What Really Works: The Insider’s Guide to Complementary Health. Susan Clark

uplifted when given the opportunity to immerse themselves in water, and natural healers believe you can cleanse and re-energise your own domestic water supply, especially in preparation for bathing, by stirring the water in spirals as it flows from the tap.

      In the 1960s, the Canadian researcher Bernard Grad experimented with water that had been treated by a healer and found it not only accelerated the growth of plant seeds but had an anti-depressant effect on patients suffering a negative outlook. Water also plays an increasingly important role in what many are calling the new medicine of the 21st century – Vibrational Healing – and in one of the oldest natural therapies, homeopathy. With techniques such as the Bach Flower Remedies and other flower essences, the energetic and healing essence of the plant is transferred, through the power of sunlight, to the medium of water.

      Water has always played a role in spiritual rituals and meditation. When you meditate, sit facing North and place a small bowl of pure water to the West. This is an ancient Celtic shamanic and Native American healing tradition where the water signifies the emotions.

       A Simple Cleansing Ritual

      The Indian yogis, who live for years and who all look much younger than their biological age, use cleansing rituals to purify both the physical body and the mind. One of the more extreme is to use fasting and pure water only to purify the body and soul. One simple cleansing technique that you can easily incorporate into your everyday life, however busy you are, is called Jala Netti. It works fantastically well to relieve respiratory problems and prevent asthma attacks, and is very effective if you are prone to a build-up of mucus in the body, especially after eating dairy products. On an emotional level, it is said by the yogis to help you let go of deep-rooted anger and to release those energy blocks that may be holding you back in your life.

      The first time I tried it, it made me cry – which I later learned is not unusual. It is also an excellent way to keep the nasal passages in tip-top condition, to resist infection and keep your immune system strong. Many people, once they get the hang of it, practise Jala Netti every day. Others only use it when they feel a blockage threatening or when, for example, they have spent the day in a polluted city centre.

      Jala Netti – How to Do It

      You will need a small Jala Netti pot. These are not expensive and can be bought from shops and suppliers which specialise in yoga accesories (see Resources). Find a screw-top glass jar (an old, sterilised jam jar will work) and carefully pour a tablespoon of natural salt into the bottom. Boil the kettle and, when cooled so that it is just warm to the touch, pour the water into this jar, over the salt. Watch the salt dissolve and stop, for a moment, to think about the amazing qualities of water as a solvent. (To liquify salt without water, you would need to heat it in a furnace to 800 degrees C.)

      Now, pour this solution into your Jala Netti pot until the liquid comes close to the top. Take this, together with a pack of soft tissues, to the bathroom, where you are going to perform your Jala Netti cleansing over the sink. The idea is to cleanse both nasal passages by gently pouring the water into one nostril and allowing it to pass out through the other. To do this, you insert the spout of the Jala Netti pot into the nostril itself and tip your head to one side. If you are cleansing the right-hand nostril, tip the head to the left. Repeat on the other side.

      Don’t worry if it feels odd at first. You will soon get used to this sensation. Don’t worry either if this ritual, which stimulates the vagus nerve that runs from the brainstem to the abdomen, with branches to almost all the major organs, makes you feel emotional. This is perfectly normal and is an excellent sign of the deep inner cleansing that is taking place and boosting your health and well-being.

Sunlight

       The Greek sun god, Apollo was also the god of medicine.

       The Big, Bad Sun

      The sun has had such a bad press for so long now that we seem to have forgotten sunlight was once highly prized for it’s many health benefits. Although sunlight therapy was a popular treatment 100, even 50 years ago, a whole generation of us have now grown up thinking we must keep out of the sun and that we can only venture out safely if we’ve plastered our faces and bodies in high-factor (and expensive!) sunblocks and creams.

      Thanks to 20 years of successful campaigning by orthodox health professionals, a tan, for most people, is no longer perceived as being something healthy, no matter how good it makes them feel. And sunbathing, which we have come to believe is an almost certain prelude to cancer, is seen as being almost as irresponsible as smoking.

      In the Western world, 90% of the population now spends 90% of their time indoors, which means the only time most of us ever truly get to escape what can seem like a twilight existence and feel the warmth of the bright sun’s rays is when we strip off on holiday. Of course what happens the minute we hit the beach is that we forget all that sensible health educational advice, try and squeeze a year’s worth of exposure into two short weeks and end up, not surprisingly, roasted red, raw and burnt, which really is a health hazard.

      There is no question that unprotected and unaccustomed exposure to intense sunlight like this will burn most skin types. Scientists are convinced this can trigger one of the fastest-growing and frightening of the killer cancers, malignant melanoma, and we should not ignore the risks. But we have all been so busy worrying about the harmful effects of the sun that it has not occurred to most of us to stop and ask why sunlight (or heliotherapy) played such an important role in medicine before antibiotics were commonplace, or whether we could still benefit from it now?

      Why, for instance, were young mothers in the 1960s so anxious to park those enormous Mary Poppins-type perambulators outdoors so their baby could get plenty of fresh air and natural sunlight, and why, we should be asking, was a scientific review of the medical literature – which concluded that ‘the benefits of moderate exposure to sunlight outweighed by a considerable degree the risks of skin cancer, premature ageing and melanoma’ – so effectively buried by all those anti-sun campaigns that few of us ever heard of it?¹

       Time for a Rethink?

      The time has come to re-examine the facts. What researchers are beginning to rediscover is that safe sunbathing will not harm your health. Instead, it will positively provide a serious and sustained boost and protect you from a wide range of diseases including chronic skin problems and internal cancers.¹ If this is right, and sunlight really can protect against lung, bowel and breast cancers, heart disease, psoriasis and even the degenerative nerve condition multiple sclerosis (MS), then we all need to re-think our attitude to being out in the sun.

      In his excellent book, The Healing Sun – Sunlight and Health in the 21st Century, the complementary health practitioner and sunlight researcher Richard Hobday, writes: ‘Each year, lack of sunlight probably kills thousands more people than skin cancer.’

      He knows this is a controversial claim, and one that flies in the face of 20 years of anti-sun campaigning, but he justifies his position by explaining something few people realise: Sunlight actually lowers cholesterol levels, and so is an excellent and natural tool for helping protect against heart disease.

      Since this is still the No. 1 killer in the Western world, then even if sunlight has only a small protective effect, Hobday argues, the number of lives saved by controlled, safe and moderate exposure to the sun would greatly outweigh the number of deaths caused by malignant melanoma – but only, of course, once people know how to control their exposure and sunbathe safely.

      The key word here – and the one that must be understood if you are to benefit in any way from changing your attitude to being out in the sun – is the word MODERATE. In other words, sunlight therapy only works when you go about it in a safe and controlled way. This means building up your exposure slowly and gradually. It does not mean booking a flight to the Bahamas after spending 49 weeks in a windowless office, throwing caution to the wind and allowing your poor body to sizzle.

       Why Being in the Sun Makes You Feel So Good

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