21 Pounds in 21 Days by Roni DeLuz Page A

lunch, whether a loved one’s behavior has us at wit’s end, or whether we eat nothing but junk food—the body hangs in there with us, striving for harmony. Many of the adjustments it makes take place while we are asleep, which is why we awaken feeling rejuvenated—and why chronically skimping on sleep is equivalent to dying slowly. The reason we experience the urge to urinate and/or move our bowels immediately upon awakening? Because the body wants to expel all the toxins it mopped up while we slept. Of course, our cells heal themselves better when they have not been damaged by our unproductive lifestyle habits and toxins. The longer we live and eat the standard American diet, the greater a toll it takes on the body. Our cells perform and duplicate themselves less perfectly, leading to aging and disease.
    Even for scientists it can be hard to comprehend the countless internal activities our body engages in as it tries to keep us stable. It’s easier to imagine ways it does this by looking at activity we can see, so allow me to give you an easy example. Consider what happens if you literally set your body out of balance by leaning too far in one direction. The farther you move away from a vertical and upright position, the more your muscles will clench, your toes grab, and your body adjust to reestablish equilibrium. Lean far enough over and your leg will involuntarily step in the direction you’re leaning in an effort to keep you from falling over. It does this without your effort. Of course, you can override that reflexive movement to “catch” yourself, consciously choosing to fall over instead. When we ignore the body’s natural instincts, we undermine its effort to keep us in equilibrium. But that’s our free will working. The body’s natural inclination is to keep us healthy, harmonious, and balanced.
    Is Ignorance Bliss?: Ways We Ignore Our Bodies
    While it is the body’s nature to balance and heal itself, we are able to override many of our natural instincts by exercising our free will. Our society encourages us to mistrust or ignore our bodies, but when we do this, we make ourselves less healthy. Here are some common examples.
    Not sleeping when we’re tired. Rather than taking an afternoon “siesta” or “power nap” when we’re sleepy, many of us reach for stimulants like coffee or caffeinated soda. While most of our ancestors awakened at dawn and went to bed around sundown, we push through our early evening fatigue to stay up to watch the eleven o’clock news. Or we fall asleep, wake ourselves up, then wonder why we’re not sleepy when we finally lie down.
    Not going to the bathroom. Ignoring the bodily urge to evacuate is a big issue, particularly for women. I cannot tell you how many of my female clients tell me that they go all day without urinating or moving their bowels because they were in a meeting. Not peeing when you need to teaches the bladder muscles to retain more urine than it was designed to. After years of gravity pulling the heavy liquid downward, the bladder muscles become overextended and lose elasticity. No wonder so many mature women develop urinary incontinence. Holding your bowel movements conditions the body not to evacuate the bowels. When this practice is combined with eating denatured foods that the body doesn’t know how to digest, you become constipated. Granted, many workplaces don’t make it easy to go to the bathroom. It’s not unusual for nurses to feel unable to use the bathroom during an entire sixteen-hour double shift, especially in a busy pediatric ward. Many companies give workers only half an hour for lunch and two ten-minute breaks—which not only doesn’t leave you much time to take care of your bathroom business, you have to choose between going to the bathroom and calling your kids at home.Unhealthy practices like these not only train the body to work against its instincts,