MOVING FROM JOY

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The next time you see a child throwing a tantrum pay attention. You can learn a lot about how emotions influence movement. When kids are throwing a fit they tend to stay in one place and sort of flop about while screaming. Look at how the neck and lower back pull out of  alignment. The emotional state is negative and they physically move toward the ground. They go limp as way to resist their parent’s attempt to get them under control. At some level we are all little kids. Continue reading →

GASOTRANSMITTERS AND ACUPUNCTURE

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By measuring for lower electrical resistance, Dr. Jia-Xu Chen and Sheng-Xing Ma were able to find the exact positions of acupuncture points. Inspired by the idea that the Chinese character for Qi 气 literatally means gas, they decided to test whether gasses were in fact escaping these points. They discovered one gas in particular that serves as a neurotransmitter. These  gaseous  neurotransmitters such as carbon monoxide, nitric oxide and hydrogen sulfide are a vital part of human physiology. Continue reading →

Mastering Movement With Waves

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Mastering Movement 

“People are born supple and soft. When dead they are stiff and hard. Plants are born tender and pliant, at death they are brittle and dry. Whoever is stiff and inflexible is a student of death. Whoever is soft and yielding is a student of life. The hard and stiff will be broken. The soft and supple will endure.”

-Laozi

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Understanding Movement

Where there is life, there are rhythms and waves. There is a pulsatile wave as blood moves through your body. There is rhythm to the waves of your cerebrospinal fluid which are bathing your brain and allowing you to read these words. Your brain moves and is shaped with every beat of your heart. Your cells have a rhythmic plasticity. By waves you swallow food. By waves, it travels through your intestines. You are now breathing in cycles of steady and rhythmic breaths and the vibrations in your larynx give you voice. Maintaining the flow of the forces in your body is the key to moving well.

Your body is constantly suffering shock. That’s a good thing. It’s an important part of life and these forces can help you. By using relaxation and breathing, you can smooth out the edges caused by life’s changes. It’s the difference from being brushed by someone passing you on a busy street and slamming directly into them. By keeping your body loose, you allow the forces that travel through you with every step to slide off of you rather than stopping in your joints and internal organs. Continue reading →

Intermittent fasting: Time tested methods for fat loss and emotional health.

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Buddha taught his disciples to avoid eating after noon so they could enjoy life without illness, buoyancy of strength and a comfortable life. In Buddhism there is a saying that Heavenly beings eat in the morning, humans eat at lunch, animals eat in the evening and ghosts eat at night. This sounds really strange if you take it literally. Certainly animals eat in the morning. The point of this is not about angels or ghosts, but rather about the effects of darkness and light on the human body. This may seem esoteric, but when you think about it within the context of daily life it becomes more down to Earth. People act like jerks when they are hungry. Sometimes they act like demons. By contrast, a great breakfast sets the foundation for an amazing day.

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Jesus, was a proponent of fasting. This may be why he is typically depicted with fabulous abs. While modern Catholic views on fasting are more flexible, it used to be that people were limited to one daytime meal per day. Most traditions of  Christianity  advocate fasting or  intermittent  fasting with a daytime meal. Continue reading →

Adapting to Heat and Dampness

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Tropical rainforest by Lexe-I

Heat and Dampness

The rainforest hums. Tiny feet pitter-patter over wet leaves. In the warm nights animals sing erotic serenades. Life is abundant and competition is fierce. Trees race to reach the canopy, choking out their competition. The fallen quickly rot and rejoin the soil. These hot, wet climates host most of Earth’s species. This rivalry inspires living things to adorn themselves with bright colors. They spread seeds in sweet fruit. They display beauty in movement, color and sound. They protect themselves with piercing points and with poison. This is where you can find some of the most chemically active plants and animals. You can also find intensity of decay.

Leaves spread out evenly across a forest floor will turn into mulch at a consistent rate. If you rake those same leaves into a pile and cover them to retain moisture, they will get hot from all the microbial activity. In some instances, they can get so hot that they catch fire.

Continue reading →

My Grandma’s Home Remedy for Sore Throat and Cough (Hot and Dry)

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                                                Reading Time: 1 min

This is an old family home remedy for hot dry sore throat or Cough.  It’s not as complex as Chinese Medical formulas and is easily made with things already found in the kitchen.

1. Wash the peels from two grapefruit.

2. Allow the peels to dry. Continue reading →

Adapting to Heat and Dryness

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Desert by HORIZON

Hot and Dry (Desert)

Heat in the human body comes from external radiation and from internal metabolism. In either case the effects on the body are similar. The human body responds to heat by increasing circulation and sweating. By bringing the blood to the periphery of the body it can easily release heat into the outside  environment. This decrease in resistance causes a drop in blood pressure. Its like having your thumb on a hose to get it to spray further and then  suddenly  taking your thumb off. The spray quickly becomes a drizzle. The same thing happens with heat. The increased size of the blood vessels and additional areas for circulation causes a drop in blood pressure. This is part of the reason that heat can make people feel tired. In this overbearing heat it is difficult to get out and exercise or even think strait. Many black men are more prone to high blood pressure. This could be a heat adaptation allowing them to work through intense heat. In intense heat most people lose their  appetites. This is because your body wants to the reduce caused by metabolism to prevent overheating. Heat generally manifests with red eyes, thirst, and dark urine. It is associated with skin rashes, lesions, and irritability. One of the key signs of systemic heat is inflammation.

In the desert, heat can be deadly. The way to make yourself comfortable is to consume substances that help your internal environment stay cool. I once met a Bedouin man from Egypt. He described how his people could survive with little water: Continue reading →

Why “Eating Right” May Be Killing You

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salad by John Schilling

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Destruction Throughout

You can eat nothing, but whole grain, organic, superfoods hailed by celebrity doctors and personally blessed by an actual talk show host, but if you aren’t considering your internal microbiome, you might as well be eating shards of glass. Either way, you could be tearing your insides apart. When your gut loses balance, 100 trillion microbes which were once beneficial citizens of your internal world begin to riot. They begin feasting on your intestines like a horde of microscopic zombies.

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This feeding causes intestinal lesions which have been associated with a host of the chronic diseases such as:

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD):

This autoimmune disorder takes the forms of Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA):

RA is an autoimmune disease that often results in bilateral inflammation of the joints. 

Fungal infections:

This includes everything from toenail fungus to yeast infections. 

Fibromyalgia:

This disease is associated with fatigue, generalized pain and sensitivity to pressure. It is heavily correlated with depression and anxiety.  Continue reading →

Three Secrets to Unlocking Hidden Energy

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                                                Reading Time 5 Min

Mongol war

In the year 1214, a sea of Mongols was poised outside Zheng Ding’s city gates. The citizens knew that at best it would mean seeing their parents slaughtered, friends tortured, and children enslaved. As the city walls held and the people waited in terror, they began dying. Chinese doctors began to observe that the stress was killing people. They were unable to sleep regularly, digest food and were succumbing to illnesses. At this time Li Dong Yuan needed solutions to the “modern” disorders caused by stress.

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Li created new theories of Chinese medicine.[1] His theories eventually formed into a prominent school of thought based on the balance of the digestive system and its relationship to stress. Before that time, disease was thought to come mainly from bugs outside of the system. After the brutal lessons from the Mongols, Chinese doctors better understood the relationship between emotions and digestive health. Since that time, every major formula for digestion has taken the effects of stress into account. Continue reading →

What Fungi Can Teach You about Diet

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“Fungi are the grand recyclers of the planet and the vanguard species in habitat restoration.”

– Paul Stamets

mushrooms by Andrew

Fungi are critical to plant life and the overall health of a forest. They break down dead matter and help life to spring anew. They are at once some of largest organisms on the planet and among the smallest.

Fungi are diverse and can eat a wide range toxic materials. Some consume heavy metals, plastic, and toxic waste. After the tragic nuclear fallout in Chernobyl radiotrophic fungi began to restore the environment. They used their pigment melanin to convert radiation into chemical energy.

Fungi are capable or restoring order in ways we are just beginning to understand. They are among the more chemically active substances on our planet. The right fungi can serve as medicines, while having the wrong ones can make you hallucinate or even prove to be fatal. They are powerful and prolific. Their spores are everywhere. Continue reading →