Columns :
Radiant Health - Angelika Christie
Birthing Gently Into the New World Age - Jan 5, 2010 - 11:29:10 PM
Is
there anybody who has not yet heard about the significance of 2012?
What
is it? What is fact, what is fiction?
Without
a doubt, the world is changing rapidly. The very survival of our species may be
at risk if we ignore the present signs and those of the past.
Some
of the signs are: global warming, increasing violence and fear, economical
hardship, collapse of the financial systems, rapid depletion of our natural
food and energy resources... and the list goes on...
Columns :
Radiant Health - Angelika Christie
The Law of Your Life - Dec 7, 2009 - 9:16:56 AM
This may sound like a heavy title. You
see I really want your attention here. I will wrap up my one year of
writing articles for you that (hopefully) helped you in some ways, or
at least induced a reaction of agreement, disagreement or stimulation
to think for yourself.
Today I want to talk about
the law of life; your life as much as mine and everybody else’s. You
may think “Oh I know, it is about balance and taking the golden middle
path in life”. Yes, but the law of life is much more precise than
that. You see, the law of life is not like the man-made laws that change
from country to country and throughout time.
The law of life is universal and systemic.
It is mathematics and physics and applies whether you believe in it,
or not...
Columns :
Radiant Health - Angelika Christie
What else relieves stress? - Nov 26, 2009 - 10:36:26 PM
In two of my recent articles I shed some light
on how your brain’s chemicals affect your mood.
Maybe that was an eye opener, explaining
your “run away train” brain that had you like a puppet; out of control.
If you were able to balance your Gaba, Melatonin, Tryptophane, and Serotonin,
you should feel some relief. But, like so often, it may not be the total
solution to your problems. So, what else relieves stress and anxiety?
Of course your mind has a powerful role in how you feel, and I will
go much deeper into that in a future article. What you may not know
is that what you eat has a strong effect on your physical and mental,
even your emotional, well being. How?
Columns :
Radiant Health - Angelika Christie
How your brain affects your personality - Nov 17, 2009 - 12:53:18 PM
In a previous article I told you a bit about
low Gaba and Serotonin levels in your brain, and how such a lack may
throw you into many unpleasant and stressful condition. I received many
calls and visits after that article. So many of you could identify with
the conditions of low Gaba and low Serotonin. Of course there is seldom
just one factor that creates a certain condition; our bodies are complex
and it takes a holistic approach, and sometimes medical for an acute
situation, to bring back synergy and balance.
Today I want to introduce
to you the other two brain chemicals that are important to be balanced.
What I do
not mean by that is that Gaba, Serotonin, Acetylcholine
and Dopamine should be present in equally divided amounts; far from
it. But you do have all four present in your brain. Whichever dominates
gives your personality a certain trait...
Columns :
Radiant Health - Angelika Christie
Tap and breathe away stress! - Nov 10, 2009 - 3:38:44 PM
Tapping your stress away? Yes, and I
am not talking about ‘tap dancing’ here, although that sounds like
fun also and it may work, while you tap-dance (smile). What I am talking
about here is a method called: EFT, which stands for ‘Emotional Freedom
Technique’.
In order to understand why EFT is so
successful in stress relief amongst many other issues like pain relief,
phobias addictions etc., is that it influences the energy flow along
the meridians in your body.
Just imagine a road net
of interstates and highways. Our meridians are like highways, or energy
lines that connect important organs and body systems with each other.
When you feel well, the roads (meridians) are open, which allows the
energy (traffic) to run smoothly along these paths...
Columns :
Radiant Health - Angelika Christie
If you have anxiety and stress... Your brain chemicals may be out of balance - Oct 8, 2009 - 1:02:23 PM
I've previously told you about the
importance of amino acids. The balance of your brain, including your
mood, is dependent on four major amino acids:
Dopamine, Acetylcholine, GABA and Serotonin.
The following is a quick description of these:Dopamine gives your brain the 'firing power'. If your brain produces
enough Dopamine, you feel energized, alert and aware of what is going
on around you.
So let us just say that Dopamine provides you with brainpower. Acetylcholine makes you smarter...
Columns :
Radiant Health - Angelika Christie
What is a Glycemic Index? - Sep 21, 2009 - 10:38:09 AM
Sugar
can be a dangerous legal drug. If you are diabetic or pre-diabetic or your
family has a history of diabetes, you need to take action as soon as possible
in order to reverse or prevent this awful and life threatening disease. The
first call for action is knowing the glycemic index ( GI ) of food in general
and especially of the foods you eat regularly.
So what is a GI? No, it does not stand for
‘GI Joe’, but it measures how quickly the food you eat turn into sugar in your
blood stream. That means that foods with a high GI value turn into blood sugar
very quickly; they create a sugar rush, which spikes your output of insulin
rather suddenly. There is usually a ‘crash’ after the ‘rush’. Have you ever
noticed the energy spike when you eat something sweet? Do you also remember the
sluggishness or fatigue that follows rather quickly afterwards?
Columns :
Radiant Health - Angelika Christie
The sweet kiss of death - Sep 14, 2009 - 3:03:06 AM
Yes, this is what ignored and uncontrolled diabetes is. Recently I saw a TV commercial for a diabetes- testing device. The actor said, and I paraphrase: “When my doctor said I had diabetes, I thought: that’s all it is? And I was relieved”. Well I could not believe what I heard, but it made me aware of the casual approach toward diabetes, which is rampant in the Bahamas. Most people do not want to speak about their cancer, it is scary and may signal a death sentence, yet diabetes seems to be a more casual condition. It is not!
If you have been diagnosed with diabetes and ignore it, you are in a high- risk category (up to 80%)for the following fatal diseases: heart and kidney failure, and stroke. Other debilitating diseases include: retinopathy (which is the shriveling up of tiny blood vessels in your eyes, leading to blindness), neuropathy, which is nerve damage that does not only affect your hands and feet...
Columns :
Radiant Health - Angelika Christie
Good pain and bad pain - Sep 9, 2009 - 3:57:28 PM
You may think that nothing can be ‘good’ about feeling pain. Although I agree that pain never feels good, you should feel blessed that this sensation may alert you to a potentially dangerous situation in your body. People with an impaired nervous system due to advanced type 2 diabetes or a severing of nerves due to an accident or other conditions that cuts off the sensory system in parts of their bodies, can attest to this. So, at times, we do need to feel pain in order to take appropriate actions towards our state of health.
As a rule of thumb: you should be attentive to the signal of pain and investigate its cause. Usually there is a site of inflammation and/or swelling of tissue, although this is not always the case, like in neuropathy. Some damage to nerves can arrive without sensations of pain; sometimes it is a tingling or numbness in your extremities like your feet, legs, arms or fingers...
Columns :
Radiant Health - Angelika Christie
How balanced is your life? - Sep 2, 2009 - 10:11:58 AM
Balance should be a natural state for us, but is it? Do you
sometimes feel that you want to stop the world, even just for a moment, to
catch up? Do you sometimes feel overwhelmed and unable to complete all the
items on your ‘to do list’? Do you sometimes feel that time is speeding up,
giving you less time to do what you were able to do years ago? If you say ‘yes’
to most or all of my questions, welcome, and you are not alone. If you believe
it or not, time is actually speeding up, and yes, we do have more to do, or so
we believe.
There
was a time
when we basically just had your profession, or work, and family. Time
was
naturally balanced between work time and free time to pursue private
interests. Without computers, air travel, instant messaging etc. our
lives would be more focused within our families and communities...
Columns :
Radiant Health - Angelika Christie
What you eat and think may trigger pain - Aug 17, 2009 - 7:02:59 PM
Lingering pain and low- grade inflammation are two of the
most common health complaints I hear from my clients. Pain you feel, of course,
but low- grade inflammation is a silent enemy that can slowly destroy your health.
Although I can predict with a high degree of probability that your body is in
some kind of stress from inflammation if you eat a typical North American, or
Bahamian diet, you should insist on a special blood test on your next routine
checkup. The blood test that detects systemic inflammation in your body is
called a “C-reactive protein level test” or CRP for short. When the liver makes
more C-reactive protein than the body can deal with, inflammation occurs
throughout the body.
Columns :
Radiant Health - Angelika Christie
Natural Substitutes for Toxic Ingredients - Aug 2, 2009 - 8:43:37 AM
In my last article I named a few commonly used items with
toxic ingredients that may be hazardous to your health. Today I will give you a
few options to replace these substances with natural alternatives that you can
easily mix yourself or come by. Also, let us not forget your thoughts, which
can be toxic and therefore threatening your well being also.
Let us go through a
typical day and see the different choices you could implement:
You wake up in the morning...what is your first thought? If
it is anything that does not make you smile, immediately replace it with a
thought of gratitude for the miracle of being alive. Every day is filled with
new opportunities; yes there are always opportunities if you are open and
aware! Your next thought could be one of gratitude for all the good things in
your life. If you only think of one or two things...
Columns :
Radiant Health - Angelika Christie
We live in a toxic soup - Jul 29, 2009 - 2:08:00 PM
You have probably slept on a mattress that was bathed in flame retarding
chemicals during manufacture, and still emits small molecules of formaldehyde
gas, which is a proven cancer causing chemical. Getting out of bed, on your way
to the bathroom, you may walk with your bare feet over a synthetic carpet that
was treated with benzene, styrene, or other cancer causing agents. If you don’t
have a carpet, you may walk on tiles that were washed with chlorine or other
chemical household cleaning agent. You absorb these chemicals through the soles
of your feet, where they go directly into your blood stream.
When you reach the bathroom, you probably wash your face with tap water,
which contains chlorine, fluoride, and even traces of pharmaceutical drugs and
herbicides that leached into the ground water. Since your skin is your largest
organ, it absorbs toxins very readily. When you step into the shower, even a
greater amount of these toxic substances are forced into your skin...
Columns :
Radiant Health - Angelika Christie
One more thing about Hormones... - Jul 23, 2009 - 1:51:42 PM
In my last article, "The Truth About Menopause" I told you why I think it is so very
important to balance your hormones. Since I spoke mostly about the female
hormone ‘Estrogen’, I need to speak a little bit more about the other important
female hormone ‘Progesterone’. Sorry guys, this article still addresses mostly
female issues, but if you have a woman in your life you care about, it would be
good for you to know a bit about female health issues too. It does not matter
whether the female is your spouse, girl friend, sister, or mother. In general,
females do not get enough support from males in their lives, which lead to miss
understandings and often make a woman suffer silently. If you show some
interest in your woman’s specific female related health issues, your
communication with her, and a deeper bonding will be almost guaranteed...
Columns :
Radiant Health - Angelika Christie
The Truth About Menopause - Jul 14, 2009 - 10:15:31 AM
You either love it, or hate it, or just suffer bravely
through it, if you are a woman.
All women have to go through menopause; it’s as certain as
‘death and taxes’. The only difference is how a woman experiences menopause.
The word ‘menopause’ is self- explanatory; it means that menstruation stops and
the childbearing years are over.
For some women this
is a true blessing because they don’t have to worry about pregnancies anymore,
but for some it feels like a part of their womanhood is disappearing. This
makes menopause as much of a physical event as a mental and emotional one. Men
usually just look on, either with amusement about the obvious changes in their
partner, or they are scared and irritated because they don’t understand the
‘new woman’ they are now dealing with...
Columns :
Radiant Health - Angelika Christie
Are Mammograms Really Safe? - Jul 6, 2009 - 4:47:18 PM
I often marvel at the incredible progress science has made in many areas of medicine. The unraveling of our DNA and understanding its coding, stem cell research and its mind boggling possibilities to re-grow nerves, tissue, and complex organs, including the entire anti aging research. If we think of aging as an inevitable disease ridden path into our ‘golden years’, I am all for appropriate measures and interventions to prevent this.
There is no reason why we should not live a long life that is energetic, with full capacity of our brain function to not only enjoy every moment consciously, but also be the wise old woman or man as an asset to our family, community and country. I will have a lot to say about this in future articles...
Columns :
Radiant Health - Angelika Christie
Male Menopause? - Jun 29, 2009 - 2:26:25 PM
Is there such a thing? Yes, but it is not called ‘menopause’ because there is no such event as ‘menses’ in a male’s life. A man’s drop in testosterone (the male hormone) is called ‘Andropause’. In my last article I told you a little about the important role of hormones to protect us from disease and support peak performance and wellbeing.
I start with the men today, because the coming weekend we celebrate our men as fathers. When a male has fathered a child, his most important biological purpose has been fulfilled. That does not mean that he then can sit back and be catered to, or go to look for another female to procreate. A father is also the protector and provider for his family. But this is another subject. Let me focus on what most men do not know about their bodies, what actually happens when they get older; their Andropause...
Columns :
Radiant Health - Angelika Christie
Is Aging a Disease? - Jun 10, 2009 - 7:30:18 PM
You bet it is, at least when we speak about the physiological aspects of the aging process. If you are over the age of thirty-five, you may feel that your body, and especially your energy level are not the same as when you were in your teens and twenties. You are still young, but the aging process is well underway since you passed your mid twenties. Shocking? Yes and no.
When we are young we are oblivious to aging; aging is for old people. Depending on your age, ‘old’ is anywhere from the thirties to the eighties, meaning that a teenager finds you ‘old’ in your thirties, just like fifty years old people see old age more in eighty years old people and beyond. It is all perception, but there are actual physiological changes triggering the aging process as early as 20 years into your life...
Columns :
Radiant Health - Angelika Christie
Are you willing to honour your ability? - May 18, 2009 - 4:13:42 PM
These are the third and fourth virtues of nine attributes I promised to explain. I hope you remember the previous ones; they were: Awareness and Choice. IF you have not read my article on Awareness and Choice, call me and you can get a copy. Why is willingness to honour your ability so important? You use it every day; it is what creates your life. You may never have thought about this very important connection. We actually often confuse to two. As a human Being you are fundamentally able.
Of course some restrictions due to specific circumstances, including the limitations of your body are understood, but your ability is much greater than you would believe. An ability can e a natural aptitude that you came to this life equipped with, or it can be an acquired proficiency. Your competence may not be perfect now, but you are able to learn to become competent in almost anything you choose...
Columns :
Radiant Health - Angelika Christie
The Magic of Transformation - Apr 22, 2009 - 11:10:00 AM
Transformation is a big word with an even bigger meaning and is active in many areas of your life. Your physical body is a gigantic ‘transformation device’ by which, in more or less complicated processes, your food gets transformed into energy and building blocks for cell renewal.
But that is not what I want to talk about today. Let us look at transformation from a mental, emotional and spiritual point of view.
Most of us in the Bahamas just celebrated Easter. I practice a personal tradition of fasting on Friday. When the body is not busy digesting food, mental, emotional and spiritual awareness is heightened. On ‘Good Friday’ I spend most of the day in quiet contemplation about the meaning of remembering Christ’s journey from prosecution to crucifixion and glorious resurrection...
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