Holistic Health Secrets

I’ve created a page (or lens) on Squidoo about the human body clock.  Visit the page now if you’d like information about the human body clock and its role in both creating and healing insomnia.

http://www.squidoo.com/human-body-clock

I recently wrote a report about the importance of our body clock particularly when it comes to dealing with chronic insomnia.

Our master body clock is located in the brain and is responsible for maintaining our sleep-wake cycle, moods, appetite, weight and hormone production.

The report discusses the potential dangers of using sleeping medications and melatonin supplements.

It also explores why it’s important to use natural remedies to deal with sleeping difficulties, problems with the body clock and melatonin deficiency.

You can read this white paper here:

http://ways-to-sleep.com/info/Role-of-body-clock-white-paper.pdf

Register for instant access to this free 27 minute audio presentation which will be available until Monday 7 February 2011.

Here are some of the things you’ll discover:

* How to get more sleep and double your energy in a way that doesn’t involve taking pills or supplements

* Two evening activities that can con your brain into staying awake for the rest of the night

* Why exercising at certain times of the day can stop you sleeping and what to do about it

* What to eat to increase your levels of the vital hormones needed to create more sleep and improve your health

* A trick learned from ancient cultures that you can use to increase your levels of melatonin naturally

To register and listen to the presentation immediately, enter your email address in the form below…

Register for a free online seminar presentation and get instant access to the short video which introduces my holistic system for beating insomnia.

Topics include:

* how our hormones and diet affect our sleeping patterns

* why a holistic approach is the best way to treat insomnia

* what you can do to help your body to get more sleep

* the importance of a bedtime ritual

* the root causes of your insomnia

* how to incorporate the holistic system in your daily life to fall asleep quickly and sleep through the night

Simply complete the registration form below to get instant access to the video.

Food is Your Best Medicine is a book written in 1965 by medical doctor Dr Henry Bieler, an expert in nutrition and biochemistry.

Both the title and the content of the book present Dr Bieler’s core belief that natural healthy food rather than modern medicine is the best way to create long-lasting healing.

Dr Bieler became interested in nutrition as a method of healthcare after using it to successfully to treat his own problem with severe asthma.

He was often viewed as controversial by mainstream medicine because of his distrust of pharmaceutical drugs as the primary method of treating disease.

During his career, he treated illnesses such as migraine, diabetes, asthma and cancer with nutritional-based therapy.

He worked with patients from all social classes and walks of life  (including erstwhile movie stars such as Greta Garbo, Lucille Ball and Gloria Swanson).

Dr Bieler emphasised the virtues of an individual diet based on your biological make up. He believed that everyone has a unique body chemistry so did not advocate any one-size-fits all diet although his book includes recipes and remedies for particular illnesses.

It is often described as one of the best books for maintaining health and fitness and preventing disease and has not dated even though it was written 45 years ago.

Are you suffering from stress? Click to here to get more stress management techniques by taking my free online stress management course.

Many stress management techniques seem counter-intuitive and contradictory.  When you have so much to do and so little time to do it in, certain stress busting tips can appear to be enemies of productivity and efficiency.

But I have discovered that the more counter-intuitive these tools appear to be, the more they seem to work.

Here are 6 stress management techniques that appear to be non-conducive to fulfilling all your professional or familial obligations.

1) Slowing down

Slowing down instead of speeding up helps you to avoid the mistakes that create more stress. Concentrating, focusing, being meticulous and in the present moment instead of racing to complete everything in record time or beating a deadline,  can save you more time in the long run.  Errors can be costly and  may mean you have to do the whole thing all over again. More haste less speed.

2) One at a time

When you have too much to do, focusing on completing one task for a prolonged period of time when you have a million other things to do may seem to fly in the face of common sense.

But multi-tasking can cause you to scatter yourself and spread yourself too thin.  You end up getting a little bit of everything done instead of completing your projects one by one.

Focusing exclusively on one project for a 30 minute or one hour period then moving onto another project may be a more effective option than juggling tasks and dealing with emails and phone calls all at the same time.

3) Relaxing the mind

When you are under stress, the last thing you may feel like doing is meditating especially when your mind is full of thoughts and worries.

But when you relax and focus your mind on something else, your unconscious has time to work on the problem and create a solution for you.  However your conscious mind has to get out of the way first.  Meditation techniques can help to focus your mind on something else for a five to ten minutes while your unconscious (which remembers everything) can go to work on solving your challenges.

4) Having a day off

By this I don’t mean taking sick leave, but having an actual day off – even if your work is piling up.

One day of rest, renewal, relaxation and switching off can prevent you from having to take weeks off for sick leave due to work-related stress.  Remember that the 3 Rs (rest, renewal & relaxation) help to prevent the 3 Is (insomnia, indigestion & irritability).

5) Having fun

Socialising, talking with a friend, reading a book, listening to music – these things may seem to be enemies of productivity but they serve as ways to renew and rejuvenate your tired spirit.

6) Saying no

For many reasons, this is the hardest for a lot of people because we don’t like to let people down.

But saying no to demands that you know you won’t be able to fulfil or warning people that you will do your best to get it done but completion will be unlikely will help to prevent the burden of false expectation that creates ever- increasing stress.

Are you suffering from stress?  Click to here to get more stress management techniques by taking my free online stress management course.

When we listen to any form of music, it has different vibrational effects on the body – either raising our spirits or inflaming our emotions.

Certain types of musical instruments such as the harp,  natural strings and woodwind instruments have a very positive vibrational physical effect on the body’s systems.

Want more tips on relieving stress? Click here to take this free online stress busting course now.

I’ve previously written about some of the psychological causes of stress – such as stress in the workplace.

Physical problems also create stress for the body.

Knee pain, allergies, low blood sugar, fatigue syndromes and infections can all be a result of adrenal exhaustion.

Causes and Symptoms of Adrenal Exhaustion

Our adrenals respond to sudden stress by releasing the hormone adrenaline.

Depleted adrenals are created by steady relentless persistent stress which slows down the response levels of the adrenal glands. Adrenal depletion can also be the result of poor nutrition or spiritual unhappiness.

Exposure to toxic metals and chemicals can create adrenal burnout while the consumption of stimulants such as caffeine will place even more stress on the adrenals.

General overstimulation can be a major cause, particularly in children.

Symptoms include interrupted sleep patterns so if you tend to jump awake at night, it may be because of adrenal stress.

Your immune system is lowered so you may also be vulnerable to any bugs or colds that are going around.

Ways to Combat Adrenal Fatigue

Large quantities of Vitamin C can help to deal with stress that is caused by adrenal exhaustion.  Vitamin B5 and Vitamin B3 are also helpful.

Eating small meals at frequent intervals can help with adrenal fatigue problems.

So for example, eating your first meal at 8am, your lunch just before noon, a snack at 3 and your evening meal at 6pm plus a light snack before bedtime will help to alleviate both adrenal problems and interrupted sleep patterns.

Natural therapies that help to relax and balance the body’s systems such as reflexology or massage can also help.

Do you suffer from relentless stress? Click here to take this free online stress busting course now.

Last week when I was working on my blog articles about stress in the workplace, I received this famous verse in an email about an event that had been postponed:

But Mouse, you are not alone,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often askew,
And leaves us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!

- “To a Mouse”, Robert Burns, 1786

The poem seemed to foreshadow the theme of my week.

I knew that I was going to have a busy fortnight so I decided to plan each step meticulously so that I would be able to get as much as possible done in the limited amount of time that I had.

On Monday, I began putting my plans into action although I was starting to feel very tired.  On Tuesday, I became ill.  And for the rest of the week, I couldn’t really do anything.

It was frustrating.  But stressful symptoms arise when events happen that we can’t control.  So I just had to be philosophical about it and surrender the need to get everything done in the quickest amount of time.

The other moral of the story is that illnesses are messages from the body. If you don’t schedule enough time to rest and rejuvenate, your body will rebel and force you to take time out.

So to avoid burnout and collapse, we need to schedule a mental and physical “Time Out”, “DownTime” or “Yin Time” when we are not thinking about all the things that we have to do.

If we feel guilty about all the things we think we should be doing while we are relaxing, we have to remember that this “Time Out” period is also a Sickness/Burnout Prevention period which will save us time and energy and increase our productivity in the long run.

Are you suffering from stress?  Click here to take this free online stress-busting course.