How to Make Stress Your Friend

How to Make Stress Your Friend

By Dr. Shayne Morris -adapted from transcripts by

Professor Kelly McGonigal

Stress makes you sick. It increases the risk of everything from the common cold to cardiovascular disease. But while stress has been made into a public health enemy, new research suggests that stress may only be bad for you if you believe that to be the case. Stanford UniversitypsychologistKellyMcGonigal tracked 30,000 adults in the United States for eight years. What she found is that people who experienced a lot of stress in the previous year had a 43 percent increased risk of dying. But that was only true for the people who also believed that stress is harmful for your health. People who experienced a lot of stress but did not view stress as harmful were no more likely to die. In fact, they had the lowest risk of dying of anyone in the study, including people who had relatively little stress.So how do you Change your Belief about stress?Step 1: When you change your mind about stress, you can change your body’s response to stress. Remind yourself that the stress response is helpful for your performance. That pounding heart is preparing you for action. If you’re breathing faster, it’s no problem. It’s getting more oxygen to your brain. Next time your feeling the physical changes from stress, you’re going to think to yourself, this is my body helping me rise to this challenge. And when you view stress in that way, your body believes you, and your stress response becomes healthier.
In a stress test study conducted at Harvard University, participants were taught to rethink their stress response as helpful. When participants viewed their stress response as helpful, their blood vessels stayed relaxed. Their heart was still pounding, but they had a much healthier cardiovascular profile. It actually looked a lot like what happens in moments of joy and courage.

Step 2: Understanding that Stress actually makes you social.
Oxytocin Is a stress hormone. Your pituitary gland pumps this stuff out as part of the stress response. Oxytocin is a neuro-hormone. It fine-tunes your brain’s social instincts. It primes you to do things that strengthen close relationships. Oxytocin makes you crave physical contact with your friends and family. It enhances your empathy. It even makes you more willing to help and support the people you care about. But the key here is that Oxytocin helps heart cells regenerate and heal from any stress induced damage. All physical benefits of oxytocin are enhanced by seeking support AND helping someone else. Human connection is a mechanism for stress resistance.

Step 3: Remember CCR – Caring Creates Resilience.
Find someone to care for. Help your neighbor. Visit people in need. Give someone a Hug. The more you care the more resilient you become.
Another Study that tracked 1,000 adults in the united states found that people who spent time caring for others showed absolutely no stress-related increase in dying. Zero. Caring created resilience.

The harmful effects of stress on your health are not inevitable. How you think and how you act can transform your experience of stress. When you choose to view your stress response as helpful, you create the biology of courage. And when you choose to connect with others under stress, you create resilience.

“Stress gives us access to our hearts. The compassionate heart that finds joy and meaning in connecting with others, and yes, your pounding physical heart, working so hard to give you strength and energy, and when you choose to view stress in this way, you’re not just getting better at stress, you’re actually making a pretty profound statement. You’re saying that you can trust yourself to handle life’s challenges, and you’re remembering that you don’t have to face them alone.” – Kelly McGonigal

Oregano Oil Fights Against Staph Infections And Other Drug-Resistant Bacteria

Staph and MRSA are infections none of us want to have.  These bacteria are dangerous and sometimes even drug resistant. One way to fight these nasty infections from home or when antibiotics stop working is, surprisingly enough,  Oregano Oil.

Oil from the common herb oregano has antiseptic, anti-fungal, anti-inflammatory, anti-parasitic, anti-oxidant, and pain relieving properties. It has been used for hundreds of years for many different health issues. It been successfully used to treat sinusitis, bronchitis, candida yeast infections, E. coli, salmonella,  Staph and MRSA infections. The ancient Greeks even used oregano oil to treat wounds, poisoning, bites and headaches.

“Oil pressed from oregano leaves that contain the active ingredient carvacrol may be an effective treatment against sometimes drug-resistant bacterial infection. Georgetown University researchers have found that oil of oregano appears to reduce infection “as effectively as traditional antibiotics. Oil of oregano at relatively low doses was found to be efficacious against Staphylococcus bacteria (the bacteria responsible for MRSA) and was comparable in its germ-killing properties to antibiotic drugs such as streptomycin, penicillin and vancomycin.” [Science Daily 10/11/2001]

“The antimicrobial strength of oregano oil comes from its natural thymol and carvacrol content. Thymol is a fungicide, antiseptic and can help support the immune system. Carvacrol is a powerful bacteria killer that’s strongly active against Staph and MRSA infections as well as yeasts and molds. A carvacrol content of 70% or more can be strongly therapeutic. However, natural carvacrol content this high is very uncommon and hard to find in most commercial oregano oil products.

Almost all oregano essential oils sold today are too dilute to be of help against MRSA or Staph (they are diluted in a carrier oil or base oil) and they typically contain artificial carvacrol and other unnatural ingredients to reduce their cost. Synthetic chemicals commonly found in essential oils are often cancer-causing, so you definitely want to avoid inferior products!” -[Michelle Moore]

Acid Blocking Medications

The fact that a drug is purchased ‘over the counter’ doesn’t change the fact that it is a drug.  Take, for example, that class of drugs that stop the production of acid in the stomach, widely taken for GERD (acid reflux).  The symptoms of acid reflux include heartburn, wheezing, and tightness or a feeling of food caught in the throat.  The solution is to take just one of those harmless little pills every day, stopping the production of acid in the stomach.  Voila!  No symptoms of acid reflux!  Life is now good, right?

Wrong!  There is actually a very good reason for that acid in your stomach.  Like, digesting food!  Without the acid, the protein you eat can’t be broken down.  The pH has to be very much on the acid side before the valve that lets the food out of the stomach is triggered to open, and without acid the only way that can happen is for the food in your stomach to rot (a process that doesn’t take terribly long at body temperature).  If you can still taste the food you ate for breakfast in a burp before lunch, that food is still sitting in your stomach, rotting away.

Let’s set that part of digestion aside, and look at some of the longer term problems.  Without an acid environment, calcium cannot be broken down or absorbed, no matter what food or supplement you ingest.  You need a certain level of calcium in your blood for muscles, including your heart, to relax, so your body is very good at keeping enough calcium in your blood – it steals it from your bones!.  No calcium in the diet = calcium stolen from the bones = osteoporosis.  Using this class of medication more than one year causes measurable loss of bone density.

Need more?  A recent article in JAMA (The Journal of the American Medical Association) associates long term (2 years) use of proton pump inhibitors (like Prilosec, Prevacid and Nexium, and their generic and OTC equivalents) with a 65% increased risk of vitamin B12 deficiency, since the cells that make the stomach acid also make intrinsic factor, a protein that helps vitamin B12 be absorbed.  As you’d expect, the higher the dose of inhibitor, the higher the risk of B12 deficiency.

So, why should we worry about B12 deficiency?  Not enough B12 can lead to some very troubling ailments.  These include anemia, nerve damage, psychiatric problems and dementia, just for starters.  As we age we naturally lose the ability to produce hydrochloric acid and intrinsic factor and to absorb B12 – which means if you are over 50, you should consider B12 supplementation even if you haven’t been on an acid blocker.

How do we get B12 in our diet?  Almost exclusively from animal tissues (vegans beware).  And, unlike most B vitamins, your body stockpiles B12, sometimes enough for 7 years – so a deficiency may not show up for a while.   If you decide to supplement B12, make sure you do so by injection or an oral spray that’s absorbed through your mouth.  B12 is the largest vitamin molecule known and isn’t passively absorbed from the digestive track.  Taking B12 in a pill is simply not effective.

So, you have GERD and knowing all of this, don’t want to take those acid blockers anymore.  While I cannot recommend that you stop taking anything that your medical doctor has prescribed, I can help you stop the acid reflux, so that you and your medical doctor together can decide to reduce or stop that medication.   Call me.  Let’s talk.

MojoFeet – How To

How to Fit Your MojoFeet Prefabs

1. Remove the insole from your current shoes and place it on the bottom of the MojoFeet
2. Trace the insole onto the MojoFeet.
3. Cut the MojoFeet to Size.
4. You may have to trim and shorten the MojoFeet to get it to a perfect fit.

Don’t Be Fooled By Size

The sizing of the MojoFeet is actually best figured out by matching the prefab up to your foot. The big toe should sit where the arch contour ends.

We call this the “heel to ball of foot size” and it can vary greatly from what the shoe size. You should be wearing shoes that flex at this same point (where the big toe flexes). Many times patients are in the wrong shoe size!

How to Mold Your MojoFeet Prefabs

To get a more comfortable fit:

1. WEAR THEM – after a few days they will mold to your feet.
2. HEAT THEM – for a higher level of comfort quicker: Preheat the oven to 200F/90C. DO NOT MICROWAVE. Put your MojoFeet on a baking sheet and bake for 2 minutes. After 2 minutes put them back in your footwear and stand on them right away. Make sure you heels are snug against the back of your shoes and lace them up; stand on your warm and toasty MojoFeet Prefabs for 2 minutes.