Research Shows Effectiveness of Breathwork in Healing
Breath, most of us take it for granted, and yet as an influx of recent studies show, when we learn to control it, it can be the key not only to our physical wellbeing but to our spiritual transformation.
Breathwork is the conscious awareness and control of the breath through the practice of various techniques. While breath practices have been incorporated for millennia in many religious and spiritual traditions, they were largely forgotten with the rise of the modern western world. Today, however, we are in the midst of a massive resurgence in interest in these ancient practices.
Ben Stewart is a filmmaker who has been researching and practicing breathwork for years. “We always have breath, it’s free, and it’s relegated to the subconscious for the most part of our lives,” he said.
When we bring it back into the conscious realm, just the very act of bringing awareness to the breath is something that augments the experience of what the breath is doing to us, but also just becoming aware of your breath allows you to realize how much we actually hold our breath, how interrupted and inconsistent our breathing really is.”
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Water-Only Fasting Protocols Found to Enhance Cancer Treatments
Intermittent fasting has become popular for health and weight loss. But could fasting also be a highly effective tool for fighting and reversing cancer?
Across the world, nearly every culture has a tradition of fasting, but in our modern lives we’ve created a world of surplus and with it a constant and easily satiated hunger. With this excess food, our society has become plagued by diseases of excess.
Dr. Alan Goldhamer is the founder of True North Health Foundation, a therapeutic clinic for water-only fasting that helps patients suffering from a range of illnesses including hypertension, inflammation, autoimmune disorders, and cancer.
“We’ve gone from being criminal quacks to cutting-edge researchers because this idea of fasting has definitely gained some popular support,” Goldhamer said. “Our approach is very different, we believe that there is a cause of real health and the cause of health is healthful living. So, we focus on diet, sleep, (and) exercise, and we use fasting to undo the consequences of dietary excess, essentially. That’s why the conditions that respond the best to fasting are the conditions caused by dietary excess – so, obesity, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, Type II diabetes, autoimmune diseases, and certain forms of cancer, including Lymphoma.
Studies have shown that fasting acts to help the body’s natural ability to destroy dead or diseased cells — a process called autophagy. Now, doctors have begun to study how fasting protocols in conjunction with drugs, such as chemotherapy, can improve the efficacy of cancer treatment.
“It turns out autophagy is the process the body uses to get rid of cellular debris — aging cells and cancer cells — and it turns out that fasting is one of those things that may profoundly enhance autophagy in, not just humans, but also in other animals. In fact in rats, if you do periodic fasting with rats you can double their lifespan (everything else being equal). So, this is something that’s very interesting and promising. I don’t know that we have what I would consider definitive research on the issue, but it certainly raises one of the mechanisms by which fasting may also be effective,” Goldhamer said.
