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[post_content] => Years ago, I read a book on the theory of homeopathic medicine that changed the way I thought about health and inspired me to go into medicine. One of the most interesting concepts regarded a hierarchy of systems and layers within human beings. According to the Greek teacher and author, George Vithoulkas, the human organism can be understood in three layers: Mind, Emotion, and Body.
The deepest and most vital is the mind layer, through which we understand life and the world, and have the means to process stimuli and thoughts and to connect to others. The next layer out is the emotion layer, through which we experience feelings, such as hope, happiness, fascination, inspiration, and also sadness, frustration, and anger. Finally, the outermost layer is the physical layer, which includes our muscles, bones, blood vessels, skin, and internal organs.
When there is some sort of disorder, Vithoulkas said, the human organism will do its best to express this imbalance in a way that impacts us as little as possible. If the symptom shows up on the mind layer, the best case scenario would be, say, mild forgetfulness or distraction. Worse might be something like difficulty with language, or misunderstanding basic social cues, and the worst would be total confusion or even loss of consciousness. Since the mind is critical to grasping meaning, core mental function represents the highest level on the most core layer of the self. We sometimes refer to the lack of such function as a “vegetative state,” and most of us would want the plug pulled if we became this way.
If the symptom manifests on the emotional layer, at best, maybe we would feel just a bit irritable or uneasy. At a more critical level, perhaps we would develop a tendency to get angry about all sorts of minor things, or we would cry at the drop of a hat. At the highest level on the emotional layer, we could be disabled by crippling depression, total numbness, or relentless fear.
If the symptom is expressed on the body layer, the worst would be a disease of organs we have only one of – such as the brain, heart, and liver. Disease of a single kidney or lung wouldn’t be quite as bad, since we have another. Issues with more superficial tissues, like skeletal muscles, are generally fairly minor. And the least critical layer to the overall function of the organism is considered be the skin. So, Vithoulkas wrote, if the organism is healthy enough, if will manifest a problem as a skin rash, since this would spare the mind, the emotional body, and all of the critical physical structures and processes. Our skin is the outermost layer, the farthest-removed from our core structures and systems.
Vithoulkas explained that in the healing process, the expression of an imbalance moves to a less critical level and/or a more superficial layer of the organism. If we’re lucky enough to have a skin problem, we should understand this as a good thing, and avoid doing anything to
suppress its expression, because the only possible result would be expression on a deeper layer and/or a more critical level. Thus, if you suppress a skin rash and get cranky or distracted, you’ve driven it inward.
This was especially interesting to me when I first read about it, because I had grown up with eczema – an itchy red rash on my elbows and knees – and from the age of 10, I had been using a suppressive therapy to treat it: corticosteroids. Corticosteroids are drugs that mimic the anti-inflammatory hormone cortisol that is normally produced by our adrenal glands. The most popular steroid for skin rashes is hydrocortisone. The ones I was using were much stronger.
So, if you have a chronic skin issue, I encourage you to approach it as
holistically as possible – that is, emphasizing your overall health and addressing the internal mechanisms that may be contributing, rather than treating the skin as disconnected from the rest of oneself. Here are some general first steps worth taking:
- Hydrate. Skin suffers from dehydration. Water is essential for optimal clearance of toxins and distribution of nutrients. Divide the number of pounds you weigh in half, and drink at least this many ounces of water per day – ideally evenly over the course of the day. More water should be the first and most basic intervention for chronic skin problems.
- Cut Back on Sugar. Sugar suppresses the immune system, impairing control of skin disorders with a bacterial and fungal component. Second, it feeds simple microorganisms, especially fungus (this includes yeasts), often making them worse. Third, it promotes inflammation, exacerbating skin problems with an inflammatory component (anything red and itchy).
- Each Plenty of Vegetables. For several reasons, eating more veggies, cooked cleanly, can help. First, they contain a wide range of nutrients, many of which are anti-inflammatory. Second, they contain fiber, which can help bind up and remove toxins from the gut, which may be a contributing factor in certain skin rashes.
- Take Probiotics and/or Eat Cultured Foods. The lining of the gut has a close relationship with the skin and our beneficial gut bacteria or “flora” play an important role in fortifying this membrane. They also help control populations of harmful microbes that may excrete toxins into the gut. If the intestinal lining is inflamed, it can lose its structural integrity, leaking intestinal contents – including the “endotoxins” released by bacteria and fungi – directly into the bloodstream, where they should never be.
- Try an Anti-Inflammatory Diet. Reduce inflammation throughout your body by limiting consumption of: fast food, processed food, flour (bread, pasta, crackers, etc.) and refined grains, sugars (agave, honey, corn syrup, etc.), refined cooking oils, red meat (less of a concern if you’re getting high quality, grass fed, hormone free meat), and regular quality dairy products (less of a concern if you’re getting high quality, hormone free, cultured dairy products from grass fed animals). Meanwhile, eat plenty of vegetables (especially dark leafy greens), fruits (especially berries), herbs and spices (like ginger, garlic, turmeric, onions, rosemary, and oregano), beans, and healthy fats (coconut, flax seed, walnuts, avocados, chia seeds, hemp seeds, oily fish, etc.). Check out one of the many books on this subject for more information.
Following these strategies will benefit you even if you don’t notice an improvement in your skin. In coming articles, I’ll give you more specific strategies for alleviating skin problems and promoting beautiful skin.
Be well,
Dr. Peter Borten
[post_title] => Skin: The Final Frontier
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When you think about people, chances are you think about skin. Most of what we see that isn’t covered up by clothing is skin, after all. Humans are skin bags. Sorry, did that make you feel kind of gross? Anyway, like it or not, the quality of our skin can have a big influence on how others perceive us. It’s why we get so distressed by things like acne, wrinkles, birthmarks, warts, and scars, even though they don’t actually compromise our function or health.
When people come to me for help with a cosmetic skin issue, they often act a bit sheepish about it, as if they believe I’ll consider them shallow for caring about their appearance. But I recognize how much our feelings about our appearance affect our happiness and the way we relate to others. I think that as long as we’re not obsessive about it, we should do whatever we need to do to feel pretty or handsome.
More importantly, skin health is an expression of overall health. This doesn’t mean you won’t get wrinkles if you’re healthy, but even a wrinkly face can look vibrant if it’s part of a vibrant body and spirit. Last month I discussed some basics of vehicle maintenance – i.e., taking care of your body – with regard to nutrition and digestion. Now I’m going to cover basic mechanics and maintenance of your skin.
There are a number of factors that affect skin quality, including genetics, climate (wind, dryness, sun, chlorine, smoke, pollution, etc.), and our internal environment, to name just a few. We have more control over certain factors than others. Obviously, your skin will need different things in a dry, windy place than in a hot, damp place. But regardless of your particulars, there are two main things worth focusing on for healthy skin: good nutrition and good detoxification.
This week I’ll focus on detoxification. Most naturopathic physicians see dull skin and chronic skin problems as an expression of internal toxicity, which often results from digestive imbalance and/or a sluggish liver, plus a history of exposure to chemicals and/or problematic foods. When we cleanse the liver and gut (and support the lungs and kidneys while we’re at it) skin problems frequently clear up. Even without rashes or other obvious problems, our skin tends to be flat, dry, or irritated when our detoxification mechanisms aren’t at their best.
Here are four basic starting points for supporting internal and external detoxification:
- Drink plenty of water. For any kind of skin problem, from acne to eczema to wrinkles, you should first make sure you’re well hydrated. The body functions better when well hydrated, and this includes our detoxification mechanisms. I recommend drinking half the number of pounds you weigh as ounces of water per day (thus, a 100 pound person would drink 50 ounces of water). And this should be consumed evenly over the course of the say, and should not be ice cold.
- Make sure your bowels are moving regularly. Constipated people are retaining toxins in the colon for longer than is healthy. If you’re not having at least one big, complete feeling bowel movement a day, here are some measures you can take. Try drinking a glass of hot water first thing in the morning. Adding some honey may help. Consider prune juice if necessary. As I mentioned above, be sure to get enough water throughout the day. Eat plenty of good fats for lubrication (olive oil, walnuts, chia seed, flax seed, oily fish, coconut and coconut oil, avocado, etc.) and plenty of fiber to scrub your colon. Get exercise that engages your abdominal muscles. Stop tensing your abdomen throughout the day if this is a habit of yours. If you need more help, get some powdered magnesium (such as Natural Calm) and gradually increase the dose until your bowels start moving more freely.
- Practice dry skin brushing. Get a natural fiber skin brush and brush over all of your skin, always working toward the heart. Start at your toes, brushing firmly up your feet and legs, going over the same area a few times, and gradually coming up the legs to the torso. Work from the fingers to the torso next. Then cover the torso itself. Be gentle over delicate areas, and don’t brush so hard that it hurts. When done, jump in the shower, finish with cool water, and then give yourself a quick massage with a high quality oil, like jojoba, coconut, or sesame.
- Sweat. You can induce sweating through exercise (a great option) or through heat (sauna). Take a cool shower afterwards. Sweat carries toxins, including heavy metals, out of our bodies. Spending a long time in a medium hot sauna, just to the point of glistening skin, is more sustainable than going into a very hot sauna and dripping sweat.
- As a basic cleanse, consider abstaining from all grains, meat, dairy products, nightshade family vegetables (tomatoes, eggplant, potatoes, peppers), and anything processed. The bulk of your diet should be vegetables, including some raw greens (bitter ones are good), and basic homemade soups. Some fruit is ok, but veggies are best. If you need something starchy, bake a sweet potato in foil at 400 degrees for 90 minutes. Try it for one to seven days. You’ll feel great, and your skin will become more clear. On an ongoing basis, try a low dose liver cleansing formula such as silymarin (milk thistle), artichoke, and turmeric (you can get this as a premade formula called S.A.T. made by Thorne), or just take plain milk thistle or dandelion.
Give these strategies a try and report in the comments section on your results. Stay tuned for more on nutrition for healthy skin next week.
Be well,
Dr. Peter Borten
[post_title] => Skin Care 101: Five Detox Strategies for Better Skin
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[post_content] => Ahh, it’s that time of year again! Thanksgiving under our belts and Christmas are right around the bend, joyous time spent with family, and (hopefully) snow is in the air and presents and love abound!
One thing that we don’t always look forward to this time of year is the traveling. Yes it can be very stressful, because everyone and their Mother is getting on a plane. Airports are crowded and sanity can be scarce.
But this year, consider yourself lucky. This year (and the previous past 3 years) Portland International Airport has been voted the
best airport in the country by Travel Leisure Magazine. Huffington Post
rated PDX number three for “Best Airport Security Checkpoints”.
Having these things in mind should prepare for an easy breezy holiday season. Being prepared and having an open mind always eases unwanted experiences; consume as much knowledge as possible. I always recommend checking out the www.tsa.gov website, just to make sure you are up to date on prohibited items. Make sure to feel relaxed and enjoy this time of the year either by visiting a spa or just pampering yourself at home.
Once you breeze through security, make sure to stop by Dragontree PDX Airport Spa to continue your stress free travel experience, or especially if things aren't going as smoothly or planned as you would like them to be. We have plenty of relaxing treatments, supplements, and a knowledgeable staff to help ease any of your worries and woes.
Cheers!
Megan
FOH/Retail Manager at Dragontree Spa, Portland International Airport.
[post_title] => Preparing for Holiday Travel Season - The Dragontree PDX Airport Spa Can Help
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[post_content] => Years ago, I read a book on the theory of homeopathic medicine that changed the way I thought about health and inspired me to go into medicine. One of the most interesting concepts regarded a hierarchy of systems and layers within human beings. According to the Greek teacher and author, George Vithoulkas, the human organism can be understood in three layers: Mind, Emotion, and Body.
The deepest and most vital is the mind layer, through which we understand life and the world, and have the means to process stimuli and thoughts and to connect to others. The next layer out is the emotion layer, through which we experience feelings, such as hope, happiness, fascination, inspiration, and also sadness, frustration, and anger. Finally, the outermost layer is the physical layer, which includes our muscles, bones, blood vessels, skin, and internal organs.
When there is some sort of disorder, Vithoulkas said, the human organism will do its best to express this imbalance in a way that impacts us as little as possible. If the symptom shows up on the mind layer, the best case scenario would be, say, mild forgetfulness or distraction. Worse might be something like difficulty with language, or misunderstanding basic social cues, and the worst would be total confusion or even loss of consciousness. Since the mind is critical to grasping meaning, core mental function represents the highest level on the most core layer of the self. We sometimes refer to the lack of such function as a “vegetative state,” and most of us would want the plug pulled if we became this way.
If the symptom manifests on the emotional layer, at best, maybe we would feel just a bit irritable or uneasy. At a more critical level, perhaps we would develop a tendency to get angry about all sorts of minor things, or we would cry at the drop of a hat. At the highest level on the emotional layer, we could be disabled by crippling depression, total numbness, or relentless fear.
If the symptom is expressed on the body layer, the worst would be a disease of organs we have only one of – such as the brain, heart, and liver. Disease of a single kidney or lung wouldn’t be quite as bad, since we have another. Issues with more superficial tissues, like skeletal muscles, are generally fairly minor. And the least critical layer to the overall function of the organism is considered be the skin. So, Vithoulkas wrote, if the organism is healthy enough, if will manifest a problem as a skin rash, since this would spare the mind, the emotional body, and all of the critical physical structures and processes. Our skin is the outermost layer, the farthest-removed from our core structures and systems.
Vithoulkas explained that in the healing process, the expression of an imbalance moves to a less critical level and/or a more superficial layer of the organism. If we’re lucky enough to have a skin problem, we should understand this as a good thing, and avoid doing anything to
suppress its expression, because the only possible result would be expression on a deeper layer and/or a more critical level. Thus, if you suppress a skin rash and get cranky or distracted, you’ve driven it inward.
This was especially interesting to me when I first read about it, because I had grown up with eczema – an itchy red rash on my elbows and knees – and from the age of 10, I had been using a suppressive therapy to treat it: corticosteroids. Corticosteroids are drugs that mimic the anti-inflammatory hormone cortisol that is normally produced by our adrenal glands. The most popular steroid for skin rashes is hydrocortisone. The ones I was using were much stronger.
So, if you have a chronic skin issue, I encourage you to approach it as
holistically as possible – that is, emphasizing your overall health and addressing the internal mechanisms that may be contributing, rather than treating the skin as disconnected from the rest of oneself. Here are some general first steps worth taking:
- Hydrate. Skin suffers from dehydration. Water is essential for optimal clearance of toxins and distribution of nutrients. Divide the number of pounds you weigh in half, and drink at least this many ounces of water per day – ideally evenly over the course of the day. More water should be the first and most basic intervention for chronic skin problems.
- Cut Back on Sugar. Sugar suppresses the immune system, impairing control of skin disorders with a bacterial and fungal component. Second, it feeds simple microorganisms, especially fungus (this includes yeasts), often making them worse. Third, it promotes inflammation, exacerbating skin problems with an inflammatory component (anything red and itchy).
- Each Plenty of Vegetables. For several reasons, eating more veggies, cooked cleanly, can help. First, they contain a wide range of nutrients, many of which are anti-inflammatory. Second, they contain fiber, which can help bind up and remove toxins from the gut, which may be a contributing factor in certain skin rashes.
- Take Probiotics and/or Eat Cultured Foods. The lining of the gut has a close relationship with the skin and our beneficial gut bacteria or “flora” play an important role in fortifying this membrane. They also help control populations of harmful microbes that may excrete toxins into the gut. If the intestinal lining is inflamed, it can lose its structural integrity, leaking intestinal contents – including the “endotoxins” released by bacteria and fungi – directly into the bloodstream, where they should never be.
- Try an Anti-Inflammatory Diet. Reduce inflammation throughout your body by limiting consumption of: fast food, processed food, flour (bread, pasta, crackers, etc.) and refined grains, sugars (agave, honey, corn syrup, etc.), refined cooking oils, red meat (less of a concern if you’re getting high quality, grass fed, hormone free meat), and regular quality dairy products (less of a concern if you’re getting high quality, hormone free, cultured dairy products from grass fed animals). Meanwhile, eat plenty of vegetables (especially dark leafy greens), fruits (especially berries), herbs and spices (like ginger, garlic, turmeric, onions, rosemary, and oregano), beans, and healthy fats (coconut, flax seed, walnuts, avocados, chia seeds, hemp seeds, oily fish, etc.). Check out one of the many books on this subject for more information.
Following these strategies will benefit you even if you don’t notice an improvement in your skin. In coming articles, I’ll give you more specific strategies for alleviating skin problems and promoting beautiful skin.
Be well,
Dr. Peter Borten
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