Winter months - how to survive them.
How delicious is the clear day, snow all about and the crisp cold air; yet we do not all do well in the freezing winter or even a damp one.
Having observed patients and myself, the skin appears to suffer most in the cold. This is a mystery but not if you know how to heal cracking skin. Another aspect of winter are colds and flu. All these conditions come about when our invisible protective shield has been penetrated. The Chinese call it Wei Chi (protective energy) and when this is broken down we ‘catch’ colds and in the dryness of a freeze the skin cracks.
Cracked skin
What actually happens to the body? One cannot see it but it is a problem of calcium metabolism and silica is its cure. [1] Anyone with skin cracking and dryness needs to increase silica in the diet or as supplements of herbs or tissue salts. Oddly enough the winter months demands naturally of us to eat warming food and none better than porridge oats. Oats are warming and rich in the mineral silica. Other good sources of silica are all whole grains (barley especially).
If you are cold and shivery, often when active too, then look seriously at increasing Silica in your diet. It will improve the basal metabolism over several weeks and a renewed vigour will return. Seek to make dietary changes but also taking Silica 6X tissue salt or even higher potencies of 6C or 12C but this needs to be professionally prescribed before embarking on taking it regularly.
The secret to healing the skin and related calcium deficiencies is to take it Silica 6X with Calcium Fluoride 6X. This combination will have wonderful effects on the body far beyond the symptoms you are seeking to cure.
Herbs that are high in silica are horsetail (Equisteum), parsley (Petroselinum), nettles (Urticaria) and vegetables which can help in our winter woes such as watercress, cabbage (especially the outer leaves), dandelion leaves, lettuce, radishes, swede, turnip. And cottage cheese (see below for the reason).
Horsetail, rosemary with sage: All high silica herbs – used for hair skin and nails as a generality. But you can see beyond this as indicated above – it will do so much more. This is a Natures Sunshine Product.
Colds and Flu's
The perennial – there is always a spate of illness merging into the winter months – a mini epidemic of cough colds and intestinal disorders. “What have you got for me?” asked the plumber, as he came to fix the heating. I looked at him with an eye for his constitutional dilemma. We’re all the same but different.
Rest. Sometimes this is the hardest thing to do with the pressures of work and family life but it is the most important thing – let the body rest and recover. So called immune support remedies do nothing if there is no rest. More to the point is the recharging of one’s life battery, is another way of describing why we must need to take to our beds.
Dr Selye and Dr Budwig' solution
Rest though this is only part of the picture in adapting to stress, cold and other conditions. Dr. Hans Selye propounded the concept of ‘diseases of adaptation.’ This was the idea of disorders as the consequence of stress on the body, when the energy of the ‘life battery’ was not being replenished. Selye made observations on tissues, organs and the organism as a whole as resulting from stress. Stress is the stimulation of life and causes the inner movement of the life current from positive and negative poles in the body human.
As everyone would know a battery has a positive pole (+) and a negative pole (-) and the battery is empty or ‘flat’ when there is no differential charge between the two poles. Human exhaustion results when the ‘life battery’ remains uncharged, and the capacity is subsequently ‘lowered and even less capacity to withstand stress, easier breakdown of health, and degeneration.’
Dr Budwig proved the matter of the exhaustion of the ‘life battery’, or the replenishing of the ‘battery’, as a problem of oils and protein. “Biochemically, the poles of our life battery are good oils and good proteins – oils rich in EFA’s (essential fatty acids), and sulphur-rich proteins…” “Between these two poles, our life currents, produced by the metabolism of carbohydrates and other molecules, flow when the circuit of essential nutrients is complete.”
Thus the more we are stimulated, the more the life currents must flow, the more the replenishing of the battery is required. Modern food’s poor quality oils, poor quality proteins, and metabolism inhibitors add up to nutritional deficiency as the cause of the majority of modern diseases.
The answer here is better eating, returning to some peasant fundamentals - whole foods, closest to source and best quality fats from dairy and meat (to an extent) but especially flax seeds. [2]
Can it be so simple?
But we just keep going – another cigarette, coffee or cup of tea (with milk and three sugars). One can find a glass of wine restorative in the short term but like all things proper food, rest and recreation is needed. Rug up.
© Cornelis van Dalen 2010
For therapeutic advice do not hesitate to email: cvandalen@newphysis.com
Endnotes
1. For the full story on calcium and silica refer to 'The Spirit of Calcium'
2. Quoted from 'Diet to Change your Life' by C van Dalen, a free report click here