Health Lessons

Tag: law of health

  • Sex for Health-Leonardo and Ben Franklin

    When Benjamin Franklin sat down to think about the virtues, he did so with a particular goal in mind.  He tells in his autobiography that he agreed with Cicero that creation of the universe was proof enough that there must be a GOD.  Franklin reasoned that if there is a GOD, then GOD must delight in virtue and that anything that GOD delights in must lead to health and happiness.  So, Franklin decided to study the virtues as outlined in scriptures and by the philosophers and to condense these virtues as much as possible–then go about living by those virtues.

    One of the virtues, as defined by Franklin, is Chastity (Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to weakness or dullness or the injury or your own or another’s peace of mind or reputation).

    As a teenager, I read Franklin’s writings and wondered what he meant by having sex “for health.”  It’s not too hard to understand what he meant by not having sex to the damage of peace of mind or reputation or to weakness or dullness.  The part about offspring is easily understood.  But, what about sex for health–do you know what that means?

    I don’t want to dwell on it too much.  I don’t want to try to play philosopher or sex expert.  I just want to tell you how I think I’ve seen the life of my patients and friends and my own life work in using sex for health. 

    I’m not going to fiddle with a fancy definition or start preaching; I just want to give you a quick way of thinking about how sex can improve health and how it can damage health (and I’m not talking about sexually transmitted disease).  I’ve lived in a committed marriage relationship, and I’ve lived with sex freely offered from many directions and freely taken.  I’ve had the honor of serving as physician to conservatively 10,000 people over the years (as an ER physician and in general practice and in research) and have cared for the Sisters from the Catholic Church, Priests of Buddha, prostitutes, erotic dancers, married and devoted, and single and living free.   I’ve cared for the elderly with young lovers, for the elderly living alone. I’ve taken a few notes about myself and others and will simply offer what seems to me the way to use sex for health. 

    I’m not going to repeat a Sunday School lesson or a high-school warning about sexually transmitted diseases.  I want to offer simply what I’ve noticed seems to work. 

    Sex should be fun and exciting.  It should result in better health.  It should increase energy (not drain it).  It should cause better health–mental and emotional.  To show how that can be accomplished, I can’t think of a direct way to explain or understand; but, the following analogy helps me keep it straight most of the time and will serve as an introduction:

    Sex for health is like Leonardo’s famous painting, the Mona Lisa–it’s very good art. 

    Leonardo reportedly carried this painting with him everywhere.  He looked at it from every angle.  He added to it occasionally, always looking for a way to make it better.  Some say that it was a painting of a woman he loved.  Some say it was a self-portrait of his feminine side. 

    I think it was both.

    Sex for health is sex where one person studies another in the most intimate way.  Rather than splashing paint everywhere, it’s as much what’s left out as it is what’s put in.  One lover starts to see his or her own soul when looking into the other’s eyes.  Emotions and personality and sensation and conversation (even conversation with GOD) become so mingled that it’s a chorus of two with harmony and dissonance instead of two people separate like two separate conversations in the same room.

    Some go around town splashing as much paint on as many canvases as possible.  Their sex becomes like a cartoon:  many caricatures but no detail.  There’s no study, no deep emotion, and so no real high and no real low.  It’s simply a pleasant distraction for a time.  But, there’s no art and there’s no energy from the health and energy of synergy.

    Some marry, paint a cartoon and then simply settle for the cartoon–repainting it over and over again.  There’s no sense of the art.  Each person in a love relationship is both the painter and the canvas.  Each canvas wants to be studied, to be understood.  Each canvas wants the painter to look from the outside and find a way to add more depth, more detail, more inspiration, more emotion. 

    If the painter loses focus and goes about town painting cartoons, and you are the Mona Lisa begging to be studied, wanting to be taken to a new level of art; then you will not be pleased that the artist took his/her eye away to simply focus on creating a cheap sketch on a chalk board that will be erased when the next school child comes along to draw a caricature.

    As Leonardo studied the Mona Lisa for years, carrying the art with him, seeing himself in the art, seeing his lover in the art, he created a masterpiece.  As two people travel together using sex as art, that art spills over into the remainder of their life.  Strength, creativity, confidence, energy, and health start to emerge.  Emotional and physical vitality grow and disease must work harder to break the fort.

    Those who look for entertainment with another sketch on another canvas, quickly bore with their simple sketches, so they erase and find another canvas.  They look for deep pleasure, but they cannot find it, so they become more frantic and use more paint tearing up one canvas after another but never stopping to become better at the art.  So to add to the pleasure, rather than improve the art, they start to use alcohol or cocaine.  Even a simple cartoon seems like art now.  A little cocaine, a little alcohol, now the sketches become simple; then they become so simple they become meaningless and ugly.  Rather than art, they’re drawing crazy and ugly lines on page after page and think they’ve made art until the drug wears off and they see the ugliness of what they created. 

    So they become angry and reach for another canvas. 

    Or they blame it on the canvas and increase the number of sketches and canvases but don’t study the art or the canvas.  Finally, they can no longer hear the muse of love and art that would have whispered to a sensitive ear.  When they come across a clean canvas (open to art), they don’t recognize it and draw a little diagram.  If it starts to turn to art, they’ve become so insensitive to the muse that they don’t even see it.  They can’t hear the rhyme.  They can’t see balance of composition or even color. 

    Sex becomes only a way to fight their demons.

    Now they are drawing for anger at another person.  Sex becomes hate mail that the other person can’t read. 

    Now they’re drawing for damage control.  Sex becomes plaster on a damaged ego that washes away by the next day, calling for another patch.

    So I’ve seen the women who two weeks ago were the dissatisfied house wife: now, they’ve been dumped in the ER–exhausted and near dead after playing the crack house prostitute until she finally became nearly useless and was dumped at the ER waiting room–it happens every day.  Just a little too much dissatisfaction and landing at the wrong party is all it takes.

    I’ve examined the depressed woman who’s tried to commit suicide after finding no purpose and no energy and no new goal; unable to be painter or canvas, she feels unloved and would rather know permanent sleep than know another day without depth of affection.

    I’ve also seen the lovers of many years or of a few weeks.  They only see each other.  If another canvas comes along, they don’t want to take their eye away from the masterpiece they’re creating.  Another canvas is only a distraction.  They want to study the painting they’re working on and find a way to bring more life to it. 

    If someone comes along and wants to add to the painting–they protest, No!  Can you imagine Michael Angelo walking by the Mona Lisa and picking up a brush and starting to add to the picture?  Nope.  Canvas and painter would be insulted.  The Mona Lisa is Leonardo’s Creation alone. 

    It seems those who know the best of love, don’t want another person painting on their canvas.  They don’t need the affections of another.  They want to save the blank places (libido and hunger for affection) for their painter.  To allow another to fill in the spaces would be to mix colors and mix the effect until it became muddled.  That’s why dishonesty hurts the lover even if the mate never knows: the emotional and physical mixture changes.  Then when the painter comes home, he’s adding to a canvas that’s been altered by another.  So, he/she becomes inept.  The cheating person feels bored or unattached since the canvas allowed another’s brush rather than exposing the empty places to the painter and letting that person work the paint to find the best way (starting and restarting—studying until it’s a masterpiece).

    I’ve seen the elderly couple that continued to create.  Sometimes, another person has even come in and defaced the painting occasionally.  But, these master painters just got out the brush and turned the graffiti into another interesting part of the masterpiece. 

    I’ve met the widow or widower who, after losing their lover, felt so complete that they didn’t want another person to touch them with the brush.  Would you want to try to add to the Mona Lisa now that Leonardo is gone?

    I’ve also met the widow or widower (or divorcee) who felt defaced or empty and who found another person who could continue to develop the art in progress.

    I hope all of this helps.  

    Peace & Health,

    Charles Runels, MD     

    Runels.com

    Books by Dr. Runels<–

    P.S.    If this was forwarded to you by a friend and you wish to read all of the Law of Health:  10 Essential Steps to Glorious Health & Miraculous Healing, then go here.

  • The Relation of Negative Influences to Energy

    To be awake requires energy.

    One of the common complaints that people bring to their physician is “fatigue.” Sometimes, when people complained to me about fatigue, I found serious diseases like cancer or heart failure. In that case, curing the disease would help the fatigue.  But, there are three categories on the fatigue-awake scale that are not often discussed that do not necessarily involve a “disease.”

    Point A

    On the diagram below, look at point A.  If you look at the scale, you will see that as negative influences go up (emotional drama, guilt, poor diet, even physical disease, poor health practices) the person dwindles in energy.  But, here’s the surprise: because the scale is not linear, as the person decreases negative influences, he/she will not experience much increase in energy.  So, there will be little motivation to continue efforts to remove negative influences.

    Point A is where most people live.

    All the way to the right on the scale, you find death.  But before death, the negative influences are so great that the person experiences little change in state even with something very negative.  Often, as a physician, I have seen people in the emergency room who were under so many negative influences (drugs/alcohol) that they were not even aware that they had been shot or stabbed.

    Finding Creativity Through the Removal of Negative Influences

    Someone living at A will need strong, even unnatural influences, to experience improved energy and pleasure (hence a leaning toward drug abuse).  We all crave any emotion other than boredom and fatigue. It’s why we go to the movies. Most would prefer fear (scary movies), sorrow (tear-jerking dramas), or fear (action movies), or desire (sex movies) over boredom. It’s what art does for us…wake me up, scare me, make me laugh, make me cry–anything but boredom. 

    But, don’t really hurt me. That’s a movie or a good book or just good art.

    So, when someone lives at A, it takes a great stimulant to bring them back to energy.

    Not that movies or art are not helpful.  Artists and poets create for us both heaven and hell and hold up for us both love and hate. But, on a physical level, living at A is miserable and making it back to B, where one may feel an upsurge in energy will require removing multiple negative factors.

    The main point about point A is that patience will eventually bring them back, but getting from A to B will require patience because immediate and dramatic effects may not be felt when adopting good habits.

    Point B

    At point B, one starts to experience increased energy due to the removal of sufficient negative factors. This would also represent most young people for whom the negative influences of poor diet, exercise, or mental and spiritual abuse of themselves have not yet affected them.

    Most healthy adults practicing good diet and exercise will routinely make it here.  Because of the sensation of the fall back to fatigue when practicing wrong habits, this person will usually get back on the right path pretty quickly because they will miss the energy lost.

    But, most seldom remove enough negative influences to make it to point C.

    Point C

    At point C, the person has removed so many negative factors that he/she operates from a place of creativity, natural flow of energy, love, and even can reach spiritual enlightenment.  Achieving this will often require the practice of fasting, prayer, meditation, reading of scriptures/philosophy, and a more diligent removal of negative influences and habits–and the practices of other positive habits–than most are willing to do.

    Notice that at this level, even a slight movement to the right on the negative influences line will drop energy precipitously.

    The person at C will notice a drop in focus and creativity with even the slightest change. Not that this person is fragile, but their focused mental and spiritual state is sensitive.

    The Muse will run, the angels will fly, the vision will fade when offended.

    Making it to C, once felt, will cause a person to thirst for GOD, to hunger for health, to beat the walls in anguish, go without food, leave their friends and family–anything to climb back up the hill.

    Richard Bucke, who experienced an enlightenment episode while traveling in his carriage, wrote about this experience and the conditions that may lead to it (in Cosmic Consciousness) and how it changes one forever.

    The purpose of the Law of Health is to move one to the left on the Negative Influences scale as far as one may dare to go.

  • Expect to be Hated

    Law 4 Awaken Lesson 6-Expect to be Hated

    After spending years developing what became the O-Shot® procedure, I offered the treatment to Susan. She had suffered permanent scarring of her vagina and anus from the physical abuse dealt her by her former husband.

    On her lunch hour, Susan walked to my office from the bank where she; and we did the procedure.

    One month later, Susan called me.
    “The pain I suffered during sex is gone completely,” she exclaimed. “And, I’m not leaking urine when I run or needing to get out of bed to use the restroom—I’m able to hold my urine. Because I’m now able to sleep and exercise, I feel much better overall and I’ve lost weight.”

    Six months later, Susan married her high school sweetheart.

    Soon, I started teaching and researching and talking to the press about the O-Shot® procedure.

    Then came the surprise.

    Sex therapists and other physicians started attacking me online. Even though the materials and methods we use to do the O-Shot® procedure (PRP) had been researched for over a decade (with positive results and a very safe side effect profile), extreme, hate-filled posts and writings appeared regarding me and the other 1,000 plus providers of the O-Shot® procedure (including gynecologists and urologists).

    Reading the criticisms of those who poured the hate, it was easy to see that those who hated us understood neither PRP nor how we did the procedure; they made assumptions based on a less-than-awake and less-than-informed state.

    Still, I initially felt surprised and hurt. Those feelings of mine were very immature.

    When you awaken to Truth about your occupation, your health practices, your love relations, you will (because you are awake) see things that others cannot see.

    The man who discovered heart catheterization was kicked out of his hospital. The man who first suggested that physicians wash their hands after delivering babies—also, kicked out of the hospital and died in the insane asylum.

    Socrates was forced to drink poison. Boethius, Mandela, Bunyan were all imprisoned. Please make note: they were imprisoned not for harming another person but for their ideas about how to bring peace and harmony.

    Dr. George Sheehan, the cardiologist—who wrote a regular article in Runners World about the health benefits of running—was considered to be a quack by his colleagues. It’s difficult to comprehend now, but in the 1970’s cardiologists largely thought that because the left ventricle of the heart enlarged in runners, that running was not beneficial to longevity. Now we know that aerobic exercise does more to prevent heart disease than any blood pressure or diabetes medication.

    But, George Sheehan was largely hated by many cardiologists of the 1970s.

    When you wake up and then live the truth that you see when awake, you will be disliked. You will not only be debated and opposed, (listen carefully) when you wake up and live the truth you see—by some, you will be HATED.

    HATED.

    I promise.

    It’s not “maybe” someone will not like you.
    I’m guaranteeing—HATED.

    You may even be harmed in reputation, financially, or even bodily.

    When the hate happens, you note it so you can think strategically; but, if you pay too much attention to the hate, you will modify your life to live the truth of the haters. Then, you die in spirit and become despondent, or dull, or even spiritually or physically dead. The muse hides. The angels cry. And you join the timid who run with the mob rather than the brave who fight with their GOD.

    Read.
    Observe.
    Listen.
    Then, go inside. That is where you find your awake Self and Your principles of health.

    Then, as you live your truth, expect to be hated.

    Previous lessons in the Law of Health discuss the need for Love and Fight to find health; but, when it comes to becoming Awake, since arrows are deflected more easily when expect, you would do well to remember to expect to be hated.

    Important

    C.S. Lewis noted that there are three reasons for pain and suffering: (1) pain as a consequence doing wrong (2) pain for doing good, and (3) pain for reasons we don’t understand.

    Ted Bundy and Mahatma Gandhi were both loved and hated during their life. Bundy was swooned over; Gandhi was demonized and assassinated. Since both doing good and doing wrong can lead to pain, then pain and the hatred or love of others cannot be a reliable gauge. No worries though because the test is simple: Is that I’m doing helping others or hurting them?

    Go inside and ask and answer that question. That is your guide. For strategy, you can note the hate and the love from outside, but for your purpose and your health practices, use that simple test.

    Do Today

    In a quiet place, ask yourself just two questions:

    1. Does everyone like me?
      (If the answer is “yes”) Am I not doing something that would lead to better health of me and those around me so that I can be liked by all?
    2. Does anyone dislike or hate me?
      (If the answer is “yes”) Is the thing for which I am hated bringing better or lesser health and happiness to others?

    Further Reading…
    The Courage to be Disliked<–

  • Law of Health: 4 Awaken. 5-Beginner’s Mind

    September 1966, Birmingham, Alabama, 6 years old, I woke early and my mother cooked scrambled eggs in an iron skillet. There were real butter and real grits. I ate them with my father. He drank coffee and ate more of the eggs than I. My younger sisters still slept.

    Then, I walked 1/2 block to the corner to catch bus #98.

    An older boy at the bus stop, Bobby Campbell, sat with me during the ride. The older boys at the back of the bus “cussed” and seemed big and menacing.

    That was my first day at school.

    I also remember my first day of swimming lessons. I felt cold and the deep end of the pool was the bluest water I’d seen. The teacher seemed beautiful, and graceful in her one-pieced, blue, swimsuit, and black hair which reflected the summer sun, and her shoulders strong when she climbed from the water.

    Six years later, age 13, night time, a cold Tennessee creek full of snakes, stars poking through a mountain sky in July, and me sitting on a rock with a pretty dark-haired girl from Muscle Shoals–Paula.

    She gave me my first kiss.

    Remembering those three teachers (of bus rides and swimming and kissing) and the attention I gave to those teachers shows me my best beginner’s mind.

    Imagine the focus and eagerness to learn, the beginner’s mind, with the first bus ride, the first time to jump into deep water, the first kiss.

    If I use that same mind, even now, when I travel, plunge into water, or touch my lover–then I learn.

    Just a book? Then it stays closed.

    Only water? I sit on the side of the pool while the children swim.

    Just my lover’s mouth? Then I miss the depths of a different spiritual pool.

    Traps that kill the beginner’s mind…

    Trap 1: Letting a name become an explanation.

    Naming it “gravity” does not explain why two objects are attracted with a force proportional to mass and inversely proportional to separating distance. Names do not explain.

    Trap 2: Thinking the first answer is a real answer.

    Ask “why?” five times in a row, and you’re always left with an unanswered question.

    Trap 3: Not living with the question.

    Most can’t tolerate the unknown. So they let a name or the answer to the first “why” become the answer. Get to the real questions. Then live with the question and your life becomes the answer.

    That is the “beginner’s mind.”

    Only with the beginner’s mind can you find your best health.
    This is one of the lessons teaching the Law of Health (which never changes).

    Peace & health,

    Charles Runels, MD

    Law of Health<–
    3-Day Fat Burn<–

  • Law of Health: 4 Awaken: 1-Don’t be a Dog on the Porch

    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

    Books<–

  • Create Your Personal Fountain of Youth

    Law 3: Climb
    Lesson 7: Create Your Personal Fountain of Youth

    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.

    A Fountain of Youth and a Spring of Poison in the Same Place

    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.

    Fountains of the Past

    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.

    Pre-Constructed Fountains of Youth

    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.

    Make Your Own Fountain of Youth this Week

    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.

    More Advanced Trips to Pre-Constructed Fountains of Youth

    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.

    The Portable Fountain

    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

    This is one of a series of lessons in the Law of Health: 10 Essential Steps to Glorious Health & Miraculous Healing

    ©2009, 2020 Charles Runels, MD

  • Law of Health: 3 Climb. 6-The Annual Peak

    Every Man & Woman is Sculptor and Painter of the Body-Temple
    HOME :: May 10, 2020
    Law 3: Climb

    Lesson 6: Climb to the Annual Peak

    Why?

    One of the unchanging laws of health is that the healthy make time to escape from the world, from business, from recreation, and even from family to climb to the most elevated peak of mental and physical health possible for that person. In the process, a spiritual health will also be found.

    Why?

    Because it’s hard to tune a car while it’s driving down the interstate. And it’s hard to refocus on what to do and to renew strength to do when you’re busy doing.

    So, you can take a few minutes to make a do list to help you climb the ladder. But, at least once a year, and no more than once a quarter, the most healthy and the strongest, take a day or a few days to make sure the ladder is against the right wall and to renew strength for the climb. Then with that knowing, they go back to climbing the ladder with more purpose, more strength, and more joy (even when there is pain), and more peace (even when there is sorrow).

    What?

    As a child, I did not know who Thoreau was or that he had written of the process (which I will give to you on this page) that he used to find the wall on which to rest his ladder–to find the peak. I did know, even then, even as a child, that I would sometimes feel less healthy and less connected.

    Whatever scripture you read–I think you will find that the most connected spiritual heroes occasionally separate from the world to become closer to Something not of this world–to climb to their Peak.

    So the thing I want to show you is how to find your Peak–the Annual Peak, from which you gain vision, strength, and health. Then use your daily routines to maintain that peak as much as possible while knowing you must eventually stop and do this process again.

    As a child, less cluttered by the desires and scars and failures of a grown man, the method I used was simple: I would walk through the forest most of the day (for as many days as it took), reading scripture at night; then I would simply find peace by almost walking through it and so bathing in it somewhere in the forest. Then from that peak, I enjoyed a calmness and strength that carried me (with less involved daily and weekly practices) through the year.

    As a man with sons of my own and things I feel called to do, and with poisoned arrows aimed my way, the clutter and chatter make finding my way back to that peak a more complicated–but not much more.

    Here’s the annual process that I use now (the same process used by those stronger than me) that will take you to your peak of mental and spiritual health.

    How (7 Steps)

    1. Make a Time and Place

    As a child, I would go through the discipline of finding the peak during the Christmas break. Then, when I did not need to go to school, I could find a few days alone in the forest, and it prepared me for the holiday.

    Now, as an adult, the weeks leading to Christmas are very busy. But, my sons leave to spend time with their mother and I am left alone for a few days after Christmas. Patients are less needful during this time as well. So, the two or three days starting at lunchtime on Christmas day are best for me.

    I have also made time by simply taking a long weekend in a hotel room in a place where I can easily be alone and there is a place to walk.

    A tent in the forest for a few days also works.

    The main thing is that for 2 to 3 days there are no people, little phone, no movies or television, no magazines, nothing but the writings that you think allow you to drink most deeply from the most unpolluted thoughts.

    2. Fast

    I know the word, “fast,” is a true 4-letter word that scares or offends many people as much as any other. But, it’s only been practiced for a few thousand years. I can look back as far as scripture goes and find it recommended. And I can also look in the best seller of today, The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman, and find it recommended as a way to find superior health.

    So, perhaps, it’s worth doing? And, it’s easiest to do an extended fast when alone.

    Here’s a quick study on fasting that inspired Jack LaLanne as a child and inspired and instructed me most of my life: The Miracle of Fasting: Proven Throughout History for Physical, Mental, & Spiritual Rejuvenation.

    A simple method, is to make supper your last meal (so you do not go to bed hungry) and then have nothing with calories until the next night at the same time. Drink plenty of fluids and do not change the amount of caffeine that you drink–simply make sure you get no calories from whatever you’re drinking.

    If you’ve never fasted, then 24 hours is plenty. But, for the yearly peak, eventually, you’ll want to extend it to around 3 to 5 days.

    “Fasting” by simply not eating chocolate, or giving up your favorite food, does not work as well. Not even juice fasting works well for the yearly peak. I’m talking about ZERO calories.

    Don’t worry about losing strength. Lions fast. Vince Gironda and other muscle men have taught periodic fasting as a way to GAIN strength.

    And of course, spiritual leaders have taught it as a way to gain a different kind of strength.

    3. Walk

    Do prophets walk because they are prophets or do they become prophets partly because they walk? There’s walking and then there’s Walking.

    You will understand more by reading this short essay by Thoreau on walking. If you read nothing else this year, in an effort to become healthier and to reaching your annual peak, download (for free) and read this essay by Thoreau on Walking.

    It would also help to listen to this free recording by me on walking (you probably have this already, but re-listen to it as part of the process of finding the annual peak)…

    Here’s even more on walking and some of the people who walked<–click<–

    4. Read Great Thoughts

    Go as far up-stream as you can, to the headwaters where the thoughts are as close to pure as humanly possible, where love and courage and wisdom are least diluted. Then read not as much for information as for synchronization with the Mind from where thought originates. If the person who wrote what you are reading did not own a television, wondered the desert, and died for his beliefs–that’s a clue that you’re close to the headwaters and maybe reading the appropriate words.

    5. Pray and Meditate

    Here’s a wonderful introduction to meditation: Master Guide to Meditation and Spiritual Growth

    Here’s a guide (a free download) to prayer: How to Pray.

    6. Write what you see while connected.

    Here’s a guide to making a journal (which can be a form of prayer): The How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci Workbook: Your Personal Companion to How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci

    7. While Writing, Make These 6 Lists

    1. What is the one thing most needed to be done today (if not done your family and your business will suffer)?
    2. What do you get to do for fun? What re-creations bring you the most pleasure?
    3. What do you want to see done over the next 3 to 10 days?
    4. What do you want to see done over the next 30 to 365 days?
    5. What do you want to see done over a year from now?
    6. Of the lists above, what are the most significant contributions you can make?

    These lists have been said by many thinkers in many ways, but the most recent and helpful version I have read was here: The 168 Hour Week: Living Life Your Way 24-7

    Summary

    Climbing once a year to once a quarter to your peak mental, spiritual, and physical health through a day to three days of disciplined practice will make the year better in many important ways.

    This practice, of finding that peak, has been taught by thinkers of every religion for centuries and usually involves these 7 practices:

    1. Isolate.
    2. Fast.
    3. Walk.
    4. Read.
    5. Pray.
    6. Write.
    7. Plan.

    So, there you have it, Map of the 7-Steps to your Peak. You can keep the momentum by studying this: The Law of Health: 10 Essential Steps to Glorious Health & Miraculous Healing.

    Thank you for your attention to this map, I’m honored that you have looked at it. Please keep me updated about your progress.

    Peace & health,

    Charles
    Charles Runels, MD

    1-888-920-5311

    This is one of a series of lessons in the Law of Health: 10 Essential Steps to Glorious Health & Miraculous Healing

    ©2009, 2020 Charles Runels, MD

  • Water Teaches Health

    Law 3: Climb

    Lesson 5: Water Teaches Health

    This 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 surprised

    to see your health cascading from a mountain of vitality

    into a pool of dis-ease

    than you are to see this waterfall.

    It is the way of a waterfall.

    It is the Law of Health.

    Do Today

    1. Know that whether you believe it or not, whether you remember it or not, health flows downward as surely as water.
    2. Counter the natural cascade by remembering and living the Laws of Health–every day taking your health in hand and climbing back to a higher place. This explains why health is also like a bicycle: there is no standing still; if you quit going forward, you fall over.
    3. ShareThis

    This is one of a series of lessons in the Law of Health: 10 Essential Steps to Glorious Health & Miraculous Healing

  • Law of Health. Law 3-Climb. Lesson 4-The Weekly Routine

    Law 3: Climb

    Lesson 4: The Weekly Routine

    This 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:
    1. Rest
    2. Meet
    3. Grade
    4. Organize
    5. Metabolic Workout

    Rest

    You 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.

    Meet

    This 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.

    Grade

    Whatever 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):

    Organize

    Thirty-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:

    1. Write in the hours when you will work. These are the times when you must be at your job or at school and so are unchangeable (at least for this week).
    2. Put in when you will sleep.
    3. Write in an hour per day, up to 2 hours per day, that belong to you to exercise and listen to recordings of lectures or to music. To stay healthy and sane, you need an hour per day that belongs to you.
    4. Write in one hour per week when you will do the weekly review and repeat this scheduling event.
    5. Write in any special events that you would like to attend–especially the meeting with your mastermind person or group.
    6. Now look at your schedule and ask, “Do I have something to look forward to every day?” It can be simple and short, just the exercise, or perhaps the bath or sitting with a friend after the workout. But, you should have something that you look forward to every day.
    7. Ask yourself, “What is the most important thing that I want to accomplish this week?”

    The Metabolic Workout

    This 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 practices

    brings better health

    even though your doings and mine

    will 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

  • Lesson 3: Daily Routines for Automatic Health

    Law 3: Climb

    Lesson 3: Daily Routines for Automatic Health

    I want to see you climb to better health rather than allow your body to slip into disease. Even though I know you’re trying to have your best health and are doing many things right—just as with your house there are things that should be done every day–so with your body you should do some things every day if you wish to see glorious health or miraculous healing.

    If you must every day reconsider what things should be done (redesign the whole plan), you will not practice a consistent routine that leads to health because by the time you figure out what to do every day, you’re tired of the whole process and ready to get on with something else other than your health.

    The people whom I have known who enjoy superior health spend time occasionally thinking in detail about what will be in their daily routine, then they simply go through the routine every day and trust it to take them to superior health.

    If you do the same things, you get the same results.

    If you do something different, you will get different results.

    So, if your body is not where you want it to be or as healthy as it can be, let’s consider carefully what to include in your daily routine so that the routines will take you where you want to go. Then you simply follow the routine most days without needing any energy to decide what to do—you just wake up and go.

    What you do daily will change when you want something different.

    For example, you may develop an interest in a new sport and want to change your physical routines to match the skills necessary for that sport. Or you may want extremely time-consuming career goals and need to decrease the time you spend in daily exercise. Conversely, you may want extreme physical goals and so greatly increase the time spent in physical exercise.

    When you find that you are not following a daily routine (and you often will), then you should not conclude that routines do not help. You should consider that perhaps your routine does not accomplish what you really want. Or, perhaps, the amount of time available does not allow for completion of the routines and so you need to either change the goals or find more time for the routine.

    When your routines match your available time with what you want and when you remind yourself regularly of this matching—then you will follow the routines and find the wanted results.

    Ingredients of a Daily Routine

    Daily routines should consider your mental, physical, and spiritual health. If you do not move forward in all three areas, then you are building your health on an unstable foundation.

    When you design a weight-training routine, you consider all of the muscle groups. If you have an area that is not developing then you find another exercise, or you spend more time working that area. So, as you develop your daily routines you consider all areas of your health. You occasionally reevaluate results and modify the routines to make sure that you’re getting what you want.

    But, and this is the important part, you make the routines separate and calm so that when it’s time to act, you need make no decision except to do the routine. This helps you move forward every day in the right direction and without the inertia of indecision or even thought—you simply wake and go.

    Just as if you were analyzing a diver from a diving board into the swimming pool, you might spend time thinking about each movement and developing where you pace your hands or how you tuck your chin as you go into the flip-in the same way, you think about every part or the routine that brings you to superior health.

    But, then, when it’s time to actually do the flip you execute quickly the flip and it goes smoothly. In the same way, when it’s time to do your daily routine, it should go smoothly with not much thought about the next step and with loss of concept of time.

    Do not be discouraged that routines will consume too much of your time or energy. Routines will require time and energy, but, if the routine is worthwhile, you will gain more time and energy than they require.

    If you want to read more about routines, I highly suggest Stress for Success: Jim Loehr’s Program for Transforming Stress into Energy at Work . Here he describes how he used routines to coach professional and Olympic athletes to their best performance.

    He also makes the case that the man or woman working at a career or as a parent needs for routines even more than does the professional athlete (Example: If you’re a pro athlete pitching in the world series and you have a bad day, then tomorrow you open a car dealership with your millions; if you’re an ER nurse and have a bad day–then someone is dead and you’re looking for a job).

    I used the idea of routines to stay as healthy and focused as possible while working as an ER physician in a busy inner-city ER (where life and death situations and sleep deprivation were common).

    Was not Daniel’s routine of prayer 3 times a day a sort of routine (that landed him in a cage full of lions)? Routines are not a new idea but there’s been some progress about what should go into a daily routine.

    Now let’s consider how to put the routine idea into your life.

    Example Routines

    Here are possible routines that will take you through the day in an energized and health-giving way (all of these routines have been used by Loer to train elite athletes): 1) Go-to-bed routine, 2) Wake –up routine, 3) Go-to-work routine, and the 4) After-work routine.

    Just as the baseball player goes through a routine that prepares him to hit the ball before stepping to the plate. So, your routines will prepare you to do your work.

    Consider some these possible routines and modify them to suit your purposes:

    Go-To-Bed Routine (GBR)

    Most people consider the morning as the start of the day. But the day starts when you go to bed. What time you wake to feel refreshed depends upon the time you go to bed and how well you rest.

    Ingredients of the routine include what you thought and ate or drank the few hours before bed.

    Part of resting properly depends upon going to bed at the same time and getting up at the same time daily. Even on the weekends, you will fell better and do more if you keep a regular bedtime and wake time.

    I have seen times when my schedule became almost completely incompatible with some of these ideas. As an emergency room physician, my job required that I work night shift and day shift within the same week. So, I could not have a regular bedtime. But, I still followed a routine at whatever time I did go to bed.

    Go-to-be might have been 9 am on Tuesday and not again until 8 pm on Thursday, but by following a wakeup routine and a go-to bed routine at whatever time hose events occurred, I found much better health than if I would have seen had I ignored the routines simply because I did not sleep every day and I did not sleep at the same time.

    There are times when vacation, or travel, or work dictates that I must break a routine. That’s OK. The routines are there as a way to keep you in your best health. They are part of the keeping the tool ready but sometimes the use of the tool necessitates that you break a routine. When that happens, simply be grateful for the time you spent preparing and then get back to your routines as soon as possible.

    Sample Go-to bed routine:

    1. Snack and supplements.

    I know that some think you should not eat at bedtime. I think you sleep better if you do enjoy a light snack at bedtime. My habit for years has been to drink a protein shake with fruit as a bedtime snack. At times, if I am fasting, the snack may be water. At times it may be fruit or yogurt or both. It is never junk food or alcohol. I just do not allow junk food to remain in my house. If you do allow junk in your house, then you will likely eat it at bedtime—so simply throw all the junk away and don’t bring it back.

    Snack time is also when you should take whatever supplements you have determined to be most useful to you. What these supplements are will vary based upon what’s happening with you (your physical and mental goals and how old you are) and with advancing research. But, that you should enjoy a bedtime snack and take supplements/super foods will not change with time.

    When I am fasting, my snack may be mineral water and the supplement may be something as simple as a natural source of fiber.

    When I am gaining strength, the snack may be 6 raw eggs mixed with cream, whole mile, and fresh fruit in a blender.

    This is also the time to take any evening medications.

    2. Shower, Skin, Teeth

    Next in the routine is a hot bath or shower. If you have time, I prefer a hot bath at 104 to 106 degrees Fahrenheit followed by a cooler shower. The hot water of the bath helps with relaxation and development of peaceful thoughts and leads to deeper sleep.

    After the shower, then have a regular routine for caring for skin and teeth.

    My preferred products for these routines will change as new products develop but the daily care of body, teeth, and skin will not change because these are areas that by the Law of Health need daily focused attention.

    The health of your mouth and teeth causes a profound effect on your whole body. You may escape attending to your mouth and teeth during the day with not as much harm (though attention after every meal is best). But, the most important time to attend to the teeth is just before sleep. During sleep, you produce less saliva. The decreased saliva production allows for more bacterial overgrowth and tooth decay. Making sure the mouth has less bacteria and less food particle to feed the bacteria will protect the teeth during sleep.

    The natural tooth-protecting ingredients included in saliva are sodium bicarbonate and hydrogen peroxide. The best way that I currently know to use these to keep your teeth white and clean will be found here on TempleRepair.com.

    3. Meditation and Prayer

    After you shower, you will be more relaxed and clean. At this point, most will go to bed and rest peacefully. But with about 20 minutes of additional effort, you can enter a deeper meditative sate and both rest more peacefully and renew your spirit.

    Hatha yoga; followed by meditation and prayer works miracles in your life. Here are instructions for both.

    4. Scripture

    Reading the Bible (or your scripture) for 10 to 15 minutes following your shower puts you in contact with the ancients. Here’s a suggested Bible reading plan. This and other scriptures are around for thousands of years because they work. Some would say discard the old and dusty scriptures and write your own scripture.

    If you feel inclined to write your own scripture, then who am I to argue with you and GOD? But, even if you feel inclined to write your own scripture (which you do with your life even if you never write a sentence), the scripture you write will spring from a deep and pure well if you connect with the thoughts of those who walked the desert when wealth was measured by the number of sheep that followed you.

    Without connection to the ancients, your scripture will likely be polluted by the electronic and mechanical machine guns that pellet your brain with peace killing noise.

    5. Grade

    After reading the scriptures, this is a good time to briefly connect to the virtues to which you aspire and to grade yourself. I prefer a modified version of the 13 virtues as outlined by Benjamin Franklin (see this website).

    You will review the day, whether you make a concerted effort or not. What you grade and measure will improve—automatically—just from the grading. If your mind drifts without direction as you fall to sleep, you will review and grade the more reptilian efforts of the day. But, if you focus and grade yourself upon the virtues, then you will improve those efforts and this will lead to better health.

    6. Goals

    Think of what you want to accomplish the next day—no more than 6 things. Chose the things if you did them not, your family or business would be seriously affected. Write them down where you will see them and carry them with you the next day. One or two is better if you are getting none of your list done. You can work up to six. If you start getting nothing on the list done—then change back to 1 or 2 again.

    7. Sex

    As part of GBR, as part of connecting with GOD and LOVE, you may want to connect with your lover and your family.

    When my children were young, one of the last parts of my GBR was to read to them. We read most of the Harry Potter books, Treasure Island, Tom Sawyer, and others.

    When they grew older, then we simply connected by saying “goodnight” (since sometimes they went to sleep after me). But, always, I tried to touch their head or shoulder—just to put a hand on them.

    I never lay in bed with them. If they were sick or disturbed, then I would sometimes lay on the floor beside them. Sometimes I would rub their shoulders or back.

    Everyone needs to be touched. It’s odd that, when our children are very small, you find it easy to touch them or to hug them. When they grow older and connect with a lover, then they may no longer need the touch of a parent. But, in the early teen years, they have no lover and sexual boundaries in the developing child make it uncomfortable for parents to touch their children—it feels inappropriate. These early7 teens will fight with each other—just to be touched. The girls will often experiment with pretend sex with their girlfriends—just to be touched.

    So, if you have children, just a hand on their shoulder or a short upper back and shoulder rub works miracles and fits into a GBR.

    Next, this is a wonderful time to connect to your spouse or lover. Take the love and energy and connection to GOD that you found in our meditation seat and use that to connect to your lover. Then sex becomes worship through the connection to your love you find in your lover.

    Sex is not penis in vagina. Sex is expressions of the deepest love through emotional and physical touching. You can learn more about how to use sex for health and spirituality in my 15-Day course for men, Anytime…for as Long as You Want: Strength, Genius, Libido & Erection by Integrative Sex Transmutation. The deepest sex and most enjoyable sex is an extension of prayer.

    Finally, there comes a time when all activity stops and you give up the day to sleep. Remember the GBR is really the beginning of the next day. So, as you fall asleep, spend the last waking moments in prayer or mediation on goodness, on GOD, or on what you wish to materialize in your life.

    Napoleon Hill, in his The Law of Success – Complete, speaks of visualizing a council room where he met with men that he admired from the ages and had a meeting about his life.

    As a teenager and in my twenties, to avoid continuous sexual thoughts and masturbation, I often fell asleep listening to recordings of lectures on philosophy or the scriptures. Who has not struggled to stay awake during a lecture in a place of worship? It is good that people fall asleep in church. It means that they are filled with peace from the words and thought of the place. So, use this to your advantage and think on such things when you are ready to give up the day.

    Other Routines

    You can see by the GBR that many details are considered. Then no thought is given to the routine, the list is simply followed, at first by a checklist if you want, eventually, by habit without thought.

    When you develop by practice routines that lead you to health simply by following a list, and when the list has be consciously considered by you in such a way to take you to your best health, then you have created a healthy lifestyle that brings health and healing almost automatically without much thought by you.

    Even more exciting, it will feel near effortless to stay healthy when you are simply following what is your natural habit because you took the time and effort to consciously practice health-giving routines until they became unconscious habit.

    To Do Next

    Consider and write out the following routines (and reconsider every 3 to 6 months):

    1. Go to bed routine

    2. Wake up routine

    3. Go to work routine

    4. Come home from work routine

    ©2009, 2020 Charles Runels, MD

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    This is one of a series of lessons in the Law of Health: 10 Essential Steps to Glorious Health & Miraculous Healing

    Other Routines…