Congratulations to Siobhan O’Keefe, who won a trip to Sardinia by subscribing to our magazine last year. She seems to have had a great time in a beautiful place.
By Patrick Bridgeman
Beliefs come in all shapes and sizes, just like people. In fact, it is our beliefs that shape us, literally.
Scientific research into the field of Epigenetics shows that our mind controls our body; more specifically, our beliefs about the world and our self in the world have a direct effect upon our genetic make-up. For example, believing that the world is a stressful place causes stress hormones to flood your body which redirects the blood flow normally destined for the conscious, creative forebrain to the primal, reactive hindbrain. Your blood also shifts away from your immune system and vital organs and heads to your arms and legs for use in ‘fight or flight’ mode. Simply put, stress makes you less intelligent and more prone to disease.
To bring you a little deeper into this understanding, any idea that becomes a belief causes your cells to develop in a way that is more receptive to certain chemical signals than to others. Taking the previous example into consideration, your cells would develop more receptors for stress hormones, leaving less entry points available for healthier chemical signals to gain access to (and influence the programming of) your body’s basic building blocks.
Can you imagine how different two people would look if one grew up stressed out while the other believed the world to be a safe place full of good friends and happy families? Over time, your whole body would change according to this programming, inside and out; and all of this programming begins before you have any conscious control over what you would like to believe, before you are even born.
It’s nature’s head start, programming you for your mother’s world while you are still being formed in her womb. Her interaction with the outside world is based on her beliefs about the outside world, and the chemical signals these beliefs and interactions send around her body become imprinted upon your own genetic blueprint. That way, when you’re born, you are better ‘prepared’ for the world you are being born into.
At a recent presentation by Bruce Lipton, author of The Biology of Belief, I met a woman who has started up a Prenatal Psychotherapy practice after realising how important these formative months are on the rest of our lives. Looking back on my own life, I see a correlation between what my mother told me about her experiences at that time and what I then came to believe about my own relationship with women; a belief that manifested a painful pattern in my romantic relationships until I finally learned how to reprogram it.
My conscious mind was saying, “I only want to love and be loved,” but my subconscious mind was telling the universe, “I hurt the women I love and they leave me.” When I first found this out, it was a revelation. Finally the pattern made sense, and I thought that since I had become aware of it, it wouldn’t happen again, but that wasn’t the case. I have only recently realised that being made aware is not enough, we need to change our subconscious habits and beliefs if we really want life to stay changed.
Habits of thought or action are formed through repetition. Every time you think, feel or do something, electrical signals are sent from one part of your brain to another. When a signal travels along the same path often enough, that path becomes hardwired in your brain. The general consensus is that if you do a task everyday for 30 days it will become habitual, which means that you are likely to keep doing it from then on without having to consciously think about it.
Our initial programming continues up until the age of 7 when your personality blueprint and sense of identity are firmly established. After that, your conscious mind becomes creative, but it can only play within the confines of your subconscious beliefs. The subconscious is at least 95% of our mind. It’s the part that really controls the world we manifest, both inside and outside of our ‘physical’ body.
Scientists used to believe that we are purely physical beings living in a mechanical universe, but quantum physicists now believe that we are actually energetic beings having physical experiences. For those who grew up believing the former, this new idea may take some time to get used to, like the shift that occurred when people were told that the world was, in fact, round and not flat.
Understanding the scientific evidence that mind controls matter and that we are fundamentally energetic beings in an energetic universe, it is easy to see how our beliefs affect our external environment; both on a social, psychological level (e.g. Religion) and also on a physical, material level (e.g. Faith Healing).
Your assumptions about situations, and the repeating patterns of experience in your life, show you what’s really going on with your beliefs. When you become aware of how your subconscious sees the world and how it relates to your behaviour towards others, towards the planet and towards life itself, you can decide which (if any) of your beliefs you’d like to change.
Some people are not consciously ready to alter their beliefs, but a change might do you good. That is if you have ever wondered how you could possibly still struggle with money or relationships after all of the amazing insights you’ve had into the nature of the universe. I mean, shouldn’t you simply be able to ask for what you desire and have it arrive on your doorstep the very next day?
We are creatures of habit, and while we do learn many new and exciting ways of interacting with the world while travelling along our spiritual journey, unless we use these new ideas to create better habits, our life will keep going back to the status quo of our subconscious reality.
Luckily, I have come across some amazing new techniques for doing just that which don’t involve years of psychotherapy or counselling. Techniques such as Non Personal Awareness, which helps us to stop identifying with experiences – which is what causes us to hold things in or hold things out instead of letting life and life-force flow through us as it’s supposed to.
We build our identity by holding onto certain ideas. Then, once our identity is established, other ideas which do not fit with our current collection simply pass on by. Realising this, we can consciously choose to release old ideas that no longer serve us and embrace new ideas that serve us well.
In his book, The Spontaneous Healing of Belief, Gregg Braden says, “Belief is defined as the certainty that comes from accepting what we think is true in our minds, coupled with what we feel is true in our hearts.” If any of what I have just shared with you rings true in either your head or your heart, I hope it helps you along your life path.
From my own experience, I believe that it will.
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For a huge list of related resources, visit www.brucelipton.com
For more info on Prenatal Psychotherapy, visit www.holistic.ie/amethyst
For more info on Non Personal Awareness, read the article on page 26 of our Autumn 2010 issue.
I recently became a certified Light Grids practitioner – a technique for clearing blocks and reactivating the flow of Life-Force on an energetic level, freeing you from old, stagnant, limiting beliefs. If you would like to book a session, email patrick@positivelife.ie
by Hans Wieland
How do Lactic Acid Bacteria work?
Lactic acid bacteria are a group of related bacteria that produce lactic acid as a result of carbohydrate fermentation. These microbes are broadly used in the production of fermented food products such as yogurt, cheeses and sauerkraut. They are used in preserving and producing food and in the food industry for several reasons. Their growth lowers both the carbohydrate content and the pH of the foods that they ferment due to lactic acid production. It is this acidification process which is one of the most desirable side-effects of their growth. The pH may drop to as low as 4.0, low enough to inhibit the growth of most other micro-organisms including the most common human pathogens, thus allowing these foods prolonged shelf life. The acidity also changes the texture of the foods due to precipitation of some proteins, and the biochemical conversions involved in growth enhance the flavour.
One of the most fantastic things to know about Lactic Acid Bacteria is they work entirely without electricity, which is pretty important if you want to preserve food without a fridge or freezer. And this is exactly what they do; they preserve flour (ideally freshly hand-milled flour) in the form of bread, shredded cabbage in the form of sauerkraut and fresh milk in the form of quark, cheese or yoghurt. They feast on sugars (lactose, fructose) and create an acidic environment where harmful pathogenic bacteria like coli, salmonella and listeria cannot survive.
Baking sourdough bread, making Sauerkraut and fermenting milk for all sorts of cheeses has become an intrinsic part of my family’s producing some of our own food. The use of Lactic Acid Bacteria has become part of our daily lives.
Born of both necessity and practicality, lactic acid fermentation proved to be not only an efficient method of preserving food for our ancestors but also a critical one because fermented food like sauerkraut, cheese, wine, soured grain porridge and breads often sustained tribes and villages during harsh winters when fresh food simply wasn’t available, let alone plentiful.
Lactic acid bacteria are a diverse group of organisms with a diverse metabolic capacity. This diversity makes them very adaptable to a range of conditions and is largely responsible for their success in acid food fermentations, e.g. Leuconostoc mesenteroides is a bacterium associated with the sauerkraut and pickle fermentations. It differs from other lactic acid species in that it can tolerate fairly high concentrations of salt and sugar.
Lactic acid fermentation is used in many areas of the world to produce foods that cannot be produced through other methods, e.g. cheeses and yoghurt. Historically, bacteria from the genera Lactobacillus, Leuconostoc, Pediococcus and Streptococcus are the main species involved. Several more have been identified but play a minor role in lactic fermentations.
The Health Benefits of Lactic Acid Fermentation
Fermented food has many health benefits. The fermentation process can transform the flavour of food from the plain and mundane to a mouth watering sourness enriched by colonies of beneficial bacteria and enhanced micronutrients. While fermented food like yogurt and sauerkraut are well-known, virtually every food with a sugar content can benefit from lactic fermentation. My grandmother used to pickle not only cabbage but beetroot, cauliflower and carrots.
In many societies, including our own, where yogurt has been heralded as a health food since the 19th century, fermented food has gained a reputation for its beneficial effects on immunity, intestinal health and general well-being. For example, milk that undergoes lactic acid fermentation conveys more vitamins to the eater in comparison to raw milk and, particularly, pasteurized and ultra-high-temperature (UHT) pasteurized milk.
Fermented dairy products consistently reveal an increased level of folic acid, which is critical to producing healthy babies, as well as B vitamins and riboflavin. Vegetables, fruits, legumes and grains subjected to lactic acid fermentation often see an increase in the activity of vitamin C and vitamin A and, particularly, lysine with its antiviral effects.
Since souring grains reduces the phytic acid content, the lactic acid fermentation process actually enables your body to absorb more minerals from the grain (especially Rye) than you would be able to otherwise absorb.
Take advantage of all the health benefits that lactic acid fermentation offers and incorporate fermented food into your diet.
Best of all, they are free!
By Dr Lars Lindmark
“Life is a continuous building process.” ~ Are Waerland
Instead of “life” you can put health, giving this quote a more relevant meaning. Already at birth, some foundation is laid for future health. More important, however, is your lifestyle from childhood into adult life. Your body is like a very sophisticated car. It needs the best possible fuel and maintenance. All cells in your body need building blocks and fuel to reach the fullness of health.
Important new research of omega-3 fatty acids in the diet or as a daily supplement clearly demonstrates how one can get a healthy heart and brain.
A healthy heart is crucial for optimal health. Without proper heart function, the cells of the body risk a lack of oxygen and essential nutrients. Without proper nutrients and care, your brain will not function in an optimal way. This will typically be experienced as fatigue and a general lack of health. The good news is that there are simple ways to look after your heart and brain.
1: Get a regular, proper and balanced diet combined with some level of physical activity. With lower physical activity you have to more carefully look after what and how much you eat.
2: Make sure you get enough omega-3 fatty acids, preferably from a fish source, and vitamin D in your diet or as an additional daily supplement.
During the past 100 years, we have decreased our dietary intake of omega-3 fatty acids by more than 80%. This means that your body may not be getting an optimal intake for a healthy heart and brain.
TRIGLYCERIDES
Elevated triglycerides being a heart risk factor is today a scientifically established fact, but did you know it is more important for women?
Omega-3 fats can greatly reduce the unhealthy triglycerides. Several Swedish studies support the fact that natural stable fish oil lowers triglycerides more efficiently or as good as any other medication.
The importance of omega-3 for a healthy heart, especially in women, has been fully recognized by the recent recommendations of the American Heart Association. 500mg of omega-3 per day is recommended as a preventive strategy for good heart health. This intake can be increased to 1000mg or more on an individual basis.
OMEGA-3 DURING MENOPAUSE
The effect of fish oil in menopausal women taking estrogen medication is particularly effective and interesting. Here an additional intake of omega-3 helps give an improved hormonal balance, improved stress resistance and less inflammation. Omega-3 intake will provide more elastic cell membranes which will help to maintain healthy cells under stress of inflammation or imbalance. These benefits will occur in all cells, explaining why the administration of fish oil has beneficial effects on such diverse organs as the brain, heart, breast, joints, blood vessels and skin.
OMEGA-3 AND THE BRAIN
You have maybe heard before that eating fish is good for your brain. New studies show that a sufficient intake of omega-3 is important for a healthy brain, mainly related to mood and mental capacity.
NATURAL AND STABLE FISH OIL
For fish oil to provide a good result, it is important that at least three criteria are met:
1: A fish oil should be free from environmental toxins and pollutants. However, in a purification process most of the natural antioxidants from fish oil are lost. This means that the oil is more susceptible to oxidization and to becoming rancid.
2: Fish oil should be restored, after purification, with a group of natural antioxidants to keep it stable both in the bottle and in the body. Natural, stable fish oil with a restored mixture of natural antioxidants shows an excellent stability when exposed to air for up to 200 days.
3: Fish oil should be as natural as possible. During the concentration processes, valuable fatty acids and antioxidants are lost.
A good example of a natural and stable fish oil is Eskimo-3â.
The message to take home is that your heart and brain health can dramatically improve with a better lifestyle and use of more omega-3 fatty acids in the diet. Simply, put back what has been missing.
Dr Lindmark will be speaking at the Rude Health Show at 2pm on September 11th and 12th
For more info, visit www.eskimo-oils.com
As a preview to their talks at the Rude Health Show, Patrick Holford and Dr Gill Hart explain how you can find out what foods you are intolerant to and what can you do about them if you are.
Do you think you may have a food intolerance? It’s estimated that nearly half of us react to foods in our diet and have to put up with debilitating symptoms such as a lack of energy, mental “fog”, digestive problems, aching joints, eczema and headaches. So how do these intolerances occur, how can you find out what you’re intolerant to and what can you do about it if you are?
Intolerance occurs when the body alters its normal immune response in some way, due to the presence of an allergen (a substance which triggers an immune reaction). As the body’s immune system is highly active in the digestive tract, where it acts like the bouncer at the gateway into your body, foods that aren’t digested properly or that irritate or inflame the ‘gate’ mean its highly likely that they’ll be under “arrest” by the immune police. This is, in essence, what most food intolerances or sensitivities are all about. Of course, the real answer to stopping intolerance is to heal the digestive system and don’t eat the particular foods that are stressing or irritating the digestive tract. However, the fact is that if you’ve already developed intolerances you really need to ‘undevelop’ them first by finding out what foods you are currently reacting to and avoiding them long enough to heal the digestive tract, stop the antibodies that are produced from reacting throughout your body from causing your symptoms, and to reprogramme the “immune police”.
You will know if you suffer from a full-blown (antibody IgE-mediated) intolerance to foods such as nuts and shellfish; strong immediate reactions with severe stomach upset and swelling in the mouth and throat, which can be fatal, are typical of classical intolerance reactions. The emerging view is now that most intolerances and intolerances, diplomatically called ‘idiosyncratic’ reactions by some, are not IgE based. There is a new generation of intolerance tests designed to detect reactions to foods that measure IgG antibodies. According to Dr James Braly, “Food intolerance is not rare, nor are the effects limited to the air passages, the skin and digestive tract. Most food intolerances are delayed reactions, taking up to three days to show themselves, and are therefore much harder to detect”.
There are several possible reasons why a person becomes food intolerant. Among these are a lack of digestive enzymes, “leaky” gut, frequent exposure to foods containing irritant chemicals, immune deficiency leading to hypersensitivity of the immune system, micro-organism imbalance in the gut, and no doubt many more. There is a lot you can do to protect yourself and reduce your allergic potential, but where do you start?
In the past, testing for intolerances has been notoriously difficult. The traditional exclusion diet, where you cut out any suspected foods then slowly reintroduce them one at a time after a month and monitor your reactions, is difficult, very time consuming, and it is nigh on impossible to determine the exact combination of foods that are triggering your symptoms; the average is five different foods. The fact is that every individual person is unique with a different biochemical make-up, even to others with similar conditions.
Thankfully, help is at hand with a simple testing service that identifies food-specific IgG antibody reactions, so you can easily pinpoint the harder to detect “hidden” allergens. The YorkTest FoodScan is only one food-specific IgG test available that has significant clinical data to support its use. YorkTest has over 25 years of experience in the food intolerance testing market and has widely published test data to show that, in those with chronic symptoms such as irritable bowel syndrome, eczema and headaches, over 3 out of 4 will show significant benefit if they remove those foods from their diet that have shown a reaction. A unique kit is sent to you so you can take your own blood sample at home and post the kit direct to the laboratory for testing, without the inconvenience of visiting a hospital or GP. The test only requires a few drops of blood from a finger prick sample, and you are supported through the whole process by a qualified Nutritionist so that you don’t feel like you are attempting this all on your own.
Many people are looking to take control of their symptoms using methods that are proven, positive and active. Help is at hand; at the Rude Health Show at the RDS, Dublin on the 11th and 12th September 2010 Patrick Holford will help you find out how to discover your food intolerances and improve your digestion, putting an end to indigestion, bloating, constipation and IBS. The net result of perfect digestion is better skin and much more energy. His talk is titled “Is What You Eat Making You Ill?”. Dr Gill Hart will explore the science behind food intolerance testing and look at the results that have been achieved.
Patrick Holford will also be touring Ireland from the 5th – 11th October 2010; check out his website for event details www.patrickholford.com
By Dr. Evelien van Amerongen
Since 1997, I have learned about, and subsequently trained in, one of the most powerful healing modalities I have ever come across: Dr Klinghardt’s Autonomic Response Testing (ART). His healing modality is a wonderful coming together of many medical practices, complementary therapies and common sense. This comprehensive diagnostic and treatment modality finds the underlying causes behind the symptoms of degenerative disease, and helps to unlock the body’s inner healing potential.
Do you have unexplained aches and pains? Is your energy level below par? Were you told that even though you feel sick, the medical profession cannot find anything wrong with you? Autonomic Response Testing can determine imbalances in the different levels of the body, their root causes and the correct therapy modality and intervention appropriate to that level.
The human body is constantly busy, even in sleep. All activity is being monitored, controlled and organized by an intelligent, bioelectric force called Life. Life circulates in our bodies by way of the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS). The ANS is in direct contact with every cell, muscle and tissue, and it knows exactly what is happening inside our bodies at all times. It is our functional nervous system.
To make this easy to understand, the ANS has two parts: the parasympathetic nervous system and the sympathetic nervous system, or Yin and Yang. Generally speaking, if your body were a car, the sympathetic nervous system acts as the accelerator, or speeds things up, and the parasympathetic nervous system acts as the brakes, or slows things down.
Normal, healthy people have a normal, healthy functioning ANS. Their inner doctor is able to respond to any type of challenge we encounter. Sick people do not have a normal functioning ANS to varying degrees. This is called autonomic dysregulation.
Blocked regulation is the most overlooked factor in our quest to become healthy.
Healthy people can regulate between having the brakes on (parasympathetic dominance) and having the accelerator on (sympathetic dominance). Sick people can’t; they seem to be stuck with either the brakes or the accelerator on. This is called blocked regulation. When your body is in a state of blocked regulation, most of the intelligent bioelectric energy called Life is being used to do something in the body: clean, fix, detoxify, balance, etc. When you have a blocked regulation, all of your energy is spent to hold together a system that is out of balance. There is simply no surplus energy available to heal.
Autonomic Response Testing reveals where the ANS is blocked, why, and finds the correct intervention that needs to be applied to create balance.
Why conventional medicine is no longer adequate when it comes to treating chronic illness.
Because the importance of a healthy autonomic nervous system is not taught in medical school, conventional medicine does not recognise and understand its vital role in self-healing. Often, modern day disease is expressed by a multitude of vague, difficult-to-describe symptoms which makes proper diagnosis difficult using only conventional means.
The 7 most common factors for blocked regulation are:
Heavy metal burden
Toxic chemicals and Agricultural pesticides and solvents
Food allergies and sensitivities
Infections (parasites, worms, fungi, moulds, bacteria, viruses)
Dental stress, non vital teeth and jaw dysfunction
Unresolved emotional stress
Conflict radiation (WIFI, mobile phones, pylons etc)
Good health fails, only because the self-regulating healing action of the body is impaired.
There is a hierarchy of factors that underlie most chronic degenerative diseases: the 7 Factors that reduce our capacity to eliminate toxins. The toxic burden gives a wide range of symptoms and stands in the way of diagnosing a specific disease.
At the ISHSKO centre, Autonomic Response Testing stands paramount, and it is our purpose to create a treatment protocol that educates and encourages the patient to have an active role in the multiple aspects of their optimum health and wellbeing. The protocol will encompass contamination prevention and detoxification treatment, stress reduction, healthy eating habits and the value of nutrition in maintaining health, as well as achievable, healthier lifestyle choices.
For further information about ART and how it can help you, please visit our website: www.mercuryfreedentistry.eu