Planning your life while trying to control all the variables is self-centered and operates under a mental construct of, “It must be done this way because that is the right way”.  This language has a strong smell of ego, and immediately separates you from the universal network of synchronicity.  It may be based on good intention, but good intentions are generally extrinsic idealistic motives supplied by social norms.  Social norms are biased by status quo mentality, and status quo mentality is based on the fear of change.  So if you plan to change, you are met with a very sour unconscious resistance and your plans for change are short lived.  This is because this kind of motivation to change is fear based and therefore not in resonance with your heart.  Permanent change can only happen when fear is no longer a primer.  Luckily this pickle of a paradox is relieved with a modified approach to planning!

Too often we treat our lives like some project that must be accomplished on a deadline.  It doesn’t work, at least not in the long term.  Let’s be honest about why we want change in the first place.  We want to change because we believe we will be better, happier, more this, or more that.  There is nothing wrong with that, but we don’t get there through sheer projection of our ego-centered will without completely missing the self improvement bus.  Our will must be in symphony with the one song or uni-verse by a special vehicle called our hearts!

In essence, making plans without controlling specifics takes much more faith because it holds intent without making preemptive assumptions about what will be.  Assumption is dangerous because it separates choice from reality through time.  As our hippy friends say…it has no root in the “present moment”.  Life is a rhythm and planning must be harmonious and in-step to that rhythm.  Take it from a drummer, if you try to control rhythm, i.e thinking about what your limbs are doing individually, you lose the correct coordination of time interval and spacing, which in life is synchronicity and adaptation.  You can control rhythm, but it will sound technical, mechanical, and computerized.  Essentially it sounds faked or inorganic with a piece of music.  These are the people that on the outside seem to have everything going for them but are mysteriously unhappy.  Its the result of extending your will through the ego’s desires.  You may manifest the intended outcome, but it doesn’t fulfill your true desire for happiness.  In talking to people living in this space of control, they  will voice concern that they “feel stuck” or “out of synch”.  It is no surprise that in our culture this happens around the age of 40 when the material basis for your “perfect life” has been secured, but somehow failed to manifest happiness.

Letting go and feeling rhythm rather than thinking in rhythmic detail allows the perspective that experience (music of life) is the teacher trying to help you understand movement through theme and variation.  Translated to our life analogy, experience is the teacher of understanding personal choices through free-will in the context of change.  This is why it is human nature to try to seek overt control over experience by managing details rather than working to understand our unconscious motives through introspection and allowing change to manifest unhindered by personal attachments or aversions.

We assume that by controlling minute details of our life we will avoid negative experience, but this creates a feeling of vulnerability and defensiveness and what you are doing instead is creating a strong barrier between you and your ultimate potential as a human being.  We become scared of letting go, because we have learned that life is traumatic.  Life is traumatic because we choose to see emotions like anger, sadness, grief etc as a detriment to our happiness rather then seeing them as a temporary intense or scary moment in a piece of music that will ultimately convey something greater than its individual parts.  When you attach happiness to emotional states, happiness will always seem fleeting.  When you attach happiness to growth, and maturity of the spirit through whatever experience is necessary to evolve, happiness is yours forever.

While making plans with the head and making plans with the heart are often in conflict, they don’t have to be.  Unfortunately, in the majority of people, the heart works for the head, rather then the head working for the heart.  New beginnings are exciting because they offer a break from the rigidity of the mechanical life we seem to fall in to from our self perpetuating fear of fully participating in life through our hearts.  Making plans through the heart allows enough room for the universe to work with you in how the specifics will align.  This way when synchronistic events come your way, you are able to make a choice in the present moment that operates with fuller connectedness to the whole.

A study published in Pediatrics, Vol. 107, No. 6, June 2001, pp. 1241-1246 questioned parents and found well over 50% of them were very worried about the potential harm of fever in their children. Almost half considered 102°F to be a “high” fever, and 7% thought that a temperature could rise to greater than 110°F if left untreated. Ninety-one percent (91%) of parents believed that a fever could cause harmful effects; 21% listed brain damage, and 14% listed death.

This study highlights the wide range of common misconceptions in how fever is understood.  In my opinion we are much too quick to treat fever because we just don’t understand the benefits.  Fever is a natural expression of the human body that gives us an advantage to quickly eliminate an infection.  Without going into boring biochemistry, the purpose of fever works when an aspect of the immune system  signals the brain to reset the normal temperature to a higher degree.  This has the advantage to make it difficult for an opportunistic organism (virus and bacteria) to replicate.  A higher temperature also raises the rate at which the immune system functions.  A quickly mobilized immune system is a strong one!

I feel we need to reexamine the art of allowance and see fever as an intelligent part of the immune system and not as a illness as so many people see it.  Treating a fever is acceptable when a fever reaches 104 degrees F.  If someone has a fever this high chances are the infection needs medical attention.  Anything under 104 should be monitored but not necessarily treated with fever reducers.  A fever will not melt you or your child’s brain, I assure you of that.

In a study reported in Pharmacotherapy, December 2000; 20: 1417-1422, the researchers compared the duration of illness in those who received aspirin or acetaminophen (paracetamol) for relief of fever with those who did not and found that flu sufferers who took one of the anti-fever medications were sick an average of 3.5 days longer than people who did not take either of the drugs. On average, flu symptoms lasted 5.3 days in those who did not take aspirin or acetaminophen, compared with 8.8 days in people who took the anti-fever drugs.

The science community has ongoing studies that are still trying to figure out what benefits fever has for host immunity “if any” as one paper eluded . I feel that nature has good reasons that even if the human intellect cannot fully grasp, we must respect nature in its wisdom until our intellect has had a few billion years to work out the kinks.  Until then, trust the wonders of the body and be respectful of its processes.

The thought occurred to me that we need to lay down a definition of “healthy immunity”.  What is a healthy immune system?  Well, one that turns on with immune challenge, and then once the threat has been neutralized goes back to “stand-bye” mode.  More succinctly put, one that doesn’t over function or under function.  Sounds over simplistic I know, but having a healthy immune system doesn’t necessarily mean you never get sick, it means it can quickly annihilate the threat and return to normal levels of activity in a short period of time.  If you get sick with the common cold or flu and return to normal in 7-10 days, your immune system worked perfectly.  If a cold lingers on for more than a couple weeks or turns into “something else” that requires antibiotics to remedy, your immune system may be under-functioning.

With this in mind, I wish to reinforce the idea that immunity is a system, and this implies that it is made of many different parts.  Immunity is quite complex, and to function well as a system means every part is in balance with the rest.  I find that people tend to become worried about just a single aspect of immunity, like white blood cells, cytokines, lymphocytes, immunoglobulins, etc, but these are just one aspect of immunity, and are only part of the whole body system.  If you believe in the holistic perspective of the human body, then you must begin to understand the body as one interconnected working system, and not a mechanistic collection of isolated parts.  If you wish to strengthen immune function, you must strengthen the other body systems along with it.  This is constitutional medicine and why being healthy  is a whole body experience.   Since many people see the immune response as an isolated system then it makes sense to think one could simply turn on or boost certain aspects of their immune system when they get sick.  This is where we start downing the range of “immune boosters” in a desperate attempt to quickly rid ourselves of the newly acquired virus even though the rest of the year we are eating less then wholesome diets!

In my experience, once a person perceives the first symptoms of a cold, the immune response has engaged and must run its course.   Taking  8000 mg of vitamin C every 20 minutes for 3-4 hours at the moment you perceive cold symptoms as one website advises, will most likely give you some otherworldly diarrhea.  This represents the curse of western mentality that if a little is good, then more must be better.  If a nutrient deficiency is a reason for an under-functioning immune system, then it remains something to remedy long before a cold or flu hits. You don’t start digging a well when you become thirsty!  Taking mega-doses of vitamins or minerals can throw your body further from homeostasis and can even put more strain on the immune system.  A rain shower nurtures crops, but a flood destroys them.  It is much better to replace micronutrients slowly over months.

From my experience as a Chinese herbalist, a reliable way to incorporate herbs is to use them when you may be susceptible to infections following a cold or flu, such as bronchitis, pneumonia, sinus infection, etc.  In these cases, the “something else” that follows initial infection from a cold virus can be reliably alleviated with herbs.  I would also advise that if you do seem to follow a pattern of dealing with these kind of secondary bacterial infections then you should start on them soon after acquiring a cold or flu.  Many people get into an unnecessary cycle of having to take multiple rounds of antibiotics every time they catch a cold.

I apologize for not providing a list of herbs or a review of the latest vitamin C and Zinc lozenges on the market.  In most cases these things are not one size fits all.  I’m not saying you shouldn’t take them, but just keep in mind that the cold and flu are self limiting (resolve on their own) in  7-10 days.  The  major complaints that occur with getting sick are the lingering complications people experience after the cold or flu virus has already resolved.  This is when you want to choose carefully what natural remedy you go for, because a correct choice will make a big difference in resolving your symptoms.  As for herbs, there are specific choices depending on where the lingering infection resides.  If you want to use herbs, consult with a trained herbalist as herb choice and dose are important to get right.  You will be much happier with the result!  In the mean time, eat a well balanced diet with whole-foods (foods you could find directly from mother nature), and decrease refined foods and sugars.  This will keep a lot of stress off the immune system so it can work for you much more efficiently.

It seems like the flu shot is a really good idea on the surface, because who wouldn’t want a little pre-immunity! However, as it turns out, due to the nature of the influenza virus, you may not be getting the protection advertised.

Here’s the short answer:  WIth any medical intervention, you have to weight the costs, as well as the benefits to make a good choice.   Flu shots are no different.  The information available regarding the flu is muddy at best with conflicting statistics.  Even the CDC (Center of Disease Control) states on their website that, “[The]CDC does not know exactly how many people die from seasonal flu each year.”  So if we don’t know how many people die from flu, how do we come up with effective measures for successful medical intervention?  The reason the CDC doesn’t know for sure is because of lack of reporting procedures in the U.S.  There are many things that cause respiratory illnesses, and deaths from influenza viruses are not listed as “cause of death”, since it would require a lab test to know for sure.  This would be very expensive for hospitals to do, so what happens instead is they get their estimates from statistical modeling based on all respiratory illness related deaths during flu season and not real data.

Currently, there is no way to predict what virus strain will be around in any given flu season until it is already here.  This is why some years flu shots are useless and other years more effective.  Every year the World Health Organization makes a recommendation of what three flu strains should be added to the next years vaccination. Its a guessing game due to the high mutation rates of the influenza virus and the nearly 200 viruses that cause flu symptoms.  Even if scientists knew what strains were circulating in the population at the very beginning of flu season, vaccination manufacturers wouldn’t be able to move quickly enough to make the “perfect match” vaccine.   Remember, flu season only lasts a few months and peaks mid winter (Jan-Feb).  What usually goes around in fall and in the spring is most likely rhino-virus, which causes common cold.

The Cochrane Collaboration summary below is put out from an international, non-profit, independent organization.  Their goal is to provide up-to-date, accurate information about the effects of healthcare interventions. They look at all published research and come up with a summarized conclusion. If you want to know more about their methodology click [here]. Here is what was concluded on flu vaccines for healthy adults, published July 7, 2010

“Authors of this review assessed all trials that compared vaccinated people with unvaccinated people. The combined results of these trials showed that under ideal conditions (vaccine completely matching circulating viral configuration) 33 healthy adults need to be vaccinated to avoid one set of influenza symptoms. In average conditions (partially matching vaccine) 100 people need to be vaccinated to avoid one set of influenza symptoms. Vaccine use did not affect the number of people hospitalized or working days lost.  Fifteen of the 36 trials were funded by vaccine companies and four had no funding declaration. Our results may be an optimistic estimate because company-sponsored influenza vaccines trials tend to produce results favorable to their products and some of the evidence comes from trials carried out in ideal viral circulation and matching conditions and because the harms evidence base is limited.”

So according to this report, even under ideal vaccination circumstances, if everyone got a flu shot, this only would save 3% of the population from having influenza symptoms.  If flu vaccines were a casino game, you probably wouldn’t touch it!

My Conclusion:  For the average healthy adult with average exposure It seems rational to forgo the flu shot, and focus on strengthening general immunity in other ways.  Of course there are individuals that will have a much higher exposure rate, such as health-care workers, in which case it could be pertinent to get a flu shot depending on the circumstances.

Just a note about Vaccine Controversy:  You may know of the huge controversy over mercury-based preservatives (Thimerisol) in vaccines.  Many people feel this is a major danger to vaccine administration.  These are only found in multi-dose vials, and not in single dose vials or the live virus nasal inoculation.  If this is a concern you can ask for thimerisol free vaccines.

Bottom line:  It seems that flu shots may not be what they are marketed to be.  Any research that is funded by the vested beneficiary is a conflict of interest and should be a red flag for “collaborated” statistical computing.  While it may be suitable in high exposure environments, for the average person, it may not be worth the risk until more objective studies are done.  Just to be clear…I’m not concluding that vaccination is useless, just that vaccination is much more effective for virus strains with low mutation rates meaning they are pretty much the same creature year after year.  This is how smallpox was able to be eradicated.  Truly a gift from science!  The smallpox virus has a much “cleaner” replication mechanism so it doesn’t make mistakes in its genome sequencing.

Next time I’ll look at my favorite immune boosters in gearing up for the flu season!  Don’t worry there is still time!

Click [here] to try your hand at being a “disease scientist” .  It’s fun and a good interactive illustration of the process of creating flu vaccines.

1.) Just say No: It somewhat worked for drugs, it can somewhat work for family/friends/coworkers!  Choose what you want to participate in, and gracefully decline the rest.  There is no reason to always participate in cookie swaps and silly gift exchanges that seem to number in the double digits in the work place and other extracurricular social circles.  I am always so amused to see what “useless clutter” my wife comes home with after these events!  If you have to participate…have fun with it.  “Retrieve” an item from someones desk or the company supply closet a couple weeks prior and wrap that up!  It’s not technically stealing if it doesn’t leave the building!

2.)Communicate: Let people know ahead of time what your priorities are for the season and don’t back down!  Figure out with family how gifts will be organized and family time divvied up.  If you do this with enough advance warning, it works out much better with less disappointments!  For presents, decide on drawing names or theme the gift exchange like picking a “good cause” organization you wish to donate to.  No…Amazon doesn’t count!

3.) Delegate: This is a great tool to bring relief to the holidays.  If you know someone that is a whiz on the internet, or loves shopping, give them a list of gifts with a budget and an envelope full of money and say….”GO”… It is true that some people love “Black Friday” shopping and the adrenaline rush they get from getting a size 10 abrasion to the back of their leg when doors open and “pushing through it”.  Personally I would just pay off a minimum wage employee a “twenty spot” to hide the item for me until I get there around noon!

4.)  Decide to curb the Guilt: Resist the NormanRockwell Christmas demons of the 1950‘s.  Nobody can live up to the “Every time a bell rings, an angel gets their wings” Christmas propaganda.  It just isn’t like that!  There are numerous scenarios during the holiday season that brings on feelings of guilt.  Traditions, expectations and unspoken competitive posturing.  Nobody likes feeling “cheap” as someone opens a gift from you that screams, “victim of Keynesian economics”.  The truth is, things change, and with change we must adapt, be flexible, understanding, and accommodating.  This goes with all traditions, expectations and cultural ‘norms’.  This simplifying tip takes a little practice, but with time you will reap the harvest of “being an underachiever”.  A quote by Ray Bennett M.D. in “An Underachiever’s Manifesto”, “If there isn’t at least one person in your life who thinks you’re living below your potential, then you’ve got work to do”.  A couple more quotes by same, “Expectation leads to misery”, “Achievement leads to Expectations”.

5.) Practice Moderation: Moderate sugar intake, snacking, and portion size.  Do not limit your holiday experience by abstaining from pie, cake or eggnog just because they contain “extra calories”.  Simply allow yourself the pleasure without going back for seconds.  This isn’t just important for physical wellbeing, but also for emotional self-care because you have to be realistic and not beat yourself up!  Moderation can be a difficult thing to grasp for most of us.  Moderation is relative, and that is precisely what makes it difficult.  So your idea of moderate must be realistic within the context of some abstract baseline measure of previous experience.  Don’t fool yourself!  When we really think about it, we all know what is “reasonable.”  I promise this simplifies your holidays because I hear this kind of self-damaging chatter throughout the whole holiday season…mostly from the female clan.  It goes something like, “Oh dear me, I’m going to be as big as a barn if I eat that”.  “Oh honey, don’t even look at the calories, you’ll just cry”.   My personal favorite, “Deary, did you save the receipt so you can exchange it for a bigger size.”  All in All moderation provides a reasonable expectation of experience, because you give yourself permission without feeling self-annihilating.  It is the Holiday win-win when it comes to delicious eats!

Azurite Mineral

In my last blog, I wrote about the importance of having an idea about the proportions of supplements to sustain health.  This week I’m going to focus on the bottom of the pyramid.  I love this topic, because when understood, your health will improve drastically!  There are a few basic attributes we need to look at with minerals.  Due to the complexity of this topic, I’m dividing this article into 2 parts.  Part 1 will focus on what minerals are, and why they are important to human health.  Part 2 will talk about which minerals are truly important to supplement, how to understand the variety of forms mineral supplements come in, and dosages.

So what are minerals?  To simplify, do you remember in science class that big chart called the periodic table of elements?  Well, minerals are just those metallic elements combined with non-metallic elements like Carbon, Oxygen, Sulfur, Phosphorus or silicates.  These form hundreds of different combinations that give us stunning exhibits like the one at the America Museum of Natural History.

When these minerals are in the presence of decaying organic matter and microorganisms, changes occur that form new complexes that invariably make them water-soluble.  This rich combination is what we call soil.  Usable minerals are water-soluble minerals.  Ideally we should get all the minerals we need from a diet rich in plant and meat sources.  But this doesn’t really happen to the degree that sustains health because we are starting the food chain with depletion.  When most farmers think of “soil fertility”, they think of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.  This of course is important, but falls tragically short to call this soil “fertile”.

In fact we know that our soil in North America is about 85% deficient according to a document that was submitted to a government committee for review.  The study was published in 1936 and presented to congress as the “Earth Summit Statistics and Senate Document 264” in 1992.  The 85% depletion rate is an average.  This means that some farms in North America are 100% depleted and others are 60%.   This depletion percent doesn’t mean that there are no minerals, this just means that in 1836, there were twice as many plant usable, i.e., water-soluble minerals than in 1936.  I’m sure the numbers are even more dismal in 2010!

Readers may also inquire as to how plants can come to fruition if soil is so depleted…wouldn’t the plant not even sprout or be teeming with disease?  The answer is that the requirements of cultivar plants have become minimal thanks to Monsanto and other companies that specialize in creating “hardy” crop varietals.  They need water (barely), sunshine, and the basic nutrients of nitrogen, phosphorus and potash.  Because Monsanto was so thoughtful, they have even created a line of  “round-up” resistance crop species.  By the way, round-up is a powerful herbicide that Monsanto makes.  You may or may not also know that when you buy seeds from Monsanto, they are a one-time use seed.  So while nature allows you to harvest crops and save seed for next year, Monsanto seeds are infertile after the planted crop matures.  Shear Madness!

I remember picking some wild strawberries in the Kansas prairie, and thinking to myself how small this little strawberry was.  It was about the size of a gum-ball, but when I put it in my mouth there was a burst of sweet tartness that I had no previous experience tasting.  Packed with nutrition, these berries are filled with vitamins and minerals!  Today, vegetables are mere imitations of their distant ancestors.  Today, it looks like a carrot, smells like a carrot, but tastes like a staging prop.  The proof is in the taste!  It is the nutritionally dense minerals and vitamins that give produce and meat sensory overloading taste.

Research finds that minerals are essential for the activation of about 1/3 of all enzymes in the body.  So with about 75,000 human enzymes found in the human body, this means that about 25,000 rely exclusively on minerals to function properly.  I’ll leave it to you to research how vital enzymes are to the human body!  When minerals combine with enzymes scientists term them metalloenzymes, which are actually a subset of a broader class of substances called metalloproteins.  You guessed it; these are proteins that have a metal ion attached to them for coordination.  When I say coordination, I don’t mean a triple Lutz jump into a double axel.  Coordination means that in the presence of a metal ion, these proteins or enzymes are able to bend and fold into the correct shape.  The correct shape translates into correct function.  This is vital because these metalloenzymes are what sustains human chemistry with a high degree of speed and reliability. In short, when this system breaks down, our bodies break down!  Chemical reactions occur at blazing speeds with enzymes, and hardly at all without.  For all intents and purposes, you could say that enzymes are metabolism!  Without minerals, one-third of these enzymes are useless!  This is what I mean when I say minerals are the basis of metabolism.  Surprise…it isn’t energy drinks or antioxidant value!