How to stay healthy during flu season You’ve done your homework and made the decision that getting a flu shot every year is not for you. Read my article in Alive mag for advice on boosting your immunity to help your body fight off some of the nasty viruses that may come your way ..read more

Some health experts weigh in on strategies to stay calm This is the time to rest. Stress, worry, anxiety - these things are not limited to the mind. They affect the whole body, including the immune system. Stay strong and healthy by taking this time at home to practice self care, catch up on your reading or writing, and just rest if you can. Find activities that are calming and try to incorporate them into each day. For more tips on how to protect your mental health right now, read this article at Alive mag ..read more

Some tips for overcoming digestive upset If you’ve switched to vegan but plants are feeling more like wild animals in your belly, don’t give up! Sometimes dietary change is like going to the gym—you just need to build up your digestive strength. You can read the entire article at Alive mag ..read more

Why it's not worth trying to save your struggling strands Some men go to great lengths to hide their receding hairlines, vacant crowns, and overexposed scalps with creative hairstyling. Find out why embracing baldness may actually lead to increased manliness, and how a common herb that may already be in your kitchen might help save your 'do. You can read the entire article at Alive mag ..read more

Maybe you just need to help your body do it for you You emerge from the holidays feeling like you need to do something good for your body. A little searching will probably bring you to the conclusion that a detox is what you need. Before you drop a buck too many on fancy detox protocols, try letting your body do what it’s designed to do: detoxify you. This could be easier (and cheaper) than you think. A few extra veggies, a little more water and a little less holiday baking, and you could be feeling 100% in no time. If you’d like a few good tips on how to do it the right way, read this Alive ..read more

Why it's better and when you can choose conventional There are many, many reasons to buy organic that have to do with the health of humans, animals and the planet itself. It's a lengthy, complex discussion, but I'm going to boil it down to the top reasons that I think you'll care about and agree are worth changing for. While we are talking about food today, it really all starts with the soil. Organically farmed soil is more nutrient rich because organic farms use more traditional farming practices that conventional farms don’t. Things like crop rotation, allowing excess harvest to rot into th ..read more

Just. Slow. Down. When you live a busy life where multitasking is considered an accomplishment, eating becomes something done generally in a hurry - maybe not even while sitting. The problem with that is when you eat fast you probably don't chew properly which means you're not getting your digestion off to a good start. Yes, mindfulness is a bit of a buzzword but, when applied to a specific aspect of your life, it can provide measurable results. Neuroscientist Sandra Aamodt, author of Why Diets Make Us Fat, explains that mindful eating "allows people to enjoy a relaxed relationship with food ..read more

Cooling foods are your best defense against tissue damage What is inflammation? Technically speaking, it's a local response to cellular injury marked by capillary dilatation, leukocytic infiltration, redness, heat, and pain and is a mechanism for initiating the elimination of noxious agents and of damaged tissue. Some of that probably seems familiar - dilation (swelling) redness, heat and pain are what we all know as an inflammatory response. The rest is basically saying that your body is reacting to injury by addressing the damage with the intent to repair or remove it. This is generally hel ..read more

It's easy and you should be doing it all day long. Here's how. It should come as no surprise to anyone that a full spectrum of vitamins and minerals is part of what keeps us healthy and thriving. What does seem to come as a surprise to so many people is that they are not even remotely close to fulfilling their recommended requirements each day. We are all taught that we should have a full serving of vegetables with every meal, so why is it so many just don’t do it? A lot of it comes from our culture of eating and the things we think of as being ‘proper’ meal choices. Much of that culture actu ..read more

What they are and how they affect your health Oxygen is essential to the body for life but in excess it can cause a variety of negative health consequences. Our bodies are constantly managing oxidized molecules that enter into our bloodstream. Known as free radicals, these molecules may come from many sources, some we can’t always control, like the air we breathe or our environment, but it’s not my job to scare you so I want to focus on free radical sources we can control like the foods that we eat and drink, medicines we take or our use of alcohol and tobacco. Oxidation occurs when a molecul ..read more