Feeding the mind -3 easy self-help natural strategies
We all know healthy food consumption leads to a healthy body; the same is true for the brain: a healthy brain requires proper nutrition.
The brain has one of the most complex jobs in the body: it is the decision maker and the coordinator of all physiological functions and reactions in the whole body; no wonder it's been called our central "computer". It is all that and more, considering the emotional responsibility of the brain.
General surveys show that most Americans recognize there is a relationship between certain foods and the possibility of increasing/decreasing the risk of certain diseases, yet the decision to eat healthy is difficult to make.
In my opinion, anybody who has trouble with this decision already has an imbalanced brain: either nutrient deficient or toxic.
Nutrition can significantly affect your mental and emotional health, besides your whole body health.
Here are a few self-help strategies you might consider:
Firstly, you need to eliminate possible causes of insult to your brain, like stress and food sensitivities.
Sometimes stress causes people to turn to wrong foods, like alcohol, caffeine, smoke, which in turn lead to more nutrient deficiencies and distress in the body.
Extreme or prolonged stress causes your body to undergo many physiological and biochemical changes in the body which require extra nutrients.
Among the so-called "antistress" nutrients helpful in fighting the harmful physiological effects of stress are the B complex vitamins, especially B6, B 12, thiamine, niacin, folate, and pantothenate, and vitamin C. Magnesium levels also seem to be affected by stress, showing in some individuals as much as a 14 percent decrease in cellular magnesium. Not only can stress cause a drop in cellular magnesium levels, but a diet causing a deficiency in cellular magnesium can make you more sensitive to stress. It's a vicious cycle. This feedback interaction between stress-the researchers used "noise stress" - and decrease of cellular magnesium may cause an increasing risk of cardiovascular disease. So stress not only can cause a drop in cellular magnesium levels but also low magnesium can greatly increase the stressful effects whatever is stressing you.
The second major possible insult to your brain is through food sensitivities.
Many have heard of allergies- when an allergies causes a major inflammatory reaction in the body that might even lead to death. Sensitivities are "subclinical allergies": they won't kill you, but cause some annoying symptom, like a rash, brain "fog" decreased energy, diminished focus or concentration, irritability.
The most common cause of hypersensitivity to foods is overconsumption of one particular type of food, the most researched food as such is wheat - excessive consumption of wheat (which is very easily achieved in the western society) causes lots of "side-effects" associated with the central nervous system: irritability, depression/moodiness, "brain fog", etc.
A simple strategy is using a variety of grains in your diet, rather than using wheat as your only cereal source.
The third insult to the healthy mind are toxins, which rob the brain of its nutrients and slow down its function, just as they do in the rest of the body.
We all know about the dangers of additives, preservatives, dyes, artificial sweeteners etc..We are all warned to teed labels. The salutary truth is that we shouldn't be eating anything that has a label on it!
Toxic components of commonly eaten foods are benzoic acid of prunes; prussic or hydrocyanic acids of certain almonds and apricot pits; oxalic acid of spinach, chard, beet greens, beets and rhubarb; lactose of milk (most of us lose the power to secrete lactase, the lactose splitting enzymes at about age three when we normally should be weaned of mother's milk); casein of milk (likewise, we cease to secrete the rennin necessary to digest milk's protein! calcium package); gluten of wheat and other grains; phytic acid of grains; anti-enzyme factors in beans, especially soy and lima beans; uric acid of meat; avidin of raw egg; solanine of potatoes and eggplants (but not in tomatoes or sweet peppers, though they are members of the same poisonous nightshade family); the acids the honeybee secretes into its honey to preserve and protect its food supply. etc.
Refined "foods" such a sugar, tofu, white flour and white rice cannot be metabolized unless the body robs itself -of its own minerals and vitamins in order to metabolize and use them.
Among the worst practices that we humans indulge is the process of cooking. When we fry foods, we coat them in oil. Heated oils form indigestible hydrocarbons, acrolein and acroleic acid. Free oils, even if unheated, are carcinogenic. When heated, oils and fats are very carcinogenic. They coat and prevent digestive enzymes from reaching the food. Indigestion results with its train of untoward results. When cooked proteins coagulate (as is readily seen with eggs), the amino acids are deaminated and rendered useless. Carbohydrates are dextrilized, caramelized and eventually are totally oxidized by cooking. Minerals become inorganic, and vitamins are destroyed. Cooked foods contribute a plethora of toxic products which are, in reality, drugs. When we eat cooked foods, toxicity is evidence by the doubling and tripling of our leukocyte (white blood corpuscle) count. Leukocytosis is a symptom of drugging or poisoning. White blood cells are the body mechanisms for protecting itself against toxic substances absorbed or injected.
Thus you can see to what extent drugging takes place in America.Even babies are not free of drugging, since most get impure milk from their mothers, even if not fed drugged foods or wrung foods from the beginning. If you free yourself of drugs, your health and well being will improve phenomenally.
Since toxins usually deposit in adipose tissue and the brain is mostly made up of fat, you can easily see how the toxins" impact is so much greater on the brain than any where else on the body.
The quickest way to free yourself from drugs that your body has retained and stored in fat cells and other areas is to undertake a fast. During the fast, abstain from everything but pure water. A thoroughgoing rest of a few days to a few weeks enables the body to redirect its energies to the task of 'housecleaning and repair.
The problem with a fast like this is that the brain will find it very hard to keep going with no fresh supply of nutrients. This is why a nutritional cleansing program is superior to fasting and achieves the same if not better results.
And for maintenance, to stay free of these "brain drugs", eat only when hungry, primarily fresh ripe fruits, raw vegetables, nuts and seeds, good sources o protein and lots of pure water.
And now I'd like to help you take the first step towards optimal brain health: download Dr.Anca's Naturopathic Dietary Considerations for Brain Power FREE pdf when visiting my blog, http://www.askdoctoranca.com/freebies/brainpdf;while there, you're also invited to register for my upcoming FREE Naturopathic Tele-Seminar on this topic, coming soon.
The brain has one of the most complex jobs in the body: it is the decision maker and the coordinator of all physiological functions and reactions in the whole body; no wonder it's been called our central "computer". It is all that and more, considering the emotional responsibility of the brain.
General surveys show that most Americans recognize there is a relationship between certain foods and the possibility of increasing/decreasing the risk of certain diseases, yet the decision to eat healthy is difficult to make.
In my opinion, anybody who has trouble with this decision already has an imbalanced brain: either nutrient deficient or toxic.
Nutrition can significantly affect your mental and emotional health, besides your whole body health.
Here are a few self-help strategies you might consider:
Firstly, you need to eliminate possible causes of insult to your brain, like stress and food sensitivities.
Sometimes stress causes people to turn to wrong foods, like alcohol, caffeine, smoke, which in turn lead to more nutrient deficiencies and distress in the body.
Extreme or prolonged stress causes your body to undergo many physiological and biochemical changes in the body which require extra nutrients.
Among the so-called "antistress" nutrients helpful in fighting the harmful physiological effects of stress are the B complex vitamins, especially B6, B 12, thiamine, niacin, folate, and pantothenate, and vitamin C. Magnesium levels also seem to be affected by stress, showing in some individuals as much as a 14 percent decrease in cellular magnesium. Not only can stress cause a drop in cellular magnesium levels, but a diet causing a deficiency in cellular magnesium can make you more sensitive to stress. It's a vicious cycle. This feedback interaction between stress-the researchers used "noise stress" - and decrease of cellular magnesium may cause an increasing risk of cardiovascular disease. So stress not only can cause a drop in cellular magnesium levels but also low magnesium can greatly increase the stressful effects whatever is stressing you.
The second major possible insult to your brain is through food sensitivities.
Many have heard of allergies- when an allergies causes a major inflammatory reaction in the body that might even lead to death. Sensitivities are "subclinical allergies": they won't kill you, but cause some annoying symptom, like a rash, brain "fog" decreased energy, diminished focus or concentration, irritability.
The most common cause of hypersensitivity to foods is overconsumption of one particular type of food, the most researched food as such is wheat - excessive consumption of wheat (which is very easily achieved in the western society) causes lots of "side-effects" associated with the central nervous system: irritability, depression/moodiness, "brain fog", etc.
A simple strategy is using a variety of grains in your diet, rather than using wheat as your only cereal source.
The third insult to the healthy mind are toxins, which rob the brain of its nutrients and slow down its function, just as they do in the rest of the body.
We all know about the dangers of additives, preservatives, dyes, artificial sweeteners etc..We are all warned to teed labels. The salutary truth is that we shouldn't be eating anything that has a label on it!
Toxic components of commonly eaten foods are benzoic acid of prunes; prussic or hydrocyanic acids of certain almonds and apricot pits; oxalic acid of spinach, chard, beet greens, beets and rhubarb; lactose of milk (most of us lose the power to secrete lactase, the lactose splitting enzymes at about age three when we normally should be weaned of mother's milk); casein of milk (likewise, we cease to secrete the rennin necessary to digest milk's protein! calcium package); gluten of wheat and other grains; phytic acid of grains; anti-enzyme factors in beans, especially soy and lima beans; uric acid of meat; avidin of raw egg; solanine of potatoes and eggplants (but not in tomatoes or sweet peppers, though they are members of the same poisonous nightshade family); the acids the honeybee secretes into its honey to preserve and protect its food supply. etc.
Refined "foods" such a sugar, tofu, white flour and white rice cannot be metabolized unless the body robs itself -of its own minerals and vitamins in order to metabolize and use them.
Among the worst practices that we humans indulge is the process of cooking. When we fry foods, we coat them in oil. Heated oils form indigestible hydrocarbons, acrolein and acroleic acid. Free oils, even if unheated, are carcinogenic. When heated, oils and fats are very carcinogenic. They coat and prevent digestive enzymes from reaching the food. Indigestion results with its train of untoward results. When cooked proteins coagulate (as is readily seen with eggs), the amino acids are deaminated and rendered useless. Carbohydrates are dextrilized, caramelized and eventually are totally oxidized by cooking. Minerals become inorganic, and vitamins are destroyed. Cooked foods contribute a plethora of toxic products which are, in reality, drugs. When we eat cooked foods, toxicity is evidence by the doubling and tripling of our leukocyte (white blood corpuscle) count. Leukocytosis is a symptom of drugging or poisoning. White blood cells are the body mechanisms for protecting itself against toxic substances absorbed or injected.
Thus you can see to what extent drugging takes place in America.Even babies are not free of drugging, since most get impure milk from their mothers, even if not fed drugged foods or wrung foods from the beginning. If you free yourself of drugs, your health and well being will improve phenomenally.
Since toxins usually deposit in adipose tissue and the brain is mostly made up of fat, you can easily see how the toxins" impact is so much greater on the brain than any where else on the body.
The quickest way to free yourself from drugs that your body has retained and stored in fat cells and other areas is to undertake a fast. During the fast, abstain from everything but pure water. A thoroughgoing rest of a few days to a few weeks enables the body to redirect its energies to the task of 'housecleaning and repair.
The problem with a fast like this is that the brain will find it very hard to keep going with no fresh supply of nutrients. This is why a nutritional cleansing program is superior to fasting and achieves the same if not better results.
And for maintenance, to stay free of these "brain drugs", eat only when hungry, primarily fresh ripe fruits, raw vegetables, nuts and seeds, good sources o protein and lots of pure water.
And now I'd like to help you take the first step towards optimal brain health: download Dr.Anca's Naturopathic Dietary Considerations for Brain Power FREE pdf when visiting my blog, http://www.askdoctoranca.com/freebies/brainpdf;while there, you're also invited to register for my upcoming FREE Naturopathic Tele-Seminar on this topic, coming soon.