Despite a pyramid being used to describe the severely flawed serving size recommendation by the USDA in the 1990s, I will again use it here to describe the importance of the various aspects of optimal health and recovery. There are nuanced specificities to everyone's situation that don't always fit cleanly into the pyramid concept. For example, if you are drinking polluted water or breathing unclear air, you should prioritize adjusting those environmental factors above all else. However, as a long-run concept to achieve optimal health, the pyramid concept does aid in compartmentalizing and prioritizing the overwhelming amount of information out there.
DIET:
Starting at the bottom, diet is at the base because what you eat--and more importantly--what you don't eat plays a fundamental role in your health. We often spend a substantial part of our day deciding what to eat and in the actual process of eating.
What we ingest is key to our survival and is something most of us do at least three times a day.
The most impactful way to improve your diet is to remove the unhealthiest foods. Below, in rough order of harmfulness:
+ Sugar
+ All process and fried foods
+ Wheat and grains
+ Dairy
+ Alcohol - all kinds.
+ Also, you may look to avoid beans, which are high in lectins that many people are sensitive to and which include the peanut and cashew variety of nuts. (more on this Diet section, and see Dr. Gundry s book review, The Plant Paradox for more details)
You can and should replace these calories with more vegetables (seasonal fruits, in moderation), healthy fats, and pastured raised (not cage-free, there is a difference) eggs and meats, and seafood (lower on the food chain better as to reduce exposure to heavy metals). This is essentially the ever-popular Paleo diet but would caveat that Paleo can often refer to an over-reliance on meat. A more optimal diet prioritizes calories from vegetables and healthy fats. and deprioritize animal protein. (Eating tons of bacon and meats every day is not the path to optimal health). I want to highlight again the importance of what you DO NOT eat. People (and I was one of them) often believe that it was okay to have a pint of ice cream if you had worked out that day or you had a green juice, as it would offset the negative impacts of the ice cream. Unfortunately, your body doesn't work as linearly as that, and you would have been much better off avoided the ice cream altogether, no matter the narrative you may tell yourself. As I jokingly tell my clients, if 60% of your diet is organic vegetables and 40% is French fries, that is not a healthy diet just because you eat healthy the "majority" of the time.
A diet of real food, including a lot of vegetables, healthy fats, and protein will automatically change your gut biome if you had previously been eating the Standard American Diet (SAD). That said, gut health is of the utmost importance to recovery and optimal health. See the Gut Health section.
MINDFULNESS:
As I mentioned in the about me section, a major improvement in my health occurred when I began to focus on the underlying cause of many of my health problems - my brain. More specifically the autonomic nervous system (ANS). The ANS controls all of your bodily functions- food digestion, excretion, sweating, crying, blood pressure, temperature...etc. And it is broken into two parts 1) the Parasympathetic Nervous System and 2) the Sympathetic Nervous System.
The parasympathetic system conserves and restores. It slows the heart rate and decreases blood pressure. It stimulates the digestive tract to process food and eliminate wastes. Energy from processed food is used to restore and build tissues. Also known as "rest and digest".
Whereas, the Sympathetic system is involved in the "fight or flight" response. It increases heart rate and the force of heart contractions dilates the airways to make breathing easier. It causes the body to release stored energy. Muscular strength is increased. This division also causes palms to sweat, pupils to dilate, and hair to stand on end. It slows body processes that are less important in emergencies, such as digestion and urination.
The ability of your brain to properly switch between the parasympathetic response and the sympathetic response is paramount to optimal health. A dysfunction between the two is often a root cause of any autoimmune or chronic health disorder. If your body is constantly in a "fight or flight" response, even if a low-grade response would likely be unnoticeable, it can wreak havoc on your health and render all other treatments useless. This is why "Mindfulness' is more important than "Supplementation" on my pyramid. As an example, you can take all the anti-candida, adrenal, thyroid...etc supplements you'd like, but if your body is constantly stressed, they have little use in the long-run, and in fact, could be counterproductive. Don't get me wrong, supplements definitely have their place, but the underlying cause of the stress needs to addressed in conjunction. Sometimes this is chemical or environmental stress, such as mold toxins in your home (which should clearly be addressed) but more often than not it is overreaction of the mind -and therefore body - to stressors.
These stressors can be either external or internal. For example, the way you handle everyday external stress, such as work or family life stress has a clear impact on your health. But also, your body may be internally stressed without your direct knowledge. These internal stressors are often the source of the chronic conditions so many of us are plagued with, such as chronic fatigue brought on by the Epstein-bar virus, and many thyroid disorders would fall into this category. In these situations, your body overacts to internal stress and is constantly in some form of fight or flight. Therefore it becomes insurmountably difficult for your body to properly heal.
Fortunately, mindfulness techniques help address both the internal and external stressors. What I refer to as mindfulness includes a broad array of activities that calm the mind, relax the body, and optimize the healing process. They include the following:
Breathing techniques
Meditation
Yoga
Tai Chi - I practiced often during my recovery. The willpower to actually do it was difficult, but ultimately very rewarding at the end of the session. Other Mindfulness technique, such a just paying attention to your surroundings - stop and smell the roses, focus on your breathing..etc.
The solutions below will cost some money, but have found them all to be extraordinarily helpful in my recovery, include:
Neurofeedback - LENS neurofeedback for about a year, and now only use sporadically. LENS appears to be the preferred type for CFS, Lyme type conditions. Over the highly marketed NeurOptimal® system, which seems to have its own benefits, but I stuck exclusively with the LENS system.
Brain Entrainment - Centerpointe Research's Product with positive results. There are probably some less expensive options available as well. Sensory deprivation tanks - aka float tanks (see my book review)
SUPPLEMENTATION:
Supplementation is next on the list for two main reasons.
1) If you've been fortunate to be healthy most of your life food depletion, time to cook...etc
2) Needed to heal from any major illness.
This is a vast and overwhelming topic
Level one supplements (nearly everyday use):
Multi-B
Krill oil (DHA/EPA)
Vit D/K2 - Arguably the most important supplement you can take. Make sure it include K2 which offsets..
ENVIRONMENT:
Air quality
Apartment layout
Color therapy
Long walks in nature
Barefoot
OTHER:
Other is catch-all for largely one-off is at the top as greater concern should be the levels below
Base: Moderate Exercise: Walking, Tai-Chi, Healthy Diet, (little sugar, no gluten, little/no dairy), targeted supplements to heal appropriate parts of the body (liver, thyroid, adrenals; detox with
Mid-Tier:
Top: Maintenance: Period use of targeted supplements: continued use of multi
Vertical: Mindfulness: well become easier as you move up the pyramid, but like a positive feedback look is part and parcel of moving up the pyramid.
DIET:
Starting at the bottom, diet is at the base because what you eat--and more importantly--what you don't eat plays a fundamental role in your health. We often spend a substantial part of our day deciding what to eat and in the actual process of eating.
What we ingest is key to our survival and is something most of us do at least three times a day.
The most impactful way to improve your diet is to remove the unhealthiest foods. Below, in rough order of harmfulness:
+ Sugar
+ All process and fried foods
+ Wheat and grains
+ Dairy
+ Alcohol - all kinds.
+ Also, you may look to avoid beans, which are high in lectins that many people are sensitive to and which include the peanut and cashew variety of nuts. (more on this Diet section, and see Dr. Gundry s book review, The Plant Paradox for more details)
You can and should replace these calories with more vegetables (seasonal fruits, in moderation), healthy fats, and pastured raised (not cage-free, there is a difference) eggs and meats, and seafood (lower on the food chain better as to reduce exposure to heavy metals). This is essentially the ever-popular Paleo diet but would caveat that Paleo can often refer to an over-reliance on meat. A more optimal diet prioritizes calories from vegetables and healthy fats. and deprioritize animal protein. (Eating tons of bacon and meats every day is not the path to optimal health). I want to highlight again the importance of what you DO NOT eat. People (and I was one of them) often believe that it was okay to have a pint of ice cream if you had worked out that day or you had a green juice, as it would offset the negative impacts of the ice cream. Unfortunately, your body doesn't work as linearly as that, and you would have been much better off avoided the ice cream altogether, no matter the narrative you may tell yourself. As I jokingly tell my clients, if 60% of your diet is organic vegetables and 40% is French fries, that is not a healthy diet just because you eat healthy the "majority" of the time.
A diet of real food, including a lot of vegetables, healthy fats, and protein will automatically change your gut biome if you had previously been eating the Standard American Diet (SAD). That said, gut health is of the utmost importance to recovery and optimal health. See the Gut Health section.
MINDFULNESS:
As I mentioned in the about me section, a major improvement in my health occurred when I began to focus on the underlying cause of many of my health problems - my brain. More specifically the autonomic nervous system (ANS). The ANS controls all of your bodily functions- food digestion, excretion, sweating, crying, blood pressure, temperature...etc. And it is broken into two parts 1) the Parasympathetic Nervous System and 2) the Sympathetic Nervous System.
The parasympathetic system conserves and restores. It slows the heart rate and decreases blood pressure. It stimulates the digestive tract to process food and eliminate wastes. Energy from processed food is used to restore and build tissues. Also known as "rest and digest".
Whereas, the Sympathetic system is involved in the "fight or flight" response. It increases heart rate and the force of heart contractions dilates the airways to make breathing easier. It causes the body to release stored energy. Muscular strength is increased. This division also causes palms to sweat, pupils to dilate, and hair to stand on end. It slows body processes that are less important in emergencies, such as digestion and urination.
The ability of your brain to properly switch between the parasympathetic response and the sympathetic response is paramount to optimal health. A dysfunction between the two is often a root cause of any autoimmune or chronic health disorder. If your body is constantly in a "fight or flight" response, even if a low-grade response would likely be unnoticeable, it can wreak havoc on your health and render all other treatments useless. This is why "Mindfulness' is more important than "Supplementation" on my pyramid. As an example, you can take all the anti-candida, adrenal, thyroid...etc supplements you'd like, but if your body is constantly stressed, they have little use in the long-run, and in fact, could be counterproductive. Don't get me wrong, supplements definitely have their place, but the underlying cause of the stress needs to addressed in conjunction. Sometimes this is chemical or environmental stress, such as mold toxins in your home (which should clearly be addressed) but more often than not it is overreaction of the mind -and therefore body - to stressors.
These stressors can be either external or internal. For example, the way you handle everyday external stress, such as work or family life stress has a clear impact on your health. But also, your body may be internally stressed without your direct knowledge. These internal stressors are often the source of the chronic conditions so many of us are plagued with, such as chronic fatigue brought on by the Epstein-bar virus, and many thyroid disorders would fall into this category. In these situations, your body overacts to internal stress and is constantly in some form of fight or flight. Therefore it becomes insurmountably difficult for your body to properly heal.
Fortunately, mindfulness techniques help address both the internal and external stressors. What I refer to as mindfulness includes a broad array of activities that calm the mind, relax the body, and optimize the healing process. They include the following:
Breathing techniques
Meditation
Yoga
Tai Chi - I practiced often during my recovery. The willpower to actually do it was difficult, but ultimately very rewarding at the end of the session. Other Mindfulness technique, such a just paying attention to your surroundings - stop and smell the roses, focus on your breathing..etc.
The solutions below will cost some money, but have found them all to be extraordinarily helpful in my recovery, include:
Neurofeedback - LENS neurofeedback for about a year, and now only use sporadically. LENS appears to be the preferred type for CFS, Lyme type conditions. Over the highly marketed NeurOptimal® system, which seems to have its own benefits, but I stuck exclusively with the LENS system.
Brain Entrainment - Centerpointe Research's Product with positive results. There are probably some less expensive options available as well. Sensory deprivation tanks - aka float tanks (see my book review)
SUPPLEMENTATION:
Supplementation is next on the list for two main reasons.
1) If you've been fortunate to be healthy most of your life food depletion, time to cook...etc
2) Needed to heal from any major illness.
This is a vast and overwhelming topic
Level one supplements (nearly everyday use):
Multi-B
Krill oil (DHA/EPA)
Vit D/K2 - Arguably the most important supplement you can take. Make sure it include K2 which offsets..
ENVIRONMENT:
Air quality
Apartment layout
Color therapy
Long walks in nature
Barefoot
OTHER:
Other is catch-all for largely one-off is at the top as greater concern should be the levels below
Base: Moderate Exercise: Walking, Tai-Chi, Healthy Diet, (little sugar, no gluten, little/no dairy), targeted supplements to heal appropriate parts of the body (liver, thyroid, adrenals; detox with
Mid-Tier:
Top: Maintenance: Period use of targeted supplements: continued use of multi
Vertical: Mindfulness: well become easier as you move up the pyramid, but like a positive feedback look is part and parcel of moving up the pyramid.
