Healthy Practices That Serve the Whole
Theodore Caruelle d’Aligny, “The Bathers, Souvenir of the Banks of the Anio River at Tivoli,” 1861
This is a departure from my usual articles as I don’t normally focus here on specific physical health recommendations on their own. I felt called to write this now as we are in the heart of winter and many are feeling taxed, to say the least. Whether you are dealing with suboptimal health or simply in need of self-nurturing, I hope you find some beneficial suggestions here.
I myself have been feeling the pressures of the material lately even more than usual. There has been a fair amount of sickness and death not too far from me and I also got to experience whatever that collection of symptoms called “covid” is that’s working its way around. It was an intense experience and I can honestly say that it didn’t feel like a normal illness, whatever that is. It felt like something created, the way it moved through its various stages and my body.
Like all challenges in my life, I know this one was designed for my edification, my development, but it was not fun to say the
least. During it, I was stripped to absolute basics for quite a while. A focus on breathing in and out and prayer were my constants. If we look carefully there are so many reminders every day of the briefness of our time here, of the fact that the material is something that will quickly pass away and who we are, what we are, or what we are meant to be, is so much more than that.
The transition between living and dying is where so much pain lies. However, I know, because so many experience that as a lingering and difficult passage, that there is much to be gleaned from it. I think it’s where we are shown most acutely who we are, and what is important to us. It is there that we are given further, or perhaps final, opportunities to choose better and are pointedly told to look at what we have avoided or missed. When from the outside it seems as if we are “doing nothing,” that’s often when the most intense transformation occurs.
To choose willing suffering, rather than simply enduring, radically changes one’s relationship with the divine and with one’s own pain. To know God, to serve God, even when it hurts, especially when it hurts, is what we endeavor to do. This is definitely not about being a martyr, which will often in fact serve the self, the ego. It is about using physical, emotional and spiritual pain to turn up our commitment, to turn up our ability to receive grace. It shows us that the material is not where the deepest comfort lies and it can help strip us of self, as I mentioned earlier, and make us more available to God, more available for service. One has to choose, one has to become “willing.” In my life suffering has often served this purpose and for that, I am truly grateful.
We are not in control of our timelines, despite the many internet voices screaming otherwise, but we are meant to be responsible travelers here, making choices that support our physical, emotional and spiritual growth. As always, that includes the body. Our consciousness, our essence, is expressed in the entire fabric of our being, in each cell, and in the far-ranging electromagnetic and energetic fields of our systems.
Despite the fact that most of these practices are quite simple, with regular use they can have profound effects. They might seem quite basic and as such be familiar to you. I may have a slightly different take on them. Even if they are familiar, give them a new try. I know it’s good to be reminded to spend extra time on necessary self-care and can serve the larger spiritual purpose when done with that intention.
Your practices, your learning and deepening of your relationship with your own essence and hence with God, happen through your whole body, through your senses. Deep awakened feeling occurs only when all parts are expressing and experiencing as one. Supporting your entire system can enliven your ability to connect, if done with real awareness and attention.
I encourage you to post your questions or your own experiences implementing these tools!
BODY BRUSHING
This is a gentle yet powerful way to help with lymphatic drainage and to eliminate “hot spots” or places of inflammation on the body which can lead to serious issues. I’ve actually see measurable changes in my own body with this practice by using thermography. This is important for anyone but can be especially helpful for women who usually wear bras. A lot of heat and congested lymph accumulate around the breasts and armpits which can be a contributing factor to the illness most call breast cancer.
Only gentle pressure is needed and it should feel pleasurable, like a light scratching. If it is not comfortable, you are pushing too hard and are bypassing the lymph system, or perhaps have too coarse a brush. I like to do this while standing in the shower (before turning on the water) to collect the exfoliating skin, then shower after. The whole process takes only a couple of minutes.
Start by brushing up the feet and legs toward the hips. You should include the tops of the feet and can include the bottoms if you wish. Go up a few times. Next, brush from hands to shoulders on each arm, covering all sides. Brush down the sides and back of the neck (the front of the neck is usually a bit tender for this so you can skip this area). Brush up the back toward the heart and down the shoulders toward the heart. Brush up the abdomen, from the low belly up to under the breasts/nipples. Brush down between breasts, then from between the breasts across each breast above the nipple (not on nipple) to each armpit. Next, circle each breast in the direction of that armpit, i.e. on the left breast, brush clockwise, on the right counter-clockwise. Finally, brush from the top of the armpits down the sides of the torso to the waist. Men do everything the same, working around the nipple.
There are lots of different kinds of body brushes from very inexpensive to more pricey, made of sisal or boar bristles or other materials. You might have to try a couple to find the perfect one, in terms of softness and reach. This is a good inexpensive palm brush:
DETOX BATH
This is a powerful detox, don’t be fooled by the relaxing bath. For your first few times, and perhaps always, stay in only for 20 minutes. Use a timer. You can feel knocked out after so be sure to rest. Cool down in a cool or cold shower after and drink lots of spring or purified water.
Recipe:
1 cup baking soda
1-2 cups Epson or sea salt
1-2 cups magnesium salts
1/3-1/2 cup 35% food grade hydrogen peroxide (or about 6 cups regular 3%)
(optional) a few drops organic, steam-distilled essential oils -avoid lavender and tea tree
If you live in a place with chlorinated water, as most do, it is very important to dechlorinate bath and shower water because chlorine is highly absorbable through the skin and causes many health issues, such as disrupting the endocrine system. You can easily install a filter on your shower or use a bath ball in your bath. For the bath ball, make sure to leave it long enough to dechlorinate but to take it out before you add any of the detox ingredients or you will damage the filter. There are lots available. Here are some good ones:
Rainshower bath and shower chlorine filters
Omica shower filter that eliminates many contaminants, not just chlorine
HOT AND COLD SHOWER
The idea of the cold shower as beneficial to the immune system and inflammatory response is not new but I actually think that this pulsation method is superior. Good health relies on flexibility in all bodily systems and is one of the things usually lacking in a compromised system. For instance, when you exercise, you want to be able to bring your heart rate up quickly and have it come back to normal quickly when you stop. This shower is a more passive way to teach the body flexibility and adaptability, as well as another powerful way to help move the lymph system and bring inflammation down.
Stand in the shower at the hottest comfortable temperature for 1-2 minutes, then at the coldest temperature you can tolerate for 1-2 minutes. Go back and forth twice. You likely will have to build up to 2 minutes on the cold. Start with 30 seconds. Even 30 seconds twice has benefits. You can shower normally first then finish with this cycle or use it the whole time you’re in the shower.
***Note: If you are experiencing an acute illness do NOT stand in a cold shower. It is too taxing on the system. If it feels good to stand briefly in cool water, that’s fine. This goes for after the detox bath as well.
STEAM INHALATION
This is a great nasal/lung cleanser in general but especially helpful when dealing with a lot of mucous from either an active illness or allergies. Mucous is generated when the body is trying to eliminate pathogens from the system and it is the carrier to move those things out. When you can help that elimination process, you speed up the clearing.
Inhale steam over a pot with simmering purified or distilled water, at the lowest heat. Use a towel over the head to tent the steam. Stand far enough from the pot that the heat doesn’t feel uncomfortable on your face. Try it for ten minutes 2x/day or as much as is needed. You can also buy inexpensive steam inhalers to make the process even easier.
HEALTHY BREATHING
These practices can help in many ways: clearing out the lungs, strengthening the immune system, stimulating the vagus nerve (parasympathetic nervous system,) and in general teaching you healthy breathing. There are other breathing systems that work on similar principles of breath holding but Buteko is gentler and safer in my opinion, good for anyone at any level of health.
The first principle of healthy breathing is that you should ALWAYS breathe through your nose. This includes strenuous exercise and sleeping. The only exception would be if you were completely blocked nasally and the only way to get air was through your mouth. In that case, you should steam and do whatever you can to try and eliminate the blockage as soon as possible. The Buteko website and Buteko YouTube channel have lots of good resources about how to breathe properly and why they teach breathing the way they do. They talk about snoring and mouth breathing at night, as well as how to breathe with asthma or illness or anxiety.
The YouTube channel has tons of free videos to help you learn the methods and science behind it. Some are labeled as being specifically about “covid” but don’t be put off by that as the methods are the same for any health issue or simply to teach healthy breathing.
SUPPLEMENTS
Again, I usually do not like to make general recommendations on supplements as this is something very individual and also controversial. There are many factors that contribute to whether something may be helpful for you or not so use your own best judgment and that of your health practitioner. Sometimes supplements can even make things worse. That being said, I think these few suggestions are good and may be of help.
Whole food vitamin C: Camu Camu
I think the safest and most absorbable way to get C is to use a whole food form, such as Camu.
Digestion:
As I’m sure many of you know, digestion is the first key to health. If you can’t absorb the nutrients you need from your food, or eliminate wastes and pathogens properly, your health will suffer. This is a complicated issue and you will see millions of differing opinions in the world about how to achieve good gut health. Diet is of course primary but that is a another big discussion that I’m not going to address here, apart from the very basic recommendation that ALL avoid grains, regular dairy, soy, and most sugars.
When trying out a new supplement, I always recommend starting with a small amount of one only and waiting at least a few days or possibly a week to see how your body reacts before adding anything else. That usually is not enough time to know if something is helpful but it is usually enough time to know if something is making anything worse. That being said, these three supplements from the Healthy Gut company didn’t really make the big difference for me until I started using them all together.
These supplements have really noticeably improved my digestion and allowed me to eat much more of the healthy animal fats that I feel are essential to a life-enhancing diet. I’ve tried other HCL supplements and other digestive enzymes that didn’t make any difference I could perceive and sometimes made things worse. This is the first supplemental form of tributyrin I’ve tried. Tributyrin is a highly absorbable form of Butyrate, which has many digestive functions. It was really the Tributyrin-X that quickly helped me to digest more and more animal fats, which I’ve been increasing in my diet. When I took the Tributyrin-X with the HCL and Holozymes, my digestion improved in a myriad of ways. These are more expensive than other supplements that claim to do the same thing and perhaps there are others equally good, or perhaps these aren’t necessary for you, but they have helped me more than any other digestive aids I’ve tried.
Use MAYA for 20% off: HealthyGut HCL Guard, Holozyme and Tributyrin-X
Probiotics:
MegaSporeBiotic is a great spore based probiotic that works well with my body and has also helped my gut. Sometimes some intestinal healing needs to take place before probiotics are well-tolerated, as paradoxical as that may seem. If you’re having digestive troubles and probiotics have given you additional symptoms, I recommend starting with the Healthy Gut supplements and using them for a while before trying out these probiotics. With the MegaSporeBiotic, start with one every other day for a week, then one a day for a week, then 2 a day.
Another very good source of probiotics (not spore based) is Custom Probiotics.
Magnesium:
I would say that in our modern age almost everyone, if not everyone, is somewhat deficient in this essential nutrient. There are good supplements out there and magnesium comes in many forms. I find magnesium glycinate to be the easiest form to digest without intestinal upset but my preferred way of getting magnesium is through the skin, either by soaking in the bath salts or applying the gel or oil. The gel and oil can be sticky and sometimes itchy. Some people have no issue with this and I will sometimes apply it to my lower legs and feet before bed. However, for me, the best way to use the gel or oil is to apply it over my entire body, from neck to feet (avoiding the face and sensitive areas!) and leave it on for around 20 or 30 minutes before showering it off. Put on some old clothes you don’t mind getting oil or magnesium “dust” on during this time.
I prefer the Ancient Minerals “ultra” version of both the bath salts and gel or oil because it contains MSM, which both boosts the immune system even more and is gentler on the skin.
VITAMIN D, SUNLIGHT AND LIGHT
Vitamin D is often touted as the most important nutrient for immune system function but the fact is it’s highly debatable whether it is ever properly absorbed in nutrient form or if it’s low level is in fact caused by other lacking nutrients and toxins. This is a complex subject but to give just one example, studies have shown that having adequate magnesium levels raises vitamin D. The sun, in combination with a healthy ancestral diet consisting largely of grass-fed animals and animal fats, is the most complete and desirable source of D. Depending on where you live in terms of climate and also pollution, as well as the time of year, it may not be possible to get enough this way.
It is possible that a good absorbable combination of D3 and K2 can be helpful. If you do decide to supplement, make sure you get D3 in the form of cholecalciferol and K2 as menaquinone-7. It also requires a fat as carrier.
Another option which may be preferable, if you can find or afford it, is to use a vitamin D light bed. There still may be some cellular damage with a good light box, but there can also be skin damage from the sun. I would say the best option, but this gets expensive, is to use a D lamp with a near-infrared red light device, either at the same time or right before. Red and infrared light devices can have many deeper health benefits as well, besides helping skin with UV damage.
An at-home vitamin D light that is low flicker (very important when it comes to healthy lighting) is this one from Sperti. It also has the benefit of having a detachable cord so you can replace it with a grounded cord which is inexpensive and easy to get. This helps lessen EMF pollution. A good source of low EMF and flicker-free red light devices is EMR-TEK. I haven’t used the Sperti or the EMR-TEK devices but they are what I’d choose.
**One more note about diet and vitamin D. There have been quite a few studies looking at traditional and non-western diets and vitamin D. The Inuit, for example, who live in some of the most northern parts of the world with the least amount of sunlight for much of the year and who follow their traditional diet of whale, seal and fat have healthy levels of D. Members of that same population and location who have adopted a western diet have been shown to have low levels of D.
SLEEP
Sleep is extremely important. We all know this but few get enough. Here are the basics of good sleep hygiene. If you have deep imbalances when it comes to going to sleep, staying asleep, or having deeply restorative sleep, there may underlying issues that need to be addressed and these practices may not be enough to resolve them. However, always start with the basics as they will support health in general. No one is perfect with every practice all the time but if you’re having any issues with getting enough sleep aim for implementing as many of these steps as you can.
1. Sleep as much as you can/want/need. This varies from person to person but almost everyone gets too little. If you are meditating or doing other activities you deem worthwhile and fall asleep or suddenly wish to sleep, do so if you can. Contrary to popular belief, boredom does not make you sleepy or tired. Lack of adequate sleep make you sleepy or tired.
2. Make your bedroom dark, cold and quiet. Black-out dark is best but if moonlight or starlight are the only lights filtering in, that is acceptable. If streetlights or other electric lights shine into your bedroom, get black-out curtains or shades. Get all electronics and LED’s out of the bedroom or block them with black electrical tape if that’s impossible. That includes the tiny green LED’s that are on some electrical outlets or those on smoke detectors.
-Use a battery operated clock that does not emit light, rather than an electrical one.
-Use zero blue light bulbs at night, such as amber or red ones.
-If using electronics at night, or if you have regular light bulbs on, use red light glasses.
3. During the day, get software that blocks some of the blue light from your devices or use yellow glasses. Two software systems that do this are Iris and f.lux.
4. Go to bed earlier. The hours between 11 PM and 1 AM are the primary hours the liver and kidneys do their regeneration. If you can be in bed, preferably asleep, during those hours do so.
5. Try not to eat for at least 3 hours before bed.
6. If you live in a cold climate keep the thermostat low at night so you need a thick comforter or multiple blankets to keep warm. Some people like weighted blankets which might be something to try but they aren’t my personal preference.
7. Even if your bedroom is dark, draping a soft dark cloth over your eyes or using a comfortable sleep mask can help calm down your nervous system.
8. If you wake during the night and need to get up, use the red lights or red glasses.
9. Unplug your router at night, even if it’s not in your bedroom. There is a lot one can do to really cut down on EMF pollution, especially with 5G being rolled out, but eliminating electronics from the bedroom and unplugging the router at night are first essential steps. Also, try not to have anything plugged in behind your bed or headboard. If you can, get a bed including mattress, box spring, and frame with no metal in it, apart from a few screws. A mattress made of 100% natural/organic latex with a box spring or platform bed made of wooden slats is a good choice.
10. Get sunlight into your eyes whenever you can but especially in the early morning or at sunrise if that’s possible. That dawn light has the fullest spectrum of light and is also gentler on your eyes. You never need to look directly into the sun, as long as you are outside without any kind of glasses on. Absorbing that light through your eyes helps reset circadian rhythms and generates natural melatonin in your body. Of course, if you’re not sleeping at night and morning is the only time you do sleep, I would prioritize the sleep. I have even been known to get up, watch the sunrise, and go back to bed. It might sound crazy but you do what you have to do. However, as you can see, it is a tricky puzzle and one you must navigate for yourself.
11. Grounding/earthing. Standing on the earth with bare feet while absorbing early sunlight is particularly beneficial. When in direct contact with dirt or sand your body exchanges ions with the earth, discharging the positive ions (which cause inflammation and other issues) and absorbing negative ones from the earth. The “negative” ions are what you want in your body, to help mitigate the effects from the bombardment of EMF to which most of us are constantly subject, as well as to reset your nervous system in general. This practice helps in a myriad of ways and the more time you’re able to walk around outside barefoot, the better.
12. Make sure you are breathing through your nose at night. If you snore or if you wake up with a dry mouth, these are indications that at least some of the time you are breathing through your mouth. See the section on breathing and the Buteko website for more information, practices, tools and helpful solutions for this.
Software:
Iris
f.lux
Blue light blocking glasses:
EMF Essentials
TrueDark
Flicker-free amber bulbs:
Hooga
***Disclaimer: I am not a doctor or even a nutritionist, but even if I were one of those things, I would still advise you to do your own research. I have extensively researched all here but have chosen not to list primary source material for everything because the article would become unwieldy. It is your responsibility to discern what is best for you and if you wish to find out more about anything mentioned, please do dig in and see what you can find! The information in this post is for reference purposes only and not intended to constitute or replace professional medical advice. Please consult a qualified medical professional before making any changes to your diet or lifestyle.