Detoxify Your Brain While Sleeping!

You are probably familiar with your lymphatic system, simply because you can feel many of your lymph nodes, especially when they are swollen!   In addition to protecting your body against infection by producing white blood cells, your lymphatic system also serves as your drainage network. Lymph contains lymphocytes and also waste products and cellular debris together with bacteria and proteins. You can see how important the lymphatic system is to detoxification!  Homeopathic drainage remedies have been around for a long time and we also know that exercise/movement aids in supporting the movement of the lymph. Jumping on a mini rebounder is one of the best ways to support your lymphatic system!

A few years ago, scientific research finally confirmed that the brain also has a drainage system.  This drainage system is now officially named the glymphatic system.  The glymphatic system is most active while we are sleeping deeply.  It drains toxins and debris while we are fast asleep. Among the debris it removes is beta amyloid protein. The less sleep we get, the less beta amyloid clearance.  In fact, a recent study showed that just one night of sleep deprivation resulted in a significant increase in amyloid beta in the brain.

Tempted to cut your sleep short working late, watching Netflix, or engaging in a late night social media binge?  Think twice about cutting back on sleep if you want to take good care of your brain. As mentioned above, the less sleep you get, the less beta amyloid clearance.  And you don’t want a build- up of beta amyloid in the brain.  Unfortunately, a build-up of beta amyloid in the brain in susceptible people first targets the part of the brain that regulates sleep, resulting in a vicious cycle!

So if good sleep hygiene is not a part of your lifestyle, make sleep a priority today to save your brain.  I have written a lot on the importance of sleep: our entire body regenerates while we sleep and important hormones like growth hormone are secreted while we sleep.  And now we know that our brain detoxifies while we sleep too!   Wow!!

Grilling This Summer? HOW You Cook Impacts Your Health From the Inside Out!

You have most likely heard the phrase: We are what we eat.  And maybe you have also heard the phrase: We are what we absorb and digest.  After all, it is true that you can eat healthy and nourishing foods, but if you are not absorbing and properly digesting the foods, you will not benefit from their nutritional value.  Have you heard this one?  We are HOW we cook our foods.  With the grilling season now upon us, this is a timely post.

How you cook your foods has an impact on your health and longevity.  Foods cooked using high heat in the absence of water, such as browned and sugary foods (think baked goods), processed foods, grilled meats, roasted turkey, and high heat stir fries form high amounts of toxic compounds called Advanced Glycation End Products (AGEs for short), and they literally do age you.  These toxic compounds accumulate in the tissues of the body, leading to low grade inflammation and oxidative stress, which accelerates the aging process from the inside out.  Your skin wrinkles, your joints ache, but what’s worse is high levels of AGEs cause your internal organs to age as well.

These AGEs have such an impact on our health that the A.G.E. Foundation’s goal is to have AGE levels recognized as a health marker, just like cholesterol, blood pressure, and BMI markers!

What can you do to lower your AGE levels?  Try to cook with water as often as possible, using steaming, stewing (crock pot is great), poaching, and boiling over grilling, roasting, and frying.  Water based cooking methods dramatically decrease AGEs.  But we all love to grill during the summer months, right?  A good tip: marinate your meat or chicken in lemon juice, vinegar, or another acidic substance before grilling to reduce the formation of the AGEs.  And eat lots of fruits and vegetables which are naturally low in AGEs and also provide lots of antioxidants to combat the oxidative stress caused by AGEs!  So indulge in a colorful salad to go along with your grilled chicken or steak!

The Energy Cycle: How to Get Back Your Get-Up-And-Go: Part 4— Toxins and Preservatives

In part one of this 7-part blog series, you read about “Processed Foods, Food Sensitivities and Food Allergies.” In part two, it was “Caffeine and Sleep Quality.” Part three covered “Stress and Fatigue.” Now this post discusses how your get-up-and-go is being stolen from under you every day by “Toxins and Preservatives.”

Certainly, you just can’t ignore common toxins, such as preservatives in foods, chemicals, industrial pollutants, and heavy metals like mercury. These all take a toll on your energy levels, especially if you are not doing a good job of getting rid of these toxins from your body.

One of the primary organs of detoxification, is the liver. But, if the liver becomes overburdened from years of toxin overload, it is less efficient at doing its job.  This can cause a buildup of toxins in your body, especially in your fat stores. An issue that I will discuss in the next blog post in this 7-part series, which will also cover exercise and endocrine imbalance.

The immediate question is how do you detoxify and help the liver do its job more efficiently?

To help get back your get-up-and-go, a three week cleanse program is an ideal place to start. It can immediately help detoxify your body and get back your get-up-and-go.

To learn more about how a 3-week cleanse can help you, CLICK HERE.