Category Archives: Body, Mind & Spirit

Healthy Eating as Pathology

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Experts Claim Passion for Eating Healthy Has Become a Mental Disorder

happy-woman-eating-salad

Anna Hunt, Staff Writer
Waking Times

When you finally realize that mainstream food companies are basically selling us food full of chemicals and devout of nutrients, you may, like many others, start to become a little fanatic about reading ingredients lists, seeking out GMO-free products, supplementing with superfoods, and actually paying attention to what goes into your body.

Well, guess what? Now, you suddenly may have a mental disorder, at least according to scientists at the University of Northern Colorado who conducted a case study about the obsession of eating healthy. This new eating disorder is called orthorexia nervosa (ON) and is said to be driven by a fear of being unhealthy and disgust for low-quality food.

“Orthorexia nervosa (ON) is a term introduced to describe a condition characterized by a pathologic obsession for bio-logically pure and healthy nutrition.” ~Ryan M. Moroze, MD. et al [1]

The psychologists conducting the study argue that healthy eating can become dangerous if one becomes fixated on the types of ingredients in food, how the food is cooked, and what materials are used to prepare it. Those “suffering” from orthorexia may take extra time to prepare their food and carefully consider what they are willing to eat.

In this day and age, 90% of grocery store shelves, at least in the United States, are filled with processed foods, most of which are scientifically engineered to create physical and psychological dependency. Mega-portion processed meals have lead to spiking rates of diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and obesity. Shouldn’t conscientious effort to prepare and eat healthy foods be called sensible and smart instead of potentially dangerous?

Let’s agree that obsessive behavior is never really healthy, regardless of the situation. So what’s really the danger? Thomas Dunn, associate professor of psychology at the University of Northern Colorado and co-author of a recent paper believes the following:

“Such draconian diets can lack essential nutrients, and they make the vitamins and minerals a person does get from meals of exclusively, say, leafy greens, impossible for the body to absorb. This can lead to fragile bones, hormonal shifts, and cardiac problems, along with psychological distress and entrenched, delusional thinking.” [2]

We have been so meticulously programmed by food marketers that mainstream processed foods are “natural” “healthy” and “nutritious”, yet the statistics speak for themselves: the typical mainstream diet is making us unhealthy. Regardless of the substantial rise in obesity and numerous diseases, even people that follow the mantra of “healthy diet and exercise” are finding it increasingly difficult to be healthy because food bought in stores is just not what is used to be.

In the face of declining public health, doctors pump us full of pills that don’t really address the issue. Food corporations only care about profits, and their marketers lie to help them get those profits. Who else is left to help us find a path toward optimum health but ourselves?

How can you judge if you or someone you love is suffering from orthorexia? Similarly to most other mental illness assessment, a quick review of a checklist of potential traits will do. According to Dunn, if you identify with two or more of the following traits, you might need to see a counselor:

1. You consume a nutritionally unbalanced diet because of concerns about “food purity.”

2. You’re preoccupied about how eating impure or unhealthy foods will affect your physical or emotional health.

3. You rigidly avoid any food you deem to be “unhealthy,” such as those containing fat, preservatives, additives or animal products.

4. You spend three or more hours per day reading about, acquiring or preparing certain kinds of food you believe to be “pure.”

5. You feel guilty if you eat foods you believe to be “impure.”

6. You’re intolerant of other’s food beliefs.

7. You spend an excessive proportion of your income on “pure” foods. [4]

Considering this list, I’m a certified health nut!

If psychologists are so eager to create new mental illness, why not create a fancy label for the people participating in hot-dog eating contests, contributing to the daily consumption of 1.9 billion servings of Coca-cola products, or opting for the quad-stacked Big Mac and supersize fries.

“Orthorexia has not yet found its way into the latest edition of the psychiatric bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), yet is commonly being lumped in with other eating disorders. Stepping back and looking at the ones pushing this label on us shows highly questionable motives. Psychiatry as a whole is deeply in bed with a pharmaceutical industry that makes the drugs to “treat” every one of these “disorders.” It is often these companies that are wielding influence behind the scenes to invent more mental health categories with their toxic products as the answer.” ~ Jefferey Jaxen [5]

 

Sources:

[1] http://www.psychosomaticsjournal.com/article/S0033-3182(14)00050-4/abstract

[2] http://www.popsci.com/striving-perfect-diet-making-us-sick

[3] http://edition.cnn.com/2014/10/07/health/orthorexia/

[4] http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Weekend/story?id=3191903&page=1

[5]  http://naturalsociety.com/officials-declare-eating-healthy-mental-disorder/

from:    http://www.wakingtimes.com/2016/01/08/experts-claim-passion-for-eating-healthy-has-become-a-mental-disorder/

Cellular Consciousness & Healing

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Your Cells Are Listening: How Talking To Your Body Can Help You Heal

By Therese Wade, MSc, Wake Up World where this was originally featured.

“Every part of your body has its own consciousness or its own soul.” These transformative words, spoken by indigenous medicine women, began my journey within to discover the extraordinary healing capacity of the human body.

When this perspective was introduced to me, I was suffering from a severe chronic pain disorder. I suddenly imagined incorporating this concept into my meditation routine. I thought: Can my body hear me? Can I talk to it to gain its cooperation in healing this condition?

That night, after reaching a state of deep calm through meditation, I inwardly engaged my body in a heartfelt conversation, with hope, but having no idea what to expect. After about one hour of this focused communication, something amazing happened. My tissues began to respond. Connective tissue pulled and stretched apart layers of scar tissue. Nerves fired and my calf muscles began to perform flexion and extension exercises independently of my conscious control. As this response continued, one of my calf muscles that had become paralyzed by the neuropathic condition — diagnosed as Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy — came back to life as electric-like jolts shot through the area.

My heart pounded as I realized that the path to my freedom from this condition had finally begun. With a background in acupuncture and Oriental medicine, I knew too well how prevalent chronic pain is in this country and I wondered what the implications of this phenomenon could mean to so many others who were suffering. As I continued to make progress with my condition, I organized my approach into a system that I could teach to clients and shifted my professional focus to hypnotherapy.

When instructing my clients, I explain that a regular meditation practice is necessary to train the brain to enter alpha and theta brain wave states. While in these states, communication between the conscious mind and the physical body is dramatically enhanced. I have found that when communicating, there are three key steps to gaining the cooperation of the body:

  • Approach your body with genuine compassion, understanding that it is made up of conscious cells who experience emotions.
  • Build trust by engaging your body in positive mental conversations about your desire for the two of you to cooperate and overcome the ailment.
  • Allow changes in the conversation by using different thoughts and words that elicit spontaneous elevated emotions.

From my experience, the above guidelines are necessary to achieve dynamic healing responses in the body. I recently came across a very similar set of factors that were discovered by researcher Cleve Backster, who spent 36 years studying biocommunication in plant, animal and human cells. He referred to these factors as real intent, attunement, and spontaneity.[1]

Backster, formerly an interrogation specialist for the CIA, wrote about the defining moment which led him to his real work in this world, in his book Primary Perception. [2] This moment occurred one February morning in 1966 when he decided to monitor the Dracaena Fragrans plant in his lab utilizing polygraph equipment. He attached the electrodes to a leaf and began to think about ways that he might induce a surge in electrical activity in the plant. In humans this surge in electrical activity is associated with intense emotions. He suddenly imagined burning the electroded leaf. The same instant this idea entered his mind, the polygraph pen shot to the top of the chart showing an extreme reaction on the part of the plant. Amazed, he walked to his secretary’s desk to retrieve a set of matches while pondering the possibility that this plant was somehow detecting the force of human intention.

When he returned with the matches, the plant was still showing the same high level reaction which would interfere with tracking additional changes on the chart. Backster decided to “remove the threat” by returning the matches to the desk. At this point, the chart displayed a downward trend as the plant apparently began to calm down. [3] When Backster attempted to repeat the same results by pretending that he was going to burn the plant, there was no reaction. The plant seemed to sense the difference between real and artificial intent. He eventually discovered that plants become attuned to their primary care takers, responding to both their positive and negative emotions and to their return after being away for a time. [4] Chart findings also showed that plants prioritize the emotions of their primary care takers over the emotions of others nearby.

Backster later expanded his research to include testing human cells for signs of consciousness. He collected white blood cells from human donors, electroded them in a test tube and then recorded the cells’ reactions as the donors experienced different emotional states. He found that spontaneous emotions were necessary in order to elicit an electrical reaction in the cells. For instance, if a donor forced herself to feel an emotion, the cells would not respond. However, when she received a distressing phone call from her daughter, the cells reacted significantly.

He noted that distance seemed to be irrelevant in these experiments. For example, a donor left his electroded cells behind in the lab, then kept a detailed log of any stressful emotions experienced on his trip home to another state, such as missing a turn on the freeway, standing in a long line at the airport, and the take-off of his plane. Later, his logged incidents compared with the chart recording showed strong correlations between the timing of the stressful events and the electrical reactions in his cells. The chart became quiet again when he arrived home and went to sleep. [6]

These experiments were conducted while using equipment that screened out electromagnetic radiation — the usual energies used for information transmission. The cells behaved as if the screens weren’t there, suggesting that this communication is carried by a field still unidentified by conventional science. [7] Some scientists believe that the further development of quantum physics may help guide us to understand this field that communicates emotional intent between living things. [8] Quantum Entanglement is a process where two particles of matter which have interacted with each other, still behave as if they are connected after being separated by many miles. When an energetic change is made to the properties (position, momentum and rotational spin) of one of the particles, the properties of the other distant particle will change at the same instant.

This scientific phenomenon and the research of Cleve Backster, point to the Eastern concept of oneness — the view that all of nature is interdependent. Ancient cultures understood this interconnection as a living universal energy field that sustains life while guiding the evolution of consciousness throughout the universe. The meditation techniques involved in my practice bring the mind into attunement with this field. Energy from this field is then focused into a physical healing event through clear intention — delivered by means of a conversation that evokes spontaneous emotions — and attunes the physical body to the conscious mind. This method which I call Antara (Sanskrit for within), enables one to experience the raw creative healing ability generated by an alliance of the mind and body with this living universal energy field.

from:   http://themindunleashed.org/2015/12/your-cells-are-listening-how-talking-to-your-body-can-help-you-heal.html

Embrace Your Greatness

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30 Challenges For 30 Days Of Greatness

| December 12, 2015 

30 Challenges For 30 Days Of Greatness

by Marc Chernoff,
MarcAndAngel.com

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but so few think of changing themselves first.

How disappointed would you be to get to the end of your life and discover that you were made to be great while all you did was wait around?

It’s time to get present, challenge yourself, and change things for the better!

Will you be able to change everything? No. In fact there may be lots of things you want to change that can’t be changed. But YOU can still change!

Even when you are no longer able to change a situation, you are challenged to change yourself. And that makes all the difference in the world.

With this simple truth in mind, here are my challenges to you for the upcoming month – a positive to-do list for 30 days of personal greatness:

1. When a new day begins, challenge yourself to smile genuinely and gratefully.

2. When you don’t get what you want, challenge yourself to appreciate that there are lots of people in this world who will never have what you have right now.

3. When holding on no longer seems reasonable, challenge yourself to appreciate the fact that nothing in life is permanent, and to realize that once you embrace this you can do almost anything you wish because you’re not trying to hold onto anything anymore.

4. When you catch yourself thinking the grass is greener elsewhere, challenge yourself to water the grass you’re standing on.

5. When you absolutely can’t control what’s happening to you, challenge yourself to control the way you respond to what’s happening – in your response is your power.

6. When it seems like problems are stacking up, challenge yourself to face these problems positively.

7. When there seems to be little hope, challenge yourself to find some.

8. When the road ahead seems too rough, challenge yourself to acknowledge that there’s absolutely nothing about your present circumstances that prevents you from making progress, one small step at a time.

9. When you catch yourself overthinking things, challenge yourself to take a step forward instead.

10. When you are completely uncertain about what the future will bring, challenge yourself to make the best and most positive use of the present.

11. When you have two good choices, challenge yourself to go with the one that scares you the most, because that’s the one that is going to help you grow.

12. When you are going to do something – anything at all – challenge yourself to do it with enthusiasm and devotion.

13. When others say your ideas are crazy, challenge yourself to do what feels right anyway, to not care if your goals seem crazy to others, and to remember that the crazy ideas are the ones that often have the greatest impact.

14. When there are lots of excuses for why you can’t get it done, challenge yourself to focus on all the reasons why you must make it happen.

15. When you find yourself wishing for instant gratification, challenge yourself to admit that if you could have it all instantly, it would not be worth having – for the real value of accomplishment is in the accomplishing.

16. When mistakes are made, challenge yourself to learn from them, laugh about them, and waste not a minute on past outcomes you can’t control.

17. When you find yourself trying to control too much, and thus enjoying too little, challenge yourself to let go, relax, take a deep breath and appreciate “what is” for a while.

18. When there is needless drama and negativity surrounding you, challenge yourself to look the other way.

19. When your own negativity tries to break through, challenge yourself to recall that you are in control of the way you look at life, and then use your struggles and frustrations to motivate yourself rather than annoy yourself.

20. When you find yourself running in place attempting to fix and fight the old, challenge yourself to build and grow something new instead.

21. When doing the wrong things is easier, challenge yourself to do the right thing, even if no one else will ever know – because YOU will know.

22. When you catch yourself praying for an easy life, challenge yourself to pray for the strength to endure a difficult one that’s worth living.

23. When everything seems jumbled and rushed, challenge yourself to take a step back so you can see things clearly again.

24. When you meet someone new, challenge yourself to be patient with them, to pay attention to them, and to remember that everyone you meet has something important to teach you.

25. When you don’t like someone, challenge yourself to identify an insecurity within yourself that they are triggering.

26. When someone treats you poorly, challenge yourself to treat them with kindness and respect anyway – not because they are nice, but because you are (and then walk the other way if you must).

27. When a negative situation gets emotional, take a deep breath, and challenge yourself to remember that inner peace begins the moment you decide not to let another person or event control your emotions.

28. When someone you meet is lost, challenge yourself to help them find their way.

29. When a friend falls down, challenge yourself to be the first to extend a hand.

30. When each day has ended, challenge yourself to appreciate that you have done your very best.

from: http://www.bodymindsoulspirit.com/30-challenges-for-30-days-of-greatness/

Triggering, Mind Control, Personal Power & Responsibility

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Syed Farook and the new world of emotional “triggers”

December 5, 2015

mindcontrol2By Jon Rappoport

Warning: this article is an emotional trigger about emotional triggers…

“Conceive of it this way. Far up in the sky you have people, individuals, who are inventing the fulfillment of their most profound desires, making them fact in the world, no matter what—and way down below, miles under the earth, you have other individuals who could be doing what the sky dwellers are, but they’ve bamboozled themselves into thinking they can’t. Instead, they think they’re trapped in every little response they might have to any old stimulus that comes along. Both groups of people are creative, but they’ve channeled their imaginations and creativity in vastly different ways. Waking up may be hard to do, but you either do or you don’t.” (Notes for Exit From The Matrix, Jon Rappoport)

Some brilliant media pundits are now suggesting that the accused San Bernardino shooter, Syed Farook, may have been “triggered” by the Xmas party at the building he later attacked.

You know, the existence of Xmas contributed to setting him off because his religious faith was of a different type. Xmas was a grave insult.

There will be people, believe it or not, who think this “analysis” has merit.

“Well, sure, I can see that. Given the nature of his faith, it’s understandable that he would have left the party in a disturbed state, gone home, put on military gear, picked up a few auto weapons, a ton of ammo, and pipe bombs, waited for his wife to do the same, and then, on the spur of the moment, returned to the building…he was triggered.”

“Triggered” is the new reality. It’s mainly for the young and naïve, especially those who are looking for a way to become known at colleges. “Wow, I can get a few minutes of attention if I say I was triggered. I’ll go for it. It’s easy. I don’t have to do anything. I don’t have to achieve anything. This is all about not achieving anything. It’s a perfect excuse. I’m paralyzed. And the reason is, let’s see, I wasn’t warned by my professor that he was going to discuss a subject that had triggers in it. Yeah, I like it.”

Apparently, there is no bottom for idiocy. You think you’ve seen the worst, but no.

Yesterday, I included this quote from a New Yorker article. It’s worth re-reading:

Individual [Harvard law] students often ask teachers not to include the law of rape on exams for fear that the material would cause them to perform less well. One teacher I know was recently asked by a student not to use the word “violate” in class—as in “Does this conduct violate the law?”—because the word was triggering. Some students have even suggested that rape law should not be taught because of its potential to cause distress. (Jeannie Suk, The New Yorker, 12/15/14)

There are several underlying principles at work here. One is: If you give people an out, an excuse for not doing anything, a way to become a victim, a significant number who aren’t genuinely disabled in any way will reach for it and grab it.

And they’ll invent a back-story full of grievances. And traumas. And whatever it takes.

This is a form of art. Theater. It may be bad art and bad theater, but there it is.

“I wish I could write a play, a novel. Mostly, I wish I could create the future I really want. But it doesn’t look like I can. So I’ll do something different. I’ll cast myself in a play that’s already gaining steam. I’ll take on the role of victim. I’ll be the person who is in danger of being triggered every time I get out of bed in the morning. If I put everything I have into that role, I might garner a few good reviews.”

There is a larger point here. The whole business of promoting “triggering” is a propaganda operation. Its goal is to convince people that they live in a stimulus-response world—and that means a locked-up world. Stimuli appear…and inevitable responses follow. Period. End of story.

Freedom? A myth. Individual choice? Impossible. The human being? Merely a biological machine programmed to deliver x, y, or z, depending on the external provocations of the moment.

Individual power? No such thing.

This is the Pavlovian wet dream.

Since the dawn of time, leaders and the men behind and above the leaders have tried to install stimulus-response as the only form of human activity, and for obvious reasons.

Stimulus-response is the essence of mind control.

The perversely clever thing about promoting “triggering” as a valid and universal concern is: you will get people to program themselves. They’ll reach out for, and invent, any excuse to pretend they’re being negatively stimulated—and they’ll demand protection, which in the long run amounts to a fantasy about “safe spaces” they can inhabit—vacuums where no adverse content can set off little emotional time-bombs.

Another underlying principle at work: never consider raising up people so they can express and fulfill their deepest desires; no, instead take everyone to the bottom, where the incurably injured live. That’s the goal.

And if you can’t see the consequences of that program, you need a stirring wake-up call.

The Individual is endlessly creative. If, for whatever reason, he decides and believes he can’t consciously express that power in a way that meshes with his deep desires, he’ll invent his reality in a different direction—and that is his problem, it’s not someone else’s. The proof of the pudding? No one else can invent his desired reality for him. It’s his job. And it’s also, if he would see it, his joy.

This is not a matter of what’s fair or unfair, just or unjust. It’s a matter of fact.

The individual has freedom and power. The range of these capacities is endless.

What I’m writing about here is in no way a prescription for allowing public corruption to flourish and then blaming the individual for the circumstances in which he finds himself. Quite the contrary. All those students who are currently programming themselves to be “triggered”? They could be creating an entirely different atmosphere at their colleges.

They could be investigating, for example, where all the grant monies come from. I’m talking about grants for research on highly toxic medical drugs. I’m talking about pharma influencing the content of science courses and medical training. I’m talking about government money for research on toxic pesticides and genetic meddling. I’m talking about money for research on “brain mapping,” which is really a prelude to efforts to re-program brains and thus control them. I’m talking about money for research on better methods of mass surveillance. And so forth and so on.

Create that drama. Create the drama of discovering the truth about what colleges are really doing, and expose it, and put the sold-out researchers in the glare of the spotlight for the right reasons.

Or, dilly dally about “triggering” and have that party instead.

There certain incontrovertible facts. They have nothing to with what already exists or what did exist or what will exist. They have to do with the individual and his power to imagine and create reality. He can fathom and access this power and consciously use it to achieve his own purposes, or he can subvert those purposes and instead invent himself into a dead-end, where the substance of his life appears to be entirely under the control of external forces, with no hope available.

Those are the immortal cards and that is the immortal hand dealt on the table. Play them as you will.

The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here.

from:    http://www.activistpost.com/2015/12/syed-farook-and-the-new-world-of-emotional-triggers.html

Love Your Thyroid

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The Top 5 Super Foods For Thyroid Health

by Daily Super Food Love

thyroid-1Another epidemic is sweeping across the world. According to experts, there are as many as 30 million people suffering from a form of thyroid disorder in the United States alone – and half of them are undiagnosed. That is a staggering 12% of the nation’s total population.

Worldwide, approximately 430 million people are estimated to have a thyroid disorder.

Strangely, there is little concrete information about this problem worldwide since many patients and their doctors mistake the common symptoms for something else.

One serious cause of thyroid dysfunction is iodine deficiency. We get very little of it in our modern diet but iodine is a nutrient obtainable from food. It may seem overly simplistic to use food for thyroid health but it works and could be the answer in your particular case to getting this important gland functioning normally again.

10 Symptoms of Thyroid Malfunction

1. Fatigue: Persistent exhaustion no matter how much sleep you get.

2. Poor Sleep Quality: Being unable to sleep or wanting to sleep all the time.

3. Mood Swings: Feelings of sadness or anxiety.

4. Appetite Changes: Changes to food preferences or altered taste.

5. Brain Fog: Inability to concentrate or difficulty with simple cognition.

6 .Bowel Irregularity: Bloating, gas, constipation, or diarrhea.

7. Temperature Sensitivity: You persistently feel too hot or too cold.

8. Chronic Pain: Aches in joints or muscles for no particular reason.

9. Reproductive Issues: Infertility, miscarriages, or premature births.

10. Menstrual Changes: An increase or decrease in cramps, flow, or length of periods.

What Does Your Thyroid Do for You?

The thyroid hormones thyroxine (T-4) and triiodothyronine (T-3) produced by your thyroid gland – a butterfly shaped gland in your lower throat – are responsible for managing your metabolism, body temperature, and blood pressure. Though this part of the endocrine system is small, it is mighty. It literally effects all of you because every cell and organ in your body use thyroid hormones.

Hyperthyroidism (less common) is the term used when your thyroid produces too much hormones. It is also referred to as an overactive thyroid. This condition can result in unexplained weight loss, feeling jittery or anxious, inability to relax, lack of focus, rapid heart rate, fatigue, marked increase to appetite, deterioration of nails, skin, and hair, heart disease, irritability, sleep irregularity, and intolerance to heat.

Hypothyroidism (most common) is the term used when your thyroid produces too little hormones. It is also referred to as an underactive or sluggish thyroid. You may notice no symptoms initially but they tend to worsen as time goes by. Deficiency in these essential hormones lead to feelings of fatigue, depression, obesity, pain in joints, muscle weakness, deterioration of hair, skin, and nails, heart disease, poor memory and focus, and intolerance to cold.

Hashimoto’s Disease is an autoimmune condition. Your immune system malfunctions and sends out antibodies to attack thyroid tissue. Over time, the thyroid is beaten down and unable to function properly. The majority of patients with hypothyroidism test positive for these antibodies. It is important to keep your immune system strong and lower body-wide inflammation to prevent these antibodies from destroying your thyroid.

Your thyroid is stimulated by signals from your brain (hypothalamus) and your pituitary gland tells the thyroid gland to either produce hormones or to hold back. When the signals are blocked or false, it can result in serious repercussions throughout your system.

foods-for-thyroid-health-IG

Common Causes of Thyroid Malfunction

–Iodine or other nutrition deficiency.

-Graves is a genetic autoimmune disease that stimulates thyroid hormone production.

-Plummer’s disease is benign lumps that stimulate thyroid hormone production.

-Pregnancy can trigger thyroid dysfunction.

-Thyroiditis is inflammation that triggers excess thyroid hormone to flood the blood.

-Physical, mental, or emotional stress may affect how your thyroid functions.

-Environmental toxins are thought to play a role in dysfunction of the thyroid.

This condition can affect adults, children, and infants. Newborns tested and treated early respond well and the practice has prevented poor mental development.

There are synthetic hormones available (thyroid drugs are the fourth highest selling in the United States) that can eventually get your thyroid back on track. However, most patients have to have a thyroid that no longer functions for the synthetic replacements to work.

Preventing the destruction of your thyroid in the first place is a far better solution.

5 Best Foods for Thyroid Health

1. Seaweed and seafood (scallops, shrimp, sardines, salmon, and tuna)

2. Yogurt, eggs, and cheese

3. Coconut oil

4. Cranberries and cranberry juice

5. Baked potatoes (with skin)

5 Worst Foods for Thyroid Health

1. Soy products

2. Refined gluten grains

3. Sodas, alcohol, or excessive coffee

4. Hydrogenated oils (avoid processed or fast foods)

5. Refined sugar

Currently, there is no cure for autoimmune diseases such as Hashimoto’s that cause extensive damage to the thyroid and result in conditions such as hypothyroidism. As with most autoimmune conditions, it is crucial to pay close attention to diet and lifestyle habits. It may not reverse thyroid damage completely but it will slow the advance and ease symptoms.

Good choices for your thyroid benefits your entire body. All of your systems are connected and they depend on each other to function properly. Choosing the right foods for thyroid health are also good choices for your heart, brain, and gut. All of you will feel the difference.

Source: dailysuperfoodlove.com, healthy-holistic-living.com

from:    http://www.realfarmacy.com/thyroid-foods/

Food, Nutrition, & Inner Knowing

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Heard of the Glycemic Index? Forget About It!

Heard of the Glycemic Index? Forget About It!

Originally published on Kelly Brogan MD.

With nutrition and wellness information omnipresent, it is important that we follow our inner guide and discover what works for us as individuals.

Forget about the Glycemic Index

We are so saturated with information. With stimulus. With advice. With authoritative edicts on health. A chain of gurus have come before me seeking to guide patients into the light of wellness. People are blinded by it, however. They feel confused, skeptical, and disenfranchised. And then they default to consensus and conformity around FDA standards of disease-care. There is a better way.

It involves awakening your inner guru. Getting in touch with your own inner compass.

This is necessary because there is no one just like you out there. No one has walked your path, accumulated your exposures. Grown and changed in response in quite the same way.

Modern medicine doesn’t acknowledge the vital importance of biochemical individuality. About how we are a unique collective of organisms, an ecology within that is connected to an environment without like a snowflake in a winter sky.

So, it only stands to reason that we would interact with our environments uniquely, and support ourselves through nature in a personal way. Nutrition is, perhaps, our most intimate dance with the living ecosystem of this planet.

Weston A. Price tried to tell us about individualized diets. Francis Pottenger tried to tell us about individualized diets. Dr. Nick Gonzalez tried to tell us about individualized diet. They were, in many ways, speaking a Truth that we weren’t quite ready to receive.

This is because we have been programmed, for decades to believe in an automated universe – one that could be explained neatly through scientific cause and effect – and one that interfaced with our robotic bodies in predictable ways. In this model, nature is “mostly stupid” as Alan Watts would say, in that it could be easily mastered and put in its place of subservience. Germs are tedious annoyances out to get us. Diseases are mistakes. Medications and vaccines are applied to one and all. And food is caloric fuel for our body machines.

When you look at food as part of our relationship with the living world beyond our skin, you understand that it is information, energetic, and complex in ways that we don’t have mechanisms to understand. This is why reductionist concepts like the “glycemic index” have always struck me as a misguided construct.

Now we have a brilliant study, perhaps one of the first of its kind, that decimates this false flag of nutrition consciousness. Published in Cell, an Israeli group of researchers followed 800 people with a prescribed diet for one week, assessing biological parameters from blood sugar to their microbiota. What they uncovered was a clear signal of Truth: the same foods affect different people differently!

Even obese, diabetic patients following formal dietary recommendations for a “healthy diet” found surprising information on the effects of foods such as tomatoes on their blood sugar. Of course, we know that there is more to the benefits of a diet than its benevolent relationship to blood sugar. We know that microbiota have a meaningful role in the metabolism and impact of foods on the body, and that food can directly impact the microbiota, enhancing strains required for its digestion.

We also know that the autonomic nervous system and associated individualized differences in pancreatic innervation can dictate whether one person thrives on a high carb (whole food) diet and another tanks on it. I’ll never forget the feeling of shattered nutrition dogma when Dr. Gonzalez discussed with me a patient of his whose insulin-dependent diabetes had resolved on a prescribed high carb vegetarian diet complete with multiple glasses of carrot juice daily. (We will be publishing this case soon!)

In summary, the Cell article authors state:

“Measuring such a large cohort without any prejudice really enlightened us on how inaccurate we all were about one of the most basic concepts of our existence, which is what we eat and how we integrate nutrition into our daily life.”

Because nutrition is one of the most basic concepts, our confusion is emblematic of how far we have come from intuitive living. This is why, the most profound healing involves a transformation of consciousness, a reclaiming of agency, a connectedness to the inner and out communities we thrive with, and a relationship to intuition.

 

I ask my patients, after 30 days of a whole foods, organic diet, to begin to observe their preferences for pastured red meat, fruit, and leafy greens. This observation requires mindfulness around eating and a daily practice of meditation (even a couple of minutes!) to clear the clutter so that you can actually feel what is best rather than reacting from your head. Because you are your own best healer.

from:    http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/heard-glycemic-index-forget-about-it-1?page=2

Fear, Perspective, & Awakening

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Circling the Wormhole

by Zen Gardner

Time once again appears to be behaving strangely. Not just the surreal blender of the whirled news, but the little slippages here and there, abrupt realizations that it’s not the time or date you thought it was. Things like that. Are you noticing? Time moving very quickly, strange sort of head spinning feelings when trying to track your thoughts, memory lapses, sense of fatigue for no good reason, or ringing in the ears with a touch of vertigo? It’s freaky. There are a lot of influences at work right now. Some good, some bad.

Perhaps we may have hit the edge of the wormhole in some sense. Or are there competing wormholes?

That’s an exotic thought perhaps. But that’s what appears to be happening in many ways. The overall perspective of the awakening was easier to see from afar just a year or two ago. Now the picture is getting muddled and appears like a hodgepodge of swirling influences and resultant reactions. Things are mixing together like the colors in a young child’s finger painting.

It’s apparently because we have entered some kind of vortex perhaps, where time and space subduct like esoteric tectonic plates. What we’re seeing in the surreal whirled about us is just another manifestation. The rapid acceleration of their plan is designed to throw us off, much like fast changing scenes in an action movie. If you get swept into it the results can be distracting and very disempowering.

We need to be careful to dodge the spiraling flak while maneuvering into and even reveling in the true energetic vortex. It’s nothing to fear as long as we’re aware of what’s going on around us and stay on our toes.  The changes are changing and the winds are picking up.

It’s a great time for letting go – but it will not be a pleasant ride for those who refuse to loosen their grip.

interfering waves1

Mixed Signals

Who knows the full plan? But we can track and watch and learn and experience. Knowing it’s all just a ride will save our spiritual hineys and keep our engines cooled during all this insanity.

It’s a strange dichotomy – watching the pre-placed dominoes fall yet being so enraptured with the awakening that’s happening, with so many catching on to what’s really going on. That’s the part I like to tune into but I have to admit this other stuff whirling around us doesn’t make it easy.

It’s clearly happening at a faster rate as the whirled stage antics escalate, yet it’s hard to put your finger on in many ways with all the crap we’re being told and so many swallowing the almost unavoidable fear propaganda campaign being waged. Some of those strange vibes you’re feeling are all the antennas picking up and resonating with this fear channel as the war on consciousness escalates. These and other signals interact causing a kind of wave interference.

Steer clear of it. That is not the wormhole to be anywhere near.

What we’re being shown by the big media projector is the exact opposite of what’s really going on.  Thankfully dot connecting makes things very plain, and when you learn to speak that language, damn it’s clear.

Don’t Get Sucked In

Funny thing about a wormhole – it can be a good one or a not so good one. These exterior manufactured influences are obviously meant towards more control and containment. Conversely, the positive spiritual influences are drawing us to deeper understandings, but they’re subtle and not that easy to identify in such an environment.

Discernment is the key, but it takes manning the rudder and sails intelligently. The threats to the alternative and independent media they’re making aren’t anything new. Clearly they’ve pre-decided this staged Paris event would be a kick off to the next level of many of their programs. Massively increased war budgets are passing without a whimper of consensus or protest while the NATO countries try to make an end run to occupy Syria and overthrow Assad and stave off Russia’s clean up job, something no one else would do since as we know ISIS is the West’s creation.

All while initiating draconian clampdowns anywhere and everywhere they can, fueled by continued terror events around the world which we’ll no doubt be seeing a lot more of to keep this tide of confusion rolling out.

dance_into_the_vortex

Your Personal Choice

So, we’re again at a crossroads, a place we should all be familiar with since we’re constantly having to make decisions on what to let into our spiritual field. It’s important to be aware of what’s supposedly, yes supposedly, going on but more importantly it’s a time to dig deep and remain grounded in loving, encouraging truth.

And revel in it.

The whirlpools are spinning. We’re continually swept into more choices, and it’s much like vortecies pulling us in different directions. Most importantly, we’re being pulled into a wormhole of Truth and Transformation, one we’ve been in for some time, and we can’t lose track of that.

So what do you do? Run in fear and hide from what could be a path to a greater reality and cling to the old world addictions to whateverthehell keeps you entrapped and ensnared?

Or venture on.

It’s an easy choice for me, thankfully. Adventure towards freedom vs trudging towards slavery should be a clear cut decision for anyone who’s even half awake. That may not be clear to those being played like pawns in the whirled matrix but it’s always obvious to the awakened.

Don’t let yourself get confused or discouraged by all of this. We’re sailing through very choppy waters and we need to move forward with dead reckoning, knowing our direction and with full confidence in the ships of our lives – even if it leads to heretofore unexplored territory as we navigate around the whirlpools of deceit.

Conscious, awakened truth calls, and it’s a place of safe refuge in times of rapid change and seeming uncertainty.

Love, Zen

from:    http://www.zengardner.com/circling-the-wormhole/

Individuality as Illness

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Nonconformity and Freethinking Now Considered Mental Illnesses

Is nonconformity and freethinking a mental illness? According to the newest addition of the DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), it certainly is. The manual identifies a new mental illness called “oppositional defiant disorder” or ODD. Defined as an “ongoing pattern of disobedient, hostile and defiant behavior,” symptoms include questioning authority, negativity, defiance, argumentativeness, and being easily annoyed.

The DSM-IV is the manual used by psychiatrists to diagnose mental illnesses and, with each new edition, there are scores of new mental illnesses. Are we becoming sicker? Is it getting harder to be mentally healthy? Authors of the DSM-IV say that it’s because they’re better able to identify these illnesses today. Critics charge that it’s because they have too much time on their hands.

New mental illnesses identified by the DSM-IV include arrogance, narcissism, above-average creativity, cynicism, and antisocial behavior. In the past, these were called “personality traits,” but now they’re diseases. And there are treatments available.

All of this is a symptom of our over-diagnosing and overmedicating culture. In the last 50 years, the DSM-IV has gone from 130 to 357 mental illnesses. A majority of these illnesses afflict children. Although the manual is an important diagnostic tool for the psychiatric industry, it has also been responsible for social changes. The rise in ADD, bipolar disorder, and depression in children has been largely because of the manual’s identifying certain behaviors as symptoms. A Washington Post article observed that, if Mozart were born today, he would be diagnosed with ADD and “medicated into barren normality.”

According to the DSM-IV, the diagnosis guidelines for identifying oppositional defiant disorder are for children, but adults can just as easily suffer from the disease. This should give any freethinking American reason for worry. The Soviet Union used new “mental illnesses” for political repression.  People who didn’t accept the beliefs of the Communist Party developed a new type of schizophrenia. They suffered from the delusion of believing communism was wrong.  They were isolated, forcefully medicated, and put through repressive “therapy” to bring them back to sanity.

When the last edition of the DSM-IV was published, identifying the symptoms of various mental illnesses in children, there was a jump in the diagnosis and medication of children. Some states have laws that allow protective agencies to forcibly medicate, and even make it a punishable crime to withhold medication.  This paints a chilling picture for those of us who are nonconformists. Although the authors of the manual claim no ulterior motives but simply better diagnostic practices, the labeling of freethinking and nonconformity as mental illnesses has a lot of potential for abuse. It can easily become a weapon in the arsenal of a repressive state.

 

:

“Is Free Thinking A Mental Illness?,” from offthegridnews.com, where this was originally featured.

from:     http://themindunleashed.org/2013/11/nonconformity-and-freethinking-now.html

The Psoas Muscle, Stress, & Yoga

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The ‘Muscle of the Soul’ may be Triggering Your Fear and Anxiety

Psoas MusclesBrett Wilbanks, Staff Writer
Waking Times

The psoas major muscle (pronounced “so-as”) is often referred to as the deepest core, or as yoga therapist and film-maker Danielle Olson states, the “muscle of the soul.” This core-stabilizing muscle located near the hip bone affects mobility, structural balance, joint function, flexibility, and much more. In addition to its function to help keep the body upright and moving, the psoas is believed to allow you to connect with the present moment especially when it is stretched out and tension is released from the body.

Research indicates that the psoas is vital to our psychological wellbeing in addition to structural health. Liz Koch, author of The Psoas Book, states that our psoas “literally embodies our deepest urge for survival, and more profoundly, our elemental desire to flourish.” This means that there is a lot more to the psoas than one might initially think. It is entirely possible to harness healing pranic energy and improve mental health by keeping the psoas healthy.

Where is the Psoas?

The psoas is the principal muscle associated with physical stability. It stretches from the legs to the spine and is the only muscle connecting the legs to the spinal column. The muscle flares out from the T12 vertebrae, follows down the five lumbar vertebrae, before attaching to the top of the thigh bone.

The Reptilian Connection

In addition to connecting the legs and spine, the psoas is connected to the diaphragm. Breathing is modulated at the diaphragm, and it is also the location where many physical symptoms associated with fear and anxiety manifest. Koch believes that this is due to the direct link between the psoas and the most ancient part of our brain stem and spinal cord, called the reptilian brain.

According to Koch, “Long before the spoken word or the organizing capacity of the cortex developed, the reptilian brain, known for its survival instincts, maintained our essential core functioning.” The way we live today, constantly rushing, competing and achieving, has the psoas in a constant “fight or flight” state.

psoas

Issues Associated with Chronic Psoas Stress

Trapped in a constant “flight or fight” state, psoas muscles are stressed and constricted, almost from the time of birth. As Koch notes, “this situation is exacerbated by many things in our modern lifestyle, from car seats to constrictive clothing, from chairs to shoes that distort our posture, curtail our natural movements and further constrict our psoas.” This lifelong chronic stress put on the psoas can lead to many problems like back, hip, or knee pain, and even digestive issues and dysfunctional breathing. It could also be a major cause why people suffer from chronic physical pain.

The physical body is not the only part of you that suffers from a chronically-stressed psoas. The psoas is much more than a muscle used for structural stability. It influences every element of life, from how you feel, to how you look at the world, and even how you treat others. A variety of problems have been associated with a chronically-stressed psoas muscle: it can negatively affect your emotional state; it can impact your interpersonal relationships; and it can influence your general contentment with life. Awareness that a healthy psoas is important to emotional wellness, as well as physical health, is the first step towards ensuring that we give this muscle the attention it deserves.

Koch states, “Whether you suffer from sore back or anxiety, from knee strain or exhaustion, there’s a good chance that a constricted psoas might be contributing to your woes.”

Fear and the Psoas

Since the psoas is closely linked to our “fight or flight” mechanism, fear can be over-represented in those with a constricted psoas.

It is an emotion that manifests itself in the most unusual ways and can “lock” itself into the body resulting in both physical and emotional tension. By restoring balance to your psoas muscles, you are likely to release this pent up tension, which can have a profound effect on releasing unfounded fearfulness about life, and thus improve both your physical and mental wellbeing. You will feel a greater sense of inner peace, along with fewer muscle aches and strains.

The Connection to the Energetic Body

Lengthening and releasing your psoas grounds you to the Earth, which is filled with healing and revitalizing energy, thus allowing you to balance your pranic energy and enabling you to feel more present in the moment. Proper structural stability attributed to a healthy psoas allows prana to flow, unimpeded, throughout the body, allowing for proper distribution of vital energy. In the physical sense, when the body can properly support itself, movement is less-restricted and requires less effort, thus leaving you more energetic.

Ancient Wisdom for Modern Times

Our understanding of the psoas is by no means new knowledge. In fact, it is more akin to ancient wisdom that was either lost or discarded over time. Yoga shows us explicitly that ancient gurus understood the importance of releasing contracted psoas muscles. Ancient yoga asanas, or postures, that are now practiced all around the world, focus on lengthening and releasing psoas muscles and restoring comfort and balance to the entire body. With consistent practice, you can learn how to isolate this muscle, which can be immensely useful and healing in the long run.

Yoga is also a great way to measure the current health of the psoas. There are many postures, such as tree (Vrksasana), which cannot be properly achieved if the psoas is contracted. If you are practicing a sitting or standing yoga pose and feel strain in either your knees or lower back (or both), then there’s a good chance that your psoas is constricted and needs more of your attention.

The psoas is an important, yet often unknown, muscle that plays a vital role in physical health and mental wellbeing. The cumulative effect of neglecting this muscle is physical and mental stress and tension, which manifests itself in our society as anxiety, depression, chronic back pain, knee pain, digestive distress, respiratory problems, etc.

Source:
https://bodydivineyoga.wordpress.com/2011/03/23/the-psoas-muscle-of-the-soul/

http://www.yogajournal.com/article/practice-section/the-psoas-is/

from:    http://www.wakingtimes.com/2015/06/02/the-muscle-of-the-soul-may-be-triggering-your-fear-and-anxiety/

Moving into Personal Purpose

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How to Shift From Obligation to Purpose

Written by November 3, 2015

abundant-mystic-action-obligation-compressed

When was the last time you did something for the sheer joy of it?

When was the last time you made something for no reason other than the making of it?

When was the last time you went somewhere just because it was there?

If it’s been a while, you may need to reconnect with your Purpose.

Your Purpose can be a powerful presence in your life… but often it is overpowered by the contradictory feeling and vibration of obligation.

I’ve spent a lifetime untangling the two and learning to distinguish between Obligation and Purpose.

I grew up in a family where just about everything was motivated by obligation. My father practiced law for most of his life, a career he very quickly came to hate. But because he felt obligated to provide for his family he never allowed for other options.

And that obligation led to resentment and anger. As I grew, I vowed, mostly unconsciously, that I would NEVER work from of a sense of obligation. I would “find my purpose” and only do work that came from joy and fueled my joy.

That’s what I vowed.

But, as they say… the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree!

So, while I found my “calling” and the work that would eventually bring me joy… it took many years before I stepped out from the shadow of obligation that followed me around.

Have you ever met a doctor who does great work in the world, helping people, healing people, but feels burned out and exhausted all the time because he feels obligated?

How about an activist who can’t find time for a “day off” because she feels obligated to go to every rally and demonstration?

Or what about an energy healer who feels that she is personally responsible for healing every one of her clients?

And have you ever given money to a homeless person because you felt obligated – responsible, guilty, etc. – to do so?

Whatever your individual purpose might be our higher purpose is to awaken to our Higher Self and, in the process, raise the vibration of this planet.

Acting from joy and love raises your vibration and the vibration of those around you. Acting from obligation dampens or lowers your vibration… no matter how noble or valuable the action might be!

Let me say that another way:

Doing noble things – healing people, working for a cause, giving money to someone in need – because you feel obligated to do so does NOT lead to a long-term, sustainable increase in your vibration and the vibration of those around you!

Your vibration may rise while you are engaged in the action but that heightened vibration is not sustainable if the action is based on obligation.

Years ago when I started doing Intuitive Coaching and Energy Healing my vibration would be sky-high during the session. But after the session, the strand of obligation that ran through my motivation would pull me down very quickly and often to a lower vibration than before the session.

So does the short-lived high vibration I held during the session, and the somewhat higher vibration of my client counteract the lower vibration I had after the session?

I actually don’t think so.

Obligation is a bottomless pit that can never be filled. No matter how much you do you can never satiate that sense of obligation. As quickly as you fill in that hole, the energy of obligation digs it deeper.

The energy of Purpose, on the other hand, provides a solid foundation upon which you can build. When you act from purpose you are able to build sustainable structures… including higher vibrational thoughts, emotions and actions.

There is never enough for the insatiable energy of obligation. You can never do enough, achieve enough, provide enough or be enough.

With purpose there is always enough. Every action is enough. You are enough.

Every action you take from obligation brings you back to neutral (or lower).

Action taken from purpose adds to and enhances what you have already created.

So begin to pay attention to your motivation, not just your actions. What drives you to do what you do? Is it joy, love, and passion? Or is it responsibility, guilt, and fear? Are you acting from passion or obligation? Are you attempting to fill in that bottomless pit or build something of lasting value?

What action will you take from purpose today?

What will you do for the sheer joy of it?

What will you build? What will you create?

What will your purpose move you to bring into this world today?

from:    http://consciouslifenews.com/shift-obligation-purpose/1181918/