Kilauea Iki trail, walking through the crater.

One of our favorite trips is the Kilauea Iki trail in the Kilauea National Park. It is a 4 mile loop and an amazing hike. The trail begins by going down into the crater through the rainforest, followed by a flat portion in the crater surrounded with surreal lava and misty clouds coming out of it. The hike ends by hiking out through the rain forest enchanted with bird songs and the silent murmur of wilderness ends the hike.

Most recently we had a fun excursion with 3 of our guests. The juicing program does not stop during our excursion!

Emile and F. drinking a carrot apple juice after the walk (Center). Dr. Baylac (Left).

photo credit: Emile G

Depression, Anxiety, Panic Attack and the Smothering of the Life Force

The natural life force expresses itself in the body and the mind through pleasure, happiness and wellbeing. Physical, intellectual and sexual pleasure, a feeling of serenity, joy, spontaneity, trust and connection with the environment are all characteristics of a successful inheritance from nature adapted to life. However, this gift may be spoiled. More and more individuals encounter difficulties in sustaining enough interest or passion for life, lose motivation and seek help. More and more people get diagnosed with depression and even more are undiagnosed and untreated. Anxiety is the most common underlying cause of many physical illnesses. Most people who suffer from drug addiction, eating disorder or obsessive compulsive are also anxious and depressed. A lot of people who suffer from a terminal illness also suffer from depression and anxiety. Psychiatrists diagnose more and more people with depression and anxiety and prescribe more and more drugs and less and less psychotherapy. But drugs do not work. If we like to prevent young people suicide, alcoholism, drug addiction and crime we must give a good look at how our society creates anxious people and how it treats it.

Anxiety and depression go hand in hand. Depression manifests mostly on the mental emotional plane with negative ideation, sleep and eating disturbance while anxiety is one step further and manifests also on the physical plane with physiological disturbances. Most of the symptoms of anxiety are the physiological manifestation of fear: Palpitation, sweating profusely, low fever, tremor, dizziness, difficulty breathing.

In both cases, ideation is driven by self-destructiveness with a focus either on past traumatic events over which one had no control or future catastrophic thinking.

These symptoms culminate in a panic or anxiety attack to the point where the person fears losing her mind and/or her body; she fears dying. If untreated, this can have serious chronic consequences on physical or mental health.

What smothers the life force?

The life force and the mind

How come a human being who was given the gift of life can come to such suffering? What are the processes that contribute to this progressive smothering of the life force and what has led an individual to be encased in an armor of fear?

Inner conflict

Something happened that was out of the person control and the person cannot accept it. For instance, a mother had her children taken away through a custody case, or someone is on probation and continuing illegal activities. Anger and fear build up. Energy is needed to control these emotions so that they do not surface and this inner conflict damages the life force.

Compromising

The damage is progressive, and one is not aware of it: One is compromising their ideal to live in a convenient situation and their spirit dies. For instance a woman sacrifices her life for the convenience of financial support.

Isolation, lack of support and nurturing slowly undermine the life force and one loses the will to live.

Negativity, poor self-esteem, self-judgment, fear of living

The life force is synonymous to a strong spontaneous vector turned outwardly with trust and love. Education and upbringing teach children how to tame and sometime how to repress this life force. Unhappy parents teach their children how to die inside in order to survive in a sad world.

Fear is the anticipation of a negative event in the future and the inability to live the present moment.

The problem is with the mind and the solution is with the mind.

This is why cognitive therapy works so well for depression.

Amending the mind

First of all, all adolescents on the verge of joining adulthood are confronted with this issue of deciding if they want to live or die. To engage life we need to consciously want to be here and contribute something to our world or planet. After one makes the decision to live, one sees the necessity to build a positive belief system that sustains life. The depressed person needs help to examine her/his entire system of thoughts and see if this system is adapted to sustaining life. If not it needs to be replaced by a positive one.

For instance, one may think that the world is false, corrupted and violent and rather than be negative and depressed about it chooses to create a supportive environment and a life of service and dedication to good.

Ignoring the mind

Because the problem is with the mind another solution is also out of the mind and meditation is another avenue to treat depression and anxiety. When this deep connection with oneself is attained the small disturbances are less likely to be overwhelming and to overtake reality.

The life force and brain chemistry

There is no doubt that the life force anchors in the brain. The brain needs oxygen and nutrients to function properly. If we eat a diet deficient in amino acids, vitamins and minerals we will not synthesize the feel good neurotransmitters such as dopamine, serotonin or endorphins. If we live a sedentary lifestyle, our blood is not oxygenated properly and the driving force to make energy. If we eat hydrogenated fats and not enough polyunsaturated fats, our cell membrane lacks essential fatty acids that give it its flexibility and oxygen cannot penetrate the cell. So the problem is really in the lifestyle that this society is offering. This society is fabricating depressed and anxious people by feeding them dead food and breaks their spirit by offering materialistic goals. We now have a population of unmotivated unhappy people who have no desire to participate in this world to whom we are feeding drugs that do not work. What works are lifestyle changes, better nutrition, and an active lifestyle with regular physical exercise. We could save many lives if everyone had access to information about alternatives to drugs.

Drugs do not work

Prozac, Celexa, Paxil, Wellbutrin, Zoloft, Effexor, Trazodone,. Pharmaceutical companies continue producing new generations of antidepressant that hide the failure of the preceding one. Just a new name but the same product! Most people who seek help from me for depression and anxiety are taking antidepressants, anti-anxiety and sleeping aids and still are not feeling good, still have suicidal thoughts and need assistance. The drugs may have helped initially for a month or two because drugs increase the levels of feel good neurotransmitters. They initially boost the energy, and restore the pleasure of being alive, but eventually the body gets habituated to the artificially increased levels of serotonin or dopamine and their effects become null.

Drugs cannot be a permanent answer because the existential cause of depression must be addressed and the starving brain must be properly nourished. Because of either a poor nutrition or a sedentary, stressful and mentally and physically toxic lifestyle people may become deficient in feel good neurotransmitters and supplementation with amino acid precursors vitamins and minerals is essential to get started. Tests may be ran to adapt the protocol to each specific case. Ultimately a lifestyle change and sometime long-term psychotherapy are needed. Raw food nutrition is a great approach because it matches the life force and supplies a massive amount of undamaged nutrients. Exercise is a natural way to increase endorphins and has shown to be as efficacious as antidepressants to cure depression.

To treat depression and anxiety naturally and permanently www.rawdetox.org

www.mindyourbody.info

Interns Wanted at Hawaii Naturopathic Retreat Center

INTERNS NEEDED FOR HAWAII INPATIENT FACILITY

TREATING ADDICTION, CANCER AND CHRONIC DISEASE

WITH NUTRITION AND LIFESTYLE CHANGES

Hawaii Naturopathic Retreat Center, an in-patient facility, provides 3 month long internships for naturopathic doctors who want to learn more about detoxification and lifestyle changes with raw food nutrition, juices, exercise and mind-body medicine in the treatment of chronic disease. Candidates must believe in a Nature Cure approach and must be familiar with at least one of the following modalities: IV therapy, raw food nutrition, exercise therapy and possibly practice some mind body procedures such as meditation, yoga, EFT, stress management, breath work or other psychotherapy or bodywork techniques. Interns may apply for an extension or a permanent remunerated employment.

Interns will have free room and board and work 40 hours per week. The work will consist in preparing for patients treatment plan and stay:

Review of medical records, questionnaire, lab work and assessment

Make sure supplies and staff are ready for patient arrival.

Daily medical supervision.

Supervise patient program.

Follow up phone consultations.

Research medical conditions and write articles.

Some office and administrative work. Answer phone calls enquiries, filing, place food and supplement orders and prepare staff and patient schedule.

Food shopping at farmers markets, once or twice a week.

In exchange interns will be given supervision and guidance in their work. They will start patient's visits with a senior doctor until they feel comfortable doing the visits on their own and will meet as often as necessary with the doctor to assess patients progress and review treatment plan.

Please check our websites at www.rawdetox.org or www.gersonhawaii.us or www.mindyourbody.info

Then, send your letter of intent with a resume to office@mindyourbody.info

Guidelines for starting internships are as follow: January, April, july and October, but some flexibility is possible.

Passion, Not Addiction: How to break addictive habits

The facets of addiction

Addiction, from the standpoint of the patient is the awareness that one is engaged in an unhealthy compulsive behavior. From the standpoint of the practitioner, addiction is a complex behavior that needs to be approached with multiple therapies: nutritional medicine, cognitive and behavioral therapy, spiritual counseling, psychodynamic therapies, support groups and education.

Addiction as a compulsive, out of control behavior

The person under the spell of addiction feels compelled to repeat a particular behavior and feels powerless to stop it. This is a state of bondage to a compulsive habit as a ritualistic response is to a certain internal emotional state, such as stress, boredom, pain, loneliness and /or external clues such as locations or situations.

Addiction as an unhealthy habit

Drinking, smoking tobacco or marijuana, binging, purging, overeating, swallowing pharmaceutical drugs, sniffing cocaine, gambling, pornographic sex, are all behaviors that have serious health consequences from possible death from overdose to long term consequences on health. Long-term consequences depend on the specific substance abused and each specific habit. Behaviors involving substance abused such as tobacco addiction may lead to respiratory problems such as emphysema and lung cancer, methamphetamine abuse may lead to mental disorders or illness such as sleep disturbance and paranoia or schizophrenia. Purging may lead to Barrett Esophagus or tooth decay. Substance abuse involving needles lead to HIV and Hepatitis C.

Addiction as awareness

Addiction cannot exist without awareness. Someone may be getting drunk every night at the pub and think that he is having fun, not being addicted. Someone may be thinking that purging after overeating is a good solution to her weight problem, not being addicted. Someone only thinks about himself or herself as an addict when they fail to avoid or stop their behavior. This awareness is the most important decisive factor in recovery. Patients who are not coming on their own choice but because a family member sends them, will have less chance of recovery than the patients who come because they realize that they need help to quit. The moment someone identifies as an addict and wants to undergo treatment, this awareness creates a distance between the addictive personality and the healthy one and the therapist may use the emergence of the healthy self to work with.

Breaking the old habit

As therapists is our task to strengthen the non-addicted self in anyway possible to break the addictive behavior. Establishing a schedule with regular meals taken together and other activities during the day such as group support, daily medical check ups, work out sessions, meditation, counseling, walks, journaling, juices, all of these activities address the “sober” self. These activities create a demand to be present and break down old habits. Bringing people to the present with meditation helps them to break free from old habits.

Biochemical rebalancing

Addictive behaviors interfere with brain chemistry by increasing dopamine levels in the pleasure center of the brain. Some substances can increase the release of dopamine to more than 600 times the normal production! On the other hand, a biochemical imbalance may be the cause of drug dependency. Deficiencies may be identified with laboratory testing or from a behavioral assessment. I found that patients benefit from taking few amino acid precursors of neurotransmitters.

Most often, other pathological mental states crop up in connection with addictive behaviors. A full psychological assessment should be performed and mental disorders such as depression, bipolar disorder or ADD should be treated, as they could be the cause or the result of the addictive behavior.

Nutritional therapy

Addictive behaviors cause nutritional deficiencies. For instance, alcoholism causes thiamine, niacin and zinc deficiency as well as blood sugar imbalance.

In addition to deficiencies created by the drug itself people who abuse drugs tend to have poor nutritional habits. It is important to create new healthy habits. It is useful that patients start eating healthy meals regularly. I found that live raw foods have been very useful in the recovery process, both for their detoxifying and nutritional value. Live foods are full of life force and I have been absolutely baffled by the quick and strong turn around in patient's energy after just a few day of being here.

Cognitive Behavioral interventions

Cognitive behavior interventions consist of helping patients to deal with triggers and stressors. Addiction is a quick fix to reestablish or increase a lost pleasurable internal state. As such, it always has something to do with pleasure. Role-playing between the addict and the non-addict, self-awareness exercises to identify behaviors associated and leading to the maladapted behavior, help the patient to step back and gain control over himself. We help patients to become aware of their inner program leading to addiction and help them to create innovative solution to deal with the issues that trigger the repetition of the addictive behavior

Spiritual counseling

There is a lot of energy trapped into maintaining addictive behavior: secrecy, guilt, generating money, maintaining special places... and once this energy is freed it can be turned around and used in a positive manner. Spiritual teachers that we feature in our library may inspire patients. Everyone watches “The Secret”, some may tune into Eckart Tolle, and others enjoy the work of Byron Katie. Becoming aware of one's self destructiveness and practicing self love and trust alone, with a partner or in a group setting is the corner stone of a long recovery journey which turns into a spiritual journey.

Physical exercise, and physical manifestations

Some other people may tune their energy more into the physical work and enjoy working out, walking or running daily. We had a patient who became passionate for physical exercise while at our center. He exercised for the first time in his life and wanted to continue at home. He transformed his basement, which used to be part of his addictive activities into a gym. Many who discovered the wonders of live raw foods want to continue on this plan and open a raw food restaurant.

Psychodynamic therapy

Often, the first addictive behavior started very young, or maybe the addict modeled a parent, or was brought up in a dysfunctional family. Being in our retreat is the beginning of a long-term self-discovery process that never ends, a quest for freedom, truth and happiness.

At Hawaii Naturopathic Retreat Center - for Fasting, Detoxification & Meditation we combine the best of detoxification methods with psychotherapy, meditation and spiritual ideas. In order to achieve maximal healing in minimal time. Read about our purpose and mission, and our philosophy and medical approach or visit our website rawdetox.org or mindyourbody.info

Continued Success for Prostate Cancer - Our Colleague in Japan Shares his Story

He wrote to us recently and this is what he said:

"I am still doing well and my PSA is still normal. The advantage of Gerson Therapy is that it can be practiced while continuing usual work. I had been seeing patients as a physician twice a week at Atsugi Satoh Hospital when I started the treatment for prostate cancer. Currently, I work there 4 days a week. I still enjoy the feeling of soil in a 300m field growing organic vegetables. I still play flute several times a month."

Please take the time to read his story: http://homepage3.nifty.com/yushiro/