Stress is something we all experience, which is not necessarily a bad thing. The stress response is a natural reaction to life experiences and can help us to cope with potentially serious situations. However if this stress response doesn’t stop firing, these elevated stress level scan take a toll on your long-term health.
Read moreCreate a Wellness Retreat at Home
Countrywide lockdowns, a slow economy, and a pandemic on your doorstep may have taken a toll on your mental health and lead to stress & anxiety. A lockdown is an ideal time to practice self-care and focus on your well-being to recharge your energy.
It's the wellness weekend you've been needing ~ relaxation, self-care, healthy meals, physical activity, and all your favorite wellness treatments. Retreats allow you to truly unplug, harmonise the body and mind, and recharge your energy. You don’t need to go anywhere to get these benefits and you can create your own wellness retreat at home.
Read moreDreams: Why do we have them and what do they mean?
Everyone dreams every night, yet 95% of dreams are forgotten before we wake in the morning. The ones that are remembered can be entertaining, fun, adventurous, vivid and often bizarre. Yet there is still much about sleep and dreams that remain a mystery for experts. Even the question of why we dream is one yet to be answered. However there are studies that can help us to understand what triggers intense dreams and the health benefits of dreaming.
Read more8 Tips to keep your Immune System Strong
When we’re feeling strong and healthy we can take our immune healthy for granted. Yet when the sniffles start we hope our immune system will pick up the slack. The colder months often make it harder to keep up with a healthy lifestyle. I’ve listed my top 8 tips for keeping your immune system strong as the seasons change.
Read moreHow to tell you have reached the point of Burnout?
Burnout is when you reach a state of mental and physical exhaustion. The main cause of burnout is stress. It is when you wake up feeling exhausted and dread getting out of bed. If you continue to push through burnout it can lead to depression, anxiety, heart disease, diabetes, and obesity.
Read moreIntermittent Fasting and 8 Ways to Support Longevity
Intermitted fasting or fasting mimicking diet have become a hot topic over the last couple of years. Fasting has been used for centuries for healing purposes and part of religious or spiritual practices to deepen your connection to spirit or God.
For a lot of people, the thought of fasting seems extreme and challenging. It takes a lot of commitment and support to do proper water fasting for 3 to 5 days. However, recent research is showing that intermitted fasting or fasting mimicking diet creates similar results to water fasting. When we fast it gives the body a chance to heal and repair. It is being used for healing chronic illnesses as well as part of treatment plans for cancer.
The research is showing by simply reducing the time period for eating during the day and increasing the fasting period overnight has a huge impact in longevity and optimal health. For intermitted fasting you fast for between 12 and 16 hours overnight. This would be like stopping eating after dinner at 7 pm and then not eating breakfast until 9 am in the morning. This time period would be fasting for 14 hours.
Top tips based on the research from Dr Valter Longo, PhD the director of the Longevity Institute USC:
1. Eat a mostly vegan diet with some fish. Minimise bad fats (from animal products and dairy) and sugars, and maximising good facts (like nuts and seeds) and complex carbohydrates (like vegetables, beans, lentils and whole grains). During the eating window it is about getting optimal nutrition into the body that is easy to digest.
2. During the eating window it is best to eat twice a day plus a snack unless your weight or muscle mass is low and then it would be three meals plus a snack. During ageing the body requires more protein to maintain muscle mass.
3. Exercise is also important for longevity. Walk fast for one hour getting your heart rate up, alongside doing some sort of weight training or weight-bearing exercises can help to build bone density and maintain muscle mass especially as you age.
4. To be nourished in the modern day world vitamins and minerals supplements can be helpful as our soil no longer provides certain nutrients. Nutrients and minerals are important for bodies repair, replacement, and defence system to boost immunity.
5. When planning our meals we quite often eat the same things from day to day. However, to provide the right required nutrients for the body we need to eat a variety of foods that are in season. It is helpful to eat foods that is are locally grown.
6. Eat the table of your ancestors by choosing foods that would be common to your ethnicity. Ie - Asian countries traditionally would not have a lot of dairy in their diet and when they try to follow a western diet it causes a lot of health problems for them leading to autoimmune conditions.
7. Time restricted eating restrict your eating to 11 to 16 hours. Shorter periods of feeding have been shown to have an positive effect in promoting health and longevity.
8. For optimal health you can also follow the practice of periodic prolonged fasting which would be the more traditional way of fasting. This would be undergoing a water fast or calorie restricted diet for five days. This is known to have remarkable effects on disease risk factors and optimisation of health and longevity.