Posted by admin in Uncategorized on 11. Feb, 2010 | 1 Comment
Many researchers have found correlations between our thoughts and our health. An article in a recent issue of the magazine Spirituality and Health focused on the beneficial effects of an attitude of HOPE, an attitude of looking toward the future with a belief that good will triumph, or at least might triumph. Studies by several psychologists show that hopefulness is one of the most accurate predictors of immune system strength, longevity, general health, happiness, and a positive sense of well-being. What is more, researchers found that hope is not an accident of fate that one is simply born with or without—it can be learned and acquired. (My book, Steering Your Way Through Life, is one example of a guidebook to the beliefs which can generate hope in your life. Click on the “Tom’s Book” icon at the home page for more details.)
Posted by admin in Health on 25. Sep, 2009 | 11 Comments
– Avoiding Colds and Flu — What can we do to help ourselves avoid these common illnesses? The following are some tips that can tilt the odds in your favor.
1. The obvious things are to make sure you eat a healthy diet, consistently get a good night’s sleep,and drink plenty of water. You already knew that. But what other specific things can help us? Some of the basics are the things that we hear from the CDC (Center for Disease Control) every Fall, such as numbers 2 and 3 below.
2. Cleanse yhour hands often by washing or using a hand sanitizer. Flu and cold “bugs” are everywhere, and so just about anything you touch can result in you pickilng up these little critters on your hands. Also, cleanse surfaces you touch often (doorkinobs, handrails, counter tops, desks, etc.).
3. When you sneeze or cough, don’t cover your mouth with your hand; instead, cover the mouth with a tissue or the crux of your arm, and sneeze or cough into your sleeve.
Here is some additional useful information: The primary points of entry that germs use to get into your system is through the mouth and the nose. Once they enter, they hang out in your sinus cavities and in the back of your throat, where they multiply and then try to sneak into your system by traveling through the soft tissue there and into your bloodstream. Your immune system’s job is to spot these “baddies” when they leave the sinus or throat and to kill them off. Most of the time this works, unless the baddies build up such a large colony that the immune system is overwhelmed. Then these baddies get to travel through the rest of your body and make you sick. So, the question is not whether you will be exposed to flu and cold bugs—you probably already have several strains of baddies in your nasal and throat areas. The important question is, will you let them proliferate to a level that makes you sick? This leads us to several more helpful tips to help avoid sickness:
4. Cleanse the back of the throat by gargllng a couple of times a day (or more) with warm salt water. If you can’t stand salt water, use a good germ-killing mouth wash. This kills most of the germs in the back of your throat.
5. Drink hot liquids, such as hot tea or coffee. When the germs in the back of your throat get hit with hot liquid they lose their grip on you and get washed down into the stomach, where they do not survive. If you don’t want caffeine, use de-caf drinks.
6. Cleanse the nasal passages. This area is harder to get at than the back of the throat. The ideal system is to use a “Neti Cup,” a device which looks like a cream pitcher with a spout. You fill it with warm salt water, stand over a sink, insert the spout into one nostril,tilt the head a little, and tilt the Neti Cup up so that the salt water enters one nostril, fulls up the sinus cavity on that side, travels through the opening between the left and right sinuses,and flows out the other nostril into the sink. This is about as much fun as it sounds like it would be, but it very effectively kills off the baddies in your sinuses. Any health store can sell you a Neti Cup, and some of the chain drug stores now sell them. If the Neti Cup idea doesn’t appeal to you, then buy a saline nasal spray and spray salt water into your nose and sinuses with that. Do NOT use the decongestant nasal sprays—the harsh chemicals in them will work for a short while but will damage your sinuses in a way that will cause more congestion in the future. Putting salt water in your nose with either system will result in you having more phlegm in the short run, and you will be blowing your nose for the next ten minutes. That is a good thing; this is how your body gets rid of the dead germs that the salt water killed. That congestion is temporary and will go away.
7. Avoid touching your face, because germs from surfaces you have touched go into your nose and mouth when your hands are on your face. This is a hard rule to follow because we love to touch and massage our face. This is why frequent cleansing of the hands is important. Ideally, the only time your hands should be near a face is for bathing, eating (cleanse the hands before), massaging (cleanse the hands before and after), and slapping (cleanse after).
Posted by admin in Health on 15. Sep, 2009 | 24 Comments
Recently I have received a number of requests for information about increasing longevity and reversing the problems of aging. Whether this is because I look so young and beautiful or just because I am in the holistic health field, I will leave up to you. (However, to blow my own horn, at the ripe old age of 69 I do get a lot of comments saying that I look younger than my age—maybe only 68-and-a-half).
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