Vitamins and Supplements
Those who have worked with me know that I frequently recommend
vitamins, herbs and supplements to keep us healthy and create
balance in our bodies and brain. This is an area I have been interested
in since the 1960’s and have been educating myself ever since. It is
interesting to me that lately pharmaceutical companies have started
to purchase companies that create nutritional products. It stands to be
seen what the effects of this will be.
A few months ago I met representatives of a professional nutritional
supplement company Innate Response (www.innateresponse.com).
This New Hampshire company uses whole foods, some of which they
produce themselves. They use a drying technique that maintains the
metabolically active form of the vitamin. Recently Dr. Andrew Weil, a
long time well respected expert on nutritional health and wellness,
has teamed with Innate Response to create a different type of supplement
that he is soon introducing. (www.drweil.com).
I started using a few of their products over the last 3 months and feel
confident in recommending them to you. They do not sell their products
directly to the public, only through allied practitioners such as myself.
If you want to try their products you may use my name if you are a
current client or have worked with me in the past.
Two products that are especially useful for people with anxiety or just
feel stressed are Adrenal Response and Calm Response. These contain
products known as “adaptogens” which help to strengthen the nervous
system and balance the chemical related to stress reactions.
If you have medical problems or take prescribed medication it is a good
idea to work with a doctor who is into wholistic health and can guide you in
choosing the right supplements for you.
Traumatic Experiences and Sleep
If you have a traumatic experience, do not go to sleep for at least 6 hours
afterwards to reduce the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder.
Researchers from Ben-Gurion University in Israel believe that PTSD could
be worse for people who go to sleep less than 6 hours after an event
because the memories are embedded during sleep. Staying awake may
seem counter-intuitive but it may allow the brain to assimilate the event,
and perhaps make sense of it.
More can be read in Neuropsychopharmacology, 2012: doi: 10.1038/npp.2012.94
Enhanced Natural Sleep
And speaking of sleep, another nutrient, found naturally in milk, advanced
bioactive peptides, are used widely in Europe. It’s been published that they
promote relaxation, help with stress, and support daytime cognition (meaning
no next day hangover). Several studies have shown significant improvement
in time it took to fall asleep and slept more deeply. Perhaps we will see it in
the United States soon.
Recommended Reading
Extinguishing Anxiety: Whole Brain Strategies to Relieve Fear and Stress by
Pittman and Karle. If you like neuroscience and understanding the anxious
brain, you may enjoy this book. Some of the ideas will not be new to those who
have done quite a bit of self-help reading related to anxiety disorders, however,
the writers present research on how using benzodiazepines actually interferes
with learning new behaviors and reactions. This part of the book is quite interesting
and useful for people with severe anxiety reactions and phobias.
Parting Words:
From the Tao Te Ching: Knowing others is intelligence, Knowing yourself is true
wisdom. Mastering others is strength, Mastering yourself is true power.