Tag Archives: health

Gratitude

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We are at the time of the year where daylight is precious. The light comes and goes quickly. The days are mostly cold, overcast and dreary here in the Northern Hemisphere. This time of year is one of introspection. A looking inward, and outward. A questioning about our life and how we see the world.

Past and future

This is the time of year when we reflect on the past and turn toward the future. We anticipate the light returning and with it, brighter skies and warmer days. We consider what we want for the upcoming year. The past and the future both lie before us. We look for ways to change; ourselves and circumstances. Gratitude is the spark. It can ignite the kindling in our heart and souls. It can feed the flame, turning it into an incredible bonfire of warmth. A fire that warms us and the world around us. The fuel for the fire is our thoughts; how we perceive the world around us. A spark, a bit of fuel, and our world can change dramatically. Gratitude is a feeling that spontaneously emerges from within. It can be joyful, tearful, playful and so much more. However, it is also a choice we make.

Benefits

There is much written about gratitude and its benefits. The benefits are pretty clear. Being grateful can shape your day into one of peacefulness and calm. This simple act can reduce stress, free you from anxiety, block negative emotions, help you sleep better, improve your physical health, offer hope and help you understand what truly matters to you. It can change your life.

Gratitude can change others around you too. It is as if those around you catch a bit of the flame you experience and express, and it warms them as well. One grateful thought and/or expression has the potential to change so much.

Practice

Since it has been talked about so much, we can say, “Ahhh, yes, that makes sense.” But, do we actually practice gratitude. The answer is  often between “Yes” and “No.” Some days gratitude is easy, some days forgotten completely and some days it seems impossible to find anything to be grateful for. Some days, we would rather just be grumpy and “rain on the world.” As they say in the US, it is easy “to fall off the bandwagon.” Yet the days one does practice, a change can be seen and felt. The world becomes more sparkly and vibrant. It is as though our lens to the world has been cleared of fog. Just one moment of gratitude can change your perspective. And this change in perspective seems to creep into the following days as well.

So how to make gratitude a practice? It takes a bit of effort maybe but can be fun as well. You can put notes on what you are grateful for in a bowl, on the refrigerator, use sticky notes on your mirror, create a board, write in a journal or “notes to self” on whatever is handy. You can add drawings, photos, clippings and more. Add things you find in nature, a bright leaf, stone, pinecone…

Every day, week and month can bring both new things and some of the same. It is amazing to go back and look at what you have created, a physical trail of your changing perspective and world. On difficult days, observation of past gratitude can spark the fuel in your heart once again.

Being ill and gratitude?

Can we be grateful for our own life and health? Even when we are down with “the crud” or something more serious, our cells and organs keep working for balance. Often taken for granted when we are well, we assume and expect that our body will just keep functioning as it should. Is it possible to be grateful both in health and illness for the amazing wonder of our body?

Through gratitude you may find a peaceful place within, bring joy to your life and witness the abundance in your world. Gratitude is one of the rungs on the ladder of well-being.

Sometimes we need more support.

Recently a massage therapist, a healthy and vibrant person, called one of us and said she was down with a nasty “something.” She asked to meet in a parking lot with some of the “magic water” for a hand off. That evening she wrote how grateful she was, “I’ve been taking the Recover drops since 11am and I already feel better.”

This is why Bengs exists—to offer another potential rung on the ladder of well-being.

I want that rung on my ladder

The claim dogma

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There is only one person who can make a claim about your health, and that is you.

We live in a world where linking claims to virtually all products and services has been elevated to an art form. For how long have we been hearing that the ‘renewed’ detergent really does wash better now? Every year a newer version makes the old product fade in effectiveness. This applies to every product that is touted by marketers, whether or not the claim is supported by “scientific’”data.

Regulation

When it comes to nutritional products, oversight and regulation is pretty tight. For example ,‘Good for the heart and blood vessels’ must be demonstrably substantiated. This is of course a good thing; you cannot just say anything as a food manufacturer. With medicines and health claims, it is even stricter, and each claim must be substantiated by sound scientific research.
In fact, there are four things that are important around a product:

  • Is it safe?
  • What should you use a product for; an indication.
  • How should I take is; suggested use.
  • The claim of efficacy.

The first three are undoubtedly important and useful. The efficacy claim is where the shoe pinches.

The claim dogma

To truly understand the value of a claim, you must be able to understand the underlying evidence. For most people, this is not doable. For example, a drug may have a claim that it is effective if it has been shown to work better than a placebo. A placebo is a drug that contains no active ingredients and is given to half of the patients as a control. So it actually works better than “nothing” then. But that could be 10% or 90%.

If you read that a drug works for back pain, it may be that this was the case for only 10% of the patients treated. Whereas you might think this would be true for all patients. This nuance is often hard to find and you have to dive into the scientific publications or a medical professional has to point it out to you. The distinction is certainly not unimportant but in the world of marketing it is completely lost. With years of marketing experience in the pharmaceutical industry, among others, some team members speak from experience. The commercial interest does not benefit from nuance, on the contrary, it is magnified as far as legally permissible. That this does not always go well is shown by the billions of claims that companies receive annually from regulatory bodies.

And so, a (legal) game of cat and mouse arises between commercial parties and regulators. Given the enormous sums that can potentially be earned, you can ask yourself who has the upper hand….

Subconsciously influenced

But what can you, as a consumer, rely on if you have to take the value of claims with a grain of salt? How can you judge whether the new detergent is really better than your old one? How do you know if a pill really helps you get rid of your backache?

Perhaps it is time for a whole new way of marketing. A way that does justice to the ability of you as a consumer to determine whether you find something good, useful, tasty or beneficial for your health. Of course you do, but we all know how you are consciously and unconsciously influenced by advertising, by the opinion of others, by authority and by phrases like ‘scientifically proven’.

Bitterballen (meatballs)

A nice example that examines the impact of commercial expression is the well-known blind taste test. In such a case you let your pure taste determine what you think of a product, without being influenced by the commercial claims that are given to a product. We recently tested this with bitterballen. Both vegetarian and non-vegetarian bitterballs of a well-known brand. The group of 8 people were not only convinced that they could tell exactly what the vegetarian bitterballs were, but also that the meat bitterballs were tastier. It was a double blind test, so even the distributor did not know which was which. The outcome surprised everyone.  Without exception, everyone labeled the vegetarian bitterballs as the meat bitterballs and found them much tastier. We were really surprised.  Of course this is not proof, but it is an interesting example of personal opinion, independent of external influence. And please note, we are not saying anything about better or healthier, which certainly does not have to mean tastier – an implicit conclusion that the human brain is quick to draw.

Trust

Back to the question of what can you trust?
The answer is actually as simple as it is logical: try it yourself and form your own opinion. It is actually quite arrogant for a supplier to decide for you that something is tasty, useful, convenient, useful or good for your health. If “everyone” thinks a certain product is great, and you are not happy with it at all, it is therefore a worthless product for you. No matter how much and how loud everyone shouts and how many positive reviews a product has. For you, only your experience counts and your opinion, period. That’s marketing in 2022.

How cool would it be if we completely stopped making claims in marketing and let the consumer determine the value? Then your opinion would not be determined by clever advertising, shrewd marketing tricks, influencers with a smooth talk or whatever. But solely by your own opinion and experience.

Curiosity

That’s how we think at Bengs. We regularly talk to each other about what we can, should, or should not say about our products. At first we saw it as a handicap that we are not allowed to put health claims on our products. But the more we thought about it and realized that we really take our customers seriously, the more we realized that claims are old-fashioned and outdated. So we have no health claims.

We do offer guidance as to what product might be useful in a particular situation. We do continue with research and share the conclusions of our studies to help you make an informed choice. We do offer thoughts on the time it might take to reap benefit and know that everyone is unique. When it comes to your body and the effect our product might have on you and your life, we think you are the best judge. We give our customers the possibility to discover for themselves what our products can do for them. Complete freedom to choose. If someone buys a product and does not experience a benefit, we give the purchase price back, without conditions. Your opinion is 100% decisive because your opinion is your truth and we fully respect it.

Curiosity is really all that is needed. Curiosity about your experience. After all, you are the only one who can claim your health. We wish you a beautiful journey of discovery!

Healthy curiosity

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“Curiosity is a quality related to inquisitive thinking such as exploration, investigation, and learning, evident by observation in humans and other animals.[1][2] Curiosity is heavily associated with all aspects of human development, in which derives the process of learning and desire to acquire knowledge and skill.” Source: Wikipedia

Being curious is healthy. It makes you happier, more empathetic, better performing and stronger in your relationships. But we also have a tremendous need for control. Especially now, with all the changes and uncertainties around us, we want more and more control. Understandable, yet a pity. Because the urge for control suppresses our curiosity. We are less and less open to the unknown. We prefer everything to be predictable. And therefore our healthy curiosity disappears….

The childlike curiosity

Taste, feel, sniff, look, listen… children are by nature immensely curious. Without expectations, they step into the unknown world. Every animal, flower, bite and step is a new discovery. They are amazed with each new discovery. And when one child discovers something, the other child wants it too. This is how we learn, how we grow and how we make life one big, exciting voyage of discovery.

The more we learn, the less we want to discover

The older we get, the more information is stored in our brains. Knowledge, facts, experiences…. This is useful, because it means we don’t have to discover, for example, whether we like ginger ice cream or not every day. However, because we have less to discover, we also have less need to discover. In short, our curiosity stimulus declines.

The stored knowledge in our brain is enormously dominant. For more than 95% of everything we see or experience, our brain automatically comes up with an interpretation or an explanation. If we see a coffee cup, our brain automatically fills in that it must contain coffee. For a child, such a coffee cup is still a big discovery. What will it contain? Milk, lemonade, marbles, flowers? Everything is still possible.

The adult need for explanations

Every time we see, hear, smell, taste or feel something, our brain comes up with a meaning. Objects, images, sounds and emotions no longer surprise us. Our brain is immediately ready with a meaning and a logical explanation. Only when we are aware of what our brain is doing to us do we give ourselves a little space again to be curious and to be surprised again.

We say that we know someone through and through, that a country no longer holds any secrets for us, and that the days are similar. If only we were a little kid again…. A kid who has no expectations and is fascinated by the unknown. How wonderful would it be to have a healthy curiosity again? And to fall from one surprise into another every day.

Discover a universe on 10cm2

Stimulate your curiosity. Go to the park or to the woods. Get down on your knees and look intently at a small piece of ground. Let yourself be surprised by the beauty of that mini-universe. Little plants, little grasses, little stones, little animals…. Let yourself be amazed by something so ordinary.

Stay curious about the inexplicable

We call it “healthy” curiosity for a reason. For example, the curiosity of researchers and scientists has already led to numerous new medicines and cures. However, when it comes to stories of people who have been inexplicably healed, our curiosity trigger often lets us down. We prefer to park these stories because we don’t understand them. Like a child, let’s dive into the stories of unexplained recovery. We don’t have to understand them, but we can be surprised.

Curiosity at Bengs

At Bengs, we want to be surprised and amazed every day. In doing so, we have been inspired by William Bengston (Bill). This scientist’s childlike curiosity knows no bounds. Since the 1970s he has been fascinated by phenomena he does not understand. A scientist at heart, he searches for answers and explanations for these phenomena. Yet like a child, he is not disappointed when he does not find the answers.

Knowing something is fun, but the road to it – our curiosity – is actually much more fun. By constantly being curious and looking for answers, you always come across new surprises and look at the world in a totally different way.

Stay curious

Allow yourself to be surprised again like a child. Awaken your healthy curiosity. And inspire others to become as curious as you are. Look at the world in a totally different way. Every day is a canvas that can be filled with new insights, unique experiences and special encounters.

Try the Bengs products.
Discover what they do to you and be surprised.

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Want to know more about Dr. Bill Bengston’s curiosity?
Then watch this video in which he looks at unexplained phenomena with a healthy dose of skepticism and healthy curiosity.