Perfect Health: The Natural Way

By Mary-Ann Shearer

Summarized with permission of Benbella Books. All rights reserved.

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GUIDELINE 3

Learn to Listen to One's Body

In learning to listen to one's body, people can tune into their natural body cycles. When people are asleep, the body automatically steps up their repair and cleansing operation. To assist the body in this it needs to be fed properly.

Listening to the body

When cells have not received enough water with the last intake of food, or if the intake contained too much salt or other condiments, they set about obtaining the water that they need to function. The cells send a message to the brain, the brain interprets the message, and the throat becomes dry. The person becomes thirsty and drinks something.

Lack of respect for the body's intelligence

The human body needs about twenty minutes of sunshine a day. But what do some people do? After twenty minutes of lying in the sun, they begin to feel hot and uncomfortable and then jump into the sea or a swimming pool to cool down. They are now able to take in more sunshine than they need. This results in burning, sunstroke, and even skin cancer. People then say that the sun is dangerous and go to great lengths to stay out of it and their health suffers in the long term.

Listening to the body but interpreting the signals incorrectly

The most common reason people crave sweets is that the brain and central nervous systems cannot work without glucose, the heart cannot pump without glucose, the lungs cannot breathe without glucose, and each cell requires glucose to function.

The way cells communicate that they need glucose is by sending a message to the brain and the brain interprets the signal by sending a message to the taste buds to crave sweet things. The normal response to sugar cravings is to reach for a candy bar, chocolate, maybe tea or coffee with sugar, a chocolate-chip cookie, a donut, a soda, or an alcoholic beverage.

The response from the body is almost immediate: the blood sugar shoots up to dangerous levels, and the body reacts by producing a lot of insulin to bring it back down. As the blood sugar rises, the body feels energized and alive, but as it starts to come back down feelings of lethargy, flatness, tiredness, and even depression as it reaches its low point, at which the craving for sweets sets in again and the whole cycle starts over.

In one particular case, a young woman was institutionalized for mental observation due to extremely severe depression. After various treatments it was finally discovered that her blood sugar level was quite erratic. By changing her diet to include more fruits and vegetables, and by removing refined sugar, this condition was entirely corrected.

When blood sugar is out of balance, three systems are also affected.

• The brain and central nervous system
• The immune system
• The endocrine system

When the endocrine system is out of balance it affects all the hormones (over two dozen chemical messengers) which control almost every function of the body including the skin. Refined sugar and gluten are particularly disruptive to the skin. Many people have an intolerance to gluten, the protein (found in the grains, not the leaves) in wheat, oats, rye, and barley, which results in numerous health problems.

The skin is an organ of elimination. If it is continually called upon to eliminate the carcinogenic toxins that are taken in with food, then this can be detrimental to the skin. This is especially true of areas exposed to the sun, as the sun speeds up elimination thereby increasing the amount of waste products and toxic substances released through that section of skin. This accelerated process of elimination is a potential cause of skin cancer.

When the endocrine system is out of balance many problems may result.

• High or low blood pressure
• High or low blood sugar
• Allergies and hay fever
• Constipation
• Tiredness
• Low or excess weight
• Slow or high metabolism
• Poor muscle tone
• Poor sleep
• Liver, lung, heart, skin, and kidney problems

The following is a list of potential gluten-intolerant skin problems:

• Skin is itchy and dry
• Pimples appear on the chin and forehead, upper arms and buttocks or upper thighs and nose
• Spots or pimples appear on the back of upper arms
• Cracked heels

 

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