Heather's Holistic Healing and Massage

11/25/2023

Enjoy the seasons bounty and get the anti-inflammatory health benefits by eating pomegranates!

11/25/2023

Simple ANTI-INFLAMMATORY STEPS you can do today - 1. Eat more leafy greens, berries, broccoli, avocados, tomatoes, peppers, grapes, mushrooms, and oily fish like salmon and sardines. 2. Use the spices turmeric, garlic, and ginger. 3. Take vitamins A, C, D and zinc 4. Avoid fried food, sugar, white bread, cured meats like hot dogs and salami, refined oils, cupcakes, cookies, alcohol, ci******es, soda, donuts

11/25/2023

Can ma*****na help patients with Parkinson's? -

See the effects of cannabis first hand, unedited, on Parkinson's tremor dyskinesia, and voice. This clip is from the feature documentary "Ride with Larry" a...

11/25/2023

HONOKIOL, found in Magnolia Bark is known for its anxiolytic, analgesic, antidepressant, antithrombotic, antimicrobial, antispasmodic, anti-tumorigenic, and neuroprotective properties

03/31/2022

Heart rate variability
- Could using HRV apps help with your health?

According to a meta study from 37 research studies on heart rate variability and stress:

HRV can measure how flexible your control of the nervous system is

Hormones and nerve regulation are affected by stress
“Continuous perception of threats is harmful to the human body and affects the regulation of hippocampal circuits, endocrine systems, ANS, and others”

Stress can reduce HRV and it’s flexibility
“Reduced HRV and inhibited parasympathetic activation increase vulnerability to future stress.”

“vagus nerve serves as a structural and functional link between the brain and the heart.”

HRV can measure the flexibility and integration of the brain and nervous system connection
“A meta-analysis of HRV neuroimaging studies found a link between HRV and brain regions (e.g., the ventral aspect of the mPFC) associated with reduced threat perception. HRV can measure the degree of functional integration of the axes connecting vmPFC, brainstem and peripheral anatomy and can represent the degree to which it provides flexible control over ANS”

Physical or mental imbalance caused by harmful stimuli can induce stress to maintain homeostasis. During chronic stress, the sympathetic nervous system is hyperactivated, causing physical, psychological, and behavioral abnormalities. At present, there ...

03/09/2022

CHRONIC STRESS:

*Can affect your ability to make new memories

*Increases your perception of danger, making you more fearful in general

*Flood your body with glucose/sugar which can lead to insulin resistance and possible diabetes.

*Increase rates of depression, chronic fatigue syndrome, and skin damage

*Causes loss of dopamine receptors affecting pleasure, focus, cognition, motivation, coordination, decision making, mood, and more

*The high cortisol levels increase desire for high-fat and high-sugar food, resistance to leptin leaving you hungry and overeating, fat deposits in the belly area

"Chronic stress is also hard on your brain. Too much cortisol inhibits
neuron growth in the hippocampus, an area responsible for—among other functions—forming new memories. Chronic stress also increases the size of the amygdala, a part of the brain that controls fear and other emotional responses. An enlarged amygdala can heighten your brain’s perception of danger, creating a state of hypervigilance that only increases the frequency of the stress response, resulting in a damaging feedback loop....the stress response swiftly floods your bloodstream with glucose, after pulling it from its cellular storage sites? And how it temporarily halts glucose storage by insulin? If that happens too often, cells just remember the insulin-resistant part, even after the stress has passed. You’re now at risk of developing diabetes, with sugar building up in your bloodstream, a dangerous condition. Many other unhealthy conditions arise from chronically activating the stress response, including kidney impairment, depression, chronic fatigue syndrome, skin damage, and a loss of dopamine receptors—and hence higher risk for substance abuse—among other maladies. On top of that, while recovering from a stressful event, cortisol stimulates a preference for high-fat, high-sugar “comfort” foods, such as ice cream, pizza, or macaroni and cheese. Researchers say that macaques experience similar cravings for rich food after a stressful event.In the wild, that makes evolutionary sense, as it takes huge reserves of energy to stand your ground and fight or to run for your life. When things calm down, you need to replenish those depleted stores, ideally with high-calorie food. High cortisol levels also throw off appetite regulation, in humans and monkeys, by triggering a resistance to leptin, a hormone that tells you when you’ve had enough to eat. And on goes the weight.
There’s even more. As you recover from the stressor, circulating
cortisol, which hangs around for a while, preferentially deposits fat cells in the gut area. (Stressed macaques also develop potbellies.) This visceral fat lodges itself around organs such as the liver and kidney." (Bohen 2018)
From the book, Twenty Years of Life*

02/28/2022

Major depression has been linked to inflammation.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19122532/

02/23/2022

Did you know that you can reduce anxiety by regulating your intestinal microbiota by adjusting your diet? (Probiotics help also)

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31179435/

02/23/2022

Did you know that your gut flora could be affecting your mood?
Do you know how to help create a healthy gut microbiome?

"A majority of the serotonin in the human body is produced within the gut......the microbiome may affect the induction of depressive or anxious states." (Sjostedt 2021)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8187765/

09/08/2021

Outdoor massage!
Hummingbirds, plants, and the smell of citrus trees.