Q & A: Chemical, Mold & Food Sensitivities Are Real | Ashok Gupta | Gupta Program |

Hello and welcome back. This is our Q and A on our Facebook Live about how we can overcome multiple chemical sensitivities, mold, illness, food sensitivities and electrical sensitivities. So welcome back, if you're just joining us. So what I'll do is I'll have a look in the Facebook timeline at some of the questions that you may have and then we'll go through some of your questions. And it's going to take a little time for people to find the video. So we're just going to wait for some people to write their comments. And if you'd like to just give you let me know where you're tuning in from so we can give you a shout out. So in the comment section of the Facebook Live event, if you'd like to leave a comment or just let me know where you're tuning in from. And it's always nice to see your hearts and your, your little icons on the screen as well. So do give us one of those. Okay, Someone just asking, what was the code again? So the code is health. Okay. And that gives you 15% off the Gupta program. So the word is just health. And you can go to guptaprogram.com and obviously find out more about that. So just give us once again a shout out and a bit of a hello and I'll be able to answer your questions. And you know, with these types of conditions, it's really important to stay positive about your ability to recover. That is so key because the more negative you become, the more the levels of serotonin and dopamine get lowered in the brain, which then actually reduces the ability of the brain to retrain itself. Okay, so we've got some people to say hello to. So Julia from Devon, hello to you. Chris from Cumbria in England, welcome. Julia from Northumberland as well. Chances, Tim from Chicago, hello to you. So we've got quite a few people from all over the world tuning in. So, yes, please do go ahead with your questions in the comments section and then we'll see what we can answer. Okay. Pep from Bedford, hello to you. Barbara from Germany. And Pep has a question here. Hi, Ashok. Your program seems very helpful for those who've gone through a mental trauma or indeed in helping the anxiety associated with these chronic conditions. What if I don't have any anxiety or mental trauma to resolve? Well, Pep, it's a very good question. And in fact, the way to look at this is trauma or anxiety. A lot of it is unconscious. So it's not that we consciously are even aware of what is going on now? In a lot of our patients, there is no obvious anxiety, there is no obvious trauma that they've been through, but they still have the condition. Which means that although trauma and anxiety are a vulnerability and a risk factor, at the core of it, it's simply these brain structures making a defensive decision. So even if you have no anxiety or mental trauma to resolve, the Gupta program is still, we believe, can still be effective at retraining the unconscious responses. Annika says hello from Finland. Welcome to you. I've recovered from chemicals and sensitivities and chronic fatigue using neuroplasticity training. Fantastic. Well done, Anika. Now, it seems I'm having some issues with stress again. Do you think it would be enough to meditate twice a day or should I get back to the training? Of course, you know what I'm going to say. If you're having some issues with stress and the meditation isn't enough, then please do come back to the retraining and that will help you move through that. Rick, thank you for your question there. So, if you've got questions about the retraining program itself, then please do ask them in our webinar series, which is starting on Monday. So if you haven't signed up to our webinar series, please email our clinic or you can find it on your online membership area. But we'll answer questions specifically about the program in our webinar series. Stephanie from Munich in Germany, welcome to you. Martha says hello from New York. Barbara says, is it normal that the program in the beginning can be quite exhausting? Well, we hope that the program wouldn't be exhausting, but at the same time, we do empathise and understand that when you are going through a serious condition, your energy may be limited, your focus and attention may be limited. So, of course, doing something new can take a little effort initially, but we would love for you to pace yourself into the program, do it slowly, step by step, and not feel more exhausted. And if there is a challenge, please do contact one of our coaches at guptaprogram coaches, and they may be able to help you do it in a more paced way. Now, as I said, what I want to emphasize is that the key challenge that many people face is overcoming the entrenched belief, which often is entrenched as a result of being kind of almost too connected with these support groups or really being involved in advocacy, recognizing this deeply entrenched belief that there is no way of healing until someone finds a miracle medical cure or a medicine that can help me and that anything that's to do with the mind or the brain? No, that's just saying it's psychological and overcoming entrenched belief that these chemicals are dangerous. It is the chemicals that are causing my reaction, full stop. That's it. If we have that closed way of looking at it, it's harder for the brain to be retrained, so it's opening up out of that. And many people with MCS and mold that we've helped, they say there is a key point at which their brain makes that transition from that fear and that resistance to actually saying, okay, I get it, these things aren't dangerous, certainly not at the low levels that everyone experiences in the world. And I simply need to move past that. Okay, Okay. So moving past that belief is incredibly important. Tim Shares I've been using your program, the Gupta program for mast cell disorder where my body reacts to food and or the act of eating, and the program has helped immensely. The number of symptom thought patterns is greatly reduced and my reactivity level is way down. What should I be focusing on when doing the seven step training when I don't have a lot of symptom thought patterns anymore? So Tim, sorry, I only got to the bottom of your question and then realized that's something that's quite specific to the program. So we've got a lot of people who don't know about the program who wouldn't really understand my answer to your question. So Rick, Sorry Tim, I hope that you can join us in our webinar series and I'll definitely be answering those questions, but it's probably not the right forum here. Rick says, has the program proven effective for those who may just have anxiety? Yes, it has. So remember, anxiety is seen as a psychological condition traditionally, but we know that anxiety and depression actually have their roots in inflammation as well, that it becomes a vicious cycle of inflammation. So the program has proven effective for people who've got long trenched anxiety and they haven't been able to shift it through other ways. Dave says hi Ashok, have persons healed mold, illness and chemical sensitivity with your program whilst living in homes with constant exposures? Yes, they have, because for many of our patients it's difficult to suddenly leave their home and move somewhere else. They have no choice but to be in their own home. And yes, there may well be low levels of chemicals and pollutants and mould within that home, but using the program they're able to train their brain step by step, step by step, to no longer react in that way. Mickey I just Read your question there. Yes, I understand that you did try kind of doing the program. So I would say that, Mickey, I'd love for you to try the program again because it has been updated since the previous program, and there's more tools in there. So if you don't like a particular tool because you find it not to your liking, there are other tools within the program now which may seem easier for you, and then it should be easier to retrain. And remember. The brain can learn these subjective defensive responses against many different things. You know, why is it that people have food sensitivities to otherwise normal foods? We can't say that a certain food is dangerous for everybody, and yet people have sensitivity reactions to food. They have sensitivity reactions to pollen, which can be seen as safe. Erica says, can you recover from mold illness when you're still exposed to high levels of mold? This is the only diagnosis that makes sense of all my symptoms. And when other members of my family are experiencing similar symptoms, too, I find it hard to see a way through that. Okay. So, of course I would say that if you have high levels of mould in your house, I would encourage you to do whatever you can to be able to reduce those. And there are certain mechanisms and ways of looking to do that. At the same time, we are where we are. If you're in that home and those levels of mold are high, the best thing that you can do is to retrain the brain and calm those reactivity reactions. Stephanie asks, can trauma in childhood build the possibility to get damage and then get chemical sensitivities? It's not that the brain gets damaged. If we've had a challenging childhood, if we've been exposed to what they call ACEs, adverse childhood events. So that's the kind of official psychological term. It's not that the brain gets damaged. It's that we know that people who are exposed to childhood trauma, they have a lot more connectivity from the emotional centers of the brain, like the amygdala, back through to the conscious brain to the prefrontal cortex. So it means that we're more emotionally reactive to our environment. We also know that the amygdala and the insula are involved in these kinds of reactions. So therefore, it makes sense that it's difficult for the conscious brain to then control these chemical reactions in the same way, like all of these danger responses. So no need to think that your brain has been damaged as a result of childhood trauma. It's simply that it may be a little more sensitive. But through all of the tools in the program, we can reduce that sensitivity and bring the brain back to balance. So I would describe myself as an incredibly sensitive person, incredibly emotionally reactive person 20 years ago. But through retraining, my brain and rob see many, many years of meditation and now my friends certainly would describe me as the kind of least emotionally reactive person that they know. Doesn't mean we're not emotional or have feelings, but we're no longer negative or worry so much. Okay? So it's perfectly possible to not see our childhood as our destiny. Instead, we have that free will to shift and change our neuroplastic brains the way that we want them to be. Anna asking question, you know, if I have too much fatigue, can I do the retraining in my head? Of course, yeah. You adapt the program according to your personal circumstances. Pepper asks, do you have any in person clinics, Ashok, or do you have any plans to do so? I have a chemical sensitivity friend who said she once attended one. Right. So we do regularly do weekend workshops around the world. Now we are monitoring the coronavirus situation and then deciding what is the appropriate safe thing to do because certainly what we don't want to do, you know, is have a situation where someone comes and is infected and infects others. Now we do have a planned retreat from the 14th to the 20th of June near New York, which is a six day retreat where we go deep into the retraining, deep into the GUPS program lifestyle and help people to support their recoveries. Now we are monitoring the coronavirus situation and obviously if it becomes much worse in the US then we're not sure if that retreat will actually go ahead. So that is the current situation and as some of you may know, next week, next Wednesday evening, I will be Wednesday the 18th, I will be doing a Facebook live live on the Gupta program feed. Just as we are now on the coronavirus and the latest research on how we can boost our own immune systems to defend against the coronavirus. Because you know, the media is focusing on avoidance and that's absolutely right at this stage of this particular epidemic. But it comes a point at which it becomes increasingly likely that more of us will be exposed. So doing what we can do to take responsibility of our health and boost our immune system using the latest scientific research is what we can do for ourselves. And that's what I'll be talking about next Wednesday. So please do invite your family and friends. Martha shares Just want to say that I'm already seeing recovery from me, cfs, mcas. So that's mast cell activation, mold illness, CIRS and mcs. After three months of doing the Gupta retraining, I'm committed to continuing. Well, well done, Martha. Well done for making the program work for you. And you're a source of inspiration to all of those others who are thinking about, you know, taking retraining as an option. And for those of you who are worried about the coronavirus, what I would encourage you to do is do whatever it takes to really calm the mind because the 24 hour media that we are experiencing, they have no choice but to be dramatic and tell you about the latest mortality rate or how many people have died. It's not that we don't take this condition seriously, but at the same time, it's no good for your amygdala. So reduce your consumption of the news. Yeah, I know it's the kind of voyeuristic interest and kind of pathological compulsion to see the latest drama unfolding, but that isn't good for your nervous system. So what I would do is, yeah, sort of check in to see what the situation is, but do other positive, uplifting activities. Don't make it something which you're focusing on reading about and getting overwhelmed with because all it's doing is reducing your immunity. So our immunity reduces when we have anticipatory worry about our lives or situation. So whatever challenges you're facing, reduce the stress, reduce the anxiety and worry and focus on your inner healing. And obviously we'll be covering all of this next Wednesday when we do our Facebook Live event. And I hope that you'll be able to join and you'll be able to share this with friends and family as well. And you can find that event on the Gupta Program Facebook page. So if you click on events on the left hand side of our Facebook page, you'll see there's a Facebook Live event next Wednesday on how to boost your immune system against coronavirus. And you can share that event and link with whoever you like. Good. So I think we've answered everyone's questions there, so all it's left for me to do is to really say that, look, I really appreciate you joining me today and I'd love for you to try the program. If you haven't tried it already, you've got nothing to lose. We give you your money back if you notice no improvements. And it's a great way of doing something completely different and going to the real core of what causes these types of sensitivity reactions. Annika asks, can you share any tips on how to reduce screen time and mobile phone addiction? Well, there's a video for that. So if you go to our Meaning of Life Experiment Facebook page, if you type in Meaning of Life experiment into Facebook, you can get to our Facebook page and there I've done a three minute video and also a half an hour video screen addiction, the impact on our brains and what we can do to reduce screen addiction. So rather than give anything out here, I'd love for you to watch that video. Rick says I'm doing a detox program for mold exposure whilst doing the retraining. Does taking those supplements, binders, immune boosters, etc. Do they compromise the effectiveness of the brain retraining? So in my view, Rick, they don't compromise the effectiveness of the brain retraining as long as whichever doctors you're seeing, whichever supplements you're taking, as long as that doesn't take you away from the belief in our hypothesis. Okay. That's the primary thing. So, sure. Do other things as long as they're not making you feel worse. Okay. There's often people who are doing other treatments which make them feel worse. And I say that you can't do the Gupta program at the same time as doing a treatment that is in fact increasing your symptoms. But as long as the other things that you're doing don't increase your symptoms, then it's fine to do them as long as it doesn't detract from your belief in the Gupta program being the core of it. Great. Well, lovely to be with you today to answer your questions. And as I said, healing from this condition is your birthright. You can do this many before you have walked this path and so can you. So thank you for watching and I hope you look forward to seeing you next Wednesday evening where we'll be talking about how we can retrain. Retrain, but boost our immune system against the coronavirus. Oh, and Sarah, just saying, is it normal for new symptoms to arise whilst doing the retraining? I'm three months in and noticing huge improvements in my ME and chronic fatigue syndrome. Yeah, look, new symptoms can come and go because as you shift and change your neurology and your immune system and your nervous system, as it gradually comes back to balance, there are adjustments that can be made which can throw up, you know, the odd other little symptom on something unusual. You just treat it in exactly the same way. As long as you get it checked out by your doctor, you treat it in exactly the same way and retrain it and get back to health. So thank you for watching and look forward to seeing you next Wednesday. Thank you and goodbye.