“NATURAL DOCTORS” WHO ARE ALWAYS WITH YOU

In matters dealing with health, some of us are lazy (please take no offence) and some diligent.  The lazy ones expect others to help them.  They believe that taking care of their health is the responsibility of physicians.  The diligent ones want to help themselves by discovering the real causes of their diseases but they do not always know how to do it.  My books are intended mainly for the diligent people.  The lazy ones should reflect on the old Eastern wisdom: “Nobody does anything for you without satisfying their own needs before yours.”  You ought not to thoughtlessly leave your most valuable things – your life and health – in somebody else’s care.  We spend our time in vain while we wait for a miraculous healing coming from somebody else – nobody can take better care of our health than ourselves.  It takes strong will, persistency, diligence, knowledge, and experience to find our own way to good health.  As we know, those who seek will always find.

Nature equipped all of us with defense mechanisms designed to protect our health.  The stronger these defenses are the healthier our body is.  Each of us has a different level of defensive abilities.  They depend on our age, place and time of birth, the circumstances of our upbringing, our diet, etc.  If our body has a low level of defensive abilities since birth, we can make a big difference just by adopting a lifestyle that follows the principles of nature.

There are twelve “natural doctors” that are close to us at any time of our everyday life, ready to help us without any charge, as long as we are willing and able to use their help.  They are: our mind, light, air, water, food, physical exercise, heat, cold, sleep, rest, fasting, and urine.  This book shows how to employ the help of some “healers.”  The information concerning the remaining ones is in the other books that follow.  There are no superior and subordinate “healers.”  All of them are good, and we get best results when we comprehensively get help from them all.


PHYSICAL EXERCISE

Life is motion

Nothing causes as much damage to our body as long physical inactivity
– Aristotle, an ancient Greek philosopher –

Physical effort is vital for the proper functioning of our heart, muscles, and circulatory system, for the effective removal of waste and toxins, and for the enhancement of our whole body’s efficiency.  Exercise helps us to better assimilate the energy we acquire from the natural environment.  It is good for everybody – young and old.  It is especially important for ill people.  An ill body needs much more physical activity than a healthy one.  Those who suffer from heart disease and circulatory problems or adversely react to barometric pressure changes, magnetic storms, solar radiation, etc. should regularly exercise and strengthen their body enough to withstand all these factors.

We should understand one simple truth: A physically active lifestyle not only protects us from becoming ill but also helps to eliminate many disorders we already have.  What stops us from exercising?  It is the old laziness.

If your way of thinking is “I have so many things to do, there is no time for exercise”, it is time to change it.  Convince yourself that exercise is as important as food for your muscles, internal organs, and brain.  Physical inactivity makes us weak, ill, and prematurely aged.

Among the great variety of physical exercises, I would like to focus your attention on the healing walk, the healing run, and barefoot walk.

The healing walk

Walking is rightly called the king of exercise.  No other exercise brings such harmony to the functioning of our muscles.  It does not require any special attire or equipment; it can be done at any time and in any kind of weather.  A daily walk, even 0.5 to 2 miles (0.8 to 3.2km) long, wonderfully stimulates our heart muscle and circulatory system.  It is best to walk in the woods or a park; if that is not possible, we can even walk along a hall or balcony.  During a walk, we should be relaxed and think about the fact that, with every step, our blood circulating through the blood vessels cleanses and nurtures our body.  We can practice creating positive mental stereotypes by repeating, “I am healthy and strong, I am young and beautiful, I have a lot of energy” as we take each step.  When we walk for healing, it is important not to become tired.  We should feel light and refreshed.  The intensity of the exercise can be increased slowly and gradually. For example:

Months 1-3: A slow walk, 20-30 minutes twice a day
Months 4-6: A fast walk 0.5-2 miles (0.8-3.2 km) every day
Months 7-12: 2.5-6 miles (4-10km) every day

The healing run

Spartans used to say:  “If you want to be strong – run; if you want to be healthy – run; if you want to be wise – run.”

The healing run strengthens the walls of our blood vessels, lowers blood pressure and cholesterol levels, enhances our gastrointestinal system, and strengthens the spine, joints, and muscles.  Running is one of the best ways to build up our immunity against infections and to preserve our vigor and health. The benefits of running have been known for many years.

There have been examples of heart problems caused by intensive running exercises.  However, the problems can only arise if we do not take into account our body’s specific abilities and break the rule of gradual increase in intensity, important in any physical exercises.  Some people’s objective is not health improvement but quick weight loss.  Their unfit and polluted body cannot bear the strain of intensive running exercise.  We should acquire the habit of moderation in everything – eating, drinking, exercising, etc.

What rules should we follow in our running to feel refreshed, youthful, and healthy?

1. Use only well-fitting footwear with correctly shaped soles.
2. Run on the ground or grass – they absorb shocks; it strengthens your muscles and joints.  Running on paved surfaces may cause damage and inflammation of your joints.
3. If you have not exercised much lately, run and walk alternately. Run 30 yards (27.5m) at a time and then walk for a while (do not strain your body).
4. Don’t push yourself too much; relax your muscles and make your steps short.  It is not distance that counts but the way all your muscles are exercised.  The slight shocks on your heels move up the stream of blood in your veins.  It works like a massage, strengthens the walls of your blood vessels, and prevents cholesterol and salts from forming deposits in your blood vessels and joints.
5. Dress warm in order to cause sweating – it helps in cleansing your body.
6. After exercising, lie down for about half the time you exercised.  Place your legs above the heart level.  In the standing position, 70% of the blood is below the heart level, and it is not easy for the heart to pump it upwards.  When you run, your blood has to be pumped even faster.  That is why you should let your heart rest after the exercise.
7. If you run in the evening, do it 2-3 hours after a meal.
8. Running should be a joyful exercise and not a chore.
9. It is better to exercise individually.  Everybody’s health and fitness are different and allow different speed and intensity of running.  Beginners running with a group of well-exercised people, and trying to keep the same pace, can actually cause damage to their health.
10. Run every other day to maximize the healing effect of the exercise.

Walking barefoot

Unlike other mammals living on the Earth, humans walk on two legs.  Our body acts like a battery with a positive charge in its upper parts including the head, and a negative charge in the lower body and legs.  We get our positive charge from the universe and the negative one from the Earth.  The higher the energy flow the healthier and more robust our body is. We acquire cosmic energy through breathing, contact with water (for example, when spending time at a lake or seashore), and eating plant-based foods.  This is why we should maintain a close connection with air, water, and the world of plants. The charge from the Earth comes through our bare feet.  Hippocrates wrote: “Best footwear is no footwear.”

Studies have been done around the world on the processes stimulated in our body by walking barefoot.  There are about 72,000 nerve endings on our feet – barefoot walking acts as a natural massage and positively influences the functioning of our internal organs.  When we started using footwear, we reduced our connection with the electric charge of the Earth.  This causes a wide range of disorders such as headaches, irritability, neurosis, coronary diseases, and many others.

During one of my trips to Tibet (high in the mountains), I noticed that children there go barefoot and lightly clothed, even in wet or cold weather.  Amazingly, they do not catch colds or flu even when they are around people who are sick.

The way they looked was a testimony to their vibrant health – their muscles hard as steel, their skin silky-smooth, their cheeks rosy, their teeth strong and healthy.

Our ancestors did not have fancy footwear with soles made of synthetic materials.  They spent most of their lives barefoot and this is why they enjoyed better health and stronger immunity than we do today.

We live in very different circumstances created by our advanced civilization and spending much time barefoot is impossible.  Some of the things we can do is walking barefoot on the morning dew, sandy beach, or snow for 1-2 minutes every day, or putting our feet under a stream of cold water.  That way we build up our immunity against colds, flu, and many other health conditions.

Going barefoot not only strengthens us and builds up our immunity but also prevents back, shoulder, and leg muscle pains suffered by those ladies who like wearing high-heeled and narrow-tipped footwear.  This kind of footwear seriously retards blood circulation in the legs, causes stress and fatigue in the muscles (the foot support surface is reduced by 30-40%), and immobilizes the joints.  The body posture caused by such footwear looks this way:  the knees are slightly bent, the pelvis shifted back, and the torso shifted forward.  The muscle group in the front is stretched and the one in the back is contracted.  It is a violation against the spine and the entire muscular system of our body.  I am not against elegance, but I would like to recommend (besides barefoot walks) a few prophylactic exercises that should help remove the resulting pain and feeling of heaviness in the legs and the entire body.

These exercises can also benefit those who spend a lot of time on their feet.

1. Take a piece of uneven and rough wood (carve it, if necessary) 2-3 inches (5-7.6cm) in diameter and, when you sit for a longer time (e.g. when watching TV), roll it under your feet.
2. Put hot and cold water in two basins.  Hold your feet alternately in cold and hot water for about 30 seconds at a time (starting and ending in cold water), then dry and massage your feet and calf muscles.  This procedure removes fatigue, stimulates blood vessels, and prevents varicose veins.
3. While you sit in a chair, raise your toes and rotate your feet in various directions with your heels on the floor.

Attention: Those who easily and frequently catch a cold should go barefoot or wear just their socks at home in the morning and in the evening 15-30 minutes each time.  Increase the time by 10 minutes every day until it reaches one hour.  After a month, they can go barefoot on the ground (back yard, park, etc.)  When temperatures go down, they can go barefoot on frost for 30-60 seconds and then on snow for 1-2 minutes.  Dry your feet thoroughly with a towel after each walk and put on a pair of warm socks.

No matter what your age is, take therapeutic barefoot walks as often as possible.  You will notice positive changes to your health from day to day:  increased energy, better sleep, cheerful spirit, and a renewed zest for life.


AIR

The breath of life

Our life involves constant processing of energy.  The body needs energy to keep warm, process thoughts and feelings, fight diseases, build new cells, etc. – to do everything we collectively describe as life.

We know that we use about 50,000,000 kcal of energy from our birth to death.  The less energy we use in our life processes the longer we live.
Most people believe that food is most important in providing us with energy.  Nature, however, arranged it in a different way.

The simple fact is that we can survive several weeks without food, several days without water, but only a few minutes without air.  That is why learning different breathing techniques is the best and the fastest way of maintaining good health.

Breathing exercises are vital because they allow us to absorb and retain huge resources of energy contained in the air.  It is the reason why yoga masters put breathing techniques on top of their health ladder.

The objective of breathing exercises is to change our habitual way of breathing and to help our body retain carbon dioxide essential to the cellular metabolism (the exchange of gases between our cells and blood).  Oxygen is used in oxidation reactions – this is why we should breathe clean, fresh air. Most of other chemical reactions taking place in our body depend on the concentration of carbon dioxide.  If we take a very long walk (three to five hours) in the woods, and we breathe oxygen-rich air (especially when we breathe deeply), we may feel tired, heavy, and suffer from a headache.  This happens because the concentration of carbon dioxide in our body becomes too low.

When we hold our breath for a while, the exchange of gases in our blood is better and there is more carbon dioxide necessary for cellular metabolism.  This is another secret of good health and longevity.

Our breathing and aging

We can slow down our aging by breathing correctly.  People who live long in different parts of the world explain their longevity by good physical condition and deep, cleansing breathing.  Not many people are aware of this.

I once asked a Tibetan monk about the technique of deep, cleansing breathing.  The only thing he said was:  “If you want to live long, breathe deeply and infrequently.”

It has been proven that we can extend our age by 10-20 years by a healthy diet; however, correct breathing can help extend it by 30-40 years.  The Chinese, for example, suffer from fewer cancers than people in other parts of the world.  Most of them are physically fit even at an old age. Daily breathing exercises play an important role in their good health condition.  In contrast, many people instead of doing daily breathing exercises, breathe in poisonous cigarette smoke.

Breathing and smoking

The cells in a smoker’s body suffer from constant oxygen deficiency and become oxygen-starved (hypoxic).  The presence of hypoxic cells in our body creates an open gate for many diseases.

Two years of smoking ten cigarettes a day deposits 4.4lb (2kg) of toxic tar in a smoker’s body.  After ten years of smoking, the amount of tar grows to 8.8 lb (4kg).  Those who smoke for over twenty years have over 13lb (6kg) of poisonous filth in their body.  It is distributed in many places.  Blood circulation disorders, digestive system problems, swollen veins in females, leg pains in males, and many other health problems are the consequences of taking pleasure in a few moments of smoking.

I often tried to help people quit the habit by the use of different methods:  hypnosis, biotherapy, sometimes just a conversation. My experience tells me that it is best not to seek other’s help in quitting.  We should try to help ourselves and remember that nobody else cares about our health as much as we do.  If you are psychologically ready to quit smoking but lack the strong will to do it, I would like to offer you some helpful advice.

How to quit smoking?  (For people who do not have a strong will)

1. Buy only one pack of cigarettes at a time.
2. Keep the pack out of your sight.
3. Smoke only filtered cigarettes.
4. Change the brand every two days.
5. Do not keep cigarettes on your desk at work.
6. Do not smoke when other people offer you cigarettes.
7. Do not carry a lighter or matches with you.
8. Clean your ashtray after every cigarette.
9. After the first puff, put your cigarette out for a while.
10. Do not smoke before breakfast.
11. Do not buy cartons of cigarettes.
12. Do not buy another pack until you finish the one you have.
13. Do not smoke for 15-20 minutes after meals.
14. Do not smoke inside your home.
15. Do not smoke during meals.
16. Do not smoke when you are out enjoying nature.
17. Do not smoke on holidays.
18. Do not smoke when others smoke.
19. Take three deep breaths before you light up.
20. Limit your smoking to less than one cigarette an hour.
21. Calculate how much money you spend on cigarettes in a week and a month.
22. Do a few exercises instead of having a cigarette.
23. Try to smoke without inhaling.
24. Write down reasons for quitting and read them daily before going to bed.
25. Reduce your smoking by one cigarette every day.

Correct breathing helps reduce your weight

Breathing and digestion are closely interconnected.  Those of us, who are overweight, can get rid of the excess weight, without changing their diet, by breathing correctly.

We unnecessarily put strain on our body by the use of slimming diets or even worse – different artificial remedies and drugs.  They can only bring temporary results.  When we stop using them, the excess weight comes back.  This kind of experimenting on our own body damages the liver, heart, and kidneys.

Those who would like to get rid of a few pounds can do it by holding their breath for 30 seconds several times a day.  That way they can lose 4-9lb (1.8-4.1kg) in about two months. (And, of course, eating less is another important factor in weight reduction).

Breathing supplies oxygen to our body.  The more oxygen our cells get, the less energy is wasted in the physiological processes.  Oxygen brought in through our air passages only does not provide an adequate supply. This is why we should fully use another important breathing organ – our skin.
The total surface of our skin equals about 27 square feet (2.5 square meters).  There is a constant gas exchange between our body and the environment through the pores of our skin.

This is why, whenever possible, we should let our skin come into contact with air, for example:

1. Spend time at home dressed (if possible) just in underwear.
2. Air your home several times a day.
3. Take walks before going to bed.
4. Spend more of your leisure time outdoors.
5. Spend as much time as possible at lakes or seashore.

Breathing for health

Ramacharaka, a great yoga master (from whom Europeans first learned the science of breathing) stressed, that regular breathing exercises completely eliminate the danger of respiratory system diseases, prevent us from colds and runny noses and improve the functioning of our digestive and nervous systems.

Even when an illness immobilizes us, we are still able to breathe and by breathing correctly, we can fight the disease.

Have you noticed that we breathe differently in different situations?  For example, when we are nervous, our breath is shallow and more frequent.  When we sing, we breathe in and then very slowly let air out.  This brings the feeling of internal peace and relaxation.  Laughter is very similar.  We always laugh on exhaling.  The diaphragm resists the exhaling action of the abdominal muscles to let the air out in small portions.  This is why laughter is healthy for us.
Singing and laughter are the simplest yet the most effective breathing exercises and can become a significant part of our healthy lifestyle.

It seems that nobody needs to be taught how to breathe – we do it involuntarily by nature.  However, lack of physical effort, spending most of our time indoors, obesity, and spine misalignments, caused our breathing patterns to change.  In other words, we breathe the way we are able to, not the way we ought to.  Only children up to the age of five breathe correctly, the way nature intended.  Their way of breathing can be called full.  We should practice full breathing before we start any other breathing exercises.

Full breathing

You can do the exercises in a standing, sitting, or lying down position.  Your muscles should be relaxed and your eyes closed.  Inhale slowly through your nose trying to fill the lower sections of your lungs first - the front of your abdomen should move forward.  Then fill the middle sections of your lungs – the lower part of your rib cage should expand.  Finally, the top sections of your lungs are filled, your rib cage moves upwards as the top ribs and the shoulders slightly expand.

Now try to join all three phases into one slow continuous inhaling that expands your rib cage from the bottom up and fills it with air.  The air should be exhaled slowly through the nose while the chest is slightly inflated.  As you exhale, your abdomen becomes gradually deflated.

If you find it difficult to learn the whole cycle by yourself, try watching a child breathe and copy what you have observed.

When you become familiar with the full breathing technique, you are ready to learn specific breathing rhythms.

By deliberately holding our breath, we can help to improve energy distribution in our body, enhance the functioning of the endocrine glands, regulate the heart rhythm, and increase oxygen level in our blood, which speeds up oxidation processes.  It is no surprise that breathing exercises help us lose excess weight.  If you spend 10 to 15 minutes of your time a day practicing full breathing, you may prolong your life by years.

Therapeutic breathing

It is best to do these exercises in the lying down position but if necessary, you can also sit down or stand up.

Inhale through your nose for 2 seconds, hold your breath for 8 seconds, and then let the air out through your nose for 4 seconds.  The general pattern is 1:4:2 (inhale: hold: exhale).  Note: The pause is 4 times longer and the exhaling 2 times longer than the inhaling.  You can do this exercise for 2 minutes in the morning and in the evening.

Cleansing breathing

This kind of breathing cleanses the lungs, stimulates breathing centers, and helps to invigorate and regenerate our cells.

Breathe in for 2 seconds through your nose the same way you do in full breathing, hold your breath for 3 seconds, then move your lips forward and let a small stream of air out for 12 seconds.  If there is still air in your lungs, let it out completely.  Do this exercise in the morning and the evening – for 2 minutes each time.

Solar-Lunar breathing

Our daily breathing cycles depend on the influence of the Sun, the Moon, and the stars.  Contemporary research shows that there are different rhythms of breathing involving the left and the right side of our nose and they change for a person during the 24-hour period.

It seems that our central nervous system regulates the air streams flowing through both nostrils and uses them for its own purposes.  The air streams flowing through the right side influence the stimulating functions and the streams flowing through the left side influence the inhibiting functions.

For example, having your left nostril plugged and breathing only through the right side causes agitation and insomnia. Breathing only through the left nostril, with the right side plugged, brings constant fatigue.

Correct breathing through the nose is vital to our health.  Yoga masters say:  “To breathe through the mouth means to rush towards your death.”  I wholeheartedly agree with this statement.

When we breathe through our nose, 80% of dust and germs are stopped and neutralized by nasal mucous membrane.  The nose acts as a gate that keeps all kinds of infections out of our air passages.  When our nose is plugged and we breathe through the mouth, unfiltered air (with germs) gets into our larynx, trachea, and bronchi, causing inflammations not only in our air passages but also in the gastrointestinal tract.  Children who breathe through the mouth have underdeveloped thyroid gland; their body develops slower; their digestive system malfunctions; they frequently get colds, flu or sore throat.  Many kinds of bacterial infections (e.g. streptococcus, staphylococcus) are caused by unfiltered air getting in through the mouth.

Breathing through the mouth causes early aging, heart problems, and asthma in adults.  We should learn to regulate our breath while we speak.  Words should be spoken only while we exhale – that way we do not let air in through the mouth.  For the same reason, we should not talk much at meals.  It is best to eat slowly, be relaxed, and focus on chewing.

The technique that simulates solar and lunar influence on our breathing is as follows: Cover the right side of your nose with your right thumb, draw air in through the left side of your nose for 2 seconds, pause for 2 seconds and breathe out for 4 seconds.  Then cover the left side of your nose the same way and perform the same exercise.

Repeat this exercise interchangeably 10-12 times for each side of your nose.  This technique relaxes your nervous system, improves your mood, removes fatigue, and helps alleviate the symptoms of colds, rheumatic pains, and headaches.

The Vietnamese breathing technique

Breathe air in slowly through your nose and inflate your abdomen as much as possible, pause for 1-2 seconds, breathe out slowly and deflate your abdomen completely, then pause for 1-2 seconds.  You can use the pattern:  inhaling – 2 sec, pause – 2 sec, exhaling – 4 sec, pause – 2 sec.

You can do this exercise in series of 10 in the first week, 15 in the second week, and 20 in the third week.  After a month, you can do 30-60 cycles depending on how you feel.

This technique is a wonderful massage of the intestines, liver, and pancreas.

Conclusion:
Breathing sustains our life. Correct breathing allows us to avoid diseases and maintain good health.  We should perform breathing exercises twice a day – before breakfast in the morning and at least three hours after our last meal in the evening.  It is best to exercise outdoors or in a well-aired room.

In all life situations, try to breathe through your nose as much as possible.


WATER

Water can be a remedy or a poison

Everybody wants to look young and live as long as possible.  In order to achieve that, we follow different “miraculous” recipes and diets, buy expensive cosmetics, etc., but this is only a way to resist the symptoms of our aging.  The real cause of the process is inside our body.  One of the most important factors in our aging is the water we drink and use to prepare our meals.

The cells in our body (including blood) consist of 70% water; our brain is 90% water.  The condition of our joints and blood vessels, the presence of liver and kidney stones, and the complexion of our skin depend on the quality of water we drink.

When we drink a lot of sweet beverages such as coffee, tea, pop, etc., we are treating our body as if it were a furnace where we can put anything and it will burn.  We burn the years of our life when we do not respect the basic principles by which our body functions.  If we do not appreciate the quality of fluids we drink, we shorten our life.

The water within our body

There are 130 kinds of water in nature.  Water in our body’s cells is under a special structured form.  All other fluids that we consume must be purified and transformed into this specifically structured form.  The process uses a significant amount of energy.  For example, the processing of one liter of boiled water requires as much as 46 kcal.  The energy necessary for processing all fluids we consume in our lifetime adds up to huge amounts.  We must remember that our health depends on the amount of energy our body uses to service itself.  The more energy is used for unnecessary water processing the less is left for repairing our cells and fighting diseases.

The water we drink

The water we drink contains large amounts of salts that are insoluble in our body.  It is the same kind of salt that forms stones on the walls of our teapot.  In addition, other harmful substances contained in water and the burned food pieces found in our soups get into our body and form harmful deposits that are hard to remove.

There may be traces of radioactive substances in tap water.  Boiling does not remove them.  We can get rid of other harmful substances by boiling our water, but at the same time we remove the active form of oxygen that is needed in our body.  Boiling results in dead water because its structure is changed and it loses valuable biological information acquired from the Earth.  This is why constant use of boiled water is not healthy for us.

Mineral water

Many people try using mineral water for both drinking and cooking.  Mineral water contains certain salts and other substances that cannot be assimilated by our body.  Some of these salts cannot even be removed.  They can accumulate in our joints and cause their degeneration.  After using mineral water for 2-4 weeks, we should quit doing so for 3-4 months.  It is especially important for children – constant use of mineral water would cause them more harm than good.  What kind of water is, then, good for us to drink?

Structured water

Structured water is most beneficial to our health.  We can get it from fruits and vegetables, their juices, and from melted ice.  Scientists became interested in the fact that the Yakut people of Siberia in northern Russia live, on the average, for one hundred years.  They do not have running water or well water; they eat very little fruits and vegetables; their diet is poor in general but they virtually never get sick.  The answer to the mystery turned out to be very simple.  The Yakuts for centuries acquired their drinking water by cutting ice and letting it melt in the sunshine.

Water from ice

We know that aging begins with wrinkles.  Wrinkling happens when our body’s cells start to dry up.  One of the main causes of aging is our body’s inability to assimilate and process the water we consume.

The process of bone growth is finished when we become adults.  The excess, unneeded amounts of calcium salts that we get from our food and water accumulate in our blood vessels and joints.  This leads to irregular blood circulation, stones in our liver and kidneys, and gradual decline in the health of our entire body.

To slow down the aging process, we should learn to prepare and use water from melted ice.

Preparing structured water from melted ice

Structured water can be prepared from any kind of water.  Pour water into a pot, cover the pot, put it in the freezer (25F/-4C) for 2 – 3 hours, then take it out and break the frozen surface.  The water under the ice has the same structure as the water we have in our body’s cells.

It is even simpler to prepare structured water in the wintertime.  Put a pot with water outside.  When it freezes completely, take it back in and let it melt slowly without warming it up.  Drinking only one glass of such water every morning on an empty stomach can significantly improve your mood and the way you look.  It is especially beneficial for the elderly because it flushes not only unhealthy deposits out of their bodies but also old and dead cells, and this way it prevents them from cancers.

How should we drink?

It is best to have half a glass or one glass of water when we wake up but first we should rinse out our mouth.  We should use cold water melted from ice and swallow it in small gulps.  Those who suffer from frequent constipation can drink cold structured water on an empty stomach to stimulate their large intestine.

Many people like to drink while they eat their meals.  This is not advisable because water dilutes digestive juices in our stomach and that impedes digestion.  The habit of drinking at meals causes gas, bloating, constipation, and ulcerations of the digestive tract.  All fluids should be consumed 15-20 minutes before meals and at least one hour after meals.

To remove the feeling of dryness after a meal, rinse out your mouth a few times.  If the dryness persists, eat an apple.  It should be washed well and then eaten along with its peel, seeds and seed enclosures (everything that can be chewed up).  The seeds and their enclosures contain much iodine and other elements essential for our body.  It has been proven that six apple seeds contain our recommended daily intake of iodine.

How much water should we drink?  The proper amount is different for everybody.  The common opinion is that the average intake should be 60-75oz (2-2.5L) of all fluids.  Others think that we should only drink when we feel thirsty and limit the amounts we drink at one time.  There are many other schools of thought (sometimes contradictory) about the amount of water our body needs.  For example, Yoga followers sip a little water every half an hour; the Tibetans drink only when they are thirsty; the French prefer wine to water.  Every school of thought has its reasons.  As a general guideline, I would like to quote an old Tibetan principle: Drink as much water as your body needs. If it gets too much, it knows how to get rid of the excess amount.

What is better: tea or coffee?

Both tea and coffee are beneficial as long as we use them in moderation:  I would say one to two cups of tea or coffee a day.  Such moderate amounts improve our blood circulation.  They also energize our heart muscle, stimulate our brain, and relax our nervous system.

Green tea especially improves our health because it contains about 80 different elements necessary for our body.  It strengthens our teeth, cleanses our blood, and unclogs the pores of our skin.  It is a preventative remedy against stones in the liver, kidneys and bladder.  It fights disease-causing bacteria.  Do not make your green tea very strong – this may irritate your digestive tract.  Other healthy beverages can be prepared by brewing the leaves of black current, raspberry, nettle, mint, balm, chamomile, etc.

The black varieties of tea are less beneficial because they contain substances that cause dryness in our digestive tract.  To minimize the negative effects of these substances, we can add a bay leaf when we brew black tea.  This will improve our tea’s aroma and remove undesirable substances.

Freshly brewed tea has the best strengthening and invigorating effect.  If we keep brewed tea for a few hours, it produces substances harmful to our health.

People have different tastes and habits.  Some of us can do without any sugar; others must have sugar in their tea and coffee.  At least half a teaspoon of unrefined sugar per cup should also be added to our tea to improve its quality.  Raw sugar in small amounts is beneficial to our health.

A few remarks about sugar

White refined sugar is probably one of the most harmful products of our times.  When used excessively, it ruins our general health by removing calcium and many other microelements from our body.

There is a recipe allowing us to change sugar-enemy into sugar-friend.  Mix 27oz (750g) of white sugar with about 7 fl oz (200ml) of water (boiled or melted from ice) and 7 oz (200g) of honey in a glass jar.  Keep it for eight days in room temperature, stirring it three times a day with a wooden spoon. The chemical reactions in the jar cause sucrose (responsible for absorbing calcium) to split into glucose and fructose – both very beneficial to our health.
Honey, raw sugar, or fruit products (jam, marmalade) are good substitutes for white sugar.  From time to time, we should change the kind of sugar we use to sweeten our tea.

Water’s memory

Water differs from other compounds found in nature by its ability to store information – water has memory.

As we already know, our cells consist of 70% water.  Water in an ill organ contains information about the illness.  Medication changes the structure of water for a while, but after the therapy, water still remembers the illness.  This is just a simplified description – in reality the process is very complex and relies on thousands of different reactions.  In order to understand the point, we do not need to analyze complicated formulas.  Water’s unique qualities have their advantages and disadvantages.  The ability to perpetuate chronic illnesses by storing information about them is a disadvantage.  How can we prevent it from happening?  To remedy the problem, we can try to change the structure of water in our body.  How to do it?  None of the two methods mentioned below is a panacea; however some people who used them experienced a speedy health improvement.

1. For five months use only water acquired from melted ice for your drinking and cooking (fall and winter months).
2. Drink freshly prepared vegetable or fruit juices or juice blends, 2-4cups
   (0.5 -1L) a day (spring and summer months).

Juices can work miracles

Vegetable and fruit juices flush old and dead cells out of our body, help in dissolving salty build-ups, dissolve stones in our liver and kidneys, and play a role in preventing cancers.  However, many people are concerned about chemicals used in the growing and storing of fruits and vegetables.

When we use a juicer, any chemicals that were used in the growing and storing of our fruits and vegetables get trapped in the pulp.  The juice contains only structured water with dissolved vitamins, microelements, and easily absorbable mineral salts.

We should drink juices in small sips 20 minutes before a meal and hold each sip in the mouth for a few seconds.  Enzymes present in our saliva digest carbohydrates contained in juices.  If we drink fast (as most people do), the juices get directly to our stomach and undergo fermentation (our stomach’s usual function is processing proteins).

A tip on preparing juices:  We can put a filter (a double filter would be even better) on the opening of our juicer’s tank to eliminate as many harmful chemicals as possible.

Freshly squeezed juices are the best

Chemical processing, preservatives, and pasteurization used in the production of juices not only destroy vitamins and microelements but also partially damage the structure of water along with the natural biological information recorded in it.  The healthy ingredients last about four hours in fruit juices and ten hours in vegetable juices.  Juices sold in stores, even if they are 100% natural, preserve only 60% of their nutritional value.

Synthetic vitamin C is often added to fruit and vegetable juices.  The only thing it has in common with natural vitamin C is its chemical formula.  There have been articles in scientific literature describing potential harmful effects of synthetic vitamin C.  We should keep in mind that a glass of freshly squeezed juice contains many substances still unknown to science and prepared by the ultimate pharmacist – nature herself.

White sugar is added to most juices sold in stores.  That is not a good idea.  One of the main benefits of drinking freshly squeezed juices is the fact that they increase the alkalinity of our body, dissolve mucus and flush out insoluble harmful salts. In this way, fresh juices help cleanse our muscles, tissues, and blood.  On the contrary, refined sugar increases the acidity of our body and causes fermentation in our intestines.  This explains excessive gas and heartburn we often experience when we drink processed juices.  Refined sugar added to juice is like “the spoon of tar that spoils the entire barrel of honey” in a Russian proverb.

The specific health benefits of each juice come from physiologically active substances produced by plants.  Juices are so rich in microelements and minerals that they contain almost the entire periodic table of elements.  In other words, all vitamins, microelements and minerals essential for our health are found in plant juices.  One week of regular drinking of raw juices will bring a healthy complexion to your face, deep restful sleep, and better functioning of your gastro-intestinal tract.  The juices should be prepared from fresh healthy fruits or vegetables and consumed as soon as possible.  When juices are stored (even if refrigerated), they undergo fermentation and decay, even though the taste may remain the same (beet juice is an exception).

Another good quality of plant-based juices is their easy assimilation by our body.  Juices are assimilated completely 30 minutes after consumption, while even vegetable-based solid meals need one hour or more for digestion.  Drinking juices provides relief for our digestive system and allows time for repairing and cleansing of all systems and organs with a minimal use of our body’s energy.

There are three different ways to use “juice therapy”; depending on the objective, we have in mind:

1. Daily preventative use – up to 2 cups (0.5L)
2. Providing relief for our digestive system – 8-12 cups (2-3L) a day for 1-3 days (no longer)
3. As a remedy for a health problem – 2-4 cups (0.5-1L) a day for two weeks

Fruit & Vegetable juices – the source of health

Beet juice
Beet juice helps in the creation of red blood cells, improves blood structure, delays menopause in females, cures the diseases of circulatory system, digestive system, large intestine disorders, and dissolves stones in the liver, kidneys, and bladder (especially when used together with carrot juice).  The proportion should be as follows:  four units of carrot juice per one unit of beet juice.  It can be used twice a day (one cup / 250ml at a time).
Note:  We should not drink freshly squeezed beet juice (store in a dark place for 2-3 hours before consumption).

Carrot juice
Carrot juice contains vitamins A, B1, B2, B12, PP, K, E, and others.  It improves the condition of our teeth, hair, and nails; removes the ulcerations of our stomach and duodenum; strengthens our immune system against present and future infections; positively affects our eyes and throat.

Many disorders of the liver and digestive system are caused by deficiency of certain elements that can be acquired from carrot juice.  Various skin allergies, eczemas, rashes, and lymphatic system disorders disappear if you regularly drink fresh carrot juice.

Carrot juice promotes body cleansing; as a result many toxins overburden the liver.

A poorly functioning liver would not be able to handle on its own all the toxic substances that have to be removed from our body.  They are transferred to the lymphatic system and then released through the pores in our skin.

The dissolved toxins are yellow or orange in color.  If we have many toxic deposits in our body, our skin can turn yellow.   It is a normal phenomenon and the skin will go back to its natural color once all toxic substances are discarded.  In some cases, the process might take 6-12 months.

Carrot juice is similar to our blood in its structure and content, except that it has a magnesium atom in place of an iron atom.  People in ancient times must have also noticed something extraordinary in carrot’s “blood” – they often described carrot as king of vegetables.

One glass of carrot juice contains the entire recommended daily intake of all vitamins and microelements.  They nurture our body and help regulate the functioning of our immune system.  This way the immune system is able to fight even the most dangerous diseases.  Some people are skeptical about the effectiveness of carrot juice therapy because it sounds too simple for them.  Let’s trust Einstein’s opinion: “Everything that is brilliant is simple.” 

Fresh cabbage juice
Juice squeezed from fresh cabbage contains vitamin C and vitamins of B, K, and PP groups.  It is a remedy for diabetes, gastritis, duodenum ulcerations, hemorrhoids, high blood pressure, obesity, and thyroid gland disorders.  Compounds of sulfur, chlorine, and iodine contained in fresh cabbage juice cleanse our body.

One glass of cabbage juice in the morning and the evening allows us to lose excess weight because the juice causes intensive disintegration of fat tissue.  However, if our intestines malfunction, cabbage juice may produce large amounts of gas.  In such case, we should stop drinking cabbage juice until we clean our intestines.

Potato juice
Potato juice contains vitamins B and C, sulfur, phosphorus, potassium and other substances.  It cleans bacteria out of our body, normalizes the functions of the digestive organs and the thyroid gland, removes various spots and rashes from our skin and face, and sometimes helps against strong headaches.

Some people suffer from stomach ulceration and they often try all kinds of remedies and therapies without result.  I would like to suggest the following therapy:  Drink about 3. 5 fl oz (100ml) of freshly squeezed raw potato juice in the morning on an empty stomach.  Then lie down for half an hour with an electric pillow in order to warm up your stomach.  The therapy should last 10-14 days. It cannot be interrupted for even one day. 
Note: If you interrupt the therapy, start it over.

Cucumber juice
Cucumber juice is the best natural means to induce urination.  It improves hair growth thanks to the high levels of silicon and sulfur.  The juice contains elements necessary for life – 40% potassium, 10% sodium, 7.5% calcium, 20% phosphorus, and 7% chlorine.  The high level of potassium makes it very valuable for people with high blood pressure.  Our nails and hair particularly need the elements found in cucumber juice.  You can drink half a glass a day of pure cucumber juice or include it in a vegetable cocktail (see Coctails that heal).

Green pepper juice
Green pepper juice is rich in silicon, which is essential for our nails and hair.  People suffering from excessive gas and frequent colic can get relief by drinking a glass of green pepper juice on an empty stomach in the morning.

Sorrel juice
Sorrel juice wonderfully regenerates the mucus layer in our intestines.  It is rich in potassium oxalate, a compound very useful for our body in the organic form (when freshly prepared).  It is better not to use sorrel in its cooked form very often because cooking changes the organic structure of potassium oxalate and then it may become a source of joint and muscle inflammations.  Sorrel juice is also rich in iron and magnesium - elements needed in our blood.  Phosphorus, sulfur, and silicon contained in sorrel juice are important for our entire body, head to toe.  We can drink pure sorrel juice, but it is even better to add it to our salads.

Clover juice
Juice squeezed from cloverleaves is very helpful against female disorders, such as premature menopause.  Scientists found clover to be a rich source of estrogen – female hormone made by the ovaries.  Estrogen strengthens a female body, regulates the monthly period and prevents premature aging and decay processes.

Spinach juice
Spinach is very important for our digestive processes, starting in the stomach and ending in the large intestine.  Raw spinach contains an organic substance that wonderfully cleans our intestines and improves their functioning.  Two cups (half a liter) of properly prepared fresh spinach juice a day can help get rid of the worst forms of constipation within a few days or a few weeks.

The use of laxatives is often unwarranted.  The way non-organic laxatives stimulate bowel movement irritates intestinal muscles.  Because of their use, the system made up of local tissues, muscles and nerves remains idle, which causes the degeneration of our intestines.

Fresh juice squeezed from raw spinach is very effective in stimulating bowel movements and helps regenerate not only the intestines but also the entire digestive tract.

The consumption of refined sugar and other refined products, accompanied by vitamin C deficiency, cause gum bleeding and dental pulp diseases.  The best remedy for these problems is a diet consisting of raw and natural plant-based foods, including adequate amounts of spinach and carrot juices.

If our body is deficient in elements found in raw carrot juice and spinach juice, we may suffer from a variety of health problems, such as ulcerations, anemia, nervous breakdown, irregular secretion from suprarenal glands and the thyroid gland, kidney inflammation, joint inflammation, furuncles, limb swelling, frequent hemorrhages, weakness, rheumatism, irregular heart function, low or high blood pressure, vision problems, and headaches (including migraine headaches).

Pumpkin juice
Pumpkin juice can help to induce urination in cases involving swelling of our body caused by heart and kidney disorders.  It also strengthens the liver, stimulates the production of bile, calms the nervous system, and reduces fevers.  The recommended amount is half a glass a day.  Thanks to its high content of estrogen, pumpkin juice is very valuable in hormone-replacement therapy used by women going through menopause.  Half a cup taken twice a day for a minimum of two months helps completely eliminate hot flushes, which put a lot of strain on a female body during menopause.

Watermelon juice
Watermelon juice not only has good thirst-quenching qualities, it also has medicinal qualities.  It can be used as a urination-inducing remedy (in cases involving swelling), a preventative against arteriosclerosis, an aseptic (in case of heavy bleeding); it has an energizing effect (rich in sugars), rinses salts out of our body (kidney stones and gallstones), strengthens and cleanses our liver and kidneys.  Drink about two glasses a day.

Tomato juice
Freshly squeezed tomato juice (unlike processed juice) contains certain types of phytochemicals that slow down fermentation and putrefaction processes in our intestines.  High potassium content improves the heart function. The high content of malic acid stimulates metabolism.  As far as vitamin C content is concerned, tomato juice is as rich as citrus fruits.

One glass of tomato juice covers half of our daily need for vitamins A and C.  I recommend drinking one glass a day (pure juice or as part of vegetable cocktails).

Grape juice
Hippocrates, the father of medicine, greatly appreciated the health benefits of drinking grape juice.  It refreshes and strengthens our body, fights bacteria, can be used to induce stools, perspiration and urination.  The juice also lowers cholesterol levels and reduces blood pressure.

It is recommended to drink half a glass or a glass of grape juice daily, one hour before a meal.

If we regularly drink grape juice, it is better not to drink any milk or eat any fresh fruits because it would cause fermentation in our intestines.  Those who suffer from diabetes, obesity, or ulcerations of the stomach and duodenum should not drink grape juice in large amounts.

Lemon juice
Lemon juice is rich in vitamin C, microelements and hormones.  It wonderfully cleans insoluble salts and slime out of our body.  Drinking juice squeezed from one lemon every day helps us stay young.  It contains estrogen-like phytochemical substances and therefore is very beneficial for older females. Some chemical compounds found in lemon juice are very effective in the prevention of infectious diseases.  We should drink lemon juice as a preventative measure against the flu epidemic and colds in late fall and early spring.

Lemon juice can be used in a preventative or a healing therapy.  For prevention, it is used in the following dosages:

Day 1 – 1 lemon – Day 10
Day 2 – 2 lemons – Day 9
Day 3 – 3 lemons – Day 8
Day 4 – 4 lemons – Day 7
Day 5 – 5 lemons – Day 6

From the first to the fifth day, we add one lemon every day and from the sixth to the tenth day, we subtract one lemon a day.  In total, we drink juice squeezed from 30 lemons during ten days.

We can prepare lemon juice in the following way:  Cut a lemon in half horizontally, squeeze both halves and drink the juice without adding any sugar.  If you are not able to drink pure lemon juice, dilute it with water and add one teaspoon of honey.  You should not discard the squeezed lemon – it contains valuable phytochemical ingredients and essential oils that are beneficial for the heart, blood vessels and brain.  Cut the squeezed lemon into small pieces, put them in a jar, add honey or sugar, and put in the refrigerator.  In ten hours, you will have an excellent lemon extract that can be mixed with boiled or mineral water and used instead of tea or coffee.

For a description of lemon juice healing therapy, look in "Questions and Answers – Lemon Therapy ".

Garlic juice

Garlic juice was used as a remedy in ancient Greece.  It induces appetite, improves digestion, helps against respiratory system diseases, prevents colds, fights headaches and insomnia, induces urination, clears the throat, and reduces pain.  In the case of chronic insomnia, it is enough to drink 3. 5 fl oz (100ml) of boiled water mixed with one teaspoon of honey and juice squeezed from one garlic clove for a few days, to return to regular sleep pattern.  To stop a strong toothache, we can put pulp made from a garlic clove on the left wrist and wrap it with a band-aid (for 3 to 5 min.)  There are at least two natural antibiotics in garlic effective against about thirty kinds of disease-causing bacteria.  Phytochemicals found in garlic are able to completely stop fermentation and putrefaction processes in our intestines.  Garlic contains germanium that effectively fights heart diseases and blood vessel disorders.  We can completely cure dysbacteriosis (the degeneration of large intestine’s microflora), a disorder affecting about 90% of children and adults, by taking garlic juice for just two weeks.

A recipe for “the elixir of youth”, a type of garlic extract, was found in1971 by a UNESCO team in a Tibetan monastery and was dated about 4-5 centuries B.C.  The extract cleans accumulated fat out of the body, rinses out insoluble calcium, radically improves metabolism, cleanses blood vessels, prevents heart attacks, arteriosclerosis, and paralysis, removes the sensation of buzzing from the head, improves sight, and regenerates the entire body.

Garlic extract.  Take 12oz (350g) of peeled, freshly harvested garlic, crush it into a pulp, and mix with 7 fl oz (200ml) of vodka (40% proof and up).  Close tightly in a jar and put in a dark, cool place (do not refrigerate) for 10 days.  Then strain the pulp, put the fluid in a jar and keep it in a dark place for another 4 days.  Now it is ready.

Use the extract according to the following dosage:

Day – Breakfast – Lunch – Dinner

1 – 1 drop – 2 drops – 3 drops
2 – 4 drops – 5 drops – 6 drops
3 – 7 drops – 8 drops – 9 drops
4 – 10 drops – 11 drops – 12 drops 
5 – 13 drops – 14 drops – 15 drops
6 – 16 drops – 17 drops – 18 drops
7 – 19 drops – 20 drops – 21 drops
8 – 22 drops – 23 drops – 24 drops
9 – 25 drops – 25 drops – 25 drops
10 – 25 drops – 25 drops – 25 drops
11 – 25 drops – 25 drops – 25 drops

After this, take 25 drops three times a day until all extract is used up.  Each amount of the extract should be taken with 1.7 fl oz (50ml) of plain yogurt or kefir.

Many people dislike the intensive smell of garlic.  To get rid of the smell, chew on a parsley, an apple, a lemon peel, or an orange peel.
Caution - Use the garlic extract therapy only once a year.

Cocktails that heal

I suggest a few kinds of vegetable cocktails that have helped many people deal with persistent health problems.  As we know, many diseases are linked to deficiency in minerals.  Vegetable cocktails replenish the levels of minerals in our body. 

Calculate the amounts of ingredients based on the following proportions to produce the desired amount of vegetable juice blend.

Cocktail number 1
Blend carrot juice, cucumber juice and green pepper juice in proportion 4:1:1 (e.g. 4 cups + 1 cup + 1 cup or 1000ml+250ml+250ml).
Usage:  rheumatism, bone and muscle pain, limb swelling

Cocktail number 2
Blend carrot juice, cucumber juice and lettuce juice in proportion 4:1:1 (e.g. 4 cups + 1 cup + 1 cup or 1000ml+250ml+250ml).
Usage:  skin diseases, eczemas, rashes, pimples, eye inflammations, and tender nails

Cocktail number 3
Blend carrot juice and spinach juice in proportion 1:2 (e.g. 1 cup + 2 cups or 250ml + 500ml).
Usage:  abdominal pains, cramps, excessive gas, constipation, rheumatism, anemia, low or high blood pressure, migraine headaches

Cocktail number 4
Blend of carrot juice and green pepper juice in proportion 1:2 (e.g. 1 cup + 2 cups or 250ml + 500ml).
Usage:  skin spots and discoloring often affecting the elderly

Cocktail number 5
Blend carrot juice and parsnips 2:1 (e.g. 2 cups + 1 cup or 500ml + 250ml).
Usage:  genital-urinary system inflammations, eye inflammations, and inefficient blood vessels

Cocktail number 6
Blend tomato juice, apple juice, pumpkin juice, and lemon juice in proportion 2:4:2:1 (e.g. 2 cups +4 cups +2 cups +1 cup or 500ml + 1000ml + 500ml + 250ml).
Usage:  cleansing mucus out of the body, disintegrating fat tissue; it brings wonderful results when used for digestive system relief (1.5-2 L a day).

Cocktail number 7
Blend cucumber juice, blackcurrant juice, apple juice, and grapefruit juice in proportion 2:2:1:1 (e.g. 2 cups +2 cups +1 cup +1 cup or 500ml + 500ml + 250ml +250ml). 
Usage:  for fresh and attractive skin, a calm and strong nervous system, good brain and memory function, stronger immune system.  One cup provides the recommended daily intake of vitamin C.

Juice therapy dissolving calcium stones
Stones and sand in our gallbladder and kidneys are the result of our body’s inability to remove deposits of non-organic calcium.  This form of calcium comes from the consumption of refined and processed foods.

Calcium, the element essential for our body, comes in two forms – organic and non-organic.  Organic calcium is the form that dissolves in water.  Blood carries calcium to our liver, where it is completely assimilated.  Organic calcium is found only in raw fruits and vegetables, their juices, and those dairy products that do not undergo thermo-processing (homemade cheese, plain yogurt etc.)

Calcium contained in processed foods (bread, buns, pastries, sweets, chips, fries, flour-based products etc.) is in non-organic form, does not dissolve in water, and is treated as a foreign substance by our body.  Insoluble calcium forms gallstones, causes hemorrhoids in the rectum, stones and sand in the kidneys, and cancer in the stomach.

The main cause of stones in our gallbladder and kidneys is our excessive consumption of baked goods, sweets, pasta, overcooked grains, and other refined flour-based products.

Centuries of experience in natural therapy teach that surgical removal of stones (in most cases) does not make sense.  The rational use of natural therapies brings much more desirable results.  People who suffer from stones in their gallbladder and kidneys must understand that surgery removes only the effect while it is necessary to deal with the cause of the problem.  We already know what the cause is.

To get rid of stones in your gallbladder and kidneys, use the following therapy (in detail):

Drink juice squeezed from one lemon blended with half a glass of hot water 3-4 times a day.  In addition, have a blend of equal amounts of carrot juice, beet juice and cucumber juice 3-4 times a day, half a glass each time.  The therapy can last a few days or a few weeks, depending on the amount and the size of stones.  During the therapy, eliminate flour-based products, sugar, grains, and dairy products (except butter) from your diet.



HEAT AND COLD

The healing water

Each organism begins its life in water; a human fetus is no exception.  Kneip, a German physician, wrote:  “Each contact with water means an additional minute in our life.”  Recent scientific research proves that our body can most easily rebuilt its natural electric potential with the help of water.  It is no coincidence that many cultures’ customs include rituals such as offering water to travelers or baptizing babies with water.  Both Hippocrates in ancient Greece and Avicenna, an Arabian physician and philosopher in medieval times, extensively used water therapy by applying alternately cold and hot water and then massaging a patient’s body.  This kind of therapy improves blood circulation and metabolism, helps to flush mucus out of the body, and consequently causes a speedy healing process.  People are often ready to travel hundreds of miles looking for a miraculous cure but they do not realize that better results can be achieved using regular water flowing out of their tap.

Seneca, a great philosopher, was right when he remarked that the essence of things is very simple.  It turns out that by simply applying cold and hot water we can get unexpectedly good results in fighting many diseases.  The importance of the alternate use of cold and heat lies in the fact that heat stimulates the surface areas of our body and increases blood supply to the skin while cold stimulates blood circulation in our internal organs.  By doing so, the alternate action of cold and heat in water therapy becomes a miraculous cure for many diseases because it regulates blood circulation, strengthens our muscles and heart, and improves our immune system.

Alternate cold and warm massage decreases our body’s sensitivity to cold and heat and refreshes our nervous system.  It is particularly advisable for elderly people because it decreases their proneness to fatigue and sweating, the sensitivity of their muscles and joints, and their reaction to weather changes.  The effects are even better if extracts of chamomile, sage, or other medicinal herbs are added to water used in the massage.  This provides a double benefit for wilted skin – the benefits of the massage and of the vitamins contained in the extracts.  Soak a small towel in cold water, wring it out and massage one of your arms. The same routine should be repeated for the other arm, the chest, back, and legs. The total time for the entire body should be 3-5 minutes.  Then massage with a dry towel until the skin feels warm and turns red.  It is best to use this therapy every morning after an alternate cold and hot shower.

Alternate hot and cold shower is recommended in the morning and the evening every day.  Adjust the water temperature to make it comfortable and pleasant for 40 seconds.  Use the cold-water knob to decrease the temperature (within the comfort zone) for 20 seconds, and then increase it again using the same knob.  Follow the pattern: 40 seconds – warm, 20 seconds – cold.  Repeat for 3-8 minutes, depending on how you feel.

Note:  When you shower in hot water, start from your head; when you turn on cold water, shower your legs first and then the upper body.  Always end with a cold shower to let your blood vessels contract and to prevent colds.  During cold seasons, do not go outdoors for about 40 minutes after your alternate hot-cold showers.

Therapeutic baths at home

Therapeutic baths are one of the oldest methods of healing.  They are easy to prepare and yet they bring us many benefits, such as removing fatigue, calming our nervous system, regenerating our skin, improving our sleep, increasing metabolism, and removing pain and stress from our muscles.  You can enrich your bath water with herb extracts for unique scent.  Many people with back or arm pain think of visiting a healer or traveling to some mineral springs for therapy.  These plans often remain unrealized for various reasons, including financial difficulties, and we keep suffering from our pains.  In this situation, using our regular bathtub at home can prove just as effective.  We have to keep in mind that, to be effective, home therapeutic baths must be done in a series - one bath done every other day for two or three weeks.  We don’t need anything special to prepare a bath.  In order to relax better we can listen to our favorite music.  A therapeutic bath brings the feeling of relaxation and enjoyment because by cleansing our body it also clears our mind.  A bath can last 15-25 minutes, depending on how we feel.

Bath number 1 (temp. 93-98.6F/35C-37C)
Pour 5 quarts (5L) of boiling water on 0.66lb (300g) of chamomile flowers, set aside for 2 hours, strain, and then pour into your bath water.
Usage:  For the relief of back pain, joint pain, and inflammations; for general rejuvenation

Bath number 2 (temp. 93F/34C)
Pour 5 quarts (5L) of boiling water on 0.44lb(200g) of sage flowers, set aside for 2 hours, strain, and then pour into your bath water.
Usage:  To relieve low blood pressure, asthma, bronchitis, skin disorders, inflammations, and joint problems

Bath number 3 (temp. 100F/38C)
Put 3.3lb (1.5kg) of spruce branches in 5 quarts (about 5L) of water and boil for 30 minutes; strain and pour into your bath water.
Usage:  To relieve back and bone pain, limb swelling

Bath number 4 (temp. 98-100F/37C-38C)
Put 4.4lb (2kg) of regular, iodized salt in your bath water.  Make sure it is completely dissolved.
Usage:  To calm the nervous system, cleanse and rejuvenate the skin, remove muscle and joint pain, and improve the immune system

The description of water therapies would not be complete without mentioning the sauna, a wonderful invention of our ancestors that can help us improve both our physical and psychological wellbeing.

The wonderful power of sauna

When we ask people, what is most important for them, they usually mention two things:  good health and long life.  Good health is a gift of nature but it is up to us to claim it.  We can achieve good health in many ways as long as we are not hesitant to make the first step.

Take a look at people walking in the streets – their joints move with difficulty, their feet hardly lift off the ground, their knees do not bend much, and their spine and neck seem as stiff as a wooden stick.  Almost everybody we know complains about back pain.  The majority of people experience pain in their shoulders and arms when they get up in the morning.  It is usually blamed on one factor: our joints hurt because we are aging.  This is not the case.  Nature provided our joints with the means to be flexible in the form of a special substance, a kind of lubricant.  The amount of that lubricant does not decrease by itself, no matter the age.  The loss of flexibility in our joints really results from the presence of various toxic salts in our skeletal system.  Sauna is one of the most effective and pleasant methods of cleansing accumulated toxins out of our skin and internal organs.

Build up your immunity
Scientific data show that people who use saunas get flu and colds ten times less than the average.  We know that weather influences our health.  Our body is influenced by temperature and humidity changes, winds, magnetic storms, etc.  If our body’s defensive mechanisms are weak, we immediately feel adverse effects of weather changes on our health.  Sauna is an excellent way to make our immune system stronger by the use of cool, hot, humid, and dry stimulants.  Our body experiences constant changes of surrounding temperature:  68-75F (20-24C) when we undress, 176-212F (80-100C) when we enter sauna, 86-104F (30-40C) in a hot shower, and 59-68F (15-20C) in a cool shower.  Such alternately hot and cold shower is the best thermo-massage for the blood vessels of our skin and muscles.  A hot shower expands blood vessels, while a cold shower produces the opposite (contracting) effect.  This kind of therapy makes us immune to any weather changes.

Who can use sauna
We know that prevention and immunity building are good concepts.  We all agree with that, but we often find convenient excuses not to use these simple concepts in our life.  The use of sauna does not require any effort and is beneficial for everybody – young or old, for those in good health as well as for those who are ill (with some exceptions mentioned in the next paragraph).  There is a saying in Finland:  “Everybody who can walk to the sauna can use it.”

Sauna and your heart
Swiss doctors use saunas in the treatment of high blood pressure.  In most cases, it takes only 15 sessions in sauna to bring blood pressure back to normal.  They proved that sauna helps regulate our blood pressure – decreases, increases, or stabilizes it according to need.  People with heart defects should remember that our blood circulation is affected by not only temperature changes but also by humidity and the length of time spent in sauna.  Please consult your physician before you decide to try the power of sauna.

The calming sauna
It is believed that one out of four people suffers from some form of insomnia.  Our biological clock ticks irregularly as a result of an unhealthy lifestyle – night eating, stress, coffee consumption, smoking, medication overuse, etc.  French scientists noticed that sauna is also an excellent remedy for insomnia.
The Finnish, who use saunas daily, say:  “Anger and hatred burn out in sauna.”  This effect is produced by the state of calmness, relaxation, and pleasure that we experience.  The warming of our muscles and bodily organs relieves pain in our bones and joints.  It improves our mood and helps us forget our troubling thoughts and daily worries – temperature changes are a good means of decreasing nervous tension.  I recommend sauna for everybody, even if you do not come from a culture where using saunas is a common practice.  If you use sauna regularly, it will become a habit – it is a simple and well-tested method to maintain good health.

Cleansing effects of sauna
Most food products in today’s world contain large amounts of preservatives, food coloring, and salt. It is unfortunate that such substances get into our body along with food.  Intensive sweating in the sauna allows our body to get rid of these substances.  It relieves our kidneys because through sweating we can discard three quarters of all toxins accumulated in our body.  One hour of heavy sweating in sauna can discard as much toxic material as a set of healthy kidneys in 24 hours.  Improved metabolism helps us lose excess weight. 

The power of sauna
German researchers noticed that women who use sauna regularly during their pregnancy have an uncomplicated and speedy delivery.  The babies’ health was monitored for the next three years, and they showed very good immunity to infections and colds.  In addition, nursing mothers who use sauna produce more milk.

It is customary for children in Finland, Germany, and Russia to use saunas along with their parents as a cure and a method to build up immunity.  Sauna prevents them from illnesses caused by changes in temperature and humidity.  In Germany and the Czech Republic sauna use is included in school and daycare programs.
Note: Children between the ages of three and twelve can stay in sauna 1.5-3 minutes at a time in the temperatures of 122-140F (50-60C) and humidity of 25%.

Sauna and your skin
Skin protects our body from harmful factors in our environment.  A significant part of our breathing is done through the pores in our skin, and nothing clears the pores as well as using sauna.

Our skin acts as a double filter:  it discards harmful toxins from the body and absorbs healthy substances into it.  We can make use of this quality by including aromatic oils in our therapy.  The oils are absorbed both through our air passages and the widened pores in our skin.  They positively influence the function of our nervous system, heart, liver, and blood vessels (eucalyptus helps against sore throat and runny nose; chamomile helps against insomnia; mint alleviates digestive tract pains; lavender and jasmine stimulate our brain; pine oil is very helpful in calming our nervous system).

If we suffer from pimples, acne, rashes, etc., we can use a solution of one tablespoon of salt and one tablespoon of baking soda in a glass of water to cure the problem. Rub the solution on your skin (except for the face) before you enter sauna, and rinse it off with warm water when you leave sauna.

What should we drink in a sauna
Some experts recommend cold drinks in sauna for quenching thirst, while others recommend hot tea.  American scientists conducted a study in which one group of participants drank cold beverages and the other drank hot tea.  The study proved that cold beverages lower the temperature just in the mouth, while hot tea lowers the temperature of the entire body by about 1.8-3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (1-2 degrees Celsius). It works even better when we add a few leaves of blackcurrant, raspberry, wild blueberry, and a little bit of honey to our tea.  The tea should be freshly brewed (brewing time: 4-6 minutes).  If it is not fresh, it no longer contains many useful substances.

Important details:

1. The optimal time to stay in sauna is 5-10 minutes.
2. Rest for 10-15 minutes after each stay in sauna.
3. The number of stays in sauna should be limited to:
   • 2-3 for adults
   • 1 for children age 3-12 (can stay in the sauna 1.5-3 minutes at a time)
4. The most beneficial temperatures:
   • 50-60C (122-140F) and humidity of 25% for children
   • 60-70C (140-158F) for those over 50 years of age
   • 90-100C (194-212F) for everybody else 
5. Hot tea and juices are the best drinks in sauna and during breaks.
6. It is a good idea to massage your feet and hands in sauna.
7. You can put your feet in a basin with warm water while in sauna to increase the weight reduction effect.
8. Do not put any lotion on your skin or body while in sauna.
9. Take a warm and then a cold shower each time you exit sauna; do not towel dry your skin.
10. Do not eat much when you are about to use sauna; do not drink any coffee or alcohol.

FOOD

Let’s take a close look at ourselves – it is hard to find a completely healthy person after the magic age of forty.  In a typical family, the grandma suffers from constant pains in her bones and joints; her eyesight is poor.  The grandpa has heart problems, digestive system disorders, or asthma.  The father complaints about indigestion and back pains; mom suffers frequent constipation and headaches.  Children wear glasses, suffer from allergies, have acne, and often get colds or runny noses.

Television commercials advertise “miraculous” remedies for acne, tooth decay, joint pain, colds, etc.  In reality, all of these remedies only fight visible symptoms whose real causes remain within our body.  It is a shame many adults do not understand this truth and, to express their affection, treat children to ice cream, sweet beverages, candy, and other products full of sugar.  All these products turn into poisons in them for the rest of their lives.

When I hear discussions about hereditary diseases, I often want to say that diseases are not inherited.  We inherit an unhealthy lifestyle.

Plants and animals living on our planet offer us a huge variety of foods.  The fundamental question is how to choose products that are really essential for our body.  One of our most common and serious misconceptions is the idea that combining many different products in our meals helps us maintain good health.  It is also a common belief that meals rich in animal proteins are nutritious.  Ironically, this kind of food is often the source of our discomfort and illness.

For example, our meal often consists of a soup, steak, fries, and a sweet beverage, fruit or some other dessert.  As we know, all of these products require different digestion times and different digestive juices.  They create a mixture that is hard to digest and our stomach does not know where to start.  Fruits start decomposing in the stomach and produce poisons such as alcohols and acetic acid.  The combination of meat and potatoes produces solanine - a highly toxic substance.  It all happens in our stomach, where it is humid and warm.  (Remember how wine is made at home – cut-up fruits and some sugar are placed in a jug and kept in a dark place where they start to ferment.)  It is no surprise that such meal causes gas, stomach pain, and the feeling of heaviness in our entire body.

Improperly combined meals cause putrefaction processes in our body.  They produce hydrogen sulfide and phenol – both of them strong poisons.  All poisons should be discarded with our urine.  However, if we load meat in our stomach every day, our body cannot keep up with the need to neutralize poisons.

We often behave as if our stomach was a bag able to accept everything thrown into it (some nutrition theories want us to believe that).  In reality, that bag becomes ill and weak.  Our body starts resembling a time bomb that is going to explode by the time we are fifty and may cause the following health problems: heart disease, high blood pressure, arteriosclerosis, diabetes, blood clots, asthma, allergies, digestive system disorders, hormonal disorders (females), and impotency (males).  To avoid all these health problems, we should carefully analyze mistakes we make in preparing our meals.

Hippocrates maintained that food should be our medicine.  In order to implement this piece of wisdom in our life, we have to change our eating habits and start observing certain principles.  These principles are the topic of the following segment.

Properly combined foods

Food products can be divided into the following groups: proteins, carbohydrates, fats, fruits and vegetables.  The principles of combining these food groups are described below.

Table 2: Combining food products

Category1: PROTEIN RICH FOODS
Meat and meat soups, fish, eggs, eggplant, beans,
Windsor beans, nuts, sunflower seeds, plain yogurt, kefir, cottage cheese, buttermilk 

Category 2: FATS AND “LIVE” PRODUCTS
Grease, butter, vegetable oil, fruits (raw or dried), vegetables (raw or dried, except potatoes), fruit and vegetable juices.  It is better to always consume milk, dry wine, melon and banana separately from other products 

Category 3: CARBOHYDRATE FOODS
Breads and other flour  based products, grains, potatoes, sugar, honey, products containing sugar, pasta, jams, candies

Foods in Category 2 can be combined with either protein foods (Category 1) or carbohydrate foods (Category 3), but foods in Category 1 should never be combined with foods in Category 3.  Do not combine proteins with carbohydrates!

These rules for combining foods may be hard to accept for some people, because they are used to eating meat with bread, buns, potatoes, or rice.

If you try observing the rules for just one week, you will notice that you eat less and have a lot of energy.  You will require less sleep to feel well rested.  Your mood will be balanced, and you will feel calmer.  The rules for combining food products are not complicated.  It is a good idea to pay attention to them.

The principles of eating protein rich foods

1. If you combine proteins with fats (e.g. meat fried in vegetable oil), always eat plenty of vegetables. Large amounts of vegetables prevent fats from impeding the digestion of proteins.
2. It is better to eat only one kind of protein food at a meal - e.g. only meat or only fish or only peas.
3. Proteins should preferably be eaten for supper, at least two hours before bedtime.  Our body repairs its cells at night and uses proteins in the process.  A vegetable salad should precede every protein meal.

Examples:

• Vegetable salad and cooked meat or burgers
• Vegetable salad and cottage cheese
• Vegetable salad and cooked beans or peas

Some useful advice:

• It is best to prepare meat in the oven or on a grill rather than cook or fry it on a pan.
• Meat soups need thirty times as much energy for digestion as meat.  As I mentioned before, meat products contain over twenty different toxic substances.  When we cook meat, these substances can be found in our meat soup.  This way our soup is full of toxins coming from a dead animal.  It is a good idea to completely eliminate meat soups from our diet.
• We do not need proteins in large amounts.  It is enough to eat meat, fish, or poultry just twice a week. Animal proteins can be fully substituted – 3.5oz (100g) of nuts meets our daily protein requirement; 4oz (120g) of beans or peas can replace 7oz (200g) of meat or 10.6oz (300g) of fish.
• Meat and fish should only be eaten fresh – do not put them away for the next day.
• When you cook meat, put a piece of apple in the pot ten minutes before you take the meat out - this will make your meat juicier.  To make your cooked fish tastier, add cold water to the pot a few times while you cook.

The principles of eating carbohydrates

1. Eat one kind of starch at a time.  Combining different type of starch increases our appetite and leads to overeating.
2. Combining flour-based products and grains with jam or sugar causes fermentation in the stomach.  This is why we experience heartburn after eating sweet buns and jam-filled baked goods.  Do not combine starchy foods with sugars (e.g. grains with sugar).  Honey can be eaten with bread but it is better to drink it dissolved in warm boiled water.
3. Dried sweet fruits can be combined with starchy foods: bread, grains or rice.
4. Grains, bread, potatoes, and other starchy foods should not be combined with protein foods such as meat, fish, eggs, or cheese.  The interval between consuming carbohydrates and proteins should be at least 2-3 hours.
5. The best time to eat starchy foods is between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. because we get most of our energy from carbohydrates.  This energy is used up in our daily activities.  Those who gain weight easily should especially pay attention to this rule in order to avoid obesity.
6. A vegetable salad should be eaten before starchy foods.
7. The best kind of salad is one consisting of cabbage, carrot, raw or cooked beets, dill, parsley, some salt and other seasoning.  Enzymes found in vegetables help in digesting starch.

Some useful advice:

• The digestion of starch begins in the mouth – starchy foods should be chewed thoroughly.
• Grains and yeast-free baked goods are rich in fiber – they clean our digestive tract. If we want to maintain our digestive tract in perfect order, we should eat them every day.
• The healthiest types of grains are buckwheat, wheat, corn, barley, and rice (especially wild, unrefined).  It is better to cook grains with small amounts of water.  One third of our diet should consist of grains.
• When cooking grains it is best to use the interrupted cooking method.
  For example, buckwheat can be prepared in the following way:
  - Rinse the buckwheat and soak it for 3-4 hours
  - Do not change the water; cook buckwheat for 3-5 minutes
  - Cut some onion into small pieces; add it to the pot
  - Wrap the pot in a towel to maintain the temperature for 15-30 minutes
  - Add some butter or vegetable oil before eating. 

If you find buckwheat prepared this way difficult to digest, use the regular cooking method.

The principles of eating fats

Animal fats: butter, cream, grease, etc.
Plant oils: vegetable oil, various nuts, etc.

1.  Fats can be combined with carbohydrates and vegetables.
2. Limit your daily fat intake to about 1oz (28g) of vegetable oil and 0.3-0.5oz (10-15g) of butter (2 tablespoons).

Some useful advice:

• Heating fats above 302F (150C) – the temperature in a frying pan – causes them to become particularly harmful.  All fats, including vegetable oils, break up into toxic substances in such temperatures. When we fry in high temperature, the fried food forms a polyethylene-like lining.  It contains carcinogenic substances – eating fried foods increases our risk of cancer and liver diseases.  It is best to use only unheated oils and add them to our meals shortly before eating.
• Many additives, especially preservatives, are used in the production of butter to extend its usefulness for a few months.  It is a good idea to purify butter (remove additives) by melting it in water.  Pure butter does not cause high cholesterol levels and can be stored for a long time without any preservatives.

Removing additives from butter

Put 9oz (250g) of butter in a pot, pour one cup (240ml) of warm boiled water over it and slowly boil for one hour.  Then let it cool off, put it in the refrigerator, and pour the water out when the butter is solid.  All additives contained in butter are dissolved and are discarded with water during the process.

The principles of eating fruits

1. It is best to eat small amounts of fruits 20-30 minutes before meals.
2. Don’t add sugar to raw fruits.  Try to eat fruits in their natural ripening season.  Fruits cleanse our blood (remove acids).  When we add sugar, it causes the opposite effect.

The principles of eating vegetables

1. In the winter and spring it is better not to rely too much on tomatoes and cucumbers.  These vegetables are artificially grown or harvested before they are ripe and start rotting soon after that.  In order to extend their shelf life, they are treated with various substances.  Everybody knows the harmful effects of such substances on our health.
2. Many people complain that eating raw vegetables causes them discomfort. 
   It happens because they do not chew their vegetables well enough.  All plant-based foods ought to be chewed thoroughly – the digestion process starts in the mouth.  If these foods are not chewed well, they ferment in the stomach, where they cause bloating and excess gas.  (It is a good idea for people with more than four teeth missing to use a grater, preferably a plastic one, when preparing their vegetables).
3. Many vegetables contain traces of radioactive substances.  If possible, we should grow our own vegetables or buy organically grown ones.  If this is not possible, we can remove about 40% of the radioactive substances by soaking the vegetables in salty water in a dark place for three hours.
4. During the cold seasons, we can use pickled vegetables, dried fruits, and processed fruits as our sources of vitamins and microelements.

Some useful advice concerning fruits and vegetables:

It is best to eat fruits and vegetables that are locally grown and to eat them in their natural ripening season.  Different climates cause the plants to contain different biological information.

Plants grown in hot climates develop cooling qualities in their juices.  Melons, oranges, mandarins, and bananas cool off our body.  If we live in the northern climates, we should not eat citrus fruits in large quantities in the wintertime.  If our region produces strawberries, raspberries, apples, cherries, and pears in the summertime, these are the fruits best for us to eat.  In the summer, we can dry carrots, parsley, apples, pears, apricots, and plums in the sunshine.  They can be soaked in water (from melted ice) in the wintertime and added to our fruit and vegetable soups and to our grains.  This way we preserve 100% vitamin content of our fruits or vegetables for the rest of the year.

Plants growing in colder climates have the opposite, warming, qualities.  When we eat grains, nuts, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and root crops, they have a warming effect.  The conclusion is simple:  We should eat more fruits and vegetables in the summertime for their cooling effect; in the wintertime, grains and dried fruits will help us keep warm.

All processes in our body are governed by the natural law of duality and opposing factors (left and right arm, left and right brain hemisphere, etc.).  Two elements – sodium and potassium – have a very important function in our body.  They regulate the body’s water economy by influencing the exchange of fluids in different ways.  The proportion of sodium (Na) to potassium (K) should be 1:20.  If the balance is shifted either way, it interferes with our life processes.  We should try to maintain the golden mean.  If you are swollen and feel excess of water in your body, eat products rich in potassium: peas and squash.  In he opposite case – if you feel deficiency of water, eat more products that help retain water in you body:  olive oil, pears, raspberries, blackcurrant, carrot, apples, apricots, tomatoes, millet, buckwheat, and oat.  The perfect proportion of sodium and potassium is found in potatoes, cherries, cucumbers, and cabbage.

In the summertime, the best kind of breakfast is one consisting of fruits.  They are rich in all elements essential for our body, increase the alkalinity of our blood, provide plenty of energy, and do not use much energy to be digested.

How should we eat our desserts

We usually eat desserts at the end of our main meals, when the stomach is already full.  All deserts – cakes, ice cream, sweet fruits, candy, biscuits, etc. – make a very bad combination with other kinds of foods.  When they get into our already full stomach, they slow down the digestive process.  This way they cause fermentation in our digestive tract.  The best advice is to avoid desserts or eat them separately.

If you are going to have a piece of cake, eat plenty of raw vegetables afterwards.  Ice cream should not be combined with any other food – do not eat anything else for the next two to three hours.

Cold desserts (ice cream, sweet beverages) cool off our stomach’s neighboring organs and reduce their blood supply, causing cramps.  Enzymes used for digestion need temperatures above 98.6F (37C) to be active.  Any cold food has to be warmed before it can be digested – this uses an extra amount of energy. Ice cream and cold beverages may be the cause of lumps and cysts in the case of females, and prostate inflammations in the case of males.  It is better to consume them very infrequently and only in the hot seasons.

Secrets of healthy diet

Based on the position of the Sun, the ancients used a concept distinguishing three consecutive periods in a day.  Each period lasts four hours.  The cycle of three periods repeats itself so that each period occurs twice within 24 hours.

The first period (6a.m.-10a.m.) is the period of peace.  The Sun is rising, the surroundings are peaceful, and our body begins to wake up.  We are rested – there is no need for large amounts of energy.  A large breakfast would put unnecessary strain on our body.  It is enough to drink a glass of fruit or vegetable juice and eat one fruit or vegetable.  Other types of foods take 1.5-2 hours before they yield their energy.  For breakfast it is better to eat something easily absorbable that provides energy without taking much time to be digested.  Fruits, vegetables, and their juices are the most appropriate foods.

The second period starts at 10a.m. and ends at 2p.m.  The Sun is high in the sky.  We feel hungry – our “digestive fire” is most intense (just as the heat of the Sun).  We should eat our largest meal during this period (about 11a.m.-2p.m.).  Starchy foods and vegetables would be the best combination.  They provide large amounts of energy needed for the second half of the day.

The third period (2p.m.-6p.m.) is characterized by motion.  The Sun heats up the air and the ground, and winds are stirred up.  People become more active and work intensely, using up the energy acquired from the food.

Then the cycle of periods is repeated (6p.m.-10p.m.; 10p.m.-2a.m.; 2a.m.-6a.m.).  Based on the biological rhythms, it is best to eat supper before sunset.  The day is over and our body does not need much energy.  Our “digestive fire” diminishes as the Sun goes down.  It is the best time to eat protein foods because they need long and slow digestion (3-7 hours).

The best time to go to bed is before 10p.m. (before the second period is repeated).  Otherwise we feel hungry again and gravitate towards the refrigerator.  But our bodily organs also have a certain schedule.  The digestive organs are active in the morning and the afternoon.  In the evening and at night, excretory organs do their work.

This schedule is violated if we eat at night.  The digestive organs take away some energy needed by excretory organs.  Even then, digestion is incomplete and deposits of mucus, toxins, and fat are formed.  Night eating is a sure way to cause kidney and liver stones, insomnia, weak immune system, and nervous disorders.  Lack of regard for the laws of nature brings punishment in the form of weak vital functions and chronic diseases (heart disease, circulatory, liver, and kidney disorders).

If we want to have a lot of energy for our daily activities, we should wake up in the third period (before 6a.m.)  Waking up in the first period (6a.m.-10a.m.) causes us to feel tired and frustrated all day.  Remember:  The early bird gets the worm.

Scheduling your day in accordance with biological rhythms

Using the following advice will make you feel alert and energetic and will guarantee good health.

1. Get up between 5 a.m. and 6 a.m.
2. Rinse out your mouth.
3. Drink half a glass of spring water, mineral water, or water from melted ice with a teaspoon of honey.
4. Wash your face and brush your teeth.
5. Massage your ears by stretching and rubbing them with your hands for about one minute.
6. Perform any set of exercises strengthening your spine.
7. Massage your body with a moist, warm towel until your skin is red in color and then take a shower.
8. Your shower should be alternately hot and lukewarm, lukewarm and cool, hot and cold.  Keep the temperatures within a comfortable range.
9. Pour some water (4-6 inches/10-15cm) in a basin; put in some rounded pebbles and walk in place on the pebbles (2-3 minutes) to massage your feet.  Towel-dry your feet thoroughly and put on a pair of socks.
10. Perform cleansing breathing exercises for 2-4 minutes (see Breathing for Health).
11. Walk fast or jog (depending on your physical condition) 2-3 miles (3-5km), if possible in the woods or a park.
12. I personally prefer having two meals a day: one around noon and one between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m.  This is especially better for people whose jobs are mostly intellectual in nature.  For those whose work involves more physical effort, the following meal schedule is recommended:
    - Breakfast between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m.
    - Lunch between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.
    - Supper between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m.
13. At 10 p.m. perform 10-15 cleansing breaths.
14. Take an alternate hot-cold shower.
15. Your sleep between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. is very calm, deep, and restful (especially for your nervous system).  If you cannot fall asleep between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m., but you go to sleep between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m., set your alarm at 5 a.m. for the first four days.  You will feel tired in the first days, but it will allow you to set your sleep time in accordance with your physiology.

People whose daily schedule follows the just described pattern are in tune with the laws of nature and with their body’s physiology.

How to plan a healthy diet

Most of us do not plan our diet in a systematic manner; we just want our food to be easily prepared, tasty, and plentiful.  Our body is unable to properly digest the large volumes we eat, and to properly dispose of the waste.  In spite of that, we keep putting strain on our body by taking in new loads of food.
The more we eat, the more often we feel hungry.  Healthy appetite becomes replaced by permanent excessive hunger.  We swell from too much fluids and salt; our bodies become rounded and shapeless.  A large belly makes it hard to tie our shoestrings.  The spine is bent out of shape under the weight of our body.  Our heart is overworked and can hardly pump thick blood polluted with acids.  With bitterness and regret, we watch our lazy, aggressive, and ill children and grandchildren.  Our statistics boast about increased average longevity, yet many people do not live even half the number of years nature intended for them.  If we want to explain all these negative phenomena, we have to look mainly at our bad nutritional habits.

In the recent years, research was done about the nutritional habits of our ancestors and the diseases they suffered from.  The data show that, throughout most of our evolution, human beings ate mainly simple, plant-based foods.

An ancient cabalistic writing about the origins of dynasties and tribes contains an explanation of high longevity (500-700 years) enjoyed by people living before the Great Flood.  The explanation is in their diet.  They ate only foods yielded by the Earth and drank only pure water.  After the Flood, Noah’s children were allowed to eat meat and drink wine.  This became the cause of a shorter life span.  The constant progress of civilization completely changed our way of life since then, but our genes have not changed.

Empty calories

Contemporary nutritional science looks mainly at the calories obtained by our body from the food.  Ancient dieticians were not interested just in the calories.  They looked at both energy and biological information contained in the food and tried to understand how both factors influence our body.  For example, the effects of eating an apple on a hot summer day are very different from the effects of eating it on a cold winter day, even though it contains the same amount of calories.  Eating apples in the winter often causes chills, stomach pains and excessive gas.  It cannot be explained by calorie content, but from the point of view of ancient dieticians it is easily explainable.  The biological information contained in the apple is appropriate for the summer.  It triggers mechanisms that keep our body moist and cool.  The sweet or sour taste of an apple also has a cooling effect.  According to ancient theories, each food product by means of its taste and color retains information about the place where it grows, about its temperature, humidity, etc.  When we eat natural plant-based products, we can feel connected with the great wonders of nature.  Foods obtained from plants always have unique color, taste, and aroma, unlike artificial foods created by men.  The fundamental rule in our ancestors’ diet was the following: Eat foods grown in your region and in accordance with their natural ripening season, because that way you share in the might and wisdom of nature.  Our ancestors tried to understand the very essence of nutrition and used food as their medicine.  Our understanding of nutrition, so important in sustaining our life, has been narrowed by contemporary science.

The principles of self-digestion

We are often intrigued by the fact that while eating the same kind of food, with the same amount of calories, some of us get fat and others do not.  Some of us remain slim even if they eat pounds of sweets; others gain weight after having just one piece of chocolate.  A dinner can be very nutritious for the mother, useless for the daughter, and outright harmful for the father’s health.  We get different results by consuming foods with the same amount of calories because each of us is a unique creature.

There is a system that can solve many nutritional problems – nutrition based on different nutritional types among people.  It uses an analogy to what happens in nature:  different kinds of animals eat different foods.  Tigers get their nutrition from meat and rabbits from carrots (without peeling them).  Even the form in which food enters the digestive tract is different for different animals.  A python has to swallow a rabbit in one piece together with its fur; otherwise it would not be digested properly.  People are divided into certain types based on their individual qualities.  For each type, there is a group of food products that is best absorbed and most beneficial.

In nature there is a principle of self-digestion.  Food (plant or animal) is digested in 50% by enzymes contained in its own tissue, not in the digestive juices of the eater.  The digestive juices just trigger the mechanism of self-digestion.

Each natural product contains biological information, like a code or password.  If our digestive system has the ability to read this code, we can digest the food product without using much energy.

We can use an analogy to Rubik’s cube.  If we know a code, we can solve the cube in a few seconds.  Solving it without a code takes a lot of time and effort.  Digestion in our body works in a similar manner.  Different types of people need different types of food.  If we try to nurture our body with food that is inappropriate for us, we become weak and ill.

Food of the wise

Based on the ability to absorb food, the ancients divided people into three types:
 X (wind), Y (bile), and Z (mucus).

Type X physical characteristics:

1. Thin bones, slim figure, short or medium height, ill-looking, always cold, shy by nature
2. Slim hands, cold and dry in touch
3. Quick movements, light and smooth walk

Physiological qualities:

1. Steady body weight maintained without dieting, frequent digestive troubles
2. Shallow, short sleep

Psychological and intellectual qualities:

1. Cheerful, energetic
2. Quick absorption of information, short retention
3. Easy to socialize and communicate with

Preferred type of food:

Fatty and oily foods in large quantities

Seasons of the year:

1. Hot seasons preferred
2. Low tolerance for cold, dry skin in the winter

Typical health problems:

Dry skin, constipation, joint and bone pains

Most appropriate types of food:

1. Grains: rice, wheat, barley, corn, buckwheat
2. Dairy products: all kinds in moderation
3. Sugars:  honey, raw sugar, jams
4. Vegetable oils:  all kinds
5. Fruits: melons, other kinds of sweet fruits
6. Vegetables (raw):  beets, carrot, asparagus, potatoes, cucumbers, onions
7. Nuts:  all kinds
8. Animal products:  beef, pork, fish, chicken, duck, rabbit, eggs
9. Seasoning:  garlic, onion, ginger, cinnamon, black pepper, cumin, salt, mustard
10. Soups:  nettle, garlic

Type Y physical characteristics: 

1. Average body size, fine red or grey hair, balding
2. Average hand size, warm and pleasant in touch
3. Calm movements, normal, smooth walk

Physiological qualities:

1. Good digestion with regular meal times, otherwise irritable
2. Normal sleep, frequent dreams

Psychological and intellectual qualities:

1.  Well organized and thorough
2. Different levels of mental capacity
3. Easily irritable

Preferred type of food:

Cool meals in moderate amounts

Seasons of the year:

Low tolerance for summer heat, easily fatigued on hot summer days; warm
autumn, and warm rainy days preferred

Typical health problems:

Inflammations, fever, digestive system diseases, liver diseases, heartburn,
agitation, and irritability

Most appropriate types of food:

1. Cool, usually liquid products, fluids (tea, mineral water, coffee)
2. Grains:  wheat, oat, barley, wheat sprouts, rice, corn
3. Dairy products:  butter
4. Sugars: all kinds except honey, in moderation
5. Oils:  olive, sunflower, and corn
6. Fruits:  melon, lemon, grapefruit, orange, other sweet fruits (fresh or dried)
7. Vegetables:  pumpkin, cucumber, potatoes, cabbage, beans, peas, parsnips and parsley
8. Seasoning:  coriander, cinnamon, black pepper, dill, occasionally garlic
9. Soups: vegetable
10. Animal products:  beef, egg yolk, fish, lamb, seafood

Type Z physical characteristics: 

1. Thick bones, tendency to be overweight
2. Big hands, cold and moist in touch
3. Slow, smooth movements; walk slow and heavy

Physiological qualities:

1. Slow physiological processes
2. Moderate eating, tendency to gain weight, difficult weight reduction
3. Calm sleep, at least eight hours a day required

Psychological and intellectual qualities:

1. Very cautious, every action carefully thought through
2. Easy absorption and retention of information
3. Peaceful and hard to irritate but once upset, persistent in the confrontation

Preferred type of food:

Warm, dry and low-fat foods in moderate amounts

Seasons of the year:

 A dislike for rainy and humid weather (tendency to depression)

Typical health problems:

Obesity, depression, chills, pale skin, possible frequent colds

Most appropriate types of food:

1. Warm and light meals, herbal tea and mineral water to drink, all in moderation
2. Grains:  barley, corn, millet, buckwheat, oat, rice
3. Dairy products:  skim milk, fresh butter, aged cheese, cream, kefir
4. Sugars: honey
5. Vegetable oils:  all kinds, especially corn oil
6. Fruits:  apples, pears, pomegranates, grapes, quince, melons, moderation recommended with very sweet fruits
7. Vegetables:  potatoes, carrots, cabbage, onion, tomatoes, turnip, green vegetables, pumpkin, celery, spinach, parsley, beans and peas
8. Seasoning:  all kinds, not too much salt
9. Soups: vegetable soups, low fat meat soups
10. Animal products:  chicken, eggs, beef, pork, lobster
11. Nuts: all kinds

Most people’s characteristic is a combination of two types, but one of them always dominates and the other is represented in a weaker form.  The division described here is just a generalization.  It would be necessary to know a person’s date, hour, and place of birth in order to prescribe individually the optimum diet.  You can, however, get good results by using this general categorization while you plan your menu.

Some useful advice:

The ancients used a simple and easy method to predict whether a food product was appropriate for their body.  They held the product in one hand and focused their mind on the question whether it was good for them, while in the other hand they held a golden ring hanging on a cotton thread about 30inches/80cm long).  When the ring’s motion formed a circle (either clockwise or counter-clockwise), the answer to the question was supposed to be positive.  If the ring swayed to the sides and its movement did not form a circle, the food was considered inappropriate for that person.  In some cases, the outcome for the same product changed after some time – it meant that the product was finally accepted by the body and was safe to eat.  If the outcome was consistently negative after a few experiments, that food product was inappropriate for the particular person and was to be avoided entirely.

When you find a diet that is most appropriate, you will notice the following changes:

1. You will become more active both intellectually and physically.
2. Your hearing and sight will improve.
3. Your eyes will look clear.
4. The color of your tongue will be pink – white and grey layers will disappear.
5. The complexion of your face will look healthier.
6. Your nails and hair will grow better.

The taste of foods

There are only six tastes in the world of foods.  The way we combine the tastes decides whether our meals bring us energy and health or excess fat and disease.

When we eat we do not think that different flavors affect our body in different ways.  The flavors tell us about the qualities of energy contained in the food products.  Our tongue, acting as the taste organ, allows us to identify these kinds of energy.  There are six flavors:  sweet, sour, salty, bitter, astringent, and pungent.

Sweet – Energizes the whole body; stimulates weight increase; used in excess stimulates the production of mucus and fat; reduces the body’s ability to generate heat.  People whose diet includes a lot of sweet-tasting products become lazy, dull and overweight. Sweet taste characterizes sugar, honey, milk, cream, wheat products, fruits, vegetables, beans, peas, nuts and sunflower seeds. Citrus fruits have sour and sweet tastes. 

Sour – Has refreshing qualities, stimulates appetite, helps retain fluids in the body, improves intellectual abilities, regulates digestive processes.  Excess worsens the blood composition, causes ulceration, skin irritation and heartburn.  Too much sour taste in our food causes us to be overactive, irritable and short-tempered. Kefir and various cheeses are sour or pungent.

Salty – Has purifying qualities, removes mold, stimulates appetite, improves digestion, helps retain fluids, helps remove excessive mucus and stomach juices.  Ancient Greeks used to suck on salt crystals after their meals and spit out the salty saliva.  The word “salt” is derived from a word meaning “Sun” – the salty taste generates “digestive fire” in our body by stimulating the action of digestive enzymes.  Salt gets into the blood stream together with the stomach juice and circulating in the body dissolves old, cancerous, and other diseased cells without damaging the healthy ones.  Recent research shows that under the age of one our body contains only 1% old cells, at the age of 10 – 7% old cells, and at the age of 50 – 40% old cells.  In other words, at the age of 50 our body is left with only 60% of its full capacity – the percentage of remaining young cells.  To improve the balance in favor of young cells, we should eat salty foods of natural sources.

I recommend that, after each meal, you put 2-3 salt crystals on your tongue, suck on them, and then spit out the saliva.

Bitter - Improves appetite and digestion, warms up the body, stimulates the removal of fluids, cleanses the body and dilutes blood.  The consumption of bitter foods helps in body cleansing and weight reduction.  Excess of bitter taste causes loss of strength, stimulates anxiety and fear. Roasted seeds, lemon peel, cucumbers, and some other vegetables are bitter in taste.

Astringent – Has drying qualities, helps to heal wounds by drying pus and blood, improves skin complexion. Green-leafed vegetables, pears, cabbage, potatoes are examples of astringent-tasting products.

Pungent – Normalizes the functioning of the gastrointestinal tract, improves appetite. Pungent taste is represented by foods such as onion, garlic, chili pepper, radish, turnips, and spices.  Kefir and various cheeses are sour or pungent.

We can influence many processes taking place in our body by skillfully combining food flavors in our meals.

If we constantly feel cold, we should eat meals containing bitter and sour tastes.  This combination causes our body to warm up and stimulates weight loss.  Combining sour and salty flavors produces the warming effect but also causes weight gain.  The combinations of sweet with salty or sweet with sour flavors also stimulate weight gain – we gain fat in the first case and muscle mass in the second.  Meals combining bitter and astringent tastes make us more energetic.  They increase our mobility and physical fitness and are recommended for people with low blood pressure and poor circulation.
The huge variety of food products makes it impossible to categorize everything.  We all have an intuitive understanding of basic taste categories.

Product tastes

Each type of taste stimulates a specific organ in our body:  sour taste – the liver, salty – the kidneys, bitter – the heart, sweet –pancreas, pungent – the lungs, and astringent – the large intestine.

People who enjoy good health should eat food products that include all six tastes, without overusing any of them.  Such diet harmoniously stimulates our body’s energy.  Those who need to suppress weight gain can do it by skillfully combining tastes in their meals.  The world of tastes is very interesting and extensive.  Discussing it fully would require a separate book.  The following short section on tastes can only serve to stimulate some people’s curiosity and show how much there is still to know about food – a subject each of us deals with every day.

The digestive fire

In ancient times, root spices were worth their weight in gold.  Small amounts of them were added to food in order to improve the functioning of the digestive system, making digestion a few times easier.

Our ability to digest food becomes weaker as we age.  As adults, we like to talk about how we were able to eat everything when we were younger.  Now we often experience troubles in our stomach, intestinal disorders, and the sensation of heaviness in our whole body.

According to Eastern wisdom, poor digestion is the main source of diseases.  The concept of digestive fire is used in the East to explain this relationship.  If the fire is strong and bright (as in our young years), food is digested well, without toxic remains.  The cells receive necessary nourishment and our body is healthy.  When the digestive fire becomes weak with age, digestion is incomplete and toxins are formed, putting us at risk of all types of diseases.  To revitalize the weakening digestive fire, we can add the following products to our meals:  black or red pepper, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, mustard, horseradish, ginger, and salt.

By taking small amounts of these products before, during, or after our meals, we can stimulate our appetite or improve our body’s digestive function.  We especially need spices during cold seasons.  The elderly people and others with weak digestion can benefit greatly from adding spices to their food.  We should all add some ginger to our meals and tea to revitalize our digestion.  Ginger is regarded in the East to be the best product able to rebuild our body’s digestive powers.

Ginger therapy
Ancient dieticians recommended a special ginger therapy to improve digestion.  The therapy is intended for older people, whose digestive fire naturally diminished with age.  It is not recommended for the young and middle-aged whose digestive disorders have other causes.

Preparation: Take a small enamel or ceramic bowl; mix four tablespoons of powdered ginger with 3.6-5.4oz (100-150g) of melted butter, and stir until you get a uniform blend.  Cover it with a lid and keep in a cool place.

Take the mixture before breakfast everyday.  The breakfast should consist of herbal tea, freshly steamed vegetables and grains

• Day 1 – half a teaspoon
• Day 2 – 1 teaspoon
• Day 3 – 1.5 teaspoons
• Day 4 – 2 teaspoons
• Day 5 – 2.5 teaspoons
• Day 6 – 2.5 teaspoons
• Day 7 – 2 teaspoons
• Day 8 – 1.5 teaspoons
• Day 9 – 1 teaspoon
• Day 10 – half a teaspoon

As we can see, the amount increases by half a teaspoon a day, then levels out, and then starts decreasing on day 7. The amount on day 10 is half a teaspoon, same as on day 1.

When the therapy is ended, our digestive fire will be revitalized.  During the therapy we are to avoid products with strong cooling qualities, such as ice water, ice cream, refrigerated milk, frozen fruits or berries, etc.

Melting butter to improve its qualities.  Melt regular butter on a frying pan using low heat until it becomes thick and has an olive color and then cool it off.  Butter prepared this way is clean of additives, does not increase cholesterol levels, and can be stored for a long time without any preservatives.

How much should we eat

My answer to this question is: the less the better!  Nobody dies of moderation.  People get ill and die because of overeating.

The capacity of a normal human stomach is 12-15 fl oz (350-450ml).  However, most people’s stomach is stretched to an unnatural size and they eat five to ten times the amounts their body really needs.  It is a serious mistake to get into the habit of overeating; we should resist it just like any other bad habit. 
We should follow Hippocrates’ advice: “If you still have a slight sensation of hunger after a meal – you have eaten well.  If you feel full – you have poisoned yourself.” If we put our palms together and curve our fingers, the space enclosed by the palms represents approximately the capacity of our stomach.  A meal should not be bigger than half of this space.  The amount of fluids consumed at a time should not fill more than a quarter of the space.  The remaining quarter is needed to hold air.  This is all that our stomach is designed to accommodate.  If we consume meals larger than our stomach’s physiological capacity day after day, the stomach becomes gradually stretched.

People with unnaturally stretched stomachs experience constant hunger and the more they eat the more food it takes for them to feel full.  To break this vicious circle, they need to get out of the habit of eating fast – it is simple but very useful advice: eat slowly and chew your food very thoroughly.

The golden mean

The food we eat makes our blood acidic or alkaline.  People in good health have blood that is 60-70% alkaline.  A lower alkalinity factor (50-60%) is characteristic for people who often get different diseases.  Acidic blood flows in the veins of chronically ill people.  The following proportion of food groups in our daily diet promotes our bloods alkalinity:

• 60% fruits and vegetables
• 20% proteins
• 14% carbohydrates
• 6% fats

This kind of diet promotes the alkalinity of our blood and the acidity of other bodily fluids.  Acidic bodily fluids make it impossible for disease-causing bacteria to develop and they also prevent putrefaction, fermentation, the formation of mucus and other unhealthy deposits.  Our meals should make us feel light, energetic, and refreshed.  If we feel sleepy and heavy in the stomach, if we experience gas or other unpleasant consequences, the type of food we eat is not appropriate for us or the amount is too large.

Changing eating habits

In our eating habits, we often neglect the principles by which our body works.  Our body tries to follow the rules given by nature, but we teach it laziness and overeating.  This conflict maintains our body in a half-diseased state.  At last our body gives in and becomes chronically ill.

Let’s try to find a better way to nurture our body, which would reward us with energy, strength, a refreshed spirit, and a clear mind.

It is best to introduce the changes gradually:

1. Start drinking vegetable juices (a glass twice a day) without changing the rest of your diet (1-1.5 months).
2. Add more vegetables to your diet.  Fresh, steamed, and cooked vegetables should represent 30-40% of your menu (1.5-2 months).
3. Make changes in favor of raw food products (roughly 60% raw – 40% cooked).
4. Eat mostly plant-based foods and other products such as honey, eggs, plain yogurt, kefir, and cottage cheese.  Drink herbal tea and freshly squeezed fruit and vegetable juices.
5. Arrange your meals in the correct order: fluids 20 minutes before any solid food, fruits before other foods, vegetable salads with carbohydrates (grains, potatoes, etc.) or with protein foods (fish, peas, eggs).
6. Limit artificially grown, refined, and smoked products to a minimum.

Let us summarize now all principles of a healthy diet.  Practicing these principles will definitely improve your health.

The principles of a healthy diet:

1. Eat food products grown in your geographical region.
2. Eat fruits, vegetables, and nuts strictly in their natural ripening season.
3. Each meal should include raw (summer), steamed or pickled (winter) vegetables.
4. Try to eat yeast free breads and whole-grain baked goods.
5. In combining food products, follow the rules in Table 2.
6. Chew your food thoroughly (30 to 50 times each bite). 
7. Prepare your food directly before your meals.
8. Do not keep any leftovers to be later warmed up and eaten.
9. Reduce the amount of foods with artificial ingredients, refined foods, and smoked products.
10. Avoid eating instant meals and canned food products as much as possible.
11. Limit your intake of coffee and tea.
12. Add spices such as pepper and ginger to your foods (especially in the winter).
13. In the summer and fall, make some days “strawberry only,” “cherry only,” “apple only,” or “watermelon only” days.
14. Fast once a week for 16 or 24 hours – during that time drink only boiled water.
15. When carrots, beets, or apples are in season, drink freshly squeezed juices (about 33 ounces / 1L a day).
16. Prevent constipation – it is the main enemy of your health and the main cause of aging.
17. Use moderation in your eating Monday through Friday.
18. Make Saturday and Sunday your feast days and eat everything you crave for.  This advice does not really contradict the principles of healthy eating.  According to the ancient doctors, even poison in small amounts can serve as a medication.

Our diet and cancer

The great Hippocrates liked to say that food should be our medicine.

According to the American Cancer Institute data, improper diet causes 40% of cancers in men and 60% in women.  Carcinogenic substances in our food act slowly, but they systematically poison our body day by day.

There is more and more information available about the connection between our food and cancer.  It turns out that our diet can cause cancer or alternatively protect us against it.  The word “prevention” might seem overused. However, there is never too much emphasis on prevention if it can save us many years of treatment.  Everybody should realize that our diet might become the cause of cancer.

Use two basic rules in your diet to make sure it is cancer preventing and not cancer-causing:

1. Avoid certain ingredients that can cause malignant tumors.
2. Include in your diet foods that contain substances protecting your body from cancer.

Let me explain these two rules.

Ingredients that can cause malignant tumors

Beware of fat!
Fats in our diet can be a source of carcinogenic substances.  Old and used fats are many times more dangerous than fresh ones.  Never leave grease in your frying pan for a later use.  If possible, replace fried meals with cooked and baked ones.  It is a good idea to cut as much fat out of meat as possible. Also limit your consumption to about two tablespoons a day.

Smoked food products are particularly dangerous for our health because smoke deposits harmful compounds in them, including carcinogenic ones.  Such compounds have been detected in smoked sausage, ham, bacon, and fish as well as in fruits dried with the use of smoke.  Harmful substances contained in 1.8oz (50g) of smoked sausage may cause as much damage to our health as one pack of cigarettes or four days’ worth of breathing polluted city air.

Health-damaging chemical compounds
Many food products contain nitrates and nitrites.  These salts are not carcinogenic themselves, but in the process of digestion in our stomach, they can be turned into very harmful substances.  Nitrates and nitrites can be found in sausages, some canned meats, and some store-bought fruits and vegetables.  This is why it is best to eat vegetables grown in the open air (not in a greenhouse!) with the use of natural fertilizers (e.g. compost).  If you cook vegetables, use plenty of water.  Discard the water if you are not sure how the vegetables were grown.

Bigger belly – bigger problems
When a scientist from Philadelphia was asked if he knew a good diet to prevent cancer, he said:  “Yes!  You just have to eat less.”  Most experts agree with this opinion.  Research involving large population samples proves that obesity significantly increases the likelihood of cancer.

How can we moderate our appetite?  We can do it by eating aged breads, beans, peas, roasted sunflower seeds, and grains.

The sensation of hunger is often confused with the sensation of thirst.  If we try drinking slowly a glass or two of water instead of having something to eat, the sensation of hunger often goes away after ten to fifteen minutes.

Substances that protect us from cancer

Our diet should contain ingredients that improve our immune system and help it protect us from the effects of carcinogenic substances and other harmful compounds.  These healthy ingredients are, first of all, vitamins.

The connection between vitamins and our health is common knowledge.  There is no need here to get into much detail about benefits coming from vitamins.  I would only like to mention a few of them that are most important in cancer prevention.  These are vitamins A, C, and E.

Vitamin A
The main role of vitamin A is programming a number of chemical reactions that protect us from different forms of cancer.  Vitamin A is synthesized from beta-carotene in our digestive tract, where the vitamin is absorbed.  The process takes place with the help of bile.  If there are irregularities in the function of the digestive system, the liver, or the gallbladder, the amount of absorbed vitamin A is inadequate.  It is a case of hidden deficiency in vitamin A.  We are convinced that our food provides enough vitamin, but in reality not enough of it is absorbed, and our body experiences deficiency.

This is why it is very important to have our liver (which is our body’s chemical laboratory) and our digestive system (especially the large intestine) in a perfect working order.

Animal liver and liver oil are very rich in vitamin A.  It is also found in smaller concentrations in eggs, butter, and other milk products. Carotene, which turns into vitamin A in our body, is contained in carrots, red peppers, parsley, spinach, onion, apricots, tomatoes, pumpkin, and other fruits that are yellowish-red, or orange in color.

There is a simple test for vitamin A deficiency.  Walk quickly from a well-lit room into a dark room.  If in a few seconds you can distinguish shapes of things in the dark room, your body has an adequate amount of vitamin A.  If you cannot see any shapes for a longer time, you are vitamin A deficient.  In this case, I would recommend drinking freshly squeezed carrot juice and beet juice.

Vitamin C
High content of vitamin C prevents nitrates and nitrites from turning into carcinogenic compounds.

Vitamin C promotes good absorption of iron in the intestinal tract.  Note: Some women suffer from very high menstrual flow.  It is a likely sign of iron deficiency (anemia), especially if they smoke and do not eat enough vegetables.  Vitamin C is the “fuse” of the flexibility and strength of our blood vessels.
Easy bruising is another symptom of vitamin C deficiency.  Vitamin C is one of the substances necessary for the removal of bad cholesterol from our body.  Those who enjoy a fat meal should eat a big plate of vegetable salad with each steak they have (three to five times larger in volume than the steak).  If they do not stick to this rule, sooner or later they are going to suffer from serious health problems.  Vitamin C is almost non-existent in animal-based food products.

The main sources of vitamin C (ascorbic acid) are fruits, vegetables, berries, and greens.  The richest among them are wild rose fruit, black currant, red currant, horseradish, dill, and onion.  Citrus fruits and apples also have high vitamin C content.

In the winter, we can get our vitamin C from potatoes, cabbage, sauerkraut, garlic, onion, citrus fruits and juices, dried fruits, and jams with low sugar content.

Vitamin E
Vitamin E is called “the elixir of youth” because it slows the aging of cells in our body and, at the same time, protects us from harmful products of fat oxidation.  When fats are oxidized, toxic compounds are produced and have to be neutralized. If there is a shortage of vitamin E and these substances are not neutralized, they cause rigidity of our nerve tissue, blood vessels, and muscles.

Vitamin E deficiency is particularly dangerous for infants – it can result in leukemia, as well as sight and respiratory disorders.

They have a low concentration of vitamin E at birth.  This deficiency is supposed to be supplemented by breast milk.

Cow’s milk contains very limited amounts of vitamin E – many times smaller than woman’s milk. This is another significant argument in favor of breast-feeding.

It is a very disturbing fact that in the recent years more cases of blood cancers among little children are diagnosed.  I am strongly convinced that the main cause of these diseases is artificial food low in vitamin E.

Foods containing the most vitamin E are: calf liver, egg yolk, wheat, oats, rye, corn, peas, parsley, carrot, onion, and garlic.

Fibers
Physicians noticed that colon cancer, so common in Europe, is hardly ever found among the African population. They attributed it to the fact that their diet contains large amounts of natural products.  Fiber contained in these foods works as sort of a “broom” in our intestines, quickly removing toxins, stopping rotting processes, and preventing harmful bacteria from producing carcinogenic substances.  This is why I advise to start meals with vegetable salads.  The main sources of fiber are whole-grain flour, breads, buckwheat, oat, and leafy vegetables.

Mineral salts containing magnesium, calcium and selenium are important in cancer prevention. Podded plants (beans, peas), wheat, rye, oats, buckwheat, fruits, and vegetables are rich in magnesium.  Calcium is found in large amounts in poppy seeds, beans, carrot, cabbage, and cheese.  Peas and beets are the richest in selenium.

Some data suggesting that mushrooms (e.g. boletus) and soy products contain substances protecting us from cancer.

We should remember that no diet provides full protection against cancer, but the probability of getting the illness can be significantly reduced.  A good variety of natural foods in our menu makes it possible for our body to find substances needed for healing.

Some oncologists maintain that cancer is our body’s vengeance for improperly eaten meals.  In 99% of the cases we invite cancer by poisoning ourselves, only 1% is caused by spontaneous changes in our body.  This means that we are 1% victims and 99% authors of cancer.

What should we eat?  What is a good diet?  These are very interesting and, at the same time, very difficult questions.



MIND

What is a disease? (The following segment does not apply to genetic diseases.)

There are volumes of medical books about diseases; millions of doctors and scientists try to explore their mysteries.  Nobody is able to provide answers about the origin of diseases, probably because diseases as such do not have their own existence.  What we call a disease is our body’s reaction to something that interferes with its normal functioning.  An organ remains ill, and is eventually destroyed, as long as the source of interference is not removed.  A malfunctioning organ can negatively influence other organs and systems (circulatory, nervous, lymphatic) cooperating with it.  There is constant struggle between health and illness in the life of our body.  We could not stay alive without this struggle.  In the case of common cold, for example, we may suffer from fever, headaches, bone aches, and general body weakness.  Can we regard these as symptoms as a disease? Certainly, but high body temperature kills the disease-causing bacteria; mucus released by our body carries away toxins, while headaches, bone aches, and the feeling of weakness are side effects of our body’s struggle to return to health. 

What we call a disease is the defensive reaction of our body’s mechanisms designed to maintain us healthy.  We all have these mechanisms.  They are necessary to remove disorders in the way our body functions.  They also give us warning signals when these disorders begin.
To stay healthy, we need to listen and understand what our body is trying to communicate to us.  Do not treat diseases as your worst enemy.  In a sense, they force us to make the first step on the way towards a healthy lifestyle.

My journey to health was not easy.  I was a very ill child, spending probably about 200 days out of the year in bed, fighting various infections and viruses.  My mother was an emergency physician, very absorbed by her work, and she did not have much time to sit at my bedside.  When I had a fever, she would give me a few strong doses of penicillin (very widely used in the sixties) to reduce the temperature.  The fever was gone in a few days but my nose was plugged with mucus and my throat inflamed, red as a tomato.  This meant for my mother the necessity of more radical measures.  My tonsils were removed.  This caused further complications – an inflammation in the maxillary sinus and partial loss of my sense of smell.  Long and ineffective treatment of these complications with large doses of medications caused pain in the liver area.  I also had allergic rashes on my hands, abdomen, and back.  In addition, my diet was fat and sweet.  No wonder I suffered from chronic pains under my right lowest rib.  Frequent headaches had to be treated with painkillers.  One day I became sick at school, and then I fainted.  The school nurse contacted my mother, who suspected probable acute inflammation of appendix and made sure I was quickly brought to the surgical ward.  Three hours later I was on the operating table and the head doctor of the surgical ward, a friend of my mother’s, was operating on me.  As it turned out, my appendix was perfectly healthy but my liver was enlarged and inflamed.  The surgeon understood the source of my sufferings when she looked at my liver, but since my abdomen was already open, she removed my healthy appendix just in case.  At least it was clear from now on that the cause of my headaches, weakness, and acute pain under the right lowest rib was my ill liver.  Even though the appendix operation was successful, it caused complications in the form of hemorrhoids that afflicted me for many years.

As a result of such “close contact” with medicine, I gained a certain kind of experience.  I understood that whenever medicine heals something in my body, it hurts (sometimes unknowingly) something else at the same time.  When I later started helping other ill people, I was finally convinced that all pharmaceutical remedies could only maintain our body in a semi-healthy state.  This is why a diagnosis so often has the word “chronic” in it (chronic inflammation of gallbladder, joints, etc.).  Because “chronic” means “continual” and “unending,” we can conclude that our diseases need to be treated for the rest of our lives.

Avicenna, Persian philosopher and physician, over 1000 years go said:

A physician should have three things in his arsenal – words, medications, and a blade.

Words are necessary to explain to patients what mistakes they make in their lifestyle, and what is the connection between the mistakes and the source of illness.

Medications when words cannot explain the cause of the disease but there still a duty to provide relief from suffering.

The blade is used when the physician cannot identify the source of the disease, influence the patient with words, or find any medication to reduce the pain.  By using a surgical blade, the doctor only removes the effects of a well-advanced disease.  Its source remains and is ready to manifest in new places.  An operation usually provides only some temporary relief for the patients before they are afflicted with an even worse disease.
My experience taught me that the decisive factor in all matters of illness and health is the amount of energy available for our bodily organs.  If there are deficiencies in the energy system that invisibly connects all our internal organs, our body becomes ill.  Kan Funajana, an ancient Japanese physician, in his book “Guidelines of Medicine” wrote:

A human being is an entity whose soul and body form a union.  This is why it is not possible to heal the body without considering the state of the soul and vice versa.

We already know that to maintain our body in good health we need to cleanse it regularly, nurture it properly, and build up its immunity with the use of water, fresh air, sunlight, and physical exercise.  When we talk about the soul, we should think about the human bio-energy system.  Our consciousness, feelings, and memories are forms of invisible energy about whose qualities we know very little.  To regulate psychological processes, we need to learn their mechanisms and this involves learning about bio-energy.

Contemporary psychology considers only an insignificant number of bio-energetic processes taking place in our body.  As far as medicine is concerned, it is mainly oriented towards treating the body and acknowledges little connection between the body and the soul.  Our medicine focuses so much on different parts of the body that it almost forgets its existence as an integrated system.

I am convinced that as long as medicine will use this approach to the functioning of the human body, diseases will always remain chronic and incurable.  Improved methods of treating effects are not going to remove causes and bring health.  Medicine looks for answers dealing with more effective and painless methods of removing ill organs and uses constantly improving hardware.  The very thought of pain caused by a low-speed dental drill used years ago makes everybody tremble.  Today’s high-speed drills and effective anesthetics make a dental procedure relatively painless for the patient.  However, tooth decay and gum disease still exist and will continue to exist.

Contemporary methods allow a surgeon to remove the gallbladder in 30 minutes and use only a local anesthetic.  A few years later the procedure brings effects in the form of digestive disorders.

A bypass surgery uses arteries or veins from other parts of the body to take over the role of a useless coronary artery in the circulatory system.  The artery or vein to be grafted is taken from the same ill body and is only a little better - five or six years later, another bypass surgery will be required. 
There are thousands of such examples.  In my opinion, even perfectly successful surgeries in the long run are as ineffective as patching up an old pair of pants that are falling apart.  A new patch in one place creates a tear in another and eventually the whole garment is beyond repair.  People who are caught in these kinds of situations with their health problems would probably agree with me.  Despite huge amounts of time spent on different treatments, their health does not improve.  Are there solutions for such situations?  I think there are.

We should work on creating a completely new approach to the question of healing our body:

1. Quit blaming our doctors for treating us ineffectively.
2. Understand that we are first to be responsible for taking care of our health.

We can learn to stop headaches by simple methods removing their causes instead of taking painkillers that poison our liver and our whole body.  If the gallbladder is plugged up with stones, it needs to be cleansed, not removed.  Heart disease, circulatory disorders, and obesity are results of laziness and lack of exercise.  Pains in our stomach and pancreas come from overeating and not caring enough about providing the proper kind of nutrition for our body.  I would like to be correctly understood – I am not advocating self-treatment. 

Doctors have been, are, and will continue to be needed.  We could not manage without them in extreme cases (e.g. accidents).  However, we should also know how to take care of our body and help ourselves from day to day.  We could use doctors only as our wise advisors.
Everybody, not only a group of trained professionals, can possess the knowledge necessary to maintain good health.  We need to stay healthy in order to fully use our natural gifts such as intellect, strength, and goodness.

To be healthy, we should use the following principle of Hippocrates: “If you are not your own doctor, you are a fool.”

The most important fact to remember, especially for those who need to recover their lost health, is that our organism is an integrated system and we have to treat it in a complex manner – both our body and mind.  Only this kind of approach brings results.  Health involves striving for physical and spiritual perfection. 

There is one more point I would like to make – we start causing damage to our health in various ways from early childhood.  This is why we cannot expect an immediate return to health.  It may take two to three years of work before we get rid of our health problems.  Once we put our body and mind in order, we only need to persist in maintaining it and enjoy good health – a free gift from nature – for the rest of our life.

Learn about yourself

Seneca, a Roman philosopher, said: “People do not die – they kill themselves.”

This brilliant statement is two thousand years old and we still resist the wisdom contained in it.  I wonder why?  Did not Seneca say it loud enough, or maybe people do not have enough time to take notice?  In either case, we pass our bad habits from generation to generation, and along with the habits, we pass down diseases.  As an excuse, we say that times are hard and the progress of civilization puts a heavy burden on us.  However, we are rather burdened by our excess weight, laziness, and complete disregard for the physiological rules by which our body functions.  We know how to deal with complicated economical problems, use computers, or repair an electronic instrument with thousands of connections, but we cannot answer the simple question about the number of times we urinate in a day or the color of our urine.  I would like to stress: if we do not learn to watch how our body functions, we cannot maintain good health.

One day, while in a cafeteria, I saw a young woman with a troubled look on her face.  She pulled some pills out of her purse and took one of them.
“What is troubling you?” – I asked.  She tried to smile friendly and answered in a tired voice.
“I have a headache again.”
I looked more closely.  Her eyes looked tired and slightly red.  She had dark spots, freckles, moles, and lesions on her skin.  The complexion on her face was yellowish-brown as it is usually in the case of female smokers. Despite her relatively young age (25-27), she had rings under her eyes, deep wrinkle between the eyebrows, slightly swollen eyelids, and wilted skin on her neck and under her chin.  Her back was bent and her neck had a limited range of motion.
“You work in an office, don’t you?”
“How do you know?”
“Everyone who spends time at the desk suffers from headaches, low blood pressure, kidney diseases, and disorders of the reproductive organs.  It is especially true for women.  Your position at work is the cause of all these symptoms.  Would you like to know what causes freckles, moles, and lesions on your skin?”
“Tell me – she said surprised.”
“You have a misaligned spine and an ill liver.  This causes skin spots and headaches.  Please take a close look at your shoes.”
Surprised, she pulled her feet from under the table.
“Your shoes are worn out in the front and the middle.  It means your liver is ill.”
“I don’t understand what my shoes can tell you about my illnesses”
“They tell me a lot.  The way they are wearing out signals diseases long before they are manifested in any other way.  Ancient physicians discovered a close relationship between the condition of feet and the disorders of internal organs, such as liver or heart, which cause weakness in the legs.  We start walking differently and wearing out our shoes in a very specific way.  If the sole wears out quickly at the heel, it signals a kidney disorder.  A worn tip and outer edges mean a heart disease.  In your case, there is an indication of an ill liver.  A malfunctioning liver results in poor blood filtering.  Polluted blood circulates in the body and causes healthy organs to malfunction.  There is a close connection between the liver and the skin.  Dark spots, freckles, pimples, moles, or lesions are results of a poorly functioning liver.”
“This is interesting” – she said with disbelief.  Then she took another sip of coffee and was ready to listen again.
“How many cups of coffee have you had today?”
“Three or four. I have low blood pressure and frequently get headaches.  Without a coffee, I feel sleepy.”
“I can tell you why.  Your kidneys don’t function very well and this is, among others, the cause of low blood pressure.  Coffee makes you feel alert for only 15-20 minutes and then you feel sleepy and tired again.  Excessive amounts of coffee flush out very important elements such as iron, magnesium, and calcium from your body.  Cigarettes that often go together with coffee cause vitamin C deficiency.  You would have to drink juice squeezed from one lemon or orange after every cigarette to replenish the amount of vitamin C you lose.  If you don’t do it, you will eventually have dark rings under your eyes – one of the signs of anemia.  Broken blood vessels, especially on your face and legs, mean deficiency in vitamin C and magnesium.  I noticed that you like to have a sandwich and coffee to satisfy your hunger.”
“That’s right” – she admitted.  “Coffee reduces my appetite.”
“I disagree with that.  Coffee is simply a stimulator.  It gives you energy for a very short time, that’s all.  The habit of satisfying your hunger with a small sandwich leads to frequent constipation because a low-volume meal does not contain enough fiber to make our digestive tract, particularly our large intestine, work.  Constipation causes self-poisoning in our body when food remains putrefied and toxins released by bacteria in the intestines are absorbed into the blood stream.  These toxins are the cause of constant fatigue, headaches, insomnia, and nervous breakdowns.”
“I admit that sometimes one pill is not enough to deal with a persistent headache” – she said and swallowed another pill.
“Why do you poison yourself?  Every pill is a poison!  Even if it stops your headache today, what are you going to do tomorrow or in a month?  Will you just keep poisoning you body this way?”
“And what else can I do?”
“There are many ways to stop a headache without pills.  Cover your forehead with your right hand; press the palm hard against the forehead and turn your head right 20 times, rubbing the forehead against the palm.  Then repeat the same using your left hand.  After that, use your thumbs and index fingers to massage your earlobes for 3-5 minutes.  Massage hard – to the point of pain.  You can do it now.”
The entire uncomplicated procedure took her about five minutes.  I asked her:
“How are you feeling now?”
“It stopped” – she said with disbelief.  “What else can you tell me about my health?”
“You have a runny nose and breathe through your mouth.  This is why you frequently have a sore throat, bronchi, and sore lungs.  All these troubles are caused by your habit of sleeping on a soft mattress and a soft pillow.”
The lady had her eyes wide open with surprise.
“It is sad that, at my age, I know so little about my body.” - She looked slightly embarrassed. – “Please tell me what I should do.”
“Change your lifestyle.  Most of all, prevent constipation, improve the functioning of your intestines and liver, and finally put your spine in order.  Start eating what is healthy and not what you like.  Finally, understand one important truth – your health is in your own hands.”

The healing thought

Self-healing method
Nature provided each one of us with an excellent individual “pharmacy” containing medicine against all diseases we can ever get.  Our only task is learning how to make use of it.

The self-healing process has two stages.  The first stage is to relax all the muscles in our body.  In the second stage, we launch a healing program in our subconscious mind (just like a computer program) designed to trigger our body’s self-regulatory processes.  Self-healing is effective because it uses our body’s natural defense mechanisms.

Stage 1 – relaxing
Spread a soft blanket on the floor and lie on your back.  Your arms should be stretched alongside your body with the palms facing outside and the fingers slightly bowed, your feet tilted outside, your head turned to one side, mouth open, tongue against the upper teeth, and your eyes closed for better concentration.  Try to be calm, not to think about anything, and, most important of all, breathe calmly and evenly.  It usually takes two to five minutes to achieve full relaxation state.

Stage 2 – self-healing
The cells in our body have a basic mental capability similar to that of a little child.  We should remember that fact when we address the ill organ.  In your imagination try to visualize the malfunctioning organ, open communication with it, and concentrate on giving it an order.  The order must be expressed clearly and decisively, as if you were trying to correct the behavior of your beloved child.  Each one of our organs has its own “personality,” for example our stomach and our liver are stubborn and not very reasonable.  They need to be addressed in the form of a harsh command.  Our heart is much wiser and it listens to requests expressed gently and cordially.

Having completed the first stage you can, for example, imagine looking inside your heart and try to see a small bright flame in it – the source of love and saving energy.  Imagine that the flame grows, fills your whole heart, and then spreads throughout the entire body from the top of your head to the tips of your fingers and toes.  Try to feel how it cleanses your body, removes inflammations, and brings health and vigor.  Quietly say to yourself: “Every breath brings me closer to full cleansing.  The light in my body is the healing energy.”  If you know a specific spot with a lump or inflammation, put your right hand on it and imagine that the healing light is emitted from the centre of your palm and it melts the lump just like sunrays melt snow or ice in the spring.

This was just an example.  Everybody has enough imagination to develop his or her own healing scenario.  The most important thing to remember is to relax your muscles and to enter the healing program into your subconscious mind.  You can pick any time for self-healing sessions but it is better done when there is nobody around to interrupt you.  If you enjoy quiet music, turn on your favorite piece for a better relaxation effect.

We can influence all our malfunctioning organs and systems, such as the nervous system, memory, vision, hearing, etc. in this manner.  The method requires a serious approach and some acknowledgement from us that we are responsible for some of our health problems.

Positive attitude towards life

Death is not as terrifying as old age 
-- Eastern wisdom

Joyful old age

Throughout ages, people dreamed about being immortal and searched for the legendary elixir of youth.  Many scientists in the world look for ways to extend the human life.

There are many who believe that we should not try to resist the aging process.  They say that it is as pointless as trying to revive an old dying tree or renovate an old wooden house whose walls are falling apart.  According to this view, all we can do is to influence the process of aging in a limited way by reducing the symptoms and preventing extreme suffering as the nature takes its course.

Then, why does the body age?  One of the reasons is our own attitude that conditions the body to speed up the process.

We fear illness, immobility, and helplessness that come with the old age.  Our aging process begins when we start dwelling on such thoughts and fears.
The way our aging process progresses greatly depends on our psychological attitude towards aging and death.

Unlike all other living organisms, we are able to influence all life processes in our body by using our mind.  There are countless examples of people who became ill with a disease as a result of being preoccupied with fearful thoughts about it.  There are just as many examples of individuals who conquered terminal diseases by maintaining a positive mental attitude.

Our thoughts have the power to make us healthy or ill; they can also make us younger or older.

Aging is the matter of attitude

When we start reflecting on our age, we usually think in terms of different milestones and stages of life: getting married, bringing up children, menopause for women, retirement, and so on.  When we are strongly convinced that there is nothing we can do about the natural progression of the aging process, we program ourselves for premature aging.  As soon as we notice our first wrinkles, the thinning of our hair, or pain in our joints, we pronounce the diagnosis: “I am getting old.”  We think that it creates the necessity to become less active, conserve energy, and lead a restful life.  It does not occur to us that we brought these signs of aging on ourselves by incorrect diet, laziness, and lack of youthful enthusiasm for life.  We shorten our life ourselves by incorrectly using our psychological powers.  Our aging process gets under way because we subconsciously anticipate it. 
The crucial period is the age between 40 and 50.  During that period, we should pay particular attention to our hygiene and the condition of our skin, hair, hands, feet, and nails, to the flexibility and strength of our joints and muscles and to the overall shape of our body.  Easy movements, straight posture, flexibility, flat abdomen, clear and bright eyes are the physical qualities of people who are not affected by aging.  It is a mistake, especially for women, to avoid their image in the mirror as soon as they notice the first wrinkles on their face or fatty folds on their skin.  Even though they try not to look in the mirror, they are subconsciously troubled by questions such as: “Is this really me? Has life worn me out so much? Do I look awful? Am I already getting old?”
Such concerns take away our enthusiasm for life and our interest in the way we look.  When a woman stops admiring her own body and even accepting the way it looks, she allows the aging process to set in.

The mechanism of aging

The mechanism of aging is not completely known.  There are several theories.  One of them (hormonal theory) proposes that aging results from imbalance between old and new cells.  This is caused by two related factors: our hormones “age” and the contact between the hormones and our cells becomes weak.  Hormones are the means our brain uses to communicate with our cells.

Each cell has receptors that receive the hormonal signals.  When the receptors do not react to hormones anymore, the cell undergoes aging and eventually dies.  To use a simplistic analogy, our body is like a TV set, our brain like a remote control able to turn it on or off and switch channels, hormones are like the remote control’s batteries and finally the receptors are like the contacts connecting the batteries with the remote control.

When the batteries get old, they still work for a while but cause oxidation on the contacts’ surfaces.  Even though there is nothing wrong with the TV set or the remote control, the system starts working erratically and eventually quits working at all.  If the batteries are replaced and the contacts cleaned, everything starts working again.  Something similar takes place in our body but the process is more complicated.  This, however, is only one of the theories.  Our body works according to a blueprint provided by nature; nevertheless the number of years we live on this planet depends largely on our daily attitude towards our body’s maintenance.

The art of staying young

There is now a new generation of artificial hormones that are believed to cause no side effects.  They can be put in our body; however, the practice shows that the new hormones are only able to slow down the aging process and in some cases they do not bring the expected results at all.  On the other hand, according to scientists, we use only 10% of our brain’s potential.  This means that we have a large reserve of mental abilities that can be put to work.

Memory is a wonderful gift of nature.  Our memories engage emotions and emotions in turn, especially the positive ones, put hormones (such as endorphins - the happiness hormones) to work and along with hormones they put cell receptors to work in our entire body.

This means that our positive thoughts and emotions act as the elixir of youth.  Regardless of our age, we can always use such thoughts and emotions to move back the arms of our biological clock.

The recipe for staying young

To make good use of our memory, we can pick the memories of our youth, our first affection, and other most happy times of our life from its stores.  For a human being (especially female) there is no greater remedy against disease than love.

In the old days, a woman kept her wedding dress and took it out from time to time to admire or even to put it on.  It helps to regularly watch the photos from our youth and reunite with our school friends.  All these activities serve as the elixir of youth for our mind and body.  Constant orientation towards youth and health not only delays aging - it can even bring back our youth.

Ancient wisdom contains many adages about staying young and healthy.  I selected the most effective ones hoping that they can serve you well.  Use them to extend your youth, enjoy good health, and delay the old age as much as possible.  Here they are:

1. Love yourself the way you are.
2. Do not envy anybody.
3. If you do not like yourself, make changes in your life.
4. Anger, insults, and criticism of yourself and others are very harmful to your health.
5. If you make a decision, act on it.
6. Joyfully help the poor, ill, and elderly.
7. Never think about diseases, old age, or death.
8. Love is the best remedy against illness and aging.
9. Gluttony, greed, and inability to overcome your weaknesses are your enemies.
10. Worrying causes you to leave this world.
11. Fear and corruption are the worst sins.
12. The best day of your life is today.
13. The best town is where you feel fortunate.
14. The best occupation is the one you enjoy.
15. Losing hope is the worst mistake.
16. The greatest gift you can give or receive is love.
17. Health is your most valuable possession.

Dear readers, I would like you to carefully read the following thought.  Properly understood, it can change your life:

To live long and be healthy, we have to be more joyful in our daily life.  It is not a skill that anybody can teach us.  We have to learn it on our own.

The secrets of wrinkles

Most people look less frequently in the mirror, as they get older.  It is hard to come to terms with the fact that our eyes, once large and beautiful, are now partially covered with swollen eyelids hanging over them and conspicuous rounded bags under the eyes make our face look old and unhappy.

We do not want to age and watch new wrinkles showing up on our body and face with resentment.  Not many of us fully realize that the image in the mirror is a reflection of our lifestyle.  No matter how much we try to cover up our aging with expensive creams and other modern cosmetics, the real condition of our body still becomes apparent.  Wrinkles, skin spots, the brightness of our eyes and the shine of our hair, the condition of our nails, and the way we walk or even write reflect the condition of our internal organs.  For example, people with an ulcerated stomach or duodenum hunch their back, look pale on their face, and have brown shading under the eyes – typical symptoms of anemia.  Another sign of ulceration process in the digestive tract is a white-looking tip of the nose.  A deep vertical wrinkle between eyebrows can be connected with frequent strong headaches and the body’s demand for more fresh air.

Everything that is happening inside our body manifests itself clearly on the outside.  Bags under the eyes can be attributed to something other than aging.

Poorly working kidneys, bladder, or heart causes the bags under the eyes.  Similarly, the bags overhanging our eyelids are not a result of sleepless nights as many people believe – they are obvious signs of circulatory system disorders.  People have always tried to recognize the condition of internal organs (invisible to the eyes) by watching external signs.  The Chinese were first to learn diagnosing diseases based on facial wrinkles.  The masters of Sian Min passed their knowledge only to few selected people.  Perhaps if many people possessed this knowledge, the general level of health would be much better.

Our appearance – The reflection of our health

This segment will help you understand what our tongue, eyes, lips, hair, skin, etc. can tell us about hidden processes happening inside our body.  Even though our body is an integral system where everything is interconnected, it is going to be more convenient here to consider particular parts and how their appearance shows predisposition to certain diseases.

The shape of your head
In many cases, the shape of the head is an indicator of vitality.  People with a flat occiput (back of the head) should take into account the possibility that their health may not be very strong by nature.  They should try to build up their health using a variety of healing methods.  Their most common problems are: constant feeling of weakness, circulatory disorders, migraine headaches, liver pains and digestive tract pains.

Hair
Our hair often determines the way we feel.  When our hair becomes unmanageable, hard to style, greasy, dry, or breakable, it is a sign of something wrong going on inside our body.  Hair problems are usually caused by inefficient filtering function of the liver or a deficiency in macro- and microelements.
I would like to say a few words to those who are balding.  I described in detail the causes of balding and methods of preventing hair loss in my book, “Cure Incurable” (part 1).  The letters I received in response to that book indicate that not everybody is able to use those methods in their struggle with hair loss – they asked me for something simpler and easier.  I have to disappoint them – there is no easy way.  Trying to stop the balding process is a real battle.  If you cannot afford the necessary time and energy, change your attitude and do not worry about your balding – there are millions of people like you all over the world.  Bald with dignity – do not feel embarrassed and do not try to cover your baldness with the last remaining streak of hair that you grow long for this very purpose.  The less attention you pay to your balding the less attention it will draw from other people.  There is another comforting fact – French sociologists found that many women associate baldness in men with a pleasant and friendly personality.  Don’t let your balding bother you too much.  After all, what really matters is inside your head.

Forehead
What matters most in the appearance of our forehead is the wrinkles.  A cross-shaped wrinkle directly above the base of the nose may indicate a serious spine disorder.  Other wrinkles on the forehead signal a tendency to migraine pains caused by degenerated cervical vertebrae.  People with broken wavy wrinkles have a poorly balanced nervous system causing them to be short-tempered, prone to depression and despair.  A cross-pattern of deep and solid wrinkles indicates a strong personality and resistance to diseases.

Eyes
Our eyes are not only a reflection of our physical health; they also indicate certain traits of our character.  They show our vitality as well as wisdom and intelligence.

Green eyes indicate a sensitive and vulnerable personality.  People with green eyes are highly dependable.  They always crave for love and return love with unconditional dedication.

Blue eyes do not suggest a daydreamer or a naïve person.  To the contrary – blue-eyed people have a strong will, clear goals, and persistency in achieving these goals.

Black eyes mean an erotic nature.  Nothing can stand in the way of their desire, especially in romantic matters.

Grey eyes signify an inquiring mind.  Gray-eyed people tend to do well in all areas of life, especially in personal relations.

Light brown eyes indicate a reasonable and pragmatic individual.

Dark brown eyes suggest a sensitive temperament, not being clear about life’s goals or the means to achieve goals.  This often results in moodiness and short temper.

As we know, bags under the eyes result from disorders of our bladder, kidneys, and heart.  If we put our efforts towards cleansing these organs, we will remove the cause for the bags and, with time, the bags will disappear.  It, however, takes some time.  If you would like to get rid of the bags sooner, try using the following methods.

Useful advise:

• Pour half a cup of boiling water over a teaspoon of sage, let it stand for 15 minutes, and strain it.  Divide the liquid in half; put one half in the refrigerator and leave the other half warm.  Soak two cotton pads in the warm brew, lie down comfortably, and put the pads on your lower eyelids for 10 minutes.  Next, do the same using pads soaked in the cold brew.  Use the routine twice before going to bed every other day for a month.  Then make a one-month interval and repeat the therapy.
• Put some chopped up parsley on your lower eyelids and cover with pads soaked in water.  Keep it on for 10 minutes before going to bed at least 15 times a month.
• Grate half a potato; blend with an equal amount of wheat flour and cooled down boiled milk.  Put the mixture over your eyelids for 15 minutes, then rinse it off with warm water (best mineral water), and put on a conditioning cream.

Eyebrows can be an indicator of the body’s hormonal system.

Eyelids can show stress put on the nervous system.  Large eyelids mean normal functioning of the system.  A wrinkle along the eyelid means an imbalance of minerals, sleep deprivation, or excessive strain put on the body.

The nose can give clues about qualities of the mind.  People with noses bent to the right tend to enjoy physical work; a nose bent to the left suggests interests of intellectual nature.

Lips – The upper lip’s shape and color indicate the composition of blood.  Lower lip’s appearance suggests the condition of internal organs in the lower part of the body.

Teeth – Healthy teeth resemble ivory in color (do not confuse with yellowish smokers’ teeth).  Overall health of the body is reflected in an attractive shape and uniform color of the teeth.  Bad teeth mean poor health.  The main cause of teeth decay in our times is consuming cooked and fried foods, products with high sugar content, ice cream, artificial foods, coffee, and sweet beverages.
Improper diet from early childhood leads to a complete deterioration of calcium processing in our body, what is eventually reflected in the condition of our bones and teeth.

Teeth need proper nutrition and cleaning to be healthy.  Food should be chewed slowly.  Hot or cold food is to be avoided.  There should be regular dental check-ups (every six months).

The tongue is the mirror of our body.  Based on the tongue’s appearance, it can be accurately determined whether the person is in good health.  The condition of the tongue can tell us, that a disease is not totally cured even when other symptoms are gone.  Diseases of the digestive organs (stomach, liver, intestines) manifest themselves very clearly on the tongue’s surface.  Most people have a grayish-white lining on their tongue – a sign of digestive disorders.  Improper diet leads to acidity of the blood, which promotes the development of disease-causing parasites (yeast, other fungi, etc.)  Acidity of the blood is the cause of many disorders the digestive tract, heart, liver, and nervous system.  A grayish-white fungal lining on the tongue means an urgent need to change the lifestyle, cleanse the entire body, start combining foods properly, and eat more foods increasing our blood’s alkalinity (fruits and vegetables, freshly squeezed juices).

Our ears reflect our creative abilities.  People with large ears tend to strive for perfection and knowledge.  Small ears mean light-mindedness, limited abilities, and being prone to fatigue.

The chin indicates the strength of character.  A chin shifted back means a weak will, low endurance, and proneness to neurasthenia.

The neck shows the biological age.  A short neck suggests tendency to circulatory disorders and predisposition to strokes.  Short-necked people should keep their body weight down, watch their cholesterol level, and spend more time outdoors.

Long-necked people have a predisposition for angina, bronchitis, and pneumonia.  They should increase their immunity against weather changes, breathe through the nose, and prevent colds.

Shoulders

• The left shoulder sitting higher than the right means a predisposition to rheumatism.
• Pains in the right shoulder blade indicate disorders of the liver and gallbladder.
• Pain in the left shoulder blade can be a sign of stomach ulceration.
• Both shoulders raised suggest a disorder in the functioning of the lungs.
• Both shoulders shifted forward indicate low lung capacity or misalignment of the first spinal segment.
• Both shoulders shifted back signal respiratory disorders (possible asthma).

The skin is the most important breathing organ.  For good health, we should get our skin in contact with air and water as much as possible and also (within reason) expose it to sunlight.

Even though all changes on our skin reflect the condition of our internal organs, we can still use natural cosmetics to improve its looks.  Potatoes, for example, can be very useful.

Useful advice:

If your skin is dry and discolored, try rubbing it with a blend of two tablespoons of freshly squeezed potato juice and a teaspoon of milk.
To remove discolorations and freckles from a greasy skin, rub a blend of one tablespoon of freshly squeezed potato juice and five drops of lemon juice on it. 

Those with visibly expanded capillary vessels can try the following mask: Cut out openings for your eyes, mouth, and nose in a piece of cotton cloth.  Soak the cloth in potato juice and put on your face for 30 minutes.

If you have redness on your face as a result of high secretion in the stomach, drink a glass of freshly squeezed potato juice three times a day after meals. 
People more advanced in years can use a mask from a cooked potato – cook a potato with the peel, crush it and, while it is still warm, put it on your face.  If the skin is withered and dry, add an egg yolk to the potato.  Keep the mask on for 30 minutes.  Then wipe your face with a milk-soaked piece of cloth if you have a dry skin.  For oily skin, use a cloth soaked in warm boiled water.  After that, put a lotion on your face and take a look in the mirror – you are going to look younger.