Revive

“Each of us comes into the world endowed with essential energy. This energy operates as a kind of bank account and supplies us with the power to grow and regenerate ourselves daily. We are meant to supplement this original endowment of energy with what we can manufacture from eating, breathing, sleeping, learning, working, playing, and relationships. Each day we make withdrawals and deposits. But when the balance of the scales tips to our using more than we put back, we’re in the red, with the prospect of getting further and further behind. Then we are forced to dip into our savings. When we continuously withdraw from our savings account, alarms begin to sound telling us that our survival is being challenged. These alarms are known to us as symptoms such as fatigue, apathy, depression, insomnia, brain fog, lowered resistance, stiffness, digestive problems, and signs of aging. These are our bodies way of telling us that we are mentally, emotionally, and physically Spent. When we are Spent, our body is doing everything it can to tell us that it is time to slow down, rest, detoxify, repair, replenish, and restore.”

“On my journey I also discovered functional medicine, where I learned about the importance of the environment and its effect on gene activity. I had been taught in medical school to think that your genes are carved in stone and that the diseases you get are determined by them. We now know that for the most part that is not true. The new science of epigenetics has shown that genetic activity is determined by your responses to the environment. In other words, how you live your life determines how your genes are expressed. You may have a genetic predisposition to a disease, but the environment you bathe your cells and genes in determines how those genes are expressed. This means that there are lots of potential versions of you. Whether you become Spent is determined by the unique way your genes interact with the many variables in their environment. So what you eat, how much chemical and toxic exposure you have had, what stresses you have tolerated, how you think, how much love you get, and how you move are critical. Like a computer, our cells, and therefore our organs, are programmable—their health is determined by what information they download from the outside and what information you feed them.”

“This process of returning to your natural genetic rhythm is not a thirty-day lose-weight, look-great-for-a-party-trick. It is about making a profound change. A patient described how the process felt to her this way: it was as if her body were a glass of muddy water and every day we stirred it up, took out a teaspoon, and added a teaspoon of fresh pure water. Each day the glass became a little clearer, and eventually she had a glass of fresh, sparkling water.”

“One common problem with a Spent digestive system is that the lining of the gut (your digestive system) is damaged. The gut’s lining is extremely thin, often just one cell thick. This damage can be extremely problematic because 70 to 80 percent of your immune system is found in your digestive tract. When this delicate lining is damaged or worn down by a poor diet or large food particles, bacteria and toxins that should normally stay in your gut’s inner tube pass through it into the bloodstream, where the immune system must deal with them. These leaking particles tax your immune system. Thus, with a poorly functioning digestive system, you don’t just get digestive symptoms, you also get an exhausted immune system. To add insult to injury, you can also get pain. An overactive immune system can lead to inflammation in the body. Your immune system creates swelling to fight hurt and unhealthy cells inside your body. This is one of the reasons why your body feels so cranky and achy when you are spent.”

“Sugars are also admittedly one of the most difficult substances (notice I don’t call them foods) for most people to take out of their diet. If you are still thinking, “There’s no way I can do this,” here are some more scary facts from Nancy Appleton’s Lick the Sugar Habit for added motivation and inspiration:

• Sugar can suppress the immune system
• Sugar feeds cancer cells and has been linked to breast, ovarian, prostate, and rectal cancer
• Sugar can weaken eyesight and cause premature skin aging
• Sugar can cause premature aging in general and increase your risk of Alzheimer’s disease
• Sugar can cause autoimmune disease, arthritis, asthma, heart disease, migraines, and multiple sclerosis.

To heal from Spent, you must cut sugars not only out of your kitchen, but also out of your diet as much as possible.

As a fellow former sugar junkie (believe me, I feel your pain), I’m very sorry to say this means NOT EATING the following versions or anything with these versions or varieties of sugar in your food: brown sugar, sucrose, glucose, maltose, succinate, molasses, date sugar, beet sugar, grape sugar, cane sugar, corn syrup, high-fructose corn syrup, corn sugar, fruit juice concentrate, sorbitol, barley malt, caramel, carob syrup, maltodextrin, dextran, dextrose, sorghum syrup.”

“No matter what kind of shape you are in, I recommend beginning your restorative exercise with walking. If you have been overexercising, you need to slow down. And if you have not been exercising, walking is the appropriate way to speed up.

Walking is one of the most primal movement patterns. Because walking became essential to our survival as we evolved from our ape ancestors into our present upright form, our bodies have developed in such a way that walking is integral to our health. When we walk, we coordinate the movement of our arms, legs, and torso. Hundreds of calorie-burning muscles come into play—not only muscles you’d expect, such as leg and arm muscles, but also internal muscles such as the psoas. The psoas is one of the body’s major core muscles that is shortened by sitting (can cause knee and hip pain) and is lengthened and strengthened by the movement of walking. A daily walk burns calories, increases metabolic activity, helps counteract postural imbalances, and massages your internal organs. That’s right, walking actually massages your internal organs. It also strengthens the abdominal walls and improves your breathing. Moreover, walking outdoors on uneven terrain is even better for you. It stimulates varied movement patterns, improving balance and coordination. Maybe there’s a nature trail near your house with a choice of walking loops of varying distances. Of all the exercise available to you, I cannot think of a better cure for Spent than the combination of restorative yoga and restorative walking. If you’re in good shape, you can incorporate short bursts of jogging into these brisk walks. Walk or jog briskly for a minute, then slow down for three.”

“Beyond these exercises, the greatest opponent of the chair is movement. No matter what you do for a living, think about ways you can bring more movement into your life. If you are a computer programmer or film editor or work in any other profession where you log hours at a time in a chair, try to take a seven-minute bathroom break every hour or two. On this break, walk around. Walk up and down some stairs. Swing your arms as you walk down the hall. Take fifteen or twenty steps as though you were in a marching band, bringing your knees high up. Go outside and walk around the building’s parking lot or walk around the building or house or block. When it comes to fighting the chair, these little breaks are potent healers. They get us breathing and the blood moving again, which helps keep us energized and in rhythm.

Don’t let the chair win. Fight back!”

“Changing our thinking is an important tool when we are suffering from Spent. If you see the world as a negative place, you’ll only build on and enhance the discomfort your Spent symptoms might cause you. The more you view events and experiences in a positive light, the more you’ll heal. For instance, something good is hidden even within this challenge of being Spent. Start seeing Spent as:

• A challenge or a growth experience, not a problem
• A wake-up call to reevaluate the way you want to live the rest of your life

Spent is not a death sentence. You will get well, and you will be a lot more informed about your health and well-being after this.

Negative thoughts of powerlessness, dejection, failure, and despair reinforce and worsen Spent symptoms, whereas positive thoughts, seeing the glass half full and finding a silver lining in whatever has happened—getting fired, a breakup, a tense situation with a child—heal us. You don’t need time to have perspective, just a willingness to have it.”

“The internationally renowned yoga teacher Donna Farhi says, “Our breath is constantly rising and falling, ebbing and flowing, entering and leaving our bodies. Full-body breathing is an extraordinary symphony of both powerful and subtle movements that massage our internal organs, oscillate our joints, and alternately tone and release all the muscles in the body. It is a full participation with life.” I completely agree.

Most of us breathe through our mouths into our upper chest and never allow our inhales to move through our nose down into our bellies. This kind of shallow breathing only brings more tension to your neck and shoulders, whereas breathing into the belly and down the entire lower half of the body relaxes the stomach and diaphragm and “releases” your organs.”