interfering with your sport? Call the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology at (800) 822-2762, a 24-hour hotline. They will send information, and can refer you to physician members of the academy.

28. Know the facts about metabolism--the rate at which you burn calories. The more muscle you carry, the higher your metabolic rate all of the time. This means you can eat more without gaining weight if you are active, better ensuring an adequate intake of necessary nutrients.

29. Choose a breakfast cereal that lists whole wheat, whole grain, whole oat flour, or rolled oats among the first ingredients. This ensures that the product has not been refined and is more likely to contain essential ingredients such as magnesium, manganese, chromium, and copper.

30. To ensure adequate calcium intake, consider these tips if you think you are lactose-intolerant. Consume small portions of low-fat dairy products; eat dairy products with meals or snacks; try yogurt with active cultures (provides enzymes necessary for its digestion); or search out calcium-fortified soy versions of these products.

31. Are you at your optimal weight? People with apple-shaped bodies have a greater risk of coronary artery disease, stroke, hypertension, and diabetes than their pear-shaped peers. Divide your waist measurement by hip measurement. A waist/hip ratio greater than 1.0 for men or 0.8 for women indicates increased cardiac risk, according to the American Heart Association.

32. If you are taking in enough fluids, your urine will run clear most of the day. For every pound you lose to sweat during a workout, you need to drink 16 ounces of fluids or you will become dehydrated.

33. Properly formulated sports drinks (those with 6 to 7 percent carbohydrate concentration) are absorbed 30 percent faster than water, and much faster than drinks with carbohydrate concentrations of 8 percent or more. Studies have shown they improve performance and combat fatigue during exercise sessions of an hour or longer because the body can use them right away.

34. Are you lacking the energy you used to have? Check your diet for "fat overload," one cause not only of too much poundage but of lethargy. Frequent offenders: salad dressing, red meat, fried foods, ice cream, pastries, mayonnaise, whole milk. Read those food labels! Fat calories should number no more than 30 percent of your daily caloric intake.

35. Check out broccoli (a powerhouse of nutrition). One cup of broccoli equals 45 calories, and 90 percent of the daily requirement of beta-carotene, 200 percent of vitamin C, 25 percent of your fiber needs, and significant amounts of several minerals.

36. There's nothing like irregularity to slow you down. Fiber, both soluble (oats, fruits, legumes, veggies) and insoluble (wheat bran, whole grains), are important for health. If you are not currently consuming 25 to 35 grams daily (five servings of fruits and veggies and about six servings of breads, cereals, and legumes), increase consumption gradually to allow your digestive system to adapt.

37. You want to save your energy for your sport and not spend it on the fight/flight response. Learn to relax under pressure. Deep breathing and imaging can help. Take a few deep breaths and imagine a beautiful scene. Worrying saps energy and can reduce stamina.

38. Music is a great motivator. If your sport or workout session can be done with the accompaniment of music, you may find that extra burst of energy you need. Playing music regularly or occasionally will help you avoid getting stale. Increased effort builds stamina.

39. On the job, long stretches of sitting can weaken stomach and back muscles. Badly designed office furniture or auto seats make things worse. Get up and move around frequently. In your chair, stretch up tall with arms overhead; bend forward and touch the floor. Try clasping hands behind head and pulling elbows back gently. Hands clasped overhead, bend left, then right from waist.

40. When you travel on business, try to exercise first thing in the morning. This will help you acclimate to time changes. Later in the day, business meetings may prevent you from following your usual routine.

41. Working out at high altitude is significantly more demanding for the flatlander than for the mountain dweller. Unusually rapid heartbeat or difficulty breathing are signs that your body is not coping well. Stop exercising immediately. Cut back on your intensity during your stay; drink plenty of fluids; avoid alcohol.

42. Energy flagging? Try the full body stretch. Stand with arms relaxed at sides. Rotate head slowly forward, to left, back, to right. Then raise arms overhead and drop forward slowly, bending knees slightly to touch floor. Stretch back up slowly, arms overhead. Again, then relax.

43. Fat-burning is pretty straightforward. If you burn more calories than you take in over the course of a week or more, your body will start burning its fat stores, regardless of whether you burn fat or carbohydrates during any one workout.

44. Extra poundage is not only a health risk but can make you drag during your workouts. Consider that the government has released a more stringent height and weight table as part of its updated "Dietary Guidelines for Americans." This new table does not allow for creeping poundage after age 35, as the earlier 1990 edition did. Shed that fat!

45. Don't get sandbagged by osteoporosis just when you think life as an athlete is beginning. Call the National Osteoporosis Foundation, (800) 464-6700 (Monday-Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.; weekends, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. EST), for the latest information. There is now a quick painless test to determine whether your bones are thinning.

46. Don't let dinner out undo all your good work. Since 1991, restaurants have been increasing portions in response to demand. Ask for a doggy bag and take the extra home.

47. Any way you serve it, pasta contains about 210 calories a cup, and just one gram of fat. No wonder pasta (not the sauce!) is such an efficient fuel!

48. The most effective way to avoid catching those pesky office colds that drain your energy is to wash your hands. Avoid touching your nose and eyes with your hands; don't share cups, pens, or phones with cold sufferers.

49. Ill-fitting shoes are thought to cause about 80 percent of all foot problems, and sore feet can knock you off your peak. When purchasing shoes measure both feet; wear the socks or stockings you will wear with those shoes; shop for shoes at midday or later.

50. Recovery from working out, from work, daily chores, and stress must take place or even the most gung-ho fitness fanatic will eventually crash. If you are not getting seven to eight hours of sleep a night, make some changes in your routine, or your energy will soon wane.