THE JOURNAL OF
BIOELECTROMAGNETIC
MEDICINE

Volume Eighteen
July 2008

The Three Free Treatments
E. F. Block

Abstract

The three free treatments are: Deep Relaxation, Exercise and Diet (according to your individually diagnosed pattern). This set of lifestyle changes is tailored to supplement your professional acupuncture treatment. Aspects of each are discussed with realistic goals and activities that you can do to improve your health at no cost to you other than your time!

Keywords

Relaxation, exercise, diet, diagnosis, pattern, lifestyle, acupuncture, treatment, goals, health, free

Introduction

Part of every visit to your acupuncturist should be a discussion concerning the three free treatments that you can do for yourself. This most likely will be done with some lifestyle changes geared to improving your overall health and well-being. These changes will be discussed with your healthcare provider and will change as your diagnosed condition changes according to your response to the acupuncture treatments. Since this is the case, it is advisable to keep a journal of your return to optimal health. This will allow you to chart the progress that you are making while achieving your goals.

Deep Relaxation

Your use of deep relaxation techniques should be practiced for at least 100 days for 20 minutes each day in order to derive the most benefit. Hopefully, you will develop a habit of doing this relaxation exercise everyday for the rest of your life. The exercise involves awareness of the breath in order to get you into a very relaxed state. Choose a time when you will not be interrupted by anything. Sit or recline in a comfortable position and loose clothing. Make sure that your legs are uncrossed and that your arms are comfortably at your side. Allow yourself to settle in and close the eyes. Being in a room with subdued lighting helps. Then focus your attention upon your nostrils, where the air enters your nose. Feel the air as it moves into the nose and follow it up into the nasal passages. Move your attention into the throat and then down into the windpipe. Follow the air as it moves into and out of the air passages. As you are doing this, allow yourself to relax. Continue to follow the breath into the bronchi and into the lungs. Slow your breathing and allow the air to go into the top of your lungs all the way into the bottom of your lungs. Be aware of the breath as it moves slowly into the body and slowly out of the body. Focus on the depth of the breath as it totally fills and then easily goes out of the body. Visualize harmonizing and energizing energy moving into the body with the in breath and all of your stress and tension exiting the body with the out breath. Do this several times. Then as you inhale, visualize the breath going to every nook and cranny of your body, carrying the harmonizing and energizing energy all the way out from the inside of the body, all the way out to the surface of the skin. As you exhale, visualize all the stress and tension exiting the body from the skin, the muscles and the interior of the body. After doing this several times, as you breath in allow yourself to float around inside of your body and notice any areas that need attention for relaxation. If you notice any, allow your focus to go to the area of note and visualize that area relaxing and receiving the harmonizing and relaxing energy. Let the tension go and relax, harmonizing and relaxing energy on the in breath and stress/tension draining away on the out breath! Do this with each area that needs attention. Then let go and float deep within to your "center", the area of great calm, peace and harmony.

After you have "centered" yourself in this relaxed state for a time, deep within your beingness, it is then time to return to the fully alert and wakened state. It is advisable to return in the manner of entry until you become more adept at this technique. Thus move your attention outward to the surface of the body with each in breath. Allow the energy to move out until your skin almost feels as if it is tingling. Then move to awareness of your lungs and from there gently and easily up into the bronchi, the trachea, the pharynx, the nasal passages the nose and the nostrils. Now, allow yourself to get ready to open the eyes, open them and take several deep and slow breathe with the eyes open and being fully alert. Rub your face with your hands a bit and slowly move to arise from your position. Feel how relaxed and energized you are, ready to tackle all that life brings to you to enjoy!

Exercise

The importance of exercise lies in getting your heart rate going to at least 80% greater than your resting heart rate. This exercise should be done for at least 20 minutes for a minimum of three days a week. If you have not exercised in some time, it is best to begin by walking at a good pace. Then after a week or so, pick an exercise program that appeals to you - running, exercise video and the like. It is important that your "warm up" before you begin and stretching is very important. The trick is not to do too much too quickly or your muscles will get sore and be painful. You have to get the blood vessels going to and from the muscles used to the new demand for blood by the muscles. You also need to get the muscles used to the demand for calcium ion, glucose and increased oxygen demand in order to make Adenosin-Tri-Phosphate (ATP) for muscle contraction. Choose the exercise plan that appeals to you and stick with it, adding and leaving elements as you progress in stamina. Choose something that you can have fun with for the rest of your life!

Diet

This aspect of your free treatments is absolutely critical. At least 90% of the items that you will find in any typical grocery store are bad for your long-term health. Stop being lazy and begin to learn what, how and why to cook your meals! If everyone ate meals in accordance with the constitution and ethnic influences of their beingness, no one would get sick except by infectious disease and extreme environmental stressors. Your healthcare practitioner should give you guidelines to follow according to the disease pattern that you present and the diagnosis. Diet is the daily treatment for your health apart from direct periodic treatments and herbal preparations. Some of the things that you should be aware of are as follows:

  1. High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) is in just about every thing these days. This is not healthful since it has been shown that the majority of fructose in the body is converted directly into cholesterol. Those persons predisposed to hardening of the arteries must severely reduce sucrose (a combination of glucose and fructose) and HFCS in their diet. Also, it has been shown that sugar robs the body of calcium, mostly from bone and the area surrounding the roots of teeth.
  2. The best all around source of oil is Olive Oil. Flaxseed Oil is the easiest, best plant source of omega-3 oils. Deep sea, cold waters fish are the best animal source for omega-3 oils. Our diets in general do not contain enough omega-3 oils. Grass fed livestock has higher levels of omega-3 oils than grain fed livestock.
  3. Make sure that you eat so as to get the proper amounts of Vitamins and minerals in your diet. If you eat /drink something with caffeine in it, make sure that you also eat extra Vitamin C as your adrenals will rob your depots for Vitamin C in order to make the metabolism enhancing compounds and neurotransmitters. The natural life circumstance is that of paucity and not surfeit. It has been found that mega-doses of vitamins are actually bad for your health! Use sun evaporated sea salt for your diet only. It will not cause you to retain water and it has less sodium and more magnesium than regular salt or manufactured sea salt. It has to be naturally sun dried in saltpans to be of use to us.
  4. If you are a sweets eater, make sure that you also eat extra calcium, as stated above. Sugar seems to capture calcium from the blood and then it is taken from bone, tooth sockets and muscle. These days we tend to get an imbalance of the calcium to magnesium ratio in our diets. The normal ratio is 2 calcium to 1 magnesium but our diets seem to severely skew it to a deficit of magnesium. Here is where using sun evaporated sea salt helps. Perhaps the best dietary source of magnesium is anything that is a green plant as the green color of chlorophyll is due to magnesium.

Conclusions

We can see that the three free treatments are very valuable in assisting our return to optimum health. The best part is that it is free!

References

1. HFCS
http://www.westonaprice.org/motherlinda/cornsyrup.html http://www.sprol.com/?p=236 http://www.wikihow.com/Avoid-High-Fructose-Corn-Syrup

2. Omega-3 oils
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega-3_fatty_acid http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071112163630.htm http://www.shirleys-wellness-cafe.com/flaxoil.htm

3. Sea Salt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_salt http://www.saltworks.us/salt_info/si_gourmet_reference.asp http://curezone.com/foods/saltcure.asp

4. Sugar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar http://www.healingdaily.com/detoxification-diet/sugar.htm http://www.ghchealth.com/refined-sugar-the-sweetest-poison-of-all.html

The Journal of Bioelectromagnetic Medicine