What pops into your mind when you think of your favorite food for the holidays? Is it the special dessert that Nana makes just for Christmas day? Or the hot cocoa that Grandma serves on the first night of Chanukah? If it’s seasonal fruits and veggies then hands are clapping loud because they provide the best of vehicles for disease-fighting antioxidants that we need in the depth of winter.

Oranges and tangerines are in season and set the stage for the gift of rich, quality, healthy foods that are at a premium in most countries throughout the world. Stuffing everyone’s stocking by placing a specially chosen orange in the toe can become a cherished Christmas tradition that reminds everyone of the blessing of good bounty.

Many years ago I began a family tradition of putting an orange in the toe of each Christmas stocking; and, you know, the one Christmas I completely forgot, the entire family was disappointed. Everyone wanted to know where their orange was. These simple gifts of an orange give Christmas a meaning beyond the excited unwrapping of toys and clothes.

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It’s that time of year, between Thanksgiving and New Years that our sleep requirements are put to the test. Fatigue is at epidemic levels and more than sixty percent of Americans are experiencing sleep deprivation. The number of airport traffic controllers who in the past year have made the news for falling asleep on the job speaks to this problem.

Sleeping is a working activity of rest for your body and is vital to long-term good health. Brain and body functions stay active throughout sleep. And sleep is tied to a series of brain waves that create electrical activity within the brain. Connected to this activity is the healthy response our body’s cells have to a 24-hour sleep cycle. It is called a circadian rhythm and it is a critical component to overall wellbeing.

Before Thomas Edison’s invention, people relied upon the sun to give us our work and rest hours. Then the light bulb changed that. Today, being in touch with the world 24/7 presents serious challenges for getting quality sleep and keeping fit. With the life we lead today comes more responsibility and demands. There is no natural clock that we follow. We push and push thinking we will catch our rest up on the weekend and, yet, the weekend is packed with soccer, football, shopping for the coming week, laundry, housecleaning and countless household and family responsibilities. This leads to running on adrenalin. The next thing you know, your sleep is the first to go. If I have described you, then ask yourself this, “Do I have a desire to fall on my desk for a mini-power nap on a regular basis?” If the answer is, yes, you are likely sleep deprived.

Attached to this newsletter is my holiday gift to you, a brief guide on Healthy Sleeping. It is a short version of the ebook from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. If you would like the longer version, please email me and I will send it to you. I hope this to be a valuable resource for you and your family as we go into high gear for this holiday season.

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE OR WEBSITE? You can. Just copy in its entirety with this blurb below.

LouAnn Savage is publisher and editor of The Weekly Healthline, an online health and lifestyle publication. Subscribe free at: http://www.HealthFitforLife.com. Look for her at http://www.Savage.TeamAsea.com, She is an Asea distributor that can be followed on twitter @louannsavage and joined on Facebook.com/louannsavage.

How’s everyone after a hectic day of post-Thanksgiving victories at the mall or Walmart? I’m hoping for all of your sakes you weren’t faced with pepper spray and overly zealous shoppers with eating withdrawals determined to beat you out of the latest ‘deal’ on only three 50 inch tv’s available for every 1,000 customers. Ridiculous isn’t it? I don’t know which is worse. Overeating on Thanksgiving to the point you hate yourself for days after or skipping the big bird and all the trimmings because of a date with Target that starts three hours after the last guest leaves your house.

The Washington Post’s Anne Holmes wrote a simply divine column yesterday [Nov. 23, 2011] on the repercussions of the Thanksgiving eating experience and it comes down to this. We are losing sight of what Thanksgiving is really about. We seem to either eat too much and hate ourselves after or we start shopping at insane hours through the night based upon the addiction factor merchants use to get us into their store at the most ridiculous hours imaginable. Either way, Thanksgiving, if we don’t step back and look at what is truly important, has become more about craziness than gratitude. The woman at a Walmart in California who resorted to pepper spray as insurance to get one of a limited quantity of something she couldn’t live without speaks to this truth.

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“Qualitative impairments of social communication and interaction, along with restricted and repetitive activities and interests.” According to some, that’s autism. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] define autism as one of a group of disorders known as autism spectrum disorders [ASDs]. No matter what it is called, labeled or described, the condition can be devastating.

As far back as the 18^th century, descriptions have been published that lend themselves to the condition of autism. Yet, it was not identified as a specific disorder until 1943. Today, we talk, discuss and hope for a way out of autism while the number of cases continues to climb. In the broad category of ASDs are Asperger’s syndrome, Rett’s syndrome, pervasive developmental disorder and childhood disintegrative disorder. Each is determined by many factors but have the same behavioral core. Dr. Pauline Filipek of University of California, Irvine describes ASD in this way, “[Autism] is more like high blood pressure. There are a lot of reasons for [it], but the one common thing across it is that your blood pressure is elevated.”

For parents with a child having one or more of any maladies that fall under the ASD umbrella, a diagnosis of autism is a shock and a tragedy. Not at all unusual, according to the Autism A.L.A.R.M. project, is it for parents of these children to have a ‘sixth’ sense that something is not quite right with their beloved child. Instincts here are a good thing, a very good thing and it is important to trust them and follow them because early intervention has a positive impact.

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Seventeen million lives are lost each year to stroke, heart attack and cardiovascular disease.

Triggered by high blood pressure, the condition of hypertension until now has been thought to stay under control, in part, with a reduction in salt consumption. Now, a series of studies challenge that premise and they have some proponents of the salt theory jumping up and down with exasperation claiming salt, indeed, remains a contributing factor.

Graham MacGregor, a professor of cardiovascular medicine and chair of the World Action on Salt campaign group, may have a heart attack himself from his reaction to this latest report. Needless to say, he sticks by his beliefs and findings compiled in his report of 2011.

Contradictory evidence to Dr. MacGregor’s report comes from the analysis of researchers writing in the American Journal of Hypertension and the Cochrane Library journal a review done by British researchers and published in July 2011. It showed there was no evidence that indicated small reductions in salt intake actually lowered the risk of developing heart disease or prevented premature death. In May 2011, Belgian scientists determined that “people who ate lots of salt were no more likely to get high blood pressure and were statistically less likely to die of heart disease, than those with low salt intake.”

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Health goes beyond our personal wellbeing. Stress comes at us externally as much and sometimes more than internally. How would you have ever guessed thirty or forty years ago that by year 2011 you could be tracked anywhere and your President of these United States could bust in at a moments notice and give you instructions as to what to do in the event of an emergency? Stay in tune with what is coming down the pike. Here are a few tidbits that can reduce that externally created stress.

November 9^th [2011] is EAS Test Time – Emergency Alert System [EAS] is conducting a nationwide test on this day at 2 pm EST. Now don’t be shocked when “The View” turns into a diabolical sounding siren and all TV—network and cable—will shut down. This is the system that gives our President the full range of communication in the event of an emergency.  This is a very good, healthful and beneficial test. Should the system be needed in an emergency, we need to know it is working.

http://www.fcc.gov/encyclopedia/emergency-alert-system-nationwide-test

GPS Safety – Did you know that if you twitter where you are leaving from, your SmartPhone tells every follower including no-good crooks in your vicinity or within driving distance that you aren’t at home and it is ripe for the robbing? So word of caution, don’t tweet to all your friends about meeting you at a local pub or that you’ve arrived at your destination. Nor should they tweet back to tell you they are out the door and on their way. Within minutes the health of your home could be stripped of the warmth, privacy and treasures that you enjoy everyday. You don’t know the feeling of being violated until a home robbery takes it from you or you are being tailed by unwanted threatening characters whose motives are less than desirable.

http://vccoordinator.wordpress.com/tag/gps-tracking/

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OCTOBER is BREAST CANCER AWARENESS MONTH! Help all you can!

Sixty-five million people age 20 or older have prediabetes. In 2007 it was 57 million. By 2050 (that’s only 39 years from now) the CDC estimates the trend of one in nine adults who currently have diabetes will jump to one in three. The old image of heavy and inactive individuals as victims is becoming outdated.

Physically fit women are altering the profile of one who becomes diabetic. Women in their 30s are 1.3 times more likely to be admitted to the hospital for diabetes-related conditions. That’s a dramatic shift. What is more, the National Institutes of Health are telling us that approximately 15 percent of people with type 2 diabetes aren’t at all overweight. Instead they fit a new demographic that Dr. Jimmy Bell, molecular imaging expert, describes as TOFI meaning “thin outside, fat inside.” This happens when fat that you expect to have under your skin where it is visible grabs instead onto abdominal organs deep inside your body. This type of fat is way more serious.

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OCTOBER is BREAST CANCER AWARENESS MONTH! Help all you can!

Two weeks ago I wrote on the “number one economic challenge for European health care.” It was about a study on the brain and the myriad disorders that are coming into play around the world.

This past Saturday I was listening to a lecture by Dr.’s Gary Samuelson and Rob Ward on “The Nervous System and Redox Signaling.” It included the brain. The brain is directly connected to the nervous system. From this lecture come specifics as to causes of brain malfunction. In addition to Alzheimer’s disease; depression, anxiety, insomnia, Parkinson’s and a myriad of autoimmune conditions were included.

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OCTOBER is BREAST CANCER AWARENESS MONTH! BE AWARE

Breast cancer took a turn in thinking back in 2009. This paradigm shift came from Dr. Mina Bissell of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.¹  Her message first came out in a paper handed to a well established scientist with whom she worked who promptly put it into the wastebasket.

Her idea, that gene mutations are only part of the process of cancer while acknowledging that mutations alone are not enough. She says, “Cancer involves an interaction between rogue cells and surrounding tissue.” This thought is a dramatic shift from the cancer gene theory that is relatively basic and simple and up to now predominate in cancer research. Focus on genes rather than isolated cancer cells demands a dramatic mental turn around for researchers who had based their findings on gene mutation alone.

Now, 20 years after Dr. Bissell and a small number of others began to explore this approach, a new perspective on cancer is at long last taking shape as more researchers become open to the cell theory in conjunction with the gene theory.

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