Thirty-two years ago, as a high-school student, I walked to the starting line, took a deep breath, waited, and heard the gunfire. As I took the first steps, I thought of a running secret–something that I want you to know because it will help you find and keep better health.
The secret strategy that helps a runner find victory in any race is to make a strong start. Seems simple but imagine a couple of scenarios and you will understand how powerful this is.
Imagine that it’s near the end of a marathon. If you are 200 yards behind the leader; it can be very painful to catch up because you are tired and must now accelerate. But, to run quickly and to get 200 yards ahead of someone at the beginning of the race, when you are rested, and the other person is trying to conserve energy, it can be very easy.
At the beginning of a race–even a distance race–making a strong start puts you out in front.
Instead of making a strong start, in a day and in a race, many will say, “I have the whole day before me, I’ll just take it easy for now and then make it up by running faster at the end.”
But, then the end comes and distractions and fatigue intrude so that the race finishes with you behind with resolutions undone and with health dwindled.
As you start your day, in the efforts to find glorious health and miraculous healing, remember that a day is all you have. Live your life in “day-tight compartments.” And, know that the first 3 hours of the day are the most critical as you try to outrun the fatigue and bad influences and poison thoughts that will try to overcome you during the day.
Get ahead of these influences or they will outrun your resolutions and leave you behind in a day of missed opportunity and poor health.
Those first 3 hours set the tone for the whole day. Those first three hours largely determine if your day will be health-giving or health-damaging, productive or non-productive, happy or sad, energized, or lethargic.
Schedule your wake up time to help protect those first three hours from draining influences and mindless chores. Resolve to avoid mindless chatter or even talking at all. Resolve to keep your environment, your mind, and your schedule clean so that the track is uncluttered before you and you can create a strong start.
Win the first three hours and you win the day.
You’ve learned about routines already as you studied the third Law of Health, Climb. It helps to consciously determine a wake-up routine and follow it so that you start the day with energy and focus and in the right direction.
Has the wake-up routine really been practiced by the thinkers and healers of the ages?
Read about the practices of the prophets and athletes and innovators and I think that you will find that the wake-up routine (though not usually called by that name) takes place in the life of most healthy and productive people.
The order of the wake-up routine and the ingredients will vary at different times in your life and depending upon different goals. Here are some common ingredients that others have used to find superior health and miraculous healing:
Seems like a long list to most. At times, it’s felt to me as if the wake-up routine (WUR) took so much time that by the time I finished the WUR, then it’s time to start the go-to-bed routine.
The WUR must leave time for your resolutions and for your recreations–waking up cannot be the main goal in life, it’s what you do to be ready.
On the other hand, the process of waking up can produce some of the most valuable products of your day. Also, many of the ingredients of a WUR can be done at the same time.
You will understand more as we go through the ingredients of the WUR. The first part of the routine is the resolution of the day.
Benjamin Franklin asked himself every morning, “What good will I do today?” The answer became his resolution for that day.
Hopefully, you’ve thought about this the night before as you did your go-to-bed routine because a purpose for waking up makes it much easier to wake up.
So, before going to bed, you think of what good you wish to do the next day. Ask that you be shown your highest purpose–the most valuable thing you could do. Then, upon waking, you take a look at that resolution. This process should only take a few seconds to a few minutes.
The answer does not need to be world-changing. Don’t wait to run until after you find a track worthy of you; make the part of the world in front of you better; make the world inside of you better; run the track in front of you and you have changed the part of the world that you most need to change. Then, as you make the part of the world in front of you better, you may be shown an extended vision of what you should do.
But do not wait for something that is worthy of you. Be worthy of what’s given to you today and more will be shown to you tomorrow.
Now, at the least, simply look at what you wish to accomplish by looking at that resolution written on a piece of paper. If you wish even more power, then spend time seeing the accomplishment of your purposes for the day in your mind’s eye and time praying about your purposes for the day before you even leave the bed.
Though you may have ideas about what you would like to see happen next week and next month and ten years from now, when you take your resolution of the day, it should be for what you wish to see happen for that day.
Tomorrow’s lesson will explain more about the ingredients of the WUR. For now, stop and ask (that’s right, do it now)–ask, “What good will I do today?”
Write that on a piece of paper and stick it in your pocket.
Close your eyes for a few seconds and see yourself doing that thing. Know that better health makes it easier for you to do what you resolve and poor health will hinder you.
Your healthy body is the tool that will help you do.
See yourself doing what you must to become more healthy so that you can accomplish your resolutions (do not worry about avoiding the bad, simply focus on what good things you will do and the destructive will fall away).
Now, you are “On your mark!”
BANG!
The gun has fired.
GO!
Lots of people in less area can be very good. For example, my middle son wanted to take fencing lessons in high school; but, there are not enough people in our area to support a club or even a teacher.
Again, not good or bad…but definitely NOT the same.
You can use google and this chart (click) to check the calculation of that formula for predicting death rates based on population density.
Law of Health: 4 Awaken: 1-Don’t be a Dog on the Porch
When I was a child, my Father and I would often sit on the porch swing.
That porch was in a unique place: I could climb onto my bicycle and be at the steel mills in Birmingham, Alabama, within a few minutes; I could also go the other direction and travel through the forest all day and never cross a paved road.
The steel companies owned miles of property that they would later strip mine for coal, and that is where I would go to be alone and away from the city. Later, after the strip-mining, this land would be flat pine forest (with the pines planted to reclaim the ground). But, when I was a child, there were steep hills, and streams, and massive oaks, and muscadine vines, and rabbits, and snakes, and quail.
My Father and I each had an English setter. His was solid white and he called her Sue. Mine was speckled with black and I called her Pat. Both dogs had a sweet disposition and a quiet way but would go hyperactive when headed for the forest because they loved to hunt for the quail that was plentiful then.
I would come home from school and leave home with Pat, usually without my gun and head for the forest and walk until I found what most people find on the inside when they walk for hours without crossing a paved road.
In the evenings when my Father and I sat in the porch swing, sometimes Sue and Pat would lie close to the swing to be close to us and listen.
They were aware of each other, of being home, and of being near my Father and I. But, the details of our conversation were unknown to them.
The philosopher and psychologist, William James, said in his book Pragmatism that we are like dogs on the front porch. There is conflict, and love and war that wages all around us of which we are unaware. We are to those other realms as Pat and Sue were to the conversation of my Father and me.
When it comes to health for mind and body and spirit, it helps to wake up and become less like a dog on the front porch.
Einstein asked his students, “Of all there is to know, what percentage is known by the accumulation of all human knowledge?”
One of his students replied, “4%.”
Einstein answered, “What is the chance that GOD exists in the other 96%?”
I do not think that the human mind and physical reach are capable of knowing a large percent of what is known about the universe. But, the mind is capable of reaching much further than most people reach.
The mind and the spirit and body are so intertwined that when one suffers, all three are affected. The reverse is also true; developing a more awakened state can lead to better health.
All 10 Laws of Health lead to a more awakened state. But, it helps to consider this idea separately.
Here’s a simple example: Arnold Schwarzenegger (in his book, Education of a Bodybuilder) says that when he lifted weights, he would focus so intensely on the muscle that he was training that he would imagine being inside the muscle–imagine it growing to the size of a mountain.
The Olympic and professional athlete will tell you that focus and concentration are necessary for excellent health and performance of the body.
Though I’m not trying to become an Olympic star, I do want to be the best animal that I can be as well as the best mind and spirit. Awakening the mind and spirit as much as possible facilitates becoming a better animal.
This idea of awakening can be and should be thought about on several levels. Before considering how to become fully awake, consider what it looks like to be asleep. In the classic book, A Brave New World, Alex Huxley talks about a society sedated by drugs and realistic movies that keep people from thinking. There become a relative morality and a general decline and fall.
Being asleep in America can mean being hypnotized by television, where no image lasts longer than about 4 seconds.
Count the next time you watch. 1000, 2000, 3000, 4000, and before you say 5000, the image will switch. There’s a continuous flickering of pictures to keep one mesmerized and glued to the television–asleep. Then add food that makes one feel lethargic. Now, add beverages that turn down the volume on the mind and senses.
And while this goes on family and work and the sky and the laws of physics and mechanics of business turn unstudied and untouched by the person made near comatose by such influence.
Compare that with the person fully awake–aware of as many planes and areas as possible and plugged into that mechanism including the development of good physical health.
Sometimes, it helps to sleep. There is a time and place for it. But, most people spend most of their day mostly asleep and then wonder why sleep does not come easily at night. So, I’m not saying that there is never a time to turn down the mind. But, there should be an effort to awaken the mind and body and spirit as much as possible to be animal, body, and spirit on the highest level possible.
Awakening can happen on several levels:
1. Simply waking up in the morning.
2. Listening to those more intuitive or knowledgeable about what it is you want to know
3. Thoughtfully awake to new information.
4. Being awake to what’s going on with your own body.
5. Being awake to things of the spirit.
It isn’t easy to be healthy and vibrant if your practices put you to sleep. There are ways other than television that people use to hypnotize themselves into letting an hour, or a day, or a year pass without caring for the body.
Next, we’ll discuss why people go to sleep and how you can awaken and become more alive with better health.
Today, simply watch (without trying to change) and see how you might be dulling your mind or body or spirit.
Peace & Health,
Charles Runels, MD
Runels.com
Charles Runels MD started out as a small town internist with a passion for science, a drive to excel, and a knack for marketing. His career has been shaped by a series of challenges.
Today his name is synonymous with the most popular platelet-rich plasma (PRP) procedures in the specialties of cosmetic dermatology, gynecology, and urology. But that’s only the tip of the iceberg._____________________
Dr. Charles Runels can be reached at CellularMedicineAssociation.org
Dr. Marco Pelosi III can be reached at DrMarcoPelosi.com
I hope that you feel already the discovery of the truth of these lessons by feeling a current of healing and of peace beginning to move through your beautiful body.
Yes, all bodies were created to be beautiful and as you find better health you will uncover hidden beauty.
I wanted to make this lesson especially powerful for you, so, I’m practicing the lesson as I write it. I woke this day to walk out to a vision that you have seen. Water tumbles into a pool. The water spray from the cascade infuses the air with refreshment and coolness that wafts over the near-naked people who lay nearby in chairs.
The pool reflects the summer sky and offers a cool immersion of peace to those who wish to walk the two steps from chair to water.
The sound of the cascade washes away the noise of most conversation, of the traffic, and of the crowd of voices in every head that would scream orders of things needed done or else.
Nothing to most but a pool at a hotel near the beach. But, set-up in the proper way, a place of retreat to Climb to better health.
Today, as I describe the most powerful tool to help you use the third law, Climb, I practice that tool–Fountain of Youth.
The Fountain of Youth will spring in the center of wherever you create an area–an environment–protected from the people and foods and practices that would steal your health, and fill that space with those people and foods and practices that would make you healthy.
There are those, near this pool where I sit and write, who drink and eat more than they would at their own home.
I have come here with healthy foods in small quantities and just enough money to buy gas home. So, I have created an environment controlled for health, a Fountain of Youth by limiting mobility and resources.
I sit in the shade, now, to describe this principle for you. And in the description, I try to let you know the love I have for you and how much I want you to feel the extreme joy that comes even in times of trouble when you know how to wall off an area and create a new Fountain of Youth from which you then drink.
And in that description, that I create for you, I create a wall of understanding and determination that purifies my own fountain.
But, within a few feet, very near where I sit, there are those who read materials that bring more wanting of things destructive and within 20 steps can be bought drinks and foods that cause disease.
So, in the exact same geographical point where I have created a Fountain of Youth, others create a Spring of Poison.
Before his ministry, Christ spent 40 days in the wilderness, fasting.
Oppenheimer spent time alone in the desert living on nothing but a jar of peanut butter and whiskey before he discovered the principles of physics that would become the atomic bomb. Then he lost his top-secret clearance for opposing some of the ways that his discoveries were discussed.
While writing the script for the movie that brought him fame (Rocky), Sylvester Stallone painted the windows of his apartment black and refused contact with people.
If you look at the great thinkers in every field, they spend time in a very controlled environment and then emerge from that environment with a new birth of vision and health.
One of the most powerful tools of the third Law of Health, Climb, is to simply go to a controlled environment where the ingredients needed to Climb are there and everything that would pull you down is excluded.
If I could think of one tool for you to use, so that you might learn to practice the art of Climb, it would be that you would with regularity, create a Fountain of Youth, and drink from it.
How you create a Fountain of Youth, what and whom you exclude, and what and whom you include will vary depending upon the purpose of the fountain.
I have gone to the mountains and taken no food, only a tent and water, and lived and ran, and meditated, and prayed.
I have lived in the hospital for days at a time and studied the ways to treat disease. Sleeping there, eating there, and finding exercise during the night using the same treadmills used to rehabilitate the stroke victim.
I have come to places such as this, here, by this pool near the beach, and brought my family, and created a Fountain from which I can drink the love and respect of sons (my reach into tomorrow). And so, here I am, now, trying to help you see the importance of creating your Fountain of Youth so that you might drink deeply.
In the beginning, I recommend that, if possible, you go to a health retreat already established for this purpose. To create a Fountain located in the same place as a Spring of Poison is an advanced technique that will not work for most.
In the beginning, find a place that practices truth, or else you may do more harm than good. When you go to drink from a fountain, you want the waters as clean and pure as possible for by definition you must be able to put aside all filters and drink deeply until full so that you can sustain your body and soul when you go back to your daily life of using your body-tool in the battles of this world.
Since your filters will be put aside, you will be at greater risk to ingest poison and so should as guarded about pre-construed Fountains of Youth as if your life depends upon that wisdom and guarding–because it does.
As a trial, you can create a 3-Day Fountain of Youth, downloading all of the recordings. Also, download the shopping list. You probably already have the 3-Day Burn handy and can avoid the download but if you’ve misplaced it, download again.
Then make a date on your calendar to do the 3-Day Fat Burn (even if your weight is normal, for this is a modified fast that does much more than cause weight loss). Plan the burn at a time when you can be away from those who lead you to harm and spend time either alone or near those who support your best health.
The day before the 3-Day Burn, go buy everything on the list.
Then give away or throw away the unhealthy foods and drinks that are not on the list.
Now, start the Burn and drink from your Fountain.
If you wish for me to recommend a Fountain specifically for your purpose, or to create one for you to visit, write to me at DrRunels@Runels.com describing what you would wish to happen at the Fountain if you could see the miracle of your choice.
Plan on creating and drinking from a Fountain at least once a year, preferably once a quarter.
Eventually, as you become more inspired and more skilled, your life will become a Fountain of Youth. Wherever you go, you will carry with you a way of thinking that walls off the rest of the world, and your fountain will spring up from the earth beneath your feet no matter where you plant them.
You will be in the world but not of the world.
And as you drink more deeply, eventually others will come to you, looking for water and will drink and discover what you have now discovered.
But, when you see the waters spring from beneath your feet, you are most vulnerable. Before a fall, pride.
You must still, always, and forever, take time to leave the world and be alone and create a Fountain and then drink deeply. If you do not, then you will one day look to find your portable fountain has dried and you wade through a pool of poison.
When this happens (and it will), run as fast as you can from the world, and take only what will help you Climb again.
Peace & health,
Charles
Charles Runels, MD
©2009, 2020 Charles Runels, MD
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Law 3: Climb
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Lesson 5: Water Teaches HealthThis is one of a series of lessons in the Law of Health: 10 Essential Steps to Glorious Health & Miraculous Healing One of the most important lessons about health can be seen by watching this video: Notice that the water never goes uphill? Water, left to fall "gracefully," falls only downward. Aging "gracefully" by allowing the body to decline without effort into keeping the water up the hill is not "graceful." Water is difficult to hold. But, with thought and skill, you can hold water and carry it back up. Without effort and thought and the regular climb,be no more surprisedto see your health cascading from a mountain of vitalityinto a pool of dis-easethan you are to see this waterfall.It is the way of a waterfall. It is the Law of Health. Do Today
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Law 3: Climb
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Lesson 4: The Weekly RoutineThis is one of a series of lessons in the Law of Health: 10 Essential Steps to Glorious Health & Miraculous Healing Most of what I know about medicine, I learned by watching the thousands of people who have come to me for help. Of course, having studied medicine and chemistry and philosophy in school helped me understand what my patients had to teach; still, the lessons came from the people who trusted me with their health. So while I was teaching them, they were teaching me. Recently, a woman asked me, “Who taught you this, who was your teacher?” I thought for a minute, and realized the answer was everyone whom I had ever met had something to teach me–and I learned from almost all of them. But, I did not know how to explain, so I gave her another answer that was just as true, “I learned it from the sky.” One of the lessons that I learned from the most healthy is the weekly routine: the weekly climb to better health and better focus. I see the extremely healthy practice daily routines, but the practice that distinguishes them even more from the rest of the world is the weekly routine. The activities included in the weekly routine, even more than those in the daily routine, include actions that are important and not urgent. So, because even these actions are less urgent than what you might do daily, and because they are not usually included in your day, it’s the weekly routine that usually goes undone. When I get off track and feel the edge becoming dull, it’s usually because I’m leaving off the weekly climb back to better health with the weekly routine. For example, you may be in the habit of walking most days as part of your daily routine, but if you fail to take time once a week to think about your mileage for the week, or even what that mileage should be, then you do not reach the conclusion that your mileage may not be adequate and that you are missing more days than you thought. Therefore, you do not make corrections in your schedule to get the mileage up to the 21 to 25-mile mark. As for schedules, it’s the weekly routine where you actually make the weekly schedule that keeps you on track with your exercise and work and rest. Without the weekly routine of looking at your schedule and planning to do what should be done to be healthy, then most of it goes undone. So, this is an important lesson, Climbing to better health with a weekly routine, because it’s here that you plan and grade yourself on all the rest of the Law of Health. The Weekly Routine should include at least the following:
RestYou will see greater success if you practice most of the weekly routines on the same day of the week. This day will change, during your life, depending upon your work and family schedules. Most of my life, I’ve practiced the weekly routine on Sundays. But, Saturdays also work, and sometimes (during my ER years) Monday or Tuesday worked better. The first thing that’s helpful about the weekly routine is to try and avoid any work at your main job on that day. I’ve tried it both ways and you will find much wisdom in the ancient commandment to rest one day per week. Without this day of rest, several things happen. First, the work expands to fill 7 days, where if I plan to take a day off, then I will usually figure out a way to get the most important things done in 6 days. All of the work is never done anyway. There’s always something else to do. But, if I work every day, even at a labor of love, then I start to feel less creative and will see a drop in enthusiasm. Even if you love chocolate cake, if you eat it every day you will tire of it. So, taking a day off, even when you have something to do, even when you do not want to take a day off and you love what you do, will make you come back to that activity with renewed enthusiasm and vigor. This does not mean that you do nothing (though you can). Better is to have a creative leisure pursuit that compliments what you do the other 6 days. I prefer something very active physically (so I fell energized and strong) or something creative that expands the mind (so I come back with more creativity). Everything is related to everything, so if you let your recreations “be manful and not sinful” (as George Washington advised) you will find your day of rest makes the other 6 days more productive than if you had not taken the day off. This is also the day that you sleep a little longer, or take a nap that’s a little longer than usual. But, the most re-creating rest comes not from shutting down in sleep (and absolutely not from shutting down in a drunken stupor), it comes from swapping the attention of your mind to something fresh and worthy. MeetThis is the time to meet with your “mastermind” group. This is the day for clubs, for worship, to go for the long run with the friend or spouse, to go for the long hike in the forest, to sit for extra time in meditation with a group, to have the family meeting and the family feast. This is the time to connect to those who have inside of them what you want and who want what you have inside of you. Life is for doing, not meeting. But, weekly meetings will empower the doing. GradeWhatever you do, you will do better if you keep a record. Find a way to keep numbers on anything important. Sometimes the numbers may not say it all. As Einstein said, “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” But much of it can be. If nothing else, keep track of the 1, 3, 5 plan. I also find this worksheet helpful. It’s more complicated and takes more time than the 1,3, 5 Plan but I pull it out and use it regularly and find that it helps me stay focused on the important. You may skip a few days but looking at it once a week helps you refocus. For more about how to use this worksheet, be sure and study and restudy this (one of my favorite books) by a man who coached business people and Olympic athletes about how to thrive with stress (this book helped me stay healthy and through 12 years as an emergency room physician in an inner-city ER):
OrganizeThirty-two years ago, a college professor came to the Shades Valley YMCA in Birmingham, Alabama, and taught a one day course on how to study in college. I sat in the back of a room of about 30 people and, at 17-years-old, learned lessons that continue to help me at 50. One of the most helpful tricks that he taught was the way to schedule and think about time. Even though I do my own web site, have an iPhone, and have no fear of electronics, I still like to see every hour of my week by filling out this form, which he recommended, once a week. Years after going to that lecture at the YMCA, I read a similar explanation of time management in Steven Covey’s book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I’d recommend that you review this book once a year:
Then I saw the same form again in this book, The Now Habit, written by a man who helped graduate students quit procrastinating and get on with the job of finishing their doctorate dissertation:
Are you getting the idea that perhaps this form could be helpful to you?!So download it now, and follow these instructions:
The Metabolic WorkoutThis is the time to do a fast or modified fast to exercise the metabolism and use the enzymes and hormones that renew and cleanse the body. Here’s a sample plan: The 3-Day Fat Burn, which is a modification of many strategies. If you don’t have it, then get it (including the grocery list which comes as a free separate download to help you do the plan). I’m also a fan of Paul Bragg and think this book belongs in every home: Important Question:Can you see why when people walk up to me in the grocery store line or at a coffee break at a conference and ask, “What do you do to stay so healthy and fit?” I look at them tongue-tied and sad. So many people want to make health more simple than how to change the oil in the car. Just take this supplement. Or just do this magic exercise. Real health, the real tuning and fine-tuning of the body involves much more art and knowledge than most suppose–but the rewards are stellar. Do not become discouraged if you must study and restudy. So must I. So must everyone. The continued and consistent doing of healthy practicesbrings better healtheven though your doings and minewill never be perfect.Learning and practicing the Law of Health is one such practice. This is one of a series of lessons in the Law of Health: 10 Essential Steps to Glorious Health & Miraculous Healing |
, and find it recommended as a way to find superior health.
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