When I was 2-years-old, I breathed in a fertilizer made of chemicals and that night, I almost died.. Amazingly, I survived. However, my lungs were scarred and permanently damaged giving me severe asthma and bronchitis. After that fateful day, I literally was in and out of the hospital every other week with collapsed lungs, pneumonia and comas and at the age of five, the doctors gave up and said I would not live past five.
The doctors sent me to live full-time for a year in one of the most world renowned research facilities in Denver called the National Jewish Hospital and there they saved my life. Although I was much healthier than before, I was still regularly getting sick with pneumonia and was hospitalized at least twice a year every single year until college when a fateful thing happened.
While home during college on a Thanksgiving break, I came down with double-pneumonia and was hospitalized for ten days. I had a new doctor as my family had moved and he said something that changed my life forever. He said that if I improved the way I ate, got regular sleep and sunshine, I would reduce the number of times I ended up in the hospital.
Now that may not seem that radical to you. Every day doctors are giving us advice about nutrition and health. But how seriously do we take them and in dealing with asthma or bronchitis, nutrition is not typically the first thing that comes to a doctor's mind. But for some reason, his advice really hit home and from that point on, I began radically changing my lifestyle, so much so, that I did not go back into the hospital for a full fifteen years!
The bottom line is that easy and simple changes, when taken to heart, can bring you great health when it comes to bronchitis and asthma.
What were the changes I made? Here they are. These are simple, yet amazing and will give you big improvements too.
1. Organic Foods: I started to learn about what organic foods were and added them to my meals. By eating less hormones, antibiotics and chemicals that are in non-organic foods, I was making my body healthier and stronger.
2. Fresh and Raw Foods: When you eat uncooked fruits and vegetables, you get the full nutrients and enzymes available. As soon as food is heated to over 118%, enzymes begin to die so when we do not eat enough raw foods, we become deficient and our bodies begin to get sick. Having one raw apple a day is not enough. To really give yourself the biggest boost, you should have the majority or more than 50% of your daily food come from fresh and uncooked foods such as strawberries, melons and salads.
3. Multi-Vitamins: Many of us are deficient in nutrients and we do not even know it. Small symptoms and health issues can come up that might be easy to hide with medicine, but the real cause of the problem can sometimes be fixed with a good vitamin. To make sure you get a vitamin that truly works, make sure it is based on whole and organic foods, otherwise your body will just pee them out. The one I have seen the most drastic improvements from is from Juice+. Not only have I had fewer colds and flus, but so has my 4-year-old son.
4. Exercise and Sunshine: There are so many benefits of exercising to help our lungs get stronger, but the sun is also very important and can play a big role as there are vitamins your body makes only from being in the sun. At the same time, sunshine improves your mood - a double-whammy benefit!
5. Animal Products: This is a tougher one for many people, but I chose to become a vegetarian and then even a vegan. My lung problems were so severe, that I needed to take dramatic steps to get better, but most people can see big improvements even just by reducing the amount of meats or dairy they eat. To help you decide if you can reduce some of the meats and dairy products you eat, check out a few support forums where you can see what others have experienced as well.
Nothing can replace the great miracles today's doctors, health-practitioners and nurses provide. When facing any illness, they need to be your first resource for help. I absolutely recommend doing whatever possible to eat more fresh and natural foods and leading a more natural lifestyle. I know without a doubt that you will see great improvements in your lung health while feeling more vibrant and energetic at the same time..
There are great websites and forums to help you get more information on natural and alternative health methods. They are well worth your time and research.
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