How Baking Soda Baths Can Help

Baking soda is a mixture of sodium and bicarbonate ions that help remove odor, bacteria and acidity.  Adding 1/4 cup - 2 cups baking soda to a hot bath and soaking anywhere from 10-40 minutes could help your body by giving you detox support or killing candida or bacteria as in a yeast infection or UTI.  If you want extra detox support add 1/2 cup dead sea salts to the bath.  Dead sea salts is higher in trace minerals than Epsom salts.  This higher content of trace minerals makes Dead Sea salts a better option for detox or relaxing sore muscles. 

Always drink plenty of water before taking a baking soda bath to help flush out toxins.  For best detox support you may want to dry brush before the bath.  Dry brushing helps get rid of dead skin cells.  It also helps by opening up your pores to get the most detoxifying and purifying benefits.  Don’t get baking soda mixed up with baking powder.  You want baking soda.  It works so well because it is alkaline and our bodies tend to be too acidic so the alkaline water gets absorbed through the skin and creates a better pH.  It’s good for irritated skin as well.  

When you add the baking soda or salts make sure you swish it around so it dissolves.  I also recommend you rinse with fresh water after the bath to help get rid of toxins and residue.  Also drink more water after the bath as well to replace what was sweated out into the hot water.  

Take a baking soda bath if you want help with 

• Detox
• UTI
• Yeast infection
• Hemorrhoids
• Constipation
• Boost immune system
• Sore muscle relief (combine with Dead Sea Salt)
• Skin issues like eczema, psoriasis, poison ivy, hives, itchiness, etc.  

Be careful and talk to your health care provider before doing a baking soda bath if you have high blood pressure, open wounds, are nursing or pregnant. 

Benefits of Fasting

Why You Shouldn't Eat on Mondays

Fasting is a confusing term.  If you google it there are so many studies promoting it and others that say it doesn't help.  There are also many different ways to fast and figuring out the right way can be really tough.  Depending on what your health goal is I am a fan of intermittent fasting, the type of fasting where you eat for only 8 hours a day.  It's also known as 16:8 and it depends on the person but I usually suggest an eating window to be 11am-7pm.  Read here for more on intermittent fasting (8 Things to Know Before You Try Intermittent Fasting).

I have recently been playing with the idea of taking one day a week to fast.  I have been doing a lot of research and it makes sense for some people to do.  It all depends on what your health goal is but the research shows fasting can hep people lose weight, help lower cholesterol  and lower blood pressure too. 

It works because when you’re not digesting food, your body diverts energy to a process known as autophagy. It’s essentially a means where your body recycles and ditches the junk inside of you that it doesn’t have time to address when you’re digesting food all the time. It helps to regulate hormones, improve blood sugar, and increases a couple different enzymatic processes.  Fasting also has the same impact on your growth hormones as sleep and intense exercise. Studies haven't been done on humans but various animal studies show that fasting helps extend lifespan.  

The most important thing you can do when starting a 1-day fast is to promise yourself you’ll stick with it. You will inevitably experience some discomfort during the fast, and although it’s not insurmountable, it does require some willpower to get past. Commit from the very beginning, and you’ll be going into it with the right mindset. There’s a lot of power in commitment; harness it!
A lot times when you think you’re hungry, you’re actually just thirsty. The simple way to beat this is to drink a lot of water. Water actually curbs your appetite, as it decreases one of your hormones called ghrelin, which tells your brain that you’re hungry. By drinking more water you can quiet that nagging hunger.  Water is your best friend during a 1-day fast.

The health benefits of fasting are extremely appealing, but I do want to stress that fasting isn’t always for everyone. People who suffer from hypoglycemia and diabetics should probably avoid fasting, up until blood glucose and insulin levels have been normalized. Pregnant and breastfeeding women should absolutely not fast, as it can have negative effects on the baby. So for the first time I am writing about something I actually have not tried because I don't feel like waiting a year to finish breast feeding and then fast one day a week to share my opinion.  I really wanted to give you the info now and if you think it could work for you let me know at your next appointment and I'll let you know if it's something you should consider.  

Hand Sanitizer is Not Healthy for You

Hand sanitizer in small travel-size has been a novel idea when soap and water are not available but the alcohol that is in it is actually toxic to your body (so is the fragrance, but that's another topic). The alcohol in hand sanitizer is made from petroleum which comes from gasoline.  Yes, the gas we put in cars.  So when you use hand sanitizer you rub a derivative of gas onto your hands which gets absorbed into the body.   The polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in petroleum is what is found to be toxic.  How toxic? Cancer toxic. The National Toxicology Program (NTP) considers PAHs as a class to contain reasonably anticipated carcinogens (http://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/pubhealth/roc/roc13/); the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) lists 14 PAHs as probable or possible carcinogens and one PAH as a known carcinogen. ( http://monographs.iarc.fr/ENG/Classification/)

Besides hand sanitizer, petroleum is Vaseline and found in chapsticks and lotion, It is labeled as petroleum, petrolatum, paraffin oil, or mineral oil. Burt's Beeswax is a good company because they use beeswax instead of petroleum in their products.  
If you still want that convenient, on-the-go solution for cleansing your hands when soap and water are unavailable this homemade version will not only cleanse your hands, but moisturize them too.

Ingredients
5 tablespoons aloe vera gel
4 tablespoons water
¼ teaspoon vitamin E oil
8–10 drops doTERRA On Guard
(I have On Guard for purchase at the office.  It's great because of it's high clove content it really helps kill germs.)  

Note: Essential oils can be stored in plastic containers if the essential oils are highly diluted. Make sure the plastic is thicker and of high quality if you do use plastic containers. Glass containers are always better.

Instructions

1. In bowl combine aloe vera gel and vitamin E oil.
2. Add eight to 10 drops of doTERRA On Guard Protective Blend to aloe vera mixture.
3. Add water and mix well to combine. Add more or less water depending on the consistency you want.
4. Pour into container.
5. Place your homemade hand cleanser in your bag, car, or office for an effective, alcohol-free hand cleanser.

Have You Heard of Greenwashing?

Yes it’s a real thing. Greenwashing is the use of marketing to portray an organization's products, activities or policies as environmentally friendly when they are not.

To spot greenwashing, it can be helpful to compare how much money a company or organization spends on being green versus how much it spends on publicizing that its products, services or policies are actually green.

Greenwashing can take the form of changing a product's name or packaging to evoke a more natural esthetic even if it still contains dangerous chemicals or ingredients that are environmentally unfriendly to produce.

Yes it happens and yes it is allowed. I fell for these traps for years. “If it says it’s natural it must be.” Nope! Reading ingredients, not the label, is what’s important. One example is Mrs. Meyers. Mrs. Meyers is made without chlorine, ammonia, petroleum distillates, parabens, phosphates or phthalates. They also say they are made with essential oils and fragrance.

Anytime I see fragrance on a product and it is not noted what is making up that fragrance I won't buy it. On their website Mrs. Meyers shows fragrance in their ingredients as “mixture of natural, high-quality essential oils and safe synthetic fragrance ingredients.” Nope. My nose is so trained now because I don’t use any chemicals that I can smell them right away. It’s strong and doesn’t smell natural. 

I also contact many of the companies to ask where their essential oils are sourced and what grade they are. If they can’t tell me then I won't use it. 

There are different grades of essential oils. Most essential oils are distilled quickly so they can produce more and use them to fragrance perfumes and other products. When you distilled them quickly, you lose all the healing properties and are left with only the smell. So when you see a product that says scented with essential oils or made with essential oils, unless you know the company and where they source the oils from, they are usually perfume grade.

Also there is no regulation on fragrance. Fragrances are linked to allergies, hormone disruption, asthma, neurotoxins and cancer. There are something like 3000 chemicals that companies are allowed to use to make their fragrances and they don’t have to label them all. They can use hundreds of them to make one scent and not say what they used. It’s amazing what they approve to be in products in the store and our food. We have to read labels if we care what goes on and in our bodies. Instead of figuring out what the labeled 'fragrance' is sometimes it's just easier to find fragrance-free products.  One company I love for fragrance-free products is Ecover Zero for dish soap, laundry detergent, etc.  

Here are some links to info about fragrance:

https://www.prevention.com/beauty/skin-care/a20454834/the-truth-about-fragrance-free-products/
https://www.forceofnatureclean.com/truth-about-toxic-fragrances/

If you are wondering if the products you are using are safe this is a great website. You can plug in your product and it will tell you how toxic it is. 

https://www.ewg.org