Spectrum Blog

Nourishing your body in winter

Nourishing your body in winter

Spectrum Blog , ,

by Chiropractor Dr. Annika Jende

Ok, so we are not experiencing your average Canadian or Norwegian winter (actually, it’s probably more like their summer), but our bodies are still in tune with the seasons, and each season has its’ own culinary delights (sounds promising, doesn’t it!). Winter calls for warm food. Here are some ideas and tips:

Soups and stews: Bone broth is an awesome start for both! Here’s how you do it:
Get some organic bones. (Organic because bones are used to store dangerous chemicals like toxic metals and fluoride and such.) Go Vita usually has both beef and chicken. Your can also use fish bones to good effect, I am sure, but we haven’t tried it yet. Cover the bones with water and boil them on a low heat for about 24 hours for beef or lamb, or 12 for chicken. Add some apple cider vinegar to draw the minerals out.
When the bones have finished cooking, you can cool the broth and you will be able to scoop the fat off if you wish (but it does add yumminess and satiety and can be kept in the broth if the bones are organic – yes, fat stores dangerous chemicals, too).
The jelly-like stuff in the bottom is the good stuff! When you re-heat it, it will become liquid again. You can also freeze it if you are making a huge batch. Remember to give some to your furry companions also, they love it!
Add turmeric, rosemary, garlic, ginger, black pepper or whatever your favourite spice may be. Seaweed is also fabulous for iodine.
Now, if you, like us, like your veggies crunchy, cut your veggies up. When your hot broth (now soup) is ready to serve, put your fresh veggies in your bowl and pour the hot broth over it. This will cook the outside lightly, while keeping the inside crunchy. Yum!

Salads: Salads are cooling foods, which is why we can’t get enough of them in summer! So in winter, go for warm salads: Green leafy veg like spinach, and then add baked veggies like pumpkin or sweet potato. Or steam your veg lightly (broccoli or beans for example) and put them on top. And add your pine-nuts or sesame or sunflower seeds or pumpkin seeds. You can also add quinoa to your salads.

Water: Water is the second most important nutrient for the body (after oxygen), and at this time of year it’s important to drink warm water. Otherwise, you end up with this big blob of cold in the middle of your core that your body has to warm up. Drinking warm water is not usually all that interesting, and alcohol, coffee and tea (including most herbal teas) actually draw more water out of the body than they supply, so pour a some hot water over some ginger or lemon for a little flavour and zest as well as rehydration.

Desserts (to nourish your inner child): Winter is the perfect time for baked apples. Or stew your fruit – apples and pears lend themselves particularly: core and slice your fruit, put in on the stove just covered in water, and add your spices like nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, anise, cardamom and ginger, and stew the fruit until it has your preferred texture. Fruit these days is so sweet, you won’t need to add any sweetener. Delicious with a bit of coconut milk or coconut yoghurt.

Annika’s secret Danish mulled wine recipe (for nourishing your spirits – as it were): Don’t use the expensive stuff for this, as the flavours will be quite altered by the cooking process. Soak some slivered almonds and some raisins (the more raisins you add, the sweeter the end product will be) in some port overnight. Take about ¼ of your bottle of wine and heat it up to boiling with some lemon rind, cardamom, ginger, cloves and a cinnamon stick. After 10 minutes or so of boiling, strain the spices out, put the rest of the bottle of wine and your soaked fruit into it and heat a little (or a lot to evaporate the alcohol, if you are trying to be kind to your liver).
The secret’s out now – this is how Danes do “hygge” in the months leading up to Christmas. Enjoy!

 

Here’s an article on how to avoid dry skin in winter https://spectrumchiropractic.com.au/how-to-prevent-winter-dry-skin-and-stimulate-your-metabolism-too/

Here’s how to stay hydrated in winter https://spectrumchiropractic.com.au/how-to-avoid-winter-dehyrdation-a-factor-in-how-susceptible-you-are-to-the-flu/

 

Image by -Rita-👩‍🍳 und 📷 mit ❤ from Pixabay

The Hibernation Hormone

The Hibernation Hormone

Spectrum Blog , , , ,

By Chiropractor Dr. Annika Jende

We are currently finding ourselves in the part of the year when the days are shortest. Do you find yourself wanting to sleep more? Are you feeling less energetic and putting on a little weight? What happens in this time of year is that we have less exposure to sunlight, which means that we make less Vitamin D, which in turn means that our bodies are starting to produce RT3 (reverse active thyroid hormone) instead of T3 (active thyroid hormone). RT3 acts like a brake on the metabolism – which makes perfect sense in winter, when we need to conserve our stores and don’t burn up fuel trying to hunt and gather food.

I actually think that the pineal gland – a tiny gland right in the middle of the brain that responds to light and runs most of our daily, lunar and yearly cycles – is involved, but the pineal gland is still very much a medical mystery, with hormones as yet undiscovered and the discovered ones yet to find out what they do. So let’s give medical research a couple of decades to back this statement up ;).

So if the above is your situation, you’re in tune with the season! Don’t worry, once the days lengthen, you’ll pick up again, get active and lose that extra bit of weight. Do what the people resident in the Northern hemisphere do in midwinter: Have a rest!! This is why they invented midwinter holidays. In Australia, we just keep going as if it were any other season, and then we wonder why we’re exhausted by Christmas.

Do make sure that you get yourself into natural daylight, having said that, especially if you are one of the people who has to work in a fully enclosed space lit by artificial light sources, getting to work and home in the dark. (Being of Danish origin, this is still a mystery to me – I guess in Denmark, sunlight is often in short supply due to the days being short in winter and/or the skies being overcast, and Danes have therefore become extremely good at building as to capture any stray sunlight in the vicinity.)

It is, of course, more complicated than that for a lot of people. RT3 can easily become too high, usually in times of extreme and prolonged stress. This leads to elevated stress hormones in the body, which favour T4 (the much more inactive thyroid hormone and precursor to T3 and RT3) converting into RT3 rather than T3. I think of this as the body’s way to force you to rest, as this really is the only cure for stress – remember stress is supposed to be short term! Also, if you have a latent underactive thyroid issue, it will often show up in winter, just by virtue of the fact that we need to create more heat in our bodies.

The tricky thing about RT3 is that it is not usually tested for in a thyroid blood test. It is, in fact, counted as a T3(!!). So if you have low thyroid symptoms (such as tired all the time, high cholesterol, depression, unexplained weight gain, cold-sensitivity, difficulties concentrating and remembering, hair loss ….) but your blood tests are “normal”, chances are RT3 is at fault!

 

So what can you do to restore your RT3/T3 balance?

Rest.

Get some sunlight every day.

Eat foods rich in iodine, such as seafood, seaweed, and rosemary (makes a nice tea, too).

Eat coconut oil.

Avoid the foods that are bad for your thyroid, such as gluten, unfermented soy foods and alcohol.

Avoid chlorine and fluoride (as found in tap water and toothpaste) as they displace the iodine from its place in the thyroid hormone molecule.

Address any issues that cause you stress, especially long-term stress (we can probably help with that).

Only do very gentle exercise. No heart-pounding, sweat-pouring activities, please! They will only deplete you further. Stick with walking, yoga, swimming and other gentle exercise.

Check out this article on the adrenal glands

https://spectrumchiropractic.com.au/stress-the-glands/

Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay

The Vagus nerve. Does it act as a sort of radar and does it influence how we relate with others and our world?

The Vagus nerve. Does it act as a sort of radar and does it influence how we relate with others and our world?

Spectrum Blog , , , ,

by Chiropractor  Dr. Graham Taylor

How do we know that the person we just met is ok? What tells us how welcoming to be towards someone? How do we decide if this new activity is safe to do? And what is the mechanism for close bonding?

With mental and emotional health hand in hand as key drivers of health, and apparently increasing numbers of children (and adults) affected by anxiety – I want to share with you my current literature research on how to help stay well from the inside > out > in. What I mean is to have a healthy regulatory and self – feedback system that guides us towards the right people, foods, activities, music, culture, foster-worthy thoughts, and stories that are just right for each of us. That is to say, to the things that ADD TO our energy, robust health and vital life force when we engage with them. As we know, when we take on things that are wrong for us, especially over a long period, we run ourselves down. So, as adults we want to choose what is good for us AND help guide our young ones in those choices – remembering that we are all unique individuals with individual needs.

Many current wellness researchers are now highlighting the importance of the vagus nerve that provides a major pathway for self awareness and self regulation. The vagus is a huge nerve that starts at the base of the brain on both sides, exits the skull and supplies the sinuses – throat – then travels through the chest and into the gut, supplying the lungs – heart – diaphragm – stomach – spleen – kidneys – liver – pancreas – intestines. Wow! What a big job the vagus nerve has! To quote a Dad-joke from one of the researchers: “What happens in Vagus does not stay in Vagus” – that’s because there are so many organs “on the grid” that can be affected in either a good or bad way by vagus nerve activity. The vagus nerve promotes healthy bowel activity and slows heart rate when it’s too high. Low vagus nerve “tone” (or function) can cause problems…….

The thing is, because the vagus nerve covers so much territory, there are many chances for it to be adversely affected along its course by two key things:-
1. Physical pressure: nerves DO NOT work well with excess pressure. Excess pressure can be exerted where the nerve travels through restricted anatomy, eg where it exits the skull (through a very small hole), or in the throat region.
2. Chemistry: nerves DO NOT give good information back to the brain when there is inflammation. The vagus nerve plays a big role in managing inflammation and our immune system response. To respond for our best health, the brain needs accurate information.

 

Retained Neonatal Reflexes treatment addresses the vagus nerve

It continues to amaze me that science often takes a while to catch up with time-honored wellness practices. Dr. Keith Keen (founder of the Retained Neonatal Reflexes (RNR) technique) developed a treatment aimed at helping better vagus nerve function over 20 years ago. If you have been to one of my talks you will recognize that a practice of releasing pressure on the vagus nerve is addressed in the integration of the Fear Paralysis Reflex. I have used this treatment for more than 10 years with very good results helping mostly children (recently now there are more adults coming for the treatment too) reduce anxiety and modify their stress response to become more situation -appropriate. In that time, new developments have been added for greater effect.

Some people having RNR sessions may take longer to settle than others. Colleagues and I think this is a reflection of the brain > gut connection I mentioned, and some kids have more challenges with this than others, depending on birthing and other factors that may have caused trauma. Imagine the following scenario: A small child who has met you several times and likes or loves you, comes to visit. Recognition means they are happy to see you at first but they then run away or hide their face. Their higher brain has let them know you are familiar and safe – but because of lower vagal tone the vagus nerve has not kicked in sufficiently to regulate their heart rate – so the excitement they feel at first seeing you has not been “hand-braked”. Their system then performs as if it is a first meeting. Their heart keeps pounding in their chest to the point their survival system over-rides any initial “ok” feeling and puts resulting increased energy into the flight mode – they take off. This leaves us scratching our heads and feeling perplexed as to why………..

From stressed out towards chilled out: natural at- home solutions.
Do you know someone who struggles with :
• Fear of or big resistance towards change (especially of routine).
• Tantrums
• Being withdrawn
• Anxiety
• Immune system chronically run down (constant infections)
• Chronic gut problems?

Experts’ advice on how to help balance your vagus nerve
There are practices that change or influence structures through which the vagus passes can balance nerve function via scientifically evidenced mind-body feedback loops. Indirect vagus nerve stimulation can be done in the following ways:
1. Humming – hum your favorite tune. Yoga people might want to do the “Om”. These exercise the throat muscles and vocal chords.
2. Conscious breathing – move the belly and diaphragm, slow your breath rate from the normal 10-14 breaths per minute to 5-7 bpm. Do this by counting to 5 as you inhale, holding briefly, then exhaling over 10 counts. As you exhale, breathe as though you are trying to fog a mirror.
3. Connection – call a friend. Allow yourself to be playful. Do your favourite creative thing.

Other things that can help
Activate your diving reflex! Yep, get that cold water on your face from the lip line to the scalp line. This slows the heart rate, increases blood flow to your brain and reduces anger! (Brrrr)
Having very gentle massage on the face and neck with a favorite essential oil while listening to Baroque music or your favorite relaxing music. ( I think I’ll choose that one please).
Dr. David Snarch says “Hug until relaxed”. “Stand on your own two feet, place your arms around your hugging partner, focus on your self (breathing) and quiet your self down, way down”.
Eat food that is gut friendly: That means the food is non inflammatory and promotes lots of healthy gut bugs. Please ask us about that if you need guidance.
Gentle rocking, known as rhythmic rocking: if the person, you or your child; lays prone on a Swiss ball with knees on the floor, arms to each side and gently rocks in a forward – back motion while breathing with awareness, this may calm the person and help them feel safer to listen to their body’s feelings. Otherwise known as feeling more “grounded”. Swings and rocking chairs can also be used. It is thought the rocking motion activates the relaxation part of the nervous system and releases lots of “feel-good” hormones.

As you can see, there can be a lighter side to de-stressing, it can be flipped to fun mode; in fact if possible, that’s where it works best. I know that some people face big challenges in this area so taking first steps can be the most difficult part. That’s when professional help can be indicated and where possible, I and we at Spectrum are committed to helping people restore balance in their lives.

References:
1. Keen, Keith. “Retained Neonatal Reflexes”. Their part in learning and behaviour. 2011.
2. Porges, Stephen. “The Polyvagal Theory”. Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-Regulation. 2011.
3. Schwatrz, Dr. Arielle. “The Complex PTSD Workbook. A Mind-Body Approach to Regaining Emotional Control and Becoming Whole” 2016.

Check out this article on the adrenal glands

https://spectrumchiropractic.com.au/stress-the-glands/

 

Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay

Home-made chocolate recipe

Home-made chocolate recipe

Spectrum Blog , , ,

By Chiropractor  Dr. Annika Jende

All of the ingredients are available at the health food store.

Melt cacao butter over the lowest heat you can in a pan. You can also use coconut butter, but it does make the final product melt much more easily.

Add cacao powder – the more you add, the stronger the chocolate taste.

Stir well!

Pour the mix into a rubbery ice-cube tray. It is important that it is completely dry. Put it in the freezer and wait for about an hour, and voila!

 

Variations:

Things to play with (by putting in the tray beforehand): cacao nibs, dried blueberries, roasted wattle seeds, rose petals – let your imagination run wild!

You can also add organic edible essential oils, like peppermint or sweet orange, to the melted mix.

If you want a two-tone chocolate, put some of the white chocolate in the ice-cube tray first, and freeze, and then subsequently pour the brown mixture on top.

If you absolutely have to have a sweetener, use maple syrup, also add it to the melted mix in the pan, but you have to stir it in really well, otherwise it just ends up a sticky mess in the bottom half of your chocolate.

Enjoy!

 

Image by Blandine JOANNIC from Pixabay

How to have sweetness in life – without the sugar

How to have sweetness in life – without the sugar

Spectrum Blog, Uncategorized , ,

by  Chiropractor Dr. Annika Jende

Just as a PS to the most recent post: Sugar is the ultimate carb, just in case that wasn’t clear.

We are born wired for bliss. What does that mean? When we are born, every cell is covered in opiate receptors. When we are babies, when we are nurtured, fed, held, played with, smiled at and cared for, these opiate receptors get their stuff and we bliss out.

– Start of technical section –
Remember that ad years ago for nicotine patches to bludgeon the “receptor beasts” into submission to give up smoking? Receptors are structures inside the membranes of each cell, and they respond to different stimuli, such as substances like nicotine and heroin, to effect changes within the cell. Our hormones often work via receptors, too. So receptors are incredibly important, varied and numerous, and do a wide variety of things. As a very general rule, the more of the substance in our bodies, the more receptors we will develop, hence the withdrawal symptoms once you cut back.
Opiate receptors, when stimulated, make us feel blissful. Lack of stimulation can feel uncomfortable to downright terrible. If we as adults don’t get the sweetness we need, we will look for other ways to get our sense of wellbeing, and substances like heroin, opiate painkillers and sugar stimulate our opiate receptors, as do things like screen time, which is why they are so addictive.
– End of technical section –

So how can we feel bliss without the chemicals? Our bodies themselves will manufacture them quite willingly, given the opportunity. If you have ever fallen in love, you will know what I mean.
Getting sweetness out of life is all about being truly present, experiencing the moment in all its’ depth. Being present means not doing two things at once or goofing off in your mind to tomorrow’s dinner menu or yesterday’s argument.
Here are some ways to experience the sweetness in your life:
∞ Pat your pet, feel the softness of his fur, and look into his eyes as he blisses out (dog) or feel the deep rumbling purr (cat) or …… (insert for your particular pet).
∞ Play your favourite music and feel it moving through you, whether you are dancing or not.
∞ Dance like no-one is watching you.
∞ Sing like no-one’s listening.
∞ If you sing or play an instrument like a guitar, feel the vibration of your voice or instrument on your body as you listen to the beautiful music you are creating.
∞ Stop and really appreciate breath-taking scenery – the ocean, the hills, a sunset.
∞ Look into the eyes of someone you love really deeply (that’s both the looking and the loving) and see the being of love that looks back at you.
∞ Really savour your food, feel its’ goodness nourish your body as you savour all the deliciousness of the flavours and textures.
∞ Spend time with a friend, and laugh from your belly.
∞ Really feel the hot water of your shower or bath covering your body – I mean how amazing is it that all we have to do for hot water is to turn on a tap!!
∞ Move your body in a way that brings you joy and makes you feel alive, be it surfing, dancing, running, going to the gym, playing in a competitive game.
∞ Taste the sweetness of water when you are thirsty.
∞ Play with the children in your life (they sometimes come in adult forms, and sometimes they have fur….)
∞ Do a kindness for someone else.
∞ Sing in a choir.
∞ Count your blessings. Steep yourself in gratitude (the ultimate sweetness) until you have tears in your eyes.
∞ ….your own way, let me know what it is!

Most of the suggestions above will not only add sweetness to your life, but also lower your stress levels and strengthen your immune system.

And if you really crave that chocolate brownie or ice-cream, have it, but really taste it. I mean, really, really taste it, and do nothing else. Don’t beat yourself up, or you will find you have eaten the whole thing and can’t even remember it. If you do really taste it, however, you might just find that a couple of mouthfuls is enough.

May all the sweetness in life be yours.

Image by Blandine JOANNIC from Pixabay

Is your waist circumference more than half your height? Carbohydrate intolerance

Is your waist circumference more than half your height? Carbohydrate intolerance

Spectrum Blog , ,

By chiropractor Dr. Annika Jende

If you have been paying even a little bit of attention in the last couple of years (eg. That Sugar Movie), you will have realized that sugar is the new tobacco as far as the world’s favourite new health hazard goes. The trouble is that Big Sugar has been learning from Big Tobacco in order to avoid being called into account “prematurely”.

Now, when we ask people if they have any sugar, we often get the reply “oh no, I never have sugar in my coffee/tea”. That would literally be the tip of the tip of the iceberg: 70% of packaged foods have added sugar in them, and lots of foods have natural sugars, too. Sugar can be hidden with names such as: agave nectar, malt, glucose, dextrose, fructose, galactose, maltodextrin, fruit juice concentrate, molasses, syrup etc. (See the end of this article for a more comprehensive list.) A special mention to HFCS, or high-fructose corn syrup, the new extra-bad baddie kid on the block! Anything that is “low fat” is likely to be “high sugar”, because once you take the fat out of food, it becomes tasteless (yes, fat is the tasty bit!), and so sugar is added.

If you read the labels on the foods you buy, check out where it says sugar: 4 gm is a teaspoon. Now, if you are buying breakfast cereal, say raisin bran crunch, it has 20 gm of sugar per serve in it, ie. 5 teaspoons. (Good old-fashioned corn flakes do ok in these stakes at 2 gm or 1/2 a teaspoon per serve, which is about half of Special K!) But wait, there’s more: a serve is a cup. Now, for anyone to feel like brekkie touched the sides, you probably need 2 – 3 cups of breakfast cereal. So suddenly breakfast consisted of 10 – 15 teaspoons of sugar, some of which was HFCS. Eggs for breakfast anyone?

When we talk about sugar, we actually mean any food or drink that spikes your blood sugar (raises your blood sugar in a hurry). These are called high GI foods. Sugar has 100, and then other foods are tested in comparison. There are two things that will bring your blood sugar up faster than pure sugar: white flour (bread – and don’t be fooled by the term “brown bread”, it’s usually white bread with bits added; choose wholegrain instead) and beer. Coffee and Tea also raise your blood sugar of their own without having sugar in them. Interestingly, “diet” drinks – artificial sweeteners – bring your blood sugar up too, by changing the bacteria in your gut (they are also otherwise detrimental to health).

Low GI foods are foods that are in the state that nature made them: vegetables, meat, fish, nuts and seeds, fruit. Yes, fruit – provided it hasn’t been juiced. Fruit has a sugar in it called fructose, which is a sugar (as opposed to other sugars) that has to be broken down in the liver. If you have fruit as fruit, it is fine, because the fibre in the fruit will slow down the fructose absorption. As soon as you juice it, however, this benefit is gone, and fruit juice becomes a junk food.

So what’s the big deal about spiking your blood sugar?

Once your blood sugars spike, you feel energized. The pancreas releases a hormone called insulin which is in charge of shifting the sugar from the blood into the cells (and once this has happened, your energy drops, you feel lousy and you reach for the next sugar hit). The catch is, however, that the cells can only handle so much sugar before they decide they have had enough. At which point in time you have carbohydrate intolerance. The pancreas responds by secreting more insulin in response to the same amount of sugar to force the sugar out of the blood stream and into the cells – and after a period of time you have insulin resistance. If this cycle continues, you end up with Type 2 diabetes.

The symptoms you can have from insulin resistance are: tiredness, particularly after eating, hunger shortly after eating, faster ageing, memory loss, depression, high bad cholesterol (LDL) and low good cholesterol (HDL) levels, and high triglycerides, high blood pressure, problems sleeping, mood swings, fertility issues, achy joints and excess weight to name a few.

The kind of liver damage (cirrhosis) that we used to see only in advanced alcoholics once upon a time are now showing up in kids, not from drinking, but from having too much sugar.

But wait – isn’t sugar an essential food item? Actually no. Our bodies are able to make sugar from fat (which doesn’t spike blood sugar at all). Prehistorically we would have access to sweet foods only in autumn, and this was the time to fatten up (!!) in order to be able to survive the winter. Yes, just like bears. So insulin is really the “feast” hormone. Sugar also doesn’t make you feel full, so you may well keep eating even after you have taken enough calories in. The reason why we are so addicted to the taste is that back then it was hardly ever available, so we would seek it out to ensure survival. Even today’s fruits are far more sugar laden than they would have been 100 years ago. The average Australian consumes 27 teaspoons of sugar a day!

How do you know if you are carbohydrate intolerant and/or insulin resistant? If the circumference of your waist is more than half your height, you’re in. You may look slender, you may have a “normal” BMI (body mass index) or have “normal” weight, but you do have carbohydrate intolerance.

If you want to do something about this – and would be the smart thing to do, so you not only add years to your life, but life to your years – look up Dr. Phil Maffetone’s 2 week test. If you have an iPhone you can download the app and fill in the surveys to see if you are at risk. The instructions are simple, and recipes are available. It’s only for 2 weeks, it’s not a permanent eating plan, and it will re-set your metabolism to fat burning. It should also sensitize you to sweet taste, meaning you will taste sweetness where you didn’t previously. (Annika did a no-sugar stint and suddenly tasted sweetness in raw cauliflower!)

The other thing is to ensure that you do aerobic exercise. Now, this is not exercise where you feel your heart pumping, it’s actually the complete opposite. It’s the kind of exercise you are able to do for hours on end without problem and that doesn’t make you sore. For example walking or dancing or swimming. The heart rate you don’t want to be above is: 180 minus your age; minus another 5 if you are unfit; minus another 5 if you have recently been unwell. It doesn’t feel like exercise, which means you don’t stress your body with it and you stay in fat-burning mode as opposed to sugar burning mode.

Names for Sugar:

Agave nectarBarley malt

Beet sugar

Blackstrap molasses

Brown sugar

Buttered syrup

Cane crystals

Cane juice crystals

Cane sugar

Caramel

Carob syrup

Castor sugar

Confectioner’s sugar

Corn syrup

Corn sweetener

Corn syrup solids

Crystalline fructose

Date sugar

Demerara Sugar

Dextrin

Dextran

Dextrose

Diastatic malt

Diatase

D-mannose

Evaporated cane juice

Ethyl maltol

Florida Crystals

Fructose

Fruit juice

Fruit juice concentrate

Galactose

Glucose

 Glucose solidsGolden sugar

Golden syrup

Granulated sugar

Grape sugar

Grape juice concentrate

HFCS

High-fructose corn Syrup

Honey

Icing sugar

Invert sugar

Lactose

Malt syrup

Maltodextrin

Maltose

Mannitol

Maple syrup

Molasses

Muscovado sugar

Organic raw sugar

Panocha

Powdered sugar

Raw sugar

Refiner’s syrup

Rice Syrup

Sorbitol

Sorghum syrup

Sucrose

Sugar

Syrup

Table sugar

Treacle

Turbinado sugar

Yellow sugar

Image by 👀 Mabel Amber, who will one day from Pixabay

 

Science catches up!

Science catches up!

Spectrum Blog , ,

SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE ESTABLISHED FOR NEURO EMOTIONAL TECHNIQUE (NET)

by Chiropractor Dr. Graham Taylor

Evidence for NET stress reduction technique used at Spectrum
Isn’t it fantastic when science actually catches up with our lived experience or ‘reality’? A recent scientific study in PubMed (a pre-eminent international medical journal) has added solid evidence behind a long used Chiropractic method called Neuro Emotional Technique or NET. Uncountable people worldwide have experienced relief of stress related to particular memories of negative experiences. Now there is measured scientific evidence to reveal insights as to the mechanisms.

History of NET
NET was discovered in the late 1970s, after the founding in 1964 of Applied Kinesiology (or AK) that is based on muscle testing as a form of health diagnosis. NET was designed from that original foundation.

How and where does stress manifest in our body?
NET uses muscle testing to find where in our body a stressful experience may have created an unresolved stress pattern. That unresolved stress pattern can keep on having a negative influence on our health because our brains respond in the same way to the memory of the event as to the actual event, meaning that our bodies will go into fight and flight mode, changing our posture, blood flow, how our organs work etc. The body-memory can be triggered by simple things such as a tone of voice, a colour or a posture, and often we are actually not consciously  aware that it has happened. A simple example of body stress is the way we hold our shoulders up higher when we are super busy or feeling threatened. Another example is the way we feel tightness in the solar plexus (stomach) when we feel overwhelmed. Everyone is unique in how they respond to stress, and some of us are more sensitive to it than others. More extreme cases of unresolved stress are known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). This problem afflicts many military and emergency services veterans, but you don’t need to be in that line of work to go through a traumatic stress event or suffer its’ debilitating effects well beyond the original event. With an unresolved traumatic event as a back-drop, this usually means we over-react in a situation instead of responding more appropriately or from a position of authenticity and confidence.
Some of you are aware of NET and have experienced this at our clinic and/or perhaps another clinic. The practitioner identifies stress held in the body and asks the patient to use focused breathing to release the stress while stimulating specific points on the spine.

Results of the NET study
Researchers used MRI imaging of the brain of participants in this research project. They compared neurological activity (intensity of nerve messages) in the brain stress circuits of those treated with NET with the group not treated. Activity in key emotion related centres in the brain – the hippocampus, anterior cingulate gyrus, brainstem and insula – was far less when NET-treated participants were again confronted with stimuli related to their original trauma event. Researchers also found that the people treated with NET were thereafter experiencing significantly less generalized anxiety than those who did not have the NET treatment.

Take-away message from the NET study
What the results in this study show is that emotional centres of people receiving treatment were calmed. Furthermore, the dynamics demonstrated by this study are probably representative of those dynamics in people all over the world whose stress is less and health better for having experienced NET.

Annika and Graham both use NET and you can call on 65501223 to find out more or drop by for a brochure or mention this newsletter at your next visit.

Reference: Neuro emotional technique effects on brain physiology in cancer patients with traumatic stress symptoms: preliminary findings. J. Cancer Survivor. 2017 Feb 8

 

Image by 👀 Mabel Amber, who will one day from Pixabay

Why be more alkaline? Because then you’ll be less acid…..

Why be more alkaline? Because then you’ll be less acid…..

Spectrum Blog , , ,

By Chiropractor Dr. Graham Taylor

Have you ever heard a friend say they are trying to become more alkaline? What does that really mean? And is this yet another new fashion in diets? Well when I look at the foods recommended I find elements of the Mediterranean diet and perhaps Paleo but also common sense. In a nutshell, it is not fad-full to be saying “Eat more veggies and fish but less red meat”.

When referring to pH, which parts of our body are we talking about? Well, all that can be a bit mystifying so I want to encourage a discussion because it is a relevant part of keeping great health.

And using pH as a reference point essentially means as indicated above, we are just eating pretty healthily.
Here are some benefits of being less acid/more alkaline: I noticed since doing this I have more energy and less mood swings; able to be more patient and tolerant. I am happy about that – so is my wife 🙂 .Oh also no tightness in my tummy. Phew what a relief that is!

How it works
As we know there are endless chemical transactions continually in our body. The thing is, any particular chemical process will occur best in an environment ideal for that reaction. For example, our blood needs to stay very close to the pH 7.365 so it can absorb and deliver oxygen and nutrients. This level of blood pH is therefore critical to our survival. The controlling mechanisms in our body will ensure blood stays at this pH and will draw minerals and other factors from other parts of our body (that also need them for our long term health) in order for us to stay alive. Are you seeing the picture here? I think this is called “Robbing Peter to pay Paul….”

It is thought that strong acidity over long periods contributes to painful conditions such as arthritis and osteoporosis. This is because minerals are the most effective way to neutralize acid. If we are eating a lot of acid forming foods, our body will respond using a priority system to take minerals from anywhere it can get it – to maintain that all important blood at 7.365. Saliva is one of the first places our body goes to for the minerals, therefore the saliva a useful and accessible substance to monitor. But in the process, important minerals that should have gone to bone building have been used to maintain the blood pH.

What I take from the experts is the importance of not being too acid elsewhere in my body so I have plenty of “alkalinity reserves”. How do we do this?
1. Buy some pH test strips
2. Test saliva and mid-stream urine pH first thing in the morning
3. Write the daily results somewhere you can track the pH over 30 days
4. At the end of each day rate your energy levels 1-10, 10 being the best energy ever
5. Research the foods that will bring up your pH to better operating levels and maintain them.
6. Buy those foods (eg. broccoli, parsley, mangoes)– stock you pantry with them – eat them, notice the benefits and how some of acid forming (eg. coffe, sugar, alcohol) foods perhaps now hopefully become redundant, because you have more energy and crave them a lot less.

Some examples of ideal pH

Intestines            8.4

Blood                   7.365

Urine                    7.2 -7.4

Saliva                    7.2 – 7.4

Stomach              1 – 2

There are many information resources in bookshops and online. Two I can suggest are, “Alkamind. How to correctly test your pH levels. And a book, “The Alkaline Cure”, by Dr. Stephan Domenig; Medical Director at the Original F.X. Mayr Health Centre.

 

Image by Steve Buissinne from Pixabay

Health Clues in the Fingernails

Health Clues in the Fingernails

Spectrum Blog ,

By Bek Walker

We may not pay that much attention to them, however the fingernails can give some very clear indications as to the state of our health. The most significant things to look for include the colour, texture, shape and pliability of the nails, any visible sign of infection, as well as the health of the cuticles and finger tissue, and the lunulae or ‘moons’. So let’s look at these things one by one in a bit more detail, and you might just discover something you didn’t know about your health!

Nail Colour

Healthy nails should be pink. They should turn white when you press them, and then return to pink within about a second. This is what is called good capillary refill, and indicates that there’s good circulation to the nail bed. Any other colours, such as red, pale/whitish, yellow or even blue, indicate various conditions that are related to our blood and circulatory health, for example anaemia, or diseases that affect the heart and lungs.

 

Nail Pliability & Weakness

Soft or thin nails that flake easily can be a sign of poor nutrition, a lack of vitamin C, protein deficiency, lack of silica or a poor ability to digest and absorb needed nutrients.
Brittle or cracked nails can also be associated with these issues of poor nutrition and absorption, however they are more specifically linked with a lack of calcium, essential fatty acids, silica and vitamins A and D, as well as things like thyroid and kidney issues.

 

Nail Texture and Markings

Vertical ridges are a common nail sign that is associated with a lack of silica, as well as possibly low iron and B-vitamin levels. Low stomach acid can be the underlying issue here, that prevents the efficient uptake of these vitamins. So using things like diatomaceous earth (great source of silica), along with apple cider vinegar and ginger to stimulate better digestion, can help to alleviate this sign.

Nail Pitting are tiny holes in the nail surface and occurs in 25-50% of people who suffer with psoriasis.

Spoon Nails  is a common indication of iron deficiency, or of the body’s inability to properly utilize iron, as in the case of haemochromatosis. Having this sign is a prompt to get your iron levels checked with a blood test.

Horizontal Dips or ‘Beau’s Lines’  occur when growth at the nail root is interrupted by any severe acute illness, stress or local trauma. They indicate when someone was sick and will eventually grow out.

White spots on the nails are fairly common and mostly due to trauma to the nail, or mineral deficiencies, such as zinc, calcium and silica.

 

Lunulae or Moons

According to Eastern Medicine philosophy, there should be 8 lunulae visible, with the ones in the little fingers missing. The one on the thumb nail should be 25% or less the total length of the nail. If it exceeds this, it can indicate that the heart and circulation is having to work overtime, and can result in high blood pressure. Fewer than 8 lunulae showing, can indicate poor circulation or oxygenation, not enough exercise, low life-force, or an imbalanced nervous system.

 

Nail Fungus

This is a common one that I see and that people who have it seem to struggle greatly to get rid of. The nail yellows and starts to grow thicker and thicker, making it very hard to trim. The best treatment that I have found is using Vick’s vapour rub twice daily until the nail grows out, which can take two and a half to three months. Nail fungus, however, can also be a sign of an internal yeast problem and a weakened immune system, and this may also need to be addressed with naturopathic treatment before full resolution is made.

 

General Nutrition for healthy Nails

Include good quality protein in your meals and snacks – as protein provides your body with the building blocks to make connective tissue and is essential for good nail health. Great protein sources include organic eggs and poultry, organic and/or grass-fed meats, fish, raw nuts and seeds, & legumes.

Eat mineral rich foods to support extra cellular matrix health and connective tissue formation – stew up some delicious and nutritious veggie and bone broths to extract a heap of minerals including calcium, potassium, and iron, and include dark green leafy veggies in your diet every day to get plenty of magnesium and B-vitamins.

Hydrate your nails (and skin) with adequate water and essential fatty acids – any symptoms of dryness, cracking and inflammation are a pretty strong indication that your body is lacking water and good fats. Without these nutrients, your cells and extra cellular matrix becomes dry and rigid and cannot function properly.
Increase your intake of raw nuts and seeds, especially linseeds and chia seeds (freshly ground), fish and avocados, and make sure you are drinking enough clean fresh water every day.

 

Image by Steve Buissinne from Pixabay

Massage and Trigger Points

Massage and Trigger Points

Spectrum Blog

by Don Foote

Trigger points are palpable nodules within tight bands of muscle fibres (contracted “knots”). They are generally created when muscles are stressed or damaged through injury, e.g. repetitive strain, sports injury or work injury.
Trigger points are an extremely common cause of pain and discomfort. They are acutely tender when palpated and refer pain to other areas in the body. For instance, you may have a pain in the neck or headache, which may been caused by an active trigger point in a muscle in your upper back. By locating and actively working this trigger point or trigger points, we reset the message from muscle to brain and restore normal function to the muscle which in turn alleviates the referred pain to neck and head.
These trigger points are located throughout the body and the most common ones have been mapped. Some of the effects of active trigger points are:
 Back pain
 Headaches
 Neck pain
 Shoulder pain
 Jaw pain
 Tennis elbow
 Carpal tunnel
 Arm and hand pain
 Pelvic pain
 Hip pain
 Leg pain…. to name a few.

Are scars a part of what is causing your trigger points? Read this article to learn about how important scars are: https://spectrumchiropractic.com.au/scars/

Image by Engin Akyurt from Pixabay

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