Keep Your Brain Healthy

Want to know how to keep your brain functioning at it's highest and best level? I think we all want to go here. If you have had a relative or known someone who suffered from Alzheimer's Disease, then you have probably already wondered how you can keep your brain functioning at it's best.

I believe there are 5 things you can do to keep you brain functioning at it's very best. The first thing is to eat well. I have written a few things about brain foods. If you look in the key word list on this blog under Brain Food, you will find them. One of the things that I have found to be most helpful in clearing my thinking is to actually cleanse the body which in turn cleans out the bad chemicals from the brain as well. I just recently did a series on cleansing, but if you are interested in cleansing the mind, respond to this post and I will send you more information.

Just some simple basics that clog up your brain are things like sugar and flour. Better to look to foods with natural sugars and whole grains or nuts. Researchers describe brain food diets as those that include fruits, vegetables, nuts, beans, fish and poultry.

There are some specific foods which help the brain. Berries, especially blueberries improve short term memory, help clear arteries and improve blood flow to the brain.

More on brain foods tomorrow.

Lastly, Detoxifying the Skin

The skin is the last organ I'll talk about cleansing. I'm not talking about soap and water here, although that is important as well. The skin has to be able to breathe in order to cleanse itself. If you are applying oils, the skin's pores become clogged and it is not able to breathe. The first thing to do is to stop applying creams or lotions which contain oils. Oil is not what lubricates the skin. What lubricates the skin is water. The skin should be kept moist and supple with creams or lotions that are water based.

Also look at the cream or lotion that you are using. Does it contain alcohol? There are actually some good alcohols and there are bad alcohols. The molecular weight of the alcohol will determine if it is a drying or moisturizing alcohol. Cetyl and stearyl alcohol both are of a molecular weight such that they actually attract water. If you cream just says alcohol or ethyl alcohol, then it will be more drying than moisturizing.

Eating fruits and vegetables will also help cleanse the skin. The antioxidants in fruits and vegetables as well as supplements actually end up coming out through the skin. This will help remove toxins that have built up in the skin.

Of course bathing is important. Use care with the types of soaps and cleansers that you use on the skin. Again, soaps can be drying which can inhibit the skin from functioning normally. I talked a little about this previously.

Lung Cleansing

We might not think about cleansing the lungs, but they too need to get rid of as much toxic waste that builds up there as well. You probably know what the next thing is that I'm going to say. If you are a smoker, you deserve to stop and help your lungs to cleanse. If you live or work with a smoker who smokes around you, you deserve to get away. Second hand smoke is as bad as smoking. The free radical damage from just one cigarette is astronomical.

Whether you are a smoker or not, there are ways to help cleanse the lungs. If you live in the city, this is more difficult, because cities are rife with air polution and other toxic chemicals. Finding the cleanest air that you can in your environment and taking several deeps breaths will help you remove polutants from the lungs. This will not take a great deal of time, but you need to take a few minutes and really concentrate on breathing deep and exhaling just as deeply. If you can get into an environment where there is less or no polution that is even better.

Liver Cleansing

The other major filtering organ is the liver. The liver's sole job is to remove wastes and toxins from the blood. Cleansing the liver should be done to remove the excess wastes and toxins that build up there, but it should be done with supervision. You should have guidance as you go through this process.

There are some things that you can do to help the liver detoxify. First and foremost is eating a diet that is rich with fruits and vegetables - raw is better than cooked. Secondly, you should be aware of the types of fats you're putting into your system. I know I have spoken about this before, but one of the things that really gums up the liver is hydrogenated fats/oils. Get rid of the margarine. Use the olive oil and vegetable spreads that do not contain hydrogenated fats/oils. This means any hydrogenated fats/oils, even the partially hydrogenated ones.

Since I do recommend that you have guidance with this process, contact me via the blog if you are interested in detoxifying your liver.

Cleansing the Kidney

Since the kidneys are the other way in which you get rid of wastes and toxins, it makes sense that you would want to cleanse them at the same time that you're cleansing the bowel. Cleansing the kidneys is pretty easy.

Since the kidneys are a filtering unit, the best way to help clean them out is to drink lots of water. I've already spoken about water in the September of 08, and in the dieting tips #6. I do in fact mean water here and not coffee, tea, sodas, juices or other liquids.

Our bodies are 50% water, so the minimum amount of water you should be drinking each day is to take your weight, divide by 2 and that's how many ounces of water you should be drinking. Here's an example: if you weight 160 pounds, divide by 2 you get 80 - 80 ounces of water is the minimum you should be drinking.

Now if you want to cleanse the kidneys, you will need to drink more than the minimum amount of water. Also keep in mind if you are doing heavy physical activity or exercise, you will need even more water to not only replace what you are losing with activity/exercise but to cleanse the kidney. If you don't replace what you're losing, the kidneys are challenged with more toxins to filter out with less volume. Think of the kidney's as a sifter. The more water through the sifter, the easier it is to filter out the particles. If the particles become too big, they clog up the tiny filtering units in the kidney.

What to Cleanse and How

There are multiple areas of the body that you will want to cleanse. I'm going to write about 5 areas over the next 5 days.

The first area and a good place to start is the colon. If you eat foods that contain toxins (most of what we eat today does contain toxins), you will definitely want to start here. Now think about the fact that if the food you are eating is not moving very fast through the intestine, your body will have lots of time to absorb those toxins. The goal then is to speed things up such that you are having at least one bowel movement per day. If you are someone who only has a bowel movement every 2-3 days, your body is absorbing lots of toxins in the colon.

So how do you cleanse the colon? I'm not talking about enemas here. The first and best way for you to begin to cleanse the colon is by eating at least 8-10 servings of fruits and vegetables each day. Organics are best because they have less chemicals used in growing and processing them. Learn to love your fruits and vegetables and your body will love you back by being healthy.

Whole grains also help in moving wastes through the intestine, so be sure to include them with your fruits and vegetables.

You can also utilize some supplements if need be, but I highly recommend you go with the natural way which is fruits, vegetables and whole grains. That being said, some of the supplements you can use to help cleanse the colon are psyllium husks or seeds and flax seeds. If you are wondering about an herbal product, respond to the blog and I will give you more information about the safe usage.

Benefit #4 of Cleansing

Toxins are things like free radicals. Free radicals can cause damage in the DNA structure of our cells which results in permanent damage. While we might not even be aware of the damage to the cell structure, over time this is one of the leading causes of aging. So detoxing or cleansing can help you get rid of free radicals as well as help your immune system repair those DNA structures that it can repair.

In addition, toxins cause the cells of the body to be stressed. The more stressed the cells, the faster the aging process. So removing toxins from the body can assist you in slowing that agin process.

Cleansing can help you get rid of free radicals and other toxins that stress the body, thereby allowing you live a longer healthier life.

Benefit #3 of Cleansing

Restoring all of the systems within the body so that they can function in harmony together as they were meant to is a huge benefit of cleansing. When certain organs or organ systems within our body become toxic, it is hard for them to function in coordination with the other organs and systems within the body.

An example of what happens when our bodies become toxic is the more processed foods that we eat, the more chemicals and other toxins - like hydrogenated oils - that we consume, the harder it is for our liver to detoxify and rid the body of toxins. What happens, it begins to deposit the toxins in fat stores, we gain weight, - as we gain weight, our endocrine system especially the pancreas begins to become over taxed with the demand for insulin and the toxins develop an resistance to insulin attaching on the receptor site so that glucose can move into the cell out of the blood stream. We end up with diabetes, and potentially all of the complications of diabetes. Our bodies become sick.

Cleansing can help you remove the toxins from organs such as the liver so that you can live a healthier life. While cleansing helps, I have to say, the other thing you should be doing is watching what it is that you put into your body.

Benefit #2 of Cleansing

The burden of toxins on the body come out in physical complaints such as stiffness or pain in joints, allergies, headaches, depression, fatigue, and digestive problems to name a few. The more we overload the system with toxins, the more problems that will arise.

Cleansing can help you decrease the load of toxins and make you feel much better in the process. The first time that I did a cleanse, I was having some pretty severe foot and ankle stiffness and pain. After a 2 day cleanse, the stiffness and pain was almost completely gone. I became an instant believer in cleansing. Subsequently I have found other benefits, but this really speaks to this particular benefit.

Most illnesses occur because of toxic overload on the system. These toxins are in the foods that we eat, the air we breathe and the water that we drink and bathe in.

Benefit #1 of Cleansing

One of the biggest benefits to cleansing is that it strengthens your immune system. The job of the immune system is to get rid of all of the toxic wastes, viruses, bacteria, and any infectious materials. The problem is that we are assaulted with way more toxins than the body was designed to handle. Therefore the immune system is so busy trying to keep these toxins in check that it is working overtime to do it. The stores of the immune system become depleted and then you become more susceptible to things like colds and flus. Not to mention that if the immune system is really compromised, mutant cells occur which are cancers and are able to take hold because the immune system is not available to kill these mutant cells.

So the bottom line is we need to help out the immune system to help us stay well. Here's a thought you should ponder about all of this. Antibiotics are really not what cures the infection in our body. It is the immune system which has to cure the infection. All the antibiotic does is help control some of the organisms so that the immune system can do its job.

When you cleanse, what you are doing is using something to help the immune system get rid of the build up without you adding any more into the mix.

Detoxification

When I talk about detoxification, I am speaking about detoxifying the body but not about detoxifying from alcohol. Although alcohol causes toxicity in the body and we see the end result of drinking alcohol excessively ends with you developing liver disease because the liver becomes so toxic that it can no longer function.

You see a lot out there these days about cleansing and detoxification. And the question you should be asking is, is it safe and do I need to do it. The answer is that it can be safe if done properly and yes you should do it in order to detoxify and cleanse the liver. My first thought when I heard about cleansing was enemas to cleanse the bowel. This is not such a great idea. There are ways to cleanse the liver and other organs involved in detoxification and help you to become healthier.

Over the next few days I'll be talking about the benefits of cleansing and then I will get into how to do it.