Part 3 of 3
So, what to do if you "flunked" the urine pH challenge?
Start to improve your diet immediately. But don't toss out all of your acid ash foods and switch cold turkey to nothing but vegetables. Your body will let you know in a hurry that it isn't accustomed to handling a sudden surge of vegetables and fruits. Your body isn't telling you it "can't" handle a lot of fruits and vegetables. It certainly can. But you probably won't like the short-term results. You see, your body has been working for a long time in its survival mode of constantly coping with excess protein. It's programmed for protein survival. A quick, radical change in diet can magnify unpleasant symptoms you already have, and it can add a few that are new. The objective is to alkalize your body slowly but surely. Begin changing your diet immediately, but make diet changes slowly enough to let your body adapt easily. You may find it helpful to jump-start the alkalizing process with nutrition supplements.
Begin your diet change very gradually. Introduce some of the "more conservative" acid ash foods, such as brown rice, into your diet and add one serving of cooked vegetables to your daily menu for a week. After a week, you can add another serving of vegetables. Continue the add-a-vegetable-a-week routine for about six weeks. That may sound like a lot of vegetables, but you have three meals a day to work with. Stick with brown rice for a while, and ease the transition with alkalizing diet supplements.
Hold off doing another urine pH check for a week or two. Give your body a little time to adjust. If you test your urine too quickly after you have started your new eating for-health program; you may be disappointed that dramatic results don't show up immediately. Even on an unproved diet, the changes in your urine pH won't be as dramatic as you might like. In fact, the pattern of change will look as though things are going from bad to worse. When the out-of-alkaline-reserve bunch improve their diets, urine pH readings go down before they start coming up again. That's because alkalizing minerals are being replenished. As more and more vegetables and fruits supply precious alkalizing minerals, urine pH goes down as in the pH 6.0 - 6.6 scenario after the pH challenge. The alkaline minerals are doing the neutralizing, not ammonia. Alkalizing minerals aren't nearly as strong on the alkaline side as is ammonia. So a steady downward trend in urine pH is great in the short term as you travel the road to health.
Your readings should change gradually - one color change at a time. If you are truly committed to improving your diet as a major part of your pursuit of health, you will probably see a dramatic change from your original pH challenge numbers in a couple of months.
But, suppose you go through all of the alkalizing processes you can think of, but your urine pH doesn't improve the way it should? You've changed your diet, cut down on acid ash foods, eaten mostly vegetables and fruit, and taken alkalizing supplements but your urine pH is locked in. Does that mean that it's all a waste of time? Or does it mean that this urine pH business is all a bunch of nonsense?
"No" to both of the above. There's more to pursuing health than just eating right. Other factors besides toxicity and diet enter into how your body functions. After you've "cleaned up" your diet, if you still don't feel as well as you'd like, it's time to take another type of pH test to see if emotional stress is leading to physical distress.
EATING WELL BUT NOT FEELING WELL
Just about everyone has the occasional "down time." They just don't "feel good" despite good eating habits. They do the vegetable bit, eat very little meat, but they just aren't up to par. They are "kind of" stiff, tire easily, and get out of breath just walking up stairs. How come?
Emotional override!
Their bodies are responding to strong emotions, and these responses are overriding the benefits of their good diet. That's where checking the pH of saliva comes in. Saliva pH indicates whether or not emotions are the overriding influence on physiology.
"But doesn't that smack of `being crazy' or `mental illness'?" you might ask.
Not at all.
We all have stress in our lives. It goes with the territory of living. If you're alive, you're stressed. But stress itself doesn't cause health problems. The way you respond might. Some ways you react to stress are more damaging to your health than others. For most of us, the biggest health hazard of all is how we cling to past hurts and injustices we have suffered and survived. And, to make matters worse, we may not even realize we are clinging!
You see, your body responds to your feelings and emotions. The most striking example of these responses is when you are suddenly and severely frightened. Fright is emotional. Your response to fright is physical. And it's fast. In extreme fright situations, the physical response is so apparent that others can tell by looking at you that you are frightened. Emotions and body are so closely intertwined that the phrase "scared to death" may not be an exaggeration.
Most of your physical responses to emotions aren't as dramatic as those of "scared to death" fright. Your physical body responds to all of your mental activities and emotions. Worry, anxiety, hate, joy, elation, and all the rest. Emotions don't have to be strong to cause a physical response. Any emotion affects your body. And when the same emotion is played over and over again for weeks, months, and years, your body continues to be affected the same way over and over. That's exhausting. Both you and your body become exhausted. And you may not be aware that anything is amiss.
But our purpose here isn't to give an in-depth study of how and why your emotions, feelings, thoughts, and memories affect your health. Our purpose here is to help you determine why you are feeling tired, achy, and generally "out of sorts" even though you are eating properly. That's where saliva pH comes in.
THE UPS AND DOWNS OF SALIVA pH
Saliva pH tests can indicate if "emotional override" is keeping you from feeling your best. Saliva pH isn't any more of a diagnostic tool than urine pH. Saliva pH is a tool for evaluating whether your body is responding to internal (mental and emotional) stimuli in ways that can lead to long-term health or long-term disease. Saliva pH tests can also provide clues to the condition of your alkaline reserve, but urine pH monitoring does a better job of that.
The pH of your saliva dances from low to high depending on what you've put into your mouth recently. The "normal" pH of saliva is considered to be around 6.8. However, it can go much lower and much higher than that. Chew on an orange, and your saliva pH can drop like a rock. Swish a solution of water and baking soda in your mouth (although I'm not sure why you would want to do that) and your saliva pH shoots up like a rocket. The point is that your saliva pH changes instantly to handle current conditions. And that's what you are looking for when you check your saliva pH - change.
This is a two-stage check. A "before" and "after." The "before" gives you the pH of your saliva when you haven't eaten anything for a while. The "after" pH shows the response to a sudden, intense "threat" of acid. Your body responds to survive "threats" of all sorts. Acid is one of those "threats." The objective is to find out if the acid "threat" is more intense than any current emotional "threat." This is where emotional override comes in - emotional threats may override physical "threats" of a sudden "acid attack." Emotions can affect the pH of your saliva. In fact, you can have residual emotional override from long forgotten, past emotional "threats" that can send your saliva pH as low as 5.5 or as high as 8.0.
The equipment you need for your saliva pH check includes: (1) pH paper, (2) saliva, (3) a stimulant, such as a slice of lemon or a teaspoon of lemon juice, and (4) a pencil and a piece of paper to record your initial results.
You begin your saliva pH check with your saliva being as close to your personal "normal" as it is likely to get when you are up, moving about, and contending with the rigors or pleasures of the day. In order to reach your daytime "saliva equilibrium", you need a period of abstinence from food, drink, and other substances that you put into -your mouth. No chewing gum, no. cough drops, no peppermints, no breath spray, no cigarette smoke, no toothpaste, no mouthwash. Okay, it's been two hours. You're ready to go with the pH paper, lemon, pencil and paper.
Tear off an inch or two of pH paper. If you are reasonably healthy and have no allergies, work up some saliva and move it toward the tip of your tongue. Without touching the paper to your lips or tongue, wet the pH paper with the saliva and match the color of the wet paper with the color chart on the dispenser. Write down the pH number corresponding to the matching color.
Next, the stimulant. Put the lemon into your mouth. Just suck on the lemon until the flavor permeates your whole mouth. Dispose of the lemon. Swallow four times as you tear off another inch or two of pH paper, then repeat the paper-into-the-saliva routine. Compare the color and write down the corresponding pH number.
Before we get into what the numbers mean, let's back up a bit. Recall that the testing instructions began with, "If you are reasonably healthy and have no allergies, work up some saliva and move it toward the tip of your tongue." There is a reason for this "reasonably healthy and have no allergies" business. Some people are too sensitive to use the pH paper in the way just described. If you are one of these, instead of touching the paper to the saliva in your mouth, put some saliva into a clean plastic teaspoon. Have your pH paper torn off and ready so you can quickly test the pH. Test the saliva immediately. Exposure to air can change the pH of the saliva rather quickly. This is the procedure for both the "before" and "after" checks.
Now you have two pH numbers and three possibilities for change. (1) The first number may be higher than the second, (2) the first number may be lower than the second, and (3), the numbers may be the same - no change. The question is, "what does it all mean?"
CHANGING COLORS
Instead of using numbers to interpret the results of your saliva pH test, we'll simplify matters and use colors instead. The color chart has three dominant colors - yellow, green, and blue. Since the colors blend into one another, to mark the change from one color to another, we'll establish color groups at particular pH numbers. We'll say that:
Yellow = pH 5.5 through 6.0
Green = pH 6.2 through 7.0
Blue = pH 7.2 through 8.0
Changes in saliva pH can indicate whether or not your physiology is being dominated by your emotions despite your superlative diet. Since only three possible change patterns are possible, we'll look at what each pattern of color change indicates about your health.
Keep in mind that the color changes in the saliva test are different from color changes in urine tests. In the saliva test, you are looking at "before" and "after" changes within minutes of your body being stimulated with a quick dose of lemon juice acid. In the urine test, you look for "before" and "after" changes following days or weeks of improved diet. We're talking here about changes in saliva pH for each "double-dip" saliva test. We don't use the interpretations that follow to compare today's test results with next week's test results.
Numbers Go Up
If your pH numbers go up, this indicates that your body can respond easily to strong stimuli (acid of the lemon). No matter what color your first number was, if it changed to a higher color, that's good. Of course, some goods are better than other goods. The best "good" is green changing to blue.
Green to Blue - Preferred response
Saliva pH that starts out green and moves up to blue is the preferred response. It's a good indication that your emotions aren't getting the best of your physiology. You handle stress well, and your alkaline reserve is adequate. Since this is the preferred response it has the shortest analysis. You are entitled to a tiny bit of smugness. Just keep up the healthy diet and attitudes and check your saliva pH occasionally to make sure you are entitled to stay smug.
Yellow to Green or Blue - Not the best "good"
A yellow reading that changes to either green or blue indicates two situations. First, your alkaline reserve is holding its own. You have enough alkalizing reserve for your saliva to be flooded with alkalizing minerals to neutralize the acid of the lemon. Second, anxiety, or similar emotion, is keeping your body "on guard" most of the time. If you are feeling less than top-notch you may be emotionally stressed and not even realize it. Very likely, you are anxious much of the time. Although improper diet isn't your main problem, make sure you are kind to your body nutritionally by eating less meat and dairy products and more fruits and vegetables.
Numbers Go Down
The acid in the lemon is a sudden "threat" to your body. Your body must defend itself. The first line of defense against this threat is to neutralize the acid with alkaline saliva. This means that, if the acid is the greatest threat to survival your body is facing at the moment, your saliva pH numbers will go up because your saliva is quite alkaline. If they don't go up (they go down, or stay the same) another threat, such as anxiety or other chronic stress, is dominating your physiology.
If your "after" lemon saliva pH numbers are lower than your "before" numbers, take this as a sign that your life and health could be better with a few changes.
Blue to Green, or Green to Yellow - Wrong Direction
Your pH results indicate that your body is moving toward exhaustion. That's really not good. The problem isn't too much dietary acid. You still have alkaline reserve minerals available; that was demonstrated by the Blue or Green "before" reading. However, your digestive system is running wide-open all the time. The problem is chronic stress. Probably worry. Low-level stress that goes on and on and on. A change in lifestyle attitudes is more important than a change in diet. However, replacing meats with brown rice, and adding more vegetables can't hurt. Saliva pH responses that go down on the pH scale can serve as a warning that you could be headed for physical problems. They also indicate that you are not "doomed" to disease and despair. Both your diet and your attitudes are under your control. You can change either or both. Taking control of the way you look at life is as important as taking control of your diet. And when you take control of these two major areas of living, you take control of your health.
Numbers Don't Change
Saliva pH "before" and "after" colors that are virtually the same are the strongest indication that emotional override is the key factor. It's time to take action. Diet is essentially good but may need to be modified slightly. Emotional habits certainly need to be re-examined and modified.
Blue - Blue - Not Desirable
Blue results before and after the lemon indicate that diet isn't a major problem. The alkaline reserve is still able to sit up and take nourishment. However, true-blues have a tendency to be worriers. Some vegetarians are world-class worriers. Among other things, they worry about the animals that are killed for meat-eaters to eat. Worriers have a problem with excess digestion - it goes on constantly, even when they haven't eaten anything. However, these people usually do not have indigestion problems. The negative fallout from worry and anxiety overrides the positive benefits they get from their good diets. Classic emotional override. Consequently, their bodies are headed toward exhaustion.
The need for diet adjustments must be evaluated according to eating habits. Many vegetarians fall into the blue-blue category. Since they eat primarily veggies and fruit, they certainly don't need to add more. But they need to include more rice cereals with their vegetables to help neutralize the effects of anxiety such as worry. A little more acid ash in their diets might tone down their pH. However, if worry is the cause of the abnormal saliva pH readings, diet alone will not improve them.
Diet is essentially a non-issue for non-vegetarians who register blue-blue. Their bodies are being stressed by their emotions. Acute anxiety is the major problem for all bluebluers.
Green - Green - Less Desirable than Blue - Blue
The steady-state green group is also combating emotional override. These are the "strong emotions" folks. Not only is anxiety a fixture, fear, anger, or rage are constant companions in one form or another. The end result is physical and physiological exhaustion.
Their saliva pH didn't respond to a sharp jolt of acid from the lemon. Their pH is high enough to indicate that some minerals are still available from their alkaline reserve, but the reserve isn't overflowing. They need to make a substantial change in their diet to reinforce their reserves. Less meat, more cooked vegetables, and some fruit are in order.
Their biggest challenge will be to change their long-standing negative attitudes to allow their bodies to rest occasionally. As it is, their bodies are working full-time to keep them ready day and night to fight or run. Green-green is not a good situation. Greengreeners make up much of the "physically and emotionally drained" set.
Yellow - Yellow - Serious Problems
Most people who are seriously ill are yellow-yellows. But not all people who are yellow-yellow are seriously ill. However, regardless of their present state of health, their diets and their attitudes need to be restructured immediately. Their alkaline reserve is either very low or, more likely; they are experiencing the effects of severe emotional override from persistent strong emotions such as hate, anger, or rage that they may not consciously think about.
Cooked vegetables need to be added to the daily diet of yellow-yellows. The vegetables must be cooked because yellow-yellow bodies aren't ready to handle raw. Even fruit may be a bit too "strong" for their overworked systems. Changes in diet should be made gradually.
Yellow-yellows are essentially up-tight. These are the folks who need pills at night to go to sleep and coffee in the morning to get going. They may think they relax when they sleep. But they are as tired when they get up as they were when they went to bed. They may sleep, but their bodies never rest. Sorting out their emotional lives and their nutritional lives should be top priority in their daily lives if they intend to continue to have a life.
REACH YOUR, POTENTIAL FOR HEALTH
So there you have it. The rousing story of pH. Monitoring urine pH can help you to improve your menu selections. Improving your menu selections can help improve your health. But nutrition isn't the whole ball game. Monitoring saliva pH can help you determine if emotional override is heavily involved in your overall picture of health. Yet there's little point in monitoring either urine pH or saliva pH if you don't act on the information. That's the purpose behind pH monitoring and this guide - to give you information you can use in devising your own plan of action for improving your health.
Your body's potential for health is built-in. The potential is there. Only you can cultivate or suppress it. You have seen how the types of foods you eat require your body to respond in particular ways. Every response your body makes is required for it to survive the conditions it faces at the time. Everything your body does is perfect for the circumstances. So you can't blame "poor health," or even "good health" for that matter, on your body. Your body doesn't think and it doesn't plan for the future. It works in the here and now. It works with the materials you give it. That's the good news.
With the health perspective that everything your body is doing is absolutely correct for current conditions, you realize that you have more control over your health than you had thought. That's cause for hope! You don't need to wait for disease to strike before you "do something" about your health. You don't need to depend on someone else, like your medical doctor, to "keep you well." Health is your job, not your doctor's. Your doctor does a great job when you are seriously ill, injure yourself, or when symptoms are making your life miserable or difficult. That's what doctors do. Their job is to help relieve symptoms. And they do their jobs well.
Your doctor helps you in an emergency situation when you need help fast. So, handle the crisis. After it's over, then devise your action plan for improving your health. Your doctor focuses on treating sick bodies and "fixing" parts that "misfire." We need that expertise. However, your medical doctor probably won't share your excitement over the concept of improving your health by improving your pH. That's not his or her perspective.
Health is dynamic - ever changing. Promoting health is a way of life - not a onetime thing. When you realize that your body responds to everything you put into your mouth, eating takes on a whole new flavor. And when you realize that your body responds to your attitudes, you realize your thoughts and feelings are "things" that affect your health.
Monitoring your personal pH is a tool. It's not a self-diagnostic device. Monitoring your urine pH and saliva pH can help you take charge of your health. In the final analysis, you, and only you, can lead your life in ways that promote health or in ways that prevent health. Health isn't an accident.
This partial article has been extracted from Dr. Morter's Dynamic Health Workbook. There is much more important information available in his book "Dynamic Health". Please pay attention to his information regarding how emotions and stress affect your life. It is highly recommended you obtain his books. Dr. Morter offers a "Health Week" at his clinic in Rogers, Arkansas where those who suffer serious health challenges willing to take responsibility for their healing, learn how to restore their body to health.
www.morter.com
To order books, go to:
http://www.morter.com/mrssl/products.asp?types=book
An Apple A Day? - Is it enough today?
Health is the result of making more right decisions than wrong about eating, drinking, exercising, resting, breathing and thinking. This book will help you understand what the particular choices in your diet can mean to your body, and how you can modify your diet to produce a consistent body chemistry that can help keep you healthy for the rest of your life.
Dynamic Health
Prepare to take one of the most exciting health journeys of your life! This book is the result of three decades of study and clinical experience that reinforces the validity of the body-mind-energy connection that has skirted the fringes of healing for years, and that not only makes self-directed health possible, but achievable.
Exercise or Diet? Which will win the race to health?
Exercise or Diet is about more than exercise and being fit. It's about whole-body health. This book deals with how your body responds to exercise. It is written to help you understand why you should pursue health first, then go after fitness. It relates the effects of diet and strenuous exercise on your internal environment and physiological responses. This book gives a perspective on health, exercise, and fitness that may be new to you.
pH - Your Potential for Health
This booklet helps you evaluate your potential for health by teaching you to monitor your saliva and urine pH. It is offered as a view of the relationship between food and health. Use with pH paper.
The Healing Field
This book helps you understand why some people go from doctor to doctor and still get the verdict, "We can't find anything wrong!" Dr. Morter shows that the body is greater than the sum of its parts - much greater . . . the body is the only source of its own health. All externally administered treatments for disease and pain work on the symptoms
Correlative Urinalysis: The Body Knows Best
Research Text that defines the basics of the field
pH papers are available from:
Grau-Hall Scientific or E-mail
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Remember the information given here is not a medical diagnosis, treatment or cure. This guide is about evaluating your potential for health. It's not about diagnosing or curing disease. It's about monitoring signs of your body's ability to handle your diet and lifestyle. Diagnosing and curing are reactive. Monitoring is proactive.
If you are not healthy, whether you have a serious illness that you have identified, or just have one or a number of symptoms that keep you from feeling good and doing all the things you want to do each day, you may have tried to seek out what exactly it is you have and when you got it. To most people, these are the most important questions to answer before going about treating the problem. Dr. Morter has a different philosophy. The important questions to answer are: Why you got what you have and how you got it?
As you have been learning, there are many factors that affect your health. The Six Essentials, and the choices that you make with them are instrumental in determining your health. These are simple principles to follow, but will still require plenty of practice. In fact, depending on your current state of health and mind, you may need more help than you can get from this kit or from visits to a trained doctor. You may need intensive care and treatment to get you back on the road to health.
Each month, Dr. Morter offers four days of just that, intensive care and treatment called HealthWeek. HealthWeek is held at a state-of-the-art health facility offering Chiropractic Physicians using the B.E.S.T. treatment method. Medical physicians and physical therapists will all be working for you to find the cause of your health problems and how to correct that cause.
Here are some comments from others like you who have attended this life-changing HealthWeek program:
" I thought I was doomed to have headaches for the rest of my life. The pressure has lifted from my head and I have no more headaches-it (Health Week) absolutely changed my life." (Male, 73)
"My blood tests have improved everyday since Health Week, I knew I needed to turn my life around, and I had, after I left here, the power to do just that. - female 57
" While I have been here this week, I've been able to find the 'cause' of the problem. My Saliva pH has turned so blue, it's almost purple. I wish I had a psychotherapist like you instead of one that gave me a pill. It's a great program." (Male, 30)
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"I believed death was coming and there was no way out ... I had a lot of anger and many difficulties throughout my life. He (the doctor) took me out of an emotional state-total depression-and put me back on top. I am happy to say that a year and six months after I should have died, I never felt better. Even my thinking processes changed Once I had an understanding of what building your Alkaline reserve meant, I added another 40 - SO years to my life!" (Male, 39)
"I have been so crippled with arthritis-like symptoms before coming toHealth Week in September of 1995 that I have to stop and remind myself of the amazing gift I received Everyday, I give prayers of thanks for each morning when I go for my three mile walk!" (Male, 58)
We believe that you don't have to be sick. You don't have to develop diseases or live in pain anymore. You can fix the cause of your health problems, rather than settling for temporary relief from your symptoms. And, you can start on this road to health by attending his four-day, life-changing program where you will learn how lifestyle, nutrition, attitudes, emotions, and belief systems affect your overall health and contribute to illness.