In the vein of minimizing inflammation and avoiding toxicity and reducing stress/anxiety, we believe these tenets can be helpful to everyone.
1. Sleep. Ideally, go to bed at an early enough time that you awaken in the morning at least 90% of the time in advance of when an alarm would otherwise go off. Avoid impairing sleep by avoiding television, email, smart phones, or other full-spectrum light exposure in the full hour prior to typical bedtime.
2. Check your Vitamin D at least twice a year and keep it ideally in the 40-50 ng/ml zone to keep your immune function strong and balanced.
3. Eat Real Food, not “edible food-like substances” (M. Pollan). At least 90% of the time, choose to eat exclusively foods that your great grandmother could have eaten when she was growing up. Just say “No!” in your typical daily diet to the huge array of chemical flavorings, preservatives, colors, sweeteners, texture agents, hormones, toxins.
4. Find out what food sensitivities you have, and honor them. If you don’t know, then don’t eat gluten. At least not as part of your mainstay 90% diet. Clinical research is discovering more and more each day the increasing variety of gluten sensitivity and the diseases to which it can contribute. Gluten-triggered release of zonulin (and subsequent intestinal permeability) is a key triggering factor in autoimmune disease. Wheat (the most common gluten-containing grain) is very high-glycemic in nature and contributes to insulin resistance. I have had many of my individual clients recover long-term from chronic depression simply by eliminating gluten. It’s just not worth it!
5. Eat as much Organic food as you can find and as much as you can afford. Yes, it’s really that bad. Most pesticides are estrogen mimickers. And we have an exponentially increasing rate of estrogen medicated cancers in both men (prostate) and women (breast/uterine). Where possible, maximize nutrition by purchasing local, fresh produce on which on pesticides have been used (not all small farmers can afford formal organic certification). At a bare minimum, make good use of the Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen shopping priorities revised each year by the Environmental Working Group (www.ewg.org)
6. Play. Seriously. So many of us behave as though there is a large prize at the end of life rewarding us for working as many hours as possible and checking off as many things as we can from our ubiquitous to-do lists. Well, guess what? There’s not! Just perhaps instead some regrets and missed opportunities. Savor life. Laugh. Play. Relax. Have fun. Don’t let your rejuvenating activities end up being an hour or two of mindless TV each night. We were all five years old at one time. Revive what is fun for you now. Allow time for it. Make time for it.
7. Don’t eat typical bottled vegetables oils and transfats, period. The research on both these groups of “foods” is so damning at this point that this does indeed make this top-13 list. I believe moderation is not even a good idea with these foods. Choose only pressed (and preferably cold-pressed) vegetable oils. Look for the phrase “partially hydrogenated” on food labels and if you see it, don’t buy the product. If you eat in restaurants, you will likely be exposed to both of these toxic oils at times (because they are inexpensive), so don’t increase the frequency by using them in your own home.
