Source: iHealthTube.com
April 15, 2017
Nutrition expert JJ Virgin discusses three of the biggest contributors to food intolerance, and why that also leads to weight gain. She describes what food intolerance is and how it can lead to an unhealthy cascade in your body.
Source: iHealthTube.com
February 13, 2017
Why does prolonged stress, even internal stressers that we may not notice, often lead to weight gain? Dr. Doni Wilson discusses how your body handles those stresses and what is going on internally that can lead to weight gain.
Source: Mercola
Dr. Mercola
January 25, 2017
Dr. Mercola discusses natural ways to support your immune system.
Source: Edudemic.com
Dustin Le
June 16, 2015
Some of the most successful people in the world meditate, including Josh Waitzkin, the only person to have won a championship in every category of chess. In addition, he is a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and a national champion in Tai Chi. He attributes much of his success to the focus gained from the practice of meditation through various forms of meditation.
Meditation is a practice that has a long history dating back to Hindu traditions of Ancient India. There was always something a bit mystical or mysterious about meditation, but as science has shown in recent years, it is not as “out there” as many think. This article goes into the benefits of meditation and the different methods of meditation that students can use in order to excel in school, perform at a high level in sports and extracurricular activities, and have more emotional control over oneself.
Although it is not understood why, studies have shown that meditation increases the ability to focus for longer sustained periods of time. This benefits students in many ways, including being able to pay attention in class longer, thus improving the chances of material retention. In addition, students who meditate have a higher rate of success in taking quizzes and exams.
Better focus also benefits students outside the classroom — specifically, in extracurricular activities such as football, drama, band, basketball, baseball, or choir. The act of visualization is a form of meditation that many professional athletes use in order to perform at the highest level. Phil Jackson, coach of the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers, teaches his players to use Zen meditation to improve their game. He has 11 championship rings, the most in NBA history. Pete Carroll, NFL Superbowl champion coach of the Seattle Seahawks and former USC Trojans coach, also uses meditation techniques at practice. Musician Paul McCartney meditates as well. And as we covered in our recent article on Daily Meditation, even some schools are beginning to integrate meditation into their daily curriculum.
A study in the Harvard Gazette reports that after an 8-week meditation study in which participants meditated for 27 minutes each day, MRI’s (Magnetic Resonance Images) showed an increase in grey matter in the hippocampus region of the brain that is responsible for learning and memory.
An enhanced memory allows students to retain more information, which of course, lends itself to better test scores. But this is not the extent of the benefits of a better memory. One benefit is remembering people’s names that you have just met. As Dale Carnegie wrote in his book, How To Win Friends & Influence People, “A person’s name is to that person, the sweetest, most important sound in any language.” The simple act of remembering another person’s name makes it easier to converse and create relationships. This is a plus for both personal and career lives.
In addition, a good memory means an increased ability to juggle many different ideas and thoughts at once. This is a skill that is useful in carrying thought-provoking, intelligent, and interesting conversations. Furthermore, it is a skill that comes in handy in the workplace and in the world in general, where information is king.
According to this article from the National Institute of Mental Health, stress can cause digestive issues, headaches, insomnia, depression, and anger, among other symptoms. Under conditions of chronic stress, people may suffer from more viral infections like the flu.
Tragedies, traumatic events, and even minor failures can cause an onset of stress that seems neverending. This is especially true in teenagers and college students, who go through emotional rollercoasters due to hormonal changes and stress-inducing events such as moving away to college or breaking up with a significant other.
Meditation is one way to confront emotions and deal with these stressful events in a healthy way. Vyda Bielkus of Mind Body Green writes about how yoga can be a great form of meditation for gettingover a breakup. In contrast, still meditations like transcendental meditation are great for calming the mind and body.
A study was done at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine that showed that brief meditation sessions (within 4 days) reduced fatigue and increased attention. Jerry Seinfeld is a huge advocate of meditation and its affects on his energy level throughout the day. In his own words, “Sleep is hit and miss. TM [transcendental meditation] is not.”
College is an interesting time in life where students sleep irregularly, consume foods and liquids that are less than healthy for the body, and give up on the healthy exercising habits they indulged in while attending high school. These are all hesee major causes of fatigue. In addition to changing those three lifestyle habits, meditation can help reduce the fatigue felt by the significant life event of going away to school and being bombarded with incredible workloads.
With a job, five classes, a relationship, and social activities, nobody has time to get sick. Unfortunately, with the lifestyles that many students have, illness is something that is difficult to avoid.
Exercise, a healthy diet, and a regular sleeping schedule are all important to sustain a healthy way of life. Additionally, research from the National Library of Health shows that even a short-term meditation training program can provide significant measurable changes in the immune system of participants.
There are many forms of meditation in the world, and every person’s approach can vary based on their personal preferences. We will go into three of the most common forms of meditation.
In order to fully optimize health by reducing stress and increasing cognition performance, it is important for students to embrace a healthy diet, exercise, a regular sleep schedule, and meditation. While it has not been in the conversation until very recently, meditation is just one piece in the overall puzzle of health.
Source: YogaForTheNewWorld
Christina Sarich
September 3, 2016
Originally published at The Mind Unleashed
The benefits of meditation have been touted for decades now, with seemingly a new scientific study coming out as fast as you can say ‘Aum’. Harvard has proven that meditation rebuilds the grey matter in our brains in as little as 8 weeks, and according to University of Toronto psychiatrist, Steven Selchen, “There’s more than an article a day on the subject in peer-reviewed journals now.” With such vast research into the study of mindfulness, how do we know if we are really practicing meditation?
Fortunately, researchers unearthed some astounding discoveries about the brain’s functioning in ‘real’ meditation as opposed to ‘fake’ meditation.
Dr. Creswell, working with scientists from a handful of additional universities, managed to fake mindfulness, in order to observe physiological changes in the brains of participants. Their findings have now been published in Biological Psychiatry, a Journal of Psychiatric Neuroscience.
35 men and women were recruited who were experiencing unemployment, and arguably, high levels of daily stress. Prior to being divided into two groups, one practicing real meditation, and the other a sham experience that looked like meditation, their brains were scanned and blood samples were taken.
Both groups did stretching exercises, but one group was taught a traditional form of mindfulness meditation whereupon they were to pay close attention to bodily sensations, including unpleasant ones. The second group went along doing their stretches without the same formal meditation instructions, while their instructor made jokes. This group was also allowed to chatter and ignore all bodily sensations as they stretched.
None of the participants knew if they were in the ‘real’ meditation or ‘sham’ meditation group.
Upon finishing a three-day ‘meditation’ session, both groups reported feeling refreshed and less stressed, however, follow-up brain scans told the real truth about ‘fake’ meditation.
The group who had practiced real mindfulness meditation showed higher communication in portions of their brains that are associated to calm and focus than those who were in the sham meditation group.
Shockingly, four months later, the real meditation group also showed a much lower level of a blood marker called Interleukin-6, which is known to cause inflammation, and subsequently, disease in the body – even though very few were still meditating.
That means in just three days of meditating mindfully, an entire group of people experienced prolonged calm, focus, and reduced markers for disease.
Dr. Creswell is rather certain that the meditation is what caused the reduction in Interlukin-6, but he has no idea how it actually works, or what ‘dose’ of meditation is needed to keep inflammation down long term.
Anecdotal accounts have given people great motivation to meditate for just a few minutes every day. People who have even a brief, but regular meditation habit have reported experiencing greater clarity, reduced feelings of overwhelm and greater resolve to accomplish their goals.
In fact, one study led by the University of Massachusetts Medical School taught mindfulness to a group of people with clinical levels of anxiety and found that 90% experienced significant reductions in anxiety and depression.
Now that we even have a study proving that ‘real’ meditation works better than ‘fake’ meditation or a placebo, isn’t it time to carve a few minutes out of your day for this life-changing practice?
Sure, your family members might be noisy, or you travel too much, or you are sick, but there really is no reason NOT to meditate. Here are some tips to get in a ten-minute meditation for the busiest people:
See if you can keep up a 10-minute meditation practice for 30 days. By then you’ll have created a habit, and you can add momentum to your accomplishments by slowly sitting in mindfulness for longer stretches. If your attempting the ‘real’ thing – you will see improvements in your focus, mood, and even your health!
Read More At: YogaForTheNewWorld.com
Image credits: Lazamunda.org
Source: TheSleuthJournal
Sayer Ji
January 3, 2017
Traded along spice routes separating ancient cultures by vast distances, spices like cumin were once worth their weight in gold. Has modern science now revealed why, beyond their remarkable aesthetic value, they were so highly prized?
Many spices are perfectly happy living a charmed life as seasonings, peppering things generously with flavor, and without ever arousing the suspicion that they may be capable of profound acts of healing, as well.
Meet cumin, a member of the parsley family, which is to say from a well-known family of healers native to the central Mediterranean region (southern Italy, Algeria and Tunisia).
Cumin’s traditional use stretches back into prehistory, as evidenced by its presence in Egyptian tombs. The Greeks actually used it much like we use pepper today, keeping cumin at the dining table in its own container, which is still practiced by Moroccans to this day. It is also been used for millennia in India as a traditional ingredient of curry.
New research now indicates that these ancient “culinary” uses, once considered primarily aesthetic in nature, may have served more fundamental medicinal roles in these cultures. How do we know this? Modern scientific investigation has revealed that cumin has a broad range of potential healing properties that, when properly applied, could alleviate human suffering.
For instance, as recently as 2010, research published in the journal Food Chemistry and Toxicology demonstrated that cumin has blood sugar lowering properties comparable to the drug glibenclamide (known in the US as glyburide), with the additional benefit (not conferred by pharmaceutical intervention) that it also lowered oxidative stress and inhibited the advanced glycated end products (AGE) which are implicated in the pathogenesis of diabetic microvascular complications.[i]
Remarkably, this is only the tip of cumin’s medicinal potential. There are at least 10 other potential medicinal properties of cumin now confirmed in the experimental literature:
The evidence-based approach to understanding cumin’s medicinal value is relatively new. Only in the past two decades, but especially in the past five years, scientific research on spices and culinary herbs has virtually exploded. While enlightening, we must remember that the approach is limited in a number of ways. For one, it relies on animal research, which is both inherently cruel (vivisection) and conveys only approximate data, as these substances often have very different effects in animals than humans.
Also, spices like cumin should not be considered in isolation, as traditional recipes passed down from generation to generation contained a vast storehouse of medically relevant information pertaining to the synergies inherent in combinations of ingredients, modes of preparation, seasonal harvesting, etc. In other words, cumin does not lend itself well to the pharmacological, drug-based model of medicine, which presumes there are monochemical “magic bullets” within complex herbs or spices that must be identified and isolated into megadoses, and which are primarily responsible for their beneficial effects.
Nonetheless, it is welcoming that increasingly science confirms traditional herbalism and culinary practice. Perhaps, as the scientific evidence continues to pour in, we will be more willing to give ourselves permission to appreciate once again the wondrous superfluity of nature, its ceaseless benevolence, and the the fact that issuing directly from her fecund soil, are powerful healing gifts, that we can enjoy sensually, viscerally and now intellectually with greater abandon.
© January 3, 2017 GreenMedInfo LLC. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of GreenMedInfo LLC. Want to learn more from GreenMedInfo? Sign up for the newsletter here http://www.greenmedinfo.com/greenmed/newsletter.
Source: Mercola.com
Dr. Mercola
January 1, 2017
It’s that time again — time to embrace a new year and a fresh start in our continued journey toward a healthier, happier life. With a nod to our upcoming 20th anniversary in 2017, I’ve selected 20 tips from my 20 most popular articles of 2016.
If you haven’t yet read them all, you’re in for a treat, as they cover a wide variety of health topics.
Implementing some or all of these could help protect your health and well-being in the years to come. And be sure to stay tuned to the newsletter for more empowering health wisdom as 2017 unfolds.
The heading of each section is a hyperlink and if you click on it you will go to the article that has far more details.
We’re now starting to realize that mitochondrial dysfunction is at the core of virtually all diseases, and support for nutritional ketosis is growing by leaps and bounds. 2016 was a breakthrough year for this kind of information.
For over 80 years, nutritional ketosis has been the standard of care for intractable seizures in children.
Now we’re finding it can benefit a wide array of other diseases, including neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, obesity, diabetes, heart failure, heart disease, arthritis and more.
One of the reasons it works so well is because it drives your inflammation down to very low levels. When inflammation disappears, your body can heal. It also takes the proverbial foot off the gas pedal of aging. My next book, “Fat for Fuel,” scheduled for release in May, 2017, will explain it all in detail.
Without this information, people will continue to die prematurely. At present, the cancer industry is focusing on the downstream effects of the problem, which is why the “war on cancer” has been such a miserable failure.
When you view cancer as a metabolic disease, you can actually target and manage the disease without creating systemic toxicity. You do this primarily by targeting the fuels the cancer cells use (primarily glucose).
Without the appropriate fuel, the cancer cells cannot grow and multiply. Five strategies that will help optimize your mitochondrial function include:
The importance of near-infrared light exposure to health and the adverse effects of LED lighting, as explained by Dr. Alexander Wunsch, a world class expert on photobiology, was another breakthrough health revelation of 2016.
LED lighting may actually be one of the most damaging, non-native EMF radiation exposures you have on a daily basis. You cannot feel near-infrared as heat, and you cannot see it, but it’ has a major beneficial impact in terms of health.
Near-infrared frequencies are what is missing in non-thermal artificial light sources like LEDs and fluorescents. Importantly, it appears to promote age-related macular degeneration (AMD), which is the leading cause of blindness.
The primarily blue light emitted by LEDs also generates excessive amounts of reactive oxygen species (ROS), thereby exacerbating health problems rooted in mitochondrial dysfunction, which run the gamut from metabolic disorder to cancer.
The healthiest indoor lighting includes clear incandescent light bulbs (a 2,700 K incandescent, thermal analog light source), low-voltage halogen lights operated on DC (not AC, which generates dirty electricity), and/or fragrance-free candles.
Be particularly mindful to only use incandescents at night. After sunset, consider it is best to put on a pair of blue-blocking glasses.
One lifestyle factor that appears to be driving obesity and many chronic disease processes is the fact that we eat too frequently. When you eat throughout the day and never skip a meal, your body adapts to burning sugar as its primary fuel, which down regulates enzymes that utilize and burn stored fat.
Many biological repair and rejuvenation processes also take place when your body is not busy processing food. Mounting research suggests your body was designed to cycle through periods of feast and famine, and without periods of fasting, your health suffers.
Intermittent fasting, which mimics the eating habits of our ancestors, helps restore your body to a more natural state that allows a whole host of biochemical benefits to occur.
“Peak fasting” involves fasting for 13 to 18 hours each day and eating all of your meals within the remaining window of 6 to 11 hours. To make this schedule work, you need to skip either breakfast or dinner. However, if you chose to eat dinner, be sure to do so at least three hours before bedtime.
When sleeping, your body needs the least amount of energy. Eating at a time when energy is not needed ends up creating a situation in which your mitochondria create excessive amounts of damaging free radicals.
This is another important factor that can help optimize your mitochondrial function and limit cellular damage that drives aging and disease.
Iron overload is incredibly common and likely as dangerous to your health as vitamin D deficiency. Elevated iron creates excessive free radicals that damage your mitochondrial DNA, cell membranes and electron transport proteins.
If left untreated, it can damage your organs and contribute to cancer, heart disease, diabetes, neurodegenerative diseases and many other disorders.
The serum ferritin test measures your stored iron. I strongly recommend all adults to get this test done on an annual basis.
Ideally, your serum ferritin should be between 20 and 80 nanograms per milliliter (ng/mL); somewhere between 40 and 60 ng/mL is the sweet spot for adult men and non-menstruating women.
If your ferritin level is above 80 ng/mL, the solution is to donate your blood. If it’s over 200 ng/mL, a more aggressive phlebotomy schedule is recommended.
The term autophagy means “self-eating,” and refers to the processes by which your body cleans out various debris, including toxins, and recycles damaged cell components.
By boosting your body’s autophagy process, you dampen inflammation, slow down the aging process, and optimize biological function. Here are four strategies to boost your body’s autophagy process:
Research shows the “Goldilocks zone” in which exercise produces the greatest benefit for longevity is between 150 to 450 minutes of moderate exercise per week, lowering your risk of early death by 31 and 39 percent respectively.
Spending at least 30 percent of your workout on high-intensity exercises further boosts longevity by about 13 percent, compared to exercising at a consistently moderate pace. Following these general guidelines will likely put you in the most advantageous position for maximizing autophagy.
To avoid this, limit your protein to 1 gram of protein for every kilogram of lean body mass, or one-half gram of protein per pound of lean body mass.
Nutritional ketosis is an effective way to improve your health, and can be used both for the prevention and treatment of chronic disease, including cancer and diseases rooted in toxicity. If your mitochondria are functioning well, they will efficiently metabolize fat. If they don’t, it suggests you’re primarily burning carbohydrates as a primary fuel.
Nutritional ketosis involves removing sugars and processed carbohydrates, replacing the lost calories with healthy fats and a moderate amount of high-quality protein. Doing so will shift your body into a metabolic state in which your body burns fat rather than glucose as its primary fuel.
As a general rule, you’ll want at least 50 to 75 percent of your total calories (some may benefit from as much as 85 percent) from healthy fats, such as olives, avocados, coconut oil, MCT oil, organic pastured butter, cacao butter, raw nuts such as macadamia and pecans, seeds such as black sesame, cumin, pumpkin and hemp seeds, organic pastured eggs, grass-fed meats, lard and tallow.
A tool that will radically improve your ability to understand what you’re eating and follow a ketogenic diet is a nutrient tracker. There are a number of them available, but the most accurate one is Cronometer.com/Mercola. That’s our revision of the basic tracker, and it’s already set up for nutritional ketosis.
The disastrous “low-fat diet” dogma of the last half century has led to a devastating drop in most people’s intake of healthy saturated fats, including MCTs. Besides coconuts, coconut oil and palm kernel oil, small amounts of MCT can be found in butter and other high-fat dairy products from grass-fed cows and goats.
MCTs can be divided into four groups based on their carbon length, which ranges from six to 12 carbons.1 As a general rule, the shorter the carbon chain, the more efficiently the MCT will be turned into ketones, which are an excellent source of energy for your body — far preferable to glucose, as ketones produce far less ROS when they are metabolized to produce ATP.
My personal preference is straight caprylic acid (C8), as it converts to ketones far more rapidly than the more common C8 and C10 mixtures. Since MCT oil, and especially caprylic acid (C8) oil, is a far more concentrated source than coconut oil, it’s often appropriate for clinical uses, which include:2
The common belief is that if you want to build muscle, you need to eat lots of protein and carbohydrates because carbs fuel your muscles and protein builds them up. However, carb- and protein-loading can have significant drawbacks in terms of long-term health, and mounting evidence suggests you don’t need either in excessive amounts to build muscle.
One particularly intriguing finding is that your body has a mechanism that allows it to build muscle even when deprived of food. Certain amino acids — most notably branched chain amino acids like leucine — signal muscle genes to grow and to build protein, and they do that even during times of food deprivation as long as these amino acids are circulating through your blood stream.
Including the following foods in your cooking as often as possible will provide you with leucine and other nutrients that play important roles in muscle building and maintenance. Just be careful to limit whey protein to days that you are strength training.
| Wild-caught Alaskan salmon | Avocado | Spinach |
| Coconut oil | MCT oil | Kale |
| Sprouts | Berries | Bananas |
| Watermelon | Grapefruit | Papaya |
| Raw nuts | Grass-fed beef | Mushrooms |
| Authentic virgin olive oil | Whey protein | Broccoli |
As a general rule, I recommend getting the bulk of your nutrition from eating real food. That said, in some cases, taking specific nutrients may be therapeutically valuable or necessary, and can be far less toxic and less expensive than drug treatments. Moreover, in my view there are certain supplements that most people will benefit from taking.
Vitamin D3 (unless you’re able to get sufficient amounts of sun exposure year-round) is at the top of that list, along with vitamin K2. Animal-based omega-3 fat, such as the fat found in krill oil, is another nutrient that most people simply don’t get enough of.
If you still have not shifted away from processed foods, vitamin C may be worth considering, as processed foods will not provide you much of this vitamin. If you’re not eating traditionally fermented foods, you’d also be wise to take a high quality probiotic supplement, and at the very least consider increasing your consumption of fresh vegetables, as the fiber provides important nourishment for beneficial bacteria in your gut that help calibrate your immune system.
When selecting a high-quality dietary supplement, be sure it is as close as possible to its natural (whole food) form and follows industry standards for quality assurance including ISO 9001, ISO 17025, and Good Manufacturing Processes (GMP) certifications.
Kidney stones can be truly agonizing. Fortunately, there are ways to prevent them from ever occurring. Recent research shows that an extract of a compound called hydroxycitrate from the Asian garcinia cambogia fruit, also known as Malabar tamarind, has the power to inhibit the growth of kidney stones. It can even be used to dissolve them after a stone has been generated.
If all goes as hoped, hydroxycitrate would be the most dramatic advance in treating kidney stones in three decades. However, rigorous trials in humans have not yet begun, so it’s still too early to justify its use. In the meantime, to prevent keep your kidneys healthy and prevent kidney stones:
Magnesium is vitally important for biological function and optimal health. If you’re lacking in cellular magnesium, it can lead to the deterioration of your cellular metabolic function, which in turn can snowball into more serious health problems. Importantly, magnesium is vital for the optimization of your mitochondria.
Eating plenty of organic unprocessed foods tend to be your best bet, but since most soils have become severely depleted of nutrients, some magnesium experts believe virtually everyone needs to take supplemental magnesium.
The recommended daily allowance (RDA) is around 310 to 420 milligrams (mg) per day depending on your age and sex, although some researchers believe we may need as much as 600 to 900 mg/day for optimal health. One way to identify your ideal dose is to use your intestinal reaction as a marker. Start out by taking 200 mg of oral magnesium citrate per day, and gradually increase your dose until you develop slightly loose stools.
When your body has too much magnesium it flushes it out, so in this way you can determine your own individual cutoff point. (Be sure to use magnesium citrate, as it’s known for having a laxative effect.)
When it comes to magnesium supplements, my personal preference is magnesium threonate, as it seems to be most efficient at penetrating cell membranes, including your mitochondria, which can help boost your energy level. It also penetrates your blood-brain barrier and may help improve memory.
Most vegetables are very low in net carbs while being high in healthy fiber and the valuable vitamins and minerals your body needs for optimal health. However, some are more beneficial than others. Among the top performers are:
As much as 40 percent of U.S. health care expenditures are for diseases directly related to the overconsumption of sugar.7 One of the key mechanisms by which sugar promotes cancer and other chronic disease is by causing mitochondrial dysfunction. As mentioned earlier, sugar is not an ideal fuel as it creates far more ROS than fat. This generates free radicals, which in turn causes mitochondrial and nuclear DNA damage along with cell membrane and protein impairment.
I recommend reducing your total fructose intake to a maximum of 25 grams per day from all sources, including fruit. If you are insulin resistant, you’d do well to make your upper limit 15 grams per day. Cancer patients would likely be best served by even stricter limits. Moreover, I personally believe that most would benefit from reducing all non-fiber carbs (total carbs minus fiber), not just fructose, to less than 100 grams per day.
The easiest way to dramatically cut down on your sugar and fructose consumption is to switch to REAL foods, as most of the added sugar you end up with comes from processed foods. Other ways to cut down includes:
Your hair color comes from pigment called melanin. With age, melanin is reduced, which is why your hair turns gray and, ultimately, white once there’s no melanin left. In 2016, researchers discovered a gene that accounts for about 30 percent of hair graying. The other 70 percent is likely due to factors such as age, toxic exposures, nutritional deficiencies and stress. To limit the grays:
Mounting research confirms that many people experience adverse reactions to gluten even if they test negative for celiac disease — an autoimmune disorder in which gluten must be avoided at all cost. This suggests gluten-sensitivity is a real problem,8 and that gluten-free diets may benefit many, not just those with celiac. In one recent study,9,10 people who reacted to gluten despite not having celiac disease were found to have leaky gut, which is likely what caused the immune activation.
The obvious treatment for celiac disease and gluten intolerance is a gluten-free diet, which means abstaining from any food that contains gluten.
This is largely because most is contaminated with Roundup used in the drying process, which tends to damage your intestinal cellular connections. However, keep in mind that while gluten-free has many advantages, just because a food is gluten-free does not automatically make it healthy. There are plenty of gluten-free junk foods out there, so be mindful of your choices.
If you have osteoarthritis — a degenerative form of arthritic joint disease — exercise is absolutely crucial to your well-being. The notion that exercise is detrimental to your joints is a misconception; there is no evidence to support this belief. Importantly, exercise can help reduce joint pain and make it easier for you to perform daily tasks.
That said, people with arthritis should be careful to avoid activities that aggravate joint pain, and any exercise that strains a significantly unstable joint. Aside from that, you can include a range of activities in your exercise program, just as any other exerciser would.
Weight training, high-intensity cardio, stretching and core work can all be integrated into your routine according to your ability. The featured article also includes a series of flexibility exercises that will help strengthen your hips, which are suitable for those with hip osteoarthritis.
This year’s presidential election has unleashed an avalanche of anxiety and emotional distress, with more than 8 in 10 voters reporting feeling “repulsed” by the campaign.11 Sadly, many have fallen into victim mentality, forgetting that the power of the individual is still alive and well even in this deeply flawed system.
It becomes yours by stepping OUTSIDE of the system with every decision and purchase you make. With every action you take, you also set the example for others to follow, thereby making you a change-agent within your own small circle of family, friends and acquaintances. In the end, our collective actions will create the changes that are so desperately needed.
If you don’t like the state of the nation (or the world), stop eating processed and ultra-processed junk foods. Some may initially think this decision would have nothing to do with anything that is wrong in the world, but if you really give it some thought, you’ll realize that the more independence you gain with your food, the more independence you will create in other areas as well.
Workout intensity and workout volume are inversely proportional, so the greater the intensity, the less time you spend working out, and the less frequently you need to exercise. High intensity interval training (HIIT) can significantly reduce the amount of exercise you need to do, cutting your hour-long workouts down to 15 minutes once a week or less.
Moreover, as intensity goes up, you also need longer recovery times in between sessions, so the frequency of your workouts also goes down. At most, you might be able to do HIIT three times a week. You can perform HIIT using a recumbent bicycle, a treadmill, or by sprinting, for example.
Or you can use weights — a technique known as SuperSlow weight training. A sample workout routine is given in the featured article. In terms of health effects, HIIT may help improve a number of biomarkers associated with improved metabolic activity and good health, including:
Research clearly shows that proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) are severely overprescribed and misused, and do far more harm than good in the long run.12 If you suffer from frequent heartburn, there are many alternative treatment strategies that can help you eliminate this problem without the serious side effects associated with PPIs, which include kidney disease, pneumonia, osteoporosis, hip fractures, dementia, and an increased risk for heart disease13 and heart attacks.14
The long-term answer to heartburn and acid indigestion is to restore your natural gastric balance and function. The most important step is to eat real food, as processed foods and sugars are a surefire way to exacerbate acid reflux. Reseeding your gut with beneficial bacteria, either from traditionally fermented foods or a high quality probiotic supplement is also important. Other drug-free treatment strategies include the use of:
| Raw, unfiltered apple cider vinegar | Baking soda | Aloe Vera juice | Ginger root | Vitamin D |
| Astaxanthin | Slippery elm | Glutamine | Folate (vitamin B9) and other B vitamins | Betaine |
Contrary to popular belief, chiropractic can be used to optimize wellness, not just treat pain. Research suggests chiropractic treatments can help prevent progressive spinal degeneration, i.e. osteoarthritis or disc disease.
Your spinal column, the vertebrae, and the discs, protect your most delicate and important system — your nervous system — and impingements can contribute to a number of health problems and ailments. Hence protecting and nurturing spine will promote greater expression of nerve intelligence and more vibrant health.
Granted, some chiropractors focus primarily on pain and injuries, and do not have the full skill set required to address issues like allergies or disease. So make sure the chiropractor you choose has the appropriate vitalistic philosophy.
Wishing You and Your Loved Ones a Happy and Healthy New Year!
We remain committed to helping you take control of your health. Together, with your help, we have made it easier for millions to make informed health choices, and we hope that with our continuous service, you will stay motivated to take control of your health this year, and well into the future.
I also want to express my sincere thanks. Time and time again, your participation has allowed this valuable work to be accomplished. Truly, it is through your participation and engagement in important issues that change is being manifested.
You are the ones changing the world — one Facebook post, Twitter share, petition signature and donation at a time. So, from the Mercola.com family to yours, may 2017 be a year when you take the reins of your life firmly in hand to manifest the highest level of health and happiness possible.
Source: NaturalNews.com
L.J. Devon
July 21, 2016
We are constantly taking information in through our corporeal senses. Technology and social media are constantly streaming noise, beliefs, news and chatter into our hearts and minds. When we stop to meditate, all the noise dissipates. In this moment, we can now take a deep breath and listen.
In the stillness, in the quiet, everything changes. We are no longer dependent on information from our material world. When we stop, listen and breathe, we can begin to connect with ourselves on a much deeper level.
As we focus our attention inward, into imagination and visualization, relaxation ensues. The heart and the mind are put at ease. As breathing slows, as tension is released, blood pressure can normalize. In this state, our greatest fears and anxieties can be addressed.
In the January 2014 issue of JAMA Internal Medicine, researchers published a comprehensive review on the benefits of meditation. Not only is meditation observed and documented as a way to relieve anxiety, but it can also be used as a means to reduce pain and manage depression. These benefits are all possible because the sympathetic nervous system is engaged and regulated more effectively for important functions such as oxygen intake through deep breathing, a steadier heart rate and lowered blood pressure.
Burke Lennihan, a registered nurse who teaches meditation at the Harvard University Center for Wellness, says the benefits of meditation extend beyond just the physical. “True, it will help you lower your blood pressure, but so much more: it can help your creativity, your intuition, your connection with your inner self,” she says.
Many people, not recognizing it, have engaged in forms of meditation throughout their lives to cope with big decisions and life changes. Walking meditation or prayerful meditation are two common examples where one tunes out of the material world and focuses the mind, heart or breath. The benefits of meditation are even more powerful when practiced regularly as a discipline.
Concentration mediation teaches one how to direct and focus the mind to achieve desired results. Mindfulness meditation helps one address the negative thoughts that enter the mind so they can be dealt with in a healthy manner. Heart-centered mediation helps one bring awareness to the powerful energy center in the chest, helping one manage emotions and relationship difficulties. In Tai chi and qigong, mediation is combined with physical exercise to enhance breathing and focus. In transcendental meditation, one repeats a mantra, whether it’s a word, phrase or sound, to quiet thoughts and to achieve greater awareness of oneself and the connection to all living things.
Burke Lennihan says that the most powerful experience is when two or more people gather to meditate. When a teacher is present, a verbal guided visualization can be initiated to stimulate the meditative experience of individuals and the group as a whole. Giving feedback after a group meditation, whether to the group as a whole or to a friend, is a powerful experience as well, as illusions and judgments of one another are shattered.
Lennihan says meditation doesn’t have to be complex. It can as simple as doing deep breathing exercises. Meditation can be a launching pad to connect with oneself, filter out negativity, deprogram from social conditioning, or connect with others on a deeper level.
Lennihan says that it’s great to start with 10 minutes of quiet time each day, and to set aside a safe, quiet place. “You’ll build up a special feeling there, making it easier to get into a meditative state more quickly,” she says. Symbols, photos, candles, herbs, crystals, essential oils and articles of nature are often used to surround a meditation practice to make the experience more personal, centered and meaningful for the individual.
The practice of meditation is an important healing art that can be a useful vehicle for finding inner calm and inner strength in the most stressful situations in life. These self-control techniques can help one manage stress more effectively, slow the aging process and create more positive interactions with others.
Sources include:
TheBreakway
Zy Marquiez
July 5, 2016
“Meditation is not like doing reps at the gym. It strengthens your attention muscle.”
– David Levy
“Give me silence. Let me ponder my despair. Where the trees and the birds know no cruelty. And where I may learn to breathe again. Without the harsh views of humanity. Without judgment or jury. Just me, the trees, the green. And my silence.”
– Amelia Dashwood
Meditation is a tool that is as great and powerful as its precision of use.
A still mind helps employ this tool and its effect will be proportional to the drive the individual employs in its application.
Calming the mind can help:
Better sleep
Clearer focus
Greater effectiveness
Anger control
Ability to learn faster
Stress release
Less distraction
Better concentration
Reduced depression
Enhanced physical relaxation[1]
Michael Singer, in his book The Surrender Experiment, covers many experiences that expanded his consciousness when he became ready to allow things in life to happen, rather than forcing things to manifest in his own manner. In his intriguing and thought provoking book he writes:
“Challenging situations create the force needed to bring about change. The problem is that we generally use all the stirred-up energy intended to bring about change to resist change. I was learning to sit quietly in the midst of the howling winds and wait to see what constructive action was being asked of me.”
This resounding passage helped me change the path of stress that was chosen by me to a more consciously calming road.
Another effect of reading the above passage was that it was as if the stress-balloon popped, and it was quite shocking at first. This was due to the realization that change was being resisted by me, and that was one major factor causing stress in my life at the time. Synchronistically enough, it was after that very moment subsequent to reading that particular passage and making the choice to change that everything in my life began snowballing into positive circumstances once it was decided by me to become proactive, rather than reactive.
Such resounding change wasn’t able to take place until my eyes and mind were open to it, and willing to act on it.
In Meditation For Warriors – Practical Medication For Cops, Soldiers & Martial Artists, Loren W. Christensen not only shows many anecdotal evidence by those in the martial field of the benefits of meditation, but he also offers various ways that meditation can be employed.
As the author notes, one army veteran told him:
“There was a soldier in Afghanistan into the Zen/hippie stuff. He was always meditating, doing yoga, whatever. Thing is, he always seemed so calm no matter what was going on. So I asked him to show me how to meditate. After a while, it started to make a huge difference on how I mentally dealt with stress in combat.”[3]
Christensen’s friend, Paul McRedmond, who was a long-time martial artist, retired police officer, and avid meditator for nigh five decades, related:
“The nervous system can only take so much dynamic input before it crashes/needs to sleep, etc. It’s like filling a cup with water. The cup can actually take more water than just the cup’s measure. But one more drop can cause more water to flow from the cup than just that one drop. Loren, you’ve dealt with many, many ‘last straw’ [last drop of stress] people. With them, a seemingly random event, a single word or a glance can cause emotional upset, panic, screaming, and, sometimes, really stupid actions…There are three ways to empty the cup: You can get a bigger one. You can dump or drain the water in the existing one, or you can avoid water. Training, relationships, good nutrition, and exercise all enlarge the cup. Sleep allows some of the water to drain and vacations get you away from the water.
But, meditation does all three at once. It expands the capacity of your nervous system by creating coherence [a synergistic pattern of brain wave frequencies across the main 4 quadrants of the brain], it allows for greater restfulness during sleep [draining the water], and [here comes the woo-woo stuff] to eventually become water.”[4]
Essentially, meditation impacts the health of the individual through what are called “stress reduction pathways” within your brain. As Researchers at the Carnegie Mellon University elaborated:
“When an individual experiences stress, activity in the prefrontal cortex — responsible for conscious thinking and planning — decreases, while activity in the amygdala, hypothalamus and anterior cingulate cortex — regions that quickly activate the body’s stress response — increases.
Studies have suggested that mindfulness reverses these patterns during stress; it increases prefrontal activity, which can regulate and turn down the biological stress response.
Excessive activation of the biological stress response increases the risk of diseases impacted by stress (like depression, HIV and heart disease).
By reducing individuals’ experiences of stress, mindfulness may help regulate the physical stress response and ultimately reduce the risk and severity of stress-related diseases.”
There are countless other examples that showcase what individuals in high-stress environments thought of the regular use of using meditation as a tool. That convinced me, as an individual, that there could probably be some merit to what they spoke of. And there was.
After learning how to employ meditation, issues that used to bother me, melted away.
Empty/inflammatory comments people made, affected me no longer.
Stressful scenarios that used to be obstacles became puzzles to be solved rather than detriments on my path.
Because of the above reason, and more, meditation has always been a staple in my life, and always will be.
There are many ways stress can be conquered, and these techniques are up to the individual to figure out what helps them best. In my case, reading, working out & meditating have always worked best, with the last one netting the most benefits by far.
Whatever tool/technique one decides to choose to deal with stress, it’s of utmost importance not only to refine this tool, but to hone it as much as possible for when it is needed. The beauty of whatever technique/tool you choose, is that the more you employ it, the more efficient you will become with it. But its benefits will only accrue by being regularly proactive.
Ponder about it, a perfectly honed tool sitting in the attic of your life most of the time does nobody any good.
Please keep in mind, when the next obstacle in your life arises, it’s not to bring you down. It’s to test you. It’s to show you what you’re made of.
But nothing great will happen unless you unleash the power of your mind in its full potential.
As Eckhart Tolle intimated:
“Your mind is an instrument, a tool, a weapon.”
The mind, your mind, is your greatest asset.
Be cognizant.
Hone it.
Employ it.
To sum up, the following quote is left for your contemplation:
“The mind can be our best friend and advocate in getting what we want in life, or it can pull the breaks on and be a nasty little foe – the choice is yours – choose your attitude.”
– Rachel Bermingham
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Sources & References
[1] Loren W. Christensen, Meditation For Warriors – Practical Medication For Cops, Soldiers & Martial Artists, pg. 19.
[2] Dr. Kelly Brogan, M.D., A Mind Of Your Own – The Truth About Depression & How Women Can Heal Their Bodies To Reclaim Their Lives, p. 260.
[3] Loren W. Christensen, Meditation For Warriors – Practical Medication For Cops, Soldiers & Martial Artists, pg. 19.
[4] Ibid., pg. 19-20
[5] [5] EurekAlert!, Carnegie Mellon Researchers Reveal How Mindfulness Training Affects Health, February 12, 2016
TheBreakaway
Zy Marquiez
July 5, 2016
Host Daniel Liszt [DarkJournalist | http://www.DarkJournalist.com%5D interviews former Assistant Housing Secretary & Financial Expert Catherine Austin Fitts [www.Solari.com].
Throughout the podcast they discuss the various aspects of Clinton Corruption and much of what that entails. Issues regarding the Deep State are also touched upon at length. Mortgage Fraud, the Economy, and High Finance are also given a gander.
A major pertinent issue that is discussed at length is the Reengineering of the American & Global Economy. Fitts’ speaks at length at many of the issue this pertains, as well as other components of the economy such as the War on Cash, Cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin, Digital Currencies, Blockchain Technologies, Cyber Security/Warfare, Open Vs. Closed Economy, and much much more.
Fitts’ also discusses at length the push by the tyrannical government to continue stripping the populace of their rights, particularly their rights to self defense via the second amendment, and also pushing a cashless society. The constitution and all that it stands for is the final hope for this nation, and without it our descent as a nation/world into turmoil will only exacerbate at warp speed.
Facing this growing totalitarianism, individuals will need to stand up for the rights because the freight train of tyranny is only picking up speed with the new tyrannical legislation passed in California, and things are about to get worse.
Other issues discussed include the mainstream media vs alternative media, the military, the middle class and blue collar works having to face the rise in robotics that will strip away jobs, Autism/Vaccinations, Healthcare/Obamacare and many other salient scandals.
Its really a sobering interview that should be heard by everyone. Fitts’ covers saliently most of the issues we’re facing and going to be facing in the next 10-20 years if things continue the way they are.
The Global Control Grid
Join Dark Journalist for the exciting Part Two Interview of his deep discussion with Former Assistant Housing Secretary and Financial Expert Catherine Austin Fitts. In this fascinating episode Dark Journalist and Former Assistant Housing Secretary Catherine Austin Fitts explore the Transhumanist agenda that covert forces are pursuing to install a global control grid. Is the elite endgame a dismantling of the constitution and a major play for complete dominance by the use of suborbital platforms using invasive satellite surveillance technology?
Transhumanist Depopulation Agenda
Fitts arrives at the conclusion that the transhumanist depopulation agenda extends to mandated vaccines that are linked to autism and the creation of shadow financial system that is engaged in a ‘War on Cash’ and is focused on drawing the public into a control system under the nebulous title ‘The Internet of Things’.
The gradual development of this centralization is reaching a crescendo as the 2016 Presidential contest enters a crucial phase and Neocon Democrat Hillary Clinton attempts to consolidate the Deep State around her candidacy against upstart casino billionaire and TV star Donald Trump.
TheBreakAway 
