Insightful Blog

Winter Energy Levels: What's Normal?

We receive many questions this time of year from patients about normal energy levels in the winter. It is natural for sleep to increase in accordance with the lack of light we experience, especially here in the Northwest. Our circadian rhythms respond to the change in light and our pineal gland is affected, which may trigger a feeling of sleepiness earlier in the evenings.  This is a normal phenomenon.  It is often when people are not heeding this need for an average of one more hour of sleep per night  (or when they have been under long term stress or not practicing good sleep habits for a period of time) that daytime fatigue and a general feeling of depletion result.   In this scenario, either people notice they don’t feel rested after sleep, or they experience an energy crash at either 2-3 pm or 6-8 pm. This type of fatigue has a different cause than the normal winter desire for a bit more rest.

In the natural environment, animals are in part kept in tune with nature by being exposed to natural light and following the cues of their body for sleep and hunger. As humans and societies evolved, we have moved away from our natural rhythms in many ways. We set the alarm to wake before dawn, eat in a hurry while driving or standing over the kitchen sink and sit much of the day. While many people have adapted to handle the stresses of a modern society, the stresses still play a role in taxing the body. Stress has a cumulative effect on the body: any one thing might be precipitating factor to the manifestation of symptoms.
 
The primary organs for assisting the body in adapting to stress are the adrenal glands. These tiny glands sit on top of our kidneys and help us juggle all the stress in our lives. When the brain senses a stressor, the hypothalamus calls to the adrenals to pump out more cortisol. Cortisol prepares us for “fight or flight.” It is meant to help us handle short-term survival stressors, such as running from a bear. In our modern life, stress tends to be more long term, and takes a variety of forms. Some of these stressors are obvious (eg. job or family related) while others, such as skipping a meal, might not be quite as obvious. Our adrenals react just the same.  Eating more sweets during the holidays, as well as a common increase in work and interpersonal stress as people cope with the shorter days, are two specific exacerbating factors that affect many people during the winter months. (Some common types of people who often have adrenal depletion: parents, professionals with job stress/deadlines/high levels of responsibility, shift workers, college/graduate students, and adolescents.)
 
Over time, your adrenals can become depleted and don’t respond as readily to the requests for cortisol. This may leave us with symptoms of fatigue (as described above), mental fogginess, insomnia, a weakened immune system, anxiety, poor sleep, difficulty losing weight (or abdominal weight deposition), and a myriad of other possible symptoms. In fact, adrenal stress is the most common reason we see causing symptoms of fatigue that are not otherwise explained by the results of regular lab tests. If indicated, we order salivary testing for cortisol at various times of the day to ascertain an individual’s pattern, and then use various botanical medicines to reestablish adrenal health and thus energy and vitality. But one of the most important treatments for adrenal stress is to incorporate proper routine.
 
Routine helps the body relax by taking out the “guess work.” If the body cannot predict the time of your next meal or when you’ll go to bed, it does its best to compensate and registers this as a stress. By eating meals and snacks at the same time each day and going to bed and waking at the same time, we begin to help the body find balance. Ask your Naturopathic physician for tips on incorporating effective routine into your life, or contact us if you feel the cause of your fatigue has not been properly diagnosed and addressed by other healthcare providers.  

 

Brain Tsunamis

 This study was just published which is really interesting. It basically shows that when the brain is hit by something, a cascade of depolarizations occur that cause a "tsumani" to occur in the brain creating more damage. In my neurofeedback  world, the reason this happens is a due to seizure like activity in the brain. Once the brain is strengthened thresholds are raised so that people don't have this Tsunami effect. In other words, if "seizure-like" thresholds are low then polarizations can occur more easily. Neurofeedback has been shown to be neuro-protective we think by raising these thresholds; future injuries are less likely to have long term consequences after treatment.  Chronic viruses, toxins, etc are more likely to allow this to occur which is why treatment is so important for prevention. It also explains why one TBI leads to increase risk of damage from subsequent ones. 

 

 

Seasonal Tip: Back to School

 

After a beautiful summer in Portland, it is back-to-school time.  The return to school can be stressful for both parents and children. Here are a few quick tips to help the transition go more smoothly for everyone.
  1. Limit the amount of sweets that you and they eat, as sugars tend to stress the adrenal glands. Our adrenals help us adapt to change and stress, and to feel energetic in the morning and tired at bedtime.  Caffeine also stresses the adrenal glands.
  2. Get to bed early enough every night so that one gets age-appropriate amounts of sleep. For adults that is around eight hours but for younger kids and teen-agers it is closer to 11-13 hours!  For example, a nine year old needs 11 hours of sleep, making an 8 pm to 7 am sleep time optimal. If you need help resetting your child’s sleep time, please let us know. 
  3. Take it easy at least one day on the weekend. This allows the adrenals to repair.
  4. Eat healthy whole foods. Our website has many recipe suggestions. Another informative site is www.nourishingmeals.com .
  5. If you haven’t been in for some time, call us to schedule an adrenal tune-up.  Adrenal health is important for adults as well as children. 

 

Your Child’s Brain and School

 

Recently many schools across the country have decided to stop teaching cursive handwriting replacing with keyboarding skills. Kids, however, learn much more than just handwriting.  Recent studies show that learning cursive engages parts of our brains that allow us to connect and recognize emotions. Cursive is more demanding to the brain in learning due to the variance in each handwriting stroke. Every time one writes in cursive it creates variations in neural connections-- leading to improved hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills and most importantly the processing of emotions! Learning how to write cursive improves one’s ability to understand contextual meaning. In other words, through learning how to write cursive one can better interpret emails and texts that may otherwise be misconstrued. Furthermore, there is some evidence to support the idea that it allows for improvement in processing one’s own feelings. It allows for the right and left hemispheres of the brain to be connected.
 
At Insights to Health, we help patients to develop all parts of the brain. We use a variety of techniques, treatments and exercises to help individuals improve brain function, alleviating ADHD symptoms, insomnia, anxiety, depression, autism, and other brain-related disorders.   Call us to learn more. 

 

Spring Detox

Allergies and excess weight are often caused by system overload;  our program is a structured program to jumpstart better health and optimal weight. We have taken several hundred people through our 21-Day Detox and Weight Loss program with great success. Not only are patients losing  an average of 15-21 pounds in the three weeks , but the majority of people report having more energy, better sleep and reduced symptoms in general. Longterm, they not only feel great but are keeping the weight off and staying fit.   Each program is individualized for each patient's goals and health concerns/history.  Feel super by summer, or if someone you love has goals for greater health, please forward this newsletter.  

 

 

Autism Awareness

April is Autism Awareness Month and the physicians at Insights To Health would like to share what we have gleaned from our experience treating autistic spectrum disorder (ASD). Autism affects 1 in 48 boys in Oregon and isn’t so much a disease as a cluster of symptoms. The causes are not generally understood and very controversial. In our experience ASD is still commonly missed as a diagnosis and recognizing the problem is important. Recent studies found that large numbers of undiagnosed children displayed autistic traits. [1] This delay can lead to improper treatment, difficulties with teachers at school, and the lack of treatment entirely. Common traits displayed by ASD children are repetitive behaviors, impairments in social interaction, and difficulties with communication. Often, these children are extremely bright. Many parents later report that they had no idea anything was wrong, as their child was reading at 2 years of age. In general, boys are more likely to be diagnosed than girls. [2] Parents of girls with autism often do not have their concerns taken seriously. [3]

One modality that has been shown to be effective in treating ASD is neurofeedback. Several studies have shown neurofeedback improves outcomes of patients with ASD. ASD shows differences in brain function where some parts of the brain are quiet while other parts of the brain are “chatty” with lots of neural activity. Neurofeedback appears to balance this communication and allow for all parts of the brain to work optimally. In one study, neurofeedback reduced autistic symptoms by as much as 40%.  Clinically, we have found neurofeedback to be very effective for children with ASD.  Often the first aspect to improve is communication.

Furthermore. treatment of the adjunct symptoms that may or may not be directly related to the ASD diagnosis, such as gastrointestinal symptoms or sleep issues, can be treated with Naturopathic treatments and/or neurofeedback to create relief both for the patient and his or her family.   We have had good success with these approaches and find it so gratifying to see what is often rapid progress on the part of the child and delight on the part of the parents!




[1] Russell et al. Identification of children with the same level of impairment as children on the autistic spectrum, and analysis of their service use. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 2010; DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-7610

[2] Ginny Russell, Colin Steer, Jean Golding. Social and demographic factors that influence the diagnosis of autistic spectrum disorders. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 2010;

[3] Kopp, S., Berg-Kelly, K., and Gillberg, C. Girls With Social and/or Attention Deficits: A Descriptive Study of 100 Clinic Attenders. Journal of Attention Disorders, 2010; 14 (2): 167

Raw Vegan Carrot Cake

This is a delightful treat that you can enjoy and not feel too guilty about. Soaking the nuts is important both for flavor and nutrition. Soaking overnight is best. 
 
Cake
1 c almonds, cashews, or brazil nuts (soaked)
3/4 c dates (soaked)
1 c carrot pulp
3/4 c carrot juice (or juice carrots)
1 grated carrot
1 T ginger
1 T orange zest
1 T lemon zest
1 t cinnamon
1 t nutmeg
1/2 c raisins
1/2 c walnuts or dry shredded coconut
1 t lemon juice
 
Place the nuts and dates in a food processor and grind fine, until it forms a ball. Put it in a bowl with the carrot juice, carrot pulp, spices, zests, lemon juice and grated carrot. Stir until thoroughly mixed. Add the raisins and walnuts or coconut. Form a circle or square or shape of choice on the plate.
 
Icing 
3/4 c cashews (soaked)
2 dates (soaked)
1 orange (juiced)
1 t orange zest
1-2 T lemon juice
1/4 vanilla bean
 
Put all of these things in a food processor until smooth and creamy. Place on the cake and enjoy!
 
- author unknown

 

Winter Apple Oatmeal

So often oatmeal turns into a sugary, syrupy event.  This is a warm, tasty, yet low-glycemic way to start your winter days.

  • 1 cup oats plus dash of salt
  • 2 cups water
  • 1 apple, chopped
  • Cinnamon, stevia, and unsweetened hemp milk to taste
  • Handful of almonds
Cook the oatmeal as usual.  When done, add the apple, almonds, nuts, cinnamon, and stevia to taste.  Finish with hempmilk and enjoy!
 

 

Dinner At Your Door

Dinner at your door is a lifestyle service providing homemade, healthy meals conveniently delivered to your door throughout the Portland metropolitan area.  All menu items are made with fresh, low fat ingredients including organic, seasonal and local produce when available.  Visit dinneratyourdoor.com for reservations in your dining room.  Drs Gil and Christie have been using this awesome service for three months now and highly recommend it for busy professionals and families.

 

Hormonal Balance: The Link to Vitality and Health for Women

As women, we hear a lot of information about our hormones. They can affect our cancer risk, affect our metabolism, and cause hot flashes, mood changes, and insomnia. But what are hormones, really, and why are they so important, especially for women? 

Hormones are chemical messengers that instruct the rest of the body to carry out physiological actions. They travel in the body and are more dynamic than vitamins, muscles, and organs.  In fact, they tell your organs how to function in many cases. For example, hormones instruct your body to ovulate (female hormones), suggest how much energy to have in the morning (cortisol), determine how you handle stress (also cortisol), and affect how you metabolize your food (thyroid). Vitamin D, which we've heard about in the news lately, is actually a steroid hormone in structure, not actually a vitamin. That explains why proper levels of it are so crucial to a wide variety of health-maintaining mechanisms, including protection against respiratory infections (i.e. the flu), certain cancers (breast, prostate, colon), heart disease, and depression.  

Since hormones are messengers, and because they are all intricately intertwined with each other regarding function and regulation (cortisol and thyroid are intimately related, and both of them interact with the female hormones estrogen and progesterone), an imbalance of one affects the others, either directly or indirectly. This is why women will report that when they are more stressed their PMS symptoms worsen, and why women with female hormone issues such as PMS or irregular cycles or infertility often have a thyroid imbalance. This interdependence also explains why in the presence of any chronic disease, meaning when the body has been stressed or imbalanced for a period of over three months, there is always a hormonal component to address. And, because hormones are largely regulated by our nervous system, often there is a neurological component as well. 
 
As women, we are extremely fortunate. Our female hormones give us a window into our general health every month from approximately age 12 to age 51. A woman's menstrual cycle tells us a lot about her overall wellbeing and state of balance. It also can be used to predict hormonal problems after childbirth or in menopause. If a woman had irregular cycles, menstrual pain, or PMS beginning at menarche, this is a sign that she will continue to have problems throughout her life, often exacerbated at points such as pregnancy, postpartum, or menopause. Hormonal imbalances often occur alongside nervous system symptoms such as anxiety, insomnia, and depression. They also can predate heart problems. 
 
In our culture it is extremely common for women to experience PMS, menstrual pain, and menopausal symptoms. That does not mean that it is normal. Assuming a state of balance prior to menarche, a regular rhythm of painless, regular cycles with even moods is the rule. Easy childbearing, recovery of energy, continued regular painless cycles, and an easy transition into menopause is expected. When a woman departs from this ideal, ascertaining the cause can help to solve a whole panoply of health problems, small and large, even those that seem unrelated to hormonal function. If your female hormones are out of balance, then other hormones have almost certainly been affected as well, and as such the entire system of communication in your body is altered.
 
Dr. Winkelman works to diagnose, discover, and determine where imbalance began, identifying all the systems that have been affected, and then starts the process of balancing and harmonizing your entire body. Often, expensive diagnostic tests are not needed, as her clinical expertise guides her to recognize familiar patterns. Furthermore, her approach to cure avoids introducing external hormones into a system that is already out of balance. Instead, she has a variety of tools at her disposal such as herbs, homeopathy, lifestyle and dietary modifications, which are used in an individualized plan of treatment for each patient. These allow your body to start producing the hormones that are appropriate for your stage in life. With her counseling expertise, she also identifies areas of stress that are affecting your physical health, working together with you to ease all factors affecting your wellbeing concurrently. 
 
This comprehensive, systems-based approach is extremely gentle and effective, resulting in longterm whole-body health, vitality, and wellness. Whether you have unexplained health problems, known hormonal problems, or are on hormonal replacement therapy and want to discontinue gracefully, this approach will benefit you. Please call our office for more information or to schedule an appointment; we look forward to working with you to achieve your health goals!