Best of Health, Naturally

Merriam-Webster.com’s dictionary has a neuro-programming definition for entrainment as “software to optimize brain function.” Actually, I see it’s more than a definition: it’s a link to software that optimizes brain function.

Anyhow, I have a sleep CD that came from Jacper - the person, not the place. Jacper actually lives in Richmond, British Columbia. And his CD is fabulous for helping me fall asleep.

The CD is about an hour long and plays sounds that are designed to take you from beta wave wakefulness through theta and sigma waves to the delta waves of deep sleep, just by allowing yourself to hear the CD. You don’t have to concentrate on the sounds or even listen to them. You just have to lie down with your eyes closed where you can hear them and be prepared for sleep. And, most of the time, sleep will come.

What a wonderful gift sleep is!

I hesitate to give you Jacper’s websites, so that you can contact him, because he’s an intrepid promoter and once he has your contact information, he won’t let you go without quite a bit of determination on your part. Anyhow, it really is a wonderful product. It’s your choice. If you’ve tried lots of other ways to get better sleep without success, I encourage you to give this technology a chance.

There are two sites to try: wonderfulsleep.com and powerfulsleep.com.

Best of health, naturally,
Nina

I love it that I can find unusual grains in the specialty food stores in Vancouver. Take teff flour for instance. The smallest grain in the world, teff is a staple food of highland Ethiopians. Like most grains, it’s a light brown, sandy colour and it has a much higher percentage of bran and germ than most other grains, making it a great source of fibre. It’s also a great natural source of iron.

Today, I sprinkled a teaspoon of teff on my porridge as it was cooking. It has a slightly nutty flavour. I wonder whether I’ll detect that as I have my breakfast?

Bob’s Red Mill produces a 680 g bag of whole grain teff flour. There may well be other teff products. Let me know what you find.

Best of health, naturally,
Nina

A dear friend recounted the ordeal of helping her adult son between Christmas and New Year through the agony of passing a kidney stone. So, I said I would look up the cause of kidney stones, or, at least, what Phyllis A. Balch, CNC (certified nutritional consultant), says is the way to avoid kidney stones - renal calculi - in her Fourth Edition of Prescription for Nutritional Healing, pages 533-38.

Balch says that kidney stones are mineral accumulations in the kidneys, primarily a buildup of calcium. She says they are one of the most painful of human ailments, and I think my friend’s son could attest to that. Apparently, “the tendency to absorb too much calcium is hereditary,” which explains why kidney stones run in families. Also, he is typical of the most likely age and gender - “white men between the ages of thirty and fifty.”

The mineral salts that tend to crystallize in the urine are uric acid, phosphates, and calcium oxalate. The crystals block the flow of urine and cause pain to radiate around the lower abdomen, back and groin. They stop urine from being passed, cause pus and blood in what urine can pass, cause sweating, and varying degrees of pain, depending on the sharpness or smoothness of the crystals.

Though stones could be uric acid stones, magnesium ammonium phosphate stones, and cystine stones, the most common (80%) are calcium oxalate stones.

Various foods and dietary habits lead to a faster accumulation of kidney stones. Foods high in oxalic acid - eggs, fish, asparagus, beet greens, beets, blueberries, celery, grapes, parsley, rhubarb, sorrel, spinach, Swiss chard, and members of the cabbage family - should be avoided. So should alcohol, black tea, chocolate, cocoa, dried figs, nuts, pepper, poppy seeds, and, of course, refined sugar. Wow! Such a long list of things to avoid. Oh, and, Balch suggests that avoiding animal protein is also beneficial because of meat’s impact on calcium digestion and excretion.

Foods that are recommended are those that will acidify the urine - lemons, lemon juice, and cranberry juice. Foods high in Vitamin A - alfalfa, apricots, cantaloupes, carrots, pumpkin, sweet potatoes, and squash - all the orange fruits and vegetables - should be consumed to discourage the formation of stones and maintain the health of the urinary tract. Also recommended are foods high in magnesium - seafood, brown rice, tofu, and soybeans - as magnesium can increase the solubility of calcium oxalate.

I find that advice rather confusing - seafood being high in magnesium is recommended while fish being high in oxalic acid is to be avoided. That requires some more research!

So black tea is out. Alcohol is out. Carbonated drinks are also out, big time. All of these drinks are diuretics; in other words, you’re left with less liquid in your body AFTER you’ve drunk them than before, because they encourage the removal of water from the cells, water that should stay in the cells.

But herbal teas - particularly marshmallow root tea - are in, as is aloe vera juice. And of course, someone who is a likely candidate for kidney stones - and if you’ve had them once, you’re very likely to have them again - should definitely be aiming for 8 glasses of water a day or if you’re eating lots of vegetables and fruit, between 1.5 quarts and 2 quarts a day. Measure out a quart of water to drink in the morning and another for the afternoon. And remember to finish drinking large amounts of water in the afternoon, or you’ll be running to the bathroom all night!

Finally, lifestyle has an impact on the formation of kidney stones, in that a sedentary lifestyle leads to the faster development of kidney stones. So strap on the water bottle and get outside and exercise.

And Balch also says not to avoid taking calcium, but to be sure to take it in a 2:1 formula with magnesium.

I hope this information is helpful.

In gratitude to Phyllis Balch and her tremendous contribution to natural healing, Best of health, naturally,
Nina

Happy New Year to readers of the Best of Health, Naturally blog and tweets. I hope you have a wonderfully healthy & happy New Year in 2009.

Keeping one’s body hydrated is such a basic necessity, that most of the time, one doesn’t give it much thought. There’s the struggle to drink enough water and after that, and more likely, during that, we concentrate on other things.

How do we test for dehydration?

There seem to be many tests.

I watched a doctor test for dehydration the other day by gently pinching and releasing the skin covering a person’s breast bone. The delay with which the skin settled back into position told the doctor how dehydrated the person was.

I can’t even get hold of a pinch of flesh on my breast bone, so either I’m not dehydrated or I’m too skinny to do the test there!

Another test is to pull on a small lock of hair. But I’m not sure what to look for with that test. Does anyone know?

Best of health, naturally,
Nina

Here it is, January 1, 2009. Another year has come and gone in the circle of life. I want to keep the good parts with me and learn from what went wrong too.

Some time today, I’m going to sit down with a large piece of paper and draw a mind map of my personal inventory for 2008. There are lots of ideas of how to do a mind map on the web.

A mind map is a great tool for

• * fleshing out ideas
• * getting a large number of ideas on one page
• * showing the linkages between ideas
• * engaging both sides of the brain - the analytical left brain and the intuitive right brain
• * picturing states of mind on one piece of paper
• * creating something that is worth keeping that lists ideas and is more than a list and links connections and is more than a map

I shall gather together some coloured pens and set them beside a large piece of unlined white paper. In the centre, I shall write “personal inventory for 2008″ and surround it with my interpretation of what a “multidendrite neuron” looks like. Check Wikipedia for some lovely diagrams of multidendrite neurons.

Each dendrite of the neuron I draw will link up with another neuron and these additional neurons will have titles such as “my spouse and I,” “my family,” “my place in society,” “my work,” “my business,” “my experiences,” “my education,” “my goals for 2009,” and so on. Of course, until I actually sit down with those coloured pens and start writing/drawing on that page, these titles are just academic. I may come up with a completely different way to look at my life when I am faced with that blank page. I may come up with a more holistic, less separatist view of where I fit in the world and whether my living contributed to progress or even stasis in 2008.

I have a category on this blog entitled, “Love, Joy, and Gratitude,” and I see that I have contributed very little to that category, even though I frequently focus on that kind of thinking. Those three words, that focus, create a wonderful lens through which to view my experience of the past year. That’s where I’ll start. I wonder what my headings will be?

How do you plan to review your experience in and your contribution to 2008?

Best of health, naturally,
Nina

Now, in the last days of December 2008, I’m preparing the inventory records for Savings, Naturally. It’s a very detailed set of tasks taking a considerable amount of time. It’s necessary preparation for doing the webstore’s books for the year and the webstore’s tax records. It’s a time to assess what our customers are buying and what they aren’t. It’s a good time to consider in which new directions the product list might go.

But (could you hear the “but” coming?), it also begs the question: “What is my personal inventory for 2008?”

I will give that question some thought on January 1, 2009, to round out my view of 2008.

Best of health, naturally,
Nina

A quote from Deepak Chopra’s Quantum Healing:

Modern medicine is still dominated by the notion that disease is caused by objective agents. A sophisticated analysis shows that this is only partly true. A disease cannot take hold without a host that accepts it, hence the current attempts to understand our immune system. Historically, both Greek medicine and Ayurveda were founded on the idea that the host is all-important [p. 211].

Chopra goes on to explain that the focus has just shifted from “objective agents” to another impersonal thing, “the immune system.” Ayurveda makes health personal. By eating, sleeping, and being according to one’s doshas (see here for an explanation of the three doshas and each person’s prakriti), one can influence one’s health positively.

Chopra also says, “What you see, you become,” (page 215). While the doshas are powerful, I feel that the determination that comes with the idea of “What you see, you become” is even more powerful.

The other day, my sister and I were sitting in a hospital emergency waiting room. People were coughing and sneezing and my sister said, “Look at the germs we are going to leave here with.” And I said, “I’m going to leave all the germs right here and leave without them.”

In that and other ways, I’ve decided not to have a cold this winter. At the first sign of even a tickle at the back of my throat - we all know that tickle - I confirm to myself that I’m not going to have a cold this winter. I also take astragalus from time to time to boost my immune system. And of course, I try to follow the sleep and dietary requirements for my prakriti.

What have you decided to do this winter about getting a cold? Do you want one? I don’t.

Best of health, naturally,
Nina

In my childhood family, it was traditional to cook bubble and squeak on Boxing Day, using the leftover vegetables from the big Christmas dinner of the day before. The basis was always potatoes (baked, boiled, or mashed) and one of the cabbage family (cabbage itself, brussel sprouts, etc.). When there are other leftover vegetables, such as carrots or yam, they can be used as well.

Chop everything into small bite-sized pieces and fry lightly in oil in a frying pan. Serve with warmed leftover gravy and sliced, cold turkey. Mm-mm!

Best of health, naturally,
Nina

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good day.