Fasting: The only introduction you’ll ever need

Your mind–body is equipped to defend itself against, and cope with, invading micro-organisms, toxic materials, changes in temperature, unpleasant situations and a bewildering variety of stresses and strains of a mechanical, biochemical and emotional nature. For our entire lives we are in a state of adaptation, as the struggle to retain equilibrium continues.

Your body repairs itself given the chance – broken bones mend, cuts heal and the vast majority of infections are dealt with efficiently and without symptoms. Even when symptoms appear they are often only evidence of the body doing its self-repair and self-healing work. Fever, inflammation, diarrhoea, vomiting – are all evidence of the immune and other repair systems of the body performing their survival tasks.

Many emotions, such as anxiety and depression are only evidence of excessive degrees of perfectly normal emotions. It would be abnormal not to feel anxious in a situation of danger – however, an excessive amount of anxiety is not normal.

In just the same way, allergies are often evidence of an over-reaction on the part of the defence systems of the body to undesirable substances to which some reaction is perfectly normal.

Without fever, the body could not deal with invading microbes, viruses, parasites, etc. Without inflammatory processes, repair of damaged tissues could not take place. Without the ability to rapidly purge ourselves of the danger (vomiting, diarrhoea, etc.) poisons could rapidly kill us…and so on.

On a less dramatic scale we can see that a host of stress factors are making demands on our adaptation and repair processes all the time – both emotionally and biochemically – through the toxic exposure to which we are subject, the relative denatured quality of our food, the major emotional stresses of modern life – whether involving economics, family, relationships, employment or simply the hustle and rush of late twentieth century urban existence.

These multiple and complex adaptive demands can ultimately overwhelm our capacity for adaptation – especially if they are interacting on a mind–body complex which has inherited imbalances and weaknesses from the start.

A gradual decline in health therefore becomes an inevitable outcome, often signalled by the onset of what has been called ‘vertical ill-health’ in which we develop a range of minor symptoms which are not severe enough to send us to bed (horizontal ill-health) and which are seen as ‘normal’ because so many others have the same problems – ranging from digestive problems to skin complaints, headaches, disturbed sleep, aches and pains, etc.

WHAT’S TO BE DONE ABOUT THE STRESS OF LIFE?

There are only three strategies which can offer a beneficial change to the inevitable decline in health caused by biochemical, mechanical (posture, etc.) and emotional stressors impacting your defence systems:

1) You can try to remove the causes (eat better, exercise better, sleep better, relax more, etc.) and so reduce the demands being made on the adaptive, repair and defence capabilities of your body.

2) You can try to improve the adaptive, repair and defence capabilities of your body by methods which enhance immune and repair functions.

3) You can treat the symptoms – either in a way which causes no new problems (the ideal) or in ways which mask symptoms and actually create new problems. Examples of this are the use of anti-inflammatory drugs for arthritis, pain killers for a headache, antacid medication for indigestion – all of which can ease symptoms but do nothing to remove causes, and as a rule create side-effects and therefore new problems for the body to deal with.

In summary, we can try to reduce the stress load, and/or improve our ability to handle it, or we can try to palliate the effects of our handling of the load – well or badly – or, of course, we can choose to do nothing and simply crumble under the onslaught.

NATURAL HEALING OBJECTIVES

Unlike the use of medication and much surgical intervention which imposes solutions, or which makes forced alterations to the situation, natural healing methods start by respecting the self-healing (homoeostatic) potentials of the body.

This is sometimes referred to as vis medicatrix naturae or the ‘healing power of nature’. In German texts it is often referred to as ‘awakening the physician within’, and in more scientific terminology as ‘enhancing homoeostasis’.

By whatever name, such methods appear to work by allowing space, giving a healing opportunity and doing the opposite of forcing a solution.

Fasting sits at the centre of such approaches, along with relaxation and meditation methods, the use of relaxing hydrotherapy methods such as the ‘neutral bath’ (see Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)), the use of non-specific bodywork (‘wellness massage’ and aromatherapy relaxation methods, for example) and employment of techniques which have a balancing, harmonizing, normalizing influence – including some herbal and acupuncture methods.

None of these methods, in themselves, is ‘curative’, but all allow a healing potential to operate more efficiently because they offer the body–mind complex essential time, space and reduced demands, which encourages normalization and recovery, irrespective of whatever is wrong.

This is not to say that problems can be completely removed in all cases, since in many instances the processes that have already taken place will have created so much change, so much damage, that the best that can be hoped for is that matters do not get worse, or that there is a marginal improvement. This is, nevertheless, an infinitely better outcome than a steady decline into ever more ill health.

Trevor Salloum ND, a naturopathic practitioner, describes the benefits of fasting as:

… decreased weight, clearer skin, increased elimination, tissue repair, decreased pain and inflammation, increased concentration, relaxation, plus spare time and savings in the cost of food. Perhaps the greatest benefit is the satisfaction that you are taking a major role in improving your health.

(#litres_trial_promo)

FASTING’S ANTI-AGEING POTENTIAL

Apart from having to constantly adapt to the stress of life, another inevitable factor is always at work which makes demands on our adaptive processes – ageing.

There are a number of competing theories as to just what constitutes the mechanics of the ageing process, but there is increasing agreement that it is probably a combination of interacting elements – all happening at the same time. This was neatly summarized in Newsweek (5 March 1990) by journalists Sharon Begley and Mary Hager:

One theory holds that the changes that accompany ageing are the inevitable result of life itself. DNA, the molecule of heredity, occasionally makes mistakes as it goes about its business of synthesizing proteins; metabolism produces toxic avengers (free radicals) that turn lipids [fats] in our cells rancid and proteins ‘rusty’. This damage accumulates until the organism falls apart like an old jalopy…