Mundane superfoods – part 2
In part 1, I explored how you could swap lemon balm for caco. I want to continue this theme of swaping more common foods for exotic super foods:
Use Blueberries for Acai Berries
Acai berries (pronounced ah-sah-EE), a sort of cross between a grape and a blueberry, look very much like the latter and, oddly, taste a little like a berry dipped in chocolate. They’ve been used in traditional medicine to treat infections from parasites, ulcers, hemorrhaging, ulcers and diarrhea. Acai berries come from the Amazon region. Besides the berries themselves, the juice and pulp are commonly added to teas, fruit drinks, fruit bars and other products geared toward health and vitality.
Nutritionally, these little berries contain high levels of antioxidants, flavonoids and anthocyanins. But as beneficial as acai berries are, their nutritional profile is very comparable to that of blueberries, which are readily available in your local supermarket.
Blueberries have truly remarkable benefits for cardiovascular health, as well as for your brain, insulin response and even cancer prevention. Packed with vitamin C, which boosts your immune system and helps collagen to form, they’re also loaded with fiber for greater regularity, impacting your heart health, and manganese, a mineral noted for energy conversion and proper bone development.
Reference
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Natural ways to reduce anxiety – Part 4
Following on from my last post on calm breathing, I want to introduce you to calming counting. The advantage of this technique over calm breathing is that it helps you stop focusing on worried thoughts! Calming Counting
- Sit comfortably.
- Take a long, deep breath and exhale it slowly while saying the word "relax" silently.
- Close your eyes.
- Let yourself take ten natural, easy breaths. Count down with each exhale, starting with "ten."
- This time, while you are breathing comfortably, notice any tensions, perhaps in your jaw or forehead or stomach. Imagine those tensions loosening.
- When you reach "one," open your eyes again.
Natural ways to reduce anxiety – Part 5
Having looked at exercise (yoga) and breathing I now want to move on to look at nurtition. Studies of animals suggest that the amino acids L-lysine and L-arginine may influence neurotransmitters involved in stress and anxiety. In humans supplementing with the two together appears to reduce both state anxiety (temporary anxious feelings that arise when comfronted by a specific situation) and trait anxiety (a general tendancy to be anxious) in healthy men and women subjected to stressful situations. Taking L-lysine alone has also been shown to reduce chronic anxiety in people with low dietary intake of the amino acid. References https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14676321 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14609314 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17510493
More of what can assist you with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome?
Following on from my previous tips, here are a few more:
- ICE - If your wrist feels inflammed (red, hot and swollen) then icing the area may assist you.
- Cupping - which is part of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). In a trail of cupping therapy, whereby heated glass cups are applied to the skin to create suction and encourage energy flow in the body, the cupping group experienced a significant reduction in pain and other symptoms compared to the control group.
- Myofasical Release - Its a hands on therapy which uses manual pressure and stretching to release the faction to assist the carpal tunnel. In a study of four patients with carpal tunnel syndrome, all saw an improvement in both their symptoms and MRI scans after myofasical release treatment. Amanda Oswald, a leading myofascial therapsits has written a book with self-help fascial stretches for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, Living Pain Free (published by Lotus Publishing in 2017).
