Laura Koniver, MD's Blog, page 12

Why You Might Want To Consider Grounding At Work

 

 

Now that Labor Day is over and it’s back to work, I thought I’d write up an article about grounding in the workplace.  If you are not sure what grounding is, I bet you know how it feels. If you have ever felt the relief of walking on the beach or spending an afternoon gardening, then you already know how supportive grounding can be and how it can help mitigate stress.

Especially at work, especially when you are putting in hour after hour in artificial light, you are likely to feel disconnected from the natural rhythm of the earth.  It’s super common for folks who work indoors to have sleep issues because of this disconnect.  In fact, we need time in contact with our planet because this is what helps us feel oriented to not only our day/night rhythm but our seasonal rhythm as well, it helps us think more clearly, and it also helps us keep our brains healthy.

Click to read any of these articles I wrote for you for more on how grounding can help boost your focus and re-orient you to a healthy day/night pattern:

Why Grounding Works, No Matter Where You Live In The World The Real Reason Grounding Works: The Healing Power of the Earth, Finally ExplainedWhy You Think More Clearly When You Spend Time OutsideA Super Easy Way To Support Your Brain Health That You Can Do Right Now

 

 

So if you are feeling disconnected, uninspired, absent minded, brain fog creeping in or insomnia taking over, consider adding grounding into your daily health routines.

Luckily, you can connect to the healing energy of the earth even if you are indoors, even if you are working at a desk, even if you are pulling an all nighter at your computer.  Indoor grounding tools use a special ground cord to make sure your beautiful, conductive body does not need to be disconnected from our beautiful, conductive earth.

Here are my top 10 favorite reasons why grounding at work might be the best thing you ever do to maintain long term health:

10 Reasons To Get Grounded At Work:

 

 

 

1. Grounding Boosts Your Mood:

 

Feeling grumpy at work?  A study published in Lancet Psychiatry on May 10, 2018, suggests that occupation alone might cause as many as one out of every 7 new cases of depression, anxiety, and other common mental disorders. A job that requires high intensity, a job that moves at a fast pace, a job that has high risk, a job that gives you very little control over your duties, and/or a job that doesn’t allow you to make your own decisions were all factors that contributed to the mental strain a job can bring.

If you are thinking… yes my job is stressful but I really love it, it’s not enough. Even a very high job satisfaction was not protective of the strain that job stress can put on mental health. Although ideally we would all have meaningful, soul satisfying jobs, even those can actually still be toxic, stressful, high paced, and put us at high risk for mental illness. And let’s face it, many times jobs simply are not in the slightest bit soul fulfilling at all and yet still are so stressful that they raise mental illness diagnosis, all for a job you don’t even enjoy. But there are ways to help protect yourself and your mental state. You might like some of the tips I share with you in this article I wrote a few years ago:

Is Your Job Driving You Crazy? You Are Not Alone. Here’s Help.

Grounding to the rescue. In a study on grounding and mood, researchers followed 40 patients in a double-blind, placebo-controlled study. The results of this double blind medical study were published in Psychological Reports in 2015 , and what researchers found was that participants who were grounded had measurable improvements in mood that were significantly higher than the sham-grounded participants. Every single grounded subject had a measurable improvement in their mood assessment while the ungrounded ones did not.

Grounding is the most natural way I know of to boost your mood, keeping your workday flowing and your outlook brighter.

 

 

 

2. Grounding Decreases Stress:

 

When you are stressed, your muscles become tense, your heart rate is elevated, circulation is constricted, your digestion shuts down, your adrenaline & cortisol surge and your sleep is disrupted.  Long term this leads to pain from muscle tension (and often chronic pain conditions such as chronic tension headaches, tooth grinding, TMJ, restless leg syndrome, fibromyalgia and other pain syndromes) as well as increased risk of heart attack and stroke, inflammatory disorders of the gut, malabsorption, heartburn, reflux, irritable bowel, an increased risk of autoimmune disorders, adrenal fatigue, circadian rhythm disturbance, sex hormone imbalance, even early menopause or menstrual irregularities, insomnia, memory problems, structural brain changes and more.

Getting grounded immediately begins to get you out of “fight or flight”mode and calms you, improving vagal tone, deepening breathing and oxygenation, decreasing cortisol output and more. Medical studies back this us. For example, one study published in 2004 in the Journal of Alternative and Complimentary Medicine found that grounded subjects had a complete normalization of their cortisol patterns, suggesting a profound recovery from stress. Grounding your body is at work here, decreasing your whole body inflammation, decreasing the stress hormones (like cortisol) in your bloodstream, even naturally reducing inflammation in your body… no drugs necessary!

More on that here:

How Grounding Mitigates Trauma And Protects Your Body From Long Term Stress

 

 

 

3. Grounding Protects Your Heart:

 

From increasing our heart rate variability (the key to the health and resiliency of your heart function) to increasing the circulatory perfusion of our capillaries (the key to getting oxygen and nutrients to all the organs in your body, including your brain!) to decreasing the risk of blood clots (which reduces our risk of heart attack and stroke,) the earth is essential to keeping your cardiovascular system functioning well.

A low heart rate variability (HRV) actually has been shown to decrease lifespan. It’s an indication of an increased mortality rate and heart failure risk , so physicians look at the HRV (particularly after a heart attack, heart transplant and premature birth) because it predicts the risk of death. They also look at the HRV to predict a positive outcome as well, for example, there is a better prognosis in cancer patients with an increased HRV .  So a higher HRV enhances long term survivability, enhances recovery from major diseases, predicts a longer lifespan and decreases stress and wear and tear on the heart. And you guessed it, grounding improves your HRV in clinically meaningful ways.

One study, published in Integrative Medicine in 2011 , found significant improvements in HRV during grounding. This was followed by a double blinded medical study, published in the Open Journal of Preventive Medicine in 2015 , where participants who were grounded for 40 minutes during strenuous yoga exercises universally had their HRV increased, and this change was statistically significant with every single participant.

Researchers followed that study with an even more recent study on the HRV in some of the most vulnerable human beings of all, premature infants in NICU incubators.  Published in Neonatology in 2017, researchers found grounding boosted markers of survival, including HRV for these neonatal infants, confirming the results found in the original study on adults.

In addition, published in 2018 in Alternative Therapies , grounding was found to normalize high blood pressure, with an average decrease in blood pressure of 14%.  And another very important medical study, published in 2013 in the Journal of Alternative and Complimentary Medicine , shows that grounding for only 2 hours significantly reduced clotting risk, by decreasing the zeta potential on red blood cells and making them flow through the circulatory system of the body more smoothly. The zeta potential of the red blood cells were boosted by an average of 270%. This in turn increased the average blood velocity of the patients by 260%. In addition, grounding significantly decreased red blood cell aggregation, dramatically dropping the number of red blood cells that clumped together in groups of 4 or more by more than half. This suggests that the risk of developing a serious blood clot may be decreased dramatically with routine grounding practices.

More on this here:

Grounding To Support Your Heart Health

 

 

 

4. Grounding Helps You Maintain a Healthy Weight:

 

Gaining weight (or losing weight) unintentionally is a common response to chronic or acute stress, much of which happens at work. Because grounding boosts your vagal tone (which supports the function of your entire digestive tract, from your esophagus to your colon and everything in between!) and boosts your basal metabolic rate it can help you lose weight naturally. Researchers found that grounding for just 40 minutes was enough to significantly boost your basal metabolic function (published in the Journal of Alternative and Complimentary Medicine in 2010 ) which means you burn more calories
at rest.

Grounding also helps support thyroid function and stabilizes blood sugar (published in The Journal of Alternative and Complimentary Medicine in 2011 ) so that you have less of an afternoon slump and don’t crash and grab that sugary or salty
afternoon snack to get you through your work day.

I ran an informal study with my own patients because I wondered if, by boosting our digestion and metabolism through touching the earth, we would see a change in weight over time, without any dieting or exercise. So I personally enrolled a dozen overweight patients into an informal private study on grounding and weight loss. I followed them for 10 weeks, measuring weight, energy, mood, sleep, and pain, with weekly weigh-ins and assessments.  Their instructions were to ground to the earth for 15 minutes a day, and that was it. I told them not to change their diet at all, to eat everything they had eaten before in the same quantities and in the same fashion. I told them not to start new activities or to change their activity intensity at all. I wanted to see metabolic changes from short periods of daily grounding over time. Following those patients with weekly weigh-ins and weekly assessments was very, very interesting. What I found was that the majority of patients
lost a clinically significant amount of weight, 60% of them losing between 4 and 15 pounds in the 10 week study period doing nothing more then adding in daily grounding for just 15 minutes a day.

More on my clinical experience with grounding and weight loss here:

Grounding To Boost Your Metabolism & Lose Weight

And more on how stress affects your weight, plus tips to help you lose it, here:

Stress Weight Gain Is Different Than Other Forms Of Weight Gain, Here’s Why

 

 

 

5. Grounding Helps Boost Your Focus:

 

Getting into the relaxed but alert alpha brain wave pattern, which is seen in calm, alert meditative states, is one of the hallmarks of grounding. Grounding allows us to feel calm and alert during waking hours, which can be incredibly helpful in a work environment where stress runs the day.

One study, published 2006 in European Biology and Bioelectricmagnetics monitored patient’s brain waves on EEG and noted an immediate shift of the central nervous system upon grounding.

And another study, published in 2011 in Medical Hypotheses , also found that grounding “significantly influences the electrical activity of the brain” on neuroimaging studies.

Imagine being as calm and centered at work as you are during meditation — this is the power of grounding, and you can bring that into your work place.

More on this here:

Why You Think More Clearly When You Spend Time Outside

 

 

 

6. Grounding Keeps You Motivated:

 

In a very interesting study published May 2020 in Trends in Cognitive Sciences, researchers found a direct correlation between inflammatory markers in the blood and motivation. Specifically, that inflammation lowers dopamine levels in the brain, which switches the brain from positive to negative thinking. As dopamine drops, you can go from feeling capable and motivated to feeling incapable and unmotivated.

Basically, inflammation gives you a motivational impairment, and prevents you from thinking optimistically as well as keeps you from accurately assessing what you are capable of. Even if you fully are capable of doing something, your brain will tell you that you are not. Your motivation tanks and your outlook dims as a result of chronic
inflammation.

We know with absolute clarity that grounding decreases whole body inflammation.  In a study published in 2009 in The Journal of Alternative and Complimentary Medicine, researchers found that grounded subjects had statistically significant decreases in blood markers of inflammation compared to non-grounded subjects. In addition, decreases in inflammation as a result of grounding are well documented using medical thermography imaging.  And an overview of how grounding decreases whole body inflammation was also published June 2014 in the Journal of Inflammation Research.

We also know grounding specifically decreases the same inflammatory cytokines that have a direct impact on our dopamine levels. In this important study, published January 2019 in Frontiers in Physiology , researchers found that cytokines such as such as IP-10, MIP-1α, and sP-Selectin were all decreased in grounded subjects, compared to non-grounded controls. The average drop induced by grounding a patient was a 10 —20% drop in inflammatory cytokine concentration. By decreasing inflammatory cytokines, it’s likely that grounding gives a natural dopamine boost to the brain, which is how it can keep you motivated through a long work day. This powerful, natural anti-inflammatory effect is the mechanism of action behind the earth’s ability to elevate mood, boost energy, and brighten outlook.

You can read more about grounding and brain function in either of two recent articles I’ve published on grounding in these medical journals:

Cerebrospinal Fluid and Brain Health: Optimized By GroundingNeurological Pathways Supported By Grounding

 

 

 

7. Grounding Boosts Oxygen and Blood To The Brain:

 

Published in 2010 in the Journal of Alternative and Complimentary Medicine , researchers showed that grounding for as little as 40 minutes boosted respiratory rate and stabilized blood oxygenation. And another study, published in 2011 in Integrative Medicine , shows that grounding is able to boost vagal tone and directly impact autonomic nervous system function, which has a direct impact on lung function. The vagal nerve not only impacts airway perfusion and secretion, it also directly impacts breathing pattern and even lung inflammation.

Grounding may be the easiest holistic therapy to directly support lung function and blood oxygenation that we know of. In fact, a study published in 2017 in Neonatology , found that grounding premature infants in the NICU boosted their vagal tone by almost 70%. Getting that fresh oxygen and nutrition to not only your brain, but throughout your entire body, can help give you an edge at work if you incorporate grounding into your daily habits.

In a double blinded medical study, published in The Journal of Cosmetics, Dermatological Sciences and Applications in 2017 , researchers measured blood flow changes during grounding. What they found was that within minutes, all the grounded
patients had significantly increased capillary blood flow in their facial skin, and the patients who were ungrounded had no change in their facial blood flow. This is a real, nearly instantaneous physiologic change in the circulatory system just from using an indoor grounding tool.

If you want to see the enhanced blood flow for yourself, I highly recommend that you watch the film Heal For Free — which you can watch right here on YouTube. In this film, you can see first hand how a patient’s blood flow in the back of their eye changes dramatically after grounding through the bottom of the foot, just like the patients in the study above. This is a really beautiful way to capture what’s happening in the capillaries because the blood flow in the back of the retina looks very similar under the imaging study as it does in your skin, and all through every organ in your body. The patient in this film had macular degenerative disease in the back of his eye, which is a disease that is usually irreversible, yet with grounding there was a significantly enhanced blood flow even to the damaged macula of his eye. The retinal specialist was in shock, having never seen increased blood flow like this before. And this response — of increased blood flow through capillaries while grounding — helps your entire body, including your brain, function at its best.

 

 

 

8. Grounding Can Decrease Aches and Pains:

 

When you touch the earth outside, your entire body is instantaneously grounded because your entire musculoskeletal system is conductive. The first medical study to reveal this (published in the Journal of Alternative and Complimentary Medicine in 2010) was a beautifully designed study that looked at what happens to a grounded body when muscles and tendons are pushed to their limit and are purposefully strained. It was a scientifically rigorous, double-blinded placebo-controlled study, in which patients carried one-third of their entire body weight in barbells on their shoulders and did repetitive toe
raises until their muscles were exhausted. Researchers measured laboratory parameters that included creatinine kinase, white blood cell counts and cortisol levels at baseline and at one, two and three days after this fatiguing trauma to the muscle, and found that grounding during exercise significantly reduced muscle soreness and
enhanced muscle recovery after exertion.

In another double-blinded, placebo-controlled study, published in the Open Journal of Preventive Medicine in 2015, researchers studied participants who performed strenuous yoga exercises for an hour straight — cycling through a series of 10 strenuous yoga exercises over and over again, while their blood viscosity was measured. Without fail every single ungrounded subject not only reported significantly more pain and a longer recovery time but they also had higher blood cortisol levels, higher creatinine kinase levels, and higher white blood cell counts. In contrast, every single grounded subject recovered faster after the muscle damage, not only reporting lower pain levels, but significantly lower blood cortisol levels (which means the grounded patients were less stressed from the injury), significantly lower creatinine kinase levels (meaning they had less muscle damage) and lower white blood cell counts. Another double blinded medical study, published in the Open Access Journal of Sports Medicine in 2015 , found the same muscle saving benefits when participants completed 200 knee bends, either grounded or sham grounded.

Does grounding help improve muscular function when you are not even exerting yourself, but just at baseline muscle tension? This type of muscle fatigue is very common in the work place, leading to tension headaches, muscle stiffness and muscle
soreness in the neck and back. And the answer is yes, grounding helps with that too.

Published in European Biology and Bioelectromagnetics in 2006 , researchers grounded participants and monitored their brainwaves through EEG imaging and their muscular tension through EMG monitors. The EMG (electromyogram) was placed on the trapezius muscle, which is the large triangular muscle spanning the upper back, shoulders and neck (the muscle that is involved in fibromyalgia, tension headaches, neck pain and more). The researchers then grounded the patients through a grounding patch on the sole of their foot, and instantly, with no discernible lag in time, their muscle tension decreased in the neck and shoulder area.

Grounding immediately reduces muscle tension — near instantaneously. When you connect with the earth, your entire body is instantaneously grounded precisely because your entire musculoskeletal system is conductive — think of it as a conductive system that runs grounding instantly throughout your entire body, as easy as flipping a switch.  You can read more about grounding and musculoskeletal support here:

What Grounding Does To Your Muscles

And some other tips on supporting your musculoskeletal system here:

Why Your Fascia Is Your Best Friend + 3 Ways To Support It For A Lifetime

 

 

 

 

9. Grounding Helps Improve Your Sleep:

 

Most people believe that our circadian (day/night) rhythm is dependent on sunlight to set that pattern for us, but scientists have actually known since 1970 that the earth’s energy field has as much, if not more, to do with our sleep/wake pattern than even the sun. Researchers built two underground isolation chambers that completely cut the occupants off from any evaluation of time passing. Both chambers were light proof, sound proof, temperature controlled bunkers, with one major difference. While one was allowed to be connected to the electromagnetic field of the earth, one was completely shielded so that all connection was severed between the earth’s energy and the occupants of the bunker.

Looking at the sleep wake cycle of several hundred test subjects over a two month period of time, researchers found that participants who were in the bunker that still allowed the earth’s field to reach them kept patterns that were close to a 24 hour
rhythm, while those in the bunker that was completely shielded from the earth’s energies became internally desynchronized and experienced significantly longer, more irregular rhythms.

Researchers then experimented with introducing different electrical and magnetic fields into the shielded bunker, and only one restored normal sleep/wake patterns… you guessed it, the one that is our Mother Earth’s natural energy, the Schumann frequency. Based off of this understanding, it’s easy to understand how directly connecting to the earth, grounding our body with our planet, can help enhance restorative sleep at night and boost daytime wakefulness.

A study on grounding and sleep published in the Journal Of Alternative and Complimentary Medicine in 2004, found that participants who had a history of sleep disturbances had completely normalized cortisol after grounding for just 8 weeks. Every single one. They had such a dramatic improvement in their sleep that not only did their sleep improved, but they reported feeling less stress and experienced less pain as well.

You can find more support to help you sleep in this article I wrote for you here:

12 Things To Do Throughout The Day Today, To Improve Your Sleep Tonight

 

 

 

10. Grounding Can Boost Immune Function:

 

There is a reason why students in school, inmates in prisons, and employees at work get sick more often, and that is because of communicable disease. Working in close proximity to others, often in an indoor environment, increases the amount of pathogens that you are exposed to, which increases your risk of picking up a cold, the flu, or other viral infections. Grounding may help decrease this risk by boosting your immune system function.

Published in 2011 in Randomized Controlled Trials , researchers found that grounding increased concentrations of immunoglobulins (α1, α2, β, and γ) which suggests that connecting to the earth accelerates the immune response and may have very real world applications in reducing communicable illness and enhancing the body’s response in
fighting infections.

Another study, published in 2015 in the Journal Of Inflammation Research , back this up, finding statistically significant and measurable changes in white blood cells, cytokines, lymphocytes and neutrophils, all crucial elements in the immune cascade. Less time spent feeling sick and run down? That’s a win, so you never have to use up a vacation day as a sick day ever again.

More on how grounding helps support your resiliency to viral infections here:

10 Ways Grounding Might Support Your Health During This Pandemic

 

Hopefully this review can encourage you to give grounding at work a try. You are likely to find that you have more energy, more stamina, more motivation, less aches and pains, and may even sleep better at night by adding grounding into your daily work hours.

 

 

Want To Ground Outside?

 

I highly recommend getting outside whenever you can to get grounded directly to the earth.  From eating lunch outside with feet on the ground to taking a very quick break to step out and touch a leaf on a tree or bush, grounding for even a few minutes will reap health benefits.

If you work in an urban setting and want to see dozens of ways to get grounded even in the middle of a large city, I created this video for you.

 

For more ideas on how to fit grounding into your busy work day, you might find both of these articles I wrote for you helpful:

7 Quick Ways The Earth Can Reset Your Mood Whenever You Need ItHow Grounding Boosts Your Mood + 10 Ways It Fits Into Your Day Today

If you prefer books, I wrote a book listing hundreds of ways to go outside and get grounded.

That’s because just like brushing your teeth or wearing a seatbelt, grounding is another one of those non-negotiable health care practices.  So I’ve got you.

I wrote The Earth Prescription to tell you about how to get outside not matter what the season, no matter what the weather, no matter what the location, no matter if you have green spaces outside or not, no matter if you have 5 minutes or 5 hours to ground, urban settings, winter temperatures, no matter what the circumstance.

It’s an easy, uplifting read filled with tons of easily actionable ways to stay connected to our planet and boost your health during 2022 and beyond.

Order signed copies directly from me right here, or find it anywhere books are sold:

Order On AmazonOrder On Barnes & NobleOrder On Indiebound

 

Want To Ground Inside Your Workplace?

 

If you’d like to try an indoor grounding tool at work, I recommend eco-friendly, ethically made grounding tools.  Grounding tools made from natural fibers that don’t harm the earth like plastic “leatherette” items that will sit in a landfill for 500+ years.

I could not find any reliable source of eco-friendly grounding tools on the market, so I created my own.  I have custom made, individually hand sewn, boutique quality grounding tools made locally right here in the USA using eco friendly, environmentally conscious materials like hemp and organic cotton, and superior quality conductive elements like stainless steel:

Eco-Ethically Hand Crafted Grounding Tools

 

In my opinion, these are the longest lasting, most eco-friendly and non-toxic grounding tools on the planet, I even ship them with non-toxic, biodegradable packaging.  Healthy for you, healthy for the earth!  You might find this article helpful in guiding you which tool to select:

8 Unusual Grounding Tools You’ve Probably Never Heard Of

 

 

Another Tip For Indoor Grounding

 

If you suspect you are electrosensitive, you may feel better using a PureGround grounding cord instead of a standard ground cord if you are grounding at work.  That’s because in a work environment there is likely to be electrical fields present where you are grounding.

Although these electrical fields impact your health even when you are not grounded, many folks can not feel them until they get grounded.  That’s because when you ground in electrical fields there is a very small amount of AC current that can reach you through a standard ground cord.

Although your body is still in a grounded healing state, you may feel this minuscule amount of AC current exposure — this is exactly why electrosensitive individuals may feel tingling or other sensations while grounding in an electrical field.

For more on this, read either of these articles I wrote for you:

Is It Safe To Get Grounded Around EMFs?The Secret Behind A “Grounding Detox” — What Your Symptoms Are Really Telling You

The solution to this is simply to switch to an electrosensitive cord that filters out the AC current, so that nothing but the earth’s energy — the natural DC energy of the earth’s electron flow — can reach you.

This cord is called the PureGround grounding cord and is available here.

 

 

 

Now that Labor Day is over and we are in for a fall and winter full of artificial lights and workplace stress, I hope these tips helped you consider prioritizing getting grounded even as the world gets colder, and even at work.

Next I will be blogging about ways to stay grounded even going outside in the cold this fall and winter (think grounding gloves, grounding hiking sticks, grounding shoe stickers and much much more) as well as an article on the 10 things I do each fall to boost my health before winter arrives.

So if someone forwarded you this email, make sure you are signed up for my newsletter so you will get these next holistic health article directly into your inbox and don’t miss a thing:

Dr. Koniver’s Uplifting Newsletter: Sign Up Here

 

xoxox,Laura Koniver MD

 

The post Why You Might Want To Consider Grounding At Work appeared first on Intuition Physician.

12 Things To Do Throughout The Day Today, To Improve Your Sleep Tonight

 

 

Just in time for the back-to-school season, I have pulled together a list of 12 things you can do throughout your day to improve the quality of your sleep tonight.  All based on the most current medical literature on sleep quality.  In fact, I recently returned from a medical conference where one of the lectures was on repairing sleep deficits.

Something I was very interested in because I’ve always been a poor sleeper all of my life.

The take home point that really stuck in my mind, and now when I have a sleepless night I remind myself of this again and again so that I don’t stress out too much about it, was:

You are only ever one night away from a good night of sleep.

It doesn’t matter how long you’ve struggled with insomnia or how big your sleep deficit is. Every single night is an opportunity to completely turn that around.

Because your last night’s sleep affects your next’s night’s sleep, when you have a really poor night just think of it as increasing your sleep pressure to make it all the more easy to repair your sleep the very next night.

 

 

 

The other thing that was comforting to me as well was this:

When you are laying there all night long, staring at the clock and counting down the hours as they dwindle in front of you and you get closer and closer to the time you have to get back up, yet you feel like you have not slept a single second… guess how much time you have actually been asleep?

Researchers in sleep labs have studied patients who are up all night, wide awake. Monitoring their brain activity on an EEG, researchers could see exactly what brain patterns they had every moment of the entire sleepless night.

What percent of the night do you think the brain has gone into a normal sleep pattern, even when you feel that you didn’t sleep a single minute?

10% of the night? 25% of the night? 50% of the night?

It turns out that when you are laying there all night long, your brain is actually catching sleep roughly 70% of the night. That is infinitely reassuring to me as I lay there, sure I got zero restorative sleep.

I remind myself that not only did I get a lucid, in-and-out, semi-rest where my brain unplugged for probably 70% of that sleepless night, but I also have an opportunity the very next night to turn my sleep completely around.

To that end, here is a list of my 12 favorite holistic ways to help you get back into a health sleep/wake cycle, in the exact order that you do them.  Use in this suggested order and you can likely see an improvement in your first night!

12 Ways To Sleep Better Tonight:

 

 

 

1. Get Morning Light On Your Face

 

To easily correct your circadian rhythm, totally naturally, get into a habit of getting natural light on your face every single morning as early as possible outdoors.

20 — 30 minutes is ideal, but even just 10 minutes greeting the day will make a difference in your sleep that very night. Sometimes I can only have a cup of coffee in front of a well lit window for 5 minutes in the morning and even that short of a time period is still helpful to get that light on my face.

You could try sitting on a porch, balcony or front door stoop every morning, you could head outside on your lunch break to eat a picnic lunch outside mid-day, you might know which of the windows in your home are sunny and at what time of the day there is a sunbeam to sit in in the AM hours, even going for a drive is helpful, so if you have a morning commute this might be one of the perks of it!  Might be the only perk, lol, but at least it helps give you morning light exposure.

Another idea that might be a good resource for you is to simply use a light box when you wake up.

In addition to spending a bit of time outside or in front of a well lit window each morning, I use my light box every day — especially crucial for me all fall and winter long — I aim for 20 minutes while I attend to my emails or package up orders.

Effective to not only boost your daytime energy levels (making you more active during the day, when it’s healthiest to be active!) a light box will also help you sleep better that night… naturally, without taking any medications or supplements at all.

Perfect for those who don’t want to risk any untoward side effects from taking pills, a light box does more than just correct your circadian rhythm, light boxes have been shown to directly treat depression as good as a Rx medication and even boost libido.

You can find the lightbox I love most right here.

 

 

 

2. Eat Or Take Probiotics Daily

 

The mind/gut connection is completely underrated. Decreased gut flora has been linked with anxiety and probiotics are now shown to be an effective treatment for both anxiety and depression, and as a bonus, they boost immunity.

Since probiotics are being aptly called “psychobiotics” because of their beneficial influence on brain function, it’s not much of a surprise to see that they also result in an improvement in sleep. Research published in 2019 in Frontiers In Psychiatry showed that after 6 weeks of taking probiotics, participants has significantly improved sleep quality. You can read this article right here.

My favorite way to reestablish a healthy gut balance is to kick start any probiotic regime with a 7 day intensive probiotic inoculation.  I have these waiting for you, along with all the other supplements I suggest in this article, in one easy Sleep Restore Protocol that is waiting for you right here:

Sleep Restore Protocol


 

 

3. Get Grounded Outside During The Day

 

Experiments in the 1960s and 70s have helped elucidate how the presence of these low level DC energy currents produced by the earth helps human beings maintain a healthy circadian rhythm.  Test subjects who lived for a month in an underground bunker, completely removed from exposure to natural daylight, were able to maintain an internal synchronization to a day/night rhythm, even with the complete absence of sunlight. 

But test subjects who lived for a month in an underground bunker that was additionally shielded from the low frequency DC energy of the earth (effectively shielding over 99% of the earth’s natural EMFs) became internally desynchronized, unable to maintain a consistent day/night rhythm.

In repeated experiments of over 100 test subjects, the only test subjects that became internally desynchronized were the ones that were shielded from the earth’s DC energy pulse, but never the ones that were shielded only from the sun. When a low frequency electromagnetic field was re-introduced to the earth shielded test subject’s living quarters, they began to re-synchronize to a healthy day/night rhythm once again.

Because of these experiments, we understand that it is not simply exposure to light, but additionally it is exposure to the earth’s low frequency electromagnetic fields that contributes to a healthy day/night pattern. This helps to make sense of why grounding helps to normalize sleep and boost daytime wakefulness, improving our circadian rhythm.  Grounding studies have shown that being conductively connected to the earth deepens restorative sleep, normalizes cortisol, helps to relax muscles, and boost mood.

Even more interesting was a recent study — published in Healthcare on May 26, 2022 — looking at grounding and sleep quality.  This study showed that just grounding for 30 minutes a day significantly improved sleep quality.  This was a double blinded placebo based medical study (the gold standard) and really was helpful in defining that you do not necessarily need to sleep grounded to have improvement in your sleep from grounding — a 30 minute session every day was enough in this study to make a statistically significant improvement in sleep.

So if you can go outside and touch the earth outside for 30 minutes a day, do it.  If you can go outside and touch the earth even for just a few minutes a day, do it. If you have one rock outside you can touch, one leaf on a tree or bush outside, one corner of a cement driveway or garage or one square inch of sidewalk you can stand on, you can be instantly grounded.

The effects of grounding the human body start instantly, so there is no time too short for getting grounded — if it can only be 30 seconds, do it. If it can be 30 minutes, all the better.  In this video I run you through all the health benefits of grounding in order of how long you do it:

 

 

As fall approaches, and fall turns into winter, it can get cold out there, so I’ve written an entire healing blog post all about how to ground outside even as the weather turns cold  I highly recommend clicking over here and running through all the different ideas I have waiting for you about how to touch to the earth outside long before it’s freezing cold out there:

Grounding Outside Even In The Cold

 

 
4. Move Your Body Every Single Day

 

Walking each day is the one of the single best things you can do to prolong your life. You have to move your body daily. Walking has been shown to do everything from predict better remission rates during cancer recovery to prolonging life span to simply helping deepen sleep at night, which is why it’s included in today’s idea list.  

Tons of medical studies have revealed the power of exercise and higher physical activity levels to improve sleep at night.  Ones like this study, that found that exercise improved sleep in middle aged participants with sleep issues.  And this one, which showed a direct correlation between exercise and improved sleep quality.  And this one, which found that aerobic exercise not only effectively treated insomnia, but also decreased depressive symptoms and daytime sleepiness as well.  In fact, this metanalysis found that the ideal exercise to most effectively treat sleep issues was muscle endurance training (using weights and/or body weight to create resistance while contracting muscles) plus walking.  

Exercise can do more than improve your sleep, it can also protect your brain.  Published just last month in July 2023 in The Lancet, researchers followed almost 9,000 patients for 10 years and found that folks who exercised the least had the most rapid rate of cognitive decline.  Any activity level was better than no activity when it comes to protecting brain health.  

Interesting to note, however, is that at any activity level, sleep was more important to brain health than exercising was.  Even those who exercised at high levels but who didn’t sleep well had cognitive decline that totally and completely negated the benefit of exercise.  In terms of brain health and healthy aging, if you have to choose between the two — choose sleep over exercise.  

But it’s not one or the other… in general, if you increase your physical activity, you boost your sleep, so the benefits go hand in  hand.  Having high physical activity levels and optimal sleep created the best cognitive outcome 10 years later than any other combination of activity level and sleep duration.  

So if I am not sleeping well at night I have to ask myself: did I truly move my body during the day?   Increase your daytime activity levels and watch your nighttime sleep deepen.  Want some easy ways to get a little extra movement into your day?  

Hop over to this blog post I wrote for you for simple ideas to incorporate more activity into your day today.  

 

Getty Images





5. Re-examine your work schedule

 

Of course we are well aware that night shift work is super hard on your body and creates all kinds of sleep disturbances.  Swing shift, night shift, rotating shifts, about 16% of the United States works some type of shift work, particularly in healthcare, emergency response, transportation, hospitality and manufacturing industries.  This can result in insomnia, weight gain, cardiovascular disease, irritable bowel issues, metabolic issues, and even higher cancer risk.   

Some strategies to cope with shift work that has been found effective in reducing symptoms of shift work disorder include keeping food intake strictly to daytime hours (independent of when you are sleeping or working, just eating only in the daytime which may mean eating before a night shift and after a night shift but not during…) avoiding substance use (which was found to make symptoms worse) limiting night shifts to two nights in a row when possible, more days off in between shift work runs if more than two nights in a row are required, designing a schedule where there are a core 3 – 4 hours of sleep that are always the same, regardless of whether it’s a day or a night shift when possible, low dose melatonin 5 hours before bed on earlier nights, blue blocking glasses when commuting home in the morning after a night shift from the time they leave work until home in bed with the lights off (shown to keep brain in sleep mode to improve sleep upon returning home), exercise and/or light therapy to delay sleep, and napping for 1 – 2 hours about 3 hours before the start of the night shift.

But it’s not just shift work that interferes with sleep.   Stress itself, even from a day job, can create sleep problems. Lower your stress at work in order to protect your nighttime sleep patterns. Not only re-examining work hours as we talked about above, but re-examinging job responsibilities and other strategies to lower stress loads all together.   Sometimes something as simple as shifting your commute, decreasing background noise, delegating non-crucial tasks, and other small tweaks can greatly improve sleep at night.

Hop over here to read my blog post on how to decrease the negative impact that job stress can have on your life and re-consider or re-negotiate your work hours, your job load, your career path, your commute, your training requirements, and many more ideas right here.

 

 

6. Address Hypothyroid and Adrenal Issues:

 

If you have been through any kind of stressful situation or big life transition or change (even fun, positive ones like marriage, a new job, a new baby!) chances are your adrenals could use some TLC.

In fact, did you know that you can actually be in adrenal fatigue from birth? It’s true.  But did you also know it’s fully reversible, no matter how long you’ve been living on fumes?  That’s also true, and I will help you get there.  

 

 

I have an absolutely FREE Adrenal Repair eBook you can download right here, and I’ve also written a great blog post that’s waiting for you here to jump start your journey, in case you don’t want to download or read a book.  In this article I walk you through how to start addressing both adrenal and hypothyroidism issues, including a free quiz you can take right now to assess your adrenal function to see if you are even in adrenal fatigue:

Addressing Subclinical Hypothyroid And Adrenal Fatigue

 

 

7. Block Blue Light From Reaching Your Eyes

 

Ok I’m a mother of two adult children (oh my how the time has flown) and it’s just completely unrealistic for me to expect them not to use their computers to complete homework assignments in college or at work.  Or to use their phone to stay in touch with friends or communicate with co-workers, or to use their televisions to catch up on their favorite TV shows or movies or sports games.

That said, you can make the glow from these screens less disruptive to circadian rhythm simply by the compromise of wearing blue light filtering glasses, like these. Ideal for shift workers (as we talked about in #5 above), those who work on computers, those who watch TV or look at cell phones in the two hour window before bed, and anyone who wants to boost their natural production of melatonin should seriously consider wearing blue light blocking glasses.

You can find blue light filtering glasses almost anywhere, but make sure they are dark yellow to orange, not light yellow, in order to block enough blue light that it actually makes a noticeable difference in your ability to fall asleep. Put them on for the two hours just before bedtime and you absolutely will notice a difference in your sleep quality.  Here are the ones I recommend.

 

 

 

 
8. Take Melatonin At Dusk

 

I hear all the time from folks who say that melatonin doesn’t work for them. The most likely reason why is because they were taking them at the wrong time. You have to take melatonin as the sun is setting, not at night. This is the key!!! It must be at dusk, not 1 hour before bedtime (as instructed on the bottle of most melatonin supplements.)

Whether dusk is at 4 pm or 10 pm or any time in between, no matter what part of the season you are in or where you live, take melatonin as the sun goes down. Even if you plan to be up for hours and hours longer!  Take it when it is natural for your body to have rising levels, and you will naturally relax through the evening and be ready for bed whenever you are able to hit the hay.

I always get emails from folks who have heard that taking melatonin decreases their own body’s production of melatonin.  There are many medical studies looking at this, and it just isn’t true.   This important study, published in the Journal Of Pineal Research, found that even doses up to 50 mg of melatonin nightly (50 mg!!!) did not change the exogenous production of the body’s own melatonin at all.

This study found that by taking melatonin for 6 months and abruptly stopping it, not only was there no rebound issues with sleep but actually there was continued residual benefit from the sleep correction that melatonin helped create.

And this fabulous overview of the recent medical literature on melatonin, just published in August 2022 in Nutrients suggests that melatonin is so important for the body that it is literally as important as Vitamin D — melatonin is a powerful antioxidant and has been found to help support eye health, cognitive health (helping to treat dementia) help with treating migraine, ADHD, tinnitus, autism, boosting reproductive health and fertility, protecting cardiac health, metabolic health, gut health, protecting against autoimmune disorders, and even cancer prevention and treatment.  I highly recommend reading this medical literature review to see how important melatonin is to your health:

Is Melatonin The Next Vitamin D?

If you want to give melatonin a try to help correct your sleep, just don’t forget that the very best time to take melatonin is at dusk, as the sun starts going down. It doesn’t matter if you don’t plan to go to bed for several more hours, still take it at dusk, as that is our natural rhythm of melatonin production.

This one simple tweak can change everything for people who think melatonin doesn’t work for them. Take it as the sun goes down and you will find that no matter when you finally go to bed that night, you are so much more aligned with falling asleep than you would every have been only taking melatonin an hour before bed. If you take it at bedtime, your body has already missed the window of the natural circadian rhythm signaling that night is approaching.

I’ve found that patients can take a much much smaller effective dose of melatonin, sometimes as small as only 0.3 mg as long as they are taking it right at dusk.  My favorite melatonin supplements, along with all the other supplements I’ve recommended in this article, are all waiting for you in my Sleep Restore Protocol here:

Sleep Restore Protocol

 

 

 

 

9. Take L-Theanine To Help Decrease Intrusive Thoughts At Night

 

If one of your sleep issues is overthinking or intrusive thoughts at night, then I have a supplement that will really help you.  It’s a chewable tablet so that even if you are laying in bed and don’t want to get up to get a glass of water, you can chew it right in bed and start feel those worries release.  

How?  By giving the body a dose of L-Theanine at bedtime. L-Theanine crosses the blood brain barrier and converts to GABA (the brain’s soothing neurotransmitter) to help relax over active thoughts.  A supplement called GABA Trex is my favorite L-theanine supplement, because it is a chewable tablet and doesn’t require water, which means you can leave it on your nightstand and chew one right before bed if it is just one of those nights where your brain is feeling restless… or chew one if you wake up in the middle of the night and can’t get back to sleep.

Like all the supplements I mention in this article, you can find my favorite GABA Trex in my in my Sleep Restore Protocol here:

 

Sleep Restore Protocol

 

I keep repeating the link to the Sleep Protocol because I get so many emails asking where to find these supplements and which supplements to take (as well as where to purchase them, since there are so many places, like Amazon, where they don’t properly store supplements so that by the time you get them in hand they are deactivated and a waste of money) so that’s why I want to be sure you know a reliable source for supplements in case you don’t already have one!  

If you have a different online supplement shop you love, you still view this protocol and then find all the same supplements in your preferred shop.

 

 

 

10. Sleep Grounded Nightly

 

To take your sleep resonance to the next level, you can combine your brain’s healing alpha sleep state with the Earth’s soothing Schulman frequency (as talked about in #3 in this list above) by grounding the body when sleeping with in indoor grounding tool.

While we sleep, we cycle through alpha sleep states and REM sleep states and each time we do we are held in beautiful resonance with the Earth’s healing energy. This is one of the reasons why getting a good night’s sleep impacts our entire body from head to toe… because high quality sleep does everything from preserve our brain volume and function to enhancing weight loss!

I have invested a great deal of time and research creating the highest quality, most reliable, eco-friendly and ethically created grounding tools, crafted by hand right here in the USA.  Tools like my eco-friendly organic hemp Grounding Mattress Panel, my Grounding Mattress Topper for full bed surface area grounding (ideal if you have multiple sleepers — including pets you want grounded — in one bed), or sleep curled up with the warmth of my Organic Grounding Hot Water Bottle on your tummy or by your feet… warm, comforting, reliable grounding… complete with a machine washable cover.

During the day, ground outside, and during the night, consider sleeping grounded.  You can find all of my grounding sleep solutions in the Indoor Grounding section of my Grounding Boutique right here.

 

 

 

 

11. Decrease EMF Exposures In Your Bedroom

 

Decreasing the disruption to your sleep at night by decreasing your EMF exposures in your sleeping area, removing those you can remove, decreasing those you can decrease, and shielding from those you can’t do anything about — this will help your body truly restore it’s health during sleep.

I have a free guide to walk you through how to start protecting your health from EMFs right here — even doing just one thing, like turning your WiFi router off at night for a few hours can make a noticeable difference in your sleep. On this page I walk you through tons of ideas on reducing your exposures as well as guides on how to discuss EMF sensitivity with your in person physician, labs to request, supplements you can take to reduce the neuroinflammation that EMFs create (on reason you get insomnia and brain fog, so these supplement can really help!)

If you’ve done those things and still find yourself too wired to sleep, the next step would be to consider sleeping in a shielding sleeping bag or between a shielding cover above you and a mattress shield below you for 360 degrees of protection to all of your internal organs.  I show you in this video here how this dramatically decreases the radiation to your body all night long, for hours on end.

Ahh… the relief is immediate.  You can feel your entire autonomic nervous system relax and appreciate the break from the onslaught of EMFs that are pervasive across the globe and in every corner of your life.  Even though it’s nearly impossible to fully remove EMFs from our environment, it’s really helpful to at least get an 8 hour break from them at night.  

You can find all of my favorite shielding tools right here:

Eco-Friendly Shielding Tools


 

 

12. Get Up And Drink A Warm Magnesium Drink If You Still Can’t Sleep

 

Magnesium is a natural muscle relaxant, and because it helps your muscles relax and release, it is a wonderful nighttime drink.

On nights when I am feeling tense (especially helpful for anyone who grinds their teeth at night, has neck and shoulder tension, or has restless legs!) instead of laying in bed growing more and more frustrated, I break out of that rut by making myself a hot cup of water with a teaspoon of powdered magnesium drink mix stirred into it.

There are lots of different magnesium powdered drink mixes, of course I’ve put my favorite one in my Sleep Restore Protocol right here. Just get up, take 10 minutes to sip your warm magnesium beverage, then settle back in and literally feel your muscles relax as you sink into bed more deeply.

There, isn’t that so much better?

 

 

 

 
Bonus: Keep A Dream Journal

 

There are so many benefits to your body and mind and spirit from getting deep restorative sleep. And one of the very best benefits is that you can process and release stress while you sleep!

If you find dreams fascinating, keeping a dream journal is a fun project to undertake during winter, a time of hibernation anyway. I encourage you to sleep with it right by your bedside, so that you can wake up and — while you are still in that open, groggy, free flowing, intuitive hypnogogic state — record any feelings, thoughts, images, memories, impulses, sights, sounds, topics, ideas, etc… that you got from your dreams the night before.

There are lots of different types of dreams… some are simply to release old issues you are done with, some are just processing types of dreams to enhance memory and recall, some are about subconscious fears releasing… so it’s not necessary to take all of your dreams seriously or focus on ones that are disturbing or frightening. If you find yourself waking from a truly frightening dream, it’s really important to remember that this likely arose from deeply held or suppressed fears or worries or anxieties that you have held onto because of past experiences, traumas, hurt feelings, past life wounds, etc… and just to let them go.

But if you do wake up from a dream and feel it is symbolic, you might want to have a dream journal by your bedside to jot it down if there is one specific animal, situation or event that you are left with upon waking… for example, you battled a snake all night long, you were swept away in a flood, you watched a mystical creature swooping down breathing fire all around you. These dreams arise from your subconscious and they are the brain’s way of dealing with big themes that are going on in your life. While they can be informative — often full of fear or violence or sexuality or power struggles or other dynamics you are trying to sort and release in your life, I think of these dreams as more an intellectual exercise in processing and releasing. These are fun and interesting to record and might give you insight into how your mind is working on certain issues, but I would take this the same way you deal with your monkey mind during waking hours… with a bit of humor and not so seriously!

Every once in a while you might be lucky enough to get a dream that is incredibly calming and centering. These are the dreams where are you connecting with something bigger than yourself… dreams about speaking to someone who has passed away, or seeing a long deceased pet, or a conversation with a spiritual guide or teacher, dreams of flying or astral travel or falling or riding elevators or going through tunnels or attending meetings or being a student learning incredible things. What is important to remember about these dreams are the physical sensations and *felt sense* that you get from the dream… write down any directives or information that you wake with before it’s lost.

Keep your dream journals by your bedside so you can immediately record your experience in these types of dreams — they are lost very easily and forgotten, just like your intuition speaks quietly and can be easily overshadowed by the mind… these Divinely Inspired dreams are beautiful and centered and more quiet than your daily activities of life and are easily over ridden by the events of the day.

Do you want to hear about the coolest study I’ve seen in a while?

Published in Current Biology on April 12, 2021, researchers interacted with sleeping subjects and showed, for the first time ever, that during REM sleep it’s possible for folks who are lucid dreaming to perceive and answer questions — in other words, the sleeping folks had real-time communication with the researchers. They were able to answer yes-no questions, compute math problems, and express replies through intentional eye movements and facial muscle movements.

This is the first documentation of two way communication with lucid dreamers. You can read this fascinating study for yourself right here:

 

Real-Time Dialogue Between Experimenters And Dreamers During REM Sleep

 

 

 

I hope this information helps you positively impact your circadian rhythm, helps you boost your mood, remedy your sleep, even protect the longevity of your lifespan.

A good night’s sleep is absolutely crucial to maintaining wellness — one thing is for certain — your body needs good sleep to function over a lifetime!

xoxox, Laura Koniver MD

 

The post 12 Things To Do Throughout The Day Today, To Improve Your Sleep Tonight appeared first on Intuition Physician.

Save Time To Play, Even After Returning To School. It’s Essential For Health At Any Age

 

Back-to-school brings to mind all things serious — more rigid schedules, more structured bed times, studying and other scholastic pursuits, a time of “buckling down” that often comes at the expense of time spent playing. So I’m writing this article for you  right now to remind you to you allow space in your child’s schedule for open ended play — even during the school year.  

Play is valuable.  And while we are at it, I’ll remind you that play is valuable for adults too.   And if you have lost touch with your playful side, I have some questions at the end of this article to help you re-discover the healing power of play.

Play is not only a relief and a respite from the seriousness that stress, illness and trauma bring to our lives, it is actually therapy.   Play time is therapeutic time, point blank.  Child psychologists use this healing tool often, because play is a child’s way to express and release any inner turmoil or fears that the child doesn’t even consciously know they have.  

But it isn’t only therapeutic for children, it’s therapeutic for adults too. In fact, I would argue that engaging in some form of play daily is one of the best things you can do to safeguard your physical health.  

From physical play (whether through dance, playing a sport like golf tennis or bowling, painting, playing a musical instrument, bird watching, hiking, you name it!) to mental play (such as crossword puzzles, chess, sudoku, reading and discussing books, watching plays, learning a new language, etc…) many medical studies have proven there are mental and physical health benefits from time spent in play.  Here are just a few:

Medical studies on the healing power of play:

Play and Optimal Welfare



Play and Adult Creativity



Play in Adulthood



Current perspectives on the biological study of play: signs of progress



The relationship between playfulness and coping in preschool children



Using play and playwork with teenage parents and their children



The importance of play in promoting strong bonds



Playing to learn

For inspiration, just look at the animal world — play is huge!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A study published in the Journal of Comparative Psychology in 2001 on animals and animal behaviors found that the size of the brain of the animal species is directly correlated to the amount of time they spent playing (per body ratio) and a higher complexity of play.  

So animals that had small brains engaged primarily in feeding and other survival behaviors, while larger brained animals spent more time in play and they play the engaged in was more complex.  This applies to humans as well!  We have huge brains compared to our body size and we are meant to spend time in play.

Another study found that play behaviour, not tool using, relates to brain mass in a birds.

These researchers found that brain mass in birds correlated to how playful their behavior was… but not correlated to their ability to use tools to complete tasks.   It seems it is play that warrants a larger brain, not problem solving or task completion.  Social play was associated with both the largest brain mass to body mass ratios and with the longest lifespans of these birds.

 

 

The medical literature in humans is just as clear — play can help save your brain and protect your health, even lengthening your lifespan.   Play is so good at keeping the brain young it actually helps to prevent dementia… and it’s never too late to begin.  Taking a class on photography, learning a new language, joining a book club, so many ways to learn and grow and play can be done almost any where and at any age.  

A study published in Neuroscience Letters in 2003 showing that play stimulated neurotropic growth in several parts of the brain.  As Dr. Stuart Brown says in his book Play, “when we stop playing we start dying.”

But I would say the reverse is also true, when we start playing, we start living! 

 

 

I know that at times of great stress in my life, it was ever more crucial for me to have avenues to release that stress.  For example, during medical school anatomy class, when we were dissecting human cadavers — a process that was intensely uncomfortable and psychologically stressful —  I relished my time spent playing intramural soccer, and I also picked up a paintbrush and painted my first painting on a canvas.  25 years later, painting healing artwork is still my favorite form of play (you can check out some of my paintings here.)

A large study published in Leisure Sciences in 2014, backs up my experience.  They analyzed students in rigorous educational paths from three different universities, and found that the more playful the student was, the more successfully they coped with the high levels of stress.

Play is also brain protective as we age.  The Journal of the International Neurophysiological Society published a study in 2011 that showed simply doing crossword puzzles was enough to significantly delay the onset of memory decline. And Geriatrics and Gerontology published a study in 2019 showing that almost all forms of playtime activities prevent cognitive decline (some examples were: reading, playing board games, music, art, handicrafts, crossword puzzles, even learning computer skills) and that activities that involved intellectual stimulation and communication was particularly effective.  One recent study show that being playful drops Alzheimer’s rates by 64%, just by learning new things and being playful to retain the plasticity of the brain.  

 

 

Physical play, activities that gets your body moving and reduces sedentary time, has been shown to decrease the risk of death, prevent the development of certain cancers, lower the risk of osteoporosis, and ultimately increases longevity.  

The European Journal of Humour Research published a study in 2013 showing that the more playful an adult was, the higher they rated their physical and mental well being.  As you intentionally welcome play back into your life, you’ll notice that through play your optimism, your smile, and your sense of humor returns. So it’s very important during times of increased stress to specifically carve out space in your life to allow for play.

When you give yourself time to play, it gives your body a time to repair and recover.  Play gives you a period of time where stress hormones can decrease, for you to relax and shift out of stressful mind-frames, and even release unhealthy coping mechanisms.

In fact, replacing unhealthy coping mechanisms with play can actually keep your brain plastic and flexible, ward off mood disorders, and even strengthen your relationships with others (if you choose play activities with a social component.)

A study published in 2008 in Therapeutic Recreation Journal found that leisuretime activities were so powerful in helping to cope with stress that they recommend incorporating play and leisure activities into a therapeutic healing plan.  

A study published in Leisure Sciences in 2013 found that the more playful an adult is, the lower their levels of stress were and the less they utilized negative, avoidant, or harmful coping mechanisms.

While there are so many stressors in life that you can’t control, one thing you can do to bring more satisfaction and well being into your life is to prioritize play.  So be intentional about creating welcoming a time for play into the structure of your daily, weekly and monthly routines.  It’s important to have space for things you actually enjoy!  Pare down stressful obligations to make space for activities, whether mental or physical, that you truly enjoy.

Here are three steps to help you invite more play into your life:

3 Ways To Become More Playful:



 

 

 

 



1.  Figure Out Your Play Personality

 

Need help remembering what brings your inner child out?  Read through these different Play Personalities below to help you discover… or re-discover — what activities might bring you joy.  

Remember back to childhood as you circle the play personality that is closest to your play style growing up.  Then read through them again and put a check beside the one that is your play style now.  Under this list are a few simple follow up questions to get some insight into activities you might enjoy bringing into your life right now!  These are the play personalities suggested by Stuart Brown, M.D. in his book: Play, How It Shapes The Brain, Opens The Imagination, and Invigorates The Soul.

Play Personalities:

The Joker: primary enjoyment is being class clown, practical joker, goofy fun, going for the laughs



The Kinesthete: enjoyment comes from pushing physical limits, feel the result of movement and often enjoys play in the form of physical competition



The Explorer: enjoyment comes from discovering the world, searching, traveling, researching, understanding, experiencing



The Competitor: enjoyment comes from play centered around winning games, keeping score, outwitting others, interaction, usually very social



The Director: enjoyment comes from planning and executing events and interactions, relationships, satisfaction from a job well done



The Collector: enjoyment comes from obtaining objects or experiences, either alone or with groups, enjoys social interaction and clubs based on common interests



The Artist: enjoyment comes from making things, creating things, experimenting with different forms of expression, color, decor, visual arts



The Storyteller: enjoyment comes predominantly from imagination and expressing the imagination, written word, spoken word, communication

 

 

2.  Use Journal Questions To Inspire More Play

 

Questions for reflection:

Do you have the same style of play personality now that you did as a child?



Growing up, when did you feel most free to do what you wanted to do, and what did you choose to do during those moments of freedom?



Do you do anything similar to this in your life, in any form, right now?



Are there new hobbies or interests that appeal to you as an adult?



Do you make time to do them?  Why or why not?



Do you feel more free to play with your spouse, with your family, with a child, with a pet, with your friends?  Which relationships in your life allow the most room for play and fun?



Are there new elements of play that you would like to begin to incorporate into your life now?



If you had to pick a physical way to play, a physical movement for your body (i.e. taking a walk, dancing, tossing a ball with your dog, playing team sports, etc…) which would be the most fun for you?



If you had to pick an intellectual way to play (i.e. playing a board game like chess,  drawing, discussing a book in a book club, learning a new language, etc…) which would be the most fun for you?

Commit to carving time each week towards one playful activity that feels uplifting, fun, interesting or even simply relaxing.

Once you figure out what style your play is, you can start incorporating similar activities — whether through social groups or alone — that allow you to access to the type of play that appeals most to you.  I highly encourage you to make play an uplifting part of your monthly, weekly, and even daily routine!

 

 

3.  Bring Play Into Your Health Routines

 

I’d like to encourage you to see healing as fun.  Yes… fun!  After all, as you heal you should feel better and better and better, a sense of relief and even a sense of joy.

Trying out new and fun things… why shouldn’t that apply to health and healing?  It should!  My motto is that life is hard enough… so let’s at least enjoy healing.  After all, healing is all about feeling better and better and better.  It is a powerful forward momentum in your life that should be uplifting.

So, if lately your health care routines leave you feeling stuck, uninspired, or bored, maybe it’s time to introduce a fun new alternative into your healing journey!  It’s always a great idea to find a new way to exercise, fun ways to express your inner creativity, to introduce new healthy recipes inspired by seasonal fruits and vegetables, and to add humor and play into your life.  

But sometimes even new foods, creative expression, play, touch and exercise aren’t enough.  Maybe it’s time to consider a new adjunctive healing therapies… because believe it or not, there is always a new fun way to approach wellness.  

So today, let me take you along with my friend Stacey and I as we test out some unusual alternative healing modalities that you might want to consider.   It’s the top 10 videos from my “Trying It Out For You” series on my YouTube channel.   I’ve put them all on one page for you right here.

Here are some of the fun healing modalities we test out:

Nutritional IVs



Float Therapy



Halotherapy



Cryotherapy



Acupuncture



Nia



Compression Therapy



Sauna

Each video is about a ten minute review where we share what it feels like before, during, and after each therapy, then we give it a thumbs up or a thumbs down as to if we would want to try it again.

Join us in the fun right here:

10 Ways To Make Healing Instantly More Playful & Uplifting

 

 

To Summarize:

 

Today try to remember what lights you up inside and brings a smile to your heart.

Whether it is dusting off an old pair of rollerblades, or heading outside for a game of catch with your dog, to crafting or creating something, learning or playing an instrument, dancing to your favorite music, trying a new recipe in the kitchen, heading outside to watch the sunset, blowing bubbles in your living room, singing songs around a campfire, going on a walk,  improving your golf game, learning how to play tennis, playing a pick up game at a park with friends, playing card games with your family, doing a jigsaw puzzle all week long, riding a bike, laying down to look up at cloud shapes in the daytime or twinkling stars at night, writing poems, learning how to sew, creating a scrapbook, practicing photography, trying a new healing modality, and on and on and on…

…know that time you devote to playing is every bit as healthy for you (& let’s face it, probably even more healthy) than the time you spend in serious mode, tackling things like chores, work, emails, and catching up on the news.

 

 

If someone forwarded you this email, be sure you are signed up to receive my free newsletter so you don’t miss any of these uplifting, holistic healing tips that I send out once a week.  I’d love to support your health too.

Sign up right here to get these tips delivered directly to your own inbox!  And forward this to any of your loved ones who could benefit from some uplifting support.

 

To your naturally resilient, joyful human body!



xoxox, Laura Koniver MD

 

The post Save Time To Play, Even After Returning To School. It’s Essential For Health At Any Age appeared first on Intuition Physician.

5 Crucial Ways To Support Your Child As They Head Back To School

 

 

It’s mid-august, and that means back-to-school season, so the next three blog posts are here to help support your transition to that this time brings. There can be a lot of stress associated with back-to-school season.  

For some, back-to-school means an increased risk of in person bullying (as well as social media bullying) and scary headlines that include school shootings, piled on top of the normal stressors of navigating growing up and figuring out a career goal and growing from a child’s body into an adult body and all the growing pains in between, as well as getting adequate nutrition and adequate sleep and it’s just all so stressful.

So today I wanted to offer something positive that we can do to protect the physical and mental well being of our children for the rest of their lives… I have four ideas for you below to support your child’s health, to give them the best launch pad possible.

Even in the best of circumstances, most children are likely — at some point — to witness bullying or be directly bullied. Even just witnessing bullying has huge ramifications on their health. In fact, the medical literature (published in JAMA Psychiatry in Feb, 2016) confirmed something we already intuitively know — that victims of bullying in childhood have painful, lasting ramifications well into adulthood.  It was the largest study ever to look at childhood bullying :

Children who were not bullied and were not engaging in bully behavior had a baseline 11% rate of psychiatric diagnosis by the age of 29 years.



Children who were exposed to bullying (witness to bullying) had a 23% rate of psychiatric diagnosis by the age of 29.



Children who both were exposed to bullying AND then engaged in bullying behaviors had a 31% rate of psychiatric diagnosis by the time they were 29 years old.



Being exposed to bullying — even just witnessing bullying — doubled the rates of psychiatric diagnosis in adulthood, including depression, anxiety disorders, and psychosis.



Being bullied and subsequently bullying others almost *triples* the rates of a psychiatric disorder diagnosed in adulthood.

So here’s the bottom line:  Being subjected to bullying — and even just witnessing bullying — significantly raises the risk of depression, anxiety and psychosis in adulthood.

If being bullied, bullying others, or even just witnessing bullying activity doubles and triples the rates of psychiatric disorder severe enough to require diagnosis and treatment as an adult — then we need to do more. Bullying is abuse.  Doesn’t matter what the reason a child is being bullied for.  Appearance, grades, size, shape, gender, sexuality… bullying causes lasting psychological damage equivalent to any other form of child abuse.

Over a decade ago, way back in 2012 (I can’t believe I’ve been sharing a healing blog post with you every single week for over 10 years! I truly hope these have been helpful) I blogged about a medical study that shows that physical punishment (in the form of spanking) causes a steep rise in psychiatric disorders…  and this newer study shows that bullying behaviors — even ones where the child is never touched… just WITNESSING intimidating behaviors — is creating lasting psychological damage.

Child abuse happens in all races, all socioeconomic levels, all countries.  Estimates are that about 40 MILLIONS children EVERY SINGLE YEAR are abused world wide. These studies serve to show it’s absolutely not just a concern over the child’s immediate safety and well being, but it is also a concern for long term health outcomes that reach well into adulthood.

Long term health consequences are not limited to physical health disorders such as adrenal fatigue, obesity, heart disease and cancer, but dramatically increase the incidence of psychiatric disorders in our adult population… including anxiety, depression, psychosis, suicide, addiction, PTSD and more.  How?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Child abuse leaves epigenetic marks on the child’s genetic make up, inducing chemical changes in the way DNA is methylated and the way genes are expressed, activated or silenced.

This alters the way a cell functions and the way that organs and the body as a whole functions, causing poor health outcomes later in life. Published in the May 14, 2013 in the Proceedings for the National Academy of Sciences, researchers show that childhood maltreatment causes different patterns of DNA methylation and genetic expression, causing a change in a child’s epigenetic profile.

So what can we do? You know I never provide any form of upsetting medical literature without giving you positive, holistic tools to effect real change.

So here are 5 things you absolutely can do, today, to support your child’s long term health, today, protecting them tomorrow.

 

5 Ways To Support Your Child’s Health Today:

 

 

 

1.  Be affectionate to your children.

 

Parents who are affectionate during childhood support long term well being in their children, well into adulthood… mitigating some of the damage of childhood bullying.

According to research conducted by Darcai Narvaez at the University of Notre Dame, adults who reported that they received physical affection from their parents and felt supported by their parents, as well as did things as a family both inside and outside of the home, had lower rates of depression, lower rates of anxiety, less stress in social situations and a greater ability for empathetic behavior.

There was also a very interesting medical study that suggests that affection from a mother during infancy helps protect the health of that child well into adulthood — I wrote an entire article on that for you here. 

So today, to give you tons of ideas on how to parent for the well being of your child, I’ve written an entire book dedicated to presenting the latest medical information and uplifting positive parenting ideas to support an entire lifetime of optimized well being in your child.  I wrote it and offer it to you absolutely free, to help support you during that exhausting, often overwhelming job of parenting.

 

 

It’s a totally free, easy to read, fun, heart centered parenting workbook that blends the past 23 years of my experience as a physician with my own parenting journey as a mother of two beautiful children, who are now 20 and 22 years old.

I wanted my children to know that health is their natural state of being.

I want your children to know that too. So I wrote it all down for you:

 

Download the free Heart Centered Parenting ebook here.

 

 

 

 

2.  Let your child adopt a pet

 

I strongly suggest if at all possible, you allow your child to have a favorite pet during childhood. Having pets has not only been found to cut asthma rates in half (as published on November 2, 2015 in JAMA Pediatrics) but it gives them many psychological benefits such as:

giving children a very healthy exposure to unconditional love



decreasing the rates of some childhood illnesses such as asthma and ear infections, as well as promoting longevity in adulthood



providing stability and continuity during times of unavoidable stress in the child’s life (such as during a move to a new home, entering a new school, or a change in the family dynamics such as a death or divorce)



providing a framework to talk about holistic and important topics such as death (often the death of a pet is a very healthy introduction to speaking about death before it pertains to a human family member) and reproduction (my kids saw many a baby being born by their guinea pigs, rabbits, and chickens, even hand bottle fed baby birds and helped house train all their puppies!)

Loving and caring for a special pet is a priceless, priceless gift during childhood.  To go into more detail on this, you can read an article I wrote for you that reviews how having a pet can boost your child’s health not just during childhood, but for an entire lifetime, right here:

 

Pets Boost Your Health For A Lifetime

 

 

 

3. Address ADHD

 

A study published Sept 19, 2016 in Pediatrics found that children who die by suicide are more likely to have been diagnosed with ADHD than with depression. A national database tracked violent deaths from 2003 to 2012 in 17 different states During the study period, there were 693 early childhood suicides

Children aged 5 to 11 years old who died by suicide were more likely to have been diagnosed with ADD/ADHD than with depression.



Almost 60% of suicide victims were diagnosed with ADHD, compared to only 33% having been diagnosed with depression.



Researchers feel that it’s possible that although suicide in early childhood is rare, those with ADD or ADHD may be more vulnerable to reacting impulsively (in this case, following through on suicidal thoughts) during interpersonal challenges.

While there has been a large drive to promote awareness about the link between suicide and depression, there so far has been no real push to illuminate awareness around an even bigger risk, and that is the link between suicide and ADHD. So that’s why I bring it up here. Knowledge is power.

Even though I generally only review medical literature topics that are uplifting, this is an important study for me to highlight. And here’s why I’m discussing it: because there are lots of holistic ways to help support ADHD, which means there are lots of ways we can be preventing childhood suicide if we are brave enough to talk about it.

Focus on fixing sleep.  Sleep problems have long been considered a hallmark of ADHD, leading to reduced quality of life, reduced level of functioning and reduced school attendance A study published on January 20, 2015 in the British Medical Journal, has found that even a simple, brief sleep intervention improving the sleep hygiene of ADHD children provides lasting benefits that lead to decreased ADHD symptoms.



Consider Omega 3 supplements.  Published in the Journal of the Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, researchers found that Omega 3’s were effective in treating ADHD.  Studying over 700 children on Omega 3 supplementation there was a significant improvement in symptoms of ADHD, reducing both inattentiveness and hyperactivity.  These results are exciting because the effects seen from Omega 3 supplementation (and in particular, eicosapentaenoic acid) were seen to show improvement as early as 7 weeks, which means Omega 3 supplements work quite quickly in helping treat ADHD.



Serve broccoli, even if you have to hide it in their foods!  A small but important study showed that a component of broccoli and broccoli sprouts (sulforaphane) can help give autistic patients a significant boost to social skills and verbal communication.  Researchers studied 40 males between the ages of 13 and 27… all who had moderate to severe autism. 46 % of patients had measurably improved social and verbal skills just from taking broccoli-sprout extract for 4 months, compared to only 3% of the placebo group. Benefits included: improved social interactions, improved eye contact, improved verbal communication, decreased repetitive movements, decreased irritability and decreased hyperactivity. 

 

 

 

4. Allow lots of time for open ended play.

 

Play is a child’s therapy. Play is not only a relief and a respite from the seriousness that stress, illness, or trauma can bring abruptly into a child’s world, but it is a way to restore innocence. It’s a way to off-gas and release inner workings and thoughts and fears that the child doesn’t even consciously know they have yet! Play is an avenue for healing.

As adults, we might find our way through stress by taking long showers or baths, working out until we reach physical exhaustion, crying until there are no tears left, prayer, therapy, reaching out to friends, acupuncture, massage and millions of other ways…

For a child, the direct route to this is through play.

One of the best ways to keep your child healing through play is to play with them.  For help discovering your own play style and how it impacts your health too, I’m writing a full article devoted to the healing power of play next week. But for now, try to keep in mind as the school year starts not to structure their entire day. Allow for open ended time of possibility as well as time in nature, outdoors. The earth is perfectly suited to provide natural stress relief to your child, to help improve their sleep at night, to help reset their circadian rhythm, to decrease stress hormones like cortisol, and to allow their brains to relax into healing alpha brain wave patterns. Touching the earth (grounding) supports the body’s ability to heal. I have a huge list of medical studies that reveal the healing power of grounding for you right here.

 

 

 

Grounding so important for children that I wrote and illustrated a children’s book about it, called From The Ground Up, available on my website (and on Amazon and other booksellers.) This book can be an important healing tool that can set your child up for a lifetime of enhanced health by teaching them the value of spending time grounding outside.

Work even just a few minutes of outdoor grounding into their day, model for them touching the earth as a way to reset when you are not feeling your best, and you will have instilled in them a healing practice that will protect their health over the course of their entire lifetime. For more on how grounding helps you feel better, read this article I’ve already written for you:

How Grounding Boosts Mood

 

 

 

5.  Encourage positive, uplifting connections with others

 

It turns out, children are actually more open to positive mood states than to negative ones.  And as a this study shows, teenagers in particular are more likely to be uplifted by being around others who are in a positive mood than to be brought down by being around those in a negative one.

Supporting and encouraging positive friendships in your teen’s life has the effect of not only boosting their mood, but of significantly reducing over all risk of clinical depression as well as doubling the probability of recovering from existing depression:

Using the same models that are used in preventive medicine to assess the spread of infectious disease, researchers evaluated over 3,000 teens enrolled in US high schools.



Mood was assessed by the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale.



Followed for 12 months, there was a statistically significant *transmission* of health mood for teens who were surrounded by friends with a positive mindset.



Teens with 5 or more healthy friends had half the risk of developing depression, and teens with 10 or more healthy friends were twice as likely to recover from a depressive episode.



And happily, there was no statistical significant *transmission* of depressed mood for teens surrounded by friends with a negative mindset.

This is a hugely effective intervention — encouraging healthy friendships is a healthy, natural, holistic, non-medicinal way to create resiliency in your teen. I find it incredibly interesting that positive, healthy mood states fit into mathematical statistical models… spreading and replicating via human contact… while negative mood states do not.

So… is a good mood a contagion?  Yes!  Turns out, positive mood spreads in a similar way to a contagious or infectious exposure.  So worry less and support your teen’s friendships and joy more… that’s the bottom line from this study. If you are concerned about your teen’s mind-frame, encourage them to get connecting:

play sports



join clubs



connect with friends



connect with family



connect with their community



and connect with therapists or other supportive mental health professionals if necessary…

…because medical studies prove that being around others with a good mood helps not only in the short term (transforming the energy of that interaction) but is protective over time to help decrease both incidence and prevalence of depression.

 

 

 

 

I hope these ideas helped give you some ways to help support your own beloved child as they navigate the back-to-school transition.  Next week I dive more deeply into the healing power of play (and how to get more play into your child’s life!) and the following week I blog about repairing your child’s sleep deficit so they feel rested as the head to school each day.

If someone forwarded you this article and you would like to get these holistic, healing blog posts right into your own email inbox, you can sign up for my weekly newsletter right here:

 

Dr. Koniver’s Uplifting Weekly Newsletter

 

Enjoy having children who are young enough to be under your care, and attending school. It’s such a cliche but it goes so fast and it’s such an honor to parent and care for your favorite people on earth. My daughter just graduated college and lives several states away and my son is halfway through college living on campus and damn do I miss those fabulous kids…

xoxoxo,
Laura Koniver, MD

 

The post 5 Crucial Ways To Support Your Child As They Head Back To School appeared first on Intuition Physician.

What To Do When Facing A Difficult Health Decision

 

 

Several winters ago I attended a wonderful medical conference in which I had the pleasure of hearing Dr. Terry Wahls speak.  She is so impressive, with the amount of medical experience, knowledge and wisdom she possesses… particularly in the field of autoimmune disorders and how diet impacts our body’s health.  Visit her website here if you are interested in learning more about that.

That’s not what I loved most, however.

The part I loved most was when she talked about helping patients get clear on why they even want to do the work of healing in the first place.

She walked us through how to help patients become really clear on why they are willing to work for their health, because that same motivation will get them through sticking with their healing plan even when discomfort arrises.  So even when cravings hit when you are trying to diet, or physical therapy is hard and you get discouraged, or addictive urges arise again and again and again… you will know exactly why you are willing to endure the discomfort.

Almost all healing plans — from diet modifications to exercise goals to more dramatic things like recovering from surgery or completing rehab… almost all depend on your ability to stick with the plan even when it gets uncomfortable.

Knowing why you want to do the healing work is exactly the reminder you need to stick with it even when it gets hard.

If you find yourself not following through on your health goals — whether you start and then stop different diets, or pledge to go to the gym and then quit, or if you’d like to be more diligent about grounding daily but never can seem to find the time, or you are having trouble breaking your addiction to your smart phone and find yourself checking social media so much more often then you really have time for… this advice will help you.

I loved it so much I made a video about it for you right here.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed when Dr. Wahls spoke about it:

 

How To Find Inner Motivation For Long Term Health Goals

 

 

 

 

Now that you have clarity on why you want to do the healing work, maybe you can already call to mind a difficult health related decisions that you are going to have to make in order to do the healing work.

I’ve got you there too.

I attended another medical conference called “Transforming The Future Of Medicine,” and there were lots of great topics presented there too… but one of my favorites was a simple decision making tool that I thought was so good, I wanted to share it with you here.

Although this was presented as a great way to help guide patients in making difficult health decisions, it could really work for any decision you are facing that feels overwhelming.  And let’s face it, there are so many huge, daily changes in the world that require huge, important decisions to be made, and lots of overwhelm to be had, day in and day out.

So today, hopefully, I can help make one of the tough choices you are facing a little more approachable.

I created a free printable worksheet for you to help walk you through it.  Simply print it out and then click the 9 minute video below and I will personally talk you through filling it out.

Clarity, ease, a sense of relief, a meaningful choice that actually excites — instead terrifies — you into moving forward…  that is my goal in sharing this with you today.

 

 

If you love it, feel free to save this worksheet as a file on your computer to use whenever you like, forever more.   Print out as many copies as you want, whenever you want.  Or bookmark this blog post and I’ll keep this link active on my website indefinitely.

And be sure to share this blog post with anyone you know who is facing a big decision and could use a little support.

After you’ve run through it a few times, you won’t even have to write anything down… it will become second nature.  It’s a very easy acronym that you can easily remember and think of any time, any where, and it can help you make basically any decision on earth:

The acronym is BRAIN:

B = Benefits (what are the benefits?)

R = Risks (what are the risks?)

A = Alternatives (what are the alternatives?)

I = Intuition (what does your intuition say?)

N = Nothing (what if you do nothing?)

I’ll walk you through it in the video below — just hearing it one time will allow you to always have it in your mental toolkit to use whenever you need it.   I guarantee if you run through this exercise just one time with me today, you will remember it forever.  In the future, you’ll be able run through the acronym in just seconds, without ever writing a single thing down.

And again, be sure to share it with any loved ones who are making difficult decisions too — we could all use a little more support:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Created for you, with love, from me.xoxox,Laura Koniver MD

The post What To Do When Facing A Difficult Health Decision appeared first on Intuition Physician.

One Of My Favorite Quotes To Help Release Anxiety

 

 

Whenever I feel anxious (which is most of the time) it’s because I forgot that I am more than this one body, this one place in time, this list of things I have to do today.

The minute I remember that I am a living soul, wearing a breathing earth suit made out of 13 billion year old stars, I can relax into the experience.    I talk more about that in my blog post a few weeks ago, showing you how I painted the Made Of Stardust art series.

Back to my anxiety — and it always comes back to anxiety, doesn’t it?  For me it does.  It’s the first thing I feel every morning before I even open my eyes.  That knot in the pit of my stomach.

 

 

But here is the interesting paradox I discovered: the more I remember I am more than just my body, the more I can actually relax into my body and enjoy it.

If the universe took 13 billion years ago put together these exact specific molecules and atoms — in a combination that has never ever happened before and never will again — then drew your exact spirit into this exact body to breathe life into and animate it at this exact time… well then, I’d say it’s more than enough simply to exist.

You came from something bigger and you are held by something bigger.  The earth lays before you to enjoy wearing your earth suit on, but it’s the universe that you are really made of and will return to.

I need that reminder so that I can relax, breathe, and be ok with existing as a momentary flicker of life on this planet — running my soul through this body for a time and feeling that, experiencing that, soaking that in.  This painting is my reminder.

“The less there is of me, the happier I am”

I heard buddhist teacher Pema Chodron say this quote while listening to one of her teachings (on Unconditional Confidence) and I could immediately breathe again.  The less my life is about me, the less I think about me, the less concerned I am with me, the less the entire story is about me, the more I can relax.  The more I feel enough.  The more I remember that I can fall back into the universe and die back into the universe and not to waste time in a state of anxiety.

So when I came home (I was listening to the teachings on CD as I was driving) I painted this.  The backdrop is the earth — foliage and greenery and gravity and soil and rock and animals and plants and humans… and the words contain the stars and galaxy and infinite beyond. It’s less about me and this one struggle and more about merely enjoying my earth suit make of star dust and soaking in this one moment while I have it.

If you could use this reminder, then maybe I painted it for you too.

Here’s how I did it:

 

 

1.  I started by putting blue, indigo, black and turquoise onto a large 30″ square canvas:

 

2.  Then I flicked white paint across the background for distant stars and added small dots of white with a stylus for closer stars:

 

 

3.  Then I put down stickers for the quote that I wanted to use:

 

 

4.  I wanted the quote to contain the galaxy of stars juxtaposed with a foreground of heavy dense earth elements like foliage, so I covered the words with a grass green color:

 

 

5.  Then I gathered foliage from outside and painted them, stamping them onto the canvas in layers of blues and greens:

 

 

 

6.  Then I peeled away the stickers to reveal the stars behind them.  I outlined each letter in white to make it pop and added some light shining out of some of the closer stars, extending the starlight onto the foliage foreground:

 

 

 

 

7.  When I was happy with it I signed the corner and put two coats of archival varnish on top:

 

 

Here is the final canvas, which I called The Happier I Am:

 

 

For more information on this orginal canvas painting, hop over here.

The more you can let go of the specific conditions you think you need to be happy, the more you can actually just feel happy because you exist as a living product of the universe. Relax.  There really is nothing to do.  Breathe.

Say it with me:  The less there is of me, the happier I am.  Releasing conditions and relaxing into love, the truest thing there is.

xoxoxo,Laura Koniver MD

 

PS — for more healing artwork I have painted, hop over and see my gallery here.

 

The post One Of My Favorite Quotes To Help Release Anxiety appeared first on Intuition Physician.

How Manmade EMFs Have The Opposite Effect That Grounding Does

 

This is a fundamental truth in medicine: the basis of how our body functions is through it’s conductivity.

Every single cell in your body is conductive, every single organelle inside of each cell, every single cell membrane, the extracellular fluid around each cell, the intracellular fluid inside of each cell… yep, it’s all conductive.

Which is why grounding is so powerful — the moment one single cell in your body touches the earth, this amazing conductivity grounds your entire body from head to toe, just like flipping on a light switch — in one instant — ahhh…. you are grounded.

But exactly what makes our body grounded — the fact that we are highly conductive — is why we need to protect that exquisite conductivity, and also explains why you may literally feel the affects of ambient EMF fields around you.

 

 

Everything from your thoughts to your feelings to your sensory experiences to your heartbeat to your breath to your speech to your digestion to every blink of your eyes is all only possible because you are conductive.

So while natural earth EMFs soothe and heal you, bathing your conductive body in the supportive energy field of the earth, manmade EMFs disrupt and sicken you, artificially imposing polarized disruptive radiation fields around you.

Many people — I’d say maybe even most people — feel uncomfortable sensations when they are in the presence of strong EMF fields.

Do you notice you ever feel these symptoms after being on your computer, or cell phone, or near your router, or in an area with wifi?

stinging or tinglingheadachedecreased concentrationvertigo/dizzinessdisorientationtinnitus/ringing in the earsskin sensitivity or reactionsrestlesnessinsomniamood changes, including anxiety or depressionfatigueheart palpitationsmuscle pain/tension

 

 

Recent medical research has found this to be true: millions of people are affected by electrohypersensitivty and in population-based surveys, the prevalence of electrohypersensitivity (EHS) ranges from 1.5% of the population (found in Sweden) up to 13.3% (found in Taiwan.)

Even going with the lowest commonly agreed upon prevalence of perception (0.1% of the population, or 7 million people) this is roughly the same worldwide incidence of many other illnesses that no one would ever brush off… a quick look through the WHO Global Burden of Disease report shows that this incidence is similar to the incidence of stroke, for example.

Electrosensitivity is more common than congestive heart failure.

It is more common than Parkinson’s disease.

It is more common than breast, lung, prostate and colon cancer combined.

So yeah, let’s not ignore this huge population of electrosensitive individuals and instead let’s address the fact that we are all highly conductive (whether we feel symptoms from it or not) and take steps to protect our conductive health.

How?  It’s simple.

 

 

The natural opposite of man-made EMFs are the natural earth made EMFs… and you can easily access these through grounding.

Grounding helps mitigate the effects of EMFs and rebalance your conductive health. It gives you results you can feel… grounding helps to:

boost mooddecrease anxietydeepen sleepdecrease paindecrease inflammationdecrease blood pressureboost cardiac functiondecrease muscle tensionimprove digestionimprove immune functionand on and on… pretty much the exact opposite effect that manmade EMFs have on our body

Today I want to share a free printable for you. I created this for my electrosensitivity class, and I’m sharing it freely with you here today. So be sure to take advantage of this and forward it to everyone you know who could benefit from seeing directly how manmade EMFs and natural grounding are connected and why!

Simply click the button below for a free printable version that you can study and even tape to your door, reminding you to go outside daily to get grounded!

 

 

Manmade EMFs and Earthing EMFs are Yin & Yang to each other, each one affecting our body because of our highly conductive living tissues.

So today, and every day, head outside for at least a few minutes to rebalance your conductive health.

It doesn’t have to be for long — grounding is as instantaneous as flipping on a light switch. When you turn on a light, the entire room is illuminated — and that’s exactly what happens when one cell in your body becomes grounded: your entire body becomes grounded.

While there are cumulative benefits over time to grounding, there is really no time that is too little for grounding, either. I never want you to miss an opportunity to be grounded just because it’s might only be for 30 seconds while you stop at a street crossing, or lean against a tree while you take a break during lunchtime, or when you stop for a second to pull a weed out from a garden bed.

Within seconds your brain wave patterns have shifted out of stress mode and your muscle tension has decreased.As seconds turn to minutes, your internal organs have gotten a calming boost from grounding as vagal tone is boosted, and you might notice pain decreases and mood lifts.Over time, as minutes turn to hours, your metabolic processes get a boost and your circulation (which supports every single organ system in your body) is running more smoothly.Grounding day after day means nighttime sleep is more restorative, stress hormones normalize, inflammation decreases, and health benefits begin to accumulate, often resulting in noticeable health benefits on a large scale.

Grounding daily to reset the conductive health of your body is essential — it is not enough simply to remove EMF insults, you must replace those toxic frequencies with the natural healing frequency from the earth.

Luckily, the human body is an incredibly resilient force of nature and we naturally go back to vibrant health when we allow our body to bounce back by giving it time to heal between insults. Often by making a few small changes, you can feel relief … literally overnight.

The basis of life is a natural ability to repair and recover and a natural adaptability as well.

Your body simply needs time and space, away from a constant toxic onslaught, to do so.

This is even more crucial for those of us who are electrosensitive.

I truly hope today’s article helps to reassure you exactly what you are feeling when you notice symptoms of electrosensitivity, as well as get you started with one simple solution to help you feel better than you’ve ever felt: get grounded outside.

 

 

Need more support?

If your in person physician is not able or willing to offer guidance on how to use conductivity to help heal you (grounding) and how to protect your conductivity to minimize damage (electrosensitivity) I am here to help.

Next week, I am running a class to teach you everything you need to know to protect your conductive health and lower your EMF exposures.

I don’t know why we are so late to formally diagnose and treat EHS in the USA, but throughout Europe and in Canada you can get a formal diagnosis and even disability support, including letters from your physician to request employers and schools to accommodate your needs (and your children’s needs) to reduce EMF exposure and safeguard your health.

Physicians can write:

letters requiring employers to provide you with a hardwired ethernet connectionrecommendations to your employer to have you work in a place that is furthest from the wifi routerletters to school educators to seat children in the class seat that is furthest from routerletters to school educators to create a cell phone free classroom, with all cell phones put on airplane mode at the beginning of classletter to school educators requesting they allow students intermittent times to go outside and ground to the natural energy of the earth to help offset EHS symptoms

You don’t have to wait for your local health care professional to get on board with diagnosing and treating electrosensitivity, I’ll show you how you can advocate for yourself and protect yourself regardless.

I developed this class to teach you everything you need to know about your conductive health — including both positive ways to boost your conductive health through safe grounding practices, as well as ways to protect your conductive health through lowering your EMF exposures.

In this online class I will even walk you through how to get your own, in person physician comfortable with diagnosing EHS and writing those recommendations listed above on a Rx for you to hand to your employer or you child’s teacher.

 

 

It’s absolutely possible to be EHS and safeguard your health, while still living in the modern world. I walk you through exactly how to do it, starting with a self assessment tool that will help you figure out if you are electrohypersensitive (EHS) and walk you, step by step, through all of your living spaces to making them safer for you and your entire family.

Plus I give you tons of encouragement and additional tools to boost your health, decrease the reactivity and inflammation in your body, as well free printables and worksheets that you can keep forever, as well as lots of medical literature to validate exactly what you are experiencing and why.

No longer will you be brushed aside and told that your legitimate, valid ability to perceive electrical currents and EMF fields imposed on your body are simply a “grounding detox” to ignore.

Nope. In this 7 day online class we will go over together:

Day 1: What is electrosensitivity and how to assess if you are electrosensitiveDay 2: Removing the exposures you can remove (I’ll walk you through it!)Day 3: Reducing the exposures you can further reduce (let’s do it together!)Day 4: Shielding from any remaining exposures: key concepts & actions to takeDay 5: Grounding to rebalance your conductive health with natural earth EMFsDay 6: Boosting your body’s resiliency to mitigate the symptoms you may already be feelingDay 7: How to talk to your physician about further in person diagnosing & treatment of EHSBONUS: Custom recorded class Q&A session

 

Reserve your spot today — class starts next week and this is the last week to sign up — and take action to protect your well being (and forward this to your family and loved ones so they can take it with you!)

Taking this with an accountability buddy is a great idea so you can encourage each other and stick with it. And I’ll be your ultimate accountability partner, walking beside you the entire way:

 

 

It absolutely doesn’t have to be overwhelming.

I’ll make sure you feel empowered by this information, not scared.

To your incredibly resilient health!

xoxo, Laura Koniver, MD

 

 

The post How Manmade EMFs Have The Opposite Effect That Grounding Does appeared first on Intuition Physician.

Is It Safe To Get Grounded Around EMFs?

 

 

This is one of the most common questions I am asked, so I thought today I’d write an article explaining how EMFs and grounding may overlap to cause some unwanted symptoms, and what to do about it to feel better and still get all the health benefits of grounding.

 

Is it safe to use grounding tools around EMFs?

 

We know from decades of medical studies on grounding indoors — through grounding tools — that were all conducted in urban areas and some even in hospital settings, the body goes into a healing state even with EMFs present.

That’s because all of the positive results from every single double blind placebo based medical study was done in the presence of EMFs, in urban settings, including in the presence of electric fields, magnetic fields, and high frequency RF fields.

One very clear example of this is this medical study conducted on premature babies in the NICU.  These babies were in incubators and surrounded by electromagnetic and RF fields on all sides, and yet almost instantaneously went into a healing state, with improved vagal tone and improved markers of survival, while being grounded through a grounding patch.

To hear me tell you in depth about this study, I have a video waiting for you here. 

 

 

 

Does grounding protect you from EMF exposures?

 

The answer to this is no.  Sadly, grounding doesn’t magically immune you from the EMF exposures you are facing while grounded.

Just as being grounded outside on a pesticide sprayed yard would put you in a grounded healing state but meanwhile also expose you to nasty toxic chemicals, grounding in EMF fields means while your body goes into a grounded healing state, you are still being impacted by these EMF fields.

So the bottom line is that whether you are grounded or not, these EMF fields are affecting your health.  I would not avoid grounding because of EMFs but rather continue to ground and then take additional steps to decrease your EMF exposures.

To stop grounding because there are EMFs around is to remove the biggest source of power and resilience and healing potential right out from under you, cutting you off from the healing flow of your own conductive health.  You don’t want to isolate yourself even further from the earth… what you want to do is support your conductive health AND protect your conductive health. Both, not one or the other.

Your conductive health actually is your biggest asset in healing!  We support our conductive health by grounding.  We protect our conductive health by decreasing EMF exposures and shielding what we can’t decrease. More on that below.

 

Am I electrosensitive?

 

If you feel worse when you ground through a standard ground cord, instead of better, you are probably electrosensitive (EHS).

That is because the standard ground cord is allowing a small amount of AC current to directly reach your body and it makes you feel sick. This is the hallmark of being EHS — feeling sick in the presence of unnatural, man made currents and EMF exposures on your body.

If you have felt negative symptoms when grounding through a standard ground cord, I want you to know that you are not crazy — there are legitimate medical reasons you are feeling symptoms — and you are not having a “grounding detox” as some grounding businesses would like you to believe.

I find it sad that thousands (if not millions) of grounding customers that feel ill effects from the AC voltage that runs through a standard ground cord are being told that they are either imagining the symptoms or that if they allow the symptoms to persist, eventually they will get used to it.

I don’t want you to get used to the dizziness, pain, fatigue, headache and irritability that an AC current running through your body is causing on your physical tissues.  The human body is a beautiful, electrically sensitive system, and it is a medical fact that we can pick up on (and have symptoms from) a current that is introduced to the human body.

You are not imagining it and it will not go away, unless you stop the current from running into your body (I have a way to do that, which I discuss below.)  Unfortunately, grounding advocates who say you are magically protected from EMFs when grounding and who don’t believe in (or don’t understand) that electrosensitivity is real, tell you these symptoms are a “grounding detox” and ignore them.

That’s doesn’t work. No one should feel worse while they are healing… healing should feel like a relief and help you feel better and better and better.  So if you have felt negative symptoms when grounding through a standard ground cord, I want you to know that there are legitimate medical reasons you are feeling symptoms and you are not having a detox reaction.

Instead of writing off your symptoms, here are four crucial steps I would take to make grounding in the presence of EMFs even safer:

4 Steps to make Grounding Safer Around EMFs

 

 

 

 1.  Avoid electrical fields while grounding

 

It’s the electric fields that come into play with grounding and cause the electrosensitive to feel negative symptoms.  Not the RF radiation fields.  Luckily, it’s easier to avoid electrical fields than it is to avoid high frequency radiation like wifi, cell phones, routers, boosters, etc… that are ubiquitous in our living environments.  All you have to do is make sure you are not in an electrical field while grounding,. That just means to make sure you are greater than 2 feet away from any source of electrical field (like appliances, cords, outlets, light fixtures, fans, etc…) and you will make grounding instantly more comfortable.

So if you ground in bed and your bedside lamp is right beside you, you are in an electrical field (even with the lamp off!). If you have an extension cord running under you bed, you are in it’s electrical field.  If you ground at work and you have a power strip right by your feet where your grounding mat is, you are grounding in an electrical field.

If you feel negative symptoms while grounding, I would experiment by grounding in an electrical field free area and see how you feel.  Maybe try turning off your breaker to your bedroom for a night and see if you sleep better.  Or move your grounding mat from your office to your sofa and ground instead while you watch TV or read a book (again, making sure you are a few feet away from any cords, appliances (including the TV,) outlets, walls (since cords run through walls) etc…  Usually simply pulling a chair or your bed a few feet away from a wall will get you into an electrical field free area.

If you want to use a test meter to be sure you find an area with no electrical fields, I have an e-field detection meter for you here. 

 

 

 

2. Switch to a PureGround cord

 

The next step I would recommend is to use a PureGround cord with all indoor grounding tools. The PureGround cord is the only grounding cord in the world which has a patented filter at the ground pin that filters out AC current and stops dirty electricity from entering the cord… and then protects and shields the purity of the ground connection all the way up the line with an EMF blocking wrap.

The PureGround cord only allows DC energy from the earth goes up the cord and enter your grounding tool.  This enables healing electrons from the earth to flow to body but does not allow EMF or other currents on the ground wires to reach you. Watch this video for details on how the PureGround cord works to protect the electrosensitive:

 

 

 

So again, the first two steps are to just place your ground tool more than 2 feet from any electrical source, and use a PureGround cord (instead of a standard ground cord) to run from your outlet to your grounding tool.

These two steps may be enough to totally revolutionize your grounding experience into a powerfully soothing and healing session.

See how much better you feel, instantly!

 

 

 

3.  Shield from the remaining high frequency radiation

 

Removing electrical fields from your grounding area and adding a PureGround cord to your grounding tool is most likely enough for you to feel immediate relief from your EHS symptoms while grounding.  But if you want to go further and address the remaining high frequency radiation, that’s where shielding comes in.

You can add a shielding blanket above you and a mattress shield l below you (if you like to get grounded in bed while sleeping) or you can wear a shielding cape like this if you are grounding during the daytime, or simply to protect you even when you are not grounded!

Remember, it’s a good thing to shield from EMFs whether you are grounded or not, just like it is a good thing to get grounded whether you are around EMFs or not.  Shielding works. There was an impressive medical study, published in 2017 in Immunologic Research, that followed 64 patients with autoimmune diseases (such as lupus and multiple sclerosis) while they slept shielded with a silver based sleep cap over their heads, for a total of 8 hours of shielding in a 24 hour period. The results? 90% of the patients reported a significant decrease in their disease symptoms.

Making small, simple changes like that that can dramatically reduce your exposures — for example, if you literally just place your cell phone behind a cell phone shield like this one while it is charging, you decrease over 90% of the radiation from that direction.

Here are some more ideas on shielding for you to consider:

Use a shielding throw over your lap while using computers, lap tops, cell phones, tablets, etc… so that your body has shielding materially blocking radiation from a close source of EMFsWear radiation protective clothing while working or traveling away from your home. Sleep inside of a shielding sleeping bag, or wrap a soft lovely shielding cape all the way around your body like a robe (it even has a hood to protect your head!) or sleep between a shielding blanket on top of you and a mattress shield under you to create a cocoon of protection around your entire bed all night long.As important as what you do use to shield yourself is what you don’t use: do not use shielding stickers, shunghite & orgonite stones, home and office plug in “frequency modulators”, faraday snap on beads, shielding patches and chips, there are even fake USB shielding sticks — these not only do not work, as explained in this awesome research article published in 2019 in Science of the Total Environment but they provide the user with false confidence and because of that, can do more harm than good.

 

 

4.  Ask me your specific questions

 

Do you have a question that wasn’t addressed in today’s article?  Do you want to know more about electrosensitivity, and how to protect your health further?  Do you have a specific question about grounding and your electrosensitive symptoms?

Ask me.

In my upcoming Electrosensitivity Relief Class I personally answer each and every question you could possibly ask:

 

 

It starts in just a few weeks, so sign up today to find out how to safeguard your health while still living in the modern world.

In this class I will walk you through exactly how to do it, starting with a self assessment tool that will help you figure out if you are electrohypersensitive (EHS) and following up with a full week to walk you, step by step, through your living spaces to making them safer for you and your entire family.

Plus I give you tons of encouragement and additional tools to boost your health, decrease the reactivity and inflammation in your body from any EMF exposures that you can not decrease, as well as tools to give you the confidence to address EHS with your own in person physician, with free printables you can hand them to get the conversation started.

 

 

It absolutely doesn’t have to be overwhelming, I’ll break it down for you into easily actionable steps that will leave you feeling empowered, not scared.

Please share this article with any friends or loved ones that you know that may be electrosensitive, which honestly in my opinion is pretty much everyone. We are all electrically conductive human beings that rely on conductivity for our health. Which means we all are dependent on grounding to the earth to boost our health, and reducing our exposures to manmade EMFs to protect our health.

If you are electrosensitive, than that’s actually awesome, because it simply means you are more aware of (and therefore can be more alerted to and protect yourself better from) these EMF exposures that so many folks are totally oblivious about.

Let’s turn your electrosensitivity into a positive! I’m here to help you do it.

xoxo,Laura Koniver, MD

 

 

The post Is It Safe To Get Grounded Around EMFs? appeared first on Intuition Physician.

You Are Made Of Stars (My Latest Painting + A Round Up Of My Favorite Holistic Healing Articles)

 

 

As a physician, every single cell in our body literally seems like a miracle to me.

How it functions, replicates, repairs, lives, dies.  The fact that our skin is self healing, our bones fuse back together, we breathe and our heart beats while we use our body to do other things all day long without even thinking about it, how we create life, how little humans grow within us and are born.

The fact that all of it, almost every bit of it, comes from cosmic dust and stars — it’s all just so damn magical.

We are wearing solid, tangible bodies — earth suits I like to call them — and we run a life spark through that body that brings the elements of stardust to life.  Researchers estimate that we are approximately 97% stardust, formed over 13 billion years ago.

Could you be any more magnificent?

Can you think of anything more beautiful?

Remembering that you are the universe, manifesting in physical form, in a beautiful living earth suit of stars, and that you are thinking a thought this very moment, your heart is beating this very moment, aren’t you so impressed with your body?

You are having a conscious experience full of meaning and feeling and using it to interact with other star dust humans. It’s so beautiful I had to paint it.

Here I picked the three most fascinating organs to me — the human mind, the human heart, and the human baby incubator (the uterus) and painted them as golden light  — a mix of the earth elements and cosmic dust — with foliage and the stars filled in the background.

It’s a reminder that every cell in your body, every organ, every part is a gift from the universe and to use every minute you wear it with appreciation. Treat that body well, it’s an honor to wear it.

I’m going to show you each painting and link you to a some of my favorite blog posts I’ve written for you over the years on boosting the health of each:  our hearts, our brains, and our reproductive organs.

Below all that I am going to show you how I painted these, in case you want to see the process.

Here we go:

Made Of Stardust:

 

 

Free healing articles to support your heart health:

 

Heart Health From Every Angle… Mind, Body & SoulHeart Disease In Women As A Response To TraumaConnecting With Others Protects Your Own Heart’s Health… Here’s HowHeart Resonance: Why Attuning With Others Boosts Our Own HealthGrounding To Support Your Heart HealthHow Sleep Affects Your Heart Health10 Ways To Prevent Emotional Stress From Increasing Your Heart Attack Risk

 

Free healing articles to support your brain health:

 

A Super Easy Way To Support Your Brain Health That You Can Do Right NowMoving Your Body Helps Your Brain Function Better, Immediately. Here’s HowWhat Happens To The Human Brain During EMF ExposuresA Medical Study Reveals How To Boost Circulation To Your Brain, In 12 Minutes FlatOne Simple Thing You Can Do To Protect Your Brain Throughout Your LifetimeTo Stay Young, Stay Curious (& Dozens Of Other Ways To Protect Your Brain)When You Are Doing Something Meaningful, Your Brain Works BetterSauna To Protect Your BrainYour Gut And Brain Are Connected (Duh!)

 

 

Free healing articles to support your reproductive health:

 

How Grounding Makes Sex Feel Better & Boosts Your Libido TooLight Therapy Quickly Improves LibidoA Secret Cause Of Infertility That You Are Exposed To Every Day and Every NightA Mother’s Love Capable of Helping to Protect Your Health As An AdultChildhood Trauma Is Scary, Here Are 3 Things That Can Help Your Child Be ResilientI Want You To Think Of One Way To Be Playful Today. Here’s WhyHow To Protect Your Teens From EMF ExposuresAutism Linked To Celiac Disease. What To Do If Your Child Has Symptoms5 Ways To Decrease Risk Of Autism, ADHD and More, Before Your Child Is Even BornChildhood Trauma Increases Risk Of Self Harm. Here’s Help.Adult Onset ADHD Totally Different Than Childhood ADHDADHD Raises Suicide Risk More Than Depression DoesOCD May Stem From Birth Trauma

 

My Painting Process…

 

1.  I painted the background of each canvas with deep blue, purple, indigo and black to create a night sky:

 

 

2.  I added stars by flicking white paint from a paintbrush across each canvas, then collected some foliage from my yard and painted them different shades of green, pressing them onto each canvas and removing them like a stamp:

 

 

I thought my pile of painted leaves looked so pretty!  I just kept adding layers until I was happy with the layout:

 

 

Here they are before adding the organs to each canvas:

 

 

3.  I then sketched out each organ and painted them in with liquid gold leaf, so they would shine and glow.  I tried to get some images at an angle for you so you could see the gold jumping off the canvas, I hope you can see it.

I also added more stars shining through with white paint, to make it feel etherial:

 

 

 

 

 

4.  Then I signed each in the corner and put clear archival varnish on the top to protect them:

 

 

 

If you are interested in finding out more about these original canvases, hop over here to look at my Made Of Stardust artwork.

I can see this trio lining a hallway, in holistic practitioners room, in the waiting room of a healing center, even above a baby’s crib or your very own bed, so that you never ever go to bed or wake up without remembering you are a miracle of stars, a living experience of soul mixed with earth mixed with stardust… all combining to make up the human you are right now.

A once in a lifetime, actually a once in forever combination of these exact particles that you call home.

To your magical earth suit and even more so, to the beautiful soul that is wearing it right now.

xoxoxo, Laura Koniver MD

 

 

 

The post You Are Made Of Stars (My Latest Painting + A Round Up Of My Favorite Holistic Healing Articles) appeared first on Intuition Physician.

Natural DC Earth Energy Shown To Improve Wound Healing In Skin

 

 

The Power Of DC Energy For Skin Healing

This is an incredible study, just published in March of 2023, that backs up what multiple medical studies on grounding have been demonstrating for years: time spent grounded to the earth boosts skin health and improves the skin’s ability to heal.

When skin is injured, it naturally creates a small electric field of DC energy to help guide tissue repair.  This DC current allows cells to migrate along that mini electrical field, a healing property called electrotaxis.  Many of the cells of the skin required for healing are eelectrotactic, including neutrophils, monocytes, lymphocytes, macrophages, endothelial cells, fibroblasts, and keratinocytes themselves.

Wounds in skin create a natural electrical field that helps to guide repair (electrotaxis) and these electrical fields are an essential part of skin repair.  These researchers wanted to test if exogenously applied DC energy (exactly what your body gets when you are grounded to the earth) helps encourage skin healing by boosting the flow of this DC guidance to our skin cells.

To do this, they set up a model of healthy skin cells that they created a wound in and then applied DC energy to.  They also set up a model of injured skin (replicating diabetic skin that has a decreased healing ability) and applied DC energy to a wound in the diabetic skin model as well.

Here is what they found:

DC energy significantly accelerated wound closure for both healthy as well as unhealthy skinDC energy improved wound healing so much that it made normal skin heal three times faster.  3X faster!DC energy improved skin healing in diabetic skin so well that it healed at almost the same rate as totally healthy skin!

 

 

 

 

DC Energy For Our Entire Body’s Health

I’ve been telling you all about the healing power of this DC energy from the earth for years now.   As far as I am  aware, I’m the only medical grounding expert that has been tirelessly trying to educate folks on why we want to remove AC current from our ground lines and the only one that has gone the distance of creating and offering a DC-only ground cord.

Called the PureGround cord, this DC-only ground cord contains components that act like one-way valves that only allow healing electrons from the earth to reach your body.  The PureGround filter removes AC current on the cord and doesn’t allow it to reach your grounding tool. And because it has EMF shielding that wraps the entire length of the cord, it also prevents any EMFs from inducing current on the ground cord itself.

This pure DC energy is what the researchers in the experiment above used to speed up — tripling the wound healing rates in skin. For a great 10 minute overview on how DC energy powers and heals our entire body (not just our skin!) watch the video below.  It’s worth 10 minutes of your time.

In it I explain how our brain, heart, muscles and other organs of the body all operate using pure DC energy:

 

 

 

 

Grounding and Skin Repair

We  know from previous grounding studies like this one, published in The Journal Of Alternative and Complimentary Medicine in 2013, that grounding improves blood flow by decreasing blood viscosity, improving blood flow to the skin and throughout the entire body.

And this one, published in 2015 in the Journal of Cosmetics, Dermatological Sciences and Applications which shows in a double blinded placebo based study that grounding significantly improved blood flow to the skin of the face.

And this study, published in the Journal of Inflammation Research in 2014 that showed grounding simultaneously decreased inflammation and boosted immune function which then resulted in improved wound healing in multiple test subjects, which you can see for yourself in the pictures in that article.

Grounding was even found in this study, published in the Journal of Alternative and Complimentary Medicine in 2011, to decrease blood glucose in diabetic patients, which helps explain the more recent study I talk about at the benign of this article, which found that applying a DC energy current to diabetic skin made it heal almost as fast as healthy, non-diabetic skin!

All together, applying the natural energy of the earth — a totally natural DC energy source — is a wonderful, holistic way to support skin health — helping to heal wounds and repair skin by boosting blood flow and speeding oxygen and nutrients to the surface of the skin.

Its fabulous to add to any skin care regime as well as any wound healing therapy.  All it takes is going outside to touch the earth directly, or, if you prefer using an indoor grounding tool, making sure to select a tool that comes with a DC-only ground cord, the PureGround cord.

This study takes our understanding of grounding even further, because researchers specifically only used direct current (DC) energy, which is the natural energy we get from the earth.  No artificial manmade energy (AC energy) was allowed in this study.

This helps explain why grounding using a PureGround cord — which only allows DC energy to reach the human body when using grounding tools — is superior to grounding using a standard ground cord that allows both DC energy and AC energy to reach the body.

 

The PureGround Cord

 

Remove AC Exposures To Improve Grounding

If you want a great overview on why manmade, AC current is not healthy for our bodies, hop over here to get started:

Could You Be Electrosensitive?  Found Out Right Now

 

Stopping an AC current does not mean you are ungrounded, because what grounds you is actually a DC current, which remains fully intact through a PureGround cord.  AC current and DC current are completely different. The PureGround cord allows only a natural grounding exchange (DC current) while blocking and shielding the cord from interference by manmade EMFs (AC current.)

Here is a video demonstrating this for you.

 

The PureGround cord only allows current to flow in one direction, with electrons from the earth heading straight to your body as you need them.

Ahhhh… that’s called a DC current, and is responsible for the healing relief of grounding!

What the PureGround will block, and block effectively, is an AC current. Your body does not need or want to have an artificial, man-made AC current running to it. To help you understand the difference between man-made AC current and natural, healing DC current, you might enjoy this free article I wrote for you here:

 

The Effects Of EMFs On The Human Body & The Natural Antidote

 

 

 

 

Protecting From Other Manmade EMFS

If you want to go further with protecting from AC current and other EMFs and would like me to personally walk you through how to protect your precious body from EMFs throughout your living and working spaces, I created an online class just for you.

Click here to learn more and save your spot in the next Electrosensitivity Class.

 

Meanwhile, the PureGround cord has been sold out for several months but is coming back in stock in about two weeks, on July 15th.  Pre-order your cord now so that you can be sure to grab one before they are immediately sold out again.

Reserve your cord right here:

 

To your body’s totally natural, incredible healing capability!xoxox,Laura Koniver MD

 

The post Natural DC Earth Energy Shown To Improve Wound Healing In Skin appeared first on Intuition Physician.