How To Make Natural Body Butters That Actually Moisturize Your Skin

“Love the skin you’re in.” Though it may be cliche, take a moment to think about why you wouldn’t want to take care of your body’s biggest organ. After all, your skin is one of the first things others notice about you, so it pays to keep it in the best shape possible.

There’s just one problem. Most of us do a pretty terrible job of tending to our skin. Sure, we slather on some sunscreen on a hot summer day or casually rub in lotion during winter dry spells, but few people take the time to think about what’s really going on their skin. That’s a mistake. Your skin does more than look pretty, it’s actually a natural barrier, the first line of defense that keeps toxins from the outside world from getting inside you. However, your skin is far more permeable than most people notice.

Think of a nicotine patch. It works by allowing trace amounts of addictive chemicals to be absorbed directly through the skin and into the bloodstream. Just as skin is no barrier against a flood of nicotine, it also doesn’t prevent any other chemical from going through. This means that any chemical product you put on your body (bug spray, lotions, makeup) have every possibility of flowing through your bloodstream.

If that doesn’t scare you, it should.

Using Conventional Lotions? Think Again.

In today’s world, smelling amazing is no guarantee that something’s actually good for you. Your lavender scented lotion might be a pretty purple color and even come with flowers on the label, but chances are that most of the contents of that bottle never came close to a plant.

Below are some of the common chemicals used in conventional lotions and their effects on your body and the planet.

Paraffin: Made from petroleum, this chemical is known for coating your skin in a thin plastic covering, clogging pores and building up toxins along the way.

Parabens: A common cosmetic preservative in over 10,000 beauty products, parabens have been shown in studies to have connections with cancer, and they disrupt your body’s endocrine system by mimicking the hormone estrogen.

Propylene Glycol: Used as a moisturizer in many lotions, propylene glycol has been shown to inhibit skin cell growth and cause irritation, and some evidence points to it causing kidney and liver abnormalities.

Sodium laurel sulfate: Over 90% of personal care products have some form of sodium laurel, a chemical known for breaking down your skin’s moisture barrier so that it (and other chemicals) can easily get into your bloodstream. Studies have shown that SLS can lead to hair loss.

Ready to exchange these icky products for something a little less toxic? Keep reading to learn about the importance of taking care of your skin the natural way.

Natural Body Butters: The Quality Comes from the Ingredients

When it comes to taking care of your skin, nothing can compare to a natural body butter. Actually, “body butter” is a general term used to describe dozens of different body creams that are dense and full of nutrients that add extra hydration to your skin. Most body butters are filled with essential oils, vitamins, and nutrients that make them invaluable in a skin care routine. There is a huge range of ingredients that can be used to make body butters, all of which have distinct benefits that make them useful in a variety of ways.

In most cases, body butters are made from cold pressed oils that are extracted from nuts, seeds and fruits, and then combined with fatty acids and other forms of oil to thicken the consistency. Most body butters are solids at room temperature that melt from your skin’s heat when you slather them on, creating a deeply moisturizing treatment that lasts for hours.

Some of the best benefits of natural body butters are described below.

  • Plenty of Moisture: Skin sucks in everything you put on it, but thankfully natural body butters will provide nothing but hydration. Nut-based butters are filled with emollients that provide skin soothing moisture long after conventional lotions have quit.
  • Protection: The thick ingredients in body butters form a protective barrier over your skin to keep moisture in check. This prevents you from drying out in heat, hot sun or cold winter air that otherwise sucks away moisture. Instead of relying on parabens like other products, natural butters take advantage of the natural emollients found in nuts and seeds to trap moisture deep into the fatty layers of your skin for optimal moisture protection.
  • Skin Nourishing Vitamins: No matter the type, body butters are rich in omega 3 fats that benefit you both inside and out. These highly moisturizing fatty acids help keep inflammation in check and make vitamins far more accessible for your skin to absorb.
  • Reduce Wrinkles: Allowing your skin to dry out is a quick way to start looking old and faded. A better option is to protect yourself with moisturizing body butters that help your skin retain its elasticity so you keep a healthy glow, no matter your age.
  • Softer Skin: Chronic, chapped skin is no problem when combated with the moisturizing power of homemade body butter. Regular treatments of this rich cream can eliminate dry, cracked skin and even clear up chronic conditions like eczema. Just slather on some body butter immediately after showering and your skin will stay noticeably softer throughout the day.
  • Affordable: Are you currently paying a small fortune for your skin care products? Switching over to homemade body butters will save you money, and you’ll get to control exactly what goes in them.
  • Cuticle Saver: If your cuticles look ragged much of the time, a gentle coating of body butter will help them stay hydrated and healthy, getting your nails back to top shape in no time.
  • Stretch Mark Solution: Having children can be brutal for your body, but a little body butter can make those scars a little less visible. Regular treatments of body butter help the skin to heal and regenerate, which means you can hide the appearance of stretch marks before they get out of control.

Top Ingredients for Making Homemade Body Butter

There are so many ways you can make your own body butter, you’re truly limited only by your creativity. Whether you choose to stick to staple ingredients like coconut and shea butter or opt for something a little more exotic like cupuacu or jojoba butter, the possibilities of what you can do is endless.

While it’s usually best to plan on using a ration of 75% solid to 25% liquid oil for your natural butter, the oils listed below are some of the best to invest in when first getting started.

Almond Butter: You want to lick yourself all day when you make a butter with sweet almond oil. This thick, rich butter is great for moisturizing and is a smart way to hydrate a dry scalp.

Cocoa Butter: Known for being a highly stable fat, cocoa butter can last on your shelve for years and is flush with natural antioxidants. A silky smooth texture and delicate fragrance makes it useful for a wide range of products, and pregnant women have been relying on cocoa butter to prevent stretch marks for centuries. Because of the high moisture content of cocoa butter, it’s not always a great choice for oily skinned people.

Shea Butter: Definitely one of the most popular butters available today, shea butter has a unique fatty acid composition that makes it versatile for many products, including dry skin, massage creams, and sun protection. A great all around oil, everyone can benefit from a little shea butter in their life.

Jojoba Butter: If you need an intensive moisturizing boost that only the best can get you, jojoba oil is worth checking out. Perfect for treating eczema and psoriasis, jojoba oil works well on all skin types.

Coconut Oil: With a melting point so low it’s practically a liquid at room temperature, coconut oil gives your body a delicious tropical smell and is great for treating troubling dry spots.

Cupuacu Butter: Made from the cupuacu fruit (commonly grown in Brazil) cupuacu butter is a perfect ingredient to add to your homemade hair conditioner, though it should be used sparingly on your skin if you tend to be oily.

Two Ways to Make Your Own Natural Body Products

Interested in making your own body butter? These recipes will get you started!

Extra Hydration Body Butter

You could truly spend weeks trying out recipes for different types of body butter, but for your first batch, you’ll want to go for something as nourishing as possible. This recipe combines four types of butters into one batch in order to get you maximum skin hydration. Great for babies or anyone with sensitive skin, this butter also makes a good gift.

Take half a cup each of shea butter, mango butter, coconut oil, and olive oil, and combine them all into a double boiler on medium heat. Stir the mixture constantly until it all melts and remove it from the heat. If you’re looking for a particular scent, you can add between 10 to 30 drops of essential oil. Put the entire mixture into the fridge and let it cool for an hour, or to the point where it starts to harden but is still pliable. Take a hand mixer and whip the batch for 10 minutes until fluffy, after which it should be put back in the fridge for 10-15 minutes. Once set and somewhat hardened, you can store your butter in a glass jar with a secure lid and use it like any regular lotion. So long as your home is less than 75 degrees F, the butter will stay whipped. Any hotter than that, and you should store it in the fridge between uses.

Homemade Hand Lotion:

While not truly a body butter recipe, this lotion uses all natural ingredients for a hydrating blend that is too good to miss out on. Body lotion and body butter are more similar than they are different, but the difference comes from the liquid content. Lotions sometimes contain up to 70% water, and the moisturizing effects don’t go as deeply or last as long as body butters. Even so, lotions are great when your skin needs a quick pick me up but doesn’t want all the excess hydration of a true body butter.

Instead of water, this recipe relies on oil for its texture, making it more hydrating than other versions. To make your own lotion, combine a half cup of liquid oil (almond works well), with a quarter cup each of coconut oil and beeswax. Melt them together in a double boiler, stirring constantly so nothing burns. Once everything melts, add a teaspoon of Vitamin E and a few drops of essential oil. Pour the mixture into a glass jar with a tight fitting lid, and dip in whenever you need an extra hydration boost. This product is best used within six months.

Simple Tips For Using Natural Body Products

Using body butters and lotions is a fairly straightforward process. In essence, you put a little butter on your hands and rub it in where you want it. Even so, the tips below can help answer some of your questions about use.

  • Body butters are super concentrated, so a little goes a long way. Take a tiny amount and carefully warm it with your hands before putting it on your body so that it absorbs more easily into your skin.
  • The kinds of butter you purchase for your body butter is crucial. Look carefully on labels for terms like “unrefined,” “crude,” and “cold pressed,” as these are signs that the oil was extracted through natural methods, not high heat that destroys the butter’s natural nutrients.
  • So long as you store your butter in an airtight container, it should last for a year or more.

In Summary

Your skin does a lot for you, so it pays to take care of it. By relying on natural skin care remedies like body butters, you’ll be keeping your body’s biggest organ in top shape. Add some homemade body butter to your skin care routine, and your skin will stay hydrated, healthy and beautiful, at almost no cost to you.

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You Need Sulforaphane – How and Why to Grow Broccoli Sprouts

Brain Enhancing, Fat Burning, Cancer Preventing, DIY Homemade Supplementation

It is not another drug or folk remedy. You can prevent many forms of cancer, improve gut health, establish healthy body fat composition, enhance brain function, detoxify your cells, and reduce depression with this one miracle compound.

It’s called sulforaphane, and it is naturally produced when cruciferous vegetables are damaged. We initiate the reaction that creates sulforaphane with the process of chewing, which allows us to reap a plethora of benefits that make the scientific research on sulforaphane look like a late night TV ad.

The Scientific Sales Pitch

Although there are many proposed effects of sulforaphane, let’s stick with what has been studied. Sulforaphane has been shown to prevent the growth of many cancers including breast, prostate, colon, skin, lung, stomach, and bladder cancer. The risk of common diseases like diabetes, heart disease, gastric disease, neurodegenerative disease, ocular disease, and respiratory diseases are reduced with the consumption of sulforaphane as well. Even behavioral disorders like autism have been helped with sulforaphane supplementation. And if that isn’t enough, sulforaphane has been shown to decrease fat gain and improve body composition in mice. All this is possible because sulforaphane stimulates protective and detoxifying mechanisms in the cells. This allows the cells to eliminate environmental toxins like mercury and air pollutants from the body and repair themselves from the damage caused by oxidative stress.

The Best Source of Sulforaphane

With positive and protective effects on almost every cell in the body, sulforaphane is like a health insurance policy for your cells. This compound can be found in raw or minimally cooked cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, kale, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts.

It is important to note that sulforaphane cannot be produced from vegetables that are cooked at a temperature above 158 degrees Fahrenheit. This is because the enzyme that helps create sulforaphane is deactivated when is heated above 158 degrees Fahrenheit.

The enzyme that helps create sulforaphane may also become less active in mature cruciferous vegetables, so it is uncertain how much sulforaphane you will actually get from mature plants. This is where crucifer sprouts save the day. Due to their increased enzyme activity, crucifer sprouts are the best source of sulforaphane. But one sprout, in particular, may provide the most sulforaphane of them all. That sprout is the broccoli sprout.

Where To Get Broccoli Sprouts

After seeing the benefits of broccoli sprouts it is tempting to add that $10 bottle of broccoli sprout capsules to your cart, but don’t let the tempting price fool you. At $10 per bottle, you are spending 20x more than if you bought broccoli sprouts in the store, and supplements can’t even guarantee that they actually have any sulforaphane or enzyme activity.

With store bought broccoli sprouts you can at least guarantee that you are getting sulforaphane in your diet. However, store bought broccoli sprouts will run you about $1 per ounce when you can easily grow them at home for the cost of ~9 cents per ounce.

With one 64 oz mason jar, a seed strainer lid, broccoli seeds, a glass bowl, and water you can grow up to 15 pounds of sprouts per pound of broccoli seeds. That means you can have a half pound of sprouts every week for over 6 months. Fifteen pounds of broccoli sprouts would cost you $240 if you bought them in the store or almost $5,000 in capsule form, and you can get them for less than $50.

How to Grow Your Own Broccoli Sprouts

Growing your own broccoli sprouts is simple and easy. It doesn’t require gardening skills, and after less than a week you can have up to half a pound of delicious broccoli sprouts for the cost of less than a dollar.

Here is what you need:

  • Organic broccoli seeds for sprouting (~$15 per pound)
  • A 64-ounce mason jar (~$10 per jar)
  • Strainer sprouting lids that fit the mouth of your jar (~$9 per lid)
  • A glass bowl
  • A cool, dark place
  • Optional: full spectrum light
  • Optional: salad spinner

Estimated yield: 3 tablespoons of seeds will most likely sprout to a half pound of broccoli sprouts in about 5-7 days.

Step by Step Guide to Sprouting Your Broccoli Seeds

Step 1

Put 3 tablespoons of broccoli seeds in your mason jar, cover the seeds with cool, distilled water or spring water (60-70 degrees Fahrenheit), and swish the water around gently. Put your mason jar, with the sprouting lid on, in a cool dark place for 6-12 hours to allow the seeds to soak.

Step 2

Drain off the water by tipping the mason jar to let the water pass through the strainer. Take the glass bowl and rest your mason jar inside of it so that the remaining water can drain. Put it in a cool dark place for 8-12 hours to let the seeds drain and sprout.

Tip: make sure the jar is tipped enough so that the seeds can drain and have adequate airflow. The most common cause of poor sprouting is inadequate drainage.

Step 3

Rinse the seeds 2x daily and put the jar back in the bowl in a cool dark place so it can drain. It might help to set reminders on your phone.

Here’s what mine looked like 60 hours after the beginning of the first rinse:

Tip: Try not to expose them to too much light until most of them are sprouted with tiny yellowish leaves.

Step 4

After 3 to 4 days you will notice white sprouts with tiny yellowish leaves coming from the seeds. When this happens for most of your seeds, you can begin exposing them to indirect sunlight or a full spectrum light bulb so that they can start to green up. Continue to do the same rinsing process as before.

84 hours after the beginning of the first rinse:

Step 5

After a day or two of light exposure, rinse them once again, and let them drain overnight. The next morning they will be ready to eat!

After the first day of sun exposure:

The finished product, about 6 ounces of broccoli sprouts from 2 and a half tablespoons of broccoli seeds:

 

Bonus Step: How to Increase Sulforaphane content by 3.5x

Studies have actually been conducted to find out how to increase the bioavaliability of sulforaphane from broccoli sprouts. One study found that If you want to get the most out of your broccoli sprouts, you must never expose them to temperatures greater than 70 degrees Celsius (158 degrees Fahrenheit). However, if you let them sit in 65 to 70 degree Celsius (149 to 158 degrees Fahrenheit) water for 10 minutes, you can increase sulforaphane content by around 3.5 fold. The greatest increase was found at 70 degrees Celsius (158 degrees Fahrenheit) with a rapid decrease when the sprouts were exposed to greater temperatures.

To try this broccoli sprout hack at home all you need is a pot, thermometer, a glass bowl, a timer, water, and your broccoli sprouts. Put your broccoli sprouts in a glass bowl while you heat up the water in the pot until it reaches 70 degrees Celsius. Cover your sprouts with the water and set your timer for ten minutes. Check the temperature of the water that the sprouts are in every couple of minutes and add 70 degree Celsius water to the broccoli sprouts periodically to maintain the temperature between 65 and 70 degrees Celsius. After 10 minutes, drain the sprouts, pat they dry, eat them, add them to a smoothie, or store them in the refrigerator.

If that description was to confusing, check out how Dr. Rhonda Patrick hacks her broccoli sprout sulforaphane content:

How to Store Your Sprouts for up to Six Weeks

To keep the sprouts fresh and nutritious for six weeks follow these steps:

  1. Eight to twelve hours after the final rinse and drain, pat your sprouts dry and/or use a salad spinner until the sprouts are reasonably dry. Nothing kills produce quicker than refrigerating it wet.
  2. Put the sprouts in a plastic bag or container that will ensure minimal exposure to air. If they are exposed to too much air they may dry out completely.
  3. Refrigerate them for up to six weeks and eat them whenever and however you like.

Enjoy!

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Should Patient Groups Not Required to Disclose Funding From Pharmaceutical Companies

A new study has found that more than 80% of patient advocacy groups receive funding from drug and medical device companies. The study looked at 104 of the top patient advocacy nonprofits. Combined, they report more than 7.5 million dollars in revenue in 2014, with a wide discrepancy in the way that these companies reported their donations. Patient advocacy groups exist to provide the support and information needed to navigate the modern medical system, but why are their own conflicts of interest not one of the things they disclose?

The Ties that Bind

Patient advocacy is a growing profession in the United States. Insurance companies, government, medical professionals, and the pharmaceutical industry all have fingers in the healthcare pie. People can get overwhelmed by all of the red tape and can be subjected to less than ideal care. The benefit of a health advocate is having someone focused on your needs without the conflict of an employer or any other commercial interest. But while patient advocacy on a small scale can provide incredible personal benefits, health advocacy as a whole has strong ties to the pharmaceutical and medical device community. Nearly forty percent of the organizations reviewed in this study had an industry member seated on their board.

Who Watches the Watchmen

There are times when these ties damage the recipients of service that the health advocacy groups list in their mission statements. Many of these groups have been silent on the issue of rising drug prices or disclosing their funding sources in court proceedings. The lack of disclosure also allows other businesses to take advantage of the altruistic framework of health advocacy and use it to confuse the public, like the Global Energy Balance Network set up by Coca-Cola in 2014. Advocacy groups aren’t entirely funded by pharmaceutical companies, but without a standard of disclosure, is there any way to know exactly how much influence those companies have?

Being Informed

Professional health and patient advocacy is a relatively new profession. There are no licenses or accreditations required to be a patient advocate. Combine that lack of oversight with the lack of disclosure and there is a system ripe for behind the scenes manipulation. The good that these groups can do, especially when it comes to negotiating with insurers, needs to be carefully weighed against their reluctance and even inability to speak out against harmful pharmaceutical and medical device practices. Now more than ever, you are your best health care advocate. Being informed about medical issues and options is the best weapon in your arsenal.

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Monsanto Wants the Omega-3 Fatty Acids Market

What’s the next phase in omega-3 fatty acid supplementation? If biotechnology and agricultural trading giants like Monsanto, Dow Chemical, and Cargill have anything to say about it, the future is soy and canola.

There is no way to meet the demand we currently have for fish oil.Peru, the world’s leader in fish oil and fish meal production, had a banner year in 2016, getting the highest recorded average price per metric ton. But those record numbers come at a time when production levels have declined 61% from the previous year. The production levels aren’t likely to improve either, as the United Nations reports 90% of the world’s fish are fully or partially overfished. Farm-raised fish are unlikely to be a good source of Omega-3s as they themselves are frequently fed other fish oils to boost their health. We are approaching the point where a big source for Omega-3s, wild-caught fish, will no longer be available, and farm raised fish currently require supplementation instead of providing it.

The Big Business Solution

The demand for fish oil products has created a 2.4 million dollar market, and many big companies have settled on grains as the solution to the problem left by dwindling fish oil supplies. One of the companies with ambitious plans in this area is Cargill, an agricultural trading company based in Minnesota. In a bid to create a fifth of current fish oil supplies, 159,000 metric tons, they’ve earmarked up to half a million acres of Montana farmland to grow their new strain of canola. Projected to be ready in 2020, the canola will contain long-chain omega-3 fatty acids from algae. Dow Chemicals has also jumped on the canola train, although they plan to grow their canola in Canada.

Monsanto, on the other hand, is sticking with what they know – soy. Soybeans are already a  source of ALA (alpha-linolenic acids), and the company’s plan is to develop a soybean specifically meant to be processed into a soy oil for baked goods and soup. Other companies are launching omega-3 products with algae. Archer Daniels Midland in Chicago, a commodities trading and food processing company, created an algae-based product for fish supplementation. TerraVia Holdings Ltd is another company focused on algae, using it to convert sugar into omega-3s.

A Little People Solution

Omega 3 fatty acids are essential to any healthy diet, but other options are out there? Quality fish and fish oil are hard to find and hard to justify from an environmental perspective. Many of the proposed big businesses solutions focus on GMO crops. Both of these options are problematic.

Getting omega-3s in your diet doesn’t have to be all about fish oil. Algae is a great source of omega-3s, and it’s important to get different colors. Green algae like spirulina and chlorella, are a source of EPA. Brown algae like wakame and hijiki are sources of DHA, a key nutrient in supporting a healthy brain. Other vegetable based sources of omega-3s include flax, chia, and nuts, especially walnuts. The acids are also in a number of vegetables like spinach, winter squash, and brussels sprouts, though the amount is much less than what is found in seaweeds, nuts, and seeds.

The World is Not Enough

This is not the only important part of the food chain disappearing. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, close to 75% of plant diversity has been lost. Six different livestock breeds are lost every month. Our gut bacteria has been slowly losing its variety, leaving us more open to disease. From a health viewpoint and an environmental viewpoint, now is the time to look for different, diverse foods. How long will it be before whole nutrients groups disappear from our world like so many plant varieties or members of our gut flora?

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How to Improve Brain Health and Reduce the Risk of Alzheimer’s

Aging is an inevitable process that we go through, and it has the most profound effects on the brain. After the age of 40, the brain decreases in volume by at least 5% every decade, and this rate increases with age. This loss in volume translates to a loss of long-term memory, slower reaction times, decreased working memory, slower processing speeds, and detriments in sensory and/or perceptual function. These effects can be reduced and even reversed by addressing these four processes:

1. Neuronal Cell Death

In our adolescence, we have 1.5x more neurons in our brain than we do as an adult. As we learn and grow, our brains form new synaptic connections that allow our neurons to communicate. This allows us to do the things that we want to do efficiently.

As we reach our early 20’s, our brain starts to refine its connections. Underused neurons undergo apoptosis or programmed cell death. This is a natural process that allows us to remain good at what our environment requires us to do while unneeded neurons and synaptic connections are removed.

Neuronal cells can also be damaged and eventually die due to traumatic injury, environmental toxins, cardiovascular disorders, infectious agents, and genetic diseases.

2. Reduction in Synapses and Synaptic Plasticity

As we age, the amount of dopamine and serotonin in our brain decreases. This leads to a decrease in synapses (the connections that allow for communication between neurons.)

Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) activity also decreases with age. BDNF increases our ability to form new synaptic connections (synaptic plasticity) and triggers the development of new brain tissue (neurogenesis).

3. White Matter Damage

The white matter of our brain is made of myelinated axons. These are like electrical cables that carry the signal from one neuron to another. As we age, the myelination (fatty insulation) of these axons deteriorates. This process is what reduces our reaction time as we age.

4. Impaired Vascular Function

The health of our circulatory system is as important for brain health as it is for heart health. The primary cause of impaired vascular function is oxidative damage that leads to inflammation and plaque build up. This process is caused by consistent exposure to environmental toxins, refined foods, trans fats, and/or head trauma. Damaged blood vessels lead to an easily permeated blood-brain barrier that allows toxins and infectious agents in. The brain’s ability to receive nutrients and remove waste (like beta amyloid plaque) will also be impaired.

Brain Aging and Alzheimer’s Disease

These four changes are largely to blame for the effects that aging has on our cognitive function. This process is accelerated to a catastrophic degree in people with Alzheimer’s disease.

Alzheimer’s Disease: Brain Aging Accelerated

What makes Alzheimer’s disease so catastrophic is that it accelerates the synaptic damage and neuronal loss common with aging, while impairing the regenerative properties of the brain. This leads to a rapid decrease in brain volume and function.

Many genetic and environmental factors lead to the accelerated damage of neurons and their synapses. In a brain with Alzheimer’s disease, this leads to the accumulation of beta amyloid plaque and damage of the neurofibrillary tracks that help move nutrients and other key materials throughout the cell. As plaque builds up and the tracks become tangled it leads to a snowball effect of neuronal damage and cell death throughout the brain. This unforgiving process is what makes Alzheimer’s disease the sixth leading cause of death among older adults.

Although genetics, specifically the APOE genes, play a major role in our brain health and the progression of Alzheimer’s, there are many things we can avoid, changes we can make, and treatments we can use to improve brain health and reduce neurodegeneration due to age and Alzheimer’s Disease.

Yes, you can teach an old dog new tricks, but first, we must understand what accelerates the aging of the brain and Alzheimer’s Disease.

How to Shrink Your Brain

Do the Same Thing Every Day

Every time we reach past our comfort zone by learning or experiencing something new, we increase the rate of neurogenesis and make new synaptic connections. On the other hand, if we do the same things every day without reaching beyond our competency, our brain will focus on pruning down its synaptic connections and more neurons will undergo apoptosis. As the process continues, your brain will become smaller and smaller.

Eat A lot Oxidized Polyunsaturated Fats and Trans Fats

When these fats enter our body they create chaos in the circulatory system which leads to an immune response to deal with the trouble that the oxidized fat and trans fat is causing. Our body handles these fats by depositing it as plaque which leads to atherosclerosis. This process also occurs in our brain, which contributes to the accumulation of beta amyloid plaque and tangling of the neurofibrillary tracks.

Eat Plenty of Refined Sugars

High blood sugar levels are associated with the increased risk of Alzheimer’s Disease. When blood sugar is high, the sugars tend to interact with the residues of proteins. Together they form glycation end-products (AGEs). These AGEs create oxidative damage and inhibit enzymes like macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) that are important for protecting the brain aging.

Make Sure You Are Chronically Stressed

Although acute stress can enhance your learning ability, chronic stress impairs working memory and prefrontal cortex function. When the function of the prefrontal cortex is impaired, we cannot reason effectively, and our emotions can take hold and control us more easily.

Live in a Polluted Environment

The process of brain aging and Alzheimer’s disease is accelerated by the accumulation of metals in the brain. The primary way that this can happen is through the nose. Nanoparticles of metals from car exhaust, industrial pollution, and smoking can cross the olfactory areas of the brain and accumulate in areas, like the hippocampus that are most affected by Alzheimer’s Disease.

Drink Alcohol Every Day

Drinking alcohol accelerates the shrinkage of the brain, which leads to cognitive decline that mirrors the symptoms of Alzheimer’s Disease.

The best way to reduce brain aging is by eliminating the things from your life that age your brain. There are many other factors that contribute to brain aging that we have not discussed, but we know for sure that if you continue doing any of these six things, your brain will start shrinking rapidly.

How to Grow Your Brain & Keep It from Aging

Increase Your Physical Activity

Increasing your physical activity can improve brain volume and reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease by up to 50%. Even people who had mild symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease increased their brain volume by increasing their physical activity. This means that you can grow your brain by simply taking a walk every day.

These profound effects are due to the fact the exercise helps reduce inflammation, anxiety, and insulin resistance, while stimulating growth factors (like BDNF mentioned above) that improve the health of your brain cells and blood vessels.

Do Something New Every Day

When we were children, we were filled with curiosity. Every moment was an experiment that led to a new discovery like walking or crawling. During this phase of development, our brains were primed and ready to form new synaptic connections, so that we could thrive in our environment. By the time we are in our 20s, our brains are almost fully developed, and we begin to form patterns and habits, leaving our curiosity behind.

As we age, we must stimulate our curiosity again by learning new things, going on adventures, and reaching outside of our comfort zone every day. This will trigger a process in the brain called scaffolding, which stimulates the brain to form new connections with different neurons in new ways. This allows the brain to function more efficiently and age gracefully.

Drink Coffee or Tea

Habitual caffeine intake may protect against cognitive impairment. In studies done on mice, caffeine has been found to suppress the buildup of beta-amyloid plaque in the brain. On the other hand, OLM’s stance on coffee is not positive; try circumin:

Try Circumin

Like caffeine, circumin can prevent plaque build up, and it removes plaque as well. This potent anti-inflammatory molecule makes up 5-10% of turmeric. It is known to lower cholesterol, reduce oxidative damage, and remove metals that accumulate in the brain like iron and copper. Check out How To Optimize Curcumin Absorption for more on circumin.

Supplement with Vitamin B3 and B1

UCI scientist Kim Green conducted a study on the effect that nicotinamide (vitamin B3) has on mice with Alzheimer’s disease. This B Vitamin completely prevented the loss of cognition in the mice. Clinical trials are now being carried out using vitamin B3 as a treatment for Alzheimer’s Disease.

Thiamine or vitamin B1 is also a promising treatment for Alzheimer’s disease. Our brain uses up 20% of our energy, and in doing so, it uses enzymes that depend on thiamine for their function. When we don’t have enough thiamine, it can lead to memory deficits and excessive plaque buildup. With enough thiamine, the cells in the brain can metabolize sugar effectively and function properly.

Cook with and Consume Coconut Oil

Coconut oil, especially the medium chain triglycerides found in coconut oil, provide an alternative fuel source for brain cells, which may prevent neuronal cell death. It has been found to help improve cognitive function in women with Alzheimer’s, people without type 2 diabetes who had Alzheimer’s, and people with severe cases of Alzheimer’s. Coconut oil is also a great oil to cook with because it is not easily oxidized like polyunsaturated oils. Check out what else coconut oil can do for you.

Eat More Cruciferous Vegetables

Cruciferous vegetables contain sulforaphane, a compound that activates a transcription factor called Nrf2.What this means is that sulforaphane helps to set off a cascade of processes that detoxify and protect the body and brain from oxidative damage. sulforaphane works synergistically with circumin to reverse the aging of our cells due to oxidative damage.

The best source of sulforaphane is broccoli sprouts, and they can easily be sprouted at home in 7-9 days. If you don’t have access to broccoli sprouts, any cruciferous vegetables will do. Check out this salad recipe.

Increase Your Acetylcholine

Acetylcholine is the most used neurotransmitter in the brain and body. It is essential for muscle contraction, alertness, concentration, focus, and memory. Feeding your body with the components of acetylcholine and/or blocking the enzyme that breaks it down can be very effective for reducing the effects of brain aging and Alzheimer’s disease.

One of the primary components of acetylcholine is choline, and it is an essential nutrient that you must include in your diet. The best sources of choline are egg yolks, heavy cream, fatty fish, fatty meats, and liver. Make sure you source your meat, dairy, fish and eggs for people that treat their animals humanely and feed them what they are meant to eat. This will ensure that your animal products have a high amount of good quality fats and choline.

To ensure your brain gets the choline it needs, you can take a supplement like Alpha-GPC. This is a form of choline that can easily cross the blood-brain barrier. DMAE is another supplement that increases the level of acetylcholine in the brain while reducing beta amyloid plaque.

Other supplements like galantamine and huperzine-A increase acetylcholine in the brain by preventing the enzyme cholinesterase from breaking down acetylcholine.

What if Nothing is Helping?

Take the holistic approach, and improve your brain health by improving the health of your whole body. The gut and the brain are inexorably linked. Just like you can dimish cognitive function with poor health choices, you can improve brain function with a better diet. Research in brain regenration is making groundbreaking strides lately. Recently, many studies on mice have surfaced that use commonly used technologies, like ultrasound, to reverse Alzheimer’s disease. In one study researchers used a “…focused therapeutic ultrasound, which non-invasively beams sound waves into the brain tissue.” These sound waves activated the brain’s microglial cells so that they could do their job of removing the beta amyloid plaque. The results were tremendous with 75% of the mice with Alzheimer’s disease regaining their cognitive function. This means that this treatment may help reverse Alzheimer’s disease by using the brain’s own natural waste removal processes. This may be the miracle we have been searching for to treat Alzheimer’s.

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Invasive Weeds You Can, and Should, Be Eating – Easy Foraging

If you’re a gardener, the single most time-consuming thing you probably do for your greens is to weed them. Unless you have a killer raised bed setup, the odds are good that your wimpy garden plants won’t be able to withstand the onslaught of weeds perfectly optimized to thrive in the conditions you’ve created.

Watching your kale get overrun by chokeweed is enough to make the most seasoned gardener despair, but what if the way you are thinking about these garden nuisances is actually completely wrong?

Weeds aren’t always bad. Ralph Waldo Emerson once famously proclaimed that weeds were simply misunderstood, as “…a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered”. Though it might be hard for you to match his candor, the truth is that there’s a lot to like about common weeds that few of us are aware of.

As it turns out, weeds have far more benefits for our health than you can imagine.

Garden Weeds: Even Healthier Than Your Vegetables?

It takes a tremendous amount of effort to get garden plants to produce food. No matter how carefully you try to coax your tender plants to thrive, the odds are good that without some significant effort on your part, the close-growing weeds will soon take them over. While it’s easy to hate weeds for their effortless abilities to overwhelm your hard work, the truth is that the scrappiness of weeds is part of what makes them so special.

To understand this, keep in mind that every garden plant once started as a weed that was carefully grown over centuries until it came to resemble the plant that it is today. Fruits got bigger, inedible seeds got smaller, and unpleasant bitterness in leaves slowly became reduced. However, as the traits humans enjoyed best slowly became more prominent, the biggest benefits of these plants – their nutritional content – was slowly weeded out.

Wild plants don’t get the benefit of careful gardening to keep them alive, so they’ve adapted to defend themselves. For this reason, weeds are often full of phytonutrients, essentially an “arsenal of chemicals” that helps them fend off diseases and predators. While the bitter taste they produce often keeps the hungry away, these chemicals are full of health benefits for humans that help them fight off diseases like heart disease, dementia, and even cancer. Filled with vitamins and mineral levels that regular vegetables can’t compete with, garden weeds are truly more nutritious than supermarket greens. If you want the easiest, most efficient way to fill your diet with foods as close to nature as possible, chomping on wild weeds is a great place to start.

Types of Edible Weeds

The complete list of edible weeds is far too vast for any web article, but this list of common weeds from around the world should get you started.

Clover

You’ll find yourself lucky in a patch of clover even when four leafed varieties are nowhere to be found. Red clover is full of the phytoestrogen genistein, a substance that has been studied to treat colon and prostate cancers. While you might have to compete with the honeybees for your supply, raw clover can be chopped into salads or sauteed with other greens. However, there is some concern for pregnant women. Studies have shown that the large amounts of the phytoestrogens in clover may increase your risk of breast cancer and possibly birth defects.

Lambs Quarters (Goosefoot)

Young, tender, and very versatile, lambs quarters can be used as a substitute for spinach in any recipe. This is great news for salad lovers, as lambs quarters peak right when spinach is winding down for the summer. Loaded with vitamins A, C, and K and full of calcium and protein, you are actually better off eating this wild spinach over the cultivated variety. If you are filled with patience, the seeds from lambs quarters can also be collected and cooked as a quinoa-like grain filled with 16% protein.

Dandelions

Though you might cringe at the sight of their sunny-hued flowers blanketing your lawn, dandelions are actually nutritious and surprisingly delicious when used well. In fact, European settlers first brought the dandelion to the U.S. for use as a salad green. One cup of raw dandelion greens contains well over your daily needs of vitamin A and vitamin K.  The best ways to eat dandelions tends to be raw in salads or dried into herbal teas. For those feeling a little more adventurous, the yellow flowers can be breaded and fried for a tasty snack.

Catnip

Not simply a treat for cats, catnip actually has some fascinating health benefits for humans, too. Native to Europe, catnip easily grows around the world and makes for a great herbal tea that encourages relaxation. The mild mint flavor is tasty when snacked on raw or sauteed with other greens

Plantain

Though it has little resemblance to the tropical fruit with the same name, plantain weeds grow all over the world and make for a stellar medicinal plant that can be used topically to soothe skin ailments like rashes or burns. Even better, the younger leaves are tasty in salads and can be steamed, boiled, or sauteed. If you take the time to harvest the seeds, they can be ground into a nutritious flour that’s great for baking.

Bamboo

Though bamboo’s versatility has been put to use on everything from flooring to kitchen cutting boards, few people are aware that this fibrous plant is also edible. Often described as tasting like corn, bamboo shoots can be harvested when they are less than two weeks old and added to your favorite stir fry. Simply peel off the outer leaves and cut the tender middle into one-eighth inch slices before boiling them in an uncovered pan for twenty minutes. After the bitterness has been boiled out, you can eat bamboo any way you choose.

Garlic Mustard

Though it’s highly invasive throughout much of the world, garlic mustard originally came from Europe. The flowers, leaves, seeds, and roots of garlic plants make them great for weight loss and controlling cholesterol levels, and their faint garlic scent makes them a tasty addition to any dish. You can harvest garlic mustard all season long, but the tastiest roots need to be collected in the early spring.

Green Amaranth

Similar to lambs quarters but with a more mild taste, green amaranth is also known as redroot, pigweed, and wild beet. Because of the detergent-like qualities of the saponon on raw leaves, green amaranth is best cooked before eating to eliminate the strange aftertaste. For this reason, it’s often best to serve green amaranth with a stronger tasting vegetable to offset its mild flavor.

Watercress

There’s no avoiding the high price tag of watercress in classy grocery stores, but you can harvest it yourself for free. This weed can be found throughout the U.S. Adding it to your salads is a foolproof way to boost up your daily antioxidants.

Kudzu

While “the weed that ate the south” is a symbol of despair for millions in America, this voracious plant is actually edible itself. Simple to make into jams and jellies and tasty when the flowers are pickled, there’s a lot of ways to experiment with this tricky vine. Commonly used as a digestive aid in China, you can also chop up a cup of kudzu leaves and boil them for thirty minutes before drinking the health-infused creation.

Mallow (Cheeseweed)

Common to see in yards around the world, mallow is a blessing for adventurous eaters to enjoy. Both the leaves and seed pods are edible and can be enjoyed steamed, boiled, or raw as a salad green. Mallow is full of vitamins and minerals that make it useful as an herbal medicine, especially when used as an anti-inflammatory, diuretic, or laxative.

Purslane

If you only choose to eat one weed from your garden bed, purslane should be the one. This succulent looking plant grows close to the ground and in between the cracks of the sidewalk. If you find some, you’re in luck. This juicy, lemon-tasting green is filled with omega-3 fatty acids. It is tasty eaten raw, cooked or blended in a smoothie. Because every part of the plant can be eaten, you won’t have to worry about shoving it all in your mouth at once. As an extra benefit, purslane consistently produces a bumper crop of edible seeds, which can be used for baking. All you need to do is dry out the seeds for several weeks on a sheet of plastic before winnowing out the tiny, black seeds.

In Summary

The benefits of spending your summer days wrist deep in garden dirt cannot be underestimated, but there’s a lot you can do to enjoy fresh grown produce without the effort. Garden weeds are equipped to thrive where your vegetables suffer, and most of them actually contain more vitamins and minerals than conventionally grown produce. If you’re ready to enjoy the benefits of these long-valued “famine foods”, give your garden weeds a try and see how they make you feel. You might be amazed at the results.

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Why Chronic Pain is Such a Pain and What You Can Do about It

The pain is in your head.

Seriously, it is.

Knee pain, lower back pain, sciatica pain, and even stomach pain would never exist if it wasn’t for the brain.

However, any practitioner who says your pain is in your head without giving you a means to deal with it, shows their ignorance.

Let’s explore what is really meant by  “the pain is in your head“.

Pain is the Brain’s Way of Protecting You

You are walking without shoes on and suddenly your pinky toe slams into the corner of a wall. Small nerves in your toe called nociceptors send this noxious stimulus (potentially dangerous information) to your spinal cord, which then relays the message to the thalamus of your brain. The brain receives the message that something dangerous has happened in the area of your left pinky toe. At this point, there is a brief pause as your brain decides how to react, and then… ouch! you feel the pain intensify so fast that you can’t help but yell.

It hurts, but as you keep moving, it begins to feel better. After 15 minutes, you forget that it even happened. A couple hours later, you go to put your shoes on and… ouch! The pressure on your pinky toe feels as if you stubbed your toe again. This is a natural protection mechanism called central sensitization that is elicited by the brain to keep you from overusing the damaged tissue as it heals. After a few more days, your pinky toe is back to normal.

This is the stereotypical story of pain and it is referred to as nociceptive pain. The tissue is damaged in some way, the brain receives the signal and creates pain and inflammation for healing, and it heals.

Simple.

It may even sound too simple, and that’s because it is.

Pain Is Your Brain’s Opinion

Pain is an opinion on the organism’s state of health rather than a mere reflective response to an injury. There is no direct hotline from pain receptors to ‘pain centers’ in the brain.” – Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, Neuroscientist

The pain that your brain creates depends on many more factors than just tissue damage. These other factors are what can turn nociceptive pain into chronic pain. For more on brain health, check out Increase your IQ with the Right Foods, Herbs, Vitamins, and Exercises for Your Brain.

When Pain Becomes Chronic

Chronic pain is usually defined as pain lasting longer than 12 weeks. There are at least two ways to create chronic pain in the body:

1. Chronic Re-injury

One cause of chronic pain is chronically re-injuring damaged tissues. If you keep stubbing your toe, your toe will never heal, and you will continue having pain.

Chronic pain with the primary cause being chronic tissue re-injury usually has these attributes:

  • There are specific movements that always make the pain worse (ex. it hurts hurts every time the lower back is rounded forward.)
  • The pain is consistently in one area, and there is no pain anywhere else.
  • The pain slowly gets worse with an increase of demand on the tissues (ex. lifting more than usual or working more often)
  • Pain is relieved when the painful tissues are not being used.
  • There is inflammation around the site of pain.

If your pain is consistent with these criteria then letting the injured tissue heal will most likely relieve the pain. For this type of chronic pain, it is best seek guidance from a skilled physical therapist that can help provide you with treatments to speed the healing process, exercises to strengthen your body, and lifestyle modifications that relieve your pain.

It makes sense that the brain would create pain in cases of chronic tissue re-injury, but what happens when pain cannot be explained by tissue damage?

2. Chronic Central Sensitization

Central sensitization is one of the processes our body carries out in response to tissue damage. When you stub your toe,  your toe (and the tissues around it) becomes hypersensitive to any other stimulus like hot, cold, or pressure, so that your body can heal the damaged tissue without interruption. This is absolutely necessary for your survival because if your body can’t move properly due to damage then you can’t protect yourself from danger.

However, there is one important caveat to mention — your brain cannot tell the difference between real danger and perceived danger. This means that the mechanism of central sensitization can become active even when there is no tissue damage.

Pain is a Response to Danger, Not Damage

The perception that you have hurt yourself can create a pain response even when there is no real damage.

Here is a perfect example of how the brain does this from the British Medical Journal in 1995:

A builder aged 29 came to the accident and emergency department having jumped down on to a 15 cm nail. As the smallest movement of the nail was painful he was sedated with fentanyl and midazolam. The nail was then pulled out from below. When his boot was removed a miraculous cure appeared to have taken place. Despite entering proximal to the steel toecap the nail had penetrated between the toes: the foot was entirely uninjured.

Throughout our daily lives, we tend to do the same thing as the builder. We react to danger when danger is not there, which leads to more pain and tension. If danger begins to paint every moment of our day, it can lead to chronic pain and symptoms of depression like helplessness. This explains why depression has been found to be a better predictor of low back pain than MRI findings.

Another factor that can increase pain sensitivity and make pain chronic is chronic inflammation. Inflammation is necessary for the body to heal damaged cells from the cells of a stubbed toe to the cells that are damaged by toxic exposure. When the damage becomes chronic so does the inflammation. This only adds to the “DANGER!” messages that the brain is already receiving. Not only does this make pain more intense and stick around longer, it lengthens the healing process as well.

Become Your Own Pain Relief Specialist

Everything you do, you become better at. The longer you are in pain, the better your brain gets at creating the pain.

Luckily, the opposite is true as well. You can reverse and, in most cases, completely relieve chronic pain by practicing these simple pain relief principles:

1. Give Your Brain More Pain-Free Input

Have you ever hit your hand on something and immediately began rubbing it with your other hand? This actually helps, but not in the way you think.

Rubbing our hand when it is in pain feeds our brain with non-threatening information. According to the Gate Control Theory of pain, this stimulation provides enough non-threatening information to the brain that it overwhelms the “DANGER!” signals. In response, your brain decreases pain.

Although relieving pain is more complex than simply giving your brain pain-free information all the time, applying these ideas to chronic pain can be very effective. For example, instead of focusing on what you can’t do because of the pain, focus on things that you can do that you enjoy. This will show your brain that you are not in danger, while you give it more positive information than threatening information.

For the activities that are painful that you can’t do without, try new ways of moving that don’t provoke pain. If this doesn’t work, try the other suggestions on this list before doing the activities that are normally painful.

2. Stimulate the Parasympathetic Nervous System

Pain is a response to danger. When we experience life as a persistent string of dangerous and uncertain events then our brain will chronically respond with pain and sympathetic nervous system activation. In this state of uncertainty, our brain will not allow our parasympathetic nervous system to activate. This makes it impossible for our bodies to rest, digest, and recover.

The simplest way to activate your parasympathetic nervous system is by breathing. Try letting go of all the air in your lungs for the longest exhale of your life. Inhale through your nose, deep into your abdomen, and finish the breath by letting your rib cage gently expand. Finally, let go of your air once again for an even longer exhale than before.

When you have a nagging pain or even a nagging thought, bring your attention to your breath. This will activate your parasympathetic nervous system and relieve pain and tension.

3. Reduce Chronic Inflammation

In order to reduce inflammation we must be mindful of our diet and environment. Refined foods, sugar, oxidized fats, pesticides, commercial bread products, factory farmed animal products, and other toxic ingredients like aspartame and MSG all damage the cells in our body and lead to inflammation. If we decrease our consumption of these foods, we will be able to stop the accumulation of damage and inflammation. Environmental factors that cause cell damage like polluted air can be removed by using indoor plants like Sansevieria trifasciata laurentii and Areca palm, which have been found to improve air quality and reduce pollution tremendously.

4. Cognitive Functional Therapy

Cognitive functional therapy is one of the most effective treatments for reducing chronic low back pain and is most likely effective for other forms of chronic pain as well. This kind of therapy targets the beliefs and fears of each individual regarding their pain and how it effects their lives.

The first step in cognitive functional therapy is to understand the different causes of pain and how chronic pain can be related more to fear, anxiety, and negative beliefs than actual damage. Motivational interviewing is also used to find new ways of moving and relating to the body that make activities more enjoyable. During this process, the person who has chronic pain gains confidence in themselves because they realize that they are not broken. In fact, their body is strong and adaptable.

Becoming Your Own Cognitive Functional Therapist

To come up with your own solutions right now, make a list with 2 columns.

Label one column “Danger” and the other “Safety”. Under the “Danger” column right down everything that makes your pain worse and everything that makes you feel stressed from a smell to an activity. In the “Safety” column write all the activities or things that you enjoy, feel safe doing, and that don’t create pain. Add more of the things in your “Safety” column to your life while reducing the amount of
“Danger” you experience.

If you can’t eliminate specific things in the “Danger” column from your life, try using the other suggestions in this article like breathing. Deep breathing will reduce the amount of danger you feel while you are doing the activity, which will lead to parasympathetic activation and less pain.

For example, is the action of bending over in the “Danger” column because it creates pain? Try taking deep breathes before and while you are bending over, it will most likely feel better.

5. Find a Quality Health Practitioner

If you want some guidance on your journey to becoming pain-free, find a quality health practitioner (physical therapist, doctor, chiropractor, etc.) that meet these criteria:

  • They look at the body from a biological, psychological, social, and environmental perspective and how each one can contribute to your pain.
  • They make sure you understand what is going on in your body and let you know why they are doing a certain treatment or prescribing a specific exercise.
  • They don’t religiously use one modality or another. Instead, they use the appropriate modalities for you.
  • After every session, you have a decrease in symptoms, more confidence, and know exactly what to do to progress on your own.
  • They admit to you if they cannot help you and refer you to someone who can.

If most of these criteria are met by your health practitioner then you are probably good hands. If you are not sure, then check in with yourself by asking yourself these questions.

  • Do you have a clearer understanding of what is going on in your body?
  • Are you feeling better than you did before you started seeing that practitioner?
  • Do you know what to do to continue the progress on your own?
  • If you can’t confidently answer these questions then that practitioner may not be right for you.

Conclusion

Pain is the brain’s response to danger, whether it is perceived or real. A real danger like the damage caused by stubbing your toe will provoke a pain and inflammation response that decreases and disappears as the damage is healed. A perceived danger may lead to a pain response as well, but if perceived dangers become chronic, so will the pain.

Chronic pain can be relieved by activating the parasympathetic nervous system, doing more of what you love, moving in different ways that don’t provoke pain, reducing chronic inflammation by changing your diet and environment, and removing perceived dangers from your life.  If you need guidance, don’t hesitate to find a skilled practitioner to help you relieve your pain.

Most importantly, we must remember that we are not damaged goods. Our bodies are strong and adaptable. Just because you feel pain now does not mean that you have to feel pain for the rest of your life.

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