June 2018

5 Ways to Save Yourself from Stress

Are you sinking under a sea of “overwhelm”? Did you know that you can physiologically change your state from “Fight, Flight, or Freeze” to “Rest and Digest” with an act as simple as pressing against your palm, or remembering a child’s face?

Stress produces measurable changes in your body, such as a faster pulse, dilated eyes, shallower breathing, and the need to urinate. But there are five simple ways to interrupt these changes and re-establish physical calmness.

Change Your Mind About Stress

You may not be able to change your circumstances, but you can change your mind about how you respond to circumstances. You can choose at this very moment to acknowledge your existence, your support network, and those amenities of life that you are grateful for, such as sight, or shelter, or safety. Deciding to focus on the present sweeps you away from regrets over the past and ruminations about the future. Stress is cerebral, because it’s what you think about your circumstances. It’s a choice! In my Instant Stress Hacks course, I show you 10 different ways to change your thought process.

Just Breathe!

Under stress, you take shallow, rapid breaths. By conscientiously and deliberately slowing and deepening your breathing, you can literally take yourself out of sympathetic state, popularly known as Fight or Flight.It’s easy to practice breathing exercises that train your body to inhale from the diaphragm, and to exhale for a longer time than you inhale. Most breathing exercises only take a moment or two. In my new course, I give you 10 different exercises, so you can find the one most suited to you, individually.

Take Some Pressure Off

The ancient art of acupuncture purports to relieve stress by unblocking the flow of energy along certain pathways in the body called energy meridians. Whether or not that is true, simply putting pressure along those points can certainly stimulate circulation and lymph flow, relieve muscle tension, release endorphins, and improve cell-to-cell communication. I can show you where to press to get the most relief.

Come to Your Senses

As mentioned, stress is cerebral. It’s hyper-focused and tunnel-visioned. If you can bridge between your thoughts and your senses, you re-connect to the moment. You  become aware of what you are smelling, tasting, hearing, seeing, and feeling this minute, and you pulled away from whatever is worrying you. It’s as if you exit the future or the past and re-enter your body. Can you think of 10 ways to sense your surroundings better? I’m happy to share my hacks with you!

Get Some Nerve

The vagus nerve is the instrument by which the thoughts in the mind are converted to physical changes in the body. It is this nerve that signals the heart to beat faster so that muscles can be fueled for a fight. It is this nerve that diverts blood from digestion to the extremities for that escape. It can lose its tone, especially if you stay in sympathetic mode too much But it can be exercised! You can practice techniques to restore vagal tone. For you, I have compiled my favorite ways to strengthen the vagus nerve.

Stress can kill! It is linked to the six leading causes of death. Take yours under control now!

in Lifestyle

Pretty Papaya Pudding

Oh, what a treat to find a perfectly ripe papaya at the market! Naturally sweet, these make a delightful dessert without adding sugar! This no-cook version is a cinch. It will be soft set and ready to eat in 5 minutes.

Simple Pudding Ingredients

1 whole papaya, peeled and seeded

1″ fresh ginger root, finely grated

1 c. full-fat coconut milk

3 Tb. chia seed

Extravagant Pudding Ingredients

All ingredients above

1 c. fresh or frozen berries

water

1/8 tsp. cardamom

1 tsp. lime juice

Directions

Blend fruit, grated ginger and coconut milk until smooth. Mix in chia seed until evenly distributed. Pour into dessert dishes and serve immediately, or for a thicker set, refrigerate an hour or more.

For the extravagant topping, place berries in a saucepan and add water until they are 2/3 covered. Bring to a simmer, stirring and mashing until you have a jam-like consistency. Remove from heat and stir in cardamom and lime. Cool and spoon over pudding.

in Food & Cooking

Free Yourself from Fatigue with a Glucose Meter

Glucose meters aren’t just for diabetics. If your youthful energy has evaporated, and you want to feel free and easy again, you may want to monitor your blood sugars throughout the day to find out if you are suffering from insulin resistance.

How Does Insulin Resistance Cause Fatigue?

Insulin is a carrier. It transports glucose from the bloodstream to the cells to be used for energy. When insulin levels have been chronically high for extended periods of time, cells in the body “stop listening” to this messenger. There can literally be a flood of glucose in your blood, but not enough in your cells to meet all your energy demands. You feel tired, especially after meals. This causes you to want something sweet for quick energy following a meal. You feel you need dessert.

How Can a Glucose Meter Help You Identify Insulin Resistance?

When you start eating, blood sugar levels begin to rise. They peak, on average, about 60 minutes after the start of a meal. A healthy reading one hour “post-prandial” (post-meal) would ideally be no higher than 140. Diabetics are encouraged to keep this number under 180 because that’s where organ damage begins. If your post-meal reading is high, you likely have either:
  • eaten a meal that is too high in quick-absorbing carbohydrates, or
  • have insulin resistance that is keeping the glucose from leaving he bloodstream.
By two hours after a meal, blood sugar levels should be dropping, and glucose levels should should not exceed 120 at this point. The slower your readings are to drop below 100, the greater your likelihood of insulin resistance. In fact, if they don’t drop below 100 ever, then insulin resistance will most assuredly affect your health.
On the other hand, your reading can be too low. Blood sugars are generally their lowest four hours after the start of the last meal, right before the next meal. You don’t want to see anything lower than 70, as this would indicate a hypoglycemic (low blood sugar) response.
You might think of hypoglycemia as a result of eating a low-carbohydrate meal. On the contrary, it is often a reaction to eating too many carbs, triggering a surge of insulin. When you eat a high-carb meal and blood sugars rise above 140, the pancreas over-compensates with a burst of insulin,  which subsequently drops the blood sugars below healthy ranges. Some individuals may experience hypoglycemia for years before insulin resistance sets in.

Use a Glucose Meter to Reverse Insulin Resistance

To avoid the damaging insulin rush, you will need to change the “glycemic load” of your meals. Basically, you have to eat foods that do not readily and rapidly convert to glucose. You can do this by adding more fiber, fat, and protein to your meal, and by switching carbs to ones with a lower glycemic load. For example, you could swap sweet potatoes for white potatoes, quinoa or brown rice for white rice, beans for pasta, fruit for soda, and oats for crackers. You can also reduce the serving size of your carbs. Fill your plate with vegetables instead of foods made from flour and processed ingredients.
You will know you have succeeded in preventing an insulin burst when your post-meal readings are within normal ranges, as noted above.
in Education

Do You Have Cellular Fatigue?

Everybody’s tired these days. It seems our memories and our nights are getting shorter and shorter. Meanwhile, our stress and our irritability are growing. As a nation, we purchase energy drinks and take adrenal supplements. We can’t get out of bed in the morning, and we hit a wall before the work day is finished.

Do we sprint so much that we out distance our reserves, or is there an energy crisis at the cellular level?

Energy is Produced in the Mitochondria

You’ll recall from your high school physics class that the mitochondria are the powerhouses of the cells. One particularly unique feature about them is their double membrane.

Image result for mitochondria

This twin layer makes them doubly vulnerable to damage. See, all cell membranes are made of phospholipids, a special class of fats that allow a two-way exchange of materials in and out of the cell. That way nutrients can enter and wastes can exit. But because they are lipids, they are subject to oxidation – a type of damage that occurs in fats. And because these membranes also contain proteins, they are subject to glycation – literally, sugar-coating that makes them sticky and cross-linked so that they cannot send or receive signals properly.

The bottom line is that diets high in processed fats and sugars dam the inner and outer mitochondrial membranes and stop the creation and dissemination of energy.

Interrupt The “Kryptonite”

The first step to overcoming fatigue is to halt the acceleration of glycation and oxidation. That means:

  • Eat only natural, unrefined fats, not processed and refined fats. Stay away from the Big Five: cottonseed, corn, canola, soy, and sunflower. Instead, use olive, avocado, coconut, and grass-fed butter.
  • Stop eating refined flours and sugars. Eat nutrient-dense whole foods, mostly from plants (vegetables, fruits, beans, nuts, seeds, and grains in limited amounts) with high-quality animal products for protein requirements.

Power Up Your Powerhouses

  • Eat anti-oxidant foods. That means lots of colors! Make half your plate vegetables. Eat your fruit, don’t drink it. Swap white carbs like rice, potatoes and pasta for colored ones like wild rice, yams, and squashes.
  • Work with a health practitioner to supplement your diet with the necessary vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients that may be missing in your diet.

Diet is the biggest factor you have control over to regain your energy. If your thinking is foggy, your memory is impaired, or you suffer from mood disorders, focus on cellular nutrition to feel happy, healthy, focused, and sharp once again.

in Education / Lifestyle