Constipation should Be Avoided: Constipation causes toxins to sit around in the bowels, where they will be reabsorbed back into the blood. This causes auto-intoxication.
Adequate Water Is Necessary To Purify the Body, prevent constipation, and keep the immune system strong. Constipation causes auto-intoxication, which results in sickness, and a generall weakening of the immune system.
Constipation Causes Cancer and Arthritis if it the condition is long-term. If the bowels are kept clean and regular, and free of constipation, then diseases such as cancer and arthritis do not usually develop, unless intoxication occurs from some other, external, chemical poisoning. Ten glasses of water should be taken by adults each day. More than this is required if the weather is very hot, if you are physically active, and if you have a bigger than average build.
Water is needed for a healthy bowel, and this is stressed by Dr Frank Hurdle in his book ‘A Country Doctor’s Common Sense Health Manual’, which was published in1975 by Parker Publishing Company Inc., New York.
Dr Hurdle should know what he is talking about: He had a wealth of experience as a practicing physician before writing his ‘Common Sense Health Manual’. This experience includes 12 years in private practice, two years at Fort Logan Mental Health Centre, two years in the United States Army Medical Corp, and several years working on research projects.
Dr Hurdle, who says that constipation is a world-wide problem, and that everybody suffers from this at some time in their lives, cannot stress enough the importance of water in preventing constipation and disease. Here is what he has to say about the reasons for constipation, and the lack of water as a cause:
He gives a list of eight ‘common things that provoke constipation’. His list reads: 1. Not enough fluids 2. Lack of abdominal muscle tone. 3. Not enough fluids 4. Lack of bulk in the diet. 5. Not enough fluids. 6. Nervous gut syndrome. 7. Not enough fluids. 8. Laxative habit.
Water is important for bowel function. The primary function of the large intestine is to reabsorb fluid from the digested food passing through. You need to have adequate fluids in your diet so that there is enough fluid for the large intestine to absorb what it needs, and still leave enough moisture in the digested food so that it can pass through easily. If your intake of water is too low, then you get constipated, simple as that.
Get Enough Exercise To Prevent Constipation: Of course, exercise, and a healthy diet also play a part in the healthy digestion of food. So make sure that you do get some regular exercise on a daily basis. Light jogging, or walking, or swimming, or tennis, or yoga, or skipping are all fun ways to exercise.
Eating a good breakfast is important to prevent constipation. Breakfast starts the digestion working for the day, which includes intestinal function as well. If you have a habit of skipping breakfast, then you are shutting down your digestive system right at the time nature intends it to get cracking and start processing food. This leads to constipation.
My friend Bernhard Petersen stresses that breakfast is very important. Eating a large bowl of cereal such as porridge with a grated apple on it, or a bowl of bran and yoghurt, or a plate of rice with dried fruits, followed by boiled eggs, or scrambled eggs, or some other nutritious food, is important for busy people.
Dr Dr Max Gerson worked out a very successful treatment for his cancer patients, and an important part of it was the eating of a large bowl of oatmeal porridge, taken with a raw grated apple each morning.
This porridge and apple formula was to provide bulk for the intestines, and to get the digestive and intestinal functions working optimally, as well as to provide nutrients.
His recovery programme for his cancer patients involved also the taking of 2 tablespoons of castor oil every second day, which was another bowel-cleansing technique. Castor oil also detoxifies the liver, and reduces cancer tumours. This can be used by an otherwise healthy person once a week to detoxify liver and intestines. People treating degenerative disease such as cancer would need to take it more frequently, and on a regular basis such as Dr Gerson recommended.
Coffee and tea drinkers take heed: Drinking coffee or tea first thing in the morning can dull the appetite, leading you to think that it is OK to rush off to work or to child care or somewhere without that breakfast. But this is very harmful to the body, bad for the nervous system, bad for the general health, and will create constipation. Too much coffee can also upset the acidophilus organisms in the bowel, which aid digestion. When these beneficial bacteria get killed off, candida overgrowth can become a problem, and this can cause constipation, or diarrhoea in some cases.
Take Notice Of Your Bowel Impulses: I believe that constipation exists in many people because they ignore the responses of the bowel: When the bowel is stimulated and sending messages to go to the toilet in the morning, many people carry on with their hurrying, and pay no attention to the bowel responses. If this is ignored, then the bowel will give up and probably not message you any more that day. You must respect your bowel, and give yourself time to use the toilet each morning.
Simple Water Cure For Detox and Constipation: Enemas of course, are great for their immediate effect in clearing the bowels, and for supplying water to nourish and cleanse the intestines. But here is a method for using water orally to clear the intestines of effete matter. The method is to fast for three days, eating nothing except perhaps some stewed apple in the mornings.
Every hour throughout the day, take a cup of boiled water which is still hot, but sufficiently cooled to drink. Keep this practice up for three days. About the third day, your bowels will clear themselves of any obstructions and effete matter. then you can begin eating again, starting with light meals of cooked vegetables and raw or stewed fruit, rice, and pulses.
Second Method Using Water For Curing Non-Chronic Constipation
This is actually a Yoga exercise which can be found in Swami Satyananda Saraswati’ book ‘Asana, Pranayama, Mudra, Bandha’ published first in 1969, Bihar School of Yoga, India.
It is very simple to do, and you do not have to be practicing yoga for it to be beneficial. Hopefully, if you are new to yoga, this exercise might spark off a life-long study of yoga to aid your health.
Method: First drink six cups of water in one sitting. Then stand in the ‘Heavenly Stretch’ pose, or ‘Tadasana’. This posture starts standing erect, the feet apart by several inches. Clasp the fingers together and raise up the hands with fingers interlocked, above the head, palms facing upward.
Stretch the hands upward toward the sky, breathing in, and lift the heels off the floor. Normally, you would do several motions, lifting the heels up off the floor, hands upward, as you breathe in, then breathing out, you would lower arms and heels together. But we do this exercise a little differently for the purpose of helping the bowels.
Instead of doing several up and down movements, you hold the pose on tip-toes, whilst you walk on tip-toe for 100 paces, holding the arms above the head, with hands upward to the sky.
Satyananda recommends this exercise for the first six months of pregnancy. It helps keep the back strong, tones the legs, and stretches the intestines.
This alone is an effective cure for constipation All the muscles in the lower abdomen get worked with the combination of stretching upward and walking at the same time. Drinking the water before you begin is important. This will usually encourage a bowel movement within a few hours.
How A Patient Was Cured Of Constipation and Laxative Dependency: Dr Frank Hurdle gives some advice on how to avoid using laxatives, which weakens the responses of the intestines. He had a patient who had taken laxatives for many years, and who had what seemed an incurable dependency on these drugs. Dr Hurdle devised a plan to get this man off the laxatives. He told him to stop taking them and begin drinking plenty of water, for a start. Next, he advised him also to exercise on a daily basis.
The main dietary requirement was that the patient had to eat a large bowl of pure bran each morning, before eating anything else. The fourth requisite was for his patient to tell himself each night at bed-time, that he would have a bowel movement first thing in the morning. This affirmation was repeated every night faithfully, and the bowl of bran taken dutifully each morning, with plenty of fluids taken through the day. The result was that the patient was cured of his ‘laxative habit’, and never had to resort to using laxatives ever again.