1. Omega 3’s and essential fatty acids (fish oil, flax oil) are CRITICAL for brain health. Don’t skip this one. It’s essential. Try dosages up to 4000 mg daily for a month to notice.
2. Don’t eat too many bad fats. (They literally gum up your brain). So limit hydrogenated oils – the bad oils. Limit your intake of french fries or chips. Reduce total fat intake.
3. Exercise. Studies show consistent exercise improves brain health. For example, depressed women doing weight training improved their moods tremendously.
4. The brain/gut connection. If you stomach doesn’t digest right, your brain doesn’t get what it needs. Scientists recommend if you’re over 60 take probiotics (such as yogurt, capsules, acidophilus). (see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/5253182.stm)
5. Take a good balanced B-Complex vitamin such as B-50. The brain is VERY B sensitive.
6. B-12 affects mood and cognitive performance – particularly people over 60. Get your B 12 levels checked. B-12 deficiency is often missed. If deficient, use shots instead of supplements, because supplements are harder to absorb.
7. BREATHE. This is a biggie. Learning how to breathe properly helps to modulate your cortisol level which assists in improving brain health. Shut your eyes for 3 to 5 minutes twice a day. Focus on your breathing.
8. Plenty of sleep. Sleep deficits are epidemic. Good sleep has a huge impact on mood, performance, and brain health. Figure out a way to get more sleep and good sleep. You may need to reduce your caffeine intake. Don’t accept poor sleep (contact us if you need help).
9. Protein in the morning kick-starts your brain. Eat 4 ounces of protein in a.m. (or 1 gram protein per pound of body weight). Reduce fat and carbs (check Zone diet).
10. Thyroid problems are INCREDIBLY under-diagnosed. The blood tests can be WRONG. Low thyroid causes lots of problems. If your hands or feet are chronically cold, you probably have low thyroid – REGARDLESS of the test results. For a full explanation, see: http://thyroid.about.com/blthyroid.htm
11. Allergies, including Food or Mold allergies. Check out these links to learn more. Food allergies in particular often are undetected and without overt symptoms. If there are dark circles or even shadows or puffy eyes, you should definitely rule out problems. Undetected means you can eat or drink something every day without seeing an immediate problem.  Yet subtle allergies can affect the brain and show up as contributing to problems with behavior, mood, or and the ability to perform or think.  Here are some links that educate to rule out these kinds of problems.

ALLERGY TESTING & GLUTEN

ALCAT - Food Allergy & Chemical Sensitivity/Intolerance Test
Celiac Disease and Gluten Sensitivity
ELISA Delayed Food Allergy Testing
Food Allergy
The Gluten Free Diet

Fish Oil to the Rescue
Research suggests a daily fish oil capsule can help curb the symptoms of attention deficit disorder (ADD ADHD). Attitude Magazine

An ADHD Med Without Side Effects
Physical activity may be good for focus. Plus, it’s inexpensive, self-prescribed, and accessible to both adults and kids. Attitude Magazine

GreenHome Guide

Seven Powerful Ways to Get Your Kids to Eat Healthy
When it comes right down to it, kids love to have fun, so if we’re having fun, they can’t help but feel the benefits.

Some good tips on sleep regulation from the Mercola site
Including the importance of sleeping in the dark and having enough light.

Xenoestrogens
How plastics and hormones around us are impacting our health in surprising ways

" Xenoestrogens" -- ("changed female hormones") with great thanks to rxwellness.com, for their original version of this article.

An article in Newsweek described a high school girl who, with her science fair project, told how compounds called "xenoestrogens" were being absorbed by the foods placed in plastic containers or Saran wrap, and then taken up by the body when ingested, doing major damage. These act like free-radicals, zapping everything they touch, then go into the liver to reek havoc on the detoxification enzymes, then wander nonchalantly into the various tissues of the body to start over-feminizing them.

Ever wonder why those 2nd-graders now look like someone in the Miss America pageant when we were kids? Xenoestrogens, demonstrated by a brilliant high school student, are responsible. They go on to accelerate breast cancer in those who have such a tendency, and create prostate problems for men.

In the past, breast cancer was a disease of women in their 60's or 70's. Prostrate swelling and cancer have risen manifold in the past two decades. No connection? When I was young, one in fifty developed cancer in their lifetime, now it s one in two. (NOT due to doctors getting smarter & finding cancer earlier).

The bad news: xenoestrogens are not only in plastics, but in the hormones used by stockmen & farmers to fatten up animals for market beef, chicken, turkey, pork. If you really think your health is unaffected by this, you re wrong.

These little chemicals also do a number on the immune system in general, setting up all kinds of cancers, and a number of autoimmune disorders ranging from fibromyalgias and chronic fatigue, common stomach and thyroid problems, multiple sclerosis, prostate enlargement, and too many others.

So, what do we do? Boycott KFC? A letter writing campaign to Congress to shut down Saran Wrap? Save your ink, politicians can t read anyway. They only know how to chatter & gather for themselves, with only rare exceptions.The first step is to remember that you are what you eat. Shop for foods around the periphery of your supermarket, getting fresh, raw produce. In most stores, the further in the store you go, the older and more processed the foods are. Take a better look next time you shop!

Why don t you grow your own tomatoes or perhaps other fruits/vegetables? There are a number of sources, easily findable by internet, such as organic ranchers producing beef and pork without all the harmful toxins, sources you can use to your healthy, longevity-producing benefit. So many people complain, "It costs more", but how much is your chemotherapy or heart by-pass or silk-lined coffin going to cost? Even a cheap coffin is $10,000.

If your body is already suffering from the effects of these xenoestrogens, your liver needs to be detoxified to begin handling this and other poisons before its too late. Dr. Cohen is an expert in this field along with his unusually effective skills in all of the primary areas of naturopathic and homeopathic solutions. Once the detoxification has occurred, don t make it worse by putting the same junk into your body that caused the poisoning in the first place. (Sounds like Proverbs, where the dog returns to its own vomit.)

Now, let s talk about progesterone. Both men and women need progesterone in levels the average American isn t getting. Progesterone is the precursor of estrogens in females and testosterone in males, and that low levels of progesterone may lead to miscarriage in females and infertility in males.

The human body converts that progesterone into cortisol, needed to make adrenaline to deal with stress. (Stress? isn't that the definitive cause of so many medical problems such as back pain, ulcers, psoriasis, and more?)

Carbohydrate metabolism, thyroid production, serotonin and dopamine functions in the brain, lipid metabolism, immune functions all depend on progesterone to function correctly. If your stress has stolen all the progesterone to make cortisol to keep you going in stressful situations, that explains some of the fatigue, depression, rise in blood sugars and fats, frequent infection, when we are near a "burn out" state.

One of the things needed to deal with this stressful state is more progesterone. Fortunately, there are some good progesterone products on the market made from wild yams. The best are "micronized" and are readily absorbed through the skin when applied on the abdomen, legs, or arms. If one doesn t seem to be working, try another preparation. (That s why we have both Anusol and Preparation H, because people respond differently to different remedies).

It is the imbalance of estrogen to progesterone ratio that sets up the breast cancer or uterine cancer in the women. It is this imbalance of estrogens to progesterone in the male that causes prostate problems. This imbalance contributes to heart disease & autoimmune disorders in men AND women.

Rethink the foods you buy, the foods you eat, because you really are what you eat. Give thought to how you store your food and the types of containers your beverages come in. (Aluminum for Alzheimer s and Plastic for Poison).

If your liver is healthy and you have enough progesterone, you might just live to see another day.

This is all about avoiding the chemicals and foods that act as estrogens. We have all heard of them, the soys and the parabens. Well, there are a lot more. Here is his list:

• Do not heat food or water with plastic in the microwave. Do not drink hot liquids in foam styrofoam cups or receptacles.
• Change your laundry detergent because it cannot be fully washed from the clothes and can be absorbed through the skin. Do NOT use dryer sheets or fabric softener.
• Do not use anything on the skin with parabens or phenoxyethanol in them. This includes shampoo, soap, makeup, hand lotion, body lotion, and toothpaste. Oral substances are 90% filtered by the liver. Skin-absorbed substances are 100% absorbed by the body, thus, a skin dose is 10 times an oral dose.
• Avoid coffee. Avoid decaf coffee. No caffeine. No tea. No colas. Caffeine increases estradiol levels by 70%!
• No sunflower oil, no safflower oil, no cottonseed oil, no canola oil. (Guess that leaves olive oil).
• Avoid shampoos that are rich in hormones and have estrogen added to them.
• Avoid estrogenic herbs especially TOPICALLY such as sage and rosemary.
• Avoid weak estrogens such as soy and ground flax seed.
• Many sunscreens are estrogenic. Use a hat and long sleeved shirt.
• Use cosmetics with minerals or grapefruit seed extract as a preservative.
  

AVOID

• Pesticides and herbicides such as DDT, endosulfan, dieldrin, methoxychlor, kepone, toxaphene, chlordane, and other chlorinated hydrocarbons.
  Did you know that baby roosters exposed to DDT in the U.S. grew up looking like hens?
• Products associated with plastics such as bisphenol A and pthalates.
  Did you know that pthalates along with excess estrogen given to chickens used as food were suspected to cause girls as young as 18 months to menstruate in Puerto Rico in the 70's and 80's.
• Primpro, DES, Premarin, Cimetidine (Tagamet), Marijuana, and Birth Control Pills.
  Did you know that the Physician s Desk Reference lists gynecomastia (breast enlargement) as a side effect of Tagamet?

ALSO AVOID

• Ordinary household products such as breakdown products from laundry detergent and dishwashing detergent that include nonyphenol, octylphenol, and spermicide.
• Commercially raised pork, chicken, and beef (due to high hormone content)
  Avoid preservatives used in skin lotions, shampoos, makeup and body lotions such as the parabens that include methylparaben, propylparaben, and butylparaben.
• Clover, red clover tea, alfalfa sprouts
• Sunflower seeds
• Queen Anne's lace (wild carrot)
• Pomegranate - The Greeks used this plant as a contraceptive!
• Dates
  Fennel
• Licorice, red clover, yucca, hops (beer) and motherwort
  Bloodroot, ocotillo, mandrake, oregano, damiana, pennyroyal, verbena, nutmeg, tumeric, yucca, thyme, calamus rt., red clover, goldenseal, licorice, mistletoe, cumin, fennel, chamomile, cloves
  No tea tree oil, no lavender oil