Stress - killing us softly

Have you ever got really stressed, and then found that you got sick shortly afterwards?

A busy period at work, a stressful family time, even too much party and not enough sleep can all stress our emotions and therefore our bodies.

In my own life I have come to realise that stress is my biggest lifestyle risk, or, as I call it, my poison. Most people have a "poison" it could be coffee, tea, alcohol, cigarettes, illegal drugs, too much food, junk food, sugar, not enough exercise. Too much meat.

I have never smoked, drunk alcohol, tea or coffee, since I was a mid teenager I have been a healthy eater, I rarely eat junk food, chocolate etc. I fell in love with exercise in my early twenties, and now I love to do something daily.

I thought I was making all the right lifestyle choices to stay healthy. But I was not on top of my stress. The start of 2006 saw us move countries and start our own business. December was a spectacularly busy time for us - I was flat out answering retail orders for one of our sites, and my husband was flat out in our consultancy business that had just taken off with a bang.

I hate healthy food (but on the run), my exercise habits slipped, I got less sleep, I hardly ever relaxed. But I knew that it would get better after Christmas, so I kept pushing.

And the work situation did get better after Christmas, but I was already sick. Talking to one doctor about what had suddenly triggered off my first Crohn's episode, he gave it as his opinion that I had the genetic tendency and that something triggered that off, turning it from latent to active.

Stress is a known activator or irritant in inflammatory bowel disease. It is also implicated in heart disease, diabetes, and just about any other medical condition you can think of. It can change our mental and emotional states to paranoia, sometimes permanently, it impairs the body's ability to heal.

Stress, when we are in fight or flight mode, leads our bodies to release two hormonesl. These are great to help you run fast, and get out of a physically threatening situation, but on a day to day basis they do other things. They reprioritise our body's normal functions. Food is expelled from the intestines (diarrhoea) and the stomach digestive process is slowed or stopped, stomach acid is not produced in sufficient amounts. That means if you are stressed all the time you may suffer diarrhoae, constipation, poor absorption of nutrients etc.

It also makes certain elements more available for the body's use - sugar being one of them. It is kept in the bloodstream incase it is needed, this has a number of potential side effects for the body.

Stress would increase your likelihood of getting and then keeping a yeast infection, as your body's normal immune system would be compromised. It also means that if you are trying to help your body by eating healthily, you may not be getting full value from that food.

Basically, being stressed all the time will probably eventually kill you, or at least contribute to poor health. So take some time to relax. Exercise helps.

And keep things in perspective. I like to ask myself, what is the worst that can happen? And what is the likelihood of that happening?

Petrol Fumes

I have been spending time recently looking into the health effects of petrol fumes. It wasn't something that I had ever thought too much about before, but the other week I was talking to a MD who specialises in nutrition and he mentioned that high levels of cadmium, lead etc can inhibit the body's absorbption of essential nutrients.

This is because the toxins if present in your body will bind onto certain nutrients and be eliminated from the body. It is good that the toxins are eliminated, but it means we don't get to absorb the nutrients.

There are treatments that can be done to help you eliminate these toxins if they are stored in the body, and so if you and your health care provider think that you have symptoms of poisoning, it is worth while getting tested.
Lead poisoning can be established via a blood test.

It is also worth being tested for heavy metal poisoning if any of the following apply to you-

you have lived in, renovated or lived next to any one renovating an older house that may have had lead paint on its walls. If this was sanded, for example then you would almost certainly have breathed in a lot of lead and it is easily absorbed through the lungs.

If you or someone you were sharing a house with haved worked in an industry where chemicals containing lead, or lead products themselves were used. Lead poisoning can occur from the chemicals or dust brought home on the clothes, even if you did not attend the place of work yourself.

If you have lived in an industrial area or near a large high way. Lead does not break down, so it can be found in the dust, in roof cavities of buildings, in the very air in these areas. It is also a risk for child centers to be placed on busy roads where lots of fumes are released.

I am still researching this and hope to have more information shortly, but it is worth thinking about when deciding where to live - avoid main roads!

The deficiency caused by this poisoning undermines the health of the body, including the digestive and immune systems, which could make the body more likely to suffer from yeast infections, and less able to fight them off if one is encountered. It will also make the body more prone to many other infections and medical conditions, by undermining general health.

For really healthy recipes, go chinese!

But I am not talking about just going to your chinese restaurant, although as far as eating out goes, chinese can a lot healthier than other options.

And I am not talking about "westernized chinese" either, battered and deep fried chicken or pork in a sweet sauce is not part of the anti candida diet!

But in traditional chinese cuisine, meat is not eaten to excess, it was a luxury and was made a centre piece of the dinner, but the main foods that people filled up on were vegetables and rice.

And the method of cooking the vegetables, soups, stir frying, light steaming, are excellent ways to cook the vegetables, and get maximum nutrition from them (according to chinese medicine, warm or lightly cooked vegetables are take less energy to eat than cold vegetables, which the body has to heat before it can digest, and so warm veggies are better for stressed bodies).

Notice also the absence of fatty sauces in traditional chinese cooking. Instead they use a lot of spices and herbs which not only impart flavour, but have great health benefits themselves.

For example, consider ginger, it is meant to be good for everything.

For one thing it is a sialagogue, or stimulator of saliva. This makes it useful in the digestive process. Ginger tea taken before meals stimulates the saliva, which prepares the stomach for the arrival of food, promoting better digestion and absorption of nutrients. Ginger in the food would serve much the same purpose.

Ginger is reputed to do the following; be useful in calming motion sickness and nausea (although there is some dispute as to whether pregnant women should use it, as it may have mutagenic properties), others use it to treat or ward off colds, join pain from arthiritis, and to thin blood or lower cholesterole.

Ginger contains gingerol as an active ingredient which is known to have analgesic, sedative, antipyretic, antibacterial and GI tract motility effects.

(It can interfere with other drugs, such as warfarin, particularly when taken in large doses.)

Chinese cooking contains lots of ginger, garlic, liquorice (an ingredient in chinese five spice) chilli, etc etc. Many spices and herbs have great nutrients for our bodies, that often we lack.

I have been thinking about this recently, as I was talking to a friend the other day who has been put on a no sugar, no dairy, no fish diet. Sound familiar?

She was trying to decide where we could go with a group of friends for lunch. Our choice of chinese restaurant was a success, we were able to have healthy meals rich in steamed vegetables, rice and with appropriate meat choices alongside. So go chinese!

Skinny jeans contribute to yeast infections

Every now and again an item of clothing or a practice comes into fashion that seems completely impractical, uncomfortable and awkward to wear, even cruel. Looking back across history these clothing crazies are not once off love affairs with fabric, those that wear the clothes and those being enticed but is a tradition passed on down through the ages.

For Example

17^th Centaury Corsets

or
Foot Binding in China

Through the ages women’s clothing in particular has been crafted to entice and hold men’s attention captive, and not much seems to have changed. Today’s liberated women would probably deny the heavy influence that this thinking still has on clothing today.

I found this comment on yahoo answers
"I have seen guys address this...it seem guys find us women sexier if we wear really super tight jeans, smoke cigarettes?"

I had to agree with the comment chosen as best answer that this particular lady was operating on some bad information. However super-tight jeans are still here and many young and old ladies alike squeeze themselves into these stifling body bending outfits.

Not only being uncomfortable what do these tight jeans do to your health.

This is an extract from an news article

"So Kate Moss was the trendsetter who inspired you to make skinny jeans your new must-have. That's fine, but before you shoehorn yourself into a pair, be sure you aren't setting yourself up for a nasty vaginal yeast infection."

When wearing tight clothing especially skin tight jeans that are created from heavy material the possibility of getting a yeast infection is increased considerably.

Three things that happen when wearing tight jeans are

1. It can squeezes the genital area considerably possibly causing damage(NB Men and other possible damage)
   
2. It traps moisture very close to the skin
3. It increases the level of heat

The increase in moister and heat create perfect conditions for the candida bugs to breed. This then leads to a candida over growth which is a yeast infection.

If you a more susceptibility to a yeast infection because of another under lying reason e.g. your period then these skin tight jeans can add to the likelihood of developing a vaginal yeast infection .

If you insist on wearing tight clothing to look good, avoid wearing the clothing during times when you will probably be more susceptible. Other wise the clothing to wear is loose fitting cotton underwear, and other clothing that do not squeeze, cling or creep.