Welcome August! What are your expectations for this month? Sunny, hot, humid and relaxed…. As you move through this month, get everything in that gives you the joyous freedom of summer. Enjoy swimming in a lake, eat the best of the August fruits and vegetables, spend time at the movies and with friends and family outdoors having picnics, BBQ’s and being together.
In this newsletter:
- Article: Your Changing body and Collagen
- Conscious Breathing
- Recipes for Vegetables and Fruits of the season
- Summer Reads and Movies
- Weekly Sessions: Practice Together Qigong, Somatic Movement, Meditation
- What’s Coming This Fall
Article: YOUR CHANGING body AND COLLAGEN
Surprised how your body is changing with age?
I now have more flesh and folds than I need and I’m wondering how they got there? Whether on my face or body, my shape is changing and today it is much different than it was just five years ago!
Gravity pulls everything downwards as skin loses its elasticity and tightness.
For women, the loss of collagen does extraordinary things that you may not have expected.
Post menopause, your body stops making as much collagen. Studies show that women’s skin loses about 30% of its collagen during the first five years of menopause. After that, the decline is more gradual. Women lose about 2% of their collagen every year for the next 20 years.
As collagen diminishes, your skin loses it firmness and begins to sag. That, combined with dryness caused by hormonal changes, can cause sagging — especially around the neck, jawline, and cheeks inducing more fine lines and wrinkles.
You lose some fat under your skin and elasticity drops. And this is not just confined to your face, it effects the whole body. With the loss of estrogen, progesterone and collagen, more fat collects around the belly and breasts.
Collagen is the most abundant protein in our body, made up from the essential amino acid proteins we produce from foods we eat. It’s found in muscles, bones, skin, blood vessels, the digestive system and tendons. It gives our skin strength and elasticity, along with replacing dead skin cells.
Collagen gives resilience to bones, its strength and flexibility and to tendons and ligaments. It supports vertebrae in the spine, and cartilage in the knees and hips. The same for maintaining healthy eyes, teeth and gums.
When it comes to our joints and tendons, in simplest terms, it’s the “glue” that helps hold the body together. It is constantly being broken down and damaged and needs to be replaced on a regular basis.
Stress rapidly depletes Vitamin C and A and magnesium which may cause some people to become wrinkled after a period of extreme stress. The stimulation of collagen encourages new cell growth when your skin is drier, especially in the winter from a deficiency in vitamin D.
healthy adrenal glands (sit on top of the kidneys) are key to effortless menopause and post menopausal symptoms. If you struggle with Adrenal Fatigue caused from chronic stress and burnout from overuse of the hormone cortisol, it will affect your degree of symptoms.
What can you do?
- Protect your skin from the sun. Most sunscreens completely block the body’s ability to manufacture Vitamin D. Many are loaded with chemicals that are toxic. Select natural products with quality mineral-based ones or check out the best sunscreen products and how to protect yourself against the sun’s high UV exposure on certain days, go to https://www.ewg.org/sunscreen/. Take vitamin D supplements since we get depleted year round.
2. Hydrate daily drinking lots of water.
When you sweat, breathe, or urinate, your body is depleting liquids. Add more water into your daily routine with regular drinking habits.
- Drink 6-8 12 oz glasses of water a day. Add a twist and squeeze of cucumber, lemon, lime, berries, orange, ginger, mint leaves, watermelon, frozen grapes to name a few.
- Caffeine drinks such as coffee and black teas are diuretics. They pull the moisture out of your skin so consider herbal teas or mushroom or root-tasting coffees that aren’t depleting your liquids.
3. Eat nourishing whole foods
- Bone broth that includes all parts of chicken, beef or fish (chicken feet contain lots of collagen), are beneficial broths that you can make or purchase. They are easy to make, cook for a long period of time and freezable.
- Eat foods high in Omega 3 oils such as cold water fish (salmon, sardines, trout and mackerel (if you can stand it (or take a supplement), nuts and seeds, avocado and coconut. Diversify your oils with sunflower, flax and hemp seed, avocado and coconut.
- Eat vegetables and fruits in your meals that are the colours of the rainbow! They are loaded with antioxidants. Dark leafy greens, Coloured squashes, zucchini, Carrots (beta carotene foods), radishes, eggplant, pepper, Cruciferous vegetables cabbages (red and green), Brussel sprouts and fruits such as berries, apples, peaches, plums etc.
- Animal products, like eggs, poultry, fish and milk, can all help boost collagen formation
4. Take Collagen supplements:
- Take a collagen supplement. There are a different kinds such as bovine based, fish based or marine (algae) based. Bovine is the most popular with quicker effective results. buy powder-form from grass-fed, pasture-raised cows (with no antibiotics or chemicals).
Great Lakes is a good bovine brand and any brand select ones that are antibiotic and hormone free, fish as well to be an organic brand and same with plant based marine brands.
- There are lots of products on the market for collagen based facial skin treatments. Check the labels and look for clean ingredients.
- Collagen supplements can be mixed into smoothies, soups or even into baked goods to provide healthy benefits without adding any taste to your favorite meals.
- For facial skin, microneedling, or collagen induction therapy is a minimally invasive skin treatment in which a dermatologist or aesthetician intentionally creates tiny punctures in the top layer of skin using micro-fine needles. It’s known for boosting collagen production in the skin, for reducing fine lines and wrinkles
5. Move your body daily!
Besides eating nourishing foods and taking care of your skin, moving your body daily stimulates the brain, builds muscle, body strength and flexibility and tones the skin. It sends more blood to your muscles, improving circulation, and fortifying your immune system to fight disease to name a few.
A research study published in 2012, which studied more than 650,000 people, found that 150 minutes of moderate exercise (or about half-hour five days a week) increases your life span by 3.4 years. If increases too much, you can plateau and is less effective.
Mix it up with different activities such as walking, biking, swimming, dancing. Enjoy moving your body in the most pleasurable way without thinking it as exercise alternating aerobic exercise for heart health and weight training to build lean muscle and protect bones.
Adding gentler movement activities such as qigong, somatic movement, yoga or Pilates also counts as part of the 150 minutes-a-week effort.
Focusing on your wellbeing, setting the intention for your body and mind to be positive and healthy, contributes to you a fuller life. It can also be social, meeting new people that stimulates the mind, telomeres in the brain and gives purpose for supporting your own self-care as you age gracefully!
One final note: Aging gracefully also means body acceptance and peace of mind.
The aging changing body is a natural process. Many of us grew up ignoring our body signals and spent most of our life trying to change or control our body form to fit into diet culture and media ideals. When bringing your awareness to your daily routines of eating, moving or sleeping, helps connect the body and mind to its innate signals and will guide you to better health and wellbeing.
CONSCIOUS BREATHING
I’ve been learning more about Somatic therapy and mindful awareness and how it applies to healing. Somatics investigates the body’s response to stress in relationship to the nervous system. Conscious breathing stimulates the vagus nerve, a key nerve responsible for transitioning the body from a state of fight-or-flight to relaxation. Generally, the action of breathing is largely outside our awareness but when we bring consciousness to it, it becomes as fundamental to breathing air into our body that awakens, nourishes, energizes, and creates more spaciousness and calm. Conscious breathing enables our innate ability to become aware of our body breathing.
I learned recently of this yogi breathing technique called “Ujjayi” also known as the victorious breath or ocean breath. It is a deep diaphragmatic breathing “in and out” through the nose with the back of the throat slightly constricted making a “ha” sound on the out breath that creates a deep oceanic sound.
How to Practice Ujjayi Breathing
- Inhale through your nose and exhale through your mouth, restricting the back of your throat and creating a “ha” sound on the exhale. (You can imagine that you’re fogging up a window with your exhale.)
- Create the same “ha” sound on the next exhale, but now breathe through your nose and keep your mouth closed throughout.
- Maintain full and even inhales and exhales throughout your meditation practice.
Starting your morning with deep breathing exercises can lower your levels of the stress hormone cortisol and help you through the day in a more calm, positive state. Or, try it when going to sleep to relax your soma, the mind and body. Take a few minutes to practice Ujjayi breathing when you need to and then resume your day pleasurably. It will have an immediate effect on reducing our cortisol levels and heart rate.
Note: When making the sound ”Ha” on the exhale, let it be easy and light—think of the sound you hear when you hold a seashell to your ear or fogging up a mirror breathing.
RECIPES: AUGUST VEGETABLES AND FRUITS
It’s exciting the number of fruits and vegetables that ripen in August! I can’t get enough of the variety of fruits that are available at this time of year. Peaches are starting to come out to the markets, blueberries, the variety of plums always amazes me and the combos of zucchini (yellow and green) in all different shapes. Eggplants and peppers are also delights.
Here are two recipes, Plum and Blackberry Friand and Ratatouille I like to make at this time of year because of the abundance of vegetables and fruits at their peak of flavour.
Plum and Blackberry Friand
Friands are light moist cakes from France. Easy to make with whisked egg whites and little flour, they are light and airy . Typically made as small cakes, here I’ve used a variation of Ottlenghi’s recipe adapting it with healthier sugars and flours. It’s being baked in a larger baking dish for six or more servings.
Ratatouille
Ratatouille is a refreshing summer dish that can be served warm of cold. When I first tasted it as a teenager, I had never tasted anything so rich and vibrant. I loved the mixture of colours emersed in a tomato sauce. It’s great with pasta, spiralled zucchini or on cauliflower rice. This version is raw, vegetables can by dehydrated (in a dehydrator doe one hour) or lightly roasted in a oven on low temperature for longer time). The sauce is pureed and with fresh herbs. Eating raw foods includes a higher density of nutrients from the natural enzymes which the body digests and absorbs easier than cooked foods.
Take time to enjoy cooking food and eating wiht friends and family sitting out side in your gardens, parks or near the beach!
SUMMER READS AND MOVIES
What books and films are you enjoying this summer?
Two books I read this summer that are vastly different from each other.
Horse by Geraldine Brooks
A discarded painting in a junk pile, a skeleton in an attic, and the greatest racehorse in American history: from these strands, Brooks weaves a sweeping story of spirit, obsession, and injustice across American history. It is based on a real horse named Lexington that was a prize-winning racehorse that produced a long progeny of future racehorses. The story travels back and forth between 1850 and 2019 as a forensic scientist and art historian unravel the story behind a painting, the person who cared of the horse and racism in America.
Doppelgänger by Naomi Klein
Doppelganger is a fascinating non-fiction portrait how not long ago, the celebrated activist and public intellectual Naomi Klein had such an experience―she was confronted with a doppelganger named Naomi Wolf whose views she found abhorrent but whose name and public persona were sufficiently similar to her own that many people got confused about who was who. Combining comic memoir with chilling reportage and cobweb-clearing analysis, Klein seeks to smash that mirror and chart a path beyond despair. Doppelganger asks: What do we neglect as we polish and perfect our digital reflections?
Three Shows I’ve Seen and Enjoyed
Man Up (2015) is a sweet romantic comedy about two people who find themselves on a mixed-up blind date that is fun and entertaining. (Streaming on Prime)
Yesterday (2019), a struggling musician realizes he’s the only person on Earth who can remember The Beatles after waking up in an alternate reality where they never existed. I’m a big fan of the Beatles, light and entertaining (Streaming on Prime)
Twister in Theatres. A remake of the original Twister film (1996, with Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton) with more special effects and daredevil stunts. It was an enjoyable summer film to see in the a larger format screen and immersive through sense-around theatre.
WEEKLY SESSIONS PRACTICE TOGETHER QIGONG, MEDITATION ADN SOMATIC MOVEMENT
Join us for Practice Together on Tuesdays at 6 pm and Thursdays at 10 am.
It can be challenging to sit in stillness after a busy day when the mind is overactive and the body is itching to move. Applying gentle movement gets the heart pumping and body stimulated to release high energy states both physically and emotionally. Becoming aware of your breath while moving, slows down the heart rate, calms the mind and regulates the nervous system. Gentle movement also releases tension in the joints and body. From there you begin to concentrate on your breath for sitting in stillness and relaxing into the experience of meditation.
On Tuesdays, for the first 25 minutes, we practice qigong movement sitting and standing followed by a meditation for 25 minutes.
Qigong is an ancient health practice that originated in China some 3000+ years ago. It includes slow, graceful, movements synchronized with the breath to relax the mind into a calm state. It also helps to improve mental focus and prevents as well as treats ill health and disease.
On Thursdays, we practice Somatic movement to release stress from the body and improve posture, alignment and functionality (from injury, stress or overuse). You can read more about somatic movement here
Access the calendars here to register for this week’s sessions:
You’re first visit is FREE!
We meet virtually on zoom so you can join us from wherever you are!
To register for any of the sessions, click on the date you want, add your email and you will receive an email confirmation with the zoom link. It can also be copied into your calendar.
Pay what you can or join the calm membership and take as many classes as you wish for $35/month (meditation or somatic movement).
WHAT’S COMING UP THIS FALL
- Ill be travelling for the month of September and will not be offering any programs or posts.
- October to December Weekly meditation- qigong and somatic movement continues on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
- Fall Cleanse begins on October 21st to 27th.
- Feed the Brain; a mindful eating and body awareness approach to your relationship with food for individuals or group program, available in October (Dates TBD)
- Save the Date, returning this fall – Release, Nourish, Evolve wellness Day with Nicole Levy, Friday. November 15th Read more about it.
I hope you are having a great summer! I love hearing from you. Contact me if you wish to chat or have ideas to share at [email protected].
My best in health,
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