The Laws of Health
We were designed to function within certain boundaries or limitations, which I call the laws of health. Staying within the parameters of these laws builds health, whereas breaking the laws breaks our health. To merely survive we need fresh air, water, food, sunlight, rest, and exercise, as well as protection from poisons. To thrive we need to discover our God, to then bond with Him and other people. A review of these laws will lead us to discover that they can actually be used as nature’s doctors to restore health and maintain it. Serious illness requires closer adherence to these concepts for success.
Everything in our life really has a physical, mental, and spiritual effect on us. You will find such applications in each of these laws, look for them and utilize your insights. So much of disease is really caused by a failure of ideal circulation in the body. The biblical concept of life being in the blood (Leviticus 17:11, 14) is much more profound when one understands the dangerous effects of impaired or over-abundant circulation.
The following laws ensure perfect circulation for perfect health:
Fresh Air
- Learn and practice breathing from your abdomen frequently throughout the day.
- Make sure you have fresh air in your bedroom, either by airing out your house an hour during the day or by leaving the bedroom window open partially; to insure that the waste products given off by the lungs are not reabsorbed by your body. Your skin, pajamas, and sheets should be clean because the skin can re-absorb toxins also.
- Chemical vapors should not be inhaled.
- Gentle exercise in the outdoors is preferred.
- “Escape” to nature settings often.
Water
Thirst can be educated and therefore fooled. Too often we deny our thirst or try to satisfy it with something else, perhaps with food or another beverage. So we need a handy way to know what is right. A simple guideline for drinking the correct amount of water a day is to make sure your urine is clear instead of yellow. Some foods and vitamins like Vitamin B2 (Riboflavin) can color the urine.
Your body will have better and more consistent energy if you can drink what you need before you require it! Before starting a rigorous task, try to drink the water that you would need before you start it. You will feel better during and after the workout.
The timing for drinking water is important. It is best not to drink much fluid during a meal because digestive juices and enzymes are diluted and result in indigestion. This forces the stomach, pancreas, or liver to produce greater concentrations of digestive juices to break down the various components of the food. Although this can be accomplished, the extra time it takes allows the bacteria (that come with the food and which grows in our mouth) to grow within the food in the stomach and cause fermentation, which poisons our body. The liver, being the main organ of filtration and neutralizer of toxins, then has a heavier burden. If our liver is healthy, we will never notice. But, if our liver is overwhelmed with other activities, toxins will find their way into the rest of the body, setting the stage for and maintaining disease.
This increased effort to raise the concentration of acid can lead to irritation of the stomach lining and lead to gastritis, erosions, or ulcers. There are many digestive aids on the market that claim to cure indigestion symptoms but they can be avoided if we just drink at proper times.
Therefore, it is better to drink water one hour and a half after eating so that digestion can run its course without impediment. So, eat a good breakfast wait an hour, and then drink water. Eat a good lunch, wait an hour, then drink water. Two meals a day, avoiding supper, is the ideal pattern.
Avoid ice-cold water (or any other ice-cold food) because it is stopped in the stomach to be warmed before it is allowed to pass into the small intestines for absorption. You can drink more, absorb it faster, and be refreshed sooner if your water is cool, 50-70 degrees Fahrenheit. Warm water is nauseating. However, hot water (about 115 degrees Fahrenheit) is very tolerable and beneficial if taken before breakfast.
Two hot cups will:
- warm the sinuses, causing thin mucus secretion in the sinuses to flush out debris and thick mucus (great for sinus troubles),
- prepare your stomach for food,
- stimulate your liver and gall bladder for bile excretion,
- stimulate the pancreas for enzyme production,
- stimulate peristaltic action for good bowel elimination,
- cause rapid water absorption into the bloodstream,
- help your kidneys filter the blood easier,
- warm your body on a cool morning.
Our skin is an organ of elimination and therefore excretes waste products through our sweat, which
may be imperceptible or freely flowing. These toxins should be removed from the skin, ideally with a daily shower or bath. Otherwise, the toxins can be reabsorbed back into the skin, providing a source/environment for skin irritation and infection. Also, toxin resorption causes an extra burden on the organs of elimination such as the liver and kidneys. Clean clothing should be worn for the same reason. I recommend showers or baths in the evening. Not only do they clean the skin but also calm the body and equalize the circulation, ensuring better sleep.
The skin can absorb many other substances such as cosmetics, alcohol, petroleum products, perfumes, colorants, heavy metals, etc. The fewer burdens you put in or on your body, the more faculties and energy you will have to fight disease.
Water Choices
- Pure Water (known as soft or distilled or reverse osmosis) is Best for cooking, drinking, and bathing.
- Mineral Water (hard) The minerals that typically come in water or that are added are not easily absorbed by the body and therefore not well utilized. In fact, they may even be a burden because they have to be eliminated.
- Spring water, Artesian well water has varying amounts of dissolved minerals from the ground it passes through.Rainwater purifies the air. OK if the air is not polluted.
- Carbonated water, slightly acidic may assist indigestion but forces the lungs to eliminate more carbon dioxide. Try lemon juice to aid digestion instead.
The following will not HELP to hydrate the body, because the added ingredients require the body to perform other functions, including using its reserves of water to process or eliminate some of the elements in these drinks.
- Bottled Waters with added minerals to increase thirst, like Dasani.
- Sports drinks add sugars and minerals which interfere with digestion, add more pure water to these if you want to use them for extreme physical activities (not advisable for the seriously ill!)
- Flavored Water stimulates digestion, not good between meals,
- Sodas, colas often have so much sugar and other additives that they require more water to process them than they provide.
- Juice, best to drink this shortly before or with meals in relatively small amounts, i.e.. 4 ounces.
- Alcohol dehydrates, avoid even wine. Grape juice provides the same benefits as wine.
Water Filter Choices
- Reverse Osmosis: water is pressure-forced through a membrane which only allows small molecules through (water), not large molecules (minerals and organic compounds). This filter wastes three to 20 times the amount of water it produces. It requires nothing more than water pressure to operate.
- Distillation: water heated into steam, condenses again, leaving impurities behind. Requires high energy to produce.
- Activated Charcoal filters: activation makes tiny particles (mini toxin magnets). Removes gases (flavor), chlorine, and many poisons. Activated charcoal does not remove minerals or salt.
- UV ultraviolet light destroys bacteria, can also be designed to produce ozone which binds to organic molecules and destroys them, including bacteria, viruses, proteins, oils etc.
- Water softening is a common ionizing method of using salt to remove calcium, magnesium, iron, and manganese. Unfortunately, salt is left within the water, and is therefore not the best drink. Beware if you have cardio-vascular or kidney problems!
- Sediment Filters are simple filters to remove debris or cloudiness from water. Solutes like minerals, poisons, flavors (gases) remain in the water.
- Magnetic conditioning provides no benefit in removing minerals or debris to purify or soften water.
My Recommendation: a Reverse Osmosis system preceded by Sediment and Activated Charcoal Filters. Storing water in glass or polycarbonate plastic bottles is the safest method. Other materials such as aluminum or polyethylene allow molecules to leech into and contaminate the water.
Hydrotherapy
Baths can soothe the nervous system but they can also be used to stimulate blood flow to different regions. Alternating applications of hot and cold water is called Hydrotherapy, one of the most powerful physical therapy treatments known to man. You can make or break a fever. You can pump blood to any part of the body rapidly. Since perfect circulation leads to perfect health, Hydrotherapy can force ideal circulation temporarily to treat disease effectively.
Hydrotherapy was highly developed and very successful in the early 1900’s. Search out the recipes that were used for your illness and follow them precisely.
Consider alternating hot and cold showers daily. Take a nice hot shower. Then turn off all hot water 
and turn the cold full on. Spin around two or three times to shock your skin but not get a chill. That is all that is to it to help fortify your body against colds and many other maladies.
Water is soothing to the psyche. Just imagine relaxing next to a babbling brook or, hearing the sounds of the surf at the beach, or a gentle rain shower for sleeping at night, or even respecting a thundering waterfall. Nature has so many types of healing for us… use all you can.
Food
Fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and, seeds prepared in a simple manner are the best choices to grow, heal, and maintain the body and preserve the mental capacities. Animal products and refined foods cannot sustain healthy life.
I applaud your experimenting with good changes. I encourage you to continue proving all things and holding fast to that which is good!
The organs of elimination are the liver, skin, kidneys, lungs, and intestines. Concentrate on helping these to do their job. Learn to keep them clean and protect them.
Avoid completely the following because they cause more pain, spasm, and blood flow restriction:
- Decaf or regular coffee
- Decaf or regular Ice tea
- Green tea, Orange or Black Pekoe, White tea, Yellow tea, Oolong
- All of these are Chinese tea and will irritate the nervous system, causing more pain, spasm, and decreased blood flow!
- Chocolate
- Strong spices like black or hot pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg etc.
- Vinegar
These substances are really toxins which require the eliminative resources of your kidneys, liver, etc. and diminish their capacity to deal with the debris released by therapy. In other words, these substances slow or stop your healing besides causing more pain!
These substances also hurt many other organs, alter our perceptions of appetite, alter the function of the brain, increase irritability or excitability, affect mood, impair the immune system… The list goes on and on. Although some research shows there are some beneficial nutrients or effects gained by
using these things, remember they are mixed with toxins which ultimately outweigh any benefit. You can find those beneficial nutrients in many other sources with none of the bad side effects.
In your learning about food you will see that a more vegetarian diet will be the best in most cases. Notice that the Bible claims man was created and initially recommended a vegetarian-based diet. You might look in Genesis chapter 2 verse 16 and chapter 3 verse 18.
Sunlight
- Open your bedroom and other rooms to the sun during the day because sunlight is a disinfectant that will purify the surroundings.
- Sun is good for disinfecting air, clothing.
- Seasonal affective disorder (SAD), depression results from too little sun exposure.
- Vitamin and hormones are produced, especially affecting the limbic (emotional) system and skeleton (osteoporosis).
- Sunlight goes through light clothing. 15 minutes minimum per day.
- See sunlight early in the day to program your body clocks. Helps with Jet lag too.
Rest
- When you are tired, recognize that your body wants to heal and restore itself. Growth and healing occur most when you are sleeping. Children who are growing or people who are sick need more sleep than those who are healthy. If you are under high stress, ill, you need more sleep than usual. The sleeping hours before a midnight are worth twice of those after. So, early to bed!
- Current research is showing that we adults need eight to nine hours of sleep. You want your sleep to be as ideal as possible. Pay attention to the posture of your neck while lying on a pillow. The position of the neck is best as though it were maintained in an ideal posture, whether lying on your side or back.
- There is a direct relationship between sleep and a positive state of mind. Lack of sleep leads to depression. Is there any wonder why antidepressants are the biggest selling drugs in the world?
- To get better rest:
- Exercise in the day, like walking.
- Avoid heavy exercise before sleeping.
- Better to sleep on an empty stomach.
- Take a warm shower or bath before a going to sleep that night.
- Chamomile or mint tea may be taken before sleeping.
- Melatonin may help, but only immediately if taken before sleeping. It has a. 15-minute maximum duration.
- Review your relationships with others to ensure there are no divisive, destructive patterns. Approach them with a spirit of humbleness and love to restore a clear conscience for all. You may need safe people to help with this (Matthew 18:15-17).
- Doing good for others is a powerful healer (Isaiah 58:6-12) and soother of the nervous system for good rest.
Let’s talk about equalized circulation. Generally, the autonomic nervous system controls circulation in our body. The parasympathetic nervous system sends the blood to the internal organs, especially for digestion. The sympathetic nervous system sends blood to the external skin and skeletal muscles (such as when you are fearful or under stress), so with heightened senses you are prepared for rapid body movement. If you are ready for sleeping, you don’t need those heightened senses or action-ready muscles. A warm bath helps to equalize the nervous system and circulation throughout the body and literally calm your body and mind.
Digestion Rest
The digestive system needs rest between meals to rebuild its reserves of acids, alkali, enzymes, and other digestive chemicals. It only takes one peanut between meals to release and waste those digestive juices, leaving the digestive system unprepared for the next real meal.
- Three meals a day, or better yet, two, are best divided by four or five hours. Otherwise, indigestion will become a commonplace event, leading to the more dangerous conditions of gastritis, ulcers, cancers, etc.
- After eating, wait an hour and a half before drinking water.
- No snacks. The stomach, liver, and pancreas need to rest to restore the enzymes acids etc. For example: a peanut between meals causes the acids and alkaline fluids to neutralize each other, wasting energy, nutrients and time.
- It is better to walk after eating to help digestion. Sleeping immediately after eating slows and hurts digestion.
- Consider fasting from food 24 hours (keep drinking water!) if you are feeling a minor illness developing. Up to a 3 day fast is still safe.
Muscle and Joint Rest
Ideally, when we have a good night’s rest, it will help our body to heal from the day’s activities, stresses, and injuries. If you work hard during the day, and are sore going to sleep and you awaken sore again the next morning, and then pursue the same activity again, going to sleep sore again, you will never give your body a chance to heal completely. Repeating this for days will lead to inflammatory conditions that eventually cause degenerative changes (Arthritis, Tendonitis, Neuritis, Bursitis, Myofibrosis, etc.).
Muscles need rest. They rest best when they can be stretched completely. If they are allowed to remain tight, they cause constant compression forces across their joints. Realize that, in adults, joint cartilage has no direct blood flow to it and depends on the joint fluid to soak into it while the joint is relaxed. (Think of it like a dried kitchen sponge soaking in water.) When the joint is weight bearing or has to work, the fluid is pushed out. So when you sleep, fluid with its nutrition soaks into the cartilage to keep it alive. When you are up and doing things, the fluid is squashed out and takes waste products with it out of the cartilage. Joint fluid is cleaned and replaced regularly by the joint capsule, which does have a good blood supply.
If you do not have that nice exchange of fluid going in and out of the cartilage, it cannot stay healthy. So, tight muscles prevent the joint fluid from giving nutrition to the cartilage and taking away waste products. After years of this, the dying cartilage starts to fragment and break apart. Then calcium builds in and around the joint and Arthritis is the result.
Mind Rest Tips
- People coming back home from work need about half an hour to unwind and not deal with home troubles immediately.
- Get out into nature in whatever capacity: looking at scenery, walking, gardening, swimming etc.
- Bible study.
- Prayer.
- Fellowship/Church.
- Music.
- Hobbies.
- Helping other people.
- Forgiveness, receiving and granting it.
- Talking to safe people about the emotional hurt in your heart.
Habits and Body Clocks
Many functions occur in cycles in our body: the production of digestive juices and enzymes, growth and healing, and the production of the building blocks of hormones. Sunlight coordinates these body cycles. If possible, avoid night shift work. If you must, try to keep your “off” days with the same schedule.
It is best to keep your habits the same on workdays as the weekends. Our body work best with habit patterns that are maintained every day. Therefore eating meals, as well as, going to sleep and arising at the same time every day makes it easier for our body to produce the various chemicals and rebuild itself effectively, efficiently…, and happily.
Spiritual Rest
The Bible calls for a day a week to set aside work and get to know your God, family, friends, and neighbors. Helping and getting help, recreation, special meals, and extra sleep, sharing your faith are all appropriate. Making healing and nurturing relationships is the point.
Exercise
Aim for 20 to 30 minutes of walking per day with appropriate stretching. Going outside will automatically provide fresh air and sunlight!
Balanced circulation is your goal. A simple example: Clothe the limbs to keep them as warm as the trunk of the body.
Do not use clothing or accessories, which compress the body tightly around the abdomen, ribcage, arms, or legs. Loose clothing that allows you to raise your arms over your head and breath deeply with your abdomen is the best for overall circulation and lung function. Tight belts interfere with digestion and elimination. Also, be aware of tight collars, wrist watches, rings, and hats. If it leaves indentations it probably is too tight to allow good blood and lymphatic flow.
A large part of this website is dedicated to therapeutic exercise with specific instructions for your pain problems.
Temperance
Use good things in moderation and avoid poisons completely. Examples of poisons are coffee, Chinese tea, most soft drinks, strong spices, vinegar, tobacco, alcohol, and mind altering drugs.
Senses are the avenues to our brain and mind. Let only the good in. Be careful with TV and other media because your autonomic nervous system responds to the fictional violence, lying, or danger as though it were a reality, stressing your body systems by unbalancing your nervous and circulatory systems.
All good things like food, work, relationships, recreation, fashion, etc. need a healthy balance. Use the good in moderation and avoid the bad completely. An easy way to know is that good things do not hinder the brain/mind/nervous system in its function, nor imbalance the blood circulation.
Relationship
Trust in God.
Learn about Him and experiment with His promises. If you care to try Him out, choose Him as the Master of your mind. (Remember, He always gives you the choice to change your mind. He will not force you.)
Let Him be responsible for victory in your life.
Depend on Him to give you the will and ability to carry out these very health laws that He designed for you. Do the best you can with what He has given you, and then rest in Him making it a success.
Forgive others and yourself.
God will give you this ability and any other you will need. Develop a close relationship with Him, both privately and with others, i.e.. family, church.
“A merry heart doth good like a medicine.” (Proverbs 17:22) Look for the good humor and joy in life, He will open your eyes to it.
Other people are God’s way of helping and healing us.
- Understand about the destructiveness of guilt and judgment
- Immerse yourself in a group of people who accept you for who you are
Interdependence
- We need others
- Yet we are strong in principles
- The group helps us to see ourselves as we truly are
- We can learn how we affect others and determine if that is really loving
- The effects of bad childhood (or other) relationship experiences can be substituted for a loving accepting uplifting foundation
- Love behavior is modeled by Jesus and by other people in a non-judgmental environment
- Learn to yield to God by seeing the walk of others doing the same
- God and you are living your life together
- God works through others to help you
- He came to live in people and carry out His will…the Body of Christ
- Virtually every emotional and psychological problem has alienation or isolation at its core
- Getting connected at healthier and deeper levels to other leads to recovery
- Our hearts need to be open to each other
Interdependence provides
- Discipline
- Structure
- Accountability
- Grace and Forgiveness
- Support and Strengthening
- Grieving
- Healing
- Confronting
Steps
- Gain right knowledge based on God’s word
- Choose Christ
- Join with other believers because we need each other to heal and thrive