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This newsletter is the value of connection to others.
November 20, 2011
Hi ,
The Thanksgiving holiday is only a few days away, which gives us the opportunity to spend a few moments on the greatest core concern that controls our health - our connections in life. Our ego will try to convince us that our connections with life have nothing to do with our health, but our ego lies. We are prone to thinking of ourselves as these separate islands of independence that choose to reach out to connect with others when it serves our purposes. It looks that way on the surface, but the truth beneath the surface is far different.
Humans are social creatures. By that I am not referring to liking to sit down and share a few stories while sipping your favorite brew. By social I am referring to the fact that we survive through cooperative interaction with others of our species. We are not cows that survive by wandering around and eating grass and weeds. We are not great hunter cats that survive by stalking prey and killing it then hiding our kill from others so we can eat off that kill for days and weeks.
There is not one in a hundred of us that would survive long if we were tossed on an island all alone. More importantly, there are even fewer that would choose to try to survive if they knew there was no chance for a rescue and a return to the connection of other humans. In prisons, this aversion to isolation is used to create punishment. People would rather have bad connections than no connections at all.
Companionship and positive connection to others is hugely related to decreases in mortality from all causes. Blood pressure goes down, heart disease goes down, Alzheimer's goes down, recovery time from illness is less, and so on. It is all related to connection to others compared to aloneness. The more positive and playful the relationships are the greater the health benefits are.
Why am I writing about this now? Because as you think about what you have to be thankful for in your life this Thanksgiving, focus on the positive relationships in your life. Yes it is good to be thankful for clothes on your back and food in your belly, but really does any of that matter as much as the people you connect with? I am not confining myself to loving mate relationships here. Even the most casual of relationships can help us belong and feel connected. You can cultivate connection everywhere in your life. Hairdressers do it all day long. It is our connections that give our life meaning and joy, (as well as sorrow and grief when a loss occurs.)
Yet too often I see the health consequences of a lack of harmonious connection in people's lives. Those of you that think I just work on back problems might be thinking what does harmonious connection have to do with back pain. Back pain has everything to do with harmonious connection.
The reality is that every time you use a muscle to move a body part there are dozens of stabilizer muscles that jump into action to keep your body balanced and on track. If any one or more of these stabilizer muscles is too tight or too loose, joints will get pinched and damaged. If you are stressed (and 90% of stress has to do with our relationships with life) then these stabilizer muscles don't do their job properly because they are too tight or loose. 90% of my patients with back pain or other joint pain have some degree of life relationship stress as part of the cause of the pain and injury.
These same stresses also affect our immune system and our digestive system immensely. They affect heart function. They seriously affect brain function. Having positive, affirming, connecting relationships directly affects the health of our body on every level. Feeling separate or alone negatively affects our health on every level.
I would say without hesitation, that the most important thing you can do for your health is to build a network of good positive relationships around yourself. This is much more important than what you eat, whether you exercise, or what bad habits you may have. I am reminded of a fascinating study that I came across while I was in school that demonstrated this very point.
Back in the 70"s a search was done for what town in the United States had the longest average life span residents. The assumption was that some really pristine, organic farming based, clean air, mountain community would be the likely winner - something like the Hunza's in the Himalayan mountains. The unlikely winner was a town in Pennsylvania filled with overweight, sausage eating, beer drinking, blue-collar Polish immigrants. This blew away everyone's high-minded health expectations. By all the health science reasoning these people should have been on the bottom of the list. An intense study was done of these people to find out if there was some magic mineral in their water supply, or some fluke of genetic chance that accounted for their longevity. Every test came up empty.
So what was the secret to their long lives and good health? These people had the strongest ties to an emotionally supportive community the researchers had ever seen. The whole town was like one big functional family where everyone felt like they belonged and were supported. It was their positive relationships with each other that created their health. Think about that when you sit down to Thanksgiving and consider what you have to be thankful for, and when you set your heart on what you want to build to be thankful for next year.
So what does that look like in everyday life? It means little shifts in priorities like instead of getting up in the morning and doing your morning run alone, make some friend connections to go out and walk or ride bikes together - connection. Instead of rushing off to the gym to pump some iron alone, get a workout buddy. You will inspire each other and keep each other on track to stay motivated. Find people to share meals with at work or at home. Join social clubs or service organizations. Church and other religious organizations are classic opportunities to make connection. If you are confined to indoors, then invite others over for cards and games. As a last resort you can even get on the computer and video chat with friends with Skype. Visual connection is very important to feeling connected as so much of the communication between people is through body language and voice modulation. Texting or emailing is not connecting. It is head ego to head ego communication. The heart does not use words, it uses posture, body language, facial expression, and voice tone - all missing from texting and emailing.
But connecting is challenging. Our belief is that connecting would be easy if everyone simply saw things our way and were like us. And indeed it would be except for the fact that this hope is a lie. No one can ever be like us and see things our way. They are not us. They have not had our experiences, nor can they see things from our perspective. Our perspective has us and our needs in the center, and they are just not there and never will be. In order to connect with others we have to meet them half way. We have to embrace their differences from us and value where they are as much as we value our own uniqueness. Connection has to be win-win in which we support who they are as much as we ask for them to support who we are. The exchange must be equal.
To do this we have to break through our ego games and illusions of right and wrong, good and bad. Our ego creates these concepts to support its feelings of entitlement to having things be its way. We are not entitled to have things be the way we want. We are entitled to expend our own efforts to create what we want. But we are never entitled to expect others to abandon their truths and priorities and adopt ours - and on the flip side others are not entitled to expect us to give up our truth or priorities and adopt their ways. This entitlement belief is hard to overcome, but necessary to developing mutually respectful relationships.
My feeling is this challenge is the primary spiritual reason for being alive. We all die, so survival can not be the reason for existence. Developing the skills of harmonious connection is the overriding lesson that defines our existence. To learn how to find our inner truth, give it form and expression in a way that creates harmonious connection is a task that will keep each of us busy for a lifetime. To me, this is our fundamental purpose. Everything else is just the story we make up to play out learning to fulfill our fundamental purpose of developing the skills of harmonious connection.
These are just some thoughts for your Thanksgiving week. So when you are contemplating having that second slice of pumpkin pie plied high with whipped cream, look around the room to see if you feel connected. If you do, then go ahead. The good feelings of connection will actually help protect you and make that pie support your health.
Take care,
David
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Healthy Holiday Nuts
Would you like a healthy alternative to bowls of chips and platters of crackers at you next festive gathering? Everyone likes a handful of salty or sweet munchies while waiting around for the call to eat. How about some healthy slow roasted nuts?
There are a couple tricks to creating healthy snacking nuts. As with most seeds, mother nature has coated these seeds with natural insecticides and fungicides to protect the seeds from pests. For nuts like almonds and pecans most of this can be removed by rinsing and soaking the nuts in salty water for a good 12 hours, then rinsing a couple more times.
My big glass mixing bowl nicely fits 3 pounds of almonds with some room to spare to accommodate the swelling of the almonds. I will dump in the almonds and fill the bowl with tap water. I grab a frying pan splatter screen to hold the nuts in place and dump out the water. If there was a lot of color to the water I will rinse and dump a second time. Then I shake about a tablespoon of sea salt over the nuts in the bowl and fill the bowl with filtered water. I cover the bowl with the splatter screen and set it aside over night.
The next day I will dump out the filtered water from the nuts and then do 2 more tap water rinses. Get as much water out as possible. Now it is time for the slow roast. This is the second trick to making healthy nuts. Nuts contain oils that are fragile that can be made rancid if too much heat is used. Nuts should be roasted below 170 degrees. Generally most ovens will have a "keep food warm" setting which is just the right temperature for our purposes.
 I like to use a couple of big baking sheets - the kind with a lip around the edge. Because I don't like much cleanup work I will lay down my silicone baking mats in the bottom of the sheets. Just pour the nuts out onto the baking sheets and evenly spread them around. Stick the two pans in the oven and turn it on to the "warm" setting. Here is where the patience comes in. After soaking the nuts they will be filled with water and it will take 36 to 48 hours for these to get dry, crunchy, and crispy. Pecan halves are a little faster. If you think of it, take the trays out a couple times during the drying process and shuffle the nuts around. Try one every so often to check their progress.
Once the nuts are dry and crunchy we are ready for the last step. A nut purist may skip this last step, but most people prefer the sweet/salty addition that comes up now. While the nuts are fresh and warm out of the oven, pour one tray full of nuts into your big glass mixing bowl and add about 1 - 2 teaspoons of coconut oil. Mix the nuts around to evenly coat all the nuts in this tiny amount of oil. The oil is so the salt and sweet will stick to the nuts. Once the nuts are coated with the coconut oil sprinkle a finely ground sea salt (I prefer the pink Himalayan sea salt) and some Dr. Dave Double Sugar Substitute (or some other sugar source that is healthy) and mix it well in. Add a little of each alternately as the two flavors work together until it tastes just right to you.
Bag the nuts up in an airtight container and repeat the same process for the other baking sheet of nuts. If you like flavors like garlic, or cayenne, or any other herbs, you can simply add that instead of the sugar - or maybe as well as the sugar.
Your home-made hand crafted festive treats are now ready for the admiring crowds. Remember this whole process takes 2 1/2 days to complete so plan ahead. It does not take a lot of your time to do, but it does use your oven for a long time. But you just can not create the wonderful taste of these nuts any other way. Shortcuts result in a different tasting end result and simply are not as healthy.
Enjoy!
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On the Wire
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Antimicrobial wipes and soaps are making you sick
Every inch of your skin has hundreds of varieties and billions of bacteria that are supposed to be there to protect you from disease. The same is true in your mouth and throughout your digestive tract. These helpful protective bacteria crowd out and fight off bad bacteria from the environment. But what happens when you use products that are designed to kill bacteria like hand sanitizers and antibacterial soaps? You kill your protective bacteria and your actually increase your chances of getting nasty infections from the environment. Since the linked article was written, several more studies have shown the dangers of using hand wipes and antimicrobial soaps. But the article is quite humorous and entertaining.
It also points out that the damage is not limited to just us, as these products end up in our rivers and treatment plants breeding more resistant germs and damaging fish.
The second article talks specifically to parents and why you should love germs as they strengthen your kids immune systems and prevent many childhood problems like asthma.
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"When we are motivated by goals that have deep meaning, by dreams that need completion, by pure love that needs expressing, then we truly live life."
~ Greg Anderson
Your gut bacteria may be the cause of your anxiety
 Several excellent studies have been done that show that when the normal gut bacteria are disrupted by antibiotics or infection it causes the release of a brain chemical that causes anxiety and depression. Other studies have shown that actual behavior traits like passiveness or active daring traits can be switched by changing the gut bacteria types. The gut is truly our second brain, and the gut bacteria are key players in the neurotransmitters produced by the gut.
"Our choices and actions are secretly controlled by our hidden need to fulfill our unconscious expectations and beliefs about life."
~ David
Pistachios pummel pretzels as a weight-wise snack
This is cool. A study was done comparing calorie controlled diet including a snack of 240 calories a day of pistachios compared to 220 calories a day of pretzels. The pistachio group did better at achieving their weight loss goal and improved their hearts as well.
"It's not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are."
~ Roy Disney
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About Dr. DeLapp
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Dr. DeLapp has been a philosopher, non-force Chiropractor, medical intuitive, and health innovator for over 30 years. He began experimenting with medical intuition in 1972 while studying physics at UC Davis. In addition to physics he designed and completed an individual major in the philosophy and psychology of education. Shortly after he choose to pursue a career in the only truly health oriented profession available at that time, Chiropractic. He graduated with honors in 1981 with his doctorate and opened a private practice.
Since that time he has continued his research into the effects of consciousness and learning on health.
He developed the Biomagnetic Retraining system for correcting movement abnormalities.
Since 1991 he has focused on developing a powerful system for uncovering and assisting the mind-body connection in health and personal growth. The in-depth coaching, guided by the subconscious direction from the body, is called Heartflow and the simpler mind-body retraining for health and unfoldment he has named Gracework. Both are available at Fair Oaks Health.
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