Health & Wellness

For a long time I have been interested in what creates optimum health, especially as I had encountered the effects of serious illness in my close family. I had felt that modern medicine had somehow "lost the plot" and, whilst there have been great advances in surgery and treatment, serious illness is more prevalent than ever in our western society. I have always known that the body is not a mere machine that can be serviced like a car. We are complex, multi-dimensional beings - so much more than a collection of unrelated parts that can simply be chopped off or rendered without function by drugs, radiation or whatever is the latest technology.

The Holistic Approach

I consider a holistic approach to be the most effective and empowering, taking account of mind, body and spirit. This would include our mental and emotional wellbeing and our lifestyle choices. I trained and practiced for a number of years in the healing arts of Reflexology, Aromatherapy, and Reiki and would call myself more "alternative" than "complementary" in my approach. The basis for these therapies comes from the East where the spiritual aspect of our being is much more fundamental.

Mind-Body Link

I believe strongly in the mind-body link, the technical term for which is psychoneuroimmunology. We know that the mind has a powerful effect in healing and that patients with a positive attitude usually recover more quickly than those who choose a negative outlook. In an experiment, a number of patients with knee problems were given operations for the same condition. A third had the full-blown surgery, a third merely had the joint cleaned out under the anaesthetic, and a third had an incision that was stitched up without any actual procedure on the knee. Amazingly, because they all thought they had had a knee operation, they all experienced a similar improvement in the functioning of the knee joint. This is called the placebo effect and I truly celebrate it! Why aren't we harnessing this amazing power of the mind? A minimal intervention can be enough to convince the mind that we are healed and this is magnificent.

Personal Responsibility

I believe that health is a matter of personal responsibility. There are many, many factors that affect it but ultimately we must take responsibility for choosing healthy thoughts, a healthy lifestyle and to deal with our own stress resoponses to life. There is a prevalent attitude that the doctor should fix us when things go wrong. Whilst their help may be invaluable, we cannot hand over our power to them. It is up to us to take the journey inside to understand ourselves, to let go of resistance that we are holding and learn to love ourselves enough to be kind to our bodies.

I came across a wonderful article by Dr.Christiane Northrup, which puts across the fundamentals of good health so well that I reproduce it below:

GET WELL, BE WELL, AND STAY WELL

People often ask, "How can we become healthy in our current society?" If you want to get well, be well, and stay well, you must look to the very source of your health -- your consciousness. Your consciousness is the wellspring of beliefs, behaviors, and emotions that set the stage for your state of health or disease in the first place.

Today, the science of the mind-body connection, or psychoneuroimmunology, can explain how emotions are associated with physical changes in the body. Our perceptions -- how we interpret events in our lives -- change stress hormone levels of cortisol, epinephrine, and norepinephrine. Chronic fear, resentment, sorrow, and depression raise stress hormone levels. When these levels remain elevated, insulin increases and causes the release of inflammatory hormones known as cytokines and leukotrienes. This leads to inflammation at the cellular level, a state that is associated with obesity, diabetes, osteoporosis, cancer, and cardiovascular disease.

The Law of Attraction

"Thoughts have the peculiar quality of becoming their physical equivalents," said Napoleon Hill, author of Think and Grow Rich. This is the essence of the universal principle called the Law of Attraction -- what you think about the most, with the highest degree of emotional intensity, is what you attract into your life. The Law of Attraction works like this: Your thoughts and beliefs lead to emotions, and these emotions drive your behavior. Ultimately, these thoughts and emotions cause their physical equivalents to manifest in your life and your body. This happens because your consciousness programs your autonomic nervous system to carry out your beliefs on a physical level.

If you think about leading an active, healthy life, then this is what's most likely to become a reality for you. Drawing on this knowledge is one of the most profound and effective ways to change your life for the better.

What Shapes our Beliefs?

Child Our thoughts and beliefs are heavily influenced by our childhood. Studies indicate that by the age of ten, our conditioning about health and disease is already in place. This conditioning is then shaped by what we say to ourselves. And this is heavily influenced by what are known as "memes." A meme is a contagious idea that replicates like a virus, passing from mind to mind. It's a self-propagating unit of cultural evolution that's accepted without critical evaluation. The media is our primary source of meme distribution.

A New Mantra: Happy, Healthy...Dead

Health is our natural state. It begins in our spiritual body, proceeds to our mental and emotional bodies, and then manifests physically. Despite the current practices of the mainstream medical community, it's quite possible to be healthy in your 80s and 90s without relying on prescription drugs or significant intervention by your physician.

Negative stereotypes about aging may shorten your life and influence your will to live. A study conducted by Becca Levy, Ph.D., at Yale University's Department of Epidemiology and Public Health found that older people with more positive self-perceptions of aging lived an average of 7.5 years longer than those with less positive self-perceptions of aging, even after other factors were taken into account, including age, gender, socioeconomic status, loneliness, and overall health. The study found that unconscious childhood beliefs, for example: "When you get old, you're worthless," had a profound effect on the physical body and overall survival rates.

The study concluded that "the effect of more positive self-perceptions of aging on survival is greater than the physiological measures of low systolic blood pressure and cholesterol, each of which is associated with a longer life span of four years or less. It's also greater than the independent contributions of lower body mass index, no history of smoking, and a tendency to exercise -- factors that have been found to add one to three years to your life." My family strongly believes that we can and will be healthy until we die.

Jerry and Esther Hicks, authors who present the leading-edge Abraham-Hicks teachings on the art of allowing our natural, share this saying: "Happy, healthy...dead." It makes a great mantra, and it's a way to counteract our cultural belief that we can't die without being hooked up to life-support machines first!

Self-Esteem Enhances Health

Thoughts and beliefs that support self-love, self-trust, and self-worth enhance health and well-being, and the lifestyle behaviors that support them. Without self-love, you can't expect to renounce destructive behaviors and beliefs and replace them with better, healthier choices.
Self-appreciation is the foundation upon which health is built. Be grateful for your body, regardless of your current state of health.

Also understand the difference between chronologic and biologic age. Chronologic age is the age on your driver's license. Biologic age is the age of your cells. You can be 70 years old and have a biologic age of 35. Joseph Pilates, the founder of the popular Pilates exercises for core strength and lifetime flexibility, died in a fire at the age of 86. He had the body of a 40-year-old man in his prime. Actually, he looked a lot better than many 40-year-olds.

Care for Your Body

We are souls who temporarily inhabit bodies that we're meant to take care of. It's part of living on Earth. Caring for your body is your responsibility, not your doctor's, your spouse's, or your mother's. In her wonderful book The Keys of Jeshua, Glenda Green writes: "Responsibility is the steering wheel of personal autonomy and freedom." You'll feel and be free only to the degree that you're willing to take responsibility for your own life and your own body. After all, if you don't take care of your body, where are you going to live?
My basic principles for physical self-care are outlined briefly below. The advice is simple, but I know it's not always easy.

1. Watch your diet.

Our bodies were designed to work best on a diet of whole, natural food. Although each of us has some leeway with that, you'll notice that, over time, your body will be far less forgiving of a junk-food diet than it was when you were in your teens. This isn't because you're getting older, it's because your body wisdom is saying, "Enough is enough!"

2. Take a good nutritional supplement every day.

The research of Dr. Bruce Ames, professor of toxicology at U.C. Berkeley, has demonstrated that "a deficiency in any of the micronutrients folic acid, vitamin B-12, vitamin B-6, niacin, vitamin C, vitamin E, iron, or zinc, mimics radiation and chemicals in damaging DNA by causing single- and double-strand breaks, oxidative lesions, or both." As a matter of fact, the damage that your system will endure from a nutrient deficiency is hundreds of times greater than any damage caused by radiation or chemicals.

3. Drink enough water.

Most people don't drink enough water and as a result experience "thirst pains," such as headaches, muscle aches, back pain, heartburn, colitis, constipation, and even heart pain. Water carries oxygen and nutrition throughout the body and also helps rid the body of waste.

4. Exercise regularly.

Exercise benefits every part of the body. Exercising for 20 minutes has beneficial effects on the body that last for at least 22 hours. These include better blood-vessel function, a healthier heartbeat, and normal blood pressure. Research has shown that women who exercise for one hour, four times per week -- in addition to maintaining their desired weight and protecting their heart -- have a 30 percent lower risk of breast cancer than women who don't exercise.

5. Get plenty of sleep.

Getting about eight hours of sleep per night is an important component of a healthful lifestyle and should not be considered a luxury. Habitual sleep deprivation results in hypertension, the activation of the sympathetic (fight-or-flight) nervous system, the impairment of glucose control, and increased inflammation throughout the body.

6. Get regular exposure to sunlight.

Sunlight increases serotonin levels naturally and boosts your mood. It also raises vitamin D levels and immunity naturally, thus reducing the risk of osteoporosis, and bowel and breast cancer. I recommend daily sun exposure in the early morning or early evening when UV rays are less potent. A three- to ten-minute sunbath is all you need, depending on skin type and previous exposure. Be sure to get what's called a pre-erythema dose, which means "get out of the sun before your skin gets red!" Vitamin D supplementation can also be a way to get your vitamin D.

7. Breathe fully through your nose.

Breath inhaled through the nose goes right to the lungs, stimulating the vagus nerve, which is the main nerve of the parasympathetic, or rest-and-restore nervous system. That's why you can instantly feel better by taking deep breaths through the nose. On the other hand, mouth breathing is a stress response that gives the body the idea that there's an emergency and stimulates the sympathetic, or fight-or-flight nervous system.

Take Action!

If you're not doing anything to maintain or improve your health, you and your body will become stagnant. We all know someone who keeps complaining about their circumstances but isn't willing to do anything about it. Well, that's exactly what makes you and your body old and unhealthy -- stagnant thoughts, stagnant behaviors, and stagnant relationships! There are many reasons for being stuck -- some of them even legitimate -- but only by taking action can we make the necessary changes in our lives.

Waiting for the perfect time, a time when you've got all the answers, is just not realistic. You can connect to your own source of healing energy today by being willing to bravely and compassionately enter the unhealed places in your own heart. When you're on intimate terms with your own pain and suffering and have made a commitment to heal them, you have far less difficulty keeping your heart open to others. And your very presence becomes part of the solution.

Acknowledge the Presence of Mystery

You have the power to get well and stay well right now -- regardless of what's happening in your life. Get in touch with your source energy. It's the same force that is wellness. At times you may have to be brought to your knees to surrender to this power. But that's what it's all about. That's also why it's not uncommon to hear someone say, "Getting cancer was the best thing that ever happened to me. As a result, I opened my heart, changed my job, and I'm now more fulfilled and happy than I have ever been."

Acknowledge the presence of mystery and the unknown. The Great Physician said it best: "Ask and ye shall receive. Knock and the door shall be opened to you." But you have to walk up to the door and you have to knock. And then you have to walk through the door once it's open. Have the courage to get well, be well, and stay well, because in doing so, you're transforming the world one person at a time.

About the Author

Christiane Northrup, M.D., a board-certified ob/gyn, is a visionary pioneer, beloved authority in women’s health and wellness, and the author of the ground breaking New York Times bestsellers Women's Bodies, Women’s Wisdom and The Wisdom of Menopause. Her third book, Mother-Daughter Wisdom, was voted Amazon’s #1 book of the 2005 (in two categories). Her latest books, The Secret Pleasures of Menopause and The Secret Pleasures of Menopause Playbook, teach how to experience joy, pleasure, prosperity, fulfillment, and vibrant health.

Following a 25-year career in both academic medicine and private practice, Dr. Northrup now devotes her time to helping women truly flourish on all levels through tapping into their inner wisdom.

Through her exclusive Women’s Wisdom Circle, Dr. Northrup shares cutting-edge medical and lifestyle advice. For more information about Dr. Northrup and her Wisdom Circle go to www.drnorthrup.com.

Modern Lifestyle

Today our minds and bodies are subjected to unprecedented levels of stress from the fast pace of life, the cultural need to "achieve", bombardment from the media on how we "should" look, toxins in our food and the environment, and all manner of electro magnetic fields. All these things can cumulatively lead to a breakdown in the integrity of our cells and contribute to ill health. I was amazed how many toxins we take into the skin through our everyday personal care routines, some of which are known carcinogens but are still allowed to be used by the cosmetic industry. So I was grateful, about 3 years ago, to discover an Australian company making the purest certified organic products available and have been using them ever since. The range is called Miessence and you can click here or on the image to the left if you would like to know more.