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Jimi's Daily Health Articles

Rhianne

Rhianne

Diamond Contributor
Member For 2 Years
ECF Refugee
Jimi said:
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How to Win by Being Kind to Yourself


,


Bolstering your friends is easy — you readily see their worth, light, and influence.


Bolstering yourself seems to be much harder — especially if you suffer from any number of possible mental disorders, including but not limited to:


  • Depression
  • Anxiety
  • Bipolar disorder
  • Borderline personality disorder.

That pervasive denigrator has been called lots of things, from inner critic to devil-on-your-shoulder to alter ego. But there’s one thing they all have in common: they don’t help you, at all, in any way.


Some of you may be thinking: “But in my case, it’s genuinely right.”


Well, since that’s entirely subjective, it isn’t worth disproving. But the fact is, whether you believe it’s telling the truth about you or not, it can only hurt you.


It limits your thinking to the frame you’ve built for yourself, and won’t permit the acceptance of new information that doesn’t match that narrative.


It promotes perfectionism, which everyone knows is an impossible standard doomed for disappointment and failure. The only good thing about perfectionism is that it indicates a personal investment in the quality of your contributions.


And it ultimately leads to depressive feelings. You hear your own thoughts more often than you hear anything else — what could negative self-talk do but condition you to believe you’re [insert insulting sentiment here]?


Conversely, being kind, generous, forgiving, and positive with yourself has endless beneficial qualities.


Let’s look at just three of them…




Stronger Overall Performance


Athletes famously encourage positive self-talk. You see, it’s a tool. And anyone with a desire to perform well (at anything) knows they have to use every tool available to them.


If you reframe your self-talk, and use it to motivate yourself instead of beat yourself up after a loss or a mistake, you can re-ground yourself in reality.


Can you really not do this? Is failure actually the end of the road?


In most scenarios, the chance you have of succeeding is about the same as the chance you have of falling short, and telling yourself you won’t make it is a defense mechanism meant to soften the blow of that possible failure.


But if you train yourself in positive self-talk, using three metrics to guide you (instruction, motivation, or evaluation), the guiding force leading you through a task is rooting for you to win, and not preparing you for an inevitable loss.


This method has been shown to improve performance — something as simple as changing your mantra from “calm down” to “everything is alright.”


Rewiring Your Brain


A study done on the subtle difference between using “I” when you refer to yourself and using your name proved rather fruitful to psychologist Ethan Kross.


He calls self-talk “a regulatory mechanism.”


It programs the kinds of things you can or would say to yourself. If a friend were feeling nervous, you’d be very unlikely to say to that friend “You’re right! You’re an idiot.”


Social regulations prevent that from getting you very far.


The same mechanism operates inside your brain. So distancing your self-talk in your brain, by referring to yourself as your name, yielded more positive comments.


On top of that, nothing can rewire your brain more effectively than your thoughts.


And the more positive thoughts you generate, the more neurons grow in the left prefrontal cortex (which controls emotional responses, dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, and neurotransmitters involved in mood regulation), and vice versa with the right prefrontal cortex and negative thoughts (which controls the planning of behavior and the ability to focus.)




Stress Management


It should be no surprise that people who identify as optimists also experience lower stress levels.


Well, there’s a reason for that.


Researchers have found that positive self-talk promotes lower rates of depression and distress, better cardiovascular health, stronger coping skills, better psychological and physical wellbeing, and shockingly, better resistance to the common cold.


This is because positive self-talk is solution based. Running a negative thought through a positive filter can look like: “I’ve never done this before and it will be a disaster” turned into “I’ve been given an opportunity to master this skill and I’ll be better at it after I try.”


You also tend to catastrophize when you’re using negative self talk, which gives you an unrealistic picture of your actual capabilities and progress, forcing you to worry about how you’ll manage to succeed with such limited and fallible resources.


Your body responds to that stress.


And it takes your parasympathetic nervous system (you know, fight or flight) right down with it.


So really, no one said positive self-talk was easy.


Just that it’s ultimately leagues better for you than disaster-proofing your life by being prepared for disappointments.


And if you want lower stress, higher performance, and a happier left prefrontal cortex…


Be kind to yourself.


P.S. If you want to learn more about other ways to manage your life into a stress-free zone, check this out.


For full references go here
Click to expand...

Our Amber should read this one. Thanks, my friend. :hug:
 
Jimi

Jimi

Diamond Contributor
Member For 5 Years
Genetically modified crops are the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Roundup use in agriculture. Unfortunately, many crops that are “traditionally grown” are also saturated with the chemical, whose main ingredient (glyphosate) is listed by the World Health Organization as a probable carcinogen and has been linked to a wide variety of other serious health concerns.

Why would farmers use Roundup on non-GMO crops? The answer is concerning. The chemical is used to desiccate (dry) certain crops before harvest. This allows for faster ripening, an earlier harvest and increased yields in an increasing number of crops including wheat, barley, and rice. However, the practice is harmful and alarming for many reasons.

Drenched in Glyphosate

When Roundup is used as a desiccating agent on crops, it’s applied liberally right before harvest. This causes crops to ripen faster and more evenly, but the chemicals are quickly absorbed into the food with no time for dissipation. Instead, crops harvested with Roundup come to the market drenched in glyphosate.

Because the crops absorb the Roundup, it can’t be washed off once the product is brought home. Instead, it’s purchased and consumed in whole foods (like nuts, fruit, and flour) or made into processed foods and then consumed. This allows for a greater concentration of toxic glyphosate in our diets—in fact, the majority of non-organic wheat grown in the US is contaminated with glyphosate.

Although the EPA sets tolerance limits for the amount of glyphosate residue on foods, it’s safe to assume that most Americans are consuming far more than is healthy. Even if individual foods do not exceed the recommended amount of glyphosate, the accumulation of pesticides that we are exposed to due to the fact that so many crops are using Roundup is essentially immeasurable.

A Concerning Number of Crops

Which crops are being treated with Roundup? You’ll be surprised at the number of offenders. Here is a condensed list of the foods you are most likely to be purchasing (taken from a much longer list found in this EPA memo):

mail
 
Rhianne

Rhianne

Diamond Contributor
Member For 2 Years
ECF Refugee
Jimi said:
Genetically modified crops are the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Roundup use in agriculture. Unfortunately, many crops that are “traditionally grown” are also saturated with the chemical, whose main ingredient (glyphosate) is listed by the World Health Organization as a probable carcinogen and has been linked to a wide variety of other serious health concerns.

Why would farmers use Roundup on non-GMO crops? The answer is concerning. The chemical is used to desiccate (dry) certain crops before harvest. This allows for faster ripening, an earlier harvest and increased yields in an increasing number of crops including wheat, barley, and rice. However, the practice is harmful and alarming for many reasons.

Drenched in Glyphosate

When Roundup is used as a desiccating agent on crops, it’s applied liberally right before harvest. This causes crops to ripen faster and more evenly, but the chemicals are quickly absorbed into the food with no time for dissipation. Instead, crops harvested with Roundup come to the market drenched in glyphosate.

Because the crops absorb the Roundup, it can’t be washed off once the product is brought home. Instead, it’s purchased and consumed in whole foods (like nuts, fruit, and flour) or made into processed foods and then consumed. This allows for a greater concentration of toxic glyphosate in our diets—in fact, the majority of non-organic wheat grown in the US is contaminated with glyphosate.

Although the EPA sets tolerance limits for the amount of glyphosate residue on foods, it’s safe to assume that most Americans are consuming far more than is healthy. Even if individual foods do not exceed the recommended amount of glyphosate, the accumulation of pesticides that we are exposed to due to the fact that so many crops are using Roundup is essentially immeasurable.

A Concerning Number of Crops

Which crops are being treated with Roundup? You’ll be surprised at the number of offenders. Here is a condensed list of the foods you are most likely to be purchasing (taken from a much longer list found in this EPA memo):

mail
Click to expand...

So depressing. I heard it’s done with organic, too.
 
Jimi

Jimi

Diamond Contributor
Member For 5 Years
mail


The Science of SADness


,


Before we talk about what seasonal affective disorder (SAD) isn’t, let’s talk about what it is.


Seasonal affective disorder is a varietal of depression confined to the fall and winter months.


It affects primarily women, and primarily those with other psychiatric conditions, like manic depression or bipolar disorder. (This doesn’t mean that men aren’t affected, or that you have to have another condition to experience SAD systems. Just that you’re more likely to if the previously mentioned criteria are met.)


As of 2019, it affects 10 million Americans, with a separate 10% of the population experiencing milder symptoms of a junior SAD disorder.


If you’ve never heard of it before, ask yourself a few things…


When the seasons change, and the days get shorter, and the darkness drapes itself like a weighted blanket over the light, and even feeling the air outside is painful and bleak, and the thought of leaving your bed in the morning makes your eyes well up with tears…


You may be a candidate for seasonal depression. Symptoms include:


  • Sustained misery over days/weeks
  • Low energy/apathy
  • Oversleeping
  • Overeating/weight gain
  • Abnormally high craving for carbs
  • Hibernation
  • Social isolation



Anhedonism and the Sunlight Suggestion


What makes SAD a different subset within the garden-variety depression heading is that it’s characterized by an unusual anhedonic attitude — or, a generalized apathy and disinterest in things which formerly gave them pleasure.


There’s a suggested reason for that.


Individuals with SAD tend to overproduce a certain protein, called SERT, whose function is to carry serotonin, your make-happy chemical, from its production center to its distribution center. Having too much of SERT means that too much serotonin is being drawn away from the brain, resulting in feelings of depression.


Now, the sunlight of the summer months helps to keep SERT levels in check. That’s why winter can really mess with your chemistry.


And on top of that, having SAD often leads to an overproduction of melatonin, your make-sleepy chemical, which responds to darkness by sending your body off to sleep.


When you combine the two, what you get is a fundamental change in your circadian rhythm, or the clock by which your body functions. Because of the imbalance in those two primary circadian chemicals, your body doesn’t respond as pertly to seasonal changes.




What Can You Do?


To combat the symptoms, you could seasonally take SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) the way that someone with regular depression would counteract the effects of their disorder.


Because vitamin D deficiency is an active contributor to SAD, you could take vitamin D supplements as well, or use sunlamps to make sure you’re getting enough quality light onto your skin when the outside world is dark and cold. Make sure to talk to your doctor before starting any new medications or vitamin regiments.


There is also evidence to suggest that hibernating during the winter months is natural for mammals, which certainly leads one to wonder why allowances aren’t made for it in mankind. So if you’d like to spend the winter catching up on your alone time, burying yourself in a depressive abyss, and meditating in silence, it’s most certainly your prerogative.


If you’d rather not lean into it or take medication, here are some quick tips for mitigating the effects of your SADness:


  • Read/watch/listen: Escapism is a powerful human tool. If the world around you feels empty and hopeless, go to a different world! Get lost in a book, in a new musical genre, in a comforting fictional realm.
  • Allow yourself comfort: If you’re craving carbs and coziness, let yourself have it! Remind yourself to counteract the effects of being sedentary and eating excess carbs by prioritizing indoor activities, and getting your NEAT (non exercise activity thermogenesis) count up. This refers to all of the energy you expend when you’re not sleeping, eating, or doing sports-like exercise.
  • Be with happy people. It can be hard enough to keep your own spirits up without being asked to lift those of your social group. Try to spend at least some of your time around people who either don’t experience SAD, are naturally jolly, or are otherwise cheerfully disposed.
  • Get your body heat up. Take hot baths, drink hot tea, eat hot soup. Throw epsom salts in the bath, make sure the tea is herbal, and try bone broth in your hot soup. That means cozy blankets and thick wool socks too!

SAD is not a death sentence, nor is it an emotional anomaly.


It’s real, rooted in science, and totally navigable.


Treat yourself gently and with ease.



While SAD is a common cause for the winter blues, the holiday season is especially hard for some people. Join Dr. Pedram Shojai for a talk about healing emotional trauma. We are all carrying unnecessary emotional baggage and it’s slowing us down from living our desired lives.
 
Jimi

Jimi

Diamond Contributor
Member For 5 Years
Earl Grey tea is named after Charles Grey, the 2nd Earl of Howick, a one-time British Prime Minister. He oversaw the abolition of slavery and started a program in which the British government bought slaves from their owners, to turn them free.

Earl Grey tea is flavored with oil of bergamot, a fine citrus fruit. It has always been one of my favorite go-to teas and I have fond memories of sipping it in posh Fortnum and Mason's in Piccadilly, London!

mail

Fortnum and Mason's luxurious facade, with frock-coated steward

Why am I telling you this? Because bergamot is my theme today.

Bergamot orange (Citrus bergamia) is a small citrus tree which blossoms during the winter and is grown commercially in Calabria, Italy. It is probably a hybrid of Citrus limetta (sweet lime) and Citrus aurantium (bitter orange).

It clearly has remarkable health properties. It’s a very neat little cardio defender, liver protector, glucose control manager, blood fat helper and general all-round good guy that revitalizes lost years! I take it myself… and I don't just mean as Earl Grey tea!

In fact the tea (which uses the peel for flavor) does not have the health properties of the juice, which contains exceptional amounts of several unique polyphenols. Well, we all know how healthful those are.

I mentioned it’s good for the liver. How is that important?

Liver damage is one of the most common and most dangerous health conditions out there. It goes hand in hand with overweight and obesity. Forget cirrhosis due to alcohol—that’s about 6% of the deaths.

More than 50% of liver damage leading to cirrhosis and death comes in the form of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). The name says it: the liver gets infiltrated with fat, swells, can’t function and pretty soon, you will die.

Bergamot supports healthy liver enzymes to protect against liver problems. In simple terms, that equates to growing younger.

mail

Anyway, some time ago, I prepared a webpage with more information about this amazing Italian fruit and how to take it for exceptional health benefits.
 
Jimi

Jimi

Diamond Contributor
Member For 5 Years
Especially for those with digestive issues, feasting during the holidays can be a huge source of discomfort.


Cookies, gluten, candy, fudge, heavy dishes with red meats and sauces, eggnog, fried latkes, creamy potatoes, cheese plate after cheese plate…


They’re all pretty much an irritated bowel’s worst nightmare. The last thing you want to experience when you’re packing double your normal activity itinerary into busy days laced with the stress of insistent merriment is an upset tummy and an extra-long retreat to the bathroom.


But since everyone is a sentient creature, with the ability to make their own informed decisions, it can help to know going into the holiday cycle what you can eat to actively balance your microbiome.


It’s okay for it to be out of whack for a few days, a week, even for a month. No one is perfect and the human body is designed to heal and correct itself from the inside. (Besides, stressing about it can cause damage to your gut’s microbiota too.)


That’s why you want to focus on going green. In fact, before we get into specifics, let’s take a quick look at the overarching benefits of green vegetables as regards to your gut.


  • Densely packed nutrition
  • Sugar and starch are effectively absent
  • High in fiber and low-carb at the same time
  • Heavy in chlorophyll, which mitigates inflammation all over the body

What does all of this mean?


It means your gut doesn’t have to work as hard to digest green veggies as it would with legumes, grains, dairy, sugar, and other popular holiday fare. In other words, eating an abundance of green veggies allows for a smaller margin for error.


But not all green vegetables were created alike.


These five specifically target and improve the efficiency of your digestive tract. If you can work them into your holiday menu, your tummy will thank you.




Arugula


Because arugula is high in magnesium and Vitamin C, it’s one of the best greens for gut health. You see, those two nutrients assist in bowel regularity, lower stress, and less inflammation of the digestive tract.


And since it’s high in fiber, it keeps you feeling full for longer than other salad greens might, which helps prevent you from overeating.


Asparagus


Asparagus is the king of digestive health. It’s very high in folate and protein, which helps to regulate the bowels and suppress bloating, one of the more uncomfortable holiday hallmarks.


It has a detoxifying effect on your body, which is important during a time when you’re loading your body full of alcohol, sweets, and other toxins.


Zucchini


One of the best benefits of zucchini is that it’s very low in starch — great for not packing on holiday weight and great for those who have difficulty digesting starch.


It’s also got strong potassium and Vitamin C quantities, more regulatory and inflammation reducing nutrients. Because of its decent balance of soluble and insoluble fibers and its nutrient contents, it pushes things along better in the digestive tract.


Plus, the high water and chlorophyll content is easy on the tummy.




Leeks


Part of the allum family (like onions and garlic), leeks are wonderful for your digestive health. The insulin fiber in leeks strengthens healthy gut bacteria and also helps to break down fat, which is often high in rich holiday dishes. It’s also rich in Vitamin K, which your healthy gut bacteria should be producing naturally.


Not only that, but because they’re high in flavonoids, they regulate your body’s oxidative stress response.


Oxidative stress is caused by an imbalance of free radicals (molecules containing oxygen and an uneven number of electrons) and antioxidants. Stress and depression can also increase oxidative stress, so it’s important to regulate that any way you can during high stress periods.


Artichokes


High in dietary fiber, artichokes promote healthy bowel regulation and low irritation.


It also feeds and replenishes stock of the healthy bacteria in the colon, and reduces your risk of bowel cancers and disorders, and helps to prevent constipation and diarrhea.


Their high antioxidant and water content also builds up healthy stool, making it pass more easily.


If you pay attention to what you eat during the holidays, either by making dietary requests or bringing your own dishes to feasting events, you can protect the sanctity of your gut health.


That doesn’t mean you can’t also enjoy your favorite holiday dishes!


Just make sure that you’re also using your agency to give your gut the best medicine you can: nutrient and fiber rich foods.
 
Rhianne

Rhianne

Diamond Contributor
Member For 2 Years
ECF Refugee
Jimi said:
Earl Grey tea is named after Charles Grey, the 2nd Earl of Howick, a one-time British Prime Minister. He oversaw the abolition of slavery and started a program in which the British government bought slaves from their owners, to turn them free.

Earl Grey tea is flavored with oil of bergamot, a fine citrus fruit. It has always been one of my favorite go-to teas and I have fond memories of sipping it in posh Fortnum and Mason's in Piccadilly, London!

mail

Fortnum and Mason's luxurious facade, with frock-coated steward

Why am I telling you this? Because bergamot is my theme today.

Bergamot orange (Citrus bergamia) is a small citrus tree which blossoms during the winter and is grown commercially in Calabria, Italy. It is probably a hybrid of Citrus limetta (sweet lime) and Citrus aurantium (bitter orange).

It clearly has remarkable health properties. It’s a very neat little cardio defender, liver protector, glucose control manager, blood fat helper and general all-round good guy that revitalizes lost years! I take it myself… and I don't just mean as Earl Grey tea!

In fact the tea (which uses the peel for flavor) does not have the health properties of the juice, which contains exceptional amounts of several unique polyphenols. Well, we all know how healthful those are.

I mentioned it’s good for the liver. How is that important?

Liver damage is one of the most common and most dangerous health conditions out there. It goes hand in hand with overweight and obesity. Forget cirrhosis due to alcohol—that’s about 6% of the deaths.

More than 50% of liver damage leading to cirrhosis and death comes in the form of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). The name says it: the liver gets infiltrated with fat, swells, can’t function and pretty soon, you will die.

Bergamot supports healthy liver enzymes to protect against liver problems. In simple terms, that equates to growing younger.

mail

Anyway, some time ago, I prepared a webpage with more information about this amazing Italian fruit and how to take it for exceptional health benefits.
Click to expand...

I love Earl Grey tea, it’s one of my faves! I’m glad it’s healthy. I haven’t been drinking it so often, but now I will. New Year Win for me! :hugs:
 
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