Health, Wellness & Healing
http://youtu.be/kOcl_7eklMM
I totally agree with Loren on this point: if you want your body to function optimally, you need to 1. Get clear on what it needs to do so (first cleanse and heal, then nourish appropriately with a raw vegan diet); and 2. Get committed to your health (that means not making excuses for continuing unhealthy behaviors).
Nearly everyone experiences at least an occasional headache, while around 15% of people suffer its most painful and debilitating form, the migraine. My protocol addresses the underlying cause of these conditions, which produces long-lasting results while other practitioners rely on techniques that at best mask the symptoms and sometimes contribute to a progressive worsening of the disease.
A headache is like an alarm that begs for a specific action. The alarm should persist, at least intermittently, until the original cause for the alarm has been solved. Failing to address the real cause of these conditions, the noise continues. Lacking a viable method of achieving true peace, some simply ignore the noise, while others hide from it with prescription or illicit drugs.
The American Migraine Foundation states that “there is no cure for migraines” and that “Current Migraine Treatments are Inadequate”. I agree with them regarding the current popular treatments, but I expect they may change their opinion once they learn about the system that I have created.
From the New England Journal of Medicine: There are two main types of migraine. Both types of migraine typically affect patients for the major part of their lives, at considerable socioeconomic and personal expense. (1)
The first, migraine without aura (previously called common migraine), is characterized by headache attacks lasting 4 to 72 hours. The headache is usually severe, unilateral, pulsating, aggravated by physical activity, and accompanied by nausea, vomiting, photophobia (hypersensitivity to light), and phonophobia (hypersensitivity to sound). (1)
In the second type, migraine with aura (previously called classic migraine), the attacks are initiated by neurologic symptoms called aura (visual, sensory, speech, or motor symptoms). Otherwise, the attacks are the same as those in migraine without aura. (1)
According to the New England Journal of Medicine, six percent of the population have migraine without aura during a one-year period, and 9 percent have it at some time in their lives. The corresponding figures for migraine with aura are 4 percent and 6 percent. The male:female ratio for both types of migraine is approximately 1:3. (1)
The World Health Organization lists Migraines as one of the 20 most disabling medical illnesses in its Global Burden of Disease Study (updated in 2004), because the average migraine sufferer loses 1.3% of their years due to disability (YLD). 1.3% may sound like a small number, but it translates to 114 hours per year or 8,550 excruciating hours or nearly one full year of intense pain over a 75-year lifespan. The WHO also states that in terms of its disabling effect, migraines compare with dementia, quadriplegia and active psychosis.
The Migraine Trust, a charitable health and medical research center for migraines estimates that there are an estimated 190,000 migraine attacks every day in the United Kingdom alone.
(From the World Health Organization)
Lack of knowledge among health-care providers is the principal clinical barrier. Worldwide, on average only four hours of undergraduate medical education are dedicated to instruction on headache disorders. The minority of individuals with headache disorders worldwide are professionally diagnosed; 40% for those with migraine and TTH, while for MOH it is only 10%.
Poor awareness extends to the general public. Headache disorders are not perceived by the public as serious since they are mostly episodic, do not cause death, and are not contagious. The low consultation rates in developed countries may indicate that many sufferers are unaware that effective treatments exist. 50% of people with headache are estimated to be self-treating.
Many governments, seeking to constrain health-care costs, do not acknowledge the substantial burden of headache on society. They might not recognize that the direct costs of treating headache are small in comparison with the huge indirect-cost savings that might be made (eg, by reducing lost working days) if resources were allocated to treat headache disorders appropriately.
According to new data presented at the 48th Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Headache Society, migraine headaches cost American employers more than $24 billion a year in direct and indirect healthcare costs. Source: PR Newswire
Conventional medicine recommends the use of pain medication to hide the most troublesome symptoms. Avoidance of triggers is not itself a treatment but doctors frequently recommend this as a prophylactic or preventative technique. Doctors also sometimes prescribe medications as an additional prophylactic.
Popular alternative remedies include acupuncture, chiropractic and massage treatments.
From Wikipedia: While acupuncture is effective “true” acupuncture is not more efficient than sham acupuncture, with both appearing more effective than routine care, with fewer adverse effects than prophylactic drug treatment. Chiropractic manipulation, physiotherapy, massage and relaxation might be as effective as propranolol or topiramate in the prevention of migraine headaches…There is some tentative evidence of benefit for magnesium, coenzyme Q(10), riboflavin, vitamin B(12), and feverfew… Of the alternative medicines, Petasites hybridus (butterbur) has the best evidence for migraine prevention.
Many people find that their migraine begins soon after consuming a particular food, or in the presence of a particular environmental factor. Author Alexander Mauskop lists these common triggers as: cheese, bacon, nuts, avocados, chocolate, yeast, spices, hot dogs, corn, anything fermemented, red wine, beer, beverages containing caffeine, skipping meals, stress, fatigue, bright lights, strong odors, certain medications, perfumes and other odors, air pollution, hormonal changes, the weather, seasonal changes and altitude.
While some of these items should rightfully be avoided anyway, others, such as avocados, spices, the weather and seasonal changes are healthy, enjoyable parts of living well. Avocados provide some of the healthiest fat on Earth. As for spices… surely migraine sufferers shouldn’t be expected to avoid all 350+ common spices, many of which provide important nutrients and are indispensable in preventing many diseases. Those living high in the mountains could certainly move their household to a lower city, but with a considerable expense and inconvenience. And just how would you go about avoiding the weather. Either you must stay indoors forever, or perhaps move to San Diego, Malta or Colombia. You may indeed get some more enjoyment out of life by selecting one of these places to live, but this certainly cannot be an acceptable recommendation for avoiding migraines.
I strongly suggest avoiding all of the following chemicals, even if you do not suffer from migraines. These chemicals are linked with migraines and a host of other serious physical and mental conditions ranging from Alzheimer’s to cancer to epileptic seizures and more.
Aspartame, a popular sweetener found in many packaged foods labelled “sugar free”, is linked to migraines and many other conditions. The journal Pediatric Neurology recently published a study on teens that frequently chew gum (most of which contains the chemical Aspartame). Of the thirty patients studied, 26 reported significant improvement and 19 reported a complete improvement after discontinuing the habit of gum-chewing. All twenty patients that resumed the habit experienced headache or migraine within days.
Bisphenol A (BPA), which mimics oestrogen, frequently leaches into food and beverages from its plastic container. A recent study published in the journal Toxicological Sciences provides more proof that BPA causes migraines.
Monosodium glutamate (MSG) is an excitatory neurotoxin (or excitotoxin) that is commonly added to packaged foods and even restaurant foods (particularly Chinese restaurant food) to enhance the neurologic perception of the food’s taste. In other words, the food does not actually taste better, but the brain is tricked into perceiving a better taste. The brain cells that are excited by MSG then die, so the enhanced pleasure comes at a great cost. A 2010 study from the University of Oxford found that a gene called TRESK was implicated in some migraine patients. The researchers found that if the TRESK gene malfunctions, other factors (such as MSG) can more easily trigger a migraine.
Web-md.com lists 91 pharmaceutical medications for temporary migraine relief. Some doctors prescribe one or more of these medications for acute migraine attacks and others also prescribe medication as a prophylactic, that is, to prevent future migraines. Prophylactic treatments are considered effective if they cut down the severity or frequency of the migraine attacks by half or more.
A common side effect of migraine medicines is that they actually cause migraines.(2) Sometimes this side effect does not appear the first few times a new medication is taken, suggesting that the medication accumulates in the body, worsening the condition over time. This is called Medication-overuse Headaches (MOH).
This study, sponsored by the pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline examined Non-steroidal Anti-inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs) Alone or With a Triptan and Reports of Transition From Episodic to Chronic Migraine. The study was completed in 2011 but the results were never published. Dare I guess the reason that the results remain hidden? The most likely answer is that the results of the study were not particularly flattering to the drug giant.
Other side effects of popular migraine medications include an increased risk of heart attacks and strokes, gastrointestinal problems such as ulcers and bleeding, sometimes-fatal hepatic (liver) problems, renal (kidney) problems, muscle weakness, dizziness, nausea and mental health problems including depression, anxiety, irritability, and psychotic reactions, and sleep disturbances such as insomnia and nightmares. Some migraine medications cause weight gain and hair loss. Using Botox as a migraine treatment can cause headaches, bruising and pain at the injections sites, drooping eyelid, muscle pain and stiffness, and the inability to raise the eyebrows for the 3 months the Botox is in effect.
I began searching for an effective treatment for migraine at a very young age, to provide relief for two family members. Initially I looked at massage and myotherapy, without finding immediate success in either of these methods. I began reading about reflexology, acupuncture, chiropractic and other physical manipulation techniques. Each of these methods has been successful for some patients but not for the majority. I read up on homeopathy, naturopathy, and nutrition. These last two seemed to offer a real solution that would require patience and dedication on the part of the sufferer to produce results. I have incorporated this knowledge into my protocol, but I still needed to develop a method to provide immediate relief for those experiencing an acute migraine attack, and a system that could pre-empt future migraine attacks for at least the length of time needed to implement the naturalistic nutrition and lifestyle plans. I continued reading and experimenting for many years.
By experimenting on more than a thousand volunteers I discovered that those suffering with migraines (and other serious health conditions) were less wiggly than healthier volunteers. I began to associate wiggliness with wellness. I noticed that wiggliness was not directly associated with any other physical attribute such as flexibility, body constitution/shape or overall fitness level. I began to focus more and more on wiggliness. Babies are the wiggliest humans and tend to be healthy. The elderly are the least wiggly and tend to suffer many chronic health conditions. There are other factors at play besides wiggliness, of course, but I was nonetheless interested to find a method for restoring wiggliness. I eventually developed a method that works, and the results have been called “miraculous” by those that experienced immediate and lasting relief from my system, when countless other systems had previously failed.
After more than two decades of experimentation, I succeeded in developing a highly effective, non-invasive, non-pharmaceutical treatment protocol for chronic headaches and chronic migraines.
The hallmark of my system is a unique method of restoring the normal energy flow (wiggliness!) throughout the entire body, such that the body is able to “heal itself” quickly and efficiently. This self-healing includes proper oxygenation and detoxification, which are apparently hindered by a lack of what I call “wiggliness”.
In most cases, my migraine-healing method can eliminate an acute migraine attack in under ten minutes. By the end of the first session (which typically lasts 1.5 – 2 hours), the energy flow has been restored to the extent that approximately 80% of migraine sufferers will not have a recurrence for an extended period, generally 6 months – 1 year, even without a follow-up treatment. In the remaining 20% of subjects where migraines do continue, they are generally more than 50% less frequent and less severe. In these cases, a follow-up treatment may further improve the condition.
My migraine-healing method is designed to provide immediate relief from an acute migraine attack, as well as an effective non-pharmaceutical prophylactic against the migraines that would otherwise be forthcoming. Migraine pain is debilitating and demoralizing. It is therefore necessary to alleviate the condition for as long as possible, to afford the patient time and “space” to implement the remainder of my anti-migraine protocol. My migraine-healing treatment provides the necessary freedom from pain and stress and then focuses on making the result permanent through lifestyle training.
My migraine-healing method involves a sequence of 40 techniques of gentle body manipulation, each of which is set to a carefully-selected piece of music that contains a specific “pulse”. The movements must perfectly correspond with the pulse of the music. The majority of the techniques are quite simple. This allows my system to be taught to many people with different backgrounds. A chiropractor, a doctor or an experienced massage therapist will be able to master all 40 techniques with as little as three days of practice. Compassionate but less-experienced care-givers will still be able to perform 35 of those techniques.
The goal of my system is to allow energy to pass through the body “unobstructed” (to the greatest extent possible during a single session). If a serious blockage can be reduced by 80% during the session, the migraine condition will be halted. If the person were suffering an acute migraine attack just prior to the treatment, this will have disappeared. If the person usually suffers a daily migraine, she will likely enjoy a considerable period of time free of further attacks. This period is usually a minimum of several months but can be extended indefinitely with a very simple daily exercise that takes just 1-2 minutes to maintain the benefits of the treatment over the long term.
In addition to migraine symptoms vanishing, the patient may experience other benefits. If she previously had suffered from insomnia or anxiety, these conditions will also greatly improve and there may also be an improvement in some cases of depression.
The remainder of my protocol (besides its hallmark treatment described above) relates to living in harmony with nature. I developed The Lotus Lifestyle to provide the 8 simple steps for avoiding migraines and pretty well every other serious health problem:
The Lotus Lifestyle is designed for everyone, not just migraine sufferers. It provides the guidelines for obtaining the correct nutrients and avoiding and eliminating harmful toxins. It is possible to follow The Lotus Lifestyle without spending a penny. I frequently teach this method in schools and when I am invited as a guest speaker. At my wellness center The Lotus Garden, visitors “learn by doing”… that is to say, they live all eight components of The Lotus Lifestyle, so they can immediately feel the dramatic improvement in their overall wellness. Daytime visitors can get an immediate boost in their energy and a dramatic reduction in pain and they can get a taste of delicious, healthy food. Guests that stay a longer period can fully detox and fully renew themselves, while breathing clean air and sampling infinite varieties of healthy meals.
Please do not hesitate to contact me with your questions or comments, or to book a visit to the Lotus Garden.
The Influence of Excessive Chewing Gum Use on Headache Frequency and Severity Among Adolescents, Pediatric Neurology, Nov 1, 2013
This article was originally published on October 1, 2012 and was last edited December 18, 2013.
Although I love to share my own recipes and the recipes of others, I must confess that I do not follow recipes myself. That’s because I have way too much fun just throwing random ingredients together for a new taste and texture at every meal.
Today my fridge is nowhere near full, so I figured this would be a good day to show you that miracles can happen with very few available ingredients. This experiment came out even more beautiful than I had planned. And by the way, I am pleasantly surprised quite frequently, so I would encourage you to live a bit “dangerously” too.
You can try my very own pink frothy smoothie du jour, or make any substitution that you want:
Toss all the ingredients in your Blendtec or Vitamix blender, and hit the “smoothie” button, or otherwise just blend it until the mixture is so frothy that you can’t wait another second before drinking it.
Tira todos los ingredientes en su licuadora (recomiendo Blendtec o Vitamix), y presiona el boton para hacer licuados. El licuado esta listo cuando tiene una textura ligera e irresistible!
http://youtu.be/_bKQXmvdr8o
My uncle Luke just sent me a clip of a man I had never before heard of. For a second, I thought it was a British comedian and that I might require subtitles to understand his humour. As he rambled several poignant thoughts consecutively, I realized that this was no comedy bit, and–I must confess–I briefly suspected that he had been reading some of my own writings. But his voice echoed even the words from my new book, which is not yet published. So instantly I realized that this is no copycat. Quite simply he speaks aloud the very same thoughts and feelings that are inside all of us. It just so happens that he speaks these words with a very cool English accent. (Brilliant!!)
I fully expect that you will agree with Russell on every single point. If any part of Russell’s message seems strange, it is only because the media and society have together caused your inner voice to compete with zillions of superfluous messages.
Russell speaks of yoga and transcendental meditation as his two main tools for feeling a brief connection with God and with the universe. And he is exactly right: these are extremely powerful tools. But let me add that these tools are much simpler to use than most people believe.
In the case of yoga, there are millions of students being told erroneously that the word “yoga” means “to join”, a verb, implying that you must do something to connect yourself to the Universe. And one fallacy becomes two, because the students are then led to believe that the “connection” that they “achieved” during the yoga class is but a temporary one, requiring many visits to the yoga school, effectively selling yoga as an addictive drug.
So let me clarify that yoga means oneness or unity and it is your very essence. There is absolutely no action required to connect yourself to the divine Universe. Your only task is to become fully aware of your connectedness.
That brings us to transcendental meditation. Again, this is commonly “sold” by some “masters” that would prefer to have many students coming back to them for more and more. But in reality, nothing could be simpler than meditation, because to meditate simply means to observe, as intently and profoundly as possible. Intently is the opposite of accidentally, and profoundly is the opposite of superficially, so the only kind of observation that doesn’t qualify as meditation is the kind of observation that we typically do throughout most of the day using the five notorious senses. (I’ve written an article on these already, so I’ll dig it up and post it here shortly.)
Russell calls these same famous senses “the limited senses” and again, he is right. The eyes see but a tiny fraction of the total light energy that surrounds us, while the vast majority usually goes unnoticed. Ditto for the other four commonly-exploited senses that keep us chasing our proverbial tail… if we continue to focus on just that which is being sold, we will continue to miss the majority of reality, and we will perpetually feel empty, desiring more stimulation.
Profound observation elegantly solves this problem! By diverting one’s attention away from the noise of the media and society (as simple as turning off all electronics) one is left with only the sound of one’s inner voice plus the zillions of messages previously recorded in our minds by the media and society. And even though this may initially seem overwhelming, I assure you that before long you will have no trouble distinguishing your innermost thoughts from the outermost, and thus the massive housekeeping chore gets lighter and lighter, and this lightening is where the transcendence comes in. All meditation, when done correctly, is transcendental. Your consciousness will expand irreversibly. You do not need a more complicated strategy to achieve transcendence. Simply stick with the profound observation for as long as possible and do it frequently.
By living a life of meditation or prayer, you will effectively distill the mental mayhem down to just the core truths, the same ones that Russell and I speak of… about love being the most important part of life, about kindness being the surest way to feel good, about focusing on abundance and cooperation instead of scarcity and competition… I’ve “known” Russell for a total of ten minutes, but I am absolutely sure that neither of us will ever claim a patent on these ideas, because they are the very same thoughts and feelings that persist in the heart and soul of every single human being.
In this video, Loren Lockman of the Tanglewood Wellness Center answers the question “what happens to the human body on eating cooked food?”
Does eating cooked food affect the body’s temperature?
It does. Normal body temperature is 98.6 Fahrenheight or 37 Celsius. But normal means, not healthy, but average. Is this the healthy temperature?
Not necessarily.
Every time that you put cooked food in your body, your body says “something is wrong” and there is an immune response.
This was proven in an experiment about 80 years ago, where the same group of people were fed at different times both raw and cooked food. The result was that, each time a person ate cooked foods, the scientists observed the condition known as leucocytosis, the process by which the body sends white blood cells to the site of an injury.
Prior to this study, scientists were not aware that this process occured during digestion, so a new term was coined: “digestive leucocytosis”. But this condition did NOT occur when the same people ate raw food.
In a later study, scientists in Sweden showed that when we cook anything, we create acrylamide, a known carcinogen. The scientists were actually trying to understand why people that work with this chemical did not have any increased propensity to cancer. The researchers found that the reason for the lack of increased risk is due to the fact that nearly everyone exposes themselves to this chemical on a daily basis!
If you are consuming cooked carbohydrates, you are consuming (according to the U.S. goverment) up to 100 times the “safe” quantity of acrylamide.
Although the government claims that there is in fact a “safe” amount of a toxic carcinogen, Loren and I beg to differ: there is no safe quantity.
Loren asks “might this be the reason that cancer has been growing so rapidly?… Well [the constant exposure to carcinogens] certainly plays a major role”.
Every time you eat cooked food, your intelligent body says “oh this is toxic!”, and responds as though it has been poisoned… but only because it has!
To contact Loren, please visit www.tanglewoodwellnesscenter.com
Like a second mother, my Aunt Jane was always present as a role model, teacher and friend. She lives by the example of Jesus, as a servant to the poor, and lovingly passes on the wisdom of Mother Teresa and of her own mother, Theresa, my grandmother.
Jane is a devoted Catholic Nun, a committed sister to her siblings, and a loving aunt, and a compassionate teacher to thousands of students, whom she loves as her own children. She does everything with love. She promotes good health, using good food and laughter as medicine.
Aunt Jane inspired me to pursue wellness and healing at a very early age. She taught me that physical ailments can be cured with natural, non-toxic methods such as strategic body manipulation. This inspired me to search for more ways to eliminate suffering. Jane is also the inventor of what is now called “the Emotional Freedom Technique” or “tapping”. But her system is better than tapping. Jane lovingly “plays the piano” on the back of a person that is stressed, and the stress melts away instantly.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s CNN Special: Weed uncovers the value of smoked and vaporized cannabis in treating epilepsy, cancer and other diseases. The video still misses the important point that eating raw cannabis is more medicinal and without the risks associated with smoke inhalation.
According to Dr. William L Courtney, MD, Cannabis is a vegetable and is valuable for both the treatment, and the prevention of disease. Raw cannabis has no psychotropic properties and should be consumed preventatively. Dr. Courtney is fighting to make Cannabis legal worldwide.
Dr. Leonard Coldwell says “You could live off of only hemp and never have a deficiency. Hemp and hemp oil is the cure for cancer. It cures skin cancer in 3-7 days.”
http://youtu.be/hTIe173g-Eo
The story of one Canadian that has made it his mission to help those in need. Rick has improved the lives of his fellow citizens without asking anything in return.
http://youtu.be/0psJhQHk_GI
The FDA, often criticized for allowing toxic substances to be sold as food, is taking a major step toward preventing disease. Hydrogenated oils, also known as trans fats, will no longer be “Generally Recognized As Safe” or GRAS for short.
This means that manufacturers will no longer be allowed to sell them without first producing scientific proof that they are safe. And frankly, no one could prove such a thing, without resorting to fuzzy math, trickery, deceit and outright corruption.
In 2006, the New England Journal of Medicine published a review article entitle “Trans Fats and Cardiovascular Disease” wherein that the authors cautioned against even conducting a long-term trial, saying that it would be “unethical, given the adverse effects of trans fats on serum lipid levels and inflammation”.
Using hydrogenated oil instead of healthy oil helps the bottom line of the manufacturer by increasing the shelf life and lowering the cost of its products, but they are terrible for your body. Several studies have implicated trans fats in a variety of conditions like heart disease, cancer, obesity, diabetes, ADHD and Alzheimer’s.
The World Health Organization reports that heart disease is the leading cause of death worldwide.
According to Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian and others, in the April 16, 2006 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine:
“On a per-calorie basis, trans fats appear to increase the risk of Coronary Heart Disease more than any other macronutrient, conferring a substantially increased risk at low levels of consumption… In an analysis of nearly 140,000 subjects, a 2 percent increase in energy intake from trans fatty acids was associated with a 23 percent increase in the incidence of Coronary Heart Disease.
Prior to 2006, the FDA did not require manufacturers to disclose the inclusion of trans fats on labels of their packaged goods. Americans were consuming a large daily dose of a deadly toxin without so much as a tiny warning on the label. Since the FDA began requiring that trans fats be labeled, the food industry has dramatically reduced the amount of trans fats used in its products. According to the FDA, Americans consumed about 4.6 grams of trans fats per day in 2003 compared to about 1 gram per day in 2012.
Unfortunately, many products still contain these dangerous semi-solid oils and often people don’t read the labels, and some may not understand the dangers of trans fats.
If the FDA’s current motion is successful in effectively banning trans fats from manufactured foods, Americans are likely to suffer 20,000 fewer heart attacks per year, and about 7,000 untimely deaths from heart attacks will be prevented. This measure, which is long overdue, sadly won’t come into effect immediately.
The FDA made its decision to require trans fats to be labeled in 2003, but that measure did not come into effect until 2006.
Although I do applaud the FDA for eventually making the right moves on this particular toxin, one simply cannot afford to rely on the FDA for food safety in the predictable near future. When you go to the supermarket, it would be wise to bring a magnifying glass to help you scrutinize every item that you will feed to your family. For the next undetermined time you must be on the lookout for trans fats under all its criminal aliases, including “partially-hydrogenated vegetable oil” , “margarine” and “shortening”.
It’s practically a thankless job. Worse than that, the good people at the United States Food and Drug Administration are frequently under pressure from all sides of many a heated debate. Patent holders want to sell more drugs and prefer that the FDA make all plants illegal. Well-intentioned promoters of natural health like Dr. Mercola and others regularly accuse the FDA of only looking out for the interest of Big Pharma. Some bureaucrats are innocently stuck in the crossfire.
The government does seem to push the patented synthetic drugs–each with its own unenviable list of horrible side effects–when there are certainly better, less harmful solutions out there. But certainly not all of its officers are corrupt. Let us not lose sight of the fact that the FDA is charged with no easy task. And let us never be slow to recognize the great work of the few outstanding officials that are legitimately fighting for the health and wellness of all.
Continue reading “Dr. Woodcock and the FDA’s Attempt to Curb Drug Abuse”
Helen Fisher explains the biology behind love and fidelity. She explains the reasons why humans are inclined to cheat, and the methods that we use to stay together.