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 This is a transcription from Mark's Ancient Wisdom from Modern Health Podcast.
Original PODCAST Available Here (Scroll to Episode #46) 

Mark Bunn: (MB)
Welcome to an absolutely fascinating chat about gut health with one of the world's leading researchers and scientists on this whole area; Dr. Keith Wallace. If you're like me, 30 years ago you probably never spoke the term “gut health”. Today, gut health is spoken about everywhere. Keith is one of the world's premier researchers and scientists in the area of physiology and consciousness. He was the first scientist to show a fourth state of human consciousness in his doctoral dissertation at UCLA.

After being the founding president of the Maharishi International University in Iowa, he's the chair and professor of the Department of Physiology and Health. He also supervises all the PhD programs in physiology at the University. For about the last 50 years, he has traveled the world speaking on all things Maharishi Ayurvedic science, consciousness, and what we're going to talk about a bit today; Ayurvedic medicine.

In addition, he's written and published many books. I remember the first book I ever read of Keith’s, almost 30 years ago, The Physiology of Consciousness; was one of the best books I've ever read. More recent books include Dharma Parenting, Total Brain Coaching, The Coherence Code, and what we're going to talk about today, his book; Gut Crisis.

Microbiome & Gut bacteria

That idea I touched on earlier was when you were a boy and when I was a boy growing up, we'd never heard of these terms: gut health, probiotics, sauerkraut or kefir. If someone had said the word “lactobacillus”, I would have thought it was an Eastern European soccer player. Today you can't go anywhere without someone being gluten free or dairy free, etc. What's your take on this? How have we gone so quickly, within 20 or 30 years, from almost never talking about it to now it being absolutely everywhere?

This is a transcription from Mark's Ancient Wisdom from Modern Health Podcast.
Original PODCAST Available Here (Scroll to Episode #45) 


Hi everyone, and welcome to what I think is going to be an absolutely fascinating look into everything meditation, consciousness and transcendence. As well as looking at a very simple, practical technique that anyone can use to really enliven their full creative intelligence.

To do this I have not only a very dear friend of mine, but one person who I believe is one of the greatest human beings on the planet. His name is Bob Roth and he's been a Transcendental Meditation or TM teacher for about 45 years. He's taught everyone from prisoners, to drug addicts, to children, to everyday mums and dads right through to senior executives at Fortune 500 companies.

Top lawyers, bankers, government ministers and many high-profile individuals today including Hugh Jackman, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Arianna Huffington and Ray Dalio; consider him their personal meditation mentor in many ways. He's a New York Times bestselling author of his wonderful book, Strength In Stillness: The Power of Transcendental Meditation.

Probably the best thing about Bob is his heart. For the last 15 years he's headed up the David Lynch Foundation, which is an international organization. A charity that raises funds to teach Transcendental Meditation, for free, to disadvantaged and at-risk populations. War veterans, domestic violence sufferers any one suffering severe trauma.

This is a transcription from Mark's Ancient Wisdom from Modern Health Podcast.
As such it won't read like the written word & pls excuse any typo's or strange translations!
Original PODCAST Available Here (Scroll down to Episode #32) 

One day a father and son go camping. They set up their camp, pitch their tent and get out their sleeping bags. During the night the young boy wakes up and he looks up to the sky and sees all the stars. He wakes his dad up. He says, "Dad, dad, look! what can you see?" And the dad says, "Oh, wow son, yes. I can see Taurus and Sagittarius and Scorpio. Amazing, isn't it? What do you see, son?" The son says, "Well, someone’s bloody-well stolen our tent, Dad.”

So this story, funny or not, is representative of many of us in life today. Some people are very, very interested in the cosmic counterparts. The planets, the stars and possibly even what influence they have on our life; for others, not so much. In our scientific age, particularly in recent times, we have distanced ourselves from the ancient understanding that the planets, in particular, have a significant influence on our life. Or at least that is the theory.

So the question is, would you like to know in advance that at some point in your life you're going to have certain health challenges; prostate, bones, blood, energy levels, fatigue?

Would you like to know in advance that maybe finances are going to be very tough? Or certain other times in your life where it's going to be great to start new relationships, or get married? Or to start a new business or a family? Would you like to get more support of nature so things flow better in your life and you don't have so many obstacles or delays or barriers?

These questions are pertinent because this is really what the science of astrology is all about.

This is a transcription from Mark's Ancient Wisdom from Modern Health Podcast.
Please excuse any typos. Original PODCAST Available Here (Scroll down to Episode #28)

 

Ding, ding, ding. Welcome to the Battle Royale of the Year 2020! In fact, maybe the battle of the decade, possibly even the century!

In the blue corner: The Heavyweight Champion of the World over the last hundred-plus years and backed by the meat industry; it is the carnivores - the meat-eaters! Let’s hear a round of applause.

In the red corner: An Up-and-Comer, growing in stature over the last few years, backed by Gwyneth Paltrow (I’m not sure that’s a good thing) Arnold Schwarzenegger and many other celebrities around the world; drum roll please – vegan.

That’s right, we are on the doorstep of a huge battle. Many debates are raging around the world between meat eaters, vegans and vegetarians. Well, the question of course, is who is correct? Should we eat meat? Shouldn’t we eat meat? Should we eat dairy? Shouldn’t we eat dairy?

Positive psychology says we need more good news in our world. We've all heard how important it is to be in a positive frame of mind. Of course, this same sentiment has been around for thousands of years in the ancient cultures.

Good in theory, not always so easy in practice. So what can we do to help our mental health and hopefully reduce things like anxiety and depression?

Ancient Wisdom

The ancient wisdom has always been that we put our attention where we can on what is positive, what's uplifting, what is sweet, what is beautiful in our world. Why? Because as the ancient Vedic aphorism suggests, "What we see, we become."

As the ancient Hawaiians also said, "Where attention goes, energy flows."

Simply put, what we put our attention on grows stronger in our lives. In the ancient Ayurvedic understanding and current day Maharishi Ayurveda for example, the understanding is that we metabolize not just the food we eat, but everything we experience.

Digestion … of experience

The term metabolize is often used in connection with food. We eat food. We need to process that food. We need to digest it, and then metabolize it so that we get the benefits of its nutrients, but as mentioned, it's not just food that we have to metabolize.

The ancients understood that all our sensory perceptions, what we see, what we taste, what we smell, what we touch also must be metabolized or processed on a deep level.

Most important today is what we hear. Do we hear good news or stories about war, crime and all the bad things that abound in our western media?

We have to process those things and it has a physiological effect. It can dampen our immune system, raise our stress hormones and negatively impact our mental health.

December 15, 2019 Melbourne, Australia.

I’ve just finished watching heartbreaking story after heartbreaking story of farmers and rural communities throughout Australia devastated by the ongoing drought. Daily stories are now also being told of our national bushfire disasters. Everyday, homes lives and livestock are being lost, suicides are at all-time highs …and there seems no end in sight. 

Like nearly every Australian, troubled by the incredibly despairing stories, I ask on a daily basis, “What can we do?”

The amazing benefits for our mental health, physical health, happiness & more.

 

The best healing sanctuary in the world is all about forest bathing.

Mother nature at her best, is what we're talking about today.

Science is now backing up the ancient wisdom of Ayurvedic medicine, about the importance of human beings being connected to Mother Nature. 

Would you like to know some ‘natural’ remedies to counteract the negative effects of some of the things you might be inclined to overindulge in over the coming ‘Indulgence Season‘ – extra drinking…chocolate… sun etc?

While obviously it’s ideal not to overindulge too much too often, we also know that it’s good to ‘let our hair down’ (for those who still have some!) every now & then. Below I’ve listed some powerful, ‘natural’ little ANTIDOTES, that you can use to offset some of the ‘not so healthy’ effects of certain things over the coming weeks.

Do you sun gaze or at least connect to the early morning sun as a daily practice? Are you aware of the incredible mental, physical, emotional and spiritual benefits of such a daily ritual?

While many of us know about high-performers morning habits such as making their bed, planning their day and exercising, connecting with early morning sunlight is not so well know.

As understood by most ancient cultures, the master regulator of all our internal health and performance cycles is the cycle of the sun. Most advanced traditional cultures throughout time have started their day greeting the sun through an ancient ritual called ‘sun gazing’. (Others, as in India along the Ganges river, do things like Yoga 'sun salutes' while facing East as the sun rises).

*This is a REPOST of the blog from August 13, 2012

 

Did you scrape your tongue this morning?

Good news. Another ancient health practice has recently been accepted and promoted by modern experts

Have you been to buy a toothbrush lately, and noticed many companies marketing a tongue cleaner on the back of their brushes? Promoted as a way to rid yourself of bacteria that accumulates on the surface of your tongue, they actually have a lot of merit.

Heard about charcoal water yet? It’s one of the big health items – detox drinks - for 2017.

While at my wholefoods store recently I decided to buy some to see what it was like. I had not bothered to research it at this point, as I’ll try most things once anyway, and thought it would also make a nice surprise for my partner Luisa. (As an aside, I text said partner about the surprise knowing she likes the anticipatory excitement! I leave out the specifics and later discover she was thinking ‘hmmm, a yummy treat!’)

This simple tip (written here for winter, but applicable to some degree year round) is one of the simplest, yet most profound things you can do to protect yourself from getting sick (colds & flu's etc), to prevent that 'heavy/depressed' winter feeling & helping avoid those extra kilograms that always seem to enjoy making themselves at home at this time of year.

You might have heard me talk a lot over the years about the Ayurvedic concept of oral hygiene.

I've discussed the problems associated with using commercial mouthwashes , and how in Ayurvedic medicine it is being prescribed for thousands of years to combine this with daily tongue scraping for keeping the mouth truly clean and the teeth and gums strong and healthy.

Well now I think you're ready for the full version. It's called 'oil pulling' and not only cleans the mouth, and keeps one's teeth and gums in tip-top health, it is said to help purify the entire body and optimize the functioning of our entire physiology.

While it’s been a controversial topic for some years, a recent segment – Wi-Fried on ABC’s Catalyst program - graphically illustrated how our high use of mobile phones, Wi-Fi and other technological devices is probably not as safe as you may think. More and more evidence is now suggesting links to brain cancer and other negative health effects.

Of course, we are not going to stop using our phones and Wi-Fi in the short term so here are some tips to minimise your risk and protect your precious brain.

1 Minute Overview

The Paleo Diet (and other similar ones) and the general Paleo philosophy is great in terms of focusing us back on ‘real’ food (eliminating processed/junk food), minimising or avoiding alcohol, caffeine and sugar, as well as for promoting good exercise. However, according to ancient, time-tested health sciences such as Ayurveda, the heavy emphasis on meat, and completely avoiding grains, dairy, and legumes is not ideal.

It’s the ignorant way we consume these foods in our modern world, not the foods themselves, that is harmful. Consume them as they were designed and we can get all the benefits of the Paleo diet, plus even more benefits.

Ayurveda comes from the ancient Vedic tradition of India1, where it has been practised for more than 6,000 years. It is recognised by the World Health Organisation as the world’s oldest continuous system of Natural health-care. In its sanskrit roots, ‘veda’, means ‘pure knowledge’ or science, and ‘ayus’ means ‘life’. So Ayurveda is understood as ‘the total knowledge or science of life’. Ayurveda is both a time-tested science, having a recorded history of thousands of years as well as containing a history of highly evolved, healthy and long-lived individuals.

Hi everyone – I don’t say this often but this is one of the most important and exciting blogs I’ve written for a long time.

Imagine if there was a completely ‘natural’ (and generally ‘free’) way to get one of the world’s most powerful anti-inflammatory and anti-aging medicines, which evidence is starting to suggest may help everything from heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, arthritis and joint pain, insomnia, auto-immune diseases, to athletic performance. Now imagine it was ‘right under your feet’! Guess what? It literally is, and now you get it under your feet while indoors!

I’ve touched on this here and there over the years, but as it’s finally getting a lot more recognition in the mainstream media just now, I thought to mention it again.

Basically, it’s about the absolute myth that substituting ‘polyunsaturated fats for saturated fats’ is good for us. You may be aware that many years ago scientists and food manufacturers started promoting the benefits of polyunsaturated fats (think vegetable oils in most processed foods, margarine, and the like) in the belief that saturated fats (butter, coconut oil etc) were bad for us, particularly our heart health.

As for butter versus margarine, I trust cows more than chemists. – Joan Gussow

Today, food companies, many doctors and even some dieticians commonly recommend us to eat supposedly healthy margarine instead of evil butter. But should we listen to them?