Laura Koniver, MD's Blog, page 5

Your Magical Beating Heart, Made From Stars (& My Latest Painting Of It)

 

 

You have probably heard about the Golden Ratio (in math it’s known as Phi) before — it is a pervasive pattern in both nature as well as in the natural design of our human anatomy.

Even if you didn’t know it was called the Golden Ratio, you’ve probably seen figures like this one — first described by Leonardo da Vinci — that show our body’s torso proportions, limb proportions, facial proportions, finger and toe proportions, external ear proportions, etc… are all designed according to this beautiful, reproducible mathematic principle:

 

Leonardo da Vinci: The Proportions of the Human Figure (1490)

 

This ratio is a common theme in nature as well.

Just walk outside your front door and you will find that leaves, seeds, branches, shells, weather patterns and more create a beautiful spiraling pattern that echoes the proportions of the Golden Ratio.

The Golden Ratio is so much a part of nature it even found it’s way into two of the grounding films that I contributed to.  In one of them (The Grounded) I interviewed astronaut Charlie Duke.  He told me that the same reproducible, predictable mathematical principles that allowed him to safely land on the moon 230,000+ miles away, and then safely land back on earth, were what allowed him to see God’s hand in the creation of our universe.  To him, it was proof of a Divine Architect who put these principles into play.

You can watch The Grounded for free right here.

And you can watch the sequel, Heal For Free — which also gives beautiful examples of the Golden Ratio in nature — right here right now.

 

publicly available via Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International

 

But what you may not know is this: the golden ratio is not just a visually pleasing ratio for our external viewing pleasure, making beautiful spirals and other eye pleasing proportions, but it’s also found internally throughout the body and is in fact a healing ratio.

It’s true, the interior anatomy of our human body relies heavily on the golden ratio as well, with many physicians (including myself) that feel that the golden ratio is not just the ideal pattern for many of the organ systems of our bodies, but actually may be used to help treat illness and disease, once we understand it more.

Here are some fantastic medical studies that you might be interested in:

The Golden Ratio in the structure of our cardiovascular system, including the heart:  published in The International Journal of Cardiology, here.the Golden Ratio may help with regulating and even healing our cardiovascular system: published in The International Journal of Cardiology here.Golden ratio possibly helpful with diagnosis and treatment of heart disease: published in The International Journal of Cardiology here.The Golden ratio of our actual heartbeat: published in The International Journal of Cardiology here.The Golden ratio of our nasal cavity: published in the Ear, Nose and Throat Journal here.The Golden ratio of our skull: published in The Journal of Craniofacial Surgery here.The Golden ratio in our lungs: published in Chest Journal here.The Golden ratio in our limbs, fingers, and in designing how we walk: published in Neuroscience Letters here.The Golden Ratio possible help in improving gait disorders, like Parkinson’s disease: published in Sensors, here.The Golden Ratio design of our DNA: published in Interdisciplinary Sciences here.

 

 

This healing spiraling pattern is so pervasive throughout our existence that it forms the very pattern of our genetic code, our DNA.

In fact, you can pan down all the way into our cell nucleus and look at the Golden Ratio in our DNA, and you can pan out all the way out to the formation of solar systems and galaxies, and yep, the Golden Ratio awaits:

 

 

Image by ENES KOÇ from Pixabay

 

As a physician, our entire body is literally like a miracle to me… and the fact that all of it, almost every bit of it, comes from this gorgeous sacred geometric spiral of cosmic dust and stars — it’s so damn magical. 

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

Our heartbeat is pure soul energy moving through a physical muscle, strong enough that it makes it actually move — creating a beat.  Our heartbeat is our unique soul music running through our star suits — run a life spark through that body that brings the elements of stardust to life.  

Could you be any more magnificent?

Can you think of anything more beautiful?

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

Not only is your soul running its energy through the entire magical star suit you are wearing, but it is creating a rhythmic song that you can literally hear.  As a physician I could use a stethoscope to hear the heart beating more clearly, but you don’t even need that.  A heartbeat was the first sound you heard as your life began to take form, as that star suit was developing.  And everyone you’ve ever hugged, anyone you’ve ever loved, you could hear their heart beating if you just laid your ear on their chest.

And that heartbeat forms a golden ration, the diastolic phase (when. your heart muscle relaxes) and systolic phase (when your heart muscle contracts) which creates the heartbeat pattern approximates the mathematical golden ratio.

You can read about how the beat of a healthy heart closely adheres to the golden ratio, and how the further the pattern deviates from the golden ratio the less healthy the heart is functioning, in medical articles like these:

The “Golden” Pulse (European Heart Journal)The Golden Ratio Beating In Our Heart (International Journal of Cardiology)The Golden Ratio In Congestive Heart Failure (Cardiology Journal)Golden Ratio and The Heart (International Journal Of Cardiology)The Human Heart: Application of The Golden Ratio (International Journal of Cardiology)The Golden Ratio: Regulator Of Our Cardiovascular System? (International Journal of Cardiology)

Our soul energy has the ability to play a golden ration beat out of a tangible solid object — a lump of heart muscle. How does this happen?  How can the soul be captured, maintained, living, functioning within our physical bodies?

It is unbelievably amazing to me.

What does the golden ratio of my soul sound like?

What would the golden ratio of my soul look like?

In meditating on it, I had a wonderful visual image of my heartbeat releasing bursts of color into the universe — back into the stars from which my heart was initially made.  So I painted it.

I painted a background of stars, with a colorful energy pattern — your heartbeat — the golden ration playing out across time and space.

A full circle of life, in energy.  Formed from the stars, played through my body in an audible golden ration rhythm, then released in pure energy back to the stars again.  And again and again.

 

 

 

The timeline of a life — a burst of colors and sounds and wonderment, playing beat by beat by beat from the first heartbeat to the last, all in a golden ratio.

Gorgeous and one of a kind and never to be reproduced in exactly the same way — after all, different star dust makes up your heart.  Different soul energy runs through your heart muscle to make up your heartbeat.

Your heartbeat energy and my heartbeat energy are not the same, nor are any of the billions of other hearts beating on this planet, nor the hundred billion or so that have come before nor the billions that will arrive.

 

 

 

Each of us playing our unique heartbeat, our unique soul music, here like a magical flash and gone just as quickly, yet completely and fantastically ours and ours alone.

Any time you need a reminder that you are completely magnificent, place your hand on over your heart, feel the beating and close your eyes and imagine the energy, the colors, the warmth, the heat, the light, the heart field you are emanating out right now.

In fact, take one breath right now and do it.  Place your hand over your heart, close your eyes, and breathe.

If you want a visual reminder of that, you may want this painting hanging somewhere you will see it every day, maybe your bathroom or dressing area or in your kitchen or by your front door, so that when you step out into the world you remember that you contribute your own radiant energy, in the form of a heart song, with you.  Maybe in your office, so when you are at work you remember you are actually a miracle.  Maybe in your child’s room, so you remember to hold them close and listen to the miracle of their heartbeat as often as you can.

Find it here: Living Stardust (original canvas)

Every beat is magic.  Every beat is a miracle.  Every beat is unrepeatable.  For this reason I am not making prints of this artwork, it is an original canvas painting and is one of a kind.  Just like you.

To our beautifully designed star suit bodies!xoxo,Laura Koniver MD

 

The post Your Magical Beating Heart, Made From Stars (& My Latest Painting Of It) appeared first on Intuition Physician.

7 Ways To Turn Winter Solstice Into A One Day Health Reset, Which Do You Choose?

 

This weekend brings us the winter solstice (and honestly thank goodness because for my sanity I really need the days to start getting longer again) and the darkest day of the year should naturally be a time of hibernation and restoration… i.e. the best quality sleep of the year.

Sleep is so important to your long term well being that you literally can’t live without it… sleep is non-negotiable and absolutely essential for longevity. And the good news is, that no matter how bad your sleep is right now, you are only ever one night away from a good night of sleep. So maybe on this winter solstice night, we can make that night your best night of sleep all year.

It doesn’t matter how long you’ve struggled with insomnia or how big your sleep deficit is. Every single night is an opportunity to completely turn that around. Because your last night’s sleep affects your next’s night’s sleep, when you have a really poor night just think of it as increasing your sleep pressure to make it all the more easy to repair your sleep the very next night.

So right now I am going to walk you through exactly what to do on Winter Solstice — starting when you wake up through when you go to bed, to get the best sleep of your life on Dec 21st… plus tons of other fun ideas to do that day. Pick one, pick them all, and let’s make Winter Solstice a major health reset.

Let’s go:

A Winter Solstice Deep Sleep Reset:

 

 

1. Get Morning Light On Your Face

 

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

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

Another idea is to simply use a light box when you wake up.

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

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

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

You can find the lightbox I love most right here.

 

 

2. Get Grounded During The Day

 

If you can touch the earth outside for even a few minutes a day, do it. Grounding helps you establish (or re-establish) an healthier circadian rhythm, ensuring your body knows when it is day and when it is night. It also helps to decrease cortisol levels over time, which is another crucial component of high quality sleep.

If you have one rock outside you can touch, one blade of grass (even a weed!) you can touch, one leaf on a tree or bush outside, one corner of a cement driveway or garage or one square inch of sidewalk you can stand on, you can be instantly grounded. Even in the winter, you can and should get grounded outside. Here is the ultimate resource guide to grounding in the winter — yes you absolutely can ground even wearing gloves and boots, hop over here to find out how:

How To Ground Outside, Even In The Winter

The effects of grounding the human body start instantly, so there is no time too short for getting grounded — if it can only be 30 seconds, so be it. If it can be 15 min, or 30 minutes, all the better.

Want more inspiration to make a grounding practice into a daily health routine?

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

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

It’s filled with tons of easily actionable ways to stay connected to our planet and boost your health during 2025 and beyond. In fact, if there was one guide I’d want you to have to make 2025 your healthiest year yet, it would be to read this book and refer to it daily.

Meanwhile, I’ve got lots of great ideas for grounding outside — lots of free content awaiting you on:

my ticktock channelmy instagram pagemy facebook pageand my youtube channel

 

 

3. Take A Walk

 

Walking each day is the one of the best things you can do to prolong your life.

You have to move your body daily. Walking has been shown to do everything from predict better remission rates during cancer recovery to prolonging life span to simply helping deepen sleep at night, which is why it’s included in today’s list.

If I am not sleeping well at night I have to ask myself, did I truly move my body during the day? Increase your daytime activity levels and watch your nighttime sleep deepen. It’s directly proportionate.

Hop over to this blog post for easy ideas to increase your daily movement even when staying indoors in the dead of winter.

 

 

4. Decrease EMFs In Your Bedroom

 

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

If you lay in bed and feel overstimulated, I definitely think it’s worth checking out what your EMF exposures are, at least where your bed is. Because in a world where you can’t do much about decreasing your daytime exposures to radiation, decreasing them at night gives your body a precious opportunity to recover and boost your health resilience.

Ahh… the relief is literally immediate. You can actually feel your entire autonomic nervous system relax and appreciate the break from the constant onslaught of eSmog that is pervasive across the globe now. If you’d like my help walking through how to measure and reduce your EMF exposures, I would love to work with you in my upcoming Electrosensitivity Class… reserve your spot here.

And meanwhile, I’ve put together this page filled with free, actionable things you can literally do today, before hopping in bed tonight, to reduce your exposures. Feel free to share it:

Free Electrosensitivity Resources

 

 

5. Block Blue Light From Reaching Your Eyes

 

Ok I’m a mother of a 23 year old and a 21 year old (dang how the time has flown) and it’s just completely unrealistic for me to expect them not to use their computers in college and graduate school. Or use their phone to stay in touch with friends, or to use their televisions to catch up on their favorite TV shows or movies when they can catch a break.

That said, you can make the glow from these screens less disruptive to circadian rhythm simply by the compromise of wearing blue light filtering glasses, like these.

You can find blue light filtering glasses almost anywhere, but make sure they are dark yellow to orange, not light yellow, in order to block enough blue light that it actually makes a noticeable difference in your ability to fall asleep.  Start wearing them after dinner and I am certain you will notice that it’s easier to fall asleep literally that very same night.

 

 

6. Take Probiotics

 

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

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

My favorite way to reestablish a healthy gut balance is to kick start any probiotic regime with a 7 day intensive probiotic inoculation. In one week you will have dramatically improved your gut flora — I highly recommend starting with this 7 day supplement and repeat it after every time you take an antibiotic as well.

I have these waiting for you, along with all the other supplements I suggest below, in one easy Sleep Restore Protocol that you can look at right here:

Sleep Restore Protocol

 

 

7. Take Melatonin At Dusk

 

I hear all the time from folks who say that melatonin doesn’t work for them.

The most likely reason why is because they were taking them at the wrong time. You have to take melatonin as the sun is setting, not at night. This is the key!!! It must be at dusk, not 1 hour before bedtime (as usually instructed on the bottle of most melatonin supplements.)

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

It doesn’t matter if you don’t plan to go to bed for several more hours, still take it at dusk, as that is our natural rhythm of melatonin production.

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

I’ve found that patients can take a much much smaller effective dose of melatonin, sometimes as small as only 0.3 mg (instead of the usual 5 mg) as long as they are taking it right at dusk!

Again, my favorite melatonin supplements, along with the probiotic supplement I’ve recommended in this article, are all waiting for you in my Sleep Restore Protocol here. I’m sharing this with you here because I find I get so many emails asking which exact supplements I recommend (as well as a trust worthy place to order them, since there are so many places, like Amazon, where they don’t properly store supplements.

Supplements are an investment in your health, so the last thing you want to have is supplements that were not stored properly and by the time you get them in hand they are deactivated and a waste of money) so that’s why I want to be sure you know a reliable source for supplements in case you don’t already have one! If you have a different online supplement shop you love, you can still look at the protocol to write the names of each supplement down and then find all the same supplements in your preferred shop.

Sleep Restore Protocol

 

 

8. Decrease Intrusive Thoughts At Night

 

GABA is the brain’s soothing neurotransmitter.

If you are have trouble with anxiety or racing thoughts at bedtime, you might feel the calming benefits of supplementing with a product containing L-Theanine, which crosses the blood brain barrier and converts to GABA in the brain to help relax over active thoughts.

A supplement called GABA Trex is my favorite L-theanine supplement, because it is a chewable tablet and doesn’t require water, which means you can leave it on your nightstand and chew one right before bed if it is just one of those nights where your brain is feeling restless… or chew one if you wake up in the middle of the night and can’t get back to sleep.

I know this is repetitive, but like all the supplements I mention in this article, you can find my favorite GABA Trex in my in my Sleep Restore Protocol here:

Sleep Restore Protocol

 

 

9. Drink A Warm Magnesium Drink If You Still Can’t Sleep

 

Magnesium is a natural muscle relaxant, and because it helps your muscles relax and release, it is a wonderful nighttime drink. Most of us do not get enough magnesium (even when it is included in your multivitamin or you have a very healthy diet — it’s just not enough and it leaves us with tight muscles, anxiety, constipation and more.)

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

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

Sleep Restore Protocol

There, isn’t that so much better?

 

 

10. Keep A Dream Journal

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Real-Time Dialogue Between Experimenters And Dreamers During REM Sleep

Those are my tips on getting a great night of sleep this winer solstice, but I have more fun ideas for you so that you can turn the shortest day of the year into a personal retreat, a deep healing reset.

Read through the rest of these ideas and pick one additional one to add on top of your sleep tips to do this Saturday:

 Bonus Winter Solstice Ideas:

 

 

11.  Winter Solstice Soup Potluck

 

For winter solstice I always like to make a big pot of soup for dinner, cooking it all day long so that the broth is nice and rich.  To make it even easier, I highly recommend getting your friends together for a winter solstice soup potluck and ask everyone to bring a soup to share. 

It’s so fun to have lots of different bowls of soups and chilis and stews to try… as the host all you need to do is provide lots of lovely wonderful bread and some fresh organic butter to enjoy with the soup.  And like I blogged about here, connecting with others is a fabulous way to boost your health too.

 

 

12.  Choose A Word of the Year

 

This is an activity I have been doing with loved ones since I was in college 30 years ago.  Each year, as the old year draws to a close and the new year is just around the corner, I’ve picked a word-of-the-year… one that captures the intention I would like to welcome into my life.  It’s fun to discuss potential words with your friends and loved ones, and it’s really fun to hear what word each person settles on and why they selected it.   

Stuck?  For fun you can try a word generator like this one.  And this blog post by Joni Kinney walks you through choosing a word and gives lots of great suggestions.

 

 

13.  Fire Gazing

 

Fire gazing is a wonderful, contemplative practice that is so lovely to do in the winter when the warm glow of a flame feels all the more nurturing and comforting.  You can gaze at a fire in your fireplace or in a fire pit outside, but perhaps most simple of all is using a candle.

Light your favorite candle and find a comfortable spot to be seated.  Breathe in and out gazing softly at the candle for at least ten full in and out breaths. If you find meditation or breath work challenging, you may find the practice of fire gazing easier and find you enjoy it more.  I know I do.

Prefer a different form of centering meditation?  Hop over to my blog post here on simple techniques using your breath for a few moments of healing stillness, similar to fire gazing:

4 Easy Ways To Use Your Breath To Feel Instantly Better — Do Them With Me Right Now

 

 

14.  Head To A Sauna

 

As the weather is gets unbearably cold, you can use a sauna to reap very similar benefits to exercising, but without the cold air burning your lungs! 

Click here to read my blog post on the absolutely stunning amount of health benefits from sauna — almost every organ system benefits and there are even studies showing routine sauna lengthens lifespan:

Sauna & Grounding: A Win-Win Combo To Boost Your Health All Winter Long

Sauna raises the core body temperature and increases circulation very similar to exercise.  So if you can’t exercise (or, ahem, like me, don’t particularly love to in the winter) then one good alternative is sauna.  

 

 

15. Stretch

 

It’s more important to stretch in the winter time than any other time, because muscles grow cold and cold muscles are more likely to be injured, strained or torn. 

Picture a bear waking up from hibernation, stretching arms out wide and rolling their torso all around to get moving again.  If you can stretch like this all winter long you will keep your body limber and in ready condition for spring to arrive! 

Here are a few stretches to get you started. 

Neck Stretches: Slowly lower your chin toward your upper chest and hold the position for one long slow deep breath in and out. Raise your chin up and look up at the ceiling for another long slow deep breath in and out. Turn your head to the left and right, slowly looking over your shoulder as far it is comfortable, each time for a full deep breath. Repeat this sequence three times to thoroughly loosen up your neck.  Finish with a few slow head rolls in each direction.  Spinal Twist: I find that sitting in a chair makes a spinal twist much easier.  Simply sit on the edge of the seat with nice straight tall posture, and slowly reach back to one side, placing the hand on the side that is twisting back on the backrest or (if there is no backrest) on the back edge of the seat. Take a few deep breaths, allowing your hand to grab the chair and pull your spine further around with each breath, deepening the stretch.  You can also place your opposite hand on the opposing knee and pull gently to help deepen the twist further. Then slowly release and twist to the other side, holding for several breaths in the same way. Finish by standing up a few feet away from a desktop, tabletop or countertop.  Place hands on the countertop, with arms straight out. Keeping your back straight, lean over until your back is parallel to floor, so you are folding at the hips (legs straight) and forming an L.   Relax into this stretch, letting your upper back and head fold so much that it drops below the countertop level where your hands are resting.  Feel a full back stretch as you deepen into this stretch for several long breaths, then slowly release back to standing.  Arm circles: Arm circles warm up the arm and shoulder muscles, encouraging circulation and involving the shoulders, triceps, biceps and upper back.  Simply hold arms directly out to the side and circle them a few times frontwards, then backwards.  Finish by clasping hands behind your back, arms straight, and lifting gently to feel a nice stretch across the front of your shoulders.  Gently release.  Ahhhhhh!  Feel how much more at home in your body you feel after a few moments stretching.  It’s so worth it.

Want some more ideas to get you moving, even indoors, even in the winter?  Read my blog post on this here:

Easy Ways To Bring More Movement Into Your Daily Routine. Even In Winter, Even At Home.

 

 

16.  Do A Quick Energetic Release Ceremony

 

2025 is unwritten… it is aligning and formulating and adjusting and gathering energy for you as we speak.

Here is one little 5 minute ceremony that can help you free yourself up from the energy of the old in order to warm up to the awaiting future.  All it is is this: write down what you are grateful for from 2023: what you are ready to release, what you wish to bid farewell to, what you are freeing your future up from, then simply light a corner of your paper on fire with a candle and watch as the paper transforms to smoke, watching it dissipate and disappear.

Just write down whatever comes to mind, or draw a picture (when my kids were very little, they would just draw a cute little picture and have fun lighting those with the candle. No words needed). After the majority of paper has caught fire, just drop the remaining piece into a bowl of water to safely extinguish. 

This is such a sweet, safe, fun way for children to experiment with fire — with the love and support of their family all around them as they safely reflect on the past and express their wishes for the future.  Just have a bowl of water waiting and have FUN!

 

 

Here is to taking time this winter solstice to honor our bodies and nurture them, so we can wear that same body with gratitude into a beautifully awaiting 2025.  

Xoxox,Laura Koniver MD

The post 7 Ways To Turn Winter Solstice Into A One Day Health Reset, Which Do You Choose? appeared first on Intuition Physician.

7 Easy Ways To Get Grounded Through Your Feet This Winter

 

 

Most grounding advocates tell you — rather incessantly — to go outside and walk barefoot for your health.  That’s lovely when the weather is good, you have a safe pesticide-free green space to walk in, and you have time to remove shoes & put them back on.

Personally, I find that going barefoot is usually my least favorite option in the winter.

The truth is, every inch of your skin (not just your feet) is conductive and can ground your entire body from head to toe with one small point of contact, like a fingertip.  Hands are infinitely more accessible to touch safer earth surfaces, it’s so easy to wash hands after you are done grounding and much easier to keep warm as you can alternate which hand you are making contact with outside and keep the other one warm in a pocket!  More on grounding through hands in a new blog post soon — sign up to get these free healing articles into your own inbox right here:

 

Meanwhile, if you do truly love to ground through your feet, I totally get it — after all, using the natural moisture of the soles of our feet as well as the pressure of full body weight onto a grounded surface pretty much guarantees successful grounding contact — so those are good reasons to choose grounding through your feet.

How can you do that in the winter?  Easy.  Here are tons of options to comfortably and safely ground through your feet no matter what the weather is:

7 Ways To Ground Through Feet In Winter:

 

 

 Soak Your Feet In A Tub:

By far the easiest way to get grounded through your feet in the winter is to fill your bathtub with a few inches of nice warm water, add some epsom salts to it for added muscular relaxation, and sit with your feet soaking in the water.  This is easy to do for a few minutes before bed even when you don’t want to take an entire bath (and it’s more eco-friendly as well, wasting much less water and grounding your entire body just as fully as if you were submerged head to toe in the water!)  Give this a try for a nice relaxing 10 minute grounding session before bed tonight and see if your sleep is improved — just a few minutes is enough for grounding to to relax muscles, shift brain wave patterns out of stress/day mode, and get your body prepped for sleep.

@laurakonivermd

Short answer: Yes. I’ll show you with my grounding test meter #hottub #grounding #earthing #holistichealth #laurakonivermd #intuitionphysician

♬ original sound – Laura Koniver, MD

You are also grounded if you have even one fingertip or toe in a pool or a hot tub — it’s true, because their water filtration systems are grounded so the entire body of water is grounded, just waiting for you!   Watch this video I made for you a few years ago demonstrating you are grounded in a hot tub (and see tons more free grounding tips on my TikTok channel here!)

So if you are traveling this holiday season and want an easy indoor way to ground through your feet, see if your hotel has an indoor hot tub or pool, and slip your tootsies in for a few minutes.

 

2. Add Grounding Stickers To Your Shoes:

 

These grounding shoe stickers are so easy to use — stick them to shoes you already own and forget them! Get access to all of the benefits of grounding outdoors while being able to wear your favorite footwear.

I can’t think of much more eco-friendly than to continue to use shoes you already own.  And if you love them, and they support your foot function best, why not convert your favorite pair of sneakers, running shoes, hiking shoes, or even sports cleats into grounding shoes? A grounding shoe sticker is the way to go.

The sticker is fully conductive and runs the grounding energy from the earth beneath you up and around your shoe and into the sole of your shoe where your feet are. By touching the sticker with your foot, you bypass the rubber sole entirely and are basically standing barefoot on the ground, conductively speaking.

I can’t even feel these stickers on my shoes. Find them here.

 

 

3. Rest Feet On An Indoor Grounding Mat:

 

To leverage the advantages of grounding through your feet (the enhanced moisture from your foot and the full body weight pressure that secures your grounding connection) you can very easily stand on an indoor grounding mat.  Place it underfoot at your desk, at your dining table, on any floor surface where you frequently stand or rest your feet.

And this is the best grounding mat there is: eco-friendly, ethically hand crafted, locally made in the USA, using all natural and organic materials, so it is gentle and safe enough for those with chemical sensitivities as well as those with electrical sensitivities (EHS.)

I wanted to create an eco-ethically crafted mat that was hand sewn using medical grade stainless steel (that means you can wash it over and over and it will last for years) + backed with eco-friendly soft organic cotton, unbleached & chemical free so it is sensitive enough for use by those who have multiple chemical or environmental sensitivities.

This double thick, conductive grounding mat is so soft, lays flat under foot, and is plenty large enough to use on a chair, a recliner, a sofa, as a floor mat, or even to sleep on.  And because it is washable, it’s great for using in the office, at mealtimes, on the sofa, or even for your pets.  I choose awesome stainless steel conductive fabric because stainless steel lasts infinitely longer than silver based grounding tools, and because biodegradable fabric is infinitely preferable to ‘leatherette’ plastic — better for both humans and for the earth.

A phenomenal way to experience grounding with a long lasting, eco-ethically hand crafted grounding tool that can be used in dozens of different ways around your home or work space. Watch this video below for an example of how I love to use this organic grounding mat during my morning meditation:

 

 

 

 

 

4. Wear Grounding Socks:

 

What if you like to wear socks in the winter?  Almost every sock manufactured on this planet will block the grounding flow from a grounded shoe sticker or a grounding mat, because almost all socks have synthetic, non-conductive fibers, elastic, polyester, etc… or are too thick to allow grounding contact.

But it’s truly no problem to wear a sock with a grounding shoe sticker or when resting your foot on a grounding tool, you just have to make sure it is a conductive sock. Luckily there are tons of beautiful socks made with conductive materials that will ground you instantly. I’ve got three styles for you to consider:

an athletic crew sock: thick, plush, absorbent, ankle length (shown above)a thinner dress sock: thinner, sleek, comfortable, crew length… great for work or dress!and a compressive knee high sock: stretchy, warm, with the added bonus that they carry grounding all the way up your calves!

Each sock utilizes silver fibers throughout the entire sock, every inch of it, so the entire sock is conductive from top to bottom. By wearing a conductive sock with your grounding footwear or grounding tool, even if you like sleeping with socks on and you have a grounded bed surface in your bed, your entire sock will instantly encase your foot and ankle immediately in grounding energy, which will then powerfully ground your entire body from head to toe.

 

 

5. Treat Your Feet With Toe Alignment Socks:

 

My feet instantly relax with these socks on, and as a bonus not only will they improve the health and alignment of your feet but they will also allow you to ground at the same time, thanks to the fact that your toes are still bare and ready to connect with the earth outside (or while you stand on an organic grounding mat while grounding indoors.)

At the end of a long day, these are almost as good as a nice foot massage from your partner. Almost. But infinitely more practical, because I can wear them while I’m standing in the kitchen making dinner and doing the dishes, and my feet feel stretched out and free by the time I’m done.

If you are looking for a little gift to give your hardest working loved ones, some toe alignment socks and a handwritten coupon for a free foot massage is the best thing I can imagine.  It’s like physical therapy for your feet!  Available in sizes small through XL.

Activity time! Grab a pen and paper to test your foot health:

Want to know if you are getting enough barefoot time?If your feet properly aligned?If the alignment of your foot is giving you knee, hip and back pain?If the shoes you are wearing causing foot issues?And how can you reverse damage shoes have caused your feet?

With the two very simple tests that I demonstrate for you in this video, you can test your own feet right now and you’ll know the answer to all of these questions!

Here is the video on TikTok:

And here it is on YouTube:

 

A Quick Way To Know If You Are Going Barefoot Enough (YouTube)

This exercise is extremely eye opening, and you can do it in less than 2 minutes!  I highly encourage you to give it a try right now and share it with your friends by forwarding this article.

 

 

6.  Take A Walking Grounded Meditation:

 

Walking barefoot on the earth during walking meditation is the hands-down easiest way to calm your thoughts, and center your awareness down in your heart (or even better — down at your feet!)

And being grounded naturally boost vagal tone, so along with your breath work, you are exponentially calming your central nervous system, releasing stress and anxiety, calming your heartrate, lowering blood pressure, boosting your circulation and oxygenation, releasing muscle tension, brightening your mood, and giving your body a head-to-toe fresh start.  If you suffer from trauma, from insomnia, from anxiety, from depression, from anger, or from any other stressor (and who isn’t?) support your recovery and release by simply doing ten minutes of grounded walking.

So my favorite walking grounded meditation is walking a labyrinth barefoot.  Walking a labyrinth outside in the winter is a great idea if you have a grounding shoe sticker on your shoes… but part of the mindfulness for me is walking barefoot and centering my awareness on the sensation in my feet.  This winter I missed my outdoor labyrinth walking so much I decided to create a grounded labyrinth rug for indoor use, so that I could do my grounded walking meditation any time I like, day or night, during any season.

Let me show you how I use it in this video here:

Grounding Labyrinth Rug

This 5′ circular super soft chenille rug has a stainless steel ribbon sewn down the center of the entire pathway, so as you walk you are grounded from head to toe right through your feet, just as if you were walking outside on the earth.  A beautiful way to get a mindful grounded walk in… or use the rug for yoga, stretching, physical therapy, breath work, or even just taking a nap.

For more details on this unique grounding tool — or to order your own — hop over here:

 

 

7. Practice Yoga Grounded:

 

This is the best yoga mat available on earth — a 100% organic mat, generously oversized, hand crafted and certified fair trade, all natural and washable, with a stainless steel conductive grounding ribbon running the entire length of the mat down the center and two conductive grounding ribbons across the top and bottom of the mat, both which circle the mat fully around the front and back in a continuous loop.

This way, for indoor use you can simply clip on a grounding cord onto the center strip to have all three conductive ribbons fully grounded, and you can also take it outside for cord-free use directly on the earth — the blue conductive ribbons on the back of the mat will be in direct contact with the grounded surface of the earth and will fully ground all three ribbons, including the center stainless steel ribbon.

Touching any body part to any part of the conductive ribbons —  a fingertip, a toe, the heel of your foot, your knees, your forehead, your shoulder, etc.. — will instantly ground your entire body from head to toe while you are stretching, practicing yoga, meditating, doing physical therapy stretches, or simply taking a nap.

 

 

Why exercise, stretch, and nap grounded?

Grounding allows for deeper stretching as well as less soreness afterwards, as medical studies have shown that not only do muscles instantly relax and become more pliable, but they have less inflammation and less soreness afterwards. In addition, your entire body — including the joints and ligaments and tendons you are creating space in when you stretch, even your bones — are all grounded and have decreased inflammation and damage.  Grounding is whole body protective (even anti-aging!) so it’s the next step in elevating your body care and now you can do that while passively stretching or actively  exercising while grounded on this mat.

So if you are looking for an indoor way to be barefoot and grounded, make your next downward facing dog a grounded one with this fabulous all natural yoga mat.  Find more details or order yours right here:

 

I hope one of these tips on grounding through you feet — even in winter — helps you find a way to access grounding while staying comfortable and warm.  And stay tuned for my next article on tons of ways to ground through your hands, even in winter!

To your healing journey! xoxox, Laura Koniver MD

 

 

PS:   Ask Me Anything You Want In A Live Q&A

 

Grounding helps keep your immunity high, your inflammation low, reduces stress, deepens sleep, and boosts your mood, no matter what you are going through.

Sounds like the perfect winter healing plan.

But what outdoor and indoor surfaces ground you?  What is the shortest amount of time you can ground outside in the cold and still see health benefits?  How can you optimize grounding for different health goals?

Ask me and let me help you.

 

 

Join me in a monthly zoom meeting and get live support, tips, and ideas for grounding that you can use again and again and again, for the rest of your life.  No only will I answer your questions live in our meeting, but you will also get the recording in case you have to miss a session and you can even email me you questions ahead of time to make sure they are addressed.

To see all the fun we get up to in our monthly zoom meetings and sign up to join into the next one, click right here.

The post 7 Easy Ways To Get Grounded Through Your Feet This Winter appeared first on Intuition Physician.

A Simple Healing Phrase (& My Latest Painting For You)

When nothing is sure, Everything is possible.

– Margaret Drabble

Have you ever found yourself so lost in thought that it felt more real than the actual world around you?

In fact, the parts of our lives we perceive, the parts we observe, the parts we have strong positive feelings about, the parts we have strong negative feelings about, the parts we try to make sense of in our minds, the parts we are able to process, the parts we are able to release, the parts we remember, the parts we try to forget, the part where possibility lay, the part that is open to expansiveness and unlimited by the tangible, that’s what your unique life is made of.

All the things we think are real around us are only there being perceived, processed and responded to through our thoughts… so the way we think and what we choose to think about is quite possibly the most important aspect of our lives.

I wanted to paint a painting to remind myself of the unlimited possibilities of the mind and to help me reframe my thinking into its fullest potential.  A reminder of how the thoughts and feelings I have, and the decisions I make each day based on them, are the realest part of me — the part most connected to my soul and the part that is most permanent.

 

 

So I painted it.

A woman walking alone, lost in thought, the “real” world around her becoming a vague mystery and the complexity of her mind coloring her reality.

In this painting I have color, thought forms, music, organic unfoldings,  memories, timelines, movie reels that we replay, neurochemicals and hormones (such as dopamine, serotonin, adrenaline)… and above all, the reminder that everything is possible, everything is possible, everything is possible.

 

 

The stuff of our inner world that actually creates what we experience as we travel this planet, so it’s important to keep reminding yourself that everything is fluid and everything is possible.

If you could use a visual reminder to stay open to possibility, perhaps this painting can bring its warmth and potential into your living or work spaces.  You can find prints here.

 

 

Can you think of the last day you spent asking more questions than answering questions?  For many of us, that day was way back in our childhood.  Asking “I wonder….”  just:

“I wonder…”

Not answering… just asking and sitting in the wonderment of it all.  How long could you maintain that sense of curiosity? One minute? Ten minutes? One day? A lifetime?

How long can you go without creating facts and labels to satisfy yourself?

 

 

Just because we can label something, doesn’t mean we *know* it or understand it… in fact, the labeling of it usually ends our exploration of it.

Labeling collapses possibility.

Once we find a name for it, then the possibility it holds is limited to our labeling of it… the fact we think we understand about it becomes the outcome.

We can’t know all there is to know about the Universe and collapse it into a fact, that would be to completely ignore the enchantment and mystery of it all.  The beauty of it is that it is completely beyond facts and labels. Go down to a single molecule, or go up to the furthest reaches of space, and all you’ll find is more questions.

Yes, it truly is that marvelous and that magnificent.

 

 

 

 

If you can find a way to keep your neuronal interconnections growing, you literally keep your brain younger.  Adaptable. Warding off dementia and other age related changes.

Here is the way to keep your brain young: open-ended thinking.

Here is the way to age your brain: label things.

Open ended thinking keeps health and healing flowing to your brain.Ask more than answer the big questions in your life.

Ask “I Wonder…”

Here is an exercise I read about long ago in a homeschooling book. Try holding an object in your hands for ten minutes and ask nothing but questions about it.  Say it is a rock…

I wonder how much it weights…I wonder what it is made out of…I wonder how far I could throw it…I wonder how old it is…I wonder why it has a grey stripe in the middle…I wonder if it could skip across the lake…

Maybe you’ll wind up getting a fabulous idea of something to do with the rock. Maybe it will remind you of a childhood memory.  Maybe you will pick up some chalk and play hopscotch with it with your kids.

How long can you continue to ask questions?  Not searching for an answer, just keeping open to inspiration.

If you are having trouble, ask your kids to pick something up and ask questions about it, they will come up with stories and jokes and mysteries about it.  No doubt they will put you to shame, as children retain the ability to wonder, to not be satisfied with a one word label. Labels and facts are very uninteresting to children. Dreaming and story telling and wondering… that’s where the growth is.

Asking open ended questions, slowly but surely, reminds you to rejoin the path of wonder.  And every time I remember to focus on this, I grow less interested in answers, and more interested in possibilities.

To the mystery of it all!

xoxox,Laura Koniver, MD

 

The post A Simple Healing Phrase (& My Latest Painting For You) appeared first on Intuition Physician.

How Connecting With Others Can Boost Your Health This Holiday Season

 

If you are gathering with folks you love over the upcoming holidays, you can actually boost your health by connecting to those you love.  And if you are alone or not able to connect with others in the upcoming days, there are lots of ways to still boost your health through the power of connection — practical tips on that in a minute.

But first, let’s review exactly what the health benefits are of connecting with others — something to keep in mind if you feel yourself growing irritated or annoyed or triggered by your loved ones over the holidays.  It may very well be worth overlooking the little things in order to savor a deep connection with someone who wants to be in your life.

You can already intuitively feel that connecting with others boosts your health.

Think of how much better do you feel after a warm hug from a friend, the comforting squeeze of a partner’s hand, or the joy of laughing around a dinner table with your children. Sharing space with a loved one for even one minute is enough to completely turn a bad day into a good one.

But it’s not just something you intuitively know, it’s something that has been medically studied and shown to actually protect you health. Medical studies have even shown that increasing your connection to others not only improves your health, it actually increases your longevity.

Connecting to others is so important that it even helps provide anesthesia to pain… that’s how much physical closeness helps.  A medical study (published in 2018 in the Proceedings Of The National Academy of Sciences) showed that simply holding hands provided significant analgesia during pain.

Physical touch calms brain activity during distress, which helps explain why it reduces the brain’s perception of pain, a study (published in 2006 in Psychological Science) found. In this study, brain activity was measured via a functional MRI while partners held hands with their spouse — hand holding significantly reduced level of brain activity during painful stimuli.

Another study, published in 2019 in Pain Management Nursing, found that simply massaging a patient’s hand reduced pain and provided longer pain free intervals in critically ill patients in a surgical intensive care unit.

Physical touch even has the power to calm your heart rate and respiratory rate, as well as lower blood pressure. A study published in 2017 in Scientific Reports found when evaluating patients who had a pain event while being monitored via an ECG… patients holding their partners hands had significant analgesia which resulted in lowered blood pressure, lowered heart rate response, and a lowered respiratory rate.

physical touch has the power to reduce painphysical touch has the power to prolong pain free intervals (even in critically ill patients)physical touch has the power to calm brain activity during distressphysical touch has the power to lower heart rate and blood pressurephysical touch has the power to calm respiratory rate

 

 

Even without physically touching others, just having friendships with others helps you live longer.

There was an interesting medical review, published in 2010 in PLOS Medicine, that looked at over 300,000 participants in over 145 medical studies pertaining to social relationships and mortality.  This review indicated that no matter your age, sex, health status, disease status, or cause of death, having social ties (like friends, family, neighbors and colleagues) increased your survival rate by 50%.

This protective health boost is dramatic, meaningful and significant.  The study also found that having low social interactions is actually a risk factor for death similar to other well known health risk factors. Having less social interactions was equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day, equivalent to being an alcoholic, more harmful than not exercising, and twice as harmful as obesity.

It makes sense that if having social ties protects your mortality, having low social relationships drops it.  And that’s exactly what researchers found in a medical study published in 2015 in Perspectives on Psychological Science.  They found that isolation, loneliness and living alone each increases likelihood of mortality rates by 29%, 26% and 32%, respectively.

This may seem upsetting if you feel alone, but it actually doesn’t matter if you have friends reaching out to you as much as if you reach out to others.  You are in control of the positive health benefits of connecting to others, because it is initiating contact with others that is so healing.

So the good news is this — even if you feel lonely, by reaching out to support others, you actually boost your own health, regardless of if you are getting the same support in return.  It turns out that it is the giving of social support, not the receiving of social support, that really benefits your health, at least as far as your brain is concerned.

 

 

Connecting with others is so important it actually helps you to live longer.  

There was an interesting medical review, published in 2010 in PLOS Medicine, that looked at over 300,000 participants in over 145 medical studies pertaining to social relationships and mortality. This review indicated that no matter your age, sex, health status, disease status, or cause of death, having social ties increased your survival rate by 50%.

It turns out, having friends, family, neighbors and colleagues improve our odds of survival by 50%. This protective health boost is dramatic, meaningful and significant. The study found that having low social interactions is actually a risk factor for death similar to other well known health risk factors:

Equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a dayEquivalent to being an alcoholicMore harmful than not exercisingTwice as harmful as obesity

It makes sense that if having social ties protects your mortality, social isolation drops it. And that’s exactly what researchers found in a medical study published in 2015 in Perspectives on Psychological Science. They found that social isolation, loneliness and living alone each increases likelihood of mortality rates by 29%, 26% and 32%, respectively.

Ans the good news is this — even if you feel lonely, by reaching out to support others, you actually boost your own health, regardless of if you are getting the same support in return. It turns out that it is the giving of social support, not the receiving of social support, that really benefits your health, at least as far as your brain is concerned.

 

 

Researchers postulate that one reason being connected to others is protective to our health is that giving support actually helps mitigate the body’s stress response.

In a study published in 2019 in Psychosomatic Medicine, researchers used functional MRI imaging to examine what happens to the brain when one receives social support, and when one gives social support.  It turns out that key areas of the brain are restructured to protect you against stress — but only when you are giving social support, not receiving it.

Receiving support was not related to these beneficial, protective brain changes, but giving it was associated with significantly reduced activation of the brain in areas of stress response.  In other words, giving support to others might actually buffer your experience of stress, reducing the impact that trauma and stress have on your health by supporting areas of the brain that would typically activate during stressful situations.

So since it is your reaching out to connect (as opposed to waiting for others to reach out to you) that is so beneficial, today I wanted to share with you a few different ways you can boost your connections to others, and in turn boost your own health.

Here we go:

8 Ways To Boost Your Health By Boosting Connection:

 

 

 

1. Connect with yourself:

 

Ok so this first one isn’t about connecting to others, it’s about feeling more in touch with yourself. That’s because the best connection you can ever foster — first and foremost — is your connection to yourself.  Evaluating your own desires, fears, truths, boundaries, triumphs, needs daily allows you to walk through your days feeling centered and intentional, which is the basis for deep containment and alignment with your personal values and morals. It also helps you spark ideas about what new emerging interests you may have, that will help you find new friendships, classes and groups to join (more on that later in this article.)

A study on self compassion, published in 2021 in Health Psychology, found that folks who reported extending compassion to themselves during times of suffering not only had better psychological outcomes, but also protected their heart health.  Researchers used ultrasound technology to look at participants carotid artery health and measured carotid artery IMT (a well documented measure of cardiac disease.) They found that participants who practiced self compassion actually had healthier IMT measurements, lower rates of subclinical cardiovascular disease and lower over all cardiac risk factors, even after adjusting for all other standard cardiac risk factors.

To constantly be evaluating and re-evaluating and falling in love with who you are in each present moment takes courage.  It means you might change course.  It means your relationships might need to evolve.  It means you might outgrow old things.  It means you might find out new things about yourself and your desires for your future. It’s worth it.

Certainly you have changed from just a year ago. Certainly you have changed from just a month ago. Certainly you have changed from just a day ago. Certainly you have changed from just an hour ago. To find out who you are right now, and what might serve you best moving forward, you can cultivate some intentional practices that will help connect you to you, by:

making gratitude listswriting in a daily journalwriting your memoirs or autobiographywriting letters to your younger selfwriting letters to your future selfmeditatingreleasing clutter and old items in your living space that no longer bring you joyreleasing clothing items that do not make you feel beautiful in the current momentstarting a creativity journal (my favorite is It’s Never Too Late To Begin Again, by Julia
Cameron)

 

 

2. Connect through texting:

 

While medical studies show that social media can dramatically decrease mental health, direct texting is different, allowing you to stay in touch with people who are meaningful to you in real life, in real time.

Make a list of one, two, three, or twenty people you love and miss, and make a point to start each day off with a text to each, touching base with them.  Their responses throughout your day will help you feel connected. Repeat daily.

 

 

 

 

3. Connect through writing letters:

 

Yep, snail mail is still a thing. Write a letter to someone you love and send it in the mail.  You can even include a folded up self addressed envelop and a request that they write you back!

For a special gift to my son, when he graduated high school a few years ago, I asked family and friends to each write him a letter, then collected them all and put them into a special binder.  He told me that opening it and reading the letters, page after page, was the best gift I had ever given him.

Hate to write? Of course calling over the phone is a classic way to reach out to someone, or you can FaceTime or use any other video or streaming app to stay connected to everyone you want to.

 

 

4. Connect by organizing a get together:

 

Because we know, from the studies mentioned above, that initiating social interactions is actually more beneficial than receiving them, this is the perfect excuse to invite others to come together. It doesn’t have to be fancy, you don’t need to clean your home or cook a stressful meal in order to gather a few friends together.

Host a book club, a potluck dinner, a group picnic at a local park, a beautiful night under the stars around a fire pit at a campsite, an after dinner walk with a group of neighbors, a cocktail party after dinnertime, a costume party on the weekend, a prayer circle that meets in a coffee shop, an art night or a craft night in your backyard, a sewing or knitting circle in your garage, a karaoke or music night gathered on your front porch, there is no limit to the ways you can bring people together.

 

 

5. Connect through playing games:

 

Something as simple as playing a game together can boost your connections to others easily.  Card games, board games, golf, frisbee, tennis, video games, gaming apps, hide and seek, tic tac toe, water balloon toss, nerf gun battles… basically any game you think to play can bring people together in endless fun ways.

If you have in person loved ones, you can play cards or a board game together, but even if you live alone, you can connect to others through online platforms. From playing games together through app like Words With Friends or Chess) or even buying multiple copies of the same puzzle and shipping to a few of your friends or family members for a grand Puzzle Race — see who can finish it first! — there are plenty of fun ways to stay playful, even if virtually, connected with those that you love.

For more fun ideas on how to introduce more play into your life, and to take an easy quiz that will tell you your own favorite “play style”, hop over to this article I wrote for you here:

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

 

6.  Connect through healing touch:

 

When you were a kid, did you ever walk around in your socks, rubbing them on a carpet repeatedly so you could sneak up to your sibling and shock them? (Or was that just me, LOL? My poor older brother.)

If you’ve ever shocked someone when touching them, you know this on a large scale — you could literally feel the large quantity of electrons passing between the two of you that caused the shock.

On a smaller scale, this is happening with every interaction, all day long.

Because no two bodies are 100% completely balanced and neutral in respect to each other, electrons are always flowing one way or another when you touch someone else, or they touch you.

Although the amount of electrons transferring is such a small amount relative to the amount of electrons in a human body, I believe this is in part why healing touch is so powerful.  When you “donate” some of your electrons to someone who is in worse physical condition than you (such as someone in pain, with an inflammatory process going on) you are supporting them in many ways.

I think this is part of what massage therapists, physical therapists, acupuncturists and other healers are doing when they touch you. Even your pet can donate electrons to you when it snuggles up with you while you are sick or have a chronic condition bringing you down.

For more on the healing power of grounded touch (and ways to use it to help your loved one too!) read this article I wrote for you:

What To Know Before Bringing Grounded Touch To Your Loved Ones

 

 

7. Connect to your pet:

 

Don’t forget to stay connected to your beloved pet!  As I talked about in this article, pets actually prolong your life!

The Health Benefits Of Having A Pet

Snuggles, love, company — your life is absolutely enhanced by your fur baby and that special connection you share.

Spend extra time each day getting into a routine of connecting with them at least morning and night. From walking your dog to playing with your cat to letting your guinea pig or bird out of his or her cage for a little play time, enjoy spending time with someone who absolutely loves you unconditionally.

 

 

8. Connect through a class or group:

 

From online classes you can join into from the comfort of your own home, to in-person gatherings, one easy way to meet new people and make new social connections is to join a group or sign up for a class.

From a meditation or breath work class, to an exercise class, to a cooking class, to learning a new language at your local community college, to taking classes to learn a new musical instrument, to taking voice lessons, and so much more… there are lots of classes just waiting for you to sign up for.

Or, instead of signing up for a class, you might consider just joining an established group. There are lots of ways to find a new group to join in person, for example, Meetup ( meetup.com ) Meetup can search your local community by city or zip code to find you anything from a local improv group, a toastmasters group, a yoga or tai chi meet up, a group to go running or biking with, a coffee lovers meet up, a local foodies group, a hiking club, a book club, a wine club, a gardeners club, a beekeepers club… you name it, if you have even a passing interest in an activity, there’s a club for that!

 

 

Stay open to others.

Yes, even if the person next to you at your thanksgiving table is getting on your last nerve because they chew with their mouth open, or uncomfortable political debates arise, or you just feel yourself regressing around your family and falling back into roles you have long since outgrown… stay open.

These people love you.  The people in your life can help boost your health just by being in your life, period.

Just say a gratitude toast, clink glasses, and soak it in while you can.  Here are a few to pull out of your back pocket when you feel holiday tensions creeping in around the table:

After a good dinner, one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relations. — Oscar Wilde

“Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.” – William Arthur Ward

“I do not think of all the misery, but of the glory that remains. Go outside into the fields, nature and the sun, go out and seek happiness in yourself and in God. Think of the beauty that again and again discharges itself within and without you and be happy.” – Anne Frank

Happy Thanksgiving, and thank you for being a part of my world as well…

With much love and gratitude!Xoxo, Laura Koniver MD

 

The post How Connecting With Others Can Boost Your Health This Holiday Season appeared first on Intuition Physician.

Using Grounding To Fix Your Circadian Rhythm & Get Deeper Sleep This Winter

 

 

Winter is literally designed to ensure you repair your sleep.  Any sleep deficit you build up over the course of the year gets this one, perfect chance to be eliminated.   The entire world grows darker, your body is gearing for hibernation, and fixing any sleep issues, getting back into a health day/night pattern, is exactly what you need to emerge this spring feeling better than ever.

Most people believe that our circadian rhythm is dependent on sunlight to set that pattern for us, but scientists have actually known since 1970 that the earth’s energy field has as much, if not more, to do with our sleep/wake pattern than even the sun.  Which is so important to understand because in the winter, it’s not as important if you get that bright sunlight on your face as it is that you keep grounding to the earth.

I created a video to walk you through this, what the medical literature has to say about grounding and circadian rhythm, I hope you enjoy it and don’t let one day of this upcoming winter go by where you are not fixing your sleep deficit and deeply restoring your health.

 

Grounding & Circadian Rhythm:

 

 

Grounding & Circadian Rhythm (click to watch on YouTube) 

 

 

How do we know the earth is every bit as important as the sun in helping us sleep well at night?

Researchers built two underground isolation chambers that completely cut the occupants off from any evaluation of time passing. Both chambers were light proof, sound proof, temperature controlled bunkers, with one difference… while one was allowed to be connected to the electromagnetic field of the earth, one was completely shielded so that all connection was severed between the earth’s energy and the occupants of the bunker.

Looking at several hundred test subjects for up to a two month period of time, researchers looked at sleep wake cycles and found that participants who were in the bunker that still allowed the earth’s field to reach them kept patterns that were close to a 24 hour rhythm.  They also found that every single test subject that became unsynchronized was in the bunker that was completely shielded from the earth’s energies — every single one of them — and no one from the sun-only shielded bunker became unsynchronized like this.

Researchers then experimented with introducing different electrical and magnetic fields into the shielded bunkers, and only one restored normal sleep/wake patterns… you guessed it, the one that is our earth’s natural energy, the Schumann frequency.

 

 

From this the researchers postulated that it is actually the frequency of the earth that regulates our natural biorhythms.  So then researchers began to study the effect that grounding has on supporting sleep.  In the first study to directly examine grounding and sleep, researchers looked at twelve participants who had a history of sleep disturbances. They measured cortisol levels and tracked sleeping patterns while these patients slept grounded every night on a grounded mattress pad for two months.  After eight weeks, the cortisol production of every single one of these patients had normalized. Every single one.

Cortisol is really important, signaling to our body in the morning (when levels are highest) that it is day… and then slowly decreasing all day long while levels of melatonin rise by evening to signal to the body that it is night.

It’s really crucial to have normal cortisol pattern and a normal melatonin pattern or your sleep becomes disrupted.  Here is what they look like, dancing in concert with each other:

 

 

The bottom line:Sun exposure regulates melatoninEarth exposure regulates cortisol

 

You can take high quality melatonin supplements (in addition to getting AM sun exposure, or using a light box each morning, plus wearing blue light blocking glasses after 6 pm each evening) and for regulating cortisol, the good news is that grounding can correct this in just a few weeks’ time.

This is why one of the original applications of grounding was to treat jet lag to get you quickly into the new day/night rhythm of the new time zone you’ve travelled to. That just shows you how resilient the human body is.

Beyond normalizing cortisol levels, being grounded directly calms and supports your brain wave patterns so that when you are sleeping grounded you are spending more time in restorative alpha brain wave patterns. The feeling of having had a good night’s sleep where you had time to process and release the events of the previous day and have rested your body helps you wake up with a new possibility, a fresh start.  It also decreases muscle tension immediately, helping relax you into sleep more easily as well as decreasing symptoms of restless leg syndrome, grinding of the teeth, and other issues with muscle tension interrupting sleep at night.

 

 

Good quality sleep is so good for our brain it is actually protective against dementia. A recent study reported that even when study participants were sleeping but the quality was decreased (meaning they weren’t cycling through the really healthy sleep patterns that include alpha brain waves) than they had a five times increased risk of dementia.  Five times higher dementia risk!

And it’s really not about the length of time spent sleeping, because in that study, many of the participants who had the longest time in bed actually had the poorest sleep quality. Even though they might be lying in bed for 10 hours it didn’t increase the time that they spent in those relaxing brain waves patterns.

Study after study has shown that a lack of sleep does everything from causing weight gain, to shortening our lifespan (click over here for me to tell you more about that incredibly important medical study,) to increasing the risk of dementia.

There’s no way around it.  You have to get good quality sleep.  And grounding can help you do that. You might not have the luxury of sleeping longer, but you can make the sleep you do get be of the very highest quality.  And be sure to take time to head outside and connect with the earth every single day, striving for 30 minutes a day but knowing that any amount of time is better than none, truly.  Hop over here to read through all of the medical studies on grounding that show benefit based on how long you are grounded:

These Medical Studies Show How Grounding Benefits Build Over Time

 

For example, one study published in Healthcare in 2022, found that Alzheimer’s Dementia who slept grounded significantly improved their sleep quality by an average of  62%.  And you can actually do both — boost melatonin by supplementing your melatonin levels, and normalize your cortisol by  sleeping grounded, for synergistic sleep benefits.

To your body, grounding is like plugging into the most soothing, comforting heartbeat of the earth.  As you plug back into the earth’s global electrical circuit, you become an open flowing part of this DC energy circuit, not a closed container, and you feel yourself come back into balance.

 

 

If you are interested in sleeping grounded, I have developed the only eco-friendly, organic, hand sewn, USA made, artisan grounding tools in the world, and they are waiting for you right here.

Other grounding tools are made overseas in factories out of the cheapest possible materials. Leatherette? Yeah that’s just vinyl that will sit in a landfill for 500+ years. Silver fibers running through cheap polyester? That synthetic fabric don’t biodegrade either and will be sitting right next to the leatherette in your landfill, and meanwhile the silver fibers in the polyester are the most minimal percentage possible to still ground the fabric, and they stop working quickly as they wear and tear easily. so those sheets head to the landfill even faster.

How’s that for treating Mother Earth? Not so great.  I figure if we are reaching out to the earth for healing support, we probably should be using eco-friendly materials when we do.  I have them in my Grounding Boutique right here:

Eco-friendly for people, eco-friendly for the planet.

 

xoxoxo,Laura Koniver MD

 

The post Using Grounding To Fix Your Circadian Rhythm & Get Deeper Sleep This Winter appeared first on Intuition Physician.

Holiday Deadline & Unique Gifts They Won’t Get From Anyone But You

 

 

Ned some unique gift ideas?  Want to be sure you are giving a thoughtful gift that no one else will give the people in your life you love the most?

Giving the gift of a positive, uplifting healing tool is one of the kindest gifts you could ever give someone you care deeply about.  Read on to browse through some of my favorite ideas, or simply click here to peruse the entire shop full of uplifting, supportive holistic healing gifts!

 

 

 

 

14 Unique Gifts They Won’t Get From Anyone Else:

 

 

1. For The Skeptic

 

Do you have anyone on your holiday list that you would love nothing more than to introduce grounding to?

If so, this is the most uplifting, reinforcing, positive way to do it: an easy read that will get them excited to give grounding a try gift packaged with a 4 month grounding tracker — so they can see direct evidence of their healing results!

The Earth Prescription will fill their mind, heart and spirit with exciting ideas on how to get grounded to support their health goals best, whether they want to sleep better, get more energy, reduce inflammation, support mood, or even boost their creativity.  All based on over 50 years of medical studies on grounding and how it puts the body into a healing state.  Head to toe.

My goal in writing this book is to get your loved ones aching to go outside and to inspire them with hundreds of ideas on what to do once they get there.  Even if it’s winter, even if they live in a city, even if they are skeptical or resistant to holistic medicine.  This hands on book and journal guide can bring grounding to life for anyone, anywhere.

Signed books available in English, Japanese, Russian and Korean:

 

 

2.   For The DIYer

 

This DIY grounding ribbon allows Do-It-Yourselfers to simply and easily add grounding to any item under the sun! Know someone who has a unique grounding need, or simply wants create their own grounding surface?

With this kit they can create a strong ground along a sofa, a chair, across a rug, on bedding or blankets, on a pet bed, on a pet collar, up a leash, across a yoga mat, along a tent floor, inside a sleeping bag… the sky is the limit.

My conductive grounding ribbon is made from 100% medical grade stainless steel and is super conductive… but cuts and sews just like regular ribbon.  Maybe you want to make a grounding tool for them yourself?  If you love to sew, heck if you can just safety pin a ribbon onto fabric, you can turn anything into a grounding gift…  order it by the foot right here:

 

 

3.  For The One Who Takes Care Of Everybody Else

 

You know the one, the one you love so much and see take care of everything for everybody all the time, while they grow more tired and more stressed out?  That’s the one that needs this gift.

 

Imagine gifting them three nights away at a nature filled, beautiful retreat center where your favorite holistic physician (that’s me, right?!?!) is waiting to care for and nurture them.  It’s literally the place I personally go when I need a time of renewal — my personal sanctuary, the Well Of Mercy Retreat Center.  This is where I wrote every word of my book (The Earth Prescription) and have come on a monthly basis for many many years for my own soul journey and strength.

I’m letting you in on my private getaway spot, 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.  My next retreat is this March — perfect for gifting this holiday season, you can save their spot right here, today:

 

 

4. For The One Who Needs To Put Down Their Phone…

 

…but won’t.  Or the one who truly need to sleep with a cell phone nearby, whether for work, safety, or to stay connected to the loved ones who matter most.  For them, the best gift is this free-standing EMF barrier that can be put anywhere, like next to their bed at night. By simply placing their cell phone behind it, their nighttime radiation exposures drop by 99% instantly.  You can even slip in a decorative photo into the frame to disguise the shielding material and personalize this gift with a favorite picture to remind them of you.Not just for phones, you can place baby monitors, DECT phone stations, Alexa and other blue tooth appliances behind it to keep your electronics fully functional but dramatically decreasing your radiation exposures.  Improve sleep, decrease radiation exposures, and let them still have the luxury of their cell phone by their bed for ease of use in emergencies with this unique Bedside Shield!  Choose from 5″ x 7″ inch horizontal size (adequate for most cell phones) or 8.5″ x 11″ vertical size (best for most Alexa, baby monitor, phone bases and other appliances.)

 

 

5.  For The Health Nut

 

This is the best yoga mat available on earth — a 100% organic mat, generously oversized, hand crafted and certified fair trade, all natural and washable, with a stainless steel conductive grounding ribbon running the entire length of the mat down the center and two conductive grounding ribbons across the top and bottom of the mat, both which circle the mat fully around the front and back in a continuous loop.

This way, for indoor use you can simply clip on a grounding cord onto the center strip to have all three conductive ribbons fully grounded, or you can take it outside for cord-free use grounding directly on the earth.

Touching any body part to any part of the conductive ribbons —  even a fingertip, a toe, the heel of your foot, your knees, your forehead, your shoulder, etc.. — will instantly ground your entire body from head to toe while you are stretching, practicing yoga, meditating, doing physical therapy stretches, or simply taking a nap.

 

6. For Those Who Are Electrosensitive And Don’t Know It

 

If you know someone who is using a standard grounding mat from another company and is feeling worse because of it, insisting they will be okay it’s just a “Grounding Detox” — well, we know that it is actually dirty electricity reaching their grounding tool and that you can instantly make them feel better just by switching to a PureGround cord.

Even if they love their grounding tool — all they need to do is plug their current standard ground cord right into this PureGround extension cord and voila!  No more AC current running up the line making them feel weird.

Each extension cord has the same powerful, 360 degree shielding completely around the entire length of the cord, plus a built-in AC current stopping filter in the prong so that you can filter out any dirty electricity and prevent it from running up to your ground cord.

Wish the PureGround EMF filtering and shielded ground cord was twice as long?  Three times as long?  Four?  Five?  There is no limit to how many extension cords you can plug together to extend the length of their PureGround cord (or yours).

 

7. For Your Favorite Couple

 

Want to gift a grounding tool to a couple?  That’s easy — the grounding topper is the perfect gift.  Just slipping it on like a fitted sheet, everyone in the bed is instantly grounded from head to toe. This grounding topper is made from medical grade stainless steel cotton blend fabric, no inferior silver fibers that degrade with body oils or washing, and offers an edge to edge grounding surface with deep, 16″ pockets with elastic on each corner to secure easily on any depth mattress.  And hey, it doesn’t hurt that grounding improves blood flow, relaxes muscles, boosts libido and even may even help increase fertility too… after all, your favorite couple ever would make the cutest kids ever too!

 

 

 

 

8.  For The One Who Travels A Lot

 

 

Possibly the best gift ever, this grounding tote is the perfect way to gift a travel friendly grounding set for your very favorite people. They can use it at home every day, and when traveling they can simply throw their grounding cord or grounding stake into the tote and take it right along with them!  This 7″ x 9″ tote is perfectly sized for a hand or foot to rest on it (or even slip inside of it!) yet small enough to easily travel with — slips right into your suitcase, purse or backpack when you head out of town.  When you want to ground, just take out the cord out of your pouch, clip the cord onto any edge of the tote and you will be immediately grounded.  Then when you are headed back home, or to work, or a friend’s house, or on a trip… just place your grounding cord and outlet checker back into the bag, velcro it shut and you are all set to take it with you so you can ground no matter where you might roam!

A phenomenal way to experience grounding inexpensively if you are new to grounding, without sacrificing longevity of your product, or quality of the materials.

 

9.  For The Athlete

 

These grounding shoe stickers are so easy to use — stick them to your favorite running or walking shoes once and forget them!  Get access to all of the benefits of grounding outdoors while being able to wear your favorite footwear.

This sticker conducts the grounding energy from the earth beneath you up and around your shoe, into the sole of your shoe where your feet are.  By touching the sticker, it’s as if you bypassed the rubber sole entirely and are standing barefoot on the ground.

Perfect for use during outdoor activities such as walking, hiking, running, jogging, tai chi, yoga, playing outdoor sports, strength training and more, as grounding enhances recovery after intensive eccentric exercise and decreases wear and tear on the body:

 

 

10. For The One Who Lives Too Far Away

 

If you know someone who loves to cuddle, and especially if you can’t be there in person this holiday season, you can still wrap them up in a snuggle… and support their health and healing by grounding them, too!

Like sending a warm hug in the mail, my grounding hot water bottle is the ultimate winter gift. Your loved ones can fill it with hot water and sleep grounded all night long, placing it by their feet to warm cold toes, hugging it to their heart or abdomen for comfort, placing it behind their neck to relax tight muscles…

…and in the warmer months it will be every bit as useful, because the water bottle can be filled with ice water to apply soothing grounding relief to ice sore muscles and joints, as a cold pack over the forehead to relieve headaches, and much much more:

11. For The Germaphobe

 

I love these silver cloths so much that they were my “Oprah moment” a few years ago with my girlfriends — we were each to bring one item that we could not live without to share, and my germ-busting silver cloth was an easy no-brainer.  Clips easily onto any backpack or purse so that it’s always at the read, or slips into any pocket or bag.

I’ve noticed a dramatic decrease in the amount of illnesses that I pick up throughout the cold and flu season since keeping my silver cloth clipped to my purse.  It’s the perfect gift so your favorite germ-avoidant friends can still get out there and navigate those holiday parties this winter without fear!

 

12. For The Outdoorsman

 

Gorgeous, one-of-a-kind, handcrafted solid wood grounding sticks that use recycled copper to ground your hands as you walk.  A great way to be able to wear protective shoes or orthotics and still be grounded, as well as those who are avid outdoor explores that like to hike.  Stay  connected to the earth even all bundled up in jackets and with warm socks and hiking shoes on too!Also perfect for those with mobility issues —  simply stay seated and use the grounding stick to touch the ground, effortlessly putting the body into a healing state right through your hands, not your feet.

 

13.  For The Pet Lover

 

Don’t get me started on how much I love my dogs.  And if you know a cat lover or anyone else who feels that they basically loves animals at least as much (okay, probably more) than they love humans, here is the perfect gift — a grounding mat to make sure their dog or cat is getting enough grounding time in even when it’s cold outside too.  Not only is grounding comforting to your pet, but when they are grounded you can actually get grounded too, just by petting them!  Heck yes — kiss my pup and get grounded?  Win-Win!An eco-ethically crafted mat that is hand sewn using medical grade stainless steel (that means you can machine wash it over and over and it will last for years — perfect for pets!) + backed with eco-friendly soft organic cotton, dye free & chemical free so it is sensitive enough for use for the tiniest, most delicate animals (or the roundest softest cutest ones like my pug Poppy.)  Available in. 3 colors: Ivory, Green and Grey, you can check them out right here:

 

 

14.  For The One Who Could Use A Little More Support

 

While I can’t join in everyone’s holiday parties  in person , I can be there, waiting in a one-on-one private Zoom consultation, to offer some health care advocacy for someone you love who needs that direct support.  Available in 30 min or 50 min sessions, you can book a consultation for them (or send this email to your loved ones with a strong hint that this is what you would like — giving them a time and date and ask them to book it for you!) and know that I will do everything I possibly can to provide support to their healing goals of 2025.

 

Holiday Deadline: November 15th 

 

Sadly, the cut off date for all of my hand sewn, custom crafted healing tools is this Friday!

So please place your order this week to ensure your healing tools are delivered in plenty of time to celebrate the holidays with all of your beautiful loved ones.

To the vibrant health of all of your very favorite people!

xoxox,Laura Koniver MD

 

The post Holiday Deadline & Unique Gifts They Won’t Get From Anyone But You appeared first on Intuition Physician.

Easy Tips To Help You Navigate Holiday Party Foods and Drinks

 

November is upon us, and with Thanksgiving and Winter Holidays running towards us back to back, that usually means lots of celebratory foods we might not normally choose to eat and drinks we might not routinely drink.  It also means folks are stressing about their weight.  More on that at the end of this blog post.

Whether holiday parties are stressing you out, picking out the perfect gift, figuring out how to afford travel (damn it’s so expensive!) or balancing social commitments, even joyful holidays can be stressful ones. Most people report that being surrounded by rich holiday foods, alcohol, impulse eating, and weight gain during the holiday season adds a significant amount of stress as well.

So as holiday season gets underway I wanted to give you a few tips on how to navigate this tricky but wonderful time of comfort food, decadent desserts, and celebratory toasts.

If you want to stick with foods that are healthy for your body… or, at the very least, you don’t want to undo all of the benefit you’ve gotten from the grounding, the fresh air, the decent sleep and good supplements you take, here are the party foods to look for.

You are almost guaranteed to find at least one of these five treats at any holiday party.

My 5 Favorite Party Foods:

 

 

1) Chocolate!

 

Shown to support heart and brain health, women who consume chocolate on a regular basis actually have a lower body mass index then those who don’t!  Want more info on this?  Hop over here to read this free article I wrote for you:

Chocolate To Boost Metabolism

 

 

2) Caffeinated coffee or tea

 

Warding off dementia, Alzheimers and depression, even decreasing your risk for developing diabetes… a warm cup of coffee or tea is the perfect way to indulge at a party, guilt free, especially if you can skip the sugar and whipped cream.  Want to read more about the health benefits of coffee?  Here you go:

Higher Coffee Intake Linked To Lower Mortality Rates

 

 

3) Berries

 

Super-powered antioxidants that decrease inflammation throughout your body, enjoy the berries found on that fresh fruit party platter!  Best dessert yet?  Snag that chocolate covered strawberry and enjoy every single luscious bite… combining #1 with #3 on this list!

 

4) Nuts

 

Medically proven to lower heart disease risk and boosting energy without causing any weight gain, find the nut bowl and dig in!

 

 

5) Deviled Eggs

 

I saved the best for last. My favorite party food of all time is deviled eggs. I truly believe in eating eggs regularly… the protein and healthy fats are second-to-none.  Although traditional recipes for deviled eggs double their calorie content, it’s still so much less calorie dense (at about 160 calories per deviled egg) than almost anything else that you can find at a holiday dinner. And the protein is sure to keep you much more full and decrease your desire to fill your stomach with empty carbs and inflammation-inducing sugar.

If you are truly concerned about keeping calorie counts low, you can always offer to be the one to bring deviled eggs to the party!  Using this recipe for a skinny deviled egg (which uses only some of the yolks and substitutes in greek yogurt instead of mayo) each deviled egg is only 37 calories and has 3.8 grams of satisfying, delicious protein!

 

 

But what if is the holiday drinks that are stressing you out?

 

It is possible to buffer your liver — at least a little — during your next holiday toast.

Drinking wine occasionally has enjoyed mixed health reviews, with some studies reporting cognitive benefits from wine (although for those you can simply take resveratrol supplements, which I highly recommend) but many more concerning studies reporting that alcohol increases cancer risk and decreases life span, well outweighing the benefits in my opinion.

And because holiday parties typically mean a lot of driving out and about to attend these parties, my first recommendation is just not to drink at all!

 

But if you are going to toast the holidays with a drink or two… and you have a safe ride with a designated driver lined up… there are supplements that may help that drink be less toxic to your dear old liver.

Plus, we can’t ignore that even if the recommendation is not to drink at all, there are 140 millions folks (in America alone!) that regularly drink and about 16 million of them have an alcohol abuse disorder.

So instead of ignoring a huge population of folks that need health support, I share this information in an effort to help their body stay as healthy as possible while they seek the help and support they need to stop drinking.  Not providing support for folks who drink is like not providing birth control for those who are sexually active. It’s irresponsible to insist the only option available is total abstinence.

So let’s start with the basics:

Alcohol is metabolized into acetaldehyde by your liver.

If acetaldehyde sounds familiar, you might be be thinking of it’s cousin, the more well known autopsy chemical: formaldehyde.

Yep, they are related, and just like formaldehyde is well known to pickle human tissue, acetaldehyde isn’t very gentle on your liver or body either.

Both are harsh chemicals known to cause cancer.

If you are drinking one drink an hour or more, you can expect to feel cumulative effects of acetaldehyde build up as your body can’t metabolize the acetaldehyde quickly enough: heart racing, pounding, nausea, dehydration, dizziness.

You might call that feeling buzzed or tipsy, but what that really is is the beginning of acetaldehyde poisoning.

 

 

How can we protect ourselves from this dangerous metabolite?

 

Our body can use n-acetyl-l-cysteine (NAC) + thiamine (B1) to protect against the acetaldehyde effects until our liver can further break the acetaldehyde down into carbon dioxide and water.  You can also add on Vitamin C to help keep the l-cysteine activated and working more efficiently as well.

A combination of l-cycsteine, thiamine and vit C (NAC + B1 + Vit C) taken before you start drinking, may help block the toxic effects of the acetaldehyde can help your body recover more easily from those holiday gatherings.  There was a very encouraging animal study that showed l-cysteine and thiamine was protective and prolonged the life of rodents who were fed toxic doses of acetaldehyde.  Only 10% of animals initially survived a large dose acetaldehyde challenge without supplementation, but 100% initially survived with L-cysteine + thiamine on board! A 100% survival rate in the face of toxic aldehyde poisoning is quite incredible.

Of course, no pharmaceutical company out there has poured money into researching how to reduce harm in humans from alcohol… so there are no large human medical studies to back this up. Because these supplements are safe, cheap, and readily available, pharmaceutical companies know they are unlikely to make a huge profit from pour large amounts of funding into examining how these vitamins might help us preserve and protect our health.

But on the upside, exactly because they are safe and inexpensive and readily available, this means you have easy access to these supportive healing supplements too. Woot! But be sure to stick with very high quality supplements made in fantastic, reputable pharmacy grade nutraceutical facilities.

To help, I have a Party Detox Protocol waiting for you right here in my trusty online dispensary (along with other protocols like Gut Healing Protocol and Immune Boosting Protocol) so that you can be sure you have pharmacy grade, super pure quality supplements on hand to support your body if you do decide to drink this holiday season.

 

 

All in all, taking L-cysteine (NAC), thiamine (B1) and Vitamin C before drinking might help spare your body from some portion of the the ill effects of the toxic acetaldehyde.

These supplements are not a recommendation to make drinking safe… rather to make drinking less toxic.  Remember, no supplement can make drinking safe. And no supplement can make drinking and driving the slightest bit safe… or morally correct… or legal.

If you are going to drink… don’t drive. Ever.

 

 

What else can you do to help support healthy eating at holiday events?

 

Recognize your emotional eating style.

 

What I’ve noticed as a physician examining health outcomes for the past 20 years, is that most people eat emotionally instead of nutritionally.  To help you focus on what matters most (which is consuming nutrient dense foods) I have developed a list of the top 7 emotional eating patterns I see over and over again.

If you can develop insight into why you eat the way you do, you can reframe your mind away from eating emotionally and instead eat intellectually, based on what supports your health best.  Stop worrying so much about what treats and indulgences you crave and instead figure out why you crave them.

Look over this list to see if you can identify which emotional eating pattern describes you best and get some tips on working with your eating patterns in a healthier way:

The 7 Main Eating Styles:

 

 

 

FOOD IS SECURITY:

For some folks, food represents safety and security.  So when they are not eating, deep fears of safety and panic may arise.  There may be worries about food scarcity and needing to know when and what your next meal will be.

If you notice you overeat, it may be an attempt to feel secure and reassured that all is well. You may crave comfort foods such as casseroles and home cooking and baked goods, or foods that remind you of childhood.

The solution: focus on portion sizes &/or reach for high fiber foods.

If you tend to eat in this way, it is perfectly reasonable to feed your body foods that comfort it, but the goal is to have reasonable portion sizes.

Another way to provide comfort and a deep contentment to security-type eaters is to include lots and lots and lots of fiber, so that you feel full, satiated, safe and grounded for longer.

 

 

FOOD IS PLEASURE:

For some folks, food isn’t just about the nutrition, food is about the entire experience… the smell, the feel, the texture, the flavor, the delight in chewing it.  Food is pleasurable and even sensual.

If this is your style of eating, you may find you are eating because you want the feel of food in your mouth, not because you are hungry.  You may also find a love/hate relationship with food… often pleasure-seeking eaters have Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) or lactose intolerance or celiac disease and need to find a balance between the foods they love and the foods their body hates.

The solution: focus on pleasurable drinks you enjoy &/or consider chewing gum.

One great idea for pleasure eaters is to enjoy drinking (coffees, teas, water, fresh squeezed juices…) or chewing gum throughout the day to experience that sensual pleasure of having sensations in the mouth without necessarily reaching for food.

 

 

FOOD IS POWER:

For some folks, eating food is an issue of control or power.  These control-based eaters are the ones most likely to try to strictly monitor what they eat and submit to horrible restrictive diets that they absolutely hate!

Healthy eating is not about what you restrict but rather what you eat.  So for people who see food as power, diets are particularly offensive because restricting food intake feels like a loss of power or a loss of control… two things these types of eaters hate!

The solution: pick easily digestible foods &/or develop a grazing habit (eating smaller quantities more often.)

One great idea for control-based eaters is to drop the diets and instead focus on choosing easily digestible foods like soups and pureed foods that are easier on your digestive organs (liver, pancreas, stomach) and eating frequent, smaller meals, grazing all throughout the day instead of a few large meals.

Focusing on high quality foods and eating them more often, instead of restricting quantity, tends to be kinder than dieting and allows your body to feel healthier.

 

 

FOOD IS LOVE:

Some folks enjoy food that releases endorphins and provides a rush, similar to falling in love.  Any of my blog readers who know how often I blog about eating chocolate will recognize… yep, I’m this type of eater.

Romantic foods like oysters, red wine, chocolate… it’s not so much that these eaters care about food, they care about the way the food makes them feel.  Dieting feels atrocious for love-seeking eaters and restricting food is equivalent to being dumped by a lover.

The solution: eat with others &/or make your place setting beautiful.

One great idea for love-seeking eaters is to focus on enjoying the people you are eating with more than the food — if possible, avoid eating alone (which typically leads to over-eating) and instead really focus on making eye contact with the people you are enjoying a meal with, the conversation.  This will allow you to enjoy what foods you do eat — for example, appreciating a lovely glass of wine and a small piece of dark chocolate instead of three plates full of food you do not actually love or even enjoy.

Or, focus just as much on creating a lovely place to eat as you do what foods you are eating. Add a fresh flower to your kitchen table, bring your lunch outside to eat in sunshine the middle of a work day, or browse thrift stores for beautiful, vintage glasses and plates to mix and match, or hand sew some beautiful cloth napkins to use as a treat.

 

 

FOOD IS JOY:

Some people just love to enjoy a wide variety of foods and this is one of their wonderful strengths with eating.  My son is a joy-based eater and he is amazing at trying foods most children wouldn’t even think of… exotic foods, spicy foods, unusual vegetables that kids traditionally hate.  He is open to trying it all and gets so excited as he watches me prepare an interesting meal from scratch.

Because joyful eaters are so open to food, dieting or any type of food restriction at all feels like a huge loss and may even bring deep sorrow.

The solution: increase food variety &/or make meals from scratch.

My favorite recommendation for joy-based eaters is to focus on trying new and unusual foods to satisfy their cravings, instead of over-eating a large quantity of boring foods.  Keep a stash of different spices, hot sauces and healthy seasonings to make each bite taste exciting and invigorating instead of needing larger portions to bring joy.

Joy eaters also tend to actually enjoy preparing food, so if you are a joy eater build time into your day to focus on trying new recipes, browsing new cookbooks, and preparing healthy meals from scratch.

Joy-based eaters can feel guilty that food brings them joy… but I say this is a strength!  Food brings joy!  So choose your food selection based on how much joy it brings you and do not waste your time (or calories) on food that does not bring joy.

 

 

FOOD IS ENERGY:

People that eat for energy may need lots more fats and more protein than other eaters.  These people have so much energy output that each bite needs to be calorie dense and their body knows this.

Although they get the message to feel bad about eating fats and eating dense protein (after all, eating a light salad seems so much more social acceptable) this leaves them feeling depleted and desperate for a pick-me-up later.  They may even feel a sense of shame about eating something that their vegetarian friend (who is not an energy-eater) would not touch.

The solution: focus on protein and fat rich foods.

Instead of feeling guilty, energy eaters need to know that they are honoring their bodies by feeding their brain lots of healthy fats (organic whole fat dairy/butter/yogurt or coconut, avocado, fish oil…) and protein (organic, ethically produced meats, organic eggs, organic nuts and nut butters.).

My daughter is an energy eater, and I can honestly say that she is one of the healthiest people I know. Glowing skin. Gorgeous hair. Beautiful radiant soul.  People who are energy eaters need to feel good about their intuitive food choices that make them crave protein.  Not everyone can feel their best on a strictly vegetarian diet, so please be non-judgmental towards yourself or your friends who need to eat ethically sourced meat routinely.

 

 

FOOD IS OPTIONAL:

Does this sounds familiar: forgetting to eat, not making the time to eat, feeling dizzy because you skipped lunch, reaching for a quick snack and then getting right back to work, forgetting to hydrate?  Some folks find it easy to ignore their bodies needs or lose track of time.

While sporadic eaters are usually not so bothered by going on a diet, the danger here is that they often don’t take the time to eat healthily so that when they do eat, they are ravenous and don’t make smart food choices, or they don’t even get the needed nutritional building blocks at all.

The solution: schedule meals & drink water often.

The best thing these eaters can do is to schedule in their eating so that they eat at regular intervals, stay hydrated, and make great food choices… instead of not eating all day long and then binging in a drive through on the way home.

Another great tip is to carry water with you at all times, so that even if they you not taking the time to properly eat, you stay well hydrated.  This goes for everyone, but to sporadic eaters most of all.

 

 

I hope these insights helps give you an idea of how to work with your own unique energy flow, cravings and health goals. Hopefully this article gave you some great tips on which party foods to gravitate to, how to detox after a holiday toast, and how to recognize the motivation behind your eating style.

 

To your resilient, natural health!xoxox, Laura

The post Easy Tips To Help You Navigate Holiday Party Foods and Drinks appeared first on Intuition Physician.

East Tips To Help You Navigate Holiday Party Foods and Drinks

 

November is upon us, and with Thanksgiving and Winter Holidays running towards us back to back, that usually means lots of celebratory foods we might not normally choose to eat and drinks we might not routinely drink.  It also means folks are stressing about their weight.  More on that at the end of this blog post.

Whether holiday parties are stressing you out, picking out the perfect gift, figuring out how to afford travel (damn it’s so expensive!) or balancing social commitments, even joyful holidays can be stressful ones. Most people report that being surrounded by rich holiday foods, alcohol, impulse eating, and weight gain during the holiday season adds a significant amount of stress as well.

So as holiday season gets underway I wanted to give you a few tips on how to navigate this tricky but wonderful time of comfort food, decadent desserts, and celebratory toasts.

If you want to stick with foods that are healthy for your body… or, at the very least, you don’t want to undo all of the benefit you’ve gotten from the grounding, the fresh air, the decent sleep and good supplements you take, here are the party foods to look for.

You are almost guaranteed to find at least one of these five treats at any holiday party.

My 5 Favorite Party Foods:

 

 

1) Chocolate!

 

Shown to support heart and brain health, women who consume chocolate on a regular basis actually have a lower body mass index then those who don’t!  Want more info on this?  Hop over here to read this free article I wrote for you:

Chocolate To Boost Metabolism

 

 

2) Caffeinated coffee or tea

 

Warding off dementia, Alzheimers and depression, even decreasing your risk for developing diabetes… a warm cup of coffee or tea is the perfect way to indulge at a party, guilt free, especially if you can skip the sugar and whipped cream.  Want to read more about the health benefits of coffee?  Here you go:

Higher Coffee Intake Linked To Lower Mortality Rates

 

 

3) Berries

 

Super-powered antioxidants that decrease inflammation throughout your body, enjoy the berries found on that fresh fruit party platter!  Best dessert yet?  Snag that chocolate covered strawberry and enjoy every single luscious bite… combining #1 with #3 on this list!

 

4) Nuts

 

Medically proven to lower heart disease risk and boosting energy without causing any weight gain, find the nut bowl and dig in!

 

 

5) Deviled Eggs

 

I saved the best for last. My favorite party food of all time is deviled eggs. I truly believe in eating eggs regularly… the protein and healthy fats are second-to-none.  Although traditional recipes for deviled eggs double their calorie content, it’s still so much less calorie dense (at about 160 calories per deviled egg) than almost anything else that you can find at a holiday dinner. And the protein is sure to keep you much more full and decrease your desire to fill your stomach with empty carbs and inflammation-inducing sugar.

If you are truly concerned about keeping calorie counts low, you can always offer to be the one to bring deviled eggs to the party!  Using this recipe for a skinny deviled egg (which uses only some of the yolks and substitutes in greek yogurt instead of mayo) each deviled egg is only 37 calories and has 3.8 grams of satisfying, delicious protein!

 

 

But what if is the holiday drinks that are stressing you out?

 

It is possible to buffer your liver — at least a little — during your next holiday toast.

Drinking wine occasionally has enjoyed mixed health reviews, with some studies reporting cognitive benefits from wine (although for those you can simply take resveratrol supplements, which I highly recommend) but many more concerning studies reporting that alcohol increases cancer risk and decreases life span, well outweighing the benefits in my opinion.

And because holiday parties typically mean a lot of driving out and about to attend these parties, my first recommendation is just not to drink at all!

 

But if you are going to toast the holidays with a drink or two… and you have a safe ride with a designated driver lined up… there are supplements that may help that drink be less toxic to your dear old liver.

Plus, we can’t ignore that even if the recommendation is not to drink at all, there are 140 millions folks (in America alone!) that regularly drink and about 16 million of them have an alcohol abuse disorder.

So instead of ignoring a huge population of folks that need health support, I share this information in an effort to help their body stay as healthy as possible while they seek the help and support they need to stop drinking.  Not providing support for folks who drink is like not providing birth control for those who are sexually active. It’s irresponsible to insist the only option available is total abstinence.

So let’s start with the basics:

Alcohol is metabolized into acetaldehyde by your liver.

If acetaldehyde sounds familiar, you might be be thinking of it’s cousin, the more well known autopsy chemical: formaldehyde.

Yep, they are related, and just like formaldehyde is well known to pickle human tissue, acetaldehyde isn’t very gentle on your liver or body either.

Both are harsh chemicals known to cause cancer.

If you are drinking one drink an hour or more, you can expect to feel cumulative effects of acetaldehyde build up as your body can’t metabolize the acetaldehyde quickly enough: heart racing, pounding, nausea, dehydration, dizziness.

You might call that feeling buzzed or tipsy, but what that really is is the beginning of acetaldehyde poisoning.

 

 

How can we protect ourselves from this dangerous metabolite?

 

Our body can use n-acetyl-l-cysteine (NAC) + thiamine (B1) to protect against the acetaldehyde effects until our liver can further break the acetaldehyde down into carbon dioxide and water.  You can also add on Vitamin C to help keep the l-cysteine activated and working more efficiently as well.

A combination of l-cycsteine, thiamine and vit C (NAC + B1 + Vit C) taken before you start drinking, may help block the toxic effects of the acetaldehyde can help your body recover more easily from those holiday gatherings.  There was a very encouraging animal study that showed l-cysteine and thiamine was protective and prolonged the life of rodents who were fed toxic doses of acetaldehyde.  Only 10% of animals initially survived a large dose acetaldehyde challenge without supplementation, but 100% initially survived with L-cysteine + thiamine on board! A 100% survival rate in the face of toxic aldehyde poisoning is quite incredible.

Of course, no pharmaceutical company out there has poured money into researching how to reduce harm in humans from alcohol… so there are no large human medical studies to back this up. Because these supplements are safe, cheap, and readily available, pharmaceutical companies know they are unlikely to make a huge profit from pour large amounts of funding into examining how these vitamins might help us preserve and protect our health.

But on the upside, exactly because they are safe and inexpensive and readily available, this means you have easy access to these supportive healing supplements too. Woot! But be sure to stick with very high quality supplements made in fantastic, reputable pharmacy grade nutraceutical facilities.

To help, I have a Party Detox Protocol waiting for you right here in my trusty online dispensary (along with other protocols like Gut Healing Protocol and Immune Boosting Protocol) so that you can be sure you have pharmacy grade, super pure quality supplements on hand to support your body if you do decide to drink this holiday season.

 

 

All in all, taking L-cysteine (NAC), thiamine (B1) and Vitamin C before drinking might help spare your body from some portion of the the ill effects of the toxic acetaldehyde.

These supplements are not a recommendation to make drinking safe… rather to make drinking less toxic.  Remember, no supplement can make drinking safe. And no supplement can make drinking and driving the slightest bit safe… or morally correct… or legal.

If you are going to drink… don’t drive. Ever.

 

 

What else can you do to help support healthy eating at holiday events?

 

Recognize your emotional eating style.

 

What I’ve noticed as a physician examining health outcomes for the past 20 years, is that most people eat emotionally instead of nutritionally.  To help you focus on what matters most (which is consuming nutrient dense foods) I have developed a list of the top 7 emotional eating patterns I see over and over again.

If you can develop insight into why you eat the way you do, you can reframe your mind away from eating emotionally and instead eat intellectually, based on what supports your health best.  Stop worrying so much about what treats and indulgences you crave and instead figure out why you crave them.

Look over this list to see if you can identify which emotional eating pattern describes you best and get some tips on working with your eating patterns in a healthier way:

The 7 Main Eating Styles:

 

 

 

FOOD IS SECURITY:

For some folks, food represents safety and security.  So when they are not eating, deep fears of safety and panic may arise.  There may be worries about food scarcity and needing to know when and what your next meal will be.

If you notice you overeat, it may be an attempt to feel secure and reassured that all is well. You may crave comfort foods such as casseroles and home cooking and baked goods, or foods that remind you of childhood.

The solution: focus on portion sizes &/or reach for high fiber foods.

If you tend to eat in this way, it is perfectly reasonable to feed your body foods that comfort it, but the goal is to have reasonable portion sizes.

Another way to provide comfort and a deep contentment to security-type eaters is to include lots and lots and lots of fiber, so that you feel full, satiated, safe and grounded for longer.

 

 

FOOD IS PLEASURE:

For some folks, food isn’t just about the nutrition, food is about the entire experience… the smell, the feel, the texture, the flavor, the delight in chewing it.  Food is pleasurable and even sensual.

If this is your style of eating, you may find you are eating because you want the feel of food in your mouth, not because you are hungry.  You may also find a love/hate relationship with food… often pleasure-seeking eaters have Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) or lactose intolerance or celiac disease and need to find a balance between the foods they love and the foods their body hates.

The solution: focus on pleasurable drinks you enjoy &/or consider chewing gum.

One great idea for pleasure eaters is to enjoy drinking (coffees, teas, water, fresh squeezed juices…) or chewing gum throughout the day to experience that sensual pleasure of having sensations in the mouth without necessarily reaching for food.

 

 

FOOD IS POWER:

For some folks, eating food is an issue of control or power.  These control-based eaters are the ones most likely to try to strictly monitor what they eat and submit to horrible restrictive diets that they absolutely hate!

Healthy eating is not about what you restrict but rather what you eat.  So for people who see food as power, diets are particularly offensive because restricting food intake feels like a loss of power or a loss of control… two things these types of eaters hate!

The solution: pick easily digestible foods &/or develop a grazing habit (eating smaller quantities more often.)

One great idea for control-based eaters is to drop the diets and instead focus on choosing easily digestible foods like soups and pureed foods that are easier on your digestive organs (liver, pancreas, stomach) and eating frequent, smaller meals, grazing all throughout the day instead of a few large meals.

Focusing on high quality foods and eating them more often, instead of restricting quantity, tends to be kinder than dieting and allows your body to feel healthier.

 

 

FOOD IS LOVE:

Some folks enjoy food that releases endorphins and provides a rush, similar to falling in love.  Any of my blog readers who know how often I blog about eating chocolate will recognize… yep, I’m this type of eater.

Romantic foods like oysters, red wine, chocolate… it’s not so much that these eaters care about food, they care about the way the food makes them feel.  Dieting feels atrocious for love-seeking eaters and restricting food is equivalent to being dumped by a lover.

The solution: eat with others &/or make your place setting beautiful.

One great idea for love-seeking eaters is to focus on enjoying the people you are eating with more than the food — if possible, avoid eating alone (which typically leads to over-eating) and instead really focus on making eye contact with the people you are enjoying a meal with, the conversation.  This will allow you to enjoy what foods you do eat — for example, appreciating a lovely glass of wine and a small piece of dark chocolate instead of three plates full of food you do not actually love or even enjoy.

Or, focus just as much on creating a lovely place to eat as you do what foods you are eating. Add a fresh flower to your kitchen table, bring your lunch outside to eat in sunshine the middle of a work day, or browse thrift stores for beautiful, vintage glasses and plates to mix and match, or hand sew some beautiful cloth napkins to use as a treat.

 

 

FOOD IS JOY:

Some people just love to enjoy a wide variety of foods and this is one of their wonderful strengths with eating.  My son is a joy-based eater and he is amazing at trying foods most children wouldn’t even think of… exotic foods, spicy foods, unusual vegetables that kids traditionally hate.  He is open to trying it all and gets so excited as he watches me prepare an interesting meal from scratch.

Because joyful eaters are so open to food, dieting or any type of food restriction at all feels like a huge loss and may even bring deep sorrow.

The solution: increase food variety &/or make meals from scratch.

My favorite recommendation for joy-based eaters is to focus on trying new and unusual foods to satisfy their cravings, instead of over-eating a large quantity of boring foods.  Keep a stash of different spices, hot sauces and healthy seasonings to make each bite taste exciting and invigorating instead of needing larger portions to bring joy.

Joy eaters also tend to actually enjoy preparing food, so if you are a joy eater build time into your day to focus on trying new recipes, browsing new cookbooks, and preparing healthy meals from scratch.

Joy-based eaters can feel guilty that food brings them joy… but I say this is a strength!  Food brings joy!  So choose your food selection based on how much joy it brings you and do not waste your time (or calories) on food that does not bring joy.

 

 

FOOD IS ENERGY:

People that eat for energy may need lots more fats and more protein than other eaters.  These people have so much energy output that each bite needs to be calorie dense and their body knows this.

Although they get the message to feel bad about eating fats and eating dense protein (after all, eating a light salad seems so much more social acceptable) this leaves them feeling depleted and desperate for a pick-me-up later.  They may even feel a sense of shame about eating something that their vegetarian friend (who is not an energy-eater) would not touch.

The solution: focus on protein and fat rich foods.

Instead of feeling guilty, energy eaters need to know that they are honoring their bodies by feeding their brain lots of healthy fats (organic whole fat dairy/butter/yogurt or coconut, avocado, fish oil…) and protein (organic, ethically produced meats, organic eggs, organic nuts and nut butters.).

My daughter is an energy eater, and I can honestly say that she is one of the healthiest people I know. Glowing skin. Gorgeous hair. Beautiful radiant soul.  People who are energy eaters need to feel good about their intuitive food choices that make them crave protein.  Not everyone can feel their best on a strictly vegetarian diet, so please be non-judgmental towards yourself or your friends who need to eat ethically sourced meat routinely.

 

 

FOOD IS OPTIONAL:

Does this sounds familiar: forgetting to eat, not making the time to eat, feeling dizzy because you skipped lunch, reaching for a quick snack and then getting right back to work, forgetting to hydrate?  Some folks find it easy to ignore their bodies needs or lose track of time.

While sporadic eaters are usually not so bothered by going on a diet, the danger here is that they often don’t take the time to eat healthily so that when they do eat, they are ravenous and don’t make smart food choices, or they don’t even get the needed nutritional building blocks at all.

The solution: schedule meals & drink water often.

The best thing these eaters can do is to schedule in their eating so that they eat at regular intervals, stay hydrated, and make great food choices… instead of not eating all day long and then binging in a drive through on the way home.

Another great tip is to carry water with you at all times, so that even if they you not taking the time to properly eat, you stay well hydrated.  This goes for everyone, but to sporadic eaters most of all.

 

 

I hope these insights helps give you an idea of how to work with your own unique energy flow, cravings and health goals. Hopefully this article gave you some great tips on which party foods to gravitate to, how to detox after a holiday toast, and how to recognize the motivation behind your eating style.

 

To your resilient, natural health!xoxox, Laura

The post East Tips To Help You Navigate Holiday Party Foods and Drinks appeared first on Intuition Physician.

These Medical Studies Show How Grounding Benefits Build Over Time

 

 

 

I get asked all the time if there is any time too short to get grounded.   To that I say no.

Grounding is as instantaneous as flipping on a light switch. When you turn on a light, the entire room is illuminated — that’s what happens when one cell in your body becomes grounded: your entire body is grounded. Because your body is instantly grounded at first contact, there is really no time too little for grounding.  Muscles instantaneously decrease in tension, the brain immediately shifts into more healing brainwave patterns, and our autonomic nervous system gets immediate support.  So I never want you to miss an opportunity to be grounded just because it’s might only be for 30 seconds while you stop at a street crossing, or lean against a tree while you take a break on a hike, or pull a weed from your garden.

I get asked all the time if there is any amount of time too long to get grounded.  To that I also say no.

Until we invented plastics just over a hundred years ago, and just like it is natural for all plants and animals living on this earth, it’s a natural thing to be grounded 24/7.  The body starts functioning optimally as all of our organ systems get supported better, and we shift out of fight-and-flight into rest-and-digest mode.  There is no amount of time too long to spend in an optimal healing state.  So just as no time is too short (you are grounded in less than a millisecond) you stay grounded as long as you have contact with the earth outside or an indoor grounding tool, even if hours and hours have gone by.

 

 

So today I created a list of medical studies you can directly read in the medical literature for more details on what the immediate benefits of grounding is, and how the build over time.  These are not all the studies on grounding there are — it’s a select few that highlight some of the important benefits of grounding and I put them in order of how long each study had the participants grounded.

At the end of this list of studies I also include a video I made for you running through these benefits (in case you’d rather hear me walk you through these studies instead of print them out and read them) and I also include a video I made on the longer term benefits that I believe are likely — the longevity benefits — for those that make grounding a lifelong habit.

Here we go!

Grounding Benefits Over Time:

 

 

 

In Seconds:

 

Cohesion with Schumann Resonance 

Michael P, Saroka KS. “Human quantitative electroencephalographic and schumann resonance exhibit real-time coherence of spectral power densities: Implications for interactive information processing.” J Signal Inform Process. 2015;06(02):153-64.

Synchronization with Schumann Resonance

Cherry NJ. Human intelligence: The brain, an electromagnetic system synchronised by the Schumann resonance signal. Med Hypotheses. 2003;60(6):843-4.

Boosted Healing Brain Waves

Zahari ZL, Mustafa M, Rahman NAB, Abdubrani R, Zain MZ. An effectiveness of EEG signal based on body earthing application. Int J Adv Sci Eng Inform Technol. 2023;12(2022):2322-6.

Decreased Muscle Tension

Chevalier G, Mori K, Oschman JL. The effect of Earthing (grounding) on human physiology. European Biology and Bioelectromagnetics. 2006;2(1):600–621

Boosted Skin Perfusion

Koniver Laura, Grounding and Skin Repair: The Power of DC Energy. Curr Res Cmpl Alt Med. 2023; 7: 197. In Minutes:

 

Improved Vagal Tone

RA Passie, KK Doheny, YB Gordin, HC Hinssen, CA Palmer Electrical grounding improves vagal tone in preterm infants Neonatol, 112 (2) (2017), pp. 187-192

Boosted Heart Rate Variability

G Chevalier, ST. Sinatra Emotional stress, heart rate variability, grounding, and improved autonomic tone: clinical applications Integr Med, 10 (2011), p. 3

Improved Mood

Chevalier G. The effect of grounding the human body on mood. Psychol Rep. 2015;116(2):534-42.

Decreased Blood Viscosity

G Chevalier, ST Sinatra, JL Oschman, RM. Delany Earthing (grounding) the human body reduces blood viscosity—a major factor in cardiovascular disease J Altern Complement Med, 19 (2) (2013), pp. 102-110Brown, Richard and Chevalier, Gaétan (2015) Grounding the Human Body during Yoga Exercise with a Grounded Yoga Mat Reduces Blood Viscosity. Open Journal of Preventive Medicine, 05 (04). pp. 159-168. ISSN 2162-2477

Lowered Muscle Damage

P Sokal, Z Jastrzębski, E Jaskulska, K Sokal, M Jastrzębska, L Radzimiński, et al. Differences in blood urea and creatinine concentrations in earthed and unearthed subjects during cycling exercise and recovery Evid Based Complement Alternat Med, 2013 (2013), p. 382643

Cardioprotection

Elhalel, G., Price, C., Fixler, D. et al. Cardioprotection from stress conditions by weak magnetic fields in the Schumann Resonance band. Sci Rep 9, 1645 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-36... Hours:

 

Decreased Muscle Soreness

Brown D, Chevalier G, Hill M. Pilot study on the effect of grounding on delayed-onset muscle soreness. J Altern Complement Med. 2010;16(3):265- 73.

Boosted Blood Flow

Chevalier, G. , Melvin, G. and Barsotti, T. (2015) One-Hour Contact with the Earth’s Surface (Grounding) Improves Inflammation and Blood Flow—A Randomized, Double-Blind, Pilot Study. Health, 7, 1022-1059.

Decreased Inflammation

Oschman JL, Illnesses in technologically advanced societies due to lack of grounding (earthing), Biomedical Journal, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bj.2022.10.... Days:

 

Improved Wound Healing

Shaner S, Savelyeva A, Kvartuh A, Jedrusik N, Matter L, Leal J, Asplund M. Bioelectronic microfluidic wound healing: a platform for investigating direct current stimulation of injured cell collectives. Lab Chip. 2023 Mar 14;23(6):1531-1546. doi: 10.1039/d2lc01045c. PMID: 36723025; PMCID: PMC10013350.

Improved Sleep

M Ghaly, D Teplitz The biologic effects of grounding the human body during sleep as measured by cortisol levels and subjective reporting of sleep, pain, and stress J Alternative Compl Med, 10 (5) (2004), pp. 767-776

Lower Cortisol

M Ghaly, D Teplitz The biologic effects of grounding the human body during sleep as measured by cortisol levels and subjective reporting of sleep, pain, and stress J Alternative Compl Med, 10 (5) (2004), pp. 767-776

Improved Muscle Recovery

Müller E, Pröller P, Ferreira-Briza F, Aglas L, Stöggl T. Effectiveness of grounded sleeping on recovery after intensive eccentric muscle loading. Front Physiol. 2019;10:35.D Brown, G Chevalier, M. Hill Pilot study on the effect of grounding on delayed-onset muscle soreness J Altern Complement Med, 16 (3) (2010), pp. 265-273Brown R, Chevalier G, Hill M. Grounding after moderate eccentric contractions reduces muscle damage. Open Access J Sports Med. 2015 Sep 21;6:305-17. doi: 10.2147/OAJSM.S87970. PMID: 26443876; PMCID: PMC4590684.

Boosted Immune Function

Mousa HA-L, Prevention and treatment of COVID-19 infection by earthing, Biomedical Journal, https://doi.org/ 10.1016/j.bj.2022.08.002In Weeks:

 

Anti-Aging Benefits

Koniver, Laura, Grounding: An Anti-Aging Breakthrough? Trends Gen Med. 2024; 2(3): 1-7.

Improved Sleep Quality

Lin CH, Tseng ST, Chuang YC, Kuo CE, Chen NC. Grounding the body improves sleep quality in patients with mild Alzheimer’s disease: A pilot study. Healthcare. 2022;10(3):581.

Dereased Anxiety

Park H-J, Jeong W, Yu HJ, Ye M, Hong Y, Kim M, et al. The effect of earthing mat on stress-induced anxiety-like behavior and neuroendocrine changes in the rat. Biomedicines. 2023;11(1):57.

Cognitive Benefits

Koniver, Laura, Could Grounding Improve Cognition? Curr Res Cmpl Alt Med. 2024; 8: 252. DOI: 10.29011/2577-2201.100252

Decreased Brain Stress Levels

Taehun Kim, Dae Yun Seo, Jun Hyun Bae, and Jin Han  Barefoot walking improves cognitive ability in adolescents Korean J Physiol Pharmacol 2024; 28(4): 295-302

Improved Circadian Rhythm

Oschman JL. Perspective: Assume a spherical cow: the role of free or mobile electrons in bodywork, energetic and movement therapies. J Bodyw Mov Ther 2008;12:40e57.Martel J et al., Influence of electromagnetic fields on the circadian rhythm: Implications for human health and disease, Biomedical Journal, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bj.2023.01.003

Decreased Inflammation

Chevalier, G., Patel, S., Weiss, L., Pruitt, C., Henry, B., Chopra, D. and Mills, P.J. (2018) Effects of Grounding (Earthing) on Massage Therapists: An Exploratory Study. Health, 10, 228-250.Sinatra ST et al., Grounding, The universal anti-inflammatory remedy, Biomedical Journal, https://doi.org/ 10.1016/j.bj.2022.12.002

Improved Energy Levels

Chevalier G, Patel S, Weiss L, Chopra D, Mills PJ. The Effects of Grounding (Earthing) on Bodyworkers’ Pain and Overall Quality of Life: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Explore (NY). 2019 May-Jun;15(3):181-190. doi: 10.1016/j.explore.2018.10.001. Epub 2018 Oct 11. PMID: 30448083.

Lowered Blood Pressure

Elkin HK, Winter A. Grounding Patients With Hypertension Improves Blood Pressure: A Case History Series Study. Altern Ther Health Med. 2018 Nov;24(6):46-50. PMID: 30982019.Longer Term Benefits:

 

Sinatra ST, Oschman JL, Chevalier G, Sinatra D. Electric Nutrition: The Surprising Health and Healing Benefits of Biological Grounding (Earthing). Altern Ther Health Med. 2017 Sep;23(5):8-16. PMID: 28987038.Oschman J, Chevalier G, Brown R. The effects of grounding (earthing) on inflammation, the immune response, wound healing, and prevention and treatment of chronic inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. J Inflamm Res. 2015;8:83-96Chevalier, Gaétan, Sinatra, Stephen T., Oschman, James L., Sokal, Karol, Sokal, Pawel, Earthing: Health Implications of Reconnecting the Human Body to the Earth′s Surface Electrons, Journal of Environmental and Public Health, 2012, 291541, 8 pages, 2012.Koniver, Laura, Grounding: An Anti-Aging Breakthrough? Trends Gen Med. 2024; 2(3): 1-7.Koniver, Laura, Cerebrospinal Fluid and Brain Health: Optimized By Grounding. American J Neurol Res. 2023; 2(1):1-4.Koniver Laura, Neurological Pathways Supported by Grounding. Open J Neurol Neurosci. 2023; 1(1): 1002Martel J, Ojcius DM, Is a return to nature a piece of the health puzzle?, Biomedical Journal, https://doi.org/ 10.1016/j.bj.2023.02.002Oschman JL, Illnesses in technologically advanced societies due to lack of grounding (earthing), Biomedical Journal, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bj.2022.10.... Menigoz, Tracy T. Latz, Robin A. Ely, Cimone Kamei, Gregory Melvin, Drew Sinatra,Integrative and lifestyle medicine strategies should include Earthing (grounding): Review of research evidence and clinical observations, EXPLORE, Volume 16, Issue 3, 2020, Pages 152-160, ISSN 1550-8307,Gae ́tan Chevalier, Stephen T. Sinatra, James L. Oschman, Karol Sokal, and Pawel Sokal  Earthing: Health Implications of Reconnecting the Human Body to the Earth’s Surface Electrons Journal of Environmental and Public Health Volume 2012, Article ID 291541, 8 pages doi:10.1155/2012/291541Paweł Sokal, Karol Sokal, The neuromodulative role of earthing, Medical Hypotheses, Volume 77, Issue 5, 2011, Pages 824-826, ISSN 0306-9877, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mehy.2011.0... feel like reading those studies?

 

If you still want more details about this topic but don’t want to read each study yourself, you don’t have to.  Let me run you through the grounding benefits that accrue over time in this video right now:

 

How Quickly Does Grounding Start To Work:

 

 

What if you ground for even longer?

 

Want to look ahead to how longer amounts of time may benefit your health, over months and years?  Here are some of the reasons long term grounding could be anti-aging:

 

Grounding: An Anti-Aging Breakthrough?

 

 

Want more holistic health ideas?

 

Here are some additional tips for longevity you might enjoy:

 

9 Holistic Longevity Tips:

 

 

After seeing the immense benefits of grounding shown in the past 50 years of medical studies, you may want to consider making grounding part of your daily health routines, like brushing your teeth and drinking water and wearing a seatbelt.  I highly encourage you to.  For long term grounding, an indoor grounding tool may be helpful.  There is only one place on earth to get eco-ethically hand crafted, all natural and organic grounding tools made right here in the USA and it’s in my grounding boutique.  

Custom made, individually hand sewn, boutique quality grounding tools made locally using eco friendly, environmentally conscious materials like hemp and organic cotton, and superior quality conductive elements like stainless steel, so they are the longest lasting, most eco-friendly and non-toxic grounding tools on the planet, even shipped with non-toxic, biodegradable packaging.

I also have lots of outdoor grounding solutions for you too — in case you want to stay grounded directly to the earth outside in the winter instead of using indoor grounding tools — options like grounding hiking sticks, grounding canes, grounding shoe stickers, grounding gloves and so much more!

 

 

I hope you found this free healing newsletter uplifting and supportive to your health, and I hope you share it freely.  If someone forwarded this newsletter to you, you can sign up to get my weekly free holistic healing newsletter so you don’t miss any of this supportive, healing content right here:

 

xoxox,Laura Koniver MD

 

 

The post These Medical Studies Show How Grounding Benefits Build Over Time appeared first on Intuition Physician.