As of the 1st of June, Thrive Wellness is now located at 189 Herries Street, Toowoomba.
We look forward to seeing you in our new home!
One of the benefits you will find at our new location is ample parking at the rear of the building. The main entrance from the car park at the rear is also wheelchair accessible.
What a heatwave!! (*pauses to wipe brow) Instinct has us reaching for water to quench our thirst, but for some of us, regardless of how much we drink, we remain thirsty. Why?
Did you know your body needs more than just water in order to hydrate? Specific minerals, called electrolytes – sodium, potassium and chloride especially – are necessary to hydration. While most people are aware their body is comprised 60% water, few realise the important role electrolytes (present in blood and other bodily fluids) play in enabling their body to hold onto and use the water they drink. Hydration is essential for healthy, happy cells, organs, hormones, brain health and absolutely everything!
So, in the midst of this heatwave, I thought I’d share this simple cocktail (and no, there’s no alcohol in this baby) to help you replenish lost sodium, potassium and chloride, as well as provide some wholefood Vitamin C, natural sugars and the plethora of nutrients, minerals and trace minerals found in oranges. This handy cocktail also serves as a balancing and restorative drink that supports your adrenals during times of stress, so feel free to mix up this delish cup of nourishment during the cooler months as well.
In terms of when to drink it, It’s best taken away from other food and drink. Ideally 10am and/or 2pm, but fit it in when you can. Please note that the cocktail is not a one-stop shop – meaning it’s absolutely not a replacement for water – you still need to drink plenty of quality, clean, mineral rich water throughout the day. The Electrolytes provided in this cocktail are only one part of the hydration puzzle – WATER still remains the major piece!
And of course, if you have any concerns about your health, or your Doctor has told you to restrict your sodium intake, please make an appointment to confirm this cocktail fits in with your specific health goals and wellness plan!
RECIPE VARIATIONS FOR ADRENAL COCKTAILS
Orange Juice recipe:
• 120ml fresh squeezed Orange Juice
• ¼ tsp cream of tartar
• ¼ tsp sea salt (unrefined)
• *provides approx: 62mg whole food Vit C + 372mg potassium and 485mg sodium chloride
Coconut water recipe:
• 1 cup coconut water (ensure 375mg potassium, each brand different amounts)
• ¼ tsp sea salt
• 60mg wholefood vit c
Recipe for Travelling:
• ¾ tsp cream of tartar
• ¼ tsp sea salt
• ½ tsp wholefood vit c
• 120ml water
*All Adrenal Cocktails should provide approx 60mg wholefood vit C + 375mg potassium + 460mg sodium chloride.
NOTES ON INGREDIENTS & WHERE TO PURCHASE
Where Wholefood C is mentioned, I recommend Eden Healthfoods Wild C powder. Wild C contains a mixed blend of organic, wild berries and greens, dehydrated at low temperatures and ground into powder – using whole foods ensures necessary co-factors like bioflavonoids, and other vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients are available, making it both non-toxic and more bioavailable compared to isolated Vit C.
I made a lot of phone call enquiries to companies marketing different brands of wholefood C products in Australia – I was surprised at how many admitted to knowing nothing about how the raw ingredients had been grown or processed, or whether they’d been heated or frozen along the way! They simple bought in various powders, mixed them together and marketed their product. In contrast, Eden Healthfoods are passionate about delivering quality wholefood supplements from nature to home and answered every question I asked in detail!
They’ve offered to give 10% discount to our readers. Use the code THRIVE at checkout, or click here for it to be automatically applied.
With regards to sea salt, choose unrefined Celtic Sea Salt (white-ish grey colour) or Himalayan salt (pink). ‘Salt of the Earth’ is a Celtic Sea Salt brand our family loves and can be purchased from most Organic Grocery stores and Health Food shops.
If juicing your own oranges, remove skin and pips and blend in food processor or similar. If buying orange juice, source WHOLEFOOD juices without additives or preservatives – eg. Nudie brand “Nothing But Oranges” available at supermarkets.
A new study has found that changes to diet (using the “Modified Mediterranean Diet“) can lead to significant improvement in moderate to severe clinical depression. At the end of a 12 week program, close to a third of participants were classified as being in remission, compared to less than one-tenth of the control group.
You can read the full publication of the research project here:
A randomised controlled trial of dietary improvement for adults with major depression (the ‘SMILES’ trial)
For a plain-language description of the research and findings, follow the link below:
Food & Mood Centre – SMILES Trial.
Sometimes there just aren’t enough hours in the day.
Everyone seems to notice how busy our lives have become — and how hard it is to allocate time to all the important things we want to get done.
“Sun Dial” by russellstreet (CC BY-SA 2.0)
You’d think, by now, in the year 2017, something would have been done about it. Where are our leaders on this issue? Why hasn’t our government done something and added at least two, maybe three hours to each day? With that bit of extra time, maybe we could all do those things we just can’t find the time for!
Of course, I jest. But while lengthening the day is not possible, some people try a close alternative: reduce the hours spent sleeping. For some people this seems to work … but most of us just end up tired, grumpy, and even less able to use those precious minutes and hours productively.
But what if there was another option — to take less time on each task?
For many people this is a very real option — an untapped boost to productivity just waiting for you to take advantage of it. The good news is it is also very simple.
Here’s the key to getting more done in the time you have:
Do less.
Don’t go away! This isn’t a trick. Read on …
Continue reading
Below is a puzzle that will soon be 50 years old. It was developed in 1966 by Peter Wason, a cognitive psychologist interested in the often illogical nature of human reasoning. The puzzle is a very simple logic puzzle and involves no tricks. Yet, across multiple studies less than 10% of people give the correct answer. See how you do:
Logic puzzle 1
There are four cards with a number on one side and a colour on the other. If the number is even, the card must be red on the other side.
Which cards need to be turned over to check if the above rule is followed?
Which cards could violate the rule?
Keen for the answer? Well… just wait a moment. Let’s try another puzzle:
Logic puzzle 2
You work at a licensed restaurant. Your boss asks you to make sure all patrons who are served alcoholic drinks are over 18.
Which patrons do you need to check?
|
Patron 1 |
Patron 2 |
Patron 3 |
Patron 4 |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Drink: tea |
Drink: wine |
Drink: ? |
Drink: ? |
|
Age: ? |
Age: ? |
Age: 47 |
Age: 15 |
Okay. Now let’s check how you did.
Chances are, if you are like most of us, you had the answer to puzzle 1 wrong but were correct for puzzle 2. If you got both right then, congratulations! You are an unusually logical thinker.
But here’s the really interesting thing: From a logic point of view, these are both the exact same puzzle. Both puzzles involve testing a rule of the form “If P then Q”. The most common answer to puzzle one is to select the cards named in the rule — the 4 and the red. This would be logically equivalent to a bottleshop owner asking for ID from anyone buying alcohol who looks older than 18.
Often there is some degree of misinterpretation of the rule as if it read “all even cards, and only even cards, will be red on the other side”. However, the answer most commonly provided is incorrect even for that interpretation: for that rule you would need to turn over every card to confirm the rule.
Somehow the nature of the content of the second puzzle makes the correct answer “pop out”, while the first puzzle exposes limitations of our human reasoning. There are several theories about why we are so much better at the second variation of the same puzzle.
One theory is that our brains are optimised to detect violations of social rules — in this case the rules prohibiting underage drinking. Being good at detecting and enforcing social rule violations may have significant survival value — whereas being able to detect violations of arbitrary logical rules may have very few implications for survival. Another theory is that the effect is a feature of how we process information by relevance while minimising cognitive effort.
Whatever the explanation, here is what I would see as the important take-home lesson: Humans aren’t logical. We can be absolutely convinced we are right while being at the same time obviously wrong. We jump to conclusions. We ignore information that contradicts what we already think. We are messy creatures, and we can’t change that. However, by understanding our nature, and limitations, we can be a little less vulnerable to some of their consequences — perhaps a little less hurt by assuming, when our friend says “You’re five minutes late”, that it means “I’m angry with you”, for example.
Wanting to eat better, lose weight or improve fitness is one thing … for many of us, actually achieving these goals can prove elusive. Common sense is not always enough to achieve lasting change, and there is such diverse and too often contradictory information out there on health, fitness and dieting.
ABC’s All in the Mind aired a story in late October exploring some lines of research that may shed some light on some of the challenges of dieting – and how we might overcome them.
You can listen to the full program, or read the transcript here: Diet on the Brain
Particularly interesting in this program is reference to some research on how the brain might be “trained” to prefer certain types of food, depending what you typically eat when you are most hungry. More information on that research can be found here:
It’s likely that by now you have at least heard the term “neuroplasticity”. Our understanding of the human brain’s capacity to rewire itself has grown dramatically over the past few decades. We have written about it previously in our blog post Rewire your brain: neuroplasticity FTW!.
It’s one thing to hear about neuroplasticity. But it is something else altogether to see it in action. Today I stumbled across this youtube video:
There are lots of skills that are complex and difficult to master, for which the development of new neurological wiring through continual practice will be essential to mastery. But rarely do we see such a <em>dramatic</em> challenge to achieving the most rudimentary level of competence. Why is this bike so difficult to ride? If we reversed the steering in a car people would very quickly be able to adjust. Anyone who has played a reasonable number of flight-simulating computer games will know how quickly that adjustment can occur, because a proportion of those games reverse the vertical control axis. Adjusting to that can be accomplished in hours. It took <em>eight months</em> for the presenter of this video to be able to ride this bike.
The challenge with reversed steering on a bike is that steering is not <em>only</em> used to control your direction, but constant small adjustments are made to maintain balance on the bike. With the steering reversed there is almost <em>no room for error</em> that would allow the brain to try an option, realise it is producing the wrong result and adjust accordingly. It is worse than learning to ride the <em>first</em> time because the brain is predisposed by existing wiring to select a set of motor responses that are the precise <em>opposite</em> of what are needed, amplifying any imbalance instead of correcting it.
…so the thing that amazes me most, watching this video, is that even under circumstances that are tremendously prejudiced to failure, the neuroplasticity of the brain makes success possible. What might your brain be capable of that may seem impossible to you today?
“Bicycle” by fedeanimation – CC BY 2.0
Mindfulness forms an important part of a range of strategies we use at Thrive Wellness to facilitate psychological well-being. So far we have never written on the subject on our blog. Now, once again, the Radio National program All in the Mind has done a great job summarising what mindfulness is and the current state of the science on its usefulness. Also included are some good personal accounts of its benefits.
Have a listen to the program, or read the transcript, here: All in the Mind – On being mindful.
