Sleep: Waking Up the Power of Your Inner Healer

As a result of my own healing experience this past week, I am once again in awe of the nature’s incredible healing wisdom.

The healing ability of your body is nothing short of miraculous and at this time of year, when our attention here in the U.S. is turning towards our Thanksgiving holiday, one of the top things of your “things to be thankful for” list is your body’s innate healing capabilities.

I truly believe that your body can overcome almost any health challenge when you remove the obstacles from its path and provide the things its missing.  And I don’t mean symptom removal.  Every symptom is a message from your body saying “something is out of balance.”  Yet, we so want to turn off the symptoms and return to comfort that we sometimes forget to ask what the message is.

Sometimes the thing that’s out of balance is not tangible.  You don’t need to remove a toxin, or take an herb or homeopathic remedy, or try a new therapy when what your body is asking for is a shift in an attitude or a belief.

No matter how good your diet is or how impeccable your exercise program is, if you’re angry, judgmental, or fearful; not taking periodic de-stress breaks; and not sleeping enough; your body’s innate healing capabilities cannot perform at peak potential.

And guess what?

You’ll experience uncomfortable or downright painful symptoms, your excess weight will stay locked in place, your brain will operate at less than par, and you, my friend, will find yourself living a life devoid of passion, purpose, and prosperity.

My Personal Lesson about the Importance of Balance

I’ve been eating a pristine diet, especially lately during my B4 Be Gone program, during which I have been following a low-glycemic diet, similar to Dr. Gabriel Cousen’s Phase 1 diet he uses in his reversing diabetes and “turn off the composting” programs.

I’ve been exercising regularly, including aerobics, bursts, and strength and conditioning training.

I’ve been practicing my HeartMath™ activities regularly and feel like very little gets me upset anymore.  So I felt “entitled” to have one little vice.  “One place where I bend the rules won’t hurt,” I told myself, as my bedtime continued to creep forward from 2 a.m. to 3 a.m. to 4 a.m. and quite a number of times over the past several months to as late/early as 5, 6, or 7 a.m.  I had the energy to stay up and get lots done in the quiet hours, so why not?

My first wake-up call came when I tested my glucose as part of my B4 Be Gone class and found that a bowl of pineapple shot my glucose up by 100 points into diabetic range!  That’s scary, since there’s a family history of diabetes and heart disease, and I know the damage that high levels of insulin cause to blood vessels.

So, being a good student, I tested other fruits, determined all the foods that caused high glucose readings and eliminated them, keeping my blood sugars in the healthy range of 75 – 110.  This will go a long way to healing my blood vessels, but what about the root cause of the fruit spike?

The Risks of Rationalizing Your Choices

Several studies report that even one night of poor sleep can induce insulin resistance in healthy subjects.

Wow.  I’ve accumulated hundreds of nights of sleep deprivation.  So in spite of not having the “outward” signs, I actually do have insulin resistance.  The reason for the lack of outward signs is my diet and exercise.

My own story is a clear example of how diet, exercise, and stress management may not be enough.

Sleep is vital.

Did I learn my lesson and immediately start sleeping 8 hours a night to heal?

NO.

Why not?

Addiction.

Addiction is behind many poor choices when it comes to health. My addiction used to be to food, caffeine, and alcohol.  Now it’s to achievement.  I have so many goals, dreams, and messages to share, I get caught up in the joy of creating and I forget to take time to sleep.

My initial answer to my sleep issue was to get even better about my diet (which was already pretty darn good to begin with).  It was easier to give up fruit than give up awake time.  But recently, the powers that be deep in the abyss of my inner workings stood up and revolted.

Shut Down or Break Down

“NO!” cried my body.  “No More.  You must rest.  We can’t continue to keep you healthy, vibrant, and strong unless you REST.”

Last Sunday, a strange sensation took over.  It started as a disturbance in my tummy.  Then it moved to overall mental exhaustion.  Next chills took me over, and I felt physically exhausted.  I needed to lie down (it was late afternoon/early evening by then).

I felt feverish and achy all over, the most prominent pain manifesting as a headache.

I had no choice but to retreat to bed.

I woke up the next morning feeling worse.  My fever had climbed to 102.  I spent the next 3 days in bed, alternating between sleeping, talking on the phone, and returning a few e-mails on my iPad, but mostly just sleeping.

Sometime Wednesday night the fever broke and I awoke on Thursday feeling almost back to my normal self.

I resisted the temptation to scurry back to my desk and start working at my normal pace.  I had a day full of calls and a presentation to write, and I did it all from my bed.  Which meant I could take periodic “lie down”  breaks, especially on calls.

I was on, focused and articulate, and I was taking care of myself.

New brain imprints were made.

Lesson learned.

As I write to you today, I am still in bed, my computer perched on a portable computer stand, my smoothie and other beverages at hand, ready to rest whenever I need to.

So, I ask you, what can you do to please your inner healer?

What attitude can you shift, belief can you let go of, or food or beverage can you stop consuming?

What movement, self-care practice, or fun activity can you do to activate your healer?

And I request, respectfully, that you avoid saying, “But I can’t.  I have a special situation,” then start talking about the kids, the dogs, your work, the trash, the dishes, or any of the hundreds of excuses I hear all the time for lack of self-care.

I have kids.

I have a dog.

I have a kitchen and dishes just like you.

And my garden is feeling neglected.

And there’s a big pile of stuff on my counter that could use a going through.

Plus I have hundreds of people actively in programs that I’m providing inspiration and materials to regularly.

And a business that relies on ME.

And if I get sick, then what?

Your Health is Your Most Precious Commodity

It’s time to learn to drop the limiting beliefs and learn the habits and self-care rituals that will make you more available to the kids, the dog, the aging parents, the demanding spouse…

You.

Here.

Now.

Tune in.

Decide.

Take action!

What’s stopping you?

Think about it and post below.

I love you.

I want you happy, healthy, and whole.

I want you on fire with living your life with passion, purpose, and prosperity.

Go ahead.  Think about what you believe are the biggest obstacles and post below:

Dr. Ritamarie’s Appreciation Journal Day 8 – Boost for Adrenal Fatigue

Going into week 2 of appreciation is exciting.  Especially since today is 11/11/11!

Use the day of ones as a new beginning.  It’s also Veteran’s day here in the US, which is a day to acknowledge and appeciate those who’ve given their lives or risked their lives for our freedom.

So let’s focus on the positive effects of appreciation on your adrenals and those things effected by adrenal fatigue and  excess adrenal activity when you’re stressed.  Appreciation shifts you out of fight flight mod and into positive emotion that has the following benefits:

1. Decreases your cortisol production and prevents your blood sugars from getting too high and exposing you to the negative effects of excess insulin
2. Improves your digestion by relaxing the valves between the components of your GI tract and improving enzyme production.
3. Improves your short term memory by supporting DHEA production and preventing the destruction of hippocampus cells by cortisol.

Try it.

Join Me for 30 Days of Gratitude!

Simply go down below to the comments box and post your appreciations for the day.

You’ll be pleasantly surprised at the changes in your “energy, vim, and vigor.”

Evoke appreciation before each meal, and you’ll soon find your digestion is humming and your energy is rising.

Dr. Ritamarie’s Appreciations for Today – Day 8

1. All the lovely comments I have had and the outpouring of love I have felt since starting this appreciation journal.
2. That it’s November and the temperatures are back into the 80s!
3. The ability to buy and eat all the whole, organic food I need to keep me healthy, strong and vibrant.

I tried to focus on all the bad things that happened this week, to write down for contrast.  It was hard.  My mind just keeps focusing on what I have to be grateful for.

Go ahead, give it a try and discover the magic for yourself. Write your appreciations below.

Fear, Anxiety, and Thanklessness – A Sure-fire Prescription for a FAT Midsection

Most people consider me an expert in restoring and maintaining health using diet and lifestyle approaches. My “claims to fame” are my in-depth knowledge of nutrition and biochemistry, and my program effectiveness for restoring balance to achieve vibrant health and energy.

Countless people come to me for advice, wondering why they are still overweight and ill, in spite of eating a healthy diet.

How Stress May Supersize You

While I can usually find things to tweak in clients’ diets, and I can recommend herbs or natural nutrition supplements to restore balance, we’re fighting an uphill battle if we ignore the role of stress, negative emotions, and worry; your health, energy level, AND weight are all affected.

On a past radio show, Your Muscles May be Making You Fat, I explored in detail the mechanism by which stress and worry contribute to belly bulge, and I encourage you to listen for details.

In summary, fear, worry, stressful thoughts and situations, and negative emotions trigger the release of cortisol and adrenaline from your adrenal glands. This hormone release triggers a series of fight or flight mechanisms that cause your liver and muscles to release sugar into your blood. Normally, this release would ready you for your “chase” or “escape”.

But what also happens, and this is the troubling part when it happens frequently, is that your insulin is also triggered to rise, so the sugar in the blood can be absorbed by your cells and fuel them to flight or fight. Keep in mind, that extra sugar in your blood would normally get used. Unfortunately, when your stresses are mental, you can’t burn all the released sugar. Insulin, in following through with its job of maintaining healthy blood sugar levels, causes the sugar to be put back into storage… as white adipose tissues, whose main receptors are – you guessed it – right around your belly.

I discuss more details concerning insulin, its role, and insulin resistance in Video 1, of the 5-part Bye-Bye Belly Fat, Brain Fog, and Burnout video series.

When you get stressed over situations that are beyond your control – like fires, earthquakes, hurricanes, traffic, other people’s attitudes – you are creating the perfect environment not only for “turning your muscles into fat” but for injuring your insides and setting yourself up for diseases. The three most serious and very common sequelae [secondary conditions] to chronic stress are the BIG 3: Heart disease, Cancer and Diabetes.

If achieving a slim trim body and keeping yourself safe from “the Big 3″ aren’t enough motivation to get a handle on stress, there’s more.

A Change of Heart Can Mean a Change in Dress Size

Your thoughts and emotions impact others around you, both those in close proximity and those far away.

Let me explain.

Research at the Institute of HeartMath has confirmed that your thoughts and emotions affect your heart rate variability (HRV). When you’re calm, HRV, when graphed, looks like a nice even sine wave and when you’re frustrated or angry, worried or anxious, it’s erratic and spikey. Notice the difference in the graphs to the right.

The smooth wave pattern is associated with ideal blood pressure, clear thinking, proper metabolic function and overall well being. The other pattern hallmarks disease, dysfunction, resistant weight loss and a host of other serious metabolic disruptions.

This article on the HeartMath website gives all the details, and it also takes you step-by-step through a couple of their techniques for restoring balance:

http://www.alternativeworldwidehealth.com/files/Heartmath_Stress_chapter.pdf

According to HeartMath:

In my Mend Your Metabolism & Maximize Your Vitality webinar, I will take you step-by-step through one of the HeartMath processes for Transforming Stress so you can feel for yourself the effects of being in a state they refer to as “coherence”.

It’s an amazing feeling and you too can learn it. In my 30-day B4 Be Gone program, I guide my patients and students through daily practice of this technique, and send them daily reminders and a recording of me guiding them through the process.

Join us on the webinar to get yourself started.

Get Slim, Stress-free, and Save the World

So now for the really amazing, almost unbelievable finding.

YOU have more power than you think over the state of the world, the energy in the room, and the stressful feelings of others.

Hear me out on this one…

When two people with different HRV patterns come into each other’s energy fields, the HRV’s tend to synchronize, and the strongest field prevails. This has been measured by the institute of HeartMath researchers on medical equipment!

By practicing the HeartMath technique called Quick Coherence several times a day, with as little a time investment as 5 minutes a day, you’ll become proficient at changing your emotional state and the HRV’s of others with whom you come into contact.

How cool is that?

And when you practice their more advanced technique, called Heart Lock-in, you actually practice deliberately projecting your energy out into the room. To master Heart Lock-in takes a bit more time, 15 minutes about 3-4 times a week!

When natural disasters like fire and flood strike, the natural tendency is to feel victimized. That puts you into the “triple P emotional state” that has been shown to be the most damaging of all… powerlessness, pessimism, and pervasive worry.

It’s times like these that we need to band together energetically and send positive thoughts, prayers, and uplifting energy to those whose lives are affected. Imagine the effect of thousands of people all over the world projecting their positive energy field! According to the above aforementioned article from the Institute of HeartMath (which I highly recommend you read in its entirety), “positive thinking” without accompanying positive feelings usually only provides temporary relief from emotional distress. Whereas the activation of positive emotions is more likely to transform the stress at its source.

According to Joe Vitale, author of The Attractor Factor, “there are over 25 scientific studies that prove when a group of people meditate together, they can change their surroundings — just by getting settled inside.”

Dr. Vitale lives not too far from where I live, just outside of Austin, and he sent out a plea for help with getting the fires under control through the power of positive emotion.

I’ve printed his entire letter on my blog, where Joe tells of his experience with this process when Hurricane Rita threatened Austin a few years back.

Whether you believe Dr. Vitale’s account of changing the course of natural events or not, there’s no disputing the positive effect of appreciation and love on your own chemistry and that of those around you. Lots of studies at www.heartmath.org support this.

So, what do you have to lose?

Even if you think it’s goofy, it can’t hurt and it will change your own emotions and your internal well-being.

So take a deep breath… find that place of peace inside yourself where you know all is well. Access that area of inner calm…and then just feel the fires going out; imagine the hurricanes heading out to sea; envision the earth’s core relaxing; and perceive that all the people affected are safe, sound, and protected.

Stop, breathe, focus, pray, or in some positive way send out an energy that will help dissolve the fear.
It’s your way of making a difference in the face of disaster, even if you can’t send lots of money or travel to the scene to help.

Check out the book Unconditional Bliss by Howard Cushnir. He says you can find happiness in the face of hardship.

And in the words of Joe Vitale, “… be happy, right now. Smile. Send that loving energy out, in the direction of Texas.

Intend for all to be well, for, in reality, all is well.”

Joe Vitale: Let Your Thoughts and Love Rain on Austin

- by Joe Vitale
- reprinted from http://www.attractmiracles.com/

Years ago I wrote an e-mail asking people to help me stop Rita, the hurricane that geared up right after Katrina.  I advised people to stop and send love and prayers to the hurricane; to dilute their own fear, find faith, and be a source of peace.  Rita did in fact drop from a category 5 hurricane to a category 2. When it finally blew through my area, it didn’t even rain.

Well, I’m asking for your help with the fires burning around the Austin area. I know it may seem goofy to some, but there are over 25 scientific studies that prove when a group of people meditate together, they can change their surroundings — just by getting settled inside.

I’m asking you and everyone else reading this to send love, light, prayer, positive thoughts and maybe even rain.  I am asking for the most benevolent outcome in this situation.  I’m asking you to sit, get quiet, and in whatever way you can imagine it, see the fires going out, and see people safe, sound, happy and healthy.  I’m asking you to help me clean on this outer reality representing an inner imbalance.

Together, we can do this.

Obviously, real people need to do real things to help control and extinguish these fires, but we can help them by being a source of calm.

I’m not asking for money or muscle; just your concentrated focus so we can attract a preferred outcome.

Will you help me?

Just take a deep breath… find that place of peace inside yourself… that place where you know all is well… the center of the essence of you… the Witness behind it all…the power source that is all love…

Get to that area of inner calm…

…and then just feel the fires going out… and people safe… and all is well….

That’s all I’m asking you to do.

Love,

Joe Vitale

PS – Excerpts for the original e-mail about hurricane Rita

I’m not saying ignore the storm warnings. I’m saying don’t get caught up in the fear that the warnings often trigger.

Look. If you think the storm will get you, then it’s already gotten you. You’re living in fear. Your life is dark, gloomy and in a cage. The media is flawless at whipping us into fear. So I suggest ignoring the media. It’s not information, it’s propaganda. It gets large groups of people to think negative, which of course then becomes reality.

Why can’t we do the opposite?

Why can’t we get large groups of people to think positive? At this very moment, as I type this and you read this, all is well. Isn’t it? Aren’t you ok? Aren’t you feeling fine right now? Yes, be sure to have batteries and water and supplies.

But also check the storehouse in your mind. Are you living in fear, or living in trust? Are you focused on the negative, or are you doing something to create a positive?

We are all, always, at choice. Happiness is a choice.

http://www.attractmiracles.com/

Reduce Belly Fat and Brain Fog: Adrenal Gland and Stress Connection

7 of my favorite strategies for reducing brain fog and reducing excess belly fat were outlined in a previous post .

1. Get a handle on stress.
2. Burst exercise
3. Regulate your Blood Sugar
4. Eat a Nutrient dense diet rich in whole, raw plant foods and test nutrient levels and function regularly
5. Balance  Your Immune system, avoid allergens and eat a Gluten Free Diet
6. Get sufficient high quality  Sleep
7. Incorporate regular Cleansing and Detoxification, like a 7 day green cleanse every quarter.

Today’s post discusses getting a handle on stress to reduce belly fat and brain fog.

It should be no surprise that managing stress tops my list of brain fog and belly fat reducing strategies.

Face it.  Stress happens.  You can’t necessarily control the external circumstances.  You can control your response to them.

When you’re stressed, your adrenal glands produce adrenaline and cortisol.  Adrenaline is responsible for helping you to perform heroically, like in the story of the mom who lifts a car off her child.

Cortisol rises more slowly than adrenaline and lasts longer.

One of it’s jobs is to cause fat to be released from storage and turned into sugar…which is a very good thing if you’re running away from a tiger.   It also causes you to become more efficient at burning fat for energy – you’re not going to be able to refuel while in pursuit by a hungry animal.

Since most modern day stressors don’t require physical exertion, like getting stuck in traffic, financial concerns, an over demanding boss, or  juggling children’s activities cortisol can work to your disadvantage.   When your fat stores are released and turned into sugar, the lack of physical exertion causes your blood sugar levels to rise, which causes extra insulin to be released.  Insulin triggers the extra sugar to be converted back into fat because you don’t need it in your sedentary life.

Most of the fat is stored on your waist.

Then there’s the effect of  cortisol on your brain, explained in detail in the 7 Strategies to reduce belly fat and brain fog.

Managing your stress levels, and reducing the amount of time you spend in fight flight mode, also known as sympathetic nervous system dominance, is mandatory if you would like to reduce belly fat and brain fog.

It takes some retraining, yet I know from both personal and clinical experience that it can happen.  One of the easiest practices you can start is breathing and appreciation.

With an investment of as little as 3 minutes a day, you can create a breathing and appreciation practice that can transform the negative effects of stress to highly beneficial ones.

The best description of this is on the Heart Math website.  I’ve been employing these methods for years and have taught them to thousands of patients and clients.  The results are miraculous.

I’ve taught this technique to many patients and students with great success and even have a recorded teleseminar and work book available to guide you through it.

Other practices that can help you dissipate the negative effects of stress are yoga, meditation, massage, Reiki and tapping, also known as EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) .

It’s important that you find a method that works for YOU.  My personality and lifestyle is such that Heart Math works better for me than meditation and yoga because I need only invest small amounts of time throughout the day and I can do it while I do other things.  It’s the best technique for all of us chronic multitaskers!

The next article in this sequence is Reduce Belly Fat and Brain Fog:  Blood Sugar Level Regulation