5 Tips to Sleep Well and Be Well!

Sleep is pretty important for our bodies. In evolutionary terms, anything that makes us so vulnerable to predators for an enormous 1/3 of the time we are alive MUST be critical to our survival! Even for those of us who diligently get our 8 hours sleep per night, a poor quality of sleep can still affect your everyday functioning. Today we look at some lifestyle choices, some nutritionist's recommendations, and some organic vitamins that can help you make the most of your nighty-nights!

High GI carbs at dinnertime

High GI carbs in general are something that must be taken in moderation. However, the crash after high-GI carbs is actually something that you WANT at bedtime! Studies have shown that higher GI jasmine rice helped promote sleep compared to low GI long-grain rice.

Drink warm milk or herbal tea? Perhaps not…

These are two folk remedies for helping fall asleep, but unfortunately their effectiveness hasn’t been proven. And in fact, while they may help some people get to sleep initially, they often create a poor quality of sleep by ensuring that your bladder is uncomfortably full most of the night.

Organic vitamins for sleep

Many 'sleep herbs' have not been fully proven to be effective. One exception is valerian root, which features prominently in New Chapter's Tranquilnite Plus. If you have trouble initially getting to sleep, this could be a valuable friend.

Skip the wine with dinner

If you are having trouble sleeping, don't drink with dinner. One theory is that alcohol suppresses REM sleep, which is critical for actually feeling rested in the morning. Drinking at dinnertime can also make you wake up more during the night, both because of a filling bladder and other causes.

Bedtime snacks

Having a bedtime snack can help stop you waking up during the night due to hunger. Often we don't even realise that we are hungry when we wake up during the night time … we just feel tired. If the cause of your insomnia isn’t determined, try a low GI snack just before bed. Keep it small, though, or your nutritionist will have something to say about it!

The Nutritionist's Take on: Headaches

So many of us (both husbands AND wives!) take headaches for granted as a fact of life. We feel them coming on and just struggle on through … not really present, definitely not enjoying whatever we're doing, but believing that everybody gets them.

In fact, headaches are NOT normal - pain one of our body's signals that something is wrong! Today we look at what nutritionists have to say about headaches … and how you could start truly enjoying your life, headache-free, from now on.

How headaches and nutrition are linked

Nutrition is rarely a direct cause of headaches (although there are exceptions to this rule). However, in many ways headaches and nutrition are inextricably linked. Here are some of the ways they go together like birds and bees:

• Fluctuations in blood sugar levels can lead to arterial spasms: If you eat too many high GI foods or skip a meal, the change in blood sugar levels can sometimes lead to a spasming of the artery walls. This will cause pounding, horrible headaches. This is one reason that you can't simply take whole food multivitamins on top of a diet completely devoid of fruit and veg.
• Caffeine withdrawals can cause headaches: Here is one of the direct nutritional links.
• Poor nutrition can exacerbate stress: Stress alone can be a major headache … simply trying to battle with your thoughts not to fall into a depressive or angry spiral is enough to give you a headache. However stress can also nullify the effects of painkillers, reduce your natural endorphin levels, and lower your tolerance to pain.
• Hormones can affect headaches: And your nutrition is well known to affect your hormones. This is particularly relevant for women, for whom a lack of estrogen can exacerbate headaches.
• Infections: If your body's natural resistance to infection is impaired by poor nutrition, you will be more prone to headaches related to infection in your ear nose and throat, all of which can cause related headaches.
• Nerve damage: Vitamin deficiencies can sometimes cause nerve damage, which would then cause you to develop recurrent headaches.
• Diabetes and headaches: Poor nutrition is a prime cause of type 2 diabetes - a diet that includes frequent peaks and troughs in blood sugar often increases the body's resistance to insulin. And diabetes itself, as well as the drugs used to treat it, are prime causes of headaches.
• Dehydration: Don't forget the liquid component of your diet! Nutritionists will tell you that water is an incredibly important part of your diet … become dehydrated, and it isn’t only your head that is suffering. Every cell of your body starts crumpling and not working properly.

In many of these cases, whole food multivitamins will help support your body through times when you just don't have the time to make salads for breakfast, lunch and dinner. However, you need to have a good underlying diet as well … there is no substitute for the real thing, in the long term. Whole food supplements can help, too.

The Nutritionist's Take on: Allergies

Nutritionists and allergies have been long-time foes! There are certain foods which are extremely rich in nutrients and energy, but there are many individuals across the globe who are sensitive to them … meaning that they have to jump nutritional backflips in order for their bodies to get what they need. Today we look at some of the most important things that nutritionists want you to know about food allergies, and how to correct them with whole food supplements.

Common food allergies

Some of the food allergies most common in children are:

• Eggs
• Milk
• Wheat
• Soy
• Peanuts

Less commonly, kids might be allergic to shellfish, tree nuts, or even strawberries. However, adults more commonly have problems with:

• Peanuts
• Tree nuts
• Shellfish
• Other fish

Nutritional causes of allergies

It is also worth considering that some allergies are developed in response to certain eating habits. For example:

• Excessive fluid intake at mealtimes can increase the likelihood of allergies
• A diet which encourages overgrowth of candida albicans can increase the likelihood of allergies
• Eating a single food repeatedly can cause an allergy to it
• Food additives can cause allergies to the carrier media

Correcting for allergies with other foods

Most of the foods that both adults and children commonly develop allergies to are especially rich in nutrients, or are an integral part of our diets. It is often a major undertaking to cook for a family where one of the members is allergic to wheat, for example. Which is why most nutritionists recommend …

Correcting for allergies with supplements

Often the safest and simplest way to correct for allergies is with supplements. For example, if an adult is intolerant of milk, they'll need to eat around a kilo of spinach every day to get the same amount of calcium as they would from milk products.

However, whole food supplements are always recommended, as they come in a base closest to the way the body would naturally encounter the vitamins and minerals, making them easier to absorb.

What's a Paraben?

Humans have done a wonderful job of manipulating our environment to suit ourselves. No other animal on Earth has managed to make their living conditions conform to their wishes quite so well. However, we haven't always been the best at anticipating the effects of some changes (quite understandably!). The effects of various chemicals on our health is one significant area where questions about safety are growing, and parabens are one of the focuses. Today we look at parabens from top to bottom and inside to out, as well as some natural skin care products alternatives that don't contain parabens.

Where are parabens found?

Usually in any topical pharmaceuticals, many skin care products, shampoos, cleansers, shaving gels, lubricants, etc. Almost anything sold in a chemist that doesn’t say 'all natural' on the label will include parabens. Parabens are also sometimes used as food additives.

What's the problem with parabens?

Parabens have been implicated in a variety of health conditions. However it must be noted that there is very little solid, clinical evidence out there … perhaps due to the fact that there is a lot of money available to invest in saying that parabens are safe, and no money to be made in discovering they are dangerous.

Parabens can be identified in blood tests only minutes after the application of a paraben-containing product. In conjunction with this fact, there are several characteristics of parabens that are causing wary consumers to opt for natural skin care products, to be on the safe side:

• Mimic estrogens in the body: This ability means they could be a factor in the development of breast cancer. Another study showed that parabens could adversely affect testosterone secretion in newborn male animals. Additionally, a UK-based study found parabens in around 90% of breast tumours excised from patients.
• Reaction with UVB light: The parabens in cosmetics may react with UVB light from the sun to increase your risk of skin cancer, as well as hasten photoaging and DNA damage. Just the opposite of what your sunscreen or foundation aims to do!
• Potential for allergic reaction: Some people are sensitive to parabens, so even products marketed as for sensitive skin will cause irritation and allergic responses.

Be safe - use only natural skin care products!

Water: It’s Not Just for Drinking Any More

Water is life’s mater and matrix, mother and medium. There is no life without water.”

~Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, Nobel Prize for Medicine (1937)

Water is truly life’s elixir, as the good doctor noted. By now you may have heard the advice to drink at least 8 glasses of pure of water each day for greater health. That’s a great idea, and as good health involves body, mind, and spirit, I’d like to pass along some other really fabulous and stimulating tips from wellness experts John Travis and Regina Sara Ryan in The Wellness Workbook.

For incorporating the planet’s most abundant element into your life, here are six super ideas to add energy, fun, and even intimacy and meaning to your day.

1. Wake up in the shower. When you want to stimulate your circulation, take a shower alternating hot and cold water for 30 seconds each. You’ll be rarin’ to go!

2. Have a water fight. Make yourself laugh! Those belly laughs are good for your spirit and your health, plus having fun with someone is a great way to really connect.

3. Gentler Exercise. If you are looking for a low-impact workout, water aerobics could be your thing! Check out classes at local Y’s and gyms.

4. Create your own foot spa. Add hot water or mild soap or baking soda to a basin. Add feet, and notice how your whole body relaxes as well as your bubbly toes! Dry with a coarse towel and massage. For more pleasure, exchange this favor with someone you adore.

5. Visit a hot springs. If you don’t live near one, put it on your next vacation itinerary and discover why their curative powers have drawn adherents for ages. How about making it an annual ritual? Imagine the possibilities with a partner or group of good friends? Now that's natural skin care!

6. Cleansing your energy field. When you need to move on from the “heaviness” of an illness or sadness, create a ritual involving water in which you purify your spirit. You might want to incorporate healing or sacred water in the ritual. May peace be with you.

Remember that you, like the earth, are composed primarily of water. We come from water. Like air, it can completely envelop us. Let the waters surround you, enter you, and heal you. As you continue, complement your holistic experience with water with the whole food vitamins and whole food supplements that will sustain you on your journey toward wellness.

Four Tips for Fabulous Mature Skin

Good self-care involves taking care of our whole bodies, outside and inside. Being in vibrant health means having energy, a light step, and glowing skin. For us women, as our skin ages, we need to take extra care if we want to keep our healthy glow!

This will mean changing some of our old routines. For one thing, our skin does not produce new cells as quickly. Also, we can see how biology and environment seem to conspire against us, conjuring up wrinkles, freckles, and age spots.

Here are five well-tested recommendations for “mature skin” from dermatologists and skin-care experts:

1. Wear sunscreen daily. As the days are now lengthening, this is especially important. Did you know that wearing sunscreen daily can reduce signs of aging (including age spots and wrinkles) and also decrease your risk for developing skin cancer? Fortunately there are new sunscreens that feel GOOD to put on your skin. Try some of the natural skin care products that are on the market now with the SPF you need for your skin. You will feel the silky smoothness!

2. Change to the skin care products you need now. More mature skin can be easily irritated by the alcohol-based products we needed for teenage skin! By age 40 or so, most women find that using mild, unscented products year round helps their skin feel better. Seek out skin care products that help you manage your skin, such as creams with ingredients such as retinol and vitamin C. Be sure to apply moisturizers, especially after bathing. There are many natural, plant-based and fruit-based products that can refresh and moisturize your skin. If you are not sure what your skin needs, see a dermatologist.

3. Manage stress. Chronic stress raises your level of cortisol, which in turn increases oil production and related skin problems. It also slows down the skin healing process and appears to in increasing the risk of developing skin cancer.

4. Eat a well-balanced diet. When you eat lots of good healthy food and drink plenty of water, you area giving your body the elements it needs to both repair and hydrate your skin from the inside out. To make sure you aren’t skimping on those vitamins and minerals, add a quality supplement. (There are many out there available from reliable health supplement vendors; personally, I take New Chapter Inner Beauty Every Woman’s Multivitamin.

What you don’t know will hurt you

For years I thought that as long as I don’t overindulge in certain foods I didn’t have to worry about their effects on my health. I finally realized that the perfect food in one man’s eye is not always so in another man’s eye. It’s very important to know everything that goes into the foods you eat so that you can understand how that particular food is helping or hurting the systems of your body.

You see, food lost its value a long time ago; people don’t generally pick a food to eat because it is going to help give them soft and healthy hair. People eat foods because they taste good and because they crave them. A billboard isn’t going to have a picture of a bowl of vegetables and say how that food will help your heart. Advertisers use billboards to speak to food cravings, such as having a picture of a fat, juicy hamburger. That entices a craving and a run by the drive-through. The dietary benefits to food is lost to taste. This is why so many people have to add whole food multivitamins to their diet; because they don’t get enough of the recommended vitamins from the foods they crave every day.

We need to be teaching our children a new way to look at food so that they don’t get caught up in using food as a crutch or for comfort as so many over-weight individuals do now. We need to be teaching the importance of weight loss and how living in a country with record numbers of obese people is a major factor in our health care system. Getting our kids back on a healthy track should be the main concern of our educators and parents alike. We are raising unhealthy kids and it never used to be like that.