THE B.U.L.L.S, WHAT ARE THEY?

Today I want to tell you about a simple solution for your health. In naturopathic school, we learned an acronym, which is really helpful called “The B.U.L.L.S.”  

It stands for:

B: Bowel

U: Urinary

L: Lymphatic

L: Lungs

S: Skin

Those are so critical. They are oftentimes one of the biggest limiting factors in healing. I find that even if people don’t eat perfectly on my program, even if they’re not doing all the lifestyle stuff perfectly,  if they can get the B.U.L.L.S. right. They can have a lot of success. And I want you to try this out. Even if you don’t feel a big difference, you are getting healthier from the inside out one cell at a time whether you believe it or not. 

BOWEL

Some of the best ways to get the bowel moving are

• Fiber
• Movement
• Water

Those three things mainly, there are many other things but I really want you to focus on those.

Making sure we’re getting roughly half our body weight in ounces of water. If you read other posts, you’ll know that most people that want to get into health over consume water. So get some minerals in there, a little Celtic sea salt. This will really help.

Getting fiber… try fruits and vegetables, start there. If you need extra, psyllium husk fiber capsules is a great way to add more fiber. 

And then as far as motility goes, try to get movement in. You don’t need to be an elite athlete. Just try to move your carcass 10 to 15 minutes a day. And believe it or not, even if you’re a busy body, moving around at work, you still need to sustain 10 to 15 minutes of movement, so get out there and walk a little bit, get on a bike elliptical, take a yoga class, 10 to 15 minutes of movement support your bowels.

URINARY

These will overlap by the way.. So again the best thing is water. We cannot really get waste out of our body without water. It’s not just our kidneys and our nephrons making urine. It’s actually, our whole detoxification system throughout our whole body. Get that water going again.

LYMPHATICS

This can be a little bit trickier sometimes but doable still. Lymphatics are your garbage can system of your body that’s how we’re gonna get rid of old microbes, old cells, crud that your body deals with on a daily basis. I’m sure you guys are familiar with lymph nodes. Most of us know these swell up sometimes when we’re sick. If they’re chronically swollen by the way, see a practitioner like me to figure that out. They should not be swollen all the time, but anyway, these actually drain our lymphatic fluid into these, basically, garbage cans that dump into larger and larger lymphatic vessels and then larger and larger.  It’s like the receptacle in your home, to your trash bin, to the curb, to the garbage truck, into the landfill. It keeps getting bigger, that’s exactly what happens with lymphatics. If they don’t move though, you can’t detox, you cannot get healthy without lymphatic movement, no matter how healthy you’re eating, no matter the quality herbs you take, you’ve gotta have lymphatic movement.  

How do we get that? Well it has no pump, the pump is you. You have to actually move, so just like the bowels, we got to move 10 to 15 minutes a day at least. Another big one is dry brushing. You might have heard of that. Great way to move lymphatic fluid.  

Contrast is also awesome. Contrast in temperature, so if you go from a hot bath, jump into a cold shower.  I know it’s not fun, but that would move lymphatic fluid greatly. Or an infrared sauna would work as well. Those are some ideas. 

LUNGS

So obviously breathing is key. We have got to breathe correctly. So bring those shoulders down. Belly first and chest second, try to expand, slow that respiration rate down. Do a four to six second inhale and an eight to ten second exhale. Do 30 breaths in a day. You take 20,000 breaths a day. So 30 really intentional breaths is not a lot. You can do that morning or night. Whatever works for you. You can break them up into 10 in the morning, 10 at noon then 10 at night, whatever works for you. Get those 30, if you can double or triple that, great.

You can combine some of these as well. If you’re going for a 10 minute walk to move your bowel and your lymphatics, you can breathe as you go.  You can get efficient. 

SKIN

We got to detox from our skin. Our body’s largest organ, it has a giant surface area and our body is trying to push out toxins, which is why we get blemishes, we get rashes, we get junk happening in our skin, even cancer processes. Why? Because you’re not detoxing from the inside out. Your body’s got to put it somewhere. So what can we do? Dry brushing again is outstanding. You don’t have to do it for an hour. You can do it for three to five minutes a day. It’s awesome right before you shower. Dry brushing is amazing. Infrared Saunas are amazing for the skin. 10-15 minutes of infrared sauna is great. Sweating is big. I know we don’t like to sweat a lot. It’s inconvenient, uncomfortable, but it’s part of  being a human. Alright, we got to do that. Find one sweaty activity, find something you like to do, and get sweaty at it. It’s really good for you. 

Those are the BULLS, keep the BULLS open for life. It’s not just when you’re trying to get rid of parasites or, cleanse yourself after a flu. It’s all the time. Work on those BULLS and you’ll be surprised what happens to your health. 

Take care, be well. 

Dr. Jason

Naturopathic doctor in Lansing, MI