Natural Medicine for Super-Aging

According to Western medicine, steroid medications are medically necessary to treat many conditions and diseases. But steroid medications have major side effects on the metabolism of calcium and bone, which may lead to severe bone loss, osteoporosis, and bone fractures.

Steroid therapy is the use of steroid medications, also known as corticosteroids, to treat many types of autoimmune disease, including myasthenia gravis, lupus, and multiple sclerosis, and other disorders, such as asthma. Steroid medications include medications like prednisone and cortisone. Corticosteroids can be taken orally or in other ways, such as by inhalation.

In addition to bone loss, other adverse side effects of steroid medications are elevation of blood pressure, weight gain, decreased resistance to infection, indigestion, thinning of skin, and potential development of cataracts and glaucoma. For example, prednisone is a medication commonly prescribed for ocular myasthenia. However, four factors should be carefully considered prior to the use of steroids, especially if your myasthenia gravis is related only to ocular muscles:

Can steroids improve or eradicate your symptoms?

Are there other safer forms of therapy to treat your myasthenia gravis?

Does the severity of the symptoms warrant the risk of steroid adverse effects?

Do steroids reduce the chance of a relapse?

It stands to reason that the high risk of taking pharmaceutical drugs to treat only the symptoms without producing a cure may not warrant the continuation of the medications over a long period.

The bottom line: Set your goal to ultimately stop all medications. It may take weeks, months, or even years, but that should be your ultimate goal in your health pursuit.

Do not stop all medications right away.

Talk to your doctor about your concern. Express your wish to reduce your medications slowly and gradually.

If your doctor does not agree to your suggestion, look for another naturopathic doctor.

No matter what, make it your ultimate objective to stop all medications eventually.

The bottom line: it is your health that is the main issue; always empower yourself with knowledge about the medications that you are taking. Always use natural medicine to heal yourself.

Stephen Lau

Copyright © 2018 Stephen Lau

Enhancing Your Immune System

As you continue to age, your immune system weakens, and this is a fact. A weakened immune system may make you become more vulnerable to the development of an autoimmune diseases and there are more than 100, including myasthenia gravis.

The immune system is created to protect you from diseases and infections. Unfortunately, sometimes the immune system may go awry and attack the body itself, instead of protecting it. These misdirected immune responses are referred to as autoimmunity. In other words, the immune system attacks itself in the form of many autoimmune diseases, affecting many parts of the body, including the nerves, muscles, endocrine system (controlling the body’s hormones and other chemicals), and the digestive system. Essentially, autoimmunity can affect almost any organ or part of the body system.

There are more than 80 types of autoimmune disease, including the more common ones, such as multiple sclerosis, type 1 diabetes mellitus, rheumatoid arthritis, and myasthenia gravis, among others.

Enhancing the Immune System

Scientists have discovered that the healthy functioning of the immune system is dependent on your own behavior. In other words, the efficiency of your immune system depends on how well you live. More specifically, foods, herbs, and lifestyle factors all play a pivotal part in the health of your immune system. Therefore, only YOU can enhance immune system because only YOU are responsible for your own health.

We are living in a culture that relies on external means for healing, such as the use of pills, potions, and surgeries. What is missing in the Western medical system is the philosophy that the body is capable of protecting itself against any illness, as well as healing itself of the illness, and that the role of the physician is to promote the self-healing process of the patient to re-establish health and wellness. Without this missing link, the immune system becomes compromised and vulnerable.

Prevent the development of an autoimmune diseases with a strong immune system, including the following:

Effective communication between the immune cells (they fight against foreign invaders)

Increased production of immune cells

Reduced production of free radicals (damaging oxidation produced in the natural process of growth and rejuvenation of human cells)

Optimum environment for blood and tissues where immune cells work

Stephen Lau

Copyright© 2018 by Stephen Lau

My Newly Published Book: The Happiness Wisdom

I have just published my book: “The Happiness Wisdom”, which is a 161-page book on human wisdom based on ancient wisdom from the East and the West, conventional wisdom, and spiritual wisdom, which may all provide guidelines for choosing the happiness ingredients for your own happiness recipe. In addition, the book also provides real examples taken from real life, illustrating how these real people perceive their realities, and thus leading to their happiness or unhappiness.

Human happiness or unhappiness is no more than a perception of the human mind, based on an individual's own life experiences. You think, and your perceptions then become your "realities"; with profound wisdom, you can change how your mind processes your perceptions. Change your mind to change your realities, and live your life as if everything is a miracle! Your life journey is uniquely yours. Make your own happiness recipe from the happiness ingredients of ancient wisdom, conventional wisdom, and spiritual wisdom. Continue your life journey with your own happiness recipe.

Click here to find out more about the book.

Click here to get your digital copy, and here to get your paperback copy.

Stephen Lau

How to Sharpen Your Memory

As you age, your memory may deteriorate. But it doesn't have to be that way. You can still have a sharp memory if you improve memory skills.

Memory has everything to do with brain health. If you don't have a healthy brain, how can you have a good memory? A good memory is an ingredient of wisdom. Therefore, if you want to be wise, have a good memory, But a good memory requires good basic memory skills. So, improving memory skills goes a long way to improving memory, despite the aging process.

Good memory skills are important to having a good memory, just as a good mechanic also needs good tools. Memory skills are your tools to enhance your brain processing, which is what memory is all about. Memory involves processing of information that you already have, and capability to recall it at will. Such processing requires utilization of your senses: sight, touch, smell, or a combination of some of these senses. The capability to utilize these senses means you are not only being aware of them, but also paying attention to them. As a result, they become memory tools for you, so that you can retrieve your information later without any problem.

All disciplines in the brain have some connection with memory, for example, music, writing, and art, among others.

(1) According to some scientific research, music has the capacity to change your neuron activity. Music therapists believe that different sounds from different instruments have different impact on different body organs in the physical body. Specifically, they are capable of breaking blockages in energy flow (the Chinese call it "qi"), which courses through the meridian channels in the body to bring oxygen and nutrients to different parts of your body. Nowadays, there is "psychoacoustics" which is the study of sound on the conscious mind through the use of music. Scientists have used MP3 music and subliminal messages for hypnosis to awaken the subconscious mind to improve memory, enhance learning, heal sleep problems, increase self-confidence, just to name a feuw possibilities. Music, of course, has to do with sound. Learn to play a musical instrument to boost your brain power, concentration, and to develop motor skills.

(2) Writing is another discipline which can improve memory skills, and hence memory. Writing a journal, a diary, or even writing a blog, can boost memory power, because in writing, or rather recollecting one thought at a time and word by word, may help you with organization and logic. In addition, as you are jotting down the words, the movements of your hands (as you type or write), as well as the sight of the words in front of you will reinforce your memory. Writing is a good example of using sight to improve memory skills.

(3) Art is another field which extensively uses your extraordinary senses, such as visual in drawing, or touch in sculpture.

As you get older, your brain shrinks a bit, and that is natural. The good news is that your can recoup your losses. As a matter of fact, you have about 100 billion brain cells, and you have used up only five percent of your brain cells. Tap into them to improve your memory. Use it or lose it!

Be wise with a good memory!

Awaken Your Photographic Memory is a state-of-the-art memory system to improve your memory.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© 2018 by Stephen Lau

Is Cancer Avoidable?

The high incidence of cancer has continued to increase at an alarming rate, especially in the last century. But the disease is as old as age.

Indeed, any people who are apparently living a healthy lifestyle (that is, not smoking and drinking, exercising regularly, and eating healthy) are being diagnosed with cancer. Cancer has become the disease of the century despite all the medical efforts to fight the disease.

There are many reasons why and how you may get cancer. That is to say, in many ways you are responsible for it. Lack of medical knowledge is one the many reasons. Some knowledge of cancer may help you avoid the deadly disease.

First of all, cancer is not a mysterious disease. If someone does not smoke, how does he or she get lung cancer? The myth of the mysterious affliction is mainly due to the holistic nature of the disease; that is to say, cancer has multiple causes, resulting in internal disharmony that provides an optimal environment for the pre-existing cancerous cells to thrive, grow, and become malignant. Worse, the conventional methods of cancer cure are often compartmentalized, that is, focusing exclusively on the cancerous organ or tissue. To illustrate, for decades, the medical community had ignored the role of diet in cancer. Accordingly, any cancer approach, whether it is prevention or treatment, must be holistic because cancer is a multifaceted disease. As such, in many ways you are responsible for it.

It is a common assumption that cancer is genetically inherited. This assumption has led many people to exonerate themselves from their role in cancer diagnosis. Some scientists have contested with the assumption that cancer is mainly due to family history, that is, genetically predisposed to cancer. In the middle of the 20th century, about one in 20 American women had breast cancers; now the the incidence of breast cancers has skyrocketed to one in ten. This drastic and dramatic increase does little to justify the genetic cancer theory.

If cancer is not a genetically predisposed disease, then there must be many other factors contributing to the disease; or, rather, many triggers in modern life that are responsible for the rampancy of cancer. In other words, you may be responsible for the disease. Understanding how and why you may get cancer may help you avoid the deadly disease.

To illustrate, given that cancer may involve genes, that is, certain genes may promote, while others may inhibit, the growth of cancer, the human role is also a contributing factor that may trigger the disease. According to some medical research, calcium deficiency may be culprit. The explanation is that calcium deficiency enables carcinogens to penetrate cell walls, and thus causing mutations of genes within those cells. If you do not consume a calcium-rich diet, are you not in some way responsible for the disease?

Modern diet has become more processed and unnatural, depleting the body of nutrients, and thereby compromising the immune system. What you can do is to eat natural foods, as well as to avoid overcooking them because heat destroys enzymes in foods (eating raw occasionally is the way to go). On the other hand, eating processed and dead foods and overcooking them are some of the ways you may get cancer.

The environment, its toxins from fluoride, herbicides, pesticides, mercury, and industrial wastes, is another factor contributing to cancer growth. You may not be in a position to control the environment, but you are in a position to go organic, to drink clean water, and to remove mercury fillings from your teeth, among others. Most importantly, you can detox your body to remove harmful chemicals.

Metal detoxification is a must for protect your health from toxic metals from the environment, the processed foods, and your drinking water.

Stress is yet another major factor in causing disharmony within the body, and the underlying cause of cancer. It must be mentioned that cancer diagnosis, cancer treatments, and cancer recovery journey--only further aggravate the stress in life. Again, you can control and manage your stress through mind power to change perceptions, effective time management, natural sleep, and meditation for relaxation.  

Start Zen: Meditation holds the key to total relaxation of the body and mind. 

The bottom line: Help your mind help your cancer through empowerment of knowledge and information about cancer, which is, after all, a multifaceted disease.

Stephen Lau

Copyright © 2018 by Stephen Lau

Successful Aging in Your Golden Years

Your Golden Years and Santa Claus explains the wisdom of living in the present, the wisdom of letting go, and the wisdom of not picking and choosing -- they are the essentials for happy and successful aging in the golden years. Learn how to think and act like Santa Claus in your golden years.

Your future is always unknown and unknowable, but it is your readiness to get new information and to use your new experience to reassess your current situation that provides a light at the end of the tunnel.

Wake up from your nightmare and live a life that you rightly deserve in your golden years.

Growing older sucks. The alternative is to die younger.

So, make the best and the most of your remaining years; turn them into the golden years of your life in spite of any frailty and adversity you may be facing. Remember, life is a task-master: it teaches you not only how to survive in any challenging circumstance but also how to live as if everything is a miracle, especially in your golden years.

Use Santa Claus as your role model to start believing in yourself, developing the right mindset of successful aging, and acting appropriately and positively. Santa Claus may not be a magic-bullet solution to all your life problems and challenges, but he certainly may open unexpected doors for you in your golden years.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© 2018 by Stephen Lau