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Your gut includes the stomach, small intestine, large intestine (which includes the colon), liver, and gallbladder. The gut is responsible for ensuring that you absorb the nutrients of the food you eat, properly expel waste and toxins, and maintain a strong immune system. Yet not only is it critical for these everyday functions, your gut also holds a life force of its own. Food does not digest just from the physical process of food breakdown (a process scientific study hasn’t fully pieced together); there are also critical spiritual and metaphysical factors involved in digestion. That’s why enlightened beings on the planet employ eating techniques such as slow and thorough chewing; mindful, present eating; prayer before, during, or after meals; and becoming one with your food.
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Anthony William (Medical Medium: Secrets Behind Chronic and Mystery Illness and How to Finally Heal)
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A smile can save a life. Did you know that there’s scientific evidence that smiling can boost your immune system and help you live a longer and happier life, not to mention that it makes the people around you happier too because smiling is contagious? There was a time I was going through security at an airport and out of nowhere a TSA agent smiled at me, and it changed my entire day. When you make someone else’s day brighter, it makes your day better too. Goal: Smile often—you never know whose day you will brighten. You never know the impact one smile will have on someone’s life.
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Demi Lovato (Staying Strong: 365 Days a Year)
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Greed is by definition the moral ruler of the Hierarchy, Diago. All decisions are based upon it. It is not the strong who benefit in their system, no matter what they say—it is the weak. It is the ones willing to do anything, sacrifice anything, to rise. It rewards avarice and is so steeped in a wrong way of thinking that those within it cannot even see it.” He shook his head sadly. “There is no form of government that is immune from mistakes or from corruption—but it is the Hierarchy’s foundation, Son. Never forget that.
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James Islington (The Will of the Many (Hierarchy, #1))
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Caterpillars chew their way through ecosystems leaving a path of destruction as they get fatter and fatter. When they finally fall asleep and a chrysalis forms around them, tiny new imaginal cells, as biologists call them, begin to take form within their bodies. The caterpillar’s immune system fights these new cells as though they were foreign intruders, and only when they crop up in greater numbers and link themselves together are they strong enough to survive. Then the caterpillar’s immune system fails and its body dissolves into a nutritive soup which the new cells recycle into their developing butterfly.
The caterpillar is a necessary stage but becomes unsustainable once its job is done. There is no point in being angry with it and there is no need to worry about defeating it. The task is to focus on building the butterfly, the success of which depends on powerful positive and creative efforts in all aspects of society and alliances built among those engaged in them.
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Elisabet Sahtouris
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Perhaps we ought not to welcome small catastrophes in case they increase our vigilance to the point of making us prevent the medium-scale catastrophes that would have been needed to make us take the strong precautions necessary to prevent existential catastrophes? (And of course, just as with biological immune systems, we also need to be concerned with over-reactions, analogous to allergies and autoimmune disorders.)
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Nick Bostrom (Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies)
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the organism’s immune system or the replicating virus. If the virus is particularly strong or if the immune system is compromised in any way, the virus can really take hold and illness, sometimes severe illness, is inevitable.
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Stephen Harrod Buhner (Herbal Antivirals: Natural Remedies for Emerging & Resistant Viral Infections)
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Our democracy has built-in defenses that keep us strong and healthy, including the checks and balances written into our Constitution. Our Founding Fathers believed that one of the most important defenses would be an informed citizenry that could make sound judgments based on facts and reason. Losing that is like losing an immune system, leaving a democracy vulnerable to all manner of attack. And a democracy, like a body, cannot stay strong through repeated injuries.
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Hillary Rodham Clinton (What Happened)
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Like the immune system, children must be exposed to challenges and stressors (within limits, and in age-appropriate ways), or they will fail to mature into strong and capable adults, able to engage productively with people and ideas that challenge their beliefs and moral convictions.
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Jonathan Haidt (The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting up a Generation for Failure)
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*And to keep her immune system strong she followed Dr. Goodhue's advice to abstain from alcohol, get plenty of fresh air and exercise, and consume a nourishing diet, low in salt. Page 144
"Fear is good. In the right degree it prevents us from making fools of ourselves. But in the wrong measure it prevents us from fully living. Fear is our boon companion but never our master.". Page 204
"I've come to believe that how we choose to live with pain, or injustice, or death ... Is the true measure of the Divine within us." . . . "I used to wonder, why did God give children leprosy? Now I believe: God doesn't give anyone leprosy. He gives us, if we choose to use it, the spirit to live with leprosy, and with the imminence of death. Because it is in our own mortality that we are most Divine.". Page 307
**"With wonder and a growing absence of fear she realized, I am more than I was an hour ago.". Page 372
**my favorite!
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Alan Brennert
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So the best defense against porn, for every member of our family, is a full life--the kind of life that technology cannot provide on its own. This is why the most important things we will do to prevent porn from taking over our own lives and our children's lives have nothing to do with sex. A home where wisdom and courage come first; where our central spaces are full of satisfying, demanding opportunities for creativity; where we have regular breaks from technology and opportunities for deep rest and refreshment (where devices "sleep" somewhere other than our bedrooms and where both adults and children experience the satisfactions of learning in thick, embodied ways rather than thin, technological ways); where we've learned to manage boredom and where even our car trips are occasions for deep and meaningful conversation--this is the kind of home that can equip all of us with an immune system strong enough to resist pornography's foolishness.
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Andy Crouch (The Tech-Wise Family: Everyday Steps for Putting Technology in Its Proper Place)
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What’s important to note about Pennebaker’s research is the fact that he advocates limited writing, or short spurts. He’s found that writing about emotional upheavals for just fifteen to twenty minutes a day on four consecutive days can decrease anxiety, rumination, and depressive symptoms and boost our immune systems.
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Brené Brown (Rising Strong: The Reckoning. The Rumble. The Revolution.)
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Vaccinations are the application of evolutionary principles in action. If we can control the contact made between pathogen and lymphocyte populations, we can go a long way toward eliminating disease.108 It doesn’t require total annihilation but rather a control on population dynamics. Vaccines are the way we use selective cloning to keep a pathogenic population in a state of benign coexistence. The process is based on evolution, as pointed out by Nobel laureate Susumu Tonegawa: “Genes can mutate and recombine. These dynamic characteristics of genetic material are essential elements of evolution. Do they also play an important role during the development of a single multicellular organism? Our results strongly suggest that this is the case for the immune system.
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Greg Graffin (Population Wars: A New Perspective on Competition and Coexistence)
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If you want to predict how happy someone is, or how long she will live (and if you are not allowed to ask about her genes or personality), you should find out about her social relationships. Having strong social relationships strengthens the immune system, extends life (more than does quitting smoking), speeds recovery from surgery, and reduces the risks of depression and anxiety disorders. It’s not just that extroverts are naturally happier and healthier; when introverts are forced to be more outgoing, they usually enjoy it and find that it boosts their mood. Even people who think they don’t want a lot of social contact still benefit from it. And it’s not just that “we all need somebody to lean on”; recent work on giving support shows that caring for others is often more beneficial than is receiving help. We need to interact and intertwine with others; we need the give and the take; we need to belong. An ideology of extreme personal freedom can be dangerous because it encourages people to leave homes, jobs, cities, and marriages in search of personal and professional fulfillment, thereby breaking the relationships that were probably their best hope for such fulfillment.
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Jonathan Haidt (The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom)
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Some people have more highly activated left prefrontal cortexes and some people have more highly activated right prefrontal cortexes. (This has nothing to do with the question of hemispheric dominance that determines whether you are right-handed or left-handed, which occurs in other areas of the brain.) The majority of people have higher left-side activation. People with higher right-side activation tend to experience more negative emotion than people with higher left-side activation. Right-side activation also predicts how easily someone’s immune system will become depressed. The right-brain activation is also correlated with high baseline levels of cortisol, the stress hormone. Though the settled patterns of activation do not stabilize until adulthood, babies with greater right-side activation will become frantic when their mothers leave a room; babies with strong left-side activation will be more likely to explore the room without apparent distress. In babies, however, the balance is subject to change. “The likelihood,” Davidson says, “is that there’s more plasticity in the system in the early years of life, more opportunity for the environment to sculpt this circuitry.
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Andrew Solomon (The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression)
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Consumption is a universal phenomenon. All humans consume varieties of products, many of which beyond actual necessity, because it activates the brain's reward center. And the more a certain product activates the reward center with its unique characteristics or its predominant social stature, the more that product gets chiseled into the long-term memory of the consumer, making it a fundamental part of the individual's psychological well being. Thus the human mind grows a deep psychological bond with a product. And this bond can grow so strong in time that it would defend itself from all sorts of criticisms. It is the brain's way to maintain its internal purely individualistic well being. Hence, a strong psychological bond between the mind and a product slowly not only becomes invincible to criticisms, but also, develops its own cognitive immune system against such criticisms.
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Abhijit Naskar
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James Pennebaker, a researcher at the University of Texas at Austin and author of Writing to Heal, has done some of the most important and fascinating research I’ve seen on the power of expressive writing in the healing process. In an interview posted on the University of Texas’s website, Pennebaker explains, “Emotional upheavals touch every part of our lives. You don’t just lose a job, you don’t just get divorced. These things affect all aspects of who we are—our financial situation, our relationships with others, our views of ourselves, our issues of life and death. Writing helps us focus and organize the experience.” Pennebaker believes that because our minds are designed to try to understand things that happen to us, translating messy, difficult experiences into language essentially makes them “graspable.” What’s important to note about Pennebaker’s research is the fact that he advocates limited writing, or short spurts. He’s found that writing about emotional upheavals for just fifteen to twenty minutes a day on four consecutive days can decrease anxiety, rumination, and depressive symptoms and boost our immune systems.
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Brené Brown (Rising Strong: The Reckoning. The Rumble. The Revolution.)
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It is interesting to note that in nearly all the economics courses it is taught that the income tax is the proper instrument for the regulation of the country’s economy; that private property is not an inalienable right (in fact, there are no inalienable rights); that the economic ills of the country are traceable to the remnants of free enterprise; that the economy of the nation can be sound only when the government manages prices, controls wages, and regulates operations. This was not taught in the colleges before 1913. Is there a relationship between the results of the income tax and the thinking of the professors? There is now a strong movement in this country to bring the publicschool system under federal domination. The movement could not have been thought of before the government had the means for carrying out the idea; that is, before income taxation. The question is, have those who plug for nationalization of the schools come to the idea by independent thought, or have they been influenced by the bureaucrats who see in nationalization a wider opportunity for themselves? We must lean to the latter conclusion, because among the leaders of the movement are many bureaucrats. However, if the movement is successful, if the schools are brought under the watching eye of the federal government, it is a certainty that the curriculum will conform to the ideals of Big Government. The child’s mind will never be exposed to the idea that the individual is the one big thing in the world, that he has rights which come from a higher source than the bureaucracy. Thus, the immunities of property, body and mind have been undermined by the Sixteenth Amendment. The freedoms won by Americans in 1776 were lost in the revolution of 1913.
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Frank Chodorov (The Income Tax: Root of All Evil)
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Try to eat at least three of these foods per day—the more the better—rotating your consumption so that in a given week or two, you get all of these foods into your system. Wild blueberries: help restore the central nervous system and flush EBV neurotoxins out of the liver. Celery: strengthens hydrochloric acid in the gut and provides mineral salts to the central nervous system. Sprouts: high in zinc and selenium to strengthen the immune system against EBV. Asparagus: cleanses the liver and spleen; strengthens the pancreas. Spinach: creates an alkaline environment in the body and provides highly absorbable micronutrients to the nervous system. Cilantro: removes heavy metals such as mercury and lead, which are favored foods of EBV. Parsley: removes high levels of copper and aluminum, which feed EBV. Coconut oil: antiviral and acts as an anti-inflammatory. Garlic: antiviral and antibacterial that defends against EBV. Ginger: helps with nutrient assimilation and relieves spasms associated with EBV. Raspberries: rich in antioxidants to remove free radicals from the organs and bloodstream. Lettuce: stimulates peristaltic action in the intestinal tract and helps cleanse EBV from the liver. Papayas: restore the central nervous system; strengthen and rebuild hydrochloric acid in the gut. Apricots: immune system rebuilders that also strengthen the blood. Pomegranates: help detox and cleanse the blood as well as the lymphatic system. Grapefruit: rich source of bioflavonoids and calcium to support the immune system and flush toxins out of the body. Kale: high in specific alkaloids that protect against viruses such as EBV. Sweet potatoes: help cleanse and detox the liver from EBV byproducts and toxins. Cucumbers: strengthen the adrenals and kidneys and flush neurotoxins out of the bloodstream. Fennel: contains strong antiviral compounds to fight off EBV. Healing Herbs and Supplements
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Anthony William (Medical Medium: Secrets Behind Chronic and Mystery Illness and How to Finally Heal)
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In a healthy body, this synchronicity is perfectly regulated. Healthy people are firmly locked into these rhythms. When disease occurs, one of those rhythms has gone awry. Stress is the biggest disrupter. If you’re stressed, if you’re feeling hostility, your body’s balance gets thrown off. Stress breaks our nonlocal connection with everything else. When you are experiencing disease (“disease”), then some part of your body is beginning to get constricted. It is tuning itself out from the nonlocal field of intelligence. There are many emotions that can cause a disruption of the electromagnetic field in the heart, but the ones that have been most precisely documented are anger and hostility. Once this synchronization is disrupted, your body starts to behave in a fragmented manner. The immune system gets suppressed, which leads to other problems, such as increased susceptibility to cancer, infections, and accelerated aging. This effect is so strong that animals can pick it up. If a dog sees a person who is harboring hostility, it will bark and act ferocious. Wherever you go, you are broadcasting who you are at this very intimate level.
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Deepak Chopra (SynchroDestiny: Harnessing the Infinite Power of Coincidence to Create Miracles)
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If the emotion of disgust is an evolved defense against disease, several predictions follow. One is that disgust should be evoked most strongly by disease-carrying substances. The second is that these disgust elicitors should be universal across cultures. Empirical research supports both predictions (Curtis & Biran, 2001). People from cultures ranging from the Netherlands to West Africa find foods potentially contaminated by parasites or unhygienic preparation to be exceptionally disgusting. Examples are rotting flesh, dirty food, bad-smelling food, food leftovers, moldy food, a dead insect in food, and witnessing food preparation by someone with dirty hands. Foods that have had contact with worms, cockroaches, or feces evoke especially strong disgust reactions. A third prediction is that the disgust should activate the immune system. One study found that showing people images of contaminated food actually elevated their body temperature—one of the key features of immune response to disease (Stevenson et al., 2012). A fourth prediction is that the people should show an especially good memory for objects that have been touched by sick or diseased individuals—a prediction supported in studies conducted in both Portugal and the United States (Fernandez, Pandeirada, Soares, & Nairne, 2017).
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David M. Buss (Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind)
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AN ALKALINE DIET
The pH level measures how acid or alkaline something is. Your blood is slightly alkaline, with a pH between 7.35 and 7.45, and your stomach is very acidic, with a pH of 3.5 or below, so it can break down food. Most of the foods we eat release either an acid or an alkaline base in the blood. Acidified body cells become weak, which can lead to unhealthy conditions and diseases. They are robbed of the oxygen and energy needed to support a strong and healthy immune system.
I incorporate alkaline foods into my diet every day, and I feel like my energy is soaring. Food literally acts like a battery for the body. Every living thing on this planet is made up of energy, and this includes your food. This energy can be measured in megahertz. Chocolate cake only provides 1 to 3 MHz of energy, while raw almonds have 40 to 50 MHz and green vegetables have 70 to 90 MHz. So if you need 70 MHz of energy on a daily basis to function and you live off junk food and soda, you are creating an energy-deficit crisis in your body.
People say it’s expensive to eat healthily. Here’s how I see it: you’re going to pay either way. Either you’re going to pay now for the good foods and feel alive and have a clear mind. Or you’ll save some money now and pay for medicine and hospital bills later. I used to make excuses: I’m getting older, that’s why I feel so tired all the time. But now I know it doesn’t have to be that way. You have to make the conscious decision to nourish your body. Value yourself enough to eat well.
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Derek Hough (Taking the Lead: Lessons from a Life in Motion)
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You must develop a symbiotic relationship with everything involved in this program in order to achieve the best results. Of course, you want the perfect butt, a slimmer physique, and a nice tapered waist. But if that’s all you focus on, you become obsessed. Focus on the right things—a strong immune system, balanced hormones, greater confidence, and fewer health issues, and everything else will fall into place.
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Bret Contreras (Strong Curves: A Woman's Guide to Building a Better Butt and Body)
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What mutates viruses? A changing environment. In particular, a changed radiation environment. Radiation causes mutations, this is a proven fact. What is the favorite host for a virus? A human with a weakened immune system. What weakens a human immune system? A changing environment. We have a virus that keeps on mutating and evading vaccines and it is targeting those with weakened immune systems. That is exactly how nature works. The predator picks off the weak, leaving the strong to produce the next generation.
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Steven Magee (Magee’s Disease)
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strong evidence that childhood traumatic events significantly impact the inflammatory immune system .
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Gabor Maté (The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture)
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The first thing to establish is whether the person has an autoimmune condition. I use TPO and TGB serum antibody tests to rule out Hashimoto’s. If a test comes back negative but symptoms strongly suggest the disorder, I’ll repeat the test since antibody counts can fluctuate. Sometimes I’ll ask the person to eat gluten-containing foods for two weeks prior to the test, in order to heighten the autoimmune response. From there, I delve into the immune system mechanics. I measure TH-1 and TH-2 cytokines to determine if the person is TH-1 or TH-2 dominant. When a person is placed on an immune-modulating protocol, I retest these cytokines to see whether the immune system is coming into better balance. When looking at these test results, it is important to look at the percentages of the cytokines and not the totals. Remember, regardless of whether a person with Hashimoto’s has TH-1 or TH-2 dominance, managing his or her condition requires modulating the immune system with emulsified vitamin D, fish oil, glutathione cream, a gluten-free diet, and dietary support.
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Datis Kharrazian (Why Do I Still Have Thyroid Symptoms? When My Lab Tests Are Normal: A revolutionary breakthrough in understanding Hashimoto’s disease and hypothyroidism)
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Numerous studies from several countries show a strong link between gluten intolerance and Hashimoto’s disease.41 42 43 44 45 46 Because the molecular structure of gluten so closely resembles that of the thyroid gland, the problem may be one of mistaken identity. Every time undigested gluten mistakenly slips into the bloodstream, the immune system responds by destroying it for removal. That’s because gluten doesn’t belong in the bloodstream but gets there through overly permeable intestinal walls, or a “leaky gut.” (See
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Datis Kharrazian (Why Do I Still Have Thyroid Symptoms? When My Lab Tests Are Normal: A revolutionary breakthrough in understanding Hashimoto’s disease and hypothyroidism)
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It is not uncommon to see major resolution of hypothyroid symptoms just by following a gluten-free diet. However, avoiding gluten does not cure the disease.50 It simply helps tame the immune system so it stops attacking the thyroid tissue. Note: Many clinicians find removing casein, the protein molecule in all forms of dairy, is also integral to thyroid health. There is not as much research on casein intolerance as there is on gluten intolerance, however anecdotal evidence strongly suggests a diet that is not only gluten-free, but also dairy-free promises the best results in managing Hashimoto’s.
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Datis Kharrazian (Why Do I Still Have Thyroid Symptoms? When My Lab Tests Are Normal: A revolutionary breakthrough in understanding Hashimoto’s disease and hypothyroidism)
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Chilies, lemons, oranges, mangoes, garlic, ginger and onions are all food that contains many powerful antioxidants and nutrients that strengthen your immune system. When you are strong, your workouts will be better and you will burn fatter.
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WILLOCK BEN (75 DAY MENTAL CHALLENGE: From flab to fab 100 weight loss ideas went from a probability to a possibility, and then to a reality)
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A hundred years of further studies have confirmed Durkheim’s diagnosis. If you want to predict how happy someone is, or how long she will live (and if you are not allowed to ask about her genes or personality), you should find out about her social relationships. Having strong social relationships strengthens the immune system, extends life (more than does quitting smoking), speeds recovery from surgery, and reduces the risks of depression and anxiety disorders.53 It’s not just that extroverts are naturally happier and healthier; when introverts are forced to be more outgoing, they usually enjoy it and find that it boosts their mood.54 Even people who think they don’t want a lot of social contact still benefit from it. And it’s not just that “we all need somebody to lean on”; recent work on giving support shows that caring for others is often more beneficial than is receiving help.55 We need to interact and intertwine with others; we need the give and the take; we need to belong.
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Jonathan Haidt (The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom)
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Another significant factor in sexual attraction is scent. Th e other person’s smell—
that is, his or her natural body scent mixed with the lingering smells of the day—
plays a major role in drawing people together and finding optimal partners. Some
people report that they know right away from his or her smell that a person is the
one for them, and of course conversely some conclude that his or her body odor
is a “deal-breaker.” (For a discussion of pheromones, see Chapter 3.) Psychologist
Rachel Herz, author of the book Th e Scent of Desire: Discovering Our Enigmatic
Sense of Smell (2007), states that “body odor is an external manifestation of the
immune system and smells we think are attractive come from people who are most
genetically compatible with us” (quoted in Svoboda, 2008). Interestingly, from what
we discussed above about symmetry, men and women whose body odors are judged
to be sexy by others are also more likely to have symmetrical faces. So, it seems
that finding a person with a pleasing body odor is essential. People who want to
find out their partners’ true scent can go fragrance-free for a few days. Th ey may
worry about their own scent, and some people may indeed not like it, but there
will always be persons who will be attracted to their natural body odor (Fisher,
2009; Herz, 2007; Martins et al. 2005; Moalem, 2009; Svoboda, 2009).
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Bryan Strong (Human Sexuality: Diversity in Contemporary America)
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A goose has a strong immune system and it’s fairly easy to pull its beak open and force-feed it, allowing for less manpower—but these days, to eliminate even this work, the part in the brain that regulates appetite is removed. All you have to do is paralyze the goose, connect electrodes to the base of its brain, and turn on the electricity. Afterward you cage the goose under artificial lighting and it continues to eat, deep in its hallucinations. Within a week the goose is as fat as if it’s been fed for a month, and so is its liver. If you take out its eyes, you can fatten it up even more.
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Kyung-ran Jo (Tongue)
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Recent science supports the idea that although you may have the genetics predisposing you to getting autoimmune diseases, if your gut immune system does not come into contact with the environmental trigger, you will remain free of disease.
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Chris Hardy (Strong Medicine: How to Conquer Chronic Disease and Achieve Your Full Athletic Potential)
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Breastfeeding is the natural human way of providing exactly that continuous stimulation to the child’s developing microbiome and immune system. Partial breastfeeding continued through the first year would ensure a greater likelihood of tolerance, ending the pointless but confusing wrangle over four versus six months as the better age for introduction to other foods. Strong medical advocacy in support of the WHO goal might just be enough to generate the societal re-structuring that would be needed for such breastfeeding to become possible for more than advantaged minorities.
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Maureen Minchin (Infant Formula and Modern Epidemics: The milk hypothesis)
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On a social level, choose friends that are spiritually uplifting. At earlier and even intermediary stations of the path, the people you spend time with may be one of the single most important factors in your spiritual path. If your friends do get negative at times in their thinking or feeling do not allow yourself to catch their psychological disease. Maintain a strong psychological immune system, and help them to become more positive rather than you sinking to their level.
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Joshua D. Stone (The Golden Book of Melchizedek: How to Become an Integrated Christ/Buddha in This Lifetime Volume 1)
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Coconut oil is also rich in vitamin E which promotes strong and healthy hair.
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Brian Night (Coconut Oil and Apple Cider Vinegar: How To Use Apple Cider Vinegar and Coconut Oil To Lose Weight, Prevent Allergies, And Boost Your Immune System)
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Research from Denis Dutton, Brian Boyd, V.S. Ramachandran, William Hirstein and E.O. Wilson, among many others, is clear on the subject: we are enticed by forms, shapes, rhythms and movements that are useful to our existence. We find Vermeer’s “The Girl with the Pearl Earring,” beautiful, for example, because her face is symmetrical, a clue to her strong immune system2. As the neuroscientist Eric Kandel suggests in The Age of Insight, we are fascinated by Gustav Klimt’s Judith because “at a base level, the aesthetics of the image’s luminous gold surface, the soft rendering of the body, and the overall harmonious combination of colors could activate the pleasure circuits, triggering the release of dopamine. If Judith’s smooth skin and exposed breast trigger the release of endorphins, oxytocin, and vasopressin, one might feel sexual excitement.
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Anonymous
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The concept of resilience isn’t merely bouncing back unaffected – rather, building a strong, resilient psychological immune system is about having developed personalised coping skills that help you deal with future difficulties in life.
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Meg Arroll (Tiny Traumas: When You Don't Know What's Wrong, But Nothing Feels Quite Right)
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Children, like many other complex adaptive systems, are antifragile. Their brains require a wide range of inputs from their environments in order to configure themselves for those environments. Like the immune system, children must be exposed to challenges and stressors (within limits, and in age-appropriate ways), or they will fail to mature into strong and capable adults, able to engage productively with people and ideas that challenge their beliefs and moral convictions.
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Jonathan Haidt (The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting up a Generation for Failure)
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Even symbionts as essential and long-standing as mitochondria, the energy-providing power plants that exist in all animals, cells, can wreak havoc if they end up in the wrong place. A cut or a bruise can split some of your cells apart and spill fragments of mitochondria into your blood – fragments that still keep some of their ancient bacterial character. When your immune system spots them, it mistakenly assumes that an infection is under way and mounts a strong defence.
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Ed Yong (I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life)
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Whatever its other purposes, positive emotion is strongly correlated with good health and a longer life expectancy. A 2010 review of dozens of studies concluded that there are several pathways through which positive emotion exerts its beneficial effects—your hormonal, immune, and anti-inflammatory systems.[34] In one study health experts in London collected data on the well-being of hundreds of men and women between the ages of forty-five and sixty.[35] They assessed their subjects’ positive emotion using a method designed by the Nobel Prize–winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman, author of Thinking, Fast and Slow. Kahneman realized that you don’t get a very accurate picture by asking people if they are happy in life. Instead, you tend to get an answer that is reflective of how they feel at that moment, or of whatever event has just happened, or whether the sun is out. What they are reporting is a momentary feeling and not their general state.
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Leonard Mlodinow (Emotional: How Feelings Shape Our Thinking)
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Meditation + Mental Strength An emotion is our evolved biology predicting the future impact of a current event. In modern settings, it’s usually exaggerated or wrong. Why is meditation so powerful? Your breath is one of the few places where your autonomic nervous system meets your voluntary nervous system. It’s involuntary, but you can also control it. I think a lot of meditation practices put an emphasis on the breath because it is a gateway into your autonomic nervous system. There are many, many cases in the medical and spiritual literature of people controlling their bodies at levels that should be autonomous. Your mind is such a powerful thing. What’s so unusual about your forebrain sending signals to your hindbrain and your hindbrain routing resources to your entire body? You can do it just by breathing. Relaxed breathing tells your body you’re safe. Then, your forebrain doesn’t need as many resources as it normally does. Now, the extra energy can be sent to your hindbrain, and it can reroute those resources to the rest of your body. I’m not saying you can beat whatever illness you have just because you activated your hindbrain. But you’re devoting most of the energy normally required to care about the external environment to the immune system. I highly recommend listening to the Tim Ferriss’s podcast with Wim Hof. He is a walking miracle. Wim’s nickname is the Ice Man. He holds the world record for the longest time spent in an ice bath and swimming in freezing cold water. I was very inspired by him, not only because he’s capable of super-human physical feats, but because he does it while being incredibly kind and happy—which is not easy to accomplish. He advocates cold exposure, because he believes people are too separate from their natural environment. We’re constantly clothed, fed, and warm. Our bodies have lost touch with the cold. The cold is important because it can activate the immune system. So, he advocates taking long ice baths. Being from the Indian subcontinent, I’m strongly against the idea of ice baths. But Wim inspired me to give cold showers a try. And I did so by using the Wim Hof breathing method. It involves hyperventilating to get more oxygen into your blood, which raises your core temperature. Then, you can go into the shower. The first few cold showers were hilarious because I’d slowly ease myself in, wincing the entire way. I started about four or five months ago. Now, I turn the shower on full-blast, and then I walk right in. I don’t give myself any time to hesitate. As soon as I hear the voice in my head telling me how cold it’s going to be, I know I have to walk in. I learned a very important lesson from this: most of our suffering comes from avoidance. Most of the suffering from a cold shower is the tip-toeing your way in. Once you’re in, you’re in. It’s not suffering. It’s just cold. Your body saying it’s cold is different than your mind saying it’s cold. Acknowledge your body saying it’s cold. Look at it. Deal with it. Accept it, but don’t mentally suffer over it. Taking a cold shower for two minutes isn’t going to kill you. Having a cold shower helps you re-learn that lesson every morning. Now hot showers are just one less thing I need out of life. [2] Meditation is intermittent fasting for the mind. Too much sugar leads to a heavy body, and too many distractions lead to a heavy mind. Time spent undistracted and alone, in self-examination, journaling, meditation, resolves the unresolved and takes us from mentally fat to fit.
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Eric Jorgenson (The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness)
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The Hierarchy?” I was puzzled. The Hierarchy were a wall, smooth and strong and impossibly tall. They were an insurmountable obstacle, a force beyond my comprehension. “What flaw?” “Greed.” My father turned to me then, and his dark eyes held mine. The wind whipped us, a chill to it that far up. “Greed is by definition the moral ruler of the Hierarchy, Diago. All decisions are based upon it. It is not the strong who benefit in their system, no matter what they say—it is the weak. It is the ones willing to do anything, sacrifice anything, to rise. It rewards avarice and is so steeped in a wrong way of thinking that those within it cannot even see it.” He shook his head sadly. “There is no form of government that is immune from mistakes or from corruption—but it is the Hierarchy’s foundation, Son. Never forget that.
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James Islington (The Will of the Many (Hierarchy, #1))
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BREATH 1While seated or lying down, take 30 to 40 full conscious breaths: Breathe fully in to the belly and the chest, then letting go, without force. 2On your final exhale, let the air out and hold it out for as long as you can without discomfort. Listen to your body and don’t force it! 3When you feel the urge to breathe again, take a deep breath in, hold for 10 to 15 seconds. Then release and relax. 4Repeat the steps above two or three more times, paying attention to how you feel and adjusting your breath as needed. 5Rest in this elevated state until you are ready to move on with your day. Alternatively, use the energy you just generated for your morning workout or yoga practice. Experiment with what feels right for you. Congratulations! You just influenced key drivers of your health, increased your vitality and focus, busted your stress, reduced inflammation factors, and optimized your immune system. FOR COMPLETE WHM BREATHING INSTRUCTIONS AND SAFETY GUIDELINES, SEE CHAPTER 4. MIND Your post-breathing practice state is the perfect time to program your mindset. Try this: 1Before you get up from your breathing practice, bring up a thought in your mind like “Today I’m going to stay in the cold shower for 15 more seconds than yesterday,” or “I feel happy, healthy, and strong.” 2Reflect on this thought and notice how your body feels. 3If you identify any inner resistance to your intention, just keep breathing steadily until you feel an alignment between your body and mind. With practice, your sense of your inner experience, or interoception, will sharpen, allowing you to more consciously observe and control your body and mind. SEE CHAPTER 12 FOR DETAILS. COLD 1At the end of your warm shower, turn the water to cold. 2If you like you can start by first putting your feet and legs, than your arms, then your full torso under the water. 3Do NOT do the WHM Basic Breathing Exercise while standing in the shower. 4Gradually extend your exposure every day until you can handle two minutes in the cold. 5If you are shivering when you get out, try the horse stance exercise. (See “How Long Can You Hold a Horse Stance?” for details.) Success! You just improved your metabolic efficiency, regulated your hormones, further reduced inflammation, and are enjoying the endorphins and endocannabinoids released in response to the cold.
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Wim Hof (The Wim Hof Method: Activate Your Full Human Potential)
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THERE WAS ONE MAN in the movie business immune to the usual pressures of dealing with actors, directors, set design, and union contractors. He created stars who never aged, never complained, never walked off the job, and never demanded salaries. By 1937 Walt Disney was already a dominant parallel force to the studio system, “the Horatio Alger hero of Cinema.” He did need distribution, but his company’s work had such a strong draw at the box office that the distribution arms needed Disney more than the other way around. He controlled the biggest star in the world, Mickey Mouse, who had debuted in a short seven-minute cartoon Steamboat Willie in 1928. Even better, Mickey was a commercial phenomenon away from the box office.
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Bhu Srinivasan (Americana: A 400-Year History of American Capitalism)
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Saad Jalal Toronto Canada - The Science of Healthy Eating
Healthy eating is not just a trend; it's a science that holds the key to a longer, more vibrant life. The choices we make when it comes to food have a profound impact on our overall well-being, from our physical health to our mental clarity. Understanding the science behind healthy eating empowers us to make informed choices and lead healthier lives.
At its core, healthy eating is about nourishing our bodies with the right balance of nutrients. This means consuming a variety of foods rich in vitamins, minerals, fiber, proteins, and healthy fats. The science shows that such a diet can:
Saad Jalal Promote Physical Health: Nutrient-dense foods provide essential vitamins and minerals that support bodily functions. They can help prevent chronic diseases like heart disease, diabetes, and certain cancers.
Boost Mental Health: A well-balanced diet can positively impact mood and cognitive function. Nutrients like omega-3 fatty acids and antioxidants found in certain foods have been linked to improved mental well-being.
Sustain Energy: Healthy eating provides a steady supply of energy throughout the day, avoiding energy crashes and fatigue.
Saad Jalal Toronto Canada said Complex carbohydrates, lean proteins, and healthy fats are key players in this process.
Support Digestive Health: Foods rich in fiber promote healthy digestion and regular bowel movements. They maintain gut health and contribute to a strong immune system.
Maintain Healthy Weight: Portion control and balanced nutrition are fundamental to weight management. Eating mindfully and recognizing hunger cues can help control calorie intake.
The science of healthy eating is an evolving field, continually revealing new insights into the connection between diet and well-being. By staying informed and making conscientious choices, we can harness this knowledge to lead healthier, happier lives. So, let's embrace the science of healthy eating and make every meal a step towards a brighter, healthier future.
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Saad Jalal - Toronto Canada
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Stories, like all beings, have a life span. In their youth, their immune system is strong, but as time goes on they become increasingly unable to withstand the contrary evidence and experiences that pile up. In the end, I could no longer believe my own story. Who I had to be to maintain it—cynical, dismissive, patronizing, holding back from new experiences—became intolerable.
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Charles Eisenstein (The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible (Sacred Activism Book 2))
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The sources of covert racial bias are found all around us and are parts of US history. They are not particular to the criminal justice system, but given the powerful effects of race on criminal justice matters, and the over-representation of minorities in the criminal justice system, there should be no surprise that many associate crime with minorities, particularly young males. Crucially, according to the accumulated social psychological literature, no one growing up in mainstream US culture would be immune to these pressures (see for example Gillian and Iyengar 2000). Furthermore, within the police profession, there is ample reason to expect that such biases may be especially strong. In particular, as relates to the decision to shoot or not to shoot a hypothetical suspect in an ambiguous experimental setting, the black suspects are typically shot in a higher percentage of the cases than an identically situated white suspect (see for example Correll et al. 2002; Correll et al. 2007; Correll 2009).
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Frank R. Baumgartner (Suspect Citizens: What 20 Million Traffic Stops Tell Us About Policing and Race)
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Our feelings and thoughts towards ourselves play a crucial role in keeping our immune system working well. When we love ourselves our immune system is powerful and strong.
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Michael Williams (Chakras for Beginners: How to Awaken and Balance Chakras, Radiate Positive Energy and Heal Yourself)
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don’t get sick as often as others. They have better immune systems and report fewer aches and pains. They have lower blood pressure and they exercise more often than the general population. They take better care of their health, sleep longer, and even
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Amy Morin (13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do: Take Back Your Power, Embrace Change, Face Your Fears, and Train Your Brain for Happiness and Success)
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I watched you pick up a Swiss Roll from the floor, dust it off and swallow it whole.” “That’s living by the five-second rule, Princess. It helps build immunity, nothing wrong with wanting a strong immune system.
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Meghan Quinn (Twisted Twosome (Binghamton, #3))
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apart from OLC’s constitutional view, we recognized that a federal criminal accusation against a sitting President would place burdens on the President’s capacity to govern and potentially preempt constitutional processes for addressing presidential misconduct.2 Second, while the OLC opinion concludes that a sitting President may not be prosecuted, it recognizes that a criminal investigation during the President’s term is permissible.3 The OLC opinion also recognizes that a President does not have immunity after he leaves office.4 And if individuals other than the President committed an obstruction offense, they may be prosecuted at this time. Given those considerations, the facts known to us, and the strong public interest in safeguarding the integrity of the criminal justice system, we conducted a thorough factual investigation in order to preserve the evidence when memories were fresh and documentary materials were available.
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Robert S. Mueller III (The Mueller Report)
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Research shows that allowing ourselves to forgive and forget can be healthy — it reduces pains, headaches, stress, and leads to a strong immune system. So I say: Why continue to hold grudges? We will just put our health in jeopardy, and lessen the number of pages and chapters that we still need to write in our book of life.
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Kcat Yarza (KCAT CAN: I have a pen that writes)