6 Great Ways to Get Your Energy Back.

Where does my Energy come from? And 6 GREAT Ways to get it BACK!

Claire - Posted July 3, 2014 

Most people when asked will tell you that they wished they had more energy. But have you ever thought about where energy actually comes from. We often think we know the answer, but do we really?

Does energy come from the food we eat? Or the sleep we get? Does it come from doing what we love?

Before we can even come close to answering these, we have an even more pertinent question and that is what exactly is “energy”? If you think in terms of modern day appliances, the answer is easy – electricity of course. Or if you want to get more complicated, it is the movement of electrons. In this way our bodies are much the same, we move electrons around and… voila! Energy! This movement of electrons powers every process in every single cell of our bodies as well as every organ and system – our immune system, digestive system, cardio-vascular system and central nervous system just to name a few. If you really think about it, that is a LOT of electrons doing a whole lot of moving around. In other words, it take a LOT of energy to power a human.

Luckily our bodies have a few built in strategies to conserve energy when necessary. Many of our high energy using functions will only work when the others have the power turned down. Some examples are healing and growth happen when we sleep and aren’t really moving too much, or how food is not appealing at all when you have a fever because digestion is turned down, the same can happen when doing ultra-endurance exercise.

On the flip side of this some big processes that require loads of energy actually help to power other systems of the body and in many ways this seems to almost defy the laws of physics. One way this happens is something we see in children, often when a child is sick and burning a fever it triggers a growth spurt, either physically or developmentally. Coincidently, this would also be a time in which they wouldn’t eat very much. Both burning a fever and growing require vast amounts of energy, yet in these circumstances they happen simultaneously while there is a greatly reduced caloric intake.

What we get taught at school and through media is energy comes from the food we eat. This is seen in calorie counting diets, food labeling and even Facebook memes (how many burpees does it take to burn off that doughnut?). It is all calories in vs. calories out. What you take in gives you the energy to all that you need to do in the day. But it is not that simple, just ask someone who has struggled with a weight issue and done countless calorie restricted diets. They often don’t work, no matter how many calories they burn. Mostly because obesity is a dis-ease of too little energy, not one of too much.

So, if energy doesn’t actually come from food how do we power these energy hungry bodies of ours and feel like we could run a couple of marathons in a row?

Increase your Leptin sensitivity.

Leptin is a hormone we produce in our white fat cells. When it binds with the brain it acts as a fuel gauge, telling your brain how much energy you can spend. When we lose Leptin sensitivity we can’t read the gauge anymore, so our bodies go into fuel conserving mode. We feel sluggish and exhausted. Toddlers are the perfect example of being Leptin sensitive. They have the two modes; on and off. And they can run rings around almost any adult because of this easy access to their energy stores.

Get moving

Moving, particularly yoga as it uses every joint a muscle in the body can greatly improve your energy levels through a number of mechanisms. Firstly, it helps to improve Leptin sensitivity as well as insulin sensitivity, allowing cells to take up more energy. Secondly, it releases a cocktail of feel good hormones that help to energise both body and mind. Thirdly, 90% of stimulation and nutrition to the brain occurs through movement of the spine. Although our brain is only about 2% of our

body mass, it requires between 20-25% of our energy intake to function and for it to get that, you need to move your spine!

Get cold

Getting cold, like really cold can be a huge boost on your energy levels. There are a number of biological mechanisms that occur when you get cold but I will simplify it to make it easier. Getting cold makes you more efficient at sleeping, which means you heal faster, your brain gets better down time and you wake up with much, much more energy.

Get adjusted

Seeing a Chiropractor has some great health benefits, but in terms of energy the results are amazing. As I mentioned earlier, 90% of your brain’s stimulation and nutrition come through movement of the spine, but if you only have partial movement through some of those joints then all the exercise in the world will not fully charge your brain battery. This effect is highly apparent in the case of issues with movement through the neck.

Spend time in energetic company

Have you ever walked away from someone and suddenly felt like you could conquer the world? People pay thousands of dollars to listen to inspirational speakers because just being around someone who is enthusiastic and inspired can make you feel like a completely different person. Energy breeds energy and when that is happy positive loving energy, you can’t help but be wrapped up in it. Your body responds with a release of feel good hormones and you can suddenly do anything.

Do what you love

Like spending time with energetic people, doing what you love and working on your life’s purpose can give you more energy than seems humanly possible. When you feel good about what you do and do it with authentic passion your body releases all that stored energy.

Take your shoes off/spend time on the ground or in the ocean

Connection with the earth is not just some sort of hippie way of soaking up some universal energy. Without getting into the complicated quantum physics, when you get time to connect with the earth without the encumbrance of shoes or carpet etc. you take advantage of the earths natural electromagnetic fields (you know the ones that make compasses work). What happens is the same as when you put a fork in the toaster, although a lot safer and less dramatic, you equalise out the electric fields. With the example of the toaster, there are more electrons in the live wires of the toaster, so they travel to where there are less electrons, which is the earth, through your body. When your body touches the earth and you are in a state of exhaustion (low energy=low number of electrons) the same process draws electrons from the earth and into your body, rejuvenating and re energising your cells.

So, next time you get that 3pm slump, rather than go for a Mars bar or a cuppa-soup, try taking a walk outside with bare feet.

Same-Same but Different: Not all food is what you think it is.

Same-Same but Different: Not all food is what you think it is.

Claire - July 3, 2014 

Sometimes, things appear to be the same thing but in reality they are vastly different. This can create so much confusion when trying to make decisions about the best ways to optimise your health, especially when the research does not make these distinctions. So here is my top 4 list of things that look the same, but are in fact completely different:

Himalayan/sea salt vs Regular table salt

Surely you can’t stuff up something as simple as salt right? Unfortunately, yes we can. Most of the salt you buy at the supermarket is almost purely sodium chloride (NaCl) with some added anti-clumping chemicals added. On the other hand, pure sea salt or Himalayan salt is almost completely sodium chloride as well, but contains up to 84 trace minerals.

Yes, these 2 products are almost identical yet one costs a bit more than the other, but the key to health is in that word “almost”. Many of these trace minerals are vital for health and wellbeing and we really only need a small amount of them, but there is a huge difference between getting a small amount and getting none at all. For example selenium is an essential trace element found in both Himalayan and sea salt. Selenium is known for its powerful cancer-fighting properties, it is needed for heart muscles to function properly, to ward off damage cause by mercury and recycle vitamin C in the brain as well as keeping your thyroid functioning and regulating your metabolism by promoting methylation. Selenium deficiency leads to lowered immunity, heart disease, obesity, diabetes and cancer. All we need is just 60mcg per day. Every trace of it we get our bodies benefit* so having it make an appearance in our salt has amazing protective benefits to our health.

But selenium is just one of these 84 trace elements, I could have also written about the need for zinc, boron, copper, magnesium, manganese, iodine, chromium etc.

My personal favourite combination for adding healthy salt to our food is Himalayan salt with dulse flakes for added iodine and an extra mineral boost.

Unhomogenised milk vs homogenised milk

“Can you buy some not scary milk?” Was the request from my 14 year old step-son (sort of). What he meant was can I buy milk that is a completely consistent white fluid instead of one that was thick and creamy at the top and a little watery at the bottom. It is not his fault he was completely challenged by my purchase of unhomogenised milk, all he has ever known is that stuff we get for $1 a litre at the supermarket. So, why would I pay more than twice the price for something that the kids are hesitant to consume?

There is a huge difference between how your body deals with these two different types of milks and the results on your health can be astonishing, but first let’s look at the process of homogenisation. During homogenisation, the milk is pushed through a very fine membrane at high pressure. It is done to break up all the clumps of fatty cream and disperse them evenly through out the milk. In the process the proteins are also broken up into smaller proteins and some amino acids. The problem with breaking up theses milk proteins it that it means some of them can pass through the walls of the intestines and into the blood stream without being broken fully into their amino acid forms. This results in the body producing antibodies and inflammatory responses to protect itself against these free proteins. This can be a major contributing factor to health issues such as allergies, eczema, asthma and even mental health issues like ASD. Lite milk is even worse as it has added “milk solids” (read broken up proteins) to make it creamy unlike the watery almost blue looking skim milk of days past.

Even though they kind of look like the same product, not all milks are the same. I go for the “scary milk” at every opportunity.

Organic fruit and veg vs conventional fruit and veg

This is one the most people sort of get, but what they miss in the detail can make all the difference. Yes your organic fruit and veg don’t have the herbicides and pesticides sprayed all over them like your conventional fruit and veg, but there is another factor that is just as significant as the lack of serious toxins.

Growing your own organic fruit and veg can be really hard, most people who try it give up and either stop growing stuff or start spraying the bugs. The reason it can be so hard is that to have bug resistant plants, they actually need to be super healthy. This means they need their water, sun and nutritional requirements met and that is not always simple. But on the flip side, a plant that has all of those elements attended to, also grows fruits, roots and leaves with a higher density of nutrients. A small organic apple contains more vitamins and minerals than the largest of a conventionally grown apple, you need much less organic fruit and veg to get the nutrition you need.

Where possible, go organic. If it is not in your budget, have a look at lists like the “dirty dozen and clean 15″. For where you can save money and where organic is vital.

Grass-fed meat vs grain-fed meat

The difference between grass-fed and grain-fed meat is a bit like why you would choose organic fruit and veg. What you feed your food changes how nutrient dense it is going to be when it comes to you eating it. For an example lets compare 2 pigs. The first is kept in a shed with no natural light, is fed a diet of corn and other grains lives on a concrete floor and is watered from a trough. The second is outside in the elements, sun, rain, wind, mud, grass. He scavenges some food from the ground, roots, fruit that has fallen from trees, leaves, grass and even insects and small reptiles and he drinks from a stream.

The first is going to have very high levels of inflammation in his tissues, from his diet, from the stress of lack of freedom, from standing on a hard surface all the time. He is going to have a much much high white fat content from both his diet and being protected from the elements and his gut flora will be completely off from the lack of soil bacteria and a narrow refined diet. This pigs meat would be very high in Omega 6 fats and lacking in many nutrients.

The second pig will be high in omega 3 fats due to the more wild diet and drinking water, also much higher in brown fat and therefore increased levels of vitamin A. Actually the differences in the nutrients from each of these animals would be so vastly different they wouldn’t even taste the same even if they looked identical in the supermarket. The first pig would produce an inflammatory response in your body, where as the second would produce and anti-inflammatory response. This example is much more extreme than say a grass fed steak and a steak from a cow that spent 120 days being “finished” in a feed lot, but even then there is a significant difference.

Always go for the grass fed where possible.

These are just my top 4. There are many other examples of same-same but different, these include cacao vs cocoa, bread vs real sourdough, honey vs raw honey… The list goes on, but let’s start with these ones and see how your health changes.

*The upper limit for selenium is 400mcg per day, beyond this selenium becomes a toxin in the body. This can be said for many of these vital trace minerals. The easiest way to avoid toxic levels is to get you nutrients from real food sources, which rarely allow you to overdose.

Positive Thinking or Positive Belief

Positive Thinking or Positive Belief

Claire Aslangul - Thursday, June 26, 2014

The past eight months have been some of the most transformative of my adult life. I have grown in a myriad of ways. Can you guess which self help book I read to make that happen?

Actually, I didn’t read a single one. It has been a journey of growth through painful experience and awareness of my own negative belief systems that have been holding me back from happiness for years. For a very long time I have had a positive attitude and viewed the world with optimism, but when that positive thinking clashed with some deep dark core beliefs, suffering ensued. I couldn’t “think” my way out of the pain of my marriage break up, nor could I visualise a happy ending to a miscarriage. I had to stop, be vulnerable and feel the anger and grief and recognise the core wounds and attachments that were behind all this suffering. It was not enough to just think positively, I needed more. I needed to go deeper.

Self help and is like every other industry, it has its good points and it's not so good points. It has its gurus, its success stories, its charlatans and its clueless imitators, but above all it has some major logic gaps.

On average, a person who walks into a bookstore and buys a self help book will be back in 18 months time to do it all again. Now things aren't moving that fast in the evolution of an individual's psyche that the information from the first book is no longer relevant, it is that the desired outcome hasn't happened; to be rich, healthy, happy and/or in a passionate relationship. Chances are very little has changed in that 18 month period. The reader has probably not only read the book, but implemented some or all of the strategies and yet still those goals have not been attained. So back to the bookstore to pick up the newest self help book (which is probably yet another rehash of "Think and Grow Rich") in the hope that this one will have the missing ingredient. And the cycle begins again...

The irony is most of the time the only people getting rich out of the self help industry are those selling books or expensive seminars to people looking for answers. It is not a case of swindling the public though, more a case of not realising that they are confusing "casual relationship" with "causal relationship". Here you have a whole group of self made people trying hard to share the secret of their success with others, but being oblivious that their message lacks an essential piece to the puzzle. Their positive thinking, visualisation and goal setting only has a casual relationship to their achievements.

But why is it some people can walk out of an Anthony Robbins seminar and blitz their goals within months and most others try like crazy, but find themselves with exactly the same problem, just different a expression. The answer is not that they weren't disciplined enough, nor is it that they didn't listen. It all comes down to this little thing called belief.

Our belief systems are much more complicated than we once thought. Unfortunately, we can't think our way out of a belief, no matter how hard we try. Actually, when you look at the research, the opposite is true; the harder you try to think your way out of a core belief, the more reasons your brain comes up with as to why the belief is true. So in many situations when your core beliefs and thoughts are incongruent, thinking positively actually makes things worse. It cements further into your mind the underlying negative belief that got you into the unhappy position you are in the first place.  Every self help book, every seminar you go to gives you a short term energy boost and inspires you to work harder, but your amazing brain always comes back to create a reality that lines up with your core beliefs. So, if you are one of these people who truly believe you are going to be successful in a field that gives you complete joy, every book you read on success and every event you attend cements the idea further that you have unlimited potential. Unfortunately, people like that are by far the minority.

So what are our core beliefs? Where do they come from? And importantly, how do we fix them?

Our beliefs can be slippery little suckers, sometimes we think we know what they are, but we don't. Identifying what beliefs you have is the first step to fixing them and this is often the case of being unable to see the forest for the trees. For myself, there have been two ways in which I have recognised belief systems that are holding me back from my true potential. The first is quiet contemplation, this could be in the form of meditation, going for a walk/run/swim/bike ride on your own without earphones. In this time of quiet contemplation, bring a stressful situation into your mind and look not at what is going on, but the feelings you have about it. Anger? Injustice? Deep sadness? Unworthiness? Ignored? Unlovable? Stupid? Judged? Shame? Fear? Out of control? Sick? Pick out all the feelings that come up with this situation and sit with them for a moment. From here think about the why behind the feeling, what is the reasoning behind feeling this way?

For an example, you walk into the kitchen to find your 5 year old has just thrown all their dinner on the floor because they didn't want it. You feel angry, but beneath that anger is a feeling of rejection. You spent an hour cooking a nice meal for the family, it was an act of love and that love has been thrown back at you, rejected by someone you adore. The rejection is really a feeling of being unlovable. Why you are angry is you believe you are unlovable. You try so hard to be an attachment parent, but in situations like these you lose it and send your child to their room. Then you spend the next few days berating yourself for not being like Suzie who would have calmly asked her kid to get down on the floor and help her clean it up and probably made a fun game of it too. This self flagellation helps you to believe that you are unlovable.

Little situations like this are huge clues into our belief systems, but sometimes it is really hard to make the connections on our own. The second way I have been able to recognise my negative beliefs has been through talking with someone else, in my case Myra. There is a tool used in psychology called a Johari window which describes the 4 selves we each have:

•   The open self which is the me I know and the me you know,

•   The blind self which is the me you know but I don't,

•   The secret self the one I know but you don't,

•   The closed self which none of us know. 

Talking through a situation like this with someone who is going to be more than just sympathetic can be incredibly enlightening, because it can open up the blind self to you. Asking the right questions and pointing out connections to the same reaction in other situations works a bit like an emotional GPS. You can pin point the exact root feeling and core belief.

Now that you have recognised the belief, the next step is to work out where it comes from. This can sometimes be a difficult thing to discover because our beliefs can come from a number of places, they may be something we have picked up as adults, as teenagers, as children, as babies or they might not even belong to us. Some beliefs are passed down through our DNA*.  To work out where this belief comes from you need to think about when else you have felt this way.

This can be done by going back to your very first memory of that root feeling. It might be really easy, it could be a case of thinking, "Oh yes, I will never forget the time when I left my shoes at the park and my dad yelled at me and made me walk all the way back there in the dark, telling me I wasn't allowed home until I found them. I spent hours looking for them, but they weren't there. I sat on the letterbox and I cried until my brother came out to get me. Dad didn't talk to me for a week. I felt like he could never love me again". When it is something so obviously traumatic it can be a simple task to recognise where the feeling came from, but sometimes it is much more subtle. It could be that your belief comes from more than one event, but a number of small incidences that you have tied together to create a picture. A hurtful word here and there, being ignored by a busy, stressed parent or even modelling your parent’s negative belief systems. This is where hypnosis can really help put the pieces together.

Finally, once you have recognised the belief and found the source you can begin the healing process. As I mentioned before you can't just think your way out of it. If you try to just stick a positive thought over the top it is like sticking a bandaid over a festering wound. You won't be able to see it anymore, but you sure will be able to feel it and it will just get worse. Healing the belief requires healing that initial wound and you are most likely going to need help with that. Again, hypnosis is a brilliant tool for this. It allows you you to be guided back to the time of the injury and give yourself what you needed at that time to be ok rather than what you got. Kinesiology can also be an amazing medium for this sort of healing, especially in conjunction with some more active forms of emotional healing.

So before you go and buy your next self help book, have a look at which core beliefs have been stopping you from achieving success and move into that group of people guaranteed to win out of it.

* http://themindunleashed.org/2014/01/scientists-found-memories-may-passed-generations-dna.html

n=1 Experimentation

n=1 Experimentation

Claire - June 12, 2014 

In science, we talk about evidence-based research and often the studies involving the most number of subjects “n”, get the greatest kudos. But it’s not always that easy! As an individual, we need to determine what works for us and sometimes we don’t fit the “norm”. In every study, there are always the ‘outliers’, the one’s who just don’t fit the mould (and effectively get discarded from the study). Perhaps you are an outlier? Perhaps more like the ‘norm’? But you’ll never know if you don’t give something a go! Health, diet and wellbeing is one of the biggest minefields in this regard. We are not machines, robots or computers – we are far more complex than those things. You have to become your own greatest and most important experiment.

I think one of the biggest misunderstandings about health and wellbeing is the idea that there is one perfect way to eat that will cure all that ails you and put you into the “superhuman” health category. It is an idea that is often touted by raw foodists, paleo gurus, juice fasters, diet experts and weight loss companies. The selling of the next miracle diet is worth billions of dollars in Australia alone and yet as a nation, we are continuing to get unhealthier and fatter every year. So why is it that every one of these lifestyles and diets have poster children that they hold up as proof to being the shining light in our obesity epidemic, yet all are so different?

There is no “one size fits all” diet. There is no ultimate way to eat that trumps all the rest. We are more than what we eat. We can talk up macronutrient content, OCRAA scores, inflammatory index, calorie count and countless other ways to quantify the value of food, but it is almost all based speculative and often dubious science. That is not to say that all food advice is wrong, but the fact is it only gives us some of the picture. The human being is an incredibly complex creature and no two of us are the same. Why we are so different is more than what foods pass our lips.

The guts of the problem.

One of the reasons we respond differently to different foods is that we are not a single organism, but a complex ecosystem and the number of cells that are “us” is only about 10% of that ecosystem. The rest are bacteria and fungus as well as some viruses (which aren’t even cells). These inhabit our skin, mouth, GI tract and genitals and in most cases are imperative to our healthy existence.

The make up of this flora can be vastly different even among super-healthy people. Actually, we see much less variance of “flora” among the seriously unhealthy sectors of our community. It’s a delicate balance. Even high levels one single “healthy” strain will cause health issues, as will very low numbers of “bad” bacteria (E.coli is a perfect example – we actually need some E.coli in our bowels to be healthy). Each strain has different nutrition needs and alters the absorption of different nutrients form our food and into our bodies. As all of us tend to have gut populations as unique as our finger prints and as such our nutritional requirements vary wildly.

You are what you … believe.

The fact that there is such a thing as the placebo effect shows you how powerful our brains are when it comes to altering our body chemistry. This works not only for medications, but for diet, lifestyle, ethical and even spiritual choices. A good example of this is prescribing a full paleo or Western A. Price-type diet to an ethical vegetarian, someone who vehemently believes in animal rights and their right to live is as valid as ours. Even though chemically it might be the perfect diet for them and their gut flora, they would not get any healthier but rather, probably get sicker as a result. The stress hormones released every time they sat down to a meal would be sky high. This can alter both absorption into the blood stream and the way the cells themselves use the nutrients in the food and not in a good way. If you don’t believe that you are doing good to yourself with your diet, you probably aren’t.

How you eat and with whom can mean more that what you eat.

Do you sit down with the family of a night time, share a meal and discuss your day? Or do you plant yourself in front of the TV or computer with a bowl and a fork and tune out? Like our belief systems, what we are doing while we are eating has an effect on how we use that food. When eating is a pleasant bonding experience we produce amazing feel good hormones, like oxytocin and seretonin. These aid in the process of using the nutrients to build and repair rather than just being stored as excess fat. It even directs stores of ready-energy to be made in structural muscles rather than around our vital organs as life-endangering fat. Eating the most nutrient dense meal in the world while playing World of Warcraft or watching the news on TV maybe more detrimental to your health than eating takeaway with a couple of your best friends down at the park while you chat and laugh.

 Tips for trying a new way of eating:

There are a number of other factors that can influence how well your chosen way of eating works for you. The best way to find out what your body needs and responds to is to experiment with yourself. (n=1)

1.  Look at various lifestyle plans, read the philosophy/biochemistry behind them, ask yourself if any concepts sit congruently with your beliefs.

2.  Ask yourself if your beliefs around food, diet and eating are truly serving you.

3.  Be aware that not all initial symptoms are a sign of it being “not for you”, but could be a part of the healing process. (reducing Candia growth, for example, can leave you feeling like you have gastro for a few days as those little yeasty buggers die off!)

4.  Give your body time to adapt, very few people feel amazing straight away, it can take days, weeks and even months in some cases for changes to begin.

5.  Don’t be dogmatic, feel free to mix things up a bit, there is no diet that you need to stick to by the letter.

6.  Remember it is not always about what you eat, be mindful of how you feel and what you are doing when you eat.

7.  Finally, whichever eating plan you chose, make sure it is one high in actual food, not something that has been created in a lab.

Have fun experimenting.