Bare Essentials Natural Market

One in sixteen people in the U.S. suffer from seasonal depression. Many more of us experience “winter blues”, a less severe form of this seasonal disorder. Winter blues, along with other forms of sadness and grief, are often a reaction to an imbalance in neurotransmitters, particularly serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine. When these brain chemicals are out of balance or there is a drop in serotonin, mood changes and melancholy are sure to follow.

One product that’s been successful in the war against seasonal depression is called Deprex by VÄXA. This doctor-formulated natural medicine was developed to provide relief from occasional emotional upset, mood imbalances and melancholy and even extended periods of sadness and grief.

The Deprex formula incorporates homeopathic remedies in an herbal and nutritional base. The formula complements the body’s ability to release serotonin. Serotonin plays an important role in mood regulation within the hypothalamus and the entire limbic system, the emotional center of the brain.

The individual homeopathic remedies in Deprex were selected to help the body naturally regulate hypothalmic activity and balance the natural production of serotonin and norepinephrine. Other homeopathic medicinals in this blend assist the body in managing the physical manifestations of these negative emotions including headaches, restlessness, trembling, digestive disorders, nervous exhaustion and sleep disturbances. Deprex is a gluten-free formula that safely supports healthy brain chemistry without sexual side effects, weight gain, and/or chemical dependency.

If you’d like to know more, our experienced staff at Bare Essentials Natural Market is available to help you find solutions for your individual needs.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent disease.

Bare Essentials Natural Market is Western North Carolinas  premier independent natural products market. We offer a complete line of organic and natural grocery and personal care items, whole food supplements, herbs, homeopathic medicines and specialty supplements.

Holidays can be joyful and exciting, but very imbalancing if you tend to overindulge and overextend. We’ll talk about restoring balance after the holidays. Following are some helpful suggestions that can increase your enjoyment and minimize the discomforts associated with the demands of the holiday season.

Cater your supplement regimen to seasonal demands and individual needs

Your body’s nutritional needs change seasonally, especially in areas where season changes are distinct.  It’s ideal to reevaluate your supplement regimen at the beginning of each season and take care to cater your choices to your current needs.  Consider your  most notable health concerns and how well you’re handling everyday demands when considering how many supplements you’re able and willing to take.

Your body has a saturation point for nutrient absorption, just like a sponge which is only capable of absorbing a limited quantity of liquid at one time. So it’s important to avoid overloading your system with too many conventionally sourced supplements, more than your body can assimilate at that time. Doing so puts a strain on the liver and kidneys, and may cause your body to store the excess, poorly assimilated nutrients in undesirable ways.  It is best to favor fewer high quality supplements catered to your needs than multiple mediocre ones. Our experienced staff is available to help you evaluate your choices.

Rest Your Digestion

.  Take advantage of the “window” of rest from intensive demands before the holidays and do some moderate fasting and cleansing.  This may be the single most effective approach to restoring balance and is frequently neglected and misunderstood.  The ideal approach is to take a break from poorly digested and congesting foods for at least a week, avoiding the “big five”: dairy, wheat, caffeine, sugar, and alcohol.  Simultaneously,  support good elimination with a cleansing supplement catered to your individual needs.

If you’re too busy for a big commitment, consider drinking only nourishing liquids on especially busy days or set aside one weekend day per week throughout the season for rest and repair. Broths, drinkable yogurt, protein drinks, teas, cleansing lemonade, and “green drinks” are all good choices.  Our staff is available to help you explore your options.

Support efficient digestion with enzymes:

When the holidays arrive, you are going to eat more than usual.  You should give yourself permission to enjoy this time without guilt, but taking measures to prepare and recover well will enable you to enjoy it to the fullest.  Poor digestion and overeating is the most basic impairment to health, affecting your energy, mood, and susceptibility to illness.   A little known fact is that the immune system must finish what the digestive system cannot process completely.   Taking a digestive enzyme daily with your largest meal helps your body process the unusually large volume and complex food combinations that overtax the digestive and immune systems and cause discomfort.  Ultrazyme by Nature’s Plus or Digest Gold by Enzymedica are especially good choices.

Although digestive enzymes are very helpful for processing extra food, the best approach is to avoid overeating whenever possible. Try taking just a taste of the variety of foods offered and go back for larger portions of the foods you really enjoy.  Make a commitment to avoid eating undesirable food just because it’s there.

Prioritize quality sleep—

Quality sleep is the most neglected aspect of health in modern life.  It is essential to recharge and repair, and without it aging can be accelerated, stress is more pronounced, and immunity can be compromised.  Quality sleep is affected by natural rhythms of dark and light.  Your highest quality sleep is from 10-12 P.M. in complete darkness. (Ask for the article on circadian rhythms).  It’s better to go to bed on time and wake earlier to accomplish extra tasks than to get the same amount of sleep at a later bedtime.  This lays a foundation for other hormone functions that depend on natural rhythms and results in better total body function and better quality of life.

If sleep is a problem, try a natural supplement.  There are many to choose from and sleep problems are a very individual issue. Low dose Melatonin is a good first try if you’re over 35, or can be used short-term for younger people to re-establish a regular sleeping pattern.
There are many good choices for simple restlessness and racing thoughts. If your sleep feels like you’re just “hitting the pause button”, Tension Release by Megafood is a unique product helpful to accomplish a deep, refreshing sleep and reestablish better sleep patterns.  Again, our experienced staff is available to help you find the best match for your needs.

Provide Energy to run the functions

The way our bodies create energy is commonly misunderstood.  Most busy people rely primarily on adrenal energy which feels very effective in the short-term, but may  adversely affect total health in the long-term leading to burnout. Your adrenals are overstimulated by caffeine and sugar; they are drained by excessive stress and lack of  sleep.

Sound familiar?  If you’re experiencing a shortage of energy for the more enjoyable aspects of your life, start by replenishing your overworked adrenals in order to cultivate long-term core energy. A healthy body produces core energy from the efficient functions of the heart, thyroid, liver, pancreas, digestive system and other complicated processes.  This allows your body to function like a well-tuned, high performance car.  Just as a car is dependent on quality fuel, both adrenal and core energy are reliant on nutrition from real food, nutritional supplements, and the right balance of fat, protein and carbohydrates throughout the day.

Practically all body processes rely on the adrenals for energy.  Like your cell phone battery, they must be recharged with quality sleep in order to run all the functions.

In our experience, there are two exceptional formulas for replenishing your adrenals. Adrenal Strength by Megafood is a therapeutic quality supplement that commonly yields significant improvement in sustained energy levels, sleep, ability to concentrate and manage stress. Schizandra-Adrenal by Planetary Herbals is a less-concentrated but more economical support for adrenal health.

Another major factor associated with low energy is insulin resistance, caused in great part by a diet high in excessive sugars and carbohydrate foods.  If you tend to eat lots of breads, pasta, cereals, sweet foods and drinks, have low energy mid-morning and mid-afternoon, have a larger than average waistline, high cholesterol, blood pressure or blood sugar, consider adding ChromeMate to your daily regimen.  A superior form of the mineral chromium, ChromeMate is basic to regulating blood sugar, which results in more consistent energy, better body shape, and a reduction in your risk of developing heart disease and diabetes.
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Reinforcing your basic foundation with the approach listed above generally results in better stress management and fewer seasonal “nosedives”, i.e. immune compromises leading to symptoms of colds and flu. However, when additional stress and immune support is needed, these are some of the most effective supplements in our experience:
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Support a Healthy Stress Response

If you’re prone to respond to stress with anxiety, consider L-Theanine. Theanine is a safe supplement with proven effectiveness and no known drug interactions, and is also helpful to moderate the nervousness associated with caffeine consumption.
Stress Mints by Historical Remedies are a novel, effective support for feelings of overwhelm.  They deliver a dilute form of medicine in a candy with an entertaining package.  Their safety and inexpensiveness also makes them a great holiday gift for family and friends.

Support a Healthy Immune Response

We need a new understanding of immunity. Overuse of antibiotics have made germs stronger and us weaker.  The holistic approach to wellness seeks to support rather than suppress normal body functions, helping you to feel better without long-term side effects.
Natural medicines are very effective in supporting seasonal needs such as colds, flus, and minor infections.  One of the most effective formulas for intervention in our experience is CounterAttack by Rainbow Light. For preventive maintenance, check out our article on Probiotics and Colostrum.   For more established conditions, there are many effective choices and our experienced staff is available to help you learn about them.

How to manage a seasonal immune crisis

*(suggest you cut this out and post it until you learn this new way of restoring wellness)

-Don’t wait until you’re symptoms are full blown.  Recognize the first signs of an impending immune crisis, which are overtiredness and chilliness. Cut off a strip of Counterattack and keep it in your purse or pocket for convenience.

-Give it your full attention and rest as soon as possible to free up energy for the immune system to do it’s work. Remember the “Star Trek” scenario: Captain says, “Get those shields up!” “I don’t have any power, sir!”  Your body must have enough energy to sustain the shields.  If energy is used for other activities including mental functions, that detracts from the energy needed for fighting a viral or bacterial attack. If you absolutely can’t rest, take aggressive adrenal support. A day of rest may prevent a week or more of illness.

-Balance the imbalances:  If you’re exposed to cold wind, get warm as soon as possible/raise your body temperature: take a hot shower/bath, use warming herbs (garlic, ginger, etc.) warm drinks (hot teas and broths, cider). Go to sleep (with a heating pad if desirable, *especially if you suspect mycoplasma) and let your body give it all it’s got!

(ancient Chinese secret, your body will heal itself if you give it the ability to do so)

-Avoid taking an antibiotic if at all possible, they make you weaker and the germs stronger.  They also contribute to the rapidly growing crisis of antibiotic resistant germs that have resulted in life-threatening infections for which antibiotics have become virtually ineffective.  The World Health Organization (WHO) has issued multiple requests for doctors to prescribe antibiotics only if absolutely necessary, however they continue to be over-prescribed due to public demand.

If you do choose to take an antibiotic, follow with a course of quality probiotics for at least a month to restore your natural immune function interrupted by antibiotics.

Bare Essentials wishes you and your family a wonderful winter!

The staff of Bare Essentials Natural Market are not licensed healthcare practioners and are not able to diagnose, treat, prescribe, or cure. This information is for educational purposes only.

How Can I Keep My Family Healthy This Winter?

This is one of the most common questions we hear. Many of us have already experienced a cold, or seen our children come home from school with a runny nose. Too often, a simple cold leaves the door open for secondary infections, and then it’s a trip to the doctor’s office, missed school, antibiotics…

Wait! We don’t have to live this way. We can take a more proactive approach with safe, proven natural products that support healthy immunity and reduce the need for antibiotics.

Probiotics are the beneficial bacteria that populate our digestive tract. Babies are born with a sterile digestive system and begin to acquire their probiotic bacteria in the first week or so of life. Some probiotics occur naturally in breast milk, and later in life we can acquire other strains of healthy bacteria from yogurt, sauerkraut and naturally fermented foods. Optimally, we continue accumulating beneficial strains throughout a lifetime, and those little guys reproduce and colonize, even hybridize, to ensure a gut full many hundreds of different types of strong, healthy bacteria.

You may wonder why this is considered a good thing! These beneficial bacteria are responsible for the end stages of digestion, helping with proper breakdown of food substances and ensuring regular elimination. They also synthesize some of our vitamins for us. But perhaps the most amazing contribution they make is to our immune function- believe it or not, abundant colonies of gut bacteria have a very important role to play in the health of our immune system.

We are still learning about the role they play in immunity, but research has shown that there is a strong connection. In July 2009 the online journal Pediatrics reported up to 84% reduction in time spent on antibiotics in a group of children given multi-strain probiotics during the six-month study. In this double-blind placebo-controlled study, children experienced less rhinitis (runny nose), fewer coughs, reduced incidence of fever and 31% fewer missed days at daycare.

Another 2009 study published in the journal Postgraduate Medicine reports that researchers found that probiotic bacteria increase the body’s immune response to the flu virus — specifically, to influenza A. The so-called swine flu, also known as H1N1, is a variant of influenza A.

Of course, starting probiotics at the onset of symptoms is not likely to be very helpful. Laying the groundwork ahead of time is the best approach if you intend to make probiotics part of your wellness strategy. However, if you do find yourself with an infection, it’s not too late to add probiotics to your regimen. Ironically, antibiotic use depletes our natural probiotic colonies, so it may be helpful to supplement even after an infection has cleared. And since these bacteria already reside in a healthy intestinal tract, they are thought to be extremely safe for adults and children.

Colostrum is the first milk produced after the birth of a baby. Breastfeeding moms are familiar with the immune enhancing nature of colostrum, essential for normal immune response in infants. Humans can borrow colostrum from cows and goats, whose colostrum is known to mimic the composition of human colostrum, providing immunoglobulins (IgG, sIgA, IgM), growth factors, peptides and lactoferrin. These compounds have a regulatory effect on immune response, which can be beneficial at any age when the immune system is facing a challenge.

There have been over 2000 papers published on bovine colostrum! This is a well-documented option for improving immunity and digestive health. Many of these studies have demonstrated the efficacy of colostrum against e. coli, h. pylori and diarrhea caused by the human rotavirus.

One particularly interesting study I came across recently was conducted in Pescara, Italy. Researchers conducting a three-month study found bovine colostrum supplementation in healthy adult subjects to be “…at least three times more effective than vaccination to prevent flu”.

Since we are meant to receive the immune-enhancing compounds in colostrum as infants, there is not thought to be any harm in re-introducing colostrum at a later age.

Probiotics and colostrum are both available as mild-tasting powders that come loose or in capsules, making them easy for everyone to take. Come by Bare Essentials Natural Market to see our selection of great products to help your family stay well this winter.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent disease.