We look at wellness from a holistic perspective in these areas:
Eat well
It is a strange paradox that Australia is one of the most health-conscious countries in the world, and yet it has some of the most relaxed laws when it comes to chemicals in food and the labeling of food chemicals. Not only are various food additives allowed in Australia that are banned in the European Union, but many potentially harmful additives go unlabeled (see Chemicals to Avoid).
We can eat well by avoiding processed foods as much as possible and using fresh organic produce, thus avoiding the enormous number of pesticides used in modern farming. In Melbourne we can recommend the Organic Angels home delivery service. This is a small, reliable, newly formed company that is dedicated to delivering excellent quality organic produce to your door, on the same day that it was bought from the farmer.
The importance of probiotic bacteria in our guts is now well understood as one of the keys to good health. Taking antibiotics can kills these ‘good’ bacteria, as can food additives, coffee, tea and stress – leading to range of health problems. To replenish these probiotics we recommend In-Liven – a totally natural and organic combination of vitamin and mineral-rich wholefoods and probiotic bacteria.
Some people may also have food intolerances to naturally occuring food chemicals resulting in mood swings, ADHD, irritable bowel or depression. If this is the case then a switch to organic whole-foods may not be enough and it may be necessary to go through a process of finding which food chemicals they are sensitive to. For more information see Sue Dengate’s book Fed Up.
Sometimes one man’s meat is another man’s poison. All members of our family have had Bio-Compatibility testing done by Dennis Hodges, a naturopath in Queensland, who has developed a method of testing the bio-compatibility of foods using hair samples. We are seeing a falling away of various symptoms (Dandruff, eczema, halitosis, irritability, IBS, low energy, mouth-ulcers) and we are so excited about what we are seeing that we have decided to become consultants for this company.
Drink well
Are you drinking enough water? Most of us aren’t. The body’s natural detox organs – the kidneys – can do a pretty good job if there is enough fluid coming into the bloodstream. Drinking water can help with weight loss, raise energy levels and more.
Unfortunately, in well-meaning attempts to get kids to drink, parents often push soft drinks and cordials laden with sugar (or, even worse, aspartame), food colourings, flavourings and preservatives (see Chemicals to avoid). Kids get addicted to the taste and grow up to be equally addicted adults.
The best drink is water, and it helps to drink the best kind of water – water that doesn’t smell of chlorine (or worse), water that has potentially harmful chemicals removed and replaced with beneficial minerals. Mineral water is great if you live next to a spring. Unfortunately when it is put in plastic bottles it absorbs some of the dangerous chemicals from the plastic. We use a Nikken water filter. As far as we’re concerned it’s the next best thing to having your own mineral water spring – and it tastes so much better than tap water. For tips on how to get the water habit (and nine reasons to drink more water) click here.
Feel well
Emotions are chemicals too. We understand more and more that certain things we eat affect our emotions – whether it is the feel-good experience of chocolate, or the depressive effects of alcohol. It is understood that chemical imbalance can lead to emotional imbalance. But it is also true that emotional imbalance can lead to chemical imbalance in the body and at the celular level.
When someone close to us dies we have to go through a mourning process – moving through denial, guilt, anger, depression, resignation and (hopefully) ending up with acceptance. What many people don’t realize is that whenever we have a painful or traumatic experience we need to go through a similar process. Often this is discouraged. Anger and depression are frowned upon. We are told (and tell ourselves) to simply ‘get over it’. However, unprocessed emotions don’t simply go away – they get stored in the body at the cellular chemical level and can resurface manifesting as a range of physical or psychological symptoms, including depression, anxiety, physical pains or even cancer.
Learning to ‘feel well’ means learning to effectively process emotions – and, ultimately, getting to a point of acceptance and forgiveness of the people who have hurt us (including ourselves). Journey therapy is a highly effective way of accessing buried and unprocessed emotions. When these past experiences are faced, when forgiveness is found, physical and psychological symptoms can drop away and people experience a great sense of release, euphoria and well-being. Karen became free of 30 years worth of chronic and often acute pain using Journey processing. (See www.karenlowe.org)
Sleep well
‘One of the most significant and overlooked public health problems…is that many adults are chronically sleep deprived, and most people who are sleep deprived do not even realize it.’ – American Psychological Association.
Sleep is essential to the body’s natural restorative process. It is the time when repair work is done on the physical body and when growth hormones are released. It is also the time where we process mentally the experiences of the day, organizing memories, consolidating learning, building and repairing neural pathways. Lack of sleep affects the immune system and can lead to a range of other symptoms including anxiety, depression, heart disease, memory loss, learning difficulties, obesity and diabetes.
If you are one of the many people who find sleep elusive, then reading the list above will probably only make things worse! All our family use the Nikken Sleep System, a combination of technologies including spinal aligment, temperature regulation, and magnetic fields. We have found our quality of sleep has greatly improved and we awake feeling alert and refreshed. In addition, aches and pains that we thought were just part of the aging process are no longer with us. This sleep system is endorsed by the Australian Chiropractic Association.
Move well
The benefits of exercise are well-known. Less well know is the connection between physical movement and brain development.
The brain develops in layers, which mirror its evolutionary development, beginning with the ‘primitive’ or ‘reptilian’ brain (brain stem and cerebellum), then the limbic system (amygdalla, hypothallamus and hippocampus) and finally the cerebral cortex. Of these, only the cerebral cortex is concerned with ‘higher order’ thinking skills such as reason and speech.
As with physical development, brain function is strengthened through exercise. Common brain-teasers and memory exercises can strengthen the cerebral cortex. But if the foundations (in the primitive and mid-brain) are weak then the cerebral cortex will struggle to compensate. Commonly in infants the primitive and mid-brain are stimulated through touch (skin contact), and various physical movements – particularly crawling.
Some brains need more stimulation than others. In cases where the primitive and mid-brain does not get the stimulation it needs to fully develop, the individual grows up with a neurology that is impaired in some way – possibly leading to things like learning difficulties, emotional immaturity or problems with relating to the outside world. Our family has benefited from neural programs developed by Daya Bhagwandas of Neuro-Network.
Relate well
Humans are social animals, but modern Western society is obsessed with the individual. It is hard to relate well if we just think of ourselves. And if we are not relating well, then it is hard to be well. Each individual is as different as our fingerprints. Often we find our differences hard. Four simple keys to relationships can help us ‘discover the other’ and build better relationships:
- Stepping out of our comfort zone. Engaging with difference can be rewarding. It is how we learn about ourselves.
- Listening. We each have two ears and only one mouth. We could try to listen twice as much as we talk!
- Focusing on what is right instead of arguing about who is right. Taking the ego power games out of discussions.
- Starting with ourselves. We can’t change anyone except ourself, so instead of getting frustrated by blaming the other, we can try asking ourself: ‘Are there things that I have done, or do, which cause a problem in this relationship?’ If we find the answer is ‘yes’ then that is where we start. It is not the whole story and it can be a great place to start.
If there are issues in our relationships with other people, it may be an invitation to do some personal development work. We have found The Journey to be an invaluable tool in this respect.
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