Many more people suffer from allergies these days than ever before. This may be caused by external sources such as pollen, animals or environmental chemicals. But it might surprise that certain foods also contain substances that can contribute to allergic reactions by increasing our histamine load.
Our body requires histamine and it is normal to have small amounts of it in our body; it allows our body to function normally through dilating the capillary bed and allowing our nonspecific immune system to access hard to reach areas.
When found in excess amounts, histamine can contribute to many allergy type symptoms including:
– runny nose and watery eyes
– headaches and dizziness
– rashes and skin redness including itching and hives
– nausea and reflux
– disturbance of regular sleep patterns.
Many of us are familiar with the term ‘antihistamine’, that is, a type of medication found on the labels of numerous over-the-counter medications. These types of medications may be necessary in some cases but, largely, making simple dietary changes can help to reduce symptoms.
Here are some suggested foods to avoid to aid in reducing excess histamine in your system. They may not necessarily need to be taken out of the diet permanently but only as a short-term adjustment to allow your body to rebalance.
Aged and fermented foods:
Cheese, yoghurt, alcohol (all types including beer, wine and spirits), pickled vegetables (sauerkraut, kimchi, pickles etc), bread, products showing ‘yeast’ or ‘yeast extract’ on the label, vegemite, soy sauce, aged meats (salami, tinned meats – as a general rule the older the meat the more histamine content).
Sour tasting foods:
Vinegar (all types), citrus fruit and tomato-based products (including tomato paste, sauce and the raw forms), some nightshade vegetables (eggplant, potato, capsicum).
Spicy foods:
Chilli, hot curry.
Additionally, heat is a histamine trigger as it can cause mast cells (which contain histamine) to release their contents in the skin and cause itching. Avoid exposure to extremes of heat (hot showers, sitting next to external heat sources).
When making dietary changes, it is always recommended you consult your practitioner to ensure your nutritional needs are being met. We can work with you to develop an appropriate meal plan to support your work in addressing specific health issues.
We also run programs which address balanced eating in conjunction with overall health and wellbeing. The latest of these is our 4-week RESET Program, developed and delivered by naturopath Phil Chua. See the full details here.
For more information, contact us to arrange a consult with one of our qualified and experienced naturopaths here.
We all have to eat, right? But have you ever stopped to think about the effect the foods you consume have on your health, mood, energy levels and the planet? Do you know exactly where your food comes from and how it gets to be on your plate? Are you aware of how what’s in the food affects how your body functions and the impact it has on your health and wellbeing?
Every single function of our body, every minute of every day, requires nutrients.
Without nutrients in the correct form and ratios, things don’t work so well.
There are three main sources from which we get our nutrients.
Carbohydrates– a group of foods including sugars, starches and cellulose.
Carbohydrates provide fuel and energy for the cells of the body and the brain. They are digested by the enzyme amylasewhich cleaves the bonds between the sugars, breaking them down into their smallest form. Digestion of carbohydrates begins in the mouth and continues briefly in the stomach before being completed in the small intestine.
Proteins – made of amino acids, which are commonly found in meats and animal products but can also be acquired through nuts and legumes. The protein you eat is broken down into amino acids by HCl acid in the stomach and the enzyme pepsin. These amino acids are absorbed through the small intestine and combine to form new proteins which are used to help the body grow, break down food, repair tissue and perform many other body functions.
Lipids (fats)– Lipids are abundant building blocks in our body – our cells, brains and hormones are made of fat. They are also a fuel source for energy production. Digestion of fats begins in the mouth through the enzyme linguallipase. Lipids then continue to the stomach where chemical digestion continues by gastric lipase. Once digested, they move to the small intestine where pancreatic enzymes and bile finish off the digestive process, making the lipids small enough to be absorbed through the intestinal wall.
Sadly, it’s not as simple as eat the good food and get the good nutrients. A lot must happen in our body from the time we take a bite of food, to the time it comes out the other end. Our food just isn’t the same quality it once was. We have over-farmed the soil and lost the natural minerals and nutrients from our soil quality. More sprays, pesticides and chemicals are used in growing, picking, harvesting, transporting and storing raw food materials, not to mention what is done to our food when it is processed and packaged. Any wonder our foods don’t contain high levels of nutrients any more!
Decades of treating our food this way, and our over consumption of heavily processed foods, has caused our bodies not to work as effectively.
A large percentage of the population has somedegree of digestive dysfunction. This can manifest in many ways, with the most common being:
reflux/heart burn
indigestion
pain/nausea/bloating/discomfort after eating
excessive wind
altered bowel habits
food intolerances
skin conditions
headaches
Most people have had these symptoms for so long they begin to think it’s ‘normal’.
So, let’s talk about that for a minute. What does normal digestionlook like?
Basically, our digestive tract is a long, hollow tube that starts at the mouth and ends… you know where. This is pretty much it, with a few twists and turns in-between. Starting at the top, the eyes and nose are pretty important in the whole process. When you see food, think about food and smell food, it’s a signal to your mouth to produce saliva, which triggers your stomach to produce gastric acid in preparation to digest food.
But your mouth is more than just the entry point. We have three pairs of salivary glands that produce saliva to keep our mouth moist, help to digest food and provide bacterial protection for our bodies. Saliva is mostly made of water but also contains enzymes, antibacterial compounds, mucus, minerals and electrolytes. All of these things help to digest food and keep our teeth and gums healthy.
Our teeth chew and breakdown our food (masticate), reducing it to small pieces. Our tongue is a muscle that helps to move the food around our mouth and taste the different components of our food, which is very important as this sends signals further down the line as to what is coming. We have five main perceptions of taste: sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami. The taste perceived on our tongue sends a message to the brain as to the likely types of food about to enter the gut so our body can prepare to digest and absorb the food we eat as efficiently as possible.
Our mouth and throat contain immune tissue which helps to prevent any nasties from entering the body. This is found in the form of our tonsils. (Most people are only familiar with their tonsils once they become infected – tonsillitis.) These are called your palatine tonsils, but they aren’t the only ones in there! There is a ring of immune tissue that circles the back of the throat known as Waldeyer’s ring. This tonsil group are like ‘security guards’, checking everything that comes through to make sure it is ok for the body. Anything suspect trying to sneak past is detained and dealt with by the immune system. This is what is happening when our tonsils are swollen and painful.
Once our food (now called bolus) gets past the security guards, it enters our oesophagus, a straight chute down to the right-hand side of our stomachs. The oesophagus is lined with muscular rings which stretch to accommodate the bolus and, as it moves along, the muscles contract back to their normal position once it passes, preventing things from going back up. Fun fact – These one-way muscle contractions are so strong the food will still reach your stomach even if you are standing on your head! (Please don’t try this!) The oesophagus is also sealed at the bottom end with a muscular ring known as a sphincter, the lower oesophageal sphincter to be exact. It opens briefly to allow the bolus to enter the stomach and then snaps shut again.
And now we are in the stomach – the weird lopsided j-shaped organ that sits just below the breastbone, with the heart and lungs perched on top of it. The stomach is also a muscle-lined organ, with three muscle layers which work to mix and churn the food (retropulsion). The stomach has four main areas, all with their own individual functions, and two routes the food can take. Liquids pretty much pass straight through and into the duodenum (small intestine). Some carbohydrates move through relatively quickly as well. Solid foods, which take a bit longer to digest, are sent down the other path so they can be macerated and mixed with gastric secretions to form a soupy liquid calledchyme. Carbohydrates are digested first in the stomach and pass fairly quickly down the line, with proteins and fats held longer as they require more work to digest fully.
As we all know, the stomach can stretch to accommodate food; when it is empty, it hangs loose with wrinkles (rugae). Our stomach is the stretchiest part of our digestive tract, enabling it to hold an entire meal until the small intestine is ready to do its part.
In addition to the muscular contraction of the stomach to mechanically digest our food, there is also chemical digestion taking place. The wrinkles and folds in the stomach lining form pits into which gastric juice is secreted. This gastric juice is a combination of substances produced by three different types of cells: mucus neck cells (produce mucus which keeps things moist and slimy and moving along), parietal cells (produce intrinsic factor needed for the absorption of vitamin B12, in addition to secreting hydrogen [H+] and chloride [Cl-] separately, which, when combined, produce hydrochloric acid [HCl]) and chief cells (secrete pepsinogen and gastric lipase, which are the enzymes required to break down fat and protein into their smallest form).
Once all these chemicals have dissolved the food particles and the muscles have churned, it is time to move on to the small intestine (duodenum). The bottom of the stomach has a sphincter (just like at the top) to allow macerated food to pass into the duodenum. The small intestine is where all the magic happens! This is where the whole food has become micronutrients for our body to use. The small intestine is long – anywhere from 2 metres up to 10 meters long. It is lined with specialised skin cells called enterocytesthat have hair-like projections of skin (microvilli) on them. This helps to increase the surface area of this long tube and aids with propulsion, moving the liquid onwards, all the while absorbing nutrients across the thin membrane and into the blood stream for transport around the body to be used for growth, repair, energy, maintenance and the millions of amazing things our bodies do every second of every day.
Once the food has been absorbed and any undigestible matter is moved to the large intestine, the small intestine sends in the cleaning crew. It is called the migrating motor complex (MMC) and sweeps the entire length of the tube. It can only do this when the stomach and small intestine are empty. This is why it is important to have a break between eating so the housekeeping and maintenance can take place.
Anything that is moved along enters the large intestine. Any essential nutrition has been removed from the food, absorbed into the blood stream and utilised by our body. Anything that is left is essentially a waste product and needs to exit the system in a timely manner. The large intestine is home to the greater portion of the microbial ecosystem that lives within us. This helps to further breakdown the waste product and decompose it. Sounds gross, right?!
There are no microvilli here to move things onward; the motion of the large intestine is called peristalsis. The length of this organ is divided into sections of band-like muscular rings which stretch and contract in response to the fullness of the bowel. As a section fills up, it stretches the muscle wall and the wall pushes back against the bulk, squeezing it on to the next section, until it makes its way through and out the other end.
This a general outline of what ‘normal’ digestion looks like. From here we can determine if something isn’t working well. If you have any digestive symptoms, or things just don’t feel right, book a naturopathic consult and get to the bottom of the issue.
Issues with fertility and conception are increasing in Australia, as are the number of couples utilising IVF and assisted fertility treatments. Sadly, IVF isn’t always successful because it isn’t just fertilisation and implantation that are the issue. For many couples, the quality of the sperm and ovum isn’t always optimal and issues with blood supply and nutrient delivery to the growing foetus may be impaired. This could help to clarify why some women experience unexplained recurrent miscarriage.
Nutrition is often the missing link
Nutrigenomics profiling can help couples identify potential issues and provide powerful, individualised nutritional support to improve their chances of having a healthy pregnancy, birth and, most importantly, a healthy baby at the end.
What does the test cover?
It is recommended that individuals complete a full genomic profile that includes the following:
Nutrigenomics (individual nutrient requirements e.g. Vitamin D, B12, etc.)
Methylation (e.g. MTHFR) and liver detoxification
Hormones and fertility.
It’s not just all about MTHFR
The MTHFR (the gene that provides instructions for making the methyl enzyme) genetic variant has received a lot of attention and exposure in the last few years. The reality is it’s only one gene (yes, an important one) in a pathway involving many genes. For example, we find that many women require more choline to support their methylation pathway (and hence fertility and conception) yet this important nutrient is rarely considered.
DNA testing is just one small part of the picture
Nutrigenomics (or DNA) testing is important, however it is essential to consider these results alongside any pathology testing, presenting symptoms and your full case history.
If you have any questions regarding the test and how it could benefit you, or if you would like to make a booking, please contact the clinic. I would love to help you.
The food we eat for breakfast and how we eat it can have a significant effect on how we feel for the rest of the day.
For our grandparents, a cooked breakfast was the norm, but this trend has changed over the last couple of generations with many of us now opting towards a more ‘grab and go’ type breakfast focused on convenience. This switch has been driven by a couple of factors.
Daily food routines
We tend to slow down and have larger meals when we have the time to cook and enjoy them. For most households, this is after our regular workday has finished and has led to dinner being the largest meal of the day.
When we get into any health pattern we must stop and consider if it serves our health. Having our largest meal towards the end of the day affects other areas of our health. We suffer with the amount of energy we have during the day (which is lower as there is less fuel available for us), our sleep quality is not as good as it could be (as our digestion is working when it would ideally be resting) and we have a tendency towards weight gain.
Did you know that it is not written anywhere that you must have cereal or toast for breakfast? Some of the cereals on the market might even be the worst thing you could have!
Dual income households
Our grandparents are largely the last generation to commonly have one person stay at home. Now it is much more commonplace for both people in a relationship to be working, meaning our priorities have shifted. Many of us are often in a rush to get out the door in the morning, not realising the importance of fuelling our body for the day.
When we eat a great breakfast, our blood sugar levels are more balanced throughout the rest of the day. This means we are better able to be emotionally balanced and make better food choices.
Here are three simple things to look for when it comes to breakfast:
minimal refined foods (keep sugars to a minimum and consume less packaged foods where possible)
add some protein (this can be from eggs, nuts and seeds or even animal sources)
sneak in some vegetables (With nearly 70 per cent of the population not even getting to five veg and two fruit daily, getting some plant matter in early is a great way to start the day with a win on the board.).
Ensuring we have enough of the right food in the morning and eating slowly to assist our digestion will give us the best start to our day.
Feel better and live healthier, starting with a good, wholesome breakfast.
We live in a world where everything is so available, commonly at the click of a button, with a tap of your card or by a quick Google search. Instant gratification is here; it’s so 2019 and I am not sure it is going anywhere any time soon.
Technological advances are great and often needed. But how are they really affecting us?
I am a naturopath who works one on one with clients. I hear from people all the time that they want their health to be better. What I also hear is that they want it to happen quickly, often asking for a pill for their ill, wanting the easiest path possible.
And this is where instant gratification is becoming a problem.
Often a disease or set of symptoms has come about over several months or sometimes even years. I see clients who have had constipation for ten years, an autoimmune condition for 5 years or eczema on and off since birth.
I’m not sure we are all really willing to put the work in, change habits and change our way of living to get healthy. Well, not with our currently mindsets we aren’t anyway.
Health resolution takes time. Even if you do take a pill or natural supplement that reduces your symptoms and makes you feel like it has been resolved, in reality, when you stop taking that pill, your problem will come back. And perhaps worse and with more symptoms or another disease along with it due to the common side effects.
It’s time to get real.
Now is the time to give yourself the TIME you need to heal, TIME to create good habits, TIME to change your life.
So, let’s talk about what it takes to change your health. I believe so strongly in the four pillars of health – good diet, good sleep, low stress, movement for your body. I believe you need to create good habits in ALL four pillars to create better health.
So, how do we create good habits?
You start. You start somewhere. Often, I help clients identify the pillar of health that needs the most work to start with. Having a healthy life is about developing good habits. So, what is a habit?
A habit is a series of three things:
1) a cue
2) an action
3) a reward
A cue is a trigger for you. It triggers your brain that it’s time to start the action. Then you will take an action based on that cue (eventually totally unconsciously, by the way) and, when you take action, there will be some type of reward.
Let’s look at something as simple as drinking water. If you have a glass on the bench full of water and a full water bottle on you at all times, this becomes your cue. You are more likely to take action when you have that visual cue and, when you do, you no longer have headaches, sore muscles and a foggy mind—the reward.
Did you know it can take up to 30 days to turn a habit into a conscious thing you do?I admit it can be difficult to make change; often our bad choices are easier than the good ones. However, once you do create new habits, they will become natural to you. You just have to put in some effort to get to that point.
Whatever you are trying to achieve at the moment, there are so many ways you can really take ownership of that one thing. You can do it one day at a time and establish the consistency you need.
One more thing before I leave you to change some habits.
Let go of all the expectations, the labels, the diagnosis. It is time to get real. It doesn’t matter what you look like, what DNA you have, what you have been diagnosed with. What matters is what you are willing to REALLY do to make a change.
It will not happen overnight, it will not happen by taking a pill every day.
It will happen if you are willing to create healthy habits and put in the TIME it’s going to take to really HEAL you.
We see a lot of people in the clinic who present with some type of thyroid dysfunction. Most are women; however, it does affect men also. Sadly, most of these patients have been dismissed by a general practitioner as being ‘fine’ when the individual knows that’s not the case. Why does this happen? Because standard thyroid testing gives an incomplete picture of thyroid health and in most cases it’s completely inaccurate. Hence why we are calling it ‘thyroid madness’ because the system is letting people down.
First, let’s look at the basics of thyroid hormones and the importance of proper testing.
Thyroid hormones 101
Here is a basic guide to your thyroid hormones, what they do and why we need to test them.
Thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH)
According to the general practitioner, this is the gold standard for testing. Sadly though, it’s the most unreliable marker when it comes to the health of your thyroid.
TSH is a signalling hormone that tells your thyroid to produce T4 (see below). If T4 is low, feedback mechanisms will tell the hypothalamus and the pituitary gland that we need more T4 so TSH gets up-regulated. If T4 is high, those same mechanisms work to dial down TSH.
In theory, if you have high TSH, you have low thyroid function (or hypothyroidism) and if your TSH is low then you have an overactive thyroid (hyperthyroidism).
Thyroxine (T4)
T4 is your storage form of your thyroid hormones. It does not exert any metabolic effects when it is in this form.
If you are taking thyroxine, you are getting T4 only.
Triiodothyronine (T3)
Perhaps one of the most important markers of thyroid function, T3 is your active thyroid hormone. It is responsible for the beneficial effects on health and metabolism. We need to maintain good levels of T3 and yet this is rarely tested. If your body has issues converting T4 to T3, then you are going to feel lousy.
Some patients take T3 as prescribed by a general practitioner, but this is typically the exception and not the rule.
Reverse T3 (rT3)
Reverse T3 is effectively rendered useless by one small structural change to active T3. This can happen when your adrenals are working overtime pumping out cortisol to help you deal with stress, for example. Unfortunately, your body still recognises it as active T3 and this can distort your TSH levels dramatically, hence why the TSH marker is unreliable.
Reverse T3 is never tested by a general practitioner. You can pay an additional fee to have this added to your thyroid panel if you want it checked.
TIP: If you do have it checked, you need to ensure it is taken from the same blood sample as the rest of your thyroid panel, otherwise the result on its own is largely meaningless.
Antithyroid antibodies
If you have elevated antibodies, this could be a sign of an autoimmune disease e.g. Hashimoto’s (hypothyroid) or Graves’ (hyperthyroid). This is the result of an overactive immune response against your body’s cells, in this case, the thyroid.
Your general practitioner often won’t test for these antibodies because it won’t change their treatment (thyroxine).
Thyroid testing 101
If your general practitioner orders a test for your thyroid, it is typically only TSH. Sometimes T4 may also be tested but this is rare. This means you are only getting a small part of the thyroid picture and could be why most thyroid issues are missed.
General practitioners have restrictions on what they can do and generally it is only when TSH is way out of the range that they will dig deeper and look at other markers such as T4, maybe T3 and occasionally antibodies, but never rT3. Largely they are looking for overt disease which they can then treat with a drug.
The take home message here is that if your TSH is ‘normal’, it doesn’t necessarily mean you don’t have thyroid problems.
The classic situation involves low or normal TSH (with low T4 if that has been tested). When you dig a bit deeper, results can often show high levels of rT3 which is reducing our T3 (active hormone and the one we want) and throwing the feedback loop out of line.
If you have been taking thyroxine for a while and your general practitioner is advising your TSH (and maybe T4) is in range but you still feel terrible, you need to undertake further investigation.
So what can you do?
Next steps
As qualified naturopaths, we can check to see how well your body is converting T4 to T3 and what impact rT3 and antibodies are having on your thyroid. We can determine whether a full thyroid panel is warranted and also address other contributing factors to thyroid dysfunction such as nutrient deficiency, particularly iron, selenium and iodine.
Don’t put up with thyroid madness. You deserve to feel good!
A recent trip to see some family opened my mind to something I hadn’t thought about in this way before.
I was staying with a close family member which allowed us time for conversations that wouldn’t normally happen when there are many other people around. This family member and I got talking about how she has several friends that she has been close to for over 50 years. This information washed over me at the time but, later, my mind got to thinking about its significance.
Community and a sense of connection to the people around us play a major role in how well we age, both mentally and physically. One thing many people report on their deathbed is they wish they had made more time for the important people in their lives.
What does it take to maintain a friendship that last over five decades?
Frequency: At some point, usually the beginning, there is typically a time when you will be around each other consistently. This will commonly be school, university or in a workplace setting. This sets the foundation for the future.
Shared interests: Having something you can both look forward to doing together will help you maintain a connection. This could be a love of reading or gardening, or maybe something a little more adrenaline pumping. Either way, having something you can share helps to hold things together.
Similar destination: If you are headed for different ‘stations’ in life then you will likely drift apart. If one of you is focused on adventure and travel while the other is all about settling down and having loads of kids, the challenge to stay together will be harder. In the same way that if you are a non-drinker/smoker, you will most likely associate less in social settings. In these situations, we don’t often think, Gee, this person is someone I can see in my life.
So, what are the types of things you might like to cultivate when it comes to the people you are sharing time with?
Transparency: When life struggles happen—and they will—is there an openness and willingness to share? It is not always done with the hope of having an answer provided but rather to hear someone else’s perspective. When we are struggling, we tend to isolate ourselves, thinking we must be strong and figure things out on our own. This is more so with men than women. However, being open allows us to view our situation differently.
Making a priority of each other: We are in a world that demands our attention so much. Are we able to disconnect and focus on other people for a period to reconnect with what is important? Your life won’t be measured by the number of social media stories you had but rather the number of real conversations.
Someone who will encourage your vision of a bigger, brighter future: A friend won’t let you settle for something. They will stretch and challenge you in ways you may not always like but it will be with the intention of building a better you. When you have people in your life that demand the best from you, you will automatically have more richness in your life.
Traditionally athletes have valued carbohydrates as the most efficient fuel source, with many partaking in ‘carb loading’ prior to race day in order to optimise performance and endurance. Although it is true that our body prioritises glucose if it is available, the body has a very clever way of producing energy that can sustain physical performance in the face of a glucose shortage. This is known as fat adaptation and can be achieved by eating a diet lower in carbohydrates and higher in good fats which in turn allows the body to efficiently burn fat as a fuel source.
A potential issue with a high carbohydrate intake long term is an associated increased risk of insulin resistance and cardiovascular disease, conditions we normally associate with the overweight and sedentary. This disorder can even occur in athletes training 20+ hours per week and is referred to as the ‘athlete’s paradox’. ‘Carbohydrate intolerance describes the decreased ability to process carbohydrates effectively. Insulin resistance is, in essence, carbohydrate intolerance due to the decreased responsiveness to insulin in the peripheral tissues which leads to de novo lipogenesis (fat synthesis by the liver) and consequent increased risk of several chronic diseases.’
‘Sufficient restriction of dietary carbohydrates puts the body into a state of nutritional ketosis in which energy metabolism is diverted to utilizing fatty acids directly for creating ATP or ‘ketones’ (e.g. beta-hydroxybutyrate). Over a period of time, the body adapts to efficiently using ketones as a predominant fuel source both peripherally and within the central nervous system in a state known as keto-adaptation. For example, the brain can derive roughly two thirds of its energy from ketones.’ (Metagenics, 2015; Volek, J.)
In the past we have relied on glucose replacement during training to avoid ‘hitting the wall’. However, recent science has associated fat-adapted training with improved athletic performance. One of the many benefits of having a reduced amount of carbohydrate in your diet is the improved ability to burn fats as fuel, meaning you are more metabolically flexible.
Mike Morton, Master Sergeant, US Army Special Operations Command, American 24-hr Distance Running Record (172 miles): ‘I switched to a low-carbohydrate/high-fat lifestyle in 2012 and was able to win back to back 100-mile races one week apart including setting a course record. The diet has transformed my health and performance.’ The level of carbohydrate required varies per individual depending on metabolic health and training goals. If you would like to know more about fat-adapted training and if it is suitable for you, make an appointment to discuss your needs.
We all have minor imbalances with our health from time to time which we will seek help with. For most of us, our health is largely pretty good but could your health be great?
Once we reach a level of health where we experience an absence of symptoms, we feel as though we are doing well. But, when it comes to energy levels, restorative sleep or wanting to get the best out of your exercise, just an extra 5 to 10 per cent could make a difference to your day-to-day life.
Doing the small, seemingly insignificant, things daily will compound over time and make a massive difference in our overall health. For example, parking a little further away from work and walking that extra bit might not feel as though it would make much difference now. However, it could mean that, 30 years down the track, you are able to move quickly to get out of the way of a fast-moving bicycle because you maintained your muscle mass.
We’ve all seen people in their sixties and seventies who have vast differences in what they can perform daily. There are some who are competing in a sport well into their seventies while there are others who are no longer able to enjoy things in life (like chasing the grandkids around!) like they did when they were in their fifties. The difference is actually found much earlier in life when it comes to the food and lifestyle choices we make when we are younger.
Our health in the later decades of our life is built on the foundation of what we do when we are in our twenties and thirties. The challenging part is we don’t see thebenefits of the choices we make in these younger age brackets until much later in life.
Healthcare costs in the ageing population is one of the obscured factors which will come to the forefront more as the baby boomers move into the older age brackets. This represents an area many of us haven’t considered and which will be an additional cost that will need to be covered.
Being a wellness client is understanding that our health will become a priority at some stage in our life and this helps drive your daily decisions to effect a positive change now. More than likely, these are small changes which, compounded over time, will allow you to bridge the gap from an illness pathway to an optimal health pathway.
Prolonging the time that you can be a contributing individual to society is a great asset as, not only will you feel better, you’ll get to enjoy the benefits of better health in your younger years as well.
The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago; the next best time is today.
We sometimes have far too much to think about and this whole health thing becomes a bit complex, especially with the ever-increasing amount of research to keep track of. If you feel like this, here is a cheat sheet just for you to see if you are on track. The aim is to be well-balanced men so we are calm, considered, have courage, are measured in our decision-making and inclusive.
Your health is a reflection of the standards you hold for yourself. If your health is not where you would like it to be, the choice is yours regarding change. The powerful thing is that any change, no matter how small, compounds over time into lasting change. Start today towards a healthier version of yourself!
The Four Pillars of Health
Sleep
– Establish a good sleep pattern and get to bed at a consistent time—our body loves routine.
– Aim to get to bed before 10 pm where possible. The hours before midnight are vital.
– Unplug from devices and screen time three hours before bed.
Nutrition
– Include more wholefoods—focus on fresh!
– Limit the consumption of the ‘displacing foods of modern commerce’ (sugar, flour and tinned, frozen and sweetened foods).
– Be actively involved in the food preparation.
Exercise
– Undertake physical activities which you enjoy doing.
– Make physical movement part of your regular routine—things that are ‘must dos’ get done.
– Listen to your body for the best type of exercise for you.
Community
– Have some people in your close network who you can call on for support at short notice.
– Be an active member in your local community (volunteer).
– Express your kindness without any expectations.
Written by Phillip Chua, Naturopath
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