Inflammation and the Disease Process
Recently I saw a man with bloody urine that eventually resolved. His testing showed reddened lesions in the bladder and the biopsy showed cancer in the specimen.
So I suggested we get more information and under anesthesia the lesions were gone. What happened? Does cancer disappear. Actually the areas were inflammatory and the bleeding had come from a nonbacterial inflammatory conditon of the bladder which produced the observed bleeding.
All cancers in the mindbody are associated with inflammation or the imbalance of the Pitta energy pattern.
And inflammation can produce all forms of conditions that we hear about. Acid indigestion or heartburn, rheumatoid arthritis, irritable bowel syndrome, interstitial cystitis, and elevated PSA. As a matter of fact, any -itis in the mindbody is an imbalance of this energy pattern called Pitta.
So why is this important? Anytime that we find ourselves with a condition of inflammation, we should look at adding an energy nutritional approach to improve the existing condition.
This is an energy science view, not a matter science view to nutrition. The latter has no concept of an antiinflammatory diet. It can't because the model from which the nutritional format comes doesn't have the ability to describe foods as inflammatory. If it tries the nutritional format misses foods that are energetically inflammatory.
Today a concerned mother told the story of her son with an early diagnosis of lymphoma. With the rest of his therarpies he should be on a nutritional approach appropriate for his mindbody energy constitution that would address the nutritional imbalances that brought about the tumor.
Now is this going to cure his cancer. No that would be ridiculous to say. But it will augment the other therapies that he is undergoing and if he makes this a lifestyle behavior change, it can potentially help with his overall health.
This is the value of the energy science approach to nutrition.
To health as a skill DrBill
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5 Ways To Make Lifestyle Changes Happen
Anything that we want to achieve in life....getting in better physical condition, losing weight, improving people's lives by working in a business or profession, changing a lifestyle pattern of behavior like smoking etc....requires that some form of structure be put into place so that a pattern of behavior is done over a period of time Hopefully the change is the pattern of behavior causes the desired change
So for example in the case of chronic disease in order to cause a physiologic shift toward balance and improvement in your symptoms, you undertake certain things that you think will make a shift
Life and Its Distractions To Healing
But let's face it even with good intentions life goes on and requires our participation and so distractions arise The deadline at work, finishing work projects, the upcoming holidays, getting the right Halloween costume...these sometimes get in the way of our healing intentions
In other words life's distractions affect how we heal They directly impact our ability to follow through with our intentions to heal
I believe that this is the major problem in healing chronic disease Healing any disease is doable with varying levels of difficulty based on length of disease and number of energy patterns involved but it requires time to do the things necessary In the energy science discipline it's not just one thing that promotes healing but rather a multiplicity of things that bring about physiologic change
This multimodality energy science approach begins with lifestyle measures focused on nutritional formats as discussed in the past but there are other things that can be done to support this approach
5 Ways to Create Structure
1 Overcoming inertia is the biggest challenge and keeping up with it is the next biggest hurdle
2 Use a calendar (here's a downloadable calender you can use on your computer) and mark down what's needed to create the change that you want to see happen....then check it every day
2 Expect it to be awkward at first...kind of like finding your groove You may forget and that's what the calendar is for
3 Daily do that activity at specific times of the day marking your items on the calendar
4 The more things you do to effect the change the better the chances of getting the desired result of healing
5 Make it a set of activities A morning routine has a set of things to do and these all work together to set the tone for the day as well as each activity supporting each other
It takes about 6-8 weeks for the change to be made Then you can move on to add more new activities to advance your healing journey
And sometimes it means deleting behaviors that don't serve us well.....for example going to bed earlier sets up the morning times to do some activities
Having a coach to support and help produce structure is valuable in these efforts You can make an appointment for a free consultation to get started
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Detoxification and Monodiet: 5 Steps for a Bowel Vacation
From an energy point of view all disease begins in the GI tract Foods introduce to the body vibrational frequencies that are called qualities or gunas in the energy science of Ayurveda When these qualities become too much in quantity (eg too much hot quality from too much hot sauce then symptoms such as heartburn or hyperacidity syndrome occurs and you take an antacid) then disease occurs It's like this for all disease
But another way we can get sick and by the way the most insidious is by having a poor digestive fire or agni When this happens we don't digest well and the end result is toxic load that can spread to parts of the body susceptible in taking this toxic load on So you can see that having a good digestive fire is very important to good health and prevention of disease
The Bowel Vacation
Wouldn't you think it unusual for someone not to ever take some time off? To maintain mental strength and creativity we all need breaks from work and a little R and R
So if it's true for our lifestyle choices shouldn't it be true for parts of us as well? However the idea of giving the bowel some time off doesn't seem to be part of the equation Trigger words such as water or juice fasting come up for many and cause people to cringe at the thought of going without food
But a bowel vacation means that the heavy foods normally consumed(pizza, rich cream sauces, lots of meat, heavy dairy. ice cream as examples) are removed from the nutritional meals for 3 or 4 days and a more simple diet is taken
You see the enzyme systems(the chemical fire if you will) need to be replenished and if you're continually asking our agni or digestive power to be used over and over again it becomes overtaxed These above wet logs as I call then place a heavy strain on your campfire(agni) and at times it is not up to par leading to toxic accumulation In essence increase of toxic load is what is behind the whole idea of detoxification
How To Go On a Bowel Vacation: 5 Things to Do
1 Make something simple to digest Kitchari is a time honored energy science nutritional tool to give your bowel enzyme systems a break from their work You can find it here at this link Do this for 5 days and notice how your bowel symptoms begin melting away!
2 If hungry snack on a piece of fruit but not in the meal
3 Consider an occasional juice day
4 Use cooling spices(cumin coriander fennel vanila turmeric cardamom) and avoid hot ones (eg garlic oregano sage rosemary thyme etc)
5 Use 2 handfuls as a guideline as to how much to eat at any one time
These simple things done based on your energy constitutional makeup will go a long ways toward improving your digestive power and enhancing your health
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Seasons and Nutrition.
Have you ever heard of a racial riot in the winter? Beaches packed in December in the Northwest?(or are they ever packed?) People packing the parks during January? The seasons change our internal climate as well.
The hot and cold qualities or primordial vibrational frequencies produce such lifestyle behavior patterns as they do when we are eating our diets.
The seasons have an impact on our digestion. During the winter the hot qualities of foods can be tolerated by people who might not tolerate them during the summer. And likewise the cold qualities for people who wouldn't tolerate them during the winter would find them somewhat permissible during the summer.
For example a predominantly Pitta individual might not tolerate hot chillis during the summer months but in the cold winter months, this hot quality and pungent tastes would not be so imbalancing.
Predominant Kapha would not do well with dairy due to its congestive nature in the cold winter months but during the hot summer could use it occasionally.
The energetic nutritional concept is that our biologic energy fields are affected by the environmental energy field. Recently I reviewed a matter science article about the effect of the season on digestion and questioned how this observation could be true. An observation by a matter field model that cannot explain it.
If we are to come to an understanding of nutrition and its role in health it will have to come from an energy science approach
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Fresh Water Prawns
A patient of mine told me about freshwater prawns that are farmed here locally. “What a great idea!”, I said. All of us could benefit from this novel animal food since freshwater fish can be used by everyone regardless of their energy pattern. Freshwater fish will pacify everyone’s physiology and promote energetic balance Salt water seafood is potentially Pitta provoking so having a freshwater alternative sounded like a great alternative
Then I began thinking of possible problems. They’ll probably have a weird taste. “No”, my patient explained, “they taste even better than the saltwater prawns.” They’re probably hard to find, I thought. “And they are locally available just off Lake street.” My mindbody began searching for other possible reasons but having no more objections, I thought it wouldn’t be a bad idea to try them.
The next day I found myself ambitiously getting ready for my sojourn to the store to try this new found possible taste thrill. “Maybe I won’t have enough time,” I thought to myself. Nonsense, just go get them and if I don’t like them, my daughter will eat them.
So I get the prawns and they’re delicious! And now I noticed the same process that my mindbody goes through when confronted with something new. There is hesitancy about what might happen if I do something out of the ordinary. Something that’s not in my realm of comfort. I’ll have the saltwater prawns, thanks very much.
What gives? Why do I get so resistant to trying something new? I think the simple answer is the fear of the unknown. The uncertainty of predicting what lies ahead prevents us from moving off center and doing something different. For some the acceptance of change may be easy, for others it may be more difficult. And for all of us, there will be guaranteed issues that we balk at and say to ourselves, not today.
Freshwater prawns may be easy but perhaps changing our whole nutritional pattern may be something else. But the key to any change is realizing the fear and stepping through it. Everyone has their pet ways of resisting change. Predominant Vata people run away from fear, Pitta criticizes and becomes judgmental, justifying their resistance by talking themselves out of whatever they’re fearing to change. And Kapha simply resists by inertia-just not going to do it. A sense of complacency becomes overwhelming.
Knowing this resistance to the uncertainty and realizing that we will always express our resistance is unique ways allows us to watch ourselves in the midst of our resistance and perhaps walk through it. But if not, it’s OK. There will always be another day
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