Focus:
Slowing down, softening and being present for the purpose of healing our nervous system.
Repetition:
My nervous system is precious.
I promise to move slowly.
I promise to soften.
I promise to practice being present and purposeful.
Practice your morning routine this week. When you wake, journal about how you slept and how you feel, including emotions and physical communications from the body. After your morning routine, repeat the journaling exercise. If you are new to organ meats, make liver pâté. Freeze into cubes and eat a teaspoon per day - whether you enjoy it or not - trusting that you will enjoy it in the future. However, you do not want to have liver in the beginning if you are not detoxing well. In this case, simply replace the liver with another organ (e.g., heart, kidney, spleen). Heart is the most palatable for beginners. Freeze into cubes and eat a teaspoon per day, whether you enjoy it or not. Trust that you will enjoy it in the future.
New dental care routine
In the morning, oil pull with coconut oil (if you don’t have amalgam fillings) or olive oil (if you do have them). If you use castor oil, you only have to pull for two minutes. Brush with your homemade toothpaste or no toothpaste. Brush very lightly, slowly and with your non-dominant hand. Rinse with fermented kraut juice, kefir, whey, or any ferment. If you haven’t yet made any ferments, use diluted ACV but switch as soon as you can.
Before bed, floss with silk floss and brush with homemade or no toothpaste. Swish with ferments (or ACV+water) and 1/4 of a Blis Probiotic lozenge, and get into bed. We want to replenish the microbiome of the mouth as store-bought toothpaste and mouthwash has depleted the healthy microbial community that should exist in our mouths, protecting us from dental and health issues.
Light Routine
No blue lighting before sunrise or after sunset. Use candles, a non-toxic oil lamp, or electric lights with orange or red incandescent bulbs. No screens or LEDs before sunrise and after sunset. No screens 2 hours before bed. But if you must, reduce scrolling and use blue light blocking glasses. Get morning sun in your eyes and on your skin for at least 10 minutes but aim for over 30 minutes. We cannot get the full spectrum of natural light through glass so just staying by a closed window will not be sufficient. You can open the window, and that is very helpful if you are working indoors all day.
Each colour of light in the spectrum of sunlight communicates something different to your body and this spectrum changes throughout the day. For example, morning sun tells your body to make melatonin 16 hours later. It is optimal to get sun 20 minutes before sunrise and 4 hours of sun total, so try to get as much as you can. Keep in mind that 4 hours would alone heal 51% of your microbiome, without any other interventions! We use fermented dairy on our skin to improve our microbiome and allow our skin to better communicate with the sun. A great “lotion” is a dollop of animal fat and a dollop of fermented dairy rubbed on the skin.
The sun provides our body with information about what time it is and when to make the proper hormones. Your body cannot balance hormonal health without being in the outside light. Even if it is gloomy and rainy, your body is still getting the necessary light. And the midday and evening light are important too! If you could go outside in the morning and be outside most of the day — even if you could only lie on a blanket because you were bedridden — you would be shocked at the changes that would occur in your quality of life!
You need less sunlight in the winter, as the body uses melatonin for certain jobs that vitamin D would otherwise do, but you still need the light! Our body is wise and knows there will be less light in the winter months, so it has a compensation for that, but it is not able to skip natural light in the winter. Firelight — even in candles — is incredibly supportive in the winter and is known to create stem cells.
Our hormones give us our personality and quality of life! The sun allows the hormone vitamin D (and vitamin A) to become water soluble instead of their natural form of being fat soluble, which in turn allows them to scavenge for free radicals, providing a powerful but gentle, daily detox. The sun causes our bodies to create melanin which is also a powerful antioxidant. Neuromelanin in particular is neuroprotective and necessary for our brain and nervous system. Melanin is also a natural sunscreen. It filters EMFs for us, stores electrons, and acts as a superconductor inside our body.
We want to limit our blue light intake. Please look into blue light blocking glasses if you must have a significant amount of screen time. We can only recommend Ra Optics, Dohohdo, or Honeywell Uvex Ademco. Alternatively, you can put free screen protector software on your devices from Iris. It is a good idea to replace LEDs with incandescent bulbs and to cover all the small LED lights you have in your home with black tape. Your bedroom should be like a dark cave: you should not be able to see an object directly in front of your face. If this is not possible, use a natural fiber sleep mask.
It wasn’t until about 200 years ago that humans began living much of their lives indoors. Our DNA sees being indoors all day as if we are hiding from something or as if we are sick, that something is wrong. Even if you have to work all day, take the time to walk outside for five minutes and to eat your lunch outside. Your precious and ancient nervous system needs the sun to feel safe. It needs to be outdoors in nature and receive the earth’s frequencies. We will explore grounding in the future but for now: bare feet directly on the earth is best, and shoes with soles made of natural materials are second best. Concrete allows for grounding to take place but asphalt does not.
Do as many tasks as you can outdoors and always make time for a walk. If you cannot walk outdoors yet, open a window or make a place to lie down outside. If you can barely walk outside, do what you can. Take a tiny walk and rest on the ground for an hour. Increase your time outside as you heal. The goal for optimal health would be to be outside multiple hours every day. Bundle up if it is cold but allow as much skin to show as possible. Wear as little as possible — within reason, of course — during the warmer months.
The sun is an ever-present gift of medicine for holistic health.