Total Health Breakthroughs: Free Natural Health Newsletter and Alternative Health Articles

In This Issue:

Accessing the Voice With the Power: Yours!

By Scott Martineau

Many people unconsciously hide the music within themselves. Their voice does not reflect the song within. Instead, it rarely gets shared. Our true sound is buried behind a weaker, higher, booming or breathless voice that results in a tone lacking our true nature.

As part of my work at Conscious One I’ve hosted over 200 conference calls in the last few years. This is often my primary interface with the clients who support my business. My voice needs not only to reflect the professionalism of my work, but also be able to connect with and include the people with whom I am speaking. It is the principal tool I use to share myself and acknowledge others.

I owe the strength of this tool in large part to one man, Arthur Joseph, and his work called Vocal Power. His teachings, garnered from decades of experience, have allowed me to present my true Self through my voice. In today’s fast-paced world, sometimes all we have are a few moments to connect with people in a way that is intimate and meaningful. His tools have helped me make the most of every connection.

His work includes seven Empowerment Rituals that he suggests any time you are speaking. These simple techniques, when practiced, become second nature, allowing you to consistently present yourself to the world as you are, demonstrate your natural inner power and take charge of your destiny.

Ritual 1: Thank You to My Source

This can mean thanking anything from God to the moment of creation that brought you into being. It allows you to acknowledge and surrender to something greater than yourself. It gives you the courage to move forward even when you are afraid, knowing that you are serving something larger than the small “me.”

Ritual 2: Love and Let Go

In addition to a greater power we must also acknowledge ourselves for showing up and participating. When asked to love and let go, the body always responds with gratitude and surrender: it breathes. It is our body’s way of saying, “Thank you for the permission to be my Self. I’ll breathe in acknowledgment.” You can use this ritual not only to experience love but also to let go of fear, tension or anything that holds you back.

Ritual 3: Allow a Silent, Loving, Down-through-my-body Breath

The breath is the source of all sound and the connective vibration of life. Breathing calms and energizes the body. Offering a silent, loving, down-through-my-body breath takes us one step deeper into conscious communion with life. The first three rituals are always done prior to making sound and serve to separate you from one reality and establish you in another.

Ritual 4: See the Nasal Edge and Arc of Sound

Place your finger under your nose aligning your fingernail along the top edge of your upper lip. This is the Nasal Edge. Whenever you vocalize, focus on projecting sound forward, through and out of this special spot. Now, tilt your finger and your hand upward at about a 45-degree angle and picture a line extending beyond them. Do not tilt your head and do not tighten your neck and shoulders. This is the leaping-off point for your sound. Practice nasal humming and vocalization with your hand in this position and follow the sound along this trajectory. It will allow you to visualize the natural arc that is created by sound, one that allows your voice to carry even if you do not raise it.

Ritual 5: Pay Attention/Deeper Listening

As you practice Vocal Awareness, you learn to use not only your outer ears but also your deep inner senses to pay attention to the process. When you explore your voice, you explore your own power and mastery. Pay Attention/Deeper Listening should be enacted in every moment. Observe and take notice of the subtle qualities of your sound, your body, your mind, your emotions and your spirit. Pay meticulous attention to the details of the process and listen for the messages of your inner voice.

Ritual 6: Take My Time

Don’t hurry the work. What counts is not speed but effectiveness. Giving your Self permission to take your time will cultivate an atmosphere of security and allow you to garner the greatest benefit.

Ritual 7: Be Conscious of Self

Trust that if the present moment is all it can be, then the result will be what it needs to be. Be aware of the nuances of your physical and emotional experience. Vocally powerful individuals are at ease within and project their Self-acceptance into the world. Your Voice is your identity. So seek the joy in your conscious Self, in your conscious breath, in the vibrations of sound resonating through your body, in the tones that please your ears and in the freedom of your Self-expression.

[Ed. Note: Scott Martineau is a powerful motivational speaker and has been successful at helping thousands with his inspirational messages and pioneering ideas for self-improvement. To learn how you can unleash the true power of you, click here now.]

Healthy Aging:

6 Tips to Help You Age Well

By Dr. Tim Reynolds

I love birthdays. People call you and you realize how blessed you are. At the same time, you start to think about your own mortality and your health.

I don’t get nearly as concerned about how long I am going to live as I do about my quality of life until I die. As I talk to patients, I get the sense that I am not alone in this. It seems most of us just want to be as healthy as possible while we are alive.

Let me share with you some things we can all do to keep ourselves healthy as we age.

1. Decrease the amount of calories that you eat. Increase the amount of lean protein and decrease or eliminate the simple carbohydrates.

1. Increase the amount of fresh fruits and vegetables. You need at least four servings per day of fresh fruits and vegetables, more if possible.

1. Get the appropriate exercise. You don’t have to become a gym rat, but you do need at least four days a week of resistance training and four days a week of cardio training. The exercise should be interval type training. And don’t forget flexibility exercises.

1. Take a multivitamin supplement once a day.

1. Get some occasional sun. Most Americans are vitamin D-deficient. The best source of vitamin D is the sun. This is not to say you should ever get a sunburn. But healthy amounts of sun have multiple benefits to your health and psychological well-being.

1. Consider hormone replacement. As we age our hormonal balance often changes. It is wise to have your hormone levels checked at least once a year and make changes accordingly.

Put an anti-aging plan in place. If you need help with one, find a good anti-aging physician to guide you.

[Ed. Note: Tim Reynolds, M.D., is a practicing physician and a health and lifestyle expert. For more information, click here.]

Weight loss:

Break Out of Your Fat-Box

By Dr. Matthew Anderson

Every fat person lives in something I like to call a fat-box. Sadly, most weight-challenged people don’t know it exists. And they pay a massive price in weight gain and low self-esteem. I can help you break out of your fat-box.

If you want to be forever thin, you need detailed information about your own fat-box, plus the proper tools for breaking out of it. The information below has worked for me (65-pound fat loss) and for many thousands of weight-challenged individuals. It will work for you too.

Fat-boxes are made up of attitudes, beliefs and old habits formed in childhood. They subtly and powerfully shape our bodies, our self-image and the way we relate to food and life in general. Most weight-challenged people remain trapped in the gain/lose/gain cycle because they are unaware of this fact. Therefore, the issue is not whether a fat-box controls your weight but whether or not you will confront and break out of it. Here’s how.

First, identify the contents of your fat-box. Answer the following:

1. Who wants you to stay fat? Most weight-challenged people are surrounded by family and friends who “enable” their bad eating habits and weight gain.

2. How does staying overweight serve or protect you? From life, sex, your personal power, men/women, being visible, etc.

3. How has being overweight defined your personality, your relationships and your self-expression?

4. What would you do with your mind, your emotions, and your life if you were not constantly focused on food and fat?

Now, break out of your fat-box:

1. Imagine what you will look like when you drop all that weight. Write a description and place it on your fridge.

2. Imagine that you have all the power you need to face life as it is. How will this change your behavior?

3. Write a letter to the people who want you to stay fat. Tell them that you are breaking out of your fat-box and that they no longer have any say in who or what you are. Do not mail it. Read it out loud to yourself every day for 30 days. This is an extremely powerful exercise. Take the risk of feeling foolish and do it!

To be successful at breaking out of the fat-box you will need courage to face some fears. Most weight-challenged individuals are deeply attached to being overweight and discover great resistance when they get close to their ideal weight. Your task is to refuse to attack yourself or decide that you lack will power.

The problem is not your will but your deep-seated attitudes about who you are and can be. The solution is in learning to create a new image of you and your possibilities that is not defined by your old programs. With some work you will be successful at breaking out and being forever thin.

[Ed. note: Dr. Matthew Anderson is an author (The Prayer Diet), counselor (35 years) and national columnist/expert on weight loss, motivation, self-management and relationships. To find tough-minded, outside-the-box guidance for taking charge of your life and/or your weight including Eating to Kill, Wake-Up 101 and Weight Loss as a Spiritual Journey, click here.]

Mind/Body/Soul:

The Myth of a Set Point for Happiness

By Dr. Douglas Ramm

Many psychology professors who are recognized as experts on happiness refer to a set point for happiness. They believe this set point imposes an upper limit on our ability to find real and lasting emotional well-being. They assert that this set point is determined by our genes or by some other biological process existing at birth and remaining constant over a lifespan. Some of these academics insist this set point accounts for as much as half of our ability to find real and lasting happiness, contentment and satisfaction with life.

There are two problems with this. First, there is no solid scientific evidence that this biologically based set point actually exists. Second, belief in this set point undermines motivation for enhancing emotional well-being because it implies a limited likelihood of success.

To support their notion, these professors use statistics that reveal certain types of depressive disorders tend to run in families. Since this evidence is typically interpreted to indicate that there is a genetic foundation for these conditions, they argue that there must be a genetic predisposition that limits levels of emotional well-being. This reasoning fails to take into account the role of psychosocial dynamics: attitudes and ideas about life and how to live are often passed along from one generation to the next.

Given the fact that much of our emotional well-being is a matter of how we think about life and how to live, it is just as likely that these psychosocial processes are playing as much, if not more, of a role than genetics in limiting a person’s ability to find real and lasting emotional well-being.

The other reason the professors insist that there is a biological set point for happiness is the observation that people who experience a sudden spike in happiness tend to return to their previous level of happiness within a few weeks or months. This train of thought fails to recognize that all emotions are a matter of how we are affected by the things, people and events we encounter in the course of daily life. Emotional well-being is a matter of how we are situated with respect to the totality of the things, people and events we routinely encounter in the course of daily living. For example, we occasionally encounter someone or something that has an extraordinarily positive effect on emotional well-being. And this emotional high fades when there are no other significant changes.

Next time you hear about a set point for happiness, don’t believe that a biological process is undermining your personal pursuit of happiness. This knowledge is a powerful tool, and may be the first step in creating your own happiness.

[Ed. Note: Dr. Douglas Ramm is a psychologist, philosopher, author and leading researcher in the field of emotional well-being, contentment and life satisfaction. He has appeared on numerous radio and television talk shows where he shares insights for enhancing quality of life. Discover how to enhance yours here.]

Alternative Eating:

Why “Diet” Soda Makes You Fat

By Dr. Jonny Bowden

Many people see diet soda is an innocuous, harmless beverage that can’t possibly cause any harm to their waistline since it doesn’t have any calories. Think again.

Research published this summer in the medical journal Circulation shows that people who drink more than one soda a day — whether it’s regular or diet — have an almost 50 percent increased risk for metabolic syndrome, which doubles their risk for heart disease and diabetes.

Two years ago, a study at the University of Texas Health Science Center found that there was a 41 percent increase in the risk for being overweight for every single can of diet soda a person consumed daily.

But how can something with no calories increase the risk for obesity and heart disease?

There are several possible ways.

First, my own theory is that the sweet taste works in the brain to create a conditioned response. The body responds as it usually does to normal sugar — with insulin, the fat-storing hormone. Those circuits in the brain are pretty primitive and ancient, and they can’t immediately distinguish chemical fakery. As far as your brain is concerned, sweet means sugar. It’s entirely possible that physiologically, you would respond to aspartame in the same way as you would to table sugar. It’s only a theory, but it makes sense to me.

Second, sugar creates its own cravings. Just as a taste of rum creates an unstoppable craving in an alcoholic, it’s entirely possible that the taste of sweet, even if it’s fake, creates the same cascade of cravings in a carb addict that regular sugar does, leading to overeating and binging and all the rest of the reasons people put on weight.

Third, many people think that by drinking diet beverages they’re “saving” calories. They subconsciously allow themselves to eat more, figuring it’s not doing as much harm since they’re drinking a diet drink. The diet drink gives them subconscious “permission” to eat more.

What’s worse than making you fat, aspartame may be toxic. Aspartame is made primarily from three ingredients: aspartic acid, phenylalanine and methanol. Methanol, an alcohol, breaks down in the body to formaldehyde, a poison if there ever was one. Apologists for aspartame say that it doesn’t create enough formaldehyde in the body to cause any damage, but I’m not so sure. Exposing children to formaldehyde levels as low as .75 mg daily for several months has been shown to cause gradual toxicity. Plus, diet soda is frequently stored in hot warehouses, causing chemical breakdowns that went undetected in the original safety studies that looked at “ideal” conditions.

Soda is bad news, whether regular or diet. Period.

[Ed. note: Dr. Bowden is a nationally known expert on weight loss, nutrition and health. He's a board certified nutrition specialist with a Master's degree in psychology. Dr. Bowden is also a life coach, motivational speaker, former personal trainer and author of the award-winning book, Living the Low Carb Life. For more information, click here.]

Recipes & Nutrition:

Spicy Cinnamon Tea

By Kelley Herring

Great news for cinnamon lovers! New research presented at the Experimental Biology meeting in San Francisco found that cinnamon and cloves — spices high in nutrients called polyphenols — boost insulin function while lowering cholesterol. In fact, as little as a quarter teaspoon of cinnamon taken two times per day can stimulate the body’s insulin-like activity while lowering triglycerides, cholesterol and glucose levels by 10 to 30 percent. A steamy mug or two of our Spicy Cinnamon Tea will warm up your body and can potentially help balance your blood sugar as well.

Serves: 6

Time to Table: 5 minutes

Healing Nutrient Spotlight

• Polyphenols

Ingredients

6 cups spring water
6 bags organic black tea
1 tsp ground organic cardamom
1 tsp organic cinnamon
10-12 whole cloves
6-7 whole allspice

Preparation

Open tea bags and add to a coffee filter with cinnamon, cardamom, cloves and allspice. Brew tea mixture with spring water in automatic drip coffeemaker or pour boiling spring water through mixture. Serve with stevia, if desired.

Nutritional Information

2 calories, 0 g total fat, 0 g saturated fat, 0 g trans fat, 0 g monounsaturated fat fats, 0 g polyunsaturated fat, 0 mg cholesterol, 0.15 mg sodium, 0.5 g carbohydrate, 0.3 g fiber, 0 g sugars, 0 g protein

[Ed. Note: Kelley Herring is the Founder & CEO of Healing Gourmet, a multimedia company that educates on how foods promote health and protect against disease. She is also the creator of Healing Gourmet's Personalized Nutrition Software and Editor-in-Chief of the Healing Gourmet book series published by McGraw-Hill, including Eat to Fight Cancer, Eat to Beat Diabetes, Eat to Lower Cholesterol and Eat to Boost Fertility. For more information, click here.]