Air

The best time to notice the importance of good, clean fresh air is when you lack it.  Every human being  can survive for weeks without food, for days without water, but only minutes without air. Air is essential to our lives. Every illness that has a shortage of air (Asthma, for instance or some heart or lung diseases) implies a high stress level because of the fear to suffocate. But air has not always given the importance, that we now know it has. During the time in the Renaissance it was considered totally revolutionary to expose a room or even a human being to fresh air and sunshine. It took yet decades before the reformation movement around Jan (the godfather of physical exercise programs) or the even later developed nudists clubs demonstrated to the people that fresh air was essential to their well being. How can we use air in the sense of natural healing? For instance: Sick rooms should be sufficiently often aired out so that the patient can breathe better and thus deeper. Disease germs, by the way, do not maintain themselves in well ventilated rooms. It is awful what happens to patients in hospitals. They have to breathe the air that is ventilated through the air duct systems of air conditioning systems and it contains  all kinds of hospital related bacteria.   I know of many cases, where especially elderly people come to the hospital for one minor health problem and get really sick with the bacteria, that they catch in the hospital. Sometimes it would already have been helpful, if the hospitals sick rooms would have had windows, that can be opened...

In every house and workplace it is essential to ventilate well. If we fail to do it, lack of concentration and diminished stamina result. A healthy way to get as much of the air into the system as possible is a brisk walk - possibly not alongside the freeway.... Movement in fresh air is always a gain for the entire organism. By breathing deeper all the stress gets carried away and we feel free. The inhaled oxygen provides optimally for all systems and we are again stronger and more resistant towards diseases.

Wounds, exposed to clean air, heal faster. This also goes for skin diseases. Sometimes it has proven very helpful to combine air therapy with color radiation or sunshine.
An invention of the old Romans, the Tepidarium, has now been reinstalled in many luxury hotels in Europe. It is a small room, where walls and the floor are heated, creating a very pleasant atmosphere. The guest is laying naked on a convenient lounge chair and is „breathing with every pore“

In massage practices warm air is used to prepare the patients muscles for the massage. The skin „breathes“ better and the muscles get more relaxed.

The Finnish sauna creates hot air, thus causing a heavy perspiring and release of toxins. The detoxification effect is even more enhanced in an infrared sauna. Infra red radiation warms the body by deeply penetrating heat  that causes more intensive perspiration than every sauna.

There are certain diseases where it is essential to apply high air pressure and climate as a healing stimulus. Thyroid problems, asthma and neurodermitis respond well to the climate at the sea.

Whereas in Switzerland, Davos is famous for it‘s good healing climate for all lung diseases.

Air is equally important to all human beings and we should all join in the effort to keep it as clean as can be...

Water

is our second important substance. Without water every life dries up. Looking at the desert areas of this earth, you notice what the lack of water does. But, on the other side, even a brief rainy period brings forth an amazing outburst of growth.

Water is the basic part of our nutrition. Every healthy person should drink at least  1 to 2 quarts of pure water daily. It is much too little known, that coffee, black tea, alcohol or sugar containing liquids do not count in our daily water intake. It is so, because the body needs  more water to eliminate the toxic waste  from caffeine, sugar or alcohol. Plus.  caffeine is diuretic, which means you eliminate more than you drink. Drinking not enough water is the most common cause for constipation.

When I see people in my practice, I can tell them right away when they don‘t drink enough water. Their skin is generally dry and the typical radiance of the healthy skin is absent. Now, it would be wrong to say: I wet my skin to add some moisture. The opposite is true: Evaporation of water and the brief loss of  heat that goes with it dries the skin out. Moisture has to come from within by ample intake of water

 
Food

is our third important substance to stay alive. Without food we starve. There are libraries full of books telling us what we should eat....

Without trying to evaluate any of these „diets“ there are some „downtoearth“ thoughts about food, that one might „digest“
We are the product of what we eat and think - does this ring a bell?
Nobody would give his plants some bad soil and spoiled water, but many of us think, they can eat whatever is available.
A healthy diet should contain a balanced amount of carbohydrates, fats and proteins. If we lack one of these three substances, the body shows by cravings that something is missing. That's where the vicious circle starts. Our instincts have been mulled  by unnatural food additives and we have lost the taste for pure things. That's why we stuff ourselves with the „wrong“ stuff then...Given the fact, that the children learn from their parents - What wonder, that an increasing number of children are more prone to allergies and obesity.
I do not intend to add another „healthy recipe“, but if you see that your food is as natural and fresh as possible, you can‘t be all wrong- especially in times, where gen-manipulated food becomes an issue.