Remember the days of childhood when you couldn’t wait to wake up and get going in the world? It is a fair bet to say most of us don’t wake up this way anymore. A tremendous amount of the Western populace consumes caffeine in some form or another, usually at the start of the day to get going.

Some folks don’t even want to talk until they get their coffee or Red Bull on. Whatever way you take it, according to the National Institute of Health, it is the most widely used psychoactive drug in the Western population.

It is a drug and people tend to forget this. Drugs have side effects. Some of the effects we do enjoy. It is stimulating and enhances pleasure to a degree. Caffeine may even be beneficial in certain circumstances. The wisest choice is to use it in moderation. The problems begin when you start to use too much caffeine. Continue reading →

Stress is a killer. We hear this all of the time and we know it to be true, yet we endure stress every day. It is a simple reality we will face stress and have to deal with it. Perhaps it is in how we deal with stress, which makes it affect our bodies so violently. With this in mind, consider how stress may affect your immune system and what you can do about it. There are many ways to control stress in a healthy manner.

What we need to realize first and foremost is the fact of stress as poison. We naturally have stress responses in our bodies. This does not, by any means, indicate that we need to react to these responses as we are conditioned to.

For example, it is normal to experience a release of adrenaline or epinephrine when a stressful situation arises. The purpose of this is to increase circulation and oxygen uptake as well as awareness so you can survive being chased by a giant bear. The problem is it is not a giant bear we are dealing with but a test we are about to take or a presentation we have to make in front of people. This is all due to a hormone/neurotransmitter. Continue reading →