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.

My eCourses I offer to you and your vibrant health are listed here:

http://www.paulayoumellrn.com/online-classes-1/

My wish for you, and why I do my work in this world, is for health that shines from your each & every body cell! Cheers, Paula

Feelin' Stronger Everyday

I love these words as they state such a humble truth. Our physical body is always moving towards health and healing despite the unhealthy and unkind things we do to it. Then one day...

It (meaning health) just all seems to fall apart, crumble at your feet, come cascading down from one ill symptom to the next. Does this sound familiar?

I hear these words often: "When I was 20 I ate whatever I wanted and nothing bothered my stomach or digestive tract. I drank like crazy, did drugs, ate junk food, and was still healthy as a horse." (I am not exactly certain how the horse got involved here!) I take such good care of me now... Why is this happening to me? 

My reply always resembles something like this: When you are young your body cells are in tip top shape. Our habits, good and bad, either build our body cells for better health or wear them down into degenerative cells. This is a slow and insidious process which is exactly why we do not consciously connect it to the "stuff" we did to ourselves in our younger years.  

I wrote about this in: 

• Garbage Disposal Syndrome
• Healing Begins At Home
• and so many other blog posts. I hope I am encouraging you and not sounding like a broken record!   : )

Back to the body knows what to do and the mind getting in the way thing. This is just one issue in the struggle to maintain healthy habits. Our body knows how to heal, knows how to ask for what it needs (fresh, real food), and functions at optimal levels when we care for it. The struggle comes with the mind:

1. wanting what we see advertised by food manufacturers because it is so enticing and the ads mesmerize us;
2. not wanting to work hard to avoid that which we know is not cell enhancing food or lifestyle habits;
3. having addictions to refined sugar, refined sodium, and flavor enhancing chemicals that tantalize our taste buds, release endorphins, and various other interruptions in normal physiological processes; and
4. being disconnected from our mind and spirit. This here my friends is a great space to start working on to get passed the 3 issues above.

I am inviting you to incorporate some mind-body-spirit activities into your life. This will help you bridge the disconnect we have as a culture and bring harmony back to mind, body, and spirit. You will function as a peaceful, whole human being that no longer struggles to avoid the things that you know are not best for your whole body health. Instead, you will feel at ease, comfy, in your own skin making the choices that create vibrant health. All without feeling deprived. (I promise!)

1. Deep breathe (deep belly breathe not that shallow chest stuff most people do),
2. Yoga,
3. Tae Kwon Do,
4. Tai Chi,
5. Qigong,
6. Meditate,
7. Pray,
8. Walk in the woods,
9. Laugh,
10. Have great sex,
11. Nurture your ties with beloved family & friends,
12. Ground yourself everyday,  (grounding exercise at the link back there),
13. AND then you will be....www.Feelin' Stronger Everyday.com, Chicago!

Whole Body Health BEGINS In Your Gut (your digestive tract, gastro-intestinaI Tract)

Discover how to heal your gut health and restore vibrant vitality to your whole being...

How you ask?

By delving into digestive tract health: Healing Your Gut For Lifetime Vitality online eCourse.

1. Click the link: http://www.paulayoumellrn.com/healyourgutecourse/,
2. Check out how this course will help you create vibrant health & vitality,
3. Invest in healing your gut health (your whole body health),
4. Watch the videos, read the PDF, do the gut healing work that I will lay out for you in simple terms and steps, and feel better than you have in years!

AND, you have lifetime access to this information!

De-Mystifying Detox Diets

Information on detox diets, detoxing the body, and all the lingo and hoop-la around this issue tends to be confusing as well as misconstrued; depending on who is sharing the information. But seriously, is that not the case with anything? Everything?

The biggest confusion, in my eyes, lies in the modern medicine vs. traditional - holistic healing's views around detoxing.

Teaching people the power of supporting their body's detox process is teaching them to take their healing into their own hands; creating an independence from the health care industry. Which please, do not be misled. Our country predominantly has a disease care system. It is a system that flourishes if your disease symptoms are only suppressed not healed. This means you are a patient, a customer, in this system for life; dependent on the health care professionals and their prescription drugs.

Understanding detox efforts in healing requires a quick look at human biology. Our bodies are built for detoxing. We are detoxing every minute of every day. Your liver is the main organ of detox; constantly filtering your blood and eliminating the "toxins" via the colon. Your colon, obviously, is an organ of detox as it eliminates solid wastes and the products of metabolic breakdown (liver) from the body. Your kidneys keep themselves busy filtering the blood and eliminating waste products down through the ureters, into your bladder, and out through the urethra.

Your lungs eliminate waste, toxins, through your breath. Your skin eliminates waste through the process of sweating. Your lymphatic system moves fluids around your body and helps to eliminate waste, toxins, as well.

Gratefully borrowed from: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/273241902367567074/

So what does "detox dieting" do for all these bodily processes?

The medical profession, our health care system, debunks detox diets from many angles and for many reasons. For example: Detox is a term used by medical personnel to label the process of cleansing drugs or alcohol from a person's system that has been imbibing in excess and/or for long periods of time. For western medicine trained professional to think about detox in different terms means stepping into a realm they were not trained in, natural healing, and thinking from a space that most western medical training scoffs at and actually teaches practitioners is quackery. This is not the important thing here; so let us not focus on it any longer. (For a little history lesson, scroll down to "suppression and decline:" http://www.mygenerationsclinic.com/about-naturopathic-medicine.htm. Another history lesson: http://www.healingmountainpublishing.com/articles/NPmedicine.html )

Instead, lets us focus on what natural, holistic detox is! It is simply assisting and supporting your body in what it does every minute of everyday: detoxes itself and heals itself. When a natural healer (Naturopathic Physician, Herbalist, Holistic Nutrition Professional, etc.) prescribes a detox plan, the detox foods and herbs are simply to nourish and support the organs that do the detox work in the body. 

The misconception lies in that people think these herbs and foods are doing something detox special... like scrubbing dirt from the body. These foods and herbs are not a dust buster, vacuum cleaner, or scrubbing bubbles of any type. They are simply foods (herbs are whole foods too!) that are high in nutrients that build cellular health and support healthy body organs. If your body organs are well nourished from whole food eating; they do their jobs better. This is truly simple nutritional physiology. The body is beautiful; poetry in motion in every way.

Now, I will admit, any opportunity some people and corporations have to market and profit from an idea, they will. If there are profits to be made, someone(s) will create scams to go along with it. This happens with everything around health. Let me give you several examples of the recent over marketing of reasonably healthy concepts but the concepts get taken to an extreme or used out of context for someone's profit:

• kale being made into every marketable food possible. I am not against kale chips but seriously... they are now the national health food?
• coconut in everything... we need to eat it, drink it in milk and water form, slather it on our bodies, etc.
• blueberries as the amazing superfood... do NOT go a day without eating them or your health will be in jeopardy.
• quinoa... we just cannot survive, nutritionally speaking without it. What did we do for 100s of years without this powerhouse of food from the Andes Mountains?
• any food, spice, or herb that is shown to up the metabolic rate and it is quickly slapped into capsule forms and sold as the latest "get skinny quickly" scheme.

My point? Plenty of health claims out there for all sorts of supposed healing products.

The wise thing to do is use your common sense in these situations. Products, especially expensive and exclusive products, are not needed!

Human beings have been supporting and assisting their organs of detox from time beginning. The natural cycles of life support this detox action: wild leeks and dandelion greens in the spring open our winter congested digestive tract and get things moving. The liver is stimulated more than it has been all winter, from these traditional spring foods, and aids in moving shit out of the body, literally and figuratively! Traditionally what did people do in the spring? Why they reveled in the wild leeks and dandelion greens, waiting anxiously and happily for their arrival in the spring. Time to dig wild leeks, time to gather dandelion greens and guess what... you are naturally, with the cycles of life, supporting your organs of detox.

Next in the seasonal flow of plants comes stinging nettles; another fine green plant that supports the body's natural detox systems and contributes amazing nutritional support to each and every body cell.

We can follow the seasonal appearance and growth of plants all growing season to discover the very plants people have traditionally used for supporting their organs of detox. In the winter, non-growing seasons, people prepared for this. Roots, barks, leaves, and berries of medicinal plants were gathered and dried for the long winter months. These foods were used when needed to support detox: when ill health symptoms arise or true microbial sicknesses.

Have you ever been constipated for 3 or 4 days in a row? How about a week or more? Remember how you felt? The colon is an organ of detox. Supporting detox (in just one example) is supporting colon health. Who wouldn't want this? Sure beats chronic constipation and the yucky, whole body feelings of ill health that result. Use this "constipated" thought process for all your pathways of detox: sweating, urinating, exhaling respiratory waste, lymphatic movement, and bile production and release into the small intestine. All of these detox mechanisms work more smoothly and efficiently when we support whole body detox.

Detox is not a hoax. Your body is doing it in every second of your life! How it is presented, promoted, and sold for profit may be what can get a bit shaky. Your body has always detoxed and will continue to do so until your life force energy is finished in your physical body. That is life and death here on this planet.

I am, right now whipping up a pot of nettle, peppermint, and rosemary tea. All of these herbs support circulation, cell nourishment, and ultimately detoxification. Simple 'lil pot 'O tea!  

Cream of Spinach Soup:

This was an easy pot of soup to whip up last eve. Then I let it sit in the refrigerator for the next day's dinner; all the flavors meld together better this way.  All veggies came from the Kent Family Farm and the milk is from local, loved, and well cared for goats.

1. Saute' a medium purple onion.
2. Add a medium potato and carrot or two to this saute'. Cook them just long enough to slightly soften but still have some crispness. They will cook a bit more when you re-heat the soup the next day so you do not want to create mushy veggies.
3. Clean up spinach and steam in a tiny bit of water. I had about a pound of fresh, local spinach  and it only takes a few minutes to steam it gently.
4. Put spinach and 2 1/2 to 3 cups milk into your blender.
5. Add a clove or two of garlic.
6. Blend well and pour back into the steam pot. Add the saute' veggies.
7. Add any herbs you like the taste of (rosemary, parsley, oregano, basil, thyme, curry mix, etc.) or not!
8. Voila' a pot of soup that is loaded with whole foods for detoxing!

A 100% whole food diet IS a detox diet.

You are always supporting your organs of detox, your each and every body cell, when you eat 100% nourishing whole foods. 

It really is that easy!  

BUT...If you have lived less than a whole food diet...   

Join me for my Liver-Colon Detox Nourishment online class 

    We start our liver healing journey with all new class materials June 1st, 2016. 

Class materials are yours for life.

REGISTER HERE: 

Healing Begins At Home

We are all healers. Healing energy is a natural part of every one of us. Cut your finger; it heals without intervention. Healing is biologically innate in living beings.

Some people are deeply in tune with this healing energy and can act to support others on their healing journey. 

When I say healing begins at home, this statement is something I mean from two perspectives. The perspective show cased above; that the body is a healing organism. Healing just happens in your body, your physical home. Also, healing begins in your home; the structure, building, your physical body dwells in. The space where your habits were born and continue to be nurtured in.

We are 100% capable of organizing our lives to create healing. The choices we make in our lives: what we eat and how we interact in the world all start at home. We learned our lifestyle habits from watching, interacting with, and repeating the lifestyle habits we observed family members engaging in . We can alter our lifestyle habits depending on the healing capacity of the way we live our daily lives. Is this habit best for my wellness?

Most people, when asked and given time to contemplate the question, can tell you exactly why they have the disease symptoms they have. Some people can get to the heart of the matter faster and more efficiently than others; they can tell you the emotional, spiritual, and the physical reasons they are wrestling with ill health and disease.

Bringing this question to people's awareness is the beginning of healing. When we can shine the light on why the disease symptoms are present in our physical health, we can start to address the underlying issues and set the healing energy back into action. 

Find a quiet spot. Sit. Ground yourself. Breathe deeply, focusing on the breath for several minutes. Ask yourself: "why do I have these ill-health symptoms." Continue to breathe deeply for several more minutes. Allow the answer to arise; maybe right now, maybe tomorrow or next week.

My 2015 healing wish for you: Discovery of personal blocks to healing and putting healing action to work in your life.

Namaste.

Kissing Low Back Pain Goodbye

Movement is essential to treat, heal, and prevent low back pain. I want to introduce you to my friend, Lisa Huck. Lisa is a Functional Movement Fitness expert, she lives in LA, California. Lisa's YouTube video explains the anatomy of the low back and essential information about movement and low back pain. 

Here is an article from Mercola.com that talks about back pain, movement, and exercise: http://fitness.mercola.com/sites/fitness/archive/2014/01/31/back-pain-exercise.aspx. If the article seems blank, be not fooled, scroll down and it is there! It is the 2nd video in the article.  Lisa huck is a gifted functional movement exercise therapist in California.

This is the above mentioned video. The first 14 minutes gives amazing anatomy & physiology healthy and pained back issues. Go directly to minute #14 and you will see the simple, easy to do, and takes maybe 4 minutes low back relief exercises. They work!

Posture: 

Good posture is essential for ridding and preventing back pain. Most people's body alignment, posture, is way off course. Pay attention when you sit and stand. Does your body feel comfortable, natural, bones stacked above bones where they are meant to be.

Some of you may be saying, "What? How am I supposed to know where my bones are supposed to be stacked? I am not an anatomy expert." 

To which I will reply, "All wisdom about your body is inherent within you. We have ignored this wisdom for so long that we no longer can find the information, readily, in our heads. We need to look deep into our heart and spirit and the information is there."

Call it up - this wisdom, bring it back into your life. It will help you to heal in so many ways.

When you sit:

• Lift your hips up slightly so that your hips are higher than your thighs. This will create a downward slant to your thighs (if you put a wooden dowel on your thighs it would slowly roll down your thighs and off your knees).

• Chin up

• Lift you heart towards the sky. This simple positional change will pull up your whole body carriage (your skeletal structure) into proper alignment.

Check out the seat in your car. Does the back of the seat (where your butt sits) incline or decline? 99% (my guestimate) of car seats have a decline here. Your butt sinks down in and makes the slant of your thighs run opposite to proper posture alignment. 

Easy fix here: put a towel roll in this dent in the seat space so your butt is lifted up higher than your thighs. This single action, on your part, will do wonders for your back on the daily drives. 

Spend much time sitting at work? Lift your butt up on this chair as well. (Get up and move every 30 minutes or so. Moving the body helps prevent back pain from sitting, sitting, sitting all day.)

Standing:

• Again, lift your chin and lift your heart towards the sky. Feel how your whole spinal column moves into correct alignment, how your whole skeletal alignment changes for the better? 

• Heels: your heels function best when just slightly lower than the rest of your feet. (Yes, ladies who wear high heels, this does not bode well for the fashion statement!) This is why Anne Kalsø designed the Kalso Earth shoe:

                        Anne Kalsø 's passion for yoga led her to study in Switzerland and eventually in                                  Santos, Brazil. It was there, in 1957, that she observed the excellent posture of                                    indigenous Brazilians, and the impressions left by their bare footprints as they walked                          through beach sand. She observed that the footprints laid were deeper in the heels                             than in the toes. This natural body position resonated with the thoughtful Kalsø. It                                 echoed a formative yoga pose she knew well – Tadasana (the 'Mountain' pose). 
                      As she herself emulated the pose of the native Brazilians, she noticed how her own                             posture improved, and how her breathing passages opened. She was inspired.

                                   From: http://www.earthbrands.com/kalsoearthshoe/kalso-the-kalso-story

Lifestyle:  This is where I say what I always say. No, do not click the x and close me out... listen people, I am trying to help, support, and love you!    : )

Your lifestyle is not independent of your aches and pains, health challenges, disease symptoms, and illnesses. If your body is not nourished well with whole foods, your cellular health suffers, you will feel pain eventually from weakened body systems. A wellness lifestyle makes all the difference!

Making changes in your life, choosing whole health lifestyle choices, heals the body. Check out the free health info pages on my web site. http://www.paulayoumellrn.com/free-health-info/

• Whole Health Lifestyle Choices

• Whole Food Eating

• Movement Magic

Get moving & eating whole foods, get rid of back pain!  Tell me your back pain healing story in the comments section. Do you use chiropractic care? Acupuncture? Massage?

Bye Bye Back Pain (cont.): this is the next part of Kissing Back Pain Goodbye

PS  Check out my YouTube video on defining holistic health & healing.