30 Fun Ways to Get More Green Into Your Diet

March 29, 2017 phyto5.us

30 Fun Ways to Get More Green Into Your Dieet

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) tells us the Spring energetic season (February 5 to April 17) is all about the sprouting of new life. TCM assigns two shades of green to Spring’s element of Wood: warm green (yang) and bluish green (yin). And during energetic Spring it’s important to nourish our bodies with life-giving, detoxifying green.

Not everyone enjoys green leaves and vegetables but what follows are a number of novel and fun ways to make sure you amp up your diet with green and enjoy the deliciousness of it too!

While most of these ideas provide ways to creatively add greens and green foods to your entrees and side dishes, don’t be afraid to make green the main event!

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Scramble your eggs with cooking greens or add them to your frittata.
Add fresh fruit like strawberries to make your highly nutritious spinach salad more interesting.
Make a batch of green pesto to have on hand for adding to dishes like pasta or for garnishing dishes like scrambled eggs, soup or roasted veggies.
Learn to sprout! It’s so easy to do right in your kitchen with some mason jars, cheesecloth and sprouting seeds. In just a couple days you’ve got green sprouts absolutely brimming with nutrition that you can add to salads, add as soup garnishes or throw in your smoothies.
Learn to identify wild edible greens and pick them. Some might be in your backyard or favorite local forest preserve.
Everybody loves nuts and seeds so add them to your salads. Not only will they provide texture but lots of nutrition too.
Add a handful of spinach or other green to your favorite smoothie to make it green. We suggest spinach ‘cause it won’t alter the flavor intent of your smoothie.
Garnish your soups with parsley or cilantro.
Never miss adding a beautiful green leaf to your sandwiches. Experiment. Go beyond iceberg or romaine lettuce.
Garnish your sandwich plate or even top your salad with dehydrated kale chips. Depending on the sauce massaged into the kale before dehydrating, kids will love eating them instead of potato chips.
Add a handful of fresh basil, leaves and stems, to your blenderized soups for a subtle flavor enhancement and nutrition boost.
Add green legumes like pea pods and green beans to your side dishes for color, texture and vitality.
Learn to make a mean tabbouli. With the main ingredient being parsley, this minted salad is incredibly fresh tasting and you’ll feel so much better about yourself after eating it! You can sub quinoa for the bulgur wheat, if you prefer, and it will taste just as great.
Fold finely chopped parsley or spinach into your mashed potatoes or alfredo sauce.
Mush some not overcooked broccoli into side dishes for texture, flavor and nutrition.
Make some avocado topped toast or spread your toast with a mélange of peas tossed with a small amount of olive oil, quartered grape tomatoes, and edamame. Avocado toast is a current wellness trend!
Add shaved or grated courgette (zucchini) into your salad.
Have a nice spinach salad or other green leaf salad for breakfast. It’s a fantastic way to start the day.
Explore fresh green herbs (oregano, rosemary, basil, dill, cilantro, chervil, chives, tarragon) and learn how to add them to your dishes for an added dimension of healing and flavor.
Make green bean “fries” for an awesome snack. Toss washed whole green beans with a bit of olive oil, and then garlic granules, salt and pepper to taste, and munch!
Make your wrap sandwiches raw wraps using collard greens, bibb lettuce or swiss chard leaves; you can do the same when making tacos, too.
When puréeing your homemade hummus, throw in a half cup of spinach; it will lend a green hue to the hummus and give you added nutrition, but it won’t alter the flavor of the hummus.
Top your burger with lightly sautéed greens.
Make green dips; spinach-artichoke is always nice.
Make simple homemade green salad dressings in your blender; throw six to eight dandelion greens in the blender along with a cup of soaked raw cashews, a half cup of soaked raw sunflower seeds, a cup of water, a squirt of lemon juice, a half teaspoon of turmeric and Himalayan salt to taste and blend until smooth. Delish.
Double the amount of green vegetables and half the amount of animal protein in your dishes.
Be a sneaky chef; purée some greens and add them to marinara sauce or grate or finely mince the greens and add them to your burger and meatloaf mix.
Wilt your greens like spinach, arugula, mustard and dandelion greens; you can add them to your favorite dish or eat them straight with a little salt and pepper and a dash of olive oil.
Slightly blacken bundles of bok choy, broccoli or asparagus spears for a unique taste and nutrition treat.
Consume blue-green algae like spirulina or aphanizomenon flos aquae before or after meals or even before bed.

Best Foods to Eat During Energetic Spring

March 1, 2017 phyto5.us

Even after energetic Spring begins February 5 (according to traditional Chinese medicine [TCM]), we still experience the remnants of the Water energy of Winter. Though TCM says Spring has arrived which is the new energy of the Wood element, it's challenging to think Spring.

TCM tells us we can enjoy our best health and vitality when we live in balance with the change of the five energetic seasons and their corresponding elements (Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water).

As humans, we exist an inherent part of nature. It makes sense to live in balance with nature to enjoy our best life.

Embrace the following attributes, characteristics and specific organ activity for the Wood element and Spring season.

If you’re affected by liver problems (the organs associated with Spring are liver and gall bladder), it’s a sign your body may be suffering from insufficient or lack of Wood chi.

You can strengthen your Wood chi by consuming more Wood element foods which tend to be sour in taste (sour is the taste for the Wood element). Sour foods facilitate clearing an overburdened liver.

Wood element foods act as astringents and help the blood to circulate, your energy to flow, and emotions to move more elegantly through you.

Eating fresh greens during this season naturally cleanses the body of physical and emotional impediments.

Wood element foods are cooling and contracting and prevent leakage of body fluids. If you’ve been indulging in a rich, greasy diet, you’ll want to switch to the Wood element foods at this time.

Refer to the exhaustive list of Wood foods below.

Additionally, there are some herbs and spices we can use in springtime food prep that have a sour taste: dill, sour jujube fruit, and hawthorn berry.

Certain pungent and sweet foods such as scallion, garlic, cinnamon, fennel and ginger tend to have an expansive, rising quality. They are very nice to add to springtime meals and will help you resist colds and allergies.

As always, avoid or reduce consumption of foods and drinks that have little redeeming value for the body such as deep fried foods, oil, fat (aside from the more beneficial oils and fat content derived from olive, avocado and coconut), salty foods, spicy foods, alcohol, and sweets.

While we slow cooked our food in Winter by preparing stews and hearty soups, best cooking methods for the Spring energetic season are sauté, stir fry, light simmer, blanch, quick boil, pickle, and marinate.

At this time of year, our diet should be the lightest to enable our systems to cleanse and strengthen the body, mind and spirit.

Check out PHYTO5's Wood element skincare line to address imbalance in the skin such as oiliness, blackheads, hyperpigmentation, and issues of vital energy circulation.

Best Foods for Wood Element (in alphabetical order)

adzuki beans
almonds
baby spinach
barley
black cherry
black currant
blackberry
celery
cheese
chicken
chives
cod
collard greens
grapefruit
green beans
green cabbage
green tea
halibut
hazelnuts
herring
leafy greens
lemon
lettuce
lime
liver
long string beans
napa cabbage
nuts
oats
olives
peas
pickles
pineapple
plums
raspberry
rose hips
rye
sauerkraut
scallions
sour grapes
sour green apples
sour green star fruit
sourdough
spinach
sprouts
tomatoes
vinegar
walnuts
wheat
yogurt

“Adapting itself to obstacles and bending around them, Wood in the earth grows upward without haste and without rest. Thus too the superior man is devoted in the character and never pauses in his progress.” – Nei Jing (475-221 B.C.)

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Sources:

Nguyen, Phil N. Feng Shui for the Curious and Serious. New Jersey: Xlibris Corporation, 2008. Print.

Thunderhawk, Denise, L. Ac. The 5-Element Guide to Healing with Whole Foods. N.p.: Lulu, 2016. Print.

Best Practices for Living In Harmony with Energetic Spring

February 27, 2017 phyto5.us

Energetic Spring begins February 5 according to traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). But the weather still feels like Winter. This is because of the remnants of the Water energy of energetic Winter remain well into energetic Spring. Nevertheless, when a new energetic season begins, we should shift our lifestyles to live in harmony with the new season.

In TCM, the element represented by Spring is Wood.

To live in balance with the 5-Element Theory of TCM and indeed, to live in balance with nature of which we are an inherent part, we’ll want to embrace the following attributes, characteristics and specific organ activity for the Wood element and Spring season.

1) The color for the Wood element is green. Bring green into your life in all sorts of ways–in your diet and even in your home decor.

2) Liver and gall bladder are the organs associated with the Wood element. If you have liver or gall bladder issues and/or you have a Wood element imbalance, incorporate more of what is outlined in this post and in the post to follow into your daily life. Click here for complete best eating practices.

Indications of too much Wood chi, a Wood imbalance, include stiff muscles and joints, liver troubles, sallow or yellowish skin, panic attacks, hysteria, neck pain, and stroke. Emotion-oriented displays of Wood imbalance include anger, resentment, bitterness, lack of compassion, erratic behavior, low self-esteem, shouting, complaining, arguing, violence, abuse, incessant arguing. These indicate strong Wood imbalance.

3) In addition to food, Wood element fragrances like lavender, orange, citrus, grapefruit, and chamomile can be used and enjoyed to uplift and strengthen Wood chi and help create more balance in Wood.

4) The green gemstones of green jade, emerald, and green opal may assist the flow of Wood chi.

5) TCM-advised sound and breathing exercises for each element also help to bring imbalance to balance.

For Wood, the healing sound is easy. It’s a long “Shhhh” – as in telling someone to be quiet. On the exhale of a deep breath, this sound will help to release anger and frustration. It can help to soften the person suffering with anger and at the same time assist to quell ailments in the liver and gall bladder.

The five element healing sounds are actually breathing exercises that are best done every day at least five times a week, taking at least six deep breaths, the deeper the better. It is most beneficial to do the exercises outdoors where chi is fresh, preferably in the morning, with the sun shining on you from the East but they can most definitely be done indoors too.

You will want to inhale through your nose until your abdomen is full of fresh air and then exhale out through the mouth making the soft healing sound Shhhh. On the inhale, imagine positive chi entering your body and cleansing the negative chi and ailments in your body. On the exhale, imagine pushing out the negative chi and ailments.

6) It is important to practice mindfulness and meditation at this time of year to bring clarity of vision, because the liver governs the health of the eyes and the clarity received applies both literally and figuratively.

7) The time is energetic Spring! Rise early with the sun and take brisk walks. Live in harmony with Spring!

Check out PHYTO5's Wood element skincare line to address imbalance in the skin such as oiliness, blackheads, hyperpigmentation, and issues of vital energy circulation.

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Sources:

Nguyen, Phil N. Feng Shui for the Curious and Serious. New Jersey: Xlibris Corporation, 2008. Print.

Thunderhawk, Denise, L. Ac. The 5-Element Guide to Healing with Whole Foods. N.p.: Lulu, 2016. Print.

Eat Consciously. Get These Tips.

February 7, 2017 phyto5.us

Most people are now aware that fast foods are generally bad for their health and that consumption of fried foods should be kept to a minimum.

There are many slimming diets on the market, but too often they are not balanced meals for proper ongoing nutrition.

We are all very different physically and so are our nutritional needs. It makes sense to try to find an approach that is adapted to you, rather than following government sponsored guidelines that are flawed. These guidelines treat everyone as if they were made by the same widget factory.

The concept that Dr. Peter J. D’Adamo outlines in his book, Eat Right for Your Type, makes sense because it recognizes our individual differences based on our blood type (one of four) corresponding to different metabolic capabilities and, consequently, different nutritional needs.

Ayurveda also teaches nutrition according to the three doshas or energetic types known as pitta, vata, and kapha. Ayurveda also illustrates the need to adapt to our specific composition or dominating energies.

Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon and Mary Enig, Ph.D. challenges, in an informed and documented way, what they call the “Diet Dictocrats” who are all the governmental and quasi-governmental agencies more bent on defending the interests of powerful corporate lobbies than promoting the well-being of the people.

Energetic Food: Traditional Chinese Medicine offers an approach to nutrition based on the five elements. That is the basis for the FoodScan program created by the German company, Medprevent whose approach is very complementary to the PHYTO5 method. And the work of Dr. Haas, author of Staying Healthy with the Seasons, is in total harmony with the PHYTO5 approach.

From an energetic point of view, it is good to remember that food releases energy during the metabolism process. Both the quantity and the quality of energy matter.

Food contributes to the vital energy that we need, but that energy comes with a certain bulk that needs both energy and oxygen to process.

It is advisable to eat what is energetically rich (natural nutrients) with limited bulk and to avoid what is abundant in bulk but limited in energy. In this respect, the model of good food is a genuine farm egg that is free of added antibiotics and hormones. It represents great concentration of nutrients for a small volume.

The worst is any bulky food heated in a microwave oven that kills all the nutrients and remains void of vital energy. Many people have a bulk-rich diet void of nutrients and vital energy. As a result, they remain hungry and eat more bulk that eventually accumulates in their body. It becomes a vicious cycle. It is one of the real issues in the standard American diet, yet few people speak about it in those terms because the politically powerful food industry is more about bulk than nutrition.

The energetic quality of our food is either yin or yang.

Meat is more yang than vegetables. Red meat is the most yang; veal or pork are less yang; and poultry the least yang of meat.

Although, some fish, such as tuna, is quite yang, fish is more yin than meat.

Vegetables that grow in the ground such as potatoes and beets are more yang than leafy vegetables.

It is recommended to eat cooling or yin food during the strong yang season such as Summer and to eat yang food during the strong yin season of Winter.

It makes more sense to have a steak and mashed potatoes in the Winter than on a hot summer day when salads and fruit are more appropriate.

It is always recommended to eat the food of the season because they are in balance with the energy of that season. The color of fruit and vegetables is often used as a telltale sign of when it is best to eat them.

For example, yellow fruit and vegetables are recommended during the transitional Earth season happening now (the period of 18 days between seasons), while a (red) tomato is preferred during the Summer, the season of the Fire element according to traditional Chinese medicine).

The Chinese New Year Is January 28. What We Can Learn from Taoist Astrology for 2017.

January 26, 2017 phyto5.us

The Chinese calendar is based on the lunar cycle, contrary to the Gregorian calendar which is based on the apparent movement of the sun. The date of each Chinese New Year takes place on the second moon after the Winter solstice. Because the dates of the new moon vary from year to year, it follows that the date of the New Year varies from one year to the next.

The Chinese New Year is broadly observed in Asia and Southeast Asia, particularly, China, Korea and Japan. It has its roots in Taoism.

It is interesting to note that there are twelve branches in Taoist astrology as is the case for Western astrology with the twelve signs of the zodiac. Each branch is designated by the name of an animal reflecting some of the characteristics implied in the nature of the animal.

As with all things that are rooted in Taoism, each branch is declined in five versions to reflect the characteristics of each of the five elements of Chinese medicine—Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water—and also, simultaneously, by the yin/yang duality.

Consequently, there are six yang branches and six yin branches. It means that 6 of the 12 animals are deemed yin and 6 are deemed yang. The yang years are the ones ending with an even number; and the yin years are the ones ending with an odd number. The yin animals will only appear in years ending with an odd number, and the yang animals will only appear in years ending with an even number.

Altogether, this creates a cycle of 60 years. It means that the yearly characteristics of Taoist astrology repeat themselves only every 60 years. It provides for ample distinctions on the energetic influence of each year! It is interesting to note the influence of numerology in the organization of the Chinese astrology system.

The Chinese New Year starting January 28, 2017, is the one of the Phoenix, more popularly described as the Rooster. It is defined as a yin branch (animal), but as it is declined in the 5 elements, each element brings a lesser or greater yin or yang influence.

2017 is a year for a Fire type animal as it is the case for any year ending with a 7. Phoenix being a yin animal, will appear with the yin aspect of Fire. That combination – yin of Fire - is given the purple color which is why 2017 is the year of the Purple Phoenix.

A yang animal, such as the Monkey (the animal of 2016) during a Fire year (as it was in 2016) represents the yang of the yang and is given the descriptive color of red. No wonder that the Red Monkey of 2016 created such havoc on so many different levels! It was predicted.

In 2017, the characteristics of the Purple Phoenix are defined by a Fire influence, the most yang aspect of the 5 elements, but it is tempered by its inherent yin.

Taoist astrology predicts that: “The year of the phoenix is a time of practical endeavors, conscientiousness, hard work, and discipline. Politically, conservative police states gain power, and law and order are championed.”

“Purple Phoenix adores the spotlight…In business, Purple Phoenix desires success, fame, wealth, and status in society. She is intense and competitive when pursuing materialistic goals…” –Susan Levitt in Taoist Astrology: A Handbook of the Authentic Chinese Tradition.

A Tao Te Ching Verse for Phoenix

Fame or integrity: which is more important?
Money or happiness: which is more valuable?
Success or failure: which is more destructive?
If you look to others for fulfillment you will never truly be fulfilled.
If your happiness depends on money you will never be happy with yourself.
Be content with what you have. Rejoice in the way things are.
When you realize nothing is lacking the whole world belongs to you.

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Sources:

Levitt, Susan. Taoist Feng Shui: The Ancient Roots of the Chinese Art of Placement. Rochester, VT.: Destiny, 2000. Print.

Levitt, Susan, and Jean Tang. Taoist Astrology: A Handbook of the Authentic Chinese Tradition. p. 171. Rochester, VT: Destiny, 1997. Print.

Clarifying the Effect of the Energetic Seasons on Your Skincare Regimen: When to Switch from Water to Earth

January 23, 2017 phyto5.us

January 17 marks the end of traditional Chinese medicine’s energetic Winter and the Water element.

This means that Water's energetic influence will cease operating and a new influence begins. From January 18 to the February 4 the Winter seasonal energetic activity returns to Earth for 18 days. Then the energy reappears February 5 as the energy of the Spring season (Wood element).

How does this change affect your skincare regimen and your choice of products?

We need to remember that there is a lag time between the change of energetic influence and the visible consequences, or symptoms, of the change.

When the Water season ends, its climatic influence is still felt. At that time, the climate in most of the U.S. is still one of Winter, particularly in the Northern half of the country, and the need to protect against the cold and its effects on our skin is still present and not to be ignored.

For most people it means that a continuation of the Winter regimen is quite logical as long as the Winter climate is in effect, but the people who have a predisposition to Earth conditions (pimples, blemishes or acne, and issues of lymph circulation) need to be aware that with the Earth season their condition will worsen.

It is also the best time to address the issues of the earth skin conditions. They are the people who need to switch lines (and professional treatments) on time.

Using both the Water products and the Earth products might be called for depending on the individual’s condition and the climate at the time.

Because the Water products are also anti-aging products (hydration and tone), given the age and skin condition of the individual, the Water line might be the right choice for most of the year.

For many of our clients in the states, it’s important to prolong the use of the Water line past the January 17 unless their dominant concern is the skin conditions associated with the Earth element. In that case, switching to Earth is recommended.

Late Winter Lifestyle Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them

January 18, 2017 phyto5.us

The Earth element in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) relates to transformation. It’s active four times a year in 18-day transition periods between the four major seasons (Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter). Although we tend to associate the attributes of Earth with late or Indian Summer, Earth also occurs in late Winter, late Spring and late Fall.

In other words, as the end of each of the traditional four seasons approaches, the “heavenly” (cosmic) seasonal energy goes back to the Earth for transformation into the energy of the next season.

According to Chinese medicine:

“…its influence manifests for 18 days at the end of each of the four seasons and it does not pertain to any season of its own…” – The Classic of Categories (1624) by Zhang Jie Bin.

Earth is not unlike the center of the compass. It is a pivot point, so to speak, around which the four seasons and the other four elements spin. But, occurring four times a year for 18 days each, these periods totaling 72 days and which bear similar characteristics are referred to as the Earth energetic season or fifth season of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM).

The next Earth energetic period is from January 18 to February 4. An Earth imbalance creates any one of the following group of conditions affecting the skin:

blemishes
toxicity
acne
psoriasis
enlarged pores and
lymph circulation problems.

PHYTO5 has created a very specific skin and hair care line designed to help address these imbalances.

Unlike Wood and Fire elements in TCM defined by a rising and peaking yang, and unlike Metal and Water elements with a rising and peaking yin, Earth represents a balance between yin and yang energies. As such, the Earth element represents warm, stable, grounded, loving, emotional characteristics. It is nurturing, comforting, calm, solid and stable. Earth is all about family, community and gathering, eating now and gathering, collecting, holding and storing for later.

Earth energy type people are sentimental and maintain their attachments to other people, things, and places. Earth types tend to savor the sweetness of life and being human and they find enjoyment in all the comforts and pleasures of life. But, as with each element, Earth types can become imbalanced and demonstrate physical and emotional challenges.

According to TCM, Earth is about ingestion and absorption, not just of food but of ideas and emotions. An Earth element imbalance in the body is the result of ingesting too much, or its opposite–stagnation, the slowing down of chi energy flow in the body, or an outright inability to consume or subsequently digest ideas, emotions, or food.

Earth types are thoughtful but can worry too much. They can feel sympathy, deeply allowing them to feel connected to others, but these same emotions taken too far can cause them to feel stuck, unable to act or think clearly, with an over-dependence on others for their opinions, judgment and advice.

Earth types are quite good at maintaining family and friend relationships. They love situations that require them to work with others. They enjoy teamwork and collaborative work environments.

Well-balanced Earth people usually have a healthy complexion, soft facial features, sturdy and balanced body frame, exhibiting an earthiness to their appearance.

The organs most closely associated with Earth are the spleen and the stomach and the digestive system as a whole. The Discussion of Prescriptions from the Golden Chest (c. AD 220) by Zhang Zhong Jing says:

“During the last period of each season, the Spleen is strong enough to resist pathogenic factors.”

Earth also has influence over the pancreas, the large muscles of the body on the upper arms and lower legs, the abdomen, the middle back, the lymph system and the diaphragm. Of course, proper lymph circulation is important in keeping a strong immune system and a healthy complexion.

The Earth periods are the best time to address Earth conditions. They are also the times when Earth energy can make existing Earth imbalance in people worse, therefore balancing Earth energy during the Earth periods with Earth treatments and products is highly recommended, particularly for Earth type people.

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Sources:

Maciocia, Giovanni. The Foundations of Chinese Medicine: A Comprehensive Text. Edinburgh: Elsevier, 2015. Print.

Bridges, Lillian. Face Reading in Chinese Medicine. Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone/Elsevier, 2012. Print.

You Can Live Beyond Your Prescribed Genetics

January 13, 2017 phyto5.us

Among many critical factors influencing the aging process, our genetic heritage is a major one. Genetics escape our control yet twins with an identical genetic imprint can age differently. This proves other factors like lifestyle are in play.

Other factors include our living conditions. We don’t have control over our environmental climate either.

But other factors point to how we choose to consciously live our lives.

The physical effects of aging may accelerate as a result of:

where you live (dry or humid, hot or cold, temperate or extreme climates)
your socioeconomic conditions (depening on the time and resources you have to take care of yourself)
your relationships (family and friends)
your psychological frame of mind (tendency to worry, embrace fear and anger, or to laugh and be merry)
your diet
your exercise routine
your socializing habits
various personal disciplines you might or might not have, including how you handle stress (at work and in your private life) your spiritual life.

Some factors have little to do with the amount of free time or disposable income you have.

Do you drive when you could walk instead?
Do you take the escalator rather than the stairs?
Do you take every opportunity you have to stretch, exercise, and breathe deeply?
Do you take a few minutes, even a few seconds, throughout the day to meditate and to manage your negative emotions when they appear?
Do you find reasons to smile and to laugh?
Can you stay clear of smoking and alcohol (beyond an occasional beer or glass of wine) and recreational drugs?

Exercise, nutrition and diet (including the choice for energetic foods and phytochemicals in our diet), colon therapy and inner cleansing, and mindfulness practice are all key elements of a lifestyle designed to slow the aging process as much as possible.

In this post, we’ll focus on exercise, so pertinent for this time of year, and we’ll discuss food, inner cleansing and mindfulness practices in soon upcoming posts.

Exercise does not need to be strenuous, but we do need two types of exercises: stretching and cardiovascular. Exercising in general, and stretching in particular, sponsors the movement of vital energy throughout the body, accelerating the flow of blood that brings necessary nutrients to all cells. It also stimulates the process of elimination of waste within cells and tissues.

It is good to remember that we generate more internal energy as we exercise, but depending on the type of exercise, we might also expend a large amount of energy, leaving us depleted at the end of our session. The goal is to build up energy while expending as little of it as possible. In that respect, low impact and moderately intensive cardiovascular exercises are superior forms of wellness enhancement.

Mindful exercising connects intention to action. It is important because energy follows our intention, therefore we can redirect it. Yoga, qi gong, and tai chi are known for their focus on the coordination of movement and breath with intention and awareness. There are many other activities that can be performed with conscious focus, from golf to simply walking upstairs.

All this is contrary to the frequent practice of mechanically performing exercises while listening to music or watching television in an attempt to distract the mind from repetitive and boring movements.

Conscious breathing should also be considered part of our exercise regimen. For most people, twenty to thirty minutes of accelerated breathing three times a week is quite sufficient. Experts point to the need of breathing from the abdomen and not simply from the top of the lungs. This action helps the movement of the diaphragm, the largest muscle in the body that acts as a major pump for the movement of lymph and of water throughout the body.

Back to Basics: Five Key Ideas On Energy and Consciousness

November 29, 2016 phyto5.us

There are five fundamental keys undergirding energy and consciousness. When you embrace these keys you get to enjoy greater health of every kind—physical, mental, emotional and spiritual.

First, the body is not simply matter but is what is known as vital energy as well.

In fact, it’s vital energy that makes vital matter, vital.

Second, everything has an energy field.

Third, we are not simply physical. We live within a number of additional dimensions or aspects of our being, and each aspect creates a specific energy field.

Each field is more or less strong depending on how important that aspect of our being is. This includes our physical body, our emotions, our thoughts, and our beliefs. It covers the physical, the psychological, the mental, and the spiritual realms.

As a result, we are a symphony of energy fields.

Each one of us is like a musical band playing its own particular music more or less loud, more or less melodious, more or less soft or aggressive… constantly projected outwardly into our environment.

It reaches not only other humans, but animals, plants and beyond since we know from the work of Masaru Emoto that it is proven that water molecules respond to our thoughts and emotions.

It is significant to be aware that our presence has an impact on every one else in contact with us—humans, animals, plants and everything else that receives the energetic imprint of our presence; and, conversely, who project their own.

That awareness is self-awareness (in a good sense) and part of conscious living. A lack of that awareness is likely to present in behaviors from caustic relationships with others to a lack of sensitivity for our ecological environment.

Fourth, what we commonly perceive with our physical senses and intellect is never the whole picture.

Example: The physical body hides the presence of vital-energy from our physical senses and “common sense.” In short, what appears is not the full reality. True of us. True of others, thus the importance of the practicing “holistic” approach.

It is a key principle in all energy medicines but should apply to all aspects of our lives starting with our relationship with others.

It means that to discover the real picture we need to look beyond the appearance, beyond the obvious, and see the person as a whole being and to evaluate any situation within its broader context.

Fifth, all human emotions can be placed on a spectrum defined by two sets of fundamentally opposite qualities.

On the one hand, we have love and its many manifestations: respect, civility, patience, tenderness, compassion, empathy, and the various altruistic expressions.

On the other hand, there is fear, anger, hate, jealousy, and the many expressions of selfishness.

That which tends toward love is referred to as among the higher emotions and that which tends toward fear is referred to as among the lowest emotions. This has been expressed in modern language as the “positive energies” and the “negative energies.”

All the great moral and social philosophers and all the major spiritual teachers throughout the ages have spoken of this. For some, it is the law of karma. For others, it is the Golden Rule–“do unto others as you would have them to unto you,” or “as you sow, so shall you reap.”

The wisdom of the ages, religious or not, is now proven by science. It clearly tells us that the so-called positive energies are more beneficial to us and others than are the negative energies.

Positive energy promotes more positive energy and negative energy promotes more negative energy.

This is magnified in groups as collective consciousness that becomes an energy of its own affecting anyone in its sphere of influence. It is visible in religious groups as much as it is visible in political ones, and it affects the nation’s frame of mind.

Yes, you could object by pointing to the approach illustrated in older Judaic scriptures, “an eye for an eye.” That was the common wisdom expressing a self-preservation state of consciousness some 3,500 to 4,000 years ago.

But a higher level of consciousness was taught some 2,000 years ago by a Jewish rabbi of Nazareth who preached: “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”

This precept is found in just about all authentic spiritual teachings. It is also the altruism found in the great humanists, be they believers, agnostics or atheists. It is the higher wisdom that “conscious living” attempts to promote. It benefits us, others, and our environment.

Conversely, fear, anger, hate, jealousy and selfishness are not only destructive to our environment and to our relationships, they poison our own essence and substance, slowly destroying our own fabric, causing sickness and misery.

Jesus, in his seminal Sermon on the Mount, taught to an astonished audience that sinning is not simply in the act (i.e. stealing, adultery, killing) but also in the emotions and thoughts of desire, anger, selfishness.

This idea was expressed 2,000 years earlier by Taoist sages and their practical notion of Traditional Chinese Medicine, that sickness can be created by negative emotions. It makes even more sense when you learn that the term sin was a translation of the Aramaic idea (Aramaic being the form of Jewish language actually spoken by Jesus) meaning, missing the mark. In other words the “missing of the mark” is a fundamental error, a mistake, a not knowing the truth.

It is not only relative to the rules of religion, but of conscious living. It is the boomerang that returns to hit us unaware.

Learn to Learn from Your Skin and Vital Energy

November 14, 2016 phyto5.us

Your body is not only anatomically and physiologically complex, it’s energetically complex. Unseen vital energy that flows throughout all parts of your body is a form of intelligent communication. It links your physical body to the invisible energetic fields that encompass your being. The by-product of that interaction reflexively point to areas of the body that are out of balance.

The energetic blueprint you received at birth from the cosmic and telluric energies that prevailed at the moment you were born were added to the energies inherited from your parents (ancestral energies), and like everyone else, you are affected by a number of cyclical energetic patterns.

There is a daily flow of energies within your body and a yearly flow of energetic seasons.

There is also the cycle of life with the sequence of five 15-year phases that start with the Wood element at birth and the other five 15-year cycles that start with the element of the biorhythm of your birth.

All this can be utterly overwhelming, yet in practical terms, it simply boils down to maintaining a balance of your vital energy.

Reading your skin and body shape should lead you to select the balancing skincare products you need along with appropriate balancing treatments whenever you can. Lifestyle adjustments may also become necessary however this can be journey of self-discovery. Make it so!

We can learn from our skin and respect it for the tell-tale signs it gives us. Consequently, it cannot be excessively stripped–mechanically or with acids–injected with chemicals, cut, stretched, and sewn, without consequences.

Likewise, what we eat, drink, breathe, and how we exercise our bodies or not will have consequences on our health as much as our skin.

Our thoughts, emotions, and intent, affect our energetic system, and as a result, our physical being.

Skincare is not only caring for our body but for our entire being. This is why skincare must truly be a holistic proposition. Anything else is either neglectful or a shortcut with potentially undesirable consequences.

With knowledge comes the opportunity to take charge of your wellness. The exigencies and circumstances of modern life are very destabilizing, but with knowledge, our ability to maintain balance—mental, emotional, and physical— becomes that much greater.

It’s entirely up to you. Make sure you enjoy the process!

In your body, you have an interconnected system of subtle lines and vortices of energy that both emanate from and support the denser molecular matter of your physical body. These lines or channels of energy are called nadir in the Ayurvedic system of medicine of India. The vortices where the energetic channels converge to support the internal and external structures of the body are called chakras. All forms of non-Westernized medicine, Ayurvedic medicine, traditional Chinese medicine, homeopathy, and indigenous cultures around the world acknowledge that a vital life-force energy creates and sustains physical life… there is an invisible force that ebbs and flows within all living things and is the animating force of creation, sustenance, and destruction.

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Source:

–Kamm, Laura Alden. Intuitive Wellness: Using Your Body's Inner Wisdom to Heal. New York, NY: Atria, 2007. Print.

Energy Fields and Social Coherence

November 11, 2016 phyto5.us

Each of us is a state of consciousness made of energy. When we come into contact with the energy field of another a mutual exchange occurs. We have a social responsibility to the sentient beings we influence by our energetic state of consciousness. So we should always strive to keep our energy fields beautiful so that the gift of ourselves we offer the world is always beautiful.

We consistently write on this site about our energetic reality and how it affects our lives. Most of you know that the idea that the body is not only matter but vital energy. This truth has origins in India and in China going back several millennia.

The Western world has mostly ignored this fundamental idea that the body is not just matter but vital energy as well. Although when quantum physics and quantum chemistry revealed the fundamental fact that matter is ultimately energy vibrating at speeds that make it appear as solid and liquid, people in the West have begun to pay attention.

Westerners are more and more beginning to recognize that vital matter is made vital by the presence and intelligent activity of vital energy. We can now measure that vibrational activity with highly sophisticated equipment.

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has a particularly practical model known as the Five Elements Theory to explain the workings of not only our environment but our physical and emotional bodies. Energy medicines have in common this holistic approach that pays attention to physical, emotional and behavioral symptoms.

HeartMath Institute, a non-profit organization whose objective is to help the development of “heart-brain-coherence” says, “The Spiritual Heart is in a way a little like a smartphone, invisibly connecting us to a large network of information. It is through an unseen energy that the heart emits that humans are profoundly connected to all living things. The energy of the heart literally links us to each other. Every person's heart contributes to a 'collective field environment.' This short video explains the importance of this connection and how we each add to this collective energy field. The energetic field of the heart even connects us with the earth itself.”

We recommend you take a few minutes to watch this video from HeartMath Institute, a short white-board video for a unique understanding of coherence and social coherence. See how they make sense within your circle of family and friends and today’s global community.

When individuals are not well self-regulated or are acting in their own interests without regard to others, it generates social incoherence. Stressful or discordant conditions in a given group act to increase emotional stress among its members and can lead to social pathologies such as violence, abuse, inefficacy, increased errors, etc. It has become increasingly clear that the leading sources of stress for adults are money issues and the social environment at work. More than 9 in 10 adults believe that stress can contribute to the development of major illnesses such as heart disease, depression and obesity, and that some types of stress can trigger heart attacks and arrhythmias. While awareness about the impact stress can have on emotional and physical health seems to be present, many working Americans continue to report symptoms of stress with 42% reporting irritability or anger, 37% fatigue, 35% a lack of interest, motivation or energy, 32% headaches and 24% upset stomachs due to stress.

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Source:

"Science of the Heart - HeartMath Institute." Heartmath.org. HeartMath Institute, 2016. Web. 06 Nov. 2016.

Natural Antibiotics Have a Real Place in Combatting Drug-Resistant Superbugs

November 2, 2016 phyto5.us

While it’s true many antibiotics save lives, we consumer them at the cost of true wellness and disease prevention. While they often save lives they also cause many unpleasant side effects as their overuse proliferates superbugs.

One of our first antibiotics, penicillin, was discovered almost 100 years ago by Dr. Alexander Fleming. Its discovery caused a breakthrough in the field of medicine and the treatment of infectious disease as more and more antibiotics were developed in the years ensuing.

Year after year, antibiotics were praised for their seemingly magical properties as they quickly vanquished destructive infectious diseases but over time the antibiotic began to be resistant rather than many of the people being treated.

While patients continued to be cured with newer and better antibiotics, the antibiotics began facilitating mutated or resistant strains of bacteria we would come to call superbugs, strains so potent they could survive an antibiotic onslaught.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:

“Each year in the United States, at least two million people become infected with bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics and at least 23,000 people die … as a direct result of these infections.”

Of the six billion animals that are raised each year in the U.S. for purposes of human consumption, the vast majority of livestock are fed antibiotics in their feed every day (20 million pounds of antibiotics per year).

On a routine basis, antibiotic-resistant bacteria develop in the animals which is then passed along to the humans who eat them. In 2011, more than half of the samples taken from supermarkets of ground turkey, pork chops and ground beef contained bacteria-resistant superbugs.

The feeding of antibiotics to livestock combined with more than 240 million antibiotics prescriptions written each year has caused an unparalleled spike in viral and bacterial infections and which is now being accepted as commonplace. Drug-resistant strains of bacteria are now dubbed superbugs or killer microbes.

This is a challenge that is becoming more serious by the year and the medical community acknowledges we must find new alternatives. The truth is, there are all kinds of alternatives already in existence and which the medical community seems to be hesitant in accepting and applying.

Scientists are currently studying the use of phages, viruses which kill bacteria but not humans. They were actually discovered in 1915, and they were used successfully for twenty years before penicillin. Thought obsolete in many places, phage therapy is still used in Eastern Europe.
Hippocrates (father of Western medicine) noted in the fifth century, B.C. that fevers were reduced and aches and pains lessened with the use of salicylic acid extracted from willow bark.
Healers in the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) tradition have relied on natural herbal antibiotics for more than 4,000 years. During the Tang dynasty, the Materia medica of 657 A.D., chronicles more than 800 medical substances extracted from minerals, metals, plants, herbs, fruits, vegetables, and cereal crops.
TCM’s foundational tenets teach that a person who lives in harmony with the five elements and five seasons or phases will have an immune system strong enough to combat disease including virulent bacteria.
Practicing chi kung is an excellent form of preventive medicine. If your vital energy is powerful and flowing harmoniously, infection cannot develop even though sufficient infectious micro-organisms that would have caused sickness in another person, are present in your body. (1)
The infectious disease, malaria, is now quite effectively treated with a tea made from an extract of sweet wormwood. During the Vietnam War, China’s allies in the North Vietnam were dying in large numbers from malaria as the mosquito-borne microorganisms known as Plasmodia had become resistant to antimalarial drugs in use at the time.
Most of us don’t realize we actually may have some of the ten most effective natural antibiotics right in our homes or kitchens. See the list which includes oil of oregano, coconut oil, raw apple cider vinegar, cabbage, honey and garlic at myhealthwire. Other natural antibiotics are turmeric, tea tree oil and olive leaf extract.

In the West, we view disease as caused by something outside of ourselves (an invading bacteria or virus, for example). As a result, Western doctors focus their treatments on annihilating the invader often at great cost to the patient rather than strengthening the patient’s own system of defense, the immune system.

Unlike Western medicine, even for an infectious disease, the Chinese do the opposite. TCM places focus not on the microbes but on restoring the healthy conditions of the patient in which the microbes cannot survive.

Mao Zedong commissioned 500 scientists to find a new cure for malaria caused by the mosquito-borne microorganisms known as Plasmodia which had become resistant to antimalarial drugs in use at the time. Some of those he commissioned used synthetic chemistry. Others pursued an ethnobotanical cure based on the annals of TCM. Phytochemist Tu Youyou and her staff identified sweet wormwood, a member of the daisy family, out of more than 2000 herbal remedies. They discovered the tea should be steeped in cold water as opposed to boiling in order to extract its most maximum effective properties. Wormwood’s primary active compound was eventually developed into Artemisinin, one of the most successful treatments on record for malaria. In 2015, Tu Youyou received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

(1) Wong, Kiew Kit. The Complete Book of Chinese Medicine: A Holistic Approach to Physical Emotional and Mental Health. Sungai Petani, Kedah: Cosmos, 2002. Print.

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Sources:

Drlica, Karl, and David Perlin. Antibiotic Resistance: Understanding and Responding to an Emerging Crisis. Upper Saddle River, NJ: FT, 2011. Print.

Elias, Jason, and Katherine Ketcham. Chinese Medicine for Maximum Immunity: Understanding the Five Elemental Types for Health and Well-being. New York: Three Rivers, 1998. Print.

http://www.naturalnews.com/037074_natural_antibiotics_superbugs_flesh-eating_bacteria.html#ixzz4OQHou0KZ

Jabr, Ferris. "Could Ancient Remedies Hold the Answer to the Looming Antibiotics Crisis?" New York Times. 20 Sept. 2016.

A Dozen Tips for Completing Unfinished Projects

October 14, 2016 phyto5.us

As we approach the end of each energetic season of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), we begin thinking about the next season and how to prepare for it. We want to get the most out of the gifts each season offers.

In TCM, we have not only four seasons but five. The fifth season is an 18-day transitional or bridge period between each of the other four seasons (Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter).

Each season corresponds to on the five elements:

The fifth energetic between-seasons period corresponds to the Earth element. We don’t give it a name other than Earth.

Any time we near the end of one of the four major seasons it’s smart to get things in order for a comfortable harmonious next season. Earth demands order, completion and tidiness. Earth loves you to take care of business.

One important way to take care of business is to finish proejcts you’ve begun. Maybe you’ve felt challenged to complete them. Here are some tips.

Get yourself connected to the reason for the project. If you don’t believe in it, you won’t have any real motivation to complete it. Humans are motivated by pain or pleasure and most of the time, we’re motivated by pain. Get connected to any undesirable consequences that will come your way if you don’t get the project finished. If the consequences aren’t all that undesirable and you still can’t get motivated, maybe you’re just not supposed to finish it.
Write down the stepping stones that make up your project with pen and paper. Use pen and paper rather than electronically record with your computer or smartphone; it’s just not the same thing. Writing it down with pen and ink is a statement of commitment.
Write only three or less steps to take each day. Use index cards and place them in a prominent place to check in with them such as on your kitchen counter. When one step is accomplished, rip up the card and throw it away.
By the inch, it’s a cinch. If three steps a day are too much, one will do. In 30 days, you’ll have more than 30 accomplishments you might not have realized before and that's a lot!
Record it. Use you the Reminders aspect of your iPhone to prompt you to complete a task. Make sure you ask Siri (or Siri alternative for Android) to remind you at a specific time on a specific day. Promise yourself in advance that when the reminder comes up, you’re going to take action right then and there.
Be realistic. Don’t set up a barrage of tasks to complete all on the same day. Spread it out.
Once a day, spend at least 30 uninterrupted seconds seeing yourself with the end goal accomplished and while you’re in a good mood.
Have a friend hold you accountable. Ask him or her to commit to calling you once or twice a week to check in to get a progress report from you. Ask your friend not to accept too many excuses from you. If you keep coming up short, maybe you’ve set yourself up to climb too high a mountain. Ask your friend to help you get reasonable with your goals and the steps you believe you should take towards completing them.
If the project seems daunting, instead of mapping out plans from start to finish, reverse engineer it. Start at the end result and go backwards jotting down or diagramming what it would take to achieve each step.
Just get it done. It’s okay if it’s not perfect. Do your best but don’t hold up completion of the project because it’s got to be perfect.
Ask for help. If you get stuck, don’t know how to execute the next step or just can’t seem to budge yourself off dead center, call a friend for ideas or encouragement.
Reward yourself when the project is completed with something within reason and which you’ve been wanting to give yourself for awhile. Celebrate!

Do Trees Have Energy? Yes. And You Can Use Their Energy to Uplift You.

September 29, 2016 phyto5.us

Don’t Take Trees for Granted. Exploring the healing power of trees.

Zhan zhuang: the art of standing like a post

Trees provide us with the healing benefits of the negative ions they give off. And equally so, they offer us the energy of Wood, according to traditional Chinese medicine. Trees are relevant for the Spring energetic season because Wood is the element of energetic Spring.

Enjoy the energy of the cypress tree in many of PHYTO5 Wood line products. All 5-element products by PHYTO5 are quantum energetic. This means the products work at not only the level of skin, they also work to balance your vital energy and emotions.

The Wood line, in particular, works to stimulate and balance your unseen vital energy. It potently balances emotions of anger and lack of confidence to kindness and confidence.

Do trees have energy? Yes. They offer you the energy of Wood which is very vital energy stimulating.

Enjoy how the vibratory frequencies of trees positively affect you in a healing sort of way. Feel mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually stimulated by the energy of Wood. Tune in and feel.
Discover the trees of Finland's Koli National Park through this short film created by award-winning documentarist Brandy Yanchyk. Hug a Tree to be Happy and feel the energy of Wood.
Learn about forest bathing of Japan and many countries. Feel the stimulating energy of Wood through Shinrin-yoku. This term means "taking in the forest atmosphere" or "forest bathing." It was developed in Japan during the 1980s and has become a cornerstone of preventive healthcare and healing in Japanese medicine.
Electromagnetic changes in the surface of leaves and roots have been measured by specially designed equipment. This proves the energy of Wood. Discover the singing trees and plants of Damanhur, Colorado.
Study how some trees offer the stimulating vital energy of Wood and medicinal healing for many conditions and sicknesses. Both bark and leaves are used for making tinctures, salves and poultices.
Develop ‘listening energy’ with trees which some call ‘tree chi gong.’ Trees have energy you can learn and benefit from.
Practice zhan zhuang, pictured above, to experience the energy of Wood element. This is the art of standing like a post. Begin this posture until you can feel the chi flowing between your palms. Then with your palms try to feel the energy of Wood flow of the tree. When you feel the current of the tree, stop and tune in to your listening energy. When you feel the tree’s energy of Wood flow, allow your own energy flow to synchronize and connect to the tree’s energy stream. This is tree chi gong practice.
Read about the ringing cedars of Russia in the Ringing Cedars series of books by Vladimir Megré. Ringing cedars are more than 500-year old Siberian cedar trees (also called Siberian pine, Pinus sibirica) that over their lifetime accumulate so much energy of Wood they start emitting a vibrating ringing sound. It’s believed these trees or pieces of their wood may produce a beneficial influence on human health and consciousness. Megré asserts through direct personal experience that the energy of wood of the ringing cedars has powerful healing properties and is capable of curing any disease of the flesh.

“Trees do emit a wide range of audible sounds apart from the rustling of their leaves, and you do not have to travel to Siberia or seek out some extraordinary specimens to hear that! Note that the sound Megré describes as ‘ringing’ is actually not a ringing of a bell or your cell phone, but rather a crackling sound similar to that of high-voltage power transmission lines. Such sounds are entirely within the range of trees’ natural capabilities…both the structure of trees (from their DNA to leaves or needles, branches and roots, and to the crown as a whole), and the materials they are composed from (be it sap, resin, wood, or waxy coating of needles) betray natural wave-receptors and energy accumulators.” –Dr. Leonid Sharshkin, Secrets of Cedar Products

Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home. Wilderness is a necessity. –John Muir (1838–1914), Scottish-born American naturalist, a pioneer of environmental conservation. Muir was largely responsible for the establishment of Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks in California (1890).

Do trees have energy? Most definitely, yes.

And they maintain an inner spiritual structure called the djed(1), the tree of knowledge.

It’s this inner tree in all trees that we spiritually share with them when we embrace them.

As Celtic tradition teaches, each tree species embodies its own knowledge. We can tune in to tree wisdom and converse with it. Our tree teachers are available to us all. We only have to sit with a tree and listen.

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(1) djed: from Egyptian mythology, a pillar-like symbol in hieroglyphics representing stability

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Source:

–Hidalgo, Sharlyn. The Healing Power of Trees: Spiritual Journeys through the Celtic Tree Calendar. Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 2010. Print.

Nature Generates Negative Ions Perfectly and Purely

September 8, 2016 phyto5.us

There’s one primary way you can get the most out of the Fall energetic season of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). Generate negative ions in your world.

You can creatively rig your house to generate negative ions. But your simplest most elegant solution is to go outside in nature.

How are negative ions created? How does nature generate negative ions?

Let’s understand what positive ions are first. Positive ions are atoms or molecules that lose one or more electrons creating a shortage of electrons.

In contrast, negative ions gain one or more additional electrons to make them negatively charged as a whole.

Negative ions are these odorless, tasteless, invisible molecules.

Nature has many ways to perfectly generate negative ions. It constantly strives to strike a delicate positive-negative ion balance.

When air molecules break apart, they generate negative ions. Sunlight, radiation, ultraviolet rays, the vital energy of plants and moving air and water directly participate in this action.

Positive ions normally concentrate the air at high levels. But when a thunderstorm naturally generates negative ions, the ratio of negative to positive ions flips.

During and following the storm, the number of positive ions gradually declines while the concentration of negative ions increases. Biogically active, they permeate the air at perfect levels giving the air that special almost undefinable quality we all enjoy so much.

Are negative ions good for your health?

Negative ions make a positive impact on the natural 24-hour cycle. Without question, they contribute positively to your health and vitality.

After a thunderstorm occurs, for example, a very high concentration of tens of thousands of negative ions fills the air around you. This might sound like a large number of negative ions. But negative ions are never harmful to you even if their concentration is high.

On the contrary, an excess of positive ions harms and diminishes health. You’ll find air excessively charged with positive ions in closed in spaces like offices, factories, and shopping malls.

These closed in spaces are positive and cannot possibly generate negative ions.

Nature is your best and purest negative ions generator.

Make it a habit to enjoy nature frequently. You’ll never have to wonder if you’re getting the healing benefits of negative ions. You couldn’t enjoy a more perfect negative ions generator than nature itself.

Nature’s the perfect agent to generate negative ions in these places:

mountains
parks
waterfalls and fountains (You can even create the negative ion effect in your bathroom shower.)
springs
beaches and pounding surfs
forests (especially pine forests)
moving air and wind
dirt, earth, sand

You can be negative ions generator yourself right in your home or office environment.

These natural practices generate negative ions perfectly and purely.

Burn beeswax candles. They clean the air and produce negative ions. Beeswax candles also assist to reduce allergy and asthma symptoms.
Operate a Himalayan salt lamp wherever you spend the most amount of time in your home. Himalayan salt lamps counteract electronic vibrations and excessive positive ions your household electronic devices generate. The heated salt attracts and absorbs water in the air and then evaporates it. The salt mixes with the water molecules creating a solution where positively charged ions of sodium and the negatively charged ions of chloride neutralize. They then release into your environment to reduce pollutants, irritants and allergens from the air.
Run an indoor water feature or fountain. The force or energy of falling or splashing water causes is key. Here the neutral particles in air split freeing up electrons to attach to other air molecules to create negative ions.
Have amethyst and tourmaline crystals nearby or wear them. Much like the Himalayan salt lamp, tourmaline converts moisture from the air to generate negative ions. Amethyst works the same way.
SurroSurround yourself with plants. Plants clean the air by taking in carbon dioxide and breathing out fresh oxygen. This generates negative ions in the air. Some plants release higher levels of negative ions than others. The best choices are chrysanthemum, coconut palm, gerbera, spider plant and weeping fig.
Use rUse radiant heating from far infrared devices. They warm the body and not the air and generate negative ions.
Sit in front of bonfire and hearth fires. They generate negative ions too.
Walk barefoot on soil, grass or sand. You want to put your body into direct contact with the earth. This connection body generates negative ions and relays them into your body. It aligns you the same electric energy level as earth’s.
Use grounding inserts in your shoes or wearing earthing sandals to generate negative ions and relay them into your body.

Rules of thumb for finding nature’s negative ions generators

These simple yet powerful natural settings generate negative ions:

There are more negative ions in the woods than in the fields.
Enjoy sunny days. They generate negative ions more so than on cloudy days.
The tips of pine needles on forest evergreens are superior negative ions generators. Get out into the forest.
Your own grass just outside your home is a ready-to-access negative ion generator. Walk barefoot on it for at least 15 minutes per day.
Go outside at sunrise and sunset for negative ions for your health. Those are the times of day when the sun and atmosphere generate negative ions at perfect levels. Too many positive ions float in the air at noon and either side of it.
Plants are nature's most prolific negative ion generators. They conduct the negative energy of the earth into the air, ejecting it from the tips of their leaves.

One potted plant per 100 square feet of floor space can help clean the air in and generate negative ions to negatively charge the air in the average home or office.

Use the best varieties of potted plants and 15 to 20 potted of them in the room you use most.

Best plants that act as negative ion generators are philodendrons, spider plants, aloe vera, peace lilies, corn plants, potted ivy, snake plants, and flowering bananas.

This group of 15 to 20 potted plants will do the work of a good high-efficiency air cleaner. Not only will they purify the air, they’ll generate negative ions on a daily basis negatively charging and invigorate your breathing air.

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Paulien, Gunther B. The Divine Prescription and Science of Health and Healing. Brushton, NY: TEACH Services, 1997. Print.

Body, Mind and Spirit Alignment: The Highest Wellness Goal

September 1, 2016 phyto5.us

Over the past couple decades we’ve seen more and more practitioners offer holistic balance for mental and physical wellness. These practitioners have responded to the numbers of people in search of their modalities and they’ve achieved a great deal of momentum and success. Still, the mental and physical wellness they help their clients achieve is incomplete. This is because a deeper dimension to the human being exists. The most successful holistic caregivers are those who connect with this far deeper dimension. It’s how they help their clients achieve more complete and lasting wellness.

This deeper aspect, call it spiritual if you want, exists outside of religious beliefs. We find it also in the consciousness of atheists and agnostics.

Energy medicine supported by ancient holistic philosophies knows that just as there are generally invisible energy fields surrounding the physical body (the ethereal, the emotional, and the mental), there is also an outer spiritual field that envelops the whole. Called the “causal” field, it is intended to be cause over all other aspects of our being (that are effects).

For most people, the human experience reflects the journey on which we discover ourselves and the world. We learn first about and through the body, then through our emotions and later our intellect–and never going beyond.

It is insufficient if we subscribe to the notion that our spirit has primacy, even dominion, over all other aspects of our being. Our spiritual self projects an energy field that directs and maintains the harmony of the other fields only when we have a conscious awareness of it. Its most direct effect is intended to be on the mental, which in turn should control the emotional, the ethereal and finally, the physical.

That alignment is the highest wellness goal.

The ideal integration from spirit to the material body is extremely rare, yet possible. It is exemplified by the white or golden aura depicted by artists to convey the perfection of spiritual masters.

Auras are generally visible only to the few that have developed that special gift, those who are attuned to such higher frequencies.

Wellness and wisdom are intertwined and wisdom is expected to be gained with age. Ultimately, for those of a certain age, wellness requires an acceptance of the cycle of life with physical death as its natural conclusion.

Acceptance and surrender become part of our emotional, mental, and spiritual evolution. It is a precondition to maintaining wellness for older people.

Wellness centers have the potential to become learning centers where we should gain knowledge about ourselves, from the physical to the spiritual, and where we are taught how to

live from the spiritual to the physical. This is achievable even with those who do not believe in any God but who have an openness of mind regarding a dimension of humans existing beyond the mental and physical.

Clearly, not everyone is ready for this which is a good thing because there would not be enough teachers to go around. Yet, it is not too early to get started!

At the first stage of wellness where we align our mental and physical health we learn to be aware that our life experience and our state of wellness are products of what we do, feel and think. We learn to develop ways to achieve greater control over our body and emotions. We choose physical activities to create or enhance awareness in the moment as attention and energy flow through the body.

Meditation helps the process of inner self-discovery and achievement of greater dominion over body and mind, but at the more advanced level where we seek alignment of all three–body, mind and SPIRIT, a deeper practice of meditation reveals to us that we are not simply our body, emotions, and mind activity any more than we are defined by our title, financial capacity or size of our house.

We discover a new connection, a higher spiritual dimension from which all else depends. This revelation initiates a shift from a life centered on our body-mind entity ensconced in our particular life situation to a vision of our unique identity as a state of consciousness that we can elevate by the decisions we are willing to make and live by.

In this higher process, it becomes clearer to us that our ego is not who we really are. We discover that it is rather a make-believe sense of self that represents an obstacle in achieving higher levels of wellness, wisdom, and peace.

Achievement at this higher more esoteric yet important level of being can appear to be contrary to the beginning of our search for wellness when we placed such great emphasis only on how we look and feel. But at that point it should become clear that from this new state of consciousness, it becomes easier and more enjoyable maintaining our body, emotions and thoughts in a state of harmony and true wellness.

Source: Energetic Skincare, Naturally by PHYTO5® President Jon Canas

How to Amplify Your Vital Life Force Energy

August 18, 2016 phyto5.us

If you want a higher quality of life—health, healing and vitality, live in ways that amplify your life force. But what is life force?

Energy medicines, with their long-standing traditions rooted Asia, India, ancient Greece and Egypt, operate on the same foundational tenet: Yes, the body is physical matter. But it’s just as much unseen vital energy—the life force that animates all living beings.

**The Life Force Definition Expanded**

Various spiritual philosophies call life force energy by different names.

prana: In yoga, Ayurveda and Indian martial arts, the Sanskrit word for life force or vital principle; the life-giving force;
pneuma: In stoic thought, the vital spirit, soul, or creative force of a person;
qi: the circulating life force whose existence and properties are the basis of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM); this life force energy fills the universe.

According to TCM, there are many kinds of chi or qi imbued with a life force energy all their own. TCM calls this qi heavenly because it includes the energy of the planets, stars and constellations, sunshine and moonlight, and the energy of God the Infinite Itself—the source and force of creation and Universal Love.

The near one hundred year old seminal books, Life and Teaching of the Masters of the Far East, chronicle the teachings of advanced Himalayan Masters. These Masters possess unlimited wisdom on human potential—physically, mentally and spiritually.

And they define life force energy this way:

It was only a short time ago that your learned men began to know of the delicate system of arteries and veins composing the circulatory system of your bodies. It is still left for them to determine that there is a far more delicate and subtle circulatory system throughout the body, which carries the life force to every atom.
Through your nervous system this life force is sent to a set of cells in the brain. These cells, in turn, act as a distributor for the [life] force and it is sent out to every atom of the body along the nerves, for which it has an affinity. It also acts as a protection for the nerves.
If the life force is dissipated, the cells become set and cannot change for the new cells that are formed to take their place are thrown off instead of the old ones, which gradually decompose and die.
If the life force is conserved, the cells change as readily at five hundred years as at ten.

Conserving, even amplifying life force energy, is part of how the Himalayan Masters enable themselves to live indefinitely.

Networks of Life Force Energy

Did Modern Day Deepak Chopra, MD Study the Himalayan Masters? He defines life force energy very much like they do.

In Chopra’s first book on agelessness, Ageless Body, Timeless Mind: The Quantum Alternative to Growing Old, he discusses how humans are magnificently organized networks of energy, information, and intelligence.

He explains how we participate in dynamic exchange with our environment, fully capable of transformation and renewal.

Chopra defines vital energy as a subtle energy flowing throughout the body.

We may think the human body is little more than biological matter similar to machinery that deteriorates steadily and unavoidably over time.

But Chopra explains life force energy in the human being differently: When life force energy flows abundantly, we slow the aging process.

We amplify our life force energy through lifestyle and belief. It’s all in the way we treat our bodies and even in how we treat and utilize our minds.

The universal principle of “Like Attracts Like” is always at work. So anything we do to reaffirm life and vitality will reaffirm, even increase, life force energy, and vitality and life itself in our bodies.

Especially during yin energy times of year—the seasons when we withdraw more into ourselves—take time to absorb the heavenly qi and increase your life force energy. These yin energy seasons according to TCM are energetic Fall and Winter.

The energies of these seasons will absolutely support you to amplify your life force energy.

PHYTO5 offers respective lines of quantum energetic skincare for the skin conditions associated with TCM’s five seasons and for the seasons themselves. Quantum energetic, they’re formulated to help you balance your skin condition, vital life force energy and emotions.

Earth’s Helpful Qi

Earth itself has energy to give you that will encourage your life force energy flow. The martial art, Qi Gong, calls the practice of absorbing natural lie the art of gathering heavenly qi. When you practice Qi Gong or any of the following activities, you grow your life force energy.

Walk barefoot.

“Prana contained in the ground is called ground prana or ground vitality globule. This is absorbed through the soles of the feet. This is done automatically and unconsciously.” — Choa Kok Sui in Miracles through Pranic Healing: Practical Manual on Energy Healing.

2) Practice prayanayama or pranic deep breathing (also known as Tan Tien(1) cleansing breath).

Accomplish pranic breathing nourishing to life force energy by:

touching your tongue to your palate;
breathing through your abdomen and through the nostrils;
inhaling slowly and holding for one count;
exhaling slowly and holding for one count;
being sure you don’t over-expand or over-contract the abdomen.

If this seems too complicated, simply practice six breaths a minute. The life force energy you amplify with this practice will slow aging and many of its causes.

Read our instructional blog on six breaths a minute here.

Life force energy charges your aura as well as your body. Choa Kok Sui also says:

“Pranic breathing energizes you to such an extent that your aura temporarily expands by 100% or more. The inner aura expands to about eight inches or more, the health aura to about four feet or more, the other aura to about two meters or more.”

3) Sit in a nature setting and absorb the flowing natural energies. Invite them into your own vital life force energy.

4) Eat living food rich in real earth nutrients. When you eat fresh produce it’s like eating light. Living fruits and vegetables actually contain trapped light you can absorb to increase your life force energy.

Try to eat more organic than conventionally grown produce. Some experts say organic contains a higher overall nutritive content not to mention its own life force will be more intact than conventionally grown.

5) Drink pure water. Water absorbs prana life force energy from sunlight.

6) Absorb the life force energy of the sun, moon and galaxy. Your skin and eyes will absorb their qi life force energy. This nourishing energy will travel into your brain and circulated through the pineal, pituitary and hypothalamus glands to animate them with life force.

7) Hug a tree.

“Certain trees such as pine trees or old and gigantic healthy trees exude a lot of excess prana. Tired or sick people benefit much by lying down or resting underneath these trees.” — Choa Kok Sui.

And says Jasmuheen in The Madonna Frequency and the Food of Gods:

“Trees and all plant life are living fields of intelligence that just happen to exist within the confines of a different molecular structure than the human bio-system. They operate via a group consciousness and are not as individualized as we are and they love receiving our carbon dioxide as much as we benefit from breathing in the oxygen they generate.”

8) Walk in breezes to absorb wind prana life force energy. Its life force will cleanse and revitalize you.

9) Ask in prayer to feel and receive qi life force energy. The universe will bow to your prayer.

10) Meditate. Meditation gives you a sound and solid foundation for increasing your life force energy from within.

“In a comfortable place, on a warm evening under the stars … sit in meditation. Engage Tan Tien breathing(1). Find the rhythm of your breath and your center of balance and close your eyes. Let your breath open and relax the joints of your body. Now with your breath, circulate the Chi through the Orbits.(1)” —Elise Dirlam Ching et al in Chi and Creativity: Vital Energy and Your Inner Artist.

11) Practice Tai Chi and/or Qi Gong. It will surely increase your life force.

“What sets Tai Chi apart from other exercise programs is its internal work. In a series of postures, or forms, the mind and body work in unison to move Chi (vital energy) from one part of the body to the next.” — John Young Man So in Tai Chi for Everyone: A Life-long Exercise Program for Longevity and Health.

12) Do yoga to amp up your life force energy. Even practicing at your own pace and level is all you need to achieve an increase in life force vitality.

13) Learn to feel your chakra system and work with it to amplify your life force energy.

“Chakras are personal energies. They are energy vortices, or wheels, inside the body that receive and moderate universal life force energies, or chi. Each chakra acts as a kind of valve or regulator and controls the flow of energy through our system. The universal life force (chi) enters the body through the chakra at the top of the head and travels down the spinal column to the other chakras. When we are living in harmony with the Universe, these vortices, or valves or chakras, are open and allow an abundant flow of chi energy.” — Connie Johnson, Connie in Spiritual Concepts for a New Age: Psychic Serenity in the Human Experience.

14) Don’t underestimate the power of visualization. Visualize the flow of qi life force energy flowing throughout your body and mind.

“With consistent practice one can visualize Chi flowing inside the cavities and meridians of the body, creating a sense of health and well-being.” — John Young Man So in Tai Chi for Everyone: A Life-long Exercise Program for Longevity and Health.

15) Receive life force energy amplification from an energy medicine practitioner and/or bodyworker.

“Prana can also be projected to another person for healing. Persons with a lot of excess prank tend to make other people around them feel better and livelier. However, those who are depleted tend to unconsciously absorb prana from other people.” —Raphael Merlotte in The World Before Lies.

Bodywork includes many holistic therapies like massage and acupuncture. The work they do will positively get your energy flowing and ignite your life force energy.

16) Finally, laugh, laugh and laugh some more. Laughter is an uplifting healing therapy. It makes your whole being come alive with animated life force energy. It brings you into a relaxed state paving the way for unrestricted life force energy to flow and heal.

…

Endnotes:

(1) Orbits: “Energy flows from the Tan Tien(2) down to the base of the spine, then up the back along the spine to the crown, then over the head and down the front of the body. Practitioners believe this exercise prevents the body's natural Qi (Chi, energy) from becoming depleted.” —http://sarinastone.com/microcosmic-orbit-practice.html

(2) Tan Tien is loosely translated as elixir field, sea of qi, or simply energy center. Tan Tien are important focal points for meditative and exercise techniques such as Qi Gong and other martial arts like Tai Qi Ch’uan; also in TCM.

…

Sources:

Life and Teaching of the Masters of the Far East, Vol. 1. DeVorss & Company, 1935.

Sui, Choa Kok., and Choa Kok. Sui. Miracles through Pranic Healing: Practical Manual on Energy Healing. Metro Manila, Philippines: Institute for Inner Studies Foundation, 2004. Print.

Jasmuheen. The Madonna Frequency & the Food of Gods. Noosa Heads, Australia: Self Empowerment Academy, 2005. Print.

Ching, Elise Dirlam., and Kaleo Ching. Chi and Creativity: Vital Energy and Your Inner Artist. Berkeley, CA: Blue Snake, 2007. Print.

So, John Young Man. Tai Chi for Everyone: A Life-long Exercise Program for Longevity and Health. Place of Publication Not Identified: Lulu.com, 2008. Print.

Johnson, Connie. Spiritual Concepts for a New Age: Psychic Serenity in the Human Experience. Print.

Merlotte, Raphael. The World Before Lies. First ed. 2012. Print.

The Timing of TCM's Seasons Doesn't Exactly Line Up with the Gregorian 4-Season Calendar

August 15, 2016 phyto5.us

People are often surprised when we announce the start date of any energetic season according to traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). For example, Metal energetic season—the energy of the Fall—starts on August 7. Early August still feels like the peak of Summer with no Fall in the air yet.

Let’s clarify the start of any of the five TCM seasons:

The start of an energetic season means that a new and invisible energetic influence is at work and that in time its manifestations will become tangible. The start of the Metal season doesn’t mean that Fall is here.

It means that a new influence is at work and will bring about a change. Yet, when Metal energy comes into play, the manifestation of the Fire/Summer energy is still being felt although the energy of Fire is no longer at its peak.

A metaphor might help:

You push a stroller in front of you and decide to give it an extra push and let it roll in front of you on its own. What you have done is create a momentum for the stroller making it move as if you were still pushing it although you are not. You can see two phases in what happened: First is your energetic action and second, the result or manifestation of it.

While the analogy is not complete, it might help differentiate between the start of a season that initiates a change and the remnant of the manifestation that lingers on over the next energetic season.

Since it is the energetic “push” that has an influence on humans, animals and plants, in order to maintain a state of balance—wellness—we need to focus on the period of the “push” rather than simply when the manifestations are evident. This is the reason we make available to our clients the dates of the five energetic seasons, because we cannot act simply when the seasonal manifestations are felt.

It is also worth reminding that the energetic seasons are entirely based on the apparent movement of the sun at it travels between the zenith of its course in the northern hemisphere, and the nadir of its course in the southern hemisphere, and back; making the same trip every year. In fact, it is the timing of that trip that defines the yearly calendar. In other words, the calendar is framed by set dates: the two solstices and the two equinoxes. That is the reason the energetic calendar has fixed dates year after year, contrary to the Chinese calendar based on the movement of the moon, yielding different dates for the Chinese New Year, every year.

Tao is a composite of everything, the intrinsic order of all things. The way we interact with Tao, with nature, is described by Yin-Yang and the Five Phases. Chinese cosmology suggests that life’s movement is like a spinning ball on a flowing river, a tide of wind and water, a vortex revolving while rhythmically contracting and expanding (Yin-Yang) as we are varied along by the currents of Tao….

The Five Phases identify stages of transformation, patterns of expansion and contraction, proliferation and withering. Each Phase has an intrinsic primal energy, an ontological influence that shapes events. For example, human beings go through cycles in their lives similar to the seasons in nature—beginning in birth and ending in death, with stages of growth, maturity, and decay in between. Within the life cycle, the power of each Phase can be observed.

—Beinfield, Harriet, and Efrem Korngold. Between Heaven and Earth: A Guide to Chinese Medicine. New York: Ballantine, 1992. Print.

9+ Ways to Prepare for TCM's Energetic Fall Season Beginning August 7

July 29, 2016 phyto5.us

According to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), Energetic Fall and the Season of the Metal Element begins August 7 and ends October 20.

As the wheel of the seasons turns to fall, the days shorten, the earth cools, and the expanded energy of summer begins to consolidate. – Bliss, Nishanga. Real Food All Year: Eating Seasonal Whole Foods for Optimal Health & All-day Energy. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications, 2012. Print.

Metal energy is consolidating with inward movement, like a flower closing its petals. Be one with nature. It's okay to close your petals for awhile.
Metal’s motion is determined, forceful, strong, unyielding, self-reliant, reserved and sophisticated. Use these to your best advantage.
Metal is associated with the lungs, respiratory system and is related to the nose. Take in the heavenly Chi.
Metal is also associated with the large intestine, an organ of elimination. Through the lungs we not only regenerate from the air we breathe, but we also eliminate the carbonic gas produced by the metabolism of our cells. Elimination and cleansing is both a physical and a psychological activity. It is one of the purposes of this energetic season.
Both courage and sadness are emotions associated with this season. Allow yourself to weep when you feel to but also find the courage to face what's ahead.
Metal represents the direction West (the direction of dreams and visions). In Taoist mythology, West is guarded by the White Tiger, known for righteousness, independence and determination. Stand facing West and honor the "Westness" of Autumn.
This season's color is represented by white or blue; light white candles against the growing darkness of the season.

Here are 9 More Tips to Thrive During the Energetic Season of Fall

Practice letting go in all things.
Release old resentments or hurts. Start fresh.
When feeling sad or stuck, remember that nothing is permanent. It will pass.
Eliminate negative and destructive habits.
Meditate or pray. This is the time of year when spiritual vision comes easier.
Cleanse your body. Support the immune system by eating more fresh fruits and veggies and less animal products.
Help your body to rehydrate by drinking lots of water and eating high water content produce.
Breathe and smell the new scents of nature and the season. Note the subtle or remarkable change in the quality of the air.
Complete unfinished projects. Prepare for the winter.

Skin

Dryness is the ruling chi of the Fall season. For skin, the Metal energetic season is the optimum time to address demineralization, surface dehydration, puffiness and congestion, and dull, lifeless skin. PHYTO5’s quantum energetic Metal energetic line has mineralizing and anti-inflammatory properties, increases circulation, promotes oxygenation of skin, diminishes swelling and puffiness, and rehydrates and rejuvenates the skin.

Food

Sour foods like lemon, plum, pear, and mango work to obstruct bodily functions, which make them helpful in alleviating diarrhea, excessive perspiration, and hemorrhoids, among other conditions. Sour foods are most active in the liver, where they counteract the effects of rich, greasy food. Sour foods are related to the fall season. – Ross, Rosa, and Suzanne LeVert. Chinese Healing Foods. New York: Pocket, 1998. Print.

Your diet should be dictated by the rhythms of the external world. Food gains power to maintain health from its relationship to the external world... Root vegetables, such as burdock and turnips have downward-moving energy, so give in to the natural desire to eat them in the fall. – Cohen, Misha Ruth. The New Chinese Medicine Handbook: An Innovative Guide to Integrating Eastern Wisdom with Western Practice for Modern Healing. Fair Winds Press, 2015. Print.

For an excellent Fall season Qi Gong exercise, check out the YouTube video below.

18 Keys to Inner Beauty

July 22, 2016 phyto5.us

We've all encountered a person who’s not obviously physically beautiful but was more than beautiful nevertheless. He or she was the total package radiating outward an inner beauty. People like these are more beautiful than mere physical appearance could ever boast on its own. They’re far more beautiful than supermodels. Their inner beauty glows and affects their outer beauty.

Here are 18 Keys to Inner Beauty You Can Simply and Immediately Put Into Action:

Become rooted in your spirituality–your connection to a higher power (not religiosity); inner beauty is a spiritual thing;
Resolve to be kind to everyone; let your light shine through your eyes and in every smile you give;
Be a generous giver; an unexpected benefit of giving charitably of your time and service is that you feel gratified and it radiates outward;
Focus on letting go of the need for approval from anyone; stand firm in what you feel is right for you to do and don't look back; this kind of confidence is utterly attractive;
Be compassionate; put yourself always in the other one's shoes; when you do your heart warms and shines;
Allow other's their path; let go of the need to correct anyone else no matter how off track you think they are; don't worry, they'll find their way;
Eradicate judgment from your life; know that there are always other sides to the story and that everything we perceive goes through our own personal not usually objective filters;
Practice the art of zen, of being in the now moment; you won't necessarily achieve perfection or come even close to it but the moments of success you will have will take you very far along the road to inner stillness;
Practice meditation every day; it will engender a tantalizing peace about you;
Refrain from talking about yourself unless someone asks; don't be the one who is so self-consumed, every conversation must revolve around you;
Nourish your mind and soul with uplifting, inspirational and spiritual texts;
Resolve and know that every single thing you do you do on purpose; this higher level of consciousness will make you very attractive;
Just as we feed our physical bodies with nutrition, our auric fields require nutrition, too; attend bonfires or sit in front of a bank of candles and let the light of the flames feed your aura;
Consciously open your communication channels with the Divine who resides within you; re-esta blish the easy back-and-forth flow of communion between you and your Creator;
Feel; don't think so much; get attuned to your heart and live by it;
Be an integrity person, a person of your word; say what you mean and mean what you say;
Live in accordance with your core values and beliefs in all arenas of your life; don't compromise these or you will become very sad, unhappy, maybe even depressed which is completely contrary to inner beauty;
Make your heart and soul an inner altar where prayers and offerings are placed; build your altar over time; create a relationship with it and intentionally and always infuse it with light and love.

PHYTO5 five element lines of natural skincare, in essence, help you achieve your natural beauty aligning your skincare regiment with the five seasons of traditional Chinese medicine.

• Current Promos
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Embrace the following attributes, characteristics and specific organ activity for the Wood element and Spring season.

Best Foods for Wood Element (in alphabetical order)

In TCM, the element represented by Spring is Wood.

A Tao Te Ching Verse for Phoenix

How does this change affect your skincare regimen and your choice of products?

The physical effects of aging may accelerate as a result of:

Some factors have little to do with the amount of free time or disposable income you have.

First, the body is not simply matter but is what is known as vital energy as well.

Second, everything has an energy field.

Fourth, what we commonly perceive with our physical senses and intellect is never the whole picture.

Fifth, all human emotions can be placed on a spectrum defined by two sets of fundamentally opposite qualities.

One important way to take care of business is to finish proejcts you’ve begun. Maybe you’ve felt challenged to complete them. Here are some tips.

Do trees have energy? Yes. They offer you the energy of Wood which is very vital energy stimulating.

Do trees have energy? Most definitely, yes.

How are negative ions created? How does nature generate negative ions?

Are negative ions good for your health?

Nature is your best and purest negative ions generator.

You can be negative ions generator yourself right in your home or office environment.

Rules of thumb for finding nature’s negative ions generators

**The Life Force Definition Expanded**

Networks of Life Force Energy

Earth’s Helpful Qi

Let’s clarify the start of any of the five TCM seasons:

According to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), Energetic Fall and the Season of the Metal Element begins August 7 and ends October 20.

Here are 9 More Tips to Thrive During the Energetic Season of Fall

Skin

Food

For an excellent Fall season Qi Gong exercise, check out the YouTube video below.

Here are 18 Keys to Inner Beauty You Can Simply and Immediately Put Into Action:

Skincare Professionals, click below to opt-in.

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Embrace the following attributes, characteristics and specific organ activity for the Wood element and Spring season.

Best Foods for Wood Element (in alphabetical order)

In TCM, the element represented by Spring is Wood.

A Tao Te Ching Verse for Phoenix

How does this change affect your skincare regimen and your choice of products?

The physical effects of aging may accelerate as a result of:

Some factors have little to do with the amount of free time or disposable income you have.

First, the body is not simply matter but is what is known as vital energy as well.

Second, everything has an energy field.

Fourth, what we commonly perceive with our physical senses and intellect is never the whole picture.

Fifth, all human emotions can be placed on a spectrum defined by two sets of fundamentally opposite qualities.

One important way to take care of business is to finish proejcts you’ve begun. Maybe you’ve felt challenged to complete them. Here are some tips.

Do trees have energy? Yes. They offer you the energy of Wood which is very vital energy stimulating.

Do trees have energy? Most definitely, yes.

How are negative ions created? How does nature generate negative ions?

Are negative ions good for your health?

Nature is your best and purest negative ions generator.

You can be negative ions generator yourself right in your home or office environment.

Rules of thumb for finding nature’s negative ions generators

The Life Force Definition Expanded

Networks of Life Force Energy

Earth’s Helpful Qi

Let’s clarify the start of any of the five TCM seasons:

According to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), Energetic Fall and the Season of the Metal Element begins August 7 and ends October 20.

Here are 9 More Tips to Thrive During the Energetic Season of Fall

Skin

Food

For an excellent Fall season Qi Gong exercise, check out the YouTube video below.

Here are 18 Keys to Inner Beauty You Can Simply and Immediately Put Into Action:

Skincare Professionals, click below to opt-in.

May We Help You?FAQsShipping PolicyReturns, Terms, ConditionsPrivacy

**The Life Force Definition Expanded**

May We Help You?
FAQs
Shipping Policy
Returns, Terms, Conditions
Privacy