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Day: October 20, 2019

Your Regeneration

Understanding the ‘inflammation spectrum’ might be the key to fighting chronic inflammation

4 min read

October 21, 2019 at 12:00AM by CWC Typically when people talk about medical conditions, it’s either in terms of something they do or don’t have: I’m gluten-intolerant. My son has diabetes. My grandmother has Alzheimer’s.  But unlike many other medical diagnoses, inflammation isn’t so black and white. In his new book, The Inflammation Spectrum, functional medicine expert Will Cole, DC, argues that inflammation occurs in degrees—and actually, some inflammation is good. Here, Dr. Cole and How Not To Die author Michael Greger, MD, explain what exactly the inflammation spectrum is, and how to pinpoint what’s causing it in your body. What exactly is the inflammation spectrum? Here’s the thing to understand about inflammation: It’s not inherently bad. “Inflammation is a product of our immune systems and it’s needed to fight viruses and bad bacteria, so that’s the good part,” Dr. Cole says. Dr. Greger adds that inflammation is the trigger for healing to begin. “Think about if you get a splinter,” he says. “The area becomes red and swollen, which is the body’s natural reaction to the irritation and alerts you to take care of the problem.” Without inflammation, Dr. Greger says, the body would be compromised—whether it’s by a splinter, bad bacteria in food, or something else—and the problem would go ignored and cause a major disruption later on. Broadly speaking, there are two types of inflammation. “Short-term, localized, acute inflammation is good, but it’s when it’s high level and chronic that it becomes a problem,” Dr. Greger says. Dr.

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Your Regeneration

This week’s waning quarter moon calls for things to simply fall into place

4 min read

October 20, 2019 at 11:00PM by CWC With the nights growing longer, those of us in the northern hemisphere are forced to adjust to a diminishing duration of sunlight duration with each passing day. And since this week begins with a waning quarter moon, we’re also being asked to adjust to dwindling moonlight. A waning quarter moon happens at the midway point between the full moon and the new moon, and this week’s happens Monday, October 21 at 8:39 a.m. EST. This waning quarter moon is about tying up loose ends—specifically those connected to projects started and intentions set during the new moon at zero degrees of Leo on July 23, 2017. While sometimes, new-moon intentions immediately reveal themselves, often, they need a lot longer to come to fruition. Waning quarter moons sometimes culminate cycles that were set into motion 27 months prior. So, think back to July and August of 2017: What projects did you begin then that are coming into fruition now? Connecting where you are today to where you were during the summer of 2017 can help you see what’s developed in your life during the current lunar-phase family. That’s because intentions set with new moons need time to percolate, gestate, and develop before they blossom in connection with lunar-phase families. So, reflect on what you put into motion during that time that’s coming into culmination now. The water trine from Venus to Neptune combined with the waning quarter moon brings forth a welcome sense of things

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Your Regeneration

Half of millennials have quit their jobs for mental health reasons—here’s what to do if you can’t

6 min read

October 20, 2019 at 08:00PM by CWC Recently Harvard Business Review reported on a new survey stating that half of all millennials—and 75 percent of Gen Z—have quit a job for reasons related to mental health. This may make the under-35 set seem flippant: “Ugh, I’m sick of my job. Guess I’ll just quit!” I know first-hand that this is not the case. When I was 25, I quit my job after a 18 months of fighting an overwhelming wave of depression every day, from the time my alarm clock went off in the morning until the workday ended. I am not a risk-taker by nature. I didn’t have dreams of working for myself, and the thought of not having a steady paycheck terrified me. I certainly didn’t have a savings enough to pay my four-figure monthly New York City rent while I figured out my next move. At the same time, I spent each day completely unhappy and each night applying for new jobs. One night as I was on the phone crying to my mom, she told me I should just quit. “Being this unhappy for $35,000 a year is not worth it,” she told me. “You’re young, don’t have any kids, and all you have to worry about is yourself. This is the time in your life to take chances.” So, I did. My mental health improved literally immediately after I put my two weeks in. And before my last day even happened, new career opportunities started

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Vegetarians Your Regeneration

3 healthy eating habits from the longest living people in the world

3 min read

October 20, 2019 at 04:00PM by CWC You could say that folks who live in Blue Zones are winning at life. It’s not unusual for some residents of Okinawa, Japan; Sardinia, Italy; Nicoya, Costa Rica; and Icaria, Greece, to live upwards of 100 years. And while it’s their holistically-minded lifestyle that accounts for their centenarian reputation, their diets are a major, major part of that. The Longevity Plan author John Day, MD, has lived among various Blue Zone populations, and he says that their “keep it simple” approach to nutrition accounts for why they thrive. “The key to healthy eating is really quite simple,” says Dr. Day. “As I counsel my cardiac patients every day, if they can just do three things, then they are 90 percent of the way to a healthy diet and a healthy weight.” No surprise here: those three things happen to appear in the Blue Zones nutritional guidelines. Below, Dr. Day breaks down the trifecta of food tenets straight from the happiest, healthiest people inhabiting this planet called Earth. 3 healthy eating habits of Blue Zone lifestyle-gurus 1. Minimize added sugar intake “There is absolutely no health benefit from eating added sugars,” says Dr. Day. “Added sugars only dramatically increase your risk of obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.” Not to add insult to injury, but the sweet stuff’s also not great for your gut or your anxiety levels, so try your best to stick with no more than 25 grams of added sugars per day.

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Your Regeneration

Yep, you can lift too light—here’s what you need to know

3 min read

October 20, 2019 at 02:00PM by CWC I pick the dumbbells I work out with pretty much the same way I pick my lunch everyday: I go by whatever I’m in the mood for. Some days I like to go all-out, picking the heaviest weights that I can handle whenever I feel strong. Others? The lighter, the better. There is such a thing as lifting too light, though, which can affect just how beneficial your overall workout is. “If you aren’t lifting heavy enough weights, your results—AKA your muscle strength and growth—will be suboptimal,” says Brad Schoenfeld PhD, associate professor of exercise science at Lehman College in New York. In his research, he actually found that lifting at 20 percent of one repetition maximum (the highest amount of weight you can lift for one rep) produced not-so-great muscle growth when compared to lifting 40 percent and above. “Lighter load training in general, which is less than 70 percent of your one-rep maximum, produces lower increases in strength compared to heavier loads.” That said, if you’re working with a light load and want to see results, you’ve gotta up the reps. Chief running officer of Run-Fit Jason Karp, PhD echoes this idea, stating that getting stronger is all about pushing yourself. “To improve muscular strength, the intensity of your workouts must be high,” he says. “You have to work at the maximum or near maximum ability of your muscles to produce force, and that can happen only if your muscles contract

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