Tag: Health Foundations

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Functional Exercise Healthy Lifestyle Holistic Health Principles

We are made to move.

Movement is life and life is movement. This is what I tell all my students and clients or anyone really if we get on this topic. “What do you mean?” I hear you ask and ask you should! The short answer is that our whole physiology is dependant on us moving our bodies, bending, reaching, squatting etc. What it means is that if we don’t move enough, our physiology will be operating sub-optimally and in time disease will follow. Imagine the body as a river, movement is the current keeping the water clean and fresh, if the current slows, water becomes stagnant and starts to collect waste and stink. Stagnant body will be low on energy and attract unwanted organisms which feed on waste. If this state becomes chronic, health challenges are a natural consequence of clogged up system. Simple anatomical observation reveals that being active pumps the body, supports efficient circulation of all our bodily fluids and allows for optimal nutrient/waste exchange on cellular level.

Consider just a few examples.

Contracting muscles support the venues blood returning  to our heart for re-oxygenation. Our muscles, leg muscles are considered our “second hart”. Can’t our veins do it on their own? Sure they can but this is a relatively inefficient process which can lead to many problems, varicose veins being one of the most recognisable. 


If we look at our breathing process we will clearly see that every breath is a hug for our internal organs, it provides gentle massage allowing the organs to be moved around, readjust their position, promote better blood circulation and oxygenation. It also supports our digestion process and peristalsis ie. waste removal. 


We must also mention the multipurpose, “magical” muscle dividing our ribcage from the abdomen – the diaphragm. We should realise that being our primary breathing muscle, it performs many other vital functions. Supporting  the return of blood to the hart through Vena Cava and lymph circulation against the gravity being just some of them…..  


When we realise that our spine is a living tissue not just a stack of bricks we can easily see that every flexion, bend or twist of the spine helps to pump the spinal fluid and lubricates the joints. It is a necessary process as this is how our spine and all of our joints receive nutrition and oxygen. Neat!

Movement is medicine

Because regular movement has so many benefits to our whole physiology, certain forms of movement practice are considered – medicine. Eastern exercise systems like Qigong, Tai Chi or Yoga are the most widely known examples but pretty much any movement performed at the right intensity and combined with conscious breathing can have healing/therapeutic effects. Muscles are intimately connected with the nearby organs and they compete for energy and nutrition supply. A muscle pain is often reflecting on a struggling organ and exercise which energies the muscle can offer extra energy to the organ it is connected to. How amazing is that!

Movement vs. training

In the last part I would like to examine the difference between movement and training. I have done sport for most of my life and worked with athletes of all age and competition level. The most common mistake people of all walks of life make is thinking that movement=training and if one shouldnt or can’t train for any reason (an injury, lack of time or motivation) means do nothing! It should be obvious after reading the previous paragraphs that regular Movement is essential to our health and wellbeing and Training is a choice. There are plenty of reasons and circumstances when Training might be ill advised but movement (keeping active) is very much encouraged. There are very few if any instances when I would not advise some form of conscious movement. Be it a tool to reduce stress and support relaxation, enhance healing response or re-energise mind and body. We choose to train in order to get stronger, fitter, maybe loose some excess weight or get better in a sport.

We move to be healthy and vital!

When you deciding between watching TV and doing some exercise, remember that our body is very efficient and wastes no resource. Let this old and wise saying play in your head…”if you don’t use it, you’ll lose it”…Yes, now is a good time to stand up from your chair and do 10 squats 🙂 or better make it 20 and feeeel the juices flowing!

Happy “move-to-be-well-day” friends.

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Healthy Lifestyle Holistic Health Principles

Your Immune System: A ‘firewall’ against the pandemic

A practical guide to quickly boosting your immune system to help you withstand the Corona Virus pandemic. 

At this point it is clear that the Corona Virus Pandemic is here to keep us company for the foreseeable future. Like me, you may be getting frustrated at hearing the same scary message everywhere: Run, hide, avoid people, wash your hands until they bleed and wait for ‘big daddy’ government to saves us all…

We cannot ignore reality, and we should certainly follow the general advice, but is this ALL we can do? 

As I follow the news, the thing that I keep hearing is that the people most at risk have weak or compromised immune systems, and yet I haven’t heard any experts giving insights on how to change this. Strengthening your body’s immune response will give you a far better chance against this virus, even if you fall into one of the ‘at risk’ categories. Given that we are all making an effort to stay safe and keep distant from each other to slow the virus’s spread, I feel the responsibility to share some easy and practical things you can do to boost your immune system, and start building your own ‘firewall’ against the pandemic:

** REALITY CHECK – My suggestions will not stop you becoming infected by Covid-19. My suggestions WILL arm your own bodily defences so that if you DO catch it, you will be able to deal with it more efficiently, and hopefully suffer fewer symptoms. **

1. STOP suppressing your immune system with sugar and other junk food. The reality is that most of us have some sort of sugar addiction, but in these particular circumstances it is critical to limit consumption. You may be surprised to find out that just one teaspoon of refined sugar will depress your immune system response by 50% for up to 6 hours. I now dare you to google how much sugar is in a single can of coke! Hint – Processed food is packed full of sugar and refined grains (which knock you down even better than sugar does), so pay attention to what you are eating!

2. Top up on real food. Green leafy vegetables like cabbage, kale, chard and broccoli don’t bite, and are full of actual nutrition. Add colour to your salads for an extra antioxidant boost, and to give your body what it needs to maintain optimal function during this stressful period. Put some extra focus on eating fruit and vegetables that are high in vitamin C.

Due to the fact that the media been largely ignoring it, you are probably not aware that patients in China are being successfully treated for the corona virus with high doses of vitamin C. The vitamin is administered intravenously, and has been used previously to control other corona epidemics (MERS, SARS, etc.). It also has a 70% success rate when used to treat people with sepsis (fatal blood poisoning), even when all other options have failed. Taking it orally is not as effective but it is still helpful so top up on your vitamins C. Click HERE for more info.

3. Remember that all traditional strategies against seasonal flu will further support your immune response. The flu or ‘influenza’ is just another type of virus. As such, anything used to ward off flu will help protect you from the corona virus, hopefully leading to fewer symptoms and a faster recovery if you do contract it. Anti-viral/bacterial foods include Garlic, ginger, raw honey, oregano oil, and chicken broth. Specific nutrients for optimal immune system function include vitamin D, vitamin C, selenium, zinc, and magnesium. Even if they don’t kill the virus itself, they will help your body deal with other disease causing agents, leaving it with more energy and resources to fight the big one.

4. Add a daily serving of probiotic foods. Naturally fermented vegetables like sauerkraut and kimchi, or drinks like kombucha, give a big boost to the gut bacteria that form the foundation of your immune system. A high quality probiotic supplement will be a good substitute for or addition to fermented foods.

5. Consider practising some of the relaxing, energy boosting breathing techniques used in Qi Gong and Yoga. A more relaxed body can spare energy and resources, and will fight invaders more easily. The more intense breathing techniques and cold water baths promoted by Wim Hof will also be effective. Those of you who know me a little may have noticed that I am a big fan of cold water, and there is a ton of research showing its effectiveness in optimising our immune response.

6. Training considerations for those of us more performance inclined. If you are already training regularly you can certainly continue but you might want to mark it in your training calendar as ‘maintenance’ rather than ‘improving’. This is not a good time to push yourself and make big gains. Remember that overexerting yourself will strongly depress your immune function, sometimes even for a few days, making you much more vulnerable to infections. This will make it much harder and more painful to recover should the virus catch up with you. High intensity + high volume are not a good combination during a pandemic. 

7. Do your best to get out into nature, or at least daylight. Ideally, go out and get some fresh air and 20-30 minutes of sun exposure around midday. Sunlight is essential for optimal immune function, and you will also get some of the already mentioned immune supporting vitamin D. Avoid crowded places but not the great outdoors!

There it is, pick and choose, and hopefully feel empowered! Every little helps, and in extreme cases, it could make the difference between life and lack of it! The pandemic is real and there is no guarantee of not catching the virus. However, if you are willing to make an effort now, there are many effective ways to help your body sway the scales in your favour should you need it. 

The situation might seem extreme but it should also remind us how interconnected we are. We depend on one another, and as a society, we are only as strong as our weakest members. Stay safe and keep your distance, but don’t forget to smile to your neighbour and call your relatives. Keep your spirits up and don’t let the virus infect your mind! Personal contact is not advised for now, but we have plenty of technology to stay connected and support one another. We all need to act responsibly, and maintaining a cool head is an important variable to help us get through this challenging period with minimal damage.  

This is just a list of short term fixes to help you survive the current pandemic. If you are curious about how to make lasting improvements to your health and wellbeing, THIS article will give you more useful information.

For more personal advice on how to become stronger and build a healthy and resilient body, I am available for Skype/FaceTime consultations.

Email me at przemek.koscielak@me.com or call +41786835966.

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Healthy Lifestyle Holistic Health Principles

Watch your drink!

We all know the feeling of thirst and instinctively understand how fundamental water is to our life and wellbeing (Please check with your doctor if you don’t think this applies to you). About 70% of our planet is covered with water most of which is ocean and our body consists of water in similar proportions. Interestingly, our blood has a similar level of salinity as the oceans. Despite this interesting ‘cosmic’ correlation, drinking directly from the ocean remains a bad idea! 

While water has a multitude of functions in the body, it’s main purpose is to maintain a stable environment inside and around every cell and allowing every cell to receive optimal nutrients and eliminate metabolic waste. There are billions of cells and chemical processes taking place in your body every second and all of them require water.

Photo: Airolo, Ticino, Switzerland

There are billions of cells and chemical processes taking place in your body every second and all of them require water. Every time water is scarce, the body has to prioritise and some physiological processes simply can not occur…so the answer is ‘yes’, your body will squeeze water from your stool if needed, glad you asked. If you are even 1% dehydrated, your muscle performance will drop down up to 20% in order to conserve water for more vital physiological functions. 

Since our speeding civilisation has managed to pollute most of our drinking water, the seemingly simple act of quenching ones thirst has become unnecessarily complicated and challenging. Our environmental protection agencies identified over 700 pollutants but somehow we actually test for only about 90 organic and inorganic chemicals which will vary slightly depending on which country, region or city you live in. Our oceans, rivers and lakes are full of medical drug metabolites, hormones and pesticides among many other industrialised world chemical byproducts. Quite recently scientists has been finding increasing quantities of active forms of certain medications present in the waterways. Nice one! Unfortunately this is all “relatively” new and the government agencies do not require testing for such chemicals. Our outdated filtering system is therefore not designed to pick them up and the net result is that we are all drinking it. 

Luckily, there are still easy ways to get clean, high quality and health supporting water. The highest quality water comes form deep artisan wells, you are looking for water with high mineral content and total dissolved solids of 300 or greater as recommended by Dr M.Fox in his book: Healthy Water. Adding a pinch of quality, unprocessed salt to your water will make it more nutritious to the body and easier to absorb. Ideally you want to buy water (or any drink really) in glass bottles as plastic bottles leach harmful chemicals while being an environmental disaster in its own terms. You might have noticed water in plastic simply left baking in the sun during transit or storage. What you get in the supermarket fridge is a plastic water cocktail, cheers! A great solution is installing your own whole house flirtation system, that is when you own a house. We absorb a significant portion of what’s in the water touching our skin, so ‘if you’re bathing in it you’re drinking it’. In case big filtration system is not possible, there are many water filters available on the market. It is wise to test your tap water and look for a filter that will best remove problematic chemicals. The minimalist solution is a basic counter-top water filter or a pitcher that will remove chlorine and heavy metals from your drinking or cooking water. We are all aware chlorine is widely used to disinfect our municipal water all around the globe but we often forget that it is also very effective in annihilating your own friendly bacteria in our gut. This compromises our digestion and immune system largely contributing to many unnecessary health problems. The ‘take-away’ is that any filter is better then no filter, there is really no reason to drink poison!

Resources:

Healthy Water for a Longer Life by M.Fox Ph.D.

https://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/diseases-risks/risks/info_sheet_pharmaceuticals/en/

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/pharmaceuticals-in-the-water/

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Functional Exercise Healthy Lifestyle Holistic Health Principles

To breathe or not to breathe…

Have you ever done any Yoga, Tai Chi or Qi Gong class, than you can probably recall the revitalising effect conscious breathing had on your energy levels. It’s especially potent when combined with some restorative moment. On another hand, ‘Hyperbaric or high pressure oxygen therapy’ is a powerful therapy in modern medicine and it turns out that more oxygen is helping us fight infections, improves autoimmune conditions and mitochondrial health…who wold have thought.

We think of breathing as an involuntary aspect of our physiology and to a great degree it is true. We can not stop breathing for very long but we can control how we breath. More interestingly, the way we breath has a profound influence on every aspect of our body and mind. You might have digestive problems arising from hyperventilation or develop crippling back pain that just won’t go away. You might also induce a chronic stress response and push yourself into the feeling of anxiety. All because of a disfunction in your breathing pattern. When you consider that each of us takes in excess of 8.500 breaths every day, you can imagine how much repetition we are investing to create or perpetuated chronic pain and illness simply by neglecting our most basic of biological functions. It is encouraging to see people get better with just a little work to improve their breathing pattern and the possibilities conscious breathing offers to our wellbeing.

We are designed to breath primarily through our nose, particularly the inhalation phase. When we take a breath through the nose, we can warm up and moisturise the incoming air. The many receptors in your nose test the air for safety and inform the brain about the environment. The way our autonomic nervous system is wired, nose breathing activates the diaphragm more efficiently allowing for a deeper breath and supporting a host of vital physiological functions. If you inhale predominantly using your mouth, you are missing out on all of these advantages.

Here’s a quick test. Stand in front of a mirror and place one hand on your chest and the other on your belly. Take a few deep breaths and observe the movement of your hands. Does your chest hand rise first followed with the belly? Does your belly hand move at all? Are you able to inhale and expand your belly at all?

A healthy breathing pattern starts with belly expansion (breath in through the nose) followed by rising chest in the last phase of the inhalation. Most people I and many of my fellow practitioners examine are ‘chest breathers’ which means that they are not using their diaphragm and therefore miss out on more than half of their lung capacity. Imagine an endurance athlete who voluntarily reduces their ability to provide oxygen during training or competition, crazy, right? Surprisingly, it is more prevalent than you think. The solution in this case is simple, cheap and available to everyone, start paying attention to how you breath and make it a daily practice.
Happy breathing my dear friends!

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Functional Exercise Healthy Lifestyle Holistic Health Principles

Are you giving your body what it needs?

The absolute essentials to improving your health and performance, and to overcoming chronic pain and disease.

The  world we live in today is largely focussed on chasing what we want and we perceive our body as a work tool with which to get it. A new TV, a pair of fancy shoes, or holidays in Bermuda may seem essential at times, but in reality they rarely help us with what really matters: our health. These are things we often want, or are conditioned to desire, in order to distract us from actually paying attention to what we (and our bodies) actually need to cultivate our vitality and to fully participate in life.

We live in very technologically advanced times, we have more doctors and health professionals per capita than ever before, yet, as a society, we are getting sicker and sicker. You might want to pause to reflect on that.

My personal goal is to stay healthy and to enjoy life for as long as it lasts. A future where I am expected to feel rubbish, live in pain, and pop a handful of pills every day just to stay alive, while people tell me ‘it’s normal, you’re just getting old’, is a nightmare scenario for me. So far, my health has been improving as I have been aging, and I feel a lot healthier and stronger now, at the age of 42, than I did in my 20’s. If you, like me, wish to stay vital and mobile, and actually enjoy the life you have, I have good news for you.


I would like you to understand that the great majority of the population could resolve their health issues just by taking some responsibility for their body. All the information is out there, and the solutions are within our reach. In fact, there is so much information available that it has become confusing and overwhelming. In truth, the path to good health is very individual. What is good for me might not work for you. However there are some basic principles that apply to all of us. In this post I will draw on more than a decade of study and practise to simplify and outline some important things that apply to all of us. 

What I learnt, and more importantly, how I’ve been implementing this knowledge, literally changed my life. It also changed the lives of many people around me, so I feel very excited to finally share the ‘good stuff’ with a larger crowd. Sadly, many people still find it shocking that simply paying more attention and manipulating small aspects of our lives can resolve most of our chronic health problems. We can actually build a stronger and more resilient body that will be more disease resistant, and also able to train harder, recover faster and perform better! 

The absolute essentials to improving your health and performance, and to overcoming chronic disease”.

1. We can live without oxygen for only a few minutes before our brain starts to die. The act of breathing is involuntary, but HOW we breath can make or break our body on every level. I will expand on this topic in future posts, but keep in mind that conscious breathing practices offer the most accessible and profound health benefits despite being incredibly marginalised and underused in modern medicine.

2. Our body is about 70% water, yet statistically we are chronically dehydrated. It is not difficult to imagine that drinking enough clean water is essential to our wellbeing, however as much as most people will agree that hydration is important, few people truly understand what proper hydration means. Nor are they aware of the very real price we pay for this ignorance.

3. Food is so much more than fuel, and our nutritional needs vary tremendously. ‘One man’s food is another man’s poison’ the saying goes, and it is time to stop this silly race to find the best, healthiest diet for everyone. Dieticians, governments, and ‘gurus’ to stop telling people what they should eat, and instead start helping them understand wether what they eat works for them, or not!

4. We are designed to move. Science demonstrates over and over again that we need to move in order to be healthy. Just ask yourself how you felt the last time you were bed bound for a few days. I would guess that you ended up feeling weak and sluggish. Our physiology literally depends on our movement for many of its processes. The good news is that there is no need to head to your local gym and sign up for regular punishment sessions! Movement for health, and training for performance, are two very different subjects and ideas like ‘exercise equals training’, ‘no pain no gain’, and ‘go hard or go home’ are large contributors to why we experience so much chronic pain these days.

5. I probably don’t need to convince anybody that sleep is great and necessary. We generally understand this intuitively, but research, and my own clinical experience, clearly show that we are easily tempted to sacrifice our sleep time for work, parties, or just to watch the latest hit movie. Many people tell themselves that they can easily get by on seven, six, or even five hours of sleep per night so they can have more time to  ‘be productive’ or to get more ‘work’ done. But I have a fun fact for you: Sleep deprivation of just a few hours will depress immune system function by 50% in just two days. Eating sugar has a similar effect, but your body will usually manage to recover within six hours. A lack of sleep, however, will keep you vulnerable for days, and at least until you actually let your body rest fully. If you are prone to picking up infections, then getting the sleep you need is where you should start your journey to normal immune function.

6. Our thoughts have a very real and profound effect on our lives, our wellbeing, and on our relationships. For survival reasons, we are hard-wired to focus on potential sources of danger. As a result, our brains are often invaded by unwanted thoughts. We must realise that our thoughts can, and often do, materialise as self-fulfilling prophecies. Every moment you spend thinking about things that you don’t want to happen inadvertently puts energy into making them happen. Holding on to disturbing thoughts forces your body into stress, a state where all actions become disproportionately draining.

My experience leads me to believe that the pressures of our busy lives, and the challenge of keeping up with ‘progress’, are forcing us to barely survive, rather than to live, let alone thrive. By addressing the essentials of good health, you are likely to resolve most, of not all, of your health issues. Even if you only work on one of the items I mentioned above, you will notice positive effects. However if you keep ignoring your body’s needs, and if you use pharmaceuticals to ‘solve’ your problems, you are simply sweeping dirt under the carpet. You may feel better for a moment, but the dirt will continue accumulating, until everything blows up. Doctors are very good at fighting fires, and will likely stop you from dying when you face a health crisis, but they won’t usually help you get your health back. Downward spirals of illness and pain often begin when people are prescribed handfuls of medications to manage one condition and sent on their way, only for further conditions to be triggered by these ‘helpful’ drugs. 

Luckily we can do a lot better. 

If you would like to find out more about my coaching methods and how I can help you get stronger and healthier, please get in touch (przemek.koecielak@me.com, +41786835966). Good communication is very important to me, therefore our first conversation is free of charge and commitment.

Resources:

  • “How to eat move and be healthy” – Paul Chek HHP
  • “Holistic Training for Triathlon” – Andrew Johnston

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