The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Coffee Consumption
By Heidi Whitaker

Coffee is heavily studied, but study results contradict one another. If science says that it is bad for you today, wait a day or two and another study will be published claiming the exact opposite findings.

The Good:

Coffee has had its medicinal purposes. My own ancestors used it to treat asthma. Certain chemicals in coffee have even be proven effective at stimulating bronchial dilation of people previously diagnosed with specific types of asthma. Some modern day asthma medications are even made from chemicals in the caffeine family.

Newly published findings suggest that men drinking caffeinated beverages, including coffee, have as much as a 3 to 6 times lower risk of developing Parkinson’s disease.

The caffeine in coffee increases your metabolic rate, making weight loss faster and easier. It has also been associated with a reduced risk of suicide in women.

The Bad:

Women who drink more than one cup a day of decaf are considered at a much higher risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis. The theory is that the chemically decaffeinated products are causing the increased risk of autoimmunity. If you are going to drink decaffeinated coffee anyway, be sure that it uses a non-chemical based method.

Those at risk of heart disease and stroke should avoid coffee. Drinking coffee interferes with your body’s ability to keep homocysteine and cholesterol levels in check and can increase blood pressure. (According to a study done in the Netherlands, this is true even if the coffee is filtered.) Raised levels of homocysteine are as a factor in the development of cardiovascular disease. Australian researchers found drinking coffee has potentially harmful effects on blood vessels. The caffeine may cause a loss of aortic elasticity, the main artery supplying blood to the body.

The findings are disputed by the coffee industry and some studies, but it also appears to be associated with an increased risk for breast and endometrial cancer. This is due to an increase in estrogen levels.

Studies have also shown that caffeine in coffee can raise levels of stress hormones and can lead to heart palpitations, jitters, and nervousness. People with panic or anxiety disorders can be especially sensitive to the caffeine in coffee. Even in small amounts, the stimulant can exacerbate their symptoms.

Coffee relaxes the esophagus causing reflux.

The Ugly:

Pregnant and nursing women should never drink coffee. Caffeine is a stimulant drug that easily passes through the placenta to the developing fetus and is also transferred through breast milk. Fetuses have no ability to detoxify caffeine. Drinking coffee increases the risk of miscarriage and various birth defects.

For more information, visit the following:

How Bad is it Really? http://www.mercola.com/2003/dec/10/coffee.htm

Coffee Drinkers Face Lower Parkinson’s Disease Risk
http://www.mercola.com/2000/may/28/coffee_parkinson.htm

Coffee May Damage Blood Vessels
http://www.mercola.com/2000/sep/17/coffee_blood_vessels.htm

Coffee and Suicide http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/9603/coffee_suicide/

Coffee and Diabetes http://www.thefactsaboutfitness.com/news/coff_diab.htm

Coffee and Reflux http://www.s-t.com/daily/03-97/03-11-97/b01ho075.htm

Coffee and Addiction
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=C1VYBJVSS04E2CRBAEZSFFA?type=healthNews&storyID=6369844

Heidi Whitaker is an author and speaker on the topic of nutritional support of autoimmune disease. She is also the co-owner of http://www.healthydivas.com.

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Love and Laughter - Real Medicine for Real Life
By Heidi Whitaker

Positive emotions, a good attitude, laughter, and love have an exceptionally powerful effect on immunity and a person’s ability to deal with disease. When we feel love, compassion, caring, or gratitude, the heart sends messages to the brain, which secretes hormones that positively affect our health.

Love is healing both to the giver and the receiver. We are protected from infection by social ties with friends, family, and community that involve love. In a study, 276 healthy volunteers received nasal drops containing rhinovirus, which causes the common cold. Not everyone who was infected became ill. Those with the greatest ties and number of strong relationships were the least likely to get sick.

Love of self is also an important part of the equation. One doctor stated that if he told his patients to raise their own immune function, they would not know how. However, if he taught them how to love themselves and others fully, it would achieve the desired effect

Just behind love in its healing properties is laughter. Individuals with a better sense of humor have stronger immune systems than those who do not laugh easily. Studies show that watching as little as thirty to sixty minutes of a comedy video is enough to increase immunoglobulin A, a part of your immune system, which serves to protect you against upper respiratory problems. We know from that same study that watching comedies increases levels of a substance called Complement 3, which helps antibodies pierce through and destroy defective or infected cells.

Too stressed out to take time out to laugh? Stress has such a powerful effect on immunity that it is estimated that in the general population, two-thirds of all the illnesses seen by doctors are stress related. Your body responds to emotional stress the same way it responds to physical stress: with increased disease.

You don’t even have to be experiencing stress in that moment. According to research, just recalling or thinking about stressful times in your past will warp immune function. In contrast, remembering happy times raises immunity.

Your immune system functions as a mirror to your emotions. If you want to be healthier, be happier. Focus your thoughts on the good in your life. Schedule time to laugh. Schedule time with friends and family. Make a daily effort to show your love and appreciation for them.

Heidi Whitaker is an author and popular speaker on the subject of autoimmunity.

She co-founded http://www.HealthyDivas.com a resource center for those with autoimmune disease looking for help and answers.

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By: Heidi Whitaker

“We cannot lower the mountain, therefore We must elevate ourselves.” -Todd Skinner

Sir Edmund Hillary was the first man to climb Mount Everest. However, in 1952 he made a valiant, but failed attempt to climb Mount Everest. A few weeks later, while addressing an excited English crowd, Hillary made a fist and pointed at a picture of the mountain. In a loud voice he shouted, “Mount Everest, you beat me the first time, but I’ll beat you the next time because you’ve grown all you are going to grow… but I’m still growing!”

What is Your Personal Mount Everest?

Climbing your own Mount Everest means reaching the best that is within you. As you put one foot in front of the other, success – in business, relationships, health and all aspects of life - will follow you up that mountain.

Are you Thinking Big Enough?

Mountaineer and public speaker, Todd Skinner, encourages us to “Think, Believe, and Act on a Himalayan Scale.”

Fourteen and half-year-old Christopher Harris has already scaled Mount Everest, making it just 1500 metres from the summit before being forced to turn back. Where has this young man set his sights? Christopher dreams of Mars, where the tallest mountain reaches 21 kilometres into the Martian sky.

Indeed, before you can act on a Himalayan scale, you must think on one. It is your thinking that will determine how high you scale in this life.

“When I Have a Choice, I Choose to Believe” –Leslie Householder

On any given day, more than half of the thoughts of the average person are negative. What’s worse, 80% of those negative thoughts are recycled negative thoughts from the day before. We’re just thinking the same negative thoughts day after day. No wonder so many people are afraid of anything that may help them to progress.

Spend as much time as you can reading and listening to motivational materials. Read or listen to biographies about successful people. If you are sick, feed you mind stories of people who have overcome illness. If you are poor, feed your mind stories of people who have overcome poverty.

Constantly feed your mind until you come to understand and accept that although there will be failures along the way, success is a NORMAL consequence to risk-taking. This is what will give you the courage to climb your personal Mount Everest.

The skeptic says, “Let’s see if this will work.” The intelligent person says, “Let’s see this work.” - Steve Pavlina

Erik Weihenmayer, is a blind man who dreamed of climbing Mount Everest, a feat that defied nearly 90 percent of those who have attempted the climb to the summit. Determined not to waste his life feeling depressed and useless, Eric began to stretch his limits and became one of the elite few to make it to the top of the mountain.

Erik conquered Everest by simply putting one foot in front of the other. When asked how he accomplished this feat, Erik said, “I just kept thinking … keep your mind focused. Don’t let all that doubt and fear and frustration sort of get in the way.” Then, most importantly, he said, “Just take each day step by step.”

Eric didn’t wait for another blind man to pave the way for him up the mountainside. He took action. All the positive thinking in the world would not have gotten him anywhere had he not moved his feet.

Written by: Heidi Whitaker

Outside diet and restorative sleep, few things affect our ability to cope with the stress of everyday life the way that a positive outlook can…

In preparation for a class I once taught, I spent some time studying the life and works of American artist Norman Rockwell. His idealistic paintings, portraying the innocence of a simpler time, were featured for decades in publications such as The Saturday Evening Post and Boy’s Life. They were and still are beloved by millions. His critics in the art world, however, are many and outspoken.

Fellow artisans accused him of trying to dictate to Americans how they should view America. Rockwell’s work was said to conjure up “a fantasy of a virtuous America”. His paintings were thought to have almost a brainwashing effect over their admirers. It was once said of Rockwell that his illustrations convinced people that they were happy when they really weren’t.

The more I studied Rockwell’s life, art, and words, the more I realized how wrong his critics were. Rockwell actually was painting life as he personally saw it. His reality – the reality that he created for himself - really was that idealistic. He saw and therefore painted an America where people were good and kind, patriotic, simplistic, and truly blessed. Virtue was in abundance in Norman Rockwell’s corner of the world.

While I don’t believe that his intent was to brainwash his many fans, he did change the way Americans saw America, when they saw it through Rockwell’s eyes. People were inspired to be and do better.

Norman Rockwell once proclaimed of himself that he was “addicted to idealism”. How was he able to feed his addiction and create an idealistic reality in which to live and work? From tidbits of his writings, I firmly believe that he must have lived by the following principles: We are whatever we see ourselves to be. How we choose to view our lives will create our reality. Our chosen reality, not fate, will determine our happiness and prosperity in this life.

Rockwell’s critics could not see past the reality they had created for themselves. They lived in the same America, but sifted for what was decrepit and evil. Their choice was to live in a country devoid of innocence and virtue.

Rockwell’s life and work are just more proof to me that if we choose to see the good around us, we will create more good. It doesn’t matter if we are talking about idealism or health, the principle is still the same. “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.”

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Heidi Whitaker is an author and popular speaker on the topic of nutritional support of autoimmune disease. An advocate for alternative health solutions, she co-founded http://www.healthydivas.com, a resource center for those autoimmune sufferers looking for real answers outside of what conventional medicine can provide.

What color are your walls?

Written by: Heidi Whitaker

While reading a magazine article I came across the tip to paint your walls pink if you are trying to loose weight because the color pink suppresses your appetite. John’s Hopkins is even having its weight loss clinic patients carry around a card that is bubble gum pink to look at.

I was intrigued by the thought of color therapy and decided to see what else I could find on the subject.

The vast majority of the rooms in my house are blue, which is why I found the following information about the color blue very interesting. Blue is supposed to have a relaxing calming effect. Blue also can lower the blood pressure, the heart rate, and respiration. It is also said to help relieve the pain of inflammatory disorders.

Maybe my insistence that my house interior be blue was intuitive because of my conquest against the inflammation of autoimmunity.

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Heidi Whitaker is an author and popular speaker on the topic of nutritional support of autoimmune disease. An advocate for alternative health solutions, she co-founded http://www.healthydivas.com, a resource center for those autoimmune sufferers looking for real answers outside of what conventional medicine can provide.

What your doctor won’t tell you…

Toxins in the body can cause daytime fatigue. Your lymph system is supposed to rid your body of toxins. But our lymphs get plugged up. How??? If you wear a bra – especially if you wear it more than ten hours a day, you are putting a stopper on your lymph glands. When you plug up your lymphs, toxins are deposited in the fatty tissue of your breasts, which makes you MUCH more prone to breast cancer.

A study revealed that women who wore a bra 24 hours a day are 113 times more likely to develop breast cancer than women who wear a bra only 12 hours a day or less. Women who don’t wear a bra at all are 21 times less likely to develop breast cancer than the general population.

Here is a trick I learned from a reflexologist. Look at the top of your bare feet. Look at where your toes meet your foot. That skin on your foot should be flat. There should be nothing there but skin and bone. Push on it. You should be able to run your fingers across it with a fare amount of pressure without it being tender. Puffiness or tenderness that is a sign that your lymph system in your chest area is a little plugged up. (There are other signs and places on the feet to check, but they are too difficult to describe in an article.)

Lemon and citrus oils are some essential oils that help support the lymphatic system. Cedarwood oil also stimulates lymph circulation.