Preparing Chinese Wolfberries (Goji Berry or Gouqi), Hawthorn Fruit and Chrysanthemum Tea

In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), all foods have Yin and Yang properties.
Yin represents cold and coolness and Yang, heat and warmness. Both Yin and Yang co-exist in our body and they are inter-connected, inter-dependent and complement each other.
The balance of Yin and Yang in our body is integral to our overall health system and is an important part of TCM.
When Yin and Yang are in balance, our body is healthy, relaxed and energetic. When Yin and Yang are imbalanced, it can cause ill-health, discomfort and lethargy.
Balancing Yin and Yang can simply be our lifestyle choices and the foods we eat.
In TCM, cooling foods (Yin) help to clear heat and toxins, while warming foods improve blood circulation and qi (vital energy) in our bodies.

Benefits of Chinese Wolfberries (aka Goji Berry or Gouqi).
Wolfberries are believed to promote youthful looking skin by nourishing Yin, enriches and improve blood circulation, reinforce the liver, invigorate the kidneys, improve visual sharpness and replenish vital essence (Qi).
It is rich in antioxidant and contains more beta-carotene than carrots.
In TCM, it is used to treat many common health problems like diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, fever and age-related eye problems. Also used to improve liver health, cardiovascular protection, cancer prevention and protection of brain cells and skin from UV radiations.

Benefits of Hawthorn Fruit (aka Shanzha).
Known to remove blood stagnation and promotes blood circulation. The herb's sweet and sour taste gives it the potential to nourish Yin. Have been shown to lower cholesterol, combat chest pain and heart problems. Helps in digesting fats and eliminating food indigestion.


Benefits of Chrysanthemum.
Has a cooling nature that provides a mildly cold energy. Is known for treating respiratory problems, high blood pressure and hyperthyroidism. Useful for cooling heat in the liver channel.

To lower blood pressure and/or cholesterol, drink chrysanthemum tea with Hawthorn fruit.
To nourish your kidney and liver and to benefit your eyes, add sweet Chinese wolfberries.


To prepare this 3 in 1 tea, just soak them in a tea pot with hot water for about 1 hour.

Why is bone health so important to your well being?

Bone health is so important to your well being because they are literally the support system of your body. So it's important to keep them healthy and strong. Though weak bones may seem like an old person problem, there's plenty we can do early in life to make sure bones stay healthy later on.
Having strong and dense bones will determine the quality of your skeletal structure, which will directly determine the quality of your appearance, vitality and energy level. And the quality of your active lifestyle. It also allows you to have good posture and move around better.
Bones are living and glowing tissues and always in a state of renewal. So building and maintaining strong and healthy bones are most important.
What then is a strong and healthy bone?
A strong and healthy bone is having a good bone mass (the density of the bones as measured by the amount of calcium they contain).
What is Osteoporosis - This is when the amount of BONE MASS decreases very severely due to calcium deficiency, which causes the bones to become porous, thin, brittle and fragile.
When the blood is short of calcium it will withdraw calcium from the bones, thus reducing the density of calcium in the bones in the long run, causing osteoporosis.

Here are 3 important but simple steps you can take to enhance your bone health and prevent osteoporosis.

1. Eating the right choice of food.
To prevent calcium deficiency, eat daily foods and fruits that are rich in calcium - like green vegetables, kale, broccoli, spinach and cabbage, oranges, limes, lemons, blackberries, persimmons, prunes, papaya, guavas, strawberries, dates and kiwi.
For better absorption in the body, calcium must be accompanied by magnesium, phosphorus and vitamins A, C, D and E.
2. Exercise.
Exercise is vitally important for bone health. Evidence is already overwhelming. The skeleton needs to be under stress so it will get stronger. Weight bearing exercise is beneficial as it put stress on the bones and encourages them to grow and thicken. For weight lifting, making it a daily ritual and at your convenience,  you can work out at home with just a few dumb-bells. Weight lifting exercise also strengthen your muscles as it is attached to the bones.
A few daily routines you can easily achieve, like climbing stairs instead of using the elevator (lift). Doing brisk walking while walking home. All these activities will stimulate bone formation and retain calcium in the bones that are bearing the load.

3. Choosing a more healthy lifestyle.
Try to live a more active lifestyle like playing games, jogging, cycling, brisk walking and aerobic exercises.
Stay away from smoking, because it lowers estrogen levels. Estrogen helps bones to hold calcium and other minerals that make them strong.
Control your drinking as alcohol decrease bone formation and increase bone breakdown.
Cut down on excessive processed and refined sugar intake as sugar raise the acidity of your blood, requiring your body to restore its acid/alkaline balance by breaking down bone tissue to flood the blood with calcium to neutralise the excess acid.
Lastly, try to avoid or control your caffeinated beverages intake, like sodas and soft drinks, coffee and tea. The acids which are present within caffeine are directly responsible for calcium loss.

   

 

Why is pH balance so important to your health?

One of the most important factors in health is the correct balance between acid and alkaline in the body (pH balance). If not, all sorts of health issues and pain ensue.
pH (power of hydrogen) is a measure of the concentration of hydrogen ions in a diluted solution. pH scale runs from 0 to 14. 7.0 pH is neutral. The higher the pH ( more than 7), the more alkaline and while a pH lower than 7 is acidic.
The most important measurement is blood pH which is critical for human health and must be kept at a precise level of around 7.2 on the pH scale.When your blood is too acidic it becomes toxic. And your body has to response to balance the pH level. For good health your body needs to be slightly alkaline with a pH range of 7.35 to 7.45.
When you consume too much acidic foods and beverages your body has to work extremely hard to balance your blood acid-alkaline level. And one of the ways is to pull alkaline minerals from your bones. You will slowly lose bone mass density which will eventually lead to osteoporosis.
Our modern lifestyles are too much on acidic foods; fast and processed foods, soft and soda drinks, meat, dairy,refined sugar, refined flour, processed carbs, booze, cigs, coffee, and it take a heavy toll on our bodies, especially the digestive system, liver, and kidneys.
Inflammation, allergies, arthritis, skin problems, constipation, bowel problems, anxieties, depression, aggression, physical and mental stress, insomnia, fatigue, weight problems, aches, clamps and chronic diseases all love this diet. Acidic foods are not necessary bad as we still need to eat them, but striking a good balance is most important. 80 percent of what you eat should be alkalising foods, with 20 percent acid-forming.
Examples of alkaline diet: Leafy greens, fruits, avocados, ginger, green smoothies and mineral water.
Examples of acidic diet: Animal products, processed carbohydrates like cakes and breads and refined sugar and dressings like ketchup and mayonnaise.

Sleep Deprivation

Just like maintaining a healthy diet and exercising regularly, getting quality deep sleep is essential for your optimum health. Keeping you energetic and also for building your body's immune system against infections and chronic illnesses.

So what then is deep sleep?

To put it simply, deep sleep is a phase when you will be very difficult to be awaken by external factors because of near complete disengagement from the environment.
On average a person should get about 7 to 9 hours of quality sleep daily.
During deep sleep body refreshes and rejuvenates. Kidneys cleanse  blood, organs detox and wounds heal. Cells and muscle tissues repair, replace and build up. Brain relaxes and memory consolidates.

Here's what happens when you are sleep deprived: 

• Weight gain: Our human growth hormone is a profound anabolic (process of tissue building) hormone. It is produced by a small pituitary gland that is located at the base of the skull. Human growth hormone is released in pulses during deep sleep, and any interruption at this stage abruptly stop its release. Growth hormone helps maintain some bodily functions like tissue repair, muscle growth and metabolism (the rate at which our body burns kilojoules for energy). So, lack of sleep slows down your metabolism and makes you gain weight.
• Heatiness: Lack of sleep disrupts regulation of body heat and causes certain illnesses like ; Fever, Constipation, Sore Throat, Pimples and Acnes, Mouth Ulcers and Indigestion.
• Depressed immune system: that will lead to many illnesses like throat infection,cold and flu.
  And long term effect like heart disease.
• Slows down brain function: like alertness, reactive responses and memory loss. People who don't sleep well at night tend to be more forgetful, short temper and irritable than those who sleep soundly.
  And long term effect like dementia.

Here's some tips in getting a good night's sleep:

Research has shown that people who exercise regularly tend to sleep better.
Keeping to a regular sleeping schedule and having a more conducive surroundings to rest does help.
           

How harmful is SUGAR to your body ?

Are you addicted to SUGAR without you even knowing about it ?
And what is the most important fact you should know about SUGAR?
Sugar is neither acidic nor alkaline, meaning it is neutral. But, when it is processed inside your body that it turns acidic. Meaning to say when sugar is broken down in your body it becomes acid as an end product.
Therefore,  SUGAR = ACIDIC

Your body should always maintain a healthy Acid - Alkaline Balance ( pH balance ). Even though your body has a natural way of maintaining pH balance, long term  excessive acidity in your system will put a strain to your body functions.
Even a slight increase in acidity in your body over a prolonged period of time will cause you a variety of health problems. And they are:

• Fatigue
• Accelerated ageing 
• Headache
• Tooth decay
• Obesity
• Decreased HDL and increased LDL
• Type 2 diabetes
• Hypertension
• Heart disease
• Dementia
• Low immune system
• Cancer 
• Damage to liver
• Osteoporosis
• and the list goes on

Excessive sugar intake is the most damaging substance to your body that you can ingest. Your body is not prepared for that. Majority of excess sugar becomes metabolised into body fat - leading to all sorts of debilitating chronic metabolic diseases many people are struggling with :-

• Fructose is almost exclusively metabolised by the liver. Excess fructose is converted to fat and stored in the liver giving rise to a fatty liver and causing fatty liver disease.
• Promotes insulin resistance giving rise to type 2 diabetes.
• Feeds cancer cells allowing cancer to spread faster.
  According to the American Anti-Cancer Institute,"When we consume sugar, we are simultaneously shutting off our defenses while pouring gasoline on the fire that is Cancer."
• Causes brain to work harder to burn off excess sugar for fuel. Long term effect is brain disorders like Alzheimer's disease.
• Excess sugar ends up as fat tissue causing obesity.

Research from some of America's most respected institutions (like Harvard Medical School) now confirm that sugar is a dietary factor that drives most chronic diseases development today.
So, have good control over what you eat and drink. The likes of sodas,sweet desserts, fruit drinks, frozen yogurts, candies,cookies, cakes and ice-creams - all contain great amount of refined sugar.
Glucose or sugar also come from some of the foods that we eat, like bread, pastas, noodles and cereals.

And here are some Tips on best ways to greatly reduce your sugar intake:

• If you are a coffee lover; try to drink coffee with much reduced sugar or best of all, like me, drink without sugar.
• If you love fruit juices; try mixing half your juice with more vegetables like celery, carrot, tomato and cucumber. No doubt fruit juices contain useful minerals, vitamins and fibre, but some fruits are also high in fructose, and fructose is also sugar, so  moderation and exercise  are the key factors.

The natural way to cure headache/migraine.

Do you often get that frequent headache, due to STRESS like being overworked, lack of sleep, irregular sleeping time or anxiety and worries.
Normally most of us would take pain relief drugs for fast relief action. But I would like to stress that all drugs have side effects.
Pain relief drugs for headache that are easily available over the counters do not solve the root of your problem. It is toxic to your body and organs like kidney, liver and eyes. The stronger the drug the more toxic it will be.What your body needs is vitamins B2, B6, B12, and folic acid (B9).
Research has shown that these B vitamins may reduce the severity of headaches. Instead of taking these B vitamins individually, you may like to just take vitamin B complex, as it is easier.
I am writing this also from my personal experience. I used to get frequent headaches until I found out that my body is actually deficient in B complex vitamins. And everyone in my family takes B complex daily, and none of us ever suffers from headaches.
So, the next time you get a headache due to stress, your body is actually crying out for B complex vitamins.

Empowering Your Optimum Health

By the time you are diagnosed with a serious illness, you may already be missing out on the healthy and active life you deserve.
I'm not talking about just staying healthy, but staying healthy through out your whole life. This is what I mean by Optimum Health.
As promised in my earlier blog, I'll talk about Food first.
Do you really know what you are eating? Do you really understand the health benefits and the nutrients that are lacking in your food which your body seriously needs.
Foods eaten are chemically complex. Your body breaks them down into simpler chemical forms called nutrients, which are then absorbed through your intestinal walls and transported by blood to the cells. There they provide the energy and correct building materials to maintain life. These processes are called: Digestion, Absorption and Metabolism.
Food is made up of: Macro-nutrients, Micro-nutrients and Water.

Macro-nutrients are: Protein, Fat and Carbohydrates.
These 3 macro-nutrients give you Energy (measured in Calories) to maintain your life.

Micro-nutrients are: Vitamins, Minerals and Trace Minerals.
They do not provide energy, but are still important for the maintenance of your health and life.

You will suffer malnutrition from lack of macro-nutrients.
You will suffer diseases and poor health from lack of micro-nutrients.
Both are important for the sustenance of life.

Water; More than 50% of your body is composed of water.
Needless to say without water you will suffer from dehydration and death.

My story.
During my younger days I used to get frequent throat infection, about 3 to 6 months interval. Most of the time it was tonsillitis - infection of the tonsil accompanied by swelling and pain in the tonsil.
I was really ignorant back then and my doctor always prescribe antibiotic drugs. This went on for a few years. The prescribed antibiotic drugs got stronger and stronger with each visit to him. Until I started to read up and learn about alternative cure, nutrients and vitamins.
From that day on until today I only rely on high dose of oral vitamin C (chewable or suckle type, putting in your mouth to let it dissolve slowly) and also multi-vitamins to heal my throat infections. And of course lots of mineral water.
As we already know by now, antibiotic drugs when taken kill all bacteria, the bad ones and the good ones.They are not selective. Meaning all the good bacteria in the gut die along with the bad ones. And it takes about 6 months for the gut health to fully recover.
There are a few good brands of oral vitamin C that you can buy at the pharmacy.
You can suck about 500 to 1,000 mg every few hours until your infection is gone.
In my family, none of us take antibiotic drugs and my home is always well stocked with vitamin C.
You should also always take vitamin supplements regularly to maintain optimum health.