Problems with Medications

High blood pressure often leads to dependence on blood pressure medications for a lifetime.

Because high blood pressure often has no symptoms and the medications may have severe side effects, it is very common for people to stop taking them.

More than half of those under the age of 65 who are prescribed blood pressure meds quit them within a few months or don’t take them as prescribed. This can lead to heart attack, stroke, and kidney damage, among other health problems.

However, there is a better solution. By temporarily using medications to control blood pressure, we can give the body the time it needs to heal the underlying issue using natural methods.

Natural Methods to Lower Blood Pressure

High blood pressure is one of the most common health problems I see in the clinic. It can usually be resolved with a treatment program and will stay controlled if the patient consistently does what is needed long-term.

Here’s what you need to know:

1. There isn’t a single cause for your high blood pressure; everyone is different. Evaluation, testing, and labs are the starting point for anyone with this problem.
2. It is ALWAYS necessary to clean up your diet. You’ll need to eliminate sugar and cut out most refined carbs, stop eating junk foods and foods with bad fats, lots of preservatives and additives, eat protein with every meal.
3. I have a whole-food liver detox that often tests well with high blood pressure patients and is very effective. One of the main reasons it works is that it thoroughly cleans up the diet.
4. Stress is enormous with blood pressure. If you are under a lot of stress and aren’t taking any steps to mitigate this, you’ll probably have to make some lifestyle changes to handle your blood pressure successfully. Examples: Exercise, yoga, prayer, breathing exercises, calming routines in the morning or during the day when the stress is highest.
5. Your doctor may have told you to lose weight to lower your blood pressure, possibly using GLP-1 medications. My experience is that the cause of the weight is often several things, not only diet and exercise. Just trying to lose weight with diet and exercise may not produce long-term results. GLP-1 drugs are the new rage, however they only work as long as you take them (weight usually returns if you discontinue the meds) and they have side effects that often become more difficult to tolerate with time. ALSO: These are new, relatively untested medications. In five or ten years, we may know the truth about them, and it might not be pretty.
6. I help my patients with high blood pressure by testing to identify the organ(s) or system(s) creating the stress. Then I use clinical nutrition along with very targeted acupressure in an exact program. This technique is called Evectics^SM; you can read about it here.

Isometric Exercises to Reduce Blood Pressure

Read the article below for some fascinating methods to use in lowering blood pressure.

ALWAYS CHECK WITH YOUR PHYSICIAN BEFORE STARTING ANY FORM OF EXERCISE FOR HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE

Stay Healthy!

Dr. Melodie Billiot

Patient Stories:

After coming to Alternative Health Atlanta my blood pressure is back within my normal range. This is a welcome improvement after 3 years of high blood pressure due to too much stress and not taking care of myself. Hurray! My energy levels are higher, and I now aspire to lose 25 lbs. in less than 2 months!— T.K.

When I first came to Alternative Health Atlanta, I had severe allergies, sinus problems, bad headaches, high blood pressure, and low energy. Not to mention that I was losing my hair. After starting the program, I am off my blood pressure medicine, my energy level has improved, my hair is healthier, my headaches are less frequent and my allergy and sinus problems are greatly improved. My overall health has certainly improved. — D.M.

Want To Lower Your Blood Pressure By 20 Points? Try This Exercise…

Eli Ben-Yehuda

Want to know about an exercise that can lower blood pressure significantly? We’re talking as much as 10-20 mmHg. No, it’s not an endurance exercise. No, it’s not strength exercise. It’s an exercise you can do anytime and anywhere. It’s called isometrics.

What are Isometric Exercises?

Isometric exercises, the kind where you contract large muscles without actually moving the body part, may help reduce blood pressure in healthy people, a study shows. And something as simple as squeezing your inner thigh muscles together while you sit would qualify.

That’s right. Isometric exercises can be done anytime, anywhere, and don’t require you to bend or lift. In a handful of studies, folks with normal blood pressure who did three 15 to 20 minutes sessions of isometric exercises every week for ten weeks experienced more than a 10-point plunge in their systolic blood pressure. And their diastolic pressure fell almost 7 points. Not bad for not lifting a finger! Simple things like doing a static hand grip, flexing the bottoms muscles, or doing leg squeezes all count. In the research, the three weekly sessions included doing multiple 2-minute rounds of isometric exercises like those, with 1 to 3 minute rests in between.

A hand grip spring dynamo-meter was used for IHG (Isometric Handgrip) exercise training in one study. A total of 30 normal healthy volunteers in the age group of 20-40 were enrolled for the study. The exercise training protocol consisted of five 3-min bouts of IHG exercise at 30% of maximum voluntary contraction separated by 5 min rest periods. The exercise was performed three times/week for 10 weeks. The subject’s blood pressure was measured before and after exercise.

There was a significant reduction in resting blood pressure following 10 weeks of exercise training. Both Systolic and Diastolic blood pressure reduced significantly.

In the mid-1970s, the U.S. Air Force asked Dr. Ronald Wiley, an expert in heart and lung physiology, to find a way to keep fighter pilots from losing consciousness when flying the F-16 fighter. This jet could accelerate so fast that the G-forces it generated made it difficult for the pilot’s heart to pump blood to the brain, causing vision problems, trouble thinking, and blackouts.

One of Wiley’s strategies was a hand grip that pilots could squeeze to boost their blood pressure enough to maintain circulation to the brain. As he worked with pilots, he was struck by a contradiction: Those who practiced with the hand grip for a few weeks lowered their resting blood pressure.

Types of Isometric Exercise

Plank Bridge

Lie down in the push-up position and place your elbows under your chest. Rest your body on the floor. Now, the entire weight of your body will be concentrated on your forearms. Push up your body and count to 10. Repeat 2 to 3 times. This is one of the simplest forms of isometric exercises, and it can be performed daily.

Isometric Push Up

Get into the pushup position as before and lie down with your arms extended. Lower your body to the halfway position and hold for about 10 seconds or count slowly until 10. This exercise can be repeated 2 or 3 times, depending on your fitness level. Most isometric exercises are not very tiring, but you must take it slowly if you’re a beginner.

Isometric Bicep Exercise

This is the simplest type of isometric exercise, and it can be easily done at the office. Put your hands under the desk and place them against the tabletop, with your palms up. Now, press against the tabletop, keeping your elbows tight against your ribs. Hold your hands in this position for 10 seconds or count slowly until 10, and then repeat 2 to 3 times.

Isometric Shoulder Raises

For this exercise, you will need a pair of dumbbells. Hold one dumbbell in each hand and stand with your feet shoulder-width apart. Raise both arms upwards from the side until they’re parallel to the ground. Hold them in this position for about 10 to 25 seconds, and repeat 2 to 3 times. If you find it difficult to raise both hands at the same time, you can start by raising one hand at a time.

Ball Squeeze

The ball squeeze exercise requires only a tennis ball or any other small ball. Hold the ball in one hand and squeeze it for 60 to 90 seconds. Place the ball in your other hand and repeat the squeeze for the same amount of time. Repeat the exercise three times with each hand.

Athletic Gripper Hold

Athletic grippers can be found at nearly any sporting goods store. Grippers generally come in different resistances so you’ll have to choose one appropriate for you. Ideally, you should use one that you are able to squeeze for two minutes before your muscles fatigue. Hold the athletic gripper in one hand and squeeze it for two minutes then switch hands and repeat the exercise. Complete the exercise twice with each hand.

Practicing isometric exercises offers various benefits to our body:

1. Isometric exercises help in strengthening and conditioning muscles.
2. They aid in strengthening dormant muscle tissues on isolated muscles.
3. They improve one’s control over the body.
4. Improve body posture and spine alignment.
5. Help in preventing injury.
6. These exercises are used in injury rehabilitation.
7. Help in the development of lean muscles.
8. Improve bone density and make them strong.
9. Increase resistance power and endurance ability.
10. These exercises activate all the major units in the body.
11. These exercises can be done anywhere and anytime.
12. Most isometric exercises do not require any equipment, or at most, a set of dumbbells is enough.
13. Help in graceful aging, keeping body posture straight and erect even in old age.

Grounding— A Simple, Pleasurable Way to Reduce Inflammation and Chronic Disease

Dr. Joe Mercola

Story at-a-glance

• Grounding or earthing is defined as placing one’s bare feet on the ground, whether it be dirt, grass, sand or unsealed, unpainted concrete (especially when humid or wet)
• When you ground to the electron-enriched Earth, an improved balance of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system occurs
• Being grounded cuts inflammation by thinning your blood and infusing your body with negatively charged ions
• To take advantage of grounding indoors, your best bet is to use a grounding pad to sleep, stand barefoot or sit on
• Grounding may be one of the most important overlooked factors in public health. When grounding is restored, many people report significant improvement in a wide range of ailments

Did you know the energy from the Earth can help you live a healthier life? The concept is known as earthing or grounding, which is no more complicated than walking barefoot.

In “Down to Earth”¹ — which received the IndieFEST Award of Excellence for a documentary short in January 2017 — I speak alongside other experts to shed light on this super simple yet commonly overlooked way to protect and improve human health. As cardiologist Dr. Stephen Sinatra, author of “Earthing: The Most Important Health Discovery Ever?” explains in the film:

“[G]rounding is literally putting your bare feet on the ground. When you do that, you’re in contact with the Earth, and mother Earth is endowed with electrons, and these electrons are literally absorbed through your feet. It’s like taking handfuls of antioxidants, but you’re getting it through your feet.”

Your Body Needs Grounding

Research suggests a general lack of grounding, also referred to as “electron deficiency syndrome,” has a lot to do with the rise of modern diseases.

It’s not unusual for Americans to spend entire days without being grounded. But though it has become the norm, it’s completely unnatural and didn’t really become widespread until the advent of shoes with artificial soles that prevent grounding. When you’re grounded, free electrons from the Earth are transferred into your body, and these free electrons are among the most potent antioxidants known to man.

As electrons are negatively charged, and free radicals are positively charged, any free radicals encountered in your tissues are electrically neutralized or canceled out by these free electrons. This is why grounding is so effective against chronic inflammation. Dr. Laura Koniver, who discovered grounding quite by accident after it seemed to soothe her crying infant, says in the film, “Grounding … supports the body as a whole, but it specifically supports organ systems down to the tissues and the cellular function of the entire body.”

Also, while you may not think of your body as a generator of electricity, you are very much an electrical being, and this is in large part why it’s so important to use grounding to harness the electrical charge of the Earth. In the film, Gaetan Chevalier, Ph.D., an engineer/physicist who has studied grounding, explains:

“Unbeknownst to us, we live inside a battery. The surface of the Earth is charged negatively, and the ionosphere, a layer of the atmosphere about 60 miles up, is ionized by the sun. The sun’s rays are so strong that they split the molecules in two, a positive charge and a negative charge.

The negative charges are transferred to the Earth’s surface through lightening mainly, and the positive charges stay 60 miles up. The problem arises when we don’t have a negative charge. We need grounding just as we need air and we need sunshine.”²

Grounding Reduces Electric Field Induction

There’s even evidence that grounding reduces the voltage induced on your body from electricity in your environment — a factor that has become increasingly important in the modern world. As noted in the 2012 review:³

“Applewhite, an electrical engineer and expert in the design of electrostatic discharge systems in the electronic industry, was both subject and author of the study.⁴ Measurements were taken while ungrounded and then grounded using a conductive patch and conductive bed pad … Each method (patch and sheet) immediately reduced the common alternating current (AC) 60 Hz ambient voltage induced on the body by a highly significant factor of about 70 on average.

The study showed that when the body is grounded, its electrical potential becomes equalized with the Earth’s electrical potential. This, in turn, prevents the 60 Hz mode from producing an AC electric potential at the surface of the body and from producing perturbations of the electric charges of the molecules inside the body.

The study confirms the ‘umbrella’ effect of earthing the body explained by Nobel Prize winner Richard Feynman in his lectures on electromagnetism. Feynman said that when the body potential is the same as the Earth’s electric potential (and thus grounded), it becomes an extension of the Earth’s gigantic electric system. The Earth’s potential thus becomes the ‘working agent that cancels, reduces, or pushes away electric fields from the body.'”

Benefits of Grounding

While it may sound “too easy,” the simple pleasure of walking barefoot can be a powerful health-promoting activity. A scientific review published in the Journal of Environmental and Public Health in 2012 found that grounding can help:⁵

• Improve quality of sleep and feelings of restfulness upon waking.
• Reduce muscle stiffness and soreness.⁶
• Reduce chronic pain.
• Normalize secretion of the stress hormone cortisol so that it adheres to a typical cycle of peaking in the morning and dipping lowest at midnight. This in turn helps promote more restful sleep and improve blood sugar regulation and weight control.
• Reduce stress and balance your autonomic nervous system by stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system (which rules the “rest and digest” functions of the body) and quieting the sympathetic nervous system (which cues the “fight or flight” response).
• Reduce the severity of the inflammatory response after intense workouts.
• Raise your heart rate variability (your heart’s ability to respond to stimuli).
• Speed up wound healing.
• Improve mood. In one study,⁷ grounding for one hour significantly improved mood among adults.
• Reduce inflammation.⁸ In the film, grounding pioneer Clint Ober explains how grounding quenches inflammation: “Inflammation is produced by neutrophils, which are white blood cells. [When] you have an injury … a damaged cell … these white blood cells come over and encapsulate the damaged cell and … release reactive oxygen species, which rip electrons from the damaged cell and that destroys the damaged cell.If there’s not enough free electrons there to reduce the remaining radicals, they’re going to steal an electron from a healthy cell and, in the process, damage it. Then the message goes out to the immune system, and another neutrophil does the same thing and eliminates that cell, and then you have a chain reaction.”
• Thin your blood, making it less viscous, by strengthening the negative electrical surface charge on your red blood cells. This improves their ability to repel each other and allows them to flow more easily through tiny capillaries, and is incredibly valuable as cardiovascular disease is correlated with thicker, slow-moving blood. It can also help protect against blood clots.In fact, this blood-thinning effect is so profound that if you are taking a blood thinner such as Coumadin, you should consult your doctor before you start grounding regularly. You may need to lower your dosage to avoid overdosing on your medication.Research⁹ published in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine revealed that two hours of grounding increased the surface charge of red blood cells, thereby reducing blood viscosity and clumping. According to the authors, “Grounding appears to be one of the simplest and yet most profound interventions for helping reduce cardiovascular risk and cardiovascular events.”
• Increase the structure of the water in your cells. Water is in every cell in your body, and this water is highly ordered (structured) and charged. If you don’t have properly structured water in your cells, it can impact the functioning of the much larger protein molecules (and others) that interface with the cell. The water inside the cell also interfaces with water outside the cell, which has the opposite charge, creating a battery effect.Your body’s ability to generate electricity is actually a key part of your achieving health. Electrical charges delivered from cell to cell allows for nearly instantaneous communication within your body, and the messages conducted via these electrical signals are responsible for controlling the rhythm of your heartbeat, the movement of blood around your body and much more.In fact, most of your biological processes are electrical. The water in your cells achieves its ordered structure from energy obtained from the environment, typically in the form of electromagnetic radiation, including sunlight and infrared heat.

  But grounding may also play an important role. Just as water increases in structure when a negative charge is introduced by an electrode, the negatively charged electrons you receive when grounded help increase the structure of the water in your cells. By restructuring the water, you promote more efficient tissue healing. So, when you ground, you are charging every single cell in your body with energy your body can use for self-healing.

How and Where to Ground

While connecting just about any part of your skin to the Earth is beneficial, one area that is particularly potent is the center of the ball of your foot, a point known to acupuncturists as Kidney 1 (K1). It’s a well-known acupuncture point that conductively connects to all of the acupuncture meridians in your body. Exercising barefoot outdoors is a great way to incorporate earthing into your daily life and will also help speed up tissue repair and ease muscle pain associated with strenuous exercise.

The ideal location for walking barefoot is the beach, close to or in the water, as salt water is a great conductor. (Your body is also somewhat conductive because it contains a large number of charged ions, called electrolytes, dissolved in water. Your blood and other body fluids are, therefore, good conductors.)

A close second would be a grassy area, especially if it’s covered with dew and /or bare soil. Ceramic tiles and concrete are good conductors as long as they’ve not been sealed; painted concrete does not allow electrons to pass through very well. Materials like asphalt, wood, and typical insulators like rubber or plastic will not allow electrons to pass through and are not suitable for barefoot grounding.

While any amount of grounding is better than none, research has demonstrated it takes about 80 minutes for the free electrons from the Earth to reach your bloodstream and transform your blood, which is when you reap the greatest benefits. So, ideally, aim for 80 to 120 minutes of grounding each day.

How to Ground Indoors

Just as walking barefoot was once widespread, so too was sleeping on the ground. In the modern world, sleeping indoors serves to further insulate you from the Earth. There’s also the issue of elevation. When you are grounded, your body cannot carry a charge, which is good. The greater the distance between your body and the Earth, the greater charge your body carries. In fact, this has been precisely calculated. For every meter (3.28 feet) you are above the ground, 300 volts of charge will build up in your body.¹⁰

So, if you are in a second-story bedroom, your charge would be 1,000 volts, on average, and this increased charge may increase your risk of health problems. For example, one 2009 study¹¹ found a 40 percent increase in stroke risk among people living in multistory homes. Flying can also make you severely ungrounded. When indoors and/or at elevation, you can ground by:

• Using a grounding pad or grounding sheet to ground your mattress while sleeping.
• Keeping your bare feet on a grounding mat while working. Grounding mats work well provided you have a grounded electrical outlet and can be particularly beneficial if you live in a high-rise. A grounded outlet is generally identifiable by the fact it’s a 3-prong outlet with a ground port (bottom outlet). Most modern homes built after 1970 will have a grounded electrical system. When using an earthing mat, make sure your bare skin is in contact with it. There should not be a layer of clothing between you and the mat.
• Using a grounded yoga mat when exercising indoors. Research¹² has shown doing yoga indoors on a grounded yoga mat helps reduce blood viscosity and exercise-induced inflammation, the same effects you’d expect from walking barefoot outdoors.
• Touching the faucet with one hand while shaving or brushing your teeth with the other.
• Taking off your shoes and placing your feet (bare or with socks) on the steel struts of the chair in front of you when flying in an airplane.

Grounding May Be Essential for Life and Health

It’s important to understand that grounding is not a “treatment” or “cure” for any disease or disorder. Rather, it is one of the key mechanisms by which your body maintains equilibrium and health. The human body evolved in constant contact with the Earth, and your body needs this continuous interchange of energy to function properly.

Free radical stress from exposure to pollution, cigarettes, pesticides, processed foods and electromagnetic radiation, just to name a few, continually depletes your body of electrons. The Earth, however, is always electron-rich and can serve as a powerful and abundant supply of antioxidant free radical-busting electrons, provided you make an effort to stay grounded.

Without a proper supply of antioxidants, the free radicals can overwhelm your system leading to oxidative stress, inflammation, and accelerated aging. “We now know that oxidative stress causes disease. It causes inflammation,” Sinatra says. “[But] we have this Earth — Mother Earth — that’s going to give us all these free electrons.”

Again, exercising barefoot outdoors is a wonderful way to incorporate grounding into your daily routine. Alternatively, simply take off your shoes as much as you can when you’re outdoors to take advantage of the Earth’s natural healing potential.

In “Down to Earth”¹ — which received the IndieFEST Award of Excellence for a documentary short in January 2017 — I speak alongside other experts to shed light on this super simple yet commonly overlooked way to protect and improve human health. As cardiologist Dr. Stephen Sinatra, author of “Earthing: The Most Important Health Discovery Ever?” explains in the film:

“[G]rounding is literally putting your bare feet on the ground. When you do that, you’re in contact with the Earth, and mother Earth is endowed with electrons, and these electrons are literally absorbed through your feet. It’s like taking handfuls of antioxidants, but you’re getting it through your feet.”

Your Body Needs Grounding

Research suggests a general lack of grounding, also referred to as “electron deficiency syndrome,” has a lot to do with the rise of modern diseases.

It’s not unusual for Americans to spend entire days without being grounded. But though it has become the norm, it’s completely unnatural and didn’t really become widespread until the advent of shoes with artificial soles that prevent grounding. When you’re grounded, free electrons from the Earth are transferred into your body, and these free electrons are among the most potent antioxidants known to man.

As electrons are negatively charged, and free radicals are positively charged, any free radicals encountered in your tissues are electrically neutralized or canceled out by these free electrons. This is why grounding is so effective against chronic inflammation. Dr. Laura Koniver, who discovered grounding quite by accident after it seemed to soothe her crying infant, says in the film, “Grounding … supports the body as a whole, but it specifically supports organ systems down to the tissues and the cellular function of the entire body.”

Also, while you may not think of your body as a generator of electricity, you are very much an electrical being, and this is in large part why it’s so important to use grounding to harness the electrical charge of the Earth. In the film, Gaetan Chevalier, Ph.D., an engineer/physicist who has studied grounding, explains:

“Unbeknownst to us, we live inside a battery. The surface of the Earth is charged negatively, and the ionosphere, a layer of the atmosphere about 60 miles up, is ionized by the sun. The sun’s rays are so strong that they split the molecules in two, a positive charge and a negative charge.

The negative charges are transferred to the Earth’s surface through lightening mainly, and the positive charges stay 60 miles up. The problem arises when we don’t have a negative charge. We need grounding just as we need air and we need sunshine.”²

Grounding Reduces Electric Field Induction

There’s even evidence that grounding reduces the voltage induced on your body from electricity in your environment — a factor that has become increasingly important in the modern world. As noted in the 2012 review:³

“Applewhite, an electrical engineer and expert in the design of electrostatic discharge systems in the electronic industry, was both subject and author of the study.⁴ Measurements were taken while ungrounded and then grounded using a conductive patch and conductive bed pad … Each method (patch and sheet) immediately reduced the common alternating current (AC) 60 Hz ambient voltage induced on the body by a highly significant factor of about 70 on average.

The study showed that when the body is grounded, its electrical potential becomes equalized with the Earth’s electrical potential. This, in turn, prevents the 60 Hz mode from producing an AC electric potential at the surface of the body and from producing perturbations of the electric charges of the molecules inside the body.

The study confirms the ‘umbrella’ effect of earthing the body explained by Nobel Prize winner Richard Feynman in his lectures on electromagnetism. Feynman said that when the body potential is the same as the Earth’s electric potential (and thus grounded), it becomes an extension of the Earth’s gigantic electric system. The Earth’s potential thus becomes the ‘working agent that cancels, reduces, or pushes away electric fields from the body.'”

Benefits of Grounding

While it may sound “too easy,” the simple pleasure of walking barefoot can be a powerful health-promoting activity. A scientific review published in the Journal of Environmental and Public Health in 2012 found that grounding can help:⁵

• Improve quality of sleep and feelings of restfulness upon waking.
• Reduce muscle stiffness and soreness.⁶
• Reduce chronic pain.
• Normalize secretion of the stress hormone cortisol so that it adheres to a typical cycle of peaking in the morning and dipping lowest at midnight. This in turn helps promote more restful sleep and improve blood sugar regulation and weight control.
• Reduce stress and balance your autonomic nervous system by stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system (which rules the “rest and digest” functions of the body) and quieting the sympathetic nervous system (which cues the “fight or flight” response).
• Reduce the severity of the inflammatory response after intense workouts.
• Raise your heart rate variability (your heart’s ability to respond to stimuli).
• Speed up wound healing.
• Improve mood. In one study,⁷ grounding for one hour significantly improved mood among adults.
• Reduce inflammation.⁸ In the film, grounding pioneer Clint Ober explains how grounding quenches inflammation: “Inflammation is produced by neutrophils, which are white blood cells. [When] you have an injury … a damaged cell … these white blood cells come over and encapsulate the damaged cell and … release reactive oxygen species, which rip electrons from the damaged cell and that destroys the damaged cell.If there’s not enough free electrons there to reduce the remaining radicals, they’re going to steal an electron from a healthy cell and, in the process, damage it. Then the message goes out to the immune system, and another neutrophil does the same thing and eliminates that cell, and then you have a chain reaction.”
• Thin your blood, making it less viscous, by strengthening the negative electrical surface charge on your red blood cells. This improves their ability to repel each other and allows them to flow more easily through tiny capillaries, and is incredibly valuable as cardiovascular disease is correlated with thicker, slow-moving blood. It can also help protect against blood clots.In fact, this blood-thinning effect is so profound that if you are taking a blood thinner such as Coumadin, you should consult your doctor before you start grounding regularly. You may need to lower your dosage to avoid overdosing on your medication.Research⁹ published in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine revealed that two hours of grounding increased the surface charge of red blood cells, thereby reducing blood viscosity and clumping. According to the authors, “Grounding appears to be one of the simplest and yet most profound interventions for helping reduce cardiovascular risk and cardiovascular events.”
• Increase the structure of the water in your cells. Water is in every cell in your body, and this water is highly ordered (structured) and charged. If you don’t have properly structured water in your cells, it can impact the functioning of the much larger protein molecules (and others) that interface with the cell. The water inside the cell also interfaces with water outside the cell, which has the opposite charge, creating a battery effect.Your body’s ability to generate electricity is actually a key part of your achieving health. Electrical charges delivered from cell to cell allows for nearly instantaneous communication within your body, and the messages conducted via these electrical signals are responsible for controlling the rhythm of your heartbeat, the movement of blood around your body and much more.In fact, most of your biological processes are electrical. The water in your cells achieves its ordered structure from energy obtained from the environment, typically in the form of electromagnetic radiation, including sunlight and infrared heat.But grounding may also play an important role. Just as water increases in structure when a negative charge is introduced by an electrode, the negatively charged electrons you receive when grounded help increase the structure of the water in your cells. By restructuring the water, you promote more efficient tissue healing. So, when you ground, you are charging every single cell in your body with energy your body can use for self-healing.

How and Where to Ground

While connecting just about any part of your skin to the Earth is beneficial, one area that is particularly potent is the center of the ball of your foot, a point known to acupuncturists as Kidney 1 (K1). It’s a well-known acupuncture point that conductively connects to all of the acupuncture meridians in your body. Exercising barefoot outdoors is a great way to incorporate earthing into your daily life and will also help speed up tissue repair and ease muscle pain associated with strenuous exercise.

The ideal location for walking barefoot is the beach, close to or in the water, as salt water is a great conductor. (Your body is also somewhat conductive because it contains a large number of charged ions, called electrolytes, dissolved in water. Your blood and other body fluids are, therefore, good conductors.)

A close second would be a grassy area, especially if it’s covered with dew and /or bare soil. Ceramic tiles and concrete are good conductors as long as they’ve not been sealed; painted concrete does not allow electrons to pass through very well. Materials like asphalt, wood, and typical insulators like rubber or plastic will not allow electrons to pass through and are not suitable for barefoot grounding.

While any amount of grounding is better than none, research has demonstrated it takes about 80 minutes for the free electrons from the Earth to reach your bloodstream and transform your blood, which is when you reap the greatest benefits. So, ideally, aim for 80 to 120 minutes of grounding each day.

How to Ground Indoors

Just as walking barefoot was once widespread, so too was sleeping on the ground. In the modern world, sleeping indoors serves to further insulate you from the Earth. There’s also the issue of elevation. When you are grounded, your body cannot carry a charge, which is good. The greater the distance between your body and the Earth, the greater charge your body carries. In fact, this has been precisely calculated. For every meter (3.28 feet) you are above the ground, 300 volts of charge will build up in your body.¹⁰

So, if you are in a second-story bedroom, your charge would be 1,000 volts, on average, and this increased charge may increase your risk of health problems. For example, one 2009 study¹¹ found a 40 percent increase in stroke risk among people living in multistory homes. Flying can also make you severely ungrounded. When indoors and/or at elevation, you can ground by:

• Using a grounding pad or grounding sheet to ground your mattress while sleeping.
• Keeping your bare feet on a grounding mat while working. Grounding mats work well provided you have a grounded electrical outlet and can be particularly beneficial if you live in a high-rise. A grounded outlet is generally identifiable by the fact it’s a 3-prong outlet with a ground port (bottom outlet). Most modern homes built after 1970 will have a grounded electrical system. When using an earthing mat, make sure your bare skin is in contact with it. There should not be a layer of clothing between you and the mat.
• Using a grounded yoga mat when exercising indoors. Research¹² has shown doing yoga indoors on a grounded yoga mat helps reduce blood viscosity and exercise-induced inflammation, the same effects you’d expect from walking barefoot outdoors.
• Touching the faucet with one hand while shaving or brushing your teeth with the other.
• Taking off your shoes and placing your feet (bare or with socks) on the steel struts of the chair in front of you when flying in an airplane.

Grounding May Be Essential for Life and Health

It’s important to understand that grounding is not a “treatment” or “cure” for any disease or disorder. Rather, it is one of the key mechanisms by which your body maintains equilibrium and health. The human body evolved in constant contact with the Earth, and your body needs this continuous interchange of energy to function properly.

Free radical stress from exposure to pollution, cigarettes, pesticides, processed foods and electromagnetic radiation, just to name a few, continually depletes your body of electrons. The Earth, however, is always electron-rich and can serve as a powerful and abundant supply of antioxidant free radical-busting electrons, provided you make an effort to stay grounded.

Without a proper supply of antioxidants, the free radicals can overwhelm your system leading to oxidative stress, inflammation, and accelerated aging. “We now know that oxidative stress causes disease. It causes inflammation,” Sinatra says. “[But] we have this Earth — Mother Earth — that’s going to give us all these free electrons.”

Again, exercising barefoot outdoors is a wonderful way to incorporate grounding into your daily routine. Alternatively, simply take off your shoes as much as you can when you’re outdoors to take advantage of the Earth’s natural healing potential.

Allergies Don’t Have to be a “Forever” Problem

If you have allergies, you are usually doing your best to live with them. You are trying to avoid the foods and environmental substances that trigger your reactions (in many cases, you might not know what they all are). Even after avoiding the allergens, many people often have reactions anyway.

Many allergies are challenging or impossible to avoid (like Georgia pollen in the Spring!).

Allergies Often cause other Health Problems

Many common health conditions are either caused by or prolonged because of allergies.

If you have hormone problems, migraines, skin conditions, depression, anxiety, brain fog, ADHD, thyroid problems, digestive problems (and many more conditions), they might be caused by allergies. What is common for allergy-caused health problems is that they don’t go away or keep coming back. Your body can’t heal because of continued stress from allergy exposure.

You might think, “But that’s not what is causing my health problems because I don’t have allergies.”

It is very common to have allergies and sensitivities, but not know this. Food sensitivities can be delayed up to three days, so you’d never connect the reaction to a food. You can react to invisible environmental substances that you would never suspect, like dust mites and roach droppings.

The health problems you suffer from could be caused by stress to your body and immune system from allergic reactions.

Here’s a list of allergy information and facts that you’d want to know:

• People can develop new allergies to foods and environmental items (pollen, dust, animal fur) at any time in their lives.
• An allergy is an over-response of the immune system to a substance. Your body decides that a harmless substance is a threat and mounts a defensive response to it.
• Many food sensitivities are delayed reactions (called IgG sensitivities) and can cause reactions up to three days after you eat the offending food. These reactions are often not recognized as allergic reactions and can be almost anything (headaches, itchy skin, constipation, gas and bloating, blurred vision, etc.).
• Often, people with environmental allergies have no clue that they could also have food allergies or sensitivities.
• Most IgG (delayed) food sensitivities can be identified with a blood lab and eliminated simply by avoiding the food for three months or so, then adding it back into your diet on a rotating basis. Many health problems can be improved this way even though you never suspected that you had sensitivities.
• Often, we can permanently eliminate sensitivity reactions with acupressure treatments (acupressure in our clinic is acupuncture technology using lasers instead of needles). Sensitivity symptoms can be reduced or even eliminated with specific acupressure therapies.

Many sensitivities can be permanently eliminated using acupressure treatments. (Acupressure is acupuncture technology using lasers to stimulate the acupuncture points.)

Here’s a video explaining this:

Help for Allergies?

Correctly identifying patients who are allergy cases and discovering what they are allergic to is the first step. Remember: You may have no idea that your problems are from allergies.

Next is developing a treatment program to eliminate or reduce sensitivities and help the body to recover from the damage caused by that stress.

Note that this is very different from the usual medical solution of taking drugs to suppress allergy symptoms. If allergies cause your health problems, suppressing the allergic symptoms will not help you heal. Your body would have to stop reacting to the allergens to recover.

Many sensitivities can be permanently eliminated using acupressure treatments. (Acupressure is acupuncture technology using lasers to stimulate the acupuncture points.)

Here’s a video explaining this:

I have targeted programs to help many different kinds of sensitivity patients:

• Sometimes, all that’s needed is a short course of acupressure treatments and some supporting supplements.
• Other patients with long-term chronic health problems need more detailed analysis, labs, and help over a more extended period to fully recover their health.

If you’d like to find out quickly if I could help you and what you would  have to do:

Would you please take five minutes to fill out a health assessment survey and send it to me? I’ll review your information, then have my assistant call you for any additional information. Then, I’ll let you know if your case might be a good fit for my clinic. This assessment is complimentary, with no strings attached. Either I can help you–or point you in the right direction to get help.

Don’t give up! You can recover your health if you persist.

Allergy Success!

Intermittent Fasting Test: Could You Benefit?

Answer these questions to see if you might have adrenal issues that would contraindicate fasting:

• Do you get shaky or irritable if hungry?
• Do you get out of breath climbing stairs?
• Are you fatigued in the afternoons?
• Do you have trouble getting or staying asleep?
• Do you have stiff or painful joints?
• Do you have fluid retention?
• Do your ears ring?

If you have several of these symptoms, intermittent fasting might not be a good thing for you to do. More accurate testing could determine what WOULD work to lose weight. Often this will be a solution to improve your overall health rather than diet and exercise weight loss.

(NOTE: If you have these symptoms, you might have adrenal stress. This can cause a lot of issues, from belly fat and anxiety to immune problems. Click this link or the “Free Health Analysis” button below to take a symptom quiz and get a free phone consultation to find out more.)

What’s Intermittent Fasting?

Intermittent fasting is an eating pattern that cycles between periods of fasting and eating. For example, you might eat only between 8 AM and 6 PM, or you might fast for two full nonconsecutive days a week. There are a lot of variations.

The benefits: The idea is to improve your health by mimicking ancient eating schedules instead of always having food available. Reportedly, you can increase your mental clarity, burn fat and lose weight, feel better overall and improve your health to avoid diseases.

I believe that some people may get substantial benefits from intermittent fasting. I’ve read the research and rationales behind it, and much of it does make sense.

Where I can’t entirely agree is that any diet, food, supplement, or treatment could work for “everyone.” As an example, in my practice, I see mainly severe chronic cases. These people are physically very stressed. They are very toxic and usually have some immune suppression. Intermittent fasting would be about the worst thing that many of these people could do to themselves.

“Testing,” a Weird New Idea?

I can’t think of any single food, supplement, or treatment that would be appropriate for every patient I’ve had in the past year. Well, except for maybe clean water.  Every person is unique in many ways and needs different solutions.

When I make this statement to people, they often ask, “But, how would you be able to tell who would benefit and who would not?” This confusion shows how foreign the concept of TESTING is to most people. If you could accurately test someone to determine what foods, supplements, diets, and treatments would be effective and safe for them—why would anyone make any decisions without testing first?

Medicine’s Failure to Test

When medical doctors treat patients with chronic illness, they test to diagnose but don’t test to determine causes. Not knowing the cause, the doctor must follow a fixed treatment protocol for that diagnosis and often only treat symptoms. The result is often a lessening of the symptoms but no solution to the actual problem. The undiscovered cause of their conditions or diseases may continue to deteriorate their health, and the patient may suffer from chronic health conditions for the rest of their lives.

“One Accurate Measurement is Worth a Thousand Expert Opinions”

—Admiral Grace Hopper

The practice of medicine relies on the doctor’s opinion as the primary method of deciding what is wrong with the patient and what treatment would be effective. This is so true that it’s normal to seek a second opinion to see if you can get more than one doctor to agree on your treatment.

My long experience is that many—maybe most—people are so used to this medical guessing that they’ll shrug and say, “So what’s the problem with opinions?” The problem is that an opinion is really a guess.

Doctors have been practicing this way for so long that we think it’s normal. But what other profession could get away with this approach? Would you need a “second opinion” on the engineering of a bridge or skyscraper or the design of your car? These and almost all other professions rely on accurate measurements and proven methods based on scientific and engineering principles that consistently get results.

Engineers do not guess. Neither do carpenters, chefs, pilots, accountants, or carpet installers.

Professionals are expected to “know their stuff” and get a predictable, effective result. Except for doctors! (Well, and, maybe philosophers, sports bookies, and politicians.)

The Takeaway:

Everyone’s body is different.

Your genetics, damage from illnesses and injuries, the diet you were raised on, your preferences, your environment, available food, your drug history, stress history, personality, and many more variables are all different from other individuals.

So, there is no “universal” diet, food, lifestyle, supplement, drug, or treatment that would get good results for everyone. Far, far from it!

The ability to test any of the above items before recommending them to an individual is not only of critical importance, it is obvious.

Because: the only other option would be to GUESS.

Women Age 35+… Having Good Health Isn’t Hopeless

We Tell Adolescent Girls What’s Going to Happen

So, why don’t we tell 40-year-old women what’s going to happen?

Why is it still taboo to talk about?

Remember puberty? Your reliable young body suddenly got a mind of its own. Crazy things started happening, both physically and mentally. Can you recall the helpless, out-of-control feelings that you had at that time?

Your parents probably gave you a “heads-up” in advance, so you knew (kind of) what to expect. Your friends sooner or later, were going through the same experience. It was scary and awkward, but there was the promise of becoming an adult to look forward to, and you coped with the changes.

Peri menopause is a different experience.

First, no one has likely given you that needed heads-up. Honestly, it would be difficult to do because everyone experiences peri menopause at different ages and in different ways.

Your cycle may suddenly become irregular, your sleep terrible, and your moods frightening. Then everything can go back to normal. Did that really happen?

There are the common symptoms of peri menopause… and then there are YOUR peri menopause symptoms. Everyone experiences this life process somewhat differently.

Health Care System Failure

Most of us look to our doctors for answers to personal health questions. The problem is, you may not see your gynecologist but every three to five years for a Pap screening, during which time you may move well into peri menopause. The other problem is that many peri menopausal symptoms are nonspecific, and your doctor won’t try to treat them anyway.

If you tell your doctor, “My energy is completely unpredictable. I wake up exhausted but then feel OK later in the day. Sometimes. Other days I’m fine. I yelled at my kids for no reason, then broke down in tears.” This is unlikely to elicit a prescription, and if it did, you might not want to take it.

Conventional medicine is usually ineffective at helping you with peri menopause. Leaving you… where?

The Cause

In your late 30’s, your ovaries will begin to rid themselves of their eggs by releasing more and more eggs each month. As you progress into your 40’s, there are fewer follicles available for ovulation.

Peri menopause begins when you have some cycles with no ovulation.

Estrogen and progesterone are your two main sex hormones, and these balance each other. Progesterone is released with ovulation, so fewer ovulations reduces progesterone and causes “estrogen-dominance” in your body. This is the cause of hot flashes, mood swings, vaginal dryness, irregular cycles, poor concentration, and many more peri menopausal symptoms.

As peri menopause continues, there is a gradual decrease in both estrogen and progesterone. The problem is that none of this is predictable or linear. Your hormones rise and fall erratically, creating physical and emotional havoc.

The Way Out

Treating individual peri menopause symptoms is a game of whack-a-mole: you never win.

What is required is a holistic approach to understanding the physiology of the hormone changes taking place, digestion and food reactions, and related organ and gland stress (liver, thyroid, adrenals, etc.).

Correct lab testing is critical, but even more important is for your doctor to know you and follow along with the changes in your body. Seeing your doctor at least monthly, often more frequently, allows her to understand the changes your body is making and the various components of those changes.

An effective doctor functions as a “peri menopause coach.” With this help, you can feel happy, productive, and energetic even as your body continues to change unpredictably.

I hope this helps!

Dr. Melodie Billiot

Energy is Life; Fatigue is No Life

If you have a fatigue problem, you know it.

The Misery Package

Often physical fatigue combines with mental sluggishness. Brain fog, poor concentration, and memory problems at the same time you have no energy can make up a misery package.

Physical and mental fatigue combined can be a knockout blow to your life.

You get two choices:

1. Push through the fatigue to live your life as best you can. Although this is admirable, the stress of pushing yourself can lead to additional health problems.
2. Reduce your activity level to what you feel you can do. Pacing yourself sounds like a sensible solution, except that in most cases, your energy will continue to drop, and you’ll do less and less. Living with reduced output and accomplishment can lead to depression, apathy, and a poor quality of life.

Causes of Fatigue

Fatigue has physical causes, but only a few of these are medically treatable.

Fatigue can come from many different sources:

• Thyroid: This is a hormone gland that controls your metabolism, your heart (your primary source of energy), and your brain. So, a thyroid malfunction can slow your metabolism, cause fatigue from heart stress, and create severe brain fog. Often this won’t show on a blood test.
• Adrenals: These glands create a hormone called cortisol. Cortisol controls your blood sugar and blood pressure, digestion, and whether you feel hungry. It manages your sleep, your ability to tolerate physical activity, and your ability to cope with stress. Are you sluggish in the morning? Do you crash in the afternoons? Do you have high energy at midnight? Cortisol can be the culprit in all of these.
• Sleep problems can cause fatigue and brain fog. If you try to solve your sleep problem with drugs, you’ll still get no actual sleep. The drugs will knock you out into what looks like sleep, while your sleep deficiency continues, and drug dependency increases.
• Heart stress can cause debilitating fatigue. In some cases, you will be diagnosed and treated with drugs, surgeries, or pacemakers. But the fatigue, though improved, can persist. In other cases, your heart stress may not show up on labs or tests—but your fatigue will continue.
• Medications often have fatigue as a side effect. Culprits are blood pressure meds, anti-depressant and anti-anxiety meds, steroids, and antihistamines. Solution: get healthy enough to get off your meds!
• Mental problems can suck the life out of you, creating lethargy and fatigue. Depression, anxiety, eating disorders, drug or alcohol abuse, and grief all can create fatigue.
• Deficiencies of all kinds can create fatigue. Vitamin B12, vitamin D, folic acid, and iron deficiencies can all cause fatigue.
• Infectious diseases can cause short-term fatigue, as anyone who’s had the flu can attest. However, some infections (such as Covid) can be long-term or even lifetime. CMV (cytomegalovirus), Lyme disease, EBV (Epstein-Barr virus) can cause long-term—even decades—of fatigue.
• Chronic diseases often have fatigue as one of many symptoms. Diabetes, kidney disease, liver disease, and anemia can all cause fatigue and brain fog.

The Fatigue Siren Song

The number of people with fatigue problems is undoubtedly staggering. Once you have fatigue, you often can’t recover from it because the fatigue can entrap you into perpetuating itself.

Fatigue often prevents you from fixing your fatigue problem.

It takes action and energy to resolve your fatigue problem, but you may be too tired to do anything about it. If you reduce your activity level to match your available energy, your activity will continually reduce as your fatigue increases until there is little left of your life.

In Greek mythology, the Sirens (monsters who looked like beautiful women) sang to the sailors and lured them onto the rocks to their death. In real life, fatigue can lure you into a similar fate.

There is an Answer to Fatigue

There are three things you must know to be successful at ending your lack of energy and getting your life back the way you want it to be:

1. DECIDE: You have to overcome the “Fatigue Siren Song” and decide to do what you must to end your fatigue. If you decide that you will handle the fatigue, and you aren’t slowing down until you do, then your chances of success get very high.
2. REALIZE: Conventional health care can rarely help you with chronic fatigue. Medical doctors aren’t taught the knowledge and techniques to handle most causes of fatigue effectively. You’re going to have to find a holistic doctor.
3. UNDERSTAND: Just because there’s no medical treatment available for most causes of fatigue, this doesn’t mean that there’s no hope. Your body can heal almost all of the causes of fatigue listed above.

Your body has a fantastic ability to heal itself. Just because there is no effective cure for your condition doesn’t mean that your body couldn’t—with some assistance—heal the problem.

Find Out More

You should find out if you could recover from your fatigue (or other “unsolvable” health condition). What would your life look like if this happened?

Find the underlying causes behind your fatigue. THIS IS A FREE ANALYSIS.

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