True Health Herbal:
Medicinal Plant Uses, Healthy Diets and Health Information.
Healing the world,
one person at a time
The healthcare system in the United States is flawed, but an effective form of affordable health care is available to everyone. Medicine in the form of herbs and food is all around us. When trying to maintain a healthy lifestyle in our modern, polluted world, good information on healthy diet and medicinal plant uses are important. Knowing which plant, fungi, or mineral to use is important, and nutrition also plays a key role in maintaining vital energy and true health. I will try to pass on herbal information and diet information that will enable you to maintain and improve your health.
Stress
So many of us suffer from the affects of stress, I feel like a broken record when I talk about how prolonged stress can affect the body. Of course, this explanation is very simplified. When under stress, the body's fight or flight or freeze mechanism shuts down digestion, immunity and many other systems to enable the body to run or fight or hide. It also changes the levels of hormones in your system. Constant stress can lead to chronic fatigue, adrenal burnout, low gut enzymes, low gut serotonin, dysbiosis (an incorrect ratio of intestinal flora), insulin resistance, high blood pressure, and an elevation of inflammation and allergies. Anyway, lowering your stress levels through diet, exercise, herbs and supplements, meditation, laughing, good deeds, etc. is very important to your health and the health of your digestive system. Any caffeine should be avoided when trying to reduce stress as it stimulates the sympathetic nervous system and your adrenal glands thus increasing your stress reaction.
A Good Night's Sleep
The major cause of insomnia is insufficient amounts of melatonin. Melatonin is our bodies' natural sleep aid. Because our bodies use serotonin to produce melatonin, low serotonin can lead to sleep, digestive and mental disorders. 95% of your serotonin is found in your gut. Research has shown that eating even 10% animal protein in your diet can lower your gut serotonin levels, but eating plant protein doesn't seem to have the same serotonin lowering effect. Trytophan is used by the body to make serotonin. High complex carbohydrates raise gut serotonin levels by raising tryptophan levels, so eating lots of veggies and fruits will help raise serotonin. But don't eat sugar! Sugar releases insulin and pushes the tryptophan we need to make serotonin into the brain, which makes us feel good, but also makes us crave more sugar and good feelings. We need the tryptophan to stay in the gut. Low Serotonin causes cravings so be sure to keep it high by eating complex carbohydrates when you are trying to diet. A lack of sleep is linked to weight gain (now we know one of the reasons why) and a decrease in immunity.
Serotonin makes Melatonin with the help of sunlight. A 15-20 minute walk in the morning sunshine will help your night's sleep. Melatonin is a neurotransmitter that varies levels in a daily cycle. It helps control your sleeping and waking clock. Small amounts are found in rice, fruits and veggies. When it starts to get dark, melatonin levels rise and stay high until light. Serotonin converts to melatonin when it gets dark and stays high in the sunlight. That is why it is important to walk in the morning sun and sleep in a completely dark room at night. If you don't get enough sunlight, melatonin stays too high during the day and serotonin remains too low, causing a really bad cycle of depression, grouchiness, and fatigue during the day and sleeplessness at night. So try Melatonin with an herbal sleepy tea, 1/2 hour before you go to bed. Don't turn on the lights when you go to bed or the bathroom at night.
Stress hormones such as adrenalin and cortisol can interfere with the synthesis of serotonin from tryptophan and then, of course melatonin. So you can see the vicious cycle of stress, not just the stress hormones stopping serotonin, but also the eating of high sugar foods to calm yourself...say ice cream. Ice cream has milk ie: tryptophan, but the insulin increase from the sugar causes the tryptophan to go to the brain (signaling good feelings), and losing tryptophan from the gut. Losing the tryptophan in the gut stops the serotonin metabolism and subsequently lowers the melatonin levels. This causes another sleepless night.
Try the melatonin and the tea. Sleep in a completely dark room before 11:00 pm, if you can. Use ear plugs so you don't wake up from noises including your snoring. Eat veggie proteins to increase tryptophan in your gut. Stay away from sugar!
Make a sleep ritual like you would for a child, baby yourself! Take a bath with a natural aromatic oil scent that you like (lavender, chamomile, sandal wood) . Put on soft music. Give each other rubdowns with the natural oil. Sleep is the first step to losing weight, fatigue, depression and mental confusion. Serotonin needs plenty of B Vitamins (complex and B6), zinc, magnesium and Vit. D from sunlight to convert to melatonin. If you find that you need more help to get to sleep, then you can try herbs but only if you are not taking prescription drugs like antidepressants or sleep aids. Oh, one more thing...your nasal decongestants and caffeine cause insomnia.
Quick tricks to improve your diet
Eat at home.
Statistics show that restaurants and fast food shops serve foods higher in fats and calories than those we cook at home. Don’t want to cook every night? Cook more than enough each night, freeze the leftovers, and have a leftovers night once a week. Have a potluck with friends once a week and share the cooking. Best of all, ask the people in your house to help, either to take a night to cook or to help by washing and chopping veggies, setting the table and washing up the dishes. Sharing the load really helps.
Choose whole grains not processed ones.
Floured, processed grains enter the blood faster, causing a rise and a subsequent fall in blood sugar levels. You feel hungry faster eating processed grains than if you eat the whole grain kernel. Use high protein seed grains like millet, quinoa, amaranth, buckwheat, or spelt. Substitute for oats, wheat, cornmeal and rice. Stuff a bell pepper, make a couscous salad without the wheat, stuff a cabbage or grape leaf, and make a sautéed Spanish quinoa paella with your favorite veggies and mild chilies. Bottom line is no flour, no pasta, and no processed cereals, breads, muffins, etc.
Cut out dairy products.
Milk and other cow products are high in saturated fats that can lead to problems with low-density lipids. Dairy products are often full of antibiotics, hormones and pus. Yuck. The China Study (a country wide research project and book) reveals that higher dietary levels of dairy product correlate to higher levels of some cancers.
Make vegetables your main course.
Eating vegetables gives you the vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants that you need to keep your body healthy. Limiting your meat and fish intake to 2 oz at a time will insure that your saturated fat levels will remain low. Check out ethic recipes for more variety. Italians enjoy marinara, Mexicans nopales, Asians stir-fried veggies, Mediterranean eggplant, and Thai enjoy holy basil, just to name a few.
Switch to stevia or raw agave for your sweets.
Sugar is high in calories and very low in nutritional value. It causes huge fluctuations in blood sugar levels, and can lead to metabolic syndrome and type II diabetes. Sugar is the favorite food of cancer. Don’t eat it! Stevia is a plant that you can grow in your garden and is 300 times sweeter than sugar. You can buy the powdered root in stores now. Use Stevia just like you use a packet of sugar or Nutrasweet. Raw agave syrup is great to add to baked goodies. Bake up a yam with a little agave, cinnamon, and nutmeg for dessert.
Read all of your labels.
Sugar is hidden in many foods where we don’t expect it. Look for high fructose corn syrup, cane juice, and words ending in ‘tose’, like maltose, lactose, etc. it means sugar. You will find it added to beans, peas, condiments and pickles, to name a few. It is so wide spread, it will start to irritate you; I know it does me. Look for added fats and dairy also. Know what you are taking into your body. It is better to stay away from processed or ready made foods for the same reasons that eating at home is better.
Eat dinner for breakfast.
Eat your biggest meal early in the day to give your body a good refueling and to be sure to burn off all of the calories earlier in the day. Eat lightly in the evening unless you plan on dancing the night away. Going to bed on a fairly empty stomach allows your liver to detoxify and rebuild your body.
Make your snacks natural and planned.
Take your snacks with you when you leave the house. Never find yourself hungry without a piece of fruit, veggies and healthy dip, or nuts and seeds to dig out of a bag, pocket, or purse. Planning your snacks will ensure that you will only cheat because you choose to and not because you are so hungry that you have no other choices for healthy food. I leave some snacks and water in my car just like when I had babies, only now I baby myself.
Allow three hours after eating before going to bed at night.
A natural 12 to 14 hour fast between dinner and breakfast will allow the body to digest all of your food, and allows your leptin, insulin, melatonin and growth hormones to rise and fall. This turns on fat burning, detoxification, and healing.
Drink enough water between meals.
Sometime we eat when we are only thirsty. Try to listen to your body and hydrate as often as possible. Drinking herbal teas or lemon water with a little stevia will help to get away from colas and coffee. Mixing natural sparkling water with a 100% fruit juice is a refreshing drink that is nice enough for company. Drinking enough water will help your body to eliminate properly.
Get the sugary, fatty foods out of your home.
Why leave poison in your house? You wouldn’t leave alcohol or cigarettes in your home if you were trying to quit. Clean out those cupboards!
Set your intention.
Just like Pavlov’s dogs, your body listens to your brain and changes its enzymes in expectation to eating and exercise. Each morning intend on improving your health by eating good food and getting exercise. If you cheat, just reset your intention and continue to eat the good foods that build up your health when you are hungry. We all cheat sometimes. It is not the end of the program. Just eat better the next time. Slow down and use all of your senses to eat. Smell it, use your fingers, listen to it cooking, and make it pretty on the plate and pleasing to your eyes. Intend for your food to nourish you and make you health. Bless it, hum a song, or just picture it building your cells. This sets your saliva and stomach enzymes into motion and gets your body ready to digest.
Intend on exercising everyday. Run in place, as fast as you can for just one minute each hour, and you have improved your health! Walk the mall, jog with your dog, swim at the gym, or dance with your kids, it doesn’t matter what you do, just intent on doing it and get it done. Lots of short bursts add up and are as good as long jogs for burning calories and raising hormone levels, but not for building your heart or burning fat, so do both each week.