Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Importance of Lining Up Your Beliefs and Expectations

What role do your beliefs and expectations play in shaping your life? And how much should they influence your actions?

A belief is a thought pattern that you hold, either consciously or subconsciously. It could be something that you were taught, something that people around you or the media espouses, or an ingrained way of thinking formed from your own experience. An expectation is just that- what you expect to happen even before it does. People generally have a positive or negative set point when it comes to their expectation. And your set point probably varies depending on a given subject (for example, you could have a positive expectation when it comes to relationships because you have had good experiences in the past, but have a negative or somewhat lower expectation about what is possible for you in your career).

Your expectations are really, really important when you are trying to create change in your life. If you desire something, and are taking action steps towards it, but don't at your core believe that it can happen, then you will always be disappointed in the results you achieve. The universe can only deliver to you as much success as you think is possible for you.

That's why it's critical that your beliefs and expectations be in line with your actions. Take the issue of losing weight for example, which is something a lot of people struggle with. Most people have certain set beliefs about what they must do to lose weight (cut calories, work out more, etc), and their expectation is that if they do these things for an extended period of time, they will indeed lose weight. The problem comes in when you don't follow through on the action steps that are in line with those beliefs. When you slip up on the action, then your belief and your action are no longer in sync. You inadvertently set up your own struggle.

But if you ever watch a thin person eat, you will notice that they have a different set of beliefs and expectations. They don't see food as the enemy that is making them gain weight. They eat with relish, because their belief is that the food is nourishing them - there is no internal struggle or angst between what they think and what they are doing. Their energy is perfectly aligned on the subject of food, so their body follows through for them in a variety of different ways - efficiently metabolizing calories, sending them a strong signal to stop eating when they are full, attracting them to healthier foods and less cravings, and naturally controlling their appetite.

These physiological differences in people aren't mere coincidence or good luck! They are a direct result of aligned energy. When you have positive thoughts, beliefs, and expectations about food and your body (or any other subject for that matter), you are allowing your own energy source to work in your favor in more ways that you can consciously ever coordinate. All of the action (drastic dieting, killer workouts, etc) in the world will not make up for misaligned energy in the long term. You will find that when you stop or lessen the action, the weight will pile back on even quicker than before. Taking action before aligning energy is like putting the cart before the horse.

Just like everything else, you have to change your thoughts and expectations to be more positive in a way where you can love and trust your body, and then follow through with easeful, inspired action (a healthy meal you can savor, exercise you really enjoy, etc). The positive action then aligns you with your energy even more, which automatically raises your vibration, and automatically (without your conscious effort) helps guide you towards more inspired action, which picks up more positive energy, and so on - until you have a strong momentum going in your favor. After a while, being able to eat what you want and maintain your weight becomes a habit - just ask your skinny friend!

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Authentic Power

Most people have mixed thoughts when it comes to understanding the source of power. I've noticed most people (including myself, at times) say one thing, but believe or practice another, which causes a conflict in your energy. The most basic question you should ask yourself is: do you view power as external or internal? And what does power mean to you? It depends on who you ask. Some might say that power is influence over others. Some people think of it as the ability to do whatever they want, whenever they want- a freedom of sorts. Some equate money to power. The one thing all these answers have in common is that they are all external sources of power. The problem with viewing power this way is that it is not really yours - when you find that you can't manipulate someone, or aren't in a state of financial abundance, or in a circumstance that you feel cannot change, then you suddenly feel powerless. This is the fundamental problem of assigning your power to something or someone outside of yourself.

What if your perception of power was different? What if true power was control over your own mind? If you buy into the theory that you are creating your own reality through your thoughts (which are vibrating at a certain frequency), and are attracting other thoughts, circumstances, and people of a similar frequency, then your logic should tell you that your thoughts (both your underlying core beliefs and conscious thoughts) are driving your experience- nothing else.

The more positive energy you cultivate, the more power you gain over your own experience. This then, is authentic power. By becoming a master of your thoughts, you become a master of your own universe. You don't get to control other people's experience - they are doing that through their thoughts. The problem happens when you are convinced that someone else is in charge of your experience. You then voluntarily (through this erroneous belief) assign power to the other person by giving them your attention. Everyone is creating their own reality, and no one can create yours for you. You don't have to control anyone else's actions to get what you want - all you have to do is stay focused 100% of the time on what you want, and then the Law of Attraction brings you circumstances and people of that exact frequency.

The easiest way to gain power (both internal and external) is by focusing your attention. You don't have to push against what you don't want; you simply have give your attention and energy to what you do want. This can and will work in your own life - just try it. Start small, because you have the least resistance to changing patterns of thought about smaller things. Focus on something that is already a small part of your life (like your favorite color, for example). Start seeing it everywhere, appreciate why you like it, notice it frequently in your daily experience. And then just relax and let go of it for a while. You will find that that exact thing will expand and replicate itself in your life. And then you will notice it more, and it will expand more, and you will notice it more, and so on. You have then, through the power of your focused attention, created and brought more of that thing into your life. As you get good at it, you can do that for practically everything, big and small. Now that is real power.

Sunday, December 7, 2008

How To Create Real Change In Your Life

After last week's post, people commented that they're intrigued by the concept of meditation and want to try it, but would like to understand more about what's actually behind it. So I wanted to write about how you can take something like the concept of meditation (which may sound great in some abstract philosophical sense), and create real change in your life. Not only inner change, but clear, sustainable outer change. That's the bottom line you're trying to achieve - a noticeable difference in the way you feel, think, react, and experience events in your life. When you change the inner, the outer automatically changes - that's the secret.

The true litmus test of any set of beliefs, whether they come from organized religion, spiritual beliefs, or your own personal experience, is whether they are adding value and helping you create the life you want to live. If your beliefs are not helping you grow, evolve, and accomplish the things you want, it make senses to explore and adapt them to what will work for you. So ask yourself, is your belief system helping you or hurting you?

Meditation helps you to do just that - instead of assigning random outside causes to things in your life (I'm unlucky, the economy sucks, I was born into a bad environment, my government is holding me down, my husband/wife is unsupportive, etc), it helps you look within to create change. Think about it - you really have no other option - if you do not look within, you are looking without. While it is certainly true that outside circumstances do influence your life, you can slowly begin to change those circumstances from the inside out, which is the only real way to create change.

Meditation helps you get in touch with the part of yourself (your consciousness, or the greater Energy source that some people call God), that is beyond your mind, ego, and body. It is a way of silencing your mind so that you establish a stronger and clearer link to your own power source. As you begin to identify more with this Source (which is only pure, positive energy), your mind and body benefit as well. For example, after a while you will notice your breathing become deeper and more relaxed (in fact, this should be one of the first things you should notice). You thoughts will become more peaceful and have more clarity. You might notice negative emotion like fear or anger subside; on the flip side, meditation sometimes heightens emotions that are laying just below the surface in order for you to be able recognize and deal with them more effectively.

There is no absolute set of things that will happen to any given person, simply because no one has the same thought patterns, emotional blocks, expectations, desires, and goals as anyone else. It is a highly personal journey, just like your life. But your own consciousness or higher self is always aware of everything that is going on with you (past, present, and future), even if your mind is not. Flashes of intuition, insight, solutions to problems, healing in your body, and seeming coincidences all come from this untapped pure, positive Energy space. The impulse may occur to you through an idea in your mind, a random synchronicity in your life, or an inspired action. But the source is always the same.

Simply put, the goal of meditation is to heighten your awareness, and to increase your level of consciousness to the point that all your thoughts and actions are always inspired. But, it's not an all or nothing game, and no one is keeping score. You can never lose. Consciousness is always present, beckoning you. The only choice you have is whether or not to answer the call.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

10 Reasons You Should Be Meditating

Meditation has countless benefits on your health and life in general. Here are some great reasons to make meditation a part (even if it is a small part) of your daily rountine.

1. It increases your mental clarity and focus by eliminating incessant mind chatter created by an endless stream of thoughts.

2. Morning meditation sets a positive, peaceful energy into motion that infuses itself into the rest of your activities for the day (after a while you will notice things running more smoothly on their own).

3. Evening meditation helps you unwind from your day and improves sleep quality.

4. Injecting positive, specific intentions into a non-thought space during meditation helps your intentions manifest faster.

5. Meditation automatically reduces heart rate, lowers blood pressure, reduces muscle tension, and improves breathing.

6. Meditation improves your ability to receive. Ask yourself specific questions before a meditation (Who am I? What is my purpose? What is the best solution to this problem?), quiet your mind, and then listen. Meditation puts you in touch with the silence that holds the answers.

7. Meditation jumpstarts your intuition, creativity, and inspiration. A quiet, relaxed mind is more likely to receive an intuitive hit than a frazzled one.

8. Meditation helps to release negative energy and toxic emotions.

9. Meditation triggers self-healing mechanisms that activate the body's natural immune system.

10. Meditation helps you fully focus and channel your energy into each present moment. It makes you more powerful and effective in the present.

Sunday, November 16, 2008

The Placebo Effect and Why It Should Matter To You

One of the most fascinating aspects of my job is being able to evaluate clinical trials for different drugs: figuring out how trials are designed and what the data actually means. One of the tenets of evidence-based medicine is that trials should be "double-blinded, placebo controlled." What this means in plain English is that patients are divided up into two groups, one group is given the drug and the other is given a "placebo" or fake pill. Double blinded simply means neither group knows which it is getting. Sounds straightforward and logical, right?

The ignored part of this equation is what this type of study design is actually trying to control. Scientists have long known that when you tell a person they are getting a medicine (even if it is a sugar pill), and the person actually believes to their core that they are getting treated, a lot of times that person will actually get better!! This to me, as a physician, is incredible. Why does this happen? And what are the implications?

It is hard to deny that there is some sort of mind over matter effect going on here. And it is a well-known phenomenon, which is why all trials have to control for it. Quantum medicine believes that what you think about your health and your body (both consciously and subconsciously) matters. It matters a lot. Your vibrational energy level, which to a large part is driven by the energy of your thoughts, dictates the degree to which your body can activate its own healing and defense mechanisms to ward off and cure disease.

If it is hard for you to believe that your thoughts have influence over your body, look at examples from your own experience. Have you ever felt afraid about something and then felt your heart beat faster? Have you ever been anxious and felt a knot in your stomach? Have you ever gotten into an argument or had a prolonged unpleasant interaction with someone and then developed a headache afterward? It is hard to deny that emotions have an effect over your body. That's why they call it a stress ulcer. It's why strong emotions are known to trigger asthma attacks in some people. It's why when you are doing a job you don't like all day long, you come home to tense neck and back muscles.

Dis-ease is your body's way of telling you that your thoughts and energy vibration are out of whack. Emotional, psychological, or physical stress shows up as symptoms. Every time. The good news is that it works the other way around too. Your body would much rather respond to a positive focus than cope with your usual negative orientation (I am sick. I hurt. My body has let me down and the doctor told me there something wrong with my stomach / heart / muscles / whatever) . If you give your mind a subconscious suggestion (which is exactly what a placebo accomplishes), and your mind actually believes it, then your vibrational energy patterns begin to recalibrate to that new belief system, and begin to realign the cells of your body to the orientation of wellness, which is their natural orientation. It is really quite extraordinary.

Each individual has varying results to a drug or a placebo not only because of physiological (or constitutional) differences, but because of differing thought patterns. If, for instance, you have a belief that the medicine is helping somewhat, but you are also strongly focused on your symptoms, the pain you are experiencing, or see yourself as fundamentally not well, then the degree to which the medicine "works" will be mixed.

Your thoughts are like vectors in physics. If you have a vector going right pulling at 20 mph, and you have another vector pulling left in the exact opposite direction at 10 mph, then guess what? You will end up going right at only 10 mph. But, if you do not have any negative thoughts or attention in the opposite direction, the speed and degree of your positive thoughts go unopposed, and your wellness vector gains momentum.

So whether you believe in taking medications for chronic diseases or not (either belief system is valid- so don't feel guilty either way!), do yourself and your body a favor and start cleaning up your thoughts. Start focusing your thoughts and visualize what it would feel like to be healthy. It's not so much about fighting against dis-ease (remember, what you resist, persists), as it is looking in the direction of ease. Reorient your belief about yourself as fundamentally well and in balance. Incorporate meditation and exercise as a daily part of your routine, to give chronic stress and negativity (which act as toxins to your cells) an outlet. And then let go, with a strong conscious belief that your mind and body will take care of the rest.

Monday, November 10, 2008

Eating Your Way to Wellness

So in a previous article, I promised to share some tips on how to improve overall health, and even reverse disease by addressing underlying energy imbalances. One of the least controversial means of preventing and altering disease is through nutrition. Everyone pretty much recognizes that better eating habits can help prevent obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and even cancer. So I won't focus on that here.

But did you know that specific nutritional deficiencies could be the underlying cause of otherwise unexplained symptoms? You are what you eat. The energy derived from food plays a huge factor in the vibrational energy state of the cells of your body. Cells are constantly responding to this energy. Nutritional deficiencies are often overlooked by physicians, since associated symptoms are often vague, non-specific, and chronic. It is also important to note that not all illnesses have a nutritional deficiency as their underlying cause - but there are certainly some known links to consider.

Here are some common nutritional deficiencies and their associated symptoms:

B Vitamins : fatigue, pale skin, numbness or tingling, a poor sense of balance, inflammation and bleeding in the gums, confusion, dermatitis.

Iron : fatigue, lack of energy, weakness, pale mucosal linings, rapid heartbeat, brittle nails or hair, shortness of breath, headache.

Essential Fatty Acids: fatigue, acne, dull, dry skin and hair, poor wound healing, eczema, premenstrual syndrome, and attention deficit disorder. EFAs are also great at reducing systemic inflammation and decrease risk of heart disease, stroke, and dementia.

Antioxidants: pre-maturely aging skin, cataracts, brown skin spots, stiff, numb fingers, and oversensitivity to sunlight. Antioxidants act as free radical scavengers and help prevent cancer, heart disease, and macular degeneration.

If I had to pick two of the most underutilized nutrients that are vital to disease prevention, it would be EFAs (omega 3, 6, and 9 acids) and antioxidants. Together, these decrease inflammation, stress, and accumulated damage from free radicals in the body, which are underlying components of almost all illness.

For a more complete list, I particularly like the information in the following site :
http://1stholistic.com/nutrition/hol_nutr-def-symptoms.htm

If you have any of the these symptoms, try adding a variety of foods to your diet that are rich in whatever vitamin or mineral you are lacking. Alternatively, you can also try a vitamin supplement. One of the keys to altering nutrition is that it takes time (a period of weeks) to see changes. A lot of times, people don't notice a big difference right away, so it's easy to give up or think your changes aren't working. Remember, this isn't a quick fix. You have to give your cells time to recalibrate and absorb the new energy. Most importantly, nutrition is one of the best means of prevention, so don't discount the added benefit of all of the problems that you will be avoiding by eating well in the first place! Happy eating!

Monday, November 3, 2008

What Anger Does To Your Body

The American Psychological Association just published a great article on the effects of anger on the body (http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/11/03/hm.anger.management/index.html). Toxic emotions like anger increase your blood pressure, heart rate, send stress hormones coursing through your body, deplete you of energy, and make it harder to think clearly. Is it any wonder that heart attacks happen at a greater frequency on Monday mornings than any other day or time in the week?

So what are some practical alternatives to being angry?

Effectively dealing with toxic emotions means not suppressing them and letting them build up, but also not letting them take control of you. Negative emotions are your guidance system. They are like a flashing light in your car - an indicator that something is going on. The key to understanding your emotions is to consciously figure out what the root cause of the emotion is, and deal with that. If you can't change whatever "that" is (a person, situation, environment), walk away from it. If you can't walk away from it, change your thinking about it. Don't resist it; accept it fully, and then create change from a place of full acceptance. Remember, what you resists, persists. Far from being a sign of weakness, acceptance actually puts you in a more empowered place because you are no longer expending energy resisting.

As you alter your environment or thinking, your emotional guidance system will automatically recalibrate to your new point of focus. And what you focus on expands. As you find an emotion like anger dissipating, you will notice physical changes. Your breathing might become more regular. Your shoulder and neck muscles might relax. And you just might begin thinking more clearly and find the solution that had escaped you before.

Thursday, October 30, 2008

What is Quantum Health?

A lot of people have asked me what I mean by quantum health. The traditional approach to medicine is wholly "evidence-based." It is aimed at diagnosing a problem or a set of symptoms and then finding a drug that relieves those symptoms. It may or may not get to the underlying cause or root of the symptoms, or address the underlying energy imbalance that causes the body to be in a state of disharmony in the first place.

Quantum health is a paradigm shift in the approach to health and wellness. It incorporates all of the amazing technology, drugs, and diagnostic tools we have at our disposal, and combines it with a deeper understanding of how nutrition, energy, and psychology relate to health. It aims to address not just a set of symptoms, but to take a closer look at the nutritional, emotional, and environmental causes of dis - ease (or a lack of ease) within the body.

Ultimately, we are all vibrating energy. Everything in the universe, including the cells in the body, are made up of atoms, which can be broken down into quarks, which has ultimately been described by physicists as vibrating energy. At the quantum level, the cells in your body are always adapting to the energy they are receiving, through your nutrition and environment, and on a deeper level, your thoughts (thoughts are an amazing powerful form of energy). This is why the placebo effect (which is traditionally shrugged off by evidence based medicine) is so important to understand and leverage.

In a nutshell, a quantum model seeks to treat the symptoms of the dis-ease you have already created in your body, but also addresses the underlying energy cause, so your body can go back to its natural state of being at ease. How do you address energy causes? Good question! I'm am hoping to expand a lot more on this in the next few articles. Correcting nutritional deficiencies, eliminating stress, addressing fear-based emotions (fear, anxiety, anger, etc), and meditating are just some of the ways to correct energy imbalances.

In the next few weeks, I will be writing separate articles addressing all of these issues in much more depth! For now, welcome to quantum health!

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Why I Gave Up Artificial Sweeteners

One of the things they teach you about early in medical school is how food is metabolized. Calories you ingest in the form of food get broken down by enzymes based on the type of food (carbs, fat, or protein), and then absorbed through the rich blood vessel system in the gut into the bloodstream and ultimately different cells in the body.

But what happens to no-calorie foods like artificial sweeteners? How do Splenda, Equal, Sweet&Low, etc. get metabolized by the body? The default assumption is that these chemicals have no calories, therefore don't get absorbed, and therefore have no influence on the body.

In reality, these chemicals have carcinogenic and toxic effects that we don't completely understand at this point. What many people don't know is the reason they are not well studied is because no one stands to profit from such studies if they were to show unfavorable results. And so it's difficult to get funding for large safety trials to gauge true long-term effects.

What we do know is that artificial sweeteners trick the body. They fool your body into thinking that you have ingested glucose, or regular sugar. So, you get the same insulin spike (the hormone that regulates sugar metabolism and is deregulated in Type II diabetes) through Splenda as you do through sugar. This ultimately promotes hunger and increased calorie intake.

In addition to your stomach not being able to differentiate artificial sweetener from sugar, what's scarier is that your brain is unable to distinguish between the two either. Normally, before anything can get from your bloodstream to your brain, it gets filtered extensively, so only "good molecules" like glucose (which your brain cells need to function) can get through. The blood brain barrier cannot tell the difference between a Splenda molecule and a sugar molecule - so these chemicals get into brain cells, are broken down, and are deposited there. Who knows what the long term effects of this are on brain functioning and health?

Short term side effects of artificial sweeteners can include anxiety, muscle aches, nausea, foggy thinking, and fatigue. Although these are very non-specific symptoms, I personally noticed that my energy level and clarity visibly improved after cutting back on diet coke and the Equal I was putting in my coffee throughout the day.

Now, I have given up all foods and drinks with artificial sweeteners completely, and although I definitely miss my afternoon diet soda fix, my body is already starting to thank me.
 
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