Exercise

So we are at the end of January.  You’ve made your New Year’s Resolutions (hopefully after you’ve had enough sleep (see post here).  Most likely you’ve gone through some of the feelings of anxiety and depression that come with ending a year, ending a holiday break, reevaluating your life at the new year, and starting fresh with big dreams (and maybe even falling behind on some of those big dreams already).  I’m not the only one whose had all those emotions over the past month, am I?

The top New Year’s Resolution according to Nielsen rating (http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2015/2015s-top-new-years-resolution-fitness.html)   is the get fit and healthy.  That includes exercise.  Interestingly enough even as the top goal only 37% of people make that goal.  If you are one of them I’m proud of you – only 37% of people were as brave and comitted as you to make getting fit a priority in life.

I’ve spent January talking about Emotional Wellbeing through sleep, dealing with feelings of anxiety and now exercise.  Exercise is one of the cheapest, most effective, DIY remedy for downcast emotions.

“In 1999, a randomized controlled trial showed that depressed adults who took part in aerobic exercise improved as much as those treated with Zoloft.”  Another study in 2011 a study “looked at 127 depressed people who hadn’t experienced relief from SSRIs, a common type of antidepressant, and found that exercise led 30 percent of them into remission—a result that was as good as, or better than, drugs alone.”

According to the Mayo Clinic (http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/depression/in-depth/depression-and-exercise/art-20046495)  regular exercise helps with anxiety and depression by:

1.     “Releasing feel-good brain chemicals that may ease depression (neurotransmitters, endorphins and endocannabinoids)

2.     Reducing immune system chemicals that can worsen depression

3.     Increasing body temperature, which may have calming effects”

Dr. Madhukar Trivedi, who holds the Betty Jo Hay Distinguished Chair in Mental Health at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, points out that the “dose” of  exercise is important.  It need to be done to a certain intensity on a regular basis to be most effective. “He recommends three to five sessions per week. Each one should last 45 to 60 minutes, and patients should reach 50 to 85 percent of their maximum heart rates.” (http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/03/for-depression-prescribing-exercise-before-medication/284587/).  Another study from Australia focused on walking and the subjects were mostly middle aged women.  This study showed , “More exercise was linked to greater improvements, but even low amounts of exercise had benefits. ‘The good news is that while the most benefits require 150 minutes per week of moderate-intensity physical activity or 200 minutes of walking, even smaller amounts . . . can improve well-being.’” (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/regular-walking-can-help-ease-depression/).

I have found that if I make a commitment to myslef to just get outside and do something each morning it makes my day better.  While I occassionally run (okay, jog), most of the time I get myself out the door by telling myself that I just have to walk.  I shoot for an hour, but even half an hour has the potential to make improvements to your emotional wellbeing.  Free therapy is an added bonus when I walk with a friend.  I hope you will experiment on yourself.  Just try getting in some physical exercise on a regualr basis for the next month and see if it doesn’t improve your outlook on life – at least a little.  It’s worth a try.    

To encourage you on your road if you enter your email here I will send you a sample of my favorite essentail oil product for using before and/or after I work out.

Anxiety

According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of American and the National Institute for Health, “Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the U.S., affecting 40 million adults in the United States age 18 and older, or 18% of the population.” (https://www.adaa.org/about-adaa/press-room/facts-statistics).   

All of us have anxiety in our lives to one degree or another.  There are many ways to deal with anxiety and one should consider all options and base his or her choice of intervention based on severity and frequency of the anxiety.  Often using a combination of methods and protocols works best.  Here are some ideas from the National Institute of Health (https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/anxiety-disorders/index.shtml):

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

Support Groups

Stress Management Techniques

Medication

In addition to the above The Anxiety and Depression Association of America also included some “Complementary and Alternative Treatments” which include:

Stress and Relaxation Techniques

Yoga (one of my favorites and here’s a free plug for Yoga with Adriene.  She's the best!)

Acupuncture (I love this one, too, after my initial fear)

Kava

Homeopathic or naturopathic medicine

St. John’s Wort

Massage therapy

Art, music, or dance therapy

Dietary supplements or herbal products

Meditation, prayer, or pastoral counseling, including mindfulness

Biofield therapies or bioelectromagnetic-based therapies

(https://www.adaa.org/finding-help/treatment/complementary-alternative-treatment)

With all these fabulous ideas I easily find two important areas that have been left out.  The first and most important being diet.  Our diet is vital to every chemical reaction in our bodies.  The importance of diet cannot be overstated, that’s why it will be a topic for another blog post on anther day.  But seriously, whatever your issue whether it be anxiety or something else, start with your diet.

Still another very powerful tool that has been left off the lists above is essential oils.  Pseudo science you may think.  They just smell good, so maybe that makes you happy for a minute.  While that may be true, there is so much more to essential oils than just the initial burst of happiness from a delightful smell. There are numerous scientific studies regarding essential oils especially as they relate to various types of anxiety.  You can find many of them on the National Center for Biotechnology Information website under “Pub Med Health” and “PMC” (Pub Med Central). 

Essential oils are one of the few substances that can cross the blood brain barrier because of the “natural fat soluble substance such as sesquiterpenes, a compound found in many essential oils” (the Essential life p 279).  Using essential oils aromatically in supporting the body to handle anxiety is very powerful because “the natural aromatic compounds enter the olfactory system and pass the olfactory bulb, which leads directly to the limbic center of the brain…Inhalation is the fastest way to get an essential oil into the body and has significant benefits on mood as it alters the chemical messages being relayed within the limbic system.”  (The Essential Life p 279).  If you need a quick review of the limbic system (I know I did) here it is in 2 minutes or less.

Oils can also be used topically to assist mood.  Applying the oil as close to the limbic system as possible is ideal:  directly below the base of the skull, on the mastoid bones behind the ears, across the front of the forehead, directly under the nose, and on the roof of the mount (place an oil on the bad of your thumb and then press your thumb to the roof of your mouth).

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastoid_part_of_the_temporal_bone)

 In addition, oils that are of the highest grade of purity available and made for therapeutic purposes are safe to take internally.  This is not recommended for oils off the supermarket shelf – many have fillers and other unknown substances.   You want to make sure your essential oils have no added fillers, synthetic ingredients, or harmful contaminants that would reduce their efficacy.   You can email me to find out what I use that meets all of these qualifications.

Please send me more info

To get you started using essential oils as part of your overall effort to reduce anxiety in your life, let me suggest 4 specific oils that have effect on various aspects of Anxiety:

Lavender – clams and relaxes, increase the ability to express feelings

Wild Orange – melts away anxiousness and energizes

Cedarwood – ground, promotes a sense of belonging and being connected socially

Bergamot – helps increase self confidence

(The Essential Life p. 280)

This is just the beginning. 

To receive a pamphlet about Essential Oils & Depression and Anxiety with 10 specific oils for anxiety and more specific protocol on how to use specific oils please enter your email here:

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See you next week for further discussion of this topic as we take a closer look at depression. 

Start the New Year right. Go to sleep.

Emotional Wellbeing.  We all want it, don’t we?  As we begin a new year we can’t seem to help but hope for a better future.  We want to be happy, healthy, and loved.  We want to grow personally and make a contribution to the world around us.  Many people are starting off the year talking about New Year’s Resolutions: losing weight, saving more money, getting organized, exercising, having more patience, spending more time with family and friends.  I’m going to start the year out by talking about SLEEP.  That’s right you are all off the hook  - all I want you to do is sleep.  And here’s why…

Sleep is vital for processing information, emotional processing, developing memories, removing waste, building metabolism, and “disrupted sleep is a biomarker for mental illness”. (http://www.wired.co.uk/article/wired-health-russell-foster).  Disruption of our biological sleep pattern “promotes multiple illnesses, including abnormal metabolism; reduced immunity; increased stress; and abnormal processing of information by the brain.” (https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2013/jul/22/body-clock-biological-circadian-sleep) Disrupted sleep is also linked to obesity, diabetes, and hypertension (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2011/jul/13/neuroscience-biology), and 100,000 car accidents each year are related to sleepiness (Foster, doTerra International Convention 2016).

36% of our life is spent sleeping and this time is imperative for our physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing. (Foster, doTerra International Convention 2016).  As a modern day society we have taken it upon ourselves to harness nature and to overcome many of its demands of us.  With the advent of the electric light we became a society that never sleeps.  We see working early in the morning and late at night as badges of honor.  We boast 24 hour work out centers, 24 grocery stores, and millions of hours of electronic entertainment available 24 hours a day.  We have dominated the night and submitted it to our will to have more, be more, and do more.  But at what cost?

At our company convention in September 2016 sleep expert Russell Foster, who is a Professor of Circadian Neuroscience and the Head of the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Oxford, treated us to a 30 minutes presentation regarding the subject of sleep.  He has been featured on NPR and as a TED Talk speaker.  His presentation was fascinating, educational, entertaining, and in a British Accent.  You know us Americans, suckers for a nice British accent. J

As he explained (in his British accent;-) how our bodies depends on our circadian clock to regulate numerous intricate chemical responses.  This approximately 24 hours cycle of light and darkness, activity and inactivity, determines our core body temperature, our blood pressure, our alertness, our physical strength and so much more.  Without the natural cycles of darkness and light “sleep and circadian rhythm disruption, or SCRD” can occur potentially leading to the side effects mentioned above. 

We need environmental cues every day to reset the internal clock and keep our circadian clock in tune with our social clock. We have a “cluster of 50,000 neurons known as the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), which sits within the hypothalamus at the base of the brain” which acts as the conductor of an orchestra regulating the timing of nearly every organ in the body.  (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2011/jul/13/neuroscience-biology) When we experience jet lag or SCRD it is because the SCN has not received the clues to do its job correctly and all of our organs are off time with each other.   SCRD can also occur in places such as senior care centers where low lighting is often used.  The body needs  a minimum of 1000-2000 lux of light (similar to sitting near a window) for at least a short period of time each day to reset the the body clock. 

Our conquering of the night has disrupted the natural environmental cues which allow the body to reset the circadian clock which then orchestrates the organs and hormones to run effectively to alleviate the previously mentioned side effects.  Even the computer screens and electronics, with what we consider minimal light, effect our ability to sleep well.  As a result we have as a nation resorted to artificial stimulants and sedatives.  According to USA Today 83% of Americans turn to coffee daily as a stimulant (http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/04/09/coffee-mania/2069335/).  By the end of the day much of the population is so high strung that they turn to alcohol to sedate them enough to fall asleep.  (Let’s not even go into the scary territory of those who are mixing alcohol and sleeping pills.) This vicious cycle of stimulant and sedative does nothing to promote health and emotional wellness and at best is a terribly inferior imitation of the circadian cycle. 

So what can we do about it?  Robert Schrier, founding editor-in-chief of the magazine Nature Clinical Practice Nephrology, said, “We need to convince 100% of the public that good sleep is as necessary as exercise and nutrition for optimal health.”  Make sleep a priority.  Create a good sleeping environment: dark, cool, and quiet.  Have a good mattress.  Be consistent with your sleep routine.  Don’t lay in bed frustrated.  Have a relaxing pre-bedtime routine: perhaps read and have some gentle music.  Prepare for sleep.  Minimize light for at last 30 minutes before bedtime – this includes light from your computer, your TV and your phone.    Eat regular meals.  Avoid caffeine in the afternoon.  Avoid alcohol.  Avoid stressful situations (don’t we all wish we could do this?)  Exercise, but not 3-4 hours before bed.  Nap only occasionally for less than 20 minutes. 

In addition the the suggestions above, essential oils offer natural support for sleeping which help you get the rest you need without feeling groggy the next morning.  Most people know that Lavender has been used historically to promote sleep, but did you know that Vetiver, Wild Orange and others could also promote feelings of restfulness? Each person is unique and what maybe your favorite oil for rest may be different from your best friend’s.  To find out more about some great new products that are available for sleep support enter your email here.  

Please send me more info

The importance of sleep cannot be overstated.  All of us would like to avoid the problems mentioned in paragraph two (remember? poor immunity, stress, obesity, hypertension, mental illness, etc.) and enjoy the benefits of physical, mental and emotional well being.  So – just for a little while – let yourself not worry about all the changes you want or think you need to make as you start the New Year.  You probably stayed up too late last night anyway to be thinking about such things in a reasonable manner.  Just go and get some sleep – and let the natural goodness of essential oils help you. 

How Green Smoothie Girl Changed My Life

Once upon a time I thought I could never eat healthy because I didn't like fruits and vegetables, then I found GreenSmoothieGirl.com.  I read and read and read and decided that I could make green smoothies.  "I can do that," I thought, "I don't even have to like it, but I can make myself drink something that is good for me every day."

I got myself a Blendtec.  I ordered my 12 Steps to Whole Foods Program and I made smoothies.  (GSG has the best organic plant-based protein powders around).  And I began to change my life style.  Eventually I did the GSG detox cleanse.  Green Smoothie Girl was definitely the "start of something good" (cue High School Musical here) in my life.  After years of reading and studying about nutrition and improving my diet, with Green Smoothie Girl I felt like change was actually within my reach.

I want you to feel like that, too, because it is awesome to feel that you have power over your health and well being.  So, with what is possibly the worst first post for a blog ever, I welcome you to my world of striving to live a healthier lifestyle.

My message is all about personal power.  With the knowledge that you have choices comes personal power.  I want you (and me) to recognize and use our personal power to take responsibility for our lives, families, education and health.  I hope you will join me on this quest.