Sleep Smarter

Sleep Smarter – Shawn Stevenson
(Buy from Amazon; Buy from The Book Depository)

Sleep Smarter is a fun and entertaining look at how sleep impacts your mind, body, and performance, without skimping on the “how to’s” to get the sleep you really deserve. Whether you’ve struggled with sleep problems, or you’re simply interested in living a longer, healthier life, you’re going to be blown away with what you learn. Here’s just a sampling of what you’re going to discover:

  • Why you need to sleep more and exercise less to get the best fitness results.
  • How to feel more energized and refreshed on less hours of sleep.
  • Why poor sleep quality depresses brain function and leads to poor performance.
  • What supplements are safe and helpful, and which ones to avoid (this will shock you!)
  • What exercises you can do to instantly improve your sleep quality.
  • How the clothes you wear to bed can depress your hormone function.
  • Why sleep is the missing ingredient in long-term fat loss (clinically proven!)
  • Why going to bed at the right time is more important than how many hours you sleep.
  • What mineral deficiency can cause severe sleep problems (and how to fix it).
  • The surprising impact that intimacy has on your sleep quality.
  • How to calm your mind so that you can fall asleep faster.

 
This and much more inside, so open the book and begin to Sleep Smarter now!

 

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The Dark Side of Fat Loss

The Dark Side of Fat Loss – Sean Croxton
(visit product page)

If “Fat Loss” is so simple, then why is everyone still fat?

Recent studies show that 95% of dieters regain the weight they lost and more often than not end up heavier than when they started. What do the 5% who lose weight and keep it off know that the others don’t?

Find the answer in this book and a whole lot more including:

Chapter 1: Hold No Myths To Be True

In Chapter 1, you’ll learn about the incorrect “Calories in, Calories Out” paradigm, and why diet and exercise alone will NOT achieve your fat loss goals. You’ll learn how to completely avoid “battling the scale” and how the common mainstream solutions we attempt to use for fat loss not only defy reality & science, but also the laws of common sense.

Chapter 2: It’s All About The Hormones

In this chapter, you’ll learn the most important hormones for fat loss, and how they interact with each other and your body. By the time you’ve finished this chapter, you’ll have a strong understanding of how your hormones work, and how to manage them so that you can lose fat. You’ll also learn about the IGNORED master hormone and how to control it to keep your body a fat burning furnace, and not just plain old fat.

Chapter 3: Just Do What Healthy People Do

In this chapter, you’ll learn what true health REALLY is, and how to model your health after others who are truly healthy. By the end of this chapter, you’ll know how you can truly be free of the signs and symptoms of chronic, degenerative diseases while burning fat at the same time.

Chapter 4: Just Eat Real Food

In this chapter, you’ll learn what “real food” really is, and how to easily navigate through our confusing and often misleading modern food labeling system. You’ll learn the differences between grass fed, free range, conventional, organic, and natural food labels, and what they all mean. You’ll also learn about the wheel of life – and why you can NOT get healthy eating sick animals.

Chapter 5: The JERF30 Program

The JERF30 Program is a system of choosing real foods and listening to the signals your body gives you. Most diet programs think that everybody is the same. The JERF30 program does not make that assumption. Instead, you’ll learn how to listen to your body and know which foods are the healthiest and provide the biggest health benefits specifically for you. The 30 day Just Eat Real Food challenge provides you with a list of foods to choose from, as well as a system for translating your body’s messages into actionable information so that you can find the diet that is right for you.

Chapter 6: Reduce Stress

Is stress making you fat? In this chapter, you’ll learn the 5 sources of stress on the body, and how to mitigate them and how to lower stress in your life. The average American is incredibly stressed out, and this produces some pretty severe negative effects on your body – including increased fat storage, anxiety, and depression – all of which you will learn how to prevent in this chapter.

Chapter 7: Go To Bed

Is your lack of sleep killing you? Most Americans are dramatically sleep-deprived and just “live with it” – but did you know that just one night of missed sleep is sufficient to make you as insulin resistant as a diabetic? And, the center for disease control recently classified all-nighters as carcinogens? So lack of sleep will make you diabetic, cancerous, and inevitably, lead to an early death. In this chapter, you’ll learn how the advent of the light bulb has tricked your body into thinking it’s into a perpetual state of summer, and makes it constantly prepare for a winter famine by shifting your hormones to crave sugar and make your body store fat. By the end of this chapter, you’ll learn how to prevent this from happening and how to make sure your body is burning fat all year round.

Chapter 8: Heal Your Gut

Did you know that Americans spend over $1,300,000 a day just to poop? And that 1/3rd to ½ of all adult Americans have one or more digestive challenges? In this chapter, you’ll learn what these digestive challenges are, and how to overcome them without compromising your everyday life. You’ll learn about parasites, leaky gut, gluten sensitivities, and other important digestive issues that you need to be aware of if you want to have a fully functioning digestive system. If your digestive system is dysfunctional – then weight loss is nearly impossible – so this chapter is an essential read in your fat loss journey.

Chapter 9: Reduce Your Toxic Load

Did you know that we use 9 personal care products daily that contain around 126 chemical ingredients, and that 1/3rd of these ingredients have been identified as causing cancer or other serious health problems? In this chapter, you’ll learn about obesegens – chemicals that interfere with the normal function of the hormonal system and have been shown by research to cause weight gain. These are the very same obesegens that you’re likely rubbing all over your body every day, inhaling from toxic cleaning products, and drinking in non-filtered water. This chapter will show you how to identify, remove, and replace common toxins in your immediate environment, so that you can lower your toxic load and lose fat more easily.

Chapter 10: Get Your Mind Right

All of the information in this book is great, but if you don’t have the mindset to take action, then you’re wasting your own time. In this chapter, you’ll learn the 6 keys to a successful lifestyle change, and how you can emulate others’ success in revamping their health and overall well being.

 

Disclaimer: This page contains affiliate links that may provide monetary compensation to help support the Whole Guidance Vision of Creating a Happy and Healthy Planet should you make a purchase. We very much appreciate and thank you for your support.

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Goddesses Never Age

Goddesses Never Age – Christiane Northrup MD
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Though we talk about wanting to “age gracefully,” the truth is that when it comes to getting older, we’re programmed to dread an inevitable decline: in our health, our looks, our sexual relationships, even the pleasure we take in living life. But as Christiane Northrup, M.D., shows us in this New York Times best-selling guide, we have it in us to make growing older an entirely different experience, both for our bodies and for our souls.
In chapters that blend personal stories and practical exercises with the latest research on health and aging, Dr. Northrup lays out the principles of ageless living, from rejecting processed foods to releasing stuck emotions, from embracing our sensuality to connecting deeply with our Divine Source. Explaining that the state of our health is dictated far more by our beliefs than by our biology, she works to shift our perceptions about getting older and show us what we are entitled to expect from our later years—no matter what our culture tries to teach us to the contrary—including:
  • Vibrant good health
  • A fulfilling sex life
  • The capacity to love without losing ourselves
  • The ability to move our bodies with ease and pleasure
  • Clarity and authenticity in all our relationships—especially the one we have with ourselves
“Taking all the right supplements and pills, or getting the right procedure done, isn’t the prescription for anti-aging,” Dr. Northrup explains. “Agelessness is all about vitality, the creative force that gives birth to new life.” Goddesses Never Age is filled with tools and inspiration for bringing vitality and vibrancy into your own ageless years—and it all comes together in Dr. Northrup’s 14-day Ageless Goddess Program, your personal prescription for creating a healthful, soulful, joyful new way of being at any stage of life.

 

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Man’s Search for Meaning

Man’s Search for Meaning – Viktor E. Frankl
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Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl’s memoir has riveted generations of readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival. Between 1942 and 1945 Frankl labored in four different camps, including Auschwitz, while his parents, brother, and pregnant wife perished. Based on his own experience and the experiences of others he treated later in his practice, Frankl argues that we cannot avoid suffering but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose. Frankl’s theory-known as logotherapy, from the Greek word logos (“meaning”)-holds that our primary drive in life is not pleasure, as Freud maintained, but the discovery and pursuit of what we personally find meaningful.

At the time of Frankl’s death in 1997, Man’s Search for Meaning had sold more than 10 million copies in twenty-four languages. A 1991 reader survey for the Library of Congress that asked readers to name a “book that made a difference in your life” found Man’s Search for Meaning among the ten most influential books in America.

 

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Cure Tooth Decay

Cure Tooth Decay – Ramiel Nagel
(Buy from Amazon; Buy from The Book Depository)

Forget about drilling, filling, and the inevitable billing. Your teeth can heal naturally because they were never designed to decay in the first place! They were designed to remain strong and healthy for your entire life. But the false promises of conventional dentistry have led us down the wrong path, leading to invasive surgical treatments that include fillings, crowns, root canals and dental implants.

Now there is a natural way to take control of your dental health by changing the food that you eat. Cure Tooth Decay is based upon the pioneering nutritional program of dentist Weston Price, former head of research at the National Dental Association. Dr. Price’s program proved to be 90-95% or more effective in remineralizing tooth cavities utilizing only nutritional improvements in the diet. Cure Tooth Decay is the result of five years of research and trial and error that started as one father’s journey to cure his daughter’s rapidly progressing tooth decay.

With Cure Tooth Decay you will join the thousands of people who have learned how to remineralize teeth, eliminate tooth pain or sensitivity, avoid root canals, stop cavities — sometimes instantaneously, regrow secondary dentin, form new tooth enamel, avoid or minimize gum loss, heal and repair tooth infections, only use dental treatments when medically necessary, save your mouth (and your pocketbook) from thousands of dollars of unneeded dental procedures, and increase your overall health and vitality.

Cure Tooth Decay provides you with clear and easy to understand dental facts to help you make healthy, life-affirming choices about your dental health. It is about healing cavities without dental surgery or fluoride.

Cure Tooth Decay highlights include:

  • conventional dentistry’s losing war against bacteria,
  • why people fear the dentist and what you can do about it,
  • a cavity-healing program that is easy to follow,
  • the cause of dental plaque and an amazing technique to reverse gum disease,
  • understanding ideal jaw position and TMJ dysfunction,
  • x-ray proof that cavities can heal,
  • how to heal children’s cavities and find peace,
  • why women get cavities during pregnancy and how to stop it, and so much more.

 

Disclaimer: This page contains affiliate links that may provide monetary compensation to help support the Whole Guidance Vision of Creating a Happy and Healthy Planet should you make a purchase. We very much appreciate and thank you for your support.

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Kiss Your Dentist Goodbye

Kiss Your Dentist Goodbye – Ellie Phillips
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You brush, floss, use mouthwashes, and are concerned about the foods you eat, yet you still require fillings or lengthy cleanings at the dentist. In Kiss Your Dentist Goodbye, Dr. Ellie Phillips teaches how anyone can achieve and maintain a truly healthy mouth. Empower yourself as you improve the look and feel of your teeth between dental visits. Your dentist will be amazed at the changes he sees, and you will be thrilled as cavities and gum disease become a thing of the past. Traditional dentistry cannot prevent dental disease. But Ellie’s do-it-yourself daily routine can. Discover how easy it is to reduce plaque buildup, strengthen tooth enamel, repair small cavities, eliminate tooth sensitivity, and improve your overall oral health. Learn about products that hinder your efforts and the risks of bleaching, dental sealants and the wrong use of fluoride. It is time to achieve healthy, clean teeth and gums and wow your dentist at the next appointment.

Praise for Kiss Your Dentist Goodbye:
”An excellent, simplified discussion of complex issues you need to understand to achieve optimal oral health.”
–Richard Carmona, MD, MPH, FACS, 17th surgeon general of the United States

”This book, despite its intriguing title, does not denigrate dentists. What it really does is tell readers how best to work with dentists to achieve true preventative care.”
–Milton B. Lederman, PhD, retired director of public aff airs, University of Rochester Medical Center; co-author of Co-existing with Cancer

”As a dentist, the title of this book is shocking! But the information in the book is vital to anyone who wants to minimize dental problems, maximize dental health, and enjoy their smile for a lifetime.”
–Corky Willhite, DDS; fellow, American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry

 

Disclaimer: This page contains affiliate links that may provide monetary compensation to help support the Whole Guidance Vision of Creating a Happy and Healthy Planet should you make a purchase. We very much appreciate and thank you for your support.

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The Warrior Within

The Warrior Within – John Little
(Buy from Amazon; Buy from The Book Depository)

Inspire and educate yourself with this comprehensive guide to the tactful and legendary ways of renowned martial arts master, Bruce Lee!

During his lifetime, legendary martial artist Bruce Lee formulated a complex personal philosophy–a synthesis of Eastern and Western ideals–that extolled the virtues of knowledge and total mastery of one’s self. However, most of his philosophical writings could be found only within the personal library of the Bruce Lee estate–until now. The Warrior Within is the most comprehensive volume of these teachings, meant to help you apply Lee’s philosophies to your own life. This unique guide reveals such life-affirming secrets as:

Seeing the totality of life and putting things into perspective

Understanding the concept of Yin and Yang

Defeating adversity by adapting to circumstances

Tapping into inner spiritual forces to help shape the future

With a foreword by his wife, Linda Lee Cadwell and photographs and other memorabilia from Bruce Lee’s short but celebrated life, The Warrior Within is an engrossing and easy-to-understand guide to the little-explored world of Bruce Lee.

 

Disclaimer: This page contains affiliate links that may provide monetary compensation to help support the Whole Guidance Vision of Creating a Happy and Healthy Planet should you make a purchase. We very much appreciate and thank you for your support.

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Intermittent Fasting – the Art of Fasting Without Fasting

“The light of the world will illuminate within you when you fast and purify yourself.”
— Mahatma Gandhi

Like most people I was taught that breakfast is the most important meal of the day and skipping it was a bad idea. Without breakfast you get tired later in the day, you cannot focus or think clearly, your hunger grows, and you will get health issues including weight gain, metabolic diseases, and malnutrition.

With this is in mind I grew up eating cereal with milk or toast with hot chocolate for breakfast and I did this every single morning for decades.

However, after learning about holistic, functional, and ancestral health practises and applying these to my life in order to overcome personal health challenges, my breakfast ritual has changed dramatically where I no longer eat breakfast till late in the day and some days I don’t eat at all.

CLICK HERE TO LEARN WHAT ARE THE MOST NUTRIENT DENSE REAL FOODS

This is called intermittent fasting (IF) where you fast for a certain period of time and then eat within a specific time window and what I’ll be exploring in this article.

A typical fast differs from IF as it lasts for a prolonged period of time, usually several days or a few weeks, without eating food and usually involves drinking only water during the fast, aka a water fast.

Why would you intentionally starve yourself? Well it is during times of fasting that your body can perform critical maintenance and repair functions that cannot be executed when in a fed or un-fasted state.

Benefits to Fasting

  • Resets growth, appetite, stress, and sex hormones to healthy levels
  • Switches your body to burn fat rather than sugar as fuel
  • Increases human growth hormone production
  • Reduces inflammation and oxidative stress
  • Normalises HDL, LDL, and triglyceride levels
  • Promotes healthier body composition
  • Supports body’s innate ability to heal from sickness and disease
  • Improves cognitive function including learning, memory, and focus
  • Elevates energy (yes, more energy by not eating!)
  • Less time cooking, cleaning, and more time working on your goals

 
Most of these benefits come from a process called autophagy. During autophagy each of your cells seek out all the junk, microbes, and other toxins within the cell and recycle them into new building blocks for the cell. Whatever is leftover or unusable gets excreted as waste.

If you eat frequently and don’t give your body enough time to switch on autophagy and recycle the trash then this junk and your risk of infection grows and grows and grows causing many health issues.

Imagine if you never took the trash out of your house or if the garbage truck never showed up for weeks. Not only would your house begin to fill up with rubbish leaving you no space to move, work, and play, but you’d also get flies, maggots, and bugs taking over your home, and of course don’t forget about the smell!

This is what’s happening when you eat all the time and don’t have a long enough period without food. It is when you fast for periods of at least 12 hours that your cells have time to switch on the autophagy process and clear out the trash, the toxins, and the harmful microorganisms.

Just as it’s easier for you to move and think in an organised house or office space, after autophagy your cells become more efficient and more effective at running metabolic processes giving you more energy and clarity of thought.

Am I saying you should go on a strict water fast for days on end to get even more energy and health benefits? No, as there is a tipping point to where your cells will begin to become malnourished and your body switches to a state of hibernation and stasis. A prolonged water fast is definitely an option to consider though, if you are dealing with a chronic health condition.

A general guideline is the more metabolically deranged you are or to use the more acceptable term, if you have metabolic syndrome, the longer the fast should be. For example a water fast of 3-14 days under medical supervision would suit people with obesity, high blood pressure, high triglycerides, high blood sugar, or high amounts of small LDL cholesterol particles.

A smarter and more sustainable way to fast for anyone looking to improve and maintain health and performance markers is to experiment with intermittent fasting, with set periods of fasting and feeding and being able to change these feeding windows to suit your individual goals. You get all the benefits of going on a prolonged water fast, without having to do an actual water fast.

Before I give my recommended IF protocols there are certain groups of people that should not do any kind of fasting:

  • Children
  • Pregnant/breastfeeding women
  • People with cortisol dysregulation (chronic stress)
  • Severely underweight individuals

 
If you fall into one of these categories undergoing an IF protocol has the potential to cause more stress to your body than it can handle.

Types of Intermittent Fasting

Here is a list of intermittent fasting protocols you can play with in order of difficulty (the difficulty of any change in diet comes down to your personal perception of the diet and the changes that you need to make, so as with anything in life your mileage may vary).

12:12 (Fast window 12 hours, Feed window 12 hours)

This is a daily fast lasting 12 hours leaving the other 12 hours to eat. During the fast you can have water (optionally with lemon juice or apple cider vinegar), black coffee, and teas without nothing added.

This is the most natural and easiest to stick to out of all the IF protocols.

I recommend finishing your last meal by 8p at the latest and not eating till 8a in the morning. For example, if you finished your last meal at 6p, you wouldn’t eat your first meal until around 6a the next day.

16:8 (Fast window 16 hours, Feed window 8 hours)

Similar to 12:12, but with a 16 hour daily fast with an eight hour eating window. During the fast you can have water (optionally with lemon juice or apple cider vinegar), black coffee, and teas with nothing added.

Personally I find 16:8 to be the simplest way to eat and is my go-to IF protocol for getting quick results in terms of changing body composition and reducing the waistline.

Again I recommend finishing your last meal by 8p at the latest and not eating until 12p. For example, if you finished your last meat at 6p you wouldn’t eat your first meal until around 10a.

The Fast Diet / The 5:2 Diet (Feed window 5 days, Fast window 2 days)

With the Fast Diet you eat normally for five days of the week and then fast for two days. The two fasting days can be in a row or split up during the week.

During the two fasting days you are allowed to eat up to 500-600 calories anytime during the day.

Eat-STOP-Eat (Feed window 5/6 days, Fast window 1 or 2 days)

Another weekly IF protocol involving eating normally for five or six days and fasting for one or two days a week. During the fast you can have water, black coffee, and teas with nothing added.

The Warrior Diet (Fast both morning and afternoon, Feast evening)

This diet involves eating like some of our ancestors where you fast during the day and feast on your ‘hunt’ during the evening.

During the day as well as black coffee and teas with nothing added, you can have a high quality whey protein shake, but only post high intensity resistance or sprint training. Also berries and non-starchy vegetables are okay to eat during your fast.

In the evening is when you eat one large meal to satisfy your hunger.

Alternate Day (Fast window every other day)

Eat normally one day; eat nothing the next.

During the fasting day you can have water, black coffee, and teas with nothing added.

 

Note Well

It should not have to be said, but I’ll say it anyway – with all of these IF protocols food quality is the key to success. Eat real food and make those calories you eat as nutrient dense as possible.

Also with any dietary protocol remember you don’t have to be strict. You must experiment with each and find what works for you and make it your own or move on to something else.

For example I’ve settled on using the Warrior diet as a template. My IF protocol is my own type of Warrior diet where I have two cups of coffee and cream/ghee with a little whey powder in the morning, drink a lot of water (one with ACV) throughout the day, and then have one big meal in the evening full of vegetables and some meat or fish.

For more information about how to use fasting to heal I highly recommend the book The Complete Guide to Fasting by Dr Jason Fung and Jimmy Moore.

Two other books that incorporate IF into a holistic healthy lifestyle are The Wild Diet by Abel James and The Bulletproof Diet by Dave Asprey.

 

Summary

Yes breakfast is still the most important meal of the day… to skip! It is the timing, when you break your fast, that makes breakfast the most important meal of the day.

Breakfast doesn’t have to be at the beginning of the day. Remember breakfast means to break a fast or simply the first meal of the day. You can skip breakfast or fast for the entire day – this is called intermittent fasting.

By implementing an intermittent fasting protocol you will improve your health and gain extra time in your day to get after your dreams.

 

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The Relationship Between Your Mouth and Back Pain

“The biology of pain is never really straightforward, even when it appears to be.”
— Lorimer Moseley, PhD FACP

I started to experience chronic pain in my lower back in my mid-20s. This was when I began working full-time in IT support and the desk job meant a lot more sitting compared to my previous teaching position.

Was my back pain caused by a change in my daily posture? No. But it was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. Meaning the highly inflammatory lifestyle I was living was the actual underlying cause of the pain, but the change in job and how I moved pushed my back over the edge into the pain-zone.

After learning about inflammation and learning how to reduce it through lifestyle changes my back pain dissappeared.

CLICK HERE TO LEARN WHAT ARE THE BEST FOODS TO REDUCE INFLAMMATION

Back pain is one of the leading causes of disability and about 80% of people will experience some form of back pain during their lifetime. Whether it’s acute, lasting less than six weeks, or chronic with some people living with it for years, back pain will negatively impact your ability to work, to play, and to function in society, i.e. have fun and enjoy life.

Well-known causes for back pain include:

  • Sedentary lifestyle
  • Poor posture
  • Repetitive movement
  • Faulty movement pattern
  • Injury

 
What I’ll be exploring here are some unfamiliar causes for back pain all relating to your mouth.

But before I get into the connection between your mouth and your back health I’ll talk little bit about pain in general.

Pain is your body’s way of communicating to you that something is malfunctioning and needs your attention. This pain and malfunction is a result of inflammation caused by some type of stressor. This stress could be physical, mental/emotional, or biochemical/physiological. Whatever the stress, the area it manifests in your body will become inflamed and this activates your immune system where it will begin to eliminate foreign material and infections, as well as clean up and repair old and damaged tissue.

If this stress becomes chronic the inflamed organs, gland, or tissue will never have a chance to heal, causing you to experience chronic pain.

How Your Mouth Contributes to Back Pain

One way your mouth can contribute to back pain is with the foods you eat. By eating a pro-inflammatory diet which causes stress in your gastrointestinal tract. This stress causes gut irritation and gut inflammation. How does this relate to back pain?

Your organs and muscles share the same pain nerve fibres. Your heart for example shares these fibres with your arms, which is why you’ll experience pain, numbing, and tingling in your arms during a heart attack. Your stomach, liver, small intestines, and colon innervate with your abdominal and back muscles. If you experience a lot of gas, bloating, and abdominal distension, these are symptoms that your digestive organs are stressed and inflamed and this can cause back pain due to the firing of pain nerve fibres connecting these organs to your back muscles.

Another way your mouth can cause back pain comes down to dental health. The health of your teeth has a massive impact on the health of the rest of your body as your teeth are directly linked to all your major organs by way of acupuncture meridians. Meridians are energy channels or pathways in which energy flows. Each of your organs, glands, and tissues connect to specific meridians. Many of these meridians end in teeth, therefore connecting specific organs to each tooth.

If you have swollen gums, tooth decay, mercury or inorganic fillings, incorrectly fitted orthodontics, root canals, malocclusion, or missing teeth, this will cause a disruption or blockage in your meridians, causing malfunction and problems with the organ(s) connected to that meridian. When the meridians connected to your gut are disrupted due to poor dental health, this can potentially cause gut inflammation and back pain.

You can find a meridian tooth chart at Ora Wellness mapping out teeth with their related meridians and organs.

Last thing I’ll mention regarding your mouth and back pain is how you’re breathing.

Chronic mouth breathing, particularly inhaling through the mouth, can activate the sympathetic nervous system, turning on your body’s stress response. The stress response creates a hormonal cascade where anabolic/growth and repair hormones are suppressed due to the high amounts of catabolic/breaking down and stress hormones circulating in your body. This isn’t an issue if the stress is acute and short-lived, but if the stress is ongoing this chronic catabolic state will increase inflammation and reduce healing of your gut, and healing of your back muscles, tendons, and ligaments.

The more stressed and catabolic and inflamed your body becomes, the longer your back pain will persist.

Your Mouth and Healing Back Pain

Healing back pain takes a holistic approach. Standard ways to heal from back pain include moving and stretching your body, and visiting a chiropractor or acupuncturist or physiotherapist or all of the above.

Here I share three mouth-related ways to reduce inflammation and increase meridian flow, and when integrated with other healing modalities your back pain will reduce significantly and potentially disappear.

1. Eat an Anti-Inflammatory Diet

By eating less pro-inflammatory foods that trigger gut irritation and inflammation you reduce your chances of getting gas, bloating, distension, abdominal cramps, and back pain.

An anti-inflammatory diet consists of whole real foods from plant and animal sources. This means local organically grown vegetables and fruit, and meat from animals raised in their natural habitat eating their natural diet.

More importantly an anti-inflammatory diet removes industrial seed oils and processed and refined sugars and grains, which are two of the most inflammatory and acidic foods in existence.

Two real food diet books I highly recommend are Practical Paleo by Diane Sanfilippo and Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon and Mary Enig.

2. Detoxify Your Teeth

Use non-toxic sulfate-free and fluoride-free organic oral care products and stop using anti-microbial mouth washes like Listerine as these upset the good-to-bad ratio of microorganisms in your mouth.

Remove any metal and inorganic fillings you might have. When it comes to replacing mercury or silver fillings be sure to find a holistic biological dentist. If mercury fillings are not removed properly you could find yourself getting a toxic load of mercury in your system creating more health problems.

A root canal is a cesspool of pathogenic microorganisms and their toxic byproducts. If you have a root canal it might pay to get yours looked at by a holistic biological dentist.

To find a holistic biological dentist visit the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology website as well as the Mercury Safe Dentists website.

3. Breathe diaphragmatic belly breaths through your nose

Your nose has parasympathetic nerve endings that are stimulated every time you inhale. By inhaling through your nose you activate the parasympathetic nervous system which puts you in a calm, connect, rest, and digest state.

Each time you expand and contract your diaphragm and belly you are giving your internal organs (including your gut) a nice little massage improving blood and lymph flow, which helps with nutrient absorption and waste removal.

Belly and nose breathing puts your body into an non-stressed anabolic state of growth and repair, reducing inflammation and pain in your back.

Summary

It is true that back pain can be a symptom of physical/biomechanical damage and injury to your back muscles, tendons, ligaments, and lumbar spine.

However, it is also true that back pain can come from physiological/biochemical stress due to poor diet, poor dental health, and incorrect breathing patterns. By eating real food, removing toxins from your mouth, and breathing correctly, you will reduce the amount of stress and inflammation contributing to your back pain.

 

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