I need to start this article with sharing my person bias: I love gardening. This hasn’t always been the case but a few years ago we started our own vegetable garden. Now I have the gardening “bug”. I have been delighted to find just how much peace and calm digging in the dirt gives me, not to mention the loads of fresh, healthy produce. I think you should start a garden too…
Apparently, the world record for the longest time staying awake, achieved by a teenager in in the 1960s, is 11 consecutive days. Can you imagine how awful he must have felt? How irritable, illogical, and accident-prone, he must’ve been? Even chronic, small bits of sleep deprivation are associated with development and progression of chronic illness, and about twice the risk of a car accident. And yet,
I recently attended a conference on Lyme Disease. We took a tangent during a wonderful lecture about immune system function, and explored flu strains and the vaccines designed to protect us from flu symptoms. I’d like to share with you what I learned.
Are you familiar with the term “echo chamber”? Amongst other things, it’s a media concept that describes how the internet works. Instead of expanding our awareness and experience of the world, it can limit it. The belief systems or “lens” we inadvertently apply in our social media engagements and google browsing, is amplified and reflected back to us. We only see what we already believe to be true. As the internet giants adapt to keep us engaged, our society becomes more polarized, with more extreme political views, and violence. Healthcare is not immune to this effect.
The Healing Power of Tea
I love tea. One of my favorite daily things to do is to make myself a cup of tea and take a moment to slowly sip it. However, when I first started practicing as a Naturopathic Doctor I gave little respect to the humble herbal tea. It was when I did a residency at a first nations health clinic in downtown Toronto that I truly learned the healing power of a cup of tea. In naturopathic medicine we often use tinctures, which are alcohol extractions of plants.
In medicine, when an infection becomes chronic, we generally consider that either the immune system is failing to control the infection, such as in HIV and AIDs, or that the infection is able to hide from the immune system, such as with the herpes virus that causes cold sores. Evidence suggests that chronic infection with any of the microbes associated with Lyme disease falls into both categories, which is one reason why persistent symptoms are so difficult to treat. [1] This is also one important reason why we turn to botanicals for help.
Chronic Lyme Disease (and the many labels we’ve come to use to describe persistent symptoms after a tick bite) is complex, involving physical, emotional, and spiritual aspects of health. Like the great Eastern gurus who guide their students to deeper levels of self-awareness, Lyme disease pushes people to more fully develop their faith and spirituality. A patient who has healed from chronic symptoms has done a lot of soul searching and practiced forgiveness and gratitude. This guru teaches us many lessons, including the paradigm-shifting awareness of what an “infection” is. Chronic Lyme Disease doesn’t classify.
KFL&A Public Health reports that in 2013, 23% of the ticks brought in for testing were positive for B. Burgdorferi, the infectious agent of Lyme Disease. In 2016, this number rose to 32%. And though only 1 to 4% of bites from infected ticks generate infection, the rate is plenty high enough to consider our region a Lyme-endemic location. Please educate yourself, friends, and family members about tick-bite prevention and treatment. I’ve thoroughly researched and summarized some guidelines to keep in mind this season:
As you bundle up in your parka and head out to warm up the car I know the last thing you are thinking about is seasonal allergies, but I want to talk about why maybe you should be. According to Asthma Canada, more than 1 out of every 5 Canadians suffer from respiratory allergies – not to mention the other common seasonal allergy symptoms of runny nose, itchy eyes, and fatigue. The majority of treatment strategies offered by conventional medicine focus on symptom management (e.g. antihistamines). What if we could address the root cause of seasonal allergies?
Have you heard about the love hormone? It’s called oxytocin, and research correlates high levels with being in-love, mother-infant bonding, trust, and empathy. Most research focuses on your brain as the production site of this hormone, but your heart actually produces and stores a significant amount of it. Your heart also produces other critical hormones, such as dopamine, norepinephrine, and Atrial Naturietic Peptide. The old idea that the heart is just a “pump”, has not served us well.
The heart has a direct connection to the brain via the Parasympathetic Nervous System, which some people refer to as the “Rest and Digest” state of the body. In fact, there are more nerves carrying heart signals to the brain than vice versa. What kinds of signals do you think it’s sending, and how much are these affecting your health? Your behavior? Your thoughts?
