Red Light Therapy- as good as a sauna? On PaleoJays Smoothie Cafe podcast

Simple!

I want you to try red light therapy!  And, unlike pretty much everyone else urging you to try it- I have nothing to sell you.  I am just like an older brother (I am the eldest brother of eight children, after all), who wants you to be healthy and do well.  And this therapy, just like eating a paleo type of diet, exercising daily in an ancestral, natural way, and sleeping in a blacked out room for at least 8 hours per night- well, it will further greatly enhance your health and wellness.  

And, I will tell you how to do it easily and cheaply!  Interested?

I have been well aware of the benefits of the sauna for quite some time- a full, high heat sauna will help you to sweat out toxins, heal your body, and help you to recover from hard training faster.  Saunas are wondeful- but, they are also expensive, inconvenient, and hard for some to even tolerate.  They are hot, real hot!

I like a sauna, but being a cheap, rural dweller I decided to try to duplicate the advantages without a major expense, or a daily trip to the YMCA.  As a home-based person, who exercises in my living room, basement, and outdoors in the woods, the Y would be an admission of dependence; showing that I actually need a high priced facility to be totally healthy.  I know that is not true!

So, I experimented this summer with the sauna of the ancient Greeks- the sun!  I sat in shorts only in the direct sunshine, glorying in the warmth and the rays basking my shirtless body, only ensuring that I stopped before any burning whatsoever.  

This simple therapy proved wonderful!  In the summer (at least here in the north country), this is the way to go.  The full spectrum of light provided by the sun provides a wonderful means to improve the circulation, thus enhancing recovery from workouts, the release of toxins, the killing of viruses, and all of the other benefits of light and heat.  In other words, the sun (in summer at least) is a natural sauna!

In fact, I liked the results so much that I cast about for a solution for something similar in the Winter!  There is no way to bask in the sun here in Wisconsin in January, or in the other 7 months of winter here…

I thought of converting one of my outbuildings to a sauna, but the expense and the ruination of my cute little sheds bothered me a lot.  So I kept looking, and researching, which is what I do.

Red light therapy came up, and it is amazing!  Pretty much all of the benefits of a sauna, and some that are even more beneficial.  I now believe that a sauna that also incorporates red light therapy within it would be the best of all worlds, but I also believe now that for your average person, simple red light treatments, done at home, are the preferable option for 99% of people.

All you need is a simple red heat lamp, such as is used to heat up chicken coops in winter, held in a 250 watt holder!  

I found this idea at Wendy Meyers site, https://myersdetox.com/single-infrared-heat-lamp-therapy/

I had also read about it elsewhere, but I like to give credit where credit is due: thanks Wendy!  I actually read her article after having bought the same equipment on Amazon, just using my own noggin, and being super pleased with how it worked out.

I now go into my shed, and hang this contraption from a nail above my head.  I also use it as a handheld unit, focussing it on various parts of my body to focus the heat and light where I want it.  I love the intense red ray spectrum on my torso and face, and lately on my sprained foot to encourage healing.

The sense of calm that comes from simply sittting while reading beneath this device is amazing!  You will reset your sleep and circadian rhythmn cycles by doing so without really trying, also I cannot imagine being depressed after undergoing such a regimen.  It is that transforming!

So- there you go!  Instead of a sauna costing thousands of dollars, or even a red light therapy device costing many hundreds- here is the ideal device you can have for about $25, delivered to your door by Amazon.  

This is kind of like delivering the tropics to your northern doorstep, to envelope you in life-giving warmth and light year round!  It will be sort of a ‘forest bathing’ type of light that will rejuvenate you year round, grounding you in Mother Nature.  Even while blizzards whip across the landscape outside in Wisconsin or elsewhere in the north, you will be snug in your cave, furnace blasting dry heat, drying you up and depressing you, BUT:

You will also be basking in the red light of healing- the light of your ancestral equatorial origins- just sitting in your easy chair, book in your hand, being reborn in a way.  And the best part?  Not only do you not have to drive to the YMCA through the snow, or to some chiropractic facility with a sauna or red light room-

You have it right at home, for about $25.

Paleo Jay's Smoothie Cafe #118 Where Should a Paleo Person Live?

pjsc 118  Where should a modern day Paleo person live?

I have been giving this a lot of thought, and actually, it seems so obvious to me!

I know there are hotbeds of “paleo aficianados” in pretty urban places, like NYC, and especially Austin Texas!  And God bless ‘em, I’m sure they are doing really great there, or at least as good as they can, and I wish them luck!

The problem is, I think that people tend to live in the past; that is, they idolize a “perfect time” in a certain place, and subconciously convince themselves that that time is now.

Like so many Woody Allen fans convince themselves, like he does, that New York City is the New York of the 1940’s... the city portrayed by the New York Times and the New Yorker magazine of that era...

Sorry, but it’s not even close anymore!  I came from Chicago, and the crime-ridden nightmare that that city has become is not even close to what it was in the 1950’s or 60’s- even the 70’s!!

I hate to sound the alarm, politically incorrect as it is, but someone has to say “the Emperor has no clothes”!

Out BIG CITIES have become largely unlivable: racked with governmental corruption, NO real police protection, and riddled with bad water, food deserts, and no contact with real Nature anymore for any of the residents!

Light pollution, noise pollution, traffic pollution, and just too many people pollution have ruined our big cities!

And our suburbs!  Our suburbs ringed about major cities are elitist places nowadays, obsessed with “big dollar high achievement at the expense of anything else”, and likewise an obsession with status and money, since nowadays that is what it takes to remain in the suburbs.  The nice ones, that is.  The ones that retain some semblance of normal American values, that try to emulate some semblance of real, small town values...

God bless the suburbs, but they are fighting a losing battle against the over-the-top corruption and crime of the big cities all around them!  They are fast turning into Gated Communities, hoping to retain their character.  Big, top down government will NOT allow that to continue.  Besides, the cost of admission via housing costs is prohibitive to anyone with a normal job!

So where should a Paleo type of person live??

A smaller city (less than 500,000 people) is ok, but the ideal is to live outside of a small town, or small city of 50,000 or so.

In my opinion, this is ideal.  In the ancient Greek city-states, like Athens and Sparta, this was the average size of a “polis”, meaning a citizenship or body of citizens.  Anything more becomes unmanageable!  In communities of this size, every person still matters, and has a real voice.

So, pick out a small town, outside of a small city!  Or, if you are more urban minded, you can live right IN that small city!!  Cities of that size are kind of “small towns” in and of themselves, in this day and age.

The water will be better!  If you live outside of the city, you can rely on well water, which will be vastly better! 

The light pollution can be very little indeed, giving you wonderful sleep, without needing blackout curtains.  And the noise pollution will be virtually non-existent.

You will be able to afford a large acreage to live in (avoid “developments”!, which will give you an area in which to “forest bathe”, and simply to have wonderful privacy for your family and yourself to exercise outside, and expose yourself to the sunshine and the Vitamin D without anyone staring like an idiot with disapproval that you aren’t wearing sun screen...

You will be able to grow a large garden, digging in the pro-biotic rich earth, and reinforcing your gut microbes daily, as you run, walk, and spring around your yard barefoot!  You can have chickens for their eggs and meat if you want, and there will definitely be a farmer or rancher close by that you can befriend and have a relationship to gain real, fertile eggs (I you don’t have your own), and pastured beef, pork, and poultry!)  This is in and of itself invaluable!

Above all, you will have divorced yourself from the opinions of idiots.

In big cities especially, but also in suburbs as well, you are inundated with liberal, Big Government ideas.  What I mean by this is, the pervasive ideals that none of us can do things on our own, we need Big Government to tell us what to do, since most of us are so stupid and inept!

Nothing could be further from the truth!!

Big, Federal Government is the problem, not the solution!  We need to go “Back to the Future”- the original  promise of the American Revolution, which said that Each citizen should decide how the  country is run- NOT the Federal Government! 

Small government, local government should rule.  The voice of your neighbors, local voices, people you know and deal with are the ones to determine how things should be done!  NOT big bureaucrats, that have self serving agendas.

America was a conservative revolution, originally.  The ONLY ONE in history, really!

It was called the “Protestant Experiment” back then.

It was wonderfully successful. So successful that many worldwide want to bring us down!  (Jealousy is a terrible thing).

We are on the verge of losing all of our success.  The days of Andy Griffith and small town Americana are struggling against a Federal intrusion agenda that threatens to destroy our health, our wellness, and our way of life! 

Vote with your feet!! 

Just as people did in the last days of Rome, when the big government corruption was destroying the empire-

Leave ROME!  Find a home well outside of the big cities, and create your own paleo friendly GARDEN!

Be like Maximus, in The Gladiator movie!  As he moved out to Spain, building an estate there...

You can move to the Midwest, or the South or the West...

 

And build your own estate!  Far from Rome!!

Check out this episode!

PaleoJay's Smoothie Cafe podcast #113 Build your Health from the Inside Out with a green, Paleo smoothie!

pjsc 113  Build your health from the inside out

That’s right- build your health naturally, and very effectively by imbibing a magical elixir each day:

 A Paleo Green Smoothie!

Sometimes I feel a bit funny that I harp on this one thing so much, but it really is that important.  Just by whipping up several days worth of smoothie in your Vitamix blender, and then drinking one glass that morning, and saving the rest in 3 or 4 Ball canning jars in the fridge; well, that brief bit of efforts not only supplies you with the perfect breakfast for most of the week, but it also insures your perfect health for the week!

Really, you have just supplied your body (and mind!) with complete and total nutrition, in a concentrated form, and in the totally natural form of real food.  This is key, since supplements made from chemicals are just a guessing game, and can easily be too much of one and not enough of another, and so put your body out of balance in proportions of nutrients.

Let your Vitamix do the chewing for you!  It will “chew” your veggies, and all else you put into your magical smoothie elixir, even if those foods are frozen.  It will all become an easily assimilable liquid, one which your digestive system can easily break down and take immediate advantage of.
The other thing your Paleo Green Smoothie will do is to take away your hunger!  It really does this well, since it is so loaded with everything your body is constantly crying out for, and almost never gets enough of, unless you eat a diet exclusively of grass fed liver, and lots and lots and lots of dark green leafy veggies.  And that means several BIG salads per day, and LOTS of chewing... did you know Paleo people of old had really strong jaws, but their teeth, while perfectly healthy, often were worn down from the endless chewing they needed to accomplish eating enough vegetables and little root tubers? Especially since this was before anyone knew to wash veggies or roots (or animal carcasses!), and just ate them with the dirt on!  That’s a lot of stress on your poor teeth...

With a smoothie, you just- swallow!  Save your chewing for the grass fed steak you have later, perhaps with a baked potato and just ONE salad. (For fun and taste!)

The Ball jars of smoothie are also perfect to take with you for an easy lunch or snack.  I like to couple a smoothie, a tin of sardines, and a square or two of dark chocolate for dessert... what a perfect fast, cheap, and really nutritious lunch on the go- no preparation, just put in your lunch box and go.

Go to my recipe on www.paleojay.com for the Paleo Green Smoothie, and get going.  If you don’t have a Vitamix blender yet, you can get one directly from Vitamix by clicking on the link at www.paleojay.com, again- just to the right side of the page.  This gets you the Vitamix of your choice, with completely free shipping!

And if you want the entire PaleoJay recipe for paleo living, in an organized form, my ebook “Perfectly Paleo Exercise” is on sale on Amazon.com for just $2.99- that is $5.00 off the regular price.

And all of those, my friends, are my Oktoberfest Paleo gifts to you.  Take them all, in good health!

Gemutlicheit!