Today, we’re going to discuss body detoxification.

If you’re feeling sluggish or out of sync, having skin problems, aches and pains, or digestive problems, if you’re straying from your healthier habits lately, it might be time for a detox. Detoxification is about resting, cleaning and nourishing the body from the inside out. By removing and eliminating toxins, then feeding your body with healthy nutrients, detoxifying can help protect you from disease and renew your ability to maintain optimum health.

Basically, detoxification means cleaning the blood. It does this mainly by removing impurities from the blood in the liver, where toxins are processed for elimination. The body also eliminates toxins through the kidneys, intestines, lungs, lymph and skin. However, when this system is compromised, impurities aren't properly filtered and every cell in the body is adversely affected.

A detox program can help the body's natural cleaning process by resting the organs through fasting, stimulating the liver to drive toxins from the body, promoting elimination through the intestines, kidneys and skin, improving circulation of the blood; and refueling the body with healthy nutrients. Detoxification works because it addresses the needs of individual cells, the smallest units of human life.

It’s best to detox fairly frequently, but everyone should detox at least once a year. A short detoxifying program is generally safe; in fact, scientific studies show that a detox is beneficial for health. However, detoxifying for nursing mothers, children, and patients with chronic degenerative diseases, cancer or tuberculosis should be cautious. Today, with more toxins in the environment than ever it's critical to detox, We also recommend detoxing for symptoms such as unexplained fatigue, sluggish elimination, irritated skin, allergies or low-grade infections; bags under the eyes; a distended stomach even if the rest of your body is thin; menstrual difficulties; or mental confusion.

First, lighten up your toxin load. Do the common sense things. Eliminate alcohol, coffee, cigarettes, refined sugars and trans fats, all of which act as toxins in the body and are obstacles to your healing process. Also, minimize use of chemical-based household cleaners and personal health care products (cleansers, shampoos, deodorants and toothpastes), and substitute natural alternatives.

Another deterrent to good health is stress, which triggers your body to release stress hormones into your system. While these hormones can provide the "adrenaline rush" to win a race or meet a deadline, in large amounts they create toxins and slow down detoxification enzymes in the liver. So it's a good idea to detox stressful life situations along with detoxifying your body. Yoga and meditation are simple and effective ways to relieve stress by resetting your physical and mental reactions to the inevitable stress life will bring.

There are many detoxification programs, depending on your individual needs. Many programs follow a 7-day schedule because it takes the body some time to clean the blood. This program involves fasting on liquids and or protein shakes for two days, followed by a carefully-planned five-day diet to allow the digestive system to rest. We also advisesupplements, herbs, exercise, and practices such as dry-skin brushing and hydrotherapy to enhance circulation.

At our practice, we use a variety of detoxification techniques. One of our most popular methods is the ionized footbath. The footbath was designed and developed to restore the body’s energy while facilitating and aiding the natural detoxification process. Detox balances and restores the body's Ph and electromagnetic energy.

The principle of detox is similar to how a magnet works. In this case, the magnetic force functions to help cancel out and eliminate harmful free radicals and other toxins from the body. This therapy uses an aqueous solution (water & sodium chloride in the form of sea salt) in a foot bath as a conduit for exchanging ions. The energy field created within the body draws negative and positive ions together, helping negate their harmful effect while gently stimulating cellular cleansing.

Today, we’re going to discuss Whooping Cough and a recent outbreak in California.

Whooping cough (also known as pertussis), for those who don’t know, is a highly-contagious disease that can affect adults, adolescents and infants. It‘s a bacterial infection. Whooping cough evolves over a two-week period. It generally starts as a sore throat with a mild feeling of fatigue, then within two or three days turns into a dry, intermittent "ordinary" cough. This persists, but may improve and worsen over the next 7 to 10 days. Then the cough may start to product small amounts of sticky clear phlegm, and occasional intense bouts of choking-like coughing start to occur. Fever is usually limited to the first week and is only mild. There may be a runny nose like a cold in the early stages.

After two weeks, the choking cough can start to from one to two minutes, often with vomiting, severe facial congestions and a feeling or appearance of suffocation. Between these attacks of coughing, the sufferer ironically appears and usually feels perfectly well. These choking attacks of coughing happen as few as twice a day or as many as 50 times, which can be debilitating. Between attacks, the sufferer may not cough at all. 'Whooping' is a noise that comes from the voice box after the attack when the sufferer is suddenly able to take a breath in again.

Only about 50 percent of whooping cough sufferers 'whoop' but that’s where the name comes from. Sometimes the patient stops breathing after a severe bout of coughing, long enough to go blue. Occasionally the patient may faints. Whooping cough lasts at least three weeks and can frequently go on for three months or even longer. In China, it’s called the 100 day cough.

In late December, California media began reporting on California's whooping cough outbreak, calling it the worst in six decades -- that has sickened nearly 1,000 adults and children and reportedly killed 10 newborns. An investigation by California news agencies and watchdog organizations began raising serious concerns about whether the whooping cough vaccine was actually working.

Typically along with news of the any outbreak is a finger pointed at unvaccinated people for causing the rise in whooping cough cases, but actually has nothing to do with it. Now, thanks to that investigation, at least a few media outlets reported the truth -- that the whooping cough vaccine is probably not that effective.

Virtually every kindergartner in the United States receives all of the whooping cough shots recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The CDC data also shows that a huge majority of children under the age of three have received four DTaP shots, which is the whooping cough vaccine that was approved in the United States in 1996. Despite this high vaccination rate, the disease still hasn’t been eradicated and every several years a new outbreak is reported.

Nearly 85 percent of those diagnosed with whooping cough in California in 2010 were actually immunized. Government scientists believe this high failure rate is due to the whooping cough bacteria having mutated almost two decades ago, and the vaccine being useless against a new strain. Even under the best circumstances, the whooping cough vaccine is only 85 percent effective according to the drug companies, which means anyone who is vaccinated can still get the disease.

So the truth is that these whooping cough outbreaks and deaths can’t be blamed on parents choosing not to vaccinate their children. The vaccines have simply never been very effective. The California investigation not only indicated that a high percentage of those with whooping cough had been vaccinated, but also that two whooping cough vaccine manufacturers provide funding for the "expert" groups that make vaccine recommendations to government agencies.

In the case of whooping cough, it’s still infecting both vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals, and cases increase every four to five years no matter how high the vaccination rate.

Many, if not most, children and adults survive whooping cough without any complications whatsoever, but some don’t. Some receive the whooping cough vaccine without a problem, while others do not, and have been harmed or have died after receiving the shot.

The bottom line is this again and again -- the partnership between government health agencies and vaccine manufacturers is moving closer and closer to discriminating against those who want to exercise their informed consent rights when it comes to making voluntary vaccination decisions, but for now you still have that choice, and should be fully informed when making it.

No matter what vaccination choices you make for yourself or your family, there is a basic human right to be fully informed about all risks and have the ability to refuse to allow substances you consider to be harmful, toxic or poisonous to be forced upon you.

Some alternative solutions to treating patients with whooping cough are to boost your immune system and include adjustments, get plenty of rest and proper dosages of probiotics and Vitamin D, as well as decreasing sugar consumption, eliminate dairy, and load up on oregano and peppermint.

Today, I will discuss the think well portion behind the “wellness” premise of "Eat Well, Move Well, Think Well."

It makes sense that part of our health can be attributed to how well we think and it all starts with our innate values. In this context, innate values are the basic human values of unconditional love, forgiveness of self and others, optimism, the desire to learn, and to grow and achieve a life of purpose are innate. These are innate and stamped in our genes, our hearts and our minds.  These values don't change. Our innate values then form and evolve into what we call our belief systems.

Our belief systems are what we use to evaluate and place value upon our life experiences  They are our paradigm. Belief systems represent the map we make of our world. The belief systems can change. They are not innate; they are formed. They are usually formed from our mother, our father, our early preachers and our early teachers.  Examples would include respecting others, speaking kindly to people, trying to make the best of everything, caring for others, our personal philosophy on exercise, i.e. pregnant women not smoking example. Our belief systems are the foundation of our self talk.

Our self talk is what we are currently thinking about -- those crazy thoughts that go on between our ears, how well we are thinking about ourselves at that particular moment or what is going on with our family or friends or social situations. Our self talk then forms our emotions and behaviors. What we think about all day usually tells us what we are doing and what is important to us. If you want to find out more about of a friend and follow them around all day, in most cases you can learn about what they are thinking and a little bit more about their belief systems, just by watching their behaviors.

Most importantly, if we are thinking positive self talk, which is leading to positive and healthy emotions and behaviors, we are going to be healthy. Conversely, if we have negative self talk, we can have unhealthy emotions and unhealthy behaviors which will cause sickness.

The key to changing yourself is to change your belief systems. Most people try to change the thought processes by changing their behaviors, and this is not healthy way to do things. We need to change our belief systems in order to make concrete changes to the way to we think.

Of course, there is a catch. In order to successfully change our belief systems, we must have an anchor or plan.

A good example of an anchor might be someone who has had someone very close to them be killed by a drunk driver. In most cases, that person will never drink and drive or may choose to never drink alcohol.  I have a friend whose father is a chronic alcoholic. Because of her upbringing and seeing her father struggle with that chronic drinking problem, she will never drink. I have known her for almost 10 years and have never seen her drink alcohol.

Having an anchor or plan will solidify the change in your belief system which will change your self talk and consequently change or your emotions and/or behaviors.

One final thought == Yes, I firmly believe that in order to change everybody should take a few minutes and draw up life purpose. This would be anywhere from a few sentences to paragraph of goals, ambitions and how you want to see your successful life.

Having a life purpose, which is congruent innate values, can only be achieved if your life purpose involves enriching your life and the lives of others. Without a defined purpose in your life you have no destination to use your values for.

For example,, let's use debt. Many people are in debt and would like to see that change. Most people who are in debt have a belief system that they think they will never get out of debt. This leads to negative self talk, which leads to negative emotions and unhealthy behaviors of which could lead them  to spend more money that they don't have. This, of course, can cause sickness and poor health and lots of stress.

In order to change this, again, we need to go back to the belief system and change the belief system.  The change would be that this particular person would firmly believe that they can one day get out of debt. Then your plan for that would be a concrete plan on how to get out of debt. This may include meeting with a financial planner to get a plan, to get a different job or did an additional job and most importantly to stop unhealthy spending. Once the plan is in place, the person will have more positive self talk as they are going through their day with a plan in mind. This will lead to more positive emotions, more positive behaviors and in this case, a positive behavior would be not spending money they do not have. This will lead to less stress and healthier person.

If you want to learn more, I am planning to do more “Think Well” presentations in the future, including one in February at the Northfield Senior Center. If you’re interested in learning more about the “Think Well” portion of the wellness paradigm, they can contact my office (507-645-8846) any time and get my public speaking schedule.