Take headache pills, eat junk food and stay up late watching movies…
Just kidding.
When the body is sick, you can give it support to detox, heal and rejuvenate through nutrition and certain activity.
Here’s what I do when I feel unwell.
Food
As fresh as possible, with a variety of fruits, salads and vegetables.
Only probiotic plain natural dairy.
No refined sugar, no processed foods and no wheat. These things drain the body and feed infection.
No meat. Too heavy for the body to process during the height of sickness.
Superfoods
I focus on Vitamin C rich fruits like orange and grapefruit.
I make fresh ginger tea.
I gargle apple cider vinegar (helps with sore throat). And also drink a tablespoon full.
I also take fresh crushed garlic mixed in something to make it palletable (such as honey or chopped apple). Garlic is a potent anti-biotic (without negative side effects, apart from keeping Vampires and lovers away). Garlic on an empty stomach would make me vomit so I drink a couple of big glasses of water before taking the garlic and then sip some more to help my stomach settle if necessary.
Water
I drink a lot of water. But when I’m sick, I drink even more. Most people are not used to drinking water. They sip. They pull a face. Personally I love water. And even if I didn’t, I would still drink a lot of it when sick because of helps carry out toxins from the body and thus supports recovery and healing.
Sleep
I sleep earlier, and I take extended naps in the afternoon. Sleep lets the body focus on recovery.
Activity
I do some light exercise such as bouncing, or arm swings. Here’s a video to demonstrate lymph cleansing exercise that will get things moving and aid detox.
Pic shows my shopping when I got sick in Canada 2014…
I had just moved into an AirBnB. The owner had moved out of that room, and during his big clean up must have stirred some very violent bacteria and became sick. He was in hospital for a week possibly requiring a throat operation because of how bad the infection was. I got sick as soon as I moved in to his empty and ‘clean’ room. I was mostly better within a few days and I put it down to my active approach with the elements outlined above.
Then yesterday I saw a compelling article about the longevity benefits of cold water showers.
And there was no way I could look myself in the mirror if I simply continued to indulge in those cosy hot showers.
I needed to find my ‘metal’. My mental Iron Man suit. I do need more willpower and discipline. And I want the health benefits of skin and organ detox, better circulation, stronger immune system, and all things longevity 🙂
So…
My adrenaline kicks into gear a little bit as
I adjust the shower setting down to cooooolllddd
I put it right at the minimum and start the water flow and freak a little bit at the coldness of the air (don’t you hate that cold air feeling too?)
I smiled at myself and inched the temperature gauge up 1 centimetre (i.e. ‘a touch above freezing’) and I went for it.
Gasping for air the shock to the body is instant and definite.
Hawb.. hawb… hawb….
went my soundless voice as if my body is drowning attempting to suck in air through the shock of the temperature.
Putting my head under the water flow is worse.
However, the temperature itself is surprisingly bearable.
And within a short eternity my mind chatter informs me ‘this isn’t so bad after all’. I laugh out loud chocking on the cold water and gasp for air even more.
Moving my head back and forth from directly under the water flow is interesting. Instant shivers as I submerge my head. Relatively comfortable with my head out of the direct water flow.
After a minute or so
I realise my body doesn’t feel so cold. The water certainly feels cold against my body. But I just focus on the breathing, grin and bare it a little, and enjoy the experience of total meditative presence… or perhaps it’s an out of body experience.
I push the gauge down a millimetre or two and feel the icy-ness of the slightly colder water and think enough’s enough.
Switching off the shower I feel like I’ve faced an important moment of returning to regular cold showers like I used to do.
Stepping out, toweling down and feeling my invigorated body makes me feel proud of my little dice-with-discipline, knowing I’ve done something significant for my health that most people couldn’t tolerate, with my resolve to continue such an awesome experience with my showers from now on.
I’m sure the second cold shower will be easier than the first.
PS. The picture is not of me. I might take one to show you someday soon 🙂
Here’s the article I read yesterday (recommended reading):
EDIT: Today’s cold shower was the 3rd. I turned it all the way down to minimum temperature and was able to relax into it far more than that 1st day. Amazing how fast the body (and mind) can be gin to adapt.
Sleep steals a large portion of our conscious life.
People tell me they love sleeping. I clarify that they don’t love sleeping, they love falling asleep and waking up. The bit in the middle is completely lost to their awareness.
The only benefit of actual sleep is [continue reading: sleep optimization]
Soooo…. you won’t see a video like this too often.
Oh sure, Wim Hof sets world records by standing in a container of ice for 2 hours straight…
But if you’ve read any of my work over the years, this video may come as a curious…. perhaps concerning…. personal introduction to the fella behind the writing.
Call me ‘bat shit crazy’… so be it.
But delve deeper into the background information and you’ll probably agree that (while you may not be ready or wiling to try it), you can at least see the… ermm well, logic.
This video is from March 2014.
My Experiences Doing Tummo Meditation with Snow Baths
Day 1
2 rounds of breathing. Excitement. Curious interest after 30 seconds at which point deciding to aim for 60 seconds. 45 seconds body scan shows firey pain points. 60 seconds definitely feels enough. I practically leap out of the snow and run for the door. Inside my back feels on fire. After 10 minutes i feel invigorated. Inspired to continue the process.
Day 2
2 minutes. The sensations are curious. Part fear, part curiosity, part ‘Am I crazy?’, ‘art ‘don’t you dare move until the 120 seconds are up!’
Then, rather than sprinting for the door, I felt much more comfortable to get up and walk inside.
Once inside, the sensation of invigorating cold fire across my back feels really good. Hmm, 3 minutes on day 3?
Day 3
The snow has turned to ice so difficult to immerse into without digging. Used a timer this time and clocked 4:10. No fear this time. Right foot was… freezing! Time went quite quickly, maybe because I was video-ing the ‘ordeal’. Was somewhat shivering for 10 minutes or more once back indoors.
Video is quite uneventful (done at night so can’t really see anything at all) but at least serves as a record.
A few days later…
6.5 minutes. As per the video on this page. When I got back inside, I started shivering, for about 25 minutes, and my skin on my back felt like it was on fire.
More details on Wim Hoff including this energy-channels image:
Tibetan background:
Alexandra David-Neel wrote in the 1920s, “To spend the winter in a cave amidst the snows, at an altitude that varies between 11,000 and 18,000 feet, clad in a thin garment or even naked, and escape freezing, is a somewhat difficult achievement.”
In the 1980s a group of scientists from Harvard Medical School, led by Dr.Herbert Benson, went to check out three Tibetan Buddhist monks.
The scientists attached temperature sensors to the monks’ bodies. They found that after meditation the temperature of the monks’ fingers and toes rose by as much as 15 degrees Fahrenheit. Their internal temperatures remained normal.
Eggs are one of the best foods for long-term health.
I remember reading that prisoners of war (perhaps in Japan or somewhere else in Asia) were given little more than boiled eggs every day for several years of captivity.
When they were finally released… we might imagine their health to be sorely deteriorated due to malnutrition right?
Apparently, this wasn’t the case at all. They were in near perfect health (relatively speaking given being held in captivity!)
But think of it. The egg. What’s inside?
Cholesterol yes. And we’re all affected by the medical establishments multi-decade propaganda about reducing our cholesterol intake. However today studies show that the cholesterol in eggs may actually help balance our cholesterol levels!
Basically, I don’t believe for a second that eggs will have a negative effect on my cholesterol. Don’t take anything I say as medical advice however. But do your research.
The brain is something like 70% or is it 90% cholesterol after all…
Dietary Protein Sources
Animal protein is good although it’s not always easy or particularly affordable to keep eating lots of grass-fed organic fresh meats.
Fish protein is good although it’s far from easy to get fish that is certainly not affected by the Japanese Fukushima nuclear power plant meltdown which apparently is still spewing tons of radioactive water into the Ocean which is carried in currents and picked up by fish such as Tuna and Salmon.
Alternatively, fish from ‘fish farms’ are likely saturated with disgustingly infected water and therefore the fish are presumably riddled with toxins.
So what other good sources of protein are there?
Powders? Yes although there are very few that I would be comfortable including in a healthy long-term diet. Topic for another time.
Vegetables? Sure… broccoli is high in protein and others… but you know… there’s only so much veg I can get down my hatch before feeling full.
Nuts are great too.
Although both veg and nuts need to be taken in particular combinations so as to get the full compliment of essential amino acids.
Not an ideal way to source a high level of… ok I admit it… EASY to prepare dietary protein. Especially when wanting to exercise for muscle tone yet avoid too much meat and fish…
So what to do?
You guessed it. Eggs.
Eggs have a full compliment of essential and non-essential amino acids.
They’re fairly low cost… although in the past 4 months they seem to have gone up in price considerably here in the UK. At least for organic eggs (the only kind I buy).
I just spent 3 months in Ukraine. An incredible country with food markets all over that provide real traditional farm fresh eggs from chickens that are not ‘industrially grown’ if you know what I mean.
Many elderly women (we call them ‘babushkas’, meaning grandmothers) sell 10 eggs for the equivalent of about $1. And they’re as naturally organic as I can imagine being possible: genuinely free range chickens running around in the Babushka’s small home farm or large garden.
Not only do eggs have an excellent protein profile, plus the cholesterol for our brain power, but vitamins too.
Good quality eggs have a thick white and deep orange yolk. If your egg whites are watery and the yolk is light yellow in colour, they are probably low grade.
I read online that body builders eat up to 15 eggs per day. I experimented with ‘up to 10 per day’ for a couple months and found it to be totally fine. Mostly scrambled or omelette. And the protein intake helped add muscle. I found that a day off per week felt sensible.
4-egg omelettes, slow cooked with fresh chopped tomato, mushroom and cheese are tasty and have a low prep time for a very nutritious meal.
Death is the final stupidity. Death is the only enemy of life.
Within 5 or 10 years if we gave the emotional, political and economic backing, our scientists would wipe out death.
Are you ready for that?
The interesting thing is that a lot of people want to die. And i you tell them they don’t have to die, they get mad. They say: “you can’t say that, death is what life’s all about!”.
Yeh that’s what they told you in the old Bibles. If you want to die, go ahead. But the option is there if you don’t want to. You don’t have to walk blind-folded and backward into the future that judeo-christian religion gives you of death.
You can live as long as you want, in these bodies.
Through Pandemics, Diseases, and Biological Weapons…
We persevered. We grew stronger.
Now comes Mankind’s biggest foe, the one Master villain that has been rampaging on this Earth unchallenged– UNTIL NOW
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieve it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
From Now On… We must REFUSE TO DIE AND CHOOSE LIFE
THE TASKS
From Now On … We must END AGING
From Now On … We must CURE DISEASE
From Now ON … We must DEFEAT DEATH
TASK 1: ENDING AGING
AGING IS A DISEASE
In the comments section of the infamous Sept 30, 2013 issue of TIME Magazine (Cover pictured above), a commenter identified as: “maximru” says:
“Aging is a disease and a cause of the most of other age-related diseases which are the top cause of death worldwide. Slowing and stopping aging is a next big thing in business and science and it is wise to take part in this. Anti-aging scientific revolution is underway so it is time for business to step in. Lifespan of mice was extended 2,5 fold in lab (mPrize), nematodes and yeast- 10-fold, mammals are rejuvenated in several different ways, dozens of non-aging animals including mammals are identified (negligible senescence) and few that are potentially immortal (Turritopsis nutricula jellyfish, Hydras and some others). Fact the the lifespan of the model animals was prolonged means that they did not die from age related diseases when they had to, which means control over cancer, CNS and other deadly diseases, each of which is a huge market. Aging is not easy to deal with , it will demand tremendous computational effort, elements of artificial intelligence, bioinformatics, all omics etc to win and some money. Google has many assets from the list so it again proved that it is most visionary company in the world and deserve those huge money it will earn in anti-aging. Though it is not alone, there are some other companies and initiatives taking part in this race to fight aging, so we will observe in few next years a tremendous competition or collaboration in this sphere.”
I’ll talk lots more about why I believe AGING IS not only A DISEASE, but THE DISEASE in a further post in this series. Stay Tuned.
This competition/collaboration has officially begun with the public introductions of THE PLAYERS (see below)
TASK 2: CURING DISEASE
THE DISEASE DELUSION
Dr. Jeffrey Bland aka “The Father of Functional Medicine”
TASK 3: DEFEATING DEATH!?
“May we gain the time needed to succeed”
Frank R. Wallace
Can we defeat Death?
Honestly I don’t know. I’ve been racking my brain for that answer for over 2 decades now and damn if I’m not going to do everything in my power and follow everyone I can that is working to find out.
What I do know is that the GAME has CHANGED. And for the better.
For the first time in history we have THE PLAYERS that stand a fighting chance going toe to toe with this silent killer of many names and faces that we’ve tolerated for much too long.
The Biggest Players
THE COMPANY FOR LIFE
Google Calico (California Life Company) : Arthur Levinson, Ray Kurzweil, Cynthia Kenyon
Calico: Ray Kurzweil
Up to 1.5 Billion pledged (for forming Calico to research Aging and Age-Related Diseases) between Google and Pharmaceutical Giant AbbVie: http://circanews.com/news/google-creates-health-company
“Cynthia Kenyon is one of the world’s foremost authorities on the molecular biology and genetics of aging and life extension. She is Calico’s vice president of aging research.”
http://www.calicolabs.com/cynthia-kenyon/
THE LONGEVITY FUND
Longevity Fund: Laura Deming
THE LONGEVITY GENE
Human Longevity Inc: Craig Venter, Peter Diamandis, Robert (Bob) Hariri
http://www.humanlongevity.com/
THE IMMORTALISTS
The Immortalists (Sens Foundation, FightAging.org): Aubrey De Grey and Bill Andrews
THE BILLION DOLLAR TIME TRADERS (More on each of them and their roles soon)
Peter Theil
Larry Ellison
Elon Musk
Mark Zuckerberg
THE LONGEVITY PRIZE
Palo Alto Longevity Prize: Dr. Joon Yun
TRANSHUMANISM
Transhumanism Party: Zoltan Istvan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTOJsfH0Unw
THE LONGEVITY WAGER
Insilico Medicine Inc – Bioinformatics: Dr. Alex Zhavoronkov
“Dmitry Kaminskiy, senior partner of Hong Kong-based technology venture fund, Deep Knowledge Ventures, and Dr. Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD, CEO of bioinformatics company Insilico Medicine Inc.which specializes in drug discovery and drug repurposing for aging and age-related diseases, signed a wager to indicate exactly how sure they are that science is turning the tide against the eternal problem of human aging.”
THE TERMS
The terms go like this:
– If one of the parties passes away before the other, $1 million dollars in Insilico Medicine stock will be passed to the surviving party
– The agreement will vest once both parties reach 100 years
– Parties agree not to accelerate each other’s demise (i.e. try to kill each other)
“Longevity competitions may be a great way to combat both psychological and biological aging,”
“I hope that we will start a trend.” He sees longevity bets catching on around the world, and thinks if people will embrace competition to live longer, they may leave behind a global culture that largely accepts aging and human death as a given.
Kaminskiy agrees. “I would really like to make similar bets with Bill Gates, Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg so they could live longer lives and create great products, but I don’t think they will be worthy competitors on longevity,” he wrote me in an email. “But I would like to challenge Sergey Brin and Larry Page to a similar competition due to their seemingly high interest in the sphere and Calico project.”
THE ARTISTS
Art (including literature) is the barometer of a culture. It reflects the sum of a society’s deepest philosophical values; not its professed notions and slogans, but its actual view of man and of existence.
Ayn Rand
Jon-Genius (Soundcloud)
Related Quotes by Ayn Rand:
“Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists.. it is real.. it is possible.. it’s yours.”
Ayn Rand
“It is not death that we wish to avoid, but life that we wish to live.”
Ayn Rand
I WONDER….Do the readers of CosmicElevator.com want to keep on living or are they content to die?
Let us know by leaving a comment in the box below. Tell us if you’d CHOOSE Life or Death and why.
I’m really curious to hear all of your thoughts on this explosive topic.
Do you want to want to fade away and go gentle into that good night… and accept that all of your loved ones, friends, family, coworkers, acquaintainces, pets, etc, will all follow you to the grave….
Or
Do you decide now to CHOOSE LIFE and join the epic FIGHT to stay alive?”
The last update was after 2 weeks starting the polyphasic sleep schedule. Today’s update is almost bang on 2 months since starting.
I’ve not done an update in a while as I didn’t want to repeat myself too much.
Saying that… here’s me saying pretty much the same thing 3 times in one go:
A friend asked about my experience and I wrote:
…hard work as hell to not be so drowsy late at night, fighting desperately head bobbing up and down stealing micro-naps, struggling struggling.. but gradually that’s reducing and it’s becoming easier to stay alert during the night times. I do crash quite often though, whether the alarm doesn’t go or it does but I sleep right the way through it and wake up 3 hours later. sometimes the body just takes what it wants. but going well I think, I feel surprisingly good and optimistic that it will get easier. I like the feeling of having more time available.
That was a month or so ago.
Last week my sister sent me this article published in the BBC about polyphasic sleep:
I still haven’t been able to fully adapt, meaning that I still have ‘crashes’ which means uncontrollably oversleeping. This either happens because I don’t hear my alarm (whether it goes off or not I’m not sure or if it does then I sleep right through it) or sometimes inbetween naps when I feel tired I try to ‘rest’ by lying down and reading but the brain switches off into sleep.
However some days I feel really great and nap perfectly on schedule for 25 mins (gives a few mins to get to sleep and a full 20 mins of REM nap time).
The article doesn’t seem to speak with insight about adaptation to polyphasic sleep. If those pilots are going into it without adapting then yeh they’ll be sleep deprived.
The point of the 20 minute naps is that it cleaves off the REM stage of sleep which takes less than 20 minutes.
The full 90 minute cycle includes other stages of sleep, many of which are deemed as relatively unnecessary for rejuvenation. So the 20 minute naps forces the brain to go straight to what it needs most which is REM. The added theory is that a 40 minute nap or a 2 hour core sleep every once in a while can help rebalance any loss of ‘slow wave sleep’ (another cycle) that may be becoming deprived.
When I achieve a consistent nap schedule for several days straight I experience very little drowsiness and no apparent micro-napping. I just feel sleepy about 15 minutes before nap time.
And I feel more alert and clear headed than a lot of the time I’ve had in the past on monophasic 8 hour sleep schedule. So I’m optimistic that full adaptation is possible and can feel better, healthier, with more alertness than standard sleep.
The only remaining question for me is in terms of long-term health. I think any struggle with drowsiness probably indicates a strain on health.
My goal right now is to maintain the consistent 20 minute nap every 3 hours, which is 8 naps per day totalling 2:40 and converting 1 or 2 of those naps into 40 min naps whenever I feel particularly tired.
G
And here’s my blog update as of 6.55am today 🙂
Polyphasic sleep fans.
Some have asked how it’s going so here’s the skinny:
‘Adaptation’ has completed when I generally feel as ‘well slept’ as when on monophonic sleep cycle… I’m still not there yet.
I haven’t been able to fully adapt in-part due to travel which disrupts nap times, partly due to zombification mode (it’s real), partly due to my alarm apparently either not working or my brain not allowing me to hear the alarm… a loud alarm… for minutes at a time…
When I ‘crash’. I.e. end up sleeping for a couple hours or longer (longest crash seems to have been almost 5 hours which happened once), it gives me jet lag which then takes days to recover from.
So I’m still kind of struggling on through sections of most nights…
However, putting it into perspective:
The majority of nights I have gained hours of extra waking time. During the days I’m pretty much completely fine, until 15 minutes before nap time and I start feeling sleepy.
People around me go to ‘hibernate’ each night for ~8 hours or so which seems kinda crazy to me now. It’s amazing what the body can adapt to.
I just need to get better at going to nap on time, and getting woken up appropriately.
For example…
Tonight my nap time was 1am. I didn’t go to nap until 1.20am. (I think this lack of discipline or mere distractedness with sticking to accurate nap times is a big part of the problem for me to adapt).
I set the alarm for 23 minutes later, so 1.43.
I didn’t reach for the alarm to switch it off and check the time until 1.48.
That’s a full 5 minutes of loud music playing in my earphones — and it was loud.
Surprising how the brain can simply cut off auditory input until it’s ready to let me wake up. Which suggests that sometimes the alarm goes (2 music tracks playing back to back totally about 6 minutes) and I literally don’t hear it (even though I’m wearing earphones and volume is cranked to the max on the iPad)…
So what I’m going to do is create a longer track, a 20 minute track, with varying volume, and progressively louder over the first 5 minutes… so that I can more gently ease my brain into wakefulness closer to when it’s finished with the somnambulistic-catatonic-paralytic-zombie-REM-state.
Surreal Time Perspective
Besides the adaptation saga… the perspective shift in my conscious awareness is very cool.
I experience time differently. 20 minute naps feel like they’re 3 hours. So every 24 hours I’m awake for about 21 hours and also have 8 naps of 20 minutes which each feel like 3 hours, which means I have the mindful experience of some 45 hours each day.
I also have very frequent very vivid dream snippets during naps. Sometimes I think I’m awake and then realize I’m not. A gateway to lucid dreaming? (which is when you can control your dreams 🙂
So imagine. If I can fully adapt and learn to activate lucid dreaming during naps. I could end up with the cognitive experience of 45 hours wake time every day…
What’s more, in lucid dreaming the experience of the passage of time can supposedly be slowed down… so maybe I can extend the experience of 3 hours of dream time into 6 hours or 9 hours.
This boggles the imagination — what a paradigm shift in time perspective. Move over Einstein…
…oops… writing this update has distracted me from nap time again! It’s 7.14am Should have been napping from 7.08.
The Philips goLITE BLU is a compact and portable energy light which produces blue light like a clear summer sky. This particular light therapy is known to naturally help increase your energy level whenever you need it and help fight winterblues.
I bought the Philips goLITE a few years ago and have only ever used it sporadically, thus not a reliable experiment. I’ll find a way soon to conduct a measurable experiment with it.
