Improve Your Mood when the Weather is Down

April 2, 2023April 2, 2023 ~ Loreeebee ~ Leave a comment

This article was originally posted on Higher Dose, and modified for a guest post here on Loreeebee.

It’s officially #PSL season, which means it’s time to put on our cozy knits, binge-watch Netflix, light a million candles, and excitedly cancel plans with friends. Even though we all look to fall and winter as a time to get hygge, the novelty of the season can wear off quickly as the days get shorter and the weather gets colder, lowering our moods and affecting our health.

People often joke about “winter blues” and Seasonal Affective Disorder, but it’s actually a diagnosable type of depression that is prompted by cold weather and less sunlight, affecting 5% of Americans.

How Does this Happen?

It’s not all in your head!

The sun naturally releases a broad spectrum of light throughout the day to help signal our body’s many functions. In the morning and afternoons, we take in more blue light to release cortisol, so we have the energy to be more productive. In the evenings, we’re meant to start winding down with red light and infrared as a way to prompt our melatonin production to facilitate better sleep.

When the days are shorter and colder, we’re taking in less energy-giving light, nutrient-dense vitamin D (which is necessary for immune function), and fewer healing vibrations from nature’s fresh air, resulting in lower energy, chronic fatigue, increased hunger, and interrupted sleep. Plain and simple: Good, nourishing recovery is a lot harder to achieve.

Don’t let this info get you down. Here are some quick and easy ways to hack your mood as the seasons change.

Get a DOSE of Happy Vibes to Improve Your Mood

Happiness comes from the feel-good chemicals in our brains:

Dopamine: A hormone and neurotransmitter that stimulates the nervous system functions like pleasure and attention.

Oxytocin: Aka the “love hormone” that decreases stress and anxiety levels.

Serotonin: A neurotransmitter that is often released by the sun and infrared light therapy. It’s essential for balancing mood, memory, sleep, and sexual desire

Endorphins: A group of hormones that reduce pain and increase pleasure and overall well-being. They are often released during exercise, hence the term, “a runner’s high.”

Hot Tip: If you’re in NYC, zen out in one of our warm, soothing saunas for a serotonin-releasing mood lifter. At home instead? No problem! Cocooning yourself in our Infrared Sauna Blanket will release your endorphins without ever having to move a muscle. Burning ~600 calories during one single sweat session, your body will feel like it worked out while staying relaxed AND detoxified. Better circulation, mood, and glowing skin are a plus.

Use a lightbox to Improve your Mood

Lightboxes, along with infrared therapy, are a popular treatment option for seasonal affective disorder.

There is a broad spectrum of light therapies:

Sunlamps

Improve Vitamin D absorption and increase overall energy levels

Red Light Therapy

Focuses more on deeply-penetrating muscles and tissues to calm the skin, manage hormone production, and boost the immune system

If you can’t spend 30 minutes or more in the sun per day and are faced with a dark sky when you wake up in the morning, consider a light therapy box first thing when you wake up to help get your body on a normal schedule.

Get Good Vibrations from Nature

The Japanese practice something called shinrin-yoku, which translates to forest bathing. “But how do I bathe in a forest?!” Don’t take it literally.

It’s just the act of being in nature and connecting to yourself through your senses. It helps to reduce stress levels, and lower blood pressure to relax the body and focus the mind.

The reason being in nature is considered such a healing, mood-boosting activity is because plants release the chemical, phytoncide, which has antibacterial and antifungal qualities that can increase our white blood cells and help strengthen our immune response to foreign invaders.

Nature also gives off literal good vibrations. The Earth has a natural frequency of 7.8hz, which sends low-level frequency through our bodies to help recharge our cells and heal us from the inside out.

If you don’t live near nature, or it’s too cold to go outside, consider:

Keeping plants inside your home for at-home plant benefits
Try our Infrared PEMF Mat, which uses PEMF, infrared heat, and Negative Ion Therapy to send Pulsed Electromagnetic Frequency throughout your body. Go deeper with your DOSE while getting the ultimate recharge.

Skip Comfort Eating

Like bears who eat more as they prepare to hibernate during the winter months, we too get excited to indulge as the weather gets colder.

BUT, managing seasonal depression and keeping your mood HIGH starts with eliminating sugar when you can.

Refined starches and carbs that lack fiber and are high-glycemic can directly impact your hormones, which directly affects your happy chemicals. Your gut manages the majority of the hormone production in your body and sends direct messages to your brain. you consume sugar, you end up feeding bad bacteria in your gut that can throw the chemicals in your brain off-balance.

Sticking with whole foods that are nutrient-dense is ideal, but if you do decide you want to get into the goodies, try one of these detoxes to reset your system and get back on track.

Conclusions

This guest post fits in well with my theme as many of these points have been discussed previously on Loreeebee. For many of us, our mental health is taking a beating during the pandemic. Nature is a huge part of my life, as is nutrition. Research tells us that nature, nutrition, and mental health go hand in hand.

If you decide to try the infrared sauna blanket, please use my referral code to save us both some money. I’m hoping Santa reads this; I would love one!

Hot Soup For Cold Days

October 25, 2021January 23, 2022 ~ Loreeebee ~ 2 Comments

There is nothing like a delicious, comforting bowl of hot soup on a cold day. One of my favourite activities in fall is making homemade soup. I call it leftover soup because I use up all the broth and bones taking up space in my freezer as well as any leftover vegetables in my fridge. Homemade is also much more nutritious and tasty than store-bought soups.

How to Create Your Own Broth

I love to make my own broth, mainly because store-bought broth is laden with salt and other ingredients I cannot or don’t care to pronounce or put in my body. I use this homemade broth by the spoonful in sauces or larger amounts in soups and stews.

Save the pan drippings from roasted turkey, chicken, pork or beef in a bucket. Store the bucket in the freezer with additions of drippings in the same bucket. When the bucket is full, start a new one. Each addition freezes in a separate layer with the fat rising to the top of each layer. When you remove the broth for use, the fat is easy to scrape off and discard.

I also add the nutrient-packed liquid left at the bottom of the dish after steaming vegetables to my broth buckets. Another trick is to freeze the tough broccoli stalks you trim off the heads to prepare for meals. Freeze them in another bag.

Storing Bones

Bones from roasted meat also store well in the freezer for later use in soups. Simply put them in a sealable plastic bag, squish the air out, and freeze. Turkey legs go right into a freezer bag as soon as they are cut from the turkey. That’s because no one in my household likes to eat them. These legs have lots of meat on them too, which falls off the bones as you simmer them on soup making day.

Freeze only large bones; it is more difficult to separate meat from the small ones. The larger leg bones are easily retrieved after simmering them.

Leftovers in Soup

Leftovers taking up space in your fridge are also great in soups. The remainder of last night’s broccoli, mushrooms, corn, rice, pasta or quinoa all add bulk to your hot soups. If you are not making soup within a few days of preparing these leftovers, add them to the collection in your freezer.

Harvested Vegetables

If you grow your own vegetables, as many decided to do during the pandemic, you can freeze any you harvest for later use. I don’t grow that many that I cannot eat as I harvest, but I know those that do! On a recent trip to my favourite farm, my aunt sent me home with lots of tomatoes and instructions on how to roast them with garlic. After following her instructions, I gave several buckets away, but ended up with some in my freezer too.

Conclusion

By now you can probably see why I enjoy making hot soup in the fall. Not only do I end up with a delicious and nutritious meal but my freezer gets cleaned out too!

What do you put in your homemade soups?

Best Smoothie Ingredients

November 27, 2020February 24, 2023 ~ Loreeebee ~ 1 Comment

Customize your smoothies to suit your needs and your dietary restrictions. Pick and choose the smoothie ingredients you like to eat or drink. This will make your custom smoothies easier to swallow, literally. These ingredients may vary with age too. For example, seniors may add ingredients that combat arthritis, but the younger generation might not yet care about arthritis. I recently started adding frozen beets to my smoothies as I read they are good for my circulation.

Vitamins & Minerals in Smoothie Ingredients

Everyone needs vitamins and minerals, regardless of your age. Do your research to see which ingredients contain the vitamins you are deficient in. For example, if you need vitamin B12, use milk or yogurt as your base.

Add Creaminess

Bananas add creaminess and sweetness as well as vitamins B6 and B12, potassium and magnesium. If you are on a calorie restriction however, bananas are not usually recommended as they have a high glycemic index.

Avocados add creaminess too with the added benefit of good (omega 3) fats, fiber, and many vitamins including folate and vitamin K.

Berries are Terrific as Smoothie Ingredients

Berries are antioxidants and add fiber to your smoothies. Most are also high in vitamin C. Raspberries are very seedy though, so can make your smoothie not so smooth. Blueberries and/or strawberries are terrific. Buy them frozen to keep them easily accessible and their nutrients fresh.

Dark Leafy Greens

If you don’t eat enough dark leafy greens, throw some in your smoothie. They are loaded with vitamins such as A, C and K as well as folate, iron, magnesium, calcium, and potassium. Most are also antioxidants too. Don’t use too many at once though, or your smoothie will get too sludgy. Been there, done that!

Add a Boost of Protein to Smoothie Ingredients

Protein is always a nice addition to provide even more nutrition to your smoothies. I use hemp hearts and collagen in mine. As well as a good source of protein, collagen is purportedly good for my arthritic joints as well as my aging skin. Protein powder works too and helps keep your smoothies smooth.

Green Tea

Add a few cups of green tea to your smoothie to boost your antioxidant level and reduce cholesterol, body fat, tooth decay, bad breath, and blood pressure. Green tea also gives you a caffeine boost.

If green tea is not your thing, add milk or almond milk for the liquid necessary to blend all the chunkier ingredients.

Spice it Up

Spices such as turmeric, curry powder, cinnamon, cardamom, cumin etc. add flavor and many health benefits. Most are antioxidants, and help to combat inflammation and even cancer.

Conclusion

Tweak your own ingredient list so your smoothie is both tasty and healthy. That way you will continue to concoct and drink them. They make a great start to your morning or a hydrating and healthy boost any other time of day.

I don’t like to start a day in my gardens without one.