“As I live and breathe!”
An antiquated exclamation filled with surprise, excitement and a pinch of disbelief!
It is also a statement of presence and awareness. As I live and breathe. Not to state the patently obvious, but if you are living, then you, by default, are breathing. Ah, but HOW are you breathing?
Celebrate the union of breath and life! This may not be easy for you.
In this present moment, to live and breathe, we first need to breathe and breathe well. In every culture and spiritual practice since the beginning of time, breathing is the first, essential part of life.
Throughout the year, for various reasons, clients often ask “How can I breathe easy and effortlessly every day?”
For an answer to this question I turned to my favorite resource, Mother Nature! She provided exquisite examples of foods that will support lung function.
Come, walk with me down the garden path and through the produce isles in the grocery store.
The most obvious ones are the leafy vegetables. Go to your local farm or supermarket, and look at their shape and feel their texture! Chards, collard greens, leafy lettuces and bok choy are wide, round and ‘veined’—just like our lung lobes.
These greens assist in opening up and clearing out the lungs along with maintaining healthy lung cell function.
Others, like dandelion greens, kale, mustard greens, chives and green onions are tightly curled or long and thin, like the bronchial tubes in our lungs.
These types of greens assist in clearing the bronchial tubes of excess mucus, keeping them free and clear.
Organic basil and rosemary as fresh or dried herbs are wonderful additions for healthy breathing, especially as a tea!
Fascinating and simple!
Breathe easy, have a cup of home made basil and rosemary tea, relax and thank Mother Nature for providing us with her amazing presence, insight, and produce.
Peace,
Karyn
As always, if you take these products in supplement form please consult your doctor or pharmacist for any drug or other health contraindications. No matter how well researched, this blog is not a substitute for medical advice.
Nutrient Restoration!
Allergy season is upon us! The local pharmacies are busy places, with some people looking for quick relief and others stocking up for the long haul. There’s a wide selection of medicines to choose from ranging from a variety of pills and syrups, to eye drops and nasal sprays. These treatments can be quite effective to get us through the allergy seasons. Remember,
Anytime you add something in, something else leaves.
When we are adding in treatments of any kind your body can and will often be depleted of nutrients.
Nutrient Restoration to the rescue! Farmacodynamics ~ the effects that organic whole foods have on the body!
Inhaled and oral corticosteroids, such as Flonase, Nasonex, Advair, Flovent, Pulmicort, to name a few, which are used to treat allergies and other respiratory conditions are known to deplete calcium, folic acid, magnesium, potassium, selenium, vitamin c, vitamin d and zinc.(1) The foods that can restore these nutrients are plentiful!
Calcium: Some good sources are dairy, dark leafy green vegetables, seafood, sardines, almonds, asparagus, broccoli, brewer’s yeast, cabbage, carrots, carob, figs, kelp and other seaweeds, tofu. Herbs: alfalfa, cayenne, chamomile, chickweed, fennel seed, fenugreek, flaxseed, raspberry leaves, hops, nettle, parsley.
Folic acid: Good food sources of folic acid include asparagus, beets, broccoli, avocados, Brussels sprouts, dried beans, chickpeas, soybeans, lentils, oranges, fresh peas, turkey, savory cabbage, bok choy, and spinach.
Magnesium: Magnesium is found is most foods. Some good sources are meat, fish, dairy, seafood, apples, bananas, avocados, apricots, brown rice, cantaloupe, figs, garlic, grapefruit, kelp, tofu, lemons, peaches, and whole grains.
Potassium: Good sources are apricots, avocados, lima beans, bananas, dates, dulse, brown rice, garlic, potatoes, nuts, raisins, yams, yogurt, figs, and spinach.
Selenium: Brazil nuts are the only concentrated source. Other good sources are broccoli, chicken, brown rice, dairy, kelp, garlic, liver, onions, salmon, seafood, root vegetables and whole grains
Vitamin C: Good sources are berries, citrus fruits, green leafy vegetables, asparagus, avocado, broccoli, brussell sprouts, onions, papayas, green peas, pineapples, radishes, and sweet peppers.
Vitamin D: Sunlight is the best source. Good food sources are: various fish liver oils, mackerel, halibut, salmon, sardines, oysters, eggs, dairy, butter, dandelion greens, liver, shiitake and chanterelle mushrooms, steal cut whole grain oatmeal, sweet potatoes, alfalfa, parsley, horsetail, and nettle.
Zinc: Good sources are eggs yolks, fish, oysters, lamb, legumes, kelp, liver, mushrooms, pecans, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, whole grains, poultry, alfalfa, cayenne, burdock root, chickweed, fennel seed, parsley, and sage.
If you are using a steroid for your allergies or respiratory issue, please make a grocery list and include the items that you enjoy eating from the list. There’s something for every meal of the day. Play with your food! See which ones balance out the imbalances.
Meal time is not just another pretty plate! It’s common knowledge that when we breathe easier we have more energy and our food tastes better.
I hope this has you munching and dining with a new appreciation and insight! Reconnect in gratitude for the breath of fresh air it provides your body and life.
Peace,
Karyn
- Drug-Induced Nutrient Depletion Handbook (Paperback)2001, Lexi-Comp, by Pharmacists: Ross Pelton, James B LaValle, Ernest B Hawkins, Daniel L Krinsky.
As always, if you take these products in supplement form please consult your doctor or pharmacist for any drug or other health contraindications. No matter how well researched, this blog is not a substitute for medical advice.
Breathing is a function of the Respiratory System. This system allows the cells in your body to live and function, and therefore you, to live and function.
Before I settle into the foods that nourish, heal and strengthen your respiratory system, take a deep breath in through your nose (mouth closed!) for a count of five, and let the breath out slowly through the mouth.
The word respiratory comes from the word respire which means:
To take breath again; hence, to take rest or refreshment.
When you breathe, you give your body and cells both the refreshment of oxygen and a removal of waste.
Life these days, as you know, leans towards a faster pace than your body can sustain for any length of time. Consider the mechanics of your body. When you move faster, for example, with walking or running, your strides are shorter and your feet lift off the ground much faster than when you use a slower, deliberate step. When life moves faster, your breathing follows a similar pattern. You begin to breathe quicker, and those are shallower breaths. When you breathe deeply, your body rests. We could call it … Rest-piration! J Take the time in life to breathe deeply and give your body the rest and refreshment it needs.
Breathing not an easy task for you? Let’s create a dynamic, healthy airway from inspiration to expiration. Enter, stages right and left, the nasal passages. Runny, stuffy and clogged they can decrease your oxygen intake right from the start. People tell me: “I’m not sick, I just have allergies. Why am I tired?” The reason is that not enough oxygen is getting into your body!
Fortunately, there are foods that contain two key chemicals—Quercetin and Bromelain—which can alleviate allergy symptoms and inflammation not only in the nasal passages, but throughout the body.
Quercetin has a unique property in that it is a natural antihistamine found in foods: Green and Black dried tea leaves, capers, fresh dill weed, outer layers of both red and white, fresh or cooked, onions, fresh, organic apples, buckwheat, green hot chili peppers, yellow hot peppers, raw cranberries, fresh tarragon and many other foods listed at Best Quercetin Foods.
Bromelain is Quercetin’s partner-in-crime, so to speak. Its job in this case is as a natural anti-inflammatory. Bromelain is an enzyme found in pineapples.
If you have seasonal allergies, another recommendation is to consume the honey produced in your region. This is how people used to ingest allergy shots, long before the technology for them existed.
Allergies are also an immune system response and a leaking of energy in your body and life. I invite you to explore this concept along with the foods that nourish and heal in the upcoming series of Better Breathing Days blogs!
Eat healthy, organic, whole foods to breath easier through each season!
Peace,
Karyn
As always, if you take these products in supplement form please consult your doctor or pharmacist for any drug or other health contraindications. No matter how well researched, this blog is not a substitute for medical advice.
Are the muscles in your body speaking to you lately? Are you cramping their style with your exercise?
I constantly read about how to remedy sore muscles, AFTER the fact.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have the right balance of foods in your body to support your muscular system as you stretch it beyond its current limits? This is so simple!
Think about the muscles in your body. Most of us associate protein with musculo-skeletal issues. Protein provides great building blocks for muscle, but here we are talking about fueling for a smooth ride.
There are 5 key elements—and protein isn’t one of them:
- Water: hydration is essential with all bodily functions. This vital component assists in electrolyte distribution. This is the oil in a car.
- Potassium: essential for the nerve terminals and muscle twitches, starting and stopping the motions of the muscle. This would be similar to the starter.
- Carbohydrates: fuel for the muscles. Coupled with oxygen, it is the fuel injection for the duration of the skeletal/muscle movement. Gasoline. You pick—regular or unleaded!
- Calcium: along with magnesium, calcium is the operator for the contraction of the muscle. It slows the muscle down. This is why calcium supplements and calcium-based antacids can cause constipation; they slow down the smooth muscle in the intestines. The gas pedal.
- Magnesium: Relax! Mag’s here! Magnesium relaxes the contraction, allows the movement of the muscle. It is coupled in the striated skeletal muscle for tear and repair as we stretch the current limits of our body. The brake pedal.
Foods that encompass all these elements are water-based foods (fruits and leafy green vegetables) and root vegetables. These two categories of food are about flow in the earth and also in the body. We often stretch to soothe the cramp of sore muscles.
So ’stretch it forward’ by fueling your muscles with fruits, leafy green vegetables and root vegetables to glide comfortably through your days!
Peace,
Karyn
So many celebrations and holidays bring together family and friends around a table with food. One of the most famous meal gatherings in the history of time was just re-celebrated: The Passover Seder a.k.a. The Last Supper. This was the first Seder on record at the White House that the President and First Family attended.
Sharing food with another human being is an intimate act that should not be indulged in lightly. M. F. K. Fisher
How is it that we celebrate a daily meal with sharing and gratitude?
Whatever your view or experience of the economy is, I am grateful for the awareness it has presented to everyone to slow down and gather around the table. One gift this present economic state of mind is that people are doing less, and yet doing more—for themselves.
Instead of running around experiencing food, family and life in fragments, or piecemeal, we are now coming together over a home- cooked family meal and local activities, rooted together at home—or peacemeal.
We are now creating PeaceMeals.
Consider that simple, rich reality. This is an opportunity to spend time with those we may have been hurrying past to get to the next activity, event or job.
Get to know yourself, family and friends. More families will be sitting down to a family meal again. Friends will gather on the weekends in local homes for socializing. This brings back memories of my childhood when, as neighbors and friends, we would gather at homes and socialize.
PeaceMeals can be as simple or as elaborate as you would like them to be. That is the beauty of them. Whether the meal is soup, sandwich, 4-courses, or anything in between, share with others and be grateful.
Happy, peaceful moods create a similar digestive process.
On the opposing side, if we are rushed, stressed, worried, etc, we often end up with an upset stomach, gas, bloating and other not so pleasant digestive adventures.
Consider the positive effects on our health ,and the health and lives of future generations , and celebrate daily PeaceMeals.
If we are slowing down, consuming healthier, less expense meals together as a family and community, this economic shift has been a blessing, and a necessity for human and spiritual survival.
Bring peace to your world, one meal at a time!
Enjoy,
Karyn
In a recent Seeds for Sanctuary blog post, Dr Susan Corso wrote about a Woe is I Economy. She offers some fascinating concepts to stimulate the economy. I’d like to add to that list …
A Healthonomic Package.
An HCMO: Health Creation and Maintenance Organization.
This is a health care plan for your body that you are personally responsible for creating and maintaining. Your plan will be the total benefit package for your life, including financial! Yes, you read correctly …. a financial benefit. A Healthonomic Stimulus Package!
Consuming fresh, local, organic foods is a great place to start. Become a loca-vore, one who, when possible, consumes locally grown foods. This saves money, conserves resources, creates jobs and connection within the community.
“Food in the U.S. travels an average of 1,300 miles from farm to supermarket. Almost every state in the U.S. buys 85% of its food from some place else. In Massachusetts, for example, this food import imbalance translates to a $4 billion leak in the state economy on an annual basis. UMass studies have determined that Massachusetts could produce closer to 35% of its food supply. This 20% increase would contribute $1 billion annually to the economy of the Commonwealth.” University Of Massachusetts Put that into the Big Dig, sundry potholes and universal health insurance!
One of my favorite ways to accomplish this is through participation in CSAs, Community Supported Agriculture. My daughter and I purchased a ’share’ at a local CSA this year. A share is an allotted quantity of fresh goods produced by that farm or collective of farms.
We purchased our share before the growing season, as many CSAs require. Selling shares is a wonderful way to ensure that monies come in for the farmers’ work and produce, helping to keep them in business. The cost to the consumer can range anywhere from $300 – $600 per share, depending on many factors.
Each share is based on feeding an average family of four, over a growing season, and sometimes into the winter months. This is dependent upon consumption.
Do the math. Let’s use 5 months per year as an average, and the $300 – $600 range per share. That comes out to be only $60 – $120 each month to feed a family of four fresh organic foods! Savings all around.
Do the math further: 2 meals a day for 4 people for 30 days. That cost breaks down to $0.25 – $0.50 per person per meal. There’s no better financial deal available.
That makes a McDonald’s “Value Menu” expensive … In so many ways!
Check out your Local Farms and CSAs, for a Heathonomic stimulus package! Eat healthy, be happy, save money, support the community, and stimulate the economy with the money you saved by eating locally grown foods prepared at home.
Look for next week’s blog post … Eating PeaceMeal … for more nourishing ideas.
Until then, please comment on this post and share your thoughts, ideas and experiences about your own HCMO and Healthonomics Stimulus Package.
Peace,
Karyn
Our beautiful First Lady, Michelle Obama, has created a shift in the entire energy of the world by simply planting seeds and sowing a garden!
Dear Michelle Obama,
Thank you for creating and growing an organic garden in our Nation’s Capital. You have demonstrated how one person can create exponential change peacefully!
I’m excited to share with you my thoughts and gratitude for your down-to-earth example of how to have a healthy body and life in this, and any, economic time. Please watch for my upcoming blog posts for this information.
For me, the garden starts with the desire to consume a healthier diet to create a happier, disease-free life full of energy. Fresh, local organic produce!
Thank goodness that is just the beginning.
In February 2009, The American Institute for Cancer Research released a report: Policy and Action for Cancer Prevention.
“A new global policy report estimates that approximately 45 percent of colon cancer cases and 38 percent of breast cancer cases in the US are preventable through diet, physical activity and weight maintenance.”
For many years now we have heard the buzz about a healthcare crisis. It’s always been obvious to me that there wouldn’t be a healthcare crisis if we all took responsibility for our own health and took better care of ourselves, starting with what we use to fuel our bodies.
The new level of public awareness created now, because of the Obama Organics’ ripple effect around organic, fresh, local foods, is a tremendous support for all of us who have been advocates of healthy eating for many years.
Consuming fresh, organic, local foods = feeling better physically
It’s that simple! On a regular basis, consuming healthy, fresh, organic, local foods = feeling better physically. This leads to a ripple effect. When your body feels good, you are happier, clearer in thought, have more energy, and are more productive in life. WOW! All that from fueling your body with healthy fresh organic foods. Absolutely!
Put me on the ’sign up’ list to tend to our Nation’s Garden of Health!
Peace,
Karyn
Recent changes in my life have brought about a shift in thought process and life ‘must haves.’ Monday I returned home from an amazing four days at Tony Robbins’ seminar Unleashing the Power Within. Now before you think I’ve turned into a proselyte, hear me out. Before, during and after the weekend, I’ve had time to experience shifts and gain clarity in my life. Being a health coach, my passion and gift for understanding life is through science and soul—more specifically food and health.
In the health coaching process, one of the first things I ask people is what their goals are. When I ask them why they chose these goals, so often the answers become about what they want to prevent, what their fears are about their health. As a pharmacist, I often hear from customers about preventing side effects, and treating symptoms. More fear.
According to Merriam – Webster’s Dictionary to prevent means to keep from happening.
Who in their right mind wants to prevent health?!
I invite you to take a look around life, especially a healthy life, and witness how much of it is about prevention. For decades we have been in a state of fear, better known as prevention, when it comes to our health. There are messages bombarding us everywhere about preventing—heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and in general, ill health. We are trained to look intently toward being in a dis-ease state or unhealthy.
If we are in a constant state of prevention, we are living in fear of ill health and disease.
No, thanks! Instead, step up, make a new choice, and create!
Take a deep breath, and think to yourself the word create. Repeat it, over and over again. A smile comes to your face because it is fun and empowering to create! Do we create a healthy meal or prevent it? Create a healthy athletic body or prevent injury? It’s your choice!
Play a word game with yourself, and engage others in this easy play.
With everything in your life, and especially your health, turn it into a creation process instead of a prevention process! Use your mind to ask: What can I create here? There are no limits to creation unless we create them!
Create art, writing, media, music, a garden, a meal, an exercise plan, a laugh track, a life with endless energy, a career you are happy with, passionate loving relationships, a healthy happy home, and outstanding life of being you. You name it and you can create it!
Invite others to join you in this game. Challenge them to choose creation and play with their choices!
How far can your choices take you? As far as you can imagine, and then farther than that!
Are you relieved, smiling, excited, happy, laughing, or joyful? If not, keep playing! The only cost is reaching beyond your limiting beliefs around your life, health, food.
Engage your whole being to create your health!
Peace,
Karyn
This past January I invited friends and colleagues to join me in a cleansing process. This process includes 3 parts. One being the physical, second being emotional, and the third being spiritual. We all chose different cleanses. One of the great questions when choosing the physical food for the cleanse was to chew or not to chew. How awesome!
Chewing is lost art in the eating process. We are a world of fast food and fast eaters, and we wonder why we have difficulty digesting out food! So, what’s the big deal if we don’t chew our food well?
By not chewing and tasting our food we rob ourselves of the pleasure of the flavor, texture and sensations that are only experienced by the taste buds in the mouth. We also create more work for the rest of the digestive track. The first breakdown of food is done in the mouth. This is where we create surface area, and destroy bacteria. The more surface area the more easily the nutrients will be absorbed. The easier absorption, the higher the quantity absorbed, and the smaller quantity needed by the body. The destruction of the bacteria results in less intestinal infections.
On a basic level, if the mouth doesn’t get its job done, then the stomach has to produce more acid to break the food down and try to destroy any bacteria in the food. That isn’t always enough to break it down, and the food enters the small intestine unready for the proper assimilation and absorption.
Emotionally, if we are taking our time eating, chewing our food thoroughly, enjoying and tasting it, we are paying attention to what we are taking in in our lives and body, what we are getting involved in. The lack of chewing, and just swallowing the food, emotionally we are moving through life so quickly that we pass by the peace and joy in life. Why would you choose to be less present in your life?
Spiritually chewing speaks to the spirit on a higher level awareness. There are some situations where we need to chew something over before we can assimilate it, absorb what we need and release what we need to. Can you think of any time when you wish you had thought something through before making a decision? Chew it over longer?
Slow down, be aware, chew, savor and enjoy your food and life!
Are you a polyfoodie? Great! You are someone who enjoys and consumes a variety of foods to intrigue your taste buds, keep your digestive system awakened, and provide your body with complete healing nourishment. I first read the concept about being a polygamist with your food in Steve Gagne’s book, The Energetics of Food. Be on a lifetime taste-testing adventure. What a great concept!
Each food carries its own energy, its own nourishing, healing nutrients, for different areas of the body at different times. Polyfoodists enjoy a complete healing energy from the variety of the foods they consume. Early cultures knew this before we had the science to confirm it!
The next time you encounter food, look at or consider the shape, smell, texture, life force of the food, where it grows in relation to the earth, and the climate it grows in. All of these aspects speak to the nourishing energy of the food and how it relates to the body. As we consume a delicious variety, we balance our entire body.
We not only have fabulous foods growing all year around all over the world, but we can now also access many of these foods in the modern age of transportation. We can consume this nourishment in so many various ways: fresh, cooked, dried, preserved, pureed, marinated, frozen, and any other ways our creative selves can dream up.
Mother Nature allows for freedom and variety of growth and consumption. Think of farmers rotating crops. If they continue to plant the same crops in the same places every year, the land becomes depleted of the nutrients that crop needs. Think of your body in the same light. Rotate the foods you consume so that your body doesn’t become depleted.
This is also a way of avoiding the development of food allergies. There is scientific evidence that food allergies can develop from the constant regular consumption of a restricted diet. Even if you are on a therapeutic diet to heal your body, there’s still a variety of food experiences you can have to assist in the healing process.
I have a dear friend and spiritual advisor who upon learning from me about being a polyfoodie, took it into her own hands to try this concept and changed what she was eating. Her issue began to heal. Hooray! Freedom, not fear. By happily consuming a variety of foods instead of eating in fear of symptom manifestation, she was able to live freer and happier.
A question about polyfoodism from a client was if a vegetarian was considered a polyfoodist, because they don’t eat animal or fish. Of course they can be! Having a variety of foods at a variety of times of day over a long period of time is what polyfoodism is all about. Poly- means many. Eat many different foods, instead of suffering under tight restriction and control. This practice can be applied to anyone with any condition or lifestyle! I guarantee that we can find variety and room to play with it.
Variety is the spice of life, so we have all heard. Be good to your body and feed it a variety of healthy whole foods. Being a polyfoodist is also a form of freedom of speech for your body and your life. How would it feel to let go of food rules and eating the same foods every day? How does food restriction and control serve you?
Venture into polyfoodism. Excite your taste buds and give your body the gift of variety and healing. Create peace, happiness and balance!
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