By now everybody out there is aware that meditation has a wide range of positive benefits for our health. A consistent mediation practice helps us reduce stress, slow down the ageing process, as well as improve concentration, sleep, our self-awareness, and acceptance. Because the process of meditation improves parasympathetic tone (induces relaxation), it does promote cardiovascular health and it also encourages the immune system to work correctly (super helpful for anyone with autoimmunity). But that is the thing. The main key word in this entire paragraph is CONSISTENT.

The effects of meditation are cumulative and even though many people appreciate that, how many people do you know who have a consistent meditation practice? The truth is that you will enjoy the benefits with as little as 15 minutes per day (although more in this case is better), yet how many of us do it regularly? When I quiz my clients on this, most of them will say: “I know it is super beneficial and I...

Before I share with you my essential oil detox blends, I just wanted to emphasize that as powerful as essential oils are, they cannot work miracles. They are not a substitute for a good diet, adequate sleep, clean lifestyle, physical activity, etc. In my approach to autoimmunity (and health overall), I combine nutrition, mind-transforming modalities, herbal medicine, bioenergetics (incl. energetic medicines), and essential oils. It is this truly holistic approach that produces the amazing results I get with my clients. I am sure you can appreciate that when you integrate essential oils with other modalities that promote healing, you will have a much greater impact, compared to looking at essential oils as that one-stop solution to all your health problems.

Some safety tips - THIS IS IMPORTANT!

1. These days, many people claim to be experts on essential oils but the truth is that many blogs that offer advice on essential oils are not written by qualified practitioners. Be careful as...

Have you ever asked yourself a question: why our bodies break down over time? The reason this breakdown occurs is actually very simple: the body stops responding to instructions from the genes because the right communication depends on having healthy cells in every tissue, organ and system of the body. This communication ensures that messages are delivered and received to modulate cell production, initiate and sustain cell repair, and perform other restorative processes.

For example, if the heart cells do not get the right messages, they simply cannot carry out the genetic instructions to keep the heart functioning well. So our health depends on turning on the genes that communicate messages to the cells so that the cells can perform their functions. The molecules involved in this communication are called cell signaling molecules.

Cell signaling in the body stimulates the pathways for gene expression. These are genetic pathways that carry life-sustaining instructions from the genes...

The first blog in this series that I published back in February was very popular so below are some more great insights from our speakers. There is of course a lot more of those golden nuggets of information to come in Part 2 of the Autoimmune Vitality Series so make sure you add those dates to your diary.

Tissue Repair & Restoring Immune Tolerance (May 21 - 28, 2018)

Click here for the event agenda.

So here you are:

Watch out for magnesium stearate in supplements and medications as many people with autoimmunity are sensitive to it. Magnesium stearate does nothing for the human body nutritionally and it is only used for a manufacturer convenience (it is a synthetic cheap filler). Vegetarian sources of stearic acid (part of magnesium stearate) include cottonseed oil (highly likely to be GM), canola oil (highly likely to be GM), and palm oil (sustainability issue). Remember that everything we consume has to be metabolized and detoxified by the liver, and then assimilated or...

Thousands and thousands of people watched the first part of the Autoimmune Vitality Online Conference and the feedback has been wonderful. 45k views in total! People have been sharing the stories, they have been excited to learn new information, and fascinated to hear what they may have already known presented from a different angle. The most amazing thing to me however is when people tell me: “I did not think there was anything that could help me get better and now I know that there is” or “I felt completely stuck and hopeless and now I feel that I have a new direction to go in”.  

Restoring people’s hope is the biggest achievement for me personally when it comes to producing events like this one. I really do not want people suffering needlessly. Autoimmunity is not only preventable but many people reverse the autoimmune mechanisms in their body purely with dietary and lifestyle modifications.

As I have said before, I think it is an absolute...

The Autoimmune Vitality Online Conference Series is dominating my life at the moment. Coordinating and interviewing over 60 speakers in a reasonably short space of time is a challenge but I do thrive on challenge so it is all good! I have interviewed some amazing experts already and there are more to come. In the meantime I wanted to share with you some insights that may be helpful to you. This event will be bursting with them but you can enjoy some now.

Please, remember that this event is your ROAD MAP. I spent ages deciding on the structure because unlike some other online events which appear to have sessions chosen at random, I want you to know exactly how everything fits in together so you can easily identify your missing links.

If you are new to healing autoimmunity, this event is going to help you put the pieces of the puzzle together. If you have been on this road for a while but not quite getting the results that you want, this event is an opportunity to identify which...

When my grandma passed away unexpectedly a few years ago, it became even clearer to me how important it is to spend time with your loved ones while they are still here. This is why I make sure I visit my mum and my granddad in Poland as frequently as I can. My granddad is almost 95 years old and he is a lovely man. He lives with family, who have work and school commitments, so he is still quite independent and has to look after himself during the day.

My granddad was 16 years old when WWII started and he can still remember exactly where he was when he found out that Germany invaded Poland. Just like most people of his generation, my granddad has been through a lot. He has often talked about having to eat rotten potato peels and such like when there was nothing to eat for long periods of time during the war. He was lucky to survive a German concentration camp. I should add that he grew up in poverty and had to work as a child so I think we can safely say that his long and...

If you have read my article entitled: “Why should I optimise my mindset if I have an autoimmune disease?”, you already know that disruptive emotions, if they persist for long enough, can disturb the delicate chemical balance in our bodies producing physiological changes and symptoms. You also know that we CAN counteract the effects of the negative emotional states if we develop a nurturing, positive mindset.

Belief becomes biology

Just to follow up on that, at the end of 19th century an American psychologist William James said: “No mental modification ever occurs, which is not accompanied or followed by a bodily change”. Later on Norman Cousins summarised this statement with three words: “belief becomes biology”. What they both meant was that the body’s physical reality can be altered by the more powerful reality of the mind, i.e. what is expected tends to be realised.

So if you have an autoimmune disorder, you should be asking yourself:...

Nowadays it is well-accepted that our psychological/emotional state affects our immune system, which of course has massive implications for autoimmunity. Negative emotional activation (stress response) can result in increased susceptibility to bacterial, viral and fungal infections, as well as parasite infestations.

Likewise, we can improve our immune function when we switch from stress response to the relaxation response, which is why meditation and other similar tools have been shown to have a profound positive effect not only on our mental health but our physical health as well. Even looking at a flower creates a physiological response involving millions of nerve cells that can in turn create a positive or negative change in our immune function (depending how we feel about the flower)!

Psycho what?

This phenomenon is a result of interactions between our hypothalamus, our pituitary gland and our adrenal glands (the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal or HPA axis). The science that aims...

It probably will not come as a surprise to you that autoimmune diseases share several clinical signs and symptoms, pathological mechanisms, and epigenetic and genetic factors. There is strong evidence supporting that, which indicates that autoimmune diseases have a common origin (called the autoimmune tautology).

What is the difference between polyautoimmunity and multiple autoimmune syndrome?

Just in case you are not sure what the difference is: polyautoimmunity is defined as the presence of more than one autoimmune disease in a single person. Whereas, multiple autoimmune syndrome (MAS) means that three or more autoimmune diseases exist simultaneously in a single individual. In MAS, people often have at least one dermatological condition, usually vitiligo or alopecia. Both polyautoimmunity and MAS are not uncommon. Three types of MAS has been described in the medical literature.

MAS type 1 includes: myasthenia gravis, thymoma, polymyositis (inflammatory myopathy) and giant cell...