Leading a Healthy Life Using Natural Methods

Betty Sue O'Brian is a health trainer, herbalist and naturopath who advocates for dietary and lifestyle adjustments to help bring the body into balance. MPB’s Karen Brown had a conversation with her and started by asking Ms. O’Brian to name the kinds of toxins we may have in our system and how to get rid of them?

O’Brian: Well, the toxins might be heavy metals which we all have just from petro chemicals being in our air and our water. The toxins might be xenoestrogens that come from carpet and today a big problem is molds, mildew and yeast. To get rid of those we have to make our internal environment clean so they’re not happy living in us anymore. Sometimes that entails doing deep tissue cleansing using lots of water, herbs, vitamins, whatever it takes but most important is living food. The more cooked, dead food we eat…

Brown: You have to define “dead food.”

O’Brian: That’s food where the life has been cooked out of it. Today people are advocating that at least 50 percent of our diet be raw so that we have enzymes. We’ve all had a few mung bean sprouts or alfalfa sprouts. Those are considered the most living foods because they’re still growing. The more living, raw foods we eat, the more cleansing we’re going to have going on inside our bodies.

Brown: Talk about our body’s ability to cleanse and heal itself. Does our body have an innate desire to heal itself?

O’Brian: Yes. Just like babies have an innate desire to survive, every cell in our body has a desire to be in optimum health. But, everything in our body also has a desire to be nourished and that includes yeast, molds and cancer cells. Now, the way we feed cancer cells is with sugar. Cancer cells require about fifteen times more sugar than regular cells. The more sugar we eat, the more we’re feeding the wrong kinds of cells. That’s why there’s been a big push to get us to cut back on sugar. It doesn’t help our body detoxify and stay clean.

Brown: What are some simple choices we can make, maybe not so simple but that are certainly doable that can change the way we feel and live our lives?

O’Brian: We do not relax enough. We’re stressed. We need to do stretching. That’s why yoga tai chi and chigong have taken on such a popularity here in the west. It’s because they are relaxing. They get our minds out of our mind’s business and help us be more natural and more serene, to feel better. In addition to relaxation a little exercise for everybody. We have a lymphatic system that doesn’t move unless we move it. The lymph glands go toward our breast and toward our groin and throughout the body but they can stagnate just like a stagnate pool and if we don’t move we’re going to end up with issues there. So movement is really important. And personally, I feel like the most important challenge we have that isn’t so easy is eating organic and non-genome foods.

Brown: What’s non-genome?

O'Brian: “Genetically engineered.” Our bodies are organic. Our bodies are natural. When we put things inside our bodies that are chemical, and believe me this includes a lot of vitamins being sold out there that are laboratory made, manmade synthetics started their rise 100 years ago and have culminated now with what I call “the 4 A’s:” asthma, ADD, allergies and autism. I think it comes from the chemicals that are being put out there. When you get foods home soak them in water with a little peroxide in it or a little lemon in it or even grapefruit seed extract. And let them soak 15 or 20 minutes and try to pull some of the pesticides and things off. We should supply fewer and fewer chemicals to out body to make the body’s job easier and easier. We work under fluorescent lights. We have carpets and synthetic materials all around us. The more we can do that is natural to our skin, our hair, our teeth, our bodies, not just what we eat, then our bodies are going to have an easier time co-existing with the earth.