BetterHealthBytes.com - Volume 1-Issue 2

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Vol I, # 2

YOUR STRESS CYCLE

Break It With These THREE TOP STRATEGIES

Stress is a fact of life, but that doesn't mean you just have to tolerate its negative effects with no options for improving your condition. Here is a short summary of what goes on in your body under stress and three top strategies for managing it.

1. Support your adrenals!

Your adrenal glands are the organs your body uses to create and manage your stress response. Therefore, supporting your adrenals is a top tactic. In short, support your adrenals so they can support you. Give them what they need to function in the best possible way they can, and you'll be amazed at how well you can breeze through stressful times that might have brought you down otherwise. Two herbs that have a long, proven history of supporting the adrenals are Ashwaganda and Licorice. (But avoid licorice if you have high blood pressure.)

2. Support your liver in breaking down cortisol .

What does your liver have to do with managing stress well? In short, everything. One if its job is to break down cortisol, the hormone that produces a stress response. As long as cortisol is circulating, bodily resources are removed from the primary tasks that keep you healthy: rest, repair, cleaning toxins and mounting an immune response to kill bacteria, viruses and other critters. And cortisol levels that remain high at bedtime are the reason you can get so stressed that you can't sleep: the hormone keeps sounding bodily alarms -never mind that it's 2 in the morning and you're actually perfectly safe. A variety of nutrients and herbs can support you here, including large doses of Garlic, whole food Vitamin C, adaptogenic herbs such as Rhodeola, the amino acids tyrosine and arginine (but don't take arginine if you're fighting a virus, as the virus will use it to grow.) And go for a relaxing walk, but don't make it highly aerobic, because that raises cortisol levels, while low-key movement helps lower it.

3. Feed your nerves so they keep working well.

When your nerves keep firing, firing, firing, as they do under stress, they use up two key kinds of nutrients: minerals that leave an alkaline ash when metabolized, and B vitamins. And, of course, if they run low on these nutrients, they get stressed, and that stimulates the stress cycle even further. So, feed your nerves what they need to recover and calm down. Primary sources of minerals that leave an alkaline ash are kelp and alfalfa (in the office we use a product called MinTran that contains these in a whole food, concentrated form). Herbs that support your nerves include Bacopa, Kava, St. John's Wort and Chamomile. And for B vitamins, be sure to use a whole food source and not synthetic B's, as they can actually damage peripheral nerve plates (leading to more stress!) plus the body considers them to be a toxin, which then means your liver has to break them down, and when it's busy doing that, it has fewer resources available to break down cortisol. The best source for whole food B vitamins is nutritional yeast. However, be sure to read the ingredients label, which should list only 'nutritional yeast'. Recently chemical companies have been adding synthetic B's - avoid those products.

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Healing in a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity. Hippocrates

YOUR EMOTIONAL HEALTH - *Don't Make The Biggest Emotional Health Mistake* There Is!**
Most adults have figured out there are some really bad consequences of neglecting our food diet. The negative effects of bad eating habits and poor nutrition are well known to most of us. That's why we pay attention to when we eat, how much we eat, and the quality of our food. But another kind of diet is at least or even more important: our emotional diet. If we feed ourselves emotional junk food or take in toxic messages from ourselves or others, we are making the biggest emotional health mistake there is. We are ignoring, neglecting or abusing our emotional diet. That can only lead to all kinds of dire consequences. Here are five of the many examples of these dire consequences, followed by what to do to avoid them...
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ANXIETY Revealing This Hidden Cause Could Save Your Life!

Feeling anxious is no fun at all. You're tense, fearful, have difficulty sleeping and concentrating. You're uneasy - anticipating the worst.

You fear something bad is going to happen, but what? Since that's unknown, you can't discover what to do about it - after all, the nature of this fantasied event is uncertain.

So instead you worry... what might happen, what could happen, what already did happen that could indicate that something else bad will happen. You feel dread, foreboding, uneasiness in your gut and might even start shaking.

These symptoms are usually classified as coming from mental or psychological origins and treated accordingly with anti-anxiety medications and psychotherapy or counseling.

But there's another condition that can cause this very same set of symptoms - and if you discern it now, it could save your life.

To do so, pay attention to when you experience these symptoms. Do they occur especially in the middle of the night? Or when you lie down during the day?

If so, that could indicate that the major arteries in your abdomen that supply the blood to your head are collapsing. The anxiety symptoms are the result of your brain suddenly lacking oxygen when you lie down, and that's why you feel anxious.

If so, the solution lies not with anti-anxiety prescriptions or with counseling, but rather with a protocol to strengthen and repair your arteries.

Likely your health practitioner will help you find and eliminate sources of inflammation from your diet, recommend supplements rich in bioflavonoids and may include herbs that support circulation such as Hawthorne, Ginkgo Biloba, Ginger or Horse Chestnut.

Repair your blood vessels and, voila! No more anxiety... at least from that!

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