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Sara Gottfried MD
  • Home
  • About Dr Sara
    • Media
    • Contact
  • Books
    • Women, Food, and Hormones
    • Younger
    • Brain Body Diet
    • Hormone Reset Diet
    • The Hormone Cure
  • Upcoming Events
  • Blog
    • Recipes
    • Women’s Health
    • Hormones
    • Weight Loss
    • Cleanse
    • Stress Management

Posts Tagged ‘relaxation’

7 Ways to Reverse Cellular Aging and Get the Body and Life You Most Want – Part 1

By Sara Gottfried, MD | November 26, 2013 | 1
How to Get the Body and Life You Want With Ways to Reverse Cellular Aging Part 1

My soul brother, colleague, and Oriental Medical Doctor, Pedram Shojai, and I recently took on the topic of cellular aging and how to slow it down when life is too fast. Watch right here:   Short version: New research from UCSF and Dean Ornish proves that mindfulness, diet and exercise is linked to better telomeres,…

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How to Shed Stress and Pounds With the Perfect Balance Diet – Dr. Sara's Book Club #5

By Sara Gottfried, MD | November 20, 2013
At home in your body

If there’s anything most women are in dire need of today, it’s balance. Luckily, this month’s book club read has you covered. You already know that a good diet is the cornerstone of a healthy body, but how can you create lasting well-being in all areas of your life? “The Perfect Balance Diet: 4 Weeks…

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PRAISE

“For the first time in my adult life I feel that I have gained control over food. I feel healthier, look better and have gained an interest in making sure that what I am putting into my body is the best it can be. And I lost 10 pounds in all the right places.”

– Janice Lunde, Dr. Sara’s Detox Challenge Participant

“Dr. Sara is the height of excellence! She is incredibly knowledgeable and gives very generously of her time. I feel so blessed to have been able to work with her.”

– Yvonne Varah

“You don’t have to settle for being stressed out, binging on sugar and chocolate, and aging prematurely. Stop blaming yourself and step into sacred action. It’s your birthright. You can have the joyous, mission-driven life you want, and Dr. Sara is here to show us how.”

– Marci Shimoff, New York Times Bestselling Author of Happy for No Reason and Love for No Reason

“Dr. Gottfried offers powerful and effective tools for addressing the most difficult health issues facing women and men today. She is warm and kind and has so much experience to draw upon, it’s inspiring. Thank you Dr. S!”

– Cassandra Mick

“Dr. Sara Gottfried is a modern-day healer goddess if ever there was one, and she also happens to be a Harvard Medical School graduate and rigorous physician-scientist.”

– Christiane Northrup MD, author of Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom

“Dr. Gottfried’s book and detox came at a time when I was ready to give in to old age. Hot flashes, low energy and libido, weight gain, increasing blood pressure and cholesterol levels were unacceptable to me. I now know that hormone levels and what I eat are a huge influence on how I feel and look. To now be able to control something that was out of control is empowering…”

Cheryl V., Dr. Sara’s Detox Challenge Participant

“My health coach told me about your book and I took the [hormone] test, and lo and behold, I found I was a mess, hormonally speaking. Now I’m getting on track and I love your videos and your book. I feel like I’m getting my life back again, when not long ago I truly thought I was losing it!”

-Tracy, Registered Nurse

“You don’t have to accept the hormonal hell of being tired, stressed, overweight, and never in the mood for sex as you grow older. In her fabulous new book, the brilliant Dr. Gottfried gives you an effective, easy-to-follow plan to balance your hormones and become lean, energetic, and loving life again. Stop settling and reclaim your sexy!”

–JJ Virgin, Author of Six Weeks to Sleeveless and Sexy and The Virgin Diet

“I lost 10 lbs., reset my hormones and metabolism and eliminated my sugar cravings! I have also found that I respond to stress much differently, I feel it, notice it and move on from it. Stress no longer has a grip on me. Dr. Sara’s conference calls and detox information was invaluable. I am so grateful for this program. Thank you Dr. Sara!”

–Sophia, Dr. Sara’s Detox Challenge Participant

“The Hormone Cure is the playbook for your mojo, your mind, and your bootie. With every chapter I thought, ‘So THAT’s how that works.’ I wanted to call every girlfriend and give them the goods on how to glow… now and always.”

-Danielle LaPorte, Author of The Fire Starter Sessions and The Desire Map

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Inner Healing Intelligence I’ve been studying t Inner Healing Intelligence I’ve been studying this elegant, very complex process in depth for the past few years and I’m curious about your experience. It’s not the doctor that heals, it’s your body and psyche that creates inner healing. The doctor, clinician, or therapist is meant to guide your own unfolding. What’s my role as doctor? Remove the obstacles, like with a wound - cleanse it, debride if needed to create fresh edges, place gauze and fluffs, then suture together. We can do things to stimulate and support healing but we can’t drive it. Healing is not about the doctor fixing or saving, but rather allowing and integrating with deep presence. I’m feeling the energy of innate healing intelligence today, immersed in nature here in the mountains of Northern California. I’m starting to recover from an illness and my body has needed an enormous amount of rest. Same rules apply in the psyche when it comes to innate psychological healing—we all have an inner drive toward wholeness and repair, even with embedded trauma and toxic stress. Similar to the weird sport of curling. It’s about preparing the ice, removing obstacles to allow healing to happen, then witnessing what occurs next. Preparation includes the topics I’ve covered in my books—how you eat, move, love, connect, think, and supplement. How you create purpose and meaning. But the healing itself can feel distinct from the preparation when you attune to it. I believe the concept was originally developed by Stanislav Grof, and later refined by Michael Mithoefer, Clinical Investigator and Medical Director at the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). I’ve been learning about innate healing intelligence in my Hakomi training, which is mindfulness-centered somatic psychotherapy. I am planning to use it when I begin to offer ketamine-assisted treatment. Psychodelics like ketamine can melt your usual defensive structures so that healing occurs. What is your experience with your own innate healing capacity and wholeness? How do you experience it? #healing #wholess #health #hakomi #keramine #nutrition #ketamineassistedtreatment #grof #maps #somatictherapy 📷 @davidgottfried ❤️
Supplements to clear your head. 🟪Leaky gut and Supplements to clear your head. 🟪Leaky gut and dysbiosis are common causes of brain fog, so I often recommend L-Glutamine. It’s like a seal for the gut wall: it increases the height of intestinal villi, stimulates gut cells to grow, and maintains gut integrity, which may reverse leaky gut, leaky brain, and brain fog. Dose: 1,000 mg 3x/day before meals. 🟪Prebiotics/Probiotics. These can restore your microbiome and reduce inflammation—all of which can help clear brain fog. Focus on prebiotics to feed your good microbes and probiotic food like miso, tempeh, sauerkraut, and kimchi to maintain your microbial diversity. A word of caution, though. PRObiotics may worsen brain fog, especially if you have dysbiosis. 🟪Phosphatidylserine. Clinical studies show phosphatidylserine improves attention, arousal, memory, and verbal fluency in aging people with cognitive deterioration. It seems to work best in people with relatively good cognitive performance, according to one study. As you get older, you may not make enough phosphatidylserine. The good news is that when you take phosphatidylserine as a supplement, your body absorbs it well and it crosses the BBB. Dose: 300 to 800 mg per day, for at least 12 weeks. 🟪Citicoline. It may help with brain fog or mild cognitive deficits. It’s considered an old supplement that may have new tricks for clearing neuroinflammation. Dose: 1,000 to 2,000 mg daily. 🟪Omega-3s. EPA and DHA protect the brain body from inflammation. The combination of DHA and EPA helps patients with mild cognitive impairment, but not in Alzheimer’s disease as a single treatment. That suggests there might be a timing issue: sooner may be better.Taken together, DHA and EPA may limit age-related brain decline by boosting your body’s own repair mechanisms. Dose: about 1,200 to 1,500 mg EPA and 500 to 1,000 mg DHA 🟪B12. Absorption of vitamin B12 wanes as you age, and it’s worse if you’re mostly plant-based like me. Subclinical B12 deficiency occurs in up to 26% of the population. Dose: Methylcobalamin 500 to 1,000 mcg daily. Like, save, and share😍 . . . #brainbodydiet #brainfog #brainfogsucks #foggybrain #inflammation #leakygut
Clearing brain fog involves decreasing inflammatio Clearing brain fog involves decreasing inflammation and increasing neurogenesis. Neurogenesis is the ongoing growth and development of new nerve cells (neurons). How do you decrease inflammation and increase neurogenesis? Through food, exercise, and lifestyle choices to start. Let’s start with what you can do to grow your gray matter. 🟢Strength train your brain. For women, 50 to 80 mins of strength exercise 3x/week increased hippocampal volume. 🟢Walk this way. Physical exercise improves brain function and structure at the molecular, cellular, body-wide systems, and behavioral levels. Even a modest amount of walking helps to clear brain fog and make a bigger brain. 🟢Run for your hippocampus. Running in particular produces brain cells that are quantitatively and qualitatively better in the hippocampus, the center of learning and memory, and an important target for healing when you have brain fog. 🟢Meditate. Practicing meditation for ten minutes or more per day grows gray matter throughout the brain, and especially in your hippocampus and right brain so that you can focus better, feel well-adjusted and resilient, and keep your brain young. 🟢Yoga. Similar to meditation, yoga increases the size of the hippocampus and other structures in the brain beyond the limbic system (frontal, temporal, occipital, and cerebellar regions), and the number of years of practice correlates with larger volume. 🟢Avoid sleep debt because we lose gray matter with sleep deprivation. Activate the glymphatic system’s removal of toxins from your brain by aiming for seven to eight and a half hours per night, and catch up with a nap if you don’t meet your nightly quota. Be sure to breathe through your nose, which warms, filters, and moistens inspired air. Sleep-disordered breathing exists on a spectrum between healthy nose breathing on one end and sleep apnea on the other. You may have issues even if you don’t snore. Try mouth tape if you’re a mouth breather—the mouth is for eating, not breathing. How are you going to grow your gray matter today? . . . #brainbodydiet #womenfoodhormones #brainfog #brainfogsucks #foggybrain
When you can’t think clearly, it’s important t When you can’t think clearly, it’s important to identify the root causes affecting you, so you can move on to an effective solution. Common root causes of brain fog: 🟠Toxins ◾Poor detoxification, usually a result of low glutathione or weak mitochondria ◾External toxins, including BPA, lead, mold, and diesel exhaust ◾Internal exposures, such as leaky gut, LPS, or adipokines ◾Too much stress (perceived and oxidative) ◾Poor glucose handling (high fasting or postprandial blood sugar), high insulin 🟠Increased blood-brain barrier permeability, which can be from gut dysfunction, toxin exposure (hello, alcohol!), or lack of sleep 🟠Reduced blood flow to the brain, short-term or long-term ischemia or stroke 🟠Insufficient supportive nutrients ◾Wrong calories (too much sugar, excess inflammatory fats), other inflammatory foods, food intolerances, celiac disease ◾Dehydration ◾Decreased neurotrophic factors, like BDNF ◾Imbalanced hormones 🟠Neuroinflammation ◾Food intolerances such as gluten and/or dairy sensitivity ◾Leaky gut ◾Dysbiosis ◾Oxidative stress, overactive immune system, and inflammation ◾Autoimmune conditions such as celiac disease 🟠Medications, such as statins, antihistamines, benzodiazepines, and chemotherapy can also be a cause of brain fog. Other chronic conditions, such as fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, autism spectrum disorder, and mast cell problems (such as mastocytosis or issues with mast cell activation). Brain fog is a common symptom but don’t let anyone tell you it’s a normal part of aging. For more in-depth details, read the Brain Fog chapter in my book BRAIN BODY DIET ⠀ Like, save and share😍 . . . #brainbodydiet #womenfoodhormones #brainfog #brainfogsucks #foggybrain #insulinresistance #prediabetes #metabolichealth #intestinalpermeability #intestinalhealth #leakygut #leakyguthealing #neuroinflammation
Four key hormones, when they are in balance, preve Four key hormones, when they are in balance, prevent brain fog. They are: ◾Thyroid ◾Insulin ◾Cortisol ◾Estrogen When they are out of balance, the body may suffer and the brain fog may roll in with any or all of them. 🟪Low thyroid. When your thyroid function is low, your brain function is low, often causing brain fog, slow processing speed and reflexes, and cognitive impairment. Increasingly, I find in my patients that they don’t convert enough active thyroid hormone (T3) from inactive thyroid hormone (T4). One reason is poor conversion of T4 to T3 in the liver, but another common reason is that you have a gene that’s not working well. I’m planning a thyroid series soon so I will discuss genetic variations then. 🟪Insulin block. When you eat too many refined carbohydrates for your system, your insulin may spike, which makes blood sugar go from high to low, causing brain fog. As a result, you store fat no matter what you try. The key is to keep blood sugar relatively stable around 70 to 85 mg/dL when fasting, and an average of about 85 to 92 all the time. For my patients and myself, that means defining the best carb threshold so that you’re not getting too little (linked to mood problems and hair loss) nor too much (linked to insulin resistance). See WOMEN, FOOD, AND HORMONES for how to define your carb threshold. 🟪Low estrogen or estrogen resistance. Around age 40, the female brain slows down in metabolic rate, known as cerebral metabolism, and symptoms of brain fog may develop. Estrogen is one of the most important nutrients that protects your brain from decline. 🟪Cortisol problems. When cortisol is too high or too low, or both within the day, you may experience brain fog. The root cause is high perceived stress. The control system, the hypothalamic-pituitaryadrenal (HPA) axis, gets out of whack when allostatic (stress) load exceeds reserves, causing brain fog and a whole host of other issues, such as, anxiety, depression, addiction, and memory problems. Additionally, high stress can harm mitochondria, leading to low energy, reduced stamina, and less mental flexibility. . . . #brainbodydiet #hormones #brainfog #brainfogsucks
Which of my books is the best one to read first? I Which of my books is the best one to read first? It depends on what you are looking for help with. Here’s a quick summary to help guide you in the right direction. 🟡THE HORMONE CURE. This is the book that started it all. It teaches you the basics of balancing your hormones to reclaim wellness and optimal health. 🟡THE HORMONE RESET DIET. If you are looking for hormonal detoxification, consider this book. 🟡YOUNGER. For those who feel old before their time, even at age 40 or 45, this book is for you. You are not trapped by the past. You have the ability to control how you age and to extend your healthspan. 🟡BRAIN BODY DIET. Written for the female brain - which is different from the male brain - this book will help you fight brain fog, burnout, memory loss, boost energy and mental functioning, and alleviate depression and anxiety. 🟡WOMEN, FOOD, AND HORMONES. Designed for women over 35, my latest book teaches you how to improve metabolic health and fight stubborn weight gain by learning how food talks to your hormones. It addresses the metabolic hormones I discussed in the previous posts plus dives deeper into the role of insulin, testosterone, and growth hormone. These hormones that often get overlooked by women when it comes to their health. The focus of the book is a ketogenic diet modified for women. If you are looking for specifics on how to balance your blood sugar and integrate intermittent fasting into your routine, this book shows you how. Which one is your favorite? #brainbodydiet #womenfoodhormones #thehormonecure #theyoungerbook #thehormoneresetdiet #metabolichealth #metabolicflexibility
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