Blog Posts

How to Practice Being in the Present Moment

1/8/2020

Have you ever driven to work, and when you arrived realized you don’t remember how you got there? Were the traffic lights red or green? Did you stop at the stop sign? Did you slow down through the school zone? We’ve all been there, and unfortunately spend much of our day like this.

When we can drive to work but not remember it, we’re running on “automatic”. It’s like we’ve installed a computer program that’s operating in the background of our mind, going through the motions of your life for you.

Today we’re going to use this drive to work as an analogy for how we can practice living in the present moment.

It is possible to drive your car to work and remember every twist, turn, and stop sign you encounter on the journey. This way of being has several names. You might have heard of the idea of “being present”, “in the moment”, or fully “conscious”. They’re all referring to the concept of being fully aware of where you’re putting your attention. In any given moment you can be doing what you choose to be doing, thinking what you choose to think, and are aware of the feelings you’re experiencing as a result.

When you are fully present you:
- Are able to direct your attention to the road.
- Are aware when your mind slips away to think about your to-do list, and are able to bring it back to the current moment of being in your car to drive to work.
- Notice when you start feeling anxious about your big presentation that afternoon, and are able to bring yourself back to the present moment where there is no need to feel that way.

Automatic mode however is:
- Thinking about what has happened in the past, and bringing back all the thoughts and emotions without realizing it has happened. All you know is you’re suddenly sad, angry, or overwhelmed for example.
- Thinking about the future and allowing your imagination to paint a dark picture of what’s waiting for you. This often triggers stress hormones, racing thoughts, anxiety, and other negative sensations.

Being present in the current moment means mind and body can keep their attention on what’s happening right now, not what has happened in the past, or what may or may not happen in the future.

You can practice being more present with yourself and others:
- Throughout the day practice taking several deep belly breaths and notice 3 things you can see, touch, hear, smell, and taste (if possible in that moment).
- Observe and name how you’re feeling, and notice what you’re thinking about.
- Practice observing your thoughts and not judging them as good or bad. - Direct your attention to where you want it to be, not where it wanders on it’s own. Take control and bring it back to the present moment.

When we can start bringing our attention into the present moment, we can learn to be aware of what we’re thinking, how we’re feeling, and why. We can each begin to improve our mental health and be truly supportive of others by being truly present with ourselves, and to be completely present in a non-judgemental way with others.

Why You Need to Sleep More to Get Sick Less

12/18/2019

About one-third of Canadians get less sleep per night than is recommended for optimal physical and mental health. That's over 12 million people whose health is suffering because of a lack of sleep, or one people in three of your circle of friends!

Being under-slept has very real everyday effects on our immune system. The 2009 study “Sleep Habits and Susceptibility to the Common Cold” shows us that with poor sleep comes a greater likelihood of catching a cold.

The study discovered that poor sleep efficiency (the time you’re actually asleep during the time spent trying to sleep), and duration of sleep in the weeks running up to exposure to the viruses that cause the common cold were associated with a reduced resistance to the illness:
- People with less than 7 hours of sleep were almost 3 times more likely to actually develop clinical symptoms of a cold than those with an average of 8 or more hours of sleep.
- People with less than 92% sleep efficiency were 5.5 times more likely to develop a cold than those with 98% or more sleep efficiency. This essentially means that the more you struggle to fall asleep and the more you wake in the night, the more susceptible you are to catching the cold that’s circulating.

The researchers even checked their results by looking at other things that might influence the immunity of the participants in their study. They discovered that sleep was so fundamental to immune health that the season of the year, the existing antibodies participants had to viruses, body mass, demographic, socioeconomic status, psychological variables, and the wider health habits of the participants did not affect the results of the study.

This conclusion may be explained by the results of experimental studies that have demonstrated that sleep deprivation reduces the efficacy of parts of our immune systems. It reduces natural killer cell activity, suppresses interleukin-2 production, and increases levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines.

A full night’s sleep with good sleep efficiency improves immune function and increases stress tolerance.

Being under-slept is a significant and country-wide health problem, and is associated with obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, depression, anxiety, and getting injured.

Improving your sleep often means going counter to our cultural values of productivity and activity, and instead spending more time on rest and relaxation. For some it may require a focus on hormone balancing, stepping away from our digital devices, getting blackout curtains, building a new evening routine, or politely passing up some late night social invitations. It may mean building an exercise habit, or taking up meditation to calm a frayed nervous system.

But for all of us, it means getting to bed earlier to capitalize on the hours before 3am when our most rejuvenating sleep happens, and fiercely protecting our sleep rather than pushing it aside to fit more and more into our days.

Is This Why You Keep Getting Sick?

12/11/2019

You may have noticed that some people catch every cold and flu that sweeps through your community, while others seem to cruise through life seemingly impervious. If you’re the person who catches everything, we feel for you!

You may have heard all these common strategies to keep yourself healthy during cold and flu season, and they’re all effective:
- Take supplements like Truehope Olive Leaf Extract
- Wash your hands regularly
- Avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth
- Disinfecting surfaces like doorknobs and phones when those around you are sick

But there’s something that can undo all your hard work to prevent getting sick, and that’s stress.

When we’re under chronic or long term stress we spend too much time in “fight or flight” mode, regulated by the sympathetic nervous system. This part of the nervous system prepares you to escape from danger and / or fight, whether that’s against a physical or a mental threat. This chronic stress means we’re not spending enough time in “rest and digest” mode, regulated by the parasympathetic nervous system.

These two nervous systems regulate our immune system! When we’re under chronic stress, and our stress hormone cortisol is always elevated, our immune system can be suppressed. Pathogens like the virus that causes the common cold can have an easier time entering our system, causing us to feel sick.

If this rings true for you, consideration of your stress levels may act as a long term way to boost your immunity. Consider, also, that “stress” is more than you think it might be, it’s the insidious things like:
- Continually worrying about money
- Losing who you are and what you’re interested in in a relationship
- Being connected to your phone all the time rather than being in the present moment
- Sleeping less than 6 hours a night
- Being inactive rather than including simple movement like going for walks
- Being over-scheduled without taking time to yourself to nurture your interests
- Conditional friendships
- Feeling lonely from a lack of human connection
- “Keeping up with the Joneses” rather than doing what is right for you
Find more examples in this Truehope article

Identifying your chronic stressors is not easy. It requires stepping away from what’s expected of you, trusting your intuition, and even getting some perspective from a trusted friend or working with a professional like a therapist.
Working to spend more time in “rest and digest”, will not only make your immune system more resilient, reduce inflammation and reduce your risk of most chronic diseases, but it could also give you a happier and more fulfilling life!

The Secret Supplement to Kick Your Cold

12/4/2019

We all know the drudgery of the common cold. It saps your energy, and makes your face hurt in ways you didn’t know were possible! You feel sick and unproductive, but you always wonder if you’re sick enough to cut back on your daily obligations and stay home from work.

What if there was a way you could not only reduce the likelihood of getting a cold, but also a scientifically verified way to shorten it’s duration?

In the past, you may have come across the Mediterranean Diet while researching ways to eat healthier, and found that the World Health Organization recognizes it as a healthy and sustainable diet. One of the main ingredients of the Mediterranean Diet is olive oil, which is rich in polyphenols, particularly oleuropein and hydroxytyrosol. These polyphenols have antiviral, antibacterial, anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties leading to a host of health benefits which can be encapsulated in nutrient dense Olive Leaf Extract (OLE).

OLE has been linked to a decrease in chronic diseases with benefits such as reducing your risk of cardiovascular disease, helping to manage blood sugar and Type 2 Diabetes, and is even protective against depression. But did you know it’s beneficial for immune health as well?

OLE has antiviral properties that stop viruses replicating and causing an infection. This boosts our ability to prevent or fight the common cold, the flu, respiratory infections, and other common viruses and disease-causing microbes.

A 2019 New Zealand study “The Effect of Olive Leaf Extract on Upper Respiratory Illness in High School Athletes: A Randomised Control Trial” studied high school athletes for 9 weeks during their competitive season. Thirty two students were randomly split between two groups. One group was given OLE (20 g of olive leaf, containing 100 mg oleuropein), the other group a placebo.

The results showed there was a 28% reduction in sick days in the group taking OLE which meant the students could get back to competing sooner. For you this means getting your energy back, and getting back to life as you know it much faster!

The Oleuropein found in Truehope OLE (Olive Leaf Extract) is a liquid extract made from fresh olive leaves, and is standardized to 17% Oleuropein. This concentration allows you to get all the benefits but at a greater concentration than you can get from olive oil.

The recommended dosage for Truehope OLE is one 500mg capsule twice a day.

Author

We want to provide nothing but the highest quality information and advice for our followers to improve their health, which is why at Truehope Canada, we're happy to say our writer is a Certified Life Coach and Registered Holistic Nutritionist.
We know, we're excited about this too!

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