The Rabbit Hole Of Personal Hygiene
My initial thought was to do a post on Smart Shampooing. My immediate response to myself was that the chemical issue runs so much deeper than just shampoo. I also held back as a part of me thinks this is all common knowledge. The more years I work with clients and students with cancers, auto-immune diseases, skin and respiratory ailments... disease after disease, I speak with them about the products they use. So many people really never thought that their personal care items were an issue: "I don't eat them."
Every day Americans and people all over the world slather lotions, potions, elixirs, cleansers, shampoos, deodorants, anti-perspirants, toothpastes, and on and on all over the outside and inside of their bodies. Few people scrutinize the labels; really scrutinize the labels for what exactly is in these products. They march up and down the grocery, drug, and department store aisles grabbing products off the shelf and tossing carelessly into the shopping cart or basket.
My initial thought was to do a post on Smart Shampooing. My immediate response to myself was that the chemical issue runs so much deeper than just shampoo. I also held back as a part of me thinks this is all common knowledge. The more years I work with clients and students with cancers, auto-immune diseases, skin and respiratory ailments... disease after disease, I speak with them about the products they use. So many people really never thought that their personal care items were an issue: "I don't eat them."
Every day Americans and people all over the world slather lotions, potions, elixirs, cleansers, shampoos, deodorants, anti-perspirants, toothpastes, and on and on all over the outside and inside of their bodies. Few people scrutinize the labels; really scrutinize the labels for what exactly is in these products. They march up and down the grocery, drug, and department store aisles grabbing products off the shelf and tossing carelessly into the shopping cart or basket.
All of these products are loaded with synthetic ingredient that tax the work of your liver's detoxification pathways. Ultimately, these chemicals do not all get detoxed from the body. Over time these chemical ingredients contribute to all manner of ill health symptoms. Toxins in the body are not a positive thing. Think about an over taxed liver, immune system, lymph system, circulatory system, excretory systems... seriously, every cell of your body is affected and burdened with the toxic load. We expect our bodies to function at top notch health but we do not provide top notch food or body care. It is an equation that is not balanced. Eventual breakdown of health is the result.
Think about all of the products you perhaps buy and use:
- hair care: shampoos, conditioners, and various products to hold hair stiffly into place
- facial makeup of every variety for face, eyes, lips, etc.
- toothpaste, mouth wash, teeth whitening products
- menstrual care products: pads, tampons, etc.
- deodorants for feet, armpits, and genital areas
- various over the counter (OTC) medications to slather on fungal, bacterial, or some other microbial issue
- anti-perspirants
- lotions meant to moisturize skin for the long haul
- facial wrinkle erasers, wrinkle prevention
- household cleaners you use on your clothes (fabric softeners and toxic bleaches), dishes, floors, tubs-sinks-toilets, etc. These all come in contact with your skin and respiratory passages and they are then a part of your whole being
- then there is chlorine and flouride in drinking water, bromine is flour products, toxins in OTC and prescription medications altering cellular function.
- hair coloring, hair bleaching, perming & straightening *****(Get ready for Five Elements Living's Organic Beauty Spa. Shelby Connelly, Licensed Acupuncturist, is opening Five Elements Living Retreat and Healing Arts Center in Colton, NY. There will be organic hair and beauty care treatments, coloring, perming, nail care, and products for purchase. Woo-Hoo!)
What IS in these products?
Just as I encourage clients, students, family and friends to not eat anything that is not 100% natural, well, the same goes for personal hygiene. If you are putting a product on or in your body (toothpaste, tampon, hemorrhoid cream, etc.) you are essentially eating it. The product's ingredients end up in your blood and lymph circulation and eventually a part of every body cell.
Read labels on everything you buy, every time you buy the same product. Small companies, with the right attitude about offering whole & natural products, start up companies. The company and its products become very successful (making tons of $$$). This entices major corporations to want this small company for their own bottom lines. The natural minded company gets sold out to a big corporation and the products are changed. Ingredients are swapped out for cheaper versions. The big corporations function in a "cheapest ingredients into the product for the largest profit margin for our wallets" mentality. So this product you have grown to trust suddenly is not the same high quality ingredients.
ADVICE: Read labels on everything you buy, every time you buy it. Accept nothing but high quality whole ingredients in both your food and your personal care products. Nature intended it this way... human corporate greed is the only thing that has changed it. Take care of you. Nature wants you to... you are nature.
Great resource is the Environmental Working Group: http://www.ewg.org/consumer-guides
Even better resource: Your own common sense
Company's Products I trust, like, and use (yes, I read labels every time):
- Aubrey Organics If you live in St. Lawrence County, NY, these products are available through Nature's Storehouse, Canton, NY.
- Just Natural Skin Care
- Morrocco Method Hair Care
- Weleda Also available at Nature's Storehouse, Canton
This is just a few companies I have used and continue to use their products. No, I do not receive kick backs for suggesting these products.
Natural care products, much like real / whole / and organic food, are more expensive. When we feed our bodies real food, we eat less. Our bodies do not cry out for just calories, hunger is about nutrition. When we feed our cells with whole foods, our bodies require less. Real food may cost more but we eat less than when we stuff ourselves over and over with nutritionally depleted factory made foods and our cells continue to cry for nutrition.
When we care for our bodies with natural ingredients, we are not loading our cells with toxic chemicals. The pay-offs are huge and worth the extra expense. Many body care products are easily made, at home by you, with natural ingredients.
How I save money:
- I always order when the company has a promotion: % off or free shipping (or both!)
For example, I use and love Morrocco Method 5 shampoos. The 5 bottle package is $129, which seems pricey as an all at once purchase. The 5 bottles last at least 7 months which would be $18.42 a month BUT I buy when there is a 20% discount and free shipping over $100. My last purchase, under these special terms, was a total of $103.20 costing about $14.74 a month. I can live with this cost. The shampoos are very gentle on my hair requiring absolutely no conditioner. Figure your cost for commercial shampoo and conditioner (and whatever other products get slathered and sprayed onto your hair) every month and I bet the $14.74 is less $$$ out of your pocket.
Read labels. Know what you are putting in and on your beautiful body and into your body cells. Cellular health is the foundation for whole body health.
How Does Your Soul Shine?
Recently my oldest son was watching a show on Netflix when he popped into my room with a "Mom, just heard a quote that was so you." He then spewed out the above John Steinbeck quote to me. I giggled as he's correct, he knows his Mom. I thanked him for the inspiration for my next blog post. And... here we are. The energy is perfect after my last blog post: Which End of the Battery Are You?
We all know on a deep level how we walk in this world: happy or sad. Happiness is a powerful healing force. Happiness works with the flow of life, the flow of nature, and you are nature.
Our thoughts and feelings are powerfully healing or destructive forces; for or against life.
As an RN, working from a space of natural health education with my clients, I always stress that healing is not just a physical event. My home page words: Come Back Into Harmony With Yourself: Body, Mind, & Spirit
Recently my oldest son was watching a show on Netflix when he popped into my room with a "Mom, just heard a quote that was so you." He then spewed out the above John Steinbeck quote to me. I giggled as he's correct, he knows his Mom. I thanked him for the inspiration for my next blog post. And... here we are. The energy is perfect after my last blog post: Which End of the Battery Are You?
We all know on a deep level how we walk in this world: happy or sad. Happiness is a powerful healing force. Happiness works with the flow of life, the flow of nature, and you are nature.
Our thoughts and feelings are powerfully healing or destructive forces; for or against life.
As an RN, working from a space of natural health education with my clients, I always stress that healing is not just a physical event. My home page words: Come Back Into Harmony With Yourself: Body, Mind, & Spirit
I am sharing this you tube video of Gregg Braden as it speaks clearly on the power of thought, feeling, emotions, happiness, compassion... all things good and healing.
This is a 29 minute video.
If you would prefer the 9 minute "What are the effects of positive living and feeling" condensed version of how thoughts, happy souls, can heal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZpRP1FV0lE This is an excerpt from the above 29 minute video.
Enjoy. Be happy. Heal.
No Quick Fixes
The "quick fix miracle" I can offer to you...
Almost daily I receive emails and/or FB messages asking me for quick fixes for all sorts of health symptoms and ills including weight loss products... "Will this really work for me and make me lose the weight?" I have stopped sending answers with suggestions. Truly, for me to even consider responding to these messages is unethical on my part as it does not serve the person's best interests.
Quick fixes do not exist for problems that have settled into our body cells over a lifetime of eating and other less than optimal lifestyle habits. Truly it takes motivation to change and commitment to the process for the "fix" to be had. And... the fix is a lifetime process, a lifetime commitment. When we reach the goal, be it weight loss or the end of some cluster of ill health symptoms, our wellness walk is not over. The walk is a walk of life and for life: a commitment to self to make the best choices every day for cellular health and overall vital wellness.
Now I will tell you this: sometimes there are quick relief strategies for problems and symptoms. What I mean is I can suggest a little tweak here and a little tweak there to give quick relief for some issues while we work to get at the underlying reason these problems exist. Then we can work on changing what needs to be changed to get rid of the problem symptoms forever.
Examples of some quick relief strategies (keep in mind these are not long term solutions but rather a "get me over the hump until we can figure better solutions":
muscle spasms and cramps (especially at night making you shoot up out of bed in crazed agony): take magnesium 400 mg at bedtime and drink more pure water throughout your day.
constipation: again, magnesium (of the citrate variety) will assist here as well as more fruits and veggies, more pure water, move your body daily, and maybe use some herbs for a bit of relief until we can correct the underlying issues.
sleep issues (keep in mind sleep issues can vary from trouble falling asleep, to staying asleep, to experiencing quality sleep): magnesium can help here as well, get off the caffeine and sugar, get outside and move...
Last night I was told the story of a local man who has transformed himself (over 2 years... it is about the long haul and commitment to self). He went from a 340 pound ill health human with serious cardiac issues; severe back, hip, knee, and ankle/feet issues; diabetes; depression with 3 medications; and high cholesterol to a 180 man with no health issues, no medications, and a healthy, fit body free from disease and depression.
What did he do? Changed the way he ate, what he ate, and got his butt to the gym and out for walks every single day. Sunshine. Fresh air. Movement. Real food, nothing processed. No sugar. Inner Conscious Connection work: how he thinks about himself and the world.
Why? Because his body was falling apart from the way he had ill treated it. It was a conscious decision on his part: stay grossly obese and sick or choose health.
He is a happy man for his endeavors and I wish he was my poster child! He did this on his own - Woo Hoo for him!
Lifestyle choices are up to you. I am offering you the opportunity and support to make health and healing choices in your life.
Blessing of good health and happiness on your personal path, Paula
E-Courses To Walk Your Health Path
Your Best Medicine
As an herbalist student of Rosemary Gladstar, I have great respect for her healing ways. This quote could not be nearer or dearer to my heart. Truly, the way we live our lives, every day, IS the best medicine we can give ourselves.
We have a powerful choice, every day, in the food we feed our body, mind, and soul with.
Whole foods feed our bodies; feed our cells for vibrant health and healing.
Whole, positive thoughts (our own and those we invite into our lives) feed our minds for happy living.
Whole, deep spirited energy feed our souls for compassionate living and loving from our hearts.
I hope 2016 is your best medicine year yet!
I am creating learn at home eCourses to better support you with my health & healing work. Learn from home and invite your best medicine into 2016 and your life!
E-Courses To Walk Your Health Path
Join me and bring powerful medicine into your life. We both will be glad you did!
Healthy people make the best communities to live in. Join my quest to support your health and healing and make our communities vibrate and glow with amazing health!
My Healthy New Years Gift to the next 5 people who enroll in: Food As Your Healing Tool: using foods for your healing advantage & decrease disease causing inflammation.
25% discount off the $60 tuition: $45 for the first five "get healthy in 2016" students!
Class release dates on January 6th & 13th, 2016
Immune MishMash in the kitchen
When a touch of the flu hits your home be prepared with some tools to boost the immune system:
- Brothy soups (bone broths are nice)
- Elderberry syrups or tinctures (Check out my elderberry article in the next Potsdam Food Co-op's newsletter, coming soon)
- Flu tonics: (No Time For Getting Sick, everyone around me was sick and needing my care, I had to be the one to stay functioning!)
- Herbal teas: nettle, yarrow, rosemary, peppermint (Instructions for making medicinal infusions, teas, click the herbal teas link
- Hot baths with plenty of water (or the above immune herbal teas) to drink while bathing. Fevers need to be kept hydrated and allowed to do their work. A fever's purpose is to destroy the microbes causing the sickness with their heat. Fevers are part of your immune response for healing infections. If you reduce fevers with medications and cold baths, the heat of fever cannot work for you. Keep the feverish person very well hydrated to avoid the problems of fever that people fear.
- Whole food green drink such as SuperFood Plus
- Foods rich in:
- Vitamin C (lemon water?),
- selenium (brazil nuts anyone),
- zinc (pumpkin seeds?)
I was making a pot of soup, pictured above, to offer something brothy for my sick kid's bodies. The flu hit and one kid had a fever for 11 days. Mom care was required. As I am making the soup, "extended fever boy" is lying on the couch around the corner and says to me:
Jake: "What are you making for dinner Mom?"
Mom: "Soup"
Jake: "Your soup is scary to me. It always contains one or more of the following:
- animal carcasses (bone broths)
- rotting bean matter (miso)
- vegetables that most of the modern world have never heard of!
Mom: "Thanks for the vote of confidence."
Jake: "I don't appreciate finding scary things in my scary soup. The soups usually taste good but what is in it terrifies me. I observe it very carefully before I eat it."
Makes a Mom run to the kitchen to create healthy fare for her loved ones!
The Soup Recipe
- Bring 3-4 cups of water to simmer, slowly, no need to boil. Keep pot covered and on lowest heat.
- Saute' a medium onion chopped into fine slivers. Saute' in butter from pastured animals, animal fat, or coconut oil.
- Grate or finely chop cabbage, about 1 cup.
- Grate a small celeriac.
- Add both to onion saute' and quick stir fry.
- Add above veggie mix to the simmer water and keep heat as low as possible. Do not boil this soup.
- Finely chop kale and saute', about 1 cup.
- Grate a carrot and add to saute'.
- Toss into saute' some frozen red pepper strips that you perhaps froze before growing season ended.
- Stir fry all 3 together and add to veggie soup mix in pot.
- Add a pinch or two of cayenne to soup.
- Peel and press 1-2 cloves of garlic into soup.
- I then added 3-4 tablespoons of South River Miso's Sweet White Miso.
- Last addition was the flu syrup sitting on the counter. It contained raw apple cider vinegar, raw honey, garlic, onion, ginger, and turmeric. There was 2/3 to 3/4 a cup left in the jar. I dumped it all into the soup and stirred it up.
- Soup was finished and ready for serving to my terrified kid.
The only thing else I would have added, had I some bone broth on hand, would be bone broth instead of the water at the beginning. I recommend keeping bone broth made and frozen in wide mouth quart canning jars for flu emergencies.
Happy immune boosting soup making. I hope you efforts are appreciated and not creating a reign of soup terror!
Making Bone Broth: From my educational handout on bones and minerals
Bone broths are made with fish, chicken, turkey, beef, and lamb bones and a tablespoon of vinegar to liberate the minerals. Put bones in a sauce pan, soup pot and cover with water, just enough to cover bones. I squish the bones down into the pot. Add the tablespoon of raw apple cider vinegar and cover the pot. I soak the bones in the vinegar water overnight and slow simmer for hours the next day. I gently bring to a simmer on the stove top. Then I place in a pre-heated 220 F oven and leave for 4-5 hours if chicken bones and longer if harder bones. Remove bones and use as a soup stock for veggie soup or eat the broth as is (add a bit of unrefined sea salt to taste). If making veggie soup, I saute' the veggies before adding to the hot broth to avoid simmering the broth anymore.
Disease... genetics or lifestyle? Am I doomed?
Words I more often hear than not in regards to a person's individual health around:
- heart disease
- cancer
- diabetes
- obesity
- kidney disease
- auto-immune diseases
- basically all dis - ease that can interfere with individual human health...
The words I am speaking of:
"Oh, there is nothing I can do about it. My mother (father, grandparents, etc.) had this disease. It is in my family. 2 of my 4 siblings already have it. It is just a matter of time and I will have it as well..."
Can I please tell you that nothing could be further form the truth? Your body is unique. Sure, you may have inherited genetic tendencies towards certain dis - ease states BUT those genes are not set up to play out. Your lifestyle choices have a huge impact in how your body's genetic code plays out over your life time.
Choosing Healthy Living is the Path to Disease Prevention and a Lifetime of Wellness.
Let's look at cancer as one dis - ease of the body.
- All cancers are the result of multiple gene mutations. The risk of cancer is estimated to be based only 5-10% on inherited genes and 90-95% on lifestyle (unhealthy lifestyle choices can create further gene mutations and also affects the activation of genes - or not). Across all cancers, the risk of the same active cancer dis - ease between all twins was found to be about 10%. Between identical twins and breast cancer the risk was only 20%. Your lifestyle has a huge impact on how your genetic code plays out in your life time. (Genetic cancer risk information from the New England Journal Of Medicine.)
The environmental factors Dr. Craig Venter speaks of are our day in and day out lifestyle choices. You are in control of whether your body becomes diseased or not.
My work in this world (for 3 plus decades now) has been to teach, support, and role model healthy living choices that promote long-term wellness and prevent disease.
To make my life's work more accessible to all I have created online courses to:
- bring easily understandable information to you,
- in the comfort of your home,
- on your time, course work can be listened to and learned whenever & wherever is convenient for you (although I do not recommend late nights, burning the candle at both ends, to view course materials... plenty of sleep, every night, is one of your body's best healing mechanisms, and
- at affordable tuition.
Each mini-course gives you a deep look into the root causes for health problems and the specific lifestyle choices and strategies you can invite into your own life to prevent disease and heal your body from any current ill health challenge, dis - ease.