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At this site:

Dr Susan Jones
tells us how to:

Experience Health Bliss

Choose A Balanced, StressLess Lifestyle

Simplify Your Life: Embrace Silence and Solitude

Choose To Be Healthy and Celebrate Life

Also on this site Dr Sandra Cabot tells us about:

The Immune System - Your Greatest Health Asset

Fatty Liver - A Common Cause of Weight Excess

For Women -
50 is the New 30!


Dr Eve Wood:

25 Suggestions for Creating the Life You Really Want

What is a Healthy Relationship

About Anxiety

How to Make Life Choices That Fit Our Nature


Dr Christiane Northrup looks at:     Coming of Age: Emotions in Adolescence

Nutrition: Losing
Weight at Midlife


Jane Furnival tells us:

How a Woman Can Achieve
Financial Wellbeing

Other topics include:

Work at Home Tips

Top Time Tips to Help You Live a Less Complex Life

Top Ten Tips for Working Flexibly

Women's Health - Women's Wealth

Nine Steps to Workplace Flexibility

See the Health and Work pages for more tips and articles.

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free updates of our exciting tips from the experts!

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Articles on health, nutrition, fitness, weight loss, relationships and wellbeing

Eat Your Way to Rejuvenation & Vibrancy
by Dr Susan Smith Jones author of 27 books on health and fitness. She taught health and fitness at UCLA for 30 years and travels internationally as a motivational speaker and holistic health consultant.

Simply Your Life: Embrace Silence & Solitude
by Dr Susan Smith Jones.

25 Suggestions for Creating the Life You Really Want by Dr Eve Wood who is a medical doctor, psychiatrist, speaker, professor, author, radio host, columnist and mother of four children.

Four Keys to Permanent Weight Loss by Rena Greenberg who is the author of "The Right Weigh: Six Steps to Permanent Weight Loss" used by over 100,000 people and "The Craving Cure: Break the Hold Carbs and Sweets Have on Your Life". Rena’s program been featured in over 35 television stories.

Coming of Age: Emotions in Adolescence by Dr Christiane Northrup, M.D. who is an authority in the field of women's health and the author of two New York Times best-selling books.

What is a healthy relationship by Dr Eve A. Wood 

Experience health bliss by Dr Susan Smith Jones.

The immune system – your greatest health asset by Dr Sandra Cabot who is a Medical Practitioner and author of many ground breaking books, including "The Liver Cleansing Diet".

Nutrition: Losing Weight at Midlife by Dr Christiane Northrup.

About Anxiety by Dr Eve A Wood.

For women - 50 is the new 30! by Dr Sandra Cabot.

Choose to be healthy and celebrate life by Dr Susan Smith Jones.

Fatty liver – a common cause of weight excess by Dr Sandra Cabot.

Is Inflammation Getting the Best of You? Interview with Susan Smith Jones, PhD ©

 

  Eat Your Way to Rejuvenation & Vibrancy
By Dr Susan Smith Jones

Get your diet and lifestyle off to a fresh start with these 14 age-defying, heart-strengthening, cancer-busting, digestion-enhancing, pain-prevention, energy-boosting and body-slimming Superfoods. Each one is easy to find in your supermarket or natural food store.

 

You can live your healthiest life now if you follow these recommendations by world-renowned health and fitness expert, Susan Smith Jones, PhD.

All foods are not equal. Some are full of calories and void of nutrition, while others are low on calories and so packed with nutrition that they earn the title of “superfood." There’s a difference between food volume and nutritional potency. Simply put, you don’t need a lot of food to get lots of nutrition. For example, blueberries are often considered a super food because they contain significant amounts of antioxidants, anthocyanins, vitamin C, manganese, and dietary fiber with relatively few calories. Super foods are the best whole foods out there, but not one is a magic bullet; make sure you include many different super foods to help maintain optimal health.

 

1. Dried Plum – Prune

You can fight father time with this humble dried fruit. With a new name and a new image, the dried plum — you may know it as a prune — is now proven to fight the diseases of aging, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, arthritis, osteoporosis, cancer, and yes, constipation. Tufts University researchers have discovered this wrinkled wonder to contain more than twice as many antioxidants as the next highest food—the raisin. Oklahoma State scientists found in a study that this fruit actually helped restore bone density after losses has occurred! Plus, it has the same cancer-fighting component as apples, grapefruit and oranges.

 

2. Cherries

Here’s a delicious, vitamin-packed fruit that relieves arthritis pain. That’s right. Cherries have been proven to work as well or better than aspirin and ibuprofen. Long a folk remedy for gout, cherries have scientific proof in their pain-prevention powers. Researchers at Michigan State University found that a substance in cherries stops the production of the chemicals that cause inflammation and pain. The scientists say cherries relieve arthritis pain as well as or better than over-the-counter drugs! A bowl of 20 cherries a day during a bout with gout is enough to neutralize the aches and swelling, with no stomach upset or other side effects. Eat them fresh, dried or even frozen as a scrumptious addition to your smoothies.

3. Parsnips

Parsnips could be nicknamed the “beauty food” because of the way their nutritional components help strengthen hair and nails and improve skin quality. People who suffer from acne or skin disorders will appreciate the skin-flattering benefits of their unique balance of potassium, phosphorus and vitamin C.

 

4. Avocados

Avocados have more protein than any other fruit. Sometimes known as “nature’s butter,” they have only about a quarter of the fat calories contained in the same weight of dairy butter. Ounce for ounce, they also provide more heart-healthy monounsaturated fat, vitamin E, folate, potassium and fiber than other fruits. You can mash avocado on whole grain bread, into baked potatoes and even use it as a hydrating mask. They also exceed other fruits as a source of the powerful antioxidant lutein, which appears to protect arteries from hardening and the eyes from cataracts and macular degeneration.

 

5. Pomegranates

This dark red fruit is hot news these days — especially as a juice. Pomegranates are packed full of disease-fighting antioxidants. Some studies suggest that they offer almost three times more than established antioxidant sources such as green tea, red wine, blueberry juice and cranberry juice. They also contain potassium, fiber, vitamin c and niacin, all of which contribute to increased energy and good health, and have been shown to reduce plaque build-up in arteries by up to 44 percent.

 

6. Bananas

Monkeys may be wiser than we think — their favorite food is among the most nutritious of tropical fruits. Fiber from green, unripe bananas reduces bad cholesterol and increases the good by as much as 30 percent, while a ripe banana is one of the best ways to soothe an upset stomach. Bananas are a wonderful source of energy, can relieve heartburn and will also help decrease the risk of stroke. And with the possible exception of strawberries, no other fresh fruit is higher in minerals.

 

7. Broccoli

Broccoli has almost twice as much protein as steak — 11.2 g per 100 calories compared with only 5.4 g. (Most of the calories in meat come from fat, but the calories in green veggies come from protein.) Broccoli is one of nature’s most potent Superfoods. It has been proved effective against cancer, heart disease and a host of other serious conditions. Its powerful sulforaphane content delivers a double punch to cancer-causing chemicals — destroying any carcinogenic compounds that you have ingested, then creating enzymes that eat up any carcinogens left over from that reaction — and it also contains indole-3-carbinol, which helps your body to metabolize estrogen, potentially warding off breast cancer.

 

8. Apples

Eating an apple a day could very well keep the cardiologist away. Current studies suggest that eating apples regularly reduces the risk of stroke and your chances of dying from a heart attack. They lower cholesterol and also appear to decrease the risk of lung cancer. Having tummy troubles? The power to fix both diarrhea and constipation fits in the palm of your hand with the apple. Eating them whole, with the skin on, provides the highest level of nutritional value.

 

9. Parsley

This common herb is a powerhouse of the nutrients that rejuvenate and detoxify. Include it when you make fresh juice. Nibble a few leaves when you want your breath to be sweeter. Chop it into salads, soups, sandwiches and pasta dishes. Parsley is also a stress-buster, and studies have shown it to be effective in reducing depression, lowering cholesterol and strengthening kidneys. Many herbalists recommend parsley to relieve the symptoms of rheumatism and PMS.

 

10. Cinnamon

This ancient spice (obtained from the bark of Asian evergreens) and highly versatile flavoring helps to relieve bloating and stabilize blood sugar. Cinnamon contains methylhydroxy chalcone polymer (MHCP), which speeds up the processing of sugar in your body. So putting cinnamon sticks in your tea or water, or sprinkling just a tiny amount on desserts, fruits, cereal and into smoothies, will make your insulin release much more efficient, which may slow aging and help ward off diabetes and obesity.

 

11. Oats

Inexpensive, readily available and incredibly easy to incorporate into your life, oats (also known as porridge) contain twice as much protein as brown rice and are an excellent source of complex carbohydrates to maintain your energy levels through the day. They improve your resistance to stress, help to regulate the thyroid, soothe the nervous and digestive systems, reduce cigarette cravings and stabilize blood sugar levels.

 

12. Garlic

Herbalists have used garlic to treat all sorts of diseases for thousands of years. As well as being scrumptious, it’s a rich source of the sulphur compounds that keep your body chemistry in balance — fighting infections, slowing down the production of cholesterol and lowering blood pressure. There is even evidence that garlic helps to fight cancer and improves the action of the liver and the gall bladder. Add garlic to your cooking and salad dressings, or roast unpeeled cloves for 40-45 minutes, then peel and mash them into purées and sauces.

 

13. Tomatoes

This beautiful low-calorie fruit is jam-packed with nutrients and phytochemicals, which boost the body’s immune defenses. Whether in soups, sauces or salads, tomatoes are rich in vitamins C and B and also contain lots of lycopene, which appears to act as a protective factor against cancer (and may also benefit the heart). Cooked tomatoes contain more lycopene than raw, and most of the nutritional value is contained in the skin, so, ounce for ounce, cherry tomatoes are more nutritious than large ones.

 

14. Almonds

Two ounces of almonds give you more than 50 percent of your daily magnesium requirement—a mineral that’s important fro heart health. Eating almonds every day for at least a month has been shown to reduce cholesterol and lower other risk factors for heart disease. A study also suggests that they may reduce the risk of colon cancer. Eat them out of hand, sprinkle them in salads or grind into pastry. Almond butter is also a great alternative to peanut butter and is delicious spread in celery sticks and apple slices or made into a salad dressing (refer to Susan’s full-color book Recipes for Health Bliss over 250 delicious recipes).

GIFT: PURCHASE ANY 3 OF DR SMITH JONES' BOOKS AVAILABLE ON THIS SITE AND RECEIVE HER E-BOOK: "Renew Your Life: Create an Abundantly Healthy, Empowered & Inspired Life" FREE   
   

 

   Happy, Healty and Radiant...at Any Age
For over three decades, Dr Susan Smith Jones has been one of the world’s leading experts in high-level wellness and personal growth.Through this just-released E-Book, you have your own personal holistic lifestyle coach in Susan. You have all of her tools and sage advice to take your life from ordinary to extraordinary. She has put decades of invaluable information and research into this reader-friendly, beautifully designed book. Working on all levels -- physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual -- Susan teaches you how to incorporate all of her gold-star secrets to being vibrantly healthy and outstandingly successful.

So if you feel stuck in your life or like you’re in a “spin-cycle” lifestyle; if you feel
that you’ve lost some of your joy in living; if you want to learn how to celebrate yourself
and life and live with gusto; if your want to experience a level of self-esteem you only dreamed of; if you want to shed some pounds, glow with health, disease-proof your body, or perhaps receive some gentle, loving, efficacious guidance to live in a more meaningful way… then Healthy, Happy & Radiant . . . at Any Age is a must have!
Cost of this outstanding 53 page e-book $14.95 Click on the "Add to cart" button below.

GIFT: PURCHASE ANY 3 OF DR SMITH JONES' BOOKS AVAILABLE ON THIS SITE AND RECEIVE HER E-BOOK: "Renew Your Life: Create an Abundantly Healthy, Empowered & Inspired Life" FREE

In the Curative Kitchen E-Book, holistic health and culinary expert, Dr. Susan Smith Jones, has created an easy-to-follow nutritional program just for you!

A comprehensive food and nutrition resource and step-by-step healthy eating guide, The Curative Kitchen: Gratify Your Taste Buds & Revitalize Your Body with Superior SuperFoods, Herbs, Spices & Natural Remedies, shows us that vibrant health starts in the kitchen by choosing the most essential healing foods.

Many of us make the wrong choices every day by foods that were never intended for our miraculous bodies. Susan shows us how to make the appropriate food and other lifestyle choices to reduce our risks of premature aging, heart disease, common forms of cancer, arthritis, diabetes, and reduced vision and mental functions … and lose body fat at the same time.

If you wish to . . .
- Learn which foods will reverse aging and maximize your energy;
- Use colorful foods, herbs and spices as medicine and natural remedies
- Quell stress, soothe indigestion and assuage other common complaints
- Reinvigorate your body’s immune system and create vibrant health . . . then The Curative Kitchen is for you!
 
Cost of this outstanding 97 page e-book $19.95  

GIFT: PURCHASE ANY 3 OF DR SMITH JONES' BOOKS AVAILABLE ON THIS SITE AND RECEIVE HER E-BOOK: "Renew Your Life: Create an Abundantly Healthy, Empowered & Inspired Life" FREE

In Living on the Lighter Side, holistic health and fitness expert, Dr. Susan Smith Jones, has created a total body/mind, easy-to-follow, reader-friendly weight loss program just for you!

A comprehensive healthy eating and living resource and step-by-step slim-down guide, Living on the Lighter Side: Dr. Susan's Premier Secrets to Accelerate Fat Loss, Supercharge Your Energy & Rejuvenate Body & Mind is sure to appeal to anyone who is serious about shedding extra pounds, firming up, and taking years off both their looks and their outlook.

As a personal growth coach and motivator extraordinaire,
Susan has made outstanding contributions in the fields of anti-aging and longevity, optimum wellness, natural remedies, and human potential. This definitive, concise volume is the culmination of more than 30 years of teaching at UCLA, ongoing research, and personal experience working with thousands of clients worldwide.

If you wish to . . .
* Lose 20 to 30 pounds in 3 months by eating more, not less;
* Jump-start your metabolism;
* Increase your stamina and energy;
* Know which exercises help to reshape your body the best;
* Understand the role of sleep to a fit, lean physique;
* Learn the the must-have secret weapons to success;
* Incorporate calorie density and grazing for the best effect;
* Enjoy the best snacks for maximum results;
* Accelerate fat burning and tone up your body;
* Reignite self-esteem, confidence, and a positive body image;
then Living on the Lighter Side was written just for you!

Cost of this outstanding 59 page e-book $19.95    

GIFT: PURCHASE ANY 3 OF DR SMITH JONES' BOOKS AVAILABLE ON THIS SITE AND RECEIVE HER E-BOOK: "Renew Your Life: Create an Abundantly Healthy, Empowered & Inspired Life" FREE

"SIMPLIFY • DETOXIFY • MEDITATE: Secrets to Making an Ordinary Life Extraordinary is your gateway to vibrant health, youthful vitality, and a peaceful, joy-filled life. Purchase this outstanding e-book and receive "Renew Your Life" also by Dr Jones for free!

Anyone searching for guidance on how to minimize stress, accelerate fat loss, ramp up energy, and bring your goals and dreams to fruition, will be truly inspired by this e-book.

If you are searching for an antidote to stress, fatigue, and an unhappy life,
SIMPLIFY • DETOXIFY • MEDITATE is perfect for you. Your quest for guidance on
how to live an inspiring life and create success, happiness, and peace is over.

All that you are looking for can and will be found in these pages. Dr. Susan’s powerful words will take you deep into the intricacies of why so many people self-sabotage their goals and dreams. You’ll find that there is a way to live and create an empowered self. If you want to create optimal health—physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually—then you have found the perfect match for a balanced life. This book’s
timeless content is essential reading for everyone worldwide."
Nick Lawrence, Radio/TV Talk Show Host

"Wherever you are on your path to health, the vast array of knowledge that you find here will improve your life in all areas if you will simply apply it. This book is filled with pearls of inspiration that you won’t find anywhere else. It will help you dispel confusion and answer questions that you might have about how to eat the foods necessary to create the vibrant health you so deserve. It will reveal Dr. Susan’s secrets to finding the internal power to break free from old habits, look and feel younger, boost the metabolism so weight loss comes easily, strengthen your immunity, and diseaseproof your life. You will learn to create high self-esteem, strengthen your intuition, and bring
your highest dreams and goals to fruition."
Ellen Tart-Jensen, Ph.D., D.Sc., Author of Health is Your Birthright.

Cost of this outstanding 80 page e-book $19.95    

 

  "RENEW YOUR LIFE: CREATE AN ABUNDANTLY HEALTHY, EMPOWERED & INSPIRED LIFE is your gateway to vibrant health, youthful vitality, and a peaceful, joy-filled life. You will learn how to use meditation, intuition, visualization, affirmations and deep breathing to enhance your health. Anyone searching for guidance on how to minimize stress, accelerate fat loss, ramp up energy, and bring
your goals and dreams to fruition,will be truly inspired by this e-book."

"If you are searching for an antidote to stress, fatigue, and an unhappy life, RENEW YOUR LIFE is perfect for you. Your quest for guidance on how to live an inspiring life and create success, happiness, and peace is over. All that you are looking for can and will be found in these pages."

"Dr. Susan’s powerful words will take you deep into the intricacies of why so many people self-sabotage their goals and dreams. You’ll find that there is a way to live and create an empowered self. If you want to create optimal health—physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually—then you have found the perfect match for a balanced life. This book’s timeless content is essential reading for everyone worldwide." Nick Lawrence, Radio/TV Talk Show Host

GIFT: PURCHASE ANY 3 OF DR SMITH JONES' BOOKS AND RECEIVE HER E-BOOK:
"Renew Your Life: Create an Abundantly Healthy, Empowered & Inspired Life" for FREE

 SIMPLIFY YOUR LIFE:
Embrace Silence & Solitude
By Dr Susan Smith Jones

“Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself and know that everything in this life has a purpose.”

“I love to be alone. I never found a companion so companionable as solitude.” Henry David Thoreau

Few would dispute that regular exercise and a wholesome natural foods diet are essential ingredients for being radiantly healthy and living a balanced, vibrant life. But I believe there are other equally important elements that are often overlooked. In the pursuit of our physical goals such as a strong, fit, well-toned, healthy body, we often neglect the importance of nurturing the emotional and spiritual sides of our being from which true happiness, peace, and fulfillment emanate. To nurture your emotional and spiritual side, two processes are tops on my list—solitude and silence, and, along with simplification, three of my most favorite health-promoting topics ever.

It was Paramahansa Yogananda who said: “We should not allow noise and sensory activities to tear down the ladder of our inner attention, because we are listening for the footsteps of God to come into our body temple.” I love that thought. Noise certainly seems to be part of our everyday lives—from the alarm clock in the morning to the traffic outside and the never-ending sounds of voices, radio, and television. Our bodies and minds appear to acclimate to these outside intrusions. Or do they?

Two decades ago, the Committee on Environmental Quality of the Federal Council for Science and Technology found that “growing numbers of researchers fear the dangerous and hazardous effects of intense noise on human health are seriously underestimated.” Similarly, the late U.S. Vice President Nelson Rockefeller noted that when people are fully aware of the damage that noise can inflict on man, “peace and quiet will surely rank along with clean skies and pure waters as top priorities for our generation.”

More recent studies, writes Michael D. Seidman, M.D., in his terrific book, Save Your Hearing Now, suggest that we pay a price for adapting to noise: higher blood pressure, heart rate, and adrenaline secretion; heightened aggression; impaired resistance to disease; and a sense of helplessness. Studies indicate that when we can control noise, its effects are much less damaging.

Sounds of Silence
While I haven’t been able to find any studies on the effects of quiet in repairing the stress of noise, I know intuitively that most of us love quiet and need it desperately. We are so used to noise in our lives that silence can sometimes feel awkward and unsettling. On vacation, for instance, when quiet prevails, we may have trouble sleeping. But choosing times of silence can enrich the quality of our lives tremendously. If you find yourself overworked, stressed-out, irritated, or tense, rather than heading for a coffee or snack break, maybe all you need is a silence break.

Everyone at some time has experienced the feeling of being overwhelmed by life. Everyone, too, has felt the need to escape, to find a quiet, secluded place to experience the peace of spirit, and to be alone with quiet thoughts. Creating times of silence in your life takes commitment and discipline. Most of the time, periods of silence must be scheduled into your day’s activities or you’ll never have any.

Maybe you can carve out times of silence while at home where you can be without radio, television, telephones, or voices. If you live in a home with other family members, the best quiet time for you may be early in the morning before the others arise. In that silence, you can become more aware, more sensitive to your surroundings, and more in touch with the wholeness of life.

Solitude
From quiet time or silence, you recognize the importance of solitude. Silence and solitude go hand in hand. In silence and solitude, you reconnect with your self. Solitude helps to clear your channels, fosters peace, and brings spiritual lucidity. When you retreat from the outside world to go within, you can be at the very center of your being and reacquaint yourself with your spiritual nature—the essence of your being and all life.

Outside noise tends to drown out the inner life—the music of the soul. Only in silence and solitude can we go within and nurture our spiritual lives. Within each of us there is a silence waiting to be embraced. It’s the harbor of the heart. When you rediscover that harbor, your life will never be the same. In the Bible we read, “There is silence in heaven” (Revelations 8:1) and “For God alone my soul waits in silence” (Psalms 62:1).

Mystics, saints, and spiritual leaders have advocated periods of silence and solitude for spiritual growth. Saint John of the Cross once wrote that only in silence can the soul hear the divine. Jesus prayed much by himself and spent long hours in silent communion with God. Gandhi devoted every Monday to a day of silence. In silence, he was better able to meditate and pray, to seek within himself the solutions to all of the problems and responsibilities that he carried. When I read about Gandhi’s practice of silence and solitude several years ago, I was so inspired and moved that I decided to adopt a similar discipline in my life. So now one day each week, for two consecutive days once a month, and for several days in a row at each change of season, I spend time in solitude, silence, prayer, and fasting.

“You long for peace. You think of peace as being goodwill towards each other, goodwill among the nations, the laying down of arms. But peace is far more than this; it can only be understood and realized within your heart. It lies beneath all the turmoil and noise and clamor of the world, beneath feeling, beneath thought. It is found in the deep, deep silence and stillness of the soul. It is spirit: it is God,” writes White Eagle in one of my all-time favorite books, The Quiet Mind. Invite quiet and solitude into your life, and find that place within you where peace and stillness reside.

How do you feel about being alone? Aloneness is quite different from loneliness. In the book Courage to Be, Paul Tillich expressed this idea beautifully when he wrote the following: “Our language has wisely sensed the two sides of being alone. It has created the word loneliness to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word solitude to express the glory of being alone.”

Loneliness is something you do to yourself. Have you ever experienced feeling lonely even when you’re with other people? We’re so used to being with others and so unaccustomed to being by ourselves that we have, in a sense, become a people and not persons. We must reclaim ourselves and reconnect with our wholeness and the peace of solitude.

Choose to Make Solitude Your Friend
Everyone needs times of privacy and solitude. In my counseling, I always encourage couples to spend occasional time alone, not only daily, but also at regular intervals during the week, month, and year. In this way, you regain your identity as individuals. You bring so much more to the marriage when you come from feeling whole, complete, and strong. Solitude fosters these qualities.

With a little creativity, a marriage can accommodate solitude and privacy. I have witnessed all types of arrangements, including separate vacations, private rooms in the house, living separately during the week and coming together on weekends, and having special times during the day in which each person is left alone.

I know several people who do everything possible to preclude being alone. Often this is because they have never tried it, they are afraid of loneliness, or they simply are uncomfortable with themselves. They haven’t yet discovered the peace of their own company. It’s not scary to be by yourself; it’s absolutely wonderful! Loneliness is not a state of being; it’s a state of mind. You can choose to change your state of mind.

I realize that I live my life differently from most. I go to great lengths to secure my time of solitude and privacy. It’s a great comfort to me to be by myself; it’s like returning home to an old friend or lover after being away too long. Solitude is not a luxury; it is a right and a necessity.

Through the years, I have gone on several vision quests. A vision quest is a time of solitude during which you can take time for looking into your soul, finding a new direction or path, or simply reconnecting with your Higher Self. On these occasions, I usually go to the mountains or the ocean for a time of prayer, meditation, fasting, reflection, and aloneness. I spend much of my time outdoors, being open to the beauty and love all around me. In this peaceful, reflective time, the earth, the sky, the wind, the animals, the incredible beauty, and the divine order of everything take on a new and personal meaning. I commune with the trees, the moon, the flowers, and the animals. My vision quests always show me that the most profound lessons in life come to us through nature, solitude, and silence.

It is my contention that all of the other good things we endeavor to provide for ourselves, including sound nutrition, daily exercise, and material wealth, will be of reduced value unless we learn to live in harmony with ourselves, which means knowing ourselves and finding peace in our own company. This peace is a natural occurrence of spending time alone in silence. In spending time alone, we realize that we are never really alone and that we can live more fully by focusing on inner guidance rather than on externalities.

Embrace solitude. Walk in silence among the trees, in the mountains, by the ocean, with the sun and moon as your friends. Be by yourself, and experience a whole new way of celebrating yourself and life. Feel the heartbeat of silence. Bathe in its light and love. Know within yourself that you are a child of God, and in your silence is Heaven.

When from our better selves we have too long
Been parted by the hurrying world, and droop,
Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired,
How gracious, how benign, is Solitude. William Wordsworth

 Order 3 of Susan’s  e-books, and receive her second book, "RENEW YOUR LIFE", for free!!!

SIMPLIFY • DETOXIFY • MEDITATE: Secrets to Making an Ordinary Life Extraordinary, here!!! Only $19.95 for this outstanding 80 page book. Click on the "Add to cart button" to order your copy.

"SIMPLIFY • DETOXIFY • MEDITATE: Secrets to Making an Ordinary Life Extraordinary is your gateway to vibrant health, youthful vitality, and a peaceful, joy-filled life. Anyone searching for guidance on how to minimize stress, accelerate fat loss, ramp up energy, and bring your goals and dreams to fruition, will be truly inspired by this e-book.

If you are searching for an antidote to stress, fatigue, and an unhappy life, SIMPLIFY • DETOXIFY • MEDITATE is perfect for you. Your quest for guidance on how to live an inspiring life and create success, happiness, and peace is over.

All that you are looking for can and will be found in these pages. Dr. Susan’s powerful words will take you deep into the intricacies of why so many people self-sabotage their goals and dreams. You’ll find that there is a way to live and create an empowered self. If you want to create optimal health—physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually—then you have found the perfect match for a balanced life. This book’s timeless content is essential reading for everyone worldwide." Nick Lawrence, Radio/TV Talk Show Host

"Wherever you are on your path to health, the vast array of knowledge that you find here will improve your life in all areas if you will simply apply it.

This book is filled with pearls of inspiration that you won’t find anywhere else. It will help you dispel confusion and answer questions that you might have about how to eat the foods necessary to create the vibrant health you so deserve.

It will reveal Dr. Susan’s secrets to finding the internal power to break free from old habits, look and feel younger, boost the metabolism so weight loss comes easily, strengthen your immunity, and diseaseproof your life. You will learn to create high self-esteem, strengthen your intuition,and bring your highest dreams and goals to fruition." Ellen Tart-Jensen, Ph.D., D.Sc., Author of Health is Your Birthright.

ABOUT DR SUSAN SMITH JONES

For more than three decades, Susan Smith Jones, Ph.D., has been one of the world’s most recognizable names and faces in the fields of health, fitness, and balanced living. In addition to being the author of 17 books and a variety of audio programs, and hundreds of magazine articles.

Susan holds a B.A. in Psychology and a PH.D. in Health Sciences and taught students, staff, and faculty at UCLA how to be healthy and fit for 30 years. A frequent guest on talk shows, she is also renowned as a holistic health consultant and a much sought-after motivational speaker. Susan has assisted thousands of people in becoming more aware of how their food and lifestyle choices affect their physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being.


Purchase your copy of Susan's outstanding 80 page e-book: SIMPLIFY • DETOXIFY • MEDITATE: Secrets to Making an Ordinary Life Extraordinary  for only $19.95 here

 

About RENEW YOUR LIFE BY NICK LAWRENCE

When I think of someone who has profoundly affected my life and health for the better, the only name that comes to mind is Dr. Susan Smith Jones. She has been a popular and frequent guest on my radio shows. In fact, because I respect her and the nature of her work so much, I have on occasion asked her to substitute for me when I’ve had to miss a show. I trust her message implicitly, not only for what her work has done for me, but for the countless numbers of people around the world who follow her inspiring words of encouragement and healthy living tenets. Whether on the air or visiting in person, we often talk about how to live a sacred, balanced life—with integrity, commitment, and passion. Often, our discussions touch on a variety of holistic health topics essential to vibrant well-being, including her 7-day program, which is inspiring and very practical. You can count on Dr. Susan’s guidance on how to reduce stress, look and feel years younger, disease-proof the body, and live with serenity. In addition, these wonderful tips will motivate you to create healthier meals, live closer to Nature, and enjoy a sacred balance and empowerment so that you can bring your goals and dreams to fruition.

Dr. Susan has now put all of this valuable material into a brilliant gem-of-a-book. RENEW YOUR LIFE: CREATE AN ABUNDANTLY HEALTHY, EMPOWERED & INSPIRED LIFE is your gateway to vibrant health, youthful vitality, and a peaceful, joy-filled life. You will learn how to use meditation, intuition, visualization, affirmations and deep breathing to enhance your health. Anyone searching for guidance on how to minimize stress, accelerate fat loss, ramp up energy, and bring your goals and dreams to fruition,will be truly inspired by this e-book.

If you are searching for an antidote to stress, fatigue, and an unhappy life, RENEW YOUR LIFE is perfect for you. Your quest for guidance on how to live an inspiring life and create success, happiness, and peace is over. All that you are looking for can and will be found in these pages. Dr. Susan’s powerful words will take you deep into the intricacies of why so many people self-sabotage their goals and dreams. You’ll find that there is a way to live and create an empowered self. If you want to create optimal health—physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually—then you have found the perfect match for a balanced life. This book’s timeless content is essential reading for everyone worldwide.
Nick Lawrence, Radio/TV Talk Show Host

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 25 Suggestions For Creating the Life You Really Want by Dr Eve Wood (from her latest book "The Gift of Betrayal")


Creating the life you really want

        
 What is a healthy relationship?
by Dr. Eve Wood

(Based on Dr. Wood’s kit, What Am I Feeling and What Does It Mean available at Amazon.com)

We humans are imperfect beings who will always make mistakes. And none of us are mind-readers. So, in every one of our relationships, we are going to fall short some of the time. We will forget one another’s birthdays, interrupt each other when speaking, lose our tempers and impulsively say hurtful things.

We will try our best to buy each other the perfect gifts and inadvertently hurt or insult one another with our choices. We’ll make commitments we forget to keep, lose track of what’s most important to one another and assume the worst of those around us when we have no right or reason to do so.

Relationships are challenging, difficult, and fraught with complications. And every so often, most of us will want to walk away from the pain of a partnership that is overwhelmingly stressful at the time. We will feel the need to “get out of here!” And maybe even the desire never to come back.

Relationships are crucial to our survival and fulfillment in life. So we don’t want to blow them off or up… if they are more beneficial than not. So, what is a good enough or healthy relationship? And how can you make the good enough ones work?

A healthy relationship is mutually respectful, interdependent but not co-dependent, and life-enhancing. When you are in a healthy relationship, you feel comfortable being yourself. You don’t need to pretend to like things you hate, or do things you want to avoid. Your friends celebrate your successes with you, and grieve your pains by your side. You feel safe and cared about. And, as a result, want to share yourself. You look forward to time together, and miss one another when you’re apart. You feel good in healthy relationships and want to give of yourself to help your friends thrive and succeed.

Healthy relationships enhance your life.But, remember, no one is perfect and no relationship is either. So, even when you’re in a good relationship, you will experience times of hurt, pain, anger, devaluation, and a need for space. It’s just that, for the relationship to be healthy or growthful for you, the positive times have to outweigh the negative ones.

Whenever you devote enough attention, care, and respect to your own inner experiences in a relationship, you will be able to figure out whether that relationship is good enough, healthy enough, growthful enough, and life-enhancing enough for you.

Perhaps it’s obvious, and goes without saying, that any relationship that feels abusive, devaluing, smothering, hostile or unsafe is unhealthy and dangerous. And, it’s one to get out of or avoid. But, I feel the need to say that so many of us have learned, by example and teaching, to tolerate the intolerable. In my clinical practice, I’ve helped many people work really hard to recognize that their friendships, partnerships or marriages were abusive and self-destructive. And, I’ve helped them work just as hard to alter their beliefs about what they were entitled to, and to muster the courage to get out from under the abusive involvements.

You may be in an abusive, disrespectful, unsafe or unhealthy relationship right now. If so, I want you, to know and hear from me, a medical doctor, and relationship expert that you deserve much more. You are not meant to suffer.

You are a wonderful, beautiful, divine being. You are meant to survive and thrive. And, we all need what you have to offer. Please love and honor yourself enough to get out… You can, and deserve, to find inner peace! Use any resources that speak to you on your journey. You can heal and find healthy love!
Eve A. Wood, MD. Excerpted from the What Am I Feeling and What Does It Mean kit (Hay House, 2008) available from Amazon.com

About Dr Eve A. Wood
Eve A. Wood, MD is Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Arizona Program in Integrative Medicine. A practicing psychiatrist, author, speaker and consultant, Dr. Wood is a pioneer in the field of integrative psychiatry.

Dr. Wood has served on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, the Executive Committee of the Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital, written articles for medical and professional publications, lectured widely to professional and lay audiences, appeared on over 120 radio programs and been the guest on many television programs in major cities. Dr. Wood has her own call-in radio show, Healing Your Body, Mind and Spirit, which airs every Tuesday at 3pm PST on Hay Hourse Radio.

Dr Wood's books and kits include:

• 10 Steps to Take Charge of Your Emotional Life: Overcoming Anxiety, Distress and Depression Through Whole-Person Healing
• There's Always Help; There's Always Hope: An award-winning psychiatrist shows you how to heal your body, mind and spirit
• Stop Anxiety Now kit
• What am I Feeling and What does it Mean kit

http://www.drevewood.com

 The Immune System - Your Greatest Health Asset
by Dr Sandra Cabot

Your immune system is without a doubt your greatest health asset. We need to nurture it regularly so it can continue to protect our body from the microbes that can find a home inside us. Before the age of antibiotics and immunization, infections such as tuberculosis, tetanus and meningitis caused high mortality rates in relatively young people.

When I worked in a missionary hospital in India in the 1980s, I saw the consequences of poverty, overcrowding, malnutrition, inadequate antibiotics and lack of immunization.

Today the use of antibiotics has become excessive and antibiotics are found in much of the food we consume. Although antibiotic drugs can be life-saving, the use of excessive antibiotics can breed resistant micro-organisms that become even more deadly, so that we can no longer rely on these drugs to protect us in all cases of infections. Unfortunately viral infections are not susceptible to rutine antibiotics and continue to cause diseases such as herpes, SARS, AIDS and chronic hepatitis, which are wiping out large numbers of people at a relatively young age.

Although we have powerful drugs against many of these new age viruses, these drugs are expensive and not without toxic side-effects.
What are the most common causes of a weakened immune system?

Advancing age
The efficiency of the immune system declines with age, dropping off at age 40 and progressively decreasing by the age of 70. Advancing age also increases the phenomena of auto-immunity so that auto-immune diseases become more prevalent.

Excessive stress
Researchers in the new field of psycho-neuro-immunology have discovered that protracted emotional/mental stress reduces resistance and impairs the function of natural killer cells that defend the body against viral infections and cancerous growths.

Exposure to excessive toxins
Excessive consumption of toxins such as alcohol, cigarettes, insecticides, petrochemicals and some medicinal drugs can reduce the function of the white blood cells, the liver, the bone marrow and the mucous membranes, making infections much more severe.

Impaired ability of the body to handle sugar, as seen in Syndrome X and diabetes.
High levels of blood sugar enable pathogenic bacteria to flourish and spread rapidly. In such cases it is important to reduce the consumption of sugar and refined carbohydrates and eat more protein, legumes, nuts, seeds and raw vegetables.

A lack of protein and certain vitamins and minerals can greatly impair the ability of the immune system to fight infections and cancer. Although developed countries have a problem with “over-nutrition” and obesity, it is still common to find deficiencies of minerals and vitamins in such populations. This is because processed fast foods are often lacking in their nutrient content although they are high in calories and sugar. So over-nutrition with empty calories can cause nutritional deficiencies, which are very significant, although not as marked as those seen in third world countries where people get barely enough food to survive.

Deficiencies of the following vitamins are most important –

• Vitamin D is a very interesting substance and some researchers think it behaves more like a hormone than a vitamin. Like vitamin A, vitamin D is found in oily animal foods, fish and dairy products and is also made in the skin when the sun’s rays turn the cholesterol in the skin into vitamin D. Vitamin D is essential for healthy immune function and can help those with respiratory infections and asthma.
• Vitamin C and the Bioflavonoids
  Deficiencies of vitamin C impair many aspects of the immune system such as cellular immunity, white blood cell mobility, immunoglobulin production and killer cell efficiency. Vitamin C is a superb anti-oxidant and supports the adrenal gland production of cortisone and neutralizes free radicals caused by infections. Vitamin C exerts protective effects against cancer and the harmful actions of toxins. Bioflavonoids such as rutin and quercetin are found in many fruits, especially in the white pith of citrus fruits, and exert anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory effects.
• Minerals
  The most important minerals for the immune system are selenium and zinc and both are needed for cellular immunity and phagocytosis. Phagocytosis is the ability of immune cells to ingest and neutralize harmful micro-organisms such as viruses and bacteria. Doses of selenium range from 50 to 200micrograms daily. Doses of zinc range from 10 to 50milligrams daily. Organic sources of these minerals are preferred, as they are better absorbed and more effective. Both zinc and selenium can reduce the growth of cancerous and non-cancerous tumors, viral infections and inflammation. Those with chronic viral infections such as herpes, hepatitis B and C, AIDS, glandular fever, and warts etc. can obtain a great improvement in the ability of their body to fight these infections.

 Nutrition: Losing Weight at Midlife
by Dr Christiane Northrup

What You Need To Know
I always say that eating high quality food is one of the easiest ways to create health on a daily basis. Yet, in many ways nutrition has become synonymous with diet and weight loss in this country. Many women find themselves gaining weight at midlife, even if they have not changed their eating or exercise habits — or because they have not! Other women find that their body shape changes, with fat accumulating around the waistline, hips and shoulders. While this is a natural process, I know firsthand that it can be frustrating, and I’ve seen many women compromise good nutrition in an effort to be thin.

In fact poor nutrition is a major reason why many women find it so difficult to lose weight. We have become accustomed to eating low-fat diets that include high-stress, low quality foods, such as the refined flours and sugars found in processed foods (think pasta and low-fat cookies). It’s important to remember that the human body has evolved over millennia to assimilate foods that are found in the natural world. Therefore, we function best when we eat these natural foods, not imitations.

But, there are also other factors at work at midlife: First, women experience a metabolic slowdown of about 10–15 percent at midlife compared to earlier in life, making our bodies more efficient at taking in and storing fat. Nature designed us this way in order to help us survive on less food as we get older and potentially less able to fend for ourselves. Body fat also helps us produce estrogen and androgens when our ovaries no longer produce them at the same rate. That’s all well and good for a hunter–gatherer lifestyle, but today, our culture is constantly telling us we can never be too thin.

The good news is that there are ways to negotiate this midlife metabolic shift and rebalance your hormones without any significant weight or fat gain — and you can do it without compromising good nutrition. The key to this lies in understanding all of the elements of total nutrition, which include emotional nutrients, energetic nutrients and physical nutrients, and not just the right amount of protein, carbohydrates and fat. Understanding these will help you change your attitude about self-nourishment. When you do this, your body composition and your self-esteem will be transformed as well. This is the only way I’ve found I can be both well nourished and successful in managing my weight.

Learn More | Recommended Reading or Resources

It has been my experience that countless women are drawn to food approaches such as macrobiotics or The Zone out of concern for their weight as much as their health. Many of the newer diet books address both simultaneously. I agree with this approach, but like to take it one step further. Whether you are looking to improve your nutrition because of health concerns or to lose weight, it helps to get clear about your dietary truths. Once you are able to do this, reaching your body’s optimal composition and creating health through food come simultaneously.

That being said, what I have found works best for me and for many women is a hormone-balancing food plan. At midlife our bodies begin storing fat in order to retain estrogen. That’s why I have written an in-depth menopause food plan in my book, The Wisdom of Menopause, but there are many books out there that can help you learn which plan works best for you. Some of the following contain meal plans and recipes that have helped thousands of women lose weight and balance their hormones, as well as insulin and eicosaniod levels.

    * Eating Well for Optimum Health: The Essential Guide to Bringing Health and Plasure Back to Eating, by Andrew Weil, M.D.
    * Fight Fat After Forty, by Pamela Peeke.
    * The Glucose Revolution: The Authoritative Guide to the Glycemic Index, by Jennie Brand–Miller, Thomas Wolever, Stephan Colagiuri, & Kaye Foster–Powell.
    * Protein Power and The Protein Power Lifeplan, by Michael R Eades and Mary Dan Eades.
    * Recipes for Change: Gourmet Wholefood Cooking for Health and Vitality at Menopause, by Lissa DeAngelis and Molly Siple.
    * Releasing Fat, by Ray Strand
    * Sugar Busters: Cut Sugar to Trim Fat, by H Leighton Steward, Morrison Bethea, Sam Andrews and Luis A Balart.

Reprinted with permission from the Website of Dr. Christiane Northrup. For more wisdom from one of today's leading women's health experts, visit http://www.drnorthrup.com

About Dr Christiane Northrup, M.D.

Dr Northrup is an authority in the field of women’s health and wellness. A board-certified OB/GYN physician, Dr. Northrup was an assistant clinical professor of OB/GYN at Maine Medical Center for over 20 years. Dr. Northrup is the author of two New York Times best-selling books, Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom (Bantam, revised 2006) and The Wisdom of Menopause (Bantam, revised 2006). Her third book, Mother-Daughter Wisdom, was voted Amazon’s #1 book of the year in both parenting and mind-body health in 2005. She has also hosted six highly successfully television specials. Her work has been featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show, the Today Show, NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw, The View, and Good Morning America. For more information about Dr. Northrup and her work, visit her website at http://www.drnorthrup.com Her books can also be purchased at http://www.angusrobertson.com.au

 
About Anxiety  
by Dr Eve A Wood
Excerpt from the Stop Anxiety Now kit

You may be feeling overwhelmed or hopeless, and you may even doubt your capacity to heal. Let me reassure you: Where there’s a will, there’s a way. You absolutely do have the power to transform anxiety. Much of your power lies in the connection between your body and your mind. I know that that idea may seem strange to you, but you’ll see how true that concept is. In order to heal your anxiety, you need to understand the answers to the following questions:

1. What is anxiety?
2. Is anxiety always a problem, or can it be beneficial, too?
3. What causes anxiety?

I’ll explore each of these questions in detail.

What Is Anxiety?

According to Webster’s dictionary, anxiety involves: (1) Uneasiness, dread, or brooding fear about something that might happen. (2) An overwhelming sense of apprehension and of fear, often marked by such physical symptoms as tension, sweating, palpitations, and increased pulse rate. (3) An unpleasant feeling of helplessness and isolation sometimes accompanied by physical symptoms of fear, consciously accounted for by the anticipation of pain, death, or some unknown catastrophe, but without sufficient objective justification.

We all experience uneasiness, dread, and the physical discomforts of anxiety at times, so what’s the difference between healthy or “normal” anxiety and that which is unhealthy or overwhelming? That brings us to the next topic.

Is Anxiety Always a Problem?

Anxiety is not always harmful, since we sometimes need to be concerned or uneasy about something that may occur. Let’s call that concern “healthy anxiety.”

Healthy anxiety, for example, leads us to look both ways before we cross the street, and to run out of the crosswalk when a car is about to hit us. Healthy anxiety takes us to our doctor when we feel ill, to our accountant when we receive threatening letters from the IRS, and to our telephone when we hear of natural disasters in areas where our loved ones live. Healthy anxiety may get us to do our homework so that we don’t fail, pay our bills on time so that we don’t lose service, or install smoke detectors in our homes so that we don’t perish in fires.

As you can see, we need a certain amount of anxiety in our lives to succeed, thrive, and be well. Our nervous systems are designed to take note of fear for our protection, so if we’re walking along in the woods and confront a bear, our bodies will register immediate alarm. We’ll begin to sweat; feel our hearts thumping in our chests; and experience light-headedness, a sense of urgency, and an amazing ability to focus. These symptoms are part of the “fight-or-flight reaction,” which is designed to get us out of harm’s way immediately. We need this internal alarm system to keep us on our toes and safe.

But what if these symptoms or bodily discomforts come over you when there isn’t any significant danger? Or what if certain worries and physical manifestations come on at appropriate times but won’t settle down when the danger has passed? Well, that’s when you have unhealthy anxiety.

Unhealthy anxiety indicates that your internal alarm system has gotten disconnected from its regulator—the system is in overdrive and is spinning out of control, taking on a life of its own. Anxiety, the cunning character that it is, tends to do this. That is, anxiety spirals on itself and grows bigger and bigger. As it spirals, it often searches for more issues to attach itself to. For example, a small worry about being late for an appointment can quickly escalate into panic about losing your job.

If you’re one of the many people whose internal alarm system is on the fritz, you’re probably stressed out and miserable much of the time. People around you may call you “hyper” or a “ worrywart,” or they may even be fed up with how stuck you seem to be.

Even though you may feel hopeless, know that you can heal unhealthy anxiety. Let’s understand what’s behind it.

What Causes Unhealthy Anxiety?

The human brain is designed to experience a certain amount of healthy anxiety, as well as to shut off this response when the time is right. There are many areas of the brain involved in regulating fear and anxiety, and you don’t necessarily need to know them to get better. Nevertheless, I’ll share a little bit of anatomy with you here.

The current thinking is that the connections between the brain’s amygdala and orbitofrontal area may be on the fritz in individuals who have anxiety disorders. Lots of chemical messengers are also involved in regulating fear and anxiety—including serotonin, norepinephrine, and gamma-animobutyric acid (GABA)—and in unhealthy anxiety, their levels are out of whack, too.

Now, while you may think that unhealthy anxiety is always the result of a dysregulation in the neural circuits, that’s not necessarily so. Anxiety can show up for lots of reasons, and I want you to be aware of some of its lesser-known causes.

Here’s just a partial list of the causes of unhealthy anxiety:

1. It can be part of a general medical condition such as an overactive thyroid or adrenal gland.

2. It can be a side effect of a medication or drug. Examples include theophylline, pseudoephedrine, caffeine, and marijuana.

3. It can even be part of a withdrawal syndrome that results from stopping the regular use of a medication (such as an antidepressant or sleep aid) or a substance like cigarettes.

4. Most often, unhealthy anxiety is due to an internal alarm that’s on the fritz.

In the field of emotional and mental health, there are quite a few conditions that are characterized by anxiety. In fact, approximately 19 million Americans suffer from some form of an anxiety disorder each year. They include panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), social phobia, and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). Also, if you do have one of these conditions, you may need additional support to gain the full benefit of techniques such as reflection, cognitive behavioral intervention, affirmations, journaling, relaxation exercises, and guided imagery.

Keep in mind that I use these tools with all of my anxiety patients—but about a third of them over the years have also used medication to interrupt a stuck cycle or to maintain a benefit. I often use a low-dose, short-acting antianxiety medication that people can take whenever they feel the need for it. (This is not an appropriate option for patients with alcohol or drug addictions.)

Some patients use this medication when they begin treatment, since their anxiety has escalated to such an extreme point that they can’t focus enough to use the tools effectively. Yet as they begin to settle down with the thought-stopping and self-soothing tools, their need for medication decreases dramatically. This is the nature of anxiety: It spirals up and it spirals down, too! The need for medication often goes away completely, but most people feel better knowing that they have something they can take if necessary. That knowledge keeps the anxiety in check.

Some types of anxiety disorders do benefit from ongoing treatment with SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) or other daily dosed medication—in fact, you may already be one of the many millions of individuals who take regular medication for anxiety management. However, if you don’t take medication at this point, then you may well not need or choose to add it. But I urge you to be open to the option if it seems appropriate for you. If you have an anxiety disorder that doesn’t completely respond to alternative therapy, you might want to add medication to your own personal toolbox. Just keep the idea in mind as you proceed.

You might be wondering, Do I even have an anxiety disorder? Who gets them and why? Is my anxiety a form of weakness or defect in my character? Shouldn’t I be able to stop the escalating anxiety, panic, or crazy thinking that paralyzes me? If you are having these thoughts, you’re not alone—millions of others have been wondering the same things, and scientists have been studying these questions for years.

Anxiety problems are complex: Today we know that they’re caused by a combination of factors including genetic vulnerability, trauma, and life stress. The vulnerability to anxiety runs in families and gene lines. You get it; you don’t choose it. Some people inherit much more vulnerability than others, and whether you actually develop a full-blown anxiety problem is related to both that vulnerability and how much stress you’re exposed to in your early years of development and in your later life. The stress could be biological, psychological, emotional, or spiritual—anything from a move or an infection to the death of a family member counts. More vulnerable people become symptomatic with less stress and vice versa—that’s just the way it is.

So here’s the deal:

1. Unhealthy anxiety is rampant in our world.

2. Each year, millions of Americans experience severe anxiety.

3. Anxiety takes a huge physical, emotional, and spiritual toll on sufferers and the people who love them.

4. Some sufferers become so overwhelmed and hopeless that they give up and take their own lives.

5. You don’t choose your vulnerability to anxiety problems or whether you became ill.

6. Your problem with anxiety is not the result of a defect, personal weakness, or character flaw.

7. You can heal.

8. You can create your own personal tool box to stop anxiety now!

Be open to whatever you need to do to step in to your wholeness. You deserve and can achieve internal peace.

For more information on the tools you can use to stop your own anxiety, pick up a copy of my Stop Anxiety Now kit available thru Amazon.com.

About Dr Eve A. Wood
Eve A. Wood, MD is Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Arizona Program in Integrative Medicine. A practicing psychiatrist, author, speaker and consultant, Dr. Wood is a pioneer in the field of integrative psychiatry.

Dr. Wood has served on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, the Executive Committee of the Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital, written articles for medical and professional publications, lectured widely to professional and lay audiences, appeared on over 120 radio programs and been the guest on many television programs in major cities. Dr. Wood has her own call-in radio show, Healing Your Body, Mind and Spirit, which airs every Tuesday at 3pm PST on Hay Hourse Radio.

Dr Wood's books and kits include:

• 10 Steps to Take Charge of Your Emotional Life: Overcoming Anxiety, Distress and Depression Through Whole-Person Healing
• There's Always Help; There's Always Hope: An award-winning psychiatrist shows you how to heal your body, mind and spirit
• Stop Anxiety Now kit
• What am I Feeling and What does it Mean kit
  

Further details at http://www.drevewood.com

 For women, fifty years of age is now equivalent to what 30 used to be! By Dr Sandra Cabot

The women I meet today who are around the age of 50 seem so much younger than women of 50 used to be, say 30 years ago!

I often ponder the reasons for this – is it because we have liberated ourselves physically, mentally and emotionally from the stereotype of age?

Age really was a stigma for women far more than it was for men. You know all the old sayings that men with streaks of grey hair look so distinguished, and it’s normal for middle aged men to talk about younger women, and older men have so much character and strength. Well that’s fine for men, but we forgot to include women in these generalizations.

Well things have changed for the better and older women are starting to feel and enjoy their power. Women can also look great with grey or fading hair and they can often attract a younger partner, and definitely have the wisdom and character of hindsight. Many women start to discover new aspects and strengths to their character as they approach and/or pass through menopause.

Good effects of hormonal changes
I am sure that the hormonal changes of aging have an effect upon our emotional and mental state. As we pass through menopause the body’s production of sex hormones changes profoundly and generally speaking we gradually begin to produce relatively more testosterone and less female hormones like estrogen and progesterone.

This relative increase in male hormones can make us more confident, more feisty and in a good way, more aggressive. A healthy amount of anger and aggression is good because it helps us to change situations that may be negative for ourselves and keep us suppressed.

A good friend of mine who is a counselor once used the analogy of a “fruit salad” to describe the way she felt when she was younger. She had to be an “orange” to please her husband, a “pear” to please her mother, a “banana” to please her children and a “watermelon” to please her friends and co-workers. As she got older, she had an increasing desire to be herself and to do the things that she had waited to do – she discovered that she was not a “fruit salad”, but just a juicy delicious “peach”! This may sound a bit silly but it’s often true – we don’t like to upset the status quo, and women have been conditioned to keep the peace in the home and at work – well you may be peaceful on the outside but inside you are screaming to be heard!

So if you notice a few extra hairs sprouting on your chin, don’t see it as negative, see it as a sign that your hormones are maturing and enabling you to pass through life with extra strength and courage. Testosterone increases physical energy and sex drive, so these may be worthwhile benefits as well.

If we can tune into our inner self, trust our judgment, nurture our self esteem, enjoy our passions and continue to dream, then we may find ourselves becoming younger with the passing of the years. As some of my friends say “well “I’m fifty years young!”

For the latest information on natural anti-ageing hormones, see my book HRT – The Real Truth – Balance your hormones naturally and swing from the chandeliers! Further details at http://www.liverdoctor.com/

 

 CHOOSE TO BE HEALTHY & CELEBRATE LIFE
by Susan Smith Jones, PhD ©
(Excerpt from The Healing Power of NATUREFOODS)

Simple Lifestyle Changes Make a Big Difference

Moment to moment, you are always choosing, and as life goes on, you become the results of your choices. You are what you think, what you imagine, how you react, what you eat, how you move, what you say, what you feel and what you expect in life.

With that in mind, isn’t it time to take full responsibility for the choices you make? Start right now by acknowledging your immense power to create what you have always wanted—a healthy, fit body and a joyful, fulfilling, peaceful life.

Let’s explore more closely the importance of our day-today food choices and the need to reprogram and retrain your senses to choose empowerment and release selflimiting beliefs and habits. Your primary goal on this “aliveness” eating program is to get to the point where you are eating a sufficient amount of the highest quality foods—including as many raw, plant-based foods as possible. Euripides said, “Enough is abundance to the wise.”

Loving Changes
Although it’s important to choose healthful foods, don’t become a fanatic about what you eat. Approach your new eating habits with a loving heart. It’s what you choose to eat on a daily basis that makes the biggest difference, not the occasional lapse into bad habits. Be firm in your resolve to eat the highest-nutrient foods, but be kind and gentle with yourself during the initial implementation period. Worrying about every little piece of food that goes into your mouth is far more harmful in the long run than infrequent dietary errors.

An important first step is to understand that the only way to ensure optimal nutrition is to eat a colorful diet that emphasizes whole plant foods, eaten in a form that is as close as possible to the way they all come packaged by Mother Nature. When you eat whole foods, you get all of the vitamins, minerals, amino acids, enzymes, natural sugars, fibers and water that nature put into the package, and you get them in the right proportions for efficient use by your body. Fresh, organic fruits and vegetables, whole grains, legumes, sprouts, nuts and seeds (and if you eat fish, the occasional use of small amounts of lean proteins such as fresh, wild salmon), carefully selected and prepared to suit your particular needs and desires, are ideal foods for your vibrantly alive body.

All of these foods can be eaten either in their natural, uncooked state or after being lightly steamed (avoid fried foods). Complex processed, fragmented foods can be difficult or impossible for your body to utilize, and eating them all of the time, without also including healthy foods is associated with obesity and a host of other problems.

Fat by Design
You may feel that it’s too difficult to switch all at once to a new nutritional program. That’s a common reaction. But don’t think that is because you “lack discipline” or that it is “all in your head.” Your body is the result of a countless number of exquisite adaptations that have taken place throughout ancestral history. In the scarce environment in which we lived during most of that time, being able to find and secure the highest calorie (high-fat, high-sugar) foods was important for survival. And because these food sources weren’t always available, it was important to be able to put on weight so that you could make it through the lean times. It is no surprise that you prefer ice cream to lettuce and pizza to broccoli, and that you go up a dress size if you even look at a cheeseburger.

What's vital for us to remember is that in the good old ancestral days, concentrated calories were hard to come by; it was mostly roots and shoots (which is where all the important nutrients come from). In those ays, only kings and queens could afford to eat all of the fat-laden animal products and sugary-sweet desserts that you and I can get on any street corner for 99 cents. (And because of it, millions of our fellow Americans are suffering and dying prematurely from the diseases of kings—heart disease, cancer, diabetes, arthritis, gout and so on.)

It’s not easy to instantly flip the switch on longestablished biological adaptations and the eating habits they foster. It is okay to break your ingrained habits gradually, if you wish, switching first to the foods that appeal to you the most and gradually adding the others. In fact, it may take a while for your digestive system to become accustomed to handling these new whole foods. The important thing is that you make changes. Your life depends on it.

Mind Power—Using It to Your Advantage
Like your body, your mind has adapted over many generations of time—with survival in mind. As you start making positive changes, your mind’s adaptations can trip you up if you aren’t careful. The mind always will choose immediate gratification over long-term satisfaction. The mind doesn’t care if you achieve your long-term goal for a fit, lean, healthy body. The mind wants you to feel good right now. It’s important to realize that when it comes to pleasure-seeking behavior, the mind isn’t necessarily your best friend. You must sometimes override your accustomed habits and “instincts” and make rational decisions about what is actually in your best interest.

In addition to the challenges posed by adaptations, cultural and commercial conditioning contribute to the difficulties you face when you try to resist the temptation to engage in long-established bad habits. Every time you are negatively conditioned, you lose a little of your freedom and your capacity to choose. Begin your new eating program by becoming aware of what you are eating. Set parameters for yourself; for example, eat only at the dinner table, only at set mealtimes and/or only when you are hungry. Setting parameters helps because they allow you to give your full attention to your food. When your attention is divided, you are more likely to eat compulsively rather than to satiate hunger. Try to minimize the unfocused, “automatic” eating that frequently occurs in front of the television set and at movie theaters, parties and sporting events.

To get the maximum benefits of superior nutrition, you need to become mindful of the entire process of eating. Be conscious of the hunger you feel before you eat. How does the food look and smell as you prepare it, serve it and eat it? Notice how the table setting looks. How does the food taste? Be aware of the texture of the food. Monitor how well you chew your food. Do you make noise when you eat? Be conscious of your breathing and how you feel while you are eating. After the meal itself, be aware of and grateful for the feelings of lightness and high energy derived from the meal and the ease with which it will be digested. Embracing this attitude toward your meals enables you to appreciate simple, wholesome foods and to feel completely satisfied while eating fewer higher-nutrient, lower-calorie foods. Enjoying the simplest foods is one of the keys to unlocking your true health potential.

When you switch from the typical high-calorie, highly processed, “foodless” foods that most Americans eat and start eating whole natural plant foods, you lose weight naturally. But it is still fun to see excess weight disappear quickly, which can be very motivating. To speed up the process and start developing healthier habits at the same time, try this: Stop eating just as you begin to feel full. This technique helps reprogram your subconscious and is a good reminder that you control your habits, not the other way around.

Begin to retrain your senses by eliminating “foods” that injure the body. You wouldn’t fill the gas tank of your car with water from a garden hose just because it was easy and inexpensive. You know the car needs a particular type of gas, lubricant, coolant and so on. Yet, when it comes to your body (tell the truth), you are not always so careful. You eat all kinds of things that you know impair the body’s smooth functioning. You need to establish new guidelines for eating based on the understanding that the purpose of eating is to nourish your body. While eating can be very pleasurable, it is not a form of entertainment designed to appeal to your senses. I have found that meditating for a few minutes before each meal is a powerful tool that fosters intelligent food choices that promote health and harmony.

More than 2,400 years ago, Pythagorus said, “Choose what is best; habit will soon render it agreeable and easy.” His perspicacious words are just as relevant today as they were in his day, especially when it comes to establishing new, healthful food and lifestyle habits. Fortunately, it seems that our taste buds change and adapt when we alter our eating habits, and the whole grain bread that tasted heavy and grainy a few months ago may taste chewy and flavorful this month. Feeling better and looking marvelous will soon compensate for the loss of dubious taste thrills of the past, such as fried chicken, white bread, ice cream, candy and potato chips. You’ll find yourself looking forward to more healthful, luscious pleasures—such as the taste of ripe papaya, delectable strawberries and blueberries, ripe pineapple, sweet juicy grapes, a crisp garden salad, brown rice or quinoa with steamed vegetables and beautiful, heart-healthy sweet potatoes smothered in steamed or water-sautéed onions, garlic, broccoli and mushrooms.

Change Your Diet, Change Your Life
Let’s explore how the life-affirming changes I have been describing benefited one of my clients, Danielle. Danielle is a great example of how changing your diet and adding more fresh fruits and vegetables and other whole foods can not only assist with weight loss, but also improve every aspect of your life and self-esteem.

Married, with three children ages 5, 8 and 11, Danielle initially came to me for motivation and help in losing some fat, toning up her body and increasing her energy. As a first step, I asked her to keep a 7-day food diary and record exactly what and when she ate. Like all of my new clients, she was instructed not to eat differently simply because I would be looking at the list. I asked her to be honest and to write down everything she ate because there’s no other way for me to make a meaningful evaluation.

When I received her food diary, it was quite apparent why she had gained almost 30 pounds in a year and always felt enervated. Her diet was about 60 percent fat, the carbohydrates she consumed were almost all refined, she usually skipped breakfast because she was too busy getting the kids ready for school, and she always ate late at night. Her diary came straight out of my “encyclopedia of deleterious habits.” She rarely included raw foods in her diet (or her family’s diet), explaining that raw foods take too long to chew and that she didn’t have time for that. Danielle also noted that her kids disliked raw foods, so only on rare occasions did she prepare fruits or vegetables for them.

As I inquired more about her family life, her routines and so on, I learned that all of her children were on the heavy side. The oldest girl was being ridiculed in school because of her size. Not surprisingly, Danielle told me that her husband also needed to lose about 40 pounds. His blood pressure, cholesterol and triglycerides were much too high, and his doctor had suggested that he go on a diet. I told Danielle that no diet was necessary. Her family needed a health makeover, and I assured her that she had come to the right person for guidance.

My initial evaluation of what this family ate and how they lived led me to suggest something very out of the ordinary. Knowing that they had a large house with a guest room next to the kitchen, I asked if I could stay with them from Thursday through Saturday night. I wanted to experience their lifestyle as a family—to see when and what they ate and how they spent their time at home when not eating, in order to coach them in a healthier way of living. Yes, I took most of my own food and simply observed like a butterfly on the wall and took lots of notes.

With Danielle’s permission, I looked through their pantry and refrigerator and all of their kitchen cupboards. I found hardly any fresh, whole foods.

At mealtimes, everyone added salt to the food before even tasting it (adding regular table salt to food is never an ideal thing to do), and their dining table was never without canned sodas or processed fruit juices, butter, sour cream, and mounds of cheese. All five of them ate their meals quickly, without much conversation, and without putting the utensils down between bites. To be fair, most of their overeating was unintentional, triggered by the hidden sugar, salt and oils added to popular foods to stimulate the taste buds.

Danielle and I decided that I should make a clean sweep of her kitchen. The rest of her family went along, although they were far from enthusiastic. I removed all refined carbohydrates, including pasta, white rice, lowfiber cereals, pancake and cookie mixes, white breads and bagels. I replaced all of their “foodless” foods with highfiber breads and whole grains. I also rid their kitchen of margarine, mayonnaise, vegetable shortenings and oils. Next, I also replaced the milk and cheese products with raw nut and seed milks. (It turned out that they all loved the vanilla-flavor almond milk the best after about two weeks of adapting to the new taste.)

I took the entire family to the nearest health food store, showed them all of the healthful alternatives such as veggie burgers and whole-grain pastas and then, to the amazement of all of them, led them into the produce section of the store. They were enthralled by all of the colors and varieties of fruits and vegetables, many of which they had never seen before. We purchased some of the most familiar—organic apples, oranges, pears, grapes, bananas and strawberries.

In place of sodas and other canned drinks, I taught them how to make their own fresh vegetable/fruit juices using a Champion Juicer. (Visit: SusanSmithJones.com, click on Susan’s Favorite Products, and you will learn more about this stellar juicer as well as some of my other favorite health-promoting products, including The Total Blender, E3Live, Infrared Sauna, Activated Air by Eng3 and the Ionizer Plus Water Filtration System.) The kids loved juicing and actually took it over as one of their daily jobs. Of course, I encouraged them to start drinking more alkalinized and filtered water. Danielle’s husband confessed to me that he couldn’t ever remember drinking more than one glass of water a day. When I told him that I drink at least two quarts of purified, alkalinized water every day, he almost collapsed in shock.

It took about one month for the family to adjust their healthful foods. They basically switched from a white and beige diet to a banquet of rainbow colors. They began eating daily servings of raw foods, with an abundance of fresh fruits and vegetables. When you fill up on these salubrious foods, you nourish your body and actually lose much of your desire for sweets and other processed foods.

After three months, I decided to encourage them to consume even more raw foods and showed them many new raw-food recipes they could enjoy. They were eager to move in that direction. After several “non-cooking” lessons, Danielle found it wasn’t so hard to prepare healthful meals. As a result of eating more high-fiber, nutritious
foods, each family member lost weight, had more energy and more balanced moods and enjoyed a greater sense of well-being. I encouraged them to be more active, instead of sitting in front of televisions or computers most nights and weekends, and their higher activity resulted in sounder sleep for everyone. Danielle’s oldest daughter lost enough weight to join an after-school sports team, which ended the ridicule she had been enduring and helped her self-esteem soar. It’s truly remarkable how a few basic changes in your diet can profoundly affect every area of your life.

The change this family found hardest initially, but which ultimately turned out to be the most fun, was my recommendation that they eat only raw food one day each week. I suggested they not pick a weekend day but rather a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. They selected Thursday, and from morning through evening ate only living foods—lots of fruits and vegetables, salads, and a variety of other fun foods, including nut butters, sprouts, sauces, soups—even raw-food cookies and other desserts. The family came to appreciate Danielle’s gift for experimenting and creating new raw-food meals. A few weeks into their new health regimen, they started inviting friends over to sample their delicious “health nut” diet. As I mentioned above, even though you may not be eager to overhaul your entire food program, at least start by adding more raw, enzyme-rich organic fruits and vegetables to your diet. I recommend the following basic program to almost all of my clients and friends. Each day, make sure that at least 60% of the food you put on your plate is uncooked. On Mondays, eat raw foods all day until dinner, and on Thursdays, raw foods all day including dinner. This simple program will assist you to bring more living foods into your diet by spacing them out over the week. You’ll feel lighter and more energetic immediately, simply from eating more raw foods—with emphasis on colorful, organic fresh fruits and veggies, especially leafy greens. This simple program will assist you in bringing more healthy, living foods into your diet. So make a fresh start for a healthier diet and lifestyle today and always!

BOOK REVIEW by Lynn Grudnik, Executive Director, US National Health Association

The perfect food book is like the perfect meal: satisfying, delicious, and not too much! NATUREFOODS and HEALTH BLISS are exactly that!

Their simplicity and cogency will appeal to anyone who is searching for high-level wellness and quality of life. Whether you are young and in need of health advice; are younglooking and a baby boomer, like Dr. Susan Jones, and you want to stay that way; or you simply want to explore your options for turning back the clock, then this 2-book series is your godsend.

The author of 17 popular holistic health books, and a variety of audio programs, Susan is clearly a shining example of vibrant health and youthful vitality. This is the best advice that I can give you:
buy several copies of this empowering book set, NATUREFOODS and HEALTH BLISS, and give them away to all of your family, friends, and business associates for any occasion — birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, New Years, or other special parties or holidays such as Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, Hanukkah, Valentine’s Day, Passover, Labor Day, or for no reason at all. And make sure to keep one with you daily to read often, savor, and enjoy!

Susan identifies 50 of the most powerful foods in each book—actually there are more than 100 recommendations in each one if you include the shorter entries—and provides general information, nutritional values, health benefits, buying tips, culinary uses, lore and legend, and, when appropriate, descriptions of the more popular varieties of produce. In the face of staggering confusion and conflicting claims about the nutritional value of different foods, these timeless books are succinct guides to all of the benefits of familiar natural foods. The formats make the information easy to locate and quickly review. For convenience, foods are listed alphabetically and are accompanied by preparation suggestions for immediate use.

Susan’s scrumptious, inventive recipes are easy to prepare and promise boundless pleasures, whether for your everyday table or for elaborate entertaining. After reading the two books through once quickly, I’ve been inspired to reread them several times, savoring the recipe suggestions and finding priceless tips and techniques that have enriched every aspect of my life--physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Thanks to Susan’s new book series, I am now healthier than ever before!

From The Healing Power of NATUREFOODS and HEALTH BLISS, I have learned simple ways to experience:
• Stress Reduction • Immune Enhancement • Better Sleep • Higher Productivity • Improved Digestion • Cheerful Mood • Boundless Energy • Youthful Vitality • Sharper Memory • Increased Libido • Healthier Skin, Hair, and Nails • Enhanced Creativity • More Focus • Improved Vision • Increased Energy • Overall Great Health! • PLUS Flavorful, Health-Promoting Recipes for People with Busy Lives Who Don’t Have Time to Spend Hours in the Kitchen.

Susan’s approach is grounded in the lifestyle she has chosen for herself. It is based on the premise that nature provides us with just about everything we need to be radiantly healthy and vibrantly youthful well into our 80s and 90s. She emphasizes the use of colorful, phytonutrient-rich foods and offers preparation techniques that enhance nutritional value and eliminate ingestion of chemicals and processed concoctions. With this invaluable information, the reader is able to take control of his/her health and open the door to a more energetic, disease-free lifestyle.

Neal Barnard, M.D., founder and president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine in Washington, DC and author of Dr. Neal Barnard’s Program for Reversing Diabetes, says about these books: “A must-read for vegetarians, non-vegetarians, and anyone interested in vibrant health and great food, from an outstanding culinary instructor who writes from the heart.” And Susan’s heart and passion for health shine through on every page. In the past few decades, she has helped thousands of people become more aware of how food choices affect their physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being. Now you, too, have all this splendid information at your fingertips—distilled to fit into today’s busy, stress-filled life.

In addition to learning about healthy foods, you will also garner valuable, life-changing information on the importance of getting enough sleep, minimizing stress, drinking ample, pure water and green smoothies, balancing your body’s pH and increasing alkalinity, detoxifying and rejuvenating, cultivating a positive, grateful attitude, being consistent with exercise, keeping your word, choosing to be disciplined, spending time in nature, living more peacefully and loving your life.

NATUREFOODS and HEALTH BLISS go one step further by recommending specific kitchen tools, and other must-have, salubrious products, essential for healthy food preparation. Because Susan “walks the talk” and has worked as a nutrition counselor, culinary instructor, and a personal natural-foods private chef for over 30 years, she knows which items are the most useful and durable in the kitchen. The reader can be confident that whatever she suggests will be the best.

No matter where you live on planet Earth, whether you’re 9 or 99, a beginner or a long-time health enthusiast, there is a wealth of helpful, salutary information in NATUREFOODS and HEALTH BLISS. You’ll transform your life from ordinary to extraordinary as you are entertained, educated, motivated, and empowered.

To order copies of The Healing Power of NATUREFOODS and HEALTH BLISS, as well as Susan’s stellar, colorful natural-foods cookbook Recipes for HEALTH BLISS: Using NatureFoods to Rejuvenate Your Body & Life (due out early 2009) Please call HAY HOUSE 1.800.654.5126 or visit www.PagingSusan.com

 Fatty liver – a common cause of weight excess.

It is important to take a pro-active approach and not allow the disease of fatty liver to progress. Not all doctors realise just how serious the problem of fatty liver can be and the patient can be left wondering what to do.

Fatty liver is a common cause of weight excess and also inability to lose weight. However the liver is often forgotten in those who are struggling with their weight. If you have been diagnosed with a fatty liver it is vital that you follow a specific and effective program to reverse the fatty changes in your liver.

The liver is able to repair itself and grow new healthy liver cells and over a variable period of 6 months to several years you will be able to reverse the fatty damage to your liver and achieve a healthy normal liver. If you are overweight you will lose significant amounts of weight within several months; however the liver will take longer to completely repair itself, but do not panic as by healing your liver you will add many years to your life.

1. Follow a low carbohydrate diet
This excludes sugar, refined and/or bleached flour and foods containing these things. Avoid all foods with added sugar. If you are overweight and find it very difficult to lose weight, it is more effective to exclude ALL grains for at least 3 months and be on a “no grain diet”. You can replace these grains with legumes (beans, lentils & chickpeas), seeds and nuts. Grains to exclude are wheat, rye, barley, oats, rice and corn.

Carbohydrates to avoid -
These include table sugar, foods with added sugar or maltodextrin, fructose, polydextrose, high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, honey, golden syrup, molasses, jams, preserves made with sugar, candies, sweet desserts, ice-cream, muffins, donuts, pizza, pretzels, chips, pastry, cakes and biscuits. The best types of chocolate for those with a fatty liver are the new low-carb guilt free range of chocolates or dark chocolate with a high percentage of cocoa.

Carbohydrates to minimize-
Include flour, breads, packaged cereals, crackers, pasta, noodles, and spaghetti. If you crave sugar try to replace it with stevia the naturally sweet herb, which has no effect on blood sugar and is calorie free. Stevia is available in the form of powder, tablets and drops and can safely be used by diabetics. Xylitol or Agave sweet cactus are not as slimming as stevia, but are much less calorific than regular sugar.

2. Increase the amount of raw plant food in the diet
Raw vegetables and fruits are the most powerful liver healing foods. These raw foods help to cleanse and repair the liver filter, so that it can trap and remove more fat and toxins from the blood stream.

Eat an abundance of vegetables (cooked and raw salads) and fresh fruits. Eat a large salad everyday, or better still twice a day and use a nice dressing made with cold pressed oils and apple cider vinegar and lemon juice. Add fresh herbs to your salads and stir fries – such as coriander, oregano, rosemary, basil, mint, parsley, dill, chives etc – as these have liver healing and anti-viral properties. Some people only eat salads during summer as this is the way they have been educated. Forget this habit, as your liver needs raw food everyday!

3. Eat first class protein with every meal
Good sources of protein include:
- Biodynamic unflavoured plain acidophilus yogurt (it does not have to be low-fat variety)
- Free range eggs
- All seafood fresh or canned (avoid smoked or deep-fried seafood). Sardines are great, as being small fish they are not contaminated with mercury or other heavy metals. Avoid farmed fish that are raised in fisheries as they are fed commercial pellets; I have noticed that these fish taste strange! I personally buy the Brunswick sardines from Canada and the Paramount Wild Alaskan Salmon as its harvested from the ocean.
- Certain cheeses – cottage, feta, pecorino, ricotta, cheddar, parmesan are the best but don’t overdose on cheese
- Free range poultry – remove the skin
- Lean fresh meat – I prefer lamb
- Whey protein powder like Synd-X Slimming Protein powder
- A combination of legumes (beans, lentils, chickpeas) and raw nuts and seeds. You need to combine the legume with the seed and nut at the same meal or the same time; this will provide first class protein which contains all the essential amino acids. If you just eat a bean, or a nut, by itself, you are not getting the first class protein you need to control your hunger and blood sugar levels. This is why it is not uncommon for strict vegans to struggle with their weight and suffer with unstable blood sugar levels and sugar cravings.

You do not have to eat huge amounts of protein as the magic key is to eat the protein regularly – at least three times daily or if you have a sudden attack of hunger or cravings. The Synd-X protein powder is great to quell cravings and it tastes great too! So don’t be confused – you don’t need huge amounts of protein; you need to eat protein regularly and some folks will only need to eat small amounts of protein.

Well being is the spice of life
Good health is typified by plenty of energy, clarity of mind, good appetite, good sleep and less aches and pains. Yes these simple parameters are the best way to judge your health.

Dr Sandra Cabot’s Good Liver Health Tips
1. Start raw juicing – good things to juice for the liver are cabbage (red and purple), carrot, beetroot, orange, lemon, limes, ginger root, apples and a touch of red onion (Spanish onion) – juice everyday if you can, or at least regularly. If the juice is too strong dilute it with water, celery and/or extra apple.

2. Drink plenty of pure water to hydrate all your cells and flush out toxins.

3. Take a selenium supplement in a dose of selenomethionine 100mcg daily. There is a wealth of good research about the healing properties of selenium – it’s anti-viral, anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory.

4. Take a vitamin C supplement in a dose of 2000mg daily – two-time Nobel laureate Linus Pauling, tells us that the fact that out bodies cannot make their own vitamin C is an evolutionary defect and I agree with him.

5. Take a good liver tonic to support your liver function – these are discussed in my books - The Healthy Liver & Bowel book & The Liver Cleansing Diet Book.

6. If you are overweight check your liver with an ultrasound scan – if your liver is fatty follow a low carbohydrate diet as found in my Liver Cleansing Diet Book.

7. If you are stressed work on your sleep and try to improve it; I recommend that you get at least 7 hours sleep a night. Deep restful sleep repairs the body and improves the immune system’s ability to fight viruses. A good and quick acting magnesium supplement, such as Ultra-potent Magnesium Powder can help your sleep patterns and reduce stress – I call magnesium the great relaxer!

8. Make sure you are getting enough omega 3 fatty acids in your diet – eat more oily fish or take fish oil capsules. The predominant fat in your brain is omega 3 and many people are deficient in this, because like vitamin C, your body cannot make its own precious supplies.
Reduce or avoid the use of –
• Alcohol
• Coffee
• Sweet soft drinks.

Some people will find that these substances upset their sense of wellbeing, whilst in others a small to moderate intake of coffee and/or alcohol produces no adverse effects. It really is a trial and error thing. Do not drink more than 2 alcoholic drinks daily and ideally, do not drink alcohol every day.

Heavy smoking of cigarettes will weaken your immune system compromising its ability to fight all infections and cancer cells.

I am often surprised by the cheekiness of some of the adverts one reads in medical journals and doctor’s magazines regarding the so called miraculous abilities of certain drugs. These adverts promise to “rewrite someone’s life” – this can be true in some cases, but really drugs can never be a panacea. I will agree that anti-depressant drugs given to someone with inherited depression or obsessive compulsive disorder, will indeed re-write their life story into a much happier one. However no matter what drugs we are dependent upon, we will always need –
1. Nutritional medicine
2. A good positive attitude
To help us achieve a good quality of life!

I certainly use it to help me, that’s because I crave well being. My books and newsletters provide you with a balanced approach using the best of both worlds – modern day pharmacology and drugs and the best in nutritional medicine.

Raw juices can save your liver
Ideally, raw juices should be consumed immediately after juicing and all produce must be raw and very fresh because that is when their nutritional content is most active. If you are super busy, you can juice enough for 1 to 2 days at one time. To keep the juice fresh and active, you must store the juice in an air-tight container with a tight lid, or in a thermos in the refrigerator. Add the juice of a lemon to stop the stored juice from oxidizing.

If the juices are too strong and/or upset your stomach, or taste unpleasant, you should dilute them with plenty of water, extra apple or reduce the amounts of the ingredients which upset you. You can vary the ingredients and their amounts to give you more enjoyment and variety. Most of these recipes will produce 1-2 cups of juice.

Raw juice recipe for Gallstones
1 lemon, with some peel
2 cabbage leaves or 2 fresh dandelion leaves or 2 rocket leaves
¼ beetroot
2 apples
1 orange
2 Brussels sprouts
1 large tomato
½ cm ginger root

(A note from Kerry Fallon Horgan, CEO, WHOI and qualified horticulturist. Only use cultivated dandelion leaves. Those on the footpath may look like dandelion but may actually be a toxic lookalike. When cultivating dandelion, place it in a position in the garden where it can't espcape. Also remove the flowers before the seeds develop and spread to become an unwanted invader. All the best in good health. Kerry)

Disclaimer
The Content on this site is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor before undertaking any diet, exercise or other health program described on the site. Reliance on any information provided by or via the site is solely at your own risk.

Is Inflammation Getting the Best of You? 

Interview with Susan Smith Jones, PhD ©
 
This is such an important and much-needed topic on inflammation. It’s a topic I discuss on radio and TV talk shows worldwide. For the purposes of this article, I will answer some of the most-asked questions that I receive.

1. For those of us who don’t know much about inflammation, would you please give us an overview on this topic so we all have a better understanding?

I could talk about this topic of Inflammation for hours. Since we have only a short time to discuss this very important topic, I want to encourage everyone to visit my website (www.SusanSmithJones.com) for more detailed information.

Most of us never give a second thought to inflammation unless we get a bee sting, experience a physical injury such as stubbing our bare toe on a piece of furniture or injuring our back. As soon as one of these events takes place, we experience an immediate sensation of pain that tells us something is definitely wrong. Redness, heat, and swelling usually follow almost immediately. And this immediate reaction is a result of inflammation.

Unfortunately, the most devastating diseases known to humankind — cancer, heart disease, diabetes, asthma, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and the list goes on — are almost always preceded by months and years of very subtle, unnoticed inflammation, as reported in the recent article in the Wall Street Journal. Inflammation is good when an injury is experienced in that often the swelling and pain limit the range of motion allowing the body to heal. However, when subtle inflammation continues for too long, it becomes destructive and may lead to manifestation of various diseases. Almost all diseases are preceded by and accompanied with inflammation. Throughout this question- and answer-style discussion, I will explore what is involved with inflammation, its impact on the body, what we can do to reduce uncontrolled inflammation and its damaging effects on our health and how to preclude falling prey to nutritional flapdoodle.

2. So you are saying that even though we might not be able to see the process of inflammation, many of us could be at risk and don’t even know it. Right?

That’s right. Inflammation is a “double edged sword” – both a helper and a villain. While inflammation is great when it serves as a warning signal as in the stubbed toe illustration, it becomes a villain when initiated by diet and lifestyle and subtly begins an uncontrolled destructive process in the body that goes unnoticed for decades until a disease of inflammation is manifested. We are facing an epidemic in inflammatory disease. It’s estimated that approximately half of all Americans suffer from an inflammatory disorder, and even more of us are at risk, and these statistics are reflected in most civilized countries.

Non-infectious inflammatory diseases have gotten worse in each of the last three decades. A physician friend of mine jokes that “Celebrex” has replaced “Prozac” as the ‘must-have’ drug of the decade.”

So you see, a silent plague is sweeping America and other countries as well, and the vast majority of us are at risk.

3.  Can you please get more specific about what happens in the body to cause inflammation and how our body’s own inherent healing system tries to heal this condition?

All right. Here’s an Inflammation 101 explanation for you. Inflammation results when cells are sick, traumatized, chemically irritated, infected, etc. Sick zones always signal messages out to the immune system for its assistance. But it’s important to realize that inflammation can occur in a low-grade, barely noticeable way, especially in the brain. I bet you didn’t know that almost all vaccines could cause brain inflammation, which may last for as long as a year. Even stress and depression can cause a low-grade, unnoticed inflammation and signals are sent to the immune system for help.

When immune cells or other immune components rush into sick or what we call the ‘hot’ zones, then free radicals are formed during the heat of battle. Free radicals can be released and always have the potential of cell and DNA damage, which can lead to disease. Now when this is left unchecked, these free radicals can damage a cell membrane or when created within a cell, damage the DNA itself. On a positive note, the body has a built in system for dealing with and preventing free radical damage when ALL cells are functioning optimally.

4. Can our diet and lifestyle make a difference in preventing cell and DNA damage as well as inflammation?

You bet it can. A diet rich in antioxidants (such as you find in colorful fresh fruits and veggies and natural food supplements like Hawaiian Spirulina and BioAstin Astaxanthin — mentioned on my website) provides “free radical scavengers” that neutralize free radicals before damage occurs and, ideally, should also supply raw materials from which each individual cell can function optimally. Unfortunately however, today our lifestyle and the nutritionally deficient foods we consume do not support the body’s efforts in preventing free radical damage. Our cells are mal-nourished; toxins are not eliminated efficiently, or in a timely manner, and this results in cells becoming sicker by the day.

For example, prolonged inflammation of a tissue caused by tobacco smoke, alcohol abuse, chemical exposure, exposure to EMR (electro magnetic radiation), improper diet, etc., produces a continuous onslaught of free radical damage that, left unchecked for years, often leads to various types of cancers. A recent study found that one central event is most closely associated with cancer development – chronic inflammation. In the study, researchers looked at a large number of cancer patients and found that almost 70 percent had pre-existing chronic inflammatory diseases for 10 to 17 years before they developed cancer.

You see, as mentioned in the recent article in the Wall Street Journal, we know that people with chronic inflammatory diseases like lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, as well as those with inflammatory bowel disease (Crohn's and ulcerative colitis) and certain parasitic diseases, have a substantially higher cancer rates than that of normal people. If we include diabetes (also an inflammatory disease), we see that a great number of people are at risk.

5. How do you test for inflammation in the body?

The key players that influence this process of inflammation are toxins, infections, injury, and heredity, and our diet has a major influence on all of these factors. From my research, I believe that our diet is a major, if not the most important, external factor behind the inflammation epidemic. A substance known as C-reactive protein, measured with a simple blood test, is an indicator. Besides the upcoming list of how to reduce inflammation, keep in mind that losing weight lowers C-reactive protein levels.

6. Cancer is the # 2 cause of death in America just behind heart disease. Please tell us about the connection between inflammation and cancer.

A wide variety of exposures have for years been thought to be carcinogenic. Those suffering with diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, depression, autoimmune and even diabetes generally have a higher risk of developing cancer. All of these conditions have one significant thing in common—they all cause inflammation and may, in fact, be caused by prolonged inflammation themselves. Thus the inflammatory process may be one vicious cycle that is out of control!

Putting all of this info into a simple summary: External assaults on the body, as well as internal metabolic processes, create free radical damage. This, in turn, creates inflammation, which, if left unresolved, may lead to various chronic diseases, which cause the body to produce high levels of inflammatory chemicals that promote prolonged inflammation. Inflammatory diseases such as arthritis, autoimmune disease, diabetes, etc may develop. Researchers are finding there is often a lag time of 15 to 17 years after the development of the inflammatory disease that cancer first appears. One study found that 65 percent of whites and 70 percent of blacks suffered from prolonged inflammatory disease before developing cancer.

So, ongoing inflammation not only contributes to the development of many cancers; it also makes the cancers grow faster and spread more readily. Many processed foods are sources of often-unrecognized inflammatory agents found in food additives.

It is imperative that you avoid processed foods as much as is reasonably possible; when choosing to consume foods that are processed, read the labels carefully so you can avoid consuming a host of chemicals and additives that may promote inflammation. A diet emphasizing plant-based foods is most ideal and is known to be anti-inflammatory. I write about this nutritional regime in my books Recipes for Health Bliss, The Curative Kitchen and The Joy Factor.

7. In your book Walking on Air: Your 30-Day Inside and Out Rejuvenation Makeover, and in your Botanical Reference Guide for Common Ailments that you offer FREE on your website, you mention some spices that heal the body. Are there any spices that are anti-inflammatory?

Definitely, top on the list would be turmeric, garlic and ginger. But you can also include such favorites such as basil, onion, fenugreek, cayenne pepper, juniper berries, and cinnamon.

8. What foods should we avoid and consume to say good-bye to inflammation? Are there any effective nutritional supplements that help reduce inflammation?

An individual’s diet and lifestyle are fundamental in supporting the body’s efforts to reduce inflammation and maintain optimal health. The Standard American Diet (SAD) is fraught in foods such as trans fats from partially hydrogenated oils, sugars and animal foods that promote inflammation. The SAD of today has about 50 times as much Omega-6 fats as the diet of our ancestors a century ago and is radically deficient in Omega-3 fats. Omega 6 in excess promotes inflammation while Omega-3 is anti-inflammatory. An antioxidant-rich diet with loads of plant-based foods, and with a high percentage of health-restoring raw foods should be your goal. Also, you want to emphasize vegetables and Omega-3-rich foods (such as flax seeds, chia seeds, walnuts, leafy greens, and, if you eat fish -- salmon), as these are anti-inflammatory and support optimal health at the cellular level.

9. Is there one (or two) nutritional supplement that you can recommend to help prevent inflammation and promote overall high-level wellness.

In the recent featured article in Wall Street Journal, it says that besides a healthy diet, ample sleep, weight loss, and exercise, Hawaiian Astaxanthin supports the body's normal inflammatory response. The researcher/author recommended the one I’ve take for years.

Astaxanthin is a blood-red plant pigment that belongs to the same carotenoid family as beta-carotene, lycopene, and lutein. These carotenoids give plants and fruits their vibrant colors. Astaxanthin can be obtained from a few different sources, including Microalgae, Fungi, Krill, Shrimp, Red Trout and Salmon. Of these, the microalgae, called H. pluvialis, is the most potent source. The algae produce astaxanthin in response to stressors such as excessive sunlight, changes in the water pH, or lack of nutrients, for example. The astaxanthin shields the algae from the crisis, and absorbs free radicals to protect it from injury.

Astaxanthin earns the title “King of Carotenoids” by its sheer uniqueness. It’s the most potent antioxidant on planet earth and the studies show its effectiveness for eye health, heart health, skin health, brain and nervous system support. It is also the best anti-inflammatory and is the supplement to take for chronic pain. Astaxanthin can handle multiple types of free radicals simultaneously unlike the antioxidants vitamin C, E and various others, which only handle one free radical at a time. In fact, astaxanthin is 6,000 times stronger than vitamin C, 500 times stronger than vitamin E, and 3,000 times stronger than resveratrol and quercetin. This comparison was done by a very reputable scientist, Nishida. He was using three different types of free radicals. Astaxanthin eclipsed the other antioxidants.

Furthermore, astaxanthin has a flawless safety record. No harmful side effects have been noted in any of the many safety studies performed. I take 12 mg daily of the Hawaiian Astaxanthin written about in detail on my website.

We are bombarded by such an onslaught of free radicals. The free radicals come from the environment, those in our food, pesticides, herbicides, environmental smoke, and excessive sunlight.  If I am going to be out hiking in the sunlight for more than a couple hours, I definitely want some protection. And astaxanthin provides that internal protection.
It is one of the most amazing supplements I have ever learned about. The only one that exceeds it in importance to be taking every day, from my perspective, is vitamin D.

Make sure you only take a natural and not a synthetic astaxanthin. The one that’s known as the best in the nutritional industry comes from Kona, Hawaii. I write about it in detail on my website. You can also find out how to get a discount on my website. Keep in mind that it’s not a cure. However, it can effectively relieve symptoms, help heal your body, and definitely reduce inflammation when taken consistently over several weeks (effects are usually noticeable after about two to four weeks. And in many cases, it can work much more effectively than far more expensive and potentially toxic prescription anti-inflammatories and over-the-counter painkillers.
 
9. Overall, please summarize all of the positive things that people can do, starting today, to reduce inflammation.

• Eat a clean, nature diet with emphasis on plant-based foods and lots of fresh veggies and foods rich on Omega-3 fatty acids.

• Get ample sleep nightly.

• Keep stress levels down.

• Exercise.

• Keep your body detoxified with purified water.

• Shed any extra weight you may be carrying on your body.

• Add some anti-inflammatory spices into your diet like turmeric and ginger.

• Drink alkaline water, as I do, that’s described in detail on my website.

• Take respites of quiet time during the day and breathe deeply – helps lower stress. (Increasing oxygen lowers stress which lowers inflammation.) Meditate.

• Spend time at least weekly out in nature.

• Show by your actions daily that your health is a top priority for you.

• Besides Hawaiian Astaxanthin, I also highly recommend and take daily Hawaiian Spirulina, which I write about on my website. I have never taken any prescription medications in my life and haven’t had a cold or the flu in years. One of the reasons is because I take these two supplements daily.

www.SusanSmithJones.com

Susan Smith Jones, MS, PhD, is a leading voice in America and worldwide in the fields of health and fitness, personal growth, optimal nutrition, natural remedies, longevity, balanced living, and human potential. As a much sought-after motivational speaker, wellness consultant, and holistic lifestyle coach extraordinaire, Susan travels internationally as she works with Fortune 500 companies; community, spiritual, and women’s groups; corporations and businesses; and with families and special individual clients. She shares her wealth of knowledge and expertise on how to live successfully and create your best life in body, mind, and spirit. Susan is the author of several popular audio programs and over 25 books, including The Joy Factor (foreword by Wayne Dyer), Walking on Air (foreword by Alexandra Stoddard), Recipes for Health Bliss (full color cookbook with over 150 photographs), and her celebrated holistic lifestyle collection, Renew Your Life, which has a worldwide following. Visit: www.SusanSmithJones.com.

On Susan’s website, you will be able to get her natural remedy guide for over 90 common ailments and two eBooks absolutely FREE.

Dear Readers: To learn more about Susan’s favorite superfoods and Hawaiian Astaxanthin and Hawaiian Spirulina that she takes daily and recommends to all of her clients, please visit her website. You will also learn how to get a discount on these two products. Susan does not sell any nutritional supplements. She only recommends ones that she takes herself and has tested their efficacy. On her website, you can read about how to lose 1-3 pounds weekly with the Hawaiian Spirulina.