Sleep, like food, is powerful medicine. There are few aspects of our daily lives that are as profoundly essential and influential to our health and healing as getting good sleep. Sleep is a magical, mysterious time that allows us to power down, repair, replenish, and renew—providing the deepest healing and renewal available to us.
We must sleep—this is one…
The cruciferous family of vegetables–your favorites like cabbage, kale, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, and broccoli–are so special in their deliciousness, but also possess magical chemistry that supports many key dimensions of our health, like detoxification, antioxidant protection, and control of inflammation. Through their detoxification attributes, they help us neutralize and eliminate…
After decades of helping clients recover from persistent complex illness, I have come to view the gut as a key part of the solution to energy recovery. The gut and its inhabitants–the microbiome–are central to our health as the seat of our nutrition, immunity, detoxification, as well as important emotional wisdom–all critical drivers of our precious energy.Solving the riddle of persistent…
“I celebrate myself, and sing myself.” -Walt Whitman
I love the freshness and promise of each new year, but I’ve never liked the harshness and punitive nature of New Year’s resolutions that feel so judge-y–like we’re not good enough until we drop those pounds or start that exercise routine or accomplish this or that, believing that the new year will bring the magic that we need to create better…
Sue had almost given up. Her symptoms began abruptly one summer after returning home from a camping trip with her family. It started with vertigo that became so severe she couldn’t turn her head while lying in bed. She developed pain, numbness, and tingling all over her body. She felt like she was trembling from the inside, but no one could see this. She had headaches, muscle…
I find the holidays to be curiously stressful. There have been many past holiday seasons when I have struggled with sluggishness, irritability, and resistance to the challenges and expectations that seem to be part of it all.
And yet our winter holidays are a time of celebration in the many ways of our diverse traditions–light within the darkness, family, sharing, and coming together. The new…
We are energy at our most fundamental level. Energy is the expression of all action, function, and feeling associated with being alive and human. This includes biological energy in all its various forms—passion, vitality, curiosity, and life force—that are all connected, and that we lose when we are ill. The greatest blow of chronic illness is the loss of vital energy and how…
I’d like to pay homage to our adrenals in this series of articles, the source of our physiological life force energy, and teach you how to nourish them back to their full potential. Supporting adrenal function, as part of a comprehensive energy recovery strategy, will catapult you into…
Consider the root causes of your inflammation symptoms before reaching for another supplement. No matter how natural or powerful your favorite supplements are, if you don’t consider why you are hurting, aching, and tired you’re missing an opportunity to discover deep sustainable ways to improve your health.
I routinely…
I’ve been thinking a lot about gratitude lately, both because it has been a respite for me from the climate of fear that has surrounded us this past year, but also because it’s Thanksgiving.
I’ve decided that gratitude is so much more than the spontaneous rush of thankfulness we feel when good and joyful things happen to us.
Gratitude is a decision that we make and practice every day, that…
This past week brought with it a tsunami of emotions as a result of the election. Throughout this presidential campaign, no one has been immune to the expressions of anger, fear, disbelief, shame, grief, and hatred that have permeated our social spaces, leaving many of us feeling vulnerable and exhausted. Whether it be a highly contentious election, economic insecurity, health crises, or the…
This has become my all time favorite pumpkin pie recipe. Not only does the flavor and texture absolutely rock, but it meets my high nutritional standards. It is grain-, cow’s milk-, egg-, and legume-free, lower in sugar-content than other pumpkin pie recipes, and is utterly creamy and delicious. It’s robustness and depth of flavor is reminiscent of a cheese cake.
I believe my first rendition of…
Dear eggs, I owe you the biggest apology for the years of questioning your virtue and beauty. You see, my culture taught me some things about you that eventually were proven to be all wrong. They told me that your cholesterol and fat were bad for me, that you would give me a heart attack or stroke, and that I should never eat you. I missed you and thought of you often (and even snuck you in a…
Those of you who know me are aware that I’m not a fan of using “paleo” to describe twenty-first century food. I mean, it’s like saying “human” to describe a very nuanced and sophisticated way of eating and taking care of ourselves. My soapbox aside, to pay homage to the many authors out there in virtual paleo-land, who have influenced the many iterations of my brownie recipe, I am calling them…
Many of us feel our energy and mood take a nose dive during the winter months. Yes, it’s cold outside and Nature is all but asleep, and perhaps we should take her cue to light our internal fires with cozy blankets, warm socks, and afternoon naps. But when winter brings suffering, we can rise above the darkness by supplementing with vitamin D–the nutrient of light.
Optimal vitamin D levels in…
You’re using competition and comparisons as a tool to check out where you stand on the worthiness scale. There’s just one problem. Competition and comparisons are built on the assumptions we make about others and their lives–not the…