Category: Mental and Emotional

How can you live a stress-free life and prevent cancer and other health problems? By learning to manage your cortisol stress hormone levels and by putting the mental/emotional stress in your life in the proper perspective. Once you know how to balance the physical factors of sleep, diet and exercise along with the mental and emotional stresses in your life then you will restore health in your body and mind. This is critical in any alternative cancer treatment.

It is a fact that high stress is a major contributing factor to cancer and many other diseases. The question is how does stress cause cancer? To answer this, one must look at what the stress response does physiologically in the body. Hans Selye, the father of stress research, said there are two types of stress, distress and eustress. Distress is a longer, more damaging response which negatively affects the organs, glands and systems including the immune system. Eustress is a short term beneficial stimulus to the system. If you run up and down the stairs ten times you feel invigorated. Now if you run up and down the stairs one thousand times you are exhausted and totally drained, so eustress is health boosting whereas distress is health depleting.

The stress response is controlled by the brain via the hypothalamus pituitary adrenal axis or HPA axis. The hypothalamus, which has been called the brain of the brain, is the part of your brain that senses biochemical changes similar to the thermostat in your house. If certain biochemicals go high or low, it triggers the brain to respond. The hypothalamus does so by telling the master hormone gland, the pituitary, to send messages to the adrenal glands to secrete a hormone called cortisol. When cortisol is at the proper level it is anti-inflammatory and promotes health. When cortisol goes too high with acute stress or too low with chronic stress, it causes your immune and digestive systems to shut down, inflammation to increase, blood sugar to rise, hormones to go out of balance and bones to become osteoporotic. When cortisol stays high or low it predisposes you to cancer and many other diseases.

What causes cortisol to go out of balance?

1. Mental/emotional stress (distress)
2. Lack of total sleep and pre-midnight sleep (four hours is ideal)
3. Diet high in sugar, starch or acid forming foods
4. Too little or too much exercise

Cancer can form when cortisol becomes chronically high or low because adrenal exhaustion causes immune system suppression and your immune system is what keeps the individual cancer cells (which everyone has), from growing into colonies called tumors.

The most important stress management plan starts with proper sleep, diet, and exercise along with learning how to change your perception of the situation. When you change your perception you can change your reality and your health. To reduce the mental/emotional distress one must live fully in the moment without spending time thinking about the “if only I would have” past or the “if only I could” future. If you had excruciating pain in your body, what does your mind say? “I am going to die if I do not get out of this pain”. But is this really true? Can you endure the pain for one second? The answer is yes and this is how you will endure any storm in your life, by living one moment at a time instead of living in the past or the future. This type of living keeps your cortisol and immune system in balance and keeps you healthy in mind and body.

Listening to the Voice of God

Be still and know that I AM God, meaning still your racing, thinking mind and go into your heart where I AM speaking to you and trust MY WORD and MY SPIRIT which is constantly being spoken to your heart. Many have asked “I do not hear God’s voice”.  The reason is not that He is not talking but because you have been trained to listen to the mind instead of the heart. How can you start listening to the heart? Without faith it is impossible to please God. You must start by trusting that your Father in heaven loves you and wants the best for you. This must be the first premise and it cannot ever be questioned or doubted. From there you must stop seeking facts of the mind and world and start listening to the Truth He is speaking to your heart.

A diagnosis of cancer understandably leads to a virtual roller coaster of mixed emotions. Fear and anxiety are typically at the forefront, and an uncertainty about the future can often affect the patient’s heart and mind. A feeling of anger is not unusual, as patients try to understand why they have been stricken with the disease. But one of the most debilitating of emotions that can accompany a diagnosis of cancer is, of course, depression.

Depression affects many cancer patients throughout their struggle with the disease, both at the initial diagnosis stage and throughout their subsequent treatment. While this is certainly understandable, it is also detrimental to the overall health of the patient and can seriously impact the success of any treatments. The mind body connection is so powerful, that depression can actually impede the progress of any given treatment, and can impair the body’s ability to heal itself. That is why it is so important for cancer patients and their family and friends, to recognize the symptoms of depression and learn some natural techniques for treating it effectively.

Symptoms of Depression in Cancer Patients

Depression in cancer patients is not uncommon. However, due to the physical symptoms of many types of cancer is can be difficult to recognize. Chronic fatigue and pain can often be attributed to the disease itself, and the inherent depression goes unrecognized. The important thing to remember for cancer patients, and their care givers, is that depression can sneak up on a person and manifest itself in subtle ways. Consider the following most common symptoms of depression in cancer patients.

• Anxiety or prolonged sadness
• Loss of interest in formerly pleasurable activities
• Feelings of hopelessness
• Insomnia
• Irritability
• Changes in appetite
• Unusual weight loss or gain
• Fatigue, over and above that associated with the cancer treatment
• Social isolation

Any combination of these symptoms may indicate the onset of chronic depression, and should be addressed immediately. Not only for the patient’s peace of mind, but for their overall health. Depression saps the body’s strength, and will naturally retard its ability to respond to treatment and begin the healing process.

Natural Treatments for Depression

Conventional medicine often prefers to treat cancer patient’s depression with chemicals, prescribing antidepressants to help people cope. The trouble with chemical antidepressants is that they often have adverse side effects, and can often lead to unwanted complications. Consider the following natural alternatives to chemical antidepressants for the treatment of depression in cancer patients.

• Eating a Healthy Diet – It may seem like a small thing, but a well balanced vegetarian diet can have a positive effect on a person’s mental well-being. A poor diet can rob the body and the mind of the vitality, making it harder to meet depression head on and triumph over it.
• Exercise – Recent studies have shown that exercise is a powerful tool in the treatment of anxiety and depression. Regular exercise releases endorphins that can boost the body’s energy levels and improve a person’s mood. While regular exercise may seem daunting for some cancer patients, every little bit helps even if it is only a few laps in the pool or a brisk walk around the block.
• The Mind-Body Connection – The mind and the body are more closely connected than many people realize. Certain relaxation techniques, such as deep breathing exercises and meditation, can help to relax the body and invigorate the mind. Even something as simple as keeping a daily journal can help to release negative thoughts and energy, freeing the body from chronic depression.
• Spirituality – Spirituality is one of the most powerful tools available when confronting depression. Regular prayer sessions can help to alleviate fear and anxiety, while establishing a sense of calm and engendering a more positive mood and outlook. Meditation on God’s word also helps to release the body’s own natural healing energies which hitherto had been diverted, or retarded, by the ongoing sense of depression.

Untreated depression can have a severe impact on a cancer patient’s ability to cope with, and recover from, their disease. It is important to understand that depression is not merely a matter of feeling sad, it is a condition that affects the entire body. Left untreated, it can rob the body of its ability to respond to treatment and heal itself. If you have been diagnosed with cancer, or are the care giver of someone with cancer, it is important to be aware of the symptoms of depression and to address them immediately. Depression, whether it accompanies a chronic disease or not, can be beaten by faith and devotion to a healthy lifestyle.

Adolescents with high media use, reduced sleep and low physical activity comprise an ‘invisible-risk’ group that has high prevalence of psychiatric symptoms, according to a large international study led by researchers at Karolinska Institutet.Over 12,000 adolescents (14-16 years old) in eleven European countries answered questionnaires covering different risk behaviors and psychiatric symptoms. Statistical analyses of the results identified three risk groups among the adolescents. Individuals who scored high on all examined risk behaviors clustered in the ‘high-risk’ group (13 per cent of the adolescents). The ‘low-risk’ group (58 per cent) consisted of responders who had no or very low frequency of risk behaviors.However, in addition to these two expected groups a third group labelled the ‘invisible risk’ group was identified. Youths in this group were characterised by high media use, sedentary behavior and reduced sleep. These behaviors are generally not associated with mental health problems by observers such as teachers and parents. However, adolescents in the ‘invisible’ risk group had similar prevalence of suicidal thoughts, anxiety, subthreshold depression and depression as the ‘high’ risk group.

Nearly 30% of the adolescents clustered in the ‘invisible’ group had a high level of psychopathological symptoms. While the ‘high’ risk group is easily identified by behavior such as alcohol and drug use, parents and teachers are probably not aware of that adolescents in the ‘invisible’ risk group are at risk”, says lead researcher.

The study is the first to estimate the overall prevalence of a wider range of risk behaviors and lifestyles and their association with symptoms of mental ill-health among European adolescents. The results indicate that both risk behaviors and psychopathology are relatively common in this population. It also shows that all risk behaviors and symptoms increase with age, which is in concordance with earlier studies.

-World Psychiatry, ScienceDaily

Dr. Keith & Laurie Nemec’s Comments on Affects of Media on Exercise, Sleep, and Mental Health:

What this study shows it that our body, mind and emotions are all linked together as one and they must always be addressed together as one. This study shows the effects of media on these teens who had  and increased risk of suicidal thoughts, anxiety and depression because of three factors: not enough sleep, not enough exercise and too much smart phone, TV and other media use. You might be reading this and say “this doesn’t apply too me because I am not a teen.” Notice the last line of the study “It also shows that all risk behaviors and symptoms INCREASE WITH AGE.”

What that means is that it is the performing of these activities that causes the imbalance and the older you get the more they affect you.

So what is the take home message? Take care of the body which is the Temple of the Holy Spirit with enough sleep (8-9.5 hours with at least 3 of those hours before midnight), with enough exercise ( 20 minute per day is minimum) and do not let the world system download into more than the Word of Truth is being downloading into you.

It is a numbers game. If you spend 5 hours a day letting the world system of lies download into your conscious and subconsious mind and then you spend 30 minutes in the Word of Truth and in prayer listening to the Holy Spirit of Truth speak to your heart, who do you think is going to be empowered the most the Spirit or the flesh (old nature)?

It is obvious what you feed the most grows and what you starve dies. So get back to basics and put your relationship with God first and foremost and that will be seen by how much time you spend with HIM.

These basics are covered in detail on our audio teaching: sally & george- Going Deeper, Seven Basic Steps to Total Health and our How to Know You Are Healed series.

1. Sally & George

2. The Seven Basic Steps to Total Health

3. How to Know You Are Healed

Don’t ever forget who you ARE! You are not a human being living in the world. You are a spiritual being who is in the world but never of the world. This is your testing ground not your home!

A thickening of the cerebral cortex associated with regular spiritual or religious practices could be the reason those activities guard against depression — particularly in people who are predisposed to the disease, according to new research at the Spirituality Mind Body Institute at Teachers College, Columbia University.

The study involved 103 adults at either high or low risk of depression, based on family history. The subjects were asked how highly they valued religion or spirituality. Brain MRIs showed thicker cortices in subjects who placed a high importance on religion or spirituality than those who did not. The relatively thicker cortex was found in precisely the same regions of the brain that had otherwise shown thinning in people at high risk for depression.

The results suggest that spirituality or religion may protect against major depression by thickening the cerebral cortex and counteracting the cortical thinning that would normally occur with major depression. The study is the first published investigation on the neuro-correlates of the protective effect of spirituality and religion against depression.

Previous studies showed a 90 percent decrease in major depression in adults who said they highly valued spirituality or religiosity and whose parents suffered from the disease. While regular attendance at church was not necessary, a strong personal importance placed on spirituality or religion was most protective against major depression in people who were at high familial risk.

JAMA Psychiatry, ScienceDaily

Dr. Keith & Laurie Nemec’s Comments on Religion Protects Against Depression:

What you do to the mind you do to the body and what you do to the body you do to the mind. This saying can be extended because of this research to say “what you do in the Spirit you do to the mind and body”. This is a powerful study that shows when you are God-minded not only do you have less depression but you have a physical outcome of the cortex or outer layer of the brain grows. What does this mean? In patients with depression and dementia the outer cortex of the brain gets smaller. In a sense the brain shrinks or starts to dissolve. What this study has proven is that when our eyes are fix on Him who creates us and sustains us, our mental health can heal AND so can our physical health as evidenced by the brain growing back. Always remember and never forget that you are a spiritual being created by God not a physical being created by man. You do have the power to change your mental/emotional condition and you also have the power to heal your body. How is this done? It is done only by balancing your spirit, your mind and your body by addressing them all as one. You cannot just take care of your spirit and abuse your body with improper diet and lifestyle. You also cannot take of your body the best possible and disregard the truth that you are a spiritual being that is eternal. Only when you balance all three, your spirit, your soul (mind, will and emotions) and your body will you be all that God created you to be. This is what we have been teaching at Total Health Institute for the last 30 years. This is why we have had so many people transform their health and their life. Foundational in this is the teaching of Truth. Our most powerful series to balance these are:

1. Sally & George

2. The Seven Basic Steps to Total Health

3. How to Know You Are Healed

The research is now beginning to prove what we have known all along- the Spirit can and does bring health and life to the mind and body when we are God-focused instead of self-focused.

People know intuitively that stress and anxiety can adversely affect their day to day health. We’ve all experienced it; the stressful work week that culminates in a weekend spent nursing a cold or the flu. This is more than anecdotal. Scientific studies have drawn a link between periods of intense stress and the occurrence of many common illnesses. That’s why doctors and nutritionists recommend that patients boost their intake of vitamins and supplements during periods of intense emotional or physical stress. However, while the idea that stress can affect our general health is widely accepted, it rarely extends to more serious chronic diseases. But recent studies are poised to change that, and are showing a direct link between intense and prolonged periods of stress and the development of many common types of cancer.

Cancer and the Immune System

Every one of us is exposed to cancer causing agents every day of our lives. They are in the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the water we drink. When our bodies are strong and healthy, we are better able to effectively neutralize these cancer causing agents. A healthy immune system can prevent these toxic agents from taking root in the body. It can also identify any potentially cancerous cells and target them for destruction before they can multiply and become tumorous. This is a natural, and ongoing, process. However, extended periods of stress and anxiety can significantly compromise the body’s immune system, weakening it and leaving it incapable of successfully warding off the onset of cancer and other diseases.

The Stress Gene

A recent study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation demonstrates a further link between stress and the advancement of cancer. ATF3, the so-called ‘stress gene’, is activated when the body is under both emotional and physical stress. The purpose of the gene is to target damaged or compromised cells, and cause them to self-destruct. In this way, damaged or mutated cells are prevented from multiplying and leading to cancer and other serious disorders. When cancerous cells appear in the body, the immune system sends T-cells to the site to attack and destroy the cancer. However, the latest research has shown that cancer cells can use the ATF3 gene against these immune cells, causing them to malfunction and allowing the cancer to grow and to move to other parts of the body. But the ATF3 gene is not only activated by the cancer cells. It is also activated by emotional and physical stress, essentially making the body a prime host for a variety of common cancers.

Emotional Health and Cancer Therapy

If we accept that stress and anxiety have a direct impact on the development of cancer, we must also understand that they have an equally direct impact on cancer therapy and recovery. Reducing stress levels allows the body to tap the energy it needs to successfully combat the cancer, prevent it from spreading, and ultimately return itself to optimal health. So it is necessary to learn and adopt some relaxation techniques that can help rid the body of stress and anxiety. Consider the following relaxation techniques:

• Prayer and Meditation – Research has shown that daily prayer alters the brains neural pathways and makes the mind and body more resilient to stress. Simply setting aside a few minutes every day to meditate on the word of God can help boost your body’s ability to ward off a number of diseases.
• Deep Breathing Exercises – Deep breathing helps to combat stress by lowering the blood pressure and slowing the heart rate. When you are under stress, disengage for five minutes or so and perform some deep breathing exercises. Focus only on your breathing, until your body and mind relaxes.
• Exercise – Regular exercise has been proven to combat depression, and it is just as effective in eliminating stress and anxiety. Something as simple as a thirty minute walk every day can help reduce internal anxiety, and boost the immune system. Combining prayer with a daily walk is also a good way to center the mind and body, and release the inner tensions that can lead to disease.

Stress is with us every day, and it has a definite effect on our health and well-being. The most recent research is showing that stress and anxiety may have an even greater impact on our health than we realized, so it is more important than ever to learn how to manage the emotional and physical stresses that we are exposed to.

Early life pain alters neural circuits in the brain that regulate stress, suggesting pain experienced by infants who often do not receive analgesics while undergoing tests and treatment in neonatal intensive care may permanently alter future responses to anxiety, stress and pain in adulthood, a research team according to the Neuroscience Institute at Georgia State University.

Premature infants can spend an average of 25 days in neonatal intensive care, where they endure up to 18 painful and inflammatory procedures each day, including insertion of feeding tubes and intravenous lines and repeated blood testing. Pain and stress circuitry in the brain are established and functional in preterm infants. Approximately 65 percent of these procedures are performed without benefit of analgesia. Some clinical studies suggest early life pain has an immediate and long-term impact on responses to stress events.

The Georgia State study tested whether a single painful inflammatory procedure performed on rat pups on the day of birth alters specific brain receptors that affect behavioral sensitivity to stress, anxiety and pain in adulthood.  The study findings match what is being reported clinically. Children who experienced unresolved pain following birth show reduced responsiveness to pain and stress.

–Psychoneuroendocrinology, ScienceDaily

Dr. Keith & Laurie Nemec comments on “Does Pain Early in Life Make One Stress Hardened?”

Is pain always bad? Does it always cause harmful effects? In this study they found with premature infants that had a lot of pain early in life actually caused their brains to adapt in ways that made them more stress resistant or stress hardened later in life.

Our mind would say pain is always harmful but ask any seasoned athlete or weightlifter and you will hear the unanimous response when asked about pain- “no pain, no gain”. It is like this in the world. We spend so much time avoiding problems and pains, hoping that they never come our way when the simple fact is this: everything in life has a purpose and that includes pain. Without more weight on the bar, more pain applied the weightlifter would never grow stronger muscles. Without running more sprints, more distance, more hills, more when they feel exhausted- the football players would not gain endurance and stamina. One powerful way to do this in your life today is change how you see the negative things in your life. See them as opportunities to grow physically, mentally and spiritually. We cover this shift in thinking in the Sally & George Going Deeper audio series.

Remember what the world system means for bad, God can always turn around for your growth and maturity if you only will TRUST HIM.

Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore are studying to see if meditation helps sufferers of the autoimmune disorder, which affects about 2.1 million Americans, mostly women. Those with the disease often have general fatigue, soreness, stiffness and aches at first. Joints may swell and become damaged over time.

Groups of rheumatoid arthritis patients are being trained in “mindfulness,’’ a form of stress reduction meditation developed 30 years ago at the University of Massachusetts. Their progress is being compared to patients not in the program.

Mindfulness is similar to many meditation techniques. Participants are taught to focus on breathing to quiet the mind and become aware of the moment.

The method has been used successfully to help patients with chronic pain from a variety of conditions, but this marks the first time it is being studied to see if it can help the physical and psychological symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis patients. Participants are taught to quiet their mind and feel more connected to their body. The results were very positive as one of the participants said meditation has made her symptoms less severe, helping relieve stress that she said made the condition worse. “With this type of approach, you learn to acknowledge you have pain and, by realizing it and by being in this relaxed state, the pain is less,’’ she said.

-Associated Press

Meditation and Autoimmune Disease / Dr. Keith & Laurie Nemec comments:

What is meditation? To put it simply, it is stilling the conscious, thinking mind so you become aware of what God is revealing to your heart, to your spirit. This study showed how stilling the mind could help alleviate pain but it goes way, way beyond that. “Be still and know that I am God.”

When we learn and train ourselves to still the mind, stop the never ending chatter, this is when we can truly begin to hear the voice of God who speaks to the heart. Why the heart? Because your mind is too full. Full of the world system of facts, words of men, opinions, attitudes, beliefs, and lies. Once you can train yourself to stop thinking and start listening to the inner voice, which is God speaking to your heart, a whole new world will being to open up for you. You will start to receive answers to questions and solve problems with God’s direction and guidance instead of your old mind calculating probabilities and giving you a pro vs. con conversation.

A powerful Truth you always want to remember is this: God’s ways are not man’s ways. His words are not man’s words. Decisions made out of fear are of the mind. Decisions made out of peace are from God placing that peace in your heart.

Follow the peace of your heart as you still your mind everyday and you will see that everyday will be an awesome day. “When you seek me you will find me when you seek me with all of your heart. This topic is powerfully covered in the How to Know You Are Healed audiotape series.

Spirit

What is your spirit? It is the part of your being that operates in the following four functions:

• Consciousness/Awareness
• Intuition
• Communion/communication with God
• Body/Mind/Spirit Covenant Executor

Today we will explain what communion with God is.

Communion

This is the most awesome function of our spirit, it is the part that talks and listens to God. It is the part that communes with Him, our creator and sustainer. This intimate communication line was interrupted when Adam broke the original covenant partnership with God by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. From this broken covenant – humankind empowered the lie-filled mind to rule their beings. They quenched the Truth-filled heart/spirit (the knowing in the heart) and enthroned the mind (the knowledge of the mind which is based in the lie). Then God in His infinite love and wisdom made the Way, so the communication line could be permanently restored.

This was a new and everlasting and unbreakable covenant that would be made between Himself, His Son, and all human beings. This covenant is entered into when you recognize, have the consciousness/awareness of the Truth, that you cannot live life from your lie-filled old mind but instead must live from your Truth-filled heart/spirit.

When you ask the Living God into your heart in essence you are saying “NO” to the world, ego, flesh, lie-filled old mind and “YES” to the Truth-filled heart where God lives. This is grace, which is another powerful covenant word which means “I am personally entering into a covenant with the Living God, I will do all that He places in my heart, with all my strength and ability no matter what the outcome, because I know in my heart that when I give all that I have in following my Truth-filled heart, He (the Living God), my covenant partner will meet me with all that He IS to carry the action steps to completion.

When I enter this covenant, I have committed my life to following only my Truth-filled heart and not my lie-filled old mind. I will follow this Truth no matter what the outcome, no matter what it costs me – even if I have to put everything I have ever been taught or learned to death with my old knowledge lie-filled mind, even if it costs me my physical life, because I know, that I know, that I know when I live a life solely from a Truth-filled heart I will be blessed with ALL the covenant blessings my covenant partner (the Living God) is just waiting to pour upon me – so much so that I cannot even think or imagine.

When I enter this covenant relationship I realize that I am committing my body, my mind, and my spirit to following the Truth placed in my heart. I will follow this Truth never quitting, stopping, or giving up, no matter what the price demands. I also realize that if I choose to go back into the thinking of the world, ego, flesh, religion, time past, time future or physical bound old mind, I am breaking the covenant, I am voiding the covenant of its power to bless me with ALL God’s love, joy, peace, and hope. I realize that I have become one with the Living God, I am His body, He is my Spirit, we are one in every way and I will do and be all that He has placed in my heart – for all eternity. Learn more on this topic in the Seven Basic Steps to Total Health™, Seven Stages of Energetic Healing and the How to Know You are Healed audio series.

Almost half of adults turn to food to stifle feelings of boredom, loneliness and stress, research suggests.
A British survey of 43% of adults found they eat to change a negative mood. But 25% feel guilty after eating and another 25% feel if they become thinner they will be happier.
The survey of 2,000 people showed 47% of adolescents aged 16-24 and 40% of those aged 35-44 had eaten because they were bored.
25% of the people aged 45-54 have eaten because they were stressed. Others ate after arguing with their spouse or partner.
The study showed that the most common eating disorders also affect the high-achiever in her mid-thirties to mid-fifties who is successful in most facets of her life, yet uses eating as a dysfunctional method of coping with low self-esteem, stress, insecurity and other issues.
According to the Eating Disorders Association, eating disorders were about emotions and not about food.
-BBC News

Dr. Keith & Laurie Nemec comments on Stress, Loneliness and Boredom -Emotional Eating:
The greatest addiction/bondage to all humanity is food. This new research just classified why people partake in emotional eating. Almost half of people eat to change a mood, to overcome stress, loneliness, or they simply are bored with life and have no other outlet for excitement in their life.
Let us take a deeper look at food. Do we eat to live or live to eat? Is food a pleasure of our life or is food the pleasure of our life?

A person usually eats for pleasure when they are not finding it where God designed it to come from. This is from HIM and HIM alone. Why did God create us? To know Him and to give Him glory, honor and praise. This is what satisfies us. This is what pleases us. This is our true pleasure in life. If this is not being fulfilled because we are feeding our flesh-filled, ego-filled, world-filled old minds then we will turn to alternate sources of pleasure which include food, power and sex (not love). Well, in this list you cannot always have power over another and you cannot always have sex with another but you can always fulfill you pleasure of food–hence it is the greatest addiction, greatest bondage and the area Jesus was tempted first by satan.

How can you free yourself from this food-bondage of emotional eating?

1. Become whole in body, mind and spirit.
2. Follow the 7 Basic Steps of Total Health™ everyday
3. Be prepared for your day.
4. Live every moment to the full by seeing God in every moment. Each moment made to teach you, test you, mature you, transform you into HIS likeness and image.

Spirit

What is your spirit? It is the part of your being that operates in the following four functions:

1. Consciousness/Awareness
2. Intuition
3. Communion/communication with God
4. Body/Mind/Spirit Covenant Executor

Body/Mind/Spirit Covenant Executor

This function of your spirit purpose is to maintain wholeness or total health of your body, your mind, and your spirit. The body, mind, and spirit were created by God to work in harmony and balance as “one.” This means if you are in balance and keeping the body/mind/spirit covenant, the three communicate to each other, keeping you whole, in total health, living God’s kind of life – eternal life.

Eternal life doesn’t just mean living forever with God in heaven, it also means living God’s designed life right now on this planet. It means living life to the full in body, mind, and spirit. The function of your spirit as body/mind/spirit executor is to receive the Truth from God for any situation that arises in your life journey. This is the “knowing” the Truth in your heart. Next the body willingly obeys all the desires of your heart of Truth. Then comes the mind that has been filled with lies, and has been trained from a generational and personal past of the world system, ego, flesh, religion, past and future bound thinking, and physical limitation bound thinking.

The mind has to be willing to “let it go” and die to all it has been programmed with in order to be reprogrammed and renewed with Truth. This is the greatest blockage to all of humankind’s total health of body, mind, and spirit. This is the greatest blockage that prevents the Spirit of God from flowing unhindered in our lives and the world today. The key deciding factor is found in a part of your soul (mind, will, and emotions).

It is your WILL. Your will is either free, and will always choose the Truth, or it is bound and will always choose the lie of the old mind. The choice is yours – choose life or death, blessing or cursing. Life and blessing are receiving everything from God, your covenant partner, once you have given all you have in following the action steps He has revealed to your heart. Death and cursing are choosing to separate from God, from the Truth revealed in your heart. This means that you live life from yourself, from your old mind. This means it is you, and you alone against the world, against the prince of the world, against the father of lies. You will NEVER have true love, joy, peace, and hope (knowing) if you choose to follow the old lie-filled mind.

Learn more on this topic in the Seven Basic Steps to Total Health™, Seven Stages of Energetic Healing and the How to Know You are Healed audio series.

A study found that older people who have metabolic syndrome, a group of cardiovascular risk factors, had a 20 percent higher risk of cognitive impairment compared to people without the syndrome.

Metabolic syndrome doesn’t refer to any single type of metabolic disease, but instead to a specific group of symptoms, including abdominal fat, insulin resistance, high blood pressure and elevated cholesterol levels. As many as one in four Americans has metabolic syndrome, according to the American Heart Association.Researchers from the National Institute on Aging, the University of California at San Francisco , the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and the University of Tennessee at Memphis collaborated on this study of 2,632 people aged 70 to 79.Slightly more than 1,000 had metabolic syndrome, while 1,616 did not.

Overall, those with metabolic syndrome had a 20 percent higher risk of developing cognitive impairment during the study period. People who had high levels of inflammation and metabolic syndrome fared even worse, with a 66 percent increased risk of cognitive impairment compared to those without metabolic syndrome.Dr. Goldman added, “The treatment of choice for metabolic syndrome is exercise and weight loss. While we do have a number of medications that can improve biochemical defects, healthy living is probably the most efficient and safest treatment.”  Doing this “You can possibly lower your risk of Alzheimer’s disease and other cognitive declines by what you do decades before,” he said.

The bottom line, said Goldman, is that “if you want to continue life in an enjoyable way, exercise and healthy eating are indispensable.”
–Journal of the American Medical Association

Dr. Keith & Laurie Nemec’s comments on Physical Health Affects Mental Health:

It is more than just eating healthy and exercise, it is living the 7 Basic Steps to Total Health each and every day because you reap what you sow.

If you have been experiencing symptoms like:

• Fatigue
• Pain
• Digestive problems (constipation, diarrhea, bloating, gas, heartburn, reflux)
• Weakened immune system (reoccurring colds, flu and infections)
• Sleep problems
• Allergies/sensitivities
• Weight problems
• Emotional highs and lows
• Depression and Anxiety

conditions like:

• High Blood Pressure
• High cholesterol
• Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
• Fibromyalgia
• Irritable Bowel Syndrome
• Esophagitis/Gastritis
• Pancreatitis
• Colitis
• Hepatitis
• Nephritis
• Thyroiditis
• Adrenalitis
• Candida
• GERD
• Asthma
• Allergies/sensitivities
• Rashes/hives/acne/dermatitis/eczema
• Cysts/tumors

or disease like:

• Heart disease
• Stroke
• Cancer
• Diabetes
• Autoimmune disease
• Respiratory disease-COPD
• Gastrointestinal disease
• Neurological disease

it is because you are living a normal American life and breaking all or most all of the 7 Basic Steps to Total Health^(TM)

So, how can you change and overcome symptoms, conditions or disease?  Start planting the 7 Basic Steps to Total Health – Audio Guide^(TM) everyday and you will see them start to grow and eventually reap the harvest of Total Health of Body, Mind and Spirit.

The 7 Basic Steps to Total Health:

• Prayer–you are taking the time throughout your day to regularly still your mind so you can hear the voice of God spoken into your heart.
• Fasting–you are not fasting from the normal Standard American Diet (SAD).
• Exercise–you are not exercising 30 minutes every day.
• Sleep–you are not sleeping 9.5 hours with 3.5 of them before midnight.
• Food–you are not consuming a diet of living/raw plant food which has the highest energy, bioelectricity, enzymes and bioavailable nutrient content to either maintain or restore your health.
• Water–you are not drinking 32 ounces of distilled water per 50/lbs per body weight per day.
• Air–you are not deep diaphragm breathing to oxygenate your body.

A new finding may explain how stress could ultimately lead to premature aging. Chronic psychological stress is associated with accelerated shortening of the caps, called telomeres, on the ends of chromosomes in white blood cells – which causes them to die more quickly — according to a report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Telomeres promote chromosome stability, Dr. Elissa S. Epel at the University of California, San Francisco, explains. Telomeres shorten with each replication of the cell, and cells cease dividing when telomeres shorten sufficiently. Researchers investigated the theory that psychological stress affects telomere shortening and thereby contributes to accelerated aging.

The study included 39 healthy, premenopausal women who were primary caregivers for a child with a chronic illness, and 19 age-matched mothers of healthy children who served as a comparison “control” group. Stress was measured with a standardized questionnaire, and telomere length was measured in participants’ blood samples.

Within the caregiving group, the longer that a woman had been a caregiver, the shorter was the length of telomeres. In the 14 women with the highest stress scores, telomeres averaged 3,110 units in length; the 14 with the lowest stress had telomeres that averaged 3,660 units.

In adults, telomeres shorten by an average of 31 to 63 units per year, so the scientists estimate that the 550-unit shortening in the high-stress group translates to 9 to 17 additional years of aging. These findings may have implications for human health since telomere shortening is also associated with premature death from cardiovascular disease and infections.

While the number of years that mothers had been a caregiver did matter, “not all caregivers fell into the high-stress group,” she added. “This points to the importance of trying to use stress reduction interventions as much as possible.”
-Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Dr. Keith & Laurie Nemec comments on Stress Ages Your Cells:
This interesting study shows how stress decreases the life span of white blood cells, thus weakening your immune system. Also found was an accelerated aging of cells which increases risk of cancer, heart disease and most other diseases.

What is stress? It is an external force or concept/idea that has the power to destroy the wholeness of body, mind and emotions of a person.

The real issue is not about stress but how you perceive the situation. This was seen in the study that not all the caregivers of children with chronic illness fell into the high stress group. Why? Attitude, belief and faith.

Our attitude is how we see and react to life’s situations. The more we follow what God puts in our heart and the less we follow what the world system has filled our head with, the more we have the attitude of God. The greatest stressor in your life is not your job, your money, your disease, or your marriage. The greatest stressor is your choosing to believe the lies that your world-filled old mind has been speaking to you your whole life. The greatest comfort is seeing God’s plan behind everything in this life. His ways are not our ways. His thoughts are not our thoughts. This life journey is made up of tests and trails along the path.

When we come to one, we are called by God to overcome them in His strength, not ours, and to be transformed into His image and glory. Do you think the mother of the chronically ill child is stressed when she is offering her life to God as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to Him, and is she stressed when she is there loving her child every moment, just thanking God for the child’s blessing in her life. No, she only becomes stressed when she is filled with the ego, world-filled mind that compares and wants to be somewhere else than where she is. This is the definition of suffering; always wanted to be somewhere else than where you are. To close, think about this:  is it better to have given and received love from a child with illness or never to have had the child at all?

Another example of how stress is a product of the mind and how you perceive life situations: I you were sitting in your house and a man knocked on the door and said your child just was run over by a car. If you believe his words, your heart rate would increase, your adrenal gland would start pumping out adrenaline, your emotions would skyrocket the tears would begin to flow. But, if you know that your child is in the next room playing you would dismiss his words as a lie and continue doing what you were doing with no change in your physical or mental emotional state. What was the difference? KNOWING. The difference between perceiving life as a stress or not is KNOWING God is behind everything and He will not leave or forsake you, and that He will not ever put you in any situation that you cannot handle but will always leave a way out or up as you climb over the tests, trials and obstacles in your life on your journey into being transformed into His image and glory.

KNOWING is more powerful than believing and believing is more powerful than thinking.

Everybody experiences feeling of anxiety and depression from time to time. It’s a normal part of life. But when these feeling become chronic, and begin to interfere with our day to day lives, they can lead to greater health concerns. Conventional treatments for anxiety and depression rely heavily on mood altering drugs that can often have extreme, and unwanted, side effects. The holistic approach to natural health understands that the mind and body are closely connected, and depression and anxiety are only manifestations of the body’s total health. To find release from depression or anxiety, one must treat the whole body, not just the symptoms, and work to restore the natural balance of body and mind.

Nutrition Plays a Vital Role in Mental Health

People tend to think of good nutrition as a way of maintaining optimum physical health, overlooking the fact that diet also plays a vital role in a person’s mental well-being. What we eat, and when we eat, has a direct influence on the release of chemicals within the brain. These chemicals control our emotional sense of well-being. A balanced diet, preferably based on whole organic foods, is the foundation of a life free of anxiety and depression. Transitioning to a vegan, or vegetarian, diet should be the goal. It is also important to reduce, or eliminate, highly processed foods, as these have an overabundance of man-made chemicals and toxins that can adversely affect mood.

What we eat is important, but it is also necessary to plan our meals to schedule. Three balanced meals a day, containing a significant source of protein, should be taken at regular intervals. Protein is vital to the production of serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine, without which the mind is prone to attacks of depression and anxiety.

Supplements to Combat Anxiety and Depression

Optimally, the majority of our nutrients should come from a healthy diet. But certain nutritional supplements may be taken to help offset any deficiencies in diet, and to help to improve a person’s overall mental health. Vitamin D, St. John’s Wort, and certain amino acids all help to maintain a healthy chemical balance within the brain. Passionflower, taken as an herbal supplement, has also been shown to combat anxiety, while reducing the drowsiness associated with depression and helping to focus the mind.

Fighting Anxiety and Depression with Exercise

Regular activity of any kind helps to maintain a healthy body and mind. Recent studies have shown that moderate exercise, taken three to five times a week, can have positive lasting effects on a person’s mood and general mental health. A regular exercise routine, consisting of high intensity and short duration cardiovascular exercise, releases chemicals in the brain which promote an overall sense of well-being. Once one realizes the stress relieving aspects of exercise, and it becomes clear how vital regular exercise is to maintaining a happy and healthful life.

Prayer and Meditation

Tending to the health of the body is only the beginning of releasing oneself from the burdens of anxiety and depression. We must also tend to our spiritual needs. As we begin to bring our bodies back into balance, it is important to take time to meditate on the word of God. Set aside a portion of the day to pray. Understand that God has a plan for and if you still your mind and learn to listen to your heart you will hear His voice. Trust in His design, place your faith in who you are in the family of God, and let go of the day to day travails that are causing the feelings of depression or anxiety. Through faith or trust in Him and what He said was true, all things are possible. Once you have accepted that, chronic anxiety and depression will become a thing of the past.

No one path will provide freedom from anxiety and depression. We must strive to balance our physical health with our mental well-being through diet, nutrition, exercise and prayer. Taken in combination, these can lead to a general sense of well-being, and a natural fortification of the body, mind and spirit. Above all, it is important to remember that depression and anxiety are a part of life’s journey. When those feeling occur, trust in God and understand that with Him you are more than a conqueror.

People who have a tendency to worry or feel very stressed out may be more likely to develop Alzheimer’s Disease later in life, new research reports.

The nature of the connection between a tendency to worry and the memory-robbing disease is still unclear, according to study author Dr. Robert S. Wilson of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago

However, he said that he suspects that chronic elevations of stress hormones may damage regions of the brain that regulate both behavior under stress and memory.

They found that people who appeared prone to feeling distressed were more than twice as likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease within 3 to 6 years.

– Neurology

Dr. Keith & Laurie Nemec comments on Constant Worry May Increase Alzheimer’s Risk:

This study shows how when we think too much it overburdens the brain and neurological system which leads to disease. Worry and stress has been shown to negatively affect the body and increasing the risk of physical conditions and diseases of the organs and glands. This is the first study to show that worry and mental stress leads to disease of the brain and nervous system.

To heal one must still the mind. This is why those who meditate regularly improve many health factors from immune system, blood pressure and blood sugar to name a few.

What is the opposite of stilling the mind? Thinking excessively on the negative. This is worry and mental stress.

Be still. Still your racing, raging, thinking mind and know that I am God.

A general observation that is seen in treating people is this–the more analytical, the more thinking a person is, the more difficult it is for them to heal. The people who are the simplest heal the quickest and best.

The more you have the mind of a child, the easier and faster it is to heal.

Virtual reality is helping to ease the pain associated with serious conditions. Dr. Hunter Hoffman, a pain expert at the University of Washington, Seattle, said virtual reality devices have worked wonders for patients recovering from severe burns.

“Usually, during procedures they’re just thinking about their pain and how much it hurts. In wound care, they focus on how long it’s going to take or what the nurse is going to do next,” he said.

Hoffmann recently completed a study of burn patients using headsets that allowed them to enter into a kind of computer-generated fantasyland as they underwent painful wound care.

“We found very dramatic reductions in pain-related brain activity when they were in virtual reality,” compared to when they were not, Hoffmann said, with patients generally enthusiastic about the relief virtual reality provides.

He believes the devices distract brain activity away from neurological pain centers. “That’s what’s making it work so well — it’s grabbing attention, making it go to another place,” he said.

The spirits of cancer patients undergoing stressful chemotherapy may also get a lift from video-generated virtual worlds.

“We’ve done series of three studies so far — one with adolescents, one with younger women with breast cancer, and one with older women with breast cancer,” said Susan Schneider, a specialist in cancer care at Duke University Medical School.

Her team found the use of video headsets seems to take patient’s minds off the fear and anxiety surrounding chemotherapy, allowing them to escape for a while from the reality of cancer care.

“Some folks relax because it’s taking their mind off things,” Schneider said. “We see their blood pressure dropping, they appear to have calmer breathing.

For some, she said, chemotherapy changes from something that’s dreaded to something that’s almost enjoyable.
-University of Washington, Seattle; Duke University Medical School, Durham, N.C.

Dr. Keith & Laurie Nemec comments on Mind Over Pain and Virtual Reality:

What these studies show are that if you take your mind off any painful or unpleasant experience and put it on a pleasurable experience, the pain will lessen, the unpleasantness does seem to be unpleasant.

Let us take this to a deeper level. All top athletes can play in pain and perform at unbelievably high levels even when in pain or ill. How do they do this? They focus on the moment and the moment only. When they are so fully in the moment (this is called in sports “being in the zone”), even pain and sickness appears to leave because they are so absorbed into the moment that they are not at all in the past or the future. To be in the past would think “I don’t know if I can do this, last time I felt like this I was in bed for 3 days” or to be in the future would think “What if this pain doesn’t subside, I will not be able to tolerate it, I will not be able to function”. These top athletes have learned an important key in life—to live life fully you must live fully in the moment.

God’s name is I AM, not I was or I will be. When you live fully in the moment, you are living fully in His eternal, infinite, I AM presence. In this presence “all things are possible.”

So stay in the moment, live in the moment. There is no better place to be.

People tend to feel more strongly about an experience — whether positive or negative — when they know it is ending, suggesting that deadlines intensify our emotions, according to new study findings.

“The general result was that the emotions got more intense, for the positive as well as the negative,” if people knew they had a deadline, according to study author Dr. Ursina Teuscher of the University of California, San Diego.

Teuscher noted that people tend to place a lot of importance on endings, which may cause them to invest more in experiences they know are ending. As a result, the outcome of those experiences becomes particularly important, which makes the sad or happy feelings they have from the ending extra intense, she noted.

These findings “definitely” suggest that people’s emotions may become heightened as they age, Teuscher noted. Furthermore, the results may explain why some people notice changes in older relatives, she added. Knowing that deadlines can intensify emotions “might help these interactions,” Teuscher said.
-Reuters Health

Dr. Keith & Laurie Nemec Comments on Future Thoughts:
Why do people get more emotional when they feel something is coming to an end?

Why do deadlines intensify emotions?

The reason is simple. People live 95% of their life in the future or the past and 5% in the present moment and much less than 1% are fully aware in the moment.

All this translates into thinking which produces emotions which causes imbalance in the body.

What stresses people? Living in the future or the past. If you think life will be better when I get a better job, meet the right person, make a lot of money, become more powerful, this is an illusion of the mind.

Life is NOW

Living is NOW

Total Health is NOW

When you start living like today is the last day of your physical life, you will start to touch on what this means. There is no stress in the moment because the moment is where God is.

God’s name is I AM—present tense, not I was-past, or I will be-future, but I AM = NOW= THIS present moment.

So this is as good as it gets and this is good when you see the good, when you see God in everything.

When you start living every moment fully, you no longer live for the future or the past, you no longer try to change the moment but instead you change yourself in the moment, you change how you see the moment. This brings peace because you are living in the I AM, instead of living from the I WAS or I WILL BE.

In a long-term study of middle-aged women, those who slept 5 hours or less each night were 32 percent more likely to gain a significant amount of weight (adding 33 pounds or more) and 15 percent more likely to become obese during 16 years of follow-up than women who slept 7 hours each night.

This level of weight gain — 15 kg, or 33 pounds — is “very clinically significant in terms of risk of diabetes and heart disease,” Dr. Sanjay Patel of Case Western Reserve University told Reuters Health.
Women who slept 6 hours nightly were 12 percent more likely to experience major weight gain and 6 percent more likely to become obese compared with those who slept 7 hours each night.

The 68,183 women in the study provided information in 1986 on their typical night’s sleep and reported their weight every 2 years for 16 years. The findings were presented at the American Thoracic Society’s International Conference.

After accounting for the influence of age and weight at the beginning of the study, women who slept 5 hours or less each night gained about 2.3 pounds more during follow-up than those who slept 7 hours nightly. Women who got 6 hours of shut-eye each night gained 1.5 pounds more than those who slept 7 hours nightly.
– American Thoracic Society’s International Conference

Dr. Keith and Laurie Nemec’s comments on Lack of Sleep and Weight Gain:

In this study, it showed that middle age women who had a lack of sleep, sleeping five hours or less each night, were 32% more like to gain a significant amount of weight, 33 pounds or more. And 15% more likely to become obese during the 16 years of follow up then women who slept 7 hours or more each night. The interesting thing in this study, the more sleep they got, the less weight they gained. And as we have shown in past newsletters, lack of sleep will make you overweight, it will make you have a weakened immune system, increasing the risk of cancer, it will increase your risk of heart disease, it will make you eat more. It has devastating effects on your health.

So, how much is enough sleep?

Research has shown that ideal sleep for human being is 9.5 hours with a minimum of 3.5 before midnight being crucial. Anything but that will cause a progressive weakening of the immune system and throwing the body, mind, emotion complex out of balance. So in this study if they would have compared it to the 9.5 hour norm you would have found those people or women had the perfect or no weight gain, but unfortunately, just a very slight percentage of the American population would get that much sleep, but that’s the amount of sleep that the average American used to get in 1910, now the average is less than 7 hours. So, this again, fits into our model, our Total Health approach which is the Seven Basic Steps to Total Health™

Sleep being a critical and crucial effect not only to metabolism but also immune system function in preventing disease. Your plan for getting more sleep, when so many say, there’s no way I can get more sleep, I’m too busy, I have too much to do before I go to bed at night. Well the first plan is just progressively either work your way back a half hour each night until you’re getting at least a minimum of eight hours, or the best way is to wake up earlier. As many people say they cannot sleep if they go to bed early, they just lay there. Then the answer is found in the best time to get up. The earlier you wake, usually the more tired you become, so you would want to go to sleep earlier. So early to bed, early to rise. Remember God designed us to go to bed when the sun goes down, and wake up when the sun comes up.

Studies suggest that high levels of stress can lead to obesity and trigger a host of diseases – from heart attacks to ulcers. These and other stress-related diseases sicken millions of people each year in the USA, says brain researcher Bruce McEwen at the Rockefeller University in New York.

Up to 90% of the doctor visits in the USA may be triggered by a stress-related illness, says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Elissa Epel, a psychologist at the University of California, San Francisco, and her colleagues turned to women under a crushing burden of stress: mothers of sick kids. The researchers began to peer deep inside their cells to see if stress affected a key part of the chromosome called a telomere.

Telomeres are thought to be markers of aging, says co-author Richard Cawthon of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Telomeres cap the ends of chromosomes, which contain the body’s DNA.

As people get older, this cap gets ground down. When the telomere gets too short to work properly, cells all over the body start to sicken or die — and diseases of old age set in, Cawthon says.

The California researchers found that the longer women had been caring for a child with a serious illness, the shorter the telomere, a finding that suggests rapid aging.

But the toxic stress response wasn’t confined to caregivers: This study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that stress also affected mothers of healthy kids.
Most of the women in this group, the control group, didn’t report burn-out levels of stress. But those that did had the same response: shorter telomeres.

In fact, when the researchers looked only at stressed-out women in either group, they found a dramatic sign of damage. “They had lost the amount of telomeric DNA that one would expect to lose in 10 years of aging,” Epel says.
Researchers Ronald Glaser and Janice Kiecolt-Glaser at Ohio State University turned to a different group of people under stress: caregivers of Alzheimer’s patients, people who often put in 100 hours a week or more on care for someone who has this progressive brain disease.

The team began to look for a damaging substance in the blood called interleukin-6, or Il-6.

Il-6 levels go up as people get older. “But caregivers had levels of Il-6 that increased dramatically,” Glaser says. Overly ramped-up Il-6 might make caregivers vulnerable to diseases common among the elderly, such as arthritis, he says.
The average caregiver was about 70 but had Il-6 levels that looked like those of a 90-year-old, Kiecolt-Glaser says.

Caregivers in the UCSF study who viewed their situation positively didn’t seem to suffer the ill effects of stress, Epel says. A positive outlook on life and the support of friends might help buffer a damaging stress response, she says.
– Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Dr. Keith and Laurie Nemec’s comments on stress
In this research it showed that the study suggests high levels of stress can lead to obesity and trigger a range of diseases from heart attacks to ulcers. Up to 90% of doctors visits in the United States may be triggered by stress related illness says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. How does stress work and how does it do damage? Very simply it’s a product of the hormonal system. When a person is under stress, they secrete more adrenaline, the fight flight hormone. This hormone enables you to run away from a tiger if a tiger was chasing you for survival. It shunts blood, or decreases blood flow to the digestive tract, it slows the immune system, but it increases blood to the arms and legs. The purpose, you don’t need to digest your food and you don’t need to take the tremendous amount energy and put it into the immune function, when you’re running away from a life threatening tiger. But after you have got out of the reaches of the tiger, then the body goes back into normal lower secretion or no secretion of adrenaline, which increases digestion and decreases blood flow to the arms and legs, and increases immune system response.

Now the problem is when we are running away from tigers, every hour of the day, the tiger can be the stress of job, the stress with family, financial stress, relationship stress, health stress. Any stress that we perceive in our mind will cause us to secrete adrenaline, just the same as if we were running away from a tiger. And if we were running away from a tiger, every waking hour, again our body would become sick, it would produce some disease eventually. Now the fascinating thing of this study showed that the stress effects, actual the DNA, the telomeres are thought to be a marker for aging, according to Richard Cawthon, of the University of Utah. Now the telomere length is related to aging. So as people get older, this cap, the telomere cap, actually gets smaller, and what they found was the longer people are under stress, the shorter the telomere becomes and in one particular California study found that the longer women had been caring for a sick, the shorter the telomere becomes and this suggests that they are aging more rapidly than should be. When they also looked at those under significant stress, they found that as this telomere shortened, the stress would be equivalent to ten years of aging. And this was, again, in mother’s taking care of either sick children, or mother’s stressed out just taking care of their children. The one’s that were stressed out and reported that at a high level where the ones that had the ten years of aging due to the shortening of the telomeric part of the DNA. The last part of the study showed that caregivers taking care of Alzheimer patients had about a twenty year increase in aging of the cells as seen with the shortening of the telomere part of the DNA. So, what does all this tell us? It tells us what stress does to the body, but what it doesn’t tell us is how to avoid this stress. And the basic way to do that is to become healthy. We do this with the 7 Basic Steps to Total Health™.

Several large population studies, have shown a clear link between a woman’s exposure to light at night and breast cancer. A similar link has been shown with prostate cancer in men. The risk is greatly increased for:

1. Those who frequently do not go to sleep until after 1:30 a.m.
2. Those who have the brightest bedrooms.
3. Late-night shift workers (and the longer they work nights, the greater the risk).

The study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute concludes that this is the result of a chronic suppression of melatonin – an anti-cancer hormone that is produced by the body only in the dark.
– Journal of the National Cancer Institute

Dr. Keith and Laurie Nemec’s comments on turn off the lights.

Research published by the National Cancer Institute conclude that when people do not get enough sleep, or they are exposed to light when they sleep, it results in a chronic suppression of melatonin, an anti cancer hormone that is produced by the body only in dark. What they found was the risk is greatest for those who don’t go to sleep until very late, especially after 1:30 a.m. in the morning, those who have any light in their bedrooms, and late night shift workers, the longer they work nights, the greater the risks.

The important thing is, how do we counter act this? We counter act this by number one following the sleep guidelines. Sleep studies have shown the number of hours of sleep ideal for health and healing in a human being is 9.5 hours, with at least 3.5 before midnight. What does that mean? It means you are in bed by between 8:00 and 9:00 and you wake up at 6:00. Now for many you will say this is unrealistic, so what I say to you is get to bed as early as you can and wake up as early as you can and start making changes even if it just thirty minutes or fifteen minutes earlier each night or when you can. The other thing is critical make sure your bedroom is dark. Do not have any lights on, any night lights, any lights at all that are perceivable and also if light comes in from the outside from the streetlights, purchase shades that have light blocking, which means they do not permit any light to come through the shade. Another important thing to affect health and healing are the Seven Basic Steps to Total Health™

Now, if a person was on a night shift and they could not switch their job, they can still balance their health at a higher level if they do the other 6 of the 7 Basic Steps. The average American breaks most all of them, so in all these studies, we are taking typical Americans that are breaking all the steps. If you can live 6 of those 7 steps at a high level, the body will absorb that 7 steps not being ideal, so that recommendation is when you cannot sleep 9.5 hours or when you have to work a late night shift, make sure you are living the other 6 of the 7 Basic Steps to Total Health at the highest level you possibly can.

Sleep seems critical to memory, particularly the ability to recall recently learned fact and events, researchers report.

“We sought to explore whether sleep has any impact on memory consolidation,” said lead researcher Dr. Jeffrey M. Ellenbogen, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School’s Center for Sleep and Cognition. “Specifically, the type of memory for facts and events in time.”

“Sleep had a benefit for the consolidation and strengthening of memory,” Ellenbogen said. “It actively does so; it’s not a passive process. The brain actively engages memories and leads them to be strengthened the next day, and it’s a long-lasting benefit. The benefit was even larger than we were anticipating.”

Given these findings, the researchers believe that sleep is important to building and maintaining memories. “Sleep is not an inactive state. That’s an obsolete concept,” Ellenbogen said. “The brain is doing lots of things during sleep, including consolidating memories. So you need to get it on a regular basis in order to maximize memory.”

One expert thinks this study shows that sleep is important in learning.

“Sleep specialists still do not know the overarching purpose of sleep,” said Dr. Robert D. Vorona, an associate professor in the Division of Sleep Medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School, in Norfolk. “However, we do know that insufficient sleep is associated with negative alterations in both mood and performance.”

“This study suggests that parents of students would do well to recommend that their children both study hard and obtain sufficient sleep in order to maximize their academic performance,” he added.
-Current Biology.

Dr. Keith and Laurie Nemec’s comments on Sleep Strengthens Memory and Immune System:

This study which was published in the issue Current Biology, showed that sleep seems critical to memory particularly the ability to recall recently learned facts and events, the researched showed. Also had indications that not only memory, but just general learning which this would support the fact that parents should make sure that children should get enough sleep for their academic performances. As we know it is critical for health and healing and as we have stated before.  If we don’t get enough sleep, we become more disease prone. We also tend to become more prone to being overweight, have weakened immune systems, and are more at increased risk at cancer, heart disease, and diabetes.

Sleep is vital to your immune system and your immune system is what prevents you from getting cancer. All aspects of our health decrease when we don’t get enough sleep, and that is as close to 3.5 hours before midnight and 6 hours after midnight. This study was just confirming the fact that it not only affects your physical body, lack of sleep affects your mind, it affects your memory and it affects your ability to learn. So, if we just adopt the Seven Basic Steps to Total Health™ and understand the importance of sleep as one of those 7 Basic Steps; we will be as healthy as we were designed to be.

Also remember, if for any reason one of these areas have to be decreased, like sleep, whether you are a night shift worker, or someone that has demands that they just can’t get the 9.5 hours of sleep, the more hours before midnight you get, it has a double effect on health and healing of the body, also if the sleep has to be decreased short term, if you can maximize the other 6 of the 7 Basic Steps this will help the body absorb the stress from the lack of sleep and minimize the chances of it going into more symptoms, conditions or diseases.

Researchers have uncovered the pathways behind the protection offered by environmental stimulation in Alzheimer’s disease, further confirming that enhanced mental and physical activity slows neurological decline.

Alzheimer’s disease, the leading cause of senile dementia, presents with cognitive and behavioral deficiencies resulting in part from accumulation of b-amyloid (Ab) deposits within the brain (Ab plaques) and its blood vessels (amyloid angiopathy). Although previous studies have shown that increased mental and physical activity can slow the progression of the disease, how such deceleration occurs has been unclear until now.

Dr. Kathy Keyvani’s group at University Hospital Muenster examined the effects of environmental stimulation on the brain pathology of TgCRND8 mice. These mice, which express a mutant form of Ab found in some Alzheimer’s patients, develop Alzheimer-like features including Ab plaques and cognitive deficits. To study the effects of enrichment, mice were housed in either standard cages or enriched cages, similar to the standard but with access to a stimulus cage containing permanent fixtures (rope and gnawing wood) as well as removable items (tunnels, balls, ladders, ramps, and exercise wheels) that were changed on a rotating basis.

Following five months of standard versus enriched housing, mouse brains were examined for signs of disease. Mice housed in the enriched environment had fewer Ab plaques, smaller plaque size, and reduced amyloid angiopathy compared to mice housed in standard cages.

Enriched mice exhibited down-regulation of pro-inflammatory genes but up-regulation of genes related to anti-inflammatory processes, protein degradation and cholesterol binding. This data suggest that an enriched environment elicits protection via pathways that prevent Ab accumulation and enhance its clearance.

The authors speculate that the altered expression of inflammatory genes may shift the immune response from one that is neurotoxic to one that is phagocytic (eating up the plaques).

This data provide strong evidence that an environment rich in mental and physical stimulation slows the progression of Alzheimer-like brain pathology.
– American Journal of Pathology.

Dr. Keith and Laurie Nemec’s comments on slowing Alzheimer’s disease, keeping the mind and body active.
The message is clear what the research shows in this article, is if you don’t use it, you lose it, in mind and in body. What they showed was an Alzheimer’s type of mice that produced the same plaquing in the nervous system that Alzheimer’s disease patients, humans, get. These mice were what they used to research Alzheimer’s disease in humans, because of the plaque they produce. What they found was when they put, what they called, enrichment in their cages, which was exercise wheels, and different things in which they had to use their mind and body more, what they found was anything that made them use their mind and body more, caused a decrease of the pro-inflammatory genes, and a build up in the genes that regulated the anti-inflammatory process. So the altered expression of these inflammatory genes caused the immune cells to eat up the plagues. The wonderful thing about this study is that all things are possible for him who believes. When you follow your heart and do what God’s put in your heart, anything can happen. Any situation, condition, symptoms, diseases can be reversed. This was reversed simply by having mice use their body and mind more with exercise and going through tunnels and going through different situations where their mind was exercised. How we apply this to actual life whether an Alzheimer’s patient or a regular person, is we are called to use our mind in a way that keeps it stimulated. They have shown that this has a similar effect in elderly people that do crossword puzzles. Also never discount the importance of physical exercise.

The body was meant to move. Life is motion. We stop the motion, we stop the life. So, the best types of exercise to keep the body moving are rebounding, lymphatic exercise, rebounding cellular exercise, cardio-vascular exercise, stretching exercise and strengthening exercises. All these can be done on a rebounder, and when instructed with rebounding technique with a rebounding DVD. Other very good forms of exercise are cardio vascular exercises alternatives to rebounding are, swimming, which is one of the best exercises of all outside of rebounding, the negative side is swimming in a toxic chlorinated pool, as opposed to an ocean or a lake, or chemical free pool. Walking is an excellent exercise, as long as you do it at a brisk pace to get the cardio vascular rate up. Another good form of exercise is weight training, or preferably, a calisthenics or body exercises. These are push ups, pull ups, things of that nature. And also stretching exercises. Just generally stretching all muscle groups. Just one additional comment on mental exercise. God gave us a mind but our mind can be a dangerous thing when the mind comes against what God has put in our heart. There is the conscious thinking mind, and then there is the sub-conscious mind or stored memory mind, and each part of these has a division of what we call the new mind and the old mind. The new nature and the old nature. So your old nature mind is the part that has the strongholds of the mind or the blockages of the heart. This is the world filled mind, the false belief system mind, the religion filled mind, the ego filled mind, the personality filled mind, the flesh filled mind, the five senses bound mind, the time bound mind, and the physicality bound mind. These nine strongholds of the mind, or blockages of the heart are our greatest challenge to overcome when we walk a life in the Spirit from the heart. What we rather fill our conscious mind up with, our thinking mind, with things that build us up in the Spirit,  in our body, mind spirit journey.

To close, we want to follow our heart. When we follow our heart, our mind, our body, our spirit will all be one, they will all be transformed into His image and likeness. And we want to use our body, the body was meant to be in motion, it was meant to stay active. This promotes health at all levels