Inspirational Quote
“The fastest way to get healthy is to find the healthiest person you can stand and spend as much time with her as you can.”
Dr. Daniel Amen, author of Change Your Brain, Change Your Body,
If you have been reading my newsletters for the past several years, you will know that generally I write about fitness, nutrition and natural healing.
My passion is to empower you to achieve exceptional levels of health and fitness.
This month, I want to talk about two subjects that are critically important that you may not have realized have been affecting your health: the humidity of your home and the chemicals in your garden.
Is Your Home Full Of Mold?
A little over a year ago, a young man came to see me.
Barely 20 years old, he had been so sick his entire life he had not been able to finish school. He had been to a psychiatrist, psychologist, homeopath, chiropractor, shaman, medical doctor and had spent several stints in a mental hospital. His spine was completely twisted, but he was not able to hold any of the adjustments from his chiropractor. He was completely exhausted and had trouble walking up the steps to my studio.
Even though he had spent his entire life trying to get better, no one had ever been able to help him. His mother had quit her job and had been taking him to practitioner after practitioner, praying for him to find some relief.
During our first session, I did a medical intuitive reading on his behalf. I told him that 65 percent of what was wrong with him was his house.
As we worked together, I helped him find a high integrity company that would safely remove the mold from his residence.
When they finally came, the workmen said he was lucky to be alive.
It was the worst case of mold they had ever seen.
Later that year, I worked with a very successful interior decorator. She had been having severe itchiness in her eyes and had no relief by any conventional methods.
During a medical intuitive reading on her behalf, I also checked out her home environment.
Although I knew that being an interior decorator her home was beautiful, I found that she had high levels of humidity in her home that were causing her eyes to itch. No ophthalmologist had been able to help her up to that point because they weren’t able to pinpoint what was actually the cause of the problem.
Most medical intuitives focus strictly on reading the health of the body.
While I am reading the body, unlike many other medical intuitives, I also take into account how a person’s total environment is affecting their health.
Here we are living in Atlanta, Georgia, home of heat and humidity.
If you look it up, you will discover that the average humidity in Atlanta is 82 in the mornings and 56 in the afternoon. Any humidity reading over 50 is likely to promote mold growth.
Although we all realize that Hotlanta got its nickname for a good reason, very few people are aware how the combination of heat and dampness in a home can affect your health.
If you are reading this article, I recommend that you make a very small investment that will make a huge difference in your overall health.
If you go to www.amazon.com , for $10.69, you can purchase an Acu Rite Indoor Humidity Monitor. Get yourself one AA battery to run it, which will set you back $6.95 for a package of four.
This small device (2.4 x 1.3 x 3.1 inches) may save your life.
Get just one of these devices and move it from room to room in your home, checking the humidity level in each place.
Why is it so important to know your indoor humidity level?
If your indoor humidity level is too high, that will promote the growth of mold in your indoor environment.
Why is mold such a huge problem?
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, mold exposure may lead to asthma, allergies, eye irritation, skin problems, wheezing and respiratory complaints. Brain experts including Dr. Daniel Amen report that mold has an adverse affect on the brain. So that means that your moldy house may be making you tired, irritable and depressed.
Some people with mold in their homes may develop mold infections in their lungs. This is exactly what happened to my 20-year-old client. After we worked together to clean up both his house and his personal health, he was able to walk eight miles a day. It was a relief both to him and to his mother to know that he wasn’t crazy – he was simply having a huge adverse reaction to the mold in his home.
The only practical way to control mold growth is to control moisture, which you can measure by checking the humidity level in each room.
What is an acceptable level of humidity?
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control recommends that you keep indoor humidity levels below 50 percent.
How do you keep your humidity level low in Atlanta, Georgia, where it is hot and frequently rains?
You may need to purchase a dehumidifier.
Last year, after working with the client who had gotten so sick with mold exposure, I was motivated to invest $4,000 to purchase a dehumidifier for my home. This is a huge chunk of change for most people, me especially. However, the investment was well worth it. The difference was immediate and palpable. Not only did my house smell better, my own allergic reactions decreased dramatically, my energy level improved and everyone who came to visit noticed the difference as well.
I have an Acu Rite Indoor Humidity Monitor and move it from room to room to make sure I continue to be safe.
I want to make a recommendation but at the same time point out that I do not get any kickbacks from any companies that I endorse. Shumate Air Conditioning and Heating, www.shumatemechanical.com installed my dehumidifier and also helped my client.
My client had worked with another company, but that organization had not been in integrity with their work. My client had already spent a small fortune trying to clean up his house, to no avail. It took the good folks at Shumate to clean up the mold so he could finally get well.
The gentleman at Shumate who did the inspection of my home and also my client’s home was John Franzen. I highly recommend him if you are serious about eliminating the mold in your house.
If you have experienced a flood or a fire, realize that mold is an unfortunate consequence. You can contact a former client of mine, John Bell, 770-448-5782, or jb@nnc.net . John runs a local ServPro franchise and specializes in cleanups after these such disasters.
One of the reasons many people come to see me is that I am able to figure out what is actually going on with their health. I am passionate about getting to the root causes and working diligently to remove them – even if it means calling in outside experts to help you clean up your house.
Is Your Garden Hurting Your Health?
Few people enjoy their garden more than me. I have orchids in my studio. I overlook a blue jar fountain surrounded by euphorbia and apple blossom double begonias. If I look out the giant glass windows of my studio, I also overlook a bed full or roses, purple hearts, petunias, a perennial orchid, lavender and verbena. The flowers are so healthy they trail over the wall, greeting everyone who walks up the steps to my studio.
I also use flower essences from literally all over the world with my healing clients. I have essences from flowers in Scotland, Australia, the U.S., the Himalayas, Holland and England.
In other words, few people understand the specific healing effects of each kind of flower more than me. I can pinpoint exactly which floral energy you need to heal you on virtually any level.
Although many people appreciate the beauty of a well-tended garden and some are knowledgeable about flower essences, very few people are aware how the chemicals in their gardens at home are affecting their health.
Scientifically proven side effects of herbicides include cancer, respiratory damage, birth defects including mental retardation and cleft palate, eye and skin irritations and liver and kidney damage, among other problems.
Pesticide exposure may lead to respiratory problems, skin and eye irritation, fatal lung injuries, cancer, effects on your hormonal system and changes in your genes.
Both herbicides and pesticides have disastrous effects on our environment. My old high school science teacher, George Sellers, leads the efforts for public education about how frogs are hurt by the chemicals they are exposed to, but many other species are adversely affected.
If those lists don’t get your attention, consider this: you hold toxins in your fat cells.
If you have been feeling awful and unable to lose weight, come to see me and find out how you can safely detoxify your body and clean up your environment.
Although you may not be drinking the herbicides or pesticides you spray in your garden, what a lot of people don’t realize is that the most common way for you to be exposed is through your skin.
Many people do not make the connection between toxic garden problems and their health because the effect is long-term and chronic.
What You Can Do To Clean Up Your Garden
Fortunately for me, my gardener Gabe Horrisberger is also my client. We trade out our sessions and learn tremendously from each other.
Recently, Gabe and I worked together to xeriscape my front yard.
Xeriscaping is one of the best things you can do for your environment and your health. That is because once you put down drought resistant perennials, you won’t need chemicals and you won’t have to waste water.
Gabe reports that grass is one of the worst things for the environment. In Atlanta, we need to spray chemicals on our lawns to keep down the weeds. Then we may spend hundreds of dollars every summer watering our grass just to keep it alive.
So not only will xeriscaping keep you from being exposed to toxic chemicals, you will also end up saving money.
All year, we have been working on the project to dig out my front lawn.
We replaced the grass with four beds mixed with 3 cubic yards – the equivalent of 24 wheelbarrows – of organic mushroom compost. A friend and I worked out the pathways, which have been covered with cypress mulch.
Now instead of a grass/weed patch, I look out and see mondo grass, foxgloves, pincushion flower, creeping Jenny, perennial geraniums, ajuga as well as parsley and Swiss chard that I am raising for my juicing.
You can reach Gabe Horrisberger of Gabe’s Gardens at 404-906-6299, gardenr@bellsouth.net .
Gabe has learned from me how to be a healthier person and I have benefited greatly from his expertise not only in having a healthy garden but an astoundingly beautiful one.