Advertisements
- Finding your path to truly restorative Sleep: Generally speaking, as we age, people sleep less and less like a baby. For women, this is often due to a decline in progesterone. Supplemental progesterone (after appropriate lab work) can really quickly correct this problem. This, and 200-400 mg. of magnesium at bedtime will lead to a beautifully restful sleep, without a “hangover” that can sometimes come from melatonin supplementation. Though, for insomnia, a small dose of melatonin is helpful.
- Inflammation Extinguisher: One of the truly annoying aspects of aging are the aches and pains that mature folks seem to have to tolerate on a daily basis. If you find yourself popping motrin like its going out of style, you may want to pick up some Liposomal Turmeric Elixir by Synchro Gold. It tastes awful. However, after about two weeks on this stuff, I was running up the stairs, instead of making those noises my Mom used to make, you know the “Ooh, ooh, oh God, my hip hurts, etc…) The company claims that the product “Fights Inflammation, Dramatically Improves Joint Health, Improves Brain Health and Stimulates the Body’s Natural Healing.” If I chase it with Barlean’s Berry Flavored Flax Seed Oil, the taste isn’t too bad. Flax Seed oil helps with Estrogen metabolism too, including breaking it down, when you have too much.
- Bio-identical Hormones are NOT as Scary as you’ve been told you: What really bugs me is that insurance companies are happy to dole out viagra and testosterone to men like candy, yet they are totally sexist when it comes to women. More than a few divorces have probably come about because of this. Women are supposed to just deal with all the lousy symptoms of peri-menopause and menopause. We are supposed to be strong and not complain, be good little (the old grey mare just ain’t what she used to be) girls! Bio-identical Hormones come from compounding pharmacies, not big Pharma. Any guess at why most mainstream docs discourage their use? For me, it was so key to find a good Naturopath/Functional Medicine Doctor and have a thorough panel of labs to see where I stood first. It told me not only my numbers, but more importantly their ratios to each other. For you, this could be the cause of your weight gain, lack of sleep, palpitations, low libido, fatigue…just to name a few of the downsides of aging “gracefully”. And, heh, the four hormones that have the most profound effect on beauty are estrogen, testosterone, thyroid hormones, and cortisol. So, getting in balance will help with the dry, sagging skin, and inflammatory skin, such as Eczema and acne. Also, if you’ve got a really bad case of hormonal imbalance, try to avoid endocrine disrupting products. This can be complicated to do, unless you have a degree in biochemistry. Fortunately, there’s a handy little website to do it all for you: https://www.ewg.org/skindeep/site/about.php#.WvvnRS-ZOt8
- Food Intolerances, Intermittent Fasting and Mindful Eating: For years, I have followed this trend and that, looking for the secret to good health. This approach was too scattered. It wasn’t scientific enough. It was only after I started really winnowing down the list of foods I was eating, that I started to notice I was feeling a whole lot better. I drastically cut back on carbs. It started with eliminating gluten from my diet. I felt a lot better. A lot of my digestive problems cleared up. My thinking was clearer. Than, more recently, I started reading about the powerful effects of a ketogenic (high healthy fat) diet, for individuals with insulin resistance. It has allowed me to eliminate snacking between meals and to go longer between meals, lose weight and sometimes even do some intermittent fasting (i.e., not having my first meal until after 12 pm, or so, finishing up eating arrow 6 or 7pm. I feel so much better eating this way, have so much more energy and less brain fog. There also seems to lead naturally, for me anyway, to eat more mindfully. There is something about carbs that just leads you to eat too much and too fast. There is an addictive quality to most carbs. I still love them, but I love more how I feel when I keep my carbs around 30 gms/day, or less. So, the carbs I eat are primarily veggies grown above ground and only berries, for my fruit intake. These foods have a low glycemic index. They don’t spike your blood sugar too much. The more higher glycemic the food is, the more insulin is released, the fat storage increases. A ketogenic diet aids your body in using its own fat for energy. Who can argue with that?
- Finally, there is that Big Jerk Stress: One of the benefits of getting older is you just naturally care less about people who drag you down, the manna suckers, as we say in Hawaii. Maybe with growing out of girlhood and into real womanhood, what comes with age is you know that pleasing people, over and over again, in place of doing what is best for you rarely works out. As the expression says, no good deed goes unpunished. Being a doormat and giving too much sets off a change reaction of stress, higher cortisol levels, increased inflammation and, often, ultimately disease. Sometimes, however, getting sick is the best thing that happens. It’s your body’s wake-up call, saying pay attention to me! (Supplementing with adaptogenic herbs such as Rhodiola, ashwagandha, astragalus, and ginseng are fabulous ways to quiet the adrenals. So, until your work out what you are going to do about the gratuitous stress (find a yoga class, learn to meditate, etc…), it’s a good idea to take some adaptogens and improve your sleep, as noted above.) These are a just a few quick ideas to get your started on your pathway to true homeostasis and vitality. Mahalo for listening! XOXO, Mrs. Sassy Pants.
