Unreasonable Happiness Presented by Marcus Lovemore: 2016

How Not Sleeping Is Taking Years off Your Life

The is an excerpt from Mercola.com on sleep and its importance:

Sleep and Memory Formation

In the featured video,2 Robert Stickgold, director of the Center for Sleep and Cognition at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, discusses some of the lesser known reasons for why we need to sleep.3

Sleep is actually essential not just for cementing events into long-term memory, but also for making sense of your life.

According to Stickgold, during sleep your brain "extracts the gist of what happened" to you during the day, and fosters insight into the workings of your life.

Essentially, during sleep, your brain pulls together and extracts meaning, while discarding unimportant details. In fact, sleep increases your ability to gain insights that would otherwise remain elusive by about 250 percent!

Dreaming plays a role in this process too. One test showed that thinking about correctly navigating through a maze really had no effect on performance.

Ditto for taking a nap during which no dreaming was reported. Dreaming about navigating through the maze however, increased performance 10-fold!

According to Stickgold, the act of dreaming acts like a predictive marker, indicating that your brain is doing what it needs to do to successfully accomplish the task at hand.

These types of tests also showed that in the dream state, your brain is processing information at multiple levels. Your whole brain is engaged. So, during sleep, part of your brain is busy stabilizing, enhancing, and integrating new memories. It's also extracting rules, and the "gist" of what's going on.

Then, during dreaming, old and new memories are integrated to form a new whole, and possible futures are imagined. This is what you actually perceive as "the action" of your dream. The sum total of these processes then allows you to see the meaning of your life.

Less Sleep Results in Greater Calorie Consumption While Awake

On a more physical level, getting less than seven hours of sleep per night has been shown to raise your risk of weight gain, by increasing levels of appetite-inducing hormones.

Recent research4 in which people's sleep and food intake was carefully tracked confirmed that more sleep correlated with fewer calories consumed, and vice versa.

Most participants spread their eating and drinking over the course of 15 hours each day. About 25 percent of their daily calories were consumed before noon, and more than 35 percent after 6 pm.

This kind of eating pattern is, I believe, a major reason why so many Americans struggle with their weight. They're grazing all day long, and eating a majority of their food far too close to bedtime.

This flies in the face of our genetic ancestry, as our bodies are not designed to continuously receive calories. In fact, a number of beneficial effects take place when you go for periods of time without eating. This includes improved insulin and leptin sensitivity, which plays an important role in weight and health.

Eating too close to bedtime also disrupts the function of your mitochondria, thereby speeding up cell damage and contributing to DNA mutations. Indeed, the benefits of restricting your eating to a narrower window each day are revealed in this study too.

As reported by Reuters:5

"The researchers also tested whether the app might help people eat less by encouraging them to consume food and drink over a shorter stretch of the day.

They asked eight overweight people who tended to eat over more than 14 hours of the day to cut back to 10 to 11 hours. After 16 weeks, these people lost about 3.5 percent of their excess body weight and reported sleeping better..."

Poor Sleep Raises Risk of Accidents and Depression

Getting less than six hours of sleep leaves you cognitively impaired, which can have repercussions both at home, at work, and on the road. In 2013, drowsy drivers caused 72,000 car accidents in which 800 Americans were killed, and 44,000 were injured.6

Even a single night of sleeping only four to six hours can impact your ability to think clearly the next day. Lack of sleep has also been firmly linked to a heightened risk for depression.

Of the approximately 18 million Americans with depression, more than half of them struggle with insomnia. While it was long thought that insomnia was a symptom of depression, it now seems that insomnia may precede depression in some cases.7

Research has also found that sleep therapy resulted in remarkable improvements in depressed patients. About 70 percent of those with sleep apnea, whose sleep is repeatedly disrupted throughout the night, also tend to suffer from symptoms of depression.8

It's interesting to consider that if lack of sleep and lack of dreaming prevents you from seeing the meaning of your life, and prevents you from integrating memories and imagining possible futures (as discussed in the featured video), couldn't that play a significant role in fostering depression? I believe it could.

Long-Term Sleep Deprivation Is a Risk Factor in Many Chronic Diseases

Over the long term, sleep deprivation — regardless of the cause — has been linked to a number of serious health effects, including but not limited to:

Diabetes. One of the most recent studies9 on this linked "excessive daytime sleepiness" with a 56 percent increased risk for type 2 diabetes

Decreased immune function. One recent study10 suggests deep sleep plays a role in strengthening immunological memories of previously encountered pathogens in a way similar to psychological long-term memory retention. In this way, your immune system is able to mount a much faster and more effective response when an antigen is encountered a second time

Cardiovascular and heart disease. In one study, women who got less than four hours of shut-eye per night doubled their risk of dying from heart disease.11 In a more recent study,12 adults who slept less than five hours a night had 50 percent more coronary calcium, a sign of oncoming heart disease, than those who regularly got seven hours.

Interestingly, sleeping more than nine hours a night was associated with 70 percent more calcium in the coronary arteries, compared to sleeping seven hours. The quality of sleep also had a big impact on blood vessel health. Those who reported sleeping poorly had 20 percent more arterial calcium than those who slept well.

Alzheimer's.13 A number of studies have linked poor sleep or lack of sleep to an increased risk of Alzheimer's. One of the reasons for this has to do with the fact that the glymphatic system — your brain's waste removal system — only operates during deep sleep. Researchers have discovered14 that your blood-brain barrier tends to become more permeable with age, allowing more toxins to enter.

This, in conjunction with reduced efficiency of the glymphatic system due to lack of sleep, allows for more rapid damage to occur in your brain and this deterioration is thought to play a significant role in the development of Alzheimer's.

Cancer. Tumors grow two to three times faster in laboratory animals with severe sleep dysfunctions. The primary mechanism thought to be responsible for this effect is disrupted melatonin production, a hormone with both antioxidant and anti-cancer activity. Melatonin both inhibits the proliferation of cancer cells and triggers cancer cell apoptosis (self-destruction). It also interferes with the new blood supply tumors required for their rapid growth (angiogenesis). A number of studies have shown that night shift workers are at heightened risk of cancer for this reason.

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Meditation for The People Who Have No Time

I made this video to show how easy and life changing mindful meditation plus bineural beets are.

What also came to mind is that it perfectly pairs with an old post of mine, The Red Light Meditation. So, it's reposted below

The Red Light Meditation

The comments I get the most when I bring up relaxation or meditation and their benefits is: "I don't have enough time, or too busy, I’m overwhelmed, I can’t fit that into my life." I know that sometimes that is definitely true for me.

The challenge was to create a technique that I could do consistently but that did not take any more time out of my day. So, I asked myself, “Is there any time that I’m not using where I could at least take a breath?”

Then it hit me, STOP LIGHTS! I spend a countless amounts of time being unconscious just sitting there at those stop lights doing who knows what. There was my free time! Yet by all intent and purposes I'd be doing the same thing I’ve always done, really adding nothing to my day, but now doing it with intention.

After almost 30 years of meditation and doing just about every practice under the sun, this was one of the easiest and yet most powerful processes I have ever done. I feel it is one of the few practices that truly permeates my life, when all others tend to fall away. Instead of adding a new meditation to my life it integrates meditation and my life. Plus, it is really easy, I like that.

Here it is:

Every time I stop at a red light I take long slow deep breaths through my nose, down into my belly, and back out my nose while focusing my eyes on just one thing. It is usually the red light in front of me. I also try not to chest breathe or hold my breath. Smooth and deep is what I think. The point is to find stillness and peace right there in the chaos of traffic then when the light turns green go about my day. That’s it!
Enjoy!

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The Ego and The Higher Self... Telling the Difference

Thoughts are a virtual constant, if you've ever had a problem figuring out if your thoughts are ego, or if they're your higher self giving you guidance, this video explains how to tell the difference.

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The VHAALT Low Temperature Beef Bone Broth Recipe (VHAALT, Primal, Paleo, Low Carb)

One of the most valuable and core foods in the VHAALT Program is Bone Broth (aka Stock). In the program the "ALT" in the acronym stands for Animal Low Temperature. So as you can figure out this recipe is low temperature, unlike most bone broth recipes.

Most bone broth recipes, particular beef bone recipes, use beef bones where the meat has been oven or stove cooked, reaching temperatures of 350-500°F. Then the bone broth is cooked (stovetop or crock) and at up to 220°F (which is water's boil point) since most recipes reduce the broth to make a stronger flavor.

This high temperature cooking style makes this once very nutritious and bioavailable food into something your body can only recognize as a toxin.

It denatures the proteins and oxidizes the fats, creating an immune inflammatory responses and artery clogging dissolved solids.

We've saved the best for last among this "great" news about standard bone broths: high temperature cooking creates end stage glycation and HCA's (Heterocyclic Amines); both are known to cause cancer. This is all because of the cooking style and temperature.

The VHAALT way of preparing food, particularly animal products, has none of these down sides and therefore the food retains it's healing properties.

Eating your animal products raw is best, but sometime it hard to find meats and such that are raised and killed in a safe-for-consumption atmosphere. In fact it is very rare to find meat that is safe to eat raw. (I will have other posts and videos with exact information about consuming raw animal products.)

So cooking your animal products is one way to mitigate some of the environment/farmer safety hazard like bacterial contamination. But as you now know, this popular way of high-temperature cooking meat and broth is so harmful, it negates the safety benefits of killing bacteria through cooking.

The VHAALT program solves these challenges by slow cooking the broth at a low tempreature. We keep the broth at 140-145°F for 24 hours.

This is hot enough with long enough cooking time to eliminate the pathological threat while maintaining the nutritional integrity. In fact this style of cooking is a form of predigestion. It actually makes it easier to digest the protein and fat without the denaturing and oxidation associated with high temperature cooking.

How to Make Your Broth

You'll need a slow cooker or crock pot* (make sure it has a WARM setting and stays at a temperature between 140°-150°F. If it gets to 150+, turn it off and let it cool down to 145, then turn it back on WARM)
2-3 pounds bones (if you have 6-8 quart crock pot, oval works best; if you have a smaller crock pot, buy an amount of bones that can be complete submerged in water)
1-2 Tbsp Organic Raw Apple Cider Vinegar (~1 TBSP per 3 quarts water)
Cold water to fill crock pot (filtered or pure spring water is best)**
24 hours for the first set of bones works well

Get the best bones you can find. Miller’s Organic Farm/UdderlyLA or North Star Bison has beef bones you can order and have shipped to your home. Get the “marrow bones” if they have them, though the other bones are fine too (and less expensive than marrow bones), pending your health status. Grass Fed, Beef (or Bison), and Organic are the criteria you are looking for.

KEEP THE TEMPERATURE BETWEEN 140°-145°F. Use simple bones (with minimal meat), and DO NOT PRECOOK THEM. Bones, water, and apple cider vinegar ONLY at 140°-145°F. After 24 hours, ladle out 1-2 cups into a mug, add Bragg’s Liquid Aminos, Organic Namashoyu, and/or Pink Salt to taste and drink. Or use the broth in soups, or as a sauce base (remember not to heat about 150° to keep the nutritional benefits). It tastes delicious and is extremely nutritious. At this point you can remove 1/2 of the broth, store in a glass mason jar, cool to room temperature, and refrigerate or freeze (if freezing be careful not to break glass; you may need to use plastic). Add more cold water, repeat the process, and you will get 5-10 batches of broth out of one set of bones. We typically get around 12 quarts (3 gallons) of broth per 2-3 pounds of beef bones. Go VHAALT!

* Also most crock pots have LEAD in the glaze of the pot. Make sure yours does not. (Keep an eye out for an up and coming post on this.)

** WARNING : Most cities add chlorine and fluoride to their water; and other toxins like Lead and Cadmium have been found (Flint, MI) in water supplies. Not good. Filter (something better than a pitcher or simple faucet filter) your water with a 10-stage water filter (minimum), a Berkey water filter (with a fluoride-eliminating filter, or a reverse osmosis filter.

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How to Make Raw Unheated Organic Papaya Custard & Video

This is basically a redesigned recipe from Aajonus Vonderplanitz (The Recipe for Living Without Disease). I modified it based on my palate and now it tastes like real custard, instead of a health food trying to taste like custard, but tasting like snot. It tastes like a real gourmet dessert. It's not only delicious, but it is extremely easy for virtually everyone to eat since it takes very little effort for the body to digest.

It's exceptionally helpful for people with wasting disease, irritable bowel, diverticulitis, gastritis, gastrointestinal issues, or Crohn's disease.

Cancer and the Custard

I found this custard because I had more and more cancer clients than ever before, and they were in the middle of or done with chemo and/or radiation, and were having trouble getting food down. One of the side effects of chemo/radiation is that cell mitosis, aka cell division, is inhibited. We've all seen it in the form of hair loss, here the hair follicles (cells) just stop growing and die. Well, the lack of cell division happen on the inside too, especially to all the mucus membranes. That includes the mucus membranes inside the mouth, eyelids, throat, stomach, intestines and anus. Here is the problem with that, when the mucus membrane cells do not reproduce well, those areas... how do I put this? They become extremely chapped. Chapped as if you ran out of water in the dessert and your mouth and lips are so dry it feels like they are sunburnt and you just ate a mouthful of sand.

Think about swallowing and blinking as if your throat or eyelids were this chapped and sunburnt. That would suck, wouldn't it?

The challenge here, other than the cancer, is simply EATING. My first concern was getting high nutrient, bio-avalible healing foods into my clients. Another big problem with chemo/radiation is that it uses up your antioxidant storages. Basically you become malnourished very quickly.

This custard is the solution to these problems. It acts as a mucal enhancer, like a mucus membrane scaffolding for your digestive system. Plus the custard is packed with proteins, minerals, vitamins, perfect fats, and it digests almost immediately. The people I have given this to have recovered two to three time faster than those trying to eat food regularly.

Digestive Disorders and the Custard

But here is the story of someone I gave the custard to who didn't have cancer, but she had one of the more difficult digestive disorders.

I was visiting friends with Katie (my Lady), and was once again astonished by the effectiveness of good quality food and how that is one of the few important things the body needs to heal. This friend had chronic gastritis (inflammation of the stomach wall) and was having a particularly bad bout with some very unpleasant stomach cramps. Unfortunately most of the doctors she went to for this couldn't find the cause and concluded it was in her head! So even though she was trepidatious about the raw dairy, she tried just one teaspoon of this custard and within a few hours her stomach cramping was gone! She ate a few more teaspoons and kept feeling better. Seriously powerful stuff and it's delicious.

Here's the recipe from The Recipe for Living Without Disease, modified based on how I make it since I've had better luck with this version and it yields a larger amount. Trust me, you'll want to share or have more for yourself. If you're getting into this Primal/Paleo/Low-Carb diet thing, please check out Aajonus Vonderplanitz's books at the bottom of this post.

Makes 2-3 servings (or 4 very small servings)

The Papaya Custard

1 medium-sized organic Papaya, remove seeds and peel (if you have a different size papaya, modify ingredients accordingly)
3 raw Eggs (never refrigerated, from organic-fed, free-range chickens)
1-2 Tbsp raw unsalted Butter (from grass-fed, pasture-raised cows)
2 Tbsp unheated, organic Honey*

*Honey note: make sure honey was NEVER heated - many honey companies that labeling their honey "raw" actually heat their honey to only 110° to make jarring easier, which by FDA standards can still be considered raw, but for our purposes is not really raw (as enzymes in honey are killed above 100°. Pacifica is a good, reliable brand that has a never heated line of honey).

Directions:

Before blending, place ramekins or other small bowls out on your counter so you can pour custard immediately into their serving bowls once it's blended. You may also want to use a spatula/scraper to get all the custard out.

Put papaya, eggs, butter and honey, in that order, into the blender jar and blend until smooth. Blend all ingredients together on a low speed for a few seconds, increase to medium speed and watch to see that all ingredients are smoothly blended. Once blended, immediately pour custard into the ready bowls.

Refrigerate to chill. Ready to eat in about 20-30 minutes, once the custard has set. Please eat within 6 hours for maximum nutrition benefit.

Have any questions? Let me Know.
Sifu

Other Unreasonable Happiness Posts You Would Be Interested In

Get Better Now!... Living Mastery
Show Archives:

Did you find this information useful?

Unreasonable Happiness Presented by Marcus Lovemore

How Not Sleeping Is Taking Years off Your Life

Sleep and Memory Formation

Less Sleep Results in Greater Calorie Consumption While Awake

Poor Sleep Raises Risk of Accidents and Depression

Long-Term Sleep Deprivation Is a Risk Factor in Many Chronic Diseases

Meditation for The People Who Have No Time

The Ego and The Higher Self... Telling the Difference

The VHAALT Low Temperature Beef Bone Broth Recipe (VHAALT, Primal, Paleo, Low Carb)

How to Make Raw Unheated Organic Papaya Custard & Video

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