January 2018 – Health by Brenda

The Importance of Sleep

Work must be balanced by proper sleep for the body to stay well and continue to be useful.

Arianna Huffington passed out at her desk from exhaustion in 2007, and has made the topic of sleep almost a side business. Jeff Bezos has stated that eight hours of sleep is a priority to him. Bill Gates says he can’t think clearly if he isn’t well rested. The truth of the matter is, sleep is essential to everyone’s success.

Every movement of the body requires the contraction of one muscle while relaxing another. And any muscle contracted will fatigue and finally fail if the movement is not reversed to relaxation. In effect, there’s a give and take to any action. When the bicep engages, the triceps must disengage. But the biceps must also be relaxed at some point so the triceps can engage. Work must be balanced by sleep in order for the body to function on all levels.

On any average workday, whether at the office or chasing toddlers, multiple demands are thrown at you. The body interprets these challenges, or even the thought of them, as threats and signals the adrenal glands to turn all “essential to survival” functions to high and shut down everything else. Veins dilate for better circulation, blood pressure and heart rate increase, and the immune system is suppressed. Digestion and detoxification cease, and intestinal organs shut down as blood is shunted to the muscles and brain. All systems are readied for encounters with stray tigers, impromptu meetings with the boss, or errant children falling off the counter.

At the end of the day, stresses should fade with the evening sun and the lights should go out. Heart rate and blood pressure reduce to minimal, metabolism slows and muscles relax while the entire digestive tract goes into high gear. The liver begins cleaning up toxins and waste from the day’s activities and the intestines move them out to the curb. The immune system is given free rein and the body goes into full recovery and rebuilding mode.

This is the balance of work and rest, contract and relax, that the body demands for health. A full day’s work is met with a full night’s sleep.

When sleep is pushed off, however, systems falter. Caffeine or sugar stimulants used to get past the hump aggravate the already increased blood pressure and add load to the slowed digestion and detoxification systems. Toxins begin seeping into the bloodstream, where they can create brain fog and poor judgment. As sleep is delayed, or cut short, fewer nutrients are assimilated, organs aren’t given proper time to clean house and muscles can’t rebuild. The body isn’t given the resources it needs.

The sleep deprived person is giving all he’s got, with no influx of time to heal. You know you can’t hold a push-up for more than a few minutes; likewise, your body will collapse without rest. Sleep is a necessary component of the healthy lifestyle.

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The basics of staying healthy when everybody is sick

Illness occurs, partly from bad salsa, but primarily because of the poor state of the body at large.

Everybody has something right now. It’s flu season, cold season, and basic communicative crud season. Those who aren’t sick are disinfecting like crazy, trying to keep from getting it all.

It seems like a good idea, but fighting to keep every germ away or dead is not overly effective. Honestly, if hanging hand sanitizer amulets around every child’s neck and every stroller handle were a real solution, why does illness still plague us?

The average person carries 39 trillion bacteria – for reference, there are about 30 trillion human body cells – and yet somehow most of us stay resoundingly healthy. There’s something else going on here than the stray dirty germ.

Susceptibility to disease has more to do with the strength of the person than the amount or virility of the attacking germs. The body needs bacteria for digestion and neutralizing invaders. Most of the bacteria we fear are everyday residents of our intestinal tract, essential to proper digestion and assimilation, which have just gotten out of balance.

Balance is key. Just like a muscle must contract one side while relaxing the other, intestinal flora must have an equilibrium of forces. Germs are not terrorists that run amok under cover of anonymity until bombing an unsuspecting organ. If we seek to eradicate any germ of this sort, we may avert disaster to that organ, but we are simultaneously allowing that organ to become weak in its defenselessness.

The body is equipped with detoxification systems and an immune system to keep the person well. As long as those systems are functioning properly, disease is not really a worry. Bacteria on unwashed vegetables are immobilized and discarded. Viruses are identified by the immune system, which then adapts to the current threat to appropriately overcome it.

But if the liver or kidneys are overworked by a season of eating rich desserts and overindulging in alcohol, the body has less ability to detoxify a bad batch of salsa. Add some stress to those holidays, and the body’s pH level actually turns acidic – which makes a much more hospitable environment for germs to take root. The body has become a Petri dish of sorts, an acidic environment replete with sugar to feed the quickly multiplying intruders while the systems designed to keep this at bay are buried in work, unable to keep up. Illness occurs, partly from the bad salsa, but primarily because of the poor state of the body at large.

This is where many believe that antibiotics are necessary. While there is certainly a place for emergency medicine and acute care, I like to prevent using them if possible. Antibiotics kill good antibodies as well as the invading bacteria. In essence, antibiotics work on the premise that once everybody on the battlefield is dead, the war is over. The patient goes home. But the next day, he comes in contact with another germ. Only now there’s nobody guarding the fort. He is completely undefended from invaders, and the inhabitants will be pillaged without another infusion of antibiotics. Anybody who’s had a toddler suffer 10-12 earaches in a year has seen this. It’s not rare.

So how do you stay well and promote wellness? Let yourself ride the next little cold. Don’t run to the doctor for antibiotics to get rid of the discomfort of the war within. Each time your body is allowed to run its course and triumph over the minor stuff, it gets stronger and there are fewer bouts with big league illnesses. Probiotics, either in capsule form or in naturally fermented foods, are the best way to rebuild the body’s defenses after a round of antibiotics. They are also helpful pre-season strategy, too, to build up the body’s strength before flu season or traveling.

Staying healthy is a combined effort. Proper handwashing keeps intruders at bay, and proper nutrition keeps the defensive lines strong. The body is a living organism, capable of adapting to new invaders and becoming stronger with each test of its abilities. Don’t give the bad guys the upper hand by submitting to fear.

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Exercise for Total Health

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It’s cold outside, and exercising is no fun when it’s cold. I gave up swimming last year for walking, for precisely this reason. But I haven’t kept up my walking schedule through January any better than the swimming routine.

It’s fine, though, because we’ll all just get back on the bandwagon once it’s warmer, right? This is a slippery slope. Pretty soon, it’ll be too hot to exercise. Any excuse will work. Once the routine slips, it’s much harder to restart it. There needs to be a plan for every day, regardless of the weather or other obstacles. Some sort of movement needs to happen.

Exercise is important to keep the body not just looking good, but functioning properly. Most people think of heart health when they consider the benefits of exercise, which is primary. Without strength in the pump of life, all else fails. The brain, eyes and toes all rely on the cardiovascular system for sustenance. Thirty minutes of walking, every day, improves endurance for daily activities and dramatically lowers your risks for heart attack, stroke and other debilities.

There’s so much more that goes on during exercise, though. Many organs don’t have muscular structures like the heart, so they rely on the massaging action of the muscles around them to fully work. The lymph system looks similar to the veins of the cardiovascular system, and is the primary route for waste products to be carried out of the body. Unlike blood vessels, there is no musculature or pump, and it is completely dependent on the motion of muscles and joints to push lymphatic fluid out. The sweat of exercise is actually a lot of trash moved to the curb.

Breathing, too, is part of this cleansing process. During strenuous exercise, your body increases the amount of air moving in and out, which clears excess carbon dioxide out of the lungs. With the increased volume of the lungs, fluids in the body’s tissues are pushed toward the collector vessels of the lymphatic system. Waste products in those fluids are then filtered out with the movement of the lungs, heart, and skeletal muscles.

Fresh air flooding into the body improves mood and brain function, which last long after the activity stops. In children, regular exercise increases academic performance; in older adults, it maintains and enhances brain function. Advanced age does not have to equate to decline if regular aerobic exercise is part of your lifestyle.

“All parts of the body, if used in moderation and exercised in labors to which each is accustomed, become thereby healthy and well developed and age slowly; but if they are unused and left idle, they become liable to disease, defective in growth and age quickly”

– Hippocrates

When Food is a Problem

Using the Wheelbarrow Concept to unravel food sensitivities and work toward a solution.

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Most mothers will struggle at some point with at least one of the following scenarios, all of which involve food:

the child who, after eating a bowl of breakfast cereal, either becomes argumentative or hyperactive, only to crash into depression or fatigue after an hour.
the adult who develops a headache after lunch, especially fast food.
a toddler with recurrent ear infections and nonstop congestion year-round

Reading labels on foods can help to identify additives that may be a problem, like high fructose corn syrup causing a “sugar high,” or synthetic ingredients triggering headaches. But often that isn’t enough; finding conclusive patterns of what causes an issue is nearly impossible with the extensive and often vague ingredient lists for most foods. Whole, unprocessed foods are simpler and limit the variables, but this, too, is often inconclusive.

Keeping a food journal is an effective way to spot patterns. With my own son, I found about a dozen suspect foods but eliminating them wasn’t resolving his issues. Tests revealed he was sensitive to more than 50 common food items and many neighborhood trees.

We can’t just eliminate 50 common food items for a child; he still has to eat.

Enter what I call the “wheelbarrow concept.” On any building site, workers haul loads of rocks, dirt, and bricks. No load is particularly heavy, and the workers continue all day until the work is finished. While it’s tempting to want to just make one heavy load of everything, that load overwhelms the tools and strength available. Essentially, what the wheelbarrow concept explains is that no worker can haul rocks, bricks, and dirt together in his wheelbarrow without it tipping over or breaking.

It translates to food this way: many people, adults and children alike, don’t handle milk products well, but they can have them in moderation. Sugar is a burden but not normally a problem. Corn products are unnoticeable in nearly everything. However, combine those ingredients in a bowl of Frosted Flakes, and the food sensitive person’s wheelbarrow tips over. Hyperactivity and emotions become nearly uncontrollable. The very predictable crash happens about an hour later, with apathy and sometimes severe depression lasting for several hours. The reaction is totally out of proportion to the ingredients and not always obviously related. Add a cheeseburger and a soda for the next meal (more corn syrup and milk products along with the related beef proteins), and the body begins protecting itself by producing mucus which plugs the ears and inflames the gut.

Essentially, this is negative synergy at work. Several items that aren’t significant stressors on their own combine together to make a big reaction.

Now think about the ramifications. To a person with grass allergies, eating wheat bread during hayfever season could be life threatening. Recognizing that it may not be one ingredient, but a combination of seemingly benign ones, helps to understand why that person’s wheelbarrow has tipped over. It also leads us to the solution.

The only way to strengthen a weak muscle, organ or system is to give it a rest. Problem foods and exposures must be separated. Rotation allows an overactive immune system to heal while still eating.

Since the body takes approximately four days to completely clear a meal from its system, nothing is eaten more than once every 4 days. Different grains go onto separate days, as do meats, vegetables and fruits. Sweeteners are separated out into different types. The idea is to give the body time to clear small problems singly and not overload it with troublesome combinations. It also ensures eating a varied diet, which begins building the immune system to handle food more effectively.

This requires a plan to administer, and the discipline that goes into actually accomplishing it is admittedly huge. But the benefits are worth the investment. The longer you can maintain it the better the results. Beginning after a few weeks, inflammation and congestion begin to disappear, excess weight drops off, learning difficulties can clear up, and seasonal allergies lessen or go away. The food budget has probably gone up, but the medical line item goes dramatically down.

“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.”
― Hippocrates

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