Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Know the Effects of Coffee

Coffee has proved beneficial for asthma sufferers. Two to four small cups of coffee throughout the day will help to reduce the recurrence of asthma-attacks, and moderate their intensity. Coffee contains natural antioxidants called 'flavonoids' which are widely known as disease protectors. The beneficial effects of moderate caffeine consumption are widely recognized: caffeine works on alertness, mood, sensorial activity and memory. Of course, you may choose to take your daily caffeine ration from other foods and beverages, such as chocolate, carbonated drinks based on coca-nut extract, or tea.

Another benefit of drinking coffee has been studied in China. Their research clinically proved the caffeine in coffee helps to prevent Parkinson’s disease. Many of us have been led to believe that caffeine is bad for us. True enough, large quantities may hurt us, but the evidence is strong for the benefits it provides.

The flavored coffees that are becoming increasingly popular are usually based on bland, mediocre beans that are stirred with chemical flavoring essences after roasting. If these flavored beans are ground at home they will impart their flavors, possibly forever, on to your grinder and brewing apparatus. If you prefer a flavored coffee a better idea is to brew good coffee from unflavored beans and dose it modestly with one or more of the flavoring essences that can be purchased at many gourmet shops.

Coffee also has several metabolic effects that could reduce the risk of gallstone formation. According to a study conducted at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), drinking coffee is associated with a 40 percent lower risk of gallstone disease in men. Men who drank four or more cups of regular coffee per day had a 45 percent lower risk profile.

Similar effects of caffeine have been seen in hypertensive subjects. In trials, caffeine administrated to hypertensive subjects raised systolic blood pressure but this result was no longer observed past the first 24 hours. In testing there were no effects on blood pressure of drinking caffeinated coffee or abstention in patients with borderline or slight hypertension.

These herbal products can help with brain defogging- ginkgo biloba or gota kola while Milk thistle can help the liver with the detoxification process. Be sure to take fiber as the colon will slow down without the stimulation from caffeine. And drinks lots of water. Take your supplements and give your body a chance to make the adjustments. Also look for adaptogenic herbs to support your adrenal glands. Exercise and breath deeply.

Coffee increases heart contractions and slightly increases blood pressure. However, one must bear in mind that continuous doses cause irritability of the coronary nerves, which causes tachycardia and alterations of the heartbeat (arrhythmia). Caffeine, by increasing the level of adrenaline in the blood, predisposes the body to heart attacks.

Drinking lots of coffee can also give you a higher level of homocysteine which can lead to heart disease. An increase in LDL cholesterol or bad cholesterol has also been shown, but its hard to know whether this will lead to a heart attack or not. Cafestol is found in coffee and also thought to increase cholesterol in European brews that boil the beans in water. American coffee made through filtering or percolation is less likely to give this effect.

Cannabis- An amazing drug

Cannabis infatuation, like any added addiction, results in changes in a person's activities. Most of the individual who become addicted to cannabis accept issues of low self-esteem. By smoker cannabis, they feel added audacious and their moods are as well improved. Because of the admirable animosity associated with smoker cannabis, these humans end up absorbed to it.

Becoming cannabis daily consumption can as well be as annihilative as added addictions. If the furnishings of the assemble wears off, the being adventures this uncontrollable appetite to smoke pot anew to attain the deficient feeling. Soon, you will feel like you are clumsy to achieve annihilation if you are not beneath the cannabis' influence. You will activate accepting affection swings, activity virtuous one moment and depressed the next. Aside from these, cannabis addicts as well affectation behavior like dematerialization for hours, lying about area they accept been and burglary money to buy cannabis. Treating cannabis addiction necessitates intrusion. Majority of cases, an ancestors affiliate or a neighboring acquaintance would be the one who will align for the being to go to rehabilitation centers. It is actual hardly that these cannabis addicts would advance to abide treatment. At the rehabilitation center, cannabis addiction is advised thru counseling and medication, if necessary. The abandonment date is the lot of difficult allotment back it is the time if your physique allotment to its accustomed functions.

Inhabitants who accept completed analysis in rehabilitation centers for cannabis addiction are a lot of acceptable to relapsing because their personality illustrates a weakness to the herbal substance. Except the behavior is changed, you can catch a lot of these humans to aces up the cannabis addiction already again as soon as they get out of curing centers.

If you accept an acquaintance that is visibly adequate absorbed to cannabis, you could try hypnotherapy before resorting to rehab centers. There accept been evidences that hypnotherapy is able in alleviative addiction, fears and phobias by targeting the sub consciousness.

Benefits of Wheat Grass

Benefits of wheat grass are many since it contains essential enzymes, vitamins, essential minerals, amino acids and some important flavonoids that the body requires for healthy functioning and for the overall well-being of an individual. Wheat grass is a nutritionally dense food and according to many health experts, probably its juice is the only form of wheat grass the human intestines can digest it. Drinking the juice may yield long term health benefits since it is full of nutrition and other compounds that have unique body healing properties.

Wheat grass helps to restore the alkalinity of the blood and hence can balance the pH. It can also be used to relieve many internal pains, and has been prescribed liberally for treating the peptic ulcers, ulcerative colitis, hardened stools, loose motions and other complaints related to GI tract.

Wheat grass also helps to detoxify dangerous metals from the blood stream. All blood cells take in oxygen and nutrients while giving out toxin waste. If this process is altered serious and irreparable damage can be done to the body. Consumption of wheat grass helps to maintain the alkaline levels of the body and so in turn helps to oxygenate the cells and rid them of their toxic wastes. Wheat grass also helps to keep the liver healthy and functioning smoothly.

Its properties are antibacterial and antiseptic in nature. Wheat grass juice can stop unfriendly bacteria from wreaking havoc on your system. This powerful green super food has been known through the ages as a source of health and well being.

Wheat grass boosts hemoglobin so it keeps the oxygen supply optimum in the blood stream. Therefore, you feel energetic. It is a true energizer and appetite suppressant. Chlorophyll is known to check growth of bacteria by generating an unfavorable environment for bacterial growth. It is also a very good deodorizer. This health product cleanses the lymph node.

Wheat grass, especially its juice houses most of the vitamins and minerals required for human body system maintenance. In other way, wheat grass is a whole meal that has almost all sorts of proteins with approximately 30 enzymes and is about 70 per cent crude chlorophyll. It is also found to be the best source of magnesium, potassium, calcium, sodium, iron, phosphorus, sulfur, cobalt, and zinc.

Another stellar benefit from this super food is that it will make you look and feel younger. You will not only notice the reduction of sagging on your skin. You will also experience a lighter feeling due as a result to its anti-aging benefit.

You use a wheat grass juicer to slowly extract the juice from each blade of wheat grass. A wheat grass juicers acts almost like a press and in comparison to other juicer it extracts the juices at a very slow rate of speed. If you tried to extract juice at a high speed you would actually destroy or damage the nutritional enzymes.

It relieves many internal pains and is used to treat peptic ulcers, ulcerative colitis, constipation, diarrhea, and other complaints of the gastrointestinal tract. It stimulates the thyroid gland, control obesity, indigestion, and a host of other complaints. It stimulates metabolism and the enzyme systems by enriching the blood.

Read about immune system supplement . Also read about wheat grass supplements and boost immune system

Essential oils - Why do we need them

In a society that simplifies everything in order to render life cost-effective we lost something that no big pharmaceutical company can't replace. We lost contact with nature. Nature gives us all the medicine and food we need as long as we are willing to use it. Plants are a great way to balance your health in all aspects: physical, hormonal, mental, emotional, etc. They contain essential substances for a healthy life.
No drugs can replace the beneficial effects of plants.
It would be too complex and too expensive to create the synthetic alternatives and the substitutes might not work. The alternative are the essential oils. Aromatic plants are slowly disappearing from our alimentary habits. We don't drink herbal tea anymore we don't prepare food with a variety of spices. In the past plants used to be our main source of medicines. They were used in our daily diet as tea, spices, jams, alcoholic beverages and they were used as medicines in various forms, (decoct, infusions, inhalation, tinctures, powders, aromatic bags, etc...) A nice walk in a pine forest was a great way to benefit of the strong therapeutic properties of the pine resin through inhalation.
We slowly isolated from nature in big urban agglomerations. It is not possible anymore to live the same lifestyle as our ancestors. This is a fact and is undeniable, at least for now. This is where the drug industry comes and replaces some of the gaps made by this separation from nature. But synthetic substances are covering only part of the new medical problems and usually they only treat illness once installed. What about prevention which is the better medical approach. The answer is to recreate the bond with nature. There are many things we can do to reconnect with nature: make more trips outside the city, take a walk in the nearby park, grow plants in small pots in our apartment, plant trees around the house, consume herbal tea, prepare our meals using raw fresh raw food, diversify our food, use as much as possible organic food, use good quality essential oils at least a few times per week.

What are the essential oils, and why are they important?

Essential oils are plant extracts, (from flowers, roots, seeds, etc) that contain the plant's essence - a substance with high therapeutic potential. Almost all the active substance in the plant is extracted. Essential oils, if used properly, can highly improve our life quality. They are best used as a preventative health measure and they can help in almost all areas: Boost immunity, protect from germs, improve digestion, help to relax, relieve stress and tensions, help focus, relax muscles, improve sleep, balance emotional and hormonal, detoxify our body, etc...
The essential oils are very different from plant to plant and they have different healing properties and it's important to know what these properties are in order to use them properly. Sometimes, if not used properly, essential oil can harm. Some of them are highly volatile and they would disappear in minutes in an open environment, some are more stable. Some essential oils are toxic in higher quantities so you want to make sure you respect the right dosage. For a list of massage oils and their properties visit www.head-massage.net.
The science associated with the use of essential oils is called Aromatherapy and is an Alternative Medicine. Aromatherapy, however is not recognized as a medicine branch in North America. On the other hand in France prescribing essential oils is regulated and Aromatherapy is part of the conventional medicine.

How can we use essential oils?

You can use essential oil in different ways depending on the kind of oil and your preference:

  • Use it on an old Potpourri that lost its scent
  • onto a small piece of cloth while drying your clothes in your drying machine
  • Add a few drops in a spray
  • Put a few drops in water in a potpourri pot or in a micro-diffuser.
  • Add a few drops in a bathtub.
  • Add a few drops in your humidifier.
  • Add a few drops to a base oil like Sweet Almond or Grape-seed oil and massage yourself.
  • Add a few drops to carrier that is very quickly absorbed such as Jojoba oil and massage your head and face. This is very healthy for your skin.
  • Put a few drops of essential oil on the heat filters. Fir or Cinnamon Bark or Eucalyptus would be a good choice for flu prevention.
  • Add 3-5 drops in a in facial steamer or in a bowl of warm water and cover your head and the bowl with a large towel. This is great as a skin care treatment or for inhalation.
  • Add a 3 drops to moistened clay and apply as a facial mask.
  • Use a few drops to a warm water compress and apply to the sore muscles.
  • Cautions have to be taken when you use essential oils. The concentration should be between 1% and 5% depending on the oil. Some oils are highly irritant so never apply directly on the skin or in higher concentration than recommended. Do not ingest essential oils, some of them are toxic. Some aromatic oils increase your sensitivity to the sun so avoid using before going out or to a tanning booth. Do a patch test if you have allergies. Avoid direct inhalation of oils, (from the bottle), as some of them have a very high rate of volatilization and you would inhale too much substance.

    Skin treatment essential oil blend
    Add a few drops of Lemon oil (therapeutic grade) and a little more of Sea-buckthorn oil in a base of a highly absorbed oil such as Jojoba or Grape-seed. Use this combination to massage your face for a healthy skin. You will be amazed by the results obtained in days.

    Sensual Massage blend
    You can make your own sensual massage oil blend. Use 1 oz (30 ml) of Jojoba or Grape-seed oil as your carrier. Add 4 drops of Rose essential oil and 6 drops of Ylang Ylang essential oil. Make sure you use therapeutic grade oils. If you plan a longer massage you can mix in a 50/50% the Jojoba and Grape-seed oils because Jojoba gets absorbed very easy.