Get Happier and Healthier by Doing This One Thing...

"The best of all medicines is resting and _______."

~ Benjamin Franklin

Hi everyone,

Care to fill in the blank in today's quotation? 

Read on to find the answer...

A recent study has shown that _______ causes you to secrete more of a hormone called GHRELIN, which has a few interesting side effects...

- It gives you energy
- Makes you more action-oriented
- Makes you more sociable
- and better able to overcome obstacles

Okay, I know.  You're saying, "Where can I get me some of this stuff?!" 

Relax - your body makes it.  Your stomach makes most of it and some extra comes from your kidneys, your hypothalamus and pituitary glands. 
Ghrelin has a notable anti-depressive effect and generally makes people much HAPPIER.

Of course, your system makes more of it when you're _______.

That might be part of the reason people practicing authentic ancient spiritual traditions are about the happiest folks you'll ever meet.  At least, that was certainly my experience of the Orthodox Christian monks of Mt. Athos in Greece. 

And they're certainly well known for their _______.


SO WHAT IS _______ ALREADY??!!

It's fasting.  The practice of going without food or sometimes food and drink for a certain defined period.  It's long been known that fasting kick-starts the body's cleansing reaction, causing you to release toxins.

And fasting it SIGNIFICANTLY contributes to longevity.  (If you want to live a long time, try not only eating a BETTER diet, but also eating LESS).  Some recent experiments with mice determined that cutting down the little rodent's food intake contributed to lengthening his lifespan by 30% or more and keeping him healthy at the same time.  For a human, that would mean the difference between a life plagued with health problems and coming to an abrupt end around age 80 versus a longer, disease-free life of closer to 106 years.  Sound good to you?

Fasting is also critically important to any REAL spiritual life.  By the way, that doesn't mean that ALL religious fasting is helpful spiritually, it just means truly spiritual people practice fasting.  There's a difference!  


Now, though, the evidence also suggests that fasting has a very positive, mood-altering side effect as well.  Again, this applies to INTELLIGENT fasting, practiced in MODERATION.  Don't succumb to the silly logic that if a little fasting makes happy, a ton of fasting will make you the happiest person on earth.  Wrong! 

So if you're aiming for personal resilience in your life, fasting will be an indispensable practice for you.  It will improve your mood, giving you the emotional resources to cope with the ups and downs of life.  It will help you detoxify, keeping you healthier.  And it will greatly facilitate your spiritual practices, such as prayer and meditation.  




NEVER DONE THIS BEFORE?

Then the best way to start is to ease yourself into it.

You can try spending a morning with nothing more than pure water, for example.  Then - and this is REALLY important - take note of how you feel physically, mentally and emotionally.



One of the easiest ways to incorporate fasting into your life is to set aside one day per week for it and then do a detoxification cleanse 2-4 times per year.  For your one day per week, you could start off, for example, by something as simple as drinking only pure water in the morning and then having only liquids (nutritious smoothies, for example) for the rest of the day.  

So, why not set aside a day to avoid this...

... in order to enjoy this?

 Believe me, your digestive system will be thanking you big time!

There are lots of varieties of fasting and we can't get into the details here, but you get the general idea.  

When regular fasting becomes part of your life, you'll LOOK FORWARD to it, knowing how great it makes you feel.

Remember to smile when you fast ;-)

~ Dr. Symeon Rodger

Fasting Part One: Fasting to Improve Your Health

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Ageless Beauty – Timeless Health:
Building a Lifestyle that Automatically Creates the
Health, Immunity and Longevity You Want

Toronto, Canada: June 4-5, 2011

http://www.harapower.com/AB/

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This is Holy Week for most Christians and a time when tens of millions of people will be fasting.  So what better time to do a two-part series on the value of fasting?  Why two-part?  Because there are two main reasons people fast...

We fast in search of better health or we fast as a method of spiritual purification.  As we'll see the two are related.  Today, though, we'll focus on fasting to create health, immunity and longevity....

What Exactly is "Fasting"?

That's not as stupid a question as you may think.  That fact is, there are lots of misconceptions out there about fasting.  Some people believe that simply abstaining from certain foods or food groups, either temporarily or permanently, is "fasting".  That's most definitely not fasting.  That's "abstinence".  


Fasting is going without eating solid food, and sometimes liquid nourishment as well, for a defined period of time.  That could be a matter of hours, days or weeks, depending on what you're trying to achieve and how.  

The Health Benefits of Fasting

So why would you bother?  Perhaps because there are few if any other health tools in your arsenal that give you such bang for the buck.  Here are just some of the primary benefits of fasting:

1. Initiates a detoxification / cleansing reaction in the body, enabling you to rid yourself of accumulated toxins.
2. Enables weight loss.
3. Puts the digestive system, and the body as a whole, into "rest mode", allowing the energy usually devoted to digestion to be diverted to healing.
4. Clears up skin problems and the whites of your eyes.
5. Naturally lowers blood pressure without drugs.
6. Makes it easier to overcome bad habits and addictions, and to make a fresh start with a new, healthier diet and lifestyle.
7. Reduces inflammation throughout your body.
8. Reduces water retention throughout your body.
9. Pacifies many allergic reactions and sensitivities.  
10. Historical and biological research strongly suggests proper fasting promotes longevity.

Varieties of Fasting

You may have heard of many types of fasting for health, including water fasts, juice fasts, total fasts and many others.  Natural health pioneers like Dr. Bernard Jensen and Victor Irons used fasting together with colon cleansing to achieve remarkable results for their patients and clients for about half a century each!  More telling is that both of these great pioneers lived healthy lives to nearly age one hundred.  


Here's a video with Dr. Nicholas Tancheff, a chiropractor who has founded a fasting retreat facility in Hawaii.  You can learn a lot by listening to how he went from the typically disastrous North American lifestyle to learning how to self-heal...

Warning: Avoid the Traps!

There are several traps with fasting, so here's my advice on how to get started:

1. Check in with your physician or a licensed health-care provider to help you get started.  This is particularly important if you've never done this before or have a pre-existing medical condition.
2. Be clear on what you would like to achieve with the fast.  This will help you select the proper type.
3. Don't make it up on your own: follow a program based on reliable and tested information.
4. Don't overdo it.  Fasting for just a few days can provide enormous benefit!
5. Don't become addicted to fasting and cleansing!  These are activities you should do periodically, not constantly.  Once your fast is over, start giving your body all the nutritious food it needs to stay healthy!

If you would like to learn a whole lot more about fasting and cleansing directly from people with a lot of experience, you should consider coming to the health workshop I'm doing with Michael Morningstar in Toronto, Canada on June 4-5.


As you've heard from the teleseminar we did last week, Michael really knows his stuff.  And we are confident that you'll leave our event with the knowledge and the confidence to take your health to a whole new level.


~ Dr. Symeon Rodger






 

 

Colon Cleansing - Why and How to Get Started

It's no secret that our bodies are piled high with toxins these days, toxins from our corrupted food chain and water supply, the air we breathe, the household cleansers we use and any number of other sources.

So if you're serious about your health, immunity and overall resilience, you do need to be thinking about incorporating a regular detoxification program into your life.  And the best place to start for most people is definitely the colon.  Why?

• Over time, thanks partly to poor dietary habits, not all your bodily waste is excreted and some of the leftover ends up attached to the walls of your intestines, where it eventually becomes toxic and leaches those toxins into your bloodstream
   
• This leads to a less efficient colon, longer "transit times" for waste matter through your colon and more toxic build-up
   
• The most extreme colon cleanse is a colonic irrigation, where the colon is filled with water.  This breaks down and flushes out the caked on waste matter and what comes out is quite a shocking revelation to most people!
   
• Colon cleansing was quite popular until the pharmaceutical revolution of the '20s and '30s buried it under false promises of "miracle drugs"
   
• Great 20th century exponents of colon cleansing, such as Dr. Bernard Jensen and Victor Irons, lived extraordinarily long and healthy lives 

So colon cleansing sounds like a great thing to do for your health, right?  Unfortunately though, very few beginners have any idea where to start and what to do...

Blessed Herbs - Colon Cleanse in a Box

One of the easiest ways to get started and to see and feel great results is to use a colon cleanse based on herbs and fiber rather than on colonic irrigation.  It's quite a bit easier and more convenient, and I say that as someone who's done it all.  


One of the top cleansing kits out there comes from Blessed Herbs and I love their Internal Cleansing and Colon Cleansing kits because they're so well laid out, so easy to use and have such clear directions.  


Here's a brief video about their Colon Cleansing kit and three different ways to use it:









As a point of information for you, the Blessed Herbs Internal Cleansing kit targets the intestines, the liver, gallbladder, lungs, kidneys, lymph, blood and skin.  While you can order the Colon Cleansing kit on its own, it's currently being offered for free if you go for the Internal Cleansing kit.  


You can find all the information you need right here.


However you do it, I would encourage you to make regular cleansing and detoxification a part of your health routine this year - the benefits are truly astounding.


~ Dr. Symeon Rodger

Your Optimal Health Cheat Sheet

Turn up your speakers or read the text version below:

Over the last month I think I've given the "7 Deadly Spirals of Disease" teleclass about five times to various audiences totaling thousands of people.  It's one of the most in-demand health presentations out there today. 

And while there's a place for presentations that go into that much depth, there's also a place for the high-level check list of things you can do to ensure fantastic health for years to come.  So here's just such a list for you:

1. Detox your body - There are lots of great detox systems out there.  One of my personal favorites is from a company called Blessed Herbs.  Detoxifying your system two to four times per year is highly advisable, since your body is being forced to deal with a toxic load that's well in excess of its design specifications!
   
   
2. Stop loading your body with new toxins - yes it's time to start thinking about eating more organic fruits and veggies, meat that's hormone and antibiotic-free, free range eggs, and the like.  And, for that matter, to beware of any non-organic personal care products you use, such as toothpastes, shampoos, cosmetics and the rest.  If it goes on your skin, it goes into your bloodstream.
    
   
3. Get everything circulating - one of the greatest keys to excellent health is to take your entire body through its total range of motion on a regular basis, pack your organs, bones and fasciae with Qi (vital energy) and ensure that your blood, spinal fluid, lymph fluid and Qi are all circulating unobstructed throughout your body.  This alone will short-circuit the disease process. To find out more, go to http://www.rocksolidvitality.com/dvd. 
   
   
4. Optimize your diet - learn what your body really needs nutritionally.  Take Dr. Mercola's free nutritional typing test to figure out what you should be eating.  Learn from internationally famous nutritional expert Michael Morningstar by taking the course he and I put together at http://www.mindsetbootcamp.com/symeon/healthmastery.html.
   
   
5. Avoid the electromagnetic storm - learn about the dangers of information-bearing radio waves.  Avoid wireless internet, be careful about how and how often you use your cell phone, your cordless phone and your laptop.  And be especially careful to educate your kids about this too!
   
   
6. Cultivate gratitude - this the nature's most natural stress-killer.  Whereas stress sends your body's pH level into the disease-prone acidic range, the frequent practice of gratitude will have the opposite effect.  Remember, an alkaline body is a very poor host for illness.
    
   
7. Smile habitually and never complain - this has the same effect.  Yes, you're surrounded by the frustrating (and sometimes mind-bendingly stupid) actions of other people.  But the more you can learn to disregard it all, the more you'll stress-proof yourself.  When your friends or coworkers complain, propose a solution instead!
   
   
8. Give affection, get affection - people who give and receive affection frequently live longer and happier lives.  Become one of them!
   
   
9. Deal with your emotions - this is one of the greatest keys to dealing with stress.  Learn simple and powerful tools like the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) or Be Set Free Fast (BSFF).  Then you'll never again have to wallow helplessly in a puddle of negative emotion and put your health at risk. 
   
   
10. Meditate - it's one of the key elements of the ancient Taoist longevity system.  Moreover, it gives you mastery of your mind and emotions, and makes you totally stress-proof.  That's in addition to all its spiritual benefits, of course.
     
    
11. Learn to breathe - learn Normal Abdominal Breathing, the way the human being was meant to breathe.  This has enormous physical, psychological and spiritual benefits.  It's even more powerful when you join your breath, your movement and your mental attention into one.  You can learn more at: http://www.harapower.com/
    
    
12. Aim at harmony - we live in an anti-harmony culture.  Just walk down a busy street in any of our cities and you'll realize we've constructed a way of life hostile to our physical and emotional health.  When you aim at physical and emotional harmony in your own life, you counteract the persistently destructive influence of the man-made outside world.  Again, http://www.harapower.com/ will teach you more about this.
    

Please note you shouldn't try to do all of this or too much of it at once.  If you can implement just one of these this week or this month, you'll be making great progress!  

Remember that there's no one, single silver bullet for your health.  There are several and you need to take them all into account when you're building your new, healthier and more resilient lifestyle.  

~ Dr. Symeon Rodger

Meditation - It's More Than You Think (Part 1)

Recently a friend of mine engaged me in a conversation about meditation.  He’s pretty new to the whole thing and decided he really needed to start meditating to improve his health and, because of that decision, he was going to start meditating for a full 8 minutes a day!


Misconceptions:

Well, I’ll get back to him in a moment, but for now it just shows you all the misconceptions that are out there!  The fact is, if you’re basic understanding of the meditative process is wrong from the start, these misconceptions will limit your progress accordingly.

Yes, meditation can have profound effects on your physical health, however, that’s not the purpose of meditation.  Beware of mixing up benefits and purpose!

Meditation is really a two phase process.  Phase-1 teaches you how to stabilize your mental continuum and "delete" negative and unhelpful emotional / spiritual content, whereas Phase-2 teaches you how “download” new and superior emotional / spiritual content.


Phase 1: Stabilizing Your Mental Continuum and Deleting Negative Content

This negative content consists of all of your cultural conditioning (which controls and predetermines most of your reactions day to day to everything and everyone you encounter), your personal negative emotional content (from early life traumas and many other factors) and, in general, anything that’s holding you back.

Pursuing this training will eventually return you to the truly natural human state – where your mental continuum is free from extraneous thoughts and emotions.  Basically, you think when you decide to think.  Other than that, you mind remains crystal clear and without thought.  When this condition is stabilized throughout the day, virtually all of your emotional and physical symptoms will disappear.

The most effective way to train this method is something I’ve described in a really basic form in The 5 Pillars of Life book, and in much greater detail – pictures and all – in Rock Solid Tranquility (http://www.harapower.com/ ).  To simplify things, it involves a meditational sitting practice where you use your mental attention to follow your breathing.  Yeah okay, that glosses over some crucial details, but it’s an accurate description nevertheless.

When you start to practice this marvellous procedure, you’ll get lots of other benefits, of course.   Health is certainly one of them, as is a certain level of detoxification.  Others include a direct understanding of “harmony” – of the rhythm of the universe surrounding you.  Then you’ll slowly learn how to surrender, to let go of your own expectations, your hopes, your fears, and dwell trustingly in the moment.  In other words, you develop true faith.  (Please don't tell me how religious or "spiritual" you are unless you actually trust the Absolute Reality to care for you).

You’ll develop intuition – you’ll learn how to listen to your gut, trust you gut, and listen with a much wiser faculty than your ears or your thinking brain.

All these things will come into your reach through the practice of sitting meditation, unless…. you shoot for such hopelessly inadequate practice levels as 8 minutes a day!  Ain’t nothin’ happenin’ there… At the beginning it may well take you twice that long just to calm your mind and eliminate your distractions.  From the beginning of your practice, you should probably aim to sit for 20 minutes at a time.

Next time, I’ll attempt a brief description of Phase 2 of the meditative process, which is even more fascinating.  Just remember that you need to make some serious headway in Phase 1 first!

~ Dr. Symeon Rodger

Want REAL Health? Go on a Cleanse!

Just so you don't think I'm all hot air, that I write about all these great practices without ever doing them...

...Last week I was into two phenomenal resilience-building activities.  It was an amazing week, a week of challenges, of pain and finally of sweet victory.  Today, though, I'll just cover the first of those activities - a comprehensive internal cleanse or detoxification.


If you're reading this blog, you probably already know how important periodic cleanses are.  Your body is packed with a dizzying array of toxins and parasites absorbed from food, water, air pollution, toxic substances used in building interiors and more.  And by all accounts, this toxic load is considerably worse than it was even two or three decades ago.  Yet a good cleanse is almost guaranteed to get your blood pesticide levels down to FDA standards ;-) Even more amazing is that a good cleanse can eliminate the after-effects of previous emotional and even physical traumas.

In fact, some of the greatest "miracle" stories of healing and longevity have been based on cleansing, such as those of Victor Irons, Dr. Bernard Jensen and many more.  




The Cleanse I Used:


Over the years, I've used a number of different cleanses, and most of them have been incredibly positive experiences.  The cleanse I just started was recommended by my business associate, Kathy, about two years ago and I had wanted to try it ever since.  It's produced by a US company called Blessed Herbs and Kathy's naturopath was very impressed with the contents.  


If you know how confusing a cleanse can be, with a zillion different capsules to swallow or potions to drink at specific times of day, you'll really appreciate the Blessed Herbs approach.  Yeah, they have the pills and potions, but the layout is SO user-friendly you can't possibly get confused.   


This cleanse is, as the name implies, based largely on herbs, and runs for three stages of seven days each, so three weeks in all.  Right now I'm on Day 6 of Stage 2, or a bit more than half way through (which is good, since I'm developing a serious craving for cheese ;-)


That brings up the whole question of diet, since some cleanses are based on fasting of various types.  For this cleanse, it's up to you -  if you eat burgers and fries every night, you'll pretty much torpedo any benefit from your investment in all those amazing herbs.  On the other hand, if you eat light, vegan meals and drink lots of filtered water, you'll get fantastic results.  




My Results (Knock Wood...):


So far, I haven't experienced any kind of healing crisis - a healing crisis happens when you have a lot of toxins and the cleanse starts moving them out of your body at a rapid rate.  The symptoms are pretty unpleasant and mimic real illness, even though they're actually a good sign. 


For me, however, it's all been the opposite so far.  Well, a bit of intestinal pain one afternoon, but who's to complain?  All in all, I've noticed:

• Lots more energy throughout the day
• Improved mental clarity
• No more joint pain (a miracle, considering my other resilience-builder last week...)

This cleanse targets the colon (absolutely the most important place to start) and then moves on to all the major organs of toxin eliminations: your liver, gall bladder, lungs, kidneys, bladder and skin.  


So far, so good.  I'll keep you posted.  Cleanses are highly recommended at least twice a year.  Remember, you should only undertake a cleanse with the approval of your physician and / or a licensed and qualified health care provider. 


Next time, I'll fill you in on my other big activity of last week ;-)  


~ Dr. Symeon Rodger

Want Health? Then You Can't Afford to Ignore This...

"The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet and in the cause and prevention of disease."
- Thomas Edison

Hi all,

Edison was right, all those years ago, and despite the power and political clout of the pharmaceutical industry, people will likely look back at the medical and health practices of the our time and shake their heads saying...

"What WERE they thinking??"

Ancient cultures made some miraculous medical discoveries, and none more far-reaching in its effectiveness than the science of BREATHING. Sounds ridiculously simple?

What if I told you that just by using certain breathing methods for minutes a day, you could detox your whole body? Here's the scoop...


Beyond "Deep Breathing"

Taoist longevity masters discovered that although ordinary "deep breathing" is really good for you, there's something even better. Yes, it's a great idea to go outside first thing in the morning, expel all the stale air from your lungs and take in some crisp, clean air to oxygenate your system (and wake you up ;-), but there's more...

They discovered that the human body is designed for "abdominal breathing", not the chest breathing adults are used to, and that when you change over to abdominal breathing, amazing things happen. For one thing, it will detox your whole body continually (a big plus in our toxin-filled society). Here's how:

Your body eliminates toxins in 3 main ways - through your lungs, your skin and your bowels.

Abdominal breathing uses the whole lung and eliminates toxins through the lungs more efficiently than chest breathing. Abdominal breathing continuously massages the lower digestive tract, allowing your intestines, kidneys and bladder to eliminate waste products far more effectively than they usually do.

And now the "piece de resistance"... they discovered that through breath control they could access the body's energy field. You can too. Focus your attention on the tip of one finger as you practice abdominal breathing and you'll notice something...

Your finger feels like it's breathing too! Eventually, you'll learn to feel this sensation everywhere. To make a long story very short, using this dynamic allows you to eliminate toxins directly through your skin.

The Taoist masters also noticed that normal abdominal breathing and the special exercises that use it radically improved the circulation of blood, lymph fluid and energy throughout the body and eased the burden on the heart muscle. And they enable you to gather energy all day long instead of just expending it.

There are further benefits on the emotional and spiritual levels too, but I've run out of space for today, so...

To learn more about these miracles, just hop on over to:

http://www.warriorcoachinginternational.com/hara.html

For anyone who grabs a copy this week, I'll toss in a free copy of my book, The 5 Pillars of Life in case you don't already have one ;-)

~ Dr. Symeon Rodger