Holistic Health Secrets

Ongoing insomnia can have profound and long lasting negative effects on your daily life, health, work and relationships.

Read my article about ten of the serious dangers, risks and consequences of chronic insomnia at Ways-to-Sleep.com.

If you prefer to read the text version of this video, go to the bottom of this page.

Free Stress Management Course

One of the main causes of insomnia is stress, an unavoidable part of life. 80% of all illnesses are stress-related. So finding effective ways of managing stress in our daily lives will help us to get a better night’s sleep as well as prevent the onset of many serious illnesses.

This Stress Management course contains 7 lessons delivered to you by email spread out over the course of a couple of weeks.  In each lesson, you’ll receive one or two techniques to:

* relax the body and mind
* mentally deal with worrying situations
* release anger

So if you’d like to get some free stress management techniques, as well as some sleep aid tips, enter your email address in the form below.

My new ebook about natural ways to beat insomnia will be available shortly.

You can put your name on the Early Bird list to receive a copy of the book at a discounted price.

You can find more details about this at:

http://ways-to-sleep.com

Living cells are known as the “building blocks of life” or the basis of all living things.

The word cell comes from the Latin word “cellula” which means room.

A human body is made up of trillions and trillions of cells.  One finger is made up of millions of cells.

Parts of the Cell

Each cell is an organised system.

Parts of a cell include the nucleus, the cell membrane and the vacuole.

The nucleus of a cell organises data and information about our body (our genes and chromosomes).

The chromosomes provide a template of how the cell will evolve.

The cell membrane protects what goes in and out of a cell.

In animals, the vacuole stores carbohydrates, proteins and fats.

The Body’s Intelligence

The cells do what is best for the welfare of the entire body operating holistically even though they all have individual functions.

Our cells are constantly dying and being replaced by new cells.  Each cell knows what the other cell does.  They form the inner intelligence of the body.

According to Deepak Chopra, each cell has a higher awareness.

According to traditional Chinese philosophy, the Ethereal Soul enters our body three days after birth.

During our lifetime, this part of the soul resides in the Blood of the Liver. If we don’t have enough Blood in our Liver, the Ethereal Soul will leave the body while we sleep and wander about. We remember these nocturnal wanderings as ‘dreams’.

This is also the part of the soul which can lead us to daydream.

The Ethereal Soul gives our life direction and purpose.

When our bodies die, the Ethereal Soul survives. This is the part of the soul that has a physical presence and is usually labelled as a ‘ghost’ or ‘apparition’ in popular culture. It is also related to our ancestry; the Ethereal Soul is said to be passed onto us from our fathers.

In Chinese Medicine, the Liver performs the following functions:

* It stores the blood and deals with the menstrual cycle.

* It controls the distribution of Energy throughout the body. By Energy with a capital E, I am referring to chi.  Chi can be translated as ‘life force‘ or ‘energy and information‘.

* The Liver is related to our eyesight and tears.

* It looks after our sinews, tendons and ligaments.

* The condition of our fingernails can indicate certain patterns of the Liver.

In Chinese medicine, each internal organ of the body has a mental-emotional aspect and a spiritual aspect.

The mental-emotional aspect of the Liver is anger. The positive aspect of anger is assertiveness and being able to stand up for yourself. The negative aspect of anger is being aggressive or easily irritated.

If you bury your anger or don’t express it in a healthy manner, it affects the functions of the Liver. If you’re not assertive and avoid expressing your anger or emotions in general, it also affects the functioning of the Liver.

The Liver deals with vision. This refers not only to physical eyesight but foresight, forward planning and your ability to see the big picture.

The spiritual-aspect of the Liver is called the Hun or the Ethereal Soul. If you’re lacking direction or a clear focus in your life, then this could be described as a problem related to the spiritual aspect of the liver.

The Liver is the largest gland and organ in the human body, dark red brown in colour and located on the right side of the body just under the ribs.

The Liver has about 500 different important functions which include:

* the production of bile which breaks down fats in the food we eat and helps to carry waste products away

* the production of cholesterol

* storage of iron and vitamins

* regulating blood sugar levels

* clearing the blood of drugs, alcohol and toxins

* regulating blood clotting

* breaking down food and converting it into energy

* fighting infections in the body, especially those in the bowel

The Liver, as the name suggests, is essential for living.  (Although the word ‘liver’ literally seems to mean ‘fatten up’).

In Greek mythology, the Titan, Prometheus was chained to a rock by the gods as a punishment.  Every day, an eagle would come and eat his liver and every night, his liver would grow back.

The liver is the only organ in the human body that can regenerate itself.

The name Prometheus is often used as a symbol or associated with regenerative medicine and stem cell biology.

A singing teacher once told me that when we are babies, we breathe deeply from the diaphragm.  But as we grow older, we literally forget how to breathe properly and start breathing from our upper rib cage instead.

When we breathe from the diaphragm, as nature intended, we pull more air into our lungs because our lungs are wider at the bottom. The oxygen is then carried by the blood to the brain and throughout the body.  Breathing from the diaphragm also helps to prevent the onset of coughs and chest complaints.

Breathing from the diaphragm also activates the parasympathetic nervous system which creates a sense of relaxation and calm.

Breathing from the diaphragm helps to prevent stress but doesn’t work effectively if you are already in a stressful state as this can sometimes make things worse.

The diaphragm also gently massages the stomach, liver, spleen and intestines when we breathe properly.   This improves digestion and the flow of blood throughout the body.

If you find it very difficult to breathe from your diaphragm, you can practise a simple exercise for five minutes each day:

Lie down and place a small object on your abdomen.  As you breathe in and out, the object should rise and fall.

If you wish to activate your parasympathetic system to create relaxation and calm, listening to calming music, receiving massage or doing a simple meditation exercise (such as mentally chanting OMMM for ten minutes) can help.  These activities also make it easier for us to breathe deeply from our diaphragm, sometimes without conscious effort.

Karmic healing relates to healing events and issues that are deeply affecting us now but whose origins have their basis in a past life.

The memories are usually repressed but affect us biologically, at the genetic level or psychologically.

These buried memories can create recurring physical symptoms,  phobias, obsessions and fixations in our current life.

Toxic, obsessive or destructive relationships are usually related to a karmic relationship from a previous incarnation. People who you just don’t gel with or who rub you up the wrong way for no discernible reason can also be one of your karmic relationships.

Toxic relationship attachments can follow you from lifetime to lifetime.  Karmic healing can help to cleanse and release these attachments.

Karmic healing can be a part of past life regression therapy or hypnotherapy.  It can involve chakra healing and aura cleansing.  It can help you to release old habits, attitudes and deep traumas.

I sometimes use a healing symbol to create karmic healing via Reiki.
It’s called the Emotional Butterfly Symbol. It is a karmic cleanser which helps to cleanse the Heart Chakra, the karmic field, the auric field and the physical body.

I have also been taught to use two versions of the Grace Symbol.

One version is said to help reduce karmic patterning – this is when an individual keeps going through the same relationship patterns or unfortunate situations.  My teacher believes that this happens when an individual doesn’t understand the lesson brought about by particular relationship or situation so their soul continues to encounter a type of situation or relationship until they understand the lesson.

The other version of the Grace Symbol is the Taoist Grace Symbol.  This symbol deals with the physical body, the lower chakras, the auric field and the soul.