Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Understanding Brain Health

Did you know your nerves are these really cool message transport systems? They work in scales of thousandths of seconds (milliseconds). The brain is a trillion nerve cells working together.

Your brain (nerves) needs 3 things to stay healthy:
1. Oxygen- remember we can go weeks without food, days without water, but only minutes without oxygen.
2. Glucose- sugar is the brain's favorite food. There have even been some recent research articles that suggest the brain may be able to produce insulin. Talk about really wanting that sugar.
3. Activation- the old "use it or lose it" is really true. The coolest part is that 90% of the signals into the brain (activation of nerve pathways) comes from "midline"- eyes, nose, ears, and SPINE.

So how do you activate the most nerves? By doing the largest variety of things that you can. Do crossword puzzles, do picture puzzles, listen to music (new stuff, too not just familiar songs), and MOVE.

Move arms and legs and most importantly your backbone! Spend 8 minutes on a wobble chair daily. Do 3 minutes of neck traction. Make sure the joints of the neck are moving properly by getting adjusted. In the spine, the closer you get to the head the higher the concentration of nerve endings.

Not sure if your backbone is moving correctly? Call me or stop by.

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Little Things That Make a Big Difference: Salt

I am going to share something VERY controversial. I use salt.

I like the taste and what it adds to my food. I am not woried about high blood pressure because of it. In fact- in my own "case study" it lowered my blood pressure from 140/90 to 117/75.

I do use a specific kind of salt- they are not all the same. It MUST BE electrolyte balanced, non-chemically tampered, unheated, unprocessed in any way other than literally grinding it to the desired size. There are only 2 that I know of that fit this requirement. One is RealSalt (available in my office) and the other is Himalayan Pink.

Not sure about this? After all we have all been thumped on repeatedly about the dangers of salt. Consider that in a hospital when they hook an IV into someone they don't use pure water. They use saline solution. Can we say SALT WATER?

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Little Things That Make a Big Difference: Water

Did you know that your body is more than 70% water? The discs are as much as 90%! Water is so vital for every function in the body that it even has a rationing system for when we don't drink enough. The 1st system to dry up is the muscles and joints (musculoskeletal system). This means increased aches and pain. The next to suffer is the gut and digestive tract. Finally, the nervous system loses out resulting in headaches, dizziness, even coma and death. Think of the morning after a night of heavy drinking. A hangover is really dehydration in a massive way.

How much should you drink? Most adults need half the body's weight in ounces. So, if you weigh 160lbs- drink half that or 80 ounces of water- each day. Yes, you will be in the restroom a lot more but only at first. Within 2 or 3 days most people get used to the increase and the peeing slows down.

Unfortunately, coffee, tea, and soda don't count towards your water. They actually make it worse. There are some "green" drinks that can help in a big way. That gets us into a discussion of pH and that is another post.

Saturday, December 5, 2009

Website construction

Thanks for your patience as our new website is getting up and running. Keep watching for health tips and little things that make a big difference in your health.