The Global Conversation

Tag: health & wellness

  • Change everything with one simple change

    You can change one simple habit and it may change your whole life. It doesn’t cost anything, plus you’ll end up eating less and feeling more energetic. You may even have less anxiety and a new appreciation for life and the world.

    The next time you eat, count how many times you chew each bite before swallowing. Most people chew their food only a few times before swallowing which results in gulping down entire meals in just a few minutes. Swallowing large chunks of food can cause you to eat more, have digestive issues, and be tired after eating! Slow down and chew more.

    The Macrobiotic lifestyle recommends chewing your food up to 100 times; however, I have found that nearly impossible. Try chewing your food 30 or 40 times before swallowing. The food should be completely liquefied and mixed with important digestive juices before it reaches your stomach. By the time you finish a bite of food, your dining companion may have eaten 3 or 4 bites.

    Chewing more enables you to eat less. It takes your brain 10 – 20 minutes after filling your stomach to realize that it has had enough food. Chewing your food 30-40 times will slow down your eating and your brain will tell your stomach it is full while it has less food in it. Chewing more and slowing down will enable you to eat much less food and feel the same satiety.

    Chewing more helps alleviate digestive issues. By chewing your food completely and liquefying it before swallowing, you have mixed the proper digestive juices completely with the food before allowing it to enter your stomach. This means your stomach will have less work to do. Many times this can relieve digestive issues such as pain, bloat, gas, and other nasty annoyances.

    Chewing helps you feel less tired after eating. Since your stomach has less work to do, you will have more energy after eating that can be devoted to other things. If you frequently feel overtired after eating, simply chewing your food can be a big boost to your energy level.

    Slowing down will allow you to enjoy your food more. You may not have even paid attention before to the beauty, taste, smell, or texture of your food. You may not have observed how it makes you feel, and how much you can enjoy a fresh strawberry or a cup of green tea. Once you appreciate your food and what you are eating, you may start eating healthier food.

    Slowing down and enjoying your food may cause you to relax and think about slowing down and enjoying life more. You may realize that life isn’t about rushing around, getting lists of things done, and stressing yourself out anymore. The simple act of slowing down at meals may allow you to extend the principle into your whole life. May you will slow down and enjoy your children, or enjoy talking to a friend instead of rushing off to work.

    Chew your food more. From the simple act of chewing your food, you may eat less, feel better, enjoy life more, and get healthier. You may end up noticing and nurturing the beautiful people and things that were right there all the time.

    (Beth Anderson is a certified Holistic Health Coach and founder of the Holistic Health Hotspot in Evansville, Indiana. She is also the author of “The Holistic Diet: Achieve Your Ideal Weight, Be Happy and Healthy for Life.” Beth received her training from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. Beth is helping people improve their lives through nutrition and lifestyle education, health coaching, and by helping others to learn to make informed choices. Beth continues to spread understanding of the connection between body, mind, and spirit and encourages all to discern the truth about food, consumer products, environment, and life choices. You can find Beth on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/HolisticHealthHotspot or email her at beth@holistichealthhotspot.com)

  • What is robbing your energy?

    Everyone seems to be tired, stressed out, fatigued, lethargic, or burned out today. We work too much, become caregivers for parents or children, and spend way too much time worrying about others instead of ourselves.It’s time to focus on YOU and making yourself feel better. Let’s start by looking at what is stealing your energy and vitality from your system!

    There are four kinds of stress that will deplete your energy store – chemical, emotional, mental, and physical. Here are some examples of each type of stress and what you can do about it.

    Chemical stress can come from your food, air, water, and environment. You ingest hundreds of chemicals daily simply from the food you eat. The more processed foods you eat, the more chemicals you ingest. By processed foods I mean foods that have been changed or transformed from their original state in nature, packaged, and sold to you through a grocery store, restaurant, or shop.

    You are eating food coloring, artificial and “natural” flavoring, artificial sweeteners, and preservatives in every bite of your pre-prepared foods. You eat pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers in your conventional and GMO foods. You drink in the water pollutants in every soda or glass of unfiltered water. You are surrounded by air pollution in your workplace, airport, and even outdoors depending on where you live.

    Read your food labels when you buy food products. If the ingredients list is long, has confusing words or unpronounceable words, or has recognizable chemicals in it, don’t buy it. Make it yourself. Cooking isn’t that hard and doesn’t take that much time. If you can’t cook it, get it from a place where you know who made it and what went in it. For today, just make a better choice. Try to drink filtered or purified water when you can, and get outside in a clean natural environment whenever you can.

    Emotional stress can come from toxic relationships, caring for children, or lack of boundaries. There have been many studies done that show that the better your relationships are, the healthier you are and vice versa. If you are stuck in an unhealthy relationship, either figure out how to improve it or leave it behind. You can do this by setting healthy boundaries for yourself even if it is your own children you are dealing with. Learn to say no, and teach people how to treat you by letting them know what is not acceptable, enforcing your boundaries and following through.

    Mental stress can come from your work environment, school or education pressures, and especially self-inflicted standards and expectations. If you take your work home with you, work at all hours, check your emails or are on call while you are “off,” or can’t stop studying, then you probably need to look at your standards and expectations. Set a time when you are truly off work. For example, after 7:00 p.m. stop checking your email, stop studying, and stop beating yourself up in general for not being perfect. If you don’t start taking care of yourself, no one else is going to do it for you.

    Finally, physical stress can result from your immediate environment – loud or constant noise and lack of sleep are some great examples. Try to get some quiet time daily and make sure your sleep schedule is regular and enough. Most people need 7-8 hours of sleep a night. If you sleep less on a regular basis, you might need to make some changes in your schedule. Too much partying or alcohol can also put your body in a state of physical stress.

    The biggest and most common source of physical stress on your body is a lack of nutrients. There are no nutrients in packaged cereals (except what they fortify it with after removing the natural nutrients!), fast food, processed foods, sugar, alcohol, white flours and rice, and much more of what we eat on a regular basis. Try to start eating whole foods – foods with one ingredient. Cook more of your own food with whole ingredients. You will at least know for sure what is in your food!

    Take a look at what kinds of chemical, mental, emotional, and physical stress you are putting your body through and start making changes here and there to improve your life. You will end up with more energy!

    (Beth Anderson is a certified Holistic Health Coach and founder of the Holistic Health Hotspot in Evansville, Indiana. She is also the author of The Holistic Diet: Achieve Your Ideal Weight, Be Happy and Healthy for Life.Beth received her training from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. Beth is helping people improve their lives through nutrition and lifestyle education, health coaching, and by helping others to learn to make informed choices. Beth continues to spread understanding of the connection between body, mind, and spirit and encourages all to discern the truth about food, consumer products, environment, and life choices.)