Air
The best time to
notice the importance of good, clean fresh air is when you lack it.
Every human being can survive for weeks without food, for days without
water, but only minutes without air. Air is essential to our lives.
Every illness that has a shortage of air (Asthma, for instance or some
heart or lung diseases) implies a high stress level because of the fear
to suffocate. But air has not always given the importance, that we now
know it has. During the time in the Renaissance it was considered
totally revolutionary to expose a room or even a human being to fresh
air and sunshine. It took yet decades before the reformation movement
around Jan (the godfather of physical exercise programs) or the even
later developed nudists clubs demonstrated to the people that fresh air
was essential to their well being. How can we use air in the sense of
natural healing? For instance: Sick rooms should be sufficiently often
aired out so that the patient can breathe better and thus deeper.
Disease germs, by the way, do not maintain themselves in well
ventilated rooms. It is awful what happens to patients in hospitals.
They have to breathe the air that is ventilated through the air duct
systems of air conditioning systems and it contains all kinds of
hospital related bacteria. I know of many cases, where especially
elderly people come to the hospital for one minor health problem and
get really sick with the bacteria, that they catch in the hospital.
Sometimes it would already have been helpful, if the hospitals sick
rooms would have had windows, that can be opened...
In every house
and workplace it is essential to ventilate well. If we fail to do it,
lack of concentration and diminished stamina result. A healthy way to
get as much of the air into the system as possible is a brisk walk -
possibly not alongside the freeway.... Movement in fresh air is always
a gain for the entire organism. By breathing deeper all the stress gets
carried away and we feel free. The inhaled oxygen provides optimally
for all systems and we are again stronger and more resistant towards
diseases.
Wounds, exposed to clean air, heal faster. This
also goes for skin diseases. Sometimes it has proven very helpful to
combine air therapy with color radiation or sunshine.
An invention
of the old Romans, the Tepidarium, has now been reinstalled in many
luxury hotels in Europe. It is a small room, where walls and the floor
are heated, creating a very pleasant atmosphere. The guest is laying
naked on a convenient lounge chair and is „breathing with every pore“
In
massage practices warm air is used to prepare the patients muscles for
the massage. The skin „breathes“ better and the muscles get more
relaxed.
The Finnish sauna creates hot air, thus causing a heavy
perspiring and release of toxins. The detoxification effect is even
more enhanced in an infrared sauna. Infra red radiation warms the body
by deeply penetrating heat that causes more intensive perspiration
than every sauna.
There are certain diseases where it is essential
to apply high air pressure and climate as a healing stimulus. Thyroid
problems, asthma and neurodermitis respond well to the climate at the
sea.
Whereas in Switzerland, Davos is famous for it‘s good healing climate for all lung diseases.
Air is equally important to all human beings and we should all join in the effort to keep it as clean as can be...
Water
is our second important substance. Without water every life
dries up. Looking at the desert areas of this earth, you notice what
the lack of water does. But, on the other side, even a brief rainy
period brings forth an amazing outburst of growth.
Water is the
basic part of our nutrition. Every healthy person should drink at
least 1 to 2 quarts of pure water daily. It is much too little known,
that coffee, black tea, alcohol or sugar containing liquids do not
count in our daily water intake. It is so, because the body needs more
water to eliminate the toxic waste from caffeine, sugar or alcohol.
Plus. caffeine is diuretic, which means you eliminate more than you
drink. Drinking not enough water is the most common cause for
constipation.
When I see people in my practice, I can tell them
right away when they don‘t drink enough water. Their skin is generally
dry and the typical radiance of the healthy skin is absent. Now, it
would be wrong to say: I wet my skin to add some moisture. The opposite
is true: Evaporation of water and the brief loss of heat that goes
with it dries the skin out. Moisture has to come from within by ample
intake of water
Food
is our third important substance to
stay alive. Without food we starve. There are libraries full of books
telling us what we should eat....
Without trying to evaluate any of these „diets“ there are some „downtoearth“ thoughts about food, that one might „digest“
We are the product of what we eat and think - does this ring a bell?
Nobody would give his plants some bad soil and spoiled water, but many of us think, they can eat whatever is available.
A
healthy diet should contain a balanced amount of carbohydrates, fats
and proteins. If we lack one of these three substances, the body shows
by cravings that something is missing. That's where the vicious circle
starts. Our instincts have been mulled by unnatural food additives and
we have lost the taste for pure things. That's why we stuff ourselves
with the „wrong“ stuff then...Given the fact, that the children learn
from their parents - What wonder, that an increasing number of children
are more prone to allergies and obesity.
I do not intend to add
another „healthy recipe“, but if you see that your food is as natural
and fresh as possible, you can‘t be all wrong- especially in times,
where gen-manipulated food becomes an issue.
