Today is a day like no other: it is my 82nd birthday.
It is a special day, not because of the personal significance of the occasion, but because I’ve reached it against tremendous odds! So - time to share and be grateful!
Most octogenarians cannot claim to be as healthy as I do. The great majority have had some kind of major medical episodes. The only major health episode I’ve had is Herpes Zoster or Shingle, which by itself is not life threatening, but it disrupted my routine morning exercise resulting in weakened leg muscles. At seventy, it was extremely difficult to resume the old routine.
Consider the odds.
I lost regular employment at 65. Together with the employment was the loss of my health benefits. At any rate HMOs discontinue their benefits for those over 65 years old. One can continue coverage but you have to pay an escalating premium every year without any recourse to cash values, dividends, or return of premiums. I still have Philhealth coverage but it can only shoulder a small amount of the total hospital bill.
A friend was hospitalized for a major illness in one of the tertiary hospitals in Metro-Manila. A major illness is called such because it is curable but money has to be thrown to it. Everything-but-the-kitchen-
Indigent. Insolvent. Pauper. These words sting. Perhaps poverty is even harder to take than the disease itself, because the last resort is the family home.
Yes, Filipinos in general are in danger of heart-wrenching financial crisis in the latter years of their lives because modern medical science offers many options to keep the family head or member alive by all possible means. No one turns his or her back on family. Not in the Philippines.
The future is not going to be easy for oldies who may later on be stricken by major disease. So, aside from deep breaths and prayers, preventive medicine is the only answer.
Let’s go back to Kindergarten where we learned the basics. A nursery rhyme goes:
“The best six doctors anywhere and no one can deny it
Are sunshine, water, rest, air, exercise and diet.
These six will gladly you attend If only you are willing
Your mind they'll ease, Your will they'll mend, and charge you not a shilling.”
To slow-down the deteriorating effects of aging, the number that is most revealing indicator about one’s state of health and is the most important number to pay attention to if we want a life free of pain, inflammation and disease, is one’s pH factor, the number that indicates acidic versus alkaline ratio in our body.
In a flashback to high school chemistry, remember that the pH scale goes from 0 to 14: zero is pure acid, 7 is neutral, and 14 is pure alkaline.
Each of us came into this world with a certain alkaline pH. It's how our body was designed by our Maker and how we are supposed to stay. Without exception, all of our organs, tissues, bones and joints work best when blood pH is slightly alkaline (around 7.365).
Also, our body is designed to stay in contact with the Earth. Positive electrons in the form of free radicals can build up in our body and direct contact with the ground balances this out as earth is naturally a negative grounding source.
If your pH is even just a little too acidic, that's when your body can begin to literally break down. Aches and pains begin to creep up. Tumors (including cancer) can flourish. Diseases can rear their ugly heads. Although a number of factors can contribute to an acid pH, (including stress, environmental toxins, lack of exercise and smoking), far and away the number one factor is your FOOD.
Eating acid-creating foods (especially fast food, processed food, meat, dairy, refined carbs and hard to digest meal combinations) pulls your pH down toward the acid range. On the other hand, when your diet contains many alkaline foods (like fresh fruits and vegetables) and is easy for your body to break down, you encourage a more alkaline pH.
A snapshot of your innards shows how two examples of how your body can break down when your system is acidic:
Your heart pumps an unbelievable 13,000 quarts of blood a day--enough to fill a small swimming pool! If there are toxins in your blood, that puts a huge strain on your heart to do its job. Acid wastes in your system also rob your blood of oxygen, which causes your heart tissue to deteriorate. And you don't want your ticker breaking down, do you?
Your liver serves over 300 different functions --with two of the most important being to remove acid wastes from your blood and make alkaline enzymes for your body. If you are like most of us who live in urbanized countries, your blood resembles a war zone with far too many toxins floating around, and your liver is constantly being stressed cleaning them out. If that goes on long enough, it can completely shut down. And so will you.
So... how do we get and maintain this magic 7.365 pH? Hopefully you've gotten the idea of how important it is to have a slightly alkaline pH while you're still breathing and upright.
Now here are the steps to attaining and maintaining an optimal alkaline pH:
Step 1- Check your pH at regular intervals
You can get a saliva test or urine test kit at most drug stores or health food stores. The saliva test is the least accurate and urine is slightly more accurate. The normal pH for urine is about 6.5-6.8 (it's acidic because urine is an exit for toxins), for saliva 7.0-7.4 and for blood 7.365, which is your target. If you're testing your pH with saliva or urine, it's important to perform the test several times at different times of the day, since pH can be affected by what you eat or drink.
Step 2- Drink pure water
Aim for drinking one liter upon waking up or at least 5-8 glasses per day. Stir in a little fresh-squeezed lemon juice to make it more alkaline if you like. Water means water and does not mean coffee, tea, Gatorade, soft drinks or other sweetened drinks. But avoid drinking tap water as it can contain chlorine and/or fluoride. Strive to drink filtered or bottled water.
Step 3- Eat more alkaline foods
Cancer cells thrive in an acid environment. A meat-based diet is acidic and it is best to eat fish, and a little chicken rather than beef or pork. Meat also contains livestock antibiotics, growth hormones and parasites, which are all harmful, especially to people with cancer.
A diet made of 80% fresh vegetables and juice, whole grains, seeds, nuts and a little fruits help put the body into an alkaline environment. About 20% can be from cooked food including beans. Fresh vegetable juices provide live enzymes that are easily absorbed and reach down to cellular levels within 15 minutes to nourish and enhance growth of healthy cells. To obtain live enzymes for building healthy cells, try and drink fresh vegetable juice and eat some raw vegetables 2 or 3 times a day. Enzymes are destroyed at temperatures of 104 degrees F (40 degrees C).
Step 4- Keep your digestion efficient
In order to keep your digestion humming, it's vital to eat meal combinations that are easily broken down and don't cause your stomach to over-produce acid, and make sure you have adequate enzymes to do the job.
Without the proper enzymes for digestion, you can suffer from gas, bloating, constipation, waste build-up... and you'll have a more acidic pH!
So remember--while your weight, blood pressure, cholesterol, etc. are all very important, it's vital to keep your eye on the MOST important number--your pH. Do that and your body as well as your children and grandkids will thank you many times over.
Getting Grounded
Basically, the theory is that our bodies, which are naturally slightly alkaline, are also meant to come into contact with the Earth on a regular basis. Modern living enables positive electrons in the form of free radicals to build up in our bodies and direct contact with the negatively charged ground is needed to discharge this stored charge in the body.
The way we live now, our bodies and cells are bombarded by electrical energy, and especially with the high prevalence of Electro Magnetic Fields (EMF), such as Wi-Fi and mobile phone waves, many of us have a high amount of positive electrons built up in our bodies.
Throughout history, humans have spent time outdoors much more than we do in modern time and have been in direct contact with the soil. From walking on the ground barefoot, to gardening or tilling the soil, humans have always touched the earth… until recently.
Now, we live in houses, wear rubber shoes, are exposed to EMFs daily and don’t often come into direct contact with the ground. Some even wear rubber gloves to touch the soil.
Have you ever noticed that you sleep better on a beach vacation after walking barefoot in the sand or being in the ocean? The sand and ocean water are both naturally conductive materials and both help ground the body and remove excess positive electrons. For the same basic reason that we ground electrical outlets to avoid the build-up of excess positive charge, our bodies need the same grounding effect.
When in direct contact with the Earth, your body becomes suffused with negative charged free electrons and equalizes to the same electric energy level as the earth.
If you were to ask about the most impressive recent medical breakthrough, the answer would have nothing to do with high-tech at all. It is the very Earth we live on – back to nature, literally, the ground beneath our feet.
The hippie wisdom in getting back in touch with our earthly roots just may have had something to do with grounding’s health benefits. Earthing can protect our bodies against chronic inflammation, which is, in part, caused by lack of electrons with which to neutralize positively-charged free radicals. As with antioxidant deficiency, electron deficiency due to insufficient contact with the earth’s electromagnetic surface, or “disconnect syndrome,” can result in excess oxidative damage.
Many of earthing’s benefits, such as chronic pain relief and faster wound recovery, may simply result from reduction of free radical activity and inflammation, which frees up the immune system to perform other reparations. Other antioxidant benefits such as lowered blood pressure and better circulation may also result from slightly alkaline blood and the thinning effect of grounding.
An acid pH is GOOD – only when you are DEAD. This is one time when you're SUPPOSED to have an acid pH. When you're DEAD -- your body automatically becomes acidic upon death so it can decompose like it's supposed to. And thus becomes permanently grounded to enable recycling!
