by Dr. G. Pepper | May 7, 2009 | diet and weight loss, fitness, general health & nutrition, health, metabolism, stress, thyroid, weight loss
We’ve all heard how doing yoga is one of the best practices to adopt when trying to balance your weight, lower your blood pressure and cholesterol, and also to reduce stress.
But we’ve also all wondered exactly HOW these 60 minute sessions of bends and twists can promise so much?
Here’s the key to the health benefits of yoga poses:
Like traditional exercize (running, walking, playing group sports etc), yoga can get your heart rate up and tone and strengthen your muscles. But the special qualities that yoga alone offers is the attention it gives to our internal organs. Here’s a quick fact about the major types of yoga postures:
All forward bending poses will help to massage the stomach, pancreas and intestines, bringing new blood to these organs and therefore helping them to work better.
All twisting poses massage and compress the different sections of the colon, helping to manually move food along it’s route from the stomach and onwards.
Also, all “chin to chest” simple poses will massage the thyroid and parathyroid glands which are responsible for our body’s ability to properly absorb calcium in addition to keeping our sleep and metabolism regular.
Like many things in life, it is the simple stuff that is often offering the most complex benefits. If you’re new to yoga, research the variety of DVD’s, classes in your neighborhood and of course, local practitioners that can help you learn more.
by Dr. G. Pepper | May 5, 2009 | general health & nutrition, health, misc, stress
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- cold sore
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- dancing raisin
One of the best euphemisms ever for the “gift that keeps on giving” if you ask me. But! Cold sores are just as easy to prevent and heal in a natural way as they are to freak out about!
One of the easiest ways to treat an existing breakout:
Avoid acidic situations: spicy foods, tomato products, hardcore toothpaste/mouthwash, coffee, alcohol, processed sugars. Now I’m not saying to stay away from these forever, but just as you’re healing.
Rub a raisin in your mouth: at the end of your day, after brushing your teeth gently, rinse your mouth completely with warm sea salt water (1/2 tsp per 80z). Then rub a raisin around in your fingers until it’s soft. Now split the raisin and apply the open side to the sore for 15-20 minutes. This can be repeated for 2-3 nights until it’s gone.This is of course easiest on a cold sore that’s on the inside of the mouth, but you can apply a bit of the raisin mush to a band-aid or use like a lip balm for an external sore. I know I know, NOT the hottest look, but please, you’re embarrassed already, why not? 😉
Raisins have a high iron and potassium content which balances out the acidic environment that cold sores love.
Preventing more breakouts:
Discover L-lysine:
The amino acid l-lysine, one of the key essential amino acids (meaning we have to get it from our diet) to fight, minimize and prevent viral herpes (sorry, that’s the real name for cold sores!) is a nutrient you can easily find in supplement form. It also comes naturally in foods, but brewer’s yeast is a unique food with a high lysine content. (sorta like vegan powdered cheese…sorta)
If you’re taking the supplement form, make sure to take at least 1250mg per day when you feel it coming on, and then back down to lower levels once you’ve been breakout free for a while. Also remember to consume plenty of Vitamin C, Zinc and Bioflavinoids (from a good multi-vitamin or better from dark leafy veggies) when taking this supplement to support it’s benefits.
by Maya Sarkisyan | Dec 16, 2008 | health, metabolism, stress
We are in the middle of the holiday season, and for most of us it is also a wonderful and stressful season at the same time. We travel, host friends and relatives, throw big parties, attend big parties, eat delicious meals, indulge in entertainment venues, and so on. Sometimes our plans don’t work out quite as we expect and we get stressed and anxious.
As you already know, stress impacts metabolic functions in your body. It happens for a good reason of survival, as our nature to survive activates body’s basic ability to run for your life when stressful events happen. You will digest food and absorb your nutrients later when you are safe and out of danger. This is the basic survival mechanism. It is often not how much and what you eat and drink during these few holiday weeks, but how you eat, in what mood, and for what reason. Of course, if you already have issues with your metabolism, you should watch your diet however stress amplifies the damage while it doesn’t have to.
Holidays is a good time to apply any stress reduction techniques you already know – meditation, self-hypnosis, Epsom salt baths, aromatherapy, massage, and anything else you know. I would like to share with you two stress reduction techniques you can apply instantaneously so you will be able to dissipate the upcoming negative emotion.
1. www.emofree.com – Emotional Freedom Technique – EFT. Easy to practice it helps you to relax within seconds and neutralizes emotion, pain, or negative thought. Being so easy to learn and practice, it became one of the most widespread practices. You can do it anywhere – in the airplane, in your car, at your house, at the restaurant bathroom, etc. EFT process can be briefly described as tapping on specific face and body points while speaking out loud the affirmation of your choice. At first it looks unusual, but soon you will get used to it and enjoy the results it brings.
It is absolutely FREE to learn, and you can get materials and watch videos online. We can thank Gary Craig, EFT founder and wonderful person, for creating the system and making it so available.
2. Practice dissociating yourself from negative memories. For example, you are expecting visitors you associate some negative memories with. Even thought of seeing them makes your heart beat faster, and you get irritated. You can do the following to free yourself of this feeling. While sitting comfortably, close your eyes and vividly remember last time you had a confrontation with them. Do you see yourself in that memory as it is a movie, or you see everything around you from your own eyes? If you see everything around you in that memory, the chances are you are fully associated with it and reliving these emotions all over again. It is possible to change your emotional charge by simply changing the perception of this memory. Close your eyes again and watch this event as a movie with you playing one of the roles. See yourself in this movie. Now move it farther away from you on a TV distance and make it black and white – just like an old movie. Play with the distance, color, and/or quality, and move it farther or closer. Notice how your emotions are changing. Now, in your imagination, install a glass door between you and that movie. Notice how your emotions dissipate. This way you can override negative emotions associated with old memories. You can repeat this exercise a few more times with other memories associated with your upcoming visitors. After a while, you will be surprised to find yourself much calmer when your visitors arrive.
by Gary Pepper M.D. | Mar 21, 2007 | health, hormones, metabolism, misc, nutrition, stress
A published study confirms what has been suspected for some time, which is that men in the Boston area over the past two decades are showing declining levels of testosterone (male hormone), in their blood. Over twenty years the average testosterone level in these men dropped from 501 to 391. Many experts regard a testosterone lower than 300 to be abnormally low and possibly needing testosterone replacement treatment. One of the scientists on the study, Dr. Thomas Travison states that when comparing testosterone levels in Boston men from 1987 to 2005 a decline in the testosterone level in every adult age group was found over this time. The researcher stated that the speed with which the levels of male hormone declined over the twenty years and the uniformity of the decline in all age groups was cause for concern.
It is known that testosterone levels decline slowly as men age. Declining male hormone levels were found even in the 45 to 71 year age range, however. Other known causes of declining testosterone levels, the growing incidence of obesity and sedentary life style in Boston men, did not explain the findings, say the researchers.
Could other factors be at work here? Alcohol has a powerful effect on male hormone levels for many reasons. Some alcohol products like bourbon and beer may have estrogen (female hormone) like plant products in them. Liver disease from excess alcohol consumption can also reduce the level of male hormone. Other drugs may have a negative effect on male hormone production such as cannabis (marijuana, Mary Jane, pot, herb, weed, splif, ganja, the bomb, the shit etc.). Although not nearly as wide spread in its use are the opiate type drugs, heroine, methadone, opium, codeine, hydrocodone etc. which can severely depress male hormone levels.
Environmental pollutants are known to cause adverse hormonal effects in men. Pollutants such as PCB’s and DDT act like female hormone and could reduce a man’s testicular function (the testicle is the site of testosterone and sperm production in men). Even herbal products can have anti-male hormone effect such as soy, black cohosh, and white clover. Perhaps the Boston men are being exposed to these influences more now then in the past and the result is sinking male hormone levels.
Before concluding that Boston men are simply pot smoking, beer drinking, soy eating effeminate couch potatoes, the authors of the study call for additional research into the possible origins of this serious loss of virility hormone in the Boston area.
Gary Pepper M.D.
Editor-in-Chief
metabolism.com
