Laura Koniver, MD's Blog, page 3

Do You Have Any Of These 10 Symptoms Of Silent Dehydration Right Now? What To Do If The Answer Is Yes

 

 

Is it warming up where you live?  It’s starting to get warm where I live, and I’ve noticed feeling drier and more dehydrated the past few days.  That reminded me to remind you: drink your water.  All year long, but especially as it heats up outside.

Known as the Elixir of Life for good reason, water is absolutely critical to our well being in every way.  In fact, a recent study published in eBioMedicine found that dehydration, measured by how concentrated the salt is in your bloodstream, is actually a risk factor for premature death.

Almost just as bad?  It also accelerated biological aging.

Meaning if you run chronically dehydrated, your body is aging faster than your actual chronological age.  And the worst part is that this is with your serum sodium still being in within normal limits — they found increased risk of death and accelerated aging with serum concentrations in the high normal range.

Yuck.  That’s so stressful.  Not only are we primarily made up of water (over 70% of our body is pure water!) but water has a healing property that goes way beyond simple hydration. So today, I want to share with you all the different ways that we can use the power of water to support our Well Being from the inside out.

First, I want to run through some of the surprising symptoms of dehydration, and I’d like you to tally up how many of these symptoms you are feeling right now.

If you feel even one, you may already be volume depleted — drink a big glass of water and reassess… you might feel better instantly.

 

What Does Dehydration Feel Like?

 

Dehydration is life threatening. Severe dehydration means our organs absolutely can not function normally and leads to seizure, organ failure, and death. But did you know even very mild levels of dehydration might be affecting you on a daily basis?  Dehydration can lead to or exacerbate common conditions such as constipation, dry skin, bad breath, headache, and high blood pressure.

How many of these symptoms do you have right now?

Dry Mouth: One of the first symptoms of dehydration is dry mouth, which leads to bacteria overgrowth and bad breath. If you notice bad breath, you might consider: are you chronically dehydrated?Dry Skin: Your skin turgor is another indicator of dehydration. If you’ve been concerned about your skin feeling dry or more wrinkled, double check that you are drinking enough fluid each day.Pain: Pain is actually a symptom of dehydration as well, often starting with a headache. And low fluid status can lead to headaches and brain fog as well, as the fluid volume of the brain gets depleted from dehydration. I’ve literally had patients with a raging headache drink a glass of water and have the headache clear completely. The next time you have a headache or any type of pain, make sure you drink a glass of water and then re-evaluate your pain levels before reaching for a pain reliever or medication. Dehydration makes all pain worse, as the volume of the organs and joints deplete, dehydrated ligaments and cartilage get injured more easily and dehydrated discs in the spine allow increased pinching of nerves and muscle cramps increase as electrolytes deplete.Constipation: Having sluggish bowels is another classic symptom of chronic dehydration. Recent studies have shown that water status is the NUMBER ONE factor impacting regularity. More important than walking and more important that even fiber intake, water intake can turn constipation issues around completely. Drinking water has more of an impact on encouraging healthy bowel movements than fiber supplement or exercise… in fact, I’d go as far as to say fiber supplements clog people up more often than they help. In general, a constipated person is a dehydrated person. You can fix that right now — go grab a glass of water.High Blood Pressure: Another classic sign of chronic dehydration? High blood pressure. When we decrease our water intake, our blood gets thicker, harder to pump, our blood volume decreases and our heart rate increases and our blood vessels constrict. All together, this means your blood pressure raises and stays raised. If you are having blood pressure issues, it is more important than EVER to be extremely vigilant about your hydration status!Digestive Issues: Dehydration also impacts your entire gut lining, and chronic dehydration can give rise to stomach ulcers and absorption issues as the mucosal layer stops secreting it’s protective film.Dry Cough: Not only does the gut lining need to be well hydrated to function, but also our entire respiratory lining does too. Our lungs absolutely require a moist mucous membrane to function. In chronic dehydration, the mucus membranes in our respiratory system dry out and become more vulnerable to dust, pollen and other irritants, leaving you susceptible to an irritating, non-productive, dry cough.Urinary Tract Infections: Getting more UTI’s than usual? Our entire urinary system (and therefore the health of our kidneys) depends on having enough volume to use liquids to flush toxins from our body. When we can’t do that, we set ourselves up for issues with kidney function and a higher rate of infections.Weight Gain: Another little known side effect of chronic dehydration is weight gain. As we become volume depleted, we begin to feel thirst, which is often confused with hunger because the body is craving intake of any kind (knowing that most foods will provide some form of hydration, your body sends out the message that it is hungry when it is volume depleted in any way.). As a result, we eat when what we really need to be doing for our true health is rehydrating.Bad Mood & Brain Fog: Did you know that even mild dehydration affects our mood? A study published in The Journal of Nutritionshowed that study participants reported decreased motivation and increased feelings of anxiety when mildly dehydrated. On top of that, headache, fatigue, difficulty concentrating and decreased physical activity all were increased during dehydration. And the effect of dehydration on mood was even more pronounced in women than in men! And this medical review published in the Journal Of the American College of Nutrition showed that our attention spans and even our short term memory fizzles when we are dehydrated.

 

 

So the next time you have a headache, or feel anxious, or notice your blood pressure or weight creeping up… drink a glass of water and re-evaluate.

It could be that chronic dehydration has been a key factor contributing to your symptoms all along.

And don’t rely on thirst to remind you to drink!

Prevent dehydration before you even get thirsty. Dehydration begins when we are just 1% volume depleted, but thirst doesn’t set in until our body is about 2% volume depleted. By then we have already had effects on our mood, energy level, ability to think clearly, and pain levels.

Instead of waiting for thirst or darkened urine to remind us to drink, let’s utilize these preventative strategies for staying well hydrated, instead of treating dehydration!  Let’s prevent dehydration in the first place and use water to boost our health in a dozen different ways. Read on:

12 ways to use water to boost your health:

 

 

1. Begin and end every single day drinking a big glass of water.

 

Drink a full glass of water each AM before you even think about reaching for orange juice or coffee. In fact, don’t allow yourself to drink anything at all before you’ve had a glass of water.

Replenishing the fluids you lost overnight every as well as the fluids you may have overlooked drinking all day long is a great lifelong habit to get into.

Do it daily so it becomes an automatic routine!

 

 

2. Drink a glass of water whenever you feel hungry.

 

Use hunger as a reminder to hydrate!

We feel hunger on and off all day long, and so we can remember to drink water on and off all day long too.  Thirst is often confused with hunger, because your body is craving INTAKE of any kind!

Drink a glass of water before each meal and whenever you feel thirst *or* hunger, and you will stay well hydrated all day long.

 

 

3. Include fruits and vegetables at every single meal.

 

Fruits and veggies are full of water (many being more than 90% water!) and minerals that help you maintain essential fluid volume.  Processed foods like packaged snacks actually dehydrate you.  Fruits and veggies are a great way to hydrate *while* you eat!

The most hydrating ones include:

melonsberriescucumberceleryleafy greenstomatoes andbell peppers

 

 

4. Use an unrefined sea salt when you cook, instead of table salt.

 

It’s truly important to make sure you have enough minerals in your diet so that you can absorb and retain the right hydration balance.  Trace minerals, found in sea salts, are essential to the body’s function.  In fact, trace minerals actually help enhance another healing practice that I feel is crucial for our well being… grounding!

I talk more about why minerals are so essential for grounding in this old video I made for you back in 2018 here:

 

 

Even if you don’t think hydration is an issue for you, most of us are mineral depleted whether we hydrate well or not. This can affect many different organ systems in our body, and even decrease our grounding potential.

You might want to consider a daily mineral supplement that you drop into a glass of water, which will further encourage you to drink drink drink throughout the day.

My favorite is Concentrace Mineral Drops, in a glass bottle, which I have waiting for you right here:

 

 

5. Moisturize your skin to decrease transcutaneous water loss.

 

By removing any dead skin, making sure your skin is moist and hydrated, making sure you are not mineral depleted, and making sure you drink a big glass of water so you are well hydrated internally before grounding, you can maximize how quickly and how easily your body gets grounded through contact with the earth outdoors.

My favorite moisturizer combines two of these principals in one: it moisturizes to repair the lipid bilayer of your skin, and it also adds crucial trace minerals to your body as well.  I use it every night and my skin thanks me for it.

So do my muscles, as it contains magnesium, a natural muscle relaxant that most of us are deficient in.  It’s the equivalent to taking a nice long warm epsom salt bath right before hopping into bed.  Perfect especially for those with restless leg syndrome, fibromyalgia, TMJ or tooth grinding, or any other issues with sore or tight muscles.

You can find my favorite magnesium lotion right here:

 

 

6. Switch from soda to sparkling water.

 

If you love carbonation and find it difficult not to crave soda, make the switch to sparkling water instead.  The sugar and chemicals found in soda (even diet soda!) mess with your metabolism and absolutely do not *count* towards your 8+ cups of water a day.

But sparkling water does… and even better if you drink sparkling mineral water, which also replenishes your mineral balance. Here is one study showing mineral water has health benefits.

Get your carbonation fix from sparkling water or sparkling mineral water instead of soda and reap the hydration rewards!

 

 

7.  Allow tears… always.

 

The healing power of water can work magic for helping to support our entire well being, from clearing our mind frame to easing pain.

Because water is such a transformative medium, it’s no coincidence that the basis for our blood, sweat and tears is water.  So the first way to use the power of water to transform your well being is to allow the tears… always. Never hold them back.  Let the water of your tears release your emotions and lift them from your body.

Water is the ultimate medium of flow and healing… in fact, water is the body’s natural choice of release as well, as you can see in the fact that the body uses tears to facilitate an emotional release.

Tears help encourage the flow of emotions through the body (both tears of joy and tears of sorrow!) and allows us to release tension more easily.

 

 

8. Sweat it out!

 

The other way that the body uses water as a form of energetic and physical release is through sweat. Working up a sweat uses the energy and flow of water (the blood in your circulatory system) by increasing flushing: fluid in, sweat out.

Exercise is an essential, wonderful, medically proven treatment plan for so many different health conditions, shown to be effective in treating everything from insomnia, to depression and anxiety to fibromyalgia and other chronic pain conditions… even preventing dementia and extending our lifespan!

Make sure you find some physical activity that you can routinely do that allows you to sweat… whether you like hiking, yoga, kickboxing, jogging, or even, in a pinch a more passive form of sweating like a sauna (which has been shown to decrease dementia rates and lengethn lifespan!) find a way to embrace sweating and be sure to replace that fluid flow with tons of fresh filtered water both before, during, and after sweating!!!

 

 

9. Use the grounding properties of water to detox and release, even inside your home.

 

Take a long hot epsom salt bath soak (you can even add some baking soda and apple cider vinegar to turn it into a detoxing experience) to soothe muscles, calm and relax you before bedtime. As I mentioned with my magnesium lotion in tip #5, magnesium will help relax your muscles, and did you know the bath water is actually grounding you the entire time you are soaking?  That further allows your muscles to deeply release tension and your stress levels to lower as your vagal tone gets a natural boost.

Here is a video I made for you many years ago showing you how the water inside of your home is likely grounding you! No wonder showers, baths, and even washing the dishes can feel so stress relieving and centering.

 

10. Use water to increase the strength of grounding outside as well.

 

Another great way to use water to heal is to ground in areas that are naturally moist: by the ocean or river or lake… even simply the morning dew on a blade of grass!

There is a reason that doctor’s routinely gave out prescriptions for spending time by the sea when they had no idea what else to do to help an ailment. That’s because the earth has healing energy to give you, and if you add moisture to that you increase your own conductivity and healing accelerates.

 

moisture + you + earth = expedited healing

 

This spring and summer, if you can get outside grounded while there is still dew on the grass, you will expedite your grounding experience.

If you can take a spray bottle out with you and spritz the ground before touching it, or spritz your skin before touching the earth, you will boost your conductivity.

If you can run through the sprinkler as you water your garden or yard, you will boost your conductivity (take your kids… they love this!). If you have a hose you can play with, to get wet during grounding, by all means do it!

If you have the option to get grounded in an in-ground swimming pool you will be grounded and the water will boost your grounding experience.  Even hot tubs and plastic swimming pools — if they have a water filtration system — are grounded as the water filter is required to be grounded, and this automatically grounds the entire body of water.

If you have the option to wade through a river or creek, or swim or walk along the edge of a lake, river or beach, you will feel the boost that water gives to your time spent grounding.

Bottom line: if water is ever an option for outdoor grounding — take it!

Here is a video I made a few summers ago with my friend Stacey, experimenting with grounding in water. It was one of the last really warm days we recently had at the very tale end of summer (which, where we live, is in September!)

 

I hope you enjoy it. You can really see and feel the difference of how relaxed and centered we become after spending an hour grounding through water.

 

11. Make sure your air contains moisture!

 

You lose over two cups (or a half liter) of water just from breathing each day. And another cup or more just through your skin. If the air is dry (which all of our indoor air is…) then that water loss is dramatically higher.

Use steam/humidifiers to help hydrate your air and support the hydration of your mucosal membranes, decrease respiratory water loss and even decrease transcutaneous water loss.

If you can’t humidify your whole house, humidify the area that you spend the most time — usually, the bedroom. If you breathe moisturized air for the 7 or 8 hours you spend in bed each night, you will notice a difference, waking up with more hydrated skin & mucosal membranes.

 

 

12. Drink water in an intentional way, to energetically reset the body from the inside out.

 

As I mentioned above, you lose about 2 liters (8 cups) of water each day… through skin and lungs, urination, bowel movements, tears, and sweating. You can utilize this high turn over of fluids to your advantage and hydrate hydrate hydrate during times of worry or sorrow or stress more than any other time of your life.

Look at every glass of water you drink as a way to add a healing intention into your body, infusing every single cell of every single tissue of every single organ system you have with healing support. You can simply say a prayer, say an intention, even just *think* an intention as you hold your cup of water and silently bless it before you drink it.

Let your body be flushed out inside and out and with every urination or bowel movement or tear or droplet of sweat you shed, recognize you are flushing the old energy down the drain and making way for new healing.

The beautiful, life affirming, healing properties of water can not be matched with anything else we put into our bodies.

 

Today, try to use at least one of the dozen ways listed above to allow water to naturally support your Well Being… knowing you are doing more than just avoiding dehydration, you are boosting your immediate and long term health!

Bookmark this article and send it to your loved ones as we head into the warmer months of spring and summer and dehydration becomes even more common.  They will thank you!!!  And if you are someone that got this forwarded to them, sign up for my weekly uplifting, holistic health newsletter right here so you don’t miss next week’s article:

xoxo,Laura Koniver MD

 

The post Do You Have Any Of These 10 Symptoms Of Silent Dehydration Right Now? What To Do If The Answer Is Yes appeared first on Intuition Physician.

How To Avoid Ticks & Prevent Lyme (+ Exactly What To Do If You Do Get A Tick Bite)

 

 

As we head into summer, I hope all of us are spending more time outside than ever.

Unfortunately, ticks carrying the Lyme disease bacteria (Borrelia Burgdorferi) have been found in all 50 states, so don’t be fooled into thinking it’s only something that folks in the northeast have to be concerned with.  But as much as I detest ticks, I really don’t want you to limit or stop your healing practice of grounding outside because of a fear of ticks.

To me, this healing practice of grounding is as crucial as eating or hydrating or breathing or wearing a seatbelt to stay healthy for an entire lifetime.

The earth has food, air, water, and conductive support all waiting to restore you back to full health. To read more about how the earth supports the conductive health of your body, you definitely want to read my book The Earth Prescription.

 

 

Meanwhile, instead of staying indoors, let’s dive into all of the things you can do proactively each time you go outside to prevent lyme disease.

Quite simply, preventing a tick bite in the first place is the single most important thing you can do to avoid Lyme disease.  So read this list of ways to prevent a bite from every happening in the first place, plus so extra tips on what to do if you do get that bite.

This is an area where you can really empower yourself to be completely aware and diligent so that you never ever need to fear being outside or let fear of ticks keep you from enjoying Mother Nature.

 

11 Ways To Prevent & Treat A Tick Bite:

 

 

 

 

1. Mow:

 

The easiest thing you can do is to keep your yard and outdoor living space trimmed, mowed low (don’t let grass grow long, ticks love long grass) and remove piles of leaves and other debris — this will automatically reduce your chances of having ticks in your yard.

 

 

2.  Get Chickens:

 

Add a few free roaming chickens to your yard space and you will have a tick monitoring and disposal system that is practically self running!  Woot!  Chickens eat ticks and constantly scavenge for ticks and other pests that are harmful to humans… and you get to enjoy some delicious organic free range eggs to boost!

 

 

3. Add a fence:

 

Likewise, it’s important to ensure pets don’t bring ticks into your yard and home (which are one of the most common ways that humans get tick bites!) The best thing to do is ensure pets that live in the home with you do not roam in wooded areas.  Installing a fence or keeping pets confined only to yard areas that are mowed short is one of the single most important things you can do to decrease human exposure to Lyme.

 

 

4. Groom pets:

 

Daily brushing and inspecting the pet for ticks after time spent outside (before bringing your pets in to the home!) will help prevent ticks from catching a ride into your living space.  Keeping pets out of bedrooms and off of furniture during tick season (late spring, all summer & early fall) will decrease the chance that you or your family members will get a tick bite after a tick has dropped off a pet.  Talk to your veterinarian for more strategies on keeping ticks off of your family pet.

5. Use Cedar Oil as a natural tick deterrent:

 

Topically it’s so easy to holistically and naturally repel ticks… no toxic chemical required.  Simply spray exposed skin with cedar oil… cedar oil is safe, all natural and no nasty DEET or other toxic chemicals that cause neuronal cell death. Repels ticks as well as flying insects. Spray directly on skin, pets, around doorways and porches and windows — safe to use directly on the skin.

This is my favorite tick deterrent spray and I love it so much and use it so often my daughter calls this cedar oil spray “the smell of my childhood.”  I love that!  And I have it waiting for you right here.  

It’s not just for ticks — if you are pestered by moisquitos, horseflies, any biting insect, give this all natural solution a try and it will change your life.

 

6. Tick check:

 

Even with doing the first 5 tips, you still need to physically double check your body for ticks every time you are outside.  Throughout the day and prior to bathing, double check your body, groin, armpits, scalp, hair and clothing for ticks.

Going directly into a shower after spending time outside is the best way to make sure ticks don’t drop off into your home or stay attached to you long enough to transmit Lyme.  If you can detect a tick before it anchors on, you’ve just prevented transmission entirely. It’s worth it.

I recommend you strip off clothing and place directly into the wash after working outside, then hop in a shower to wash up.

 

7.  Tuck in, pony up:

 

Wear long sleeves and pants whenever possible to help keep ticks from reaching your skin… tucking in your shirt at the waist and if possible tucking pants legs into your socks.

Put long hair into a ponytail, bun, or even better: tucking it all up under a hat is a very easy way to cut your risk of tick bites dramatically because ticks love to grab onto long hair when walking through long grasses and wooded areas.

 

8. Use A Dryer:

 

Simply running your clothes, bedding, towels, garden gloves, hiking boots, etc… through your dryer will kill any ticks you don’t see. All it takes is one hour tumbling on high heat (or 90 min on low heat) and even fabrics or shoes that you can’t wash or get wet can still have all the ticks removed and killed just by a spin through your dryer.

And if you are on a vacation, especially vacations with hiking or lots of time spent outdoors or to wooded areas, try to stay in hotels or cabins with access to dryers… simply strip down and run your clothing and shoes through the dryer every time you return from exploring outside and you slash your risk of Lyme disease greatly.

Let your clothes take a tumble while you do a tick check and grab a shower and you have gone a long way to preventing Lyme disease entirely!

 

But what if you are bitten by a tick?

 

If prevention fails and you do have a tick bite from an infected tick, getting treated for Lyme disease immediately is the best thing you can do to prevent long term sequelae from becoming an issue.  Just follow these 3 steps to decrease your chance of contracting Lyme:

9. Remove the tick:

 

Simply gently and firmly remove the tick by the head with tweezers — as close to the skin as possible (not squeezing the body of the tick, which may help enable the bacteria to squirt into your bloodstream!) and most importantly: save the tick! Read on for what to do with it once you remove it.

 

10.  Then test the tick, so you know if it carried Lyme or not:

 

This can give you instant peace of mind! It is infinitely easier to get a tick tested than wait and see if you become infected with Lyme.

First of all, human Lyme tests can be inaccurate and delay prompt treatment. Second, the myriad of symptoms for Lyme disease is a great mimicker for hundreds of other illnesses and there is no one reliable way to diagnose Lyme through symptoms. And lastly, Lyme treatments become much less effective as time goes on.  So submitting a tick for testing (just place it in a plastic ziplock bag with a moist paper towel) and giving it to your local physician or sending it off to be tested yourself by Ticknology is the best way to know if you need Lyme prevention treatment or not.

I do not get any kickback for recommending Ticknology, I’m sure they aren’t even aware I exist or send people to them, but this is simply my favorite way to know if you need to treat for Lyme or not.  It’s secure peace of mind.  This service that allows you to send a tick directly to a lab and have results emailed back to you within three days — awesome for getting quick answers without any delay for treatment and doesn’t even need to involve a visit to your family doctor.

Although you may prefer to go directly to your family physician, who can give you an antibiotic to have on hand to take immediately if the results do come back positive for Lyme, having direct access to tick testing services puts you in control of your own healthcare, which I am all for.

It’s important to note that less than half of folks who contract Lyme disease actually have the classic bulls eye rash reaction at the bite site. Of course if you see a bullseye rash, report this immediately to your physician. But other symptoms of Lyme are more insidious and actually more common… symptoms like: fever, joint pain or swelling, muscle pain and weakness, irritability, headache, mood changes, increased susceptibility to other infections (as your immune system compromises over time) and most common: fatigue.

So testing a tick and getting immediate antibiotic treatment for Lyme is the best thing you can do to prevent chasing vague symptoms like fatigue and headache for years to come.

Save this blog post (and forward it to friend who love the outdoors!) so that if you do get a bite, you have this checklist at the ready and know exactly what to do and where to send the tick!!!

 

11. Boost Your Immune System:

 

What can you do while you wait for tick test results?  Starting some immune boosting supplements is always a good idea after a tick bite while you are waiting for tick test results.  My favorites are Vit D, Vit C, Probiotics, and an immune boosting supplement called Quick Defense… all included in my Tick Treatment Protocol, right here.  

Go ahead and boost your immunity with supplements right after any suspected exposure and you will have given yourself a head start in treating Lyme before it’s even had time to express symptoms.  You may want to have these items on hand to take the minute you discover a tick bite:

Tick Treatment Protocol

 

 

 

Other biting insects

 

What about annoying mosquitos and other insects that irritate us — and bite us — all summer long?  When I head outside I use a two pronged approach:

 

1. Apply All Natural Cedar Oil To Skin:

 

As recommended above, not only is cedar oil a great tick deterrent but it’s fabulous for all flying and biting insects!  Safe to spray directly on skin, pets, around doorways and porches and windows, and anywhere inside or outside of your home that bugs tend to congregate.  Child and pet friendly. I advise my patients to use cedar oil on all exposed skin surfaces whenever going outdoors to get grounded.

Here is the one I use.

 

2.  Burn Sage Or Incense Outside:

 

I like to light a few incense sticks or a sage stick and keep it burning on my outdoor patio area while I eat dinner outside to deter flying insects from buzzing around my food and spoiling the meal!  Or, as I suggest in this incredibly old blog post I wrote back in 2011 for you — throw a smudge stick of dried sage into your summer bonfire to help keep the mosquitoes away all night!

 

 

Treating A Bite:

 

What to do if you are bitten by a mosquito or ant or any other bug, and to treat other scrapes and scratches you might get this summer?  You might already know I love honey to ease seasonal allergy symptoms… if you haven’t read my article on that, you can read my blog post on defeating spring allergies holistically right here.

But in addition to treating spring allergies, I love honey for wound healing as well!  Summer is filled with little cuts and scrapes and bites. So it’s the perfect time to recognize the power of honey. Findings published in 2012 in the International Wound Journal show that when raw honey was used on all types of wounds, it:

promoted healingminimized necrosisminimized the amount of skin that sloughed off the woundreduced wound sizedecreased affected area around wound

Not only did it help speed wound healing, but it made a measurable improvement in over 84% of wounds!!!! We are talking:

post operative woundsgeneral skin woundsinfectionsburnsulcerspressure sores and more!

Honey has well-known antimicrobial benefits, doesn’t spoil, is easy to have on hand and is portable (no refrigeration required!) so it really makes perfect sense to use as a secondary wound dressing in children older than 12 months old. To use honey for wound healing:

First be sure to flush out any wound with lots of water… for a long period of time… 2 minutes ideally.Then, depending on wound type you may consider a topical antihistamine, anti-inflammatory, or antibacterial dressing, and then honey.For minor wounds, use this approach of deep cleansing and then raw honey as a dressing, but be sure to have any deeper or larger wounds evaluated by a physician.

Because honey is so safe and so effective for so many different types of wounds… and because it speeds healing and decreases the amount of skin that is affected by the wound, I feel that honey ultimately will be shown to reduce the appearance of scarring as well.

So for post operative wounds or acne infections or stretch marks or injuries that you want to minimize scarring in… bring on the raw honey!  Sweet news, indeed!

 

 

Now that you are armed with a ton of very effective holistic tips on avoiding tick bites and decreasing your chance of developing Lyme disease (plus exactly what to do if you do get a bite!)… it’s time to wish you a very  happy summer full of grounding!!!

Keep going outside and enjoy the beautiful display that Mother Earth brings us each summer without fear!

xoxo,Laura Koniver MD

 

The post How To Avoid Ticks & Prevent Lyme (+ Exactly What To Do If You Do Get A Tick Bite) appeared first on Intuition Physician.

How To Boost Your Lifespan Through Sun Exposure While Protecting Your Skin From Aging

 

 

Well it’s closing in on summer and I hope you have moved some of your indoor activities outside to take advantage of the warmth and sunshine and grounded earth waiting outside to boost your health.  If you need help, read through this idea list and pick one to do outside today:

Hate Going Barefoot?  27 Fresh, Alternative Ways To Get You Outside Grounding This Spring

This naturally brings up concerns about skin cancer and photo aging effects from sun exposure — but don’t let that stop you from going outside.  A large medical study published in the Journal of Internal Medicine in 2016 found that folks who avoided sun exposure actually had a shorter life span… with a decreased life expectancy that was shorter than even heavy smokers who bathed in the sun.

This was a huge study looked at almost 30,000 participants over a span of 20 years. Researchers tracked health outcomes and life span over two decades and found that even when smoking was factored in, the life span of those who avoided the sun was over 2 years shorter than heavy smokers who got the highest amount of sun exposure!!!

So even heavy smokers who soaked in the sun their whole life outlived non-smokers who avoided sun exposure — by years — while participants who avoided the sun had higher rates of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and pulmonary disease.  And the results were dose-specific… meaning that the benefits of increased life expectancy with sun exposure went up directly in correlation to the amount of sun exposure.

Longer time outside in the sun = longer life span.

These findings were expounded upon in this medical review as well as confirmed in a more recent review of the research and published here in Anticancer Research in 2022.

 

 

Though risk of skin cancer did increase with increased sun exposure, the patients that had skin cancer occur in relation to sun exposure actually had a better long-term prognosis.  This on top of  research here, revealing that melanomas that occur in patients with low Vitamin D actually have more malignantly aggressive melanoma and their prognosis is worse than those with adequate Vit D from sun exposure, and more research here on the role of Vitamin D as a tumor suppressor in the skin and as an adjunctive treatment for melanoma.

These results show that avoiding the sun is a “risk factor for death of a similar magnitude as smoking” — a direct quote from the medical report.  So the verdict: under-exposure to the sun is actually dangerous.  You can read this study for yourself here:

Avoidance Of Sun Exposure As A Risk Factor For Death

My favorite anti-aging strategy of all time is grounding, which is win-win because while you are outside grounding, you are getting that longevity boosting light exposure tat the same time.  Hop over here to read all about how grounding is one of the best health care practices you can do to have good long term health:

The Immense Anti-Aging Benefits Of Simply Touching The Earth

We’ve long known that smoking and inactivity/prolonged sitting are huge indicators of poor long term health… and now we can add a third: avoiding sun exposure.

You know that I never ever ever present negative medical information without giving you tons of positive solutions!  So you know if I am bringing it up on my blog here, then there are TONS of things you can do to make your time out in the sunshine safer for your skin, decreasing skin cancer risk while simultaneously boosting your whole-body disease prevention and prolonging your life span!

 

 

Because you don’t want to avoid sun exposure (which decreases your life span) and you don’t want to rely solely on sunscreen to reduce your cancer risk (since it may not anyway… read tip #3 below) today I’ve compiled a list of 6 ways to stay protected in the sun in ways that will truly protect you:

 

6 Things You Can Do To Decrease Your Skin Cancer Risk:

 

 

1. Avoid Peak Sun Hours:

 

The most important #1 way to protect from ultraviolet exposure is to avoid the sun during the peak UV hours in mid-day. There was a huge medical study that backs this up, so that’s why sunscreen is third in order of most effective ways to protect yourself from sun damage and skin cancers.

The ultimate solution, when possible, is sun avoidance during peak sun hours (10AM — 4PM) — this is infinitely better than any sun protection during peak sun hours.  You want to get some incidental sun exposure on some exposed skin daily, but to decrease the UV intensity you want that exposure to be in the earlier AM or later PM hours!

This is better for your circadian rhythm and general wellness anyway — getting morning light exposure boosts daytime wakefulness, increases energy and libido, boosts mood and helps prep your body to make plenty of melatonin for you later that evening, ensuring better sleep.  Evening sun exposure helps the body transition to sleep, lowers cortisol, and if you add grounding in, syncs your body up to the 24 hour rhythm of the earth, deepening sleep and making it more restorative, as well as allowing you to wake up more alert and less groggy the next morning.

I recommend having breakfast (or your morning coffee or even just a glass of water) grounded outside when you wake up and then taking an evening walk after dinner each night to get that natural light exposure that protects your longevity!

 

2. Wear UV Protective Clothing, Hats and Sunglasses:

 

If you must be out during peak sun exposure, the second best way to protect from the damaging effects of the sun while soaking in that healing light is to wear UV protective clothing. Rash guards, hats, sunglasses.  UV exposure is the leading causes of lens opacity (cataracts) as you age, and you can prevent this by diligently protecting your eyes.

When I go outside in the middle of the day (or am driving) sunglasses and wide brim hats are much preferable to me than sunscreen, which most of the time have toxic additives and leave my scalp, ears, nose, lips and eyes exposed to UV damage.  While morning and evening light is best, if you can only grab some mid-day light, I highly recommend having a hat and sunglasses on hand to wear while enjoying it!

 

 

3. Use Only Physically Blocking, Non-Nano Sized Sunscreens:

 

Clearly sunscreen is not my number one recommendation for prevention of skin cancer.  Nor is it my second recommendation either.  I prefer to avoid peak sun hours and use sun protective clothing like rashguards, hats and sunglasses, as I wrote above.

Why does sunscreen clock in at tip #3?

Some chemicals in sunscreen (like the oils, petroleum products, and retinyl palmitate found in most sunscreens) have been shown to actually increase the rates of skin cancer lesions, when directly applied to the skin.On top of that, many of the chemicals in chemical blocking sunscreens are shown to disrupt our natural hormone pathways. In fact, oxybenzone, the most common chemical sunscreen used, has been shown to disrupt hormones and is not even recommended for use in children. That’s right… look at all the “kids formulations” sunscreens out there… they generally contain oxybenzone. This chemical not only is a hormone-disruptor, but after applying to your skin it becomes internally absorbed within minutes. Which means children, who are still growing, are getting systemic doses of hormone-disrupting oxybenzone circulating through their bodies on a daily basis all summer long. Yuck.More bad news… mineral based sunscreens are increasingly being made in nano-sized particles so that they blend into the skin better… and unfortunately, this means they can potentially be absorbed systemically as well. Even mineral based sunscreens like zinc or titanium dioxide are potentially toxic if they enter your body, so you want to be sure your product does not use nanoparticles.

And in fact, a study (presented at the American Public Health Association Annual Meeting on Nov 19, 2016) found that sunscreen may not have the ability to reduce melanoma risk. 466 children (enrolled in the study at age 6) were followed for almost a decade (through age 15) with a detailed report of annual sun exposure and sunscreen use as well as annual skin exams, which identified and documented skin lesions.  This is the longest term study on new mole development ever conducted.  And unfortunately, the results reveal that there was no association between sunscreen use and subsequent development of new pigmented lesions.  Meaning sunscreen use did not protect from or decrease the likelihood of developing pigmented moles (a marker of melanoma risk.)

To understand why the most common sunscreens (which are chemical based) are not preventing new pigmented lesions from arising, you have to understand how chemical sunscreens work:Chemical sunscreens (such as oxybenzone, octinoxate, octisalate and avobenzone) are absorbed into your skin and attempt to neutralize the UV rays once they penetrate your cells, by chemically reacting to the UV radiation.This means that the UV exposure is already reaching into your living tissues, and your cells are already exposed to the UV radiation (including your cell’s DNA) by the time it is being neutralized.Physically blocking sunscreens, such as titanium dioxide and zinc oxide, are different. These physically sit on top of the skin and literally block UV radiation from even reaching your skin.Physically blocking sunscreens is the type of sun protection you want, and this is the only type of sunscreen I recommend in my online pharmacy for you here.

I’ve compiled my favorite sunscreens in my Skin Protect protocol for you in my online pharmacy here.  Meanwhile, avoid chemical sunscreens and never put those on your children!  There are tons of physically blocking sunscreens that are easy to apply and don’t leave a thick white residue behind.  My favorites are waiting for you here. 

 

4. Take Curcumin To Protect Against Melanoma:

 

Did you know that Curcumin actually kills cancer cells in laboratory studies and has been specifically shown to target and kill melanoma cancer cells?  Read this study published in the International Journal of Cancer in October 2016 for a good overview on what we know about curcumin and melanoma so far.

If you want to add the anti-cancer benefits of curcumin to your health regime (which I highly recommend if you have any personal or family history of melanoma or even if you just have a history of intense sun exposure) I recommend taking a pharmacy grade supplement that couples a 500 mg dose of curcumin with bioperine to help increase the bioavailablility and absorption of the curcumin.

 

 

 

5. Use Vitamin B3 to decrease all other forms of skin cancer:

 

Clear evidence that a simple vitamin can be cancer preventive: Vitamin B3 dramatically reduces skin cancer rates.  Presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) 2015 Annual Meeting in May 2014, Vitamin B3 has been shown to be a safe, effective way to reduce your risk of recurrent skin cancer.  Researchers looked at over 380 patients with a prior history of non-melanoma skin cancers, giving half nicotinamide supplements and half a placebo, and followed them for a year. They found the patients in the Vitamin B3 group had a quarter less skin cancers total (a 23% decrease) than control patients:

Basal cell occurrence decreased by 20%Squamous Cell Carcinoma decreased by 30%Actinic Keratosis decreased by 13%

Nicotinamide (Vit B3, also known as Niacinamide) enhances DNA repair in skin cells damaged by UV light, as well as boosts the immune system and prevents the suppression of immunity by ultraviolet radiation. (Nicotinamide has other benefits as well, including preliminary studies showing a boost in cognition… helping to restore cognition in Alzheimers!)

So… if you have a history of serious sun exposure? Or a history of previous skin cancers? Or you just want less unsightly actinic keretosis popping up in the future?  Vitamin B 3 offers 100% all natural holistic chemo-prevention!  Vitamin B is safe, inexpensive, healing.

Find my favorite Vitamin B3 and Curcumin supplements in my Skin Protect Protocol waiting for you here. 

 

6. Eat fruits and veggies daily, especially during the summer:

 

Medical studies have shown that eating foods rich in carotenoids (like ) and lycopene (like tomatoes) have a photo protective effect in human skin, and have even been shown to cut the number of tumors from UV light exposure on mice significantly… actually slashing the tumor count in half!   Foods to eat daily that not only provide this photoprotection to decrease skin cancer risk, but also to protect against premature aging as well, include:

squashcarrotsgrapefruitorangesapricotsasparaguscantaloupemangoesnectarinespeachessweet potatoestomatoeswatermelonand sweet red peppers

 

 

Enjoy that life giving, mood boosting, beautifully warm radiant sunshine this summer, but do it in a way that protects your skin from too much exposure.

In a nutshell, here’s what that means:Try to avoid peak hours of sun exposure, going out in morning and evening hours when possibleWear a hat and sunglasses during peak UV hours of 10 AM – 4 PMAvoid yucky chemical sunscreens and use physical sunscreens insteadTake curcumin and vit B3 supplements to decrease your future skin cancer riskEat fruits and veggies high in antioxidants routinely to nourish your skin from the inside outStay well hydrated too, drinking water before, during and after sun exposure.

 

 

If you have had this article forwarded to you, be sure to sign up here by entering your email to receive my uplifting weekly newsletter directly into your inbox.  And if you can think of someone who could use some uplifting holistic support, forward this email to them too!

Here’s to happy & safe summer days ahead…xoxox, Laura Koniver MD

 

The post How To Boost Your Lifespan Through Sun Exposure While Protecting Your Skin From Aging appeared first on Intuition Physician.

How Your Mom’s Love Affects Your Health As An Adult

 

Did you know you still had some of the amniotic fluid you incubated in when you were in your mother’s womb inside your brain to this very day?

Yep, some of the original fluid that was there surrounding you as a fetus in the womb is what makes up your cerebrospinal fluid that bathes your brain right now.

Cerebrospinal fluid is super important not only because it cushions, hydrates and protects your brain inside your skull, but because it actually pulses and moves throughout your neurons, bathing them with fresh nutrients and even flushing out toxic by-products.  It’s also an electrolytic solution that becomes grounded instantly and keeps your brain grounded while you have healing contact with the earth.  You can read more about the importantance of your cerebropsinal fluid in this article I wrote for you here:

Cerebrospinal Fluid & Brain Health 

 

This article which was actually published in The American Journal of Neurology Research in 2023, which you can read for yourself right here:

Koniver, L. Cerebrospinal Fluid and Brain Health: Optimized By Grounding. American J Neurol Res. 2023; 2(1):1-4.

 

And you can watch a TikTok I made for you, telling you more about that study on amniotic fluid that is still bathing your Brian right here:

Amniotic Fluid TikTok

@laurakonivermd

♬ original sound – Laura Koniver, MD

Now, in honor of Mother’s Day this weekend, I want to share with you one of my all time favorite medical studies. It shows how a little TLC from your mom may actually help protect your health… not just your health as a child, but well into adulthood, and maybe even your own children’s health too.

Published in 2005 in Dialoges in Clinical Neuroscience, researchers found that the how much affection a mommy rat showed to her babies in their first week of life protected them from future stress later on in life — decreasing their stress response and even lowering stress hormone production.

Researchers compared two different types of mom rats, separating them into two groups by how much they licked and groomed their babies. Mom rats in the high affection group groomed and licked their offspring twice as much as the moms in the low affection group.

Following the rats behavior for the first week of life, and then examining what effect this had on the rat babies once they became adults, researchers found that the rats who had affectionate mothers for the first week of life actually decreased there reaction to stress as an adult — producing half as much stress hormones in response to stressful stimuli and buffering their reactivity to stressful conditions.

Just one week of licking and grooming their babies had a profound impact on the health of the rat pup which lasted well into adulthood.

Not only that, but this behavior impacted the next generation.  The pups who were licked and groomed more during that first week of life grew up to lick and groom their own babies more as parents, protecting the health of the next generation as they grew to adulthood.  And on and on.

How does a few days of affection translate into future health resiliency?

Researchers found that the pups who were groomed twice as much as the pups who had less affectionate moms actually had epigenetic changes to their DNA, which modified how the DNA was expressed and as a result, lowered hormone production.

Obviously this is just a study in rats, but it’s fascinating that the ability of the mother to be affectionate subsequently affected the child’s DNA expression, reducing the amount of stress hormones that are released in the face of stress as adults.

 

 

We likely will never fully know how much parents can influence their child’s future health, but if you have a mom that was attentive and affectionate with you in young childhood, send her this article and thank her on Mother’s Day.

And if you didn’t have an affectionate mom? It’s okay because epigenetic changes are completely reversible.

So even if you have a high stress response, or even if you have a history of trauma, or even if you are so stressed out you have adrenal fatigue, these epigenetic changes can be reversed and healed. Which protects your health and the health of future generations.

How to release stress to protect your own health?

I wrote an entire online class on exactly why epigenetic changes happen that alters DNA expression after stress and trauma, and how you can release them, boosting your own resiliency and healing yourself.  The current class is already under way, but if you are interested in more information on this Trauma Resiliency and Recovery Class when it runs again, sign up to hold your spot here:

 

 

Meanwhile, if you are a parent I want to give you some quick tips on protecting the health of your own children and promoting well being for the rest of their lives.

And to my own mom, who was extremely attentive — thank you.

Because of her love I was able to navigate several highly traumatic experiences with resiliency… as well as shower my own two children with tons of love and affection, which in turn will impact their children’s health and their children’s children’s health, and on and on.

 

I cannot believe these two cuties are actually all grown up and already graduated college! Time files!

Let’s give our children lots and lots of resources to find inner strength during health challenges… because setting an example of resilience during a crisis for your children now will benefit them for the rest of their lives, even during times when you may not be there to help.

Modeling resilience now will support them forever.

 

10 Ways to Support Your Child’s Long Term Health:

 

 

1. Emphasize 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.

Encourage play. Allow *inappropriate* play like laughter even on the saddest days, violent actions towards dolls and stuffed animals that might otherwise be macabre… during a crisis, children need to see that their favorite toys can get beaten down by life and still be there for them the next day.

Allow anger too — anger expressed can turn your child into a centered warrior, giving them inner strength when the anger is witnessed and allowed to flow — transforming a passive child desperately struggling to release fear into an empowered warrior ready for the next round.

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

For a child, the direct route to this is through play.  If you want more guidance on become a more playful parent, ready this article I wrote for you on discovering your play style:

How To Discover Your Play Style, And Use It To Improve Your Health

 

 

2. Focus on POSSIBILITY for your child.

 

Illness, trauma, death, divorce… these outer circumstances may take certain choices away from your child and leave them with a feeling of not having any control over the situation. This results in DISEMPOWERMENT.

Disempowerment and lack of control is what makes trauma and illness so hard.

Sometimes it is not possible to give a promise or control outcomes in order to empower a child. Even if you can offer a choice or secure a certain outcome, this is only temporary relief anyway, because there will always be another crisis.

The healing doesn’t come from getting control back — control is (at best) an illusion. The healing comes from re-establishing POSSIBILITY!!!

Finding meaning, and even joy, by living in possibility and open ended wonderment is the healing mind-frame. Not the answer… the question.  The questions are the healing.

What is possible?What can I imagine?What do I wonder?What can I transform?

Re-establishing possibility and open ended thinking re-establishes health because it brings back HOPE.

Asking more than answering the questions in your life. Asking — I wonder? — Can you think of the last day you spent asking more questions then answering questions? For many of us, that day was way back in our childhood.

Keep this realm of possibility open for your child.

Keep the potential of any and every healing outcome within reach to your child by staying open to possibility.

 

 

3. Remind your child that they are a miracle.

 

The child must know that they are a miracle… that since the beginning of the world there hasn’t been… and until the end of the world there will not be, another like them.

-Pablo Casals

I believe that with my whole heart.  I believe that is true for my children and that it is equally true for your children, and that it is equally true for YOU as well.

And with that truth comes the knowing that each moment of your existence is precious and rare and valuable.

Remind your child of this by treating them in such a way that you witness their value in every moment… in sickness and in health… in joy and in pain… in tears and in laughter… in rest and at play.

 

 

 

4. Spend healing time in nature

 

The earth is perfectly suited for reminding your child that he or she is part of a bigger plan and that they are well supported for life here on this planet, that in fact the planet itself has a healing energy to give to them.

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.

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.

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.

 

 

5. Spend healing time with animals

 

The comfort of an unconditionally loving pet can not be underestimated. Let your child’s favorite pet sleep with them at night, lay on their sickbed with them, even take a bath with them!

And if they don’t have a pet, ask them if they’d like one. Watch their face light up.

Read more about the health benefits of having a pet in my blog post here:

The Health Benefits Of Having A Pet

 

 

6. Fill their world with music

 

Healing music has a way of opening us up to possibility. When the energy in a room gets heavy or dark or stagnant, bring new energy in with the beauty of sound.

Ask what your child would like to listen to or just begin by some gentle nature tunes like the kind used in massage therapist’s office… there is a reason this music is played, it helps the client relax and get into a healing, positive mind-frame!

This is how powerful music is: if you play music that holds special meaning to a patient experiencing memory loss, they can recover context and depth and recognition in the form of long term memory recall while the music is being played. (watch this fascinating trailer for Alive Inside to see this happen!)

Playing music that is personally relevant to a patient has been shown to:

increase communication skillsincrease long term recallincrease activity level and energy levelincrease social function and engagementdecrease high blood pressureimprove moodreduce pain levelsenhance sleep

So if your  child is feeling stressed or depressed, slip on some music and allow it to sweep through their soul and lift them up.

Music is an invaluable tool for self-soothing and decreasing anxiety and depression rates. So play music out loud and use it to connect with everyone in your family — seniors through the youngest children — everyone can benefit! Take turns playing your favorite music, having a family dance battle, or creating playlists for different times of the day.

 

 

 

7. Heal through art

 

Art has a way of letting you get out of your own worry and into your hands.

Many times, something you have no way of expressing or even formulating and idea about can be released through active use of your hands.

Especially for children who are facing a health crisis and are too sick to actively play or adventure or get out of the hospital or home, bringing art in (just like with music) is a way to give them a bit of play, a bit of fun, a bit of possibility back.

Modelling clay, paper and crayons, finger-paints in the bathtub… all are doing more than just giving your child something to do, it is giving your child a way to heal.

 

 

 

8. Be certain they are getting enough sleep.

 

Sleep time is healing time. Deep sleep gives the body time to repair on a different level than we can repair during activity.

Restorative sleep is crucial to the healing process.

Be sure your child is getting 10 or more hours of sleep, especially when they are facing an illness or a stressful life change.

Solid sleep allows the body to decrease inflammation, improve memory function, improve daytime stamina and decrease fatigue, increase attention span, regulate a health weight, lower stress, boost mood, and boost immune function… all key when you are fighting off illness.

 

 

And by the way, I am such a big fan of co-sleeping with babies and toddlers, especially those that are sick, that I wrote and illustrated a book about it for you.

You can find that here.

 

 

 

 

9. Know that your very presence in your child’s life transforms their future health.

 

YOU are a healing presence in your child’s life. Enjoy being that presence and that light for them.

During a crisis, simply your presence is enough.

It is more than enough.

Your consistency in their life is the rock upon which they draw strength, comfort, hope and yes… healing.

Continue to show your unwavering presence to your child through every health crisis they could possibly face and you show your child the power of unconditional love… the best medicine there is.

 

10. Read my free Parenting eBook

 

As a thank you to parent’s everywhere, I’ve made my parenting idea book completely free to download.

So if you liked these tips and you want more ideas on how to nurture your child through stress and illness and raise them in vibrant Well Being, you can find this absolutely free Parenting Idea Book right here — I’ve written 160 pages full of ideas, information, and fun tools to nurture the fullest health potential of your child for a lifetime!

I hope you love it!  Feel free to share this free book — just forward this email to anyone you know who is a parent or wants to become a parent, so they can read it too.

And if someone forwarded this email to you, and you like this type of uplifting, holistic healing support, sign up for my newsletter here so that you get my weekly uplifting blog post directly into your email and you don’t miss any of this supportive content:

xoxox,Laura Koniver, MD
This is me, right after giving my little baby boy his first haircut when he was just two months old… 21 years ago!
This cute little guy just graduated college this week and I could not be more proud!

The post How Your Mom’s Love Affects Your Health As An Adult appeared first on Intuition Physician.

My Latest Painting (+ 9 Ways To Feel More Hopeful Today)

 

 

Do you ever feel alone?

Do you need a reminder that being alone is an illusion?

No one ever truly walks alone, ever.  Sometimes you can almost catch it out of the corner of your eye — the souls that surround you. Certainly sometimes you can feel it.  The layers and layers and layers of generations of ancestors that have come before you, lived entire lives, and created all the generations of family that culminated in who you are … countless souls looking over you, excited for you, loving on you, watching you, proud of you, experiencing continued life through you and because of you.

Indeed you are never truly alone.

 

 

You can actually witness this truth first hand during the death experience, something I have seen repeatedly during my medical career.

Watching people as the veil lifts between the two worlds — the living and the non-living — has always been my favorite thing.  All of the billions of souls that have lived and gone before you, that not only make you who you are biologically but who have crossed over, and wait for you still, on the other side of that veil.

 

 

People you know and loved, people you never met, all knowing exactly who you are and welcoming you home. Row after row after row of beautiful soul energies, lighting up as they come to greet you.

You are never alone, you are surrounded by love.

You are walking with an invisible entourage of love… can you feel that?

 

You never walk alone (original canvas painting)

 

In this artwork, I painted a girl walking alone, getting a soul nudge — look up, look past the light from the street lamp, angled in just such a way that you see the halo of millions of soul that shine their light on you even brighter than what a lightbulb can create, just in a different dimension.

This type of soul light, you don’t necessarily see it with your eyeballs, you have to feel it.  Stand there, drop into your heartspace and feel that soul energy light shining on you.

If you need a reminder that you aren’t alone, that you are never alone, maybe I painted this artwork for you. Or maybe it would make a beautiful gift to someone at a time of transition — graduation, new job, big move, relationship change, health challenge, loss of a loved one, etc… for a comforting reminder that we are never never never separate or alone.

 

 

Find out more about this artwork You Never Walk Alone, signed by the artist (that’s me!) and painted on a gallery wrapped canvas, ready to hang, right here.  I’d love to send it to you.

Today’s painting was intended to be a reminder to you that outlook is important to your health… especially now.  I was talking with my friend and she was expressing how down she has been feeling lately about the current state of events in the world.  I know she’s not alone… me too, gah.  So today I thought I’d dedicate a blog post on how to remain hopeful even during times of immense stress and darkness.

There have been several major medical studies that show the major, physical, measurable impact that poor outlook has on our brain function and brain chemistry. Like this one, published in Neurology on May 28, 2014, that found that a high level of cynical distrust — for example, believing that no one cares about you or that it’s not safe to trust others — is associated with a three times higher risk for dementia and a 40% increased risk of death over those with the lowest levels of cynical distrust.  Or this one, published in Neurology on Oct 1, 2014 which found that being easily worried, anxious and stressed in midlife was found to double the incidence of late-life Alzheimer’s disease.

Hope, it turns out, is actually brain protective.

The problem is, just when you need hope most is just when your life is crashing in all around you. It’s much easier to remain positive and have positive expectations during times of relative peace and happiness in life. It’s damn hard to have a consistent basis of hope when an unexpected life change, diagnosis, world event or traumatic incident shakes your very foundation.

But you can do it.

Here are 0 things can you do todayto restore your sense of hope:

 

 

1. Reconnect with nature outside:

 

Multiple studies, including this meta-analysis (published in March, 2022) looking at 6 major medical studies on walking in nature and mental health, found that walking outside significantly improves both anxiety and depression.

And this meta-analysis published in 2021, which found that outdoor activities significantly improved both anxiety, depression, as well as affect in both illnesses, with an “effective dose” as little as 20 minutes a session and significant benefits accumulating in as little 8 weeks time.

Or this medical study (also published 2022) looking at 24 different medical studies, which found that going outside in a natural environment significantly improved psychological health over staying in an urban environment.

If you are feeling utterly overwhelmed, all you have to do is walk out your front door, step out of your office, or stop driving and step out of your car. To reconnect with nature is to reconnect with the bigger picture and instantly release pent up frustration, tension, anger, anxiety and fear.

Whether it’s just a few deep breaths as you sit on a patch of grass, taking a walk through a local park, or standing outside at night looking up at the stars… reconnecting with the wonder of being a human being standing on a rock that spirals through space and seeing the earth for the vast support network it is can’t help but lift your spirits for the better.

Taking even one minute to surround yourself with the power of nature has a way of creating a perspective in life that is real, is powerful, is strong. So the next time you are having a panic attack, or a pounding headache, or a knot of worry grow in your stomach, just go outside. Get out there. Don’t force anything, just start walking and let nature work its magic. Even simply taking a hot cup of tea outside at night and looking up at the stars and moon, when the rest of the world is shut up tight at bedtime, is wonderful for clearing the mind and grabbing a few minutes of beautiful fresh air.

 

 

2. Focus on the deeper meaning:

 

This is something shown over and over again in the medical literature —  finding meaning in something helps to improve clinical outcome… like reducing pain, enhancing recovery after cardiac surgery, helping substance abuse recovery and increasing functional well being, with decreased physical symptoms in cancer patients.  

The surest way I know to help alleviate stress and suffering is to find a deeper spiritual meaning in it.

Whether it’s through mediation or mantra (read my blog post here on how to do this — it’s so easy!) joining a like-minded spiritual group, downloading spirituality apps that will send reminders to your phone, or reading books that align with and strengthen your sense of spiritual presence… cultivating a deeper sense of spirit surrounding and supporting you is such an important way to alleviate stress.

Need some more inspiration? I really loved the book

Man’s Search For Meaning, by Viktor E. Frankl.

He is a concentration camp survivor who writes beautifully about how the people who survived these horrific conditions were not the strongest, or youngest, or even the healthiest… they were the ones who found meaning in what they were going through, even in the pain itself.

Finding a deeper, spiritual meaning in what you are going through is —  in and of itself — enough to sustain you.

 

 

3. Leverage the power of music throughout the day:

 

My kids will tell you that if I am really grumpy, all we have to do is hop in the car and turn on the radio and within a few songs, all of a sudden I don’t feel so hopeless. In fact, I feel optimistic and grateful and filled with the same sense of wonder and possibility that I feel when I spend time in nature.

The power of music to wash through you and lift you is amazing.

This is how powerful music is: if you play music that holds special meaning to a patient experiencing memory loss, they can recover context and depth and recognition in the form of long term memory recall while the music is being played. (watch this fascinating trailer for Alive Insideto see this happen!)

Playing music that is personally relevant to a patient has been shown to:

increase communication skillsincrease long term recallincrease activity level and energy levelincrease social function and engagementdecrease high blood pressureimprove moodreduce pain levelsenhance sleep

So if you are feeling stressed or depressed, especially if you can not leave your current surroundings to a new change of scenery, slip on some music and allow it to sweep through your soul and lift you higher.

Music is an invaluable tool for self-soothing and decreasing anxiety and depression rates. So play music out loud and use it to connect with everyone in your family — seniors through the youngest children — everyone can benefit! Take turns playing your favorite music, having a family dance battle, or creating playlists for different times of the day.

Music is universal and can meet you wherever you are.

 

 

4. Ask for help:

 

I know, I know, nobody wants to do this and especially at a time when everyone is facing huge challenges, it can be tough to ask someone to specifically help you out. But bonding together, even — and perhaps especially — during the bad times is a game changer.

Of course the typical advice to ask family and friends for simple, actionable things that will help you stands (for example, ask your neighbor to pick up some cereal for you at the store, ask your sister to meet up with you for tea or coffee together, and share what your worries and concerns are, asking your old friend to text you every morning when you wake up so you don’t feel so alone, etc…) but people are also willing to help you out even if they don’t know you yet.

Do a search to find contact information and call your local support groups, local food banks, local ministries, local disaster relief and emergency financial assistance (to help pay bills,) or enroll in private online counseling, all from the comfort of your own home.

I know I didn’t fully realize how many people I had, providing back up support in my life, until I went through a personal crisis. Some of my most meaningful sources of support during a very overwhelming time in my life were from people I had never ever met before, like the manager at my local bank and the complete stranger who came to pick up the furniture I had to get rid of as I downsized everything.

If you are having a stressful crisis, ask for help. Ask your neighbor, ask your family, ask your friends. And even if you have none of the above, go out into the world asking for help to show up: go to your bank and ask to speak to the manager, go to the grocery store and ask to speak to the manager, contact your local utility companies and ask for help, go to the thrift shop or the park and simply make friends.

Angels are out there waiting to embrace and help you every single day.

 

 

5. Create a symbolic fresh start:

 

A symbolic fresh start during times of stress can help you move on towards healing and help usher in new, positive and hopeful energy instead of feeling stuck. For me, this meant that I literally moved and relocated my life.

But even if it is impossible to literally move, you can go through your entire home with the idea of bringing in fresh energy:

freshen up the plants in each room, repot and water them, add new plants if you don’t have anyrearranging whatever furniture you canclean your living space, room by room, and declutter along the wayadding a mirror or two to help reflect light around the spaceburning candles of light in the evenings to help create a new warm glow in old, dark and depressing spacesgo outside to take a deep breath of airlighting a smudge stick or burn incense or run a aromatherapy diffuser in your homering a bell or strike a chime while setting a new intention for the space you are inmove your body to increase circulation and flexibility — find a yoga or stretch video (countless free ones are waiting for you on YouTube right now) to get your body unstuck.

No matter what you do, do something to break the illusion that you are stuck. You are not stuck. You are a new person every single day and every moment within that day.

When our physical surroundings don’t change, especially in the midst of great turmoil, you can get caught up in the illusion that your situation is permanent and hopeless. This is not so… there is always an ebb and a flow of energy through every situation no matter how unchanging it appears on the surface.

The illusion that things never change can mentally hold you in a place of worry. Release this by making small changes to your living space, changing the energy of the room you are in, physically leaving the space you are in for a breath or two, or using candles/incense/smudging/bells/chimes/lighting/a new plant… or simply move your own body in a new way, through new yoga sequences or stretches… whatever it takes to feel the energy shift in your space and remind you that nothing… NOTHING… stays the same forever. Here is an article I wrote to help guide you through releasing clutter and refreshing your living spaces.

Start Off 2025 By Decluttering Your Living Space and It Will Free Up Your Mental Space

 

6. Get sunlight daily:

 

It’s important to get sunlight every single day. If you are going outside for daily grounding (see tip #1, above) this will be a win-win situation! But for those that are not drawn to grounding for their health, at least be sure to get some form of sunlights.  Sunlight actually prolongs life span, in a dose dependent way… meaning more time in the sun = longer life span.  I blog about the medical studies on this for you right here.

So get indirect sun exposure whenever possible, for at least 10 minutes or more daily, ideally in non-peak hours (before 10 AM or after 4 PM) by:

sitting on a porch, balcony or front door stoop every morning and every eveningeating picnic lunches outside mid-dayobserving which of the windows in your home are sunny and at what time of the day there is a sunbeam and sitting in those precious light rays while drinking your morning coffee, your evening tea, while working on your computer  or while reading a good book, etc…going on an early morning walk before the world wakes up around yougoing on an after dinner walk each evening, to release stress from the dayeven going for a drive if you have a car — roll the windows down and enjoy!

If you can’t get any sunlight where you live, or because of mobility issues, you might want to consider a light box.  Light therapy is very uplifting, and has been found to be an effective treatment for depression, anxiety, even fibromyalgia… heck it even boosts libido that’s how much better it can make you feel… you can read an article I wrote about that right here, and find the light box I recommend most right here.

 

 

7. Increase Gratitude & Compassion:

 

This is a no-brainer — one of the gifts of going through suffering is that you can witness and hold other people’s suffering so much more fully. Compassion and gratitude for the journey and knowing that others have made it through similar, and even worse, ordeals can really help instill hope to your own journey.

As contrary as it sounds, topics that would have felt dark or depressing during easier times can somehow feel powerful and empowering now. For example, during our own harsh life changes, the kids and I dove deeply into WWI and WWII studies, reading Anne Frank’s diary and having long, meaningful discussions about suffering and triumph… those felt incredibly moving and fortifying to us.

Knowing the darker side, leaning into it, persevering through it, witnessing with compassion what others have gone through… all of these things make traveling your own dark night feel less lonely. Focus on witnessing suffering in others around you and holding compassion for the entire yin and yang of it all, the darkness and light of the world… the richness here is a different twist on helping to find meaning in suffering and the gift here is being able to open your heart even wider then you thought possible before.

One of the simplest ways to increase gratitude is also one of my favorite, and as a bonus it helps me fall asleep, the topic that’s coming up next! All you do is, as you close your eyes to fall asleep for the night, run through the day in your mind’s eye. Specifically look for moments you had — even if it’s just one — that you were glad happened. And when you find that moment in the day, pause mentally and just say to yourself “I’m grateful for that.”

That’s it. Even on a really horrible, tough, gut wrenching, miserable day, there are singular moments that happened in your favor or helped strengthen you to get you through. Something as simple as eye contact with someone who smiled at you. Or chancing into a food that was previously out of stock in the store. Or hearing a bird outside your window singing to remind you that all is well. Or finally carving out time to take a warm bath. I go chronologically through my day and pause here and there to say “I am grateful for that.”

I generally find I have fallen asleep before I’ve gotten to the end of my day and caught up with my own self, laying in bed that night in my “daily rewind.” Please try it and see if you enjoy this nightly practice too.

 

 

8. Deepen Sleep:

 

Studies have shown that sleep deprivation is even harder to bear on folks with anxiety or stress. If you are going through a time of great stress, it is more important than ever before in your entire life that you sleep well.

You MUST SLEEP in order to recover from the stress of the day and the stress of the situation. Everything living on this earth has a unique circadian rhythm — even life forms as small as microbes and pathogens have a circadian rhythm, as discussed in this 2019 article published in Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology.  Another article, published 2019 in Nature Communications, specifically shows the incredible impact of circadian rhythm on the inflammatory reaction of the human body.

Our increased exposure day and night to artificial light indoors, to blue light input to the eye from electrical devices, and constant overwhelming EMF exposures, means our body becomes easily confused as to what is day and what is night. Melatonin production goes down and cortisol (your stress hormone) goes up during times of stress, anxiety and depression.

The typical advice, to get morning sun to help reset your internal clock, still holds true. But actually there are two ways your internal clock is set, and both are crucial: it takes both sunlight exposure and direct earth contact. Sunlight exposure will be taken care of by tip #7 above. Let’s also proactively seek direct earth contact (tip #1 above) as it will also help to reset our circadian rhythm as well!

Scientists have known for decades that the earth is equally responsible for our day night rhythm after extensive experiments in isolating subjects from the earth in shielded isolation chambers, a unique study published in 1970 in Life Sciences and Space Research. Because it is actually the frequency of the earth (along with with exposure to light) that regulates our natural biorhythms, it’s easy to understand how grounding our body with our planet can help enhance restorative sleep at night and boost daytime wakefulness. It’s also easy to see why staying indoors, ungrounded, eventually leads to daytime sleepiness, nighttime wakefulness, and decreased quality of sleep at night, which is incredibly stressful to the body and ultimately decreases lifespan.

Although I strongly feel that grounding directly outside is best, during pandemics or for my patients with mobility issues or other health concerns that keep them indoors, there are fabulous indoor grounding options that will allow you to ground your body for hours each day, even sleeping grounded all night long if you want.

You can also support a healthy circadian rhythm in other ways — using natural sunlight to light rooms during the day, using a light box if there is not good natural light in your living area, wear blue light blocking glasses if you watch tv or use electronics after dinnertime, have a goal of 9 hours of quality sleep a night if possible, and read this blog post I wrote for you with my 12 favorite holistic ways to boost your sleep, naturally.

 

 

9. Add body work.

 

The feeling of worry and stress and anxiety is often the stress of energy that is accumulating in the body without release. I know I personally feel this as a ball of pressure right in my solar plexus, but it’s different for everyone.

Irritability, crying, headaches, diarrhea, nausea, tension, muscle stiffness, decreased or increased appetite, weight loss or gain, insomnia… often these all represent energy that just needs to be released to make room for the natural healing process and health/hope to return.

If you are feeling stuck and in need of physical release, do any or all of the following to help assist your body in letting go of old traumas… these are all ways to do body work right in the comfort of your own home:

deep stretchesyogaguided meditationlong walksmassage — foot, neck and hand massages are all massages you can do on your own body to release tensionheat (hot water bottles are the best!) over tense areaswater (in the form of showers or baths, as well as increasing hydration by drinking lots of water!)orgasmacupunctureqigongtai chireikideep tissue massagephysical therapy

 

 

I really hope this list of 9 things you can do to improve your state of mind, boost your hopefulness and increase your feeling of health — even in the middle of great personal and global stress — is helpful to you and a gives you even just one idea today to make this day a little better.

Offered with much love…

xoxox,Laura Koniver MD

 

The post My Latest Painting (+ 9 Ways To Feel More Hopeful Today) appeared first on Intuition Physician.

8 Ways To Celebrate Earth Day & Instantly Boost Your Health — Which Will You Do?

 

 

The earth provides such a beautiful platform for us to have a human experience on.

Every connection we made, every friend or lover we’ve ever met, every second we’ve ever spent in pursuit of our life’s purpose, every breath we’ve ever taken and every heartbeat we’ve ever had has happened here, on this planet — with it silently beneath our feet — supporting life.

The earth makes the atmosphere for those beautiful deep breaths of fresh air you can take each day.

The earth flows the water that can deeply hydrate your body each day.

The earth grows the food that you juice and the herbs that you take and the nutritional building blocks your body depends on daily.

Those are all powerful and wonderful indirect ways to support your well being…. but the most powerful way of all to enhance your health is to touch the earth directly, grounding your body.

When we are grounded, the earth supports our health electrically, through the natural DC energy that powers the universe.  That DC energy is what allows your body to function. It’s what enables your muscles to move and your heart to beat and your brain to think.

 

 

The beautiful DC energy of your heart, beating in your chest.

 

The powerful DC energy of your muscles contracting, moving your body.

 

The DC energy of your brain thinking, allowing you to have a conscious experience on this earth.

 

And it’s not just your heart, mind and muscles… actually your entire body relies on DC energy impulses to function. Food can not be digested, air can not be breathed, you couldn’t swallow or even blink without first an electrical impulse conducted through the electrical circuitry of our bodies.

So it doesn’t matter what food we eat unless our GI tract is first innervated and activated properly!

It doesn’t matter about air quality if we can’t first innervate and activate our breathing mechanism!

Even that pure beautiful air or crystal clear water can not be taken into the body if first an electrical impulse does not conductively activate the body to breathe in or swallow down.

Our whole body is electrical and relies on good conductivity to work.

As a physician I have seen patients in the ICU hooked up to breathing tubes and feeding tubes and if the body is dying, it doesn’t matter if the air is the purist in the world and the water is the finest in the world and the food is the most alive, active, freshly pressed juice in the world.

If the electrical body is not working, none of these parameters matter.

 

 

We have to electrically activate the body, which is what defibrillator paddles are trying to do in resuscitating the heart of the body that is dying, and what a ventilator is taking over for when it tries to breathe for a body that is not breathing on it’s own.

Above all, we have to establish and maintain the healthy conductivity of our body.

Our body has to maintain a healthy electrical circuitry in order to remain conscious and have all of our body organs function effectively.

So to protect our body for a lifetime, we need to nurture the healthy conductivity of our body first and foremost, before turning our eye to the air and water and food quality that enhance our well being.

Touching the earth immediately impacts and supports the conductivity of the entire body — supporting the healthy function of our heart, our circulatory system, our brain, our bone metabolism, our thyroid function, our adrenal function, our skin conductance — our entire body from head to toe.

And now that we wear rubber shoes, drive cars with rubber tires, live on insulated flooring in our home, have asphalt coating our roadways, etc… we need to be intentional about touching the earth, as most of us are totally ungrounded even when we are outside.  And life is so stressful, more fast paced and competitive and technologically advanced than ever before.  We are surrounded by more financial stress, artificial EMFs and artificial foods than previously imaginable.

Stress, higher cortisol, joint pain, dementia, cancer, age related changes — these are all a fall out from a life long inflammatory condition of a lifetime of living ungrounded… disconnected to the earth.  So we better find a way to be absolutely certain we intentionally seek this connection, routinely, and we can reverse this.  In fact, there are so many anti-aging benefits to getting connected to the earth that I published a medical review article to cover them all… you can read that here.

And if you prefer to watch a video on those anti-aging benefits, I made one for you here.

 

There is no better day to spend 15 minutes grounding than on Earth Day… which is tomorrow, April 22nd.

 

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Taking action, trying it for yourself, taking a few minutes to put a bare foot onto the earth outside, or keeping your shoes on and reaching up to hold onto a leaf on a tree, even taking the time to ground indoors as much as possible with indoor grounding tools, can do more to inform you about the healing potential of grounding your body than any amount of words I can write.

Luckily, grounding is the easiest, most readily available healing modality possible.  It’s also one of the most medically studied and verified holistic healing modalities of all time.  I keep a running list of the published medical literature on grounding for you right here.  Book mark this page!

If you are not going to get grounded on Earth Day, are you ever going to get grounded?

You need to.

Do it today, do it tomorrow — do it every day this week if you can — and feel the difference.  The earth is out there, waiting for you.

So let’s make a plan for tomorrow.Here are 8 Earth Day Ideas for you:

 

 

Idea #1: Take a fun Grounding Quiz:

 

How Much Do You Really Know About Grounding (Quiz)

 

Find out how much you really know about grounding. Grounding newbie? Grounding expert? Let’s find out, right here! I created this fun and informative quiz for you and it only takes a few minutes.

Share it with others and see which one of you knew the most about this phenomenal healing modality of grounding.

 

 

Idea #2: Make Earth Day into a Personal Healing Retreat

 

This is me, taking a few moments to release a tension headache. However you are feeling right now, whether it is anxious, sad, frustrated, annoyed, tense, overwhelmed, bored, tired… the earth is waiting to give you a boost.

You can use the healing power of connecting directly to the Earth today and actually finish the day feeling better than you did when the day started.

Some days within 1 second of touching the earth I can feel the relief washing over me. My headache soaks down into the grass or my shoulder tension melts away while I sit on a rock or my nausea vanishes while stand on a sidewalk or whatever stress I am holding onto that day subsides as I lean against a tree.

When you are out of contact with the earth your body feels the build up of inflammation and free radical damage and feels stressed out and out of sorts. When you come back in contact with the earth your body feels intense relief — and there is no better day to gift that to yourself than on Earth Day.

Start the day with a cup of tea or coffee standing outside watching the sunrise.Take a midday break and do some stretches outside — a few neck rolls would feel amazing.Stand on a sidewalk, or brick, or cement — it will all ground you.Or simply find a leaf on a tree to touch and take three deep breaths. It will ground you too.Eat one of your meals outside grounded and see how much better it feels to be grounded while you eat.Commit to drinking every single glass of water you drink today outside, grounded.End the day looking up at the moon and stars for a minute before heading up to bed.

 

 

Idea #3 : Sign Up To Heal On Retreat With Me!

 

If you really want to commit to a daily grounding practice that will totally transform your health in 2025, the best way is to come spend a few days in person with me on retreat, where I will guide you through it.  You will literally leave feeling markedly better than before you came, already noticing and enjoying the benefits of grounding.  It doesn’t take long.  Together, we can make a healing plan for you to reach your unique, specific health care goals.

Click here to save your spot in my May retreat and let’s meet!

 

 

I’m hosting this retreat at my very favorite retreat center, where you will find incredible healing from the land, the nature, the wholesome food, the private accommodations, the peace, the quiet, and the community of others who will be on retreat with you.

It’s where I personally go when I need a time of renewal — and is where I wrote every word of my book (The Earth Prescription.)  I have come here on a monthly basis for many many years for my own soul journey and strength.   This May retreat is the last retreat of the year I will host here, so if you can possibly make it, you absolutely should!

We will start the day with grounded stretching in the mornings and end the day with grounded meditations in the evenings… with plenty of fun grounding activities and Q&A sessions (even a grounded massage, which is included!) and tons of downtime in between to soak in the quiet, nap, explore, eat, rest, etc… During your downtime you may wish to walk the outdoor labyrinth, meditate indoors or outside, enjoy healing touch, massage or spiritual direction sessions, visit the library and read, walk the trails through the wooded areas along the river, create art in the art room, read a book in the library, journal, write, bird watch, visit the outdoor fireplace, nap in your private bedroom, or simply sit outside to listen to the sounds of nature.

Find out if there are any spots left here.

 

 

 

Idea #4: Host An Earth Day Movie Night

 

Pop some popcorn and click play… and share these film recommendations with the people that you love!

A list of free grounding movies you can watch:

 

 

What Is Grounding?  What this free 11 minute video I created to introduce folks to grounding — it’s a great starting point.The Grounded: Watch the first feature film on grounding for free on YouTube right here, or order the DVD right here.Heal For Free: Watch the sequel film on grounding for free on YouTube right here.The Earthing Movie: Watch the third movie on grounding for free on YouTube right here. Grounding Keynote Presentation: Want something a little shorter?  Watch my 30 minute lecture where I review the medical literature on grounding… and tell you why I went into medicine in the first place! 

 

 

Idea #5: Go Heart Spotting Tomorrow

 

I love hearts, as you can tell by the fact that I choose a heart to be my business logo!

All of my life I’ve delighted in finding hearts in nature while I’ve been out and about… nature is sending us love notes every single day, the trick is to notice them.

Here are some of my favorites I’ve found over the years:

 

 

On Earth Day, take your phone or camera and walk around your neighborhood, grabbing pics of any hearts you find.  Try to do it barefoot or walking with grounding shoe stickers on your shoes or even using a grounding walking stick to ground through your hands and don’t stop until you find at least one heart out there waiting for you… in a leaf, in a rock, in the shape of a cloud, a puddle on the sidewalk… keep going until you find one and you will come home from your journey feeling noticeably better!

Post it to your family and friends to inspire them to head outside and get grounded too!!!

 

 

 

Idea #6: Read A Book Outside

 

If you are not sure how to get grounded when the weather gets extreme, when the seasons change, how long you should ground for, or how to use grounding for specific health results, I wrote this book for you.

If you are curious about grounding but not sure what to do once you get outside, if you live in a city and don’t have any access to a safe greenspace, if you are not sure what earth surfaces will actually ground you, then oh my goodness I wrote this book for you.

If you want to know how the practice of grounding, one person at a time, on minute at a time, can help save our planet and put it on a different trajectory than the destructive path we’ve put it on, than I wrote this book for you.

 

 

It’s called: The Earth Prescription and I have signed copies waiting for you here, or you can:

Order On Amazon (available on kindle and as an audio book too!)Order On Barnes & NobleOrder On IndieboundOrder Signed Copies On My Website Here

 

 

Don’t want to lay on the earth directly while you are reading?  That’s why I created this organic mini picnic blanket — keep it in your car or by your front door right along with your book and you are all set for a spring and summer full of impromptu grounding!

My recommendation is to keep this book — or any book that you want to read! — in your car or by your front door and read one chapter grounded outside as often as you can.  Even one chapter a week is a great way to start and stay committed to a grounding practice.

You will fly through whatever book you choose and feel amazing too!

 

Idea #7: Take An Online Grounding Class With Me!

 

Let’s go deeper than a book by taking a two month grounding course, live with me.  We will meet weekly and each class comes with a Q&A session so I can answer every single question you could possibly come up with, and we can together ensure that you are getting maximum benefits for your unique health goals.

Bioelectrical Healing Course, with Laura Koniver, MD

 

Two months is more than enough time to truly see the health benefits for yourself — not only will we start with a baseline assessment so that we can see your immediate and long term progress, but we will have so much fun going organ system by organ system through the entire human body to address longer standing health concerns and boost your wellness and longevity for years and years to come!

 

 

With AI, automation, technology, artificial EMF fields increasing exponentially, and other unnatural changes to our environment that we have little control over, the only true antidote to this is grounding to support how our body naturally functions.  Grounding is the one healing technique everyone on this planet should know and teach their children and their children’s children.  Come take this course and have a hands on healing modality you can use — freely and naturally — in your own life immediately and for generations to come.

Snag your spot right here:   Bioelectrical Healing… with Laura Koniver, MD

 

 

Idea #8: Commit To Sleeping Grounded

 

The absolutely easiest way to optimize the amount of time you are grounded in a 24 hour period is to start by sleeping grounded all night long.  And for those who have mobility limitations, indoor ways to connect directly to the earth may be the easiest.

Just make sure you are choosing an eco-friendly, ethically made grounding tool.  It doesn’t make sense to use a plastic based “leatherette” (read: vinyl plastic) grounding tool that will sit in a landfill for centuries, or purchase a product that was made in a factory and transported overseas, polluting the planet.

To me, if we are turning to the earth for healing support, it only makes sense not to trash it in return.  Plus, sleeping on vinyl plastic leatherette actually introduces microplastics into your body all night long, as microplastics can actually be absorbed by the skin.  Yuck, I wrote more about that here:  Microplastics Are A Measurable Portion Of Your Body, Here’s How To Decrease That Amount!

Instead, select custom made, individually hand sewn, boutique quality grounding tools made locally right here in the USA using eco friendly, environmentally conscious materials like organic hemp and organic cotton, with superior quality conductive elements like medical grade stainless steel.

 

 

My Grounding Boutique offers the longest lasting, most eco-friendly and non-toxic grounding tools on the planet, which are shipped with non-toxic, biodegradable packaging.  Each item is hand packed and shipped with love directly from Dr. Koniver’s hands to yours. Healthy for you, healthy for the earth!

Find the best selection of medical grade, high quality, eco-ethically hand crafted indoor grounding tools in my Grounding Boutique… discover the one that works best for you right over here.

 

Happy Earth Day my friends!!!  Get out there and go feel better… doctor’s orders.

xoxoxo,Laura Koniver MD

 

 

The post 8 Ways To Celebrate Earth Day & Instantly Boost Your Health — Which Will You Do? appeared first on Intuition Physician.

Chocolate To Boost Your Metabolism? Uh Yes Please (+ Additional Benefits)

 

 

I love chocolate so much I even have a bowl of chocolates in my office I eat from almost every day.  Now I don’t recommend a bowl of easily accessible sugary treats to be within arms reach while you are trying to work, speaking from personal experience, ahem… but let’s gloss over that for now and instead focus on why eating chocolate in moderation may not be as bad for you as might assume!

Most medical studies looking at the health properties of chocolate focus on dark chocolate (for good reason, as dark chocolate is a rich source of antioxidants) but I can’t seem to make myself fall in love with dark chocolate.  But milk chocolate?  Ummm yeah, can’t get enough, and several of the health benefits I go over for you today were found in milk chocolate and even white chocolate!

Here is how the antioxidants break down in chocolate — but as we will talk about below, there are other healthy compounds in chocolate in addition to these phenols and flavonoids, including anandamide and phenylethylamine, which may help explain why some of these health benefits were found in milk chocolate and even white chocolate!

Per 100g of chocolate:

Dark chocolate has 579 mg phenols and 28 mg flavonoidsMilk chocolate has 160 mg phenols and 13 mg flavonoidsWhite chocolate has 126 mg phenols and 8 mg flavonoids.

 

 

Metabolic Benefits

 

Published in the FASEB Journal, June 2021, researchers found that eating milk chocolate daily reduced the amount of calories that study subjects ate over all, decreased their hunger and sugar cravings, and actually helped boost their metabolism.

Here is the clincher, thought: it mattered when they ate it.

Researchers had study participants eat a chocolate an entire milk chocolate bar (100g, or about 3/4 of a cup, or 3.5 oz) within one hour of waking, within one hour of bedtime, or no chocolate at all.

They were instructed to eat freely the rest of the day as they normally would.  After two weeks of daily chocolate eating (or not eating) here is what they found:

 

Eating a chocolate bar in the morning:

participants naturally decreased calorie intake by an average of about 300 kcal/dayparticipants had decreased hunger and decreased desire for sweetsparticipants had a reduced waist circumference of about 2% in just 2 weeksparticipants had 26% higher oxidation of fat (i.e. boosted fat burning)participants had slightly lowered fasting glucose levels

These results suggest that eating chocolate in the morning helps boost metabolism by decreasing calorie intake, oxidizing fat, and lowering fasting glucose levels.

So if your goal is to lose weight and burn fat, you may consider eating your chocolate treat in the mornings.

 

 

Eating a chocolate bar in the evening:

participants naturally decreased calorie intake by an average of about 100 kcal/dayparticipants had decreased hunger and decreased desire for sweetsparticipants had 35% higher carbohydrate oxidation (i.e. boosted carb burning)participants naturally increased their daily activity level by 7%participants had more regular sleep patterns

These results suggest that eating chocolate in the evening helps regulate the body’s natural biorhythms, boosting activity level during the day and normalizing sleep at night, as well as burning carbs. So if your goal is to improve your circadian rhythm, you may consider timing any chocolate treats you are going to eat in the evening.

It’s also good to note that no matter what time the participants ate chocolate, eating an entire chocolate bar every single day for 2 weeks straight did not make either group gain any weight verse controls who did not eat chocolate.  Here’s my question though… what about if I eat chocolate morning and night?  I absolutely volunteer to be a test subject in that clearly much needed medical study, ha!  I’ll fight you for a spot in that one!

 

 

Cardiovascular Benefits

 

This isn’t the first time I’ve told you about the health benefits of chocolate… years ago I wrote to you about a medical article, published in the British Medical Journal in May 2011, showing that folks who consume chocolate often… every single day or even multiple times a day… have an almost 40% reduced risk of heart attack and an almost 30% reduced risk of stroke.

About a third less risk of cardiovascular events and stroke combined attributed to chocolate intake. In fact, the patients who consumed the most chocolate had the greatest cardiac and neurologic protection.

This was a huge, meta analysis looking at over 4,500 different published articles in the medical literature and a whopping 114,000 patients. This large study population makes these results very impressive and very reliable.

The effects are suggested to be attributed to high polyphenols in chocolate, which increase the bioavailability of nitric oxide… this in turn improves endothelial function, reduces platelet aggregation, and over all has a positive effect on blood pressure, blood lipids, and insulin resistance.

The study included any and all forms of chocolate, whether dark, milk or white chocolate.

 

 

Mental Health Benefits

 

Another study published 8 years later backed that up, showing the positive effects of eating chocolate on health in a different way  — in protecting mood and guarding against mood disorders.  Now this particular study was only focused on dark chocolate, however the results were super impressive.

Published on July 29, 2019 in Depression and Anxiety, researchers found that dark chocolate consumption significantly reduced a patients chance of feeling depressive symptoms for a full 24 hour period of time.  

Looking at over 13,000 patients, researchers found that eating any amount of dark chocolate decreased depressive symptoms by 70% over patients who did not consume chocolate in the previous 24 hours.

OMG why is this not front page news?!?!  Uh… hello! If I could give you a Rx drug that was 70% effective in reducing depressive symptoms by 70% the very next day, there are a lot of folks who would want to take it.

Now imagine if this miracle drug tasted just like chocolate.

Now imagine it wasn’t a drug at all and it was just simply chocolate itself.

Wish come true, that’s what they found.

 

 

To explain this mood lifting effect, researchers point out that chocolate contains several psychoactive ingredients, including anandamide analogs (which work similar to cannabinoids) as well as phenylethylamine, a mood regulating neuromodulator.

Getting a mood lifting high from chocolate? Heck yes. Make mine a double.

Chocolate also contains flavonoids, which decreases inflammation. As I’ve already blogged for you right here, we know that inflammation depresses mood. And I’d like to add to these findings the fact that you are also releasing endorphins from the happiness of eating chocolate (or… um… at least I am!)

Now, didn’t that just brighten your day?

I’ve always been a big fan of eating what brings you joy (as I blog about here) but this just makes me all the happier as I reach for my chocolate bowl.  So eat some chocolate today and enjoy a few added health benefits… doctor’s orders!

 

 

Want to read other free articles I’ve written for you on maintaining a healthy weight?

Click on any of these:

Working With Your Brain, Not Against It, For Easier Weight Loss You Can’t Lose Stress Weight By Dieting, Do These 10 Lifestyle Hacks Instead Are Your Weight Struggles From Subclinical Hypothyroidism? Probably, Here’s Help How Our Environment Can Cause Weight Gain & What You Can Do About It 8 Unusual But Highly Effective Ways To Release Unwanted Weight How To Release Weight Changes That Are Caused By Stress Grounding To Boost Your Metabolism & Lose Weight Tired All The Time? Can’t Lose Weight? How Background Noise Impacts Your Health Yet Another Study Showing That Overweight Is Healthier Than Underweight Poor Sleep Equals Weight Gain, Even For Children This Statistic Really Surprised Me About Fast Food (+ Quick Alternatives) Want To Give Fasting A Try? That’s Awesome & Here’s How.

Share this with your friends who love chocolate!  Make their day!

To your natural health!xoxo,Laura Koniver, MD

The post Chocolate To Boost Your Metabolism? Uh Yes Please (+ Additional Benefits) appeared first on Intuition Physician.

8 Things You Can Do To Significantly Decrease Your Spring Allergy Symptoms Today

 

For many, the first thing that comes to their mind during spring isn’t pedicures and bare feet, picking fresh strawberries and blueberries, gardening and sunshine… its allergies: puffy eyes, sneezing attacks, runny noses and difficulty breathing. 

Well that stinks. But I’ve got your back!

This season I am not letting allergies bring you down, because spring is such an exciting time of renewal and awakening and I want you outside enjoying this spring time every single day, not hiding from it.

So instead, here are 8 things you can do RIGHT NOW to decrease allergy symptoms this spring, naturally:

 

8 Ways To Holistically Treat Seasonal Allergies:

 

 

1. Wash your hands like it’s going out of style.

 

Every single time you touch a door knob, your car door, your shoes, a hand railing… well, in the spring time, you can be sure you just loaded your hands up with pollen.

Innocently scratch your nose or rub your eyes and you just inoculated yourself with it. Without meaning to, you have just made sure that the rest of your day is going to be spent dealing with your seasonal allergy symptoms.  Wash your hand every single time you can, and especially when you come in from being outside, even if it was only to walk from your car to your front door.

And while you are at it, be sure to shower at night to rinse every speck of pollen off of you as well, even if you prefer morning showers. Crawling into bed without showering (even if you change your clothes and have fresh sheets on the bed) means you are in contact with pollen for hours on end, all night long, because there is just no way to get all of the pollen from the outside air and surfaces off of you without washing it off with soap and shampoo. 

If you don’t wash your hair nightly, during allergy season you might consider it if allergies are bothering you.  Start by putting fresh sheets so your bed so your bed is pollen free and switch to showering at night all spring long.

Combined with frequent hand washing, I promise from this one switch alone you will notice a huge difference.  You may even want to consider sleeping with a hepa-filter air purifier running by your bed for additional benefits.

 

 

2. Eat local honey.

 

Consuming local honey is the holistic equivalent of getting allergy shots — micro exposure to local pollen producing flowering plants but without going to the doctor, without the expense, and without sticking metal into your skin. By taking some locally produced honey each day, you are giving yourself a very small exposure to the local flowering plants that grow in your area and give you your seasonal allergies. 

It’s the same principle that allergy shots use, but you are letting the honey bees do the work of gathering pollen from around your area and creating delicious honey out of it for you to enjoy. The key is it has to be local honey, so head over to your nearest small grocer or farmers market and stock up.

I’ve got a great way for you to take your honey, if you like hard candy. Just boil a cup of honey over medium heat until it reaches the hard crack stage (375 degrees F, you’ll need a candy thermometer to measure this) and then pour into a cookie tray that has been lightly sprayed with cooking oil. Once the honey hardens, you can flip the sheet over and remove the hard candy, and break it into small bite sized pieces. Suck on a honey candy a day and you’ll not only be in heaven taste-wise, but you’ll be reducing the severity of your seasonal allergies naturally.

 

 

3. Burn local beeswax candles.

 

Every evening at dinnertime, I light beeswax candles and let the natural scent of beeswax fill the air.  Not only is this an amazing, calming, lovely evening ritual, but breathing in the beeswax candle scent is another simple way to expose yourself to local seasonal pollen and become more resistant and less allergic to them.

Just like with the honey, the bees have done all the work of finding pollen sources from all around the area in your part of the world and all you have to do is sit back and enjoy the glow!

Burning a locally sourced beeswax candle by your beside (extinguish before going to sleep!) and sleeping all night in that room is a very simple way to desensitize yourself to seasonal allergies.

 

 

4. Keep grounding, even if it’s indoors.

 

Grounding is simply touching the earth, which directly reduces the inflammation in your body, even in your sinuses. Direct contact with the earth can reduce your whole body inflammation, and is an important way to keep your body’s hyper reactivity low.

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.  An overview of how grounding decreases whole body inflammation was published June 2014 in the Journal of Inflammation Research.  Even more recently, in a studypublished January 2019 in Frontiers in Physiology, researchers found that grounding resulted in a 10 — 20% drop in inflammatory cytokines.

But the problem is that during spring, if you have seasonal allergies you tend to stay indoors to get away from all the outdoor triggers like pollen.  So that’s when it’s most important to have an indoor way to stay connected to the earth and continue to reap the anti-inflammatory benefits of grounding.  Securing an indoor way to stay grounded to the earth is something that will not only help you during allergy season, but all year long whenever it’s too cold or too hot or raining too hard to head outside as well, so it’s something that can benefit your health well past allergy season.

There are lots of options for indoor grounding, including grounding wrist straps to wear, grounding mats to sit or stand on, grounding throw blankets to snuggle on the couch with, grounding bed toppers to sleep on, and much more.  Be sure to select all natural grounding tools that are made from eco-friendly materials and hand crafted in an ethical way, that way your grounding tools are healthy for you and healthy for our planet too.

Find a complete selection of indoor, eco-ethically hand crafted grounding products that I have personally developed and tested for you right here.

 

 

5. Take anti-inflammatory supplements.

 

The thing with allergies is that they are worse when your entire body is hyper-stimulated and over worked. When a cup is already full, it only takes a few drops of water to get it to overflow and spill!  That’s how it is when your mast cells are already destabilized and on a hair-trigger to release histamine at the tiniest pollen exposure.

You can take holistic, all natural supplements that keep your mast cells more stabile and less reactive. That means less over all histamine release and less allergic symptoms.  Additionally, you can take supplements that help decrease whole-body inflammation. My favorite three supplements that decrease allergic response in the respiratory system are:

Here are my top supplements to help decrease histamine hyperactivity, reduce mucosal irritation, and feel your best during allergy season.

Omega 3 fatty acids, well known to decrease whole body inflammation.Quercetin, a natural anti-histamine, this supplement stabilizes your mast cells and keeps your body from being so reactive to environmental triggersBromelain, made from pineapples, reduces allergic sensitizationCurcumin, which is a powerfully anti-inflammatory and made from the spice turmericDiamine Oxidase, which is an anti-histamine supplement that blocks histamine release in the gut (from food triggers) which can be an important piece of the puzzle in keeping the entire body in a less reactive state.  If you have tried some of the other natural anti-hitstamine supplements without success, I highly recommend you add on Diamine Oxidase and see the difference it can make.

You can find all of these ingredients combined into three supplements high quality, super effective supplements, all in my easy Seasonal Allergy Protocol, waiting for you right here:

6. Flush out your nose.

 

After showering nightly (as discussed above) rinse out your nasal cavity too so that you are truly pollen and particulate free before crawling into bed.  It’s important to flush allergens out of your upper airways nightly before bed so you are not continuously exposed to them all night long.

Many many folks swear by flushing their sinuses out with saline using a neti pot, so if you want to give it a try I have included one in my Seasonal Allergies Protocol above.  But even just misting your nasal membranes with a saline nasal mist will keep them hydrated and cleansed… just spray saline mist into each nostril and then blow your nose to blow it all out!  I’ve also got my favorite saline based nasal spray in the protocol as well.

Woot!  Now you are truly clean from allergens and ready to give your body a break for the night.

 

 

7.  Address the underlying energy of allergies… safety issues.

 

Allergies are your body’s way of being hyper-vigilant and on alert. Your body feels like it’s doing it’s best for you by reacting to foreign stimulus and trying to get rid of it through sneezing and mucous and watery eyes. 

The problem is that your body is reacting to something that isn’t a danger… it is overreacting… being triggered by something that is natural, not a threat to our well being, and not worth reacting to.

So the bottom line for your body is that it is in hyper-vigilant mode… patrolling and on alert when it doesn’t need to be. It is overly concerned for your safety.  If you can address your fears and safety concerns appropriately, your body will not need to be in hypersensitive mode and will not feel the need to over-patrol.

Whatever keeps you from feeling safe — in relationships, at work, in your home — address it. Living in fear for prolonged period of time is very stressful and many people who have been under stress or through a trauma start to develop food sensitivities and allergies (including drug allergies and even seasonal allergies) that they never had before.

In fact, the incidence of allergies of all types is increasing world wide. And this is exactly why. Because if we are living in a hyperviligant state — emotionally and physically — our body responds by increasing it’s sensitivity and reactivity. The result is that new allergies begin to pop up, and current allergies worsen.

Whether you have to quit a job, leave an abusive relationship, install a security system at home, or simply get a dog to feel safe… do it.

You can also further your healing work by addressing trauma with a therapist or counsellor, or with me directly in my next Trauma Recovery & Resiliency Online Class, which starts this month, sign up right here, today:

 

 

 

8. Consider the benefits.

 

It’s true, seasonal allergies might be a nuisance but there may be some benefits you may not know about.  One medical study even suggests that folks with allergic rhinitis are more likely to outlive the rest of us!

Presented at the 2014 American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology conference, researcher Dr. Yoon found that people who tested positive for allergies were less likely to suffer cardiovascular events including heart attack, stroke, and over all risk of death.  In fact, allergy sufferers actually had better over all survival odds… by a lot!  Allergic patients had a 50% lower mortality rate compared to non-allergic folks.  That’s cutting the risk of death in half during the 7 year study period.  

Allergic rhinitis patients had a decreased risk of heart attack, a decreased risk of stroke and over all a significantly decreased risk of all-cause mortality.  “They were basically half as likely to die during the study period,” says Dr. Crans Yoon, after looking at a database of over 200,000+ allergic rhinitis patients and following those patients for a 7 year period.

People with allergic rhinitis had a:

25% decreased rate of heart attack (acute myocardial infarction)19% decreased rate of stroke (cerebrovascular event)49% decreased over all mortality risk

The bottom line?

If you can view your seasonal allergies as a positive adaptation, you’ll struggle against them less.If you struggle against them less, they will have less of a negative impact in your daily life.

There are so many things you can do to lessen how annoying allergies are on a day to day basis: by increased hand washing, nightly showers, flushing your sinuses out with saline nightly, hepa-air filtration in the bedroom, natural supplements that decrease reactivity, consuming local honey, burning beeswax candles, indoor grounding, and truly addressing stress and healing trauma so your body is less hypervigilant.

And ultimately, instead of viewing your immune response to seasonal allergens as a burden, try to feel the power and strength of your immune system as it goes into action on your behalf.

Here’s to a beautiful spring…

xoxox,Laura Koniver MD

 

The post 8 Things You Can Do To Significantly Decrease Your Spring Allergy Symptoms Today appeared first on Intuition Physician.

Welcome Spring With This Refreshing Grounded Mediation You Can Do Right Now

 

 

I’ve long been a fan of the health benefits of meditation, so I was really excited when a new medical study confirmed that mindfulness meditation significantly reduces pain, and does so in a totally unique neuropathway that is completely separate from any pain relief that is found through the placebo effect.

Turns out, meditation modifies pain brain patterns to help break you out of repetitive pain signals.  I talk about that in this TikTok for you here and you can also read the study for yourself here.

@laurakonivermd

Nope #meditation #placebo #pain #painrelief #holistichealth #laurakonivermd #intuitionphysician

♬ original sound – Laura Koniver, MD

So today I want to walk you through a quick 6 minute mediation, so that if you are feeling any discomfort or pain in your body, we can reduce that, together.

Not only does meditation modify those pain signals to help you feel better, it also boosts serotonin, dopamine and GABA — essential neurotransmitters in the brain that help you feel your best.

Now for the good part… want even deeper benefits?  Add grounding.

Grounding decreases inflammation which is part of why your neurotransmitter levels are disrupted in the first place.  Inflammatory cytokines cross the blood brain barrier and decrease neurotransmitter production, decrease neuroplasticity, and increase neruoinflammation which depresses mood.   Grounding helps reverse that, by decreasing inflammation, boosting neurotransmitter levels, and naturally boosting mood.  I’ve published several articles on how grounding helps support better brain function that you can read here:

Grounding And CognitionCerebrospinal Fluid and Brain Health: Optimized By GroundingNeurological Pathways Supported By Grounding

 

 

Today, let’s combine meditation with grounding so that you are getting a 6 minutes of benefit from both meditation and grounding together… as grounding and meditation are synergistic.

And 6 minutes is plenty long enough for grounding to provide other whole body benefits as well… reduce your muscle tension, decrease muscle soreness, relax your brain waves to make meditation easier and more therapeutic, reduce over all markers of brain stress, and boost your vagal tone to your entire digestive tract too, which soothes the knot in your stomach and releases heartburn, indigestion and irritable bowel symptoms, and so much more.

Here we go, just click the button below and give me 6 minutes to help you feel instantly better:

 

 

https://intuition-physician.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Meditations-Spring-With-Music.mp3

 

Easy ways to do this spring meditation while grounded include:

 being outside sitting on the ground while you listen to this mediationbeing outside and simply touching a leaf on a tree while you listen to this mediationstanding barefoot on sidewalk while you listen to this mediationtouching a metal signpost that is anchored in the sidewalk or directly in the ground while you listen to this mediationrelaxing in bed on an organic grounded mattress topper while you listen to this mediationsitting or laying indoors on an organic grounding mat while you listen to this mediationsitting in a hot tub or pool while you listen to this mediationor taking a nice warm bath to either start or end your day while you listen to this mediation

If you want to see for yourself how your brain immediate shifts its brain wave patterns into a more relaxed and focused brain state (perfect to help deepen and facilitate a mediative state!) watch this video I made for you here.

I used an at home brain wave monitor to help show you:

 

Brain Stress Decreases While Grounding 

 

Ready to try it?  I’ve got you.

Get grounded, get comfortable and let’s do this meditation together.

Here we go… My Spring Grounding Meditation:

 

https://intuition-physician.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Meditations-Spring-With-Music.mp3

 

 

You can do this grounded mediation any time, even multiple times a day!

Definitely try to do it before bedtime to see how it can help you slip into sleep more easily… just bookmark this page (and share it with others) and come back any time to do a quick grounded mediation as part of a deeply healing nighttime routine.

By doing a grounded mediation prior to bedtime, you have just prepped your body to slip more easily into sleep and for that sleep to be deeper and more restorative… just by simply listening to this meditation while relaxing in a warm bath, you’ll be grounded and ready for bed afterwards!

Here is the link again for  My Spring Grounding Meditation:

 

 

https://intuition-physician.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Meditations-Spring-With-Music.mp3

 

This meditation comes directly from my book The Earth Prescription, available in 4 languages right here, I’ll sign it for you!

Enjoy using meditation for a quick reboot, to break out of pain cycles and release stress from your brain.  And deepen those benefits by doing it grounded.

Ahhh… doesn’t that feel better? 

It’s amazing what taking just a few minutes to nurture your brain can do to help you feel head-to-toe, instant and profound benefits.

xoxoxo, Laura Koniver MD

The post Welcome Spring With This Refreshing Grounded Mediation You Can Do Right Now appeared first on Intuition Physician.

My Top 9 Longevity Tips For You To Feel Your Best

 

 

As I talked about in my last video on aging, aging can be simplified down to a balance between inflammation that accrues over a lifetime vs. your body’s stem cell regeneration.

So we can approach longevity by both sides, decreasing inflammation in the body and protecting (even boosting) stem cell function so we can renew and refresh our organ systems for longer.

 

Graphic shared from: Li, X., Li, C., Zhang, W. et al. Inflammation and aging: signaling pathways and intervention therapies. Sig Transduct Target Ther 8, 239 (2023)

 

The above graphic comes from this fabulous meta-analysis on what we know about longevity so far and all the validated, research based ways to protect and even boost your health-span.

Don’t want to read that article right this minute?

Or ever?

I’ll talk you through all the data from that meta-analysis plus other medical research in today’s video.

In it, I go over 9 evidence based ways to help protect your body’s longevity and stem cell regeneration, all based off of the current medical literature.  Plus I provide a list of many of the studies below, in case you want to read them for yourself!

 

I’ve even put all of the supplements I mention in the video above into one simple Anti-Aging & Stem Cell Boosting protocol… you can find this in my online dispensary right here:

 

1. What to eat:

 

Antioxidants, polyphenols and healthy fats (polyunsaturated fats found in fish, nuts, seeds, tofu, flax seeds, walnuts, sunflower seeds, etc…)  Basically fruits, veggies, fish, seeds & nuts:

Katz, D. L. & Meller, S. Can we say what diet is best for health? Annu. Rev. Public Health 35, 83–103 (2014).Halliwell B. Role of free radicals in the neurodegenerative diseases: therapeutic implications for antioxidant treatment. Drugs Aging. 2001;18(9):685-716. doi: 10.2165/00002512-200118090-00004. PMID: 11599635.Sharma, R., Diwan, B., Sharma, A. & Witkowski, J. M. Emerging cellular senescence-centric understanding of immunological aging and its potential modulation through dietary bioactive components. Biogerontology 23, 699–729 (2022).Del Bo, C. et al. A polyphenol-rich dietary pattern improves intestinal permeability, evaluated as serum zonulin levels, in older subjects: The MaPLE randomised controlled trial. Clin. Nutr. 40, 3006–3018 (2021).Ames BN, Shigenaga MK, Hagen TM. Oxidants, antioxidants, and the degenerative diseases of aging. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1993 Sep 1;90(17):7915-22. doi: 10.1073/pnas.90.17.7915. PMID: 8367443; PMCID: PMC47258.

 

2. What not to eat:

 

Decrease sugar & gluten intake. Sugar inhibits stem cell production and gluten is a neuro-irritant that increases neuroinflammation:

Tysoe O. Ketosis improves muscle stem cell resilience. Nat Rev Endocrinol. 2022 Aug;18(8):458. doi: 10.1038/s41574-022-00713-3. PMID: 35715508.Cramer C, Freisinger E, Jones RK, Slakey DP, Dupin CL, Newsome ER, Alt EU, Izadpanah R. Persistent high glucose concentrations alter the regenerative potential of mesenchymal stem cells. Stem Cells Dev. 2010 Dec;19(12):1875-84. doi: 10.1089/scd.2010.0009. Epub 2010 Sep 11. PMID: 20380516.Kovács, Z.; Brunner, B.; Ari, C. Beneficial Effects of Exogenous Ketogenic Supplements on Aging Processes and Age-Related Neurodegenerative Diseases. Nutrients 2021, 13, 2197.3. Fasting:

 

Intermittent fasting is relatively easy — hop over to this blog post I wrote for you to walk you through it!

Want To Give Fasting A Try? That’s Awesome & Here’s How

 

And here are some additional medical studies you might like:

Benjamin DI, Both P, Benjamin JS, Nutter CW, Tan JH, Kang J, Machado LA, Klein JDD, de Morree A, Kim S, Liu L, Dulay H, Feraboli L, Louie SM, Nomura DK, Rando TA. Fasting induces a highly resilient deep quiescent state in muscle stem cells via ketone body signaling. Cell Metab. 2022 Jun 7;34(6):902-918.e6. doi: 10.1016/j.cmet.2022.04.012. Epub 2022 May 17. PMID: 35584694; PMCID: PMC9177797.Belsky, D. W., Huffman, K. M., Pieper, C. F., Shalev, I. & Kraus, W. E. Change in the rate of biological aging in response to caloric restriction: CALERIE biobank analysis. J. Gerontol. A 73, 4–10 (2018).Longo, V. D. & Mattson, M. P. Fasting: molecular mechanisms and clinical applications. Cell Metab. 19, 181–192 (2014).  Brandhorst, S. et al. A periodic diet that mimics fasting promotes multi-system regeneration, enhanced cognitive performance, and healthspan. Cell Metab. 22, 86–99 (2015).Barzilai, N., Huffman, D. M., Muzumdar, R. H. & Bartke, A. The critical role of metabolic pathways in aging. 61, 1315–1322 (2012).Fontana, L. Neuroendocrine factors in the regulation of inflammation: excessive adiposity and calorie restriction. Exp. Gerontol. 44, 41–45 (2009).

 

 

4. Supplements:

 

An easy way to protect your longevity, just by taking some key supplements. Evidence based supplement recommendations include a multivitamin, Omega 3 fatty acids, Vitamins D, C & E, Resveratrol, NAD, probiotics and zinc.  And again, here is that protocol that includes every single one of these supplements all in one place:

 

 

And here are some studies you might find helpful:

Uciechowski, P. et al. TH1 and TH2 cell polarization increases with aging and is modulated by zinc supplementation. Exp. Gerontol. 43, 493–498 (2008).Martens, C. R. et al. Chronic nicotinamide riboside supplementation is well-tolerated and elevates NAD+ in healthy middle-aged and older adults. Nat. Commun. 9, 1286 (2018).  Claesson, M. J. et al. Composition, variability, and temporal stability of the intestinal microbiota of the elderly. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA108, 4586–4591 (2011).  Eckburg, P. B. et al. Diversity of the human intestinal microbial flora. Science 308, 1635–1638 (2005).Jeong, J. J. et al. Orally administrated Lactobacillus pentosus var. plantarum C29 ameliorates age-dependent colitis by inhibiting the nuclear factor-kappa B signaling pathway via the regulation of lipopolysaccharide production by gut microbiota. PLoS ONE 10, e0116533 (2015).   Kiecolt-Glaser, J. K. et al. Omega-3 supplementation lowers inflammation in healthy middle-aged and older adults: a randomized controlled trial. Brain Behav. Immun. 26, 988–995 (2012).   De la Fuente, M. et al. Vitamin C and vitamin C plus E improve the immune function in the elderly. Exp. Gerontol. 142, 111118 (2020).  Wong, C. P., Magnusson, K. R., Sharpton, T. J. & Ho, E. Effects of zinc status on age-related T cell dysfunction and chronic inflammation. Biometals 34, 291–301 (2021).Zhang W, Li J, Duan Y, Li Y, Sun Y, Sun H, Yu X, Gao X, Zhang C, Zhang H, Shi Y, He X. Metabolic Regulation: A Potential Strategy for Rescuing Stem Cell Senescence. Stem Cell Rev Rep. 2022 Jun;18(5):1728-1742. doi: 10.1007/s12015-022-10348-6. Epub 2022 Mar 8. PMID: 35258787. (NAD)Basaga HS. Biochemical aspects of free radicals. Biochem Cell Biol. 1990 Jul-Aug;68(7-8):989-98. doi: 10.1139/o90-146. PMID: 2223017.

 

 

5. Grounding:

 

The best overview on why grounding is so powerfully anti-aging is this blog post (with a video you can watch) that I recorded for you last month… it’s a great overview of all of the medical studies on grounding and longevity so far:

The Immense Anti-Aging Benefits Of Simply Touching The Earth

 

 

 

6. Exercise:

 

Exercise boosts your muscle mass and protects your bones, both of which produces stem cells.  Studies on this you might enjoy:

Li, Y. et al. Impact of healthy lifestyle factors on life expectancies in the US population. Circulation 138, 345–355 (2018).Usas A, Huard J. Muscle-derived stem cells for tissue engineering and regenerative therapy. Biomaterials. 2007 Dec;28(36):5401-6. doi: 10.1016/j.biomaterials.2007.09.008. PMID: 17915311; PMCID: PMC2095130.Duggal, N. A., Pollock, R. D., Lazarus, N. R., Harridge, S. & Lord, J. M. Major features of immunesenescence, including reduced thymic output, are ameliorated by high levels of physical activity in adulthood. Aging Cell 17, e12750 (2018).Pollock, R. D. et al. Properties of the vastus lateralis muscle in relation to age and physiological function in master cyclists aged 55–79 years. Aging Cell 17, e12735 (2018).Chakravarty, E. F., Hubert, H. B., Lingala, V. B. & Fries, J. F. Reduced disability and mortality among aging runners: a 21-year longitudinal study. Arch. Intern. Med. 168, 1638–1646 (2008).Moore, S. C. et al. Leisure time physical activity of moderate to vigorous intensity and mortality: a large pooled cohort analysis. PLoS Med. 9, e1001335 (2012).Zhang, X. et al. Exercise counters the age-related accumulation of senescent cells. Exerc. Sport Sci. Rev. 50, 213–221 (2022).Werner, C. et al. Physical exercise prevents cellular senescence in circulating leukocytes and in the vessel wall. Circulation 120, 2438–2447 (2009).Tompkins, B. A. et al. Allogeneic mesenchymal stem cells ameliorate aging frailty: a Phase II randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial. J. Gerontol. A Biol. Sci. Med. Sci. 72, 1513–1522 (2017).

 

 

7. Sleep:

 

Just  2 hrs makes a difference… 2 hours less sleep shown to decrease stem cell activity, 2 hours more increases it:

Micheu MM, Rosca AM, Deleanu OC. Stem/progenitor cells and obstructive sleep apnea syndrome – new insights for clinical applications. World J Stem Cells. 2016 Oct 26;8(10):332-341. doi: 10.4252/wjsc.v8.i10.332. PMID: 27822340; PMCID: PMC5080640.McAlpine CS, Kiss MG, Zuraikat FM, Cheek D, Schiroli G, Amatullah H, Huynh P, Bhatti MZ, Wong LP, Yates AG, Poller WC, Mindur JE, Chan CT, Janssen H, Downey J, Singh S, Sadreyev RI, Nahrendorf M, Jeffrey KL, Scadden DT, Naxerova K, St-Onge MP, Swirski FK. Sleep exerts lasting effects on hematopoietic stem cell function and diversity. J Exp Med. 2022 Nov 7;219(11):e20220081. doi: 10.1084/jem.20220081. Epub 2022 Sep 21. PMID: 36129517; PMCID: PMC9499822.German Cancer Research Center (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, DKFZ). “A good night’s sleep keeps your stem cells young.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 18 February 2015. .

 

 

8. Cortisol:

 

Lowering your stress level lowers your cortisol, which in turn boosts stem cell function:

O’Hara, R. et al. Serotonin transporter polymorphism, memory and hippocampal volume in the elderly: association and interaction with cortisol. Mol. Psychiatry 12, 544–555 (2007).Casaletto, K. B. et al. Perceived stress is associated with accelerated monocyte/macrophage aging trajectories in clinically normal adults. Am. J. Geriatr. Psychiatry 26, 952–963 (2018).Walter, D., Lier, A., Geiselhart, A. et al. Exit from dormancy provokes DNA-damage-induced attrition in haematopoietic stem cells. Nature520, 549–552 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14131

 

9. EMFs:

 

Decrease EMF exposures, as EMFs are linked to neuroinflammation and other health issues.  For more guidance on how to navigate reducing EMF exposures (in a reasonable, real world way that doesn’t overwhelm you) hop into my next Electrosensitivity Relief Class here:

 

 

Meanwhile, some studies the might interest you:

Ownby, R. L. Neuroinflammation and cognitive aging. Curr. Psychiatry Rep. 12, 39–45 (2010).Kıvrak EG, Yurt KK, Kaplan AA, Alkan I, Altun G. Effects of electromagnetic fields exposure on the antioxidant defense system. J Microsc Ultrastruct. 2017 Oct-Dec;5(4):167-176. doi: 10.1016/j.jmau.2017.07.003. Epub 2017 Aug 2. PMID: 30023251; PMCID: PMC6025786.Lu YS, Huang BT, Huang YX. Reactive oxygen species formation and apoptosis in human peripheral blood mononuclear cell induced by 900 MHz mobile phone radiation. Oxid Med Cell Longev. 2012;2012:740280. doi: 10.1155/2012/740280. Epub 2012 Jun 14. PMID: 22778799; PMCID: PMC3384892.Leszczynski D, Joenväärä S, Reivinen J, Kuokka R. Non-thermal activation of the hsp27/p38MAPK stress pathway by mobile phone radiation in human endothelial cells: molecular mechanism for cancer- and blood-brain barrier-related effects. Differentiation. 2002 May;70(2-3):120-9. doi: 10.1046/j.1432-0436.2002.700207.x. PMID: 12076339.Kim JH, Lee JK, Kim HG, Kim KB, Kim HR. Possible Effects of Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Field Exposure on Central Nerve System. Biomol Ther (Seoul). 2019 May 1;27(3):265-275. doi: 10.4062/biomolther.2018.152. PMID: 30481957; PMCID: PMC6513191.

 

More Fabulous Medical Studies On Longevity:

 

For more journal articles that present an overview on longevity, beyond this fabulous meta-analysis mentioned at the top of this blog post, you might like:

Franceschi, C. et al. Inflammaging and anti-inflammaging: a systemic perspective on aging and longevity emerged from studies in humans. Mech. Ageing Dev. 128, 92–105 (2007).Miki C, Kusunoki M, Inoue Y, Uchida K, Mohri Y, Buckels JA, McMaster P. Remodeling of the immunoinflammatory network system in elderly cancer patients: implications of inflamm-aging and tumor-specific hyperinflammation. Surg Today. 2008;38(10):873-8. doi: 10.1007/s00595-008-3766-y. Epub 2008 Sep 27. PMID: 18820860.De Martinis M, Franceschi C, Monti D, Ginaldi L. Inflamm-ageing and lifelong antigenic load as major determinants of ageing rate and longevity. FEBS Lett. 2005 Apr 11;579(10):2035-9. doi: 10.1016/j.febslet.2005.02.055. PMID: 15811314.Li X, Li C, Zhang W, Wang Y, Qian P, Huang H. Inflammation and aging: signaling pathways and intervention therapies. Signal Transduct Target Ther. 2023 Jun 8;8(1):239. doi: 10.1038/s41392-023-01502-8. PMID: 37291105; PMCID: PMC10248351.Giunta, S., Wei, Y., Xu, K. & Xia, S. Cold-inflammaging: When a state of homeostatic-imbalance associated with aging precedes the low-grade pro-inflammatory-state (inflammaging): meaning, evolution, inflammaging phenotypes. Clin. Exp. Pharmacol. Physiol. 49, 925–934 (2022).  (2X – 4X increase in cytokine levels during aging)Clegg, A., Young, J., Iliffe, S., Rikkert, M. O. & Rockwood, K. Frailty in elderly people. Lancet 381, 752–762 (2013).

 

To a long healthy life full of resiliency!xoxox, Laura Koniver MD

 

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