Definition: “The use of electronic monitoring of an automatic bodily function to train someone to acquire voluntary control of that function.”

Technically, true biofeedback requires a machine.  The patient gets hooked up to the monitor, and the patient can see, for instance, his heart rate.  If it is elevated, the practitioner coaches the patient to think calming thoughts.  As the patient does this, he can see his heart rate lowering in response to his thoughts.

The idea is, with practice, the patient learns what it feels like when his heart rate is elevated, he learns what it feels like when it lowers, and he can tangibly see that his thoughts are capable of producing that effect.  That way, when he feels his heart racing out on the highway, or at work, for instance, he feels empowered to use the techniques he has learned to lower it on his own.

I’ve prescribed home blood pressure monitors and biofeedback techniques to help patients lower their blood pressure at home as well (provided it is not dangerously high, of course!)  But according to Mayo Clinic, biofeedback can also be used for stress and anxiety, asthma, chemotherapy side effects, chronic pain, constipation, incontinence, IBS, and Raynaud’s disease.

Why Biofeedback Works

Most of your body’s functions are controlled by your autonomic nervous system (meaning not under your conscious control.)  Your brainstem controls core functions like breathing, blood pressure and heart rate, but these are heavily influenced by two branches of your autonomic nervous system: the sympathetic and the parasympathetic systems.

Your brain prioritizes its automatic functions (such as hunger, thirst, temperature, pain, pleasure, sexuality, anger and aggression) based on what is most necessary for survival at the moment.  For instance, if you’re being chased by a tiger, you’re not going to be thinking about your next meal.  Instead, your brain will activate your sympathetic nervous system (also called “fight or flight,” which will cause you to act in sympathy with your dominant emotion at the moment – fear).  Your heart rate, blood pressure, and blood volume will all increase, since those large getaway muscles are going to need a lot of blood.

Once you successfully evade the tiger, though, your parasympathetic nervous system calms you down: its focus is to “rest and digest,” so that’s the point at which you’d start to think about lunch.  That’s also when your heart rate and blood pressure will come down.

The Modern-Day Tiger

These days, the “tiger” might be your boss.  Or it might be the deadline looming over your shoulder.  Or it could be getting stuck in traffic.  Or anxiety left over from a fight with your spouse.  Or the bills you don’t know how you’re going to pay.  Or the fact that you are inundated with a never-ending stream of email and your phone won’t stop ringing.  But the response of the sympathetic nervous system is going to be the same.

Biofeedback trains you to consciously focus on switching from sympathetic to parasympathetic using stress management techniques like deep breathing, meditation, visualization, affirmations, and the like.  The stress management techniques themselves will lower your blood pressure and heart rate without the monitor, but for some patients, the tangible proof that the techniques are working may make all the difference.

The Take-Home Message:

If you tend to be anxious, have high blood pressure, or any of the other symptoms on this list, consider taking up some of these stress management techniques.  And if you want proof that they’re working, check out the apps by HeartMath for smart phones, or get a blood pressure monitor at home and try it yourself.

Dr Lauren Deville is board-certified to practice Naturopathic Medicine. To receive her free e-book, “Ten Nutritional Supplements Everyone Should Have,” or to receive her monthly health and wellness newsletter, please sign up at www.drlaurendeville.com.  

Like DrLauren Deville on Facebook to receive daily nutritional tips on your newsfeed!

I first heard this phrase as a medical student.  It was used in that case to refer to a patient’s back pain, which developed suddenly after the patient’s parents had passed away.  My attending physician at the time called the back pain a “symbol of the (sudden) lack of support in her life.”  He explained that in order to heal, her grief would need to be addressed, and she would need to find other sources of support.

Later in my student years, I learned that according to Traditional Chinese Medicine (which I do not now practice, though I studied it), each organ system is associated with a particular emotion.  For instance, the lungs are called the “seat of grief.”  So when I have a patient who presents with chronic respiratory infections or asthma, of course I investigate and address organic causes first.  But one of the questions I always ask in a case history is, “When did this start?”  If the answer dates back to a major loss, trauma, or tragedy (and especially if accompanied by a perpetual lump in the throat or frequent sighing – two other symptoms of suppressed grief), that is often a big clue to me that physical treatments alone aren’t going to be enough to effect a cure.

Correlations between Physical Symptoms and Emotional Trauma

The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study surveyed over 9,000 adults on adverse childhood experiences, including psychological, physical, or sexual abuse as well as caregivers who were substance abusers, mentally ill, suicidal, or had a history of imprisonment.  The study demonstrated a strong correlation between adverse childhood experiences and serious adult illnesses, including heart disease, cancer, chronic lung or liver disease.  (This, again, makes sense from a Traditional Chinese Medicine perspective: the lungs are called the seat of grief, and the liver of anger.)  These adults also had a much higher incidence of health risk factors, such as smoking, substance abuse, sexual promiscuity and sexually transmitted illnesses, as well as physical inactivity and obesity, depression and attempted suicide.

This study echoes the findings of the ACE study: women with childhood abuse report physical problems in twice as many body systems as women without a history of abuse, including panic, depression, musculoskeletal pain, vaginal or pelvic disorders, skin disorders and respiratory illness.

When no organic cause can be found for these symptoms, the patient is diagnosed with somatization.  This study shows that over 90% of women diagnosed with somatization disorder have a history of some form of abuse.  Additionally, this study shows a clear correlation between physical, emotional and sexual abuse and fibromyalgia.

These studies strongly imply that in patients with a history of abuse or trauma, treating physical symptoms alone misses at least some of the picture, and in some cases fails to address the root cause entirely.

What Suppression Does

Naturopathic philosophy begins with the belief that the body knows what it’s doing, and symptoms are always the best possible adaptations to the environment or circumstances.  Example: eating contaminated food leads to either vomiting or diarrhea.  (Your body is trying to expel a poison.)  A virus is trying to replicate itself and destroy your cells, so your body spikes a fever to render it less active.  In the face of a fungal infection, the body walls it off so that it cannot continue to spread.  All smart moves.

Emotions are the same way.  We are taught that our positive emotions should be expressed (love, joy, excitement) while our negative ones are not socially acceptable and should therefore be suppressed (anger, sadness, grief, and fear).  But if we consider negative emotions to be symptoms that something is wrong, in either our lives or our thoughts, then suppression allows that harmful thought process or situation to perpetuate.

Plus, long-term, suppression doesn’t work.  Suppressed anger leads to festering resentment.  Suppressed sadness and grief leads to depression.  Suppressed fear leads to anxiety.  These unacknowledged emotions can eat us from the inside, leading to self-medication (such as smoking, substance abuse, sexual promiscuity, gambling, or any other addiction), as well as chronic illness.

Addressing the Whole Person

Although I usually begin by addressing physical issues and ruling out organic causes, about 80% of the cases I see are not purely physical, and have at least some emotional component.  Medicine, exercise, diet, and sleep are all great and necessary for health, but they will only get you so far.  If you have some unacknowledged trauma or suppressed emotion in your past, consider finding a good therapist if you have not done so already, and make sure you are doing your part in the process of taking ownership of your emotions.  Accept them for what they are, and follow them to their source in order to receive the love of God, of others, and of yourself, in order to heal and move forward.

Dr Lauren Deville is board-certified to practice Naturopathic Medicine. To receive her free e-book, “Ten Nutritional Supplements Everyone Should Have,” or to receive her monthly health and wellness newsletter, please sign up at www.drlaurendeville.com.  

Like DrLauren Deville on Facebook to receive daily nutritional tips on your newsfeed!

What Leptin Is

Leptin is a hormone secreted by adipose tissue (fat cells) that tells you you’re full.  (Its opposite hormone is called ghrelin, which tells you you’re hungry.  You can remember this because the word ghrelin sounds like a stomach growling.)  Because leptin is secreted by fat cells, you produce more leptin as your weight increases.  Ideally as you gain weight, the increasing leptin would tell you, “Stop eating!  We don’t need to store, we need to burn!”

How Insulin and Leptin Are Linked

Insulin and leptin are (essentially) both produced because of sugar.  Eating too much sugar makes you gain more fat (see causes below – which leads to more circulating leptin), and sugar also forces your pancreas to pump out more insulin so that the sugar can get into the cells.

What Leptin Resistance Means 

Resistance to signaling hormones (such as insulin or leptin) works essentially like “The Boy Who Cried Wolf.”  If he’s screaming all the time, after awhile people start to ignore him.  He has to keep screaming louder to get anybody to listen to him the next time.

In the case of insulin resistance and diabetes, if you eat enough sugar for long enough, your body will pump out more and more insulin to keep up with the demand, and eventually your cells stop paying attention to their signal because there’s so much of it floating around.  In the same way, as you gain weight, your adipose tissue pumps out more and more leptin.  Eventually there’s a point at which the regulatory message gets ignored.  (Familiarity breeds contempt!)

Unfortunately if the message is ignored, that means ghrelin’s opposing message prevails — which is that you’re starving.  Your body then goes into storage mode, rather than burning mode.  So leptin resistance is linked not just with obesity, but with all the trappings of obesity, including hight blood pressure, heart disease and stroke, and blood sugar problems.  It can also be linked with lower fertility (since it’s telling your body that it doesn’t have the caloric resources to support a child.)

What Causes Leptin Resistance?

In a word, sugar (and all of its permutations – see #1 below), because sugar makes you fat.

Think of sugar as quick energy. It can get converted into the currency your body uses for energy very quickly. But the flip side is, you can only have so much of it on hand — your blood can only accommodate a few tablespoons of sugar at a time. Your body needs to get rid of any excess quickly, before it causes vascular damage or hyperglycemic symptoms.

So when your body has to get rid of it, where does it go?

There are only two compartments in your body: intracellular (inside the cells) and extracellular (outside the cells). The bloodstream is outside of the cells, so sugar has to get inside the cells in order to get out of the blood.  (This requires insulin.)  But cells can’t store sugar in its present form, so as soon as sugar comes into the cell, it gets converted from “quick” energy into “potential” energy — fat.  And, as we mentioned, the more fat cells you have, the more leptin you produce.  And the more leptin you produce, the more resistant your cells become to its signal.

Other factors that decrease metabolism and cause the body to store the excess glucose as fat include stress (leading to high cortisol, which leads to high blood sugar), and lack of sleep (which also decreases the body’s metabolic rate, and increases cortisol.)

How You Counteract Leptin Resistance 

1. Cut out added sugar.  Eating sugar is what makes people gain weight.  Read labels, and if you see any words ending in “-ose” (sucrose, fructose, dextrose, maltose, etc), anything ending in “syrup” (especially High Fructose Corn Syrup), cane juice or fruit juice concentrate, honey, agave or anything of the sort, avoid it.
2. Cut out processed white carbs.  These turn to glucose the second they hit your saliva.  They’re the same thing as sugar.
3. Have some protein with every meal.  This will slow the release of glucose into your bloodstream, helping to stabilize blood sugar and dampening the vicious insulin/leptin cycle.
4. Take your fish oil.  This will help keep cell membranes healthy, which will enable them to hear and respond to cell signals (like insulin and leptin).  Just make sure you get a good one – they’re not all created equal.
5. Get enough sleep.  Sleep is so critical for metabolism (and health generally) that it deserves its own article.  Here it is.
6. Chill out.  Stress and anxiety, as mentioned above, increase cortisol, which is bad news for your adrenals as well as your weight.  Here are some practical tips for reducing your stress levels on your own.
7. Exercise.  If you are leptin resistant, you may not get great results with this at first.  This is because when your body is in starvation mode, it’s hoarding: it refuses to burn its energy to feed your muscles even when they need it, and that means your muscles get fatigued faster.  Start with resistance (weights) first, since weight lifting “turns on” metabolism by pumping out Growth Hormone (GH).  You will begin to lose weight when you no longer feel like you’re always hungry, craving carbs, and exhausted – this means your metabolism has “turned back on.”  That’s the time to add in cardio regularly.

Although it is possible to test leptin directly, it is also useful to test rT3 (reverse T3, the inactive form of the metabolically active thyroid hormone.  Your body increases its production of rT3 when it is trying to slow down its metabolism.)  Your naturopathic doctor can run these labs for you, and give you more personalized guidance on how to reverse leptin resistance.

Dr Lauren Deville is board-certified to practice Naturopathic Medicine. To receive her free e-book, “Ten Nutritional Supplements Everyone Should Have,” or to receive her monthly health and wellness newsletter, please sign up at www.drlaurendeville.com.  

Like DrLauren Deville on Facebook to receive daily nutritional tips on your newsfeed!

Last week I wrote about how fear and the toxic thought processes associated with fear can, in many cases, produce the very thing dreaded.  Conversely, faith in a good outcome can, in many cases, help us to achieve that which we believe we are capable of accomplishing.

There is a larger implication for society, though.  Fearful thinking not only can keep us in bondage as individuals, but it can limit our ability to contribute to society in innovative ways.

Viktor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor and psychologist, wrote in his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, “This uniqueness and singleness which distinguishes each individual and gives a meaning to his existence has a bearing on creative work as much as it does on human love.”  In other words, man’s purpose comes from two places: human love, and creative work.  This makes sense, from a biblical perspective: whether you think Genesis is literal or metaphorical, God says that He created Man in His image (Gen 1:27).  One of God’s key attributes (especially in the context of this passage) is that of creator.  We, too, are meant to create.

Creativity can be defined as an original product (a painting, business, an invention, a piece of music, a solution to a problem, a novel, etc) resulting from a unique individual, plus the tools (pen and paper, circumstances, people, steel and wood, etc) he had on hand at the time.  If you think of this as a chemical equation, it would look like this:

unique individual + tools on hand –> original product

In this equation, the catalyst would be creative thought.  In order to create an original product, then, the individual would need to be capable of creative thought, which requires several preconditions:

1. He would have to be open to his experience.  This means receiving all the data and information impartially, such that he can see relationships between actions and outcomes as they truly are, or such that he can properly evaluate the tools at his disposal.  (The opposite of this would be to fearfully close himself off to certain unwelcome aspects of his experience, in order to protect himself from disappointment or other threatening discoveries.)
2. He would need to value his product for its own sake.  Many radically new creative ventures have been rejected at first, because they are so far outside conventional experience.  For this reason, the creative individual will need to affirm his own work – which is an outgrowth of accepting himself unconditionally.  (The opposite of this would be depending on the evaluations of others.  This can be called “fear of man”: allowing others to determine either your value, or the value of your ideas.  Proverbs 29:25 says, “The fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe.”)
3. He would need to be free to combine the tools he has on hand with one another in unique ways, whether mentally or physically.  (Another word for this is “brainstorming.”)  This is a more constructive use of the prefrontal cortex than imagining possible negative outcomes, mentioned in the previous article: in this case, the creative individual mentally evaluates outcomes of certain experiences, without necessarily having to invest valuable resources in every one of them.

As a naturopathic doctor, I believe true health must be holistic: it must integrate a healthy lifestyle (nutrition, exercise, sleep, water, air, sunlight) with healthy relationships (appropriate priorities and balance, love, and humility), and healthy spirituality (including a relationship with God, acceptance of oneself, and both recognition and pursuit of one’s purpose in life).  Don’t overlook your purpose: all the fruits and veggies in the world can’t make up for the lack of it.

For more on the topic of fear and creativity, I recommend “On Becoming a Person,” by Carl Rogers.

Dr Lauren Deville is board-certified to practice Naturopathic Medicine. To receive her free e-book, “Ten Nutritional Supplements Everyone Should Have,” or to receive her monthly health and wellness newsletter, please sign up at www.drlaurendeville.com.  

Like DrLauren Deville on Facebook to receive daily nutritional tips on your newsfeed!

What Fear is and How it Goes Awry

According to the principles of naturopathic medicine, symptoms are the body’s best way of coping with its environment, both internal and external.  That’s why the appropriate way to deal with symptoms is not to suppress them, but to listen to them.  They’re telling you something is wrong.  Your job is to find out what that something is and deal with it.

Emotions can be considered symptoms, too.  Fear, for instance, has a purpose: it’s there to signal impending danger and to warn us to be careful.  But it can be blown out of proportion to the actual danger.  This is in part because the prefrontal cortex of the human brain is designed to simulate an experience before it happens.  This keeps us from having to learn every lesson by hard knocks… but if we choose to imagine every possible negative scenario, no matter how unlikely, then our fear response can be very much exaggerated.  A few examples of how this can happen:

• Overgeneralization: we take a single negative event and assume that event will become a pattern.  (For instance, after a breakup, we conclude, “No one will ever want me.  I’ll be alone forever.”)  This can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, affecting our choices and the opportunities to which we avail ourselves.  (If you think no one will ever want you, how much confidence to you think you’re going to give off?)
• Labeling: we take a single negative action and generalize it to the person who committed it — ourselves or someone else.  (For instance, after getting fired, we conclude, “I’m a failure.”  Or, your spouse does something to hurt you and you conclude, “He is a selfish person.”)  This, too, can become a self-fulfilling prophecy: if you treat someone as selfish, is he more or less likely to be kind to you in the future?  If you tell yourself you’re a failure, what are the chances you’ll take any risks that might lead to success?
• Worst-Case-Scenario Thinking: Pessimists usually say that life has taught them to be that way.  They think they are protecting themselves from disappointment by expecting the worst, no matter how unlikely it might be.  In reality, though, they are flooding their bodies with fight-or flight stress hormones (which, over time, can lead to high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart disease, diabetes, insomnia, sexual dysfunction, anxiety, constipation, diarrhea, immune dysfunction, depression, and even cancer).  All this, when more often than not, the things we fear don’t even happen!

Fear is a kind of bondage.  It is essentially meditation upon something negative (instead of upon something positive), which eventually leads to the belief that a negative event will come to pass.

Faith: The Opposite of Fear

There isn’t really any way to address this issue without getting a little bit spiritual.  The Bible defines faith as “the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).  There’s a reason why it is called substance and evidence.  Hope is not the same thing as faith; hope is simply a wish or desire, while faith is the belief that that wish will come to pass.  You’ve got to have a reason for faith (while you need none for hope).  Faith is the substantive evidence of something that does not yet have physical form (emphasis on the word, yet.)

What is fear, then?  It’s the substance of things dreaded.  (Notice that many of the toxic thought patterns above can be self-fulfilling – and not by any mystical process, but by clear causation!)

There is a great deal of power in what you think – not because of metaphysics, but because thoughts become words, and words become actions, and actions bear consequences in our lives, whether good or bad.  (Proverbs 4:23 says, “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.”)  The process is indifferent – it works in both directions.  Choose wisely!

Dr Lauren Deville is board-certified to practice Naturopathic Medicine. To receive her free e-book, “Ten Nutritional Supplements Everyone Should Have,” or to receive her monthly health and wellness newsletter, please sign up at www.drlaurendeville.com.  

Like DrLauren Deville on Facebook to receive daily nutritional tips on your newsfeed!

Even fifteen years ago, cell phones were a novelty.  (Remember, they were the size of bricks, and you only had one in your car for emergencies?)  It’s incredible how rapidly things have changed.  First there were beepers, then cell phones, then texting, and now we can even get email and Facebook updates on our smart phones… everyone is connected to everyone else, all the time.

The first consequence of this is Attention Deficit Trait, or ADT - decreased productivity and increased anxiety, due to the many distractions so common in the American workplace.  But another, related consequence is the fact that as a result of this constant distraction, we are seldom completely focused on what we’re doing – which is especially problematic if what we’re doing is operating a several ton vehicle going between 25 and 80 miles per hour.

I know, it feels like you’re completely in control, and you can safely text and drive.  But the data shows that you can’t.

• Texting while driving is about six times more likely to cause an accident than driving intoxicated.  It’s about the equivalent of driving after having four beers, according to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration.
• Texting while driving accounts for almost 25% of auto collisions.
• Sending or receiving a text takes a driver’s eyes from the road for an average of 4.6 seconds, which is the equivalent-at 55 mph-of driving the length of an entire football field, blind!  
• In June 2009, a study conducted by Car and Driver magazine compared reaction time driving under the influence to reaction time while texting.  In terms of stopping distance, intoxication added 4 feet, while reading e-mail added 36 feet, and sending a text added 70 feet.
• Driving while using a cell phone reduces the amount of brain activity associated with driving by 37%.
• Texting while driving is implicated in 11 teen deaths every day.
• Text messaging makes a crash up to 23 times more likely.  Drivers who use hand-held devices are 4 times more likely to get into crashes serious enough to injure themselves, according to Monash University.

Since these are just statistics, here’s a few larger-scale stories:

• In May 2009, a Boston trolley car crashed while the driver texted his girlfriend. 49 people were injured, though none were killed.
• In 2008, a Union Pacific freight train collided with a commuter train in LA, killing 25 passengers. Investigations revealed that the engineer of that train had sent 45 text messages while operating it.
• In 2011, the first commercial flight crash implicated text messaging as a contributing factor.  It involved a medical helicopter, killing all five people on board.

Unfortunately, Arizona is one of only eight US states that has no restriction at all on cell phone use while driving.  We’ll probably get there, though, since on the basis of this data, all cell phone use while driving has been outlawed in Canada, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, and the UK.  Texting while driving has been outlawed thus far in 35 states, and texting for new drivers has been outlawed in seven more.

Until there are laws in Arizona as well, here’s what you can do to keep yourself and others safe:

• While driving, put your phone out of reach, so that it is not even a temptation to check or send text messages.
• If you have an Android or Blackberry, check out their free anti-texting and driving “Drive Mode” app.
• If you have teenagers, make sure they understand this is non-negotiable!

(And as a side benefit, you will likely discover that focusing on one thing at a time will help you to slow down, and decrease your tension and anxiety as well.)

Dr Lauren Deville is board-certified to practice Naturopathic Medicine. To receive her free e-book, “Ten Nutritional Supplements Everyone Should Have,” or to receive her monthly health and wellness newsletter, please sign up at www.drlaurendeville.com.  

Like DrLauren Deville on Facebook to receive daily nutritional tips on your newsfeed!

ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) and ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) are household terms these days, defined as inattention or hyperactivity, where symptoms exist before 7 years of age, and the child (or adult) experiences clinically significant impairment in a social, academic, or occupational setting.  The implication is that the disorder is inherited (although I think this is debatable).

However, ADT, or Attention Deficit Trait, is clearly not inherited, but is entirely a product of the environment – particularly the common culture of the American workplace, filled with myriad distractions, high pressure, noise, and multitasking.  Those who suffer from ADT find it difficult to prioritize, stay organized, and manage time effectively.  This leads to a downward spiral of decreasing productivity, and increasing angst.  Very commonly patients with apparent ADT tell me that they “can’t shut off their brains,” especially at night – they lie awake for hours, or wake in the wee hours of the morning, trying to solve the problems that confront them during the day.  They tend to be anxious and irritable, and while some tend to take this irritability out on their coworkers or loved ones, others will turn it inward, blaming themselves.

Fortunately, there is a better answer than Ritalin (or Xanax, or Prozac).  Think of these symptoms as an early warning system.  If the problem is your environment, medicating yourself so that you can better cope with it is sort of like turning off the fire alarm when your house is on fire, instead of grabbing the extinguisher.  Eventually the house is still going to burn down, whether you sleep through it or not.

The “extinguisher,” on the other hand, looks something like this.  There’s the basics, of course:

• Get enough sleep.  Not only does sleep help to improve your memory (due to neuroplasticity, the process by which new information is consolidated in your brain during sleep), it also improves performance at whatever you do.  This latter benefit is likely due to the fact that during waking hours, a byproduct of neuronal activity called adenosine builds up, leading to fatigue and exhaustion.  (And by the way, caffeine works by blocking the affects of adenosine, but only short term)  Sleep gives your body time to clear out the debris, as it were, and make way for a new day.
• Eat real food (not processed crap.)  Certain nutrients, especially B vitamins, are necessary for the production of neurotransmitters.  However, B vitamins are found in dark leafy greens (not exactly a staple of the Standard American Diet) and whole grains (but not white flour, which has been stripped of nutrients).  Not only does white flour lack B vitamins of its own, it actually depletes them during the process of digestion.  On top of that, white flour and sugar both lead to a glucose spike and subsequent crash, which also sets you up for fatigue and irritability.  So eat your complex carbs: veggies, fruit, and whole grains, along with plenty of protein and healthy fats.
• Take your fish oil.  Essential Fatty Acids increase transmission of neurotransmitters, inhibit the death of brain cells, improve communication of cell membranes (which are sort of the “brains” of your cells), and decrease inflammation.  Everybody needs to be taking fish oil.  (Just make sure you get a good one – they’re not all created equal)
• Exercise.  This is the most potent natural antidepressant out there!  It induces production of neurotransmitters that elevate mood, and increases blood flow to both muscles and the brain.  Increased blood flow also increases delivery of nutrients and oxygen to those tissues, and eliminates waste products, faster than would happen at rest.  If you don’t have time to hit the gym for an hour every day, simply incorporate movement into your day at regular intervals.  Here’s a great video that will give you ideas of how to do this – you’ll be surprised at how good you feel after just a few minutes every hour or so.

To combat ADT specifically:

• Connect with others.  One of the most powerful ways to reassure yourself that there’s nothing “wrong with you” is to talk to others in a similar circumstance.  That’s one of the reasons that support groups work so well.  The Bible says that we are designed to carry each other’s burdens (although each is supposed to carry his own “load”, Galatians 6:2-5), implication being that while a load is small enough that we can handle it ourselves, a burden is too large to shoulder alone.  Helping, cooperative workplaces or groups promote positive emotions and interdependence, rather than codependence.
• Make a list of priorities for each day, and keep it short.  If everything is a priority, then nothing is.  A list, even one you have created yourself, keeps you from the moment-by-moment crisis of wondering which task to attend to first.  If the priorities aren’t immediately apparent to you, just pick something.  Write it down, and stick to it.  Cross off the tasks as you complete them, so that you can see that you’re making progress.
• One task at a time, and in bite-sized intervals.  My favorite way to handle this is via a spreadsheet.  For big tasks or projects that will take more than one day to complete, I structure my time in hour increments, two at most, before I move on to the next project or task – whether I’m finished or not.  While attending to a task, though, it’s important to do your best to prevent distractions.  Close Facebook.  Close GoogleChat.  If it’s an option, turn off your phone.  Structure time at regular intervals to check email and voicemail, and only do it during those allotted times.
• Schedule time for yourself every day, and guard it.  Treat this time like an appointment.  It’s not negotiable.  Try not to set too many expectations for this time, either, or it may become just another “task” – if you spend half an hour just staring at the wall at first, that’s fine!  The point is just to slow down.  Eventually, you will fill the time with activities that you look forward to every day.  Remember, it is your responsibility to take care of yourself – nobody is going to do it for you.

Dr Lauren Deville is board-certified to practice Naturopathic Medicine. To receive her free e-book, “Ten Nutritional Supplements Everyone Should Have,” or to receive her monthly health and wellness newsletter, please sign up at www.drlaurendeville.com.  

Like DrLauren Deville on Facebook to receive daily nutritional tips on your newsfeed!

In 1989, an epidemiologist named David Strachen proposed that the rise in allergies was due to the rise in hypercleanliness – that is, the fact that Western culture is so preoccupied with germs, and therefore obsessed with creating a sterile environment.

Think of exposure to relatively harmless bugs as “basic training” for our immune systems.  Without this exposure, our bodies won’t know how to recognize a real threat later.

(It’s sort of like that person we all know who was spoiled as a child and has never been through any real hardship in life, and therefore thinks of a hangnail as the end of the world.)

That’s an allergy.  It’s reacting to something that isn’t dangerous, like pollen or pet dander or peanuts, as if it posed a real threat.  But in reality, the pollen (for instance) has no intention of invading and killing off our cells systematically in order to replicate itself, the way a virus might.  It’s just sitting there, minding its own business, when our immune system sees it, freaks out, and releases a massive assault on it, flooding our bodies with histamine and causing all kinds of collateral damage.

So how do we deal with allergies, according to this theory?  We can prevent, or at least minimize the whole thing by allowing our bodies to be exposed to harmless bugs while it’s still young and impressionable, so that it can learn on its own, “That guy’s okay, he isn’t going to bother me, so I’m not going to waste my energy fighting against him,” versus, “That guy’s gonna attack me.  I’d probably better remember what he looks like so that I can have a good defense prepared next time I see him.”  (This is what happens when you create antibodies.  It’s an army specifically prepared to attack a particular invader, or antigen.)

But once your immune system is paranoid to think everybody is out to get it, the only thing to be done is to start all over and teach it the truth, in a controlled environment.  We do this by exposing it to little bits of “friendly” antigens at a time – small amounts at first and then increasing doses, so that the immune system eventually figures out, “Hey, maybe this guy isn’t going to attack me after all.  Perhaps I ought to invest my defensive resources elsewhere.”

Allergy shots, and sublingual allergy drops (which I do in my office, based on blood testing and produced at a compounding pharmacy) are a great way to do this.  Instead of just minimizing the collateral damage (with anti-histamines), maybe it’s time to re-train your immune system to recognize friend versus foe.

(Want more info?  Click here).

Dr Lauren Deville is board-certified to practice Naturopathic Medicine. To receive her free e-book, “Ten Nutritional Supplements Everyone Should Have,” or to receive her monthly health and wellness newsletter, please sign up at www.drlaurendeville.com.  

Like DrLauren Deville on Facebook to receive daily nutritional tips on your newsfeed!

Just because a company claims that something is healthy doesn’t mean you ought to believe them.

I know we’re all busy, and sometimes it seems like the choices are between eating crap and going hungry.  Perhaps you think you’re being “good” by picking up an energy or nutrition bar instead… but you might not be.  Advertising can be misleading.

By way of comparison: Before we get into nutrition bars, let’s establish a baseline.  A Snickers bar contains corn syrup, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, and artificial flavors.  Why these are bad:

1. Sugar is your enemy.  You get fat by eating sugar, not by eating fat.  It’s responsible for insulin resistance and diabetes, and it’s the primary culprit in heart disease (NOT cholesterol!).  It can also exacerbate certain very common digestive disorders like IBS by further causing an imbalance in gut flora, it can worsen PMS and hormonal acne, it exacerbates osteoporosis, it worsens anxiety and depression, and it can certainly make you feel fatigued.  Need I go on?
2. Hydrogenated oils (also called trans fats) are one of the most toxic things you can put in your body.  They get incorporated into your cell membranes so that good stuff (like nutrients and cell signals) can’t get in as easily and bad stuff (like waste) can’t get out, setting you up for nutrient deficiencies, inflammation, and all kinds of Western diseases, including heart disease, diabetes, obesity, liver dysfunction, depression, reduced immune function, infertility, cancer, and Alzheimer’s disease.
3. Corn syrup: first of all, unless otherwise stated, this is genetically modified (as is soybean oil, previously mentioned).  Second, corn syrup is mostly fructose, which is even worse for you than regular sugar because it’s unregulated in your body – meaning it has to hit your bloodstream right away, exacerbating the diabetes and heart disease connection mentioned above.  However, corn syrup isn’t as bad as High Fructose Corn Syrup, which has a higher percentage of fructose and is also contaminated with mercury.
4. Artificial flavors: anytime you see the word artificial, read “chemical.”  Don’t put it in your body if you can help it.  You have no idea what it is or what it’s doing.

How a Snickers bar stacks up against some common “nutrition” bars:

Stay away from: 

• Vanilla Crisp Powerbar: contains organic evaporated cane juice (read: SUGAR), maltodextrin (read: SUGAR), fructose (read: SUGAR), dextrose (read: SUGAR), soy protein isolate and soy lecithin (read: GMO), and a long list of unrecognizable ingredients.

• Met-Rx Colossal Peanut Butter Pretzel: 410 calories – I don’t believe in calorie counting usually, but that’s nearly twice that of a Snickers!  They also contain corn syrup AND High Fructose Corn Syrup, sugar, evaporated cane syrup, oligofructose and fructose, and dextrose (so that’s seven kinds of sugar), soy protein isolate (GMO) – and other ingredients that it would take me too long to discuss.

• Kellogg’s Nutri-Grain Cherry: contains soybean and canola oil, soluble corn fiber, and modified corn starch (read: all GMO), sugar, dextrose, fructose, invert sugar, corn syrup (read: five kinds of sugar), artificial flavors and a few other ingredients I dislike.

A Slight Improvement:

• Clif Bar Chocolate Chip: Organic Brown Rice Syrup (sugar) is the #1 ingredient (the higher on the ingredient list, the higher percentage in the food item), with organic dried cane syrup (sugar) listed three more times.  Soy is organic, though, which means it’s NOT GMO, so that’s good.  And the other ingredients on the list are at least recognizable.

A better choice: 

• KIND Plus Bars: these still have added honey and sugar, but all the ingredients on the list are recognizable, non-GMO and un-processed.

• LARA Bars: NO added sugar; the only ingredients are fruits and nuts.  (I nearly always choose these if I must choose a nutrition bar.)

Take-home message: don’t be deceived by clever marketing.  If you want a candy bar then eat a candy bar, but if you want something healthy, read your labels!

Dr Lauren Deville is board-certified to practice Naturopathic Medicine. To receive her free e-book, “Ten Nutritional Supplements Everyone Should Have,” or to receive her monthly health and wellness newsletter, please sign up at www.drlaurendeville.com.  

Like DrLauren Deville on Facebook to receive daily nutritional tips on your newsfeed!

Despite our state-of-the-art medical care, the United States does not have the longest, nor the healthiest life spans of first world cultures.  (Quite the contrary: we’re at the bottom of the list.)  What can we learn, then, from some of the cultures around the world with the highest centenarian rates, such as Sardinia, Italy, Okinawa, Japan, Loma Linda, California, and the Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica?  Here’s a few key factors that contribute to healthful longevity – and some of them might surprise you, although afterwards you’ll probably feel as if you ought to have been able to guess them yourself.

1. They engage in low intensity physical activity.  We Americans tend to assume that “harder is better.”  We think we have to spend an hour at the gym daily or run a marathon in order to get in shape.  But remember that historically, gyms didn’t exist.  What would our ancestors think of the idea of running in place for thirty minutes with no particular destination, or lifting weights without having anything tangible to show for it afterwards?  Exercise for its own sake is a relatively new phenomenon (albeit one that is very important, given the otherwise sedentary nature of our society).  Historically exercise was just a part of daily living.  The take home message here: just get out and move.  Do something – it doesn’t have to be spectacularly hard.
2. They eat breakfast.  You know how they say breakfast is the most important meal of the day?  Turns out that those who eat a substantial breakfast tend to consume fewer calories the rest of the day, tend to weigh less and have a healthier overall lifestyle.  The caveat here: make sure your breakfast is NOT all white processed carbohydrates and/or sugar, as these will spike your blood sugar, leading to a subsequent crash in blood sugar, leading to increased carb cravings later on.  Instead, choose whole grains, and always include some form of healthy protein with every meal.
3. They look up to their elders.  In contrast to our society, which values youth and beauty above all else, centenarians in these cultures are respected and valued for their wisdom (which probably also contributes to their sense of purpose, see #5.)  There are a number of reasons why this is good for the rest of society, too.  Elders are the ones who remember family history and traditions, which give younger generations a sense of grounding and continuity.  We have a better understanding of who we are if we know where we’ve come from.  Elders’ greater life experience also leads to greater wisdom.  How many life lessons could we learn vicariously, rather than through the “school of hard knocks,” if we were willing to humble ourselves and ask someone who’s already been there?  Perhaps most importantly, those who have lived longest tend to be those with the best perspective on what really matters in life.  We could all do with a healthy dose of perspective.
4. They tend to be likable. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that (as research has indicated) happiness is contagious.  We like to be around people who are happy because they make us happy too.  As a result, these happy, likable centenarians, who are genuinely compassionate and interested in other people, tend to get better care from their caregivers.  They also have a greater social support system, the importance of which cannot be overestimated.  In his book, “Outliers,” Malcolm Gladwell talks about the surprising Italian immigrant community of Roseta, Pennsylvania, which had zero heart disease and much greater longevity than the surrounding community, despite the fact that the community did not exercise much at all, ate poorly, and had an obesity problem.  Nor did they have especially great genetics: their Italian ancestors did get heart disease and didn’t live nearly as long as they did.  Researchers were finally forced to admit, to their stunned amazement, that this community owed their remarkable longevity to the fact that they knew, loved and cared for one another.  (In other words, it was a lot like a good church is supposed to be.  Even if you’re not otherwise religious or spiritual, this alone is a good reason to get involved in a church.)
5. They have a sense of purpose.  Most of the time when we talk about such elusive concepts as “self-esteem,” this is what we’re really discussing.  The word self-esteem can be misleading, though, because purpose usually resides outside of ourselves.  It has to do with how we can contribute to the well-being of others, or how we can make the world a better place.  In Viktor Frankl’s book, “Man’s Search for Meaning,” this Jewish psychiatrist who survived the concentration camps writes, “This uniqueness and singleness which distinguishes each individual and gives a meaning to his existence has a bearing on creative work as much as it does on human love. When the impossibility of replacing a person is realized, it allows the responsibility which a man has for his existence and its continuance to appear in all its magnitude. A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the ‘why’ for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any ‘how.’“  According to Frankl, the pursuit of happiness is the wrong focus; happiness results from having and fulfilling one’s purpose.  If you don’t know what yours is, it’s a question well worth considering.

Dr Lauren Deville is board-certified to practice Naturopathic Medicine. To receive her free e-book, “Ten Nutritional Supplements Everyone Should Have,” or to receive her monthly health and wellness newsletter, please sign up at www.drlaurendeville.com.  

Like DrLauren Deville on Facebook to receive daily nutritional tips on your newsfeed!