Detoxification of Body and Mind
by Dr Patrick Quanten MD
These days we hear a lot about toxins, toxic products and detoxification. We are told that for us to become healthy, it is essential that we detoxify our body. And we are at a loss as to what that means. What are toxic products inside our body? Where do they come from and how can we get rid of them?
We associate toxic products with pollution and certainly our environment contributes a lot to the stress our metabolic and elimination systems are under. However, it is too easy and far too simplistic to put the blame entirely on pollution and the people that are responsible for it. Notice how it is always others that destroy the ozone layer, that pollute the air with toxic gasses, that pollute the streams and seas, that put the preservatives, colorants, emulsifiers and taste enhancers in the food that we particularly like and buy. The truth is that we all play an active part in the destruction of the world, either by directly contributing to it or by having our wishes and desires met by others, by the industry, by an economy of demand.
These toxic products accumulate in the food chain and are in the air that we breathe. Once they have entered our system, we need to do something with them. We can either detoxify them, store them or allow destruction of our body to take place. The choice is ours. Before you start protesting, here are a few examples of what we need to consider if we are going to make a positive choice.
– Attitude makes a great difference to your weight. Fear tends to refuse to allow nutrients into the system. However, anyone who overeats to calm fear will eventually also gain weight. Anger burns away nutrients, but anyone who overeats specifically to cool anger eventually gains weight. People who, filled with bitterness due to intense frustration, choose to obtain life's sweetness through food may become addicted to the pleasures of eating and may become obese. Individual reasons for obesity vary, but all of them involve the determination to hold tenaciously to the beloved fat which provides reliable, steady love and warmth. No diet, however strict, can change this.
– Loneliness is worse for you than a high fat diet when you are trying to lose weight. Most strict diets are actually self-defeating because they manifest from an attitude of self-hatred, of disgust for the fat and for the self whose weakness allowed the fat to accumulate. This attitude leads to a desire to starve the body in order to punish the mind.
Hunger prangs increase as the body tries to force the mind to eat more and satisfy its hunger. This affects junk food addicts worst, since their bodies have been emptied of many essential nutrients for which their bodies experience severe hunger when dieting. Moreover when dieters go back to their normal eating habits at the end of a diet they burn off less calories and store more fat than they did previously, because their metabolic rates have dropped, and because their bodies are now wary of starvation and want to store even more just in case such episode should be repeated. Crash diets therefore increase the body's setpoint for fat content, and makes you fatter!
The psychological effects of crash dieting are even more pernicious. Both, starving people and dieters dream and fantasise about food, and both suffer from anxiety and depression, all from the physical stress of having to live below the body's desired fat setpoint. When the organism cheats on its diet because it can no longer withstand the body's incessant demands for food, the mind's first reaction is to binge, because "I've already gone off my diet, so why not?" After the binge, guilt rears up as the mind realises that its temporary indulgence in food has damaged its physical self-image. To remedy this the dieter returns to penance and starts back down the road of starvation, little knowing that such erratic behaviour inexorably drives up the fat steeping.
– Even resisting temptation can be hazardous to your weight. Every dieter who lusts after a luscious desert sends a message to the brain that new and tasty morsels are about to be consumed. This makes the mouth water and the digestive juices start to flow, and signals the body's insulin to remove some sugar from the general circulation to make way for the new sugar which will soon be flooding the blood. The body stores this sugar as fat. Lowered blood sugar increases the appetite, and when you next eat you will eat more than you would normally have eaten. Added body fat increases insulin production, which causes more and more fat to be deposited at each episode. You really can gain weight just by looking at a tasty pastry!
– An Ohio University study of heart disease in the 1970's was conducted by feeding quite toxic, high-cholesterol diets to rabbits in order to block their arteries, duplicating the effect that such diet has on human arteries. Consistent results began to appear in all the rabbit groups except for one, which strangely displayed 60 percent fewer symptoms. Nothing in the rabbits' physiology could account for their high tolerance to the diet, until it was discovered by accident that the student who was in charge of feeding these particular rabbits liked to fondle and pet them. He would hold each rabbit lovingly for a few minutes before feeding it; astonishingly, this alone seemed to enable the animals to overcome the toxic diet. Repeat experiments, in which one group of rabbits was treated neutrally while the others were loved, came up with similar results.
– If you try to give someone a cold, for example, it takes more than the virus. Experimenters have incubated cold viruses, placed them directly on the mucous lining of the nose, and found that their subjects came down with colds only 12 percent of the time. These odds could not be increased by exposing the subjects to cold drafts, putting their feet in ice water to give them chills, or anything else that was purely physical.
– As science evolves and looks at more and more environmental and food issues, more and more we are confronted with the idea that everything is bad for you. From the water you drink (tap water or bottled), to the food you eat (vegetables and fruits are grown in polluted soil and are sprayed), to the air you breathe (city pollution, country high pollen count), to the weather (acid-rain, sun induced skin cancer, fog induced asthma), to the place you live (high power electricity cables, nuclear power stations, underground streams). The only way to survive this onslaught is by not allowing it to affect us.
We are surrounded by things and events that are potentially toxic to our system. What ultimately makes them toxic to a particular person at a particular time seems to be the mind of that person. Bad diets and eating habits, germs, emotions, can all play a detrimental part in the balance of health, if the mind attaches negative messages to these "toxic products". If, on the other hand, the toxic product is accompanied by a message of love, our system will respond in a loving way to the toxic product and no toxic effect will be noticed.
But how can I start to clean out toxic products that already have settled into my system? A quick detoxification program can be a great help, but without any real attitude changes, toxicity will build up very quickly again. The aim is to gradually change. Change the way you eat and what you eat, in order to provide your body with the physical building blocks that are needed to clear out the system. Change the way you look at your self in order to install self-love and respect into your system, instead of self-hatred, the disgust and the low self-esteem. Change the way you do things in order to bring happiness into your daily chores, instead of frustration, a feeling of imprisonment and living this way because you "have to".
Without these essential changes life will continue to be a struggle, manifesting itself in weight problems and illness. Only enjoyment in everyday life, in everyday things, in everyday being, will lead to a satisfactory balance between body and mind where toxic products, whether created by the outer world, the inner world (the body) or the emotions, will find no ground to fester. Happiness in everything we do is what we are all looking for. Make the necessary changes slowly but firmly, so that you can be happy with every step you take.
1. Worship your body and do not punish it.
Therefore, ensure the intake of wholesome food in a peaceful way and be sure to pay caring attention to the outer part of the body by regularly exercising it and providing it with the appropriate total rest.
2. Worship and develop your mind and do not punish it.
Therefore, ensure a loving attitude towards yourself and others and be sure not to hold on to aggression and hate, and to allow jealousy and envy to cloud your mind.
Dr Patrick Quanten MD
May 1996
