Speaking About Spikes

The recent buzz around the spike mat forced me to try it out myself. This spiny object was obviously more than welcome into the Swedish home, which is the conclusion I make from reading all those colourful comments about its miraculous effects on the net lately: “the best invention since the wheel”, “the best thing that ever happened to me”, “I would really recommend this mat to anyone”. It seems like a product couldn’t get any better response than this in a new market, where sales have drastically risen since the first introduction of the mat.

What’s the entire buzz about? I borrowed one from the Casall office, tried it for two days, got home from work, took a shower and put on some nice, soft linen clothes and finally lay down. The instructions were the simplest; lie on the mat for 10-20 minutes. You can choose whatever position suits you best, either on your back or on your front depending on what muscles you want to stimulate. You can also choose whether to lie directly on it, or with some soft cloth between the skin and the spikes to adjust the level of intensity.

The spike mat has a history that stretches back thousands of years in time. There are ancient Chinese writings telling us about the use of spikes or needles for treatments of the body and the psyche, and yoga freaks have referred to the use of spikes for a long time now. My grandfather use to always walk on these slippers with spikes and scratch his back every night with a spiky back scratcher. I never understood but it was fun to play with when I was younger.

Apparently, the spike mat isn’t a miraculous invention of our times, but for some reason it really became a hit, especially in Sweden, this year. Some dramatic, high-impact trends you just can’t explain the reasons for, simply everyone just seems to be in desperate need of a spike mat at the moment...the TIPPING point!

So, I lay down on this spiny thing for about 20 minutes. It’s hard to give an objective description of its effects, because I heavily believe in placebo effects, i.e. I feel what I believe myself to feel after all those great things I’ve heard about its great effects…yeah, you get the point. Anyways, first I didn’t feel that much, but after a couple of minutes I felt a wave of relaxation passing through my body. Placebo or not – doesn’t really matter. The only thing that actually matters is the fact that I liked it.

It is not scientifically proven that this mat would cure diseases, so if this is your one and only reason for getting one, please don’t believe in what they tell you. There’s no magic involved, more than the spikes stimulating your nerve endings and the production of our harmony hormone oxytocin. This hormone is produced when we have a nice massage, take a warm bath, listen to the music we like, etc. and it has the magical effect of making us relax. Synonymously, our intrinsic stress factor is reduced. So, speaking about magical spikes, why miss a nice and relatively cheap opportunity to quickly relax after a stressful day, force your muscles to calm down and have a few minutes only for yourself and your thoughts.

I wouldn’t say this is a revolutionary thing, and I still believe the wheel did more to humanity than this spike mat. However, I like it and will definitely get one myself.

Super Foods for a Super You: Part V of V: Algea

This blog post on algae will end my blog series on Super Foods. I hope you have appreciated this blog series, which was aimed at bringing you some new insights, or just reminding you of why and how you could eat healthier.

Algae are non-plant living organisms, found to be a good source of nutrients way back in time: Spanish explorers in South America learnt that the Aztec harvested blue-green algae from fresh water lakes and that’s how algae was first recognized as a living food.

Spirulina is commercially known as a human and animal dietary supplement as well as a whole food within the group of algae. It can be purchased in flake, tablet, and powder form. What makes it such a good dietary supplement is especially the high protein content, between 56-77% by dry weight, making it a complete protein containing almost all essential amino acids. Compared to the optimal protein-carriers such as meat, milk, and eggs, Spirulina lacks a couple of the essential amino acids (for your knowledge I’m referring to cysteine, lysine, and methionine) but in terms of being a plant protein it is a real superior protein source. Compared to other protein sources in general, algae carry a main health benefit in the sense that they are low in fat and high in fiber. Their high chlorophyll and phytochemical content make them effective antioxidants primarily preventing cell damage.

Apart from its protein, Spirulina is also a good carrier of several vital minerals including:

• Potassium (good for your muscles and nervous system; also found in broccoli, potatoes, citrus fruits, green leafy vegetables, and bananas)
  
• Calcium (vital for building strong bones; also found in milk and other dairy products such as yoghurt and cheese)
  
• Magnesium (for muscles and the nervous system especially; also found in whole grain breads, nuts, and seeds, potatoes, beans, avocados, kiwi, and chocolate)
  
• Zink (for strong immunity and wound healing among others; also found in red meat, poultry, oysters and other seafood, whole grains and dairy products)
  
• Iron (helps in the transportation of oxygen in the blood; also found in red meat, pork, poultry, beans, fish and shellfish, soy foods, and green leafy vegetables)
  
• Phosphorus (vital for healthy bones and teeth; also found in dairy foods, fish, and meat)

Also, the nutritional value of algae in general is found in its content of omega-3. Even small amounts of this substance, also derived from fish oil, can help lower blood pressure.

E3Live is a dietary supplement using phytoplankton. It’s a liquid form of pure, nutritional blue-green algae. It has been shown to be a powerful nutritional supplement with a wide range of benefits, ranging from appetite maintenance, to regular digestion, to slow down the ageing process. It should be kept in frozen form until ingested to keep its nutritional value intact. I think the company actually goes to the bottom of the ocean with a submarine, freezes the miracle food and brings it to the surface. I recently started taking it in the morning after the recommendation from a dear girlfriend and have to admit, it’s fantastic! I haven’t figured out how to travel with it yet...

Eating algae has another important effect, apart from the effect on personal health, namely that on the environment: the high yield per acre of land and water used in the algae harvesting is undoubtedly an ecological aspect worth mentioning. In this way, algae could be discussed in terms of its role as a food for the future.

Super Foods for a Super You: Part IV of V: Good Bacteria

This fourth part of my series on Super Foods for a Super You will deal with what is known as good bacteria or probiotics found in yoghurt as well as different dietary supplements that promote the digestion of foods in your body. I will here try to explain both the chemical role of incorporating good bacteria into your diet, as well as give a few personal tips on how you could promote a healthy bacterial flora in your body.

What is meant by good bacteria, or the so called probiotics? Probiotics, which means “for life”, is the beneficial bacteria already found in the human gut. The good bacteria play the crucial role of fighting the bad bacteria that enter our bodies through the digestive system as we are eating and drinking during the day. The types of bacteria in our bodies vary greatly, but simply we can say that good bacteria work to keep the bad bacteria at bay. In the long run this could mean prevention of inflammations and diseases such as Crohn’s disease, arthritis, and maybe even certain types of cancer. Lactic acid bacteria and bifidobacteria are the most common types of microbes used as probiotics. Both are found in the gastrointestinal tract as well as in the vagina, and make up a significant part of the human gut flora. Live cultures of lacto bacilli in yoghurt will not remain in your digestive tract unless you continue eating yoghurt regularly on a daily basis.

Apart from eating yoghurt with live culture of these bacteria, kefir makes up another good alternative. This is a fermented dairy drink which is sold with a variety of tastes, an absolute ideal source of probiotics – even for the lactose-intolerant person! Kefir is a lactose-free yoghurt which makes it optimal for anyone who wishes to include good bacteria in his or her diet. Kefir is also an energy booster and health promoter in the sense that it contains many nutritional elements (vitamins and minerals) such as calcium and magnesium, phosphorus, folic acid, B and K vitamins. Because there are naturally occurring sugars in kefir, this dairy product further supports and assists in the regulation of blood sugar in our bodies. In fact, just a few spoons per day could result in significant differences in blood sugar levels.

Thus, by eating the right products on a daily basis it is possible to affect the gut flora of bacteria in your body. Promoting an optimal bacterial flora is furthermore synonym with boosting your immune system and digestion process, and it involves a consideration of both prebiotics and probiotics in your daily diet. Prebiotics, as separated from probiotics, are the non-digestible food ingredients that stimulate the growth and activity of bacteria in the digestive system. Well-known, popular dietary sources of prebiotics include: soybeans, raw oats, unrefined barley or wheat, beans, seeds, spices, tea, vegetables, and nuts for instance. They are usually consisting of carbohydrates like oligosaccharides naturally found in fruits and whole grains. Also, many prebiotic oligosaccharides are increasingly added to foods for the sake of their health benefits: fructooligosaccharides, xylooligosaccharides, polydextrose, and galactooligosacchardies.

Be friendly with yourself and your body. Through your diet you have every possibility to create a healthy and balanced environment within yourself that will have significant effects on your well-being, both on an everyday life basis as well as throughout your life.