Immune system Archives - PURICA: Recent Episodes
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Why is it that the ‘gold standard’ recognition of efficacy in medicine and health is the modern western scientific standard? Practitioners around the globe in countless traditions, for thousands of years, have all successfully practiced medicine and lived on to tell about it and share their knowledge. Yet, the modern west seems to be the [...]
The post In Search of Gold Standard Medicine appeared first on PURICA.
Spring time is well under way. With it comes the vital refreshment of new beginnings and, of course, the urge to clean.
As nature displays the triumphant beauty of a fresh start all around us in this glorious spring season, many feel inspired to clean house. To clean house, to dust, to remove what is stagnant and not part of the new trying to bloom, to make way and make space for fresh life.
From the ritual ’shaking of the house’ — a time of cleaning, polishing, celebration and a new clothing — in ancient Iran, to Celtic, Northern, and religious traditions, the spring season is a time of cleaning and new starts. It is the preparation and making way for the new. If you really want to trace back its origins, you have to look back into the deep roots of the rhythms of nature itself, and our interaction with it.
This seemingly timeless drive is not just a cultural human made idea. It’s in our ‘bone memory’ so to speak. A biological, mental, emotional and spiritual imperative.
Shaking Off The Season PastIn winter we are generally less active, less motivated, and for good reason. For 99.9% of our specie’s time frame, our biology was directly wrapped up with the changing seasons. With less light, with less to harvest, with the onset of the cold, we naturally gravitated more indoors, producing more melatonin, becoming sleepier overall; conserving heat, storing energy within, as the trees do in their roots. Containing, preserving, slumbering, dreaming.
Dust, fat cells, ‘stuff’, and lethargy are more likely to gather and make a home with us for the winter season.
Come spring time, it’s time to shake that all off, make space for the new growth, get outside more and feel less sleepy.
New energy in mind and body surge, and space is needed to not stagnate, stifle or frustrate that energy’s growth. For any fresh start, the old has to go. Autumn leaves fell, making rich the soil for new life to thrive. If that old form and shape hadn’t fallen, if it didn’t decompose and feed the soil, how could the new sprouts arise?
Ritually ShiftingHow do we make this transition a smooth one and avoid the potential frustrations or awkwardness of this seasonal shift can come with? As humans always have — harmonizing with the energies of spring, through ritual engagement.
Get out there in nature. Look at the new growth, hear the birds, attune to the beauty and energies of spring. Let it awaken the ‘bone memory’ within you. Truly take it in. The experience you have in nature is actually within you.
The same sense of renewal, and rebirth, of excitement and newness, the same life force that shoots up as sprouts breaking through the ground, and spring flowers blooming, is the same source of renewal ready to bubble forth in you as fresh thoughts, feelings, ideas, perceptions and wonders. As the taoists say — reality is like an eternal spring, an ever outflowing abundance. We just need to simplify, remove what’s in the way, and get in harmony with that outflowing.
So when spring cleaning your home, you are — on one level — simply cleaning up; but you’re also enacting a ritual done for thousands, and thousands of years. A ritual that runs in the ancestral cellular memory from ancestor to ancestor. An energy in tune with the trees, and the land, flowers and birds, and the movement of the sun, harmonizing you with the energies of the season.
It also removes dust particles from the air that agitates sinuses, lungs, and exasperates allergies. If you want to further support the changes on a physical level, reduce inflammation — which effects seasonal allergies — with high quality curcumin; and keep immunity high in this unpredictable season where sun, rain and wind can show up together in a matter of minutes.
It’s also true what they say — spring cleaning our home and work space is straight therapeutic. Stress relieving and clarifying. As you declutter, quite literally, you reduce the amount of ‘over stimulation’ on your mind leaving more space to focus on what is more important, what carries deep value and delight. No doubt, this also inspires productivity, helping the creativity and all the new births of the season take flight.
Engaging SpringRooted in our biology, our mammalian and cultural past, in the cycles of nature and the rhythms of life — the impulse and benefits of spring cleaning are, in a way, timeless, and still very much alive in the present.
If we don’t engage the energies of spring, it can make for an awkward and frustrating time. The new energy and excitement grows but we’re not quite out of that winter sleepiness yet. It’s kind of like starting a new school or job, while still ending the last one. Engaging with this timeless energy through ritual cleaning harmonizes inner and outer, mind and body, allowing the force of life that is always bubbling and flowing from the heart centre of existence to flow through us unimpeded.
Inspired to clean house yet?
If you haven’t already, now is the time.
Now is the time of growth.
(And, if allergies are really bad, it’s a great excuse to stay inside and attune to the season through cleaning our home, cleaning body, cleaning mind.)
Happy spring everyone.
The post The Timeless Imperative To Spring Clean appeared first on PURICA.
“In those subtle moments we sometimes drift into, when time slips away and life stands silent and majestic, words cease to spill from our mouths or even bubble up from that source within. The warming wholeness ensues at the sheer experience of it all: we marvel at the vast beautiful complexity of creation rolling around and within us. It’s likely that every human has experienced this feeling at least once in some form. It almost seems hardwired, like a key back into the garden.” — Chris Arkenberg
Have you had a taste of this?
Experiences of this magnitude and profundity can’t be forced or conjured. There’s no pill available to suddenly stare directly into life from this state of connected, wonderstruck consciousness. We can’t force it; but we can create conditions that make these experiences more of a regular occurrence, filling us in their ‘warming wholeness’.
What helps you get there?
Child like Simplicity Remember a time you had an experience of this nature. Was there anything you were doing before hand? Were you in a particular state of mind? Were you specifically focusing on anything or were you in a state of open ease — where the mind could wander and flow freely, without grasping? Was it a state of binding focus, or natural ease and presence — Almost child like in its simplicity?
Sometimes forced, focused, meditation is not the most beneficial way to go about it, espeically if it’s causing a straining and constraining of consciousness. It’s known in the wisdom traditions that a sense of open curiosity — like that which arises in moments of genuine wonder or gratitude — combined with precise presence of concentration, is a key to meditative enjoyment and rapture.
It’s why these moments unexpectedly break through when we’re sitting back, taking a break from it all, with a warm drink in hand. Or as someone contemplatively stares out at a horizon of possibility, with no particular agenda of thought or concern and, without warning, it breaks through like the sun at dawn.
It’s why we take time to sit back with a Zensations, let the thoughts of the day or what we ‘have to do’ go and, without agenda, sink into the joy of the moment, the richness of the drink — into the open, inviting, fullness.
Taking Back TimeTry taking time like this daily, with or without a warm drink or Zensations in hand. (Sometimes, espeically at the beginning of meditation or when first settling inward amidst the ‘to dos’ and busy business of our days, it can help to have an object of easeful enjoyment — something you don’t have to pay too much attention to — like a warm drink in hand. It can ‘take over’ some of the need for activity in us, so the mind can let that go, allowing it to settle into what the wisdom traditions refer to as a more ‘natural state’ — open like the great blue sky.)
The Buddhists across the high Himalayas used the horizon or wide open sky as cues for meditative absorption; and we can do the same. Letting our minds merge with the vision of the great horizon, attuning to that wide open view. Holding all in wonder. (And this can be done in imagination if you don’t have direct visual access to the horizon or open sky.)
The reason we suggest Zensations is, not just because we sell it but, because the ingredients support an ideal balance of alertness and relaxation, for the state of mind we’ve been talking about. (Thanks to the ancient synergy between cacao, and medicinal mushrooms — each one having a specific quality and support for the mind-body.) Being over-caffeinated supports the ‘monkey mind’ — the state of mind that can only see and exist a few inches in front of itself. Some herbal drinks can also go in the reverse direction, creating too much lethargy. So there’s a reason we researched, created, and stand by Zensations. Plus, it can be enjoyed both hot and cold, making it available to support inspiring this state of mind in any season.)
Warming Wholeness The state we’ve been talking about, sought after in wisdom traditions for as long as we know, is one all too rare in our modern culture.
If what we are looking for is to drift into those subtle moments when “…The warming wholeness ensues at the sheer experience of it all: we marvel at the vast beautiful complexity of creation rolling around and within us.” Then this finely balanced state between activity and open, awe filled, ease may be our greatest commodity. One, ”… key back into the garden”, and a gateway to experience the wonder of being alive, here at all, in gratitude. Attuned to and one in the mystery of it all.
May your every cell be filled with the light of that wondrous warming wholenessThe post Zensations In Wonder appeared first on PURICA.
In Central and South America, you find howler monkeys, known for their deep guttural howl, which makes them sound a lot bigger than they really are. Howler monkeys are no bigger than 30” tall at most yet, they sound more like a small frustrated cow than a little monkey, which can be an intimidating sound to cascade from the jungle tree tops to your ears.
Emotions can be a lot like these howler monkeys — Waking you up in the early hours with their intimidating calls. Yet, in reality, sounds a lot more intimidating than they actually are.
Quelling Primal ResponsesTo not react with a primal, visceral, fearful reaction, to the howl of our emotions (or howler monkeys), we need a bit of space from the emotion. Room in our consciousness for the experience to arise and go. Having a tool of awareness that gives us enough room to feel and experience the emotion, honour and listen to it, keeps our cognitive processing alert, our view as ‘high as a mountain’, and gives us a chance to re-organize our minds, and our bodily response, in harmony with a greater view point. It allows us to feed the emotions, and those parts of ourselves, with the food of our attention and compassion, but not be completely overtaken by them — believing them to be far more then they are.
If you’re already chronically stressed, tense or wired in some way, that emotion is going to seem like an unmanageable beast from the wild of the inner jungle. Or, even if it normally wouldn’t seem like much, sometimes, on those days where everything seems to pile up on us and go wrong, it may just be that one extra concern that, on top of a heap of other ones, becomes the ‘straw that broke the camel’s back’ as they say.
Whereas, with a sense of space, the stress response quelled, and empowering resources in place, it may not be so big a deal.
Blue Sky ToolsSo what’s that tool of awareness for you? What gives you a sense of space from the immediacy of emotions and feelings? Is it meditation? Asking the right question to get to the juice of what’s coming up in you, with the curiosity to explore it? A breathing practice? Going for a walk? A warm contemplative cup of Zensations in your hands with adaptogenic medicinal mushrooms to help sooth the stress response and restore balance and harmony in the body-mind system?
Alongside any tool of awareness you have, try this simple inquiry practice to attune to that ‘blue sky mind’, as they call it. The state of mind always present, aware, at ease, untouched by the comings and goings of howling emotions, thoughts, and feelings; where all experiences float through with the ease of a cloud in the gentle sky.
Find a quiet comfortable place you can go within for a short bit of time. This could last as little or as long as you want.
Focus on your exhales for 3 breaths, letting them be slow and easeful. You’re watching your inner world. Anytime a thought, emotion, feeling, sensations, or image arises, drop the question into your mind: “What is the background this floats on?”
Like a screen, of awareness, or a mirror, there must be something the feeling, sensations, though, etc, is experienced upon — highlighting and outlining the experience — otherwise we wouldn’t be able to differentiate one from another. It’s the computer screen and white background we see text on. It’s the blank page a word is written on. It’s the blue sky that high lights the birds or tree tops.
Rest in that sense of open space beyond it all for a moment.
When you get a fairly stable sense of the open space, when you’ve unblended the background of awareness — the blue sky mind — from the experiences arising, see if you can mix the two together again. Easeful space, and the wildness of the howl of life — in whatever shape it takes — both present at once. Now that open space of awareness is known to be inside, or within, the shapes and sounds of experiences, just as much as beyond them.
Howling AwarenessWith the emotion held in the open scape awareness, it is experience with space — space for it to move and flow or dissipate. Space where it can be explored from all angles. Space where it can be digested, bit by bit, and the energy discharged, as the system settles back into its natural ease. It’s a chance to not put up the resistance and blockades we often do, which causes the tension as the energy backs up, unable to flow in its natural way; to its natural end.
With a practice like this, over time, the howls becomes reminders to deepen into the space of our own radiant peace — the blue sky mind — always waiting, holding them in tender ease, vibrant, compassion.
May life vibrantly arise and flourish in the open space of the blue sky mindThe post The Howler Monkeys of Our Lives appeared first on PURICA.
“The Heart is the emperor, the supreme controller. The Heart is the fire at the centre of our being, from which the spirit radiates.” — Neijing Suwen (Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine)
Speak of something, ‘at the heart of it all’, and most get a visceral idea of what is being spoken to. It’s the essence, the juice, the kernel and ‘soul’ of something.
In Chinese medicine, that’s exactly what lives in the heart. The heart is the ‘seat of our spirit’ and the ‘seat of emotions’ — the dwelling place of perception itself, where consciousness resides in our waking state.
The heart influences everything.
The heart is the centre of it all.
At The CentreIn any good kingdom, at the centre, is a good leader. The heart is dubbed the emperor of the body. The one that governs and nourishes all, as the physical heart nourishes the body with flowing blood and all this provides to the muscles, tissues and organs.
At the heart’s centre is a place of deep resting stillness, associated with joy.
True joy is calm and still.
Yet, the heart is also where the 7 emotions (as named by Chinese medicine) can flow through, be known, and felt. Each one — sadness, worry, anger, fear, joy, grief, apprehension — and their particular ways of showing up in the body like laughing, sobbing, moaning, sighing, involuntary bodily movements, and so on, are all decorative reflections of ‘spirit’ flowing through the heart. The heart is meant to feel it all. It’s made for it. (It’s only us that gets in the way of that.)
When emotions, blood, life force, are felt and experienced fully, without being held onto or resisted, when we don’t get bogged down or stagnant but live in the harmony of its rhythm, a bright and vital presence alights in our eyes. The ‘spirit’ and ‘soul’ can be seen and known. The eyes will show if the spirited presence in the heart is healthy and available or not. As the saying goes, “the eyes are the window to the soul.“
Re-Imagine Joyous HealthDisfunction of the heart, in Chinese medicine, has all the usual symptoms of western medicine, but the eastern medicines add onto that — anxiousness, poor sleep, palpitations, a simple lack of vibrancy or joy, depression, low libido, a cold personality and complexion, an addictive, irritable, or frigid personality. Even manic joy is a sign that something is up in the space of the heart. Because when the heart is agitated and depleted, our ‘spirit’ does not have a natural stable and secure environment; so things can go a little haywire to say the least in there, which can manifest in the various various heart problems we’re aware of in western pathology.
(When it comes to the cause of the heart imbalance, or the specifics of how it’s manifesting, that is a whole other story and best diagnosed by a well trained doctor of eastern medicines. If you’re wondering if something is going on with you, getting checked out sooner than later is best, as issues can be detected before they manifest, when they are far easier to treat. It’s also a good reason, as preventive measures, to be regular with the medicinal mushrooms used in Chinese medicine to support the heart like Reishi, Cordyceps, or those found in our Complete 360 blend.
What can you do on your own for heart health, if not seeing an eastern medical practitioner?
On the natural supplement front, regular use of the medicinal mushrooms mentioned; or any natural supplement supportive of the heart like Magnesium or IonicBone for relaxation and blood flow; or our Probiotic Cardio (many don’t know about the role of the microbiome in cardiovascular health) can keep our heart and heart-mind healthy. (The medicinal mushrooms work more directly on the mind-body connection. And we have Probiotic Cardio in combo with Recovery 3.0 available here.)
That all supports the physiological heart, and the real work of engaging the heart in what it’s made for.
In the understanding of Chinese medicine, the heart is the centre of perception itself. So what perception supports a healthy heart more than one of joy — its primary emotion — laughter and beauty? Where does a heart thrive more than in meaningful connection to ourselves, others, and source of life? And what does the heart need more of but genuine time, for focused rest and contemplation, to take it all in even further, and extract the heart essence of it all?
Essentially, the question is — What supports a joyous heart? What ’nourishes the soul’?
So what are a few things you can give to yourself, that will nourish your heart more regularly? What are your daily forms of joy? What helps you feel deeply in the heart? (Knowing that to allow the 7 emotions to be felt, and flow on through, is to support the growth and rediscovery of joy.)
And how can you offer this more regularly to yourself, knowing it will only flow back out from the heart and feed others as well with that joyous bright eye inducing spirit, because that’s what the heart does.
May we take this opportunity to suggest garishly loud heartfelt singing at the top of your lungs? This, of course, engages the tongue, which has a direct relationship to the heart in Chinese medicine. (Just tell those you live with your obnoxiously loud singing is a Chinese medical prescription.)
Inspirited ConnectionThe heart is where we all meet most genuinely, and most fully in this inspirited human experience. What better thing to remember, and take care of here at the end of winter, when we may not have felt the warm embrace of the sun or support of communal gathering for a while, than the joyous warmth of the heart — “…the fire at the centre of our being, from which the spirit radiates” which, when healthy, shines through the eyes in bright eyed vibrant presence?
It’s no frivolous thing to make a commitment to the health of your heart. It’s an honouring of the core of your being that radiates out to, and nourishes, everything it touches. If you feel you don’t have time for it well, in the eyes of Chinese medicine, giving yourself the time could literally save your heart’s life, which saves you a lot of time in this world.
May your heart’s days be long and joyousThe post The Joyous Warmth of The Heart appeared first on PURICA.
Lion’s Mane ( Hericium Erinaceus) is a type of mushroom, so named for its large, white, shaggy appearance. Also known as hou tou gu or yamabushitake, Lion’s Mane has a long history of use in both Chinese medicine and cooking – it may be consumed raw or cooked, and it may be dried or even steeped in tea. It has [...]
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It’s a time of year to rejoice and celebrate but, for many, the holiday season is an onslaught of pressure and stress; both welcome and not so welcome obligatory gatherings; oversized, complicated and hard to digest meals; sometimes alcohol; and, of course, cold weather — all adding up to one many angled, many faceted, assault [...]
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Let us count the ways There’s a tradition of the advent calendar, to count the days leading up to Christmas, where a piece of chocolate, or a message for each day, is opened. In the current culture and climate, it seems we open up each day leading up to the holidays with a new reason [...]
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Lion’s Mane is becoming more and more popular, but while you may have only started hearing about it in recent years, it is far from something new. In fact, Lion’s Mane mushroom has been in use for centuries. What is a Lion’s Mane Mushroom? Lion’s Mane was a component of Traditional Chinese [...]
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Dung beetles are magical creatures. These little astronomers navigate their way across the vast sands of the desert using galactic sign posts like the Milky Way. (Much like the Egyptians themselves who built temples according to specific astronomical alignments and times of the year, and who also happened to revere the dung beetle.) By the [...]
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“Our hunger to belong is the longing to find a bridge across the distance from isolation to intimacy.” — John O’Donohue Ah, to belong, and feel you are welcomed, wanted, safe and embraced fully for who and what you are in the circle of life. There’s that kind of belonging which we deeply crave but, [...]
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Deep in the jungles of Borneo, there is a particular type of carnivorous plant that relies on a particular type of shrew to defecate in its mouth for the sake of its health and well being. Known as the pitcher plant, it secretes an assumingely delicious sugar nectar for the tree shrew’s delight, and doubles [...]
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“When challenged, the regulation of the autonomic nervous system sequentially degrades to older circuits as an adaptive attempt to survive.” —Stephen Porges, The Pocket Guide to the Polyvagal Theory You’re an antelope running at full speed from a predator across the African Savannah. Making the wrong turn you are cornered and caught. First you tense [...]
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“In its central position the Earth is the pivot for all of the other Elements which encircle and spin around it. It is a place of stability within the body, mind, and spirit. From this stable anchor, change and growth can take place. Our food can be transformed and processed by the Stomach and Spleen [...]
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You’re invited to a dinner party. A dinner party with all the branches of your autonomic nervous system. We have the ventral vagal social engagement and connection branch, along with ventral vagal fawning. We have the ’get things’ done sympathetic branch and we have the other side of the sympathetic branch — the famously disruptive [...]
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“Problems cannot be solved with the same mind set that created them.” — Albert Einstein Ever hear this quote from Einstein? Ever find yourself running around in labyrinths of thought, struggling to figure things out, trying to understand which way is better between different options or feverishly trying to come to solutions and getting [...]
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‘Fine. I’m fine…. Everything’s fine.’ Ever heard this one or maybe said it yourself? Or what about the famous, ‘I’m ok…’ These are the words of one, often, hiding and not wanting to share, or admit, what’s really going on inside. And then later that same person has a full on melt down when they [...]
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‘You’re out of oil, your tires are bald and your brakes are about to fail.’ ‘Thanks, but I’ll wait until after the accident to get it fixed.’ Nobody says that! No one in their right mind would ever wait if they knew something was wrong and urgently needed attending to before it became a big [...]
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“We have become experts at anxiously determining that, without any reason, only the worst will happen. The first step in resolving each of our various external problems, is defeating this internal enemy — anxiety.” — Amma, the hugging saint We are masters of worry. If there was a prize for worrying about, and holding onto, [...]
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“By making a practice of seeing the good qualities in others, the same virtues develop in yourself. For as you think, so you become.” — Anandamayi Ma If we have a small cut on our arm, and the rest of the arm is doing just great, our entire attention goes to the cut; we don’t [...]
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Why is it that, come spring, suddenly it’s time to clean, re-organize, and purge all our unnecessary stuff? (And why did we compile it all in the first place!?) It’s not just a human made phenomena, there’s actually a biological imperative to this. After the storing up and conservation of winter, we naturally come to [...]
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“Spring is here! I got so excited that I wet my plants.” Ah, the sweet upsurge of spring! Plants break ground and seek the light. Creativity surges and outward expression begins anew. Sheer creative force pushes new growth through the last layer of its underground preparation, and ascent, to a new life in the bright [...]
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Ever hear the tale of the farmer and the rats? Once a farmer had a problem with rats. Upon consulting a ‘professional’ in the matter, the farmer invested in a few snakes to deal with the rat population. This worked brilliantly… Until the snakes began to multiply and became a threat to his workers, his [...]
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“Gratitude is to submerge oneself in the greatness of life. It is the foundation for joy.” — Julio Olalla An old man walks into a bar, sits down and begins crying. The bartender asks him “What’s wrong?” Amidst a fit of tears the old man replies, “I have a beautiful young wife at home [...]
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Holding on to too many unhelpful emotions, feelings and beliefs can feel very much like being constipated. Both can make us irritable, restricted in our ‘movements’ (yep, a pun 😊), as well as in our thoughts, feelings and actions; and just not pleasant to be with. Just how there are remedies we can take for [...]
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We have just passed the shortest day of the year, Christmas is upon us, and New Years, and a new start, shortly afterwards. In Taoist and Chinese medical philosophy, winter solstice is the most yin day of the year — when the force of inward contraction reaches such a complete still point (as the sun [...]
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RHN & Fitness Coach Melissa Blair gives her take on why she uses PURICA Immune 7 to strengthen her own immune system to build her confidence when run down and even when surrounded by germs.
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In this world in which we are inundated daily by stress and pathogens, it’s useful to think of our body as a castle. The walls of the castle – our skin, bone and connective tissue – keep things out – our mucosal membranes, genital urinary tract and eyes function like a moat. Inside our body [...]
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Most of Canada is knee deep in cold and fever season, even on the west coast where TSN Radio personality Don Taylor recently gave a strong shoutout for PURICA Prevail cold & fever, the newest member of the PURICA Immunity suite of natural supplements. For more information see detailed info on PURICA Prevent and PURICA Prevail.
Don Taylor about Prevail
https://purica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Don-Taylor-Radio-Shout-Out-on-Prevail.mp3 The post Don Taylor radio shout out on Prevail appeared first on PURICA.