The Purification Process: Healing for Modern Times
This is an article about thinking simply, in a new way,
and using commonsense in your choices about your
health. A choice I often recommend is cleaning up your
act, your relationships, your home and planet, and
supporting you to lighten up and heal. I encourage all of you
to think about health and health care from the philosophy of
Integrated Medicine.
As a doctor, I view any problem from the deeper true causes,
which most often have to do with our lifestyle choices—the way
we live. This involves what we eat, our level of physical activity
and how much we require during our in-body experience to keep
our energy moving, getting the sleep we need to recharge our
core systems, and how we create and manage our daily stress—
all to see how things add up for or against our health.
A basic philosophy of Integrated (Multidisciplinary)
Medicine in regards to healing is: Lifestyle first, Natural
Therapies next, and Drugs last. This article is much about
Lifestyle.
When our overall attitude is one of positive life
enhancement, we will nurture this treasure of our life force – our
vitality. Clearly, a balanced mind has a beneficial influence on
our body and allows our heart and spirit to join in life’s uplifting,
full-of-potential moments. Health issues challenge us to grow
and change for the better if we can claim our truth within our
inner being.
I discuss here what I call “preventive challenges,” making
changes in advance, before you fall apart, and for the purpose
of improving health and preventing disease. Ease can be the
outcome of these healthful choices and dis-ease is the crisis
created from years of bad habits, poor choices, and a lack of
understanding of your personal needs within Nature’s cycles.
Won’t you join me in this Quest for Health—keeping
your body clean, available to your life, nourished and thankful
for the changes you are able to make either through crisis or
wiser prevention? For many though, health is a great lifetime
challenge.
In most areas of the country now, we have farmer’s
markets, natural food stores, and our deck and yard gardens
to produce plentiful produce during much of the year. Keeping
clean shouldn’t mean keeping you too far from dirt, the Earth—
play in it, get in touch with where things come from and where
they go. Be a human being, not just a human doing! Garden,
shop, and prepare your meals with and for those you care about.
If you need further tips on health and chemical —free shopping
and eating, check out my book, Staying Healthy with Nutrition
(Celestial Arts, 2006).
Overview of Detoxification
The simplest way to understand symptoms and disease
integrates Western linear (commonsense) thinking, Chinese
medicine and its philosophy of yin and yang, and the naturopathic
approach to health and illness. Problems in the body (and
mind) often arise from (the duality of) either deficiency, where
we are not acquiring sufficient necessary nutrients to meet
our needs and body functions, or from congestion, where we
are having excessive intake, both from reduced eliminative
functions and the repetitive over-consumption of food or nonfood
substances, such as caffeine, alcohol, nicotine, refined
sugar and food chemicals, as well as driving more than walking,
and talking more than listening.
With yin and yang imbalances, it is not merely one or the
other, but a mixture, meaning that most people have some deficiency along with their toxicity. Clearly,
in these modern times of processed and
treated foods, and the chemicals used in
our environment, we all have exposures
to these substances. This stresses our
body. Along with that, food nutrient levels
are lower from lack of soil minerals. With
the typically poor choices of eating by
most people and the many temptations
of modern markets (even sweetened
and processed foods in the best natural
food stores), we just don’t obtain all the
necessary nutrients our bodies need to
function optimally—vitamins, minerals,
amino acids, essential fatty acids and
the many phytonutrients found in fresh,
healthy and colorful foods. Nutritional
supplements can help here in obtaining all
of these vital nutrients.
Naturopathically, deficiency and
toxicity are the continuum of nutritional
balance, or lack of balance. People who are
deficient may experience such problems
as fatigue, coldness, hair loss or dry skin,
and the healing choice is to be nourished
with wholesome foods to stimulate and
support healing. However, congestive
problems are more common in Western,
industrialized civilizations, starting from
acute colds and sinus or allergic problems
to skin rashes and digestive disturbances.
Likewise, many chronic diseases, such as
arthritis and diabetes to cardiovascular
disease and cancer, most often come from
long-term health-destroying habits.
Of course, these many health
problems are not only from poor food
choices. We are constantly dabbing,
spraying, and imbibing/inhaling more
chemicals from the air, water, foods, and
from our vehicles and medications than
ever before. Many of our acute and chronic
diseases and dilemmas result from the
clogging of our tissues and tubes and the
suffocating of our cells and vital energy
to support our ability to make healthful
choices. These medical problems may
be prevented or treated at least in part
and often dramatically by embarking on
a process of cleansing and detoxification.
The detoxification process is the ‘natural’
way to heal!
The incorporation of dietary changes,
including consumption of more fresh
fruits, vegetables and water while reducing
animal fats and proteins and eliminating
any damaging substance abuses—is the
beginning of the rejuvenation process for
the human body. This was discovered long
ago and is still true today even though
medical science may make light of it in
deference to the quick solution to major
diseases. Western doctors are trained
primarily to name the disease and then
prescribe a bill, a pill, and a refill, which is
often not even related to the needs of the
body’s healing process—the true solution
for disease. Of course, as a physician, I do
this too when it seems like it will work or
the patient requests this approach.
However, ultimately I believe in
and consider the cleansing/fasting/
detoxification process (they are different
degrees of the same process of reduced
toxin intake and enhanced toxin
elimination) to be the missing link in
Western nutrition and a key to the health
and vitality of our civilization. In more
than 35 years of medical practice, I have
utilized extensively various detox and
healing/rejuvenation practices for both
myself and literally thousands of patients.
I offer cleansing group support in the
autumn and spring (and the new year) at
my office. I truly believe that cleansing and
detoxification—the Purification Process—
is virtually one of the most powerful
healing (real healing of ailments and not
just suppression of symptoms) therapies
I have witnessed as well as participated in
for as long as I have practiced medicine.
Its effects offer rebalance for the body/
mind and are preventive for many health
problems.
I have written extensively about
detoxification, as can be seen in the last
section of my 1,000 page Staying Healthy
With Nutrition book and which is the
focus of my new book, The Detox Diet:
The Complete Guide for Lifelong Vitality
with Recipes, Menus, & Detox Plans (new
2012 edition), wherein I discuss both the
medical and health factors of the cleansing
process. The Detox Diet basics follow here
to give you a clear idea of what is involved.
Two Key Levels to the Purification Process.
The first is mentioned above as the clearing
from any substance habits or abuses,
even addictions for some, which are a
serious type of imbalanced relationship to
one’s true nurturing needs. This program
encourages you to take a break, which may
be temporary or lifelong, to such common
habits as the daily intake of what I call the
SNACCs—Sugar (as refined sugar and corn syrups—they put them in everything, it seems), Nicotine,
Alcohol, Caffeine and Chemicals in foods and our environment.
Especially watch the regular use of aspartame, and as able,
minimize your use of over-the-counter and prescription
pharmaceuticals and chemically-loaded beauty products, foods,
and household cleansers. To me, this is very often the first
step in health liberation, freeing ourselves from the emotional
connection and dependence on certain items to give us energy
or sedate us. All of these substances can alter our moods and
vitality, both immediately and over time.
Of course, many of us may eat a healthy diet of wholesome
foods and don’t have too many bad habits. I also see people
often who exercise and eat well, and are still not well.
The next level then is to look at food reactions. This
typically occurs from the most common foods we eat and
the most common food available in society, that is what I call
The Sensitive Seven—Wheat, Cow’s milk, and Sugar as The
Big Three, followed by Eggs, Corn, Soy, and Peanuts. My book
about this topic, called The False Fat Diet, is all about the many
ways we react to foods and the great variety of health conditions
caused by these reactions. Following the healing dietary and
supplement programs of avoidance and challenge will help
discover the individual reactions and needs of each person.
The Sensitive Seven*
• Wheat • Sugar • Cow’s Milk • Eggs • Corn • Soy • Peanuts
*Seven most common food reactions, mainly due to the
persistent intake of these foods in the diet and as the base of
most processed foods.
Food reactions are quite common and often result
from digestive dysfunction as well as inherent allergy and
over-consumption of the particular foods. There are many
factors that cause the breakdown in optimal function of the
gastrointestinal tract. Overeating, too many foods combined
at once, incomplete chewing, drinking too much while eating
which dilutes the digestive juices, and chronic stress all weaken
our ability to digest foods thoroughly. Furthermore, many people
have an imbalance of intestinal flora, where they have killed
off their healthy bacteria from overuse of antibiotics, which is
common in modern medicine. Other irritating bacteria may
flourish, or fermenting types of yeast organisms or parasites will
take up residence within our intestines. These cause an irritation
of the membranes, and this affects our proper absorption of
nutrients, causing abnormal absorption of larger molecules,
often referred to as “leaky gut” syndrome. Allowing ‘toxins’ to
enter the blood stream can affect our brain function, mood, and
energy level, and cause secondary immune and biochemical
reactions to these toxins. Our digestive tract has the highest
amount of immune activity of any area in the human body.
Food reactions are generated through multiple systems in
our body—digestive, immune, biochemical, and hormonal—
causing bloating and swelling in the body and gut, plus many
other possible problems. These reactions caused by an allergic
or depleted system make us more sensitive to environmental
toxins. Allowing these reactions to quiet and clear can help
those suffering from them to feel much better rather quickly.
Following an elimination diet, avoiding our habit foods or
commonly eaten foods as well as the most reactive foods, is
part of this Purification Process.
After a week or two or four of this avoidance (once you get
started and get through the fear, you’ll be clear), then you can
challenge yourself by eating one of these foods, giving it awhile
to check your experience of any untoward effects. Usually I have
my patients watch three different time periods for these food
reactions, since many responses can be ‘delayed.’ First, watch
immediately and over the first hour after eating the food. Also
pay attention to later in the day, several hours up to six hours
later. Then, observe how you are when you wake up the next
morning. Do you feel a little foggy or have a hangover? If you
had any reaction to the food or substance, if you feel worse
(fatigue, irritability, itchy skin, digestive upset, and mood or
energy changes are some possible reactions) or have any of
the symptoms you had previously experienced, you are likely
reactive to that food.
How do you Begin this Purification Process?
First, take an honest self-assessment. What are you hooked
into? What are your habits/abuses? What do you mostly not
want to give up? (That’s often the culprit in not feeling optimal.)
How ready are you to take a break from them? Then, set up a
plan, in writing, stating what you will do, for how long, and what
you wish to achieve. Use a program you know or can read about
clearly, such as my Detox Diet or a juice cleanse. You can find
these and other references on my website. It helps if someone
you know and trust has done it. It’s also great if you can find a
friend or family member to do it with you, to help each other get
through any hard times, and to have someone with whom you
can share your success.
Benefits of Detoxification are often an improvement in mental
clarity, physical wellbeing, and spiritual energy, as well as the
lessening of many symptoms. And if any of these following
problems are relevant, you can lower your body weight, your
blood pressure, your cholesterol level, and likely use less
medication. Many people claim they feel “better than they have
in years.”
In truth, what I attempt to do in my writing and practice is
to place your health and that of your family back into your own
hands, because so much of it is up to you. Be your own best
doctor. It really matters how you live—what you do and what
you eat, and what you think and feel. Take hold of yourself and
your habits, and do what you can to be vital and healthy. Use the
latest rage and the oldest sage—the Purification Process—to
improve your health. It is really worth it! Time to Get Healthy
and then STAY HEALTHY.
