In my extensive studies of holistic and alternative healing I have run across many techniques that are, well, simply weird. But when studied, sometimes the weird stuff is not only true, but it can also be incredibly useful. I have realized that reality is often quite different from what we know from our limited experience.
Grounding falls into the category of “weird” for sure. But, read the following well-researched article to have your mind completely changed!
Understand that grounding is not some phenomenal healing power that will end your chronic health problems. Instead, grounding is one of many de-stressors that can assist you to regain your health.
Read the article. See if you do not agree with me that grounding should be taken seriously and that, just perhaps, you should spend a bit of time barefoot in the sand!
Read: SMASH: The Potent Recipe for Increasing Omega 3
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.
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.
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:
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.
I have had horrible cat allergies for most of my life. So bad that it has even sent me to the hospital. My throat starts to close up, I start to have shortness of breath, and my eyes start to water. Then after a while, I start to have a full-blown asthma attack.
This past weekend, I had Easter dinner with my husband’s side of the family, who are hoarders with loads of cats. Normally, I can’t spend more than an hour there without having a reaction and a migraine that lasts for days after.
This weekend, we spent about 3 ½ hours there, and I had little to no problems.
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?
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.
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?
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.
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:
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.
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 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:
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.
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.
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.
There is tremendous interest in “plant-based diets” right now. Environmentally, this can be an excellent thing. But there is a sense, I think, that “Plant-Based” also means “healthy,” and this isn’t strictly true. I’ve had many patients and acquaintances talk to me about how they are converting their diets to “plant-based,” assuming that this is the same as a “healthier diet.”
The following article sheds some needed light on the idea that “plants are healthy, animal products are unhealthy.”
Dr. Melodie Billiot
Anti-Nutrients-Is There a Downside to Plant-Based Eating?
Ronald Grisanti D.C., D.A.B.C.O., DACBN, MS, CFMP
In my quest to identify the most effective way of eating, I came across something that has caused a paradigm shift in my thinking on many “healthy” plant foods.
I first need to preface my article on the fact that I have been a “huge” advocate of eating a plant-based diet with minimal meat consumption for as long as I can remember.
My diet typically consisted of drinking a morning smoothie with every type of plant food (spinach, beets, almonds, chard, seeds, etc.) with plant-based protein powder. My lunch was a big salad with more spinach, assorted greens, nuts, and some protein. Dinner was a plate rich in plant foods and some protein. I commonly would eat broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, beets, etc.
My long-standing question was why in the world was I feeling so bad? Irritable bowel syndrome, joint pain, diarrhea, brain fog, anxiety, difficulty losing weight (fat).
Of course, this does not fit what we have been informed about this way of eating for most people. Of course it was healthy!
So I just pushed forward and continued to eat this way, believing that it was the price I had to pay to be healthy.
But I wasn’t!
My dear wife, Debbie, frequently went to bed with an ice pack on her right hip and right knee. Chronic constipation was the norm. Stuck at an unacceptable weight level was frustrating.
Again we faithfully continued to eat this way, accepting and “preaching” the ultimate benefits of eating an abundance of plant-based foods.
I really never challenged my “strong” belief in eating mainly plants and some protein. One look at my extended library of books would convince anyone that I was on board with plant-based diets, hook, line, and sinker!
By pure coincidence, I came across a book on some of the downsides to eating a heavily plant-based diet.
At first, I was appalled at the thought that plant-based foods may not be the best for “ULTIMATE” health and well-being.
Like I love to do, I dug into the literature and read everything I could on some of the negative effects of eating many plant-based foods.
Wow, what I learned was an eye-opener!
Since tweaking my diet and reducing some of the more toxic plant foods (will discuss shortly), all of the above symptoms vanished. I effortlessly lost weight. My wife, Debbie, was totally free of right hip and knee pain. No more ice bags! And to top it off, she hit a goal weight she tried to accomplish for at least five years!
My thinking and beliefs in a heavily plant-based diet changed.
Today, my goal is to share what I learned, and I hope you give me the time of day to at least listen with an open mind to what I am about to share with you. It could be the tipping point to reversing many chronic, long-standing health issues for many of you reading my article.
Ready?
Plants have something called ANTI-NUTRIENTS.
Anti-nutrients are natural compounds found in plants. Anti-nutrients protect plants from bacterial infections and protect plants from being eaten by predators. Since plants, unlike animals, can’t fight off predators, anti-nutrients are a plant’s self-defense mechanism.
Anti-nutrients are found in all parts of plant-based foods, including vegetables, seeds, and fruits.
Too many anti-nutrients have been found through my research to cause inflammation, gut dysbiosis, arthritis, joint pain, skin issues, and brain fog, to name a few ailments.
A big concern of anti-nutrients is how they interfere with nutrient and mineral absorption.
Here are the top 10 anti-nutrients:
1: Oxalates– Oxalates are found in green leafy vegetables (spinach), sesame seeds, teas, and soybeans. Oxalates can bind to calcium and iron and prevent them from being absorbed. Oxalates are enzyme inhibitors that can prevent proper digestion, cause gut problems and protein deficiencies. Enzymes create chemical reactions in the body that help support our bodies to function properly. Enzymes are especially important in the digestive process. Without the enzymes to properly metabolize food, GI issues can occur, such as bloating and constipation.
2: Polyphenols –Polyphenols known as phytochemicals are anti-nutrients that are touted for their health benefits. Dark chocolate, flaxseed meal, cocoa powder, and many fruits and vegetables contain polyphenol compounds. Polyphenols may have some health benefits, such as possible body weight regulation and decreasing blood pressure, but there are studies on high doses of polyphenols causing kidney damage, tumor development, and altered thyroid hormone production.
3: Gluten– Gluten is a protein that is almost impossible for stomach acid to break down and digest. Dr. Fasano of Harvard, a leading expert on gluten, says that eating gluten can do small amounts of damage to the intestinal lining, creating leaky gut and inflammation in the most susceptible people.
4: Phytic Acid (Phytate)–Phytic acid is primarily found in whole grains, legumes, seeds and some nuts. Phytic acid can decrease the absorption of iron, zinc, magnesium, copper, phosphorous, and calcium. Studies show that phytates can block 80% of zinc-rich foods (cashews, chickpeas), 80% of phosphorous-rich foods (pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds) and 40% of magnesium-rich foods (spinach, almonds, avocado).
5: Lectins–Lectins are found in legumes (beans, peanuts, soybeans) and whole grains (wheat). They can interfere with nutrient digestion and absorption of calcium, iron, phosphorous, and zinc. Lectins are notorious for surviving GI tract digestion. They can then penetrate the cell lining in the digestive tract and cause damage to gut epithelial cells and membrane lining, change bacterial flora, and trigger autoimmune reactions.
6: Tannins–Tannins are similar to oxalates as they are also enzyme inhibitors. Tannins are found in teas, coffees, wines, and legumes. They can interfere with iron absorption. Tannins have also been shown to impede the digestion of nutrients.
7: Glucosinolates–Glucosinolates are found in cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, kale, brussels sprouts) and can interfere with the absorption of iodine, which can then interfere with thyroid function. Another study of over 100,000 participants found that those who ate the most glucosinolates had a 19 percent greater risk of developing Type 2 diabetes.
8: Saponins–Saponins are found in legumes (green lentils) and whole grains. They can interfere with normal nutrient absorption (iron, zinc) and, similar to lectins, can affect the GI lining, causing leaky gut and autoimmune responses.
9: Solanines–Solanine is found in nightshades (potatoes, eggplants, tomatoes, peppers). For some, these can cause inflammatory bowel disease and autoimmune conditions. Others may feel a slight feeling of poisoning. (nausea, throat burning, headaches, etc.)
10: Salicylates–Salicylates are compounds found in foods, medications and other products that can cause adverse reactions in those who are intolerant. There is much (renewed) interest in the effects of salicylates on food intolerance, attention-deficit disorders, and cardiovascular disease.
The following is a good chart to reference with foods associated with specific anti-nutrients.
Chart Obtained from page 127 of Carnivore Cure–Judy Cho
My conclusions and my continued journey:
Although I have taken a deep dive into some of the pitfalls of eating an abundance of plant-based foods, I sincerely believe there is a middle ground for most people, including myself. I can not deny that many of these plant foods indeed have many health benefits and should not be entirely denied for consumption. On the other hand, I was ignorant of this well-researched downside.
At this point in my 64 years of living on this earth, I am still researching optimal health through many facets, including science-based nutrition.
Today I have presented another side that should not be ignored but at least considered if you, like myself, have strived to achieve optimal health through a plant-based diet.
Just maybe some of these anti-nutrients may indeed be playing havoc on your ability to be free of chronic disease entities.
As I dug deeper in my literature review, I have discovered the least toxic vegetables and fruits.
Here they are:
Vegetables: Avocados, Zucchini, Olives, Cucumber, Pumpkin and Squash
Fruits: Apples, Oranges, Berries, Pineapple, Pears, Melons, Bananas, and Mango
As I continue to use myself as a testing platform and work with many patients, I will report back to you on my findings.
