Health Articles

Details: Ben Fuchs

In an article that was published in October of 2010 in the journal “Psychological Science”, collaborating researchers from Harvard and Columbia Universities found that humans and animals can up-regulate (i.e. stimulate) the production of healing chemicals by intentionally assuming open, wide, spread out expansive positions and postures. For instance, holding the shoulder up and widening the chest muscles for as little as two minutes. In that short period of time, according to the researchers, you can drop your stress hormone levels and increase testosterone and other anabolic building hormones. All this can be done just by holding the body in certain positions.

When was the last time you went to a doctor’s office for your arthritis or osteoporosis or autoimmune or degenerative disease and had him tell you to keep your shoulder wide and open up your chest? Probably never, but strategies like these that can not only improve our ability to heal in a completely non-toxic fashion, but even more importantly, they can keep us from having to interact with an intrusive and ineffective medical model that has presided over the most dramatic increase in degenerative disease in the history of man.

Details: Ben Fuchs

Pictures this: a Chinese peasant is having a baby. She’s screaming and writhing with the pain all mothers have known since the beginning of time. A medical man comes into her room, sticks a couple of needles in a few strategic spots in her body and just like that her previously unbearable agony begins to lighten up. Within a few minutes her misery is but a memory.

Or how about this: my brother, addicted to his Camel Lights, tries without success, to quit smoking. Over the course of 15 years and countless attempts to kick the habit, he’s still hooked. Yet an alternative health care professional sticks a few needles in his ear and just like the addiction monkey is off his back he hasn’t touched a cigarette in over two decades.

Another woman with chronic excruciating pain following a car accident can’t recall the last time she’s had a full night’s sleep. To make matters worse the pain and sleeplessness have caused a generalized sense of anxiety and depression. Within several months of weekly acupuncture treatments, she feels less discomfort in her extremities. Her right side becomes much more flexible and her range of motion is dramatically improved. And, on top of that her anxiety lessens and her depression is gone. Her friends say she looks healthier and she seems like an all-around less nervous person.

Details: Ben Fuchs

While you probably know that you have a nervous system that controls the flow of the electrical energy in the body, as it turns out, you actually have two nervous systems!

One, which has been called the “fight or flight” system, is technically known as the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and it directs energy into the activities that keep us alive in emergency and life-threatening situations. The second, called the parasympathetic system (PNS) is involved with more long-term activities. The PNS is sometimes called the “the rest and digest” system and the more time we spend in this parasympathetic realm, the longer we will be alive and healthy. Or to put it another way the less time we spend in "fight or flight" mode the longer we will be alive and healthy.

Many of the signs of illness and disease reflect chronic SNS activation and overload. Cardiovascular health issues especially high blood pressure and blood clotting are classics signs of fight or flight. Same goes for immune system suppression and frequent colds and flues. Cold sores and other skin problems may indicate sympathetic nervous system has been kicking in. Constipation, cramping and digestive problems often mean the body is in survival mode. For women dealing with menopause, hot flashes, night sweats jitteriness and anxiety are also signs that the body’s SNS emergency system has been activated.