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5 Healthy Holiday Tips

December 12, 2016

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Thanksgiving and Christmas. Two of the most exciting days of the year. It’s a time for family to gather together, there are delicious smells coming from the kitchen, the weather is getting colder (well… maybe, if you’re in the right place), and there are all those wonderful holiday traditions. But there is that one annoying little bug hiding in the corner, just waiting to jump out at you.

I know it’s hard to keep looking and feeling your best during these holiday months. There are so many tempting sweets this time of year and with the busy schedule of everyone on the family it is easy to let ourselves go and ignore our body’s warnings. I fall into the trap almost every year. And just about as many times… I end up regretting it. These are special and happy times and it is a shame to let sickness get in the way of enjoying these times with friends and family to the utmost.

Here are a few tips you can try to make this holiday season just a little bit more enjoyable.

1. Stay Hydrated

Drinking water is vital for your health. Being dehydrated weakens your immune system and can make you susceptible to sickness, especially during the holidays when we tend to ignore our bodies amid all the excitement of the season. It’s recommended that you drink half your body weight in water every day… but that is not the only way to stay hydrated. Getting more fruits and vegetables in your diet has many positive impacts on hydration status.

2. Stay Active

Exercising with a busy schedule is tough, but it is key to keeping our muscles strong (and I don’t just mean like Hercules), keeping our shape and giving us energy. Strong muscles and body help keep spasms and back back pain at bay, and help support the rest of the body. It doesn’t take much, a simple 10 minutes a day will help a lot.

3. Get Plenty of Sleep

Recharge! Lack of sleep really puts a strain on your body and weakens you. I can testify to that. Though there is so much to do during the holidays and we may be tempted to stay up just a few more minutes to complete that last task, we might want to listen to our body and leave it for the morrow. Sometimes it is necessary to stay up a little later, we do have responsibilities after all, but it is important that we don’t go overboard and make it a regular habit. Be smart and know when it is time to stay up and finish that project and when it is time to give in to the calling of your bed. 🙂

4. Manage Stress

Stress zaps energy from our bodies and can also cause physical pain (headaches, muscle cramps for example). Take time to relax during the holidays. Breathe and let the hustle and bustle leave your mind. I have found that curling up with a good book or reading passages of scripture will do wonders.

5. Self-Control

Don’t eat every sweet thing set before you. Sugar is your enemy. It can drain your body of all the good nutrients and leave you with a very inflamed and irritated gut. Indulging in a few special treats here and there is OK, but be sure and feed your body the protein and vitamins it needs to help balance glucose and insulin levels. Don’t overdue your dessert portions… and listen to your body! Stop when it tells you.

Believe me, a happy gut and body will treat you well. Though hard at times… it is worth it. 🙂 So what do you say? Ready to chase away the blue Christmas this year? Are you up to the challenge with me?

So let’s talk! What are some ways you have found to help your body make it through the holidays with a smile?

To Stress or Not to Stress, That is the Question

October 2, 2016

Exhausted Man With Headache

Let me share a familiar picture with you.

You are sitting at your desk, trying to get work done. It keeps piling up. You have pressure on you to get it done… and be perfect in every way. On top of this, you have thoughts swirling through your mind about bills you have to pay this week, papers due the next morning for a really important class, and you and your friend’s relationship has so many changes happening, not all good changes. There is this big weight on your shoulders that you can’t seem to escape. At times you feel like you can’t breathe. You slowly go about your tasks each day, feeling low on energy, and rubbing your aching head while you grab some carb-filled, sugary treat.

I bet you can relate to at least one of these scenarios at some point. And I bet we could all name several more… where the outcome is STRESS.

Stress or Relax?

Choosing between stress or relaxation doesn’t seem like a hard decision. After all, who would want to be stressed and feeling horrible all the time, emotionally and physically? But it isn’t easy to dump stress. Something goes wrong at work or you have a tight deadline at school and it returns, begging you to take it back. It can be very persuasive. So hard to resist and even harder to keep away.

It takes energy to resist stress and not let it consume you. It hides in many corners, taking on several forms. It’s easier most times to just give in and not fight it. But at what cost?

We all deal with stress in our every day lives. Stress over school or work, finances, relationships. If we are not careful, it can control our lives and make us and those around us miserable. It also can have serious health effects.

Some are obvious: struggling with sleep, headaches, maybe sometimes you even have a loss of appetite. But some are below the surface and not as noticeable. Stress can increase cortisol and blood sugar levels, upsetting the body’s normal digestion and throwing our thyroid glands and hormones off kilter.

Unfortunately, we can’t live stress free in this world. But before you pull your hair out over worry about all your problems try some of these simple ways to relieve your daily stress.

stress therapy and management helps in relaxation reduce tension

1. Exercise

Get your blood pumping! Exercise is one of the best stress relievers. It releases powerful chemicals in the brain that act as the body’s own painkillers and mood-lifter. Regular exercise regulates the body’s metabolic and psychological processes such as reinforcing moods, blood sugar levels and helping regulate sleep cycles.

2. Diet

If your body doesn’t feel good, neither will your mind. Having a nutrient-dense diet can help your body deal with stress. Consume good foods that contain vitamin B, magnesium, protein and healthy fats. And avoid processed foods and sugars and too much caffeine that can overload your body and suck it of all that it needs to stay healthy.

3. Write

Writing out your problems and thoughts (both positive and negative) and the events of the day on paper can help identify the cause of stress, even when we are unsure. It also helps us to look at it from a third person point of view and perhaps see our stress in ways we don’t normally.

4. Do Something You Enjoy

Distraction from the day’s problems can keep negative and burdening thoughts out of your mind. Give yourself (and your brain) a break, read a book or enjoy a game with some friends or family.

5. Essential Oils

There are certain oils that are capable of reducing inflammation, balancing hormones and improving immunity. They can also help to relax your body and clear your mind, making it easier to sleep (which is an essential in keeping stress under control).

6. Pay/ Read Scripture

I am a big believer in prayer, talking to the One who created the body. It is always best to turn to the Creator. God knows how our bodies work and He knows just how to help us fix the problems. He just wants us to ask. It is also truth that getting the focus off of yourself and your problems and turning our gaze to God, or others, can help with stress. Sometimes we dwell too much on our problems and let them control our minds. Sometimes the best thing for our stress levels is change our perspective.

Detoxing at the Foundation

September 28, 2016

There are many ways people can detox, but I wanted to explain to you how I like to work with my clients to safely detoxify their body.

I customize the detox according to their body’s needs, but there are some major foundational issues that have to be covered in order to do a safe detoxification.

The first stage of detox I want to discuss is the neuroendocrine support. I want to reset the hypothalamus to be able to communicate effectively with the cells. Sometimes we can get a hitch in our get-along and the cells and the hypothalamus are not communicating well. Another thing that is real important is that the cells need to be hydrated. Sometimes we can drink a ton of water and our cells are still extremely dehydrated. Things like splenda, or something in our diet or even a toxin or chemical that we have been exposed to might have an effect on that.

The next part (stage 2) is the digestive support. This is foundational. It needs to be functioning because we are what we digest. So if we are not able to digest food or assimilate, or eliminate it, we have some problems. The body’s ability to digest food is critical to your over all health and your immune system, all of it. So we work on that foundational part at the beginning, as well.

Then we move on to stage 3, filtration and drainage support. And that is like the beginning of the detox. It is gentle and it helps clear out the liver, lymph, kidney and spleen. It also helps clear out the bowels, because we need to be able to get that rain gutter cleared out and flowing. Otherwise the rain is just going to get blocked.

Think about it like this: if you do a detox and your body is not ready to detox, what happens? The toxins move from one organ to another and it gets blocked there. Then you have new symptoms on a new part of your body and none of us want that. We want to feel better, not worse or have new problems. The liver, lymph, kidney, spleen detox is gentle and gets things moving. It’s not something that is going to be deep in the cells, it’s going to be moving and clearing out things that will be in the extra cellular matrix, the fluid that goes around the cells. And we want to help clean those out. The bowels have to be moving, as well. If not, the body will be detoxing through the skin or the sex organs, and that can compromise our ovaries and uterus and can cause problems in that area. We want to make sure that our body is detoxing through the primary pathways of elimination, which are the lungs and large intestines.

I work on stage 1, 2 and 3 at the beginning and stage 4 comes when the body tells me that these are moving and doing the right things. They may not be perfect but they are moving in the right direction, and that is critical.

So stage 4 is eliminating causative factors. This is getting deep into the cells. I use energetic assessments to track and detect frequencies of certain toxins or pathogens and it’s all energetically assessed. There is no diagnosing because I don’t believe diseases are anything but symptoms, and your body’s cry for help is coming because something is in the way. So once we get that thing that is in the way out of the way, your body can take care of the rest. And that is what I want to facilitate and help you do… to get your body to do what God designed it to do. Then we can step out of the way with all our efforts and let the body do what it already knows how to do.

Detoxing. What is it? Why is it Important?

August 31, 2016

Hand Writing Detox Your Body

Most of us don’t connect what we eat to how we feel.

Do you experience constipation, bloating, fatigue, low energy? Have these symptoms become part of your daily life? These could all be signs that your body is loaded with toxins and it is telling you it is in desperate need of a detox.

Detoxing is a way of cleaning the blood of all the toxins that fill it up over time.

A detox can help in many ways. A few ways are by:

Stimulating the liver to drive toxins from the body
Improving circulation of the blood
Promoting elimination through the intestines, kidneys and skin
Refueling the body with healthy nutrients

Detox is not a one size fits all kind of thing. I have several recommendations and how to discover what works best for YOUR body. Watch for more specific details about how I help my clients detox in my practice.

4 Simple Steps to Help Clear and Maintain Healthy Skin

August 21, 2016

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We would all love to have clear, flawless skin, right? But we can never seem to get rid of those annoying wrinkles or those pesky red spots. Just when you get rid of one two more pop up somewhere else. Usually we rush for some treatment we see on a commercial (those people have perfect skin so it must work, right?). But the chemicals in those treatments make our problem worse.

Here are 4 natural tips to try and minimize acne and other other problems and help maintain clear and healthy skin.

1. Stress

Stress causes hormone imbalances which results in many skin problems, such as acne, eczema, hives and psoriasis. Stress hormones increase oil production, which can lead to clogged pores and whiteheads.

Take time each day to relax. Take a walk in nature, soak in a tub, listen to music or read a book. Whatever make you calm down and leave your cares behind you for a while.

2. Eat the Right Foods

A portion of the body’s toxic waste is eliminated through sweating. If the body has more toxins than the kidneys and liver can get rid of effectively, the skin takes over and the toxins escape through the skin. This can disrupt the skin’s health integrity and cause skin disorders.

It may be cliche to read “you are what you eat.” Actually, you are what you digest. What you put into your body that isn’t used well can come out through your skin in the forms of hives, acne and eczema and many other skin disorders. Avoid processed foods, artificial flavors and high amounts of sugar. Be sure and drink plenty of distilled water and consume foods rich in vitamin E, Biotin and antioxidants, such as berries, almonds and salmon.

3. Avoid Chemicals

Using harsh chemicals and dyes can irritate skin follicles and clog pores. This increases acne and many chemicals can also dry out the skin and cause redness. This includes conventional household cleaning products AND your skincare products. It may be time to clean out your skincare routine and check up on the ingredients in your makeups and beauty products.

4. Essential Oils

Essential Oils are a great way to clear and rejuvenate the skin. Most essential oils are gentle on the skin and they get to the root of the problem instead of just treating the symptom. Essential oils have the power to kill the bad bacteria in your skin. Lavender oil also is great for protecting the skin from irritation and soothing stress.

*Not every essential oil used by one person may be the one that is right for you. I recommend testing each one to see what works for you. Bring me your oils and let me teach you muscle testing to discover what oils work for you.

Are Our “Healthy” Foods Truly Healthy?

August 12, 2016

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It is essential to our body’s health that we eat good foods. This, I believe, is something on which we can all agree. But are our “healthy” foods also making us sick?

It is agreed in our nation that we should be getting lots of fruits and vegetables in our diet. That’s healthy, right? But have we actually given much thought to how our fruits and vegetables are grown? And to what goes on them?

For years, the way crops in the U.S. have been grown and harvested to produce more yield and to speed the process of harvesting, has been causing more harm to our bodies than good. Produce grown on conventional farms are sprayed with pesticides and chemicals to kill bugs and make the harvesting process easier. However, those chemicals are killing more than just insects that seek to eat our produce. Those pesticides and chemicals contain the deadly active ingredient: glyphosate. Scientific studies are showing that these chemicals are not only killing the bad bacteria in the soil, but it is also toxic to the good bacteria. Healthy soil repels bugs because it grows at a frequency that bugs cannot digest. When we grow our food in healthy soil with proper PH, we shouldn’t have such a pest problem. And that is what we are putting into our bodies when we eat the foods that have been treated with pesticides and other chemicals.

What To Do?

So how can we avoid all of this in our food? While we may not be able to completely rid ourselves of these chemicals, here are some steps we can take to lessen our exposure to them:

1. Buy Organic When Possible

Though it is more expensive, buying foods such as wheat, berries, apples, grapes, tomatoes, cucumbers, spinach and peppers organically would be a better option.

2. Wash Fruits and Vegetables

When buying conventional fruits and vegetables, be sure and wash them under water, rubbing them with your fingers. This will help to get rid of the residue from the pesticides.

3. Grow Your Own Garden

There are many advantages to growing your own food. It can save you money, and you know where it comes from and can be in control over what is sprayed on it. Though it can be hard to keep bugs away from your garden, there are natural and harmless things you can try. Some farms use Basil oil on their plants to deter little pests.

Something else we can do is to check the sugar content of our produce to see if it is grown properly. Dr. Carey Reams reveals that food grown properly WILL NOT rot, but dehydrate.

References:

draxe.com

foodmatters.com

thehealthyhomeeconomist.com

healthytipsworld.com

5 Essential Oils to Help with Gut Defense

August 10, 2016

Bottles Of Essential Oil Essential oils are one great way to help support many areas your body. Here are five essential oils that you can use to help cleanse your gut and reduce digestive pain.

Not every oil that works for one person is right for your body. I recommend whole body testing to find what is right for you. Bring me your essential oils for me to muscle test, or I can teach you how to do it yourself.

1. Peppermint – Peppermint is an anti-inflammatory oil that calms and relaxes the muscles. It helps reduce bloating and gas.

2. Spearmint – This is another anti-inflammatory oil. Some people don’t react well to peppermint, since it is a strong oil. This is an alternative that you can try.

3. Fennel – For years, Fennel has been used by the Egyptians and Germans as a digestive aid. It can clear the bowels, relieve constipation and help to get rid of gas and bloating.

4. Grapefruit – Stress can cause pain in your gut. Grapefruit is an uplifting oil that can reduce stress and help to relieve some of that gut pain. It is also high in antioxidants that battle bad inflammation in the digestive system.

5. Ginger – It has been used to help relieve nausea, and it also is high in antioxidants to help reduce inflammation in the gut.

These are just a few oils to help in the digestive system. I recommend you talk with your doctor or health care professional before using these, if you are nursing or pregnant.

4 Simple Ways to Get Your Brain and Body in Gear for Each Day’s Adventures

August 2, 2016

Walking Or Running Legs In Forest, Adventure And Exercising

Each day and its events are gifts. New adventures to live and lessons to learn. Fun times to spend with family and friends, or maybe you are working today or going to school. Whatever the day holds for you, you want to be able to have energy to do what you need or want to do, and you want to be able to enjoy it as much as possible. But let’s admit it, there are those days when the alarm goes off in the morning and you just wish you could stay in bed. You can’t seem to get yourself going. You, half asleep, prepare for the day and slowly make it through the list of things to do (or most of them).

We all have many days like that. But how can we avoid them? Well, we can’t always avoid them. But here is the good news: We can help to lessen those days.

Here are some tips that can help you get your brain motivated and make you feel ready and alert for each new adventure.

1. Exercise

Keeping physically active is so important to your body’s health. Your brain included. Exercise increases the heart rate and gets more oxygen pumped to the brain. It also helps to release hormones that aid in the growth of brain cells. It helps us be more awake and alert and eager to get our day accomplished. So take just a few minutes a day to get that heart pumping. Do a few jumping jacks, take a short brisk walk around the block, and get ready for the day!

2. Food

While we know that eating food for fuel is a must, keeping our energy up, eating the right food is essential. The food we eat (and don’t eat) affect every part of our body, and God created foods to help each part. You probably grew up hearing certain foods referred to as “brain food”.

Green leafy vegetables
Salmon
Blueberries
Avocados
Walnuts

These brain foods, rich in antioxidants and good fats, vitamins and minerals can help improve overall brain function and memory and help your body to fight diseases.

3. Rest and Sleep

A well rested brain keeps the body functioning efficiently. We all know that when we are well rested we perform our duties much better and we are better equipped to tackle the day’s “To Do List”. Sleep has also been known to enhance memory and help improve performance of challenging skills. You are also better equipped to fight sickness. So let your brain relax at the end of the day. Clear your mind of stress and events from the day and get plenty of sleep.

4. Prayer and Bible Reading

What better way to get a healthy brain than to go to its Creator! Take all your stress and the things that clutter and slow her brain down and talk to God about them. Ask Him for help in clearing your mind and trusting Him with everything you worry about. He wants you to have a healthy brain, too.