By: Pedro Alvarez

A new study shows that sipping water while driving is one of your most important moves for safety. In the past on road trips I went to pee right before leaving and rationed liquids during my journey to avoid making frequent toilet stops.

Good research has now shown that cutting back on water while driving could be a very dangerous habit. The study published in the journal Physiology and Behavior showed that driving while dehydrated is just as dangerous as driving drunk.

In the study, researchers in the UK’s Loughborough University carried out simulated tests on drivers when they were both hydrated and dehydrated. The tests included a two-hour monotonous drive with bends, a hard shoulder, rumble strips, and slow-moving vehicles that needed to be passed. On one day, participants were given nearly a cup of fluid to drink per hour and on the dehydration day, they were given just a few sips of liquid per hour.

When participants were hydrated, there were 47 driving incidents, but when they were dehydrated, that number was more than doubled at 101. The errors also increased during the two-hour period and were worse during the last leg of the drive. Those incidents included lane drifting, late braking, and touching or crossing the rumble strip or lane line.

But how is dehydration linked to poor driving? Lead researcher Ron Maughan, PhD, states that our brain function becomes conserved when we’re dehydrated, which can then impact how well we drive.
That brain conservation can create a whole range of other issues and dehydration impacts our mental clarity, reaction time, focus, concentration, thinking, and even our mood.

The impact isn’t just felt when we’re driving, sitting at a computer or operating machinery, but it can cause you to experience the same symptoms.

Dehydration can also affect your blood volume, and can lead to headaches, lethargy, and an overall drowsy feeling — not ideal symptoms to experience while driving…or any other time.
Your muscle function can be impaired by dehydration too and you still need your muscles to be able to react quickly while driving.
Dehydration is typically classified as losing two percent of your body weight in water but you don’t need to be significantly dehydrated to experience the negative side effects.

Unfortunately, there is disagreement as to how much liquid everyone should drink. Your urine should be light yellow. Dark orange, yellow or smelly urine indicate dehydration and you need more water to help your kidneys work efficiently.

If you want me to state an amount (which can vary depending upon the time of year and work rate, consider 6 x 16oz (500ml) glasses of water over the day as a good average (for persons 150lbs or 70kgs). If you are smaller or larger than average or it is hot and you are exercising then decrease or increase as appropriate.

P.S: Add a pinch of sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) in each glass to help alkalize your body.

There are two ways we can measure whether diet improves mood.  Firstly, we can do a long term, double blind study using a diet specified by dietary guidelines or a Mediterranean diet, then wait for the results that may or may not conclusively prove that diet changes mood, considering all the variables (humans, lies, cheating and addictions).  Or, we can get off our own arses and start biohacking (experimenting ourselves) to see whether a change in diet and lifestyle changes our mood.  I’m all for biohacking with real foods and starting today, not waiting for a study.

Telethon Institute for Child Health Research in Perth has linked diets high in processed foods, soft drinks and sweets to an increased risk of poor behaviours and emotional disorders. Researchers at Victoria’s Deakin University (where I studied nutrition) want to take a bunch of people with depression, encourage them to eat better and watch to see if their mental health improves?  The diet will be similar to dietary guidelines with reduced fat dairy, lean meat, vegetable oils, fruit, vegetable, grains, legumes and raw unsalted nuts. The lead researcher Dr Felice Jacka hopes it will help build the case for health professionals to recommend better diets for patients with depression and for governments to do more to improve our food environment, which she believes is undermining mental as well as physical health.

While I’m pleased with Dr Jacka’s ultraistic plan, I’m not prepared to wait for her, or for the government or food companies to turn around their enormously profitable corporations, especially since the Nestle food company CEO believes that water is not a human right and should be purchased like any other food commodity. What notice will they take of research such as Dr Jacka’s?  It’s time to take matters into your own hands and begin a change in food and lifestyle.

The head and body are not separate, just in case you haven’t noticed. We have a neck that connects them and the brain is physical, just like the body. By looking at improving the physical health of the body, you will improve the brain health of the body.  Besides, nobody knows where the mind is; there is no proof of it being in the brain. Therefore, let’s cover all bases by feeding brain and body for health.  This whole ridiculous notion that they are separate has never made any sense to me.  Blood, nerves, bones, hormones, enzymes and micro biomes all connect and move through the neck from brain to body and body to brain via many channels; they are in it together.

The body is a complicated system; the more I learn the more I don’t know, but what I do know is that when we give it the right resources, it starts to work its own unique magic, physically and mentally.  Recent research has shown that we are not alone and that our body is not entirely our body. In fact, it has a very large percentage of bacteria and other small creatures that inhabit the body for mutual benefit.  These microorganisms effect hormones, immunity, stress, brain, muscle, nervous system, blood and much more.  The balance and stability of this mutual need for each other is the key to our health, physically and mentally.  Collectively, they are known as the microbiome and their health has everything to do with our health.

Food and drugs affect the balance of our microbiome.  We are 90% microbiomes and 10% our own cells.  Though the microbiome are tiny in size, it once appeared that our own human cells predominated. It is only recently that we have begun to study these organisms in depth. Most of them live within the gut and cannot be cultured but with the advent of advanced genetic testing, we have been able to have a better understanding of the variety and numbers of microbes within, including bacteria, archaea, eukaryotic parasites, protozoans and fungi.

With the advent of antibiotics, worming, antifungals and anti anything small that moves, we have disturbed the balance of our microbiomes.  The typical SAD diet has also had a lot to do with this disturbance, as has a disconnect with sleep and sunlight, and unrelenting stress.  To find health mentally and physically, a lifestyle change is imperative to promote the balance of the microbiome.  We know that the gut of the hunter gatherer had a mass more of microbiomes than that of modern man. Our modern lifestyles have changed this.

There is a connection between the gut, the brain and mental illness.  A disturbance in the microbiome has an effect on brain-derived neuron fertilisers or brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF).  When low in the wrong place at the wrong time, BDNF’s are implicated in depression, chronic anxiety syndromes and psychiatric disease.  It was once thought that when brain cells died, that was the end of the them but recent research has shown BDNF’s help with neuroregeneration, neuroplasticity and repair, as well as grow new brain cells, especially in some areas such as the hippocampus, the part of the brain that is important for learning, memory and psychotic health.  So to nurture the microbiome is to nurture BDNF’s, which in turn nurture the brain.

What I’ve written so far is but the tip of the iceberg as to what we know.  Are we going to wait for more knowledge or act on the plethora of information we have on how to help people with depression and other disorders?  My father always says there are no incurable diseases, only incurable people.  It’s a choice as to whether you are prepared to make the changes and put the work in to help your own psychiatric disorder.  Can we help everyone?  Probably not, but at least give it a try.

If you are on medications, before you throw them away you must get medical advice.  But before you do get medical advice (as most will not advocate a change in lifestyle or diet), start the 10 steps and begin your journey back to health.  If you don’t do anything, don’t expect a different result.

Following are the 10 things that need to be addressed to improve mental health, which of course will also improve physical health. Remember the two are connected, there is no disconnect.

1. Take on an elimination protocol as outlined in the following links:  21 Step Reset, 4 Phase Fat Elimination Protocol
2. Consume fermented foods or Changing Habits dried fermented food, otherwise known as Changing Habits Probiotics
3. Improve your immune system with the help of Changing Habits food based nutrients; including Camu Camu, Supreme Green Blend, Inca Inchi Oil and Colloidal Minerals
4. Make sure sleep becomes a priority - bed by 9.00pm and get at least 8 to 9 hours a night
5. Have some down time throughout the day, as well as 10 minutes of midday sunshine without sunscreens and sunglasses
6. Find skills to help cope with stress in your life
7. Move your body - 20 minutes of intense exercise 4 times a week is enough to change your genetic potential for stress and disease
8. Eliminate toxic relationships and nurture the relationships that nurture you
9. Remove all unnecessary medications from daily consumption, especially any medications that destroy the microbiomes including antibiotics, synthetic hormones and steroids.  (I must put a disclosure here - seek medical advice)
10. Find a holistic integrative doctor that will support you on your quest for health - you may have to do this via a Skype consultation if you don’t have one in your area.
    

At Changing Habits, we have a Hunter Gatherer Protocol that can assist you in beginning your journey to mental health.  We also offer an e-Report titled An Undernourished Body is a Depressed Mind that you may like to also read.

Please feel free to pass this article onto anyone you feel may need this information.

Who said Candida is an Alien?
If you follow the research on candida and fungus you will know there is a ton of evidence to show that these are the precursors to most of the diseases afflicting humans and animals.
So what exactly is Candida? Some say it is a deadly epidemic. If it is, why has it become such a hidden and deadly epidemic?
 
'Candida albicans' is actually a naturally occurring fungal yeast that is in always in your body. It is present naturally in the human gut with hundreds of other essential yeast, bacteria, even e-coli, and everyone has these living within them to some extent.
Yes, that means it is inside of you and me right now.
Normally our gut is also full of natural bacteria that feed on the yeast and keep levels in a healthy balance, stopping it from becoming a problem.

So What is the Problem with Candida?
Do you remember the film Gremlins, where the father purchases some creatures similar to chipmunks from a Chinese pet shop as a present for his children? He is warned never to let them get wet but of course does not take that seriously and gives them to his delighted children. Gremlins are playful friendly creatures until they have water poured on them. Then they turn into killer Gremlins and start eating the house pets and eventually start killing and eating humans.

The Candida yeast also becomes problematic when our digestive system becomes unhealthy and we pour sugar down onto this friendly yeast. This then grows beyond healthy levels and eventually breaks out of the gastrointestinal tract and into the bloodstream. Once it's loose in your bloodstream, the yeast then evolves into fungus that spreads throughout the body.

Now It's An Alien!
Once the Candida yeast evolves into a Candida fungus it really is no longer Candida, it's a true 'alien' that is loose in your body. Whether it is cancer, heart disease, lung disease, autoimmune disease or simply a toenail infection, all have alien fungus as a primary factor.
This Candida fungus now quickly spreads throughout your body and settles itself into any weak tissue that's lacking minerals, oxygen and is high in glucose. In fact, any full-blown candida/fungal infection could be slowly robbing you of your energy, brain function and even your life.

Why Does This Alien Cause So Many Problems?
All fungus slowly destroys all living things as it invades and excretes hundreds of poisonous mycotoxins into your bloodstream as part of it's own digestive processes.
Now it has left your gut it becomes very difficult to get it back in balance. In a healthy body with a healthy (low GI) diet, before this gets out of balance, your system would identify and eradicate it using sodium bicarbonate, friendly bacteria and your immune system. Without your natural resources to keep it in check the fungus can now grow and spread at will. This is becoming an epidemic as more and more people suffer from imbalanced systems as a result of stress, lack of minerals, lack of probiotics, bad diet, or a bout of ill health.

This means the immune system is never as strong as it needs to be to clear the Candida fungus and keep it in check. However, there are symptoms you can look for with Candida.
 
Early symptoms of Candida fungus include:

• Sore throat
• Diarrhoea
• Gas
• Bloating
• Fatigue
• IBS
  

As the infection spreads the symptoms become more varied and include:

• Migraines
• Anxiety
• Depression
• Extreme Fatigue
• Vaginitis
• Foggy thinking

And can include cancer, heart disease and many more...

There are no Magic Bullets!
I have seen every magic bullet under the sun including ingesting turpentine (Pine Oil) on a sugar cube and while they all have some benefit it will keep coming back until you deal with the prime causes.

There is good news!
If you have read the above then it is pretty clear that a Candida fungal infection is something that you must take seriously to clear your immediate infection and improve your long-term health. In my book I detail everything you need to do, especially the diet and sodium bicarbonate intake to clear Candida fungus and keep Candida in a healthy balance.

Below is the quick view of the supplements in my book:
Protease
SerraEnzyme 250K
Prescript-Assist®
Nascent Iodine
GlycoBoost
D.I.P.™
 
But for those with skin or toe fungal problems it is important to use Ancient Minerals Magnesium OIL ULTRA as the fastest way to get this in check.
The sooner you can clear Candida fungus the sooner you can rid your body of disease.
 
Regards and Good Health, 
Order the book from: http://goodhealthnaturally.com/products/Health-Book-Improving-Candida-in-30-Days/?cp=5-19u