What is environment?

We generally think of the environment as being outside of ourselves. But just think about it for a moment. If we look at our planet from outer space and see the globe, we are part of that picture. Yes, we are too small to be seen by the physical eye but we are in that picture. So technically we are part of the environment not separate from it.

Our environment consists of land and water. There are many creatures both in the water and on the land. All connected in what we call the web of life. In this environment, the human creatures grow food from the land and drink the water that is potable.

What is food?

Food starts from a seed and that seed grows in the soil and we humans eat various parts of the end result, either the root or the above ground part. Humans also kill animals and fish for food as well. There is a whole cycle of life involved here.

Have you ever marveled at the miracle of the seed? Inside the seed is an imprint of a plant along with the initial nutrients needed to get the seedling stage. The seeds need some good soil, the right temperature, oxygen, water and sun in order to germinate. Each seed produces a life form with its own circulatory system and roots for assimilation of soil nutrients. Each seed knows every possible detail of the plant or tree it is to become. All that information is wrapped up in a tiny seed. Isn’t that amazing?

When we grow our food or we buy it from stores (who buy the food from food producers through a whole distribution channel), we get the results of the seed interacting with the environment. When we grow the food ourselves, we are in control of the kind of soil we use, the fertilizers and the growing conditions like where we place the seed.  We can choose not to spray any pesticides or herbicides and have everything organically grown. When we purchase from a store we have to be more careful of our choices. There is some organic produce available but it may take some extra effort to find it.

As the plants grow, they take in water and mineral elements from the soil through the root system. They absorb carbon dioxide from the air and through the action of light, directed by chlorophyll, liberate oxygen into the environment. This process is called photosynthesis and the chlorophyll makes more simple substances such as sugars, starch, cellulose, acids, lignin, tannins, amino acids, etc.  The living material of the plant is called protoplasm. Many plants have their own unique substances formed exclusive to that plant. So really plants are energy converters. This is truly a miracle when you think about it.

There are minerals in good rich soils that we can’t absorb until the plant takes them in through the root system and converts them through this whole process of photosynthesis. The energy in the earth comes through the plants and after we eat and absorb these plants, we get the kind of energy we need.

Energy vibrates.

Everything vibrates at different frequencies. Let’s think about what we are putting into our bodies.  Remember we are not only physical; we are also vibrating mentally, emotionally and spiritually. So when we nourish our bodies, we are nourishing all aspects of us. Every meal gives us a chance to energize physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.

All the plants and all our food vibrate. If our food has been treated in any way, that changes the vibration.  There are too many factors that change the vibration to list, but bottom line, the more fake a food is, the more the vibration has been changed.

The vibration we are looking for is the one that keeps our energy high. So the more alive and untreated the food is, the more it will nourish us on all levels. So going back to we are the environment, what we do to our food, we do ourselves. What we do to our water, we do to ourselves. Everything is connected.

Our planet is in a state of disarray presently. I believe we are getting signals to remind us to go back to nature and everything natural. I hope that this blog made some connections for you. A gentle reminder to be more aware of what we are putting into our mouth if our desire is to be healthy.

Do you have a story to share? I’d love to get your feedback.  Here on my blog, you’ll get commentluv.  That’s great for all bloggers out there. If you leave a comment, you can provide a link back to your own blog.  But you don’t have to be a blogger to leave a comment; I’m looking forward to hearing from all of you!

Stay tuned for more on the vibrational effects of food.

Charlene

One Food That Can Save the Day

We are faced with numerous environmental challenges these days. This one is particularly dangerous and I wanted to inform you where you are being exposed to these chemicals and the effects it is having to our future generations.

The word “xenoestrogens” means foreign estrogens. They are man-made environmental chemicals, which are taken up by the estrogen receptor sites in the body and seriously interfere with natural biochemical changes.  These estrogen-like mimics have an uncanny ability to mimic natural estrogen and/or block natural hormones. They have distinct effects in different species and organs. Xenoestrogens are fat-soluble, not biodegradable or well excreted, and accumulate in fat tissue of animals and humans.  They are also dangerously toxic. The principle function of estrogens is to cause cellular proliferation and growth of tissues of the sexual organs and other tissues related to reproduction. So the union of hormone mimics to receptors, triggers genes that stimulate the production of proteins that accelerate cell division. This cell division is leading to a host of health challenges.

Mounting research is now revealing an alarming situation worldwide created by the inundation of these hormone-mimics. In the book, Our Stolen Future, authors Colburn, Dumanoski, and Meyers have identified 51 families of hormone mimics each able to unleash a torrent of effects such as reduced sperm production, cell division and sculpting of the developing brain. These mimics are not only linked to the recent discovery that human sperm counts worldwide have plunged by 50 per cent between 1938 and 1990 but also to altered sexual behaviour, lowered immunity, increased genital deformities, breast, ovarian, uterine, prostate and testicular cancer, and interfered with behavioral and neurological development.

For women, fibrocystic breast disease, polycystic ovarian syndrome, endometriosis, uterine fibroids and pelvic inflammatory diseases are also suspected. These may be influenced by developmental or chronic lifetime exposure to estrogen mimics.

These estrogenic chemicals are everywhere: in the air, water, food, soil, and over-abundantly in our bodies. These chemicals are mostly from the petrochemical industry and unfortunately for our health, petrochemicals are everywhere. Our machines run on petrochemicals such as gasoline and kerosene. Organochlorines are produced by chlorine gas reacting with petroleum hydrocarbons. Today there are organochlorines being used in plastics, pesticides, solvents, dry cleaning agents, refrigerants and other chemicals. Thousands more are by-products of the disinfection of water, bleaching of paper and incineration of chlorinated products.  Millions of products, including various plastics (polycarbonated plastics found in babies bottles, toys, food containers and water jugs), PCBs, microchips, medicines, even our synthetic vitamins, clothing, foods, household cleansers, air deodorizers, personal care products (such as cosmetics, antiperspirants, soaps, toothpaste and mouthwash), pesticides and herbicides (such as DDT, dieldrin, heptachlor, etc.) and perfumes, either contain or are made from petrochemicals.

Some proven environmental estrogens used as pesticides, most notably DDT, toxaphene and dicofol, have been banned in most western industrial countries but are still used in many developing nations. Averages of over 25% of all regular Canadian and imported produce show residues of pesticides. In just one example, California raisin and strawberry growers and Washington State apple growers are permitted to use DDT-laced pesticide dicofol on food crops.

Drinking water may be contaminated by other proven estrogenic compounds  (nonylphenol (NP), endosulfan) still being used in plastics manufacturing and pesticides.  NP from our liquid laundry detergent, all-purpose cleaners, soaps and shampoos also taint our water.  Airborne ash from industry or hazardous waste incinerators is often high in hormone disrupters like dioxin (one of the most virulent) as well as lead, mercury, and cadmium. The ash lands on grass or hay eaten by livestock and then is passed along, concentrated, to humans.

Our food is one of the most common pathways for these hormone-disrupting chemicals to gain entry. Processed foods now comprise 80% of our food supply. Packaging, excess sugar and hydrogenated fats, preservatives, artificial colour and flavourings may all be hazardous.  For example, Red Dye No. 3, a powerful carcinogen, is still widely used. Plastic containers, styrene cups, food packaging or can liners may contain PVCs (polyvinyl chlorides), alkylphenols, nonylphenols, bisphenol-a and phthalates. These are known xenoestrogens that migrate into food when heated or stored for long periods.

Food animals and dairy fat are a major source of hormonally active chemicals in our food and waterways. The highest concentrations are in beef and dairy products, with high residues of DDT and other chlorinated pesticides, antibiotics, veterinary drugs and growth-stimulating sex hormones. Fish from industrialized waterways are contaminated with a wide range of xenoestrogens. All Great Lakes salmon show enlarged thyroid glands in recent years.

Taking it one step further, synthetic estrogens are also being dumped into the waterways through the urine of women and enter our food chain. This has also increased our levels of estrogen exposure.

So we see xenoestrogens are everywhere and that we are being bombarded with them. Many women are considered “estrogen dominate” because of our over exposure to these foreign estrogens.  Because this is a big topic, I will deal with this subject next week. What I want to cover this week is that there is a safe alternative that can actually protect us from this over exposure.

Plant estrogens, called phytoestrogens, compete with natural and xenoestrogens for binding to receptors in the body. The phytoestrogens protect us from the toxic, synthetic petrochemical estrogenic compounds. They act as weak estrogens and appear to produce estrogen effects in postmenopausal women and anti-estrogen effects in premenopausal women.  Phytoestrogens thus have this ability to act as “balancers” – by raising low levels of estrogen and by lowering high levels by replacing a strong estrogen with a weaker one.

Significant amounts of phytoestrogens are found in many foods including soy products, flaxseeds, chickpeas, cashews, oats, corn, apples, and almonds.  One of the best sources of phytoestrogens is called isoflavones found in soy.  By eating these foods on a daily basis, we can protect the cell receptor sites from the xenoestrogens. This is an important awareness as most people do not know the benefits of these foods. Phytoestrogens are therefore the “good guys” and can counteract the bad effects of the “bad guys”. So do yourself a favour and protect your cell receptor sites on a daily basis.

Every morning I take my water washed soy protein powder and mix it with water. After I drink it, I know that I have protected my cell receptor sites for the day. I highly recommend that you do the same for increased health and wellness. Feel free to contact me for more information on the difference in the brands of soy protein powder.

Do you have a story to share? I’d love to get your feedback.  Here on my blog, you’ll get commentluv.  That’s great for all bloggers out there. If you leave a comment, you can provide a link back to your own blog.  But you don’t have to be a blogger to leave a comment; I’m looking forward to hearing from all of you!

Next week I will cover the different types of estrogens and estrogen dominance.

Stay tuned.

Charlene Day

Changing the Dream

Healthy Soul-utions is all about being healthy in all areas. This month there was a great focus on planet earth with Earth Day celebrations drawing to a close.

Everything is interconnected. Our environment is really an extension of us. What we do the planet, we do to ourselves. This week we are going to look at some ideas out of a program I do called Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream.

I’m also very excited to include a picture of Van Jones and myself at the Green Living Show in Toronto just after Earth Day. Van Jones is an American environmental advocate, civil rights activist and attorney. Jones is a co-founder of three non-profit organizations and a contributor to Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream.

Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream is a program of The Pachamama Alliance that serves as a galvanizing space for individuals to deeply explore the extraordinary possibilities inherent in a communion of technology with spirit. Through participation in this program, people are offered a new place to stand in looking at their world and their lives, and are empowered to formulate their own personal daily practices that contribute to the creation of a new dream for themselves as well as for our world.

The Pachamama Alliance is committed to finding ways to support a growing effort to help us awaken from the seductive trance of unlimited progress, unrestrained private interest and material accumulation. We are clear that there is now an unprecedented opportunity to live from a new vision, one made possible by the merging of two ways of seeing the world that until now have seemed to be totally distinct— a marriage of the technological skill of the modern world, with the earth-honoring wisdom of indigenous cultures.

Each of us has the opportunity to make new choices in our daily lives, to create new practices that we take on each and every day. Our invitation is for you to design practices for yourself that have you be ‘in action’ consistent with creating an environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling and socially just human presence on this planet as the guiding principle of our time. The name of the game is: engage. Small steps are good. Big steps are good. Have it be a practice that delights, satisfies and inspires you. You might like to include some of the aspects listed below:

My Relationship with Earth/Environmental Sustainability

• Identify habits in the way I live that are unsustainable for me or the earth, that I intend to do something about
• Eat less  _______ and more _______
• Carpool, bicycle, take public transportation or walk ___ times each week in lieu of driving my own internal combustion vehicle
• Begin to investigate “one-earth” methods of transportation, heating, and refrigeration at home & work
• Purchase only items whose packaging, ingredients and methods of production are sustainable and support life. (Note: Check my recent Earth Day blogs for ideas)
• Spend some aware moments outdoors, in nature every single day
• Plant a tree, a garden
• Clean up a beach, trail, field, path, roadway
• Pay attention to and track the natural cycles of the moon, sun(light), stars, plants and animals
• Make Your Money Make a Difference – there has never been a more powerful time to divert our financial energy from institutions and corporations that perpetuate the old dream, check out ethicalconsumer.org, kiva.org or The Better World Shopping Guide.

My Relationship with Others/Community/Social Justice

• Regularly initiate conversations about a sustainable and socially just human presence on the planet with friends and family
• Go online and investigate 10 “civil society” groups and/or initiatives that intrigue me, and join at least one
• Investigate the current topics in my local community with regard to politics and environmental/social issues
• Write/email letters to your representatives
• Buy only what I need for a specific time period; invite others to participate
• Notice the times when society/the culture relates to me primarily as a consumer
• Make a micro loan to a third world entrepreneur and establish an e-mail relationship with him/her on kiva.org
• Set aside a percentage of my monthly income to support organizations working for social justice
• Open myself; educate myself about privilege/oppression
• Stand Up Speak Out – there are organizations which mobilize citizens’ voices helping us to let legislators and businesses know what we think.  Examples places citizens can mobilize and speak out on the web are avaaz.org, Care2.com, and 350.org .

My Relationship with Self/Spiritual Fulfillment

• Designate a regular daily spiritual practice Meditation/ Yoga/ Prayer/ other.
• Investigate and watch for examples of interconnectedness everywhere
• Consider and pay attention to dreams, daydreams & visions. Seek the wisdom in them.
• Manage my conversation (internal and external) to be one of possibility and inspiration to myself and others
• Be compassionate and forgiving with myself, even when I don’t do everything I think I should
• As a radical act: want less, buy less, use less
• Consciously read, listen to, watch, and engage with things and individuals that empower and uplift
• Read one page of something that inspires me each morning or evening
• Explore what is “enough” for me
• Be of Service – there are lots of ways to give our time and skills to help, we can find opportunities our own doorsteps or on the other side of the world, check out WiserEarth.org, volunteermatch.org or worldvolunteerweb.org to find the organizations through which you can serve.

These are just a few examples, to get you thinking. Keep in mind these practices are meant to create an opening in our habitual way of going through life. When you notice you have gone to sleep, let go of the self-judgment, awaken, and renew your practice. Find partner(s) to support you in your practice. Have a great time with this!

I offer Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream symposiums on a regular basis in the Toronto area. Please feel free to contact me to find out the date of the next one.

Do you have a story to share? I’d love to get your feedback.  Here on my blog, you’ll get commentluv.  That’s great for all bloggers out there. If you leave a comment, you can provide a link back to your own blog.  But you don’t have to be a blogger to leave a comment; I’m looking forward to hearing from all of you!

Next week I will cover some ideas for women’s health as we approach Mother’s Day.

Stay tuned.

Charlene

Earth Day This Thursday!

Healthy Soul-utions is all about being healthy in all areas.  This month there is a great focus on planet earth with Earth Day this week.

Everything is interconnected. Our environment is really an extension of us. What we do the planet, we do to ourselves. This week we are going to look at what we are doing to our water resources. Taking our interconnection to another level, we can think of a human body being the smaller scale microcosm and the planet being the larger scale macrocosm.  About 70 percent of the planet is covered in waterways and oceans and the human body contains an average of 70 percent water or fluids. So we can see the mirroring of the microcosm and macrocosm.

Groundwater and fresh water are what humans use for drinking water. The Great Lakes are a vast shared resource containing a significant portion of the world’s freshwater. These lakes are a direct source of drinking water for millions of people as well as sustaining a rich variety of plants and wildlife.

The sustainability of the Great Lakes ecosystem is threatened. The lakes need immediate attention according to government officials.

What we do to our waterways, we do to ourselves, and to our children. How have our waterways become such a chemical soup?

When I was younger and not as educated, I used to blame industry, and it is true, they must plead guilty, and accept the responsibility for cleaning up their act. But then I realized that the combined households had a greater impact on the waterways than the industries. In a typical city of 100,000 people, approximately 14 tons of household cleaners go down the drain each month. Researchers are now saying that 70% of soil and groundwater contamination in North America comes from household cleaners. So it is time to look our home environment and see how we can improve it both for our personal heath and the planet’s health.

How do household cleaners affect our environment? What chemicals are we talking about? I will touch on only a few, There are many more.

1. Sodium Hydroxide found in dishwashing liquids, laundry products, oven cleaners, scouring cleansers and tub and tile cleaners, when inhaled is immediately irritating to the respiratory tract. Contact can cause severe damage to the eyes, skin, mouth, and throat and it can cause liver and kidney damage.

2. Butyl Cellosolve found in all-purpose cleaners, cleaning wipes, degreasers, floor polish, rug shampoos, toilet bowl cleaners, tub and tile cleaners, and window cleaners, contains neurotoxins and cause irritation and tissue damage from inhalation. A person who spends 15 minutes cleaning scale off shower walls could inhale three times the acute exposure limit.

3. Chlorine found in bleach and other cleaning products is a very hazardous substance. It causes neurological damage, memory impairment, behavioral disorders, spontaneous abortions, low birth rate, reduced testicular size, infertility, low sperm count, immune effects, immune cell abnormalities, and respiratory infections. Chlorine exposure causes a 44% greater risk of gastrointestinal cancer or urinary tract cancer, according to the National Health Federation.

Mitchell Gayor, M.D., Cornell University, states: “Chlorine bleach is potentially carcinogenic  … among its by-products are chlorinated hydrocarbons, chloroform, and trihalo-methanes, all of which act like estrogens and cause breast cells to divide more rapidly.  These by-products have been shown to cause breast tumours in animals.”

We could go on and on, there are many chemicals and these are all going down the drain and into our waterways and groundwater.

How these chemicals are affecting the wildlife? Chemical toxicity is very evident in fish. There is a large increase of fish with tumours and deformities. The World Wildlife Fund reports that not a single salmon in the Great Lakes over the age of two years has been found without an enlarged thyroid gland. Every year the provincial government publishes a fish advisory called “Guide to Eating Ontario Sport Fish” because of serious health concerns.

It is time that we realize that toxic household cleaners can damage the environment and return to us through water and food. What goes down the drain can come back to haunt us. So chose your cleaning products with care. The ones I choose are Get Clean as they are completely safe for the wildlife and the lakes. In fact those products already regenerated one small lake in upper New York State.

My goal now is to regenerate the Great Lakes starting with Lake Ontario. I need one million households using Get Clean products in order to get the tipping point we need to start the regeneration of the ecological balance for Lake Ontario. I need your help.

For more information on these healthy safe products, check out the healthy home section at www.healthyday.net. In honour of Earth Day, I will give out free samples to anyone who contacts me this month.

Together we can choose to become conscious stewards of our planet earth. Our individual actions can and do make a difference to water quality and the environment as a whole. Caring for the environment really does begin at home.

Do you have a story to share? I’d love to get your feedback.  Here on my blog, you’ll get commentluv.  That’s great for all bloggers out there. If you leave a comment, you can provide a link back to your own blog.  But you don’t have to be a blogger to leave a comment; I’m looking forward to hearing from all of you!

Next week I will cover some more ways we can protect the planet as we wrap up our Earth Day month.

Stay tuned.

Charlene

The Environment – Borrowing it From Our Children

Healthy Soul-utions is all about being healthy in all areas. This month there is a great focus on planet earth with Earth Day in a few weeks.

Everything is interconnected.  So our environment is really an extension of us. What we do the planet, we do to ourselves. We see the environment is in trouble. As the Native Americans say, “We have not inherited the earth from our fathers. We are BORROWING it from our children.”

As a health care professional, I am appalled at the number of children I have seen in my practice over the years. Upon investigation, I realized a major factor for this, is the environment these children have to cope with.

Now environment means both interior and exterior. We are all willing to point the finger and blame our external environment, but how many of us have really cleaned up our interior environments? I believe we need to look at our personal environments first and educate ourselves.

Most of the moms I met did not know that their choices of cleaning agents were harming their childrens’ health. Ammonia, ammonium hydroxide, ethanol, phenol and naphthalene are examples of some the chemicals in laundry detergents. Residues of these chemicals remain in the clothing and bedding and come in direct contact with the skin and respiratory system. By changing the laundry soap to a safe biodegradable one, I have helped many children eliminate asthma and allergic symptoms.

A note here about biodegradable. According to government standards, it means that it breaks down but there are no standards as to whether these chemicals have to be harmless. Also it has to break down within a hundred years. (Not acceptable in my books)

It can be very easy to make a few changes in our own homes and this gives us a sense of control. I know it certainly helps me to know I am not contributing to any further polluting of our planet.  Now we can make a difference to our internal environment and health. If each of us makes a difference, then we will create a hopeful picture for our future generations.

After many years of careful research, I recommend Dr. Shaklee‘s biodegradable products called Get Clean. Dr. Shaklee coined the word “biodegradable” back in the 50s. He saw what we were doing to our planet back then. NASA, the Biosphere 2 (World Renowned Environmental Project) in Arizona and the Cousteau Society use only the Get Clean products because they break down into harmless chemicals in a very short period of time.

Get Clean has something for every cleaning need. A good place to start is with the general cleaner. The Basic H2 concentrate has over 1,000 different cleaning uses. I used to bathe my grandchildren in it because it is pH balanced. I also use it for my entire general cleaning, windows to floors and everything in between.

Get Clean outperformed 11 National Brands in Independent Laboratory Testing. It also offsets its carbon footprint and was the first climate neutral company. Since 2007 through sales of one product alone (Basic H2), Shaklee Corporation eliminated 4.1 billion bottles of conventional 26-oz window cleaner from landfill sites. If placed end-to-end, these bottles would wrap around the earth more than 28 times! The neat thing is that is less expensive than all the other cleaners on the market. So not only do you save the planet, you also save money.

For more information on healthy safe products, check out the healthy home section at www.healthyday.net. In honour of Earth Day, I will give out free samples to anyone who contacts me this month.

Together we can choose to become conscious stewards of our planet earth.

Do you have a story to share? I’d love to get your feedback.  Here on my blog, you’ll get commentluv.  That’s great for all bloggers out there. If you leave a comment, you can provide a link back to your own blog.  But you don’t have to be a blogger to leave a comment; I’m looking forward to hearing from all of you!

Next week I will cover the project I have started to clean up the lakes.

Stay tuned.

Charlene Day

Environment is an Extension of Us

Healthy Soul-utions is all about being healthy in all areas. This month there is a great focus on planet earth with Earth Day in a few weeks.

Throughout my experience in the health field, I have seen it over and over again, that when we try to heal in just one area, it is not a total healing.

Everything is interconnected. So our environment is really an extension of us. What we do to the planet, we do to ourselves.

The next few blogs will be a few reminders of becoming conscious with our buying habits. Here are 7 questions to ask when considering purchasing a product or material for your home or business.

1.  Apply life-cycle thinking
(think in a way that includes our future generations).

This includes:

• Does the product contain toxic materials?
• Where do the raw materials come from and where is the product manufactured?
• How much energy is used to extract and ship components or parts of a product?
• How much energy, water and resources are used to create and package the product?
• How can it be disposed of or recycled at the end of its useful life?
• Are there any environmental or health impacts of its use?

2.  Do you even need to purchase the product new?

Sometimes a used item is just as good.

3.  Exactly how much of it do you need?

Don’t buy more than you need; this wastes money and resources. Are you paying to have water shipped to you, meaning is the product concentrated?

4.  What type of packaging does it come in?

Environmentally-conscious companies are doing all sorts of creative things to green their packaging. This addresses the materials that packaging is made from, as well as the amount of it.

5.  Is the product well-designed for its intended purpose?

Often, cheaply made goods fall apart and are thrown away within 3 months of purchase. Think about our already full land fill sites.

6.  Does the use of this product require special ventilation?

If so, don’t buy it! There are plenty of alternatives for no-VOC cleaning products, paints, and adhesives. Check out the Get Clean products for instance. Not only are they safe for you, your home or workplace and the planet, they also save you thousands of dollars. Visit www.healthyday.net and click on ‘Healthy Home’.

7.  Labor Practices.

Depending on how far you want to take it, ask about labor practices. Does the manufacturer pay a living wage?  Do they give their employees benefits, and do they have a diverse workforce? Do they contribute to their community? Does the company offset the carbon emissions? Are they climate neutral? The social aspects of sustainability/green are sometimes overlooked, but have huge potential payoffs.

Do you have a story to share? I’d love to get your feedback.  Here on my blog, you’ll get commentluv.  That’s great for all bloggers out there. If you leave a comment, you can provide a link back to your own blog.  But you don’t have to be a blogger to leave a comment; I’m looking forward to hearing from all of you!

Next week I will cover some more ways we can protect the planet.

Stay tuned.

Charlene

Health is a Choice Part 3 – Conscious Behavior

The human body is a self-repairing, self-regulating system that will maintain good health if we properly support it. Almost all chronic illness can be prevented or put into remission by making different choices.

On the physical level these imbalances are brought about by making inappropriate choices regarding our diets, environment, and conscious behavior. So in this post, let’s look at our behavioral choices.

First let’s define it further into conscious and unconscious behaviors. Our conscious behavior is the one we do have choice with as we are conscious that we are doing a particular behavior or action. When we are unconscious about our behavior is it a lot harder to control as we are not always aware of what or why we just did a particular action.

So in terms of this post we will refer only to conscious behaviors in terms of making good choices that respect our physical body and lead to balancing all the vibrational bodies as well.

So consciously we need to look at our behaviors around anything we think is stressful. Chronic stress causes a distortion of the body’s daily maintenance systems and processes. The physical body can literally fall apart without regular maintenance.  Millions of people suffer from chronic stress.  If you were to go onto Google and do a search on stress, you would see there are over a hundred million searches done on that keyword alone.

Stress has many components. It can be:

1. physical,
2. chemical or
3. mental/emotional stress.

Let’s look at the different actions or behaviors we can do for these different aspects of stress.  The first behavior is learning new ways of dealing with stress. As the different kinds of stress are what is commonly behind our vibrational imbalance leading to illness and disease.

1. Physical stressors. There are many new behaviors we can chose including some from the previous blog posts like choosing the right foods and eliminating the ones that don’t feed our cells. Lack of water is a major physical stressor, so drinking at least 8 glasses of water a day is an essential behavior for good health.

Physical exercise is another behavior to adopt for good health. The human body was designed to be physically active. It will not function properly without a high level of activity. Without movement, the heart/lung system does not get the stimulation it needs to deliver adequate amounts of oxygen to the body’s tissues. This causes a gradual decline in health and leads to premature aging. There are many forms of exercise and finding the right one for you is important so that you feel motivated to stay with that behavior.

2. Chemical stressors. We saw in previous the blog post that choosing the right cleaning products as well as the products that touch our skin and avoiding the toxic ones were important components in our health choices.

3. Mental/emotional stressors are vast as everyone reacts to different events in their own personal way. So looking at behaviors in this category is going to be very personal. Some people choose therapy to deal with the various issues that show up that may interfere with good health. There are many ways to deal with this category of stressors and the behavioral choice here will differ from person to person.

To assess your current level of stress, take the test on Eli Bay’s website by clicking here.

A major stressor on health, I would like you to consider, is that our modern allopathic health care system promotes disease by instilling feelings of powerlessness and hopelessness in the chronically ill. Modern medicine tells the chronically ill they are powerless to act on their own, that they cannot be restored to health, only treated, and that they have no options other than the medical system. This promotes feelings of helplessness that actually lead to a further breakdown in health. When people are experiencing these feelings, it is very hard to make good choices.

Knowing that health is a choice gives people a sense of personal power, which enhances physical and emotional vitality, in fact all the vibrational bodies. Being able to visualize and feel a positive outlook for the future has a profound effect on your health.

So it is very important to understand that your body is yours and that you can make choices regardless of what other opinions are being offered. Please don’t give your power away. You have the power to make choices and chose your health and the kind of life you want to live. This is one conscious behavior, I hope you exercise.  It is precious.

Do you have a story to share? I’d love to get your feedback.  Here on my blog, you’ll get commentluv.  That’s great for all bloggers out there. If you leave a comment, you can provide a link back to your own blog.  But you don’t have to be a blogger to leave a comment; I’m looking forward to hearing from all of you!

Next week I will cover some the ways we can connect with spirit.

Stay tuned.

Charlene Day

Health is a Choice – Environmental Choices

The human body is a self-repairing, self-regulating system that will maintain good health if we properly support it. Almost all chronic illness can be prevented or put into remission by making different choices.

On the physical level, these imbalances are brought about by making inappropriate choices regarding our diets, environment, and conscious behavior. So in this post, let’s look at our environmental choices. When we think environment, we sometimes think outside the house, but our home environment is one of the most important areas to look to make healthy choices.

During this century, we have introduced over 100,000 man-made chemicals into our environment. We have little information on how these operate in the human body and almost no information on what happens when combined. We do know that many of these chemicals are toxic and that some are carcinogenic (cancer causing).

According to a 15-year study presented at the Toronto Indoor Air Conference, women who work at home have a 54% higher death rate from cancer than those who work away from home. The study concluded that this was a direct result of the increased exposure to toxic chemicals, many of which are found in common household products.

Toxic chemicals are things our cells don’t need because they jam the cellular mechanisms and interfere with normal cell function. It’s not always possible to completely avoid toxins because we have polluted the entire planet.

However, it is possible to minimize our toxic exposures. Begin making different choices with the things you use on your body such as toothpaste, soap, shampoo, etc. Most of these products, when you research the ingredients, contain toxic ingredients. The toxins go through your skin, bio-accumulate in your tissues, and eventually cause cellular malfunction. Avoid fluoride, mineral oil, phthalates, parabens, talc, collagen, BHT, formaldehyde, isopropyl palmitate, lead, mercury just to name a few.

Buy products that are safe for you and safe for the planet.

Use environmentally safe household cleaners. Avoid solvents and toxic chemicals such as kerosene,  phenol,  cresol,  lye,  hydrochloric acid,  sulfuric acid,  sulfamic acid,  petroleum distillates,  ammonia,  sodium hydroxide, sodium bisulfate,  butyl cellosolve,  phosphoric acid,  ethoxylated alcohols, formaldehyde, phosphates chlorine bleach,  morpholine, crystalline silica.

I have helped many kids over the years with their asthma, simply by helping their parents make different choices with their laundry detergent. I showed them one called Fresh Laundry Concentrate that Dr. Doris Rapp recommends that is non-toxic and therefore safe to breathe in. Result – no more asthmatic attacks at night.

There are many things we can do to make different choices around our environment. This blog just scratched the surface on a few ways to avoid toxins. In the current marketing environment it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between hype and good information. Making solid health choices is more than ever about becoming educated and connecting with reliable and trusted sources.

For more information on healthy safe products, check out the healthy home section at www.healthyday.net

Do you have a story to share? I’d love to get your feedback.  Here on my blog, you’ll get commentluv.  That’s great for all bloggers out there. If you leave a comment, you can provide a link back to your own blog.  But you don’t have to be a blogger to leave a comment; I’m looking forward to hearing from all of you!

Next week I will cover the behavioral choices that we can make for our health.

Stay tuned.

Charlene Day