Health & Vitality - My Ongoing Search

It's the end of July.  Tomorrow, August 1st, marks the halfway point between the summer solstice and the fall equinox.  How has half the summer already passed so quickly?  Already, the leaves at the top of the trees outside our building are starting to fade, beginning to have a slightly yellow tone rather than the deep lush green of just a few weeks ago.  On a small weak or dying branch, the leaves have already changed to a rusty color. A welcome cooler breeze is blowing through our windows today, after several days of high heat.  The nights are longer now and starting to cool down more, which is also welcome for those of us who like to keep our windows open.  Sunrises are noticeably later to us early risers too. I take pleasure in the refreshing breeze and in the beginning of the harvest season.  Summer squash are ready and I have enjoyed some local yellow zucchini and lettuce.  Other crops will be later to mature due to our cool, wet spring ...

One of the daily focus audios which I use to prompt my direction guided us today to not get caught up in chaotic energy.  Good advice, I think for any day, but some days we are more prone to it than others.  It reminded me of how easily I can get swept away in just about any form of chaos, if I allow myself to become immersed in it. It seems like I keep blaming our culture and media for so many of our woes.  Yes, they are a mighty influence on us.  Drama of almost any kind is heavily promoted, mainly because it sells things.  Our economy thrives by letting us know about problems created, either by others, the world, or ourselves, to name just a few.  These problems need solutions.  Solutions, in the form of any thing that will make us feel better, are what sells.  What makes us feel better, if only temporarily, might be shopping for clothes, buying a new car or eating some kind of yummy fast food.  It can be so many things, really. The tr...

In one or two other posts, I've made reference to a few of the supplements I take to support my health and wellness.  Because I, and a small number of other friends, talk frequently about what we do to positively influence the direction of our well-being in this way, it is not uncommon for us to be asked 'What should I take for...?' Despite all the newer evidence of the beneficial effects of supplementing our diets with vitamins or other nutritional components, this remains a very controversial topic.  The majority of family doctors would still likely tell you that there is absolutely no need to take vitamins or supplements unless some of your lab work shows you have a significant deficiency.  That's definitely one way to go for your guidance.  The most typical recommendations from that approach would likely be for things like Vitamin B12 or iron.  Bear in mind though, that physicians receive very little education in nutrition, unless they choose to do it on t...

The Mayan civilization is known to have been very advanced in mathematics and science.  They also recognized the observable natural cycles of the body, along with those of the natural world, and created different calendars for different purposes as a result.  Their concept of time was also cyclical, and related to movements of the planets, the moon and the sun. Our bodies are known to function on a circadian rhythm, primarily based on the influence of daylight and darkness.  Our internal clock is located in a nucleus of the brain, near the crossing of the optic nerves.  This tells us how important the influence of daylight is for us.  Related to sleep, more melatonin is secreted when it's dark, to signal the brain to sleep.  Melatonin is suppressed when daylight occurs. We might usually think of our sleep/wake cycles first when we consider circadian rhythm, but it affects other functions too.  There is an interplay between the influence of light an...

Past the nine month mark now, it feels like an appropriate time for me to review why I'm doing this blog challenge, and especially on this theme of my ongoing search for health and vitality.  It seems to me that I've been on some kind of self-improvement path or other most of my life.  At different stages of life, the focus has simply shifted. First, it was to be a better kid, then a better student.  After that it was being a better employee, a better wife, a better mother.  Interspersed in there add a better church member, a better committee member and a better helper to others in need.  Those mostly provided my focus and goals in the first 40 years of my life.  Since then, a lot of those were ongoing, some dropped in my fifties, and the direction shift to more personal development, health and wellness has been primary. For a lot of my life it seemed as if I were seeking some end goal that would provide the satisfaction of having made it, ... somewhere...

I swiped most of that title from a summit presentation that I watched about the benefits of exercise. I'm incorporating some ideas from it as well as tips from other experts in today's writing.  The truth is, that most of us don't get enough, though exercise is one of the most powerful ways to impact and maintain our health. Our bodies are genetically designed to be active and to interact with the world around us throughout the day.  However, our modern lifestyle has made us very sedentary.  Most of us sit for many, many hours of the day in one situation or another and would benefit from an increase in almost any type of movement. Dr. Alan Christianson, a naturopathic doctor, reminds us that the key is to keep our body moving.  Our blood gets thick and stagnant when we don't.  We need muscle movement in addition to our heart pumping to keep all our fluids circulating well.  When we sit for longer than 45 minutes at a time, our brain productivity goes do...

Think about a time when you were in a lot of physical pain.  For me, that would be the labor pain when having a baby.  It was extremely intense for short periods and then eased until the next round.  At least I knew it was time limited.  That's acute pain.  Then, there is the more sustained kind of pain which lasts longer, like post-operative pain.  I had quite a bit of that after a Cesarean section, but it also eventually eased up.  The most distressing pain is chronic pain, which seems never-ending and creates a sense of anxiety and despair in the one suffering. Our perception of pain is important, because in a way it defines how much we will suffer.  For example, delivering a baby is very painful, but knowing we are bringing our child into the world eases the situation, somewhat at least.  For one of my labors, I had an epidural because of intense back pain.  Then, I felt no pain at all, which was actually rather strange, especially...

Recently, while visiting at my friend's home, we watched a wonderful documentary about John Lennon and Yoko Ono, entitled Above Us Only Sky.  It was about the part of John Lennon's life immediately following the break up of The Beatles.  There was lots of film footage about his move to the countryside, to get away from the hectic city life and the whole rock star experience. There was also a lot of emphasis on how John reshaped his life by building a recording studio there where he could write and record from his own perspective, with whichever musicians of his choice.  There were many interview excerpts with these musicians and others who aided in this process.  Also very informative were various clips of interviews with John and Yoko together. Two themes that really struck me about this film were, firstly, how John was reclaiming his lost self, and secondly, how key and supportive Yoko was to that process. As someone who was in my late teen years when this wa...

Food is information for the body.  It communicates with our genes, cells, and systems to influence how everything works in tandem.  What we eat is a very big factor in how our metabolism works.  Metabolism is a complex series of interactions which includes hormones and nutrients from food, among other things. Insulin is a hormone.  It is a growth hormone, a storage hormone which enhances our ability to store energy in fat.  When we eat, our blood glucose goes up.  It is the job of insulin to escort it into our systems.  The ideal is for most of it to be transported to muscles where it will be used for fuel.  The other two main places are to the liver, where it is stored as glycogen, or into our fatty tissues.  Also interesting is, that the memory center of the brain, the hippocampus, needs a lot of insulin for its working energy. Ironically, the more forms of sugar we eat, and the higher the blood levels of glucose and insulin, the less i...

If you're still with me, exploring the map of our health and wellness journey, thank you.  I realize health information can seem repetitive and tedious.  The ideal might seem appealing, but we don't quite know what to choose or how it will all play out. So, here's an idea for a single approach you can try that will benefit many areas.  It's meditation.  I know, I've written about it before, but bear with me.  I just read an article that was referring to the many researched benefits.  Maybe reading about some of those here will entice you to give meditation a try if it has not yet appealed to you. Here are just some.  Mental benefits of meditation include:  increasing ability to focus, make decisions and solve problems;  improves memory;  boosts mood via increased serotonin production.  Physical benefits of meditation include:  helping moderate heart rate and breathing rate;  reducing blood pressure;  boosting the ...

There has been some public awareness campaigning by the Heart and Stroke Foundation in very recent years, about how heart disease presents in women.  It's a topic of interest to me, because of my family history and my own risk factors. Some of the risk factors are different for women, due to our hormonal make up.  There is a protective factor from estrogen before menopause.  After that, our risk increases.  There can also be increased risk earlier, related to how we experience pregnancy.  For example, I experienced pre-eclampsia, very high blood pressure, in the third trimester of my first pregnancy, requiring premature delivery of the baby.  Apparently, this event puts me at higher risk of heart disease throughout life. Most research on heart disease and treatment has been done on men.  However, women's hearts and arteries are smaller and more prone to blockages from clots.  There is also a cardiac event called SCAD (spontaneous coronary arte...

One of the exciting things about health and wellness research is, that it is teaching us how much influence we can actually have.  Perhaps we used to think that you either get some disease or other, or you don't and that there's not much you can do about it but to treat it when it happens.  Now we are learning that, in the case of many chronic illnesses, we do indeed have the ability to not only manage them but to prevent them in the first place. I can remember my parents health conditions of arthritis, late onset diabetes and heart disease, for example, mainly being treated with medication, the recommendation to stop smoking and maybe some cursory dietary suggestions.  Overall, they seemed to believe it was just something they would have to live with and suffer from until they died.  In a way they considered it a normal progression of aging. Now, we have learned so much more about how our bodies work and what can either set us up as a candidate for disease, or, ...

Alzheimer's disease is not just caused or diagnosed based on the presence of amyloid plaque or neuronal tangles in the brain.  There are many factors involved in both the development of the disease process and the diagnosis.  Diagnosis is multifaceted and requires an experienced clinician to interpret a variety of test results.  These usually include cognitive and memory tests, different kinds of lab tests and brain imaging.  Once a diagnosis is made, the medical treatments currently available address the symptoms rather than the disease process.  Even drugs that might remove the amyloid do not stop the disease progress or improve the long term outcome. Why don't the drugs cure the condition?  It's because there are many factors involved, and the medications are only addressing one.  This does not mean that drugs might not be helpful in the future, but they need to be in combination with a personalized program that addresses all the other risk factor...

Our brains make us who we are as human beings.  They allow us to express our personality and emotions.  They give us the ability to think, act and function in our day to day lives.  Yet, we often take all that for granted until things are not working so well. Brain disease, and particularly dementia and Alzheimer's disease is now epidemic around the world.  In the U.S. alone, 5.5 million people have been diagnosed with Alzheimer's and numbers are expected to increase exponentially in the coming years.  This disease causes not only a physical and cognitive burden for the one who is diagnosed, but also an economic, emotional and family burden for all involved in care-giving. Treatment of the physically evident disease processes in the brain, once the damage of Alzheimer's has been done, has not been very successful at all.  That is why focusing on prevention becomes so important. You might be thinking that it's an inevitable disease, mostly genetically ...

There is something about summer time that feels spacious.  Maybe it has to do with the outdoors being more welcoming, or windows being open with refreshing breezes blowing through, at least on cooler days.  Even though, with hot, sultry days, we might not be moving too energetically in a physical way, there is also a sense of more movement in summer.  Maybe it has to do with the sheer volume of natural change that occurs in this season.  For example, the mature bare trees which I wrote about just a few months ago, are so lush and full that I cannot see through them now. In any case, warm, breezy days conjure up in me a visual of relaxing on a lounge chair, daydreaming.  For at least brief periods, I can empty my mind, imagining the expansiveness of a quiet beach on a large waterfront.  It is calming and restorative.  There is nowhere to be, nothing to do, just rest, as referred to in yesterday's post, like that pebble sitting on a riverbed.  Lov...

A few different articles from a Buddhist newsletter provided inspiration for this theme.  Rest, in its true sense, can be hard to come by.  That is because struggling has become our usual habit.  But, our minds will not truly settle if our bodies do not.  Three different writers suggest interesting approaches to this dilemma. Sister Chan Khong, a Buddhist nun, suggests a relaxation practice called mindfulness of the body in the body.  It is a practice of visiting every part of the body with awareness, acceptance, care and non-judgment. Begin first by becoming aware of your breath and your connection to the earth.  This can be in whatever position is comfortable to you.  Next, do a body scan with gratitude, bringing awareness and relaxation to each part of your body, from head to toes.  You can make this more limited for just a short practice.  Then, let go into deep relaxation.  If you nod off, don't resist.  The sleep experienc...

By now, most of us likely agree that there are energy fields both within and around our body.  Although we usually consider the body to be made up of solid, liquid and gas components, if we think of it as states of matter, we could also consider the additional states of plasma and ether.  Around our body, we have a biofield.  It is a toroidal field, a geomagnetic field, with a central rotational axis and energy looping around to outer boundaries on either side and then back through the center. Eileen McKusick, an American practitioner, does what she calls biofield tuning.  She has been experimenting with, studying and practicing using tuning forks to create a sound/vibrational effect on the human biofield for 23 years.  She describes our biofield as magnetic and the effect of tuning fork sound as resonating with what is present in our field. In a systematic manner, she has mapped areas of the biofield and learned to recognize distortions in it by the sound t...

In a previous post, I discussed the concept of cravings.  Today's post will explore a bit further strategies for consideration when we wake up to the reality that our behaviors are harming more than helping us, when we are seeking healing.  Inspiration comes from a couple of presentations I listened to online. It seems that I circle in my writing around issues of body, mind and spirit.  I suppose that's because they are all interconnected and all of them relate to our experience of health and vitality.  We all have habits which keep us from being our best selves, usually in a form of overdoing, in anything really.  When that habit is what is guiding our day, it's time to consider recovery.  Each of us has our own kind of wake up call. One way to approach recovery from a dysfunctional pattern, is to look at the story we have created to justify our behavior.  The story we tell or believe can either set us on a healing path, or keep us in our escape m...

When we think about protein and muscle, the first image that may come to mind is a young athlete or body builder.  We might not have considered the role of protein in maintaining or building muscle as we age. There has been lots of emphasis in recent years on decreasing our carbohydrate intake.  As well, many, including me, have recommended increasing our intake of healthy fats to support our physical function.  Fat remains a controversial nutrient for many.  So, while all the controversy continues over fat and carbohydrates, a discussion of protein has been given lower priority. When I was eating a ketogenic type diet, the proportion of fats was supposed to be higher than protein and carbs were to be the lowest proportion.  I got used to measuring my portions, usually eating only a few ounces of protein, for example with dinner.  I'm no longer following that diet or measuring portions, but I did get used to smaller portions of protein. Protein has al...

I recently came across a very informative booklet in a waiting room, which greatly impressed me regarding resources available in my community.  It is called Dementia Program Guide.  This very well designed magazine guide is a coordinated effort of four different organizations.  It's purpose is to inform those diagnosed with various types of dementia, their care partners and families, of support resources available to them. I was aware of a few services that exist, such as adult day programs and support groups for spouses.  Several residents of our apartment building use those services regularly.  But, there is much more than that. There are quite a variety of resources tailored to different stages.  For the categories of mild cognitive impairment, early stage dementia, middle stage dementia and late stage dementia, there are educational sessions, support programs and recreation opportunities. As we age, our thinking processes slow down, due to changes...

I've finished the book, Bolder by Carl Honoré, and have had more of my own ageist thinking challenged.  We are living in a time when the world is a much better place for seniors, and will only continue to get better.  To help with a more positive shift, we need to change how we speak, think and behave about ageing.  A good place to start is by stopping use of the typical clichés and phrases, like 'senior moment', 'for your age' and referring to someone as 'still' doing something, all of which I have been guilty of using. We are all just people, living in the world at whatever age we are, doing what we do.  Yes, there are various kinds of declines as we age, but research is showing that there are lots of positives too.  For example, we mind less what other people think.  We get better at being present and in the moment.  Life can get smaller but also more carefully honed for quality.  What's important is to find the right balance in what we do, a...

We are in the second Mercury Retrograde of this year.  It started on July 8th and lasts until the end of the month.  There will be one more this year in November.  Since I'll be finished this blog challenge before then, I've decided to write about it now.  Mercury Retrograde tends to get a bad rap, particularly for influencing mechanical, technology and scheduling glitches.  Many people have come to dread the few times a year that it occurs.  My husband, who recently retired from his computer technician role, used to notice an increase in computer problems of his customers during this time. However, there is a more positive spin to be taken on these times.  When Mercury is in Retrograde, it's a great time to slow down, step back and do anything that starts with re-.  For example, it's a great time to review, reconsider and reorganize in any area of your life.  When we take this stance, we can actually be re-energized during this period, ins...

Psychiatry has not been having great success in treating many types of mental illness.  Many of the typical diagnoses of depression, anxiety, addiction, and obsession are thought to perhaps be a sort of malfunction of the area of the brain referred to in the last post, the default mode network.  They might be considered products of a stuck brain caught in patterns of rumination. Mental illness causes huge suffering and is also a massive cost to society.  Incidence is only increasing year by year and medicine is not becoming any more effective at treating it.  New tools and innovations are needed. Various private mental health practitioners have been experimenting with clients for some time using psychedelics to reset the brain and open the mind up to a new way of thinking about behavior change.  Now, through private funding, there are some FDA approved studies happening at some American universities to study the effects of psychedelics paired with psychother...

An extremely interesting podcast interview fueled inspiration for what will be a two part post on the topic of psychedelic assisted psychotherapy.  What the heck am I talking about?  It's about the use of plant or other natural substances in conjunction with professional psychological treatment. There is a universal desire to change consciousness.  Every culture has used substances for this purpose and to relieve pain for thousands of years.  In shamanic cultures, it has been considered a spiritual experience.  From the North American perspective it is considered more from a psychodynamic perspective. Research in the use of psychedelics was very active in the 1950's and 1960's in the U.S.  It was even a form of therapy used by some psychiatrists.  In fact, Bill W., of AA origin fame, had LSD psychiatric therapy in the 1950's after he first quit drinking.  He wanted to recommend it as part of the program that was developing but was discouraged ...

There is a lot of ageism in our culture.  Thankfully, it is beginning to be challenged more via changing portrayals of older people in advertising and various kinds of media.  The tendency in the past has been to portray seniors as more alone, less happy and more sedentary.  Those images reinforce stereotypes. But now, more influencers are realizing that these stereotypes need to be challenged and that there is an audience of seniors wanting their lives to be represented in more diverse ways.  Marketers of products are also realizing that the senior demographic tends to have money to spend.  Thus, it is in their best interests to advertise to us in a more appealing way. Many individuals have made their own mark in social media, such as Instagram and YouTube, portraying active, older adults who live interesting lives.  Seniors travel alone, wear cool clothes, ride motorcycles, run obstacle courses and enter dance competitions.  They are not just sit...