Wednesday, January 7, 2009

The Circadian Cycle and its Overall Impact on Your Health


The circadian cycle is nothing particularly complex. It's really just the cycle of night and day.

Virtually every living thing on earth adjusts its physiology and behavior to the 24-hour day-night cycle under the governance of internal "circadian clocks". This circadian rhythm represents a natural cycle of rest and activity that automatically responds to the energetic variations created by the earth's rotation around the sun in each period of 24 hours.

So what does this have to do with human health?

For most of my adult life, I was the quintessential "Night Person". Like many artists juggling the demands of a career and a family, I was trained to find my most creative time at night, often working into the wee hours of dawn and finally crashing right around the time that the sun was beginning to rise.

All seemed well in my life for a while, until I hit a certain age and my body began to alarm me to the dangers of this bohemian practice - quite unexpectedly.

Advanced Periodontal Disease

Living without health insurance for over 30 years, I was unaccustomed to visiting dentists or conventional medical doctors, and honestly, I never worried much about my teeth, as I had always been told that I had a great set of them.

But one day I realized that my teeth and gums were in horrifying condition, my teeth were loose, my gums had receded dramatically in less than one year, and my teeth were actually separating and wearing away, leaving unsightly gaps all over my mouth.

I visited three conventional dentists. $450 dollars and 3 sets of x-rays later, I was in shock processing the opinion of all three of them that my case was hopeless and that the only course of action for me to take was to have all of my remaining teeth removed and wear removable dentures until I could afford to drum up some $33,000 for gum surgery, bone grafting and individual dental implants and porcelain crowns.

Whew!
I'll let you absorb that.
Imagine how I felt.

Holistic Dentistry


Now, I am not by any means a newbie to alternative medicine, as I have been avoiding pharmaceutically-driven, insurance-robot medical practitioners for over 30 years now, and have successfully cured a number of ailments in my own body as well as raising two children to adulthood using only holistic healing to treat them. So I was ready to manifest my solution.

I found Dr. Steven N. Green, a Naturopathic Physician and DDS with a decades-old dental practice inherited from his own father, a neighborhood dentist in the South Miami area. When I walked into Dr. Green's office, not only was I was not reprimanded for having failed to brush and floss sufficiently (as I had been at the other 3 offices), but surprisingly, the Doctor's first question to me was:

At what time of the day do you eat breakfast?

And it was this little question that set off perhaps the most advanced healing process of my entire life.

Once the easy-going doctor got me in his dental chair, the education process began as he prodded around, testing the stability of each tooth, measuring gum pockets, and determining the degree of bone loss and overall ailing condition of my mouth.

The good doctor then enthusiastically proceeded to explain a very simple thing to me that he promised would change my entire prognosis and that in fact has changed my life and restored my ability to smile again:

Mineral Absorption and the Circadian Cycle

Dr. Green explained simply that my condition was due to a severe mineral deficiency, that my problem with severe bone loss (osteoporosis) was probably not isolated to the area of my teeth and gums, and that it was very likely augmented by my nocturnal lifestyle. He explained that every cell in the body, along with every other living organism on the planet, responds automatically to the circadian cycle, which dictates at what time of day things metabolize and break down, at what time of day nutrients are absorbed, and at what time of day organisms need to sleep and rest.

His main point was: the most optimal time of day to absorb the minerals that my body was desperately starved for is within one hour to ninety minutes after sunrise.

Gulp. Did you get that?

For someone used to going to bed at 4 a.m., this was shocking.

But I was in pain, desperate, terrified and willing to listen and obey. So I went home and changed my life that night by forcing myself into bed before 11pm.

I left Dr. Green's office fully committed to following his list of primary recommendations. These were: Eat the diet recommended for your blood type Eat Right 4 Your Type, take Chelated Mineral Supplements twice a day, and eat a full protein-packed, mineral-rich breakfast (i.e. a spinach omelet) within one hour after sunrise every day.

The Benefits of a Protein Breakfast


I have now been following Dr. Green's protocol for over six months, including his additional recommendations to eat soaked nuts and seeds, sprouted grain bread and fresh, raw organic food daily. I am thrilled to report that my teeth have stabilized dramatically. They are far less loose, and I have no more pain or abcessing in the gums.

Dr. Green prescribed a non-surgical peroxide gel treatment that wiped out the persistent bacterial infection in my gums (i will write more on this in future posts), and by following his recommended lifestyle changes, my body immediately began to respond to the treatment. The difference in my overall energy has been amazing, and i have experienced visible improvements in my skin, hair and level of muscle tone.

Above all, I am thrilled to have defied the surgical/pharmaceutical establishment once again, and beat their game.

Can I get a Witness?


So, let it be known that I am today the proud owner of a stable and permanent smile and a set of healthy teeth that I can use to chew on anything I choose! And that I have sworn forever to go to bed before 11pm, get up just after sunrise and scramble up a spinach omelet at that hour.

Be on the lookout for some more of Dr. Green's amazing recommendations in future posts and/or visit him at his website sngreen.com.

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