3 Things That Matter More Than What's On Your Plate.

Christina Santini offers nutrition target therapy + coaching + meditation/yoga .

Your body's biochemical functioning + brain chemical rebalancing takes place ONLY during those deep layers of sleep. If you are not sleeping at 10PM which is where we know from Ayurvedic Medicine that our body's main healing takes place, your body is simply not capable of healing from whatever stressors it has encountered during the day - that means that you can be an overly fanatic health-nut, cutting out this and that and carrying around Spirulina bags and whatnot, and yet you will suffer from a body that is slowly but surely breaking down.

Hormones such as testosterone and insulin are STRONGLY sensitive to sleep and the way you deal with stress.

In other words, if you can't seem to be losing that stubborn fat (particularly abdominal fat is due to an imbalance in testosterone/estrogen), and your energy levels are going down the drain - and especially for any sexual dysfunction - you may want to reconsider your sleep and meditation habits.

And if the word habit is not part of these practices, well, then you don't need to look at what's on your plate to improve your health in these areas - because it's a waste of time before your sleep and stress management tools are in place. Before that happens, your blood labs will be reflecting hormonal imbalances that are all over the map, including borderline diabetic tendencies. And this is true, EVEN if you eat a strict low-carb Paleo diet or whatnot. Doesn't matter - sort out your sleep and take some herbs that will help you calm down your mind. Everything else will fall into place after that.

Managing your nutrition before your sleep habits is like painting a house before the fundament is laid out.

Reference: J Pediatr. 2007 Apr;150(4):364-9. Association between inadequate sleep and insulin resistance in obese children. Flint J et al.

Reaching for immortality with telomere lengthening

As you age, your telomeres shorten. Why is this something we want to prevent? Because the length of telomeres directly determines your life span and how well you age. If someone has great DNA - what they have really succeeded in doing is to take care of their telomeres and eat to prevent them for literally slicing up at the ends! A telomere is a region of repetitive nucleotide sequences at the end of a chromosome, which protects the end of the chromosome from deterioration.

Now there are several things that have come to light during the past decade as what you can do to maintain or even lengthen telomeres such as Human Growth Hormone therapy and short span high interval training along with that a growing body of research is pointing to some stand-out nutrients that directly impact the length as well. 

Dosage depends on your biochemistry type and needs to be determined via an assessment, as with anything you won't get the results you are looking for if what you are taking is basically a drop in the ocean, even if it's the right stuff.

Here are the 6 nutrients that have been shown so far to directly impact your telomere length and increase longevity:

• Vitamin B12
• Zinc
• Vitamin D
• Omega-3
• Vitamin C
• Vitamin E

Reference: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition March 11, 2009: 89(6); 1857-1863