When we say pure sleep, we mean deep, peaceful, quality sleep without the use of drugs. Lack of quality deep sleep is linked to a host of problems including depression, obesity, poor nutrient absorption and assimilation, and overall poor health. If your quality of sleep improves, you will wake up more easily feeling more refreshed, have more stamina and energy during the day, and quite likely need less sleep at night. We need deep, quality, pure sleep. On the next page we give you ten tips for getting a better night’s sleep.

1. Don’t go to sleep on a full stomach

Your body needs energy to digest food. Going to sleep on a full stomach is bad for your digestion and can lower your quality of sleep. And you shouldn’t be eating enough to have a “full” stomach anyway.

2. Cut out alcohol and cut out caffeine and other artificial stimulants

While alcohol may decrease the time it takes you to fall asleep, it actually increases the number of times you awaken in the latter half of the night. If your sleep isn’t restful, alcohol (beer, wine, or hard liquor) may be the cause.

Artificial stimulants can affect your adrenal glands, which can affect your energy levels during the day and your sleep at night.

3. Exercise

Exercise during the day can help you sleep more soundly at night.

4. Eat a healthy diet

There are many ways an unhealthy diet can affect your quality of sleep. Eating healthy can give you more energy and a better night’s sleep.

5. Get more sunlight

Whether you sleep at night like most people or sleep during the day, you need sunlight. Your body needs sunlight to produce vitamin D (which is actually a hormone). Getting some sun on your bare skin can increase your energy and elevate your mood. Most people do not get enough sunlight. Lack of sunlight contributes to irritability, depression, low energy levels, and a desire for more sleep.

6. Make sure you are sleeping in the dark

If you work at night and sleep during the day you need to take the steps to block light out of your room. Make your room as dark as possible. Invest in blackout shades or blackout curtains.

7. Make your bed comfortable

High quality sheets with a high thread count feel good on your skin and make sleeping easier. Or maybe you prefer the touch of flannel. Comfort is important. Comfort decreases needless tossing and turning.

You also need comfortable, quality pillows that cradle your head rather than raise it. Your spine should lie straight.

A poor mattress will make it more difficult to get a good night’s sleep. Make sure your mattress is well supported with no lumps or dips.

8. Make your bed organic

Sleep with all natural (not synthetic) materials. Better yet, sleep with only organic, toxin free materials. Your skin needs to breathe. Synthetic fibers do not facilitate air circulation.

9. Stop snoring

Breath Right ® can help. If you are overweight, you are more likely to snore, too. Snoring can cause you to wake, and it certainly decreases your air flow.

10. Try a humidifier

If you are running your air conditioner or your heater, the air in your house may be dry. If you wake with a sore throat, a dry nose, or have nose bleeds, you might benefit from more humidity. Be sure to change the water daily.

11. Eat a grapefruit before bed

Don’t skip that white bitter skin of the fruit. And get a little bit of rind from the peel too. It’ll help you sleep soundly.

Sweet Dreams.

Also check out 10 Things You Can Do To Have More Energy.

Recommended Supplements:

• Shillington’s Nerve Sedative Formula
• L-Tryptophan
• Stress B-Complex – Thorne Research
• Basic B-Complex – Thorne Research
• SleepThru – Gaia Herbs
• Sleep & Relax – Gaia Herbs
• Shillington’s Cal-Calm Tea
• 5-HTP (hydroxytryptophan) – Thorne Research
• Skullcap Herb – Gaia Herbs
• Vitamin D
• More supplements for insomnia

Further Reading:

• Signs of Sleep Deprivation
• The Glymphatic System – How Insomnia Leads to a Filthy Mind
• Natural Remedies for Insomnia
• Why We Need Sleep
• Thyroid Disease Epidemic – How is Yours Doing?
• Natural Remedies for Adrenal Fatigue
• Mental Health, Physical Health & B Vitamins – Nature’s Valium
• Earthing – Touching Earth
• Earthing – Ground Your Body for Optimal Health

Sources:

• What Is Melatonin? – Live Science
• The Best Natural Sleeping Aids – Dr. Whitaker
• Facts and Stats – National Sleep Foundation, DrowsyDriving.org
• Better Brain Chemistry with Tryptophan – Life Extension Magazine

Our contributor, Dr. Shillington, tells us there are more enzymes in one papaya seed than in a whole store-bought enzyme capsule. The papaya seed also has all the nutrients necessary for almost instant assimilation.

Spread the seeds of an organic papaya (must be organic) on a wax paper covered plate or cookie sheet. Let them dry out for atleast a week. (If you have a food dehydrator it will take a few days). Then put them in a salt or pepper mill (or crush with a mortar pestle). Just grind them over your food as you would fresh pepper. In fact, papaya seeds are a bit spicy and taste similar to pepper, so they are an excellent substitute.

Fresh pineapple is another great source for enzymes. Buy one and eat it. Your body will thank you for days.

Enzymes in Food

Did you know your body is converting enzymes into other different enzymes all the time? By eating fresh, organic pineapple and organic papaya seeds, you’ll get all the enzymes you need, and your body will know how to convert
these enzymes into the ones it needs most.

Recommended Supplements:

• Systemic Enzymes
• Digestive Enzymes

One of the most commonly asked questions we receive at OLM is, “What one thing can I do to be healthier?” A diet of primarily raw fresh vegetables and fruits is the foundation for good health. If you are not as healthy as you would like to be, there is nothing more important. Even if you smoke, or don’t eat organic, and/or don’t exercise, adopting a raw food diet is still our first recommendation. We even recommend eating a raw food diet before we recommend supplements.

This takes people by surprise, especially since I own a supplement store. I have plenty of supplements on hand for acute health issues and first aid, but I only take Total Nutrition Formula, SF722, and systemic enzymes regularly.

There is a lot of controversy as to whether or not eating 100% raw is healthy. We do believe that a 100% raw food diet can be very healthy if done right with enough variety. If you are interested in eating 100% raw this article can help you get started. We also recommend you get to know Raw Chef Dan (see next article). But we recommend going at least 80% raw for practical reasons. And, if you cut out junk food completely (this includes “organic” junk food) and make sure that two of your three daily meals as well as any and all snacks are raw fresh fruits and vegetables (1:4 ratio), you will achieve a significantly higher level of health. For many people, eating this way rids the body of disease and ailments. For individuals who have led a toxic lifestyle for too long, more help is needed to restore the body to health.

People often point to the fact that there is not enough variety in a raw food diet to maintain good health. If a raw food diet to you means carrot sticks, celery and apples, then you’re right. My daily routine consists of a salad for breakfast and sometimes for lunch and/or dinner. On the days I do not have two salads, I have a smoothie. How do I get variety if I eat almost the same thing every day? Each of my salads contains at least 10 different kinds of vegetables. I get more nutrition in one salad than most people get in a whole week, maybe a month. My smoothies are nothing to scoff at, either. One salad and/or smoothie and I know I am set for the day. I must admit I do still love to eat, so I actually eat too much. Though I also work out pretty heavily on a regular basis, I imagine I could do better with about half the calories I consume.

My Daily Salad

Want to know how to make an incredible salad? Here are the main ingredients for my salad:

• Spinach
• Arugula
• Collard Greens
• Spring mix
• Dandelion
• Leeks
• Red onions
• Red cabbage
• Red bell pepper
• Rainbow chard
• Beet greens
• Grated beet root
• Graded carrots
• Graded zucchini
• Cucumbers
• Cilantro
• Pomegranate (seed)
• Raisins
• Sesame seeds
• Ground papaya seeds
• Avocado

I also throw in chick peas, a three bean salad combination, and/or some raw sheep cheese I get at my local farmers’ market. I always put two to three soft boiled eggs in my salad. Obviously I am not a vegan, but if you are, this salad is good enough without the cheese and eggs. The salad is also great with chicken or steak.

Update: Now I don’t do the cheese. I don’t do meat either. I still eat eggs, but am very considerate of where and how they are sourced. The avocado makes it so I don’t miss the cheese. But, for those who are not vegan, and concerned about getting enough calories, add what you want. Just please make sure all animal products were as humanely treated and healthy as possible.

There are tons of recipes for raw and healthy salad dressings. I love my own creation.

My Balsamic Salad Dressing Recipe

To make my salad dressing, I start with equal parts oil and vinegar (keep in mind that both olive oil and balsamic vinegar have a lot of imitators).

• 3/4 cup of flax seed oil
• 1/4 cup of coconut oil
• 1/2 cup of balsamic vinegar
• 1/2 cup of apple cider vinegar
• 6 tablespoons turmeric
• 1 table spoon basil
• Two teaspoons unrefined sea salt
• Two teaspoons fresh ground pepper
• Two tablespoons Dijon mustard

Do it all to taste if you want, but stay heavy on the turmeric; it’s very good for you, and it’s the most important ingredient to this recipe.

This salad dressing will have even the pickiest kids eating vegetables. It’s very versatile. Use it as a dip, a marinade, or whatever. It’s amazing.

Obviously this is not a 100% raw salad. But it’s mostly raw and very healthy. If you want to adopt a 100% raw food diet then find a great raw salad dressing and skip the peas, beans, eggs, and cheese. It’ll be healthier that way too.

Super Antioxidant Smoothie

I don’t have a smoothie every day. For health, nothing beats a great salad. But I do crave smoothies a few times a week.

• 1 cup apple juice
• 1 cup fresh berries
• ½ pomegranate (seeds)
• 1 raw egg (organic only!)
• ½ banana
• 1 large kale leaf
• 2 tablespoons nutrition powder (see below)
• 1 tablespoon Udo’s Oil with DHA

Nutrition Powder

Total Nutrition Formula, is the best nutritional support available. You can also make your own.  I don’t do smoothies everyday (salads are better), but when ever I do, I add my nutrition powder.

Conclusion

It takes time to adapt to a healthy lifestyle. I don’t spend much on groceries, but that’s because I’ve learned where and how to shop for the best deals. Local organic farmers’ markets are the best places to get the healthiest produce for a fraction of the cost you would spend at a conventional grocery store. It used to take me a lot of time to make smoothies and salads but I’ve learned to make them very quickly. I still spend more time than most preparing food, but health is my priority, my hobby, my most important investment. I’ll take the time.

Flu season will soon strike the United States.  We’ve heard so much about the swine flu or novel H1N1, many people don’t realize seasonal flu is responsible for an average of 200,000 hospitalizations and 35,000 deaths in the U.S. each year.

The flu is caused by one of many circulating influenza viruses, which cause headache, fever, joint pain, coughing, sneezing, and congestion.  In children and occasionally in adults, diarrhea and vomiting are present as well.

So what should you do to protect yourself from the flu if you are not inclined to get a shot, or to protect yourself even if you do?

• Eliminate sugar from your diet. At the very least, minimize sugar—both amount and frequency. Sugar will wreak havoc with your immune system for at least 3 days, each time you eat it.
• Stock up on vitamin D. Do it now. Get out in the sun without sunscreen! If you live where the sun “don’t shine” supplement your vitamin D.
• Make sure you are getting enough zinc, and vitamins A, C, and E.  Remember whole food vitamins are best—your body doesn’t  utilize chemically based synthetic vitamins nearly as well as vitamins derived from whole foods.
• Detox now. The fewer toxins your body is trying to deal with, the better it will be equipped to fight disease.
• Eat well. Your body needs nutrient dense foods—80% fresh, raw, organic fruits and vegetables each day.
• Stock up on high quality echinacea, goldenseal, and goldenthread.

If you do succumb to the flu, drink lots of fluids. No soda. No sugar. No artificial sweeteners.  Your body needs water and vegetable juices. Remember sugar will surpress your immune system. Don’t even consider artificial sweeteners—toxic, toxic, toxic!

Rest.  Get lots of sleep.  Help your body fight off the virus and avoid secondary infections—bronchitis, sinus infections, ear infections, and pneumonia.

And of course do your best not to spread the flu. Stay home and don’t go out until you’ve been completely symptom free for several days. To minimize risk to your family, shut the door to your bedroom. Don’t share food, dishes, towels, and washcloths.

A healthy body fights disease and fights it well.  You could catch the flu and fight it off without ever knowing your immune system engaged in the battle. It’s up to you.

Just say the words gonads, testosterone or any of the unprintable slang associated with testicles, sex, and male virility and you’ll get a laugh or at least amused looks. Now, say those words again, but in a context that says, “You’re going to lose that capability, son,” and watch what happens. The collective scream you hear is shrill enough to replace the air raid sirens America abandoned in the 1980s.

New research so fresh that it hasn’t yet appeared in a journal article says flat out that eating sugar reduces testosterone levels in the blood by up to 25 percent across the board. The researchers found 74 men at Massachusetts General Hospital with a range of tolerances to glucose (42 normal blood sugar, 23 impaired glucose tolerance “prediabetic” and 9 actually with Type-2 Diabetes) and gave them 75g of a glucose solution. In many cases, the effect lasted at least 2 hours after ingestion and affected all types of men in the study. Of 66 men listed as having normal testosterone levels in a fasting state before the test, 10 developed a hypogonadal (low testosterone) state at some point during the two hours of the test.ⁱ

The actual intent of the research funded by the National Institutes of Health and the American Diabetes Association was to refine testing methods for low testosterone levels. Current methodology says to test the man in the morning on two different days and get an average reading to see if the man is truly hypogondal or if the low testosterone will pick up later. So far, no one has said that a man should fast before taking the blood test—until now.

The link between sugar, insulin, obesity, diabetes, the metabolic syndrome and testosterone levels had been touched on in other research that has come out recently. Only these researchers worked backwards relative to this new study; they took people with known elements of the metabolic syndrome (diabetes, obesity, and heart disease) and tested their testosterone levels. Many subjects had low testosterone.

In recent research conducted in Berlin, the conclusion read in part “Lower total testosterone and sex-hormone-binding-globulin (SHBG) predict a higher incidence of the metabolic syndrome…Administration of testosterone to hypogondal men reverses the unfavorable risk profile for the development of diabetes and atherosclerosis.”ⁱⁱ

In Finland where similar research is regularly conducted the researchers came up with this gem: “Low total testosterone and SHBG levels independently predict development of the metabolic syndrome and diabetes in middle-aged men. Thus, hypoandrogenism (hypogondal) is an early marker for disturbances in insulin and glucose metabolism that may progress to the metabolic syndrome or frank diabetes.” ⁱⁱⁱ

It seems that these previous studies were waiting for someone else to have a “The Emperor Seems Naked” moment and try out the inverse of their results in which you give sugar to mostly healthy people and see what happens. No longer should low testosterone be considered just a symptom of the metabolic syndrome, but as what both are…a result of too much sugar in our diet.

We at Nancy Appleton Books have already touched on sugar causing the metabolic syndrome in previous articles like 140 Reasons Why Sugar Ruins Your Health. In it we make simple declarative statements about many of sugar’s ill effects:

• Sugar can increase fasting levels of glucose.iv
• Sugar can cause hypoglycemia.viii
• Sugar can lead to obesity.v
• Sugar can cause heart disease.vii
• Sugar can cause metabolic
• syndrome.viii

One way sugar lowers testosterone is through its effect on the adrenal glands.ix
Sugar taxes the adrenal glands and these glands interrelate with the sex hormone glands (testes and ovaries) that produce testosterone and estrogen.^x

These ailments listed above are elements of and highly associated with the metabolic syndrome, which we have linked to the excessive intake of sugar. The research in Massachusetts says that sugar causes low testosterone. Similar research around the world says that low testosterone is highly associated with the various elements of the metabolic syndrome. So how many times do we have to enjoy the circular logic before we simply say that sugar causes both the low testosterone and the ailments in the metabolic syndrome? Put more simply, sugar kills in a multitude of ways and this one affects men where they really live, in the bedroom.

Related Reading:

• Gluten, Candida, Leaky Gut Syndrome, and Autoimmune Diseases
• Hypothyroidism – Natural Remedies, Causes, and How To Heal the Thyroid
• How I Lost Over 150 Pounds, and How My Life Changed
• Is Your Gut Health Making You Fat?
• Healthy Sugar Alternatives & More

Doc’s Eye Bright formula is a must for every “medicine” chest. Eye infections are dangerous. Though pinkeye is usually a viral infection, secondary bacterial infections are common and they can eat right through eye tissue in a matter of hours.

We learned about the efficacy of eyebright for eye infections years ago. We used eyebright tea to flush the eyes when pinkeye reared its ugly head, and discovered that all symptoms disappeared in hours rather than days (as with conventional medicine), but in recent years we have only been able to find loose tea and it was very difficult to strain all the tiny pieces of leaves and stems. This is not a problem with Doc’s formula.

Doc’s formula is excellent. It does burn for a minute when you first use it, and though we have not had the “opportunity” to use it with an infection, it immediately clears the vision, sharpening focus. We will continue to use it to see if it eliminates floaters and improves vision. We’ll report back in few months.

Click here for Shillington’s Eyebright Formula.

The tester for Doc Shillington’s Tooth and Gum Formula is a middle age woman who has suffered from severe and persistent gum disease for many years. Her gums had seriously receded. After four weeks of using Doc’s Tooth and Gum Formula, she reports the following:

I am a skeptic. The claims for this formula seemed too good to be true. They weren’t. Doc Shillington’s Tooth and Gum Formula is miraculous.

My gums had receded to the point the roots of seven of my upper teeth were fully exposed and several of my teeth were loose. A few of my lower roots were exposed as well.

I followed Doc’s recommendation, using salt and baking soda as a toothpaste then rinsing with his formula. Now, weeks later, not one tooth is loose. None of the roots of my lower teeth are exposed and all of the upper gums have significantly improved—at least half of the exposure is gone on each tooth. Most are near normal.

There has been another unexpected change. Food, especially lettuce and spinach, stuck to my teeth. It seemed that my enamel had worn away. Now my teeth are slick again; my tongue slides over them and food doesn’t stick. I love this formula! Available at Green Lifestyle Market.