Editor’s note: This is a guest post from David Turnbull of Adventures of a Barefoot Geek.

There are two challenges that people face when choosing to live a more simpler life: owning little and wanting little. Yet people fuse these challenges together into a larger “live simply” goal. Unfortunately, they’re two different beasts that need to be tamed in their own ways.

Owning little requires a practical approach – systematically decluttering your life and eliminating the unnecessary. Wanting little on the other hand is focused on the way in which we think, a far more blurred aspect of simplicity.

Sincerely wanting little is difficult. It goes against our firmly rooted desire for certainty, for ownership. To cut through this psychological attachment  requires more than step-by-step processes or following a list of tactics, it requires a shift in your thinking, a shift in the way you approach your day to day life and how you make decisions.

1. Have a vision for your life. Goals are somewhat useful tools to get from point A to B, but they often lack depth, emotion and meaning, and without those three things there’s a deficiency of purpose and drive.

Think about the lifestyle you want as a whole instead of simply focusing on your desire to want very little. What do you want to own? How will you spend your time? Where will you be? Be specific.

This outline acts as a funnel. Desires for more may attempt to flood your life, but because you’ve clearly defined what matters to you, only the things conducive to your aims will make their way through this funnel. It becomes much easier to say “No” to something when you’re certain it’s not apart of the bigger picture.

2. Find your motivation. What is your why? Why do you want little? Because it’s trendy is unfortunately not enough to quench your lust for stuff. Personally, I want little because I have dreams of traveling the world for months on end, and stocking up on gadgets and gizmos doesn’t exactly gel well with that.

Here are some other common reason why’s:

• Saving money – for retirement, travel, charity etc.
• Eliminating stress.
• Freeing up time from the offset of being able to work less, clean less, and maintain less.

Don’t be meaninglessly minimalist. Be purposeful and deliberate in your quest to want little.

3. Experience the benefits. No matter how many times you hear the benefits of wanting little, or visualise your motivation with all the intensity in the world, experiencing an uncluttered lifestyle will always be the best way to switch from a “want more” to a “want little” mindset.

Aside from simply throwing out everything you own, there are a few ways to go about this:

• Plan a short vacation where you take as little as possible, including no technology or fashion accessories. Only pack the essentials.
• Pick one room in your house or apartment that you want to transform into a no-stuff zone. Dump as much as you can from that room into a spare room or garage. Notice the difference in tranquility as you walk between your regular rooms and the no-stuff zone.
• Visit locations that are inherently uncluttered. Buddhist temples spring to mind as being places with the bare minimal.

4. Be noncommittal. Decisions become scary when they’re set in stone. In other areas of life a little fear could indeed be a good thing, but it’s unnecessary and undesirable when striving to eliminate the desire for more – the challenge is difficult enough without adding further resistance.

There’s no line to cross with attachment to stuff, no mountain you must overcome. It’s a lifestyle you can back out of anytime, a mindset that in no way restricts your ability to choose. Wade through the shallows before diving in the deep end.

5. Understand the psychology of influence. Marketing and sales are apart of this world and it’d be silly to chastise those sectors because in reality we’re all marketers and salespeople – all livelihoods are fuelled by being heard and mutual exchanges. But that doesn’t mean you need to fall into the trap of cheap psychological tricks.

Start by reading about how marketing weasels will try to manipulate you and for more depth pick up a copy of Robert Cialdini’s classic, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.

Other books on the topic that I’m yet to read, but you may want to check out include:

• Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, Malcolm Gladwell
• Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions, Dan Ariely
• Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy, Martin Lindstrom

6. Grow into it. Start with small victories. Be mindful of all your purchases and desires and regularly ask yourself “Does this fit into my vision?” You will stumble, it’s the nature of the beast. The world wants you to want more, and the world is a mighty challenger.

Be persistent with your quest for less and surround yourself with positive influences – classical works of literature like the Tao Teh Ching and Walden; Or, Life in the Woods, plus like-minded individuals who want to cut themselves free from the leash of things.

7. Lose yourself. Purchasing is a process we lose ourselves in. First something catches our eye, then there’s the inner conflict (should we buy it?). If we convince ourselves that we should part with our money, there’s that little buzz you get of claiming ownership. You take the product home. And then you use it.

It’s an exciting sequence of events – full of uncertainty and possibility – that we get swept up in. But the problem is, it mostly ends with buyer’s remorse, a dented bank account and all the other costs of owning stuff.

What you need to do is learn to get lost in activities rather than acquisition. Instead of being strung along by the latest gizmo, learn to transplant that process into an outlet such as writing, music or drawing. Focus on doing interesting things rather than buying interesting things.

8. Crunch the numbers. It’s likely that you have a passion that has expenses (like travel or reading) or, at the very least, you would like to put away some money for a rainy day. One simple trick I use to avoid acquiring things is compare the cost of the particular thing in question, to the expenses of my passion.

For example, backpacking through Thailand is something I dream of doing. Now, say it costs $25 per day to live in Phuket. If I were to see an Xbox game selling for $50 I’d ask myself “Is that game worth sacrificing two days in a foreign culture?” Most of the time the answer will be a resounding “No” and it’s in those instances where you’ll be dodging a purposeless impulse buy.

If the answer comes back “Yes,” nothing is wrong with that. Wanting little isn’t about depriving yourself of what’s important to you, but eliminating all the clutter that makes its way into our lives. But make sure you’re being honest with yourself.

Read more from David at his blog, Adventures of a Barefoot Geek, or subscribe to his feed.

Our own thoughts and emotions can be what makes us to feel better, and keeps us feeling better, or they can make us sick, and keep us feeling sick. There is a link between negative emotions and the presence of illnesses and diseases.

Feeling sad or depressed can affect your entire body. Illnesses are able to strike more easily and recovery from the illness or sickness can be a longer road. The way we think about our body is the most powerful tool we have for our health

The body functions on brain stimulation and is responsible for the way it reacts. It responds to the way you feel, think and act. This is known as a mind/body connection.

Poor emotional health can lead to the weakening of the immune system. This will make you more susceptible to colds, flu’s and other illnesses while dealing with an emotional time. When you are feeling stressed, angry or anxious your body will try to tell you that something is wrong.

High blood pressure or a stomach ulcer can be common after a while dealing with a stressful event in your life.

Your subconscious mind power has the ability to do almost anything you want it to do. Your mind has more power than you could ever imagine. It can even assist in the healing process when you are sick. If you try to focus only on the positives versus the negatives, you will feel and look healthier.

When your body is feeling stressed, it wants to shut down and does not operate correctly. Your body needs positive feedback from you in order to keep going, and to achieve goals you may have. It is possible to make yourself sick by worrying too much about the small stuff.

If you are in a room full of sick people and you have the fear that you yourself may get sick as well, chances are you probably will.

Not just because there is sickness in the air, but because the body’s immune system will weaken as you allow yourself to be over indulged in the stress of getting sick. You can prevent yourself from getting sick by not worrying about it.

If you are positive and praise your body, it will listen. When you are feeling good and healthy, your immune system will support that, and keep you feeling good and healthy.

Allow yourself a chance to be able to unwind and not fear what you may get, or if you are perfect or not. If you allow your body to work for you, you will get there.

Most people think that asthma is a disease which strikes early in childhood, causing problems throughout the lives of children.

It usually goes away during the later teenage years and most people consider this is the end of it.

This is not true, as asthma could hit anyone at any point of their lives. In many people, this condition does not surface until their late middle-age and will continue to affect them as elderly patients.

Learning to recognize the signs of asthma is important for treatment.

People usually inherit the conditions for asthma from family members, so those with one family member who suffer should be aware of the conditions arising in offspring. If you have difficulty breathing, you should obviously think of asthma and should immediately go to a doctor.

You should be aware of this possibility through your entire life, though. An increasing number of people are not diagnosed with asthma until they are elderly and many of these people will not even consider the possibility. They simply assume that they are having trouble breathing because of their old age.

When you are watching for the signs of asthma, though, you can watch your entire life in case an attack should come along. [asthma attack]

“Most people would rather live within their means rather than expand their means.” – Robert Kiyosaki, Retire Young, Retire Rich

Most of us would rather be rich than poor. Rich may not mean monetarily rich – it may mean experiences, family, friends – but generally wealth enables the accomplishment of many other goals.  How can you do it?  You can save.  You can invest wisely.  You can reduce debt or decrease expenditures.  The hardest way to get rich, but the only way that really works, is to expand your means.  You have to earn more than you spend, consistently and constantly.  You have to expand your means.

I get frustrated reading about achieving wealth by cutting out lattes. Sure, you can be better off if you don’t waste money on Wii’s and lattes.  You’ll achieve your goals sooner if you invest in index funds instead of speculating on stocks.  You’ll be richer, sooner, if you choose a good career that allows for upward mobility.  You’ll win out – in today’s America – if you choose a public-sector job that guarantees benefits.  Sad, but true.

But one thing that most people will never try is to increase their “means” past their primary income. It’s hard.  I struggle to do it.  If I asked you to generate, tomorrow, an extra $10 cash in hand, could you do it?  Even if you make six figures a year, could you figure out a way to generate $10 above your normal daily haul?  It would be difficult for most of us.  Most of us would rather watch Lost than attempt it.

Expanding your means will make you wealthier than saving money. If you save $5, you’ve saved it once and you’re done.  If you come up with a new business model that makes you an extra $5 today, and might – might! – make you an extra $5 tomorrow you’ve created a new income stream.  Making a tiny bit more will change your life far more than saving a bit.

Kiyosaki’s phrase is telling. Most people would rather live within their means… and they’ll pay for it in the long run.  Don’t kid yourself:  it’s tough to live within your means.  With the onslaught of advertising and “keeping up with the Joneses” it’s hard to resist the Wii’s and the Kindles and the latest fashions and the gourmet foods.  If you can, kudos to you.  I think I have so far, but it’s a constant struggle.  But it’s akin to health:  if you can avoid heroin, you’re in better shape than a junkie.  It doesn’t mean you’ll live to 100.  To do that you have to excel – you have to beat the norms, the average and the mean.  Don’t think that skipping the morning latte is enough.  You have to make that extra effort to create more wealth.  Sitting back and “not buying” is not enough.  You have to go out, and make more. You to create wealth, not just avoid spending.

photo by matze_ott

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expanding your means is an original article from the website brip blap.

If you read more than one blog, I’m sure you’ve already read several “Happy Thanksgiving” posts, but I’ll add one more – hope everyone enjoyed a couple of days of wassail and sodality (and yes, I know I’m not using that word in exactly the correct way, but it was a new one for me and I decided to give it a whirl).

As we’ve closed on our home purchase and start moving out of our rental I’ve been reminded of one of the benefits of renting. Following Murphy’s Law almost to a T, our kitchen sink backed up severely on Thursday.  Drano and Liquid Plumber helped slightly, allowing a trickle to drain through, but for all intents and purposes the sink was useless.  We decided not to interrupt our landlord’s Thanksgiving, being the selfless tenants we are (ha), and waited until Friday.

On Friday, our landlady gave us the number of a plumber who made emergency calls. He came out promptly and discovered that there were some problems far, far down the line.  In other words, Drano wouldn’t have made a bit of difference – it was a problem that had grown long before we rented the house.  Lots of heavy equipment was hauled up on the roof and an hour later the sink was flowing like new.

Our bill for all of this?  Nothing, other than the tip I gave the guy because he had given me three calls before arriving to keep me posted on exactly how long it would take him to get there.  If the same problem happened in a house I owned, I’d be spending plenty.  As a renter, nothing.  So, score one for renting.  Renting certainly has its share of drawbacks but in this case, renting wins.

A few links, gathered around holiday themes – I suppose from now until Christmas plenty of blogs, including mine, will be focused on the orgy of consumerism and how “you don’t need things to be happy” etc. etc.  Lots of frugality tips and affiliate links, no doubt.  My holiday spending tip?  Decide what you can afford, stick to it and don’t worry about it further than that. And pay cash (or, if you are the type who can control your credit cards, pay off your balance immediately).

And how was your Black Friday? I’ve never “done” Black Friday, and never plan to do it.  What a horrible mess.  Why people would subject themselves to that kind of abuse for the sake of good but not unbelievable savings is beyond me.  Wait one year and that will be the day-to-day price on a TV.

• When Is It Time to Hire a Financial Planner?
• Blockbuster vs Netflix: Online DVD Rentals For Less
• Plan and Budget for Holiday Spending
• Thanksgiving – 24 Daily Thankful Moments
• 3 Principles of Successful Investors Part 2
• Are You a Credit Card Junkie? Learn How to Kick the Habit
• 5 Four-Letter Words You Should Be Using in Personal Finance
• Are You Affluent?
• My Black Friday Plans

photo by 5533

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linklings, score one for renting edition is an original article from the website brip blap.

Many people don’t know that contraception is a method that dates from medieval times. In the late 10th century there were at least 20 different ways for birth control.

Through out the history means and ways changed, different herbs or materials were used in the function of a barrier. All of that contributed to today’s contraception methods.

Nowadays when we live in a time where sexually transmitted diseases pose a real threat to human life, contraception found a new function besides its primary birth control usage.

The market and the doctors offer a palette of different contraceptive methods, among which the most popular are the female ring, commonly known as the vaginal ring and the contraceptive pill.

Both methods prove to be very effective when it comes to birth control. In fact they both assure the user that there is 95 to 99% chance that they will do what they are supposed to, which is a great advantage.

On the other hand they don’t protect from sexually transmitted disease, which is a disadvantage. As a disadvantage can be regarded the fact that they both may produce certain side effects to women that are using them like nausea, vomiting, stomach ache, etc and you have to have a prescription to get them.

But besides this they are good for planning a family and they offer continuous protection, they are also very easy to use and they give the possibility to enjoy the sexual pleasure, which is very good.

Also women before taking contraceptive pills should see a doctor first. This is because there are hundreds of different pills and some may not be good for users with some health conditions like liver problems.

Although it is available for everyone, and women with different age use it, the pill is generally preferred by women older than 20 and younger than 30. These women mostly chose it because of the continuous protection and the fact that it is easy to use and it does not decrease sexual pleasures.

The female ring is a contraceptive method that is mostly chosen by women in their teen years. This spans out to women in their mid 20. This also is a choice for these women because it is safe and saves them the trouble of remembering to take a pill.

Choosing the right contraception is not an easy thing to do. Knowledge is power, so everyone who uses any contraceptive method should be well informed about how safe it is, how it is properly used, and what possible side effects it could cause.

Have you ever noticed that when you are freshly showered and shaven you feel better than when you first wake up from, say a nap? Or have you ever noticed how after you’ve gotten a pedicure and manicure you feel so much more confident.

Or, even thought we absolutely hate going to the dentist have you ever noticed how great you feel after having your teeth cleaned really well?

These are all indications that we feel much healthier when we are practicing good hygiene. And obviously practicing good hygiene is extremely good for our health.

Times are tough right now with the economy so very few of us can afford to go to the salon and spa at all but maybe just pay special attention to your teeth for a week. Seriously. We know it sounds funny but so many of us rush through our oral hygiene routine. For one week take your time, brush in circles, floss and rinse.

And then the following week pay special attention to your feet by filing them down and massaging them every day for a week.

And the next week you could pay special attention to your face and eyes, gently exfoliating and moisturizing every night.

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Mary Jaksch of Goodlife Zen.

Alleviate world poverty? Isn’t that impossible?

There is so much grinding poverty in the world – how could just one of us possibly make a difference? The reason it seems so impossible is that we tend to focus on the immense number of people suffering from poverty – and on how little we can do individually. So we give up trying.

But there are two points to remember when we think about global problems:

1. Every action counts;
2. We are not alone.

Taking action is like planting a seed. Watch this short video to see how small thing can become big: (Here’s a link to the video if you can’t see it below.)

Every action counts
Whenever I get disheartened because there is so much suffering in the world, I remember one of my favorite stories. Here it is:

One day a man was walking his dog along the beach after a storm. The tide had washed thousands of starfish onto the beach. They were still alive, but only just. A woman was making her way along the shore, throwing starfish into the sea, one by one.

“Hey, ” the man called out. “there are thousands of starfish on the beach. You’re not going to make a blind bit of difference!”

The woman stooped, picked up a starfish and threw it back into the sea. Then she smiled at the man and said, “Made a difference to that one!”

I love that story! It reminds us to think about individuals, and not about the big picture. Of course the big picture is important if you are part of an organization. But I find that looking at the big picture just gets me down and stops me from actually doing something about a global problem such as poverty.

We are not alone
All around us are people who are willing to lend a hand. It’s easy to forget this when you live in a big city, but rural communities still know about the power of concerted effort. Here’s an example: I was recently riding in a collectivo, a local bus on in the remote Corcovado Peninsula of Costa Rica. The bus carried school children and people with goods for the local market – all jammed together on iron-hard seats welded to a cattle truck. The road was knee-deep in mud and pitted with craters.

Suddenly the driver jammed on the breaks. We had just passed a farmer who was trying to catch a bunch of horses that were escaping down the road. We all hopped out spread around to stop the horses from escaping. The farmer was able to lasso his horses and we all got back into the bus, slapping each other’s backs in high spirits. That kind of thing doesn’t happen in cities!

If you and I and many others reach out and hold hands across the oceans – we can achieve the impossible: We can start to alleviate world poverty. But how?

Give a hand-up, not a hand-out.

When I was in Costa Rica, I met an inspiring woman leader, called Petronella. She belongs to the Bribri tribe, a small group of indigenous people in the Limon Province. She and her family suffered a lot. They were thrown off their ancestral land three times by land-hungry white Latinos, lived in grinding poverty, and had to cope with their daughter Priscilla’s debilitating illness.

Four years ago, Petronella decided to lead her family out of poverty, come what may. She started a small tourist enterprise showing visitors how her ancestors made chocolate. And someone gave some English language tapes and a player to Priscilla.

Fast forward 4 years…
Now Petronella employs five people and buys handicrafts and chocolate from other members of her tribe in order to sell them to tourists. Priscilla (who is extremely talented) has learned to speak impeccable English and her health has improved with medication.

You can see how an enlightened leader like Petronella can make a difference, not only to her own family, but to her whole community – with a little help. And that gave me the idea of how to start alleviating world poverty…

How we can alleviate world poverty together

Together with Arvind Devalia of Make it Happen, I’ve launched the Blog with Heart Challenge . Which blog community has the most compassion and will to act? Each blog is invited to join a friendly challenge to alleviate poverty during the month of December 2009. The top ten will be the nominated winners of the Challenge.

The best ways to alleviate poverty is to give people a hand-up, not a hand-out. That’s why the Blog with Heart Challenge 2009/2010 uses Kiva, a highly respected non-profit microlender.

Kiva is a non-profit, internet based organisation which allows you to lend as little as $25 to a specific low-income entrepreneur in the developing world. You choose who to lend to – whether a baker in Afghanistan, a goat herder in Uganda, a farmer in Peru, a restaurateur in Cambodia, or a tailor in Iraq – and as they repay the loan, you get your money back.

How the Blog with Heart Challenge works.

Each blog can form a lending team at Kiva. Once you are part of the team, you can choose to have a loan on Kiva “count” towards your team’s impact. The loan is still yours, and repayments still come to you – but you can choose to have the loan show up in your blog team’s collective portfolio, so your Zen Habits’ chance of winning the Blog with Heart Challenge will grow!

The top ten winners of the Blog with Heart Challenge will be the blogs who have the biggest Kiva portfolio, relative to their number of subscribers by the end of December 2009.

The good news is that Zen Habits is the first blog to join the Blog with Heart Challenge! It’s great to see leaders like Leo take compassionate action and I’m sure Zen Habits readers will follow his example.

Here’s how YOU can alleviate world poverty with 3 easy steps.

Step 1: Sign up for Kiva here
Step 2: Log into your Kiva account. Go to your Zen Habits Lending Team and click the “Join Now” button.
Step 3: Go to the Kiva lending page and choose someone you want to lend to. When you get to the checkout, you’ll see that your loan has been added to the portfolio of your Zen Habits Team.

Done! Your loan has changed a life. And when your loan is paid back to you, you can re-lend it and change another life. Great, eh?

You can read more about the Blog with Heart Challenge or watch some cool videos about Kiva, collected by Arvind Devalia.

I’m very excited about this project! So excited, in fact, that I just went and lent $25 to Susan Obire in Nigeria. She sells kerosene at retail prices to her customers. Her greatest joy is the one-on-one interaction that she has with her customers. She hopes for a loan of $400 to purchase more kerosene to sell.

Let’s crank this thing up.

Please write to other bloggers and urge them to join the Blog with Heart Challenge. You can point them to more about how to join the Challenge.
Tweet like crazy and get everyone on board. Here is a shortened link that leads to info about the Challenge. You can use for your Tweets: http://bit.ly/SLNyU

Let’s do something about world poverty – together.

All it takes is the three steps above.

Please go ahead and complete them, then email your friends and urge them to follow your example.
Let’s make it happen!

Read more from Mary on her blog Goodlife Zen You can sign up for updates and get her free ebook “Overcome Anything”.

By Curmudgeon.  Just to make sure none of my anxious relatives read this and think this is me, I’ll repeat – no, I didn’t write this.  That having been said, Curmudgeon has a few important notes about health care in America that we’d all be better off thinking about now rather that later.  My family is also struggling with this with some of our family members, as well – the good and the bad.

I was just discharged from the hospital. I went in through Emergency, with a life-threatening condition.  I had my wits fully about me during most of the time (when not on painkillers), and tried to pay some attention to what was going on around me.  The hospital was a mid-sized facility in a small city in New England, and is probably fairly typical in that regard.

I’ll start with a couple of neutral observations.

• Health care, and health care delivery, are highly complex and involved.  The machines used for diagnosis and treatment are big, highly sensitive, and expensive to operate and maintain.  Yet because my hospital had them on site, I was able to get a diagnosis within two hours, rather than days.
• The machines are not compatible.  They produce paper as output, and are not wired together in any sort of process as we might understand in business.  This result in a huge paper file that must be available to the caregivers, and must be read and comprehended.

The processes involved are enormously complex and individualized. No two persons’ care is identical, and while individual steps are well-known and practiced, the process as a whole is driven by the needs of the patient.

Now a couple of positive observations.

• I was attended to by a large number of dedicated and caring professionals.  I can’t say enough about the people who attended and assisted me.
• In the hospital no one is asked how they are going to pay for a particular test, procedure, or treatment.  This is a really good thing; patients are in a poor position to make economic tradeoffs with their health.

Next a couple of not-so-positive ones.

• At my estimate, approximately a third of the time of these dedicated professionals was spent checking and correcting errors, omissions, or inconsistencies caused by others, or by the system itself.  Some of this is to be expected; the processes involve humans, after all.  But not this much.
• As a patient, you deal with a confusing array of care providers on a daily basis.  For example, I counted a dozen different types of nurses before giving up, and that doesn’t include specialty nurses.  No doubt these distinctions are made to differentiate both function and skill set, but to the outsider it is pretty opaque.

The number of specializations concerns me, but perhaps is justifiable by the complexities involved.  However, I’m much more concerned by the lack of a seamless and accurate flow of information between them. There is also not one “master truth” in the system, as many professionals hold many different understandings of what tests were conducted and what treatments administered.  I had to go through a stress test, for example, because the admitting doctor’s offhand remark that I seemed to have a mild heart murmur lead others to believe I was experiencing chest pains, which I was not.

I would like to think that much of the confusion and misunderstanding can be eliminated. As a computer guy, my inclination is to think of a set of automated solutions, but that may not be the full answer.  But there are inefficiencies in the system that can be corrected, letting the health care professionals do the jobs they need to.

photo by Rodrigo Basaure

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My Up Close Look at Health Care is an original article from the website brip blap.

A good nights’ sleep is important for everyone, but especially for people who have a Hepatitis infection.

When you sleep you are able to rejuvenate your body, mind and emotions.

When you rest, your liver is resting. It is important to get a full night’s sleep every night of the week.

Your liver will respond best to medication if you have at least twelve hours of sleep. When you are well rested, your body has more energy to be able to fight off the infection.

Sleep allows our bodies to regenerate cells. This is the only time our bodies can produce the growth hormone and a few other anti-aging natural chemicals.

If the sleep that is needed is not achieved, the body doesn’t have the opportunity to regenerate as well, and the tissues of the body will age more quickly. This will result in the body’s immune system having to work a lot harder, and eventually will lead to the immune system weakening.

The lack of good sleep, where you are actually resting, and the body’s inability to regenerate cells, can lead to other diseases besides the Hepatitis infection.

The Hepatitis virus is treated like any other liver toxin while we are asleep. The liver will destroy any toxic elements we may harbor in our bodies.

If we want to keep our liver healthy, and keep allowing for this vital organ to fight off illnesses and bacteria, we need to make sure we do take care of it.

Eating foods that are natural will cause less stress on the liver, as well as making sure we are always well rested. Think of the process that the liver goes through, almost like when we take a shower. Showering cleanses our outer body, and our liver cleanses our inner body.

Endorphins, which were discovered in 1975, are substances which are created in our brain. They offer a pain relieving and stress relieving element very similar to Morphine.

Endorphins latch onto the receptors in our brains, and help to remove the perception of pain that we may have.

Sleep stimulated endorphins allow the whole body to work at fighting the infection or virus. The human body can regenerate up to 2% during 48 hours of sleep.

If you have been diagnosed with Hepatitis, allow yourself the rest and sleep that your body requires. This will not only help your body to heal, but will also allow it to fight off any other illnesses that could hinder your ability to live a healthy and normal life.