The most common complaint I hear is that people always feel tired. In fact, most people seem to think feeling tired all the time is just a normal part of modern life. I have good news. It’s not!

There are many causes of chronic tiredness. Sometimes it’s obvious, like not getting enough sleep, but other times it can be due to an underlying health issue. Chronic tiredness can be a frustrating condition. There usually isn’t a simple solution to it and any medical tests are likely to come back ‘normal’.

In this article I’m going to explore the common condition of adrenal exhaustion, its symptoms and how it can cause chronic tiredness.

Common symptoms and risk factors of adrenal exhaustion include:

You feel tired and unrefreshed after waking in the morning
You find it difficult to get going in the morning until you have had a cup of coffee
You feel tired after exercising
You began to feel chronically tired after a stressful event had occurred
You experience chronic allergies, inflammation or digestive problems
You have a high-stress, always on-the-go lifestyle. You work hard, party hard, stay up late, drink coffee and alcohol, sometimes burn the candle at both ends, but lately you’ve found you just can’t do this anymore.

The adrenals are two small glands located above each kidney. One of their roles is to secrete the stress hormones cortisol, adrenalin and nor-adrenalin. These hormones are secreted during stressful situations - either to help us calm down (cortisol) or to prepare us for battle (adrenalin and nor-adrenalin).

During chronic stress, the adrenals continually secrete these hormones and over time can become exhausted (just like the pancreas becomes exhausted pumping out insulin in response to a high sugar diet). At the beginning stages of stress, the adrenal glands pump out more cortisol to keep up with the demands being placed on your body. At this point you may find yourself feeling alert and ‘on the ball’. However over time the adrenals become exhausted, causing a decline in the amount of cortisol that they are able to pump out. If and when you reach this stage of adrenal dysfunction, a number of detrimental effects may occur including chronic tiredness (see list of symptoms above).

Our adrenals need to be cared for and supported with a healthy diet and nutrients. Certain herbal medicine, amino acids, supplements and stress-reducing lifestyle practices can help to repair exhausted adrenal glands. But remember – it’s always easier to prevent something going wrong than to fix it after its broken. When the adrenal glands become very exhausted, you can experience burnout and possibly chronic fatigue syndrome.

Please note: The information in this article is not intended to take the place of a personal relationship with a qualified health practitioner nor is it intended as medical advice.

Alison Cassar is a naturopathic practitioner and nutritionist and runs a busy clinic in Sydney, Australia. Her particular interest is chronic tiredness as it’s a very common presenting symptom in clinic. Her website and e-book whydoifeeltired.com/ whydoifeeltired.com/ explores the many causes of tiredness as well as solutions and prevention.

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Tags: allergies, diet, sleep

In order to understand how alpha meditation can help improve your creativity, it is important to start by understanding what binaural beats and brainwave entrainment are.

Brainwave entrainment is the use of some external stimulus, usually different sounds that a person will hear with stereo headphones, to induce a certain level of brain wave activity. When a person’s brainwave activity is artificially altered by these means, it will subtly shift their awareness and perception.

Using binaural beats is a common and effective method of brainwave entrainment. In order for the binaural beats to be effective, a person must be using stereo headphones so that they can hear a different sound in each ear.

Most of the time, the binaural beats will be embedded underneath the layers of tracks on a song, usually soothing ambient music or soundscapes, so that the person listening can focus on the music and not on the frequencies they are hearing. If you either find or create effective binaural beat audios to listen to in stereo heaphones, the frequencies should blend perfectly into the background, and you should not be able to consciously notice them unless you really try to isolate them.

Binaural beats are the most effective this way, when they are loud enough to still have an effect on your brainwave activity but quiet enough that you do not notice them. Depending on the difference between the two frequencies you decide to use, you can entrain any desired brainwave state and state of mind.

The ideal brainwave frequency for alpha meditation is about 9-10hz, so if we wanted to create a set of binaural beats that could be used to artificially induce this specific frequency, we could play 110hz in the left ear and 120hz in the right ear.

To any person who is hearing these different frequencies in each ear, their brain will act like a tuning fork and it will lock on to the difference between the two frequencies, which in this case would be 10hz.

‘Alpha’ is the name that we use for the range of brainwave frequencies from around 8hz-13hz. We go through the alpha brainwave state many times during a 24-hour period, and it is usually we are in a light sleep and are dreaming. However, this state can also be achieved by listening to soothing music, preferably music with alpha binaural beat already embedded in the layers, and simply lying down and resting. When a person reaches this alpha state while they are still conscious, their imagination will be highly active and they can see very vivid imagery, like an intense dream.

After practicing this daily for a short while, even just a week or two, a person’s intuitive creativity will naturally be higher and coming up with new ideas will seem easier.

Remaining in the intuitive alpha state for extended periods is the key to increasing your creativity, because this frequency stimulates the right-side creative portion of the human brain. After doing daily alpha meditation and staying in the alpha state for 30 minutes or more per day, your creative visualization capabilities will markedly increase, and it is this creative visualization that can help you achieve any outcome you desire.

If you are interested in pursuing alpha meditation, you can do a number of things. While it does not require music with alpha binaural beats, this is highly recommended because your brain will automatically lock on to the alpha frequency.

You can go to your local music store and look for CDs on ‘alpha mediation’ or ‘alpha relaxation,’ or you can also look online at places like iTunes. Or if you would like to have full control over your alpha meditation experience, you can embed any song of your choosing with binaural beats using special audio software.

Creating your own binaural beat audios will give you full control over your meditation experience, and you can experiment with different frequencies around the 7-10 hz area to see which ones give you the biggest boost in intuition and creativity.

How would you like to reprogram your mind for wealth and success without doing any work? This is the humanmindpower.com “Lazy Man’s Road To Success” and I use it all the time with awesome results. Sound interesting? Check out how at humanmindpower.com Human Mind Power

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Tags: sleep

As more and more people are seeking alternatives to antidepressants, lecithin for depression has received much recent attention. Although it has been noted for its possible benefits for treating high cholesterol and memory decline, it has only recently been used as an alternative remedy for mood disorders.

Lecithin is a phospholipid found in cell membranes responsible for regulating the nutrients that enter and leave the cell. It is produced by the liver, and is present in eggs and soybeans. As such one of the main benefits of lecithin is ensuring the foods you eat are properly utilized by the body. Because of its involvement in nutrient distribution, it is also a major player in disease prevention, as many illnesses are the result of nutrient deficiencies.

The basis for taking lecithin for depression lies in the fact that it is able to balance chemical activity within the brain. When these chemicals, called neurotransmitters, are not balanced, a variety of disorders can occur including anxiety, depression, OCD and others. Although many doctors prescribe antidepressants for these conditions, such as Zoloft and Prozac, these medications only mask the problem, and as soon as the patient stops taking the medication the symptoms will return.

Taking lecithin for depression on the other hand can get to the root of the problem, naturally balancing neurotransmitters and improving nutrient distribution within the brain. In addition, the benefits of lecithin as opposed to prescription drugs is its lack of potential side effects. Antidepressants can cause sexual problems, fatigue and even further depression, among other health issues.

There are a number of other natural compounds that can be taken along with lecithin for depression, some of which have been shown to be quote effective for treating a variety of health issues. 5-HTP, produced from the seeds of an African plant, has been shown to not only enhance mood but also relieve headaches, promote sleep, reduce appetite and treat ADD. SAMe, a naturally occurring molecule, can help balance neurotransmitters much like conventional medications. Folic Acid, one of the B family vitamins, is involved with red blood cell production and metabolism, which could prevent deficiencies leading to mood disorders. Valerian root is a natural mood enhancer and has been show to be effective in treating depression and anxiety.

Although you can try lecithin for depression on its own, there are more comprehensive natural formulas that contain vitamins, minerals, herbal extracts and other proven nutrients to treat mood disorders. Much research suggests that the beat-your-depression.com/treatments_for_depression.html benefits of lecithin are enhanced with other ingredients that can treat depression as well as promote general health and well-being.

In some cases, a prescription drug may be your only solution to effectively treat your depression so make sure you consult with your physician first before making any decisions. Lecithin for depression is certainly an option, but it’s important to learn about both conventional and alternative treatments and discuss them with a medical professional to find out what’s best for you.

Mike Stevens has been studying the mood disorders for years, and has written many articles on the subject. He is a regular contributor to beat-your-depression.com Lecithin for Depression, a section of beat-your-depression.com beat-your-depression.com, a site discussing conventional and alternative ways to treat depression and related mood disorders.

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Tags: anxiety, cholesterol, mineral, sleep

We’re all familiar with personal hygiene to keep our bodies clean and odor free and dental hygiene to keep our teeth healthy, white and strong and our breath smelling sweet, so what about sleep hygiene?

Well, there is indeed such a thing as sleep hygiene which involves all of those things that we can do when it comes to bedtime to ensure that we fall asleep quickly and sleep soundly through the night. So, what sort of things are important when it comes to sleep hygiene?

The first, and arguably most important, thing that you can do is to establish a set time for both going to bed and getting up in the morning. A regular bedtime is something that we all get used to as children and insist on with our own kids and so it should come as no surprise to find that it is just important for us as adults.

For most of us getting up at a set time is easy because our daily routine of getting to work, taking the kids to school and so on sets a pretty strict timetable for us. However, when it comes to bedtime this is a very different matter and there’s really nothing to force us to bed. But our bodies need time each day to shut down and recharge and it’s very difficult for them to do this unless we train them for sleep - and training means following a set routine.

The next important element of any sleep hygiene plan is to learn to relax in preparation for sleep. If you simply throw on your pajamas and jump into bed without any preparation there’s a very good chance that you’ll lie in bed wide awake or tossing and turning for some time before sleep finally catches up with you.

It’s important therefore to set aside some time each evening just before you go to bed to consciously relax your body and mind. This doesn’t have to be a great deal of time and most people find that anywhere from about twenty minutes up to an hour is more than enough.

Try to pick an activity that works best for you and which, preferably, doesn’t involve the television. Some excellent activities are yoga and meditation, or even simple breathing exercises, possibly accompanied by some quiet, soothing and relaxing music.

Although it might seem strange if you’ve never tried it, you actually need to work at relaxation and simply flopping down in front of the television and letting that do the job for you really doesn’t work. To relax both your mind and your body, you need to find yourself a quiet spot and take some time to consciously and progressively relax you’re your mind and body.

These two simple aspects of sleep hygiene provide a great basis for any bedtime routine and we’ll look at some other things to consider is a follow-up article.

Donald Saunders is the author of a number of health-related publications discussing the problems of sleep and giving detailed advice on a help-me-to-sleep.com” target=”_blank natural remedy for insomnia. For more help-me-to-sleep.com/articles/” target=”_blank articles on insomnia please visit help-me-to-sleep.com/” target=”_blank Help-Me-To-Sleep.com

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