Natural ways to reduce anxiety – Part 3
What I want to share with you know is probably the simplest and easiest method of reducing anxiety, you can do it anywhere and it costs nothing. Its called breathing. Yes I know we do it all the time. But when you get anxious we begin to breathe rapidly and shallowly from our upper chest. This breathing breath from your upper chest is why you get tight neck muscles as they can get overused as they help to move the top rib we breathing.
What I am talking about is breathing deeply or calm breathing.
- Take a long, slow breath in through your nose, first filling your lower lungs – put your hand on your belly and you should feel it move out as your breath in. Then breath into your upper lungs.
- Hold your breath to the count of “three.”
- Exhale slowly through pursed lips, while you relax the muscles in your face, jaw, shoulders, and stomach.
Calm breathing you can stimulate the body’s parasympathetic response. This is the body’s equally powerful and opposite system to the flight or fight response and is often called the relaxation response. When you trigger the body’s relaxing response, your
- heart rate slows
- blood pressure decreases
- muscle tension decreases
- growing sense of ease in body, calmness in mind
So you stop anxiety in its tracks!. I recommend you practice this calm breathing for several times a day (up to 10 times) for several weeks until it becomes natural.
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The low down on natural sugars – part 2, thumbs down list
There are lots of "natural" sugars, and as I said before how do you know the ones to avoid? Here is my guide to the ones I try to avoid and why. Evaporated Cane Juice The new kid on the block of "natural" sugars. It is a sugar syrup from partially refined sugar which is very similar to ordinary sugar. The FDA (US Food and Drug Administration) has warned of mislabelling with this product. Fructose This no longer has the goodness and fibre of fruit. Unlike sucrose and glucose it won't spike your insulin levels, but it will cause weight gain around the middle. It also interferes with the production of hormones related to hunger and satiety (feeling full) and hence increases appetite. On top of this it gets converted to unhealthy fats e.g. LDL ("bad" cholesterol) and triglycerides. Remember fructose is fine when naturally occuring withing fruit but I recommend avoiding it when its a white powder added to food. Agave This is essentially up to 90% refined fructose (see above). There is no way of distinguishing between commercially and traditionally produced produced products. Molasses This has the least amount of sugar and the highest level of vitamins and minerals. Half its sugar content is fructose and glucose in equal amounts while the other half is sucrose. So it will spike your insulin levels which causes the body to create fat. It may contain high levels of pesticides and other chemicals use in the processing. Xylitol Sold as a white powder considered natural as it occurs in plants but needs a lot of refining. Low in calories, it doesn't spike insulin levels so useful for diabetics. It is on my avoid list because it requires a lot of processing to produce and because it ferments in the gut causing diarrhoea and bloating. Sorbitol Used in foods for diabetics at it triggers little or no insulin production. I would avoid it as it is heavily processed as it is hard on the digestive system just like Xylitol. Honey A simple sugar up to 40% glucose and fructose so it affects your blood sugar levels very quickly. If you must use it, I mix it with lemon and ginger when I have a sore throat, cold or flu then by organic and I perfer manuka for its healing properties. References Natural Alternatives to Sugar by Dr M Glenville (Lifestyle Press 2016)
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Natural treatment for cold sores
A common treatment for cold sores is antiviral cream called aciclovir. A new randomised controlled trial of nearly 1,000 adults with cold sores where they either applied aciclovir cream or medical grade New Zealand manuka honey to the cold sore. There was no significant difference in the time taken for the cold sore to heal:
- 8 days for aciclovir cream
- 9 days with New Zealand medical grade manuka honey
