12 Steps to Keep Joints Flexible

Are we destined to have stiff and painful joints as we age? I don’t think so. With diet and movement, we can sidestep joint trouble altogether for years. Doctors may say it’s “old age” or your joints “just wore out”, but that’s no answer to these important questions: What are the top 12 causes of stiff joints? What are the 12 steps to heal our joints right now? How can we have healthy joints at any age? 

A. Causes of Stiff Joints:

  1. Poor Lymph circulation, Lack of interstitial fluid hydration. 
  2. Osteoarthritis due to Sugar (Glucose and Fructose) in diet, 
  3. Liver Qi Stagnation, Emotional Congestion, Stuck Bile Ducts, Poor blood circulation, Stress, Rigid Thinking.
  4. Fluoride in drinking water. 
  5. Mycotoxins in industrial grain storage: corn, wheat, soy, beans, 
  6. Lack of body movement, 
  7. Tension Habit of Fear and Guarded Caution, 
  8. Acidic Body pH, 
  9. Glyphosate herbicide in industrial foods, esp grains, 
  10. Environmental poisons, accumulated toxins in joints, lymph, and body tissues, 
  11. Body Inflammation, 
  12. Calcifications and Nano Bacteria, Accumulation, of Biofilm, 

B. Solutions: 12 Steps for More Flexible Joints:

1. Improve Lymph circulation, Clear interstitial fluid, Hydration

Exercise is one of the best solutions for stiff joints. When you exercise, the synovial fluid surrounding the joints is warmed and becomes more viscous. Exercise not only helps you stay fit, but it also helps move all interstitial fluids to improve your range of motion and reduce stiffness in your joints. Check out this article on Lymphatic Health:

Detox & Vitalize Your Body Lymphatics

Hydration is critical for healthy joints: Dehydration makes everything stiff. Make sure you drink approximately 2.5 liters of clean water throughout the day to keep your body hydrated and healthy. Drinking water helps loosen up tight muscles and tissues, which can improve flexibility and movement in your joints. 

Consider a Vibration Plate For Lymphatic Drainage, such as a “nimto Vibration Plate Exercise Machine Whole Body Workout Vibration Fitness Platform” 

Lymphatic Massage – A massage therapist can provide total-body treatment to improve circulation and relieve pain in stiff joints.

2. Skip Osteoarthritis from Sugar (Glucose and Fructose) in Your Diet

It may surprise you to learn that blood sugar levels can have a big effect on your joints. Studies show that high blood sugar levels can lead to an overproduction of Reactive Oxygen Species, or ROS, in your body. These ROS can cause inflammation and damage to your cell tissues. Other research points out that excessive sugar consumption brings high levels of age-accelerating molecules called Advanced Glycation End-products, which contribute towards damaging specific protein strands in collagen and joint cartilage. Sugar leads to weight gain, which puts stress on weight-bearing joints, so weighs loss is an option for some people. Sugar consumption invites acidic pH and inflammation, which together describe Arthritis to a “T”. 

That means we need to reduce sugar, sweets, and soft drinks. But it also means we reduce our consumption of those high-carb foods which are not sweet, but convert immediately to glucose in the body. Surprise Surprise! The worst culprits are flour, bread, grains, wheat, corn, white rice, brown rice, root vegetables, crackers, chips, will ALL give you a whopping glycemic rush. Check out this article:

What Favorite Foods Convert to SUGAR in Your Blood?

The simple fact is that sugar and refined carbs are the #1 contributors to arthritis, body acidity, and bone degeneration Glycemic control means reducing ALL sugars including the so-called guilt-free ones like honey, agave, coconut syrup, date syrup, and rice syrup. They’re pure sugar.

Preventing damage to our bones is about balancing your body pH. Here is the little-known fact: Sugar is acidic. Calcium is alkaline. When you eat something wonderfully sweet, the rush feels exciting, but in fact this is from a blood sugar rush creating an acidic imbalance in your blood. In order to neutralize the dangerous acidic sugar rush, your body steals alkaline calcium from your bones and puts it into the blood. Whew! Now your blood pH is restored, and the danger has passed. You’re still alive. Only problem is, the borrowed calcium from your bones is never replaced. Osteoporosis means”porous bones”.

Diabetes Type 2 can also cause stiff joints, called “Limited Joint Mobility” (LJM), or diabetic cheiroarthropathy. This is a common complication of long-standing diabetes mellitus, caused by excess sugar consumption. Although sugar is equally addictive as heroine, and stimulates the same brain centers as hard drugs, YOU CAN ELIMINATE IT from your diet slowly and surely. Your health will improve RADICALLY, and your joints will be happier.

3. How to Correct Liver Qi Stagnation, Congestion, Stuck Bile Ducts, Poor blood circulation, Stress, Anger, Rigid Thinking

Congestion in the liver leads to stuck bile ducts, which is a common source of stiffness in joints. One of the best medicines for congestion is simply called “Qigong Shaking”. Click here for more information. But stiff joints is just the beginning of trouble, like the tip of the iceberg – it get’s much worse if not corrected. Here’s how to get busy and break the vicious cycle:

Reduce stress. Emotional stress puts a heavy load on the liver. In fact, stress and blocked emotions are the most common causes of “Liver Qi Stagnation”. Anger, frustration, sadness, and depression produce Live Qi stagnation, and make it worse. This is endemic in modern culture. 

Face Emotions, express them, and deal with them appropriately. Accept that all of those emotions are part of life. Do not push the emotions aside because we “don’t have time to deal with them”. When we AVOID or STUFF our own feelings, this adds another layer to our Liver blockages.

Talk to a friend, write a journal. Choose a morning meditation practice you love, that makes you happy and sets your day on a good track. We must squarely face our chronic stress/anxiety if we expect to be healthy. 

Frame your Hopes and Plans for the Future. When we can see our path ahead, not bogged down by everyday stresses, when we have a vision for our future, this FEEDS the Liver strengths. A Liver that is too stuck and rigid will be reflected in your mindset that can’t bend or move. Keep your mind flexible to creatively work around life’s roadblocks.

Reduce Alcohol Consumption –  A drink here and there, for most of us, feels good and is not a problem. But too much alcohol and other drugs is a common way to feel temporary relief from emotional symptoms of Liver stagnation. The relief, won’t last. Instead of strengthening the body’s weaknesses alcohol causes further damage and makes the body dependent on more and more. This is addiction.

Consider a liver flush. I did the olive oil and grapefruit juice with the help of my naturopathic doctor. Garlic can literally be swallowed whole like a pill for a powerful flush, colloidal gold works with zeolite to magnetize and attract the pathogens and flush them, cleanse. 

4. Eliminate Fluoride

Most American cities use fluoride-infused drinking water. But given that fluoride is considered a hazardous material and labeled accordingly, this is a true public health travesty. Check out this article:

Avoid These Cities with Fluoridated Water

The first sign that fluoride has poisoned your bones is that you have pain or stiffness in your joints. Most doctors will simply tell you that you have joint pain. Yes, millions of people in the US have joint pain —1 in 3 adults on average. But few mention it is connected to fluoride, because they “don’t want to look.”

The scientifically-proven health hazards of fluoride are already known. Research indicates fluoride’s harmful effects:

  • Accelerates the aging process
  • Causes genetic damage
  • Contributes to arthritis and joint pain
  • Increases the incidence of cancer and tumor growth
  • Interrupts DNA repair
  • Reduces brain function

5. Avoid Mycotoxins in industrial grain storage: corn, wheat, soy, beans

When industrial grains are stored, molds often develop. Molds can be killed with heat or chemicals such as formaldehyde. But the bigger problem is that molds produce dangerous mycotoxins, natural poisonous chemicals which cannot be removed.

Most industrial grains stored in quantity will contain a certain amount of mycotoxin, which is a leading cause of stiffness and calcification in joints. My solution is to eliminate wheat, corn, and soy.

The only solutions I know are to buy local. Buy or grow your own fresh organic foods. You can altogether eliminate grains, such as the Paleo Diet, and this is also very healthy approach.

6. Increase Your Body Movement

Make a habit of Qigong, Aerobic exercise, and Walking, all of which can make a huge difference to increase your body flexibility.

Give your joints a treat with some gentle hot yoga, and watch them loosen up! All types of yoga are excellent medicine for your joints, if you do it gently. 

Heat can also help reduce stiffness and pain in joints. Warm baths or showers can help loosen up tight muscles and tendons. Heating pads or hot water bottles can be used directly on the affected area.

7. Loosen up Mental Patterns of Tension, Fear, and Guarded Caution

Many people hold tension in their joints out of fear and a mental memory of PTSD or something painful that happened in the past. These tensions must be released, and you are the only one who can do it. Meditation is a wonderful tool to relax the mind and release negative thoughts.  Consider this article:

BREAKTHROUGH! Retrain Your Nervous System, Vagus Nerve Reset

Look for ways to release held body tension. Relax! enjoy some movement that forces your body to let go. Take a break and go dancing. Or dance by yourself to your favorite music just for fun! Do a Zumba class. Have sex. Go to the beach. Go for a walk in Nature. Clear out the old memories. This is your right.

8. Alkalinize Your Body pH

Is Your Body Acidic? Or is it Alkaline? An Alkaline body pH is the best. That means we want to measure saliva at 7.3 or 7.4 on the pH scale for best health. When we are alkaline, we have level energy, we feel happy and balanced. But when your body is acidic, you feel tired, impatient, and stressed. Almost all disease is accompanied by an acidic pH in the body. Cancer, Diabetes, Inflammation, Arthritis, Dementia, and Heart Disease, and Sepsis all come from an acidic body pH.

Baking soda, or bicarbonate of soda may be one of the simplest items in our home, and it offers many surprising health benefits. In simple words, baking soda lowers the acidity in your body and keep your pH balanced in the blood and lymph system. Check out this article:

LONG LIFE FOODS & YOUR BODY pH

Control your body pH by eating a fresh nutrient-dense diet of organic anti-inflammatory foods. Forget “empty calories” like added sugar, processed meats, chemically sprayed crops, refined grain products, alcohol and packaged snacks. An anti-inflammatory diet includes healing foods like dark green leafy veggies, healthy fats like coconut oil, and sources of proteins like cage-free eggs, grass-fed meat, wild-caught fish, probiotic foods and fermented foods like cultured veggies and yogurt.

Control Body pH with Mineral Drops with Magnesium

Magnesium is an essential mineral, and approximately 75% of humans have a magnesium deficiency. Concentrated Mineral Drops such as ICMD Original MRI are highly concentrated minerals extracted from the Great Salt Lake in Utah, USA. Which has had removed 99% of the salt content through the evaporation process of sunlight. CMD contains 83 essential elements that are natural, balanced, and ionic so that they are easily absorbed by the body. The principal minerals are Magnesium, Zinc, Chromium, Calcium, Iron, plus 78 other trace minerals.

9. Avoid Glyphosate Herbicide in Industrial Foods

Glyphosate is the #1 most common RoundUp herbicide found in all GMO foods. Glyphosate foods are everywhere, especially in flour and bread. Glyphosate is our new toxic everyday food, so it is in all grocery stores and restaurants. The solution is to eat 100% organic. Check out this article:

Warning! GMO-Free Foods Contain Glyphosate

Joint pain and joint injuries are often related to glyphosate invading our ligaments, which are made of collagen. Collagen has a glycine molecule, and glycine is also present in the chemical glyphosate. Glyphosate tends to accumulate in these areas in the body, potentially contributing to joint immobility.

10. Environmental Poisons: Accumulated Toxins in Joints, Lymph, and Body Tissues

The solution is to detox, detox, detox. Detox is our new everyday habit. Here are a few suggestions:

Far Infrared Sauna Therapy heats your body deeply all the way into the bones. When you sweat, the toxins come out. Not every sauna. Look for Far Infra Red Sauna. My doctor has a unit, and I use it every week.

Fasting is the BEST way to remove toxins from the body. When we eliminate food, or eat LESS food, the body knows what to do. It recycles old cells and discards unneeded material. This is called Autophagy, which means old tired cells are removed from the body.

An easy way to use autophagy is to do “Time Restricted Eating”.
Exciting new research suggests that Time-Restricted-Eating helps us boost our immune system and longevity, when we attune our body to its natural circadian clock. Our biological rhythms are embedded in our DNA from birth, and they regulate our sleep-wake cycles through the day. If our sleep – eating patterns work against our natural biorhythms, this leads to illness. It’s bad to stay up late, lose sleep, skip meals, eat too much, or eat late at night, because this disrupts our natural rhythm, and increases our risk of common diseases like diabetes, heart disease, obesity, hypertension, and cancer. Check out this article:

Time-Restricted Eating for Longevity & DNA Evolution

Time-Restricted-Eating means we adapt our eating schedule to a smaller window of time, to allow our body more hours to rest deeply. We can choose a schedule of WHAT TIMES to EAT, and WHAT TIMES to NOT EAT during a 24-hour day. For example, a 10-hour window for eating gives us 14 hours to heal in the remaining time of a 24-hour day. Another option is an 8-hour eating window, which gives you 16 hours to rebuild all your cells. If we use this knowledge, we can rapidly make our bodies stronger, and live healthy longer. See the options below and you can choose your favorite.

11. Body Inflammation

Inflammation is the new 21st century worldwide malady. Inflammation precedes all those serious life-threatening illnesses, so we need to be vigilant. There are many causes of inflammation, and many ways to remove it.

Epsom Salt Baths can help reduce inflammation. Before bed, put a cup of Epsom Salts into a bathtub of VERY hot water, and soak for 30 minutes.

To correct a pattern of inflammation, consider a bowel cleanse, which removes accumulated sludge and keeps your intestines squeaky clean. There are lots of products to use. My favorite is the whole system by HealthForce Superfoods, Intestinal Drawing Formula, 260 Vegan Caps, at iHerb.

12. Remove Calcifications and Nano Bacteria

New studies show that in many cases joint stiffness and arthritis are simply a build-up of “nano bacteria”. These are tiny microorganisms that accumulate and calcify in areas of the body that have no movement, or areas that have been weakened due to injuries, repetitive movement, stress or nutritional deficiencies. These bacteria, sometimes with fungi and viruses, protect and hide themselves in shells made of calcium and heavy metals. Nano bacteria are a form of parasite, one of the sneakiest and often misdiagnosed. Check out this article:

How to DETOX Your Inner Eco-System: Parasite Control

Nano-Bacteria or Biofilm

New studies show that arthritis, bone spurs, emphysema, plaque on the teeth or brain, and arteriosclerosis are just built up calcifications and bacteria unable to flush properly out the body.

The best solutions for nanobacteria are DMSO and MMS, Miracle Mineral Solution. Traveling in South America, Jim Humble discovered that MMS quickly restored health to victims of malaria. Check out this article:

A Healing Journey with MMS – Miracle Mineral Solution

MMS, or activated chlorine dioxide, has restored partial or full health to hundreds of thousands of people suffering from a wide range of diseases, including cancer, diabetes, hepatitis A, B, C, Lyme disease, MRSA, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, HIV/AIDS, malaria, autism, infections of all kinds, arthritis, acid reflux, kidney or liver disease, aches and pains, allergies, urinary tract infections, digestive problems, high blood pressure, obesity, parasites, tumors and cysts, depression, sinus problems, eye disease, ear infections, dengue fever, skin problems, dental issues, problems with prostate (high PSA), erectile dysfunction, and many others. MMS is not popular with the pharmaceutical industry, perhaps because it heals completely and inexpensively. 

13. Other Supplements to Consider:

  • Fish Oil
  • Flaxseed oil 
  • Coconut oil, or grass fed Butter. Discontinue Omega-6 Vegetable oils like Soy, Corn, Canola, Margarine.  Read more about oils here.
  • Glucosamine or chondroitin. These supplements can help to increase cartilage production and protect against inflammation. 
  • Grapefruit seed oil – anti microbial
  • Frankincense
  • Turmeric
  • Zeolite. – Zeolite helps detoxify the body of carcinogens (cancer-causing chemicals), toxic heavy metals (including mercury, lead, cadmium, arsenic, and others)
  • Arnica Montana: Arnica as a homeopathic remedy can help heal stiffness in the joints. 
  • MSM (methylsulfonylmethane): MSM works to reduce inflammation and pain in the joint, as well as improve range of motion. It can also help to restore cartilage and connective tissue. 
  • Cayenne Pepper: Hot chili pepper that has been traditionally used to treat a variety of medical conditions, including stiffness and inflammation in joints. 

Thanks for reading. This is a compendium of my personal discoveries of how to keep your joints flexible for many years.  I wish you good health and joy living in your body! 

Further Resources:

Srijana, aka Jane Barthelemy is a medical intuitive, author, and healer. She has practiced Tibetan Buddhist meditation for over five decades, residing in the Rudrananda Ashram in the USA for 35 years. She practices craniosacral therapy, Acunect, and BodyTalk – an infusion of intuitive Chinese, and Ayurvedic wisdom. She is trained in Qigong, Taichi, Daoist sexuality, and Kundalini activation. Her medical Qigong training is with Mantak Chia, Khamto Lee, Daniel Villasenor, Zhongxian Wu, Dr. Ka’imi Pilipovich, Franco Mescola, Richard Leirer, and Lam Kam Chueng. She has her BS in Italian Opera and MBA in financial management. Her two paradigm-changing cookbooks show how to build health with unprocessed foods. Her upcoming books include: “Heal Your Past Lives”, and “Buddha Speaks – Channeled Passages from the Master”.  She is on the faculty of NewEarth University and LearnDesk. Her websites are FiveSeasonsMedicine.com and JanesHealthyKitchen.com. Srijana lives in Bali with her Bhutanese husband, Lama D.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments are closed.