There is no such thing as a standard Natural Health daily routine. Rather, all of us practising a Natural Health lifestyle to varying degrees will have developed our own individual daily patterns. So the only pattern that I know for sure is my own. To offer an example, here is my daily routine.
The dawn of each new day
One of the signs of genuine good health is that is that you arise feeling refreshed and energetic – at least in theory. Because I usually wake during the night to wee, it often takes me a while to get going. The first thing naturally is a visit to the loo.
Skinbrushing
Almost without fail, when I peel off my pajamas, I skinbrush. This is done prior to any shower because water softens the bristles of the brush and makes the brushing less effective.
Firstly I brush my back – which feels so nice on those parts that we can’t reach to scratch – then I do arms, sides and front of my trunk and finally legs, always brushing towards the heart. The reason for this is to squeeze the drainage fluid, lymph, towards the main lymphatic ducts high in the chest which empty lymph into the bloodstream. In other words, to enhance elimination.
I have been skinbrushing routinely for nearly 40 years. The good feeling in my skin is virtually addictive. Whereas many people need a cup of coffee to get started for the day, I need skinbrushing – with all its benefits. (For details of skinbrushing, see TNH, Autumn 2022 issue, page 24. Note that Bodecare is now closed, so not a source of skinbrushes.)
Showering
This might be one of my most controversial habits, because I shower when I need to shower, not as a routine every morning. My idea on this is greatly influenced by the fact that in the Vietnam war, the Viet Cong could smell the American soldiers in the jungle, but the Americans could not smell the Vietnamese. The American soldiers ate a highly processed diet, including a lot of rich foods, whereas the Viet Cong lived mainly on rice and vegetables with occasional chicken or pork or if they were near the sea, fish. My diet is much more like that of the Viet Cong than of the American soldiers, so much less likely to cause a BO problem.
Around 50 years ago, an advertising agency promoting deodorant came up with the slogan, ‘Even your best friend won’t tell you’. This single line got the entire nation paranoid about body odour, and led to the large majority of people applying deodorant or antiperspirant routinely every day. I say that if your best friend (maybe your spouse) won’t tell you, then they are not your best friend! I am lucky that my wife, Elizabeth, has a sharp nose, so I always know exactly where I stand in relation to BO.
So I shower every few days – unless after physical work I am hot and sweaty, then I need to shower.
Every shower I have – unless I am off colour – I finish with cold water. Even in the middle of winter, totally cold. This is a bit like the effect of the saunas in Scandinavia where they follow the steam bath with a swim in icy water. After turning off the cold, I feel comfortably warm, not chilly as at the end of a hot-only shower.
Diluted lemon drink
Squeezing half a lemon into a glass of warm-to-hot water makes a great start to the nutritional day. The lemon is refreshing, alkali-forming and tends to stimulate the system. Elizabeth and I share one lemon for our morning drink.
I get my body moving
After the lemon, I go for a walk or jog and usually some gardening. I mostly walk, since running can be hard on the back and leg joints. Except that when the City2Surm ‘fun’ run is coming up, I need to run at least a couple of times a week.
What gets me started outdoors reliably in the mornings is that I take two dogs of my neighbours down to the Nepean River flats behind our home for their walk and run. I am a dog-lover, so this is wonderful for me as well as for the dogs and for their ‘pet parents’ who have the satisfaction of knowing their dogs are enjoying this vital exercise.
Next I call in my chooks in for their breakfast, having let them out into the yard about half an hour earlier to hoe into the green lawn grass which they love (how I pity hens in cages which are denied this most natural food for hens). I feed my hens soaked grains, soaked soya meal (soya beans are the richest in protein of all the protein foods) and free-feeder cracked corn. (How I look after my chooks was spelled out in the Spring 2020 issue of TNH, page 16.)
Breakfast
After this activity, my system is well and truly awake and I’m ready to eat, although only very lightly. In winter I have a glass of grapefruit and orange juice plus psyllium hulls for their fibre, and in summer I have watermelon, quite a large serve.
Almost always I eat nothing but fruit before noon.
The day’s activities
The activities for the remainder of the morning might be desk work, outdoor yard jobs or going out somewhere. Normally two mornings a week I go to a gym for an hour at a time. I am greatly impressed by a study many years ago which found that elderly people who were bedridden or dependent on walking sticks and did strength training at a gym were chasing their grandchildren around after three to six months.
Lunch
This is in two courses. The first at around noon is always a fruit salad using in-season fruits. In winter my typical ingredients are papaya, banana and pear plus maybe blueberries. In summer the top favourites are mango, banana and cherries, plus maybe strawberries or other berries.
After an hour or more, I have a wholemeal sandwich, using sourdough bread or oatbread bread which is gluten-free or close to it.
Then as a ‘confession of a health heretic’ – as Dr Robert Mendelsohn once wrote – I have a few chockies, usually dark chocolate, although the current favourite is Reece’s peanut butter cups.
Siesta
If I am lucky timewise, I can squeeze in a siesta between the two course or after the second.
Afternoons
These are busy continuing the morning’s indoor or outdoor activities or going out somewhere on Saturdays or Sundays.
Dinner
At least six days a week, dinner is based on a large, raw vegetable salad of around 400 grams or more. It contains most or all of lettuce, rocket, silverbeet, tomato, cucumber, capsicum, celery, carrot, beetroot and broccoli when in season.
The salad is accompanied by a protein dish – four-bean mix, a chick pea dish, lentil dish, nuts, our own eggs or haloumi cheese. About once a fortnight I might have a serve of wild-caught salmon.
My diet is – as it has been for 55 years – vegetarian (non-strict; I thoroughly dislike rigidity with food). Or put another way – it’s approximately 95 percent vegan. In other words, a whole-food, plant-based diet, meaning the diet is based on plant foods, but not necessarily 100 percent.
I follow dinner with NeoLife plant-sourced supplements, including a range of minerals and a range of vitamins. Lately I have been taking Caruso’s ‘Wee Less’, and it does seem to be reducing the night-time waking for the loo.
Eating based on Natural Health Dietary Guidelines is designed to avoid the build-up in acidity which leads to the almost inevitable arthritis, artery disease, etc., which plague the large majority of the Australian population who don’t eat anything like this way. Elizabeth and I intend to avoid becoming decrepit.
Evenings
Tuesday evenings I go to Rotary meetings. Most other evenings I watch the news and documentaries on TV, now using blue-light-blocking glasses as recommended by holistic optometrist, Jenny Livanos, who writes periodically for True Natural Health.
I go to bed later than would be ideal for my age, but generally sleep well other than waking for a wee once or twice through the night.
Some things we are careful about
Elizabeth and I obtain our vital vitamin D from sunshine. We are outdoors a lot, exposed to the sun, and don’t use sunscreen except when we might develop sunburn, such as when cycling for many hours.
We minimise our exposure to toxic chemicals; this is so important for avoiding nasty degenerative diseases. We drink rainwater from our own tank, bypassing the first 15 – 20 ml to avoid the bird poo and dust on the roof. We grow some of our own food, especially green veggies, and the rest is from the local fruit shop. We do wash the pesticide off the surface of the latter using Tri Nature’s Chamomile Cleanser. We use similar non-toxic products for cleaning the house.
Drycleaning. I don’t use this often, but when I do, I ask the cleaner to not protect the garments with plastic, and I hang the garments away from our bedroom for at least 24 hours to avoid us breathing in the toxic drycleaning fumes
Stress – I follow the philosophy: ‘Worry about those things that you can do something about, and do it, and forget all the rest. If it wasn’t for the media, we would only know about disasters in our own locality, instead of constant tragedies from all over the world. Our minds are not designed to cope with shocking tragedies day after day. This way of thinking is not being callous, it’s being realistic.
Environmentally
Elizabeth and I minimise our ‘footprint on the planet’ – as Greenpeace once expressed it. We minimise: purchasing things wrapped in plastic; car travel; wastes going to landfill. We recycle paper and bottles and throw all food scraps to the chooks (their intestines are marvellous, work-free compost bins!).
Our electricity is almost entirely provided by 26 solar panels on our roof and a big battery. We recharge our e-bike and lawnmower batteries from the house solar battery, so our cycling and lawn mowing are all leg power plus solar power.
House heating. Our house was built in 1983 with a passive solar design, which works marvellously. The only heating is a wood fire in the winter months. Burning wood does release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, but this is simply returning the CO2 which was taken up by the trees to make the wood in the first place. This is in stark contrast to burning coal and oil which are being brought up from deep underground where nature had them safely and permanently stored – until clever humans came along and dug them up.
My philosophy with food and lifestyle in general
My personal philosophy with food was set during my first consultation with a Hopewood naturopath in January 1968 prior to my first stay at Hopewood Health Retreat at Wallacia, west of Sydney. During the consultation, I was thinking, “Hell, I don’t want to be bound by a lot of rules”. Then the naturopath declared, “Look, it’s not what you do five percent of the time that governs your health, it’s what you do 95 percent of the time that counts”. And I thought, “Yes, I can do that; what a relief!”. This is what I have been doing for the 55 years since; though probably softened to 90 – 95 percent doing it right, which has worked well for me.
I have no arthritis, diabetes or cancer and can run the 14-km City2Surf each year in a respectable time, although my concession now at age 82 is that I walk up the hills.
To me, the Natural Health Society’s lifestyle that was established by naturopaths 62 years ago is the way to avoid the suffering, pain and premature death associated with typical modern living.
Roger French’s book, How a Man Lived in Three Centuries: The Complete Guide to Natural Health is available to purchase here.
If you would like to hear more from Roger, a recording of his webinar presentation, Ageing with Vitality is available here.
Would you like access to more articles like this? Natural Health Society members receive four copies of True Natural Health every year, and have access to the digital back catalogue of over 20 years of publications. Unlock access to all of our articles and member benefits from just $36 per year! Subscribe | Natural Health Society
