7
Steps to Survival
Our health is affected by so many different factors. We need to get
back to simplicity and understand that the absolute basic needs of
clean air, water and food are not being met by the majority of people
today. We also need to realise that the body has a hierarchy of needs,
and as each need is better met, a trickle-over effect is created in
the body. We need to realise that headaches are not caused by a lack
of Panadol in the body, and the inability to obtain an erection is
not due to a lack of Viagra!
The
following list is in order of importance.
1/
THOUGHTS
Change
your mind, change your body. Your thoughts have the biggest influence
over your ability to change. Your brain has control over every part
of the body, so it is the most important.
-
Positive vs. negative thinking
Negative thinking about your life, job, family and friends, can have
profound affects on your health when these thoughts are constant over
a long period of time. Even negative thoughts from earlier parts of
your life can manifest themselves as pain and problems in your body.
This also applies to the thoughts of other people you associate with,
from an energetic perspective (the way their energy affects you),
as well as the way their values and morals affect the daily decisions
you make which affect your health.
-
Healthy vs. Unhealthy
Your current thoughts you have right now about what is good and bad
for you, are a reflection of what you have learnt over your life.
The media has a very powerful influence on us from the day we are
born. There are billions of dollars spent every year and billions
more made, by food and pharmaceutical companies, to trick us into
thinking that something is good for us when it most certainly is not.
You have to take your health into your own hands and educate yourself
with a variety of sources. This starts now. eg: in the 1940’s,
American
Doctors promoted smoking Camel cigarettes. What other products
are being advertised to you today that are supposedly healthy for
you?
How
do I improve the quality and quantity of my THOUGHTS?
• Change what you are learning and who you are learning it from.
Change requires change.
• Choose holistic health professionals. Make sure they look
healthy and practice what they preach!
• Think positive! Associate with positive people. Optimists
live longer!
• Buy ‘How to Eat Move and Be Healthy’ (Book) and
‘You Are What You Eat’ (Audio) by Paul Chek.
2/ BREATHING
We
require oxygen in the air to breathe. Without it, we would survive
only several minutes. It is also needed to metabolise food and regenerate
and repair our bodies, amongst a plethora of other functions. Consider
the below:
-
Air Quality
Not only do we need it, but it is vital to our health that we breathe
clean air regularly. How clean is the air you’re breathing each
day? Do you live in the city? Do you exercise (run, ride) in peak
hour traffic? How often do you rest and relax within nature and breathe
fresh air? Do you and your friends smoke? Do you work and breathe
in chemicals every day eg: hairspray, paint? Is your house new or
always needing varnishing or being cleaned with toxic cleaners?
-
Poor Posture
Poor upper spinal posture will restrict the ability of your lungs
to open
up when you inhale. When you can’t obtain as much oxygen through
breathing, your heart then has to work harder, leading to higher blood
pressure and cardiovascular problems. Ever yawned a lot when exercising?
This is your body crying out for more oxygen. Learn more about your
posture from a CHEK Practitioner or health professional familiar with
postural assessments.
-
Stomach fat and bloating
You breathe approximately 20,000 times per day. Makes sense to do
it correctly then, doesn't it? Most of us are self-conscious of our
stomachs and tend to suck it in due to extra fat or bloating. Over
time this changes the way your breathing mechanics work, restricting
the use of the diaphragm muscle and increasing the use of the accessory
breathing muscles in the neck and shoulders to expand the ribcage
to breathe properly. This is the equivalent then of doing 20,000 shoulder
shrugs a day leading to neck tension, pain and migraines! Re-teach
yourself to breathe like you did when you were younger, using your
diaphragm (i.e. allowing your stomach to stick out when you breathe
in), and incorporate breathing-focused styles of exercise and relaxation
into your life.
-
Breathing for Relaxation
Passive based exercise such as meditation and lying on a foam roller
as well as active breathing such as Tai Chi, Qi Gong, Yoga and Pilates,
hold massive benefits for the body. Breathing through the nose and
taking full diaphragmatic ‘belly’ breaths, activates the
parasympathetic nervous system. Activating this nervous system increases
anabolic hormones to help us grow, repair and digest and decreases
the production of our major stress hormone called cortisol. This in
turn decreases your blood pressure, resting heart rate and makes you
feel good! A well rounded exercise program contains not only work-out
exercises, but also work-in exercises as just mentioned.
How
do I improve the quality and quantity of my BREATHING?
• Learn what good posture is and how if affects your breathing.
Consult a CHEK Practitioner.
• Pay more attention to your posture when in certain positions
for long periods of time.
• Consider using Swiss balls for office work which promote upright
posture and activate your core.
• Spend long amounts of time reversing rounded shoulders via
stretching and using a foam roller.
• Consider buying Air Filters for your home or office. Improve
the quality of the air you breathe!
• Visit the BREATHING section of the KEY NEWS TOPICS area of
www.holistictrainer.net
3/
HYDRATION 
-
You are made of water! Not tea, not coffee, not alcohol....
Liquid life. If our bodies are 60-70% water, then why would you want
your body to be made up of anything less than the cleanest, purest
water you can find? Of course we are all going to drink other liquids
other than water in our life, but the truth of the matter is, all
we are designed to drink is water! How much pure water are you currently
drinking each day? Tea and coffee not included ?
-
Don’t drink tap water
I’m sure you wouldn’t drink chlorinated pool water or
put it in your fish tank, yet the tap water many of you drink every
day contains chlorine and many other toxins. Tap water has been shown
by the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) to contain over approximately
700 toxins harmful to human health, a few of these things being chlorine,
fluoride and progesterone and estrogen from the pill! Whilst chlorine
is needed in tap water during the treatment process before it flows
through your tap, that’s where its job finishes. Just as chlorine
kills bacteria in pools, it also kills the good bacteria in your digestive
system required for proper digestion of food. Fluoride is, believe
it or not, a toxic by-product of the phosphate fertiliser industry!
It does not belong in the body and is being linked to a huge range
of issues, Fluorosis and kidney failure being two of them. Check out
the work of Dr. Weston A Price, and see the dental photos he has of
healthy indigenous people around the world in the 1920’s-30.
Their teeth are beautiful, largely free from plaque and dental caries
and have never been exposed to fluoride, or even a toothbrush!
-
Filter your water
Get the same water every time by always drinking filtered or high
quality bottled water with high levels of dissolved solids (optimal
>180) like Volvic, Fiji and San Pellegrino. Then make sure you
get plenty of it, 2-3 litres per day.
-
Don’t confuse dehydration for hunger
Our body's dehydration signals are often confused with hunger or fatigue,
so don’t wait until you get to this stage. Drink water with
every meal that you eat, preferably around 15 min before eating. This
will ensure you don’t wash away digestive enzymes that are produced
during your meal to help digestion in the stomach.
How
do I improve the quality and quantity of HYDRATION levels?
• Don’t mistake hunger for dehydration. Usually you just
need to drink more water. 2-3 L per day.
• Buy a water filter. Basic Brita filters can be bought from
the supermarket, or to enquire about better quality filters like the
Pi-Mag and ESpring, contact HolisticTrainer.net.
• Store your water in glass or hard plastic bottles. Prevent
leaching of plastic molecules into water.
• Visit the HYDRATION section of the KEY NEWS TOPICS area of
www.holistictrainer.net
4/
NUTRITION
-
You are what you eat
Did you realise we are made of around 100 trillion cells, and that
about 2 million blood cells are being replaced in our body every second?
You literally are what you eat. Whatever you put in your mouth or
on your skin becomes a part of you.
-
One man's food is another man's poison
The majority of us are a mix of various genetics and racial descents
that make each of our metabolisms unique. This influences how all
food will affect us. Is your physiology more in tune with ancestors
from cold climate countries, like Eskimos? People who thrive on
high protein and saturated fat diets full of fish and whale blubber?
Or is it more in tune with the indigenous Quechua Indians of Peru
who had magnificent bodies that lived on a low meat / low fat diet?
Discover Metabolic
Typing via this website and / or a knowledgeable health professional
like a CHEK Holistic Lifestyle Coach, then learn which individual
foods work specifically for your body.
-
Eat food from the Earth and not from a packet!
It’s simple. The body works best with what nature has been providing
since the dawn of time. Not weight loss shakes and packaged food heated
in the microwave. In general, foods that are certified organic, low-Glycaemic,
high protein, and full of fibre and nutrients will serve you best.
The best way to properly absorb all these nutrients is to chew! The
average person chews their food 4 times before swallowing. Chew until
your food is liquefied: 40-50 chews. Your jaw will be sore at first
? but you will increase your nutrient absorption ability by doing
this. This will also prevent food- borne parasites like tapeworms
and threadworms from entering your body.
How
do I improve the quality and quantity of my NUTRITION?
•
Good rule of thumb: If it wasn’t around 10,000 years ago, don’t
eat it.
• Determine if you are a carb, protein or mixed type, then eat
right for your metabolic type.
• Listen to your body after eating. Bloated, farting, burping,
energy levels?
• More food from the Earth, less from the package!
• Eat organic food and use organic products. Less chemicals
in your body = less body fat!
• Visit the NUTRITION section of the KEY NEWS TOPICS area of
www.holistictrainer.net
5/
MOVEMENT / EXERCISE 
-
Working-out vs. Working-in
Intense exercise can be productive or counter-productive. If your
body is already dealing with a stressful lifestyle (negative thoughts,
poor posture, unresolved injuries, poor water, processed food etc),
the addition of high intensity training can hinder your progress.
Due to your body’s existing high stress level, your body will
consider the stress of intense exercise to also be a negative stress.
Consequently, this will activate your fight-or-flight system (sympathetic
nervous system) resulting in production of stress hormones called
glucocorticoids. Long term, this will make your 
immune
system weaker and your body sicker and fatter! Therefore, every session
at the gym does not have to be 'go hard or go home!’.
It could be making you fatter!
Tai
Chi, Meditation, Qi Gong, Pilates, Yoga, Zone Exercises and
lying on a foam roller are examples of work-in exercises. These exercises
stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system which secretes anabolic
hormones that help your body rest, repair and digest. Your ability
to live your life according to the other six steps of survival will
influence what sort of exercise approach you should take.
How do I improve the quality and quantity of my MOVEMENT/EXERCISE?
•
Employ a CHEK Practitioner to help assess your overall physiological
load so you can develop a movement program that is right for you.
• Any movement is better than nothing but choose wisely and
listen to your body.
• The best exercise program you can do is the one you WILL do!
• Visit the MOVEMENT section of the KEY NEWS TOPICS area of
www.holistictrainer.net
6/
SLEEP / REST 
-
Our circadian rhythm is in tune with sunrise and sunset
Our physiology is the same as our ancestors that lived for thousands
of years by the rise and fall of the sun. Now that we have lights,
TV, computers, alcohol and caffeine to keep us awake, our circadian
rhythm, or 24 hour sleep / wake cycle, is severely disrupted. Think
of
a time you have gone camping without electricity or minimal light.
Chances are that you have gone to bed a lot earlier than usual and
woken a lot earlier!
-
7-8 hours / get to bed before 10:30pm
Seven to eight hours of sleep is most optimal and getting to bed no
later than 10:30 - 11pm will do wonders for your body. If you have
been a shift worker late at night for many years and your health is
suffering, seriously consider changing your hours or your job altogether.
How
do I improve the quality and quantity of my SLEEP?
•
Go to bed around 10:30pm – 11pm. Listen to your body’s
energy levels.
• Consider better quality pillows and bedding that mould to
the shape of your body. Consider eye patches and earplugs to increase
the quality of your sleep.
• Reduce time around televisions, computers and bright lights
prior to sleep time.
• Visit the SLEEP / REST section of the KEY NEWS TOPICS area
of www.holistictrainer.net
7/
STRESS
-
Stress can be both positive and negative
The body can be stressed both positively and negatively. Exercise
is a great example. Exercise of the right intensity that doesn’t
aggravate existing or
pre-existing pain or injuries creates a positive stress on the body.
However, overtraining or doing exercise that aggravates existing or
pre-existing
problems creates negative stress on the body.
-
Six main stressors that can affect the body
There are six main types of stress that can affect us: Thermal, Psychic,
Nutritional, Physical, Chemical and Electro-magnetic. Determine which
stressors are affecting you negatively and reduce them. You can learn
more about reducing these stressors by reading 'How
to Eat, Move and Be Healthy’ or by visiting your Holistic
Health Professional. Your ability to increase your muscle size, decrease
your fat levels, and reduce your pain from chronic injury and disease
depends on it.
For a long time, we have focused on treating the symptoms of our
bodily ailments rather than the cause of them. If you are overweight
or underweight, you are bound to have a lot of other nagging ailments
that go along with it. They may not be as noticeable, but they are
every bit as important. By addressing all aspects of your body's needs,
you will treat the cause and not just mask the symptoms. Stop taking
the band-aid approach and get to the root of the cause!
References
- 'How to Eat, Move and Be Healthy' (Chek, Paul. 2004)
- Holistic Lifestyle Coach, Level 1 Course (Chek, Paul. 2003)
- Exercise Coach, course manual (Chek, Paul. 2003)
- O.N.E. Group website, certified organic products: website
link
- Dr. Joseph Mercola's total health site: website
link
Brad
Rasmus, 2008.
