Two Books that changed my life

 So let's start like this.

If you read this blog there is a very good chance that you can see that I am no professional writer.

I have been playing with writing and blogging on and off for over ten years now, but never got around to really taking it seriously.

Well, now there is a topic to get into.

Anyway, the two books are:

The Five AM Club

Happy money

So the reason I started with the I am not sure about how well I can write was because I don't even have the author's names at this moment.

Not very professional.

The five am club is a great read and here is the biggest piece of advice I can give to anyone who would really like to take this book seriously.

The whole point of the book can be summarized into one line that is repeated throughout.

It's own your morning change your world.

haha, this was soo funny because I wrote this over a year ago and never posted it.

Until today I actually cared about how things look on this Blog and then I would wait to post something, well to hell with that.

I feel blogging started out as online journaling and then became a business must like every business needs to have a blog to give it a personal touch, or is that now an Instagram account?

What We Really Know About Antioxidants

 

At first I was going to call this post the truth about Antioxidants but we don't know what the truth is.

There is a lot of research but nothing that is 100% the truth.

I actually think that this is something very true about medicine in general.

Ok actually I take that back.

To more accurately explain what I am trying to say, a very large part of what we can say about medicine is hypothesis.

Let me just stop right there because that in itself is an entire book in my opinion.

But the story of Antioxidants is just one great example of this.

The bottom line is that we don't need to take Antioxidants. What we do need is balance and in some situations we may be able to create the needed balance by taking antioxidants.

The real question is not if you should take Antioxidants or not, but which antioxidants should you take when.

A healthy diet should always include a large amount of fresh fruits and vegetables. This should give the regular person a sufficient amount of antioxidants. But if you read this article, you will start to understand that at certain times we can increase our consumption of certain antioxidants for a specific result.

But on the other hand high levels of antioxidants can cause an unwanted effect on the body.

Here is a longer more in detail article stating clinical trials showing how not all antioxidants are the same. 

Knowing which antioxidants can be helpful for an individuals specific health goals is definitely something that I am going to be doing more extensive research on in the future.

Here are the links to the two articles I referred to above.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphar.2016.00024/full

https://www.teamusa.org/USA-Triathlon/News/Blogs/Fuel-Station/2019/January/14/The-Truth-About-Antioxidants

Red Onions Vs White Onions

 

And now we are going to talk about flavonoids.

But first just a bit about onions in general.

I feel like onions are like garlic just bigger and juicer. But that's not really true. Onions and garlic have a completely different chemical makeup. 

But they are both super healthy foods when eaten raw, I know that a lot of people hate to hear that one because they are so tasty when they are cooked. Even tastier when fried, yum.

The problem is that when you cook them you lose those healthy flavonoids, that's what gives them that strong flavor.

Onions, red and white, as well as garlic are rich in vitamins, minerals and flavonoids. But red onions have an extra type of flavonoids called anthocyanins. These bad boys are a powerful plant pigment that may be helpful in fighting off some nasty diseases like heart disease and diabetes.

This is not fully proven but there is research to support the statement.

Here is just one example.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1082903/

Here is a short part of the article linked above.

"Research over the past decade has produced incontrovertible evidence for a vast array of health benefits arising from the consumption of fruits and vegetables. In an endeavor to identify the active health-promoting ingredients, many researchers have focused on the properties of the flavonoids, a large class of phenolic compounds that is abundant in such foods. Most prominent among the flavonoids are the anthocyanins—universal plant colorants responsible for the red, purple, and blue hues evident in many fruits, vegetables, cereal grains, and flowers. Represented by over 600 molecular structures as identified to date, anthocyanins are of particular interest to the food colorant industry due to their ability to impart vibrant colours to the product. Now it seems highly likely that they also enhance the health-promoting qualities of foods."

So in short the difference between red and white onions is the anthocyanins.

And in that little cut and paste I did there I also explained about the flavonoids, well they explained it for me. 

 

Peacefully Accenting - A Bit About Adaptogens

 

Many times change in our lives is met with difficulty, even when it is a good change.

Herbs which are considered Adaptogens help us to deal with the stress of such changes.

ASTRAGALUS is one such herb

But I think that there is a secret to easily move up the ladder of life, and this could be the financial, social or even spiritual ladder, without the difficulty of dealing with the change. Because let's face it moving up any of those ladders in itself is hard, why should we be having a hard time when we have actually achieved our goal and get to the next level.

I think the idea of a ladder is great because how you land on the next step or rung depends on how you left the one before it.

When we are trying to further ourselves in any field of life we seem to grow unhappy and perhaps even resentful of our current position.

This may just be my experience but I believe that most people go through this at some level.

The fine balance lies in the ability to be able to really appreciate where you are now while staying motivated to work toward a positive change. This is because just being happy about where you are has the chance of leading to stagnation.

But if you leave your current level with a feeling of unhappiness, that unhappiness can follow you to the next stage in the game in the form of stress.

So how can Adaptogens help?

Well in the end you are going to have to find a way to be happy with where you are now to be really happy with where you want to be, that's just the way it is in my humble opinion.

There are no major plants that are going to do that for you.

But herbal Adaptogens help to keep us in the peak state so that we can get the most done and in the best way. 

Here is a link to an article on healthline.com that I felt explained that even better.

https://www.healthline.com/health/adaptogenic-herbs#takeaway

The Citron Fruit Health Benefits And My Random Thoughts

Today is the eve of the sukkot holidays and I actually have time to write and research a bit.

And of course to let my mind do it's own crazy rounds like it always does.

So the Citron Fruit is one of the four species that we Jews have a tradition to shake around.

So what was actually very interesting to read was that the Citron is one of the three original citrus fruits that all the rest of citrus fruits are just a combination of these original three.

And once again it is all about the three.

Ok before I go on with my own random thoughts.

Yes the Citron has lots of vitamin C and tons of bioflavonoids, I bet you are not surprised to hear that it strengthens the immune system not too different from the lemon or the orange just one of the original three.

It's crazy about three.

In Jewish mysticism you have the first three highest spheres that everything comes from.

At least all of creation, there are some even above these three but that is just other worldly stuff.

The Greeks had their three big gods.

Christianity has the holy trilogy.

And although I couldn't find the big three in the Muslim faith I'm sure it's there. Anyway the Muslim faith is the third of the Abrahamic religions.

So I didn't get to finish this before the holiday started, but lucky for me it's a long one, eight days.

The number eight has its own significance, not gonna get into that here though.

The fundamental idea behind monotheism, which is also the foundation of the three Abrahamic religions, is the same as that of holistic philosophy.

This is also the fundamental idea behind holistic medicine.

As a believer I try my best to look at the world as one entity.

The high holidays as well as sukkot are a time when we have a chance to connect with this on an even higher level.

May we all have the good fortune in these trying times to bring this down to our day to day lives on even a higher level than before.

Olive Leaf Extract - Health Benefits

Olive Leaf Extract - Health Benefits

gastroprotective (protects digestive system)

neuroprotective (protects central nervous system)

antimicrobial (inhibits microorganism growth)

anticancer (reduces risk of cancer)

anti-inflammatory (reduces risk of inflammation)

antinociceptive (reduces pain stimuli)

antioxidant (prevents oxidation or cell damage)

I was trying to think of herbal remedies that people don't hear about very often and I came up with the olive leaf. 

Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that it is almost the olive harvest here in the middle east, but I can't say for certain. 

All though the olives on the tree right in front of my house are looking nice and juicy, just about ready to be picked.

Last year was actually the first time that I actually pickled some, they came out pretty good, but this year they are going to be even better because I got some really good tips from friends on how to do it better. 

Yes back to the olive leaf.

A bunch of years ago I made an alcohol extract for my mother to help her with her sugar levels. 

Just for your general knowledge olive leaf extract is made using 90% alcohol. 

The extract that I had made for my mother back then was able to keep her blood sugar balanced for a while and the effects were very noticable in her blood work.

The list of health benefits that I have written at the top of this post is from a post that i read in healthline.com here is the link if you would like to go through it yourself. 

https://www.healthline.com/health/olive-leaf-extract

After reading an additional article I find the research pointing to the effects of olive leaf on heart health, inflammation, blood sugar levels and antimicrobials has the most amount of scientific backing. 

But it is very important to realise that the other health claims for olive leaf are very likely true as well just that there have not been documented clinical research done on them. 

 

Herbs That Help Stop Bleeding

Herbs that help stop bleeding are also known as astringents.

The way that they work is they cause a tightening of the tissue.

Many well known astringents are also referred to as warrior herbs because those wounded in battle knew which herbs that grew wild could help to stop the bleeding.

The four that are mentioned in the picture at the top are just a few of very many herbs that can be used to stop bleeding.

Lavender oil is a great fix for small cuts and burns and is also soothing.

Aloe Vera sap can be used fresh.

And chamomile and yarrow can be made into a poultice, wrapped in a clean cloth and applied directly to the skin.