Part 6 -

A Healthy Diet

Hi guys,

Here with the 4th part of my cystic acne cure, and probably the trickiest one of all which is diet. I’ve been thinking quite alot about this section and about what exactly I should recommend you eat and not eat and I have concluded that I can really only provide you with my own personal experience and give you very broad recommendations.

I have realized that people react differently to different foods and that a contributor of acne to one person may be completely fine for another. Also taking into consideration things like allergies and so on, diet becomes a very complicated and personal issue.

Alot of people will tell you not to eat specific foods, E.g don’t eat chocolate, or don’t eat chilli etc. (For me I know that my body doesn’t react well to milk, cream, MSG and overly oily foods) but I believe that different foods are acne contributors to different people and if I start telling you specifically not to eat this or that because it breaks me out I might just end up confusing and frustrating you because it is not at all a contributor to your acne.

You will have noticed that I keep everything very simple, I don’t go too far into the technical or medical side of things because I don’t want to make all of this too confusing and my recommendations for diet to cure cystic acne will also be quite broad. So please also do your own research and experimentation to find out what is best for you.

This section on diet still deals with the task of reducing the amount of toxins (toxins being anything the body must expel as it does not contribute to it’s growth) entering your body. Again alot of this I have learnt from Clear for Life which has more specific, scientific reasons behind my recommendations.

Firstly, lets dispel a huge acne myth: DIET DOES NOT CONTRIBUTE TO ACNE. This is COMPLETELY false. Now you might not see any negative effects on your health by eating 1 bowl of heavily processed and preserved instant noodles, but if you did that every day for 3 months (which I did at one point in time) I can guarantee that you will begin to notice the effects that it has on your health.

Put very basically:

YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT. EAT WELL AND YOU WILL LIVE WELL.

So firstly, let me tell you about my diet before I decided to start living healthy. This is how NOT to eat =)

A couple of things which you should know that will better help you understand how I allowed my eating habits to get so bad are:

1. I believed that diet had nothing to do with acne

2. I can’t cook =p

3. I have an extremely fast metabolism and I have a very hard time gaining weight (basically I can eat what I want and not gain a single pound)

OK, so this is what I predominantly used to eat on a daily basis, this covers approximately a 2 year period after I overcame cystic acne the first time (after Accutane):

First meal

One of the following:

- A bowl of instant noodles

- A box of microwaveable pasta

- A banana

- A frozen meat pie

Second meal

One of the following:

- A bowl of instant noodles

- A box of microwaveable pasta

- A banana

- A frozen meat pie

(Which ever one I didn’t eat for my first meal)

Inbetween

- Usually some chocolate

- Sometimes a mini-muffin or cake

- Lollies

Third meal

Dinner varied depending on whether my girlfriend at the time cooked or not. If she did, it was usually pretty healthy stuff with a decent amount of veggies in it. If she didn’t, I would usually get take away from somewhere nearby which as usually either:

- Pizza

- Souvlaki

- McDonalds

- Vietnamese food

Beverages

- Tap water (I don’t know how much as I wasn’t very strict with my water intake after Accutane)

- Soft drinks (Usually Coke with every meal)

So as you can see, I wasn’t really eating very well. My vegetable intake was very low and completely at random, only one serve a day max. I would eat 1 piece of fruit (a banana, because its easy and convenient) roughly every second day. The rest of my diet consisted of refined carbs, processed and preserved foods, and food and drinks containing alot of refined sugar.

I thought it was a pretty decent diet because I was always full, I never got any immediate symptoms or signals telling me that my eating habits were unhealthy. No acne, no stomach aches and I wasn’t getting fat.

But one day I woke up with a couple of pimples, and then a week later a couple more, and then a couple of big, ugly ones and slowly but surely I slipped back into my acne hell and had a face covered with cystic acne worse than before.

I also developed what I think was chronic fatigue syndrome, I never went to see a doctor about it but I used to get extremely tired very early in the eveneing (around 8pm) and would be unable to concentrate or really do anything apart from laze around. The color of my face also became a greyish tone and I would often get headaches and the occasional migraine.

So the effects of bad diet creep up on you, which is why I believe people always say that diet has nothing to do with pimples, maybe their experiments consisted of eating some French fries and watching their face for an hour to see if any pimples appeared, and if nothing happened they would conclude ‘Nope! French fries doesn’t give you pimples, so I can eat them every day!’

What was happening to me was I was slowly, day-by-day, bit-by-bit contributing to the toxins I was already accumulating through dirty tap water and bad sleeping habits with extra toxins from unhealthy food (Preservatives, chemicals, food coloring etc.) into my body until it came to a point where the body’s primary excretory organs (liver and kidneys) couldn’t handle them anymore and had to start using my skin (one of the body’s secondary excretory systems) to help expel them.

So after learning about how diet was affecting my health and acne I decided to make a huge change in my diet. It was a little tough at first but as I was also learning about the Laws of Obedience and Sacrifice this new diet was a good chance for me to apply and test the new knowledge I had gained.

Below is the diet I took on to get clear:

First thing after I wake up:

- A cup of green tea

First meal

- A fruit salad (Apple, kiwi fruit, grapefruit, orange)

Second meal

- A banana

Third meal

- Salad with a simple dressing (usually spinach or baby rocket)

Fourth meal

- Toasted wholemeal bread X 2 slices

Fifth meal

- Avocado sliced with soy sauce and wasabi

Sixth meal

- Bacon and eggs

Seventh meal

- Whatever was on for dinner

Beverages

- Clean filtered water X 6 glasses

- Various teas (Green tea, barley tea, Puaru tea, black tea)

Supplements

Before starting my new diet I was experimenting with various supplements such as: Liver care Complex,  Zinc tablets, Acidophilus, Garlic, Vitamin B and Cod Liver Oil which I continued to use for a while but then slowly stopped using. These supplements were probably good for me but, they didn’t do anything on their own and I don’t feel any different after discontinuing their use. I occasionally still take the Liver care Complex tablets if I’ve had a lot to drink, and I take Vitamin C every now and then to support my immune system.

One supplement which I do believe had an impact on my acne and helped accelerate my healing process is a supplement called DIM.

It is labelled as an ‘Estrogen Metabolism Formula’ which initially worried me a little as I thought I would start growing breasts if I started taking it, but it is completely fine for both men and women.

Diindolymethane is an anti-andgrogen extracted from cruciferous vegetables such as cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli and brussels sprouts and concentrated into convenient little pills. Apparently taking a couple of pills of DIM is equal to eating a couple of POUNDS of cruciferous vegetables.

DIM was the last of the supplements that I added to my ‘pill collection’ so I was able to acutely feel the difference in my skin as I started taking it. DIM would make my skin slightly less oily and my lips a little dry, it felt similar to being on Accutane but much, much milder. It also made my existing acne feel much less inflamed, and it seemed that alot of my acne was ‘peaking’ faster. (I don’t know what the correct term is but by ‘peaking’ I mean when the yellow head of the pimple appears on the surface of the skin).

Side effects: DIM would make me feel quite relaxed and kind of dreamy sometimes, a bit like a cold and flu tablet but again, much milder. I would also have very vivid dreams if I took it after a late dinner. It did sometimes affect my sleep however and I would sometimes be up all night with vivid daydreams throughout the night but not actually falling asleep.

I followed this EXACT diet for about 1/2 a year and within that time-frame along with my other lifestyle changes such as meditation, yoga, exercise and learning about and applying the laws of life, my skin improved dramatically. After seeing such drastic changes I slowly started loosening up with this particular diet and being less strict with it, today I only retain the following steps:

First thing after I wake up:

- A cup of green tea

First meal

- A fruit salad (Apple, kiwi fruit, grapefruit, orange)

Second meal

- A banana

Third meal

- Salad with a simple dressing (usually spinach or baby rocket)

Beverages

- Clean filtered water X 6 glasses

- Various teas (Green tea, barley tea, Puaru tea, black tea)

I still do not drink any soft drinks but I do eat dessert after dinner, and sometimes in the afternoon as well (I have a bit of a sweet tooth)

After my salad I eat pretty much anything I feel like though by habit I do eat quite healthily, I rarely eat fast-food or processed or preserved foods.

So now I have clean, clear skin and I pretty much eat whatever I like as long as I keep to the ‘easier’ version of my diet =)

So based on my experience here are my basic recommendations for you:

1. Cut down on sugar

2. Eat lots of fresh fruit and vegetables

3. Don’t eat anything but fruit and veggies before noon

3. Try to eat as little processed food as possible

And here are my reasons for each recommendation:

Cut down on sugar:

I’m sure if you have searched for your own cystic acne cure you will have come across several sources which talk about sugar levels in the blood and insulin resistance being a cause of acne. To be honest I don’t know the exact mechanics of how all of this works and I remember becoming extremely confused and kind of stressed out trying to learn about what I should and shouldn’t be eating and also when I should be eating what etc. etc. It all became a bit too much for me so in the end I just followed my intuition, took the advice and drastically cut down my sugar intake, and it worked.

As I mentioned previously, nowadays I do eat sweets (mostly ice-cream and cake) but I don’t drink soft drinks which used to be the main source of sugar in my previous diet. Today as a sweetener in my teas I use Manuka Honey.

Eat lots of fresh fruit and vegetables:

They’re good for you =)

Don’t eat anything but fruit and veggies before noon:

In Clear for Life the author talks a fair bit about food combining. I don’t follow it all that strictly (though I did at the very beginning) but I believe that there is alot of truth to it. Basically it says that certain types of foods are broken down by the body with acids (proteins – meat, fish) , and others are broken down with alkalis (carbs – rice, bread, pasta etc.) So if you eat meat and rice, the stomach releases acids and alkalis to break down the foods for digestion. But of course if you mix and acid with an alkali, they cancel each other out and the chemical solution created by the stomach to break down the foods becomes neutral. This means the food isn’t broken down properly which causes problems for the digestive system.

You can read more into this by typing ‘food combining’ into Google. Personally I don’t go too far with it, the main thing I do is to eat only fruits and veggies in the morning and I make sure to eat the right combination of fruits and veggies and wait the required time for them to be completely digested before going onto the next meal.

The reason why I don’t eat anything other than fruit and veggies in the morning is because fruit & veg are very easy to digest and are a good warm up for your digestive system. Since it has been resting throughout the night you want to give it something nice and easy to work on first.

I guess it’s like stretching and warming up before you play sports. If you go straight into the match without warming up and stretching your muscles, there is more chance of injury and your body probably wont perform as well. This is the same with your digestive system.

Try to eat as little processed food as possible:

Again all of the food-coloring, preservatives and chemicals found in highly processed foods are toxic materials which need to be released by the body. Reduce the amount of toxins going in and your body wont need to take so much of it out.

And thats all! I hope this post was helpful and I will be back with the final 3 steps as soon as possible!

Peace,

The Anonymous Guru

©2010 TheAnonymousGuru. All Rights Reserved.

How to feel better with ACNE -

Tip#2 STOP LOOKING!

Is this you?

Do you run to the mirror as soon as you’ve woken up to check on your acne?

Do you survey your acne with your face nearly touching the mirror?

Do you check up on your skin at every possible chance?

Well, STOP DOING IT!

You already know you have acne, and looking at it in the mirror every couple of hours isn’t going to make it go away any quicker, it just reminds you that you have acne which makes you feel bad. Feeling bad makes it harder for you to get clear. So stop it! =)

My morning ritual would be to get up, go to the bathroom, turn on all the lights, lean over the sink so I can get my face as close to the mirror as possible and look at my face from every possible angle. Then I’d say to myself. ‘Nope they’re still there… and they’re not getting any better… *sigh*’

To make things worse my bathroom has a very harsh fluorescent light placed right above the mirror which would shine the light downwards onto my face and really highlight all the craters and shadows that my acne cast onto my skin.

So basically I would start the day by making my acne look its worst and then implant the worst possible image of myself into my brain. That image is how I would think of myself for the rest of the day (or until I looked in the mirror again).

This routine was pushing my goal of having clear skin further and further from me because:

1. I was continually focussing on my acne

Remember, according to the Law of Attraction anything you focus on will only get bigger.

2. I was exaggerating how bad my acne was which made me feel worse than I should have

Why is this exaggerating you ask? Well the main reason acne made me unhappy is because I thought other people thought I was unattractive because of it.

So when I was looking in the mirror, with my face 3 cm away from it, with the fluorescent light shining on it, I was putting that close-up image of myself in my head and then thinking that that was the way that everyone else saw me.

But do you realize that most of the time, no one gets that close to your face? When you talk to someone they stand about 1 meter away from you, not 3 centimeters away!

So if you’re going to check up on your acne, before you walk away, stand back about 1 meter from the mirror and look into your own eyes (which is what people do when they talk to you) now I bet your acne is about 60% less noticable =)

Now I didn’t start doing this on purpose, it came about accidentally while I was on holiday. I was lucky because the place I was staying at happened to have a dim but warmly lit bathroom with the mirror recessed into the wall. There were probably other factors like the color of the walls, but basically it was one of those mirrors that you just always look good in. =)

So every morning I would wash my face, get dressed, do my hair etc. and I would look in the mirror and say ‘Hey! Not so bad!’ Nothing had really changed, it was just that the lighting and color of the walls made my skin look better.

So I would walk out of this place I was staying at with the exact same skin I had before but guess what? I didn’t feel so bad! Even though my skin hadn’t changed, my own perception of myself had and It COMPLETELY changed everything! The way I walked, the way I interacted with people, my level of happiness all changed because I had a different, improved image of myself implanted into my mind before I went out.

When I got back home and looked at my skin in my own bathroom mirror again, I realized how much the harsh lighting and my habit of getting right up against the mirror was making me feel bad about my skin, so I started changing my behavior and also my surroundings so that I would look better to myself, which made me FEEL better about myself. (E.g – standing back, not turning on the fluorescent light anymore, looking in the mirror less often etc.)

So basically my advice for you is:

1. Don’t look at your acne so much

If you can’t do that,

2. When you look at your acne, stand back from the mirror while doing it

If you can’t do that,

3. After checking out your acne, step back approximately 1 meter away from the mirror, look straight into your own eyes and remember this is how noticeable your acne is to other people when they talk to you

4. If you can, find a more ‘appearance-friendly’ environment for you to get ready in, whether that means buying new light bulbs or getting a new mirror for another room

Some of these tips require a little self-discipline as you will need to break the habit of looking at your acne often and close-up which is pretty deeply ingrained in many acne sufferers. But, they can be done.

It’s all about reducing your focus on acne and seeing your acne in a better light (literally!) so you will feel better about yourself and your skin.

Again, when you feel better about yourself that is a positive emotion, and when you feel positive emotions only positive things can come to you!

Peace,

The Anonymous Guru

P.S – If anyone has any additional tips on how to see your acne in a better light please share them in the comments section!

©2010 TheAnonymousGuru. All Rights Reserved.

How to feel better with ACNE -

Tip#1 Relativity

Hey guys, I have received a couple of emails recently about Part #3 of my cure for cystic acne, and more specifically on the Law of Attraction and how to be happy throughout the process of healing.

This is similar to a topic I also often see on acne forums, many people ask about how to deal with their depression due to acne. So I thought I would write up a short series of quick tips on how to feel better with acne, while I am working on the main ‘How to cure Cystic Acne’ series.

If you have learnt about the Law of Attraction you will know why being happy is so important to getting clear and actually to achieve any goal you have in life.

Basically, happiness is an indicator which tells you that the actions or thoughts which you are experiencing at that moment are bringing you towards the things you want. Any negative emotions such as despair, anger and frustration are indicators telling you that what you want is getting further away from you.

So the more you feel happy the quicker the Law of Attraction will bring you the physical experience of having clean, clear, acne free skin.

Basically this mini-series will provide some quick, but valuable tips on how to feel better about acne. You probably wont be able to feel happy about it straight away, but with application and practice these tips will gradually help you feel better and better about your skin.

I went from despair, to depression, to anger, to frustration, to irritation, to hopefulness, to gladness and eventually to happiness. Sometimes I went backwards a little bit, to irritation or frustration, but using some of the tips I am going to provide you I was able to climb back up to happiness with a little self-discipline.

Remember the longer you stay in happiness the quicker you will get clear!

OK so my first tip is about the Law of relativity which states: nothing is good or bad, big or small, until to relate it to something.

For example if you told me that my total savings in my bank account was $10 Million, I would be happy, I would consider it a good thing because I’ve never had that much money. But if you told Donald Trump, ‘your total net worth is $10 Million’ he wouldn’t be very happy, he would consider it a bad thing because he’s used to having BILLIONS not millions! So whether something is good or bad is relative to your current position.

So I’m guessing if you are reading this, acne is the biggest physical issue you are facing at the moment. I know it is very easy to feel very down about acne, especially if it is severe. I’m sure all of you have, like myself, in the darkest moments of dealing with acne thought ‘why me?’, ‘why do I have to suffer through this?’

But think about how things could be worse, have you thought about how it would feel to be blind? Or how it would feel to live in a poverty-stricken country? I would say a blind person or a person living in extreme poverty would gladly swap their situation for your acne, no matter how bad it is.

So, think of that, take a look at your surroundings and you will realize how much you have to be grateful for.

If you are reading this post right now, it means that: you must have a computer; internet; electricity; shelter; enough money for the electricity and shelter (or even better, people who pay for your electricity and shelter!); eyesight; a functioning brain; the ability to read; etc. etc. etc.

You may take those things for granted but remember there are people out there in the world that don’t have the above-mentioned things and would gladly accept your acne to trade places with you.

So that’s my first tip, practice relating your situation to something worse and you will realize that acne isn’t so bad. It will make you realize all the good things you have in your life, focus on these good things and be grateful. When you feel gratitude that is a positive emotion, and when you feel positive emotion only positive things can come to you, I.e – Clear skin is on its way!

Peace

The Anonymous Guru.

79t4b3yeuc

©2010 TheAnonymousGuru. All Rights Reserved.

Part 5 -

Clean Water

OK so now we have covered how to reduce the amount of toxins (stress hormones) being created by your body through negative thinking and lack of sleep. Next is how to reduce the amount of toxins coming in to your body from outside sources, and what I believe was the biggest outside source of toxins was in the water I was drinking.

I am sure all of you have been told by someone, that to get rid of your acne you should drink 8-10 glasses of water a day.

This is completely true if you are talking about PURE water. But if the water you are drinking has something in it which is triggering your acne, then drinking 8-10 glasses of water a day is not only not the cure, but could be the CAUSE.

Now tap water where I live is considered ‘clean’, most people drink it, it is served at restaurants etc. But I believe this is only because most people are unaware of the toxic substances that have been found in ‘clean’ tap-water. Among the hundreds of toxic substances found in tap water are:

Chlorine and bromine – Chemical disinfectants that can cause anemia and stomach problems

Pesticides – which can increase the risk of hormonal imbalance, reproductive problems and cancers.

Heavy Metals - such as lead and mercury which can impair growth and brain development.

Pharmaceuticals – including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones have been found in the drinking water supplies of 24 major US metropolitan areas

Etc. etc.

Basically there is a whole lot of crap that is no good for your health in tap water and these substances were DEFINITELY a contributor to my cystic acne. They could also be the cause of much more serious diseases being suffered by people around the world.

Thinking about this makes me feel that people that suffer from acne are in a way very lucky. It is a relatively minor disease which quickly tells you something is up, so you need to change what you’re doing before something worse happens. I believe this is better than poisoning yourself and not having acne, which means you never change your lifestyle and your habits because on the surface everything seems to be going fine, and then 15 years down the track your hit with a BIG disease which is much harder to overcome and could end your life.

This reminds me of a story my Dad often tells me about him and his group of friends that would go out drinking nearly every night when they were younger. My Dad developed hepatitis at age 21 from this habit which put him in hospital and ended his drinking days early. His friends used to visit him in hospital and say things like ‘Oh poor guy, how unlucky to be struck with such a disease, now he can’t drink anymore!’. Of course at the time, my Dad wasn’t happy about his situation, when he went out he couldn’t drink and get wasted with all of his buddies, but now he tells me of how much of a blessing hepatitis was because it forced him to make a significant change to his lifestyle. His friends who never got an ‘early warning’ just kept drinking and today at age 69 my Dad tells me of how he watched his whole group of friends pass away one-by-one from alcohol related diseases, none of them lived past their 40’s.

So acne to me was kind of like hepatitis to my Dad. It was the warning sign which caused me to really look at how I was living and it told me to start making changes. It may sound funny that out of the bad influences that acne has steered me away from, such as drugs, excessive alcohol and bad diet, I would rate being moved away from drinking 8-10 glasses of toxic water as the biggest positive change to my physical health.

It is possible that if I never had severe acne that I would still be drinking water full of these poisons which could possibly have lead to cancer or some other serious disease later in my life.

So now I look back at all those years of my regimen of 10 glasses of toxic water a day, depositing toxic materials into my body and I just think ‘NO WONDERI HAD ACNE!’ To make things worse I was boiling my water before drinking it as I was falsely informed that boiling water ‘purified’ it by evaporating all of the ‘bad stuff’ when in fact I was CONCENTRATING the level of toxic content in my water. This is because although some bacteria and other living organisms are evaporated, chemicals which have a higher boiling point than water remain in the water.

OK so what should you do?

Well this is the easiest of all of my recommendations because you don’t need to form new habits, or learn anything new. You just need to go and buy a high-quality WATER FILTER. If you already have one then great, you can rest assured that all that water you are going to drink to get clear is going to help you (sufficient water IS a key part of getting clear).

I would definitely recommend getting a good filter, not one of those little 2 liter ones that only take 5 minutes to filter the 2 liters but a very thorough filter. The filter I have is a ‘mineralized and magnetically charged’ water filter by a company called ‘Alps’. It holds around 14 liters of water and would take over a day to filter that 14 liters through. The reason it takes so long is because it has 7 stages of filtration starting with a bulb-like ceramic filter at the top, after a week of passing tap water through it is covered in brown sludge, see below.

After that there is another filtering cartridge which contains natural sediments that removes chemicals like chlorine, unpleasant odours, trihalomethanes (THMs), lead and other heavy metals.

The water that comes out is BEAUTIFUL, it smells, tastes and feels….. CLEAN (I don’t really know how else to describe it)

Whenever I open the top section of the filter to add more tap water I am reminded of what I used to be putting into my body everyday, it not only can see it but I can smell it too….. IT STINKS! The sludge on the ceramic ball has this dull, dirty river smell that really puts me off.

Sometimes I am in a situation where I have to drink tap water and I can really taste the difference, actually before even tasting it I can tell if it’s tap water purely by the smell.

Unfortunately I can’t find the ‘ALPS’ website, or any information on the company to show you the exact filter that I own but I have found a near identical product from a company called ‘ADYA’ which you can learn more about on the following link:

Adya Minerals Water Filtration System

So what do you do once you have your filter?

Now you can drink your daily 8-10 glasses of water! And you can have peace of mind knowing that each glass really is contributing to your goal of achieving clear skin. =)

So that is end of PART 5, drink CLEAN water, by what ever means.

Back soon with more!

Peace,

The Anonymous Guru

©2010 TheAnonymousGuru. All Rights Reserved.

Part 4 –

SLEEP!

OK for you guys that already have good sleeping habits and wake up feeling fresh and ready to go every morning I guess you can skip this part =)

For those of you who don’t, please read on because one of the biggest factors for me getting clear was finally achieving a healthy pattern of sleep.

During my cystic acne hell, a night of not enough sleep guaranteed at least 1 new pimple somewhere on my face. At the time I didn’t know why lack of sleep caused acne but it fostered a fear of not sleeping within me. Every night I would go to bed extremely anxious and worried about not being able to sleep because I knew I would get more acne.

Cruelly, this pressure and the feeling of HAVING TO GET SOME SLEEP OR ELSE made it even harder for me to sleep as I was going to bed in a very tense and anxious state of mind. So, my sleeping habits ended up becoming worse and eventually I ended up developing a severe case of chronic insomnia. Now I’ve heard stories about some unfortunate people who couldn’t sleep for years, thankfully mine wasn’t THAT bad, the longest I didn’t sleep for was for 5 days straight but when you have dozens of cysts on your face and you haven’t had any sleep for 5 days, it can be quite depressing. I would say the darkest moments of my acne hell where I felt the most helpless were those early mornings where I could hear the birds singing and the train rattling by telling me that another night had passed and I hadn’t slept a wink.

Later I was to learn from several sources such as Clear for Life why lack of sleep was affecting my skin. There are 2 reasons why lack of sleep contribute to acne:

1. It doesn’t allow your body to go into its nightly ‘clean up’ mode

When you sleep your body goes into a ‘clean up’ mode where all of the daily maintenance procedures are performed. Both the mind and body use this time to relax and recover from daily stress and the body is scoured for toxins and dead cells which are expelled.

It’s a bit like the rest and maintenance a city gets every night after a long and busy day. A time when it’s quiet and there are no people around to leave their trash or cars to expel their fumes into the air. Maintenance like roadworks can be done, bins are collected, the little mobile street sweeper comes and scours the all the gunk out of the gutters, all so that the city can function efficiently and healthily the next day.

But imagine if the city was never cleaned or no maintenance could take place! After a while you would see bins overflowing, drains flooding, broken traffic lights don’t get fixed, people would be un-happy and unable to do their jobs properly, basically it would be a very un-hygeinic, un-happy place. This is exactly what is happening to your body when you don’t sleep.

2. It causes stress

When you are stressed the body releases stress hormones into the body, as I mentioned previously excess hormones in the body are treated by the excretory system as waste. So again, when there is an overload of hormones in your body, the body calls on the skin to help out the liver and kidneys to expel the surplus of hormones and hello acne.

Stress also promotes a negative mindset, basically it’s hard to be happy when you’re stressed out and it’s hard to get clear when you are unhappy.

So it’s a double punch, the stress adds more toxins to your system and because you aren’t sleeping the body isn’t given the chance to do it’s clean up to get rid of those toxins. The longer you don’t sleep properly, the more junk piles up in your system and the more the skin has to work to remove it from your body and…. you know the rest.

So I hope you now understand why a regular, healthy sleeping pattern is so important to clear skin and overall good health. If you get a healthy amount of sleep every day you are allowing your mind and body to reset, remove toxins and dead cells from your system, dissolve all of the worries of the day and the next day you are cleansed, refreshed, rested and happy.

How much sleep you need a day? Well, it is really different for everyone. Some people I know are fresh and ready to go with 5 hours, some (like me) require around 7-8 hours to wake up feeling good. So just listen to your body. If you are still tired after only 8 hours maybe you need more? Try it out and see if there is a difference in the way you feel after 9 hours, 10 hours, you may even be oversleeping so try it with fewer hours as well.

But generally if you are getting a decent amount of sleep every night (meaning you don’t have insomnia which causes a large amount of angst and stress), then your sleeping habits shouldn’t be negatively impacting your acne too severely.

OK so if you DO suffer from insomnia how do you overcome it?

Well it took me quite awhile, I had suffered different levels of insomnia for several years, and people who also suffer know that overcoming it is easier said than done.

But, if you make the EFFORT, and develop the DISCIPLINE to do the things that will condition your body to sleep you CAN overcome insomnia.

How did I do it? Well, combined with the knowledge of the Laws of Sacrifice and Obedience I started doing 2 things:

1. Yoga

2. Meditation

I can tell you that these 2 practices (which have now become daily positive habits) will not only change your sleep and your skin problems, they will change your entire LIFE. And when I say change I mean DRASTICALLY IMPROVE.

Basically Yoga and meditation helps you sleep by clearing trapped energy from your body and mind.

The main reason people can’t sleep is because their mind and body aren’t clear and relaxed. If there are thoughts, worries and emotions lingering in the mind before you sleep they can repeat inside your head like a broken record and keep you up all night. Actually even positive thoughts and energy can keep you up all night, remember the night before Christmas as a kid when you were so excited to open up your presents the next day you couldn’t sleep?

So like a nightly hot shower before bed which cleans your body, relaxes and loosens your muscles which in turn calms and soothes the mind, doing Yoga and meditation also cleanses and relaxes but at a much deeper level.

Every night before bed I will do a set routine of yoga poses for 20 minutes which releases the trapped energy from my muscles, bones and joints. I am basically stretching all of the most used muscles in my body (some of poses reach very specific muscles), re-aligning my spine and also beginning the cleansing process of my mind. While doing this I can feel the improvement of the circulation of blood, air and energy throughout my body. After my Yoga session I am feeling calm, fresh, at ease and ready to start my meditation session which will take my ‘mind clearing’ to the next level.

Next is what I call ’sleep meditation’ (I use meditation for other purposes as well), my aim is really just to clear my mind, to allow the mind to relax and let go of all the thoughts and worries which have been triggered by my work and daily experiences.

Using a computer analogy, think of it as closing all of the programs you have been using before the computer can shut-down. If you have all these programs and files open and you try and shut down your computer it won’t turn off instantly, it will ask you if you want to save this file and that file, then it will close down each program one by one. Once everything is closed, the computer is relaxed and happy and can turn off and have a nice sleep =)

So think of meditation as the act of closing and putting away all of the things you have to think about, so your mind and body can relax and get some rest.

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RECOMMENDED PRODUCTS & RESOURCES

Yoga:

At the time I started doing Yoga I was still pretty down on myself and didn’t have the confidence to go out and get Yoga lessons with a bunch of strangers (Basically I tried not to go out as much as possible). So what I did was buy a couple of Yoga DVDs so I could do in the privacy of my own home.

After buying several Yoga DVDs I now only use 1 DVD on a regular basis. It is called AM/PM Yoga featuring Rodney Yee and Patricia Walden. Basically it contains 2 simple Yoga programs, one for the morning and one for the evening. The morning one is very basic and gentle and it re-aligns all the joints, stretches and warms up the muscles which have inactive during sleep. I do this EVERY single morning, if I dont, I basically don’t feel right for the whole day. It only goes for 15 minutes but afterwards I feel warm, fresh, relaxed and ready to get into my morning meditation session.

The evening one is slightly longer, it goes for around 20 minutes and it contains slightly more difficult poses. The program is designed to counter all the stiffness and knotted energy accumulated from the modern work day (sitting in front of a computer). There are alot of poses which really stretch out the spine, chest and sides of the body. Without fail the PM program puts me in a relaxed, comfortable and serene mood which is great preparation for me to do my nightly meditation and get a good night’s rest.

The first couple of times I used the DVD were a little tricky as I had to keep looking at my computer screen to see how to do the poses properly, but after you memorize the sequence it is very easy and effective. Often because I know the sequence off by heart I will do my Yoga sessions without the DVD so I can do the exercise at my own pace, but I always seem to get the best results working with the DVD, it’s probably the soothing music and the hypnotic voice-overs!

Meditation:

My meditation routines are very unique and personal to me as they have been formulated by a lot of experimentation, study and reading books about meditation so to share them with you would probably take too long and make little sense in the end.

However, one book which I have learnt alot about meditation is called ‘Wheels of Life’ by Anodea Judith. It is a user’s guide to the Chakra system and it has some great material in it which I use often in my meditations. I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in the Chakra system and meditation.

Also, below are a few links to some guided meditation videos on YouTube which I personally use from time to time, I think they are very well done and are great especially for beginners as they are totally guided and they don’t allow your mind to wander onto un-related topics (which can happen when you first start meditating).

Daisy Pond Meditation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPM2BaBq0n0

Crystal Clear Meditation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iGQOqoZskM

Some other quick tips for getting to sleep:

- Firstly try not to eat anything heavy before going to bed. For the body to get into its ‘clean up’ mode it requires the other functions of the body to be at rest. If you eat food that will take a long time to digest before sleeping (like proteins and fats) the digestive system will keep working throughout the night and the body wont get to clean up properly. Also, because your body has been working all night you wont get a very good rest.

- Don’t do anything that involves too much thinking close to your bed time, especially work! Don’t do or watch anything that’s going to get you too excited either.

- If you can’t sleep, get up, go to the toilet or have a glass of water, do a few Yoga stretches or some meditation. Don’t lie there trying to sleep, trust me it won’t happen.

- If you are a light sleeper and little noises are enough to keep you up at night, try some ear-plugs. I used to panic hearing birds early in the morning because I would let me know it was early in the morning and I only had a few hours left to get some rest.

- Lastly, I find going to bed thinking about things I am grateful for puts me in a very positive and relaxed mood and before I know it I’m asleep.

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And thats it! SLEEP, it’s a vital step to getting clear!

Until next time!

Peace,

The Anonymous Guru

©2010 TheAnonymousGuru. All Rights Reserved.

Part 3 -

Know the Laws of Life

OK straight off the bat I’m going to hit you with some ‘weird’ stuff =) Knowing the Laws of Life.

The reason I’m putting this step right at the beginning is because curing cystic acne is an inside job, and you can’t get any more ‘inside’ than your attitude, habits and the way you think.

I know you all probably want to hear the ‘practical’ stuff related to your physical self, but you have to start with a healthy mind as a solid foundation. Once you have achieved a healthy mind and a positive mindset then you can start building a healthy body.

To the un-initiated these Laws might sound a little ‘out there’ but please put your pre-conceptions aside, have some ‘blind’ faith and have a try. This first step is extremely important and was one of the most crucial steps for me to get clear. Knowing these Laws not only have cleared my skin, they have drastically improved my health, my finances, my relationships, my career and most importantly my level of happiness.

I studied 11 Laws, there are probably more but these are the ones I learnt about:

Thinking / Supply / Attraction / Receiving / Increase / Compensation / Non-resistance / Forgiveness / Sacrifice / Obedience / Success

Specifically, the Laws which I think helped me most to get clear are:

• The Law of Attraction

• The Law of Sacrifice

• The Law of Obedience

The Law of Attraction

I’m sure all of you have heard a little bit about the Law of Attraction (probably through a movie called ‘The Secret’) so I’m not going to explain too much here.

What I benefitted from this Law is it caused me to stop WORRYING about my acne and checking it out in the mirror every 10 minutes.

It taught me that my constant focussing on my acne was actually attracting more acne rather than making it go away. As the Law states ‘anything you focus on will only get bigger’.

Even more valuably, it taught me how to feel good even when I looked horrible and basically be happy throughout my process of healing (which did take a while).

The eventual shift of focus from being miserable to being happy even though my condition hadn’t yet changed is what I believe guided me to the information I needed to get clear.

The Law of Sacrifice

‘Discipline is the high road that leads to everything that makes life worth living’

The Law of Sacrifice is not about losing something but gaining something. It is about giving up things of a lower nature to gain things of a higher nature. It is about GROWTH and DISCIPLINE.

Discipline is when you give your self a command and then follow it. It is the act of taking control of your life.

In this case, your command is to have clear skin. In order to obtain clear skin you must sacrifice some thing, or things of a lower nature and replace them with things of a higher nature. In my case I gave up:

• Alcohol

• Soft drinks

• Junk Food

• Some of my free time

and replaced them with:

• Clean water and teas only

• A healthy diet

• Exercise

• Yoga

Basically The Law of Sacrifice taught me to break old, negative habits and create positive, new ones.

All human beings are controlled by habits, if you have negative habits, you can only ever create negative results. Severe acne is a result of a lifestyle full of negative habits. Learn to change your habits and your lifestyle will change and ultimately your skin will change.

To put it simply, create positive habits and positive results must soon follow, it is Law! The good thing is, once you form a new habit, it is easy and natural to maintain it because….. it’s a habit!

For me doing this required a bit of effort and discipline. I had been given the wrong information about acne for years, I believed it was because of germs and under-sized pores, and that it had nothing to do with diet or lifestyle. So the change in the way I was thinking and the things I had to do every day to get clear was uncomfortable and sometimes painful but the reward was ENORMOUS!

The Law of Obedience

Once you learn about the Laws of Life, you will understand the significance of the Law of Obedience.

To quote Bob Proctor: ‘He who obeys the laws of Nature and acts as an obedient servant later becomes the master and reaps a full harvest.’

We live in a universe where everything works in an exact, predictable, fail-safe way. Nature never plants an apple seed and grows a lemon tree. People who focus on negative things never get positive results. If you do the wrong things you will never get the right results.

So study the Laws, remember them, work in harmony with the Laws and obey them. If you can do this, I believe you can have anything you want in life not just clear skin.

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RECOMMENDED PRODUCTS & RESOURCES:

Laws of Sacrifice & Obedience: You can find out about all 11 Laws including the Laws of Sacrifice and Obedience here . Or you can visit www.thinklovelive.com , on this site you can hear an interview with Bob Proctor where he explains more about them. I would highly recommend getting a set of the 11 Laws program if you are able, it will help speed up your journey to clear skin and also keep you on track. More importantly are the life lessons you will gain from learning about the 11 Laws which will improve all areas of your life, not just your skin.

Law of Attraction: To get the absolute, perfect understanding of the Law of Attraction you MUST check out ABRAHAM-Hicks, their website is www.abraham-hicks.com . Or, check them out on YouTube, there are thousands of videos there for you to see and truly understand what it is and how to use it. I will talk more about these guys in a later post.

I feel personally indebted to these two sources of information, I truly believe they have changed my life =)

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Anyway, thats all for now, I hope you found this information helpful. I will be back soon with more!

Peace,

The Anonymous Guru

©2010 TheAnonymousGuru. All Rights Reserved.