Resilient Health

This warm and hearty meal has wonderful flavors that are savory and grounding for a fall day. I added sauteed veggies to round it out. Or substitute all veggies for the chicken (such as peppers, cauliflower, carrots, broccoli, zucchini) for a plant-based meal. Yum!

Has your head been spinning lately? Unable to shut off your thoughts and perhaps spiraling into obsessive worrying? Meditation is one tool that can help you to regain your sense of calm.

Meditation is a practice that helps calm the mind and allows us to be awake and aware, yet detached from our incessant thoughts. Many meditation techniques exist and studies have shown a multitude of health benefits with a regular meditation practice—from enhancing brain structure and function to turning on…

Has your everyday routine changed drastically from a year ago? Have you been spending more time indoors lately? And more time on screens? Its time to combat “nature deficit disorder” and get outside!

While it might be challenging to try to experience the outdoors in the same ways that we did a year ago, consider adopting new ways to bring nature into your life. From wearing masks while walking or hiking on uncrowded trails, to getting sun and fresh air by spending more time sitting next to …

In my prior post I discussed that drinking sweet stuff is not good for you. But how about eating it?

From an Ayurvedic perspective, the sweet taste is one of the six fundamental tastes and provides nourishment to your body, mind, and spirit (the other tastes are sour, salty, pungent, bitter, astringent). We get sweetness in a variety of forms—beyond foods we typically think of as sweets like pastries and ice cream, the sweet taste is found in fruit, starchy vegetables, grains, nuts, seeds, …

Our sense of smell is truly amazing. It is said that the human nose can identify more than 1 trillion scents! And these aromas can have powerful effects on our mood, our thoughts, and even our behavior.

Have you ever smelled a certain food cooking and been transported to a memory in childhood? Or gotten a whiff of someone’s cologne/perfume that reminded you of a past significant relationship?

Our sense of smell is coordinated with receptors in the nose that link up through the first crania…

While I wrote about the benefits of plant versus animal protein in “Resilient Health: How to Thrive in Our Toxic World,” I only recently watched the 2018 documentary “Game Changers” about successful elite athletes who made the switch to a completely plant-based diet. All I can say is “WOW!”

This film is a must-see and will open your eyes to one of the biggest food myths that we have been served – which is that plant-based proteins are somehow not enough to be able to fully sustain us. And y…

Sugary drinks like soda, fruit punch, lemonade, sports and energy drinks, and other sugar-sweetened beverages can contribute to obesity and diabetes. But did you know that consuming too much added sugar can also raise blood pressure and increase chronic inflammation? And excessive sugar can impair the liver’s ability to clear toxic compounds from the bloodstream and lead to fatty liver disease.

One sneaky way these added sugars get in is in what we drink. The average can of sugar-sweetened …

• Do you experience energy crashes in the afternoon?
• Are you a night owl, getting a boost after 10 pm?
• Do you suffer from indigestion, but only at night?
• Do you drag in the morning, struggling to get up and get going?

We all experience shifts in mood, energy level, digestion, and many other physiological processes that correspond with our 24-hour day (AKA circadian rhythm). But instead of fighting these rhythms which can lead to symptoms such as fatigue, insomnia, mental fog, indigesti…