Could you live without shampoo?

I attended a gastroenterology conference this weekend, and, as usual it fired up all sorts of brain cells. I always have to take some time to “digest” information I learn at these conferences before I can tell others about it. You’ll be told eventually, even about the Fecal Microbiota Transplant. (It is sort of what you think.)

But, I’m not ready yet. Last night I was catching up on all the blogs I read and I came across a post about not using shampoo. Well, it was a link to simplemom.net in a post by already pretty’s Sally McGraw.

Commercial shampoos and conditioners have all sorts of chemicals in them. Chemicals that really shouldn’t be near your skin. They also may have “natural” extracts and molecules which may not be good for you. During the conference I learned that some even have gluten, to which many are sensitive. In simplemom’s blog article she writes about going shampoo (and conditioner) free after reading about it several times.

Why stop shampooing? Shampoo is a detergent and it strips the oils from your hair.  Simplemom goes on to explain “Most shampoos also contain mineral oil, which is a byproduct when gasoline is distilled from crude oil. It’s added to shampoo (along with hundreds of other products) to thickly coat the strands, giving hair an artificial shine. And since it can’t absorb into skin, like the other ingredients, it acts as a barrier on our scalp, preventing oil from being released — thus requiring more shampoo to strip away the grease. This is why the more shampoo you use, the more you need.”

How does one clean hair without shampoo? It sounds like you can pretty much make up your own recipe depending on your needs but the simple version is baking soda and apple cider vinegar. (Separately, can you imagine the chemical reaction if you used both at the same time?) Now you don’t have to imagine it, see it on youtube!

First, mix one tablespoon baking soda with a cup of water. You can even reuse your old empty shampoo bottle for this. In another container mix one tablespoon apple cider vinegar in a cup of water. Then, wet your hair thoroughly. Apply the baking soda water to your scalp, starting at the crown and mainly focusing on the scalp. You shouldn’t use the whole amount unless you have a lot of hair. After a few minutes, just rinse. Then apply the apple cider vinegar water to areas of your hair that are dry, usually the ends, wait a few minutes and rinse it out.

When I told Mr. Inappropriate about this, he said something about “crunchy granola blah blah blah” and the guys at work laughing at him. But the more he thought about it, the more he was willing to experiment with it. Think of the savings on shampoo and conditioner if it works! So we will try the no shampoo experiment next week. I’ll let you know how it goes!

New Years Revolution!

Happy New Year! Unlike many of my friends I love days like New Years, birthdays and Thanksgiving. I use these types of transitional days to clear my head, to look back and learn from my mistakes, to look forward at what I may do in the future and to be thankful for what I have in the present. I dislike the commercialization of these days and I really wish more people understood the historical background for days like Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Some people are bummed by the new year because, even though they say “Happy New Year”, they are focused on what is NOT happy, what they DIDN’T do and they feel the new year will bring more of the same.
I used to make New Years resolutions until a few years ago. They were usually along the lines of losing weight or “finding my true love”. When that didn’t happen by the next year, despite my best efforts, I would feel like such a loser. No matter that I managed to start a business on my own or supported myself, paid my bills, ate my veggies and exercised!
Goals are a good way to change what you want to change in your life, but some things are more obtainable than others. Research shows that most people can’t lose weight and keep it off. However, I can exercise 30 minutes per day and try to eat at least five servings of vegetables per day and that will impact my health positively! I can give someone a break when they are having a bad day and forgive them for tailgating me or messing up my order.
My New Years revolution for 2012 is to find ways to make other peoples’ lives better. I’m not sure what that will be beyond what I do already, but I’m willing to try and keep trying. The revolution is that the goal is really about other people and not myself.
What is your revolution for 2012?

Buzzing Brain

I have all sorts of things buzzing around in my brain, but I have yet to put it on paper.  Some of these things include:  how diabetes, elevated cholesterol and hypertension interact, hormones in cosmetics, importance of trying to be happy and keeping the flu at bay.  I hope by next week to have something for you.  Do you have other suggestions for posts?

Common Sense Health: Introduction

So many people ask me questions about new age type ‘cures’ such as crystals or energy work such as reiki or detoxification regimens for particular problems.  After a while, it gets old because most people have not worked on common sense type things to fix their problems before trying some things that can be kind of ‘out there’.  It’s probably that most people want to just take a pill to take care of their health problem, to have a magic bullet.

Common sense is not a science.  It is more about what ‘everyone’ feels to be true.  There is an interesting article at Wikipedia on common sense:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_sense

I’ve been wanting to write about this lack of common sense, that people are not working on the building blocks of health before they use subtler types of cures.  I feel that the building blocks of your health can be determined by the following questions:
    1.    How much sleep are you getting?
    2.    How often do you have a bowel movement?
    3.    How much water are you drinking?
    4.    What types of food are you eating, how often and how much?
    5.    What types of body movement do you do on a regular basis?  
    6.    How is stress affecting your life?
    7.    Do you have good friends you can talk with,  be yourself with?
    8.    Is your spiritual life supporting you the way that you need?

These questions are separated out for focus, but they all interact with each other.  Stress and anxiety may make it difficult to sleep.  If you are not drinking enough water, it can cause constipation.  If you’re not getting enough sleep, you may not want to go exercise.
This being said, I am not saying that things like energy work or homeopathy or crystal healing don’t work, because they often do.  I just think that it is better for your health overall to address the questions above before diving into the fine tuning.

In the interest of not having a Borg cube of text, my next post I’ll write about sleep and sleep optimization and separate the topics out into eight posts.
Questions? Comments?

Does the Feeling of Love Affect Health?

Valentine’s Day.  So many of my friends hate this supposed romantic holiday.  They feel stress, guilt, disappointment and/or feel that it is a contrived, forced commercial holiday.  I too feel that it’s a commercial holiday and that love should be shown more than one day out of the year.  However, the power of love is not just a romantic cliche.  Romantic love is not the only type of love out there.  There is friendship, parental love, religious love, certain types of love that is sexual but not romantic, crushes and agape love.  I’m sure there are others.
Do you ever wonder if love affects your health?  A couple years ago I did some research because I was curious about it.  Women with breast cancer  who were in support groups survived twice as long as women without help.1  After a serious illness, people who own pets had a higher survival rate and fewer complications.2   Studies are showing that having a positive relationship protects against disease.  When you are happy and joyful, feeling loved, loving back, happy to be alive, that message gets transferred to your immune system.
Cortisol is a hormone that is involved in stress and the “fight or flight” feeling.  A study was done of newlywed couples’ cortisol levels along with positive and negative word count during a 30 minute period while the couples discussed their relationship history.  When the wives described their marriages using negative words, their cortisol levels were much higher than their husbands who were experiencing the same negative events.  After ten years, the women whose cortisol increased were more than twice as likely to be divorced.3
In naturopathic medical school we were taught that spiritual, mental, emotional and physical health are interwoven.  When we are filled with love, joy and peace, our brains produce endorphins and other chemicals which have a healing effect upon our bodies.
Why doesn’t the presence of love in our life cure us all of the time?  I think it’s the combination of genetics, environment and free will.  Sometimes we don’t make the lifestyle choices that are in our best interests.  Sometimes we are in environments that we can’t control and it results in disease.  Lastly, we all have to die of something at some point.
My general advice for feeling loved is to take care of yourself, love yourself.  Specifically you can increase your feeling of being loved by:
Eat regular planned meals in a relaxed environment.
Make good friends with whom you can communicate your emotional life.
Participate in activities that foster a feeling of happiness in yourself.
Don’t put yourself down when you make a mistake, just resolve to do better next time.
When you are feeling overwhelmed, seek help from loved ones, support groups, your spirtual leader, counselor or health professional.
I’m pretty sure there are good things about being a grumpy or sad person, but if you can manage to have a little love in your life, I think you’ll find that you do actually feel better whether it’s emotionally or physically.

1 Taken from Breastcancer.org.
2 18th Annual Conference on the International Society of Anthrozoology and the First Human Animal Interaction Conference in Kansas City, Missouri, in November 2009.  Read more at Suite101: Pet Therapy Dogs Help Patients Recover Faster: Healing Using Animal Assisted Therapy
3Presented at the American Psychological Association Annual Meeting  on August 4, 2000 by Janice Kiecolt-Glaser.

Welcome to my blog!

Hi everybody!
This is an experiment that I've been thinking about for over a year.  I plan a hodgepodge of common sense, health care, self acceptance, and living life posts.  It will be interesting to see if anyone is interested!  I might take pictures of my meals so you can see what a naturopathic physican eats.  (Surprise!  The same things you do.)  Let me know your interests and I may post about it.