Laura Koniver, MD's Blog, page 8

June 10, 2024

Your Waistline Is Telling You That You Are Under Chronic Stress… Here Is What To Do About It

An expanding waistline is actually a very common response to stress, and it signals that you are producing too much cortisol as a response to prolonged stress. I think of fat accumulation in the central abdominal area not as a marker of being overweight as much as it’s a marker of stress and high cortisol levels.

So instead of monitoring your eating, maybe what you should be monitoring is your cortisol and stress levels. Because stress weight gain is different from other forms of weight gain — it typically centers in the abdominal area and is the most stubborn type of weight to release — it doesn’t respond well to dieting — and that’s because dieting doesn’t release stress… in fact, often it increases stress. Which makes any diet you go on to try to lose stress weight almost impossible to work.

Stress affects your body from head to toe, and can have a tremendous impact on your weight. Studies show that sress can cause changes in eating patterns and they also suggest that cortisol reactivity is one of the reasons why. So if you feel sluggish, tired, and your weight just won’t budge? It could be stress leading to adrenal fatigue. This super common condition is poorly understood and can literally simply be caused by prolonged stress.

Cortisol is produced by the adrenal glands and by supporting your adrenal health, you can normalize your cortisol levels. Stop the focus on weight and instead focus on reducing your body’s stress hormone output. In fact, releasing your weight struggle and embracing your adrenal repair instead may be the best way to stop unhealthy food consumption that is due to stress, which is what is triggering this change in the first place.

If you have been focusing on trying to control your food intake, maybe it’s time to stop beating yourself up over something that is actually being triggered by high levels of stress and high cortisol. I’d like to suggest that weight issues might be actually adrenal issues.

Ask yourself: have you been through a stressful period recently? Or have you been living under stress for a long period of time — months, years, even decades? If so, stop thinking weight loss and start thinking adrenal repair.

To help you figure out if some of your unwanted weight change is actually due to adrenal fatigue, I wrote a free book that you can download and read. It has tons of fun things inside like a quiz to help you figure out if you are in adrenal fatigue (and what stage you are in) as well as powerful ways to help you fix it.

If you have been through any kind of stressful situation or big life transition (even fun, positive ones like marriage, a new job, a new baby!) chances are your adrenals could use some TLC. If you start to take care of your adrenal rhythm now, in just a few short months from now you can be fully recovered from Adrenal Fatigue and feel better than you have felt in many many years!

You can actually be in adrenal fatigue from birth? It’s true. Stress in infancy has been shown to cause a steep rise in cortisol levels even in newborns. But did you also know it’s fully reversible, no matter how long you’ve been suffering with stress and living on fumes? That’s also true, and I will help you get there.

Click the button below to order your free copy of my Adrenal Fatigue eBook… it will be instantly emailed directly to you, to keep forever, and please share this link freely by forwarding this blog post to all your loved ones so they can order theirs:

And if someone forwarded you this article so that you can address chronic stress and adrenal fatigue, join my newsletter list to stay updated on this and other uplifting, holistic health information right here.

Meanwhile, here are 8 things you can doto start releasing stress weight today:

1. Work With Your Emotional Eating Style:

What I’ve noticed as a physician examining health outcomes for the past 24+ years, is that most people eat emotionally instead of nutritionally. Because of this, 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 get some tips on working with your eating patterns in a healthier way.

Scan this list and see which emotional eating pattern describes you best:

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. One 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 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. 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. 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! 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. 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 may lead to over-eating) and instead really focus on making eye contact with the people you are enjoying a meal with, the conversation. 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 use beautiful cloth napkins 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. 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. My favorite recommendation for joy-based eaters is to focus on trying new, unusual or exotic 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.FOOD IS ENERGY: High energy 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. People who are energy eaters need to feel good about their intuitive food choices that make them crave protein. Energy eaters need to honor 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.)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 best thing these eaters can do is to schedule in their eating so that they eat at regular intervals, stay hydrated, and make nutrient dense 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 you are not taking the time to properly eat, you stay well hydrated.

2. Consider Grounding While You Eat:

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

Getting grounded immediately begins to get you out of “fight or flight”mode and calms you down, deepening breathing and oxygenation, decreasing muscle tension, decreasing cortisol output and more. Medical studies back this up… for example, one study published in 2004 in the Journal of Alternative and Complimentary Medicine, found that subjects who slept grounded had a complete normalization of their cortisol patterns, suggesting a profound recovery from stress.

June 3, 2024

6 Ways To Protect Your Skin While Enjoying That Summer Sun

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

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

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

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

So even heavy smokers who soaked in the sun their whole life outlived non-smokers who avoided sun exposure — by years — while participants who avoided the sun had higher rates of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and pulmonary disease. And the results were dose-specific… meaning that the benefits of increased life expectancy with sun exposure went up directly in correlation to the amount of sun exposure. Longer time outside in the sun = longer life span. These findings were expounded upon in this medical review as well as confirmed in a more recent review of the research and published here in Anticancer Research in 2022.

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

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

Avoidance Of Sun Exposure As A Risk Factor For Death

Smoking and inactivity/prolonged sitting have long been known to be huge lifestyle indicators of poor long term health… and now we can add a third: avoiding sun exposure.

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

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

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

1. Avoid Peak Sun Hours:

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

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

2. Wear UV Protective Clothing, Hats and Sunglasses:

The second best way to protect from the sun, if you are going out in the peak hours, is UV protective clothing. Rash guards, hats, sunglasses.

And be certain to protect your eyes by wearing UV protective sunglasses, dear reader! UV exposure is one of the leading causes of lens opacity (cataracts) as you age. You can prevent this by diligently protecting your eyes.

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

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

Why does sunscreen clock in at tip #3?

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

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

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

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

4. Take Curcumin To Protect Against Melanoma:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

squashcarrotsgrapefruitorangesapricotsasparaguscantaloupemangoesnectarinespeachessweet potatoestomatoeswatermelonand sweet red peppers

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

In a nutshell:Try to avoid peak hours of sun exposure, going out in morning and evening hours when possibleWear a hat and sunglassesAvoid yucky chemical sunscreens and use physical sunscreens insteadConsider using curcumin and vit B3 to decrease your future skin cancer riskEat fruits and veggies high in antioxidants routinely to nourish your skin from the inside out& while you are at it, stay well hydrated too, drinking water before, during and after sun exposure.

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

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

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Published on June 03, 2024 02:41

May 28, 2024

Dehydration Sneaks Up On You, Do You Have Any Of These Symptoms Right Now?

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

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

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

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

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

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

What Does Dehydration Feel Like?

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

How many of these symptoms do you have right now?

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

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

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

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

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

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

12 ways to use water to boost your health:

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

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

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

Do it daily so it becomes an automatic routine!

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

Use hunger as a reminder to hydrate!

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

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

3. Include fruits and vegetables at every single meal.

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

The most hydrating ones include:

melonsberriescucumberceleryleafy greenstomatoes andbell peppers

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

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

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

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

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

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

5. Moisturize your skin to decrease transcutaneous water loss.

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

My favorite moisturizer combines two of these principals in one: it moisturizes to repair the lipid bilayer of your skin, and it also adds crucial trace minerals to your body as well. It is a trace mineral lotion and you can find it right here.

I use it every night and my skin thanks me for it. So do my muscles, as it contains magnesium, a natural muscle relaxant that most of us are deficient in. It’s the equivalent to taking a nice long warm epsom salt bath right before hopping into bed.

6. Switch from soda to sparkling water.

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

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

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

7. Allow tears… always.

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

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

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

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

8. Sweat it out!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

moisture + you + earth = expedited healing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

11. Make sure your air contains moisture!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And on that note, one last note bit of really good news: the water filter that I use in my own home, and that I routinely recommend to patients, is back in stock! Woot!!!

Why do I recommend you filter your water before drinking it, especially if it’s from the tap?

Hundreds of medical studies have shown that fluoride affects everything from cognitive function and cardiac function in humans, to diabetes, fertility and more in animals… so I recommend avoiding fluoride in water and never use fluoridated toothpastes.

Fluoride is an enzyme inhibitor, point-blank.

Even the minuscule amounts of fluoride added to the public water supply accumulates in bone. It is estimated about 50% of the fluoride we consume is eliminated, and 50% is stored in our body, mostly in our bones. So miniscule amounts of fluoride adding to our bodies sip after sip after sip equals a not-so-minimal exposure. Over a lifetime, these levels can reach high proportions… decreasing bone density and causing brittleness.

For a nation whose women have epidemic proportions of osteopenia and osteoporosis, it would be counter productive to continue to drink fluoride on a daily basis… and then use prescriptions to try to combat the osteoporosis that develops later in life. Studies have shown that the rate of hip fracture in elderly is directly increased in areas that fluoridate their water.

And the truth is, you get plenty of fluoride through your foods. Plants store fluoride found naturally in the earth AND from the water used to irrigate crops. Yep, even organic crops have fluoride in them from the irrigation water.

Statements from reps of the National Institutes of Health recommend that people who drink large quantities of water should not drink tap water, but instead switch to bottled water. We are just getting so much exposure to fluoride, that to intentionally consume extra fluoride, whether through drinking water or toothpaste, is way too much. Even your skin absorbs fluoride as well, so even when you are showering or taking a bath, you are absorbing fluoride.

We also know fluoride is being taken up by our cardiovascular system as well. A study published in the journal Nuclear Medicine Communications definitively proved that fluoride is absorbed into your vascular system. Researchers followed 61 patients after administering fluoride and found that 96% of them had fluoride uptake in their cardiovascular walls.

In a nation with heart disease steeply rising, this doesn’t sit well with me. Direct absorption to of fluoride into our cardiovascular walls (and a significant correlation between cardiovascular events and fluoride uptake) makes it all the more urgent for us to avoid fluoride all together.

Not only will the right filtration unit filter out fluoride (double check that yours does, most do not) but it will also filter out chlorine and other nasty chemicals added to the public water supply, as well as nasty chemicals that are unintentionally in our water supply like lead, arsenic, pesticides, perchlorate, and even pharmaceutical drugs.

I keep a water filtration system out on my kitchen counter space so that not only am I drinking pure, clean, fluoride free water, but the beautiful filtration unit serves as a visual reminder to DRINK every single time I walk by it, or am standing in the kitchen preparing a meal.

My agreement with myself — and hopefully one you will make with yourself too now that you’ve read all about how serious dehydration is and how crucial staying hydrated is — is that every time I see the water filter, I have to go take a quick drink of water from it.

So every time I walk by my kitchen, every time I go in for a snack, every time I am doing the dishes, and every time I am prepping a meal or cleaning up from a meal… I drink a glass of water.

It’s win-win, because drinking a glass of water before every meal helps me decrease cravings and control portion sizes naturally, which is one of the best tips for losing weight there is. But as a bonus, this habit has really helped me to remember to maintain my hydration status.

Using a water filter not only ensures my water is pure and healthy, instead of harming me (and my children and my pets — did you know that drinking tap water is harmful to your fur babies as well? This report goes over why hard water may be harming your pet. In addition, fluoride, chlorine, lead, microplasltics, pesticides and fertilizers in tap water harm your pet’s organ systems just like it harms yours!) but it serves as a visual reminder to stay hydrated.

And here is the best one, finally back in stock.

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

Bookmark this article and send it to your loved ones as we head into the warmer months of spring and summer and dehydration becomes even more common. They will thank you!!!

xoxo,Laura Koniver MD

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Published on May 28, 2024 03:21

May 20, 2024

Working With Your Brain, Not Against It, For Easier Weight Loss

If you get my weekly newsletter (and sign up here if you don’t! It’s a fabulous, free, uplifting health resource!) than you already know I turned 50 this year. On my birthday I shared my mindframe heading into the second half-century of my life, along with some holistic longevity tips:

I’m 50 Today! Musings On Turning A Half Century Old + 7 Longevity Tips

Well turning 50 had me noticing perimenopausal symptoms — there is no more denying it — and with that has come a bit of weight gain. I found myself routinely internally shaming myself for this every single day until I caught myself. What the heck? No way, I know what shame does to the health of the body and I’m not standing for that.

In fact, medical studies suggest that fat shaming alone — not the weight itself — can directly increase a person’s risk for metabolic syndrome and subsequent health issues. Letting go of the internalized stress associated with weight will decrease diabetes risk, heart disease risk and the rate of metabolic disease in general, as shown in this study published Jan 26, 2017 in Obesity.

In that study, researchers found that participants who internalized stress from weight-related stigma were over 40% more likely to have metabolic syndrome than participants who did not internalize stigma. These results were independent of the actual degree of obesity and other confounding issues such as depression. Weight stigma was found to cause a direct physiological stress response in the body, elevating blood pressure and increasing the body’s inflammation.

The researchers conclude that weight stigma alone is a form of chronic stress that creates physical disease when internalized.

These results suggest it is not necessarily the weight, but rather the stress that our society places on larger sized individuals and their internalization of that stress, that increases the risk of metabolic syndrome and puts folks at higher cardiovascular risk than they would otherwise have.

This is totally unnecessary. If the stress of being overweight was reduced, so would the disease burden. So as a reminder to stop beating myself up and instead review some of the positive things I can do to care for my body better. Then I created a video for you on those tips, so that you too can become more aware of (and banish) and body shaming you are doing to yourself, even subconsciously.

This is about supporting your body, not tearing it down. You can make that easier by understanding the way our brain is wired to make us overeat — truly! It’s not just something you are choosing to do — it’s literally how our brain and brainstem functions — and ways to work with the way our brain functions, not against it.

Here we go:

Use The Neuroscience Of Weight Loss To Your Advantage!

I highly recommend watching that video because I go into detail on why your brain is wired to make sure you eat, eat some more, and than eat some more, and how this is absolutely normal and no reason at all to shame yourself. Instead, working with your biological need to eat will help you eliminate poor self talk, relieve some of the stress that is on you, and realign you with the healthiest weight at the perfect set point for you.

After you understand why these particular tips will be so much easier than any diet you’ve ever been on, these changes become very easy to make:

8 Tips To Help You Lose Weight More Easily:

1. Don’t bother with portion control

Your brain is hard wired to consume as much food as possible, when it is available. Watch the video above for more on why that is and why it is actually a good thing. But in order to work with this biological drive, instead of against it, we don’t want to rely on portion control to manage our food intake.

Portion control is extremely unnatural and I would say is almost a traumatic experience to put on your body — don’t do it. Instead, assume you will literally eat every single thing you bring into your home, and only bring into your home what you feel good about eating.

If you are going to shame yourself for eating it, don’t bring it into your house in the first place. That’s abusive to yourself and we are not going to tolerate that any more.

2. Stock your home with ingredients, not packaged foods

This tip helps to mimic the more natural ebb and flow of how our body is meant to eat — food is not really meant to be so easily attainable, so poor in nutritional value, and so filled with chemicals that make food artificially taste better and look better and even addict you to it. Remember, food companies are manufacturing and packaging food to get your money, not to feed you. And certainly not to improve your health. Read this article for more on that:

This Statistic Really Surprised Me About Fast Food (+ Easy Alternatives To Eat Instead)

Meanwhile, stock your home with ingredients that require some preparation to eat. If food is not easily consumable (meaning it takes more to be able to eat it than just opening a bag or a box) then you are less likely to bother to prepare it unless you are actually hungry. Eating then becomes something you have to work for, which you will be motivated to do when you are hungry, not just bored. It’s a more natural way to eat that your brain can understand and vibe with.

3. Intermittent fasting:

Fasting can profoundly boost your health in ways that go way beyond weight management, so I recommend this tip to everyone, not just those looking to lose weight. From reducing diabetes risk to reducing dementia to reducing cancer rates, fasting has head-to-toe benefits… and doesn’t have to be difficult.

It can be intimidating to think about trying fasting, as images of going without food for days on end run through our minds and hunger pangs set in quickly. But fasting can be as simple as increasing the amount of time you are not eating at night by just 2 hours. Medical research shows that simply not eating after 8 PM can actually be measurably beneficial to your health.

Fasting has been shown to:

Decrease inflammation: Published in the Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism in 2007, researchers found that fasting for 12 hours daily decreased all measured markers of inflammation by a statistically significant amount, including interleukin-6, C-reactive protein, and homocysteine levels.Decrease heart disease: A study published in the American Journal of Cardiology in 2009, showed that fasting just one day a month (one day a month!) was enough to significantly decrease risk of heart attack risk by reducing coronary artery disease. In addition to that, a study published in Nutritional Research in 2012 showed that fasting for 12 hours a day decreased blood pressure, and when fasting was increased to every other day for just four weeks, LDL cholesterol and triglycerides were reduced by more than 25%.Decrease asthma attacks: Published in Free Radical Biology & Medicine in 2007, reducing calorie intake every other day by just 20% allowed asthma suffers to lose 8% of their body weight in only two months, decrease their blood markers of stress and inflammation, and decrease asthma symptoms while improving quality of life.Protect your brain: Improved memory, improved mood, decreased Alzheimer rates, and decreased Parkinson’s rates… all from fasting? Yep. Published in the Journal of Neuroscience Research in 1999, the Journal of Molecular Neuroscience in 2000, the Neurobiology of Disease in 2007 (as well as many other studies) researchers have found that intermittent fasting can improve neuronal connections, increase the proliferation of neurons, and even protect against amyloid plaques.Decrease cancer recurrence rates: Prolonging the amount of time spent fasting â€” skipping evening snacks all together and fasting for 13+ hours each night — significantly reduced the risk of breast cancer, according to a study that spanned thousands of patients followed for over a decade. Published on March 31, 2016 in JAMA Oncology , researchers found that fasting at night for 13 hours or more was found to reduce the risk of cancer recurrence by one-third, as well as drop HbA1C levels and increase sleep length at night. Another study (published in Teteratgenesis, Carcinogenesis and Mutagenesis in 2002) found that alternate day fasting helped decrease tumor formation, while yet another study (published in Science Translational Medicine in 2012) found that a wide range of cancer cells exposed to fasting showed increased responsiveness and sensitivity to chemotherapy treatments as well as directly decreased tumor growth. So fasting for 13+ hours each night is an effective, drug free, holistic, all natural way to decrease cancer recurrence and help boost cancer treatment.Boost longevity: One study (published in the Journals of Gerontology in 1983) showed that fasting had a greater impact in improving longevity than even exercise did! And a more recent study, published in 2000 in the Mechanisms of Aging and Development, showed short term repeated fasting throughout life resulted in a lifespan that was 75% longer. In fact, a study published in Nature in 2009 stated that intermittent fasting is “the most effective and reproducible intervention to extend lifespan” that we know of… capable of significantly extending lifespan by reducing age-related disorders.Encourage long-term weight loss: Published in Nutrition Reviews in 2015, researchers looked at all forms of fasting… including alternate day fasting, whole day fasting, and even simply time restricted fasting (like a 13 hour nightly fast) and all of these techniques resulted in significantly reduced body fat, significantly reduced body weight, and reduced blood lipid levels of cholesterol and triglycerides.

Fasting mimics the way our brain thinks about food — that there is times of abundance and times of scarcity. A time to eat (even overeat!) and a time to go without. If you can get the hang of fasting, then you truly can allow yourself to eat and overeat as much as you want during the shortened window of the day that you are free to eat.

If you want to try fasting I’ve got the two best ways to do it and I’ll walk you through it right here:

The Two Best Ways Fast: Why It’s Easier Than Dieting & How To Do it

5. Fix your sleep

Shorter sleep duration as well as inconsistent sleep patterns are associated with obesity. We have know this for over a decade now, and you can review studies like this one, published in 2011, and this one, published in 2014. So I always ask patients who are having trouble loosing weight about their sleep.

One medical study (that I shared with you back in August of 2013) even showed that poor sleep for only a few nights caused study participants to gain weight 9 times faster than participants who slept well. Nine times faster weight gain after just a few nights!

Many (maybe even most) of us live and function daily in a state of catching only a few hours of sleep a night for weeks, months, even years at a time. This has a huge impact on your weight. If you are feeling exhausted from not sleeping well, than your body is going to urge you to reach for food as a way to sustain your energy. This is your body’s way of ensuring your survival!

So if you are watching your weight or struggling to understand why your best efforts are not good enough to prevent you from gaining weight, examine your sleep. Give yourself the next month to focus on getting high quality sleep instead of focusing on dieting for the next month.

An easy place to start? Don’t leave any lights on when you sleep, not even the glow from the TV, which is enough light to interfere with deep restorative sleep. Then hop over here for some fantastic additional tips on deepening your sleep at night, naturally:

Winter Sleep: 12 Ways To Hibernate Now For Deep Rest Before Spring

6. Reduce background noise

Similar to internalized body shaming (a source of constant and chronic stress,) background noise is also an insidious cause of constant and chronic stress that truly affects your health and causes you to gain weight. Multiple medical studies have found that background noise is associated with increased weight, studies like this one, this one and this one. Sadly background noise is also associated with obesity in childhood, as studies like this one and this one found.

Think about your day:

Do you hear traffic constantly (especially consider if you hear traffic where you sleep at night?)Do you work in an area where there is chronic talking (such as a hospital, a hotel, a store or a restaurant?)Do you work in an area where there are phones constantly ringing (such as at an office?)Do you work in an area that has music playing constantly?Do you sleep with music or a television on?If so, your risk for diabetes, metabolic syndrome, heart attack, stroke, cognitive impairment, higher BMI and more is much greater than it has to be. What to do about it? I created a free printable worksheet you can find right here to help you run through easy ways to reduce your background noise exposure.10 Easy Ways To Reduce Noise PollutionMeanwhile, a simple place to start is to wear ear protection that allows you to hear (and even improve your hearing) of intentional noises while filtering out irritating background noise. These simple, soft, effective silicone ear inserts decrease irritating background noise while at the same time, helping to clarify important noises that you actually want to hear.Calmer sits barely visible in the ear and uses revolutionary, non-electric technology to reduce mid and high frequency distortion without having a detrimental effect on our hearing. You can hear more clearly what you need to hear clearly, while minimizing the constant barrage of environmental noise stressors which have a negative impact on our mental and physical well-being.

Learn more about how these ingenious, simple ear protective devices work right here.

7. Temperature extremes

Research is just beginning to show that things that wake up your body boost metabolism and encourage cell turn over. Fasting is one of those things, and another one is extreme temperatures. If you are up for it, ice baths, cryotherapy and polar plunges are fabulous ways to expose your body to cold, if you do this routinely, you can boost your metabolism naturally. In this free blog post, I have a video waiting for you that I made with my dear friend Stacey when she bravely faced cryotherapy for the first time. Scroll down to tip #4 on this page for our cryotherapy review!

10 Ways To Make Healing Instantly More Playful And Uplifting

Heat does it too, and I find heat exposure infinitely easier! Here is a blog post I wrote for you on the health benefits of sauna.

Too Cold To Exercise Or Ground Outside? This One Tip Fixes Both Of These Problems Together

8. Take supplements that work with your brain chemistry:

In the video I mention Taurine, 5-HTP and a fiber/protein based shake that you can drink before meals to dramatically reduce the amount of food you want to consume. It’s almost impossible to overeat if you pre-game with this fiber filled protein shake before dinner.

You can find all of these supplements in the Weight Release Protocol I have waiting for you, alongside dozens of other free protocols I’ve created for you, in my online pharmacy here.

Want More Support? I’ve Got You

If you want even more support to safely, easily, and effectively lose weight in a way that supports your innate health, I’ve got you.

We can work together to directly support your weight loss goals in my upcoming online health class. Save your spot right here.

I’ve based this course directly off of the medical literature and my 25 years of experience helping to support patients with their weight loss goals. You’d be surprised that your body naturally knows what weight is the perfect one for you, and it can sustain it at this perfect weight effortlessly once you naturally align your metabolism.

I’ll show you how in a very non-threatening, supportive, uplifting way.

It’s not about being rigid or militant or hard on yourself, in fact, it’s the exact opposite. The harder you are on yourself, the harder it is to align with your healthiest version of you. There are several other things that are even more important than what you eat that dictate what you weight… and without knowing what those things are, you just can’t lose weight.

Understand the things that sabotage weight loss and the weight releases, naturally.

Class starts June 10th and I’m excited to get started with you. Hop over here to sign up and reserve your spot today:

To your resilient, natural health!xoxox, Laura Koniver MD

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Published on May 20, 2024 02:38

May 13, 2024

Exactly What A Grounding Detox Really Is, And Exactly What To Do About It

I get questions all the time from readers who are told that the negative symptoms they feel while grounding are a “grounding detox.” They are told that the tingling electrical sensations they feel, or the resultant restlessness, anxiety, insomnia & headache, are all part of the grounding process and that if they continue, it should go away.

But then it doesn’t, and they email me asking for advice.

So today, I want to share with you what I tell these folks — there is no such thing as a grounding detox.

What you are feeling is a measurable, palpable AC current that is running through your body, and that having symptoms from this simply means you are electrosensitive. And believe it or not, that is a good thing… I’ll tell you why below. And not only is being electrosensitive a good thing, but luckily there are lots of ways to continue to reap the enormous health benefits of being grounded while removing the AC current from your body.

All it takes is an understanding of what electrosensitivity is and how to address it. I’ve got you. I created this video to explain to you right now exactly why you feel the symptoms you do, and how to feel better immediately so you can continue to use grounding to support your health:

What A Grounding Detox Really Is & 5 Ways To Fix It

Prefer to read? I got you. Here is what I went over in the video:

What is the “tingling and stinging” you feel from standard grounding cords?

Many people felt uncomfortable sensations when they are grounding with regular grounding cords.

It’s been described as “tingling” and “stinging” on many pages such as Earthing’s: Why do I feel a stinging or tingling and Earthing Institute’s: I feel a kind of shock or an uncomfortable stinging, tingling in my hands..Because they do not understand this as a medical symptom of Electrosensitivity (which is a real, diagnosable condition) they recommend ignoring the symptoms or stop grounding entirely. You can do better than that, and it’s to ground safely. More on that below.

But first, run through these symptoms and see if you experience any when you are grounding. The most common symptoms are:

stinging or tingling sensationheadachedecreased concentrationvertigo/dizzinesstinnitus/ringing in the earsskin reactionsinsomniamood changes, including anxiety or depressionfatigueheart palpatationsmuscle pain/tension

Many non-medical grounding advocates will tell you these symptoms are a “grounding detox” and that you will eventually get used to it if you keep grounding through their products.

But what is it, really?

If you’ve seen my previous posts and videos you know the difference between the natural direct current (DC) flow of electrons that is necessary for the natural, earth mediated grounding process, and the harmful alternating current (AC) electricity that is only from unnatural, man-made electrical power and EMFs.

What people are feeling with the stinging and tingling is the AC current flowing from EMFs through the sensitive parts of their body as the circuit is connected with a standard ground cord that has no filter in place to stop an AC current from traveling through it.

You don’t need the AC current to get grounded, since grounding is a purely DC mediated process.

There are way more people that can feel this AC current than you might think. If you can feel these “grounding detox” sensations, you are absolutely not alone. It turns out that some people are more sensitive to this AC current than others, and in today’s post we’re going to explore how prevalent that sensitivity is.

Perception: levels of electricity

In the electrical safety community, where they study what levels of electricity can hurt or harm you, the amount of electricity that people can start to feel the tingling is called the ‘perception’ level.

100 years ago, back when electricity was being developed as a power source, people conducted a lot of experiments to determine what these different levels of electricity are. And those findings are still being used today!

The most commonly cited source of electricity safety is the The Electrical Safety Manual of the U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety [1]. The sources for the levels they use can be traced back to a series of key experiments conduced in the 1950s [2].

Photos from Dalziel’s testing in the 1950s

The main set of experiments conducted for electricity levels involved hundreds of men and women subjected to different levels of electricity. They tested all sorts of levels of current in various ways, including a ‘gripping’ test where the subject starts off holding a metal probe and AC current was slowly increased until the person could start feeling it, as well as a touch test where the subject repeatedly touched a metal plate as the electricity was increased until they could start feeling it.

What did the researchers find? There is a big range of sensitivity!

First, there was a wide range of sensitivities — the data follows a traditional bell curve, showing a middle where most people are but also long tails on either side. The least sensitive people couldn’t feel AC electricity until levels three times the most sensitive people!

Also, women were more sensitive then men, which is a fact that is further confirmed in the medical literature on studies about electrosensitivity — more women than men are electrosensitive, and this data shows us exactly why. Women tend to have a lower threshhold to perceive electrical current than men do. But that doesn’t mean if you are a male that you are not electrosensitive — not at all. Many men (and even more women!) all around the world are electrosensitive, and we will get into those numbers next.

Another thing that researchers found is that touching an object with current (touch tests) were more sensitive than gripping. In other words, if you touch an object that with AC current in it, you will feel it at a lower threshold than if you are holding onto the item as the current increases. One reason they feel this happens is that during an initial touching event a very small surface area — for example, your finger — will make first contact, so all the electricity will be focused on that area, making it easier to instantly feel.

Another reason test subjects could perceive current more acutely during the touch tests is similar to the boiling frog analogy you are likely familiar with: a frog placed in water that is slowly heated will not perceive the temperature increase and will stay in the water until it is cooked to death… whereas a frog placed in water that is preheated will immediately jump out! Similarly, if you touch a grounding tool you may be able to feel symptoms from AC current at much lower levels than if you have a current slowly introduced into the grounding tool.

This is why I say that being electrosensitive is a good thing!

If you can perceive the current entering your body when you touch a grounding tool, you’ll know immediately how to protect yourself — remove the source of the current. If you can’t feel it, and you need a much larger current to be able to perceive it’s presence, then you will blindly allow a current to run through your body unaware.

Current perception levels for men and women using the gripping test (adapted from Dalziel, 1954)

Touch tests on the same range as gripping

How many people are Electrosensitive?

The graph below shows us that there are millions of people who are sensitive to low amounts of body voltage when grounding!

Recent medical research has confirmed this to be true — millions of people are affected by electrohypersensitivty [3] and in population-based surveys, the prevalence of electrohypersensitivity (EHS) ranges from 1.5% of the population (found in Sweden) up to 13.3% (found in Taiwan) [4].

These numbers explain, clear as day, what a grounding detox really is. It’s simply the ability of electrosensitive people to detect an AC current when grounding through an unfiltered ground cord.

Close-up of sensitive tail of original tapping data (adopted from Dalziel, 1954)

Even going with the lowest commonly agreed upon prevalence of perception (0.1% of the population, or 7 million people) this is roughly the same worldwide incidence of many other illnesses that no one would brush off as a “detox” reactions. A quick look through the WHO Global Burden of Disease report shows that this incidence is similar to the incidence of stroke, for example. Electrosensitivity is more common than congestive heart failure. It is more common than Parkinson’s disease. It is more common than breast, lung, prostate and colon cancer combined.

So yeah, let’s not ignore this huge population of electrosensitive individuals who want to improve their health by connecting to the earth.

In the video I created for you right here (to show you the difference between grounding through an unfiltered, regular ground cord (known as a standard ground cord) and a filtered ground cord (known as the PureGround cord.) In it I show you that have an AC body voltage of 4.57, and man could I feel it! In fact, by the time I had finished recording that video for you, I had a pretty bad headache from that exposure.

As you can see in the graph above, I’m not alone. At a body voltage reading of 4.57, more than 3.5 million people all over the world would feel this as well. And unfortunately it is not uncommon to find body voltages shown on the graph, and even higher.

It also shows that at very small voltages there will still be people who will experience uncomfortable sensations; these people can be diagnosed as Electrosensitive in the modern medical community…. in medicine we call feeling sensations at this level of exposure Electrosensitivity… in the non-medical community, grounding companies will call this a “grounding detox.”

But these tests clearly show that theses are real symptoms, not a “detox” effect. People who sense electrical currents at very small levels are simply more sensitive to electrical stimulae, and there are millions of us.

Non-medical grounding advocates will try to convince you to keep grounding through a standard ground cord, allowing this AC current to run through your body — they are counting on the fact that when you continue holding on to an electrical current, you become less sensitive to it — turning from a ‘touch test’ to a ‘gripping test’ as we talked about above. Prolonged gripping allowed test subjects to be desensitized to AC current and it took a higher current to reproduce the same symptoms that were immediately felt during a touch test.

But in medicine, we do not want you to become desensitized to AC current and to numb yourself to the sensation of it. We want you to remove this exposure from your grounding experience entirely. This is why we developed a ground cord — called the PureGround cord to remove AC current from your ground connection. More on that — and other ways to make your grounding experience better — below. Keep reading!

What to do if you are Electrosensitive?Here are 3 steps you can take:

1. Learn more.

First of all, know that it is an actual diagnosable and treatable condition. In every other country than the USA, that is. Jeez. I don’t know why we are so late to formally diagnose and treat EHS, but throughout Europe and in Canada, you can get a formal diagnosis and even disability support, including letters from your physician to request employers and schools to accommodate your needs (and your children’s needs) to reduce EMF exposure and safeguard your health.

Physicians can write:

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

You don’t have to wait for your local health care professional to get on board with diagnosing and treating electrosensitivity, because I will be your healthcare advocate and help you. I developed a class to teach you everything you need to know about your conductive health — including both positive ways to boost your conductive health through safe grounding practices, as well as ways to protect your conductive health through lowering your EMF exposures.

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

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

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

No longer will you be brushed aside and told that your legitimate, valid ability to perceive electrical currents and EMF fields imposed on your body are simply a “detox” to ignore. Nope. In this 7 day online class we will go over together:

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

Reserve your spot in the next running class, and take action to protect your well being (and forward this to your family and loved ones so they can take it with you!) Taking this with an accountability buddy is a great idea so you can encourage each other and stick with it. And I’ll be your ultimate accountability partner, walking beside you the entire way:

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

2. Avoid electrical fields while grounding

The first, and easiest way to do this is to switch your regular, unfiltered ground cord to a PureGround Cord.

The PureGround cord blocks AC current so you can get the benefits of the healthy direct current from the earth without AC currents traveling up the cord. You can order this AC filtering, EMF shielding ground cord right here, and start grounding again with confidence.

The PureGround cord will stop the electric current from your outlet — an absolutely crucial first step — but the second thing you might want to do is to avoid any other electrical fields that are in the room. That just means to make sure you are greater than 2 feet away from any source of electrical field (like appliances, cords, outlets, light fixtures, fans, etc…) and you will make grounding instantly more comfortable.

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

If you feel negative symptoms while grounding, I would experiment by grounding in an electrical field free area and see how you feel.

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

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

3. Offset Man Made EMFs Indoors with Natural Grounding Outside

The third thing I highly recommend you do is, even if you ground indoors through grounding tools (and a PureGround cord) head outside for at least a few minutes daily to rebalance your conductive health. It doesn’t have to be for long — grounding is as instantaneous as flipping on a light switch. When you turn on a light, the entire room is illuminated — and that’s exactly what happens when one cell in your body becomes grounded: your entire body becomes grounded instantly.

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

Within seconds your skin surface conductance has changes throughout your entire body and your muscle tension has decreased. As seconds turn to minutes, your brain and vagal tone have gotten a calming boost from grounding, and you might notice pain decreases and mood lifts. Over time, as minutes turn to hours, your metabolic processes get a boost and your circulation (which supports every single organ system in your body) is running more smoothly. Grounding day after day means nighttime sleep is more restorative, stress hormones normalize, inflammation decreases, and health benefits begin to accumulate, often resulting in noticeable health benefits on a large scale. (If you want to watch a video of me going over the health benefits depending on length of time grounding, hop over here.)

[image error]

You can click on that image to see it closer — it is a free printable I created for my Electrosensitivity Online Class — in it, you can see the health effects of the earth’s natural DC energy as well as the deleterious health effects of man-made EMFs, and how they directly oppose each other.

Seen this way, it becomes obvious: grounding daily to reset the conductive health of your body is ESSENTIAL — it is not enough simply to remove EMF insults, you must replace those toxic frequencies with the natural healing frequency from the earth.

The Bottom Line:

In a nutshell: electrosensitivity is a well defined, identifiable, treatable, and preventable neurologic disease.

And awesomely, the human body is an incredibly resilient force of nature and we naturally go back to vibrant health when we allow our body to bounce back by giving it time to heal between insults.

The basis of life is a natural ability to repair and recover and adapt — our body simply needs time and space, away from a constant toxic onslaught, to do so. This is even more crucial for those of us who are electrosensitive.

I truly hope today’s article helps to reassure you exactly what you are feeling when you notice symptoms of electrosensitivity, to give you a fuller understanding of what is really happening when you are having a “grounding detox”, and tons of solutions to help release those symptoms and feel better than you’ve ever felt.

To your incredibly resilient health!xoxo, Laura Koniver, MD

References:
[1] The Electrical Safety Manual of the U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety
http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/2009-113/pdfs/2009-113.pdf
[2] C. F. Dalziel, “The threshold of perception currents,” in Electrical Engineering, vol. 73, no. 7, pp. 625-
630, July 1954, doi: 10.1109/EE.1954.6438873.
[3] Belpomme, D.; Irigaray, P. Electrohypersensitivity as a Newly Identified and Characterized Neurologic
Pathological Disorder: How to Diagnose, Treat, and Prevent It. Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2020, 21, 1915.
https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms21061915
[4] Hedendahl L, Carlberg M, Hardell L. Electromagnetic hypersensitivity–an increasing challenge to the
medical profession. Rev Environ Health. 2015;30(4):209-15. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26372109/

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Published on May 13, 2024 03:03

May 6, 2024

There Are So Many Grounding Health Benefits for Women

There are so many wonderful reasons to connect with Mother Earth — today I’d like to focus on female health since we are heading into Mother’s Day weekend. Grounding is one of my favorite recommendations to treat a variety of female health issues as well as protect future wellness.

Today I wanted to run through my favorite 7 reasons I love grounding for women… just a quick overview for you along with lots of resources to dive deeper into any topic that calls to you. Please share this list with the women in your life that you love.

Encourage them to touch the earth directly — it’s waiting out there to boost our health in a myriad of ways:

1. Protects Hormone Balance

When women are under chronic stress, the precursors that normally go into sex hormone production (DHEA, estrogen, estradiol, progesterone, testosterone, etc…) are stollen to make cortisol. After one stressful day, this would not make a difference to our hormone balance, but day after stressful day, month after stressful month, and year after stressful year, it’s enough to put us not only into adrenal failure but worsen PMS symptoms, decrease fertility, and even hasten menopause.

Grounding helps reverse this. In this study, published in 2004 in the Journal of Alternative and Complimentary Medicine, subjects who slept grounded had a complete normalization of their cortisol patterns, suggesting deep recovery from stress. By lowering cortisol, decreasing stress, and naturally balancing hormones, many women find that their PMS symptoms are lessened, fertility is boosted, and perimenopause becomes a much easier, more natural transition.

Grounding is so helpful it may even boost your sex life — you can read more about that in this article here:

Grounding Improves Your Relationship, Even Boosts Your Sex Life

What else can you do besides grounding daily to help balance hormones and feel better? I’ve written two free ebooks for you on this topic, read one or read them both, and share widely:

Free Female Health eBook

Free Adrenal Repair eBook

You can also take Maca Root as well as try bioidentical hormones — I just started these right around my 50th birthday and have found them incredibly helpful. The one’s I take and recommend are available in my online dispensary waiting for you in the Female Health category.

2. Gives a Metabolic Boost

Touching the earth directly boost your vagal tone immediately — this releases you from the autonomic nervous system’s overdrive of fight or flight and allows you to get into the parasympathetic healing zone of rest and digest. When your vagal tone gets a boost, your entire digestive track works better — from salivary glands to gall bladder to colon and everything in between, even better gut peristalsis!

In the blog post below, I talk all about the healing power of grounding to boost digestion, decrease gut inflammation, allow your body to utilize the food you consume better, react to it less, and even over time protect your thyroid function. In fact, medical studies show that grounding does indeed boost thyroid function, as well as stabilized blood sugar levels. Hop over here to read it:

Grounding: A Game Changer For Your Digestion

Not only does grounding help you digest your food better, boost your thyroid function, and give you metabolic support, it also helps you lose weight naturally. I talk about this more for you in this article:

You Can’t Lose Stress Weight By Dieting, Do These 10 Lifestyle Hacks Instead

3. Reduces Muscle Pain and Tension

Grounding immediately reduces muscle tension — near instantaneously.

As I talk about in this blog post below, your entire skeleton and all your muscles — as well as the connective tissues that hold all your organs and soft tissues in place — is a conductive conduit for healing is the basis for how and why grounding works:

Feel Immediate Relief With Grounding: Relax Your Muscles, Strengthen Your Bones

When you touch the earth outside, your entire body is instantaneously grounded precisely because your entire musculoskeletal system is conductive — think of it as a conductive fiberoptic system that runs grounding instantly throughout your entire body, as easy as flipping a switch.

This means that grounding can have an immediate impact on decreasing muscle tension and reducing pain, which so many women have. From the chronic pain of fibromyalgia, to preventing that annoying tension headache, to decreasing pain from cramping, grounding is my front line treatment for pain.

The article and video on this free blog post below will also help go further, explaining why grounding can help reduce chronic pain in ways that other pain therapies do not:

6 All Natural Ways To Relieve The Chronic Pain You’ve Been Dealing With For So Long

4. Decreases Inflammation

Inflammation is an insidious condition that we often can not even feel until there is frank disease. High levels of inflammation in the body can contribute to depression, to dementia, even cancer. But grounding can help.

In a study published in 2009 in The Journal of Alternative and Complimentary Medicine, researchers found that grounded subjects had statistically significant decreases in blood markers of inflammation, as well as lowered white blood cell counts, neutrophils and lymphocytes, compared to non-grounded subjects.

In addition, decreases in inflammation as a result of grounding are well documented using medical thermography imaging in this study. You can hop over here to read a great overview of how grounding decreases whole body inflammation in this article, published June 2014 in the Journal of Inflammation Research.

Decreasing inflammation can do everything from decreasing your chances of type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome to decreasing cancer risk. It also boosts mood and decreases dementia risk. That’s win-win-win-win for women everywhere.

5. Strengthens Our Bones

As I talk about in this article below, grounding is bone protective. One medical study found that after only one session of grounding, renal excretion of both calcium and phosphorous went down significantly, which means the primary indicators of osteopenia and osteoporosis in these patients decreased after just a single night of grounding.

Grounding: Relax Your Muscles, Strengthen Your Bones

This is incredible… after just one night, instead of their body having to go in and pull minerals out of their bones in order to repair the inflammation of the day and to correct the pH, the minerals remained in the bones preserving their strength. And so, over time and over a lifetime, instead of leaching away your bones and creating brittle bones, grounding is naturally helping to maintain the integrity of your entire skeletal system. For a nation whose women have epidemic proportions of osteopenia and osteoporosis, grounding is absolutely crucial for females.

What else can you do to protect bone strength?

Read this article for more on why I highly recommend filtering your tap water to remove fluoride, because even the minuscule amounts of fluoride added to the public water supply accumulates in bone. It is estimated about 50% of the fluoride we consume is eliminated, and 50% is stored in our body, mostly in our bones. So miniscule amounts of fluoride adding to our bodies sip after sip after sip equals a not-so-minimal exposure. Over a lifetime, these levels can reach high proportions… decreasing bone density and causing brittleness.

6. Boosts Skin Health

The moment you touch the earth, your circulation starts to improve. Published 2014 in the Journal of Cosmetics, Dermatological Sciences and Applications, researchers showed that grounding through the soles of the feet boosted blood circulation all the way up in facial skin tissues, suggesting the positive effects of increased circulation are available even in distant sites of the body that are far away from the grounding point of contact.

In other words, you don’t have to touch the earth with your face in order to brighten your complexion and boost skin circulation, just standing barefoot or touching the earth with a fingertip will do. Following that study, another study, a double blind placebo study published August 2015 in Health, showed clear evidence of dramatically boosted circulation throughout the body after only one hour of grounding.

If you want more info on how grounding is anti-aging, you may enjoy this blog post here:

7 Anti-Aging Daily Routines That Are Absolutely Worth Doing

Here is another great article on anti-aging and skin health, where I include grounding in my list of Must-Do’s for healthy skin at every age:

The Sugar You Eat Ages Your Face: How To Reverse The “Sugar Sag” In Your Skin

What else can you do besides grounding to boost skin health? Listen to my podcast right here where I tell you about a very interesting recent medical study that suggests beauty sleep is a real thing!

7. Boosts Creativity

While medical studies show you why grounding is so healing for the human body, I want you to know that it’s not just your physical body that is being supported. It’s your mind frame, your soul energy, your Spirit.

Just as we have now shown that being disconnected causes everything from depression to inflammation to accelerated aging (collectively now called Nature Deficit Disorder) the re-establishment of grounding your body to support your health will have ramifications that go well beyond any single parameter or indicator of physical health.

You feel better.

You feel supported.

You feel creative.

You feel inspired.

You feel stronger.

You feel more motivated.

You feel more loving.

You feel more loved.

You become open to your soul energy flowing deeply, and meeting your body at it’s core, deep in your heart center.

You become the perfect balance of a physical body that is supported and healthy while being an open vessel holding the most vibrant state of your soul’s energy flowing through your body and resonating out from your core.

When you are in that specific union of your unique physical body that nobody else has, combined with your unique soul energy that nobody else has, coming together and being totally supported by the healing energy flow of the earth… that is your optimal state of Well Being.

You can offer twice as much of yourself to the world when you feel your well being optimized the way a plant would grow twice as tall because it is grounded and supported by the earth’s energy.

And that’s really the whole point of being alive.

So that you can offer to the world what you are here to offer.

And you can live the unique meaningful life that you are meant to live.

You can go out and radiate twice as much creativity, twice as much goodness, twice as much connection with others, twice as much love to offer, and make twice the impact on this world… and more.

So ultimately, grounding is not just about your hormonal balance or your skin circulation or your bone strength.

Grounding is about finding a center that is so deep and so pure and so strong that you can truly be the best you possible.

Optimizing all of these other things… cardiac function, sleep, hormones, adrenals, bones, thyroid, insulin, etc… so that just like plants in grounding studies that grow twice as tall when they are grounded, you can feel twice as vibrant, and twice as open to why you are here and what do you want to express while you are here in this lifetime.

That is what I have witnessed and experienced over and over and over again both personally and as a medical physician with my patients.

Most people start their grounding journey because they need an answer that offers more support than any one single medication or operation or vitamin or exercise can offer. Most people have found that conventional medicine has not been sufficient to correct the physical ailments the disconnect from the earth has caused.

And most people find that when they reconnect, it’s not just the physical ailments that improve.

It’s the body but it is also the energy level and it’s the mind-frame and it’s the sense of meaningful purpose and it’s the heart that heals as well. So my goal is to be sure you do not limit your expectations in any way when you begin your grounding journey. Allow your entire body, mind, heart and spirit to be transformed.

Allow the supportive energy of Mother Earth to fill you up, open you up, support you in becoming the optimized best version of you that is possible.

The future for grounding is limitless as connecting directly to the earth outside is the birthright of all living things. There are very very few circumstances where one would not be able to connect outside and receive that healing flow if only we would remember that it is natural for us to do so. Even urban dwellers can get connected by standing barefoot in a park or on a concrete sidewalk. Even prisoners in most prisons have access to the outdoors, even if it is concrete, for at least a short period of time each day.

I have patients who live several stories off of the ground who hold onto a tree branch that reaches into their balcony and this is how they ground each afternoon. I have patients who have a cement basement and stand barefoot on this cement while they fold laundry, and this is how they ground each night.

And for those who are bed ridden, there are even indoor ways to connect directly to the earth even lying comfortably on our beds as we lay tucked in tight using either a grounding rod or a grounded outlet in your home. Grounding while indoors lets you stay in that healthy, connected healing zone for much longer than only grabbing a few minutes outside when you can. I have medical grade, eco-ethically hand crafted, organic and non-toxic indoor grounding tools — like organic grounding mats, grounding wristbands and even grounding bed toppers — waiting for you to explore right over here.

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

Luckily, grounding is the easiest, most readily available healing modality possible.

The only thing you need to do is give it a try, and allow the earth’s energy to uplift, transform and optimize your well being naturally.

The earth is out there, waiting for you.xoxoxo, Laura

P.S. For more information on developing a grounding routine that protects your long term health, I’ve got you. I spent an entire year writing a book for you… it’s called The Earth Prescription and it’s available in print, Kindle, and Audible right here.

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Published on May 06, 2024 03:02

April 29, 2024

3 Playful Ways To Use Your Intuition Today, Pick The One You Like Best And Test It Out

Intuition is in our cellular structure… literally.

There is a physical biology behind intuition. Using intuitive guidance is actually in the design of our cells, in the design of our DNA, it’s in the design of our existence.

Dr. Bruce Lipton, PhD, pioneered the ground breaking revelation that it is not our DNA that is a master template that our bodies are wired around, but it is actually the exact opposite: DNA stands to serve as a resource for incoming information and directives to use as a raw material for expression.

This is the science of epigenetics — how our DNA is read and what it expresses is modifiable by external circumstances. The perfect example of this is what I wrote about for you a few weeks ago, in this medical study that helped to explain why stress during childhood can affect your health as an adult.

Our cell membranes, with all it’s receptors, and our cellular messenging system that brings incoming information into our cells helps to decide how our DNA is used. It is the messages coming into the nucleus of our cells that our DNA responds to… used as a template according to the messages our cells are receiving externally.

Our body does not function by our DNA initiating and sending out messages on it’s own… each cell functions by receiving information from the external and then uses the genes in our DNA as a resource to respond to incoming signals in the appropriate way.

So it’s as if your DNA is a grocery store — all the genes are different ingredients waiting to be utilized. They can be selected and utilized in countless ways based on the incoming messages, information, environmental stimuli, thoughts, beliefs, intuitive information, and energetic information. Based on these signals, different ingredients are retrieved from the shelves in order for you to create whatever meal is being requested.

Any type of dish, and type of salad, soup, casserole, main course, desert, snack — all of it is possible depending on how you combine the ingredients you find in the grocery store.

And all of these dishes and more… an unlimited array… can be created in the same kitchen.

In other words, your cells can create anything they like, using the raw ingredients of your DNA but using the directive from incoming information. The directive does not come from the DNA. The DNA is an ingredient, a raw material at best.

External information is the master chef, in charge of the creation!

This has been shown again and again in the scientific literature, the power of the cell membrane and cellular messengers to modify the expression of the DNA… confirmed by the Human Genome Project.

The Human Genome Project revealed that there are only about 34,000 genes in the human genome.

This is less than 1/3 of the genes that were projected to be found… researchers had estimated that humans needed at least — at least! — 100,000 genes in order to have a gene that encodes for all the different proteins and regulatory mechanisms that produce the great variation we have in our anatomy, physiology, and behavior.

What they found, instead, is that the number of genes we have do not cover even half of the proteins that the human body is made of (over 70,000 different proteins.) So the DNA can’t even account for the variety of physical elements the body is made of, much less the vast array of function and expression of said proteins that create our human existence.

DNA can not be a master template, if more than half of the “game plan” is missing. Instead, the DNA must be receiving incoming information from an outside source that is using the DNA as an expressive medium.

Just like every single book you have ever read — every single word you have ever read — from a magazine, from the internet, from this blog post, passages from any religious text you’ve ever read to the newspaper to your child’s picture book — is actually simply a combination of a finite amount of letters — in English this is just 26 letters used in different arrangements to create the unlimited beautiful expression of words.

In this exact way, our 34,000 genes in our DNA simply a beautiful but limited tool, an alphabet, used in different arrangements to create an unlimited beautiful expression of life.

I found this awesome quote in this great article here — I highly recommend you read it! — but in that article there was a quote from nobel prize winning geneticist David Biltmore:

“It is clear that we do not gain our undoubted complexity over worms and plants by using more genes. Understanding what does give us our complexity – our enormous behavioral repertoire, ability to produce conscious action, remarkable physical coordination, precisely tuned alterations in response to external variations of the environment, learning, memory…need I go on? – remains a challenge for the future.” Nature 409:816, 2001

So… what does control our biology, if not our genes?

Turns out the cell membrane is the cell’s control center, turning genes on and off from information received and signals transmitted through cell receptors.

In other words, cells are perceptive to outside stimulus and this shapes the function of the entire unit. Our biology is literally designed to receive outside information and to use this information as a directive on how to experience our lives.

Our bodies do this every single moment of every single day, naturally. Without conscious effort. We are literally built to pick up on external information and use it.

Our body is responding to at all times, day and night, from incoming information that shapes our physical reality… this is the way we function whether we know it or not.

So… do you think we were meant to be ignoring messages from our soul? Do you think we were meant to flow our living life force through bodies that were totally ignoring our soul energy and just flowing on autopilot from our DNA?

No way.

If every single cell in our body;

from our neurons (who use receptors on the surface to pick up on our neurochemistry that tells us everything from what mood we are in to directing our sleep/wake cycle)to our sensory organs (which tell us everything from what we hear, what we touch, what we are seeing every moment of every day)to our skin (which tells us if we are touching something too hot, too cold, too sharp, too abrasive, that gives us a feeling if we are unsafe, that allows us to soak in every warm touch and loving caress we’ve ever had)to our muscles (that allow us to speak, move, create, journey through life, interact, move, explore the world around us)

and every other cell in every single organ system is created to take in external information and use it to achieve optimum health and expression… then certainly we (as a whole organism) are designed to pick up on external information and use that information to achieve optimum health and expression.

Any function that is higher than a brain stem function operates from external information as the driving force behind expression. And even our brain stem function too, as a matter of fact.

DNA is not the source of expression.

DNA is static without incoming information.

Without external energetic information interacting with the cell, it is not functioning in a healthy way.

Just like after your soul leaves your body — once the soul energy is no longer interacting with the body… all that is physically left behind is a carbon based shell — the old earth suit — that then decomposes.

It is not the body, not the cell, and not even the DNA within the cell that is the basis of life. It is the energetic environment that moves through the cell, lives the cell, that brings life to the cell and informs it’s process.

In other words, it doesn’t matter how much DNA you have or how many genes you have if it is not receiving a signal! It’s the signal that informs and expresses life.

And you are seeped in these signals, these messages, every single moment of your life.

Messages from your external environment like temperature, location, an assessment on safety, on balance and a judgement on the next movement needed to maintain balance for example.Messages from your internal environment, like your thoughts, feelings, emotions, memories, desires, fears, hopes, dreams, preferences, stressors for example.And I believe, intuitive messages from your larger soul perspective, your 6th sense, your gut knowings, your intuitions, your soul’s guidance… these energetic messages are the most important pieces of life-bringing life-enhancing information you could ever hope for.

And they are your birthright. Your innate design, built into your biology. The messages your body relays to you include intuitive messaging from your soul energy.

Any vision, sound, smell, sensation, emotion, experience, message and interconnection between yourself and others that brings you extrasensory information is designed to be listened to.

You are meant to receive intuitive information. You are meant to recognize it. You are meant to utilize this information to make the best possible decisions in your daily life in order to align with the best possible outcome — every day, all day.

Enjoy whatever intuitions come into your awareness today, knowing they are there by design to enhance the functioning of your body, your cells, your journey, your path, your life. To help you open up to intuitive knowings in a fun and simple way, today I want to share with you some exercises you can do to connect to your intuition.

Here are three playful, easy ways to bring more awareness of your intuition into your daily life…

3 Playful Ways To Use Your Intuition:

1. Use your intuition to decide on what to wear today.

Stand in front of your clothing, whether in a closet or in drawers, and use your body’s sensory information and open intuition to feel which outfit is most aligned with the unique energy of this unique day.

Colors, textures, fabrics, styles, lengths, warmth, privacy — all of these components of the outfit you wear make a difference to your energy field.

In particular, I have found that color makes the biggest difference to me in my energy for the day, but for you it might be a texture of the fabric you respond to, or how warm it makes you feel on a cool day, or how cool it makes you feel on a hot day, or how private it allows you to be or how visible invisible you want to be that day, etc…

It is undeniable that certain clothes make you feel fabulous on certain days, and certain clothes just drain the color and life force right out of you.

The best example of how to dress comes from children.

Have you ever seen a child light up when they are given the freedom of expression to wear exactly what they want to when they want to?

I absolutely loved watching my daughter create the most amazing combinations of clothes when she was little — often she would layer polka dots with stripes, warm and cool colors together, and skirts over top of pants. Adding on a vest over her shirt, and fingerless gloves on top of that, she was just the pure definition of sass and vibrancy.

Taking a cue from the raw energy of children, today stand in front of your clothes, whether you have two options or twenty options to choose from, and choose the one that you feel most aligned with.

Choose the color that feels right to you intuitivelyChoose the texture that feels right to you intuitivelyChoose the one that highlights what you feature feel most good about within your body today and what you’d like to keep covered or protected — your intuition is telling you what body parts could use a little extra nurturing and which ones are ready to be shown off to the world today.

2. Use your intuition to choose what foods to eat today.

Food is meant to nourish us, plain and simple.

It is the energy of the food that enters our body and provides us with fuel to use each day and building blocks to repair and heal our body with.

Our soul energy can feel and sense the energy contained within food… so today, allow your intuition to select what is high quality enough and aligned well with your physical make up at this particular point in time enough to eat.

Putting food into your body is sacred and holy — it is very intimate — it is accepting something as worthy of nourishing your precious body. You can *feel* past cravings and impulse decisions and choices of convenience to deeper alignment with the foods in front of you.

Sense which options make your body energy feel expansive (and which make your energy feel contracted…) as you scan through a menu, walk through the grocery store, or pull foods from your pantry.Scan your body for a *yes* or a *no* as you pull together your meals.Feel which foods your soul accepts into it’s energy feild and which it feels hesitant about.Also use your intuition to know when it’s time to stop eating. Allow yourself the freedom to change your mind mid-bite if you need to. What felt like a *yes* when you were pulling it from the fridge might feel like a *no* after two bites — honor this. If a *yes* turns out to have just been a craving… as it is quenched, stop when you sense this quenching instead of eating past the saturation point.

As you select foods with awareness more and more often, you’ll get really good at what true *soul yes* feels like — when the food not only seems appealing but it feels right as it digests and distributes through your body.

A yes from your soul will feel like a yes all the way from selecting to preparing to eating to utilizing the energy from it afterwards. Take notice of which foods turn into a *no* once it starts digesting inside. Or which foods turn into a *no* when you are trying to fall asleep that night!

Tuning in more and more to what your body needs each day:

do you need more protein today?do you need to focus more on hydration today?does something crisp and fresh like an apple appeal to you today?does something warm and comforting like soup appeal to you today?today is it better just to fast and focus on good hydration?)

allows you to use food as a tool that nurtures you inside and out and decrease the amount of foods you eat that are not in alignment with your true health.

3. Use your intuition to choose your activities today, for example:

Movement:

Pick a movement that aligns with your soul energy best on this particular day, in this particular moment (allow intuition to signal to you when to wake up and go to sleep, what activities feel most engaging and which to step away from, how far to walk or what exercise to do)

Driving:

Pick a path that unfolds most easily when driving your daily grind, getting to the grocery store, taking your kids to the park. It may not be the most direct way or the routine way. Or maybe it is… let your deeper intuition inform you.

Triaging emails and social media:

Use your intuitive sense as you scan your email inbox each day or wade through social media.. your intuition can help you to decide which emails to answer, and which to simply bless and delete, which emails to purge, and which to pass along and delegate to others. It can help you decide what social media platform to log out of, which ones to engage in and which to step away from, how long to stay on each, whether you really want to do that google search or not, and when to get off line entirely.

Feel that knot in your stomach when it’s time to get off. Don’t ignore it and keep scrolling. Feel in your heart or your solar plexus or your mind’s eye, wherever you feel most easily in your body when online activities create even the smallest bit of tension for you… and honor this by disengaging with it immediately.

Over time you will get very good at stepping away and honoring your mental and physical health first — social media second (if at all.)

Today’s article is a part of my Expanding Your Intuition online class, which just started today!

If you liked this blog post, it’s just a sneak peak into a course that I know you will love. I only run this class once a year, so this will be the only time in all of 2024 that I will offer this class.

So if you’d like my help unlocking your intuition, discovering where in your body you feel intuitive guidance most easily and what your unique intuitive strengths actually are, today is your last chance to hop into my class and join others who are honing their own intuitive gifts right now:

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I’d love to share with you how I discovered my own intuition, how I use it to help myself and others boost their well being, and how to find and use your own intuitive strengths.

Yes, you do have them.

I’m here for you and I’ll show you. And I can’t wait to work with you.

xoxoxo,Laura Koniver MD

The post 3 Playful Ways To Use Your Intuition Today, Pick The One You Like Best And Test It Out appeared first on Intuition Physician.

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Published on April 29, 2024 02:19

April 22, 2024

5 Unique Ways To Include Grounding Into Your Earth Day Plans (Including 3 Free Movies You Can Watch Tonight!)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fifty, one hundred, two hundred years ago we were more likely to spend time walking directly on the earth, or be working directly in the earth, and — going back thousands of years further — sleeping directly on the ground.

But now, we have rubber shoes, cars to travel in, insulated flooring in our home, asphalt coating our roadways, high rises filled with smart meters to live in.

And life is so stressful, more fast paced and competitive and technologically advanced than ever before. We are surrounded by more financial stress, technological manmade e-smog (EMFs) and artificial foods than previously imaginable. Stress, higher cortisol, joint pain, dementia, cancer, age related changes — these are all a fall out from a life long inflammatory condition of a lifetime of living disconnected to the earth.

So we better find a way to be absolutely certain we intentionally seek this connection, routinely. There is no better day to spend 15 minutes doing exactly that than on Earth Day.

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And know too, that grounding goes way beyond the electrical connection of simply touching the earth. Grounding our body gives us a deeper support that has a spiritual aspect.

I believe we are only understanding the very tip of the iceberg when we focus on grounding as being a DC electrical connection. What I’ve seen over and over again as a physician working with grounding for over 20 years now, is that grounding supports our body and our soul energy.

When plants are grounded, they grow two and three times as tall, bloom more, and the blossoms last longer. When humans are grounded, we don’t grow two and three times as tall… instead we feel two and three times more vibrant and healthy and energetic as we do when we are ungrounded.

While the plant world expresses grounded support by vibrant growth, we express grounded support by vibrant health!

Grounding is the only modality that I know of that combines the fullest extent of physical support with the fullest extent of energetic healing. Nothing else can quite come close to this full state of well being.

No vitamin you take in the morning, that your body will digest that day and try to deliver through your intestines to help nutritionally support your body, will do everything grounding can do.

No amount of sleep you can get the night before to help repair your body to meet the demands of the next day, will do everything grounding can do.

No amount of spiritual support through energy healing modalities such as deep breathing or meditation can support the fullest extent of the physical body the way grounding can.

No modality does both the physical and the energetic work that grounding does, simultaneously. Nothing quite allows you to become the pure positive vessel of Well Being the way grounding does.

So while the medical studies show you why grounding is so healing for the human body, I want you to know that it’s not just your physical body that is being supported. It’s your mind frame, your soul energy, your Spirit.

You feel better.

You feel supported.

You feel creative.

You feel inspired.

You feel stronger.

You feel more motivated.

You feel more loving.

You feel more loved.

You become open to your soul energy flowing deeply, and meeting your body at it’s core, deep in your heart center.

When you are in that specific union — of your unique physical body that nobody else has, combined with your unique soul energy that nobody else has, coming together and being totally supported by the healing energy flow of the earth… that is your optimal state of Well Being.

You can offer twice as much of yourself to the world when you feel your well being optimized the way a plant would grow twice as tall because it is grounded and supported by the earth’s energy.

And that’s really the whole point of being alive. So that you can offer to the world what you are here to offer. And you can live the unique meaningful life that you are meant to live.

You can go out and radiate twice as much creativity, twice as much goodness, twice as much connection with others, twice as much love to offer, and make twice the impact on this world… and more.

So ultimately, grounding is not just about your cardiac function or your hormonal balance or your sleep quality or your bone strength. Grounding is about finding a center that is so deep and so pure and so strong that you can truly be the best you possible.

Optimizing all of these other things… cardiac function, sleep, hormones, adrenals, bones, thyroid, insulin, etc… so that just like the plants in the grounding study that grow twice as tall when they are grounded, you can feel twice as vibrant, and twice as open to why you are here and what do you want to express while you are here in this lifetime.

That is what I have witnessed and experienced over and over and over again both personally and as a medical physician with my patients.

Most people start their grounding journey because they need an answer that offers more support than any one single medication or diet or vitamin or exercise can offer. Many people have found that conventional medicine has not been sufficient to correct the physical ailments the disconnect from the earth has caused. And most people find that when they reconnect, it’s not just the physical ailments that improve. The energy level and the mind-frame and the sense of meaningful purpose and the heart that heals as well.

So my goal is to be sure you do not limit your expectations in any way when you begin your grounding journey.

Allow your entire body, mind, heart and spirit to be transformed.

Allow the supportive energy of Mother Earth to fill you up, open you up, support you in becoming the optimized best version of you that is possible.

Even urban dwellers can get connected by standing barefoot in a park or on a concrete sidewalk. Even prisoners in most prisons have access to the outdoors, even if it is concrete, for at least a short period of time each day.

I have patients who live several stories off of the ground who hold onto a tree branch that reaches into their balcony and this is how they ground each afternoon.

I have patients who have a cement basement and stand barefoot on this cement while they fold laundry, and this is how they ground each night.

And for those who have mobility limitations, even bed ridden, there are indoor ways to connect directly to the earth while sitting or lying comfortably indoors.

You can actually be grounded indoors while at work, while home watching TV or reading a book, while spending quality time with your loved ones.

The absolutely easiest way to optimize the amount of time you are grounded in a 24 hour period is to start by sleeping grounded all night long. There are a huge amount of medical grade, high quality, eco-ethically hand crafted indoor grounding tools waiting for you to explore right over here:

Luckily, grounding is the easiest, most readily available healing modality possible.

The only thing you need to do is give it a try, and allow the earth’s energy to uplift, transform and optimize your well being naturally.

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

You need to.

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

Need more inspiration?Here are 5 Earth Day Ideas for you:

Idea #1: Take a fun Grounding Quiz

How Much Do You Really Know About Grounding (Quiz)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So start the day with a cup of tea or coffee standing outside watching the sunrise.Or end the day looking up at the moon and stars for a minute before heading up to bed.Take a midday break and do some stretches outside — a few neck rolls would feel amazing.Stand on a sidewalk, or brick, or cement — it will all ground you.Or simply find a leaf on a tree to touch and take three deep breaths. It will ground you too.

Idea #3: Host An Earth Day Movie Night

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

A list of free grounding movies you can watch:

1. What is Grounding:

Watch this free 11 minute video I created to introduce folks to grounding — it’s the perfect starting point:

2. The Grounded:

Watch The Grounded full length movie for free on You Tube right here or order the DVD right here:

3. Heal For Free:

Watch the Heal For Free full length movie for free on YouTube right here:

4. The Earthing Movie:

Watch The Earthing Movie for free on You Tube right here:

5. Grounding Keynote Presentation:

Watch a 30 minute Keynote Presentation on Grounding for free right here, in which I give an overview of the medical literature on the power of grounding to improve our health:

Idea #4: Get Outside and Go Heart Spotting!

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

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

Today, take your phone or camera and walk around your neighborhood, grabbing pics of any hearts you find.

I love finding hearts in nature, here are some of my favorite pictures I’ve taken of heart I’ve found along the way:

Idea #5: Read My Grounding Book

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

I’ve got answers that will get you grounding in no time.

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

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

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

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

Happy Earth Day my friends!!!

Get out there and go feel better… doctor’s orders.

xoxoxo, Laura Koniver MD

The post 5 Unique Ways To Include Grounding Into Your Earth Day Plans (Including 3 Free Movies You Can Watch Tonight!) appeared first on Intuition Physician.

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Published on April 22, 2024 02:16

April 15, 2024

What To Do When You Are Struggling To Hear Your Own Internal GPS

Today I am sharing an interview I did a while back with the fabulous Rachel Molendo for her podcast: The Fill Your Cup Podcast.

Honestly I do interviews every week or so and I rarely share them here on my blog, because they usually focus on grounding, which repeats much of the same information that I already share with you here freely each week.

But this one is different.

In this podcast I share TONS of information that I’ve never shared in an interview before, including exactly why I left conventional medicine, and exactly why I feel intuitive guidance is so important to include when you are making a major life decision.

If you are wanting to know more about how you can listen to your own intuition (or to just get to know me a little bit better!) I hope you will join me in listening to this podcast.

In it Rachel and I talk about:

Why I left a successful career as a conventional Medical Doctor

Advice for how to leave a job or situation that doesn’t feel right for you

What I experienced after I left my medical career and how I stayed true to my journey in the face of criticism

Ways that I practice listening to my intuition (you can do it too!)

A little on grounding and how grounding can help you find your center

How we are energetically connected to the earth and why this matters

How living intuitively can truly deepen your happiness

Lots of hand’s on examples and practices that I will run you through on how to silence the brain and listen to the intuitive heart center that I know you absolutely have:

When You’re Struggling to Listen to Your Intuition – Dr. Laura Koniver, MD

Listen on:

Episode Resources:

The Earth Prescription book by Laura Koniver, MD

Expand Your Intuition online class led by Laura Koniver, MD

Instagram: @intuitionphysician

Facebook: Intuition Physician

Intuition Physician Website

Dr. Laura’s Blog

TikTok: @laurakonivermd

Dr. Laura’s Pinterest

Dr. Laura’s YouTube

If you feel called to work with me on hearing your own unique intuition more clearly, I absolutely am here waiting to work with you literally next Monday — let’s go.

I took months to create an Intuition Online Class, where I can go step by step through the process of you opening to your own unique intuitive gifts.

Yes, you absolutely do have them. I’ll show you how to find your intuition, hear your intuition, and feel empowered — instead of drained — by being empathetically intune to the world around you.

Join me right here, we start on Monday:

To your healthy, vibrant and totally unique soul energy… I can’t wait to meet it!

xoxoxo, Laura Koniver, MD

The post What To Do When You Are Struggling To Hear Your Own Internal GPS appeared first on Intuition Physician.

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Published on April 15, 2024 02:05

April 8, 2024

Let Me Walk You Through Exactly How Your Body Is Speaking To You Right Now

One thing I know about intuition is this:everybody has it and everyone can use it.

If I can access my intuition, absolutely without a doubt, so can you.

I absolutely was THE most conventional person on the planet… since 4 years old my goal was to become a physician and I worked hard to become an M.D. by the age of 26 years old — I was super square and type A personality (plus tons of anxiety plus high functioning autism… so yeah, really a truly rigid and boxed in.)

After I became pregnant with my first child, I fully intended to continue on with my conventional medical career and didn’t give it a second thought when something stopped me right in my tracks :

It was seeing my first soul, eye to eye… looking directly at my daughter after she was born.

BOOM. Done.

I could no longer pretend we weren’t all souls wearing earth suits and having divine experiences on this planet. I could no longer pretend it all made scientific sense and if I memorized enough facts I could distill everything down to a clinical explanation.

Jumping waves with Clara when she was just a few months old.

I remember the next physical exam I did on a patient in the office — rushing my patient through in 15 minutes as is protocol and writing her a Rx as she headed out the door… something I would have felt happy to do before having children made me stay awake all night feeling nauseous and repulsed as a newly awakened Soul Mom.

I actually rushed in the the bathroom and vomited in the toilet before I left work that day I was so upset about it and so worried about the patient that had given me such a strong, unsettling feeling.

Because now I knew — the body was just a thing I was treating and the soul was something I was missing out on entirely.

So I quit.

Quitting conventional medicine is the best thing I had ever done because it forced me to fully trust in the unseen — trust in the outcome when it was not at all apparent what my next step would be.

I had absolutely no idea what I would do next when I walked away from everything I had ever known and walked away from the 23 years of straight schooling I had just invested in (and still had scary big med school loans to prove it…)

I just knew I couldn’t do what I had done before.

And as it always does, the next step kept appearing.

The intuitions started coming like a feeling of deja vu… a feeling of waking up from amnesia to what was there all along… all these intuitions that were always there that I had blocked from coming in.

I started working with patients in a whole new way — seeing their energy and working with their soul energy and finally healing things instead of prescribing a cover up.

Now I don’t want to work any way other than intuitively. The 5 sensory way to heal patients is so incredibly limited. And just as 5 sensory physicians limit themselves when healing the body, healing any situation with only 5 sensory information traps us into a limited finite outcome that keeps ticking away towards a dead-end.

We need to move beyond 5 sensory living on this planet in order to transform our experience and reality and existence… in order to create sustainability. Right now we live focused on a limited, finite experience of reality… we are 5 sensory organisms on a 5 sensory planet trying to figure out 5 sensory solutions in a limited capacity environment.

We have limited resources and are looking dismally at a finite outcome with an end point that means time is up.

This original artwork I painted sold but here are prints of a similar piece, Dynamic Universe

In a 6 sensory existence, one that welcomes intuitive information as direct and valid information equal to the other 5 senses, we can move beyond boxed in finite outcomes to infinite possibility and infinite solutions.

I can testify that staying opening to possibility with the human body leads to health and healing beyond what one could predict with only 5 sensory calculations and trials and data and outcome computations.

Healing strategies that see the entire dynamic of energy flow throughout the body instead of just a linear cellular process of A = B = C (which is NOT ever how health flows through the body and not how a single disease process happens or resolves!)

The information is ALWAYS there, you just learn to lean into your favorite way of picking up on it:

You can feel intuitions in your abdomen — intuitive gut knowings.You can feel intuitions in your chest — heart centered intuitive connections.You can feel intuitions in your head — through visualizationsYou can feel intuitions all over your entire body in the form of physical sensations on your skin or deep in your musclesYou can receive intuitions through your dreams when you are deeply relaxed and in receptive sleep modes.

Your intuitive information is the best ally you have in making decisions that are unlimited in potential and open to many alternative possibilities.

Every single one of us can get intuitive information, but I meet so many people who don’t feel that they are intuitive.

Nothing could be further from the truth!

Our bodies are always speaking to us about what is going on inside of us, all we need to do is listen.

To me, intuition just means feeling connected to our soul’s inner guidance system. We each have at least one intuitive center that we can lean on to get deeper knowings about our health, about how to navigate relationships, or how to develop a soul career… in fact, there is no area of life where intuitive understanding can’t support us!

Today, let me walk you through how to figure out which way that intuitive information reaches you most easily. Let’s figure out where your awareness lives! Here we go:

How To Find Where Your Intuition Speaks To You:

Sit or lay down. Take a big deep breath in, and release it slowly.

Enter a place where you are neutral and not forcing any particular outcome at all.

You are relaxing into the feeling of being a receptor, just receiving. So this means:

you do not have to create any feelingsyou don’t have to force any responseyou do not have to come up with any answersyou don’t have to picture anything in your mind

Your job is only to be an active listener and feel in your body if you get a positive response at any time while connecting to these intuitive centers.

1. Drop your awareness all the way down your spine.

Feel the connection you have with the floor underneath of you — how it is holding you up… supporting you.

Bring your awareness down to the base of your spine. If you are sitting down, then feel down your back right into the area that you are sitting on. If you are laying down, feel the lower most portion of your spine, right at the base of your glut muscles.

As you bring awareness to this portion of your body, ask yourself this:

Do you tend to get a knowing deep down in your bones?Do you make decisions based on something indescribable all the way down to your core?Do you ever use the phrase â€œI knew it in my bones.â€Do you ever get a feeling of deep comfort when making a decision?Do you ever feel like sometimes your body moves itself when making decisions — like you are able to just watch it play out, knowing your body automatically makes the decision for you and moves when the time is right.

If this is how you tend to know when to say *YES* to a decision, then you are likely to be a grounded, rooted kinesthetic intuitive.

To access your natural intuitive abilities, you can focus on doing a body scan when making decisions or asking intuitive questions.

How your body responds — if you feel an itch, if you feel pain, if you feel your body tense up, if you feel your body relax, if you feel comfort or if you feel anxious after you ask yourself a question — a body scan is your go to tool for easily accessible intuitive information.

If you are a kinesthetic intuitive, making a decision based on which choice provides you with a deep seated level of COMFORT is your most accurate *YES*.

2. Next, move your awareness up to your lower abdomen, just below your belly button.

As you bring awareness to this portion of your body, ask yourself this:

Do you tend to get intuitive information flowing to you while you are creating?Do you find that doodling, or painting, or drawing, or sewing or cooking or gardening or doing any creative hobby is when your best answers and solutions arise?Do you find that sex or focusing on physical pleasure allows creative solutions to flow more easily?Do you find that after a massage or love making that you are able to open up to creative solutions?Do you find that when you are creating music or art or working on another hobby, time stands still?Do you tend to follow your pleasure to know when to say yes to an opportunity?

If creativity or pleasure is the strongest intuitive guidepost for you, then you are also likely a kinesthetic intuitive, like the grounded kinesthetic we met in the last section, but this is a more action oriented intuitive, one that needs to be doing something physical in order to allow the intuitions free range to flow.

For these types of creative or sensual kinesthetic intuitives, it is imperative that they get body work and allow for open ended, non-goal oriented expression.

Expressing themselves without an end point (so painting freely, not because you are hired to create a painting for a customer) is how these kinesthetic intuitives allow the answers to rise up from within.

So, knowing this, when trying to access intuitive information these types of intuitives often get great success when asking a question and then getting active — taking a hot sensual bath, receiving a massage, doodling on a sketch pad.

This type of physical intuition can also be assessed by responding to temperature — does the decision make you feel warmer or cooler? — can be a great intuitive tool for physical kinesthetic intuitives.

Visualizing a thermometer and how it goes up or down depending on your different choices and options, or simply feeling if your own body gets warmer or cooler in response to asking intuitive questions, can tell you everything you need to know about your best path!

If this is your intuitive type, then making a decision based on which choice provides you with a deep seated feeling of PLEASURE (or delight!) is your most accurate *YES*.

3. Next, let’s move the awareness up to your solar plexus. This awareness center is in your upper abdomen, between your belly button and rib cage.

As you bring your awareness to this portion of your body, ask yourself this:

Do you ever get a strong gut knowing?Do you know when to make a decision based on how it feels to you in your stomach?Do you feel a sense of freedom or empowerment when you know you have made the *right* choice?Do you get spontaneous answers and solutions best if you are exercising or totally enveloped in a task?Do you prefer to take action — any action — instead of doing nothing when facing a choice?Do you feel relief after making a decision, and would you rather make any decision than no decision at all?

If you know that you hit a home run when making a decision because you immediately feel in your gut that it’s the right call, then your type of intuition is through getting direct information into your solar plexus core.

It’s great to know if this is your intuitive type because those that receive gut knowings can work with this type of incoming information to go with their first, initial impression.

The gut response — quick, quiet, sure, immediate, direct knowledge — this is direct intuitive information. Gut intuitives should not deliberate or wait or weigh the pros and cons or over think decisions.

Gut intuitives get a distinct first impression that aligns them with the best possible outcome.

Waiting for more hits, second guessing the first gut response, letting the mind come in and overthink things, or dismissing the initial reaction and waiting for something bigger to come in can obscure intuitive information for these types.

Gut intuitives can work with their unique intuition flow by recognizing that the initial response is the most accurate, and they can carry a journal around to immediately jot down first impressions or desires, so that this direct intuitive information is not lost later on when second guessing or deliberating the decision.

They can also bring their awareness down to their solar plexus whenever faced with a decision, feeling whether there is an expansion (a yes) or a constriction (a no) in the solar plexus when asking for intuitive guidance.

If you are a Gut Intuitive, than making a decision based on the choice that provides you with a deep seated feeling of POWER or FREEDOM is your most accurate *YES*.

4. Next, let’s move our awareness up to the heart. This intuitive center is right in the middle of your chest.

As you bring your awareness to this portion of your body, as yourself this:

Do you make most of your decisions based on emotion?Do you feel like you’ve made all of the best decisions of your life based on it’s pull on your heart?Do you feel that you can sense other peoples emotions, even when they are not physically present in front of you?Do you feel so connected to others that you feel markedly drained or highly invigorated by spending time with them?Can you have tears spring to your eyes simply by witnessing other people’s emotions?Do you feel in your heart when you know exactly what you need to do?

If so, you are an emotional intuitive.

If intuitions come to you most easily through your heart energy center, then you can use your emotional guidance scale to make intuitive decisions.

You can feel in your heart when you align, or do not align, with a particular decision.

You can often sense a feeling of fullness in your chest or a lifted vibration when an option is intuitively right, and you can sense a heaviness or a subdued vibration when an option is not in your highest alignment.

Emotional intuitives can often feel the emotions of others, which sometimes helps in intuitive decision making because you can be privy to information that other people are trying to conceal.

Often emotional intuitives just *know* when other people are lying.

To help them use their heart to help them make big life decisions, emotional intuitives can imagine a cord leading from their heart to each particular decision, and follow the one that makes the strongest and most positive connection.

Visualizing a heart centered connection is a fabulous tool for emotional intuitives to use when trying to obtain the clearest intuitive picture.

If you are an Emotional Intuitive, then making a decision based on the choice that provides you with a deep seated feeling of LOVE and CONNECTION is your most accurate *YES*.

5. Next, let’s move our awareness up to the throat. This intuitive center is in the center of your neck, in your throat.

As you bring your awareness to this portion of your body, ask yourself this:

Do you ever use talking or journalling to make big decisions?Do you ever use singing to de-stress or to amp up your energy before tackling a big task?Do you hum or whistle a lot?Do you like to make a list of pros and cons, do you like to talk big decisions through, do you prefer to bounce your ideas off of others?Do you feel like you get your best and most clear *YES* by talking out loud about your options and as you speak about each option, the decision becomes clear?

If journalling and using the written word or speaking out loud to hear your inner voice helps you to get that intuitive hit of clarity, then you are likely adept at connecting to your inner voice to get intuitive information.

For people who connect most easily with their inner truth through the use of vocal or written expression, it helps to simply get your mind out of the way and let the words arise in a free flow format — whether by talking out loud or stream-of-conscious writing.

If you have this as your most easily accessible form of intuition, it might help you to begin each day writing a page or two uncensored in a journal, or ending the day this way.

It might also help for you to talk out loud to yourself when making big decisions, instead of quietly thinking.

Go outside for a walk or get into your car and go on a drive — talking out loud the entire way.

Other techniques that can help are to use chanting, humming, singing and even simply whistling to help intuitive information flow through the throat chakra to be picked up faster.

If you are this type of Intuitive, then making a decision based on the choice that provides you with a deep seated feeling of TRUTH is your most accurate *YES*.

6. Next, let’s move our awareness up to your mind’s eye. This intuitive center is in the center of your forehead.

As you bring your awareness to your mind’s eye, ask yourself this:

Do you ever get sudden pictures or images that seemingly come out of nowhere?Do you have a little voice in your head that allows you to make quick decisions (like which street to take when you are driving or to wake up at a certain time in the morning)?Do you ever see energy around others?Do you ever get distinct impressions or visions in your mind’s eye?Have you always been thought of as having an *active imagination* as a child?Do you get mental images that are seemingly co-incidental to reality — for example, you think of someone and then they call you later that day?

This is the most traditional way that intuitive information comes in… yet most of us filter out this information automatically, without even realizing we are filtering it out.

If you are a visual or auditory intuitive, you are still open to getting this information without filtering it out! Go you! This is awesome. Keep a journal and record all messages and visualizations as they come.

Make sure to express gratitude for these intuitions and to not discount them.

Receive them and acknowledge them… acknowledging and recording the intuitive information you get is the best way to keep strengthening your gift.

For a Third Eye Intuitive, making a decision based the choice that provides you with a deep seated feeling of WISDOM is your most accurate *YES*.

7. Lastly, let’s move our awareness up to the very top of your head.

As you bring your awareness to this area, ask yourself:

Do you get your best intuitive information through dreams?Do you have vivid dreams, instructive dreams, dreams where you receive information or dreams where you get to speak to loved ones who have passed?Do you wake up knowing what to do better than when you went to sleep the night before?Do you feel like one of the best things you can do when facing an important decision is to sleep on it?Do you find more clarity after taking a quick cat nap?Do you enjoy mediation?Do you feel comfortable in silence?Do you often prefer to take a break and leave a stressful environment than stay in the struggle of it?

If so, your skill is silencing your brain to receive intuitive information that is intuitively guided.

These intuitive types can be the opposite of the gut intuitives — instead of acting on that very first gut feeling they have, often they need to take the time to let a day or two pass before making a big decision.

Sleep allows for information to integrate and process, and for intuitives that allow divine information to come in when the brain is most receptive and relaxed can be their smartest intuitive move.

These types of intuitives should absolutely have a dream journal by their bedside and should get into the habit of recording feelings, thoughts, words, images and sensations that they have while they are still in that open hypnagogic state, before becoming fully alert.

While in the hypnagogic state, your intuition can access information that is closed to it when the mind returns to it’s daytime state.

Another great tool for these types of intuitives is to work with meditation, as deep meditative states induce the same type of brain frequencies that deep sleep induces.

Even deeply relaxing yoga states can create this type of open brain function, and grounding (touching the earth directly) can help enhance this as well, particularly when you sleep, it will prolong the amount of time you are in that deep open restorative sleep state.

The core of the earth, the mind in restorative sleep, and the mind in a deep meditative state all resonate at the same frequency (the Schumann frequency) and you can use your ability to receive intuitive information while in that open frequency by utilizing all three modalities to make decisions: sleep, meditation, and grounding.

If you are this kind of Intuitive, then making a decision based on the choice that provides you with a deep seated feeling of UNITY is your most accurate *YES*.

No matter which way you resonated with receiving intuitive info as you read through this list, you absolutely can use your body to feel your way to your best decision making.

Whether that’s for your health or any other decisions in your life (big or small….) get used to dropping your awareness into your body and feeling your way towards an answer.

Damn, if I had had just ONE SINGLE CLASS in med school on how to include intuition when helping patients through their healing journey, I could have been so much of a better physician from the jump.If I had had just ONE PERSON in my life encouraging me to drop into my heart space when making big life decisions, I could have felt so much less anxious than I have for the past (almost!) 5 decades of living.If I could have had just ONE CLASS to join into the help me quiet my overactive, overthinking mind and center instead into my gut knowings, I could have avoided so much of the trauma I have been through in my life… and I could have stopped my energy from getting drained over and over and over again by the world around me.

So I want that for you — I want to offer a group where you feel seen, supported and lovingly guided, and that’s why I created my Intuition Online Class, where I can guide you step by step through the process of you opening to your own unique intuitive gifts.

If you’d like more help unlocking your intuition, discovering where in your body you feel intuitive guidance most easily and what your unique intuitive strengths actually are, save a spot in my upcoming class right here.

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I’d love to help you find and use your own intuitive strengths.

Yes, you do have them.

I’m here for you and I’ll show you. And I can’t wait to work with you.

Join me right here while there are still spaces in the class, we start in just two weeks:

Class starts April 29th!To your totally unique soul energy…

xoxoxo,Laura Koniver MD

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Published on April 08, 2024 02:35