The Battle for Your Health

There’s a war going on in your house. Well, at least within your body. Your immune system is much like the armed forces. Without it, your body could be invaded on a regular basis and taken over or even destroyed by enemy invaders.

I’ve learned more than I want to know about immune systems thanks to the unwelcomed invasion of Alopecia Areata in my youngest son’s body. Since that time, I’ve been building up the defense systems of everyone in the house. The result? We’re still hosting Alopecia, but beyond that we rarely get sick. I have an opportunity to reflect on this each fall when we go to our “well” check ups and the doctor comments on how he/she hasn’t seen this child since the last “well” visit. 

Just recently I watched as an enemy invader germ tried to take down each of my kids in succession. Happily, it failed. Each child complained briefly of a slightly sore throat and general tiredness which lasted a day or so. I loaded them up with vitamin C and gave Tylenol to the biggest complainers, even allowing one of them to spend a day at home “resting” (actually watching nonstop TV and eating). Their immune systems were victorious. None of them ever sported a fever.

Their strong fortified systems fended off the worst of it and it’s a distant memory already. I remember the day when a passing virus would have leveled my children, spiking their fevers and requiring a desperate run to the pediatrician’s office where we would be told it just has to run its course. The “course” would include a few days of really sick, followed by a cold that would hang around for a week or longer. Their immune systems made short work of this latest virus.

 Beyond following an organic diet, here’s my advice for beefing up your and your child’s immune system: 

1. Eat real food. Fruits, veggies, whole grains. If you don’t recognize everything in the ingredients list – don’t eat it or feed it to your kids. Avoid excessive sugar. Cut out the food dyes and artificial sweeteners. Give your body the right ingredients to defend itself. When you load it up with artificial ingredients, it is weakened simply by the effort of trying to process things not meant to be eaten by people. That weakened state leaves it vulnerable, while whole food fortifies it with plenty of good nutrition.
2. Drink lots (and lots and lots) of water. Offer water with every meal. Encourage water drinking all day long. I try to drink a glass when I get up and one before each meal. Water helps keep your system running smoothly, flushing out toxins and giving you energy. Dehydrated people (most people are) are tired and not equipped to fight off enemy germs.
3. Get enough sleep. This is the hardest one for our family. My kids are teenagers (or almost) and their bodies are adopting nocturnal leanings that make it hard for them to go to sleep early. Sadly, the school district doesn’t seem to be concerned with these teenage tendencies and requires them to be on a school bus by 7am. I don’t have any answers for this one. I’ve been trying to let the natural consequences of gong to bed at midnight and being forced out of bed by a parental unit at 6am do the teaching, but it is a slow process. One child (the girl child of course!) has begun to figure this out.
4. Exercise! I swear by this. I know for a fact that a good run can knock out the first wave of a cold or virus much quicker than any medicine I can take. Get your kids moving somehow, some way. If they aren’t in sports, find another way. I used to let my youngest trade 30 minutes on the treadmill for 30 minutes of TV time. I know it’s bribery, but hopefully it’s also a lesson. Model exercise and invite your kids to join you.
5. Find some alone time. Stress has a big impact on your immune system. Stressed out people get sick. Find ways to counter that in your kids by making sure they get time to do their own thing. They don’t need constant stimulation. One of my kids makes music, another takes walks and writes, and the third spends solitary time with his legos. I know that when they aren’t getting these opportunities their stress level goes up. Try to create spaces in your kids days for quiet time. Sometimes this requires a little manipulation. My kids computers automatically shut down for several hours each day, effectively forcing them to find something else to do. Nine times out of ten it leads to quality down time. 

These days you can’t walk down the grocery aisle without being blasted by products claiming to boost your immune system. I’m here to tell you that there is no processed food or multi-vitamin that can even compete with the five things listed above. In fact, I’d wager to guess that most “immune boosting” products cancel themselves out by containing artificial ingredients, preservatives, and dyes. 

If you’re a vitamin taker, consider adding Vitamin D to the line up. Research continues to reveal that most of us are deficient in it, especially in the darker months. 

As winter approaches, take the time to access and reinforce your kids’ defense systems. Who knows what’s coming down the pike this year in terms of colds and flus. Be prepared.

Hunting Treasure!

What did you do on the day after Thanksgiving? Hit the stores and grab up all those crazy deals alongside all those crazy people? Lay on the couch and rub your belly? Travel back from whence you came?

We still had a few relatives hanging about, so we took advantage of the gorgeous day and went geocaching! Ever heard of it? As my husband likes to point out, it is only a familiar term to the true nerds among us. We’re charter members.

Geocaching is treasure hunting with a GPS. It’s free to sign up at http://www.geocaching.com/.  Once you narrow down your choices to the caches you want to search for, you program your GPS (or download the geocache app) and off you go! The website lists how difficult the cache is to find, how tough the terrain is, what size the cache is, helpful hints and clues, and even notes from others who have found the cache already. Your GPS will get you within 20 feet of the cache, but then it’s all about the hunt. Our kids have become experts at searching out hollow logs, rock crevices, anything that looks a tad bit out of the ordinary, because that’s where you’re most likely to find a cache.

A cache can be anything from a magnetic key holder (a ‘micro cache’) to a plastic Tupperware tub. Inside the cache you will find an explanation as to what geocaching is (just in case a muggle stumbles upon the cache by accident), a log book, and sometimes trinkets. Trinkets are tradable items. You can take one thing out as long as you put one thing back. This is the part the kids really like. Before we leave to go geocaching, they comb their rooms for trinkets to trade – jewelry, matchbox cars, lego figures, plastic animals, key chains, really anything small that someone else might want. The junk drawer is always a good place to find trinkets to trade. On this past geocache, Addie came away with a jar of bubbles, Ian claimed crayons, and one young cousin found a really annoying birthday noise maker which he used to serenade us on our drive to the next cache (the WHOLE drive). On other searches we’ve found chapstick, craft kits, magnifying glass, super balls, sunglasses, hair accessories, and any number of strange plastic creatures that delighted the finder. My favorite find was on a particularly arduous, mosquito infested hike when the cache contained a bug-repellent wet wipe!

Sometimes a cache will have a “travel bug”. This is an object whose sender is trying to move it somewhere. It could be across the country or it could be to another continent. If you are headed that direction, you take the travel bug and place it in another cache closer to its destination. Its original owner can follow the travel bug’s journey online. Each time you find a cache and/or move a travel bug, you log back in to geocaching.com and make a note. If you’re an overachiever your account quickly becomes laden with a long list of finds. We rarely remember or have time to log back in, so most of our caches are recorded in our memory.

There are geocaches on all seven continents. There are geocaches in just about every Cracker Barrel restaurant gift shop. There are “cache and dash” geocaches alongside pretty much any road. If you looked it up right now, odds are you’ll find 50 geocaches within a 25 mile radius of where you’re standing. They are among us. And now you’re not a muggle (non-geocacher), so you know this. When you see a strange group of people traipsing around in a wooded area, you don’t have to wonder if someone’s lost their toddler, you can wonder if it’s a bunch of nerds searching for a cache.

We found four caches last Friday. One cache was a bit of disaster as I didn’t read all the clues provided and two of the kids wandered in to some sucking mud which sucked off my youngest son’s croc, never to be found again. This necessitated a quick trip back home for a change of clothes. Not a problem since this cache was less than a ½ mile from home. The others led us on a pretty hike down the rail trail and then a smelly search behind a crab shack. All caches are rated on a 1-5 scale for difficultly and terrain. We mostly stick with 1’s and 2’s when the kids are with us.

Geocaching is a great way to get your family outside together. No one can resist a treasure hunt. This time of year it’s not always easy to motivate young people to venture in to the great outdoors. But it’s also easier to find geocaches this time of year with no heavy foliage, sticker bushes, or poison ivy to contend with. Geocaching is also a great way to take a break when you’re traveling and need to get the kids out of the car. We’ve seen some beautiful places we would never have encountered had it not been for geocaching.

If you’d like to try it and don’t own a GPS (you need a handheld GPS because you’re car can only get you so far and most caches require at least some hiking), you can download a free app that will lead you to three caches and give you a tutorial along the way. The full-version app is $9.99. On the website you can find information on purchasing a GPS. It also has a cool scrolling banner along the bottom that lists the most recent finds as they come in. Today I watched as several caches were found in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Sweden. The site lists a running tally of how many caches have been logged in during the last 30 days. As I write this there have been 5,152,296. Betcha didn’t know there that many treasure-hunting nerds in the world!

When you look up a cache, many will list clues and sometimes encrypted messages (with the code). This makes it even more fun for the kids. On the website you can also see when the cache was last found and make sure it’s still viable. The person who places a cache (anyone can do this) is responsible for following strict guidelines and making sure the cache stays viable, so it’s rare for a cache to go missing (probably it’s just hard to find). I know, hard to believe there are people in this world with that much time on their hands!

If you own a GPS, you can sign up on the website for free and start seeking your treasure. Even if you download the app, you’ll still want to access the website for the more detailed information and to log in your finds.

Give geocaching a try. It’s got all the ingredients for great family memories – outdoors, treasure, adventure, challenge, and best of all – it’s free! Just beware of muggles and use stealth. Also, remember ‘cache in, trash out’ whenever you are geocaching and do your part.

Get Off Your Butt - Your Life Depends On It!

I don’t know where you live, but where I live we are trapped in the house by yet another lovely snow storm. Only this one is worse because it’s layering a shimmery dressing of ice on everything. It’s quite the adventure just slipping to the end of the drive for the newspaper (glad the cameras weren’t rolling for that one - yak trax are no match for black ice). Even the kids are becoming sedentary. The snow is so deep and so heavy, that after the requisite snowman, there’s not much to do but begin a snowball fight that inevitably ends with someone violating the “no head” rule, the other someone in tears with a bruised face or ego, and me being forced to put on my own boots to retrieve the offending someone. Notice I’m naming no names.


So what else is there to do but grab a book or fire up the computer? We’re all guilty, but if we don’t get up off our butts it’ll kill us. I’m not kidding. New research by the American Cancer Society says that women who spend six hours a day sitting on their butts are 40% more likely to die sooner than women who only spend three hours sitting. Doesn’t even matter if those long-sitters are marathon runners or spend all their other hours teaching aerobics.

How can this be? Sitting for prolonged periods suppresses the immune system. Your blood stops circulating normally and can create the perfect scenario for blood clots and heart disease, not to mention raising your resting blood pressure and increasing your cholesterol. Long hours spent sitting may cause large muscle groups to shut down which can lead to damaging metabolic changes. Yipes!

Throwing in my own two cents here - the other obvious factor could be the junk food consumed by people sitting for long periods of time in front of screens. Given the opportunity, my children will mindlessly eat in front of any kind of screen. As long as the food is within arm’s reach, I think they would eat without ceasing. We keep the feed room in the barn shut tight because I know if my horses were to get loose and find their feed, they would eat themselves to death. They don’t know better. Do we?

I’m not so sure, so I only allow my children apples, celery, or carrots while they are watching TV (except for “movie night” when only popcorn will do). This way if they are stuffing themselves with something, at least it’s something that’s good for them.

Still, from what I’m reading it’s the sitting that will kill them faster than the potato chips. Luckily, our screen rules and my children’s energy levels prevent them from sitting still for more than an hour. But my hubby’s a different story. His job requires him to stay motionless (except his mouth, and hopefully his brain) for long hours. And sometimes when I get on a good writing jag, I can sit here for hours too.

So what’s to be done? It’s pretty simple. We need to get off our butts! It’s not too difficult to add some movement in to your day. Walk to someone’s office and talk in person rather than sending that e-mail. Instead of sitting at the counter screaming for my child to stop doing whatever he’s doing that’s making all that noise, I’ll get off my duff and go find the source of the noise. Just breaking up the periods of sitting should do it. Move around enough to get the blood flowing. Walk up the stairs and back down. Laundry helps with this. I’ve started using the annoying end buzzer on my dryer so that I have to get up and take out the clothes or risk hearing that awful sound every 4 minutes. Instead of sitting down to sort the mail or write a quick note, I stand at the counter. And when talking on the phone instead of lounging on the couch, I’m using that time to patrol the house for dirty laundry, discarded edible contraband (i.e. something out of the kitchen other than carrots, celery, or apples), and lights left on. Sometimes I even clean while I’m talking. (Crazy, I know.) When I’m stuck waiting for a kid, a car, an appointment, whatever, I’ve taken to finding a comfortable wall to lean on and playing with my iphone instead of sitting down to read some mindless tabloid in the waiting room. I’m looking for any excuse to get off my butt.

If your kids are the ones sitting still for hours, you need a plan. Asking for their help, sending them on an errand, and if worse comes to worse, pulling the plug (or flipping the circuit breaker) can help you get them moving. One article I read suggested wearing a pedometer and setting a goal each day, but that could get old (or not, depending on your personality). I think it’s just a matter of deciding that living a long, healthy life is more important than watching another episode, playing one more game, or wasting another minute on the internet.

These may be “new” findings, but even Plato knew the consequences of whiling away the hours motionless, “Lack of activity destroys the good condition of every human being, while movement and methodical physical exercise save it and preserve it.” Smart guy that Plato.

Running makes me smarter!

Running keeps me sane. It makes me a better mother. It makes me a reasonable wife. It keeps me from going nuts and gives me time to let my mind loose. It makes it possible for me to eat chocolate on a regular basis without becoming the size of a small ocean liner. Mostly, it makes me happy. But today I learned running does a whole lot of other things for me.

Did you know that exercise not only reduces your risk of cancer, Alzheimer’s, heart disease, stroke, and diabetes, but it can actually create new brain cells? Me neither. I’m all for adding brain cells. Charles Hillman, director of the Neurocognitive Kinesiology Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, says, “Aerobic exercise increases the supply of a protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor, or BDNF, which protects brain neurons and promotes the growth of new nerve cells and synapses that are related to learning and memory.” Which in English means exercise makes your brain work better. And this was true for all the studies – regardless of age. The protein BDNF is active in the area of the brain related to relational memory – the ability to make logical connections among pieces of information.

The Illinois researchers also found that aerobic exercise improves executive function (the ability to plan and make decisions, correct mistakes and react to new situations). All I know is after a long run, I can think clearly. I thought it was just me, but turns out exercise makes everyone’s brain think better.

All of this is well and good for those of us who appreciate improved executive function and relational memory, but what about our kids? The best way to teach kids to do anything is to model it for them because we all know our children are much more likely to do what we do, than what we say (no matter how many times we say it). If you aren’t already a regular at the gym, then it’s time to get off the couch. If not for you, and your improved brain function, than for your kids.

I read all of this useful information in a promotional booklet from Nutrition Action Newsletter (published by the Center for Science in the Public Interest) which arrived in the mail today. My new subscription is a gift from my mother-in-law (Thanks Margot!).

Here’s another interesting tidbit I read – Sitting can kill you. Peter Katzmarzyk, an epidemiologist at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, Louisana, says, “People who sit for the majority of their day have much higher mortality rates than people who don’t, even if they’re physically active during another part of the day.” Ouch. The article goes on to site several studies illustrating his point, including a representative sample of 17,000 Canadian adults who were followed over a 12 year period. 20% of those who said they sat “almost all the time” died. Bad luck? Probably not. Compare those numbers to the people who said they sat “approximately half the time” – only 12 % of them died in the same period. And of the people who said they sat, “almost none of the time”, only 6% died. I’m sure this is a toughie for people who are paid to sit at a desk. The article had a few suggestions like getting up and standing as you work, taking frequent breaks to stretch and walk, and even mentioned “treadmill desks” which sound like modern torture devices. But I guess you gotta do what you gotta do.

If growing new brain cells and not dying aren’t enough motivation for you, here’s some more:

Active people are 15-25% less likely to be diagnosed with depression than inactive people. In people with depression, moderate-to-vigorous aerobic exercise improves symptoms.

Forty minutes of moderate-to-vigorous exercise three to five times a week lowers systolic blood pressure by 2 to 5 points. That may not sound like much, but it would save an estimated 11,800 to 27,600 lives a year.

If you have arthritis, moderate intensity, low-impact exercise for 30-60 minutes three to five times a week can reduce pain and disability. Both aerobic and muscle strengthening help.

Older adults who are physically active have about a 30% lower risk of falls.

Weight-bearing aerobic and strength-training exercise three to five days a week can increase – or slow the decrease in- the density of spine and hip bones. In one study, women who walked at least four hours a week were 40% less likely to break a hip than those who walked less than an hour a week.

Aerobic exercise lowers the risk of stroke.

Aerobic exercise cuts the risk of heart attack by 20-35% in most studies.

Moderately active people have a 30-40% lower risk of type 2 diabetes than inactive people.

Exercise can curb your risk of cancer. It can directly lower your risk by keeping off excess weight, or it can work directly on cancer risk (particularly colon and breast cancers).

(taken from the article, “Seven Facts You May Not Know About Exercise” by David Schardt)

This is where the sneaker rubber needs to hit the road (or the treadmill or the gym). It’s not really optional – you need to exercise. And your kids need to exercise. This is not something to put off until you have more free time. Find a way now. This is so much cheaper than medical bills and so much less painful than heart attacks, cancer, and premature death. If you don’t teach your kids the importance of exercise, they may never know. This is a total win-win. When you exercise, you feel better mentally and physically and you model a behavior that could save your child’s life. Plus it makes you smarter – and who doesn’t need a few more brain cells?

Here’s a few ideas to get your kids moving:
• Enter a 5K. I know for a fact that even very young kids can run (or walk) a 5K. I get beaten in races by runners half my height on a regular basis. Pick a cause you care about. Bring along the family dog. If running the entire time is too daunting, make a plan. You can run at the start and finish and walk in between (everyone will think you ran the whole way!) or choose a pattern like running a minute and then walking a minute. I have a running watch that times intervals. On days when I just don’t have the energy, it helps me by sounding an alarm that reminds me to walk (one minute) and then run (4 minutes). I’ve discovered that this doesn’t really even mess up my time and when I run intervals I can run much farther.

• Go for a hike. Invite some friends. Make it a scavenger hunt. Give your kids a list of things to find. Or make it a family goal to hike all the parks in your area. Or all the parks in the country. Geocaching is another great way to get your family moving (check out www.geocaching.com for information on this fun treasure hunting hobby).

• Walk the dog. Don’t have one? This is a great excuse to get one. They need walking several times a day. Having a dog forces you to get out and exercise.

• Join a team – swim team, soccer, baseball, basketball, lacrosse, anything that requires you move. I aim for allowing my kids two extracurricular activities each season – one that gets their body moving and one that gets their mind moving.

• Ride bikes. Ride skateboards or scooters. Jump rope. Rollerblade.

• Take a spin in a skating rink. I remember as a kid, this was a regular event in my social life. These days they are a little harder to find, but they’re out there.

• Play games – capture the flag, kick the can, hide & seek, kickball, wiffleball, ultimate frisbee. Play with your kids – you’ll surprise them and you’ll laugh yourself silly.

• Do an exercise video together.

• Create a weightlifting center in your basement. You don’t need anything fancy, just a clear space and a few weights to start. A bench and a mat help too. Take a personal training session together with your kids and learn how to do exercises safely.

• Set a goal – a number of miles, a number of hours, whatever and focus on it. Plan a celebration when you’re finished.

• Try something new – martial arts, gymnastics, dance, fencing. Isn’t there some sport you’ve always wished you could do? Who’s stopping you? Ask your kids to join you.

• If you’ve got the cash, buy a treadmill, stationery bike, elliptical, or some other such device. When it’s too cold, wet, or early, I run on my treadmill. I’ve got a TV set up in front of it hooked up to a DVD player. I keep a steady stock of netflix DVD’s of TV shows - mindless brain-candy that keeps me distracted from the fact the basement is a mess, the kids are about to get up, and the cat box needs to be changed. Most shows are 40 minutes long – perfect to get in 4 miles.

The bottom line is you have to make a conscious decision to exercise. It won’t ever be convenient. Or easy. Some days it really is hard to do. But you need to do it every day. I mean that. A couple times a week is not enough. Our bodies were designed for real physical exercise every day and now that we aren’t out slaving in the fields or hunting down our supper, we have to find new ways to move them. Pick what works for you, but pick something. Your life just might depend on it. Not to mention your IQ.