Why You Should Treat Depression and Anxiety Effectively with Exercise

 

Click Here to Find Out How to Naturally and Permanently Cure Leaky Gut Syndrome

Depression and anxiety are just a couple of the many symptoms associated with Leaky Gut Syndrome. But they are major symptoms nonetheless. But what if you could simply treat depression and anxiety with exercise?

I’ve mentioned it before that when you perform the right kind of exercise that your body needs, you will actually feel better after your workout as opposed to worse. And this is because of all of the changes that take place within your body, including your brain.

Exercise elicits the release of many “happy” hormones within your body including natural endorphins, dopamine, and serotonin. And these hormone levels will remain elevated for hours after your workout.

Research has even shown that exercise can effectively treat depression and anxiety, the same or even better, than the leading commonly prescribed antidepressants. In fact, at the conclusion of the 4-month study, the group that used exercise to treat depression and anxiety was shown to have fewer relapses than the group that used the medication.

Plus, the exercise group received many other additional health benefits from the exercise during the process.

But when was the last time you heard of a doctor who prescribed exercise to treat depression and anxiety instead of antidepressant or anti-anxiety drugs?

The Downside of Using Antidepressants to Treat Depression and Anxiety

By far the most common type of antidepressant is known as the Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor (SSRI).

Some commonly used SSRI’s include:

• Zoloft
• Prozac
• Lexapro
• Paxil

For starters, these antidepressant drugs are being used widely for anyone experiencing even minor symptoms of depression even though research has questioned the effectiveness.

When compared with a placebo for cases of mild or moderate symptoms, the benefits were minimal to non-existent. However, depression continues to rise and doctors continue to prescribe these same drugs to treat depression and anxiety where there is little validity in doing so.

How SSRIs Work to Treat Depression and Anxiety

While it is very well understood that a lot of depression can be contributed to a lack of certain neurotransmitter hormones such as serotonin, conventional medicine refuses to look at why your body might be lacking in serotonin to begin with. Instead they opt to take the more difficult route of forcing your body’s little serotonin stores to work overtime.

(Serotonin is the key hormone that stabilizes our mood, feelings of well-being, and happiness. This hormone impacts your entire body. It enables brain cells and other nervous system cells to communicate with each other. Serotonin also helps with sleeping, eating, and digestion.)

In a normal functioning brain, serotonin is readily used and then recycled (the reuptake process) before being made available again for use. And when serotonin is abundant your brain can use it freely without running out.

But when your brain is deficient in serotonin, then it is not readily available for use when your brain needs it. So SSRIs can be used to effectively block or inhibit the recycling or reuptake process in order to keep the little serotonin that your brain does have active and working for a much longer period of time.

One of the biggest adverse effects of using SRRIs to treat depression and anxiety is that you easily become dependent upon these drugs which can make them very difficult to get off of.

 If one were to stop taking the medication abruptly, then serotonin levels would drop even lower than where they were to begin with as the overworked serotonin would no longer be available for use. This can lead not only a drastic change in mood but also a significant worsening of your depression and anxiety.

Not to mentioned the multitude of side effects from these drugs including…

• Long term sexual dysfunction
• Headaches
• Fatigue
• Insomnia
• Decreased bone density
• Tremors
• Tinnitus
• Suicidal tendencies
• Renal Impairment
• And the list goes on and on…

Naturally Treat Depression and Anxiety

One of the biggest benefits of using exercise to help treat depression and anxiety is that it’s one of the safest and most effect methods available.

Oftentimes, people want to jump straight into taking various supplements which have been shown to improve neurotransmitter production without considering the possibly side effects or looking at the obvious first.

Your body is designed to move so these natural hormonal and chemical processes that take place during exercise are a healthy and normal process. And regardless of your state of health, exercise is a must.

But when SSRIs are involved, it’s important to work closely with your doctor to get off of them as both your health improves and your dependence on them lessens. SSRIs combined with neurotransmitter supplementation can be a dangerous combination as it can lead to an overdose in serotonin known as Serotonin Syndrome.

Whether you treat depression and anxiety naturally or otherwise, you have no excuse not to incorporate exercise into your everyday activities to reap the benefits associated with your mood as well as the many additional health benefits that exercise provides. This is just one more reason why exercise should be an integral part of any Leaky Gut healing program.

Watch this video – How to Treat Depression and Anxiety Effectively with Exercise

Bio:

Karen Brimeyer is a nutritionist, functional medicine practitioner, and health consultant. She has helped over a hundred personal clients heal their leaky gut, digestive problems, lose weight, and resolve their chronic symptoms and conditions.

She is the owner of Optimal Self-Healing in Tampa Bay Florida, a private nutrition and health consultation business and author of the Leaky Gut Cure program.

Karen has worked with a wide variety of populations from new moms to athletes overcome their health problems and achieve optimal health.

Karen found her passion for nutrition as a teenager. While striving to achieve optimal health by following the widely accepted diet and nutrition tips of the media and conventional medicine, she found her own health declining rapidly with the development leaky gut which led to digestive problems and chronic fatigue.

Unwilling to accept her situation, she set out to determine the truth about health which led her through her own research as well as studying and working with some of the best holistic doctors and holistic practitioners in the fields of nutrition, functional medicine, and life coaching.

She has since applied her knowledge with herself to overcome her own leaky gut and achieve an unprecedented level of health and wellbeing. Her happy and healthy pregnancy and now two-year old son, TJ, are a testament to the health she has achieved.

To find out more about this program, click on Leaky Gut Cure

Natural Constipation Remedies for Stimulating a Sluggish Bowel

 

Click Here to Find Out How to Naturally and Permanently Cure Leaky Gut Syndrome

It should be no surprise that constipation is a major problem among those who suffer from Leaky Gut Syndrome. It is a common occurrence anytime that your digestive tract becomes dysfunctional.

But the good news is that there are plenty of natural constipation remedies that can be very effective at helping you not only overcome constipation but to also help regulate your digestive tract and improve your health all at the same time.

Please Note: If you suffer from diarrhea which is also very common with Leaky Gut Syndrome, much of this still applies to you.

And most people seeking natural constipation remedies have been suffering from chronic constipation for many years. And this can have a significant impact on your health because if you are not removing your toxic waste then your body is reabsorbing it.

You are also creating a breeding ground for bacterial infections, parasites, and Candida. And this is part of the process that is creating inflammation and holding you back from healing.

If you study the lifestyle habits of many different native cultures around the world that are without the influence of all of the Leaky Gut Syndrome causes, you’ll find that they have perfect digestion and do not suffer from Leaky Gut or any of the degenerative diseases that are common among us today.  And under these conditions, it is commonly found that they have multiple bowel movements each day and typically one within 12 hours after every meal they eat.

So if you’re not finding yourself moving your bowels at least one to two times per day then you need to pay special attention to these natural constipation remedies.

Test for Bowel Transit Time

It should also be noted that even if you are going one or more times per day, you can still be constipated. Constipation is also a factor of your transit time. So, if you eat a meal and it takes two or three days before that meal reaches your colon and is eliminated then you are still constipated.

But you can easily test your transit time to ensure that it is in the 12 to 24-hour time frame which is considered normal.

Just follow these instructions below before using any of the natural constipation remedies in order to get a baseline of your transit time so you can measure improvement.

After your next bowel movement, you can either eat red beats or find an all-natural food coloring and add it to your meal.

Keep a lookout and see how long it takes before you notice the red coloring and note the number of hours between

The red coloring from the beats or food coloring will not be absorbed and will be noticeable in your stool.

Natural Constipation Remedies

There are plenty of natural constipation remedies out there but it only makes sense to start with the basics before you start adding fibers or other laxatives. These are probably the most common sources of constipation so they are the best place to begin.

Natural Constipation Remedies – Dehydration

Regardless of your level of health, the vast majority of constipated people in the world are chronically dehydrated. They drink all kinds of other liquids, many of which are diuretics and cause them to lose even more water.

A general rule is to make sure that you are drinking a minimum of half your body weight (lbs.) in ounces of water every day. If you weigh 200 lbs. then you should be drinking at least 100 ounces of water daily.

Natural Constipation Remedies – Sodium Chloride

It’s very common to avoid salt like the plague today. It’s been linked to heart disease amongst other health issues. And while this is somewhat true for highly processed and toxic salts, there’s another side of the story that you need to know.

We need salt in our diets in order to maintain the proper electrolyte ratios and to maintain our health. And most people need much more salt than they are getting.

And one of the functions of salt is to help your body to better absorb and utilize water which also helps with dehydration. If your body can’t absorb the water you drink then it sure can’t use it to relieve constipation.

Natural Constipation Remedies – Your Diet

Your diet has a big influence over your bowels, transit time, and constipation.

Processed foods are a common cause of constipation because they disrupt the entire digestive tract as well as being low in natural fiber and void of essential nutrients. They also promote dysbiosis (a condition in which the gut bacteria become imbalanced) which greatly affects constipation more so than most people realize.

Food allergies are also something to take into consideration. A common symptom of food allergies is constipation so it’s best to determine and avoid the foods you are sensitive to.

Your diet should be focused around foods in their natural forms that are not processed and how Mother Nature intended them to be eaten.

While most people are stuck looking for a pill, powder, or miracle to fix their constipation, oftentimes the problem can be corrected with some simple lifestyle changes.

So it’s important to rule out the obvious and put these natural constipation remedies to use before you jump ahead of yourself and introduce anything additional to your daily regime.

Watch these 2 videos to find out about some natural constipation remedies –

Natural Stool Softener Foods to Stop Straining with Bowel Movements

Physical Therapy Exercises for Relieving Constipation, IBS Bloating and Abdominal Pain

Bio:

Karen Brimeyer is a nutritionist, functional medicine practitioner, and health consultant. She has helped over a hundred personal clients heal their leaky gut, digestive problems, lose weight, and resolve their chronic symptoms and conditions.

She is the owner of Optimal Self-Healing in Tampa Bay Florida, a private nutrition and health consultation business and author of the Leaky Gut Cure program.

Karen has worked with a wide variety of populations from new moms to athletes overcome their health problems and achieve optimal health.

Karen found her passion for nutrition as a teenager. While striving to achieve optimal health by following the widely accepted diet and nutrition tips of the media and conventional medicine, she found her own health declining rapidly with the development leaky gut which led to digestive problems and chronic fatigue.

Unwilling to accept her situation, she set out to determine the truth about health which led her through her own research as well as studying and working with some of the best holistic doctors and holistic practitioners in the fields of nutrition, functional medicine, and life coaching.

She has since applied her knowledge with herself to overcome her own leaky gut and achieve an unprecedented level of health and wellbeing. Her happy and healthy pregnancy and now two-year old son, TJ, are a testament to the health she has achieved.

To find out more about this program, click on Leaky Gut Cure

7 Safe and Natural Ways to Improve Your Quality of Sleep

 

Click Here to Find Out How to Naturally and Permanently Cure Leaky Gut Syndrome

We all need our beauty sleep, myself included. This is true especially in today’s fast paced society where sleep tends to be put on the back burner so that you can meet a deadline, watch a TV show, answer emails, etc.

But few truly understand the physiological importance of sleep. There are much more imposing implications to a lack of sleep than how beautiful you appear or how sharp you mind functions.

During your sleep cycles is when your body is most efficient at repairing damaged cells, including those cells that comprise your intestinal lining. And disrupting this natural healing process can stop even your best efforts of healing Leaky Gut.

In fact, your circadian rhythm dictates this healing process and typically between the hours of 10pm to 2am your body facilitates physical repair. And during the hours of 2am to 6am your body facilitates mental repair.

With that being said, here’s 7 safe and natural ways to improve your quality of sleep and help bring your health to new levels.

Heal Your Leaky Gut

When it comes to sleep, Leaky Gut and intestinal inflammation play a much larger role than you can probably imagine. In fact, most people don’t realize it but the majority of the neurotransmitter serotonin, your body’s natural antidepressant, is produced inside your gut.

When there’s inflammation present and you can no longer efficiently produce the necessary serotonin, you often see heightened anxiety, depression, and other mood disorders because your brain does not have the necessary chemicals it needs to function properly.

And no, it’s not just all in your head like your doctor may want you to think.

But when your serotonin levels are low, it negatively affects your sleep.

Diet, Diet, Diet

First and foremost, if you’re not eating the right diet for you then you will likely have sleep issues at some point in time. This is because a poor diet leads to problems with blood sugar stabilization and regulation.

And when you sleep at night and go for so long without eating it’s quite common for your body to become hypoglycemic (low blood sugar) since your body relies on the food you eat to maintain this balance.

And because your body must regulate your blood sugar levels in order for you to function and survive, your body will wake you up in order to persuade you to eat and raise your blood sugar levels back up to normal.

Get Some Sun

Some people’s sleep issues stem from a deficiency in the hormone melatonin. This might stem from a deeper serotonin deficiency which is common with Leaky Gut Syndrome as mentioned above. Or your body might not be converting the serotonin you do have into melatonin efficiently.

Regardless of your sleep, you should be getting at least 30 minutes of sunlight per day which is necessary for you overall health and wellbeing. But this 30 minutes of sunlight will also help stimulate your pineal gland which is responsible for producing the melatonin you need for sleep.

Avoid Alcohol

Aside from the fact that alcohol creates inflammation within your gut and is one of the many contributing causes of Leaky Gut Syndrome, it does have an effect on your sleep as well.

Alcohol consumption affects your brain in such a way that does not allow you to reach a deep level of REM sleep which is necessary for psychological repair and to keep you thinking sharp and straight.

Put Down the Remote

Odds are that you’ve become accustomed to watching TV at night. Many people are, so you’re not alone. But you have to understand that even though you’re sitting there in your lazy-boy, your brain is being hyper-stimulated by the constant flashing and changing of scenes on the TV screen. And this hyper-stimulation elicits a stress response within your body.

And to make matters worse, you watch the news before bed where you learn about all the horrible things that are wrong in the world. And after all of this, you try to fall asleep while fearing for your life at the same time.

By simply cutting out your TV time and stop watching the news, your brain will not be over-stimulated which can help alleviate stress or stimulation related sleep issues.

Avoid Caffeine

This should go without saying but so many people are having coffee after dinner or for dessert. But with coffee containing caffeine, a natural stimulant, it can have lasting effects through the night if taken too late in the day.

So be sure to never drink coffee after 3pm.

Dim the Lights at Night

Your body is designed to function based upon the natural rhythms of your day. When the sun comes up, it stimulates cortisol production in your body which in turn wakes your body up from sleep naturally.

And throughout your day to when the sun sets, your cortisol levels taper off which puts your body back into a relaxed state and preparing you for sleep.

But when your house is brightly lit at night, this can promote your body to continue to produce cortisol while it should be suppressing it. And this can be enough to keep you up at night.

So dim your lights at night to help lower your cortisol levels and make your sleep easier.

Want some more safe and natural ways to improve your quality of sleep? Watch this video – Sleep Hygiene: Train your Brain to Fall Asleep and Sleep Better

Bio:

Karen Brimeyer is a nutritionist, functional medicine practitioner, and health consultant. She has helped over a hundred personal clients heal their leaky gut, digestive problems, lose weight, and resolve their chronic symptoms and conditions.

She is the owner of Optimal Self-Healing in Tampa Bay Florida, a private nutrition and health consultation business and author of the Leaky Gut Cure program.

Karen has worked with a wide variety of populations from new moms to athletes overcome their health problems and achieve optimal health.

Karen found her passion for nutrition as a teenager. While striving to achieve optimal health by following the widely accepted diet and nutrition tips of the media and conventional medicine, she found her own health declining rapidly with the development leaky gut which led to digestive problems and chronic fatigue.

Unwilling to accept her situation, she set out to determine the truth about health which led her through her own research as well as studying and working with some of the best holistic doctors and holistic practitioners in the fields of nutrition, functional medicine, and life coaching.

She has since applied her knowledge with herself to overcome her own leaky gut and achieve an unprecedented level of health and wellbeing. Her happy and healthy pregnancy and now two-year old son, TJ, are a testament to the health she has achieved.

To find out more about this program, click on Leaky Gut Cure

How to Slow Down or Even Reverse Symptoms of Parkinson’s

 

Click HERE to Learn How to Slow Down the Progression of Parkinson’s and Repair the Effects It Has Had on Your Body

Slow Down or Even Reverse Symptoms of Parkinson’s – This Song Reverses Parkinson’s

How can a song reverse an ‘incurable’ disease like Parkinson’s?

Sounds impossible!

But a new study published in the Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies shows exactly how this happens – and how you can do the same.

The authors of this study recruited 13 people who had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease to test whether music therapy could improve their cognition, balance, mobility, muscle strength, and overall disability level.

They tested their subjects’ performance on these measurements at the beginning of the study, after which they provided music therapy for all of them.

They then discontinued the music therapy for a second study period, after which the subjects’ functioning was re-tested.

In so doing, they examined their subjects’ performance in the presence and absence of music therapy.

They discovered that their subjects performed better in balance, mobility, and cognitive tests during the music therapy period than their performance prior to the study. In other words, music therapy improved their condition.

But these improvements were not maintained when the music therapy ended, showing that it is similar to physical exercise: it works while you do it, but its effects are not permanent.

So why exactly does music therapy work for Parkinson’s patients? Scientists have several theories.

Firstly, music produces joy; it makes us feel happy. Positive mood facilitates better cognitive and physical function.

Secondly, upbeat music can trigger the production of serotonin and dopamine, two of the neurotransmitters in the brain that decline when we suffer from Parkinson’s disease.

Thirdly, the parts of our brains that perceive auditory cues like music usually remain unaffected by Parkinson’s disease. Scientists increasingly believe that when we stimulate these unaffected parts of our brains, other areas of our brains start to synchronize with them and jump into action automatically.

In other words, instead of making the decision to walk (and possibly fall on your backside), music therapy makes walking an unconscious activity that works via the auditory processing of a beat, which then automatically triggers the parts of your brain that move your legs through pathways that unaffected by the disease.

That is why some music therapists have observed that Parkinson’s patients who can hardly walk can learn to dance, or that patients who struggle to speak can sing.

The moment you set your activities to an audible rhythm, your brain processes them differently.

Perhaps most importantly, this proves that natural approaches work to slow down or even reverse symptoms of  Parkinson’s. This is something hundreds of our readers have done using the simple approach explained here…

Slow Down or Even Reverse Symptoms of Parkinson’s – A Fun Way for Parkinson’s Patients to Prevent Falls in

The rate of falls is high in Parkinson’s disease patients because they tend to have reduced control over their movements and balance.

A new study from Candido Mendes University, State University of Rio de Janeiro, and Rio de Janeiro State University, published in the Journal of Aging and Physical Activity, now reveals a surprisingly effective, fun way to restore postural control and prevent falls.

The researchers selected the 11 best studies they could find, with 393 Parkinson’s disease patients as subjects.

Of these, 211 were trained and supervised to perform dance therapy, while the other 182 were used as controls without such therapy.

These researchers were specifically interested in whether dance therapy could work over the short term, not only when practiced over the long term.

Indeed, they found that this was the case and that past studies backed the performance of dance therapy as a way to improve postural control among Parkinson’s sufferers.

This means that you do not have to dance for months or years to improve control over your motor symptoms, even though that would probably be best.

In fact, an international group that specializes in dance therapy for Parkinson’s patients, called Dance for PD, lists both long-term and short-term studies on their website, and they could find dozens of studies that support the effectiveness of this therapy.

The benefits are wide-ranging, promoting everything from self-efficacy, better mood, cognitive abilities, balance, stability, gate, flexibility, stamina, movement, participation in social activities, and so forth.

Slow Down or Even Reverse Symptoms of Parkinson’s – But even better than dance is to use simple lifestyle changes to boost dopamine levels in the brain and therefore put Parkinson’s to a halt or even slightly reverse it. I’ll explain these simple lifestyle changes here…

Slow Down or Even Reverse Symptoms of Parkinson’s – The Cause of Parkinson’s Disease Discovered

Parkinson’s disease has traditionally been blamed on genetics, with little hope of preventing or curing it.

But a recent study in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health reveals an environmental cause, one that can increase the risk of developing Parkinson’s more than tenfold. But at the same time, it’s completely avoidable.

The researchers obtained records of people who were hospitalized with Parkinson’s disease in 95 different hospitals from the Louisiana Office of Public Health. These diagnoses were made between 1999 and 2012, with more recent data unavailable.

They then obtained the ZIP Codes of 23,224 of these patients so they could calculate the occurrence of Parkinson’s disease per 10,000 residents.

The researchers compared these Parkinson’s statistics with maps of local agricultural activities and water quality samples taken by the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals.

They also received estimates from the US Geological Survey of herbicide and insecticide use on farmland and timberland in Louisiana between 1992 and 2004, with the estimates based on the farmers’ record keeping.

While the average occurrence of Parkinson’s was approximately 2.9 out of every 10,000 people, those areas in which certain herbicides and insecticides were used featured 35–46 people out of every 10,000-receiving treatment for Parkinson’s.

The highest rates appeared to be in areas dominated by forestry, woodlands, and grass pastures.

To be precise, the worst insecticides seemed to be 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) and paraquat, and the worst herbicide was chlorpyrifos.

The scientists found the highest occurrence of Parkinson’s in areas where aquifers were refilled via rain water that seeped into them through chemically treated farmland or where small streams delivered chemical-containing water to the aquifers.

Accordingly, they discovered that some of the highest Parkinson’s rates appeared in areas where tap water was taken from these recharged aquifers.

This means that we do not have to live or work on a farm to come into contact with these harmful herbicides and insecticides; they can seep into the water supplies of cities and suburbs as well.

It also serves as another reminder to use good water filter devices in our homes, preferably multi-stage reverse osmosis devices with new filters.

It also reminds us to wash fruit and vegetables thoroughly before we eat them.

Watch these 2 videos to learn how to slow down or even reverse symptoms of Parkinson’s –

7 Strengthening Exercises for Parkinson’s Fighters – Improve Walking, Posture and Balance

Nutrition in Parkinson Disease

Slow Down or Even Reverse Symptoms of Parkinson’s – But finding the cause of Parkinson’s is not much help if you already have symptoms. Fortunately, it’s possible to keep Parkinson’s from progressing (even reverse it) using a few simple lifestyle changes explained here…

This post is from the Parkinson’s Protocol Program created by naturopath and health researcher, Jodi Knapp, to help you diagnose and treat Parkinson’s naturally and permanently. The Parkinson’s Protocol is a comprehensive program that teaches you simple ways to reduce your symptoms, slow down the progression of Parkinson’s and repair the effects it has had on your body.

The Parkinson’s Protocol Program has a four-part series (consists of 12 simple steps) that comes with an abundance of valuable information that teaches you the relation between dopamine and Parkinson’s, the different treatment options, causes, and more. It then provides you with easy, step-by-step instructions that allow you to improve your brain health to begin delaying Parkinson’s and healing the brain within. 

To find out more about this program, click on Slow Down or Even Reverse Symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease