Stressor Solutions

[djkvan]

Laying on your left side or halfway on your left side and halfway on your chest is ideal for horizontal beds

That's how I sleep. Did the raised thing once, might try it again. It's awkward, though.

Breathing through the nose filters the air and warms it to body temperature. Breathing through the mouth exposes the lungs to temperatures above or below body temp shocking them (resulting in alveolar constriction) and making gas exchange less efficient. Deep breathing helps the body to reduce acidity by blowing off acidic CO2.

Foods should be as close to body temperature as possible in order to avoid shocking the digestive system. Both the lungs and digestive system require time to recover from temperature-induced shock and during this recovery period they function at less than optimal efficiency. Bad idea: ice water. Good idea: warm water. You get the idea.

Also underwear, bras and belts inhibit both blood and lymphatic circulation as well as digestion due to the pressure they exert on structures. A good idea is to wear suspenders when oot and aboot, and when at home loose, flowing clothes (got a Snuggie? ) or nothing at all. I also unbutton the top button of my pants and loosen my shoes when seated.

[djkvan]

Here's some colon info from http://www.healthyjourney.org/Colon-Digestion.htm...

The colon has reflexes that affect other parts of your body. For example, if your ascending colon (goes up right side of abdomen) is swollen and irritated, you may have liver issues, breathing issues or pain in your right leg or arm. If you have bulging in the turns of your colon (upper left and right quadrants of abdomen), you may have ringing of the ear or dizziness. If your transverse colon (crosses top of abdomen) is congested with encrusted fecal matter, you may have sinus congestion, allergies, foggy thinking, or memory loss. If your descending colon (goes down left side of abdomen) is enlarged and contains pockets filled with old fecal matter, you may have heart or lung trouble, shoulder or arm problems/pain, or spleen issues.

A healthy colon is about five feet long, two and a half inches in diameter, and weighs two to three pounds. The average American's colon weighs ten to fifteen pounds. It is not uncommon for an unhealthy colon to weigh up to 60 pounds. When John Wayne died, the autopsy reported was said to reveal that his colon weighed between 70-80 pounds. The colon's main function is to remove water from the chyme (digesting food particles) and bulk up the stool. Friendly bacteria continue to further break down any partially digested food/meat substances. Friendly bacteria make nutrients such as vitamin K and some of the B vitamins. Your colon should eliminate its contents every 8-12 hours. Ideally, your stool should be a foot long, 1 inch around, and partially floating.

[dime]

Also I would like to update that sitting in hammocks is not optimal - only if you are too tired to use hard surfaced flat sitting areas like wooden chairs or stools (don't use the back support). Just sit in them and don't slouch, it's infinitely easier to maintain proper posture in hard surfaced chairs (no or very little padding) than padded chairs (like typical office chairs) because the nerve receptors in your buttocks can give better feedback to your brain, allowing it to align the spine better. (this is the main initial factor in bad posture - too much padding, and it becomes habit to slouch).

I've been sitting on a hard chair with no back support for quite some time, but still get tired fairly quickly (couple of hours), especially my upper back. Too much lactic acid for my back muscles to handle I guess..

A solution I just found that might help, is to lift the chair up and incline it a bit (1 inch or so higher at the back), so that you can sit with your knees at 135 degrees angle, instead of the usual 90. This should help keep a better and more natural, balanced posture, that isn't so harsh on the muscles. I just inclined it for now (lifting up would be a bit trickier) and already seems better.

Some references
http://www.utne.com/1999-03-01/DontJustSitThere.aspx
http://www.zafu.net/medtechsupport.html

[waipete]

This has been very informative, thank you.

[dime]

So besides oxidative stress, there's a new term coming up now: "antioxidative stress"
I.e. too much antioxidants, especially the amounts you can get from supplements, are not really helping you and are very likely counterproductive in the long term. Which makes a lot of sense, we didn't have such supplements available until a few decades ago, so we're exactly adapted to the amounts we get from foods.
Recent study in support of this: http://www.hindawi.com/journals/oximed/2012/480895/

Oxidative stress arises when there is a marked imbalance between the production and removal of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in favor of the prooxidant balance, leading to potential oxidative damage. ROSs were considered traditionally to be only a toxic byproduct of aerobic metabolism. However, recently, it has become apparent that ROS might control many different physiological processes such as induction of stress response, pathogen defense, and systemic signaling. Thus, the imbalance of the increased antioxidant potential, the so-called antioxidative stress, should be as dangerous as well. Here, we synthesize increasing evidence on “antioxidative stress-induced” beneficial versus harmful roles on health, disease, and aging processes. Oxidative stress is not necessarily an un-wanted situation, since its consequences may be beneficial for many physiological reactions in cells. On the other hand, there are potentially harmful effects of “antioxidative stress,” especially in the cases of overconsumption of synthetic antioxidants. Antioxidants can neutralize ROS and decrease oxidative stress; however, this is not always beneficial in regard to disease formation or progression (of, e.g., cancer) or for delaying aging.

When it comes to stress
* small amounts are very much beneficial as then you can adapt to withstand more stress much better. E.g. you start with tiny amounts of raw egg yolks, which challenges the immune system, but slowly the immune system strengthens and you can eat 10-20 with no problem. I believe this holds for any of the stressors that panacea has listed in the beginning.
* large amounts once in a while are usually devastating and should be avoided. Like running a marathon when you've never run more than 1km before.

The conclusion: try to have small amounts of various stresses, in some increasing progression if possible so that you build your resistance stronger and stronger over time, but avoid over-stressing at all costs.

[Kasper]

What about the very high vitamin C intake you can get from this diet ?

But this makes intuitively a lot of sense to me.
Maybe gradually increasing uv exposure could be seen in the same manner.

[panacea]

When it comes to stress
* small amounts are very much beneficial as then you can adapt to withstand more stress much better. E.g. you start with tiny amounts of raw egg yolks, which challenges the immune system, but slowly the immune system strengthens and you can eat 10-20 with no problem. I believe this holds for any of the stressors that panacea has listed in the beginning.
* large amounts once in a while are usually devastating and should be avoided. Like running a marathon when you've never run more than 1km before.

stress is vital (the tension in muscles as opposed to the relaxation of them, is required for them to function properly) but this is not how I was using the word stress and I think that's pretty clear - I was meaning it in the sense that when our bodies are stressed to the point that there is more harm done than benefits gained by the stress rather than more benefits than harm.

[overkees]

Well, when it comes to antioxidants there is some great analogy with jugglers that I read somehwhere:

You've got a lot of different free radicals and different antioxidants they are swapping colored balls.

The antioxidants are juggling with a lot of balls and they are getting tired, so they want to give a ball away to make it easier on themselves.
The free radicals are bored and they want something more to play with otherwise they will start terrorizing their environment. Like a little kid who is not getting his way.

So the antioxidants give a ball to the free radical. But the free radical, childish as he is, only likes one or two colors. So not every antioxidant can give its ball to every free radical.

So the antioxidant gave away his colored ball. But now he is getting bored after a while! With other words he is now turned into a free radical and if it doesn't get a ball soon enough, it will start wreaking havoc! But wait there comes an antioxidant with a green ball, the kind the newly formed free radical wanted to have! Problem solved.

So, the antioxidant system is a very balanced one. Since antioxidants are almost always pigments in the plants, eating all colours of the rainbow is the best thing to do. However some vitamins are more important as others, such as vitamin C, because it is needed for other things aswell. But only orange juice would certainly not be optimal. Because it is often a very cheap and not easy to press fruit it is however one of the best choices to bulk on as it contains a very good composition of nutrients.

[RRM]

Since antioxidants are almost always pigments in the plants, eating all colours of the rainbow is the best thing to do.

Not true.
The main antioxidant in our blood is uric acid, followed by vitamin C and E (no pigments),
and the latter 2 are also the most abundant antioxidants in our diet.
Number 4 and 5 on that list are coenzyme Q (derived from acetyl-CoA) and glutathione (#1 in liver tissue), which are both produced inside the human body, just as other important antioxidant enzymes such as catalase, superoxide dismutase and various peroxidases.
Another major group of antioxidants are thiols, resembling alcohols, often with a strong odor (no pigment).
Carotenes (#6 on the list) are a major group of antioxidant pigments, present in fruits including oranges.

But only orange juice would certainly not be optimal.

Nobody consumes only OJ.
In as much that nobody needs all antioxidants available in plants.

[overkees]

Antioxidants from food I meant.

And vitamin E is not always abundunt in this diet. Yes, if you eat alot of olive oil. But I am currently still trying to get my omega ratio between 1:1 and 1:2. So olive oil for vitamin E is a no go. I am now, thanks to Kasper, on red palm oil. Which is one of the best oils when it comes to nutrients. Wai site should advocate the use of red palm oil in my opinion, since it is extremely benificial and completely wai. More than olive oil! Even some of the deniocciolato. And certainly a better ratio.

Trust me, I submitted an afwul lot of versions in the nutrient calculator (mostly with max 30g olive oil) and never met the RDA. Even with dried apricots!!


This is the point:

If vitamin C neutralizes a free radical it ransforms in ascorbyl radical, ascorbyl is neutralized by glutathione and gluthathione radical is formed and it is neutralized by lipoic acid. So you get chain reactions of these kinds. So if there is too much of one antioxidant, your body still can't cope with the new free radicals that are formed when this antioxidant neutralizes free radicals. That's why you need a whole bunch of antioxidants. And it's better safe than sorry.

And about only orange juice, I mean only orange juice as fruit. There was a time I drank only OJ + OO and had egg yolks and sometimes a fish (seldom). Because the simplicity attracted me. Now this certainly is not optimal.

[RRM]

antioxidants are almost always pigments in the plants

Not true

Antioxidants from food I meant.
And vitamin E is not always abundunt in this diet.

Even if restricted to dietary antioxidants, the most abundant antioxidants in your blood are vitamin E and C.
And since we cannot make these, they always come from our food.
So, your statement is still false.

[overkees]

Lol, you apparantly dont want to understand me.

Vitamin e and vitamin c are only 2 varieties of antioxidants. If you read the story I wrote you could see that it isnt about the dose but about the amount of different species antioxidants as different free radicals need different antioxidants.

[RRM]

antioxidants are almost always pigments in the plants

Vitamin e and vitamin c are only 2 varieties of antioxidants.

But the 2 most important dietary antioxidants active in our blood.
The role of pigments as antioxidants in our body is very small when
compared to how much more (antioxidant) work is done by all other antioxidants.

[panacea]

overkees, you messed up when you started with basing it off of: an analogy.. that you read.. somewhere..

while this doesn't make it inherently untrue, it's much harder to find out the truth since you are giving us abstract stories instead of scientific or logical traces of how you arrived at this (you seemed to jump to this conclusion after reading it somewhere, which you didn't even mention where), I can't google colored balls antioxidants for example and find anything meaningful, you're asking us to take your word for it and gave us no good reason to do that..