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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
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Over the years of getting to know the graduates of our life coach training program, I’ve found that everyone has a special gift (or several). One that’s especially beautiful to witness is the gift of seeing the light in people.
When we see someone’s light, we help bring it forth. We encourage them to remember who they are beyond their problems. It’s an incredible service. Do you have this skill?
We’re wired to focus on flaws. It goes all the way back to our most animalistic survival mechanisms. Problems can alert us to danger. A pain in our foot might be telling us that it’s inside an alligator’s mouth. A crack in a wall might mean that it’s about to come crashing down on us. So we fixate on the negative.
In today’s minds, the thoughts and observations that emerge from this survival mechanism look more like . . . I should be in better shape. I’m not productive enough. I’m missing out. There’s something wrong with me. I’m probably going to get cancer. People don’t like me. My skin looks bad. I don’t have enough money. I’m never going to do anything impressive with my life.
These judgments are almost always useless and inaccurate. And because we’re usually only semi-conscious of them, they tend to go unchallenged. The result of spending more energy thinking about what’s wrong than what’s right is an epidemic obstruction of the light within us. We forget that who/what we really are is perfect, peaceful, and powerful.
Resurrecting our light has two facets: (1) clearing away whatever obstructs it; and (2) inviting the light to shine within and beyond us, making ourselves beacons in the world.
When you make a practice of seeing the light in others, your own will naturally emerge. As you go through your day, try to see the light in each person you encounter. Even someone who tells you everything’s going wrong if their life. Even the cop that’s writing you a speeding ticket. Even the politician you dislike.
What happens when you speak directly to someone’s light? What changes about your interaction? What happens when you communicate from your light to theirs?
Part of why we feel this is such an essential aspect of life coach training is that you may be the only one in a given individual’s life who’s actively looking for their light. You may be the only one who notices that it’s been obscured but believes it’s still in there. The person themselves may barely realize what’s happened or understand why life feels heavy. Their friends and family may be in the same boat, or they may be so accustomed to seeing them this way that they simply reflect back an attitude that seems to confirm that “this is just how you are.”
It’s a gift to both you and the other party to focus on their virtuous core and call it forth with an inner attitude of, “Regardless of what you tell me of your challenges and limitations, and regardless of your history, I see what’s inside you. I know what you have the potential to be.”
If reading this feels thrilling, like your heart is saying, “Yes! I want to do this for my fellow humans!” then I encourage you to join the Dragontree Life Coach training program. Even if you aren’t in a position to change careers, it’s a learning and growing experience that will deeply enrich your life and forever change how to relate to others.
Be well,
Peter
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by Dr. Peter Borten
One day last March we got word that when we picked up our kids from school they wouldn’t be coming back for the rest of the month. A few weeks later, they told us to come clean out their cubbies and desks – there wouldn’t be school for the rest of the year. Meanwhile, we were told that our spas also had to shut down. Walking around downtown Boulder, I saw mostly dark storefronts and almost no cars or pedestrians. Sometimes I’d go into a grocery store and the shelves would be nearly bare. It was surreal … and it still is.
Life is always unpredictable. But the amplified uncertainty of the current time plus the absence of many aspects of human culture that usually provide a backdrop of consistency in our lives – restaurants, concerts, school, work, team sports, movies, etc. – results in a feeling of profound instability for many people.
I believe one of the healthiest ways to respond to this instability is to create a plan and improve personal integrity – two things we focus on in our Dreambook. When we started working on the first edition seven years ago, there was no pandemic and yet we still had dozens of friends and clients who were unsure of their vision for the future or how to move forward. At this time, it’s needed more than ever.
The first section of the Dreambook features processes to help you get clear about what matters most to you. What feeds your soul? What supports your deepest values? What brings your gifts into the world? What makes life feel playful? When you know these things about yourself, you’re better able to manage the uncertainty of life due to your own inner stability.
Then we teach you how to make plans. There’s a unique added challenge to planning when you don’t know whether you’ll be able to leave the country or if summer camp will be happening. When you have a plan, though, when something unexpected occurs you can make adjustments as needed, but you still know the direction you’re headed. Without a plan, detours and obstacles may cause you to feel totally aimless and without a compass.
Plans don’t work without integrity though. We have to honor our word, being clear and honest with ourselves about the agreements we make and always following through on them. If we don’t keep our agreements, they’re worse than meaningless. Besides not getting the result we hoped for, we end up undermining our self-trust. But if we always do what we say we’re going to do, our self-trust grows stronger. At a time when it feels there’s not much we can trust in the world, knowing we can always trust ourselves is monumental.
It’s possible for this topsy-turvy period to actually facilitate a vital reorientation in your life: where you honor and prioritize your values, gifts, and purpose, and you create effective, intelligent, soul-supporting plans to bring your dreams into reality. Thousands of people have utilized the Dreambook as a resource for making this happen.
The new 2021 edition of the Dreambook + Planner is wire bound and available now in Classic White, Greenwood, and Periwinkle.
Be well,
Peter
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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
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