One of the most effective ways to improve energy, mental clarity, and reduce pain is to simply get eight hours of sleep a night.  I know what you're thinking, easier said than done.  But, you can reduce sleepless nights by making a new conditioning practice a top priority. 

Sleep problems are one of the most common complaints among people with fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. With both conditions, poor sleep is a major source of intensified symptoms. Patients may spend a night in bed, but wake up as tired as when they went to bed. Other sleep problems are common as
well, such as difficulty getting to sleep, waking in the middle of the night or early in the morning, and over sleeping.

Importance of Sleep

• Repairs damaged tissue
• Critical for producing growth hormone as well as increasing muscle and decreasing fat.
• Important for immune function

Often patients diagnosed with Fibromyalgia have initially experienced a intense stressful situation, an injury (even mild), toxic exposure, pregnancy, or an antibiotic-sensitive infection.  From there the condition worsened until you felt an all-over-like flu explosion.  To make matter worse, it was as though your body had a complete nervous breakdown, and blew a fuse.  Fast forward, issues with nervous disorders and increased pain began to penetrate throughout the body.

These energy crises may be seen in the root of brain activity, or the control center, named the hypothalamus. It is as though, when this condition is in full peak, the hypothalamus goes into hibernation.  Many doctors feel that hypothalamic suppression can be found in the mitochondria, or the energy furnaces in the cells.  They begin to produce less energy leaving us feeling fatigued when our fuse is blown.

What does the Hypothalamus Do?

• Major sleep control center
• Controls the body's entire hormonal system through the pituitary gland.
• Temperature regulation
• Autonomic nervous system regulation (blood pressure, pulse, sweating, and bowel function.

Hence you can see why so many antidepressants are prescribed, including Elavil (amitriptyline) and Pamelor (nortriptyline), that work by raising the levels of chemicals (neurotransmitters) in the brain.  Others such as  Cymbalta (duloxetine), Savella (milnacipran), and Effexor (venlafaxine). Cymbalta and Savella are specifically
FDA-approved to treat fibromyalgia by increasing serotonin in the brain.  Also, Lyrica (pregabalin) is an FDA-approved drug treatment for fibromyalgia that targets nerve signals. The medicine has long been used to relieve nerve pain in patients with shingles and diabetic neuropathy. It is also used to treat partial seizures as is Klonopin.  All of these may have possible roots in "jump starting" the hypothalamus again by regulating brain signals.  It is believed that with proper sleep, diet, reduced infections, hormonal support, and exercise it can be treatable.

Getting Sleep Back

1. Train your bladder.  How many times to do you wake at night with a full bladder?  Normal people have full bladders that relieve themselves when they wake in the morning.  Fibromyalgia patients often wake frequently running to the bathroom all odd hours of the night.  Begin to talk to your bladder each night before you go to sleep. Say, "Nighttime is for sleeping.  We will go to the bathroom in the morning when we wake up."  When you do get it up in the middle of the night try the same commentary and try to roll over and go back to sleep.  If you are unable, after five minutes, do get up and relieve yourself.  By doing this each night you will begin to train your system into normalcy again.
2. Keep you favorite natural sleep remedy by your bed. Is it Sleepy Time Tea, Chamomile Tea, or Valerian Drops?  Begin to sip your tea or take your drops when feeling anxiety ridden before lying down to sleep.  Use them when you awaken in the middle of the night too.
3. Retrain your brain each day realizing you can never get it all done.  It doesn't matter how fast you go.  In fact, you may notice, the faster you go the more things you can do filling your plate endlessly.  Slow down, you are agitating your brain into sleepless nights.  You'll soon find there are fewer things to do on your to-do-list.  Some things may even drift away as you realize you really didn't want to do them anyway.  Remember, fibro patients have over active brains normally and that needed intensity we feel at the moment may dissipate as hours go by.
4. Do what makes you feel good and ditch the rest.  Make new lists of things.  One list should be the things that feel good.  Yes, there are things you do for others that actually make you feel good.  These things may include cooking for your family, and ensuring their health is up to par. The second list should be for things you think you should do but make you feel terrible.  These things may be meetings and extracurricular activities that you don't really like, but think you should do.  These are things you need to stop right now.  They are not helping your condition and making your sleepless nights heighten.  You are in need of retraining your brain!
5. Consume little or no alcohol before bedtime
6. No caffeine after 4 p.m.
7. No chocolate after 4 p.m.
8. Do not use your bed for problem solving.
9. Take a hot bath, with the Fibro Soak.
10. Keep your room comfortable.

When your mind begins to race and think;  yes, when those overactive nerves are going into overdrive, calm your thoughts and tell your brain, "This is not the time.  It is time to sleep."  Sip on your tea, take your drops, or medications, and think of wonderful thoughts that make you feel happy.  Make this a priority and you'll feel improvements!

Part adventure story, part love story, part homecoming, Still Points North is a page-turning memoir that explores the extremes of belonging and exile, and the difference between how to survive and knowing how to truly live.

Growing up in the wilds of Alaska, seven-year-old Leigh Newman spent her time landing silver salmon, hiking glaciers, and flying in a single-prop plane. But her life split in two when her parents unexpectedly
divorced, requiring her to spend summers on the tundra with her “Great Alaskan” father and the school year in Baltimore with her more urbane mother.

Navigating the fraught terrain of her family’s unraveling, Newman did what any outdoorsman would do: She adapted. With her father she fished remote rivers, hunted caribou, and packed her own shotgun shells. With her mother she memorized the names of antique furniture, composed proper bread-and-butter notes, and studied Latin poetry at a private girl’s school. Charting her way through these two very different worlds, Newman learned to never get attached to people or places, and to leave others before they left her. As an adult, she explored the most distant reaches of the globe as a travel writer, yet had difficulty navigating the far more foreign landscape of love and marriage.

In vivid, astonishing prose, Newman reveals how a child torn between two homes becomes a woman who both fears and idealizes connection, how a need for independence can morph into isolation, and how even the most guarded heart can still long for understanding. Still Points North is a love letter to an unconventional Alaskan childhood of endurance and affection, one that teaches us that no matter where you go in life, the truest tests of courage are the chances you take, not with bears and blizzards, but with other people.

Many researchers believe that stress can play a key role in patients’ susceptibility to fibromyalgia. Many fibromyalgia patients have a history of chronic stress, often due to overloading their schedules and taking on too much responsibility for other people such as family members. A high number of fibromyalgia patients are young women who have “Type A” personalities and who lead ambitious, busy, stressful lives. Men with fibromyalgia often have worked in jobs that have resulted in physical job-related stress.

For fibromyalgia patients, stress can also make the condition worse and can trigger particular physical symptoms. People who suffer from fibromyalgia often have trouble knowing their personal limitations, which can make it hard for them to know when they are in danger of overexerting themselves. When
fibromyalgia patients physically overexert themselves, this can often lead to increased stress, which results in increased pain. A vicious cycle can easily develop, because the pain can lead to more stress, which, in turn, can lead to more pain. For this reason, stress management can also help greatly with fibromyalgia pain management.

There's no, if, and or buts when it comes to keeping stress in check with fibromyalgia.  Any type of stress can trigger an unforseen attack that can last hours.  The good news is, with a bit of preplanning, you can reduce those common flare-ups tremendously by doing a great precautionary exercise.

How to Reduce Stress

1.  Begin by meditating and finding where stress lurks in your body.  To do so, sit in crossed leg position, with your palms up, closing your eyes, and quieting your mind.  You can do this in bed, propped up with pillows, comfortably.  Fixate on your breathing.  Breathe in for the count of five and out for the count of five.  Set your senses inward locating various stress points.  Don't concentrate on releasing stress, rather, just find where it is lurking.  Just feel it - is it in your shoulders?  Chest?  Upper spine? Stomach? Hips? Joints?  Feel it with total acceptance.  Realize that it is part of your life at this moment.  Then just keep breathing in and out, fluently, effortlessly with total acceptance of your body at this moment. Don't try to relax your body - just be. At some point, you may feel a release of tension and pain.  Often, this takes several meditative episodes to do so.  When it happens, you will experience joy and gratefulness that flows throughout your inner being.  Practice this EACH morning before you begin your day.  It takes less than 10 minutes.

2.  With this new knowledge check your body throughout the day as you go about your daily routines noticing where stress inhabits at that moment.  Feel it deeply to ensure you are keeping it in check.  Imagine that it is first noticed in your stomach and as the stress monitor increases, it begins to build up bubbling to your chest, making way to your shoulders and surging into your throat. 

3. Your job is to keep that stress at stomach level from now on.  Do not let that barometerrise so that it escalates up to your throat causing extreme havoc for the day.  When you feel it rising, STOP, SLOW DOWN, AND IMAGINE PUSHING IT BACK DOWN TO THE STOMACH. 

4.  This is a great time to begin calming breathing exercises or get the new GPS for the Soul app. and get your BPM (beats per minute) in check.  Remember, no excuses, nothing is more important than your health!  Getting your stress in check now becomes a MAIN priority EVERY day.

I'm sure you've noticed the recent invasion of Kefir at your local grocery store.  It can be found in the dairy or yogurt section of your local supermarket.  There's good reason this delicious addition is toting record sales lately.  Kefir is a bottle abound with amazing health benefits.  If you have not bought a bottle yet, I encourage you to do so on your next trip.  You'll be utterly amazed of its delicious quality.

Kefir is a fermented milk product that originated centuries ago in the Caucasus mountains, and is now enjoyed by many different cultures worldwide, particularly in Europe and Asia.  It is slightly sour and carbonated due to the fermentation activity of the symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast that make up the “grains” used to culture the milk (not actual grains, but a grain-like matrix of proteins, lipids, and sugars that feed the microbes). The various types of beneficial microbiota contained in kefir make it one of the most potent probiotic foods available.

Besides containing highly beneficial bacteria and yeasts, kefir is a rich source of many different vitamins, minerals and essential amino acids that promote healing and repair, as well as general health maintenance.  Kefir contains high levels of thiamin, B12, calcium, folates and Vitamin K2. It is a good source of biotin, a B vitamin that HELPS the body assimilate other B vitamins. The complete proteins in kefir are already partially digested, and are therefore more easily utilized by the body. Like many other dairy products, kefir is a great source of minerals like calcium and magnesium, as well as phosphorus, which helps the body utilize carbohydrates, fats and proteins for cell growth, maintenance and energy.

Certain compounds in kefir may play a role in regulating immune function, allergic response, and inflammation. One study found that kefiran, a sugar by product of the kefir culture, may reduce allergic inflammation by suppressing mast cell degranulation and cytokine production.  Another study found that certain bacteria in the kefir culture inhibited IgE production, helping to moderate the body’s allergic response.

The Probiotics Revolution by Gary B. Huffnagle, Ph.D. is the definitive guide to safe, natural health solutions using probiotic and prebiotic foods and supplements.  Breakthrough discoveries include:

*Enhance Immune Function
*Curb Inflammation
*Fight Chronic Diseases
*Prevent Allergies and Asthma
*Eliminate Yeast Infections
*Improve Overall Health

This book discusses how our culture has gone way too far in its war on germs.  The end result is bacterial imbalances that are implicated in everything from allergies and asthma to chronic fatigue and heart disease.  Dr. Huffnagle is a highly respected immunologist and microbiologist who offers profound examples in how to enjoy the probiotic content of food to attain better health.

Whether you're concerned about your immune system, digestion, or fibromyalgia, this book provides cutting-edge research with down-home practical solutions.  He offeres a compelling discussion on how probiotics can help all of us achieve better health.  His offers a simple, comical explanation of the complex interactions between the human immune system and gut bacteria.  Furthermore, he explains how this imbalance may be causing some of the newly diagnosed diseases found in the last 20 years.

Simply adding more probiotics and prebiotics to your foods can reduce inflammation and decrease flare-ups associated with fibromyalgia pain.  A must read for all who are on the path of diet and better health.  A few simple dietary changes have offered more relief to me personally.

In Safe Haven a mysterious young woman named Katie appears in the small North Carolina town of Southport, her sudden arrival raises questions about her past. Beautiful yet self-effacing, Katie seems determined to avoid forming personal ties until a series of events draws her into two reluctant relationships: one with Alex, a widowed store owner with a kind heart and two young children; and another with her plainspoken single neighbor, Jo. Despite her reservations, Katie slowly begins to let down her guard, putting down roots
in the close-knit community and becoming increasingly attached to Alex and his family. But even as Katie begins to fall in love, she struggles with the dark secret that still haunts and terrifies her . . . a past that set her on a fearful, shattering journey across the country, to the sheltered oasis of Southport. With Jo's empathic and stubborn support, Katie eventually realizes that she must choose between a life of transient safety and one of riskier rewards . . . and that in the darkest hour, love is the only true safe haven.   
Written by Nicholas Sparks

Today I share with you bits of an article published in the Daytona Beach News-Journal by Doctor Yong H. Tsai.  Never underestimate the power of healthy living.

"I have learned never to underestimate the capacity of the human mind and body to regenerate even when the prospects seem most wretched.  The life force may be the least understood force on this earth." Dr. Norman Cousins, the author of The Anatomy of an Illness.

"Last week I receive an e-mail from a reader.  I would like to share with you her experience." Dr. Tsai

"I am 41 years old.  I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia when I was 27.  Reading your article on Fibromyalgia  brought  back many memories and past frustrations:  going to doctor to doctor and test to test, not really finding out what's going on.  People doubt you have a problem and they are tired of hearing you don't feel well because you look normal.  It was probably the worst time of my life.  So, a diagnosis came with relief.  It didn't matter that there was no cure; there was a name.  After suffereing with years of flares, depression, fatigue, and sadness became my constant companions.  My husband and I were very active and we had two young girls.  Then, I became sick and was always tired and depressed.  Every day, I asked myself "How could I live like this for the rest of my life?" After seven or eight years of living with fibromyalgia, I decided to give my immune system the fight of its life: I was going to regain control of my life over this disease.

I started eating REALLY healthy and exercising a bit everyday and learned to watch my stress level.  NO EXCUSES!  I was able to control my stress and depression through prayer and a strong relationship with God.  What ended up happening was amazing.  Mnoth after month, year after year, I got better.  Now, six years later, I have only memories of fibromyalgia.  I am healthy, I never get sick, and I never even suffer with allergies.  I walk or run about 20 miles a week and lift weights three times a week.  Now, I am strong, happy, blessed, and in better shape than I have ever been.  I have the energy to work full-time, take care of my family, exercise and live life to its fullest.  Every now and than I have a flare up for a day or two, and I am reminded that fibromyalgia will always be a part of my life, but it won't control it anymore.  I feel truly blessed to have my health back and every day, I am very grateful for feeling good.  Please share this with your patients.  There is hope you can feel better: I am living proof!"  Sincerely, Tracey.

I understand Tracey's radical transformation.  For it will be two years I have been living with Fibromyalgia and it wasn't without radical change that put me back on the path to living.  Although I am nowhere near Tracey's health accountability, I am able to keep a full time job with high stress that I tune out regularly.  My diet is almost unheard of in today's world as it only consists of whole grains, natural meats, and fresh fruits and vegetables.  The key to beating fibro flare-ups is healthy eating, little stress, exercise, and prayer.  Just what is the inspiration for this blog.

Before refrigeration, ancestors made foods rich in nutrients that can't be found in typical raw foods.  These nutrients included added vitamins such as the B vitamins: riboflavin, niacin, thiamin, and B twelve that are infused in a raw food source when lacto fermentation begins. 

Fermented foods are highly nutritious and digestible.  Fermentation pre-digests foods, making nutrients more available and in many cases generates additional nutrients or removes anti-nutrients and toxins.  Ferments with live lactic-acid-producing bacteria intact are especially supportive of digestive health, immune function, and general well-being.

With a 70% of our immune system in our gut, it only makes sense to feed the micro flora that lives there.  And, did you know most of the serotonin our brain uses is also produced in our gut?  Feeling depressed or anxiety ridden?  Then ensuring you have lacto-fermented vegetables may be the answer. 

Most fermented foods available in your local grocery are not lacto-fermented.  To ensure you are receiving the utmost health benefits, find vegetables that are infused in a brine of water and salt, no vinegar.  Most high processed pickles of today have been pasteurized, killing off the beneficial bacteria that lives comfortably in a lacto-fermented environment.  True lacto-fermented products are always labeled with "live cultures".

But, if you are unable to find such products, make your own!  Collect old jars that have tight fitting lids or purchase a mason jar for the following recipe.  Make small portions to ensure your pickles stay crunchy.  And, if your afraid of catching some air borne pathogen, don't be.  There is no way these enemies can live in a salty environment.  Only health bacteria thrive there!  You can smell the freshness when you first open the jar after a few days of fermentation.  Jars that are inhabited with bad microbes would be impossible to even ingest making you puke!

Do begin by eating small portions as  condiments.  Probiotic foods must be incorporated gradually, and I promise you, you will notice the effects on your joints as they promote less inflammatory markers being sent out.  It is believed these inflammatory markers may enhance overall nerve instability.

1 good size jar
3-4 pickles, speared or whole
1 cup of filtered water
1 tab. salt, use Celtic sea salt or Himalayan for added benefits

Wash pickles and place in jar.  Mix water with salt until dissolved.  Pour on top of pickles.  You may need a bit more water, but ensure the liquid is 1 inch below the jar.  Seal and place on counter.  Let ferment at room temperature for 2-3 days depending on desired firmness of pickle.  You really can't go wrong here, the longer you ferment the softer the pickle will be.  Do unscrew the jar each day to let out Co2.  Just slightly, not taking the lid off.  You may want to use a bit less salt for a less sour pickle.  As you get the hand of it, you will become a master of your own probiotic pickle.  I try a teaspoon less each time making it a bit less sour. 

Once you get the hang of it add:
garlic
mustard seeds
dill
onions
and what ever you like infused in your pickle.  All vegetables are up for grab with this recipe.  Enjoy!

I know I've expressed concerns negating the effects of sugar in your diet.  But, there are times even the most diligent sugar-free advocates feel the need to cheat.  It may be the decompressing effects of a stress congested day that thwart any attempts of reason and cause us to go racing to the refrigerator in search of a treat. 

This recipe is gluten free.  So if you are experiencing a sweet-tooth, don't rush for the usual cake other members of your family enjoy.  Instead make this luscious treat for all.  It is so sublimely moist and chewy you won't know the difference!

4 eggs separated
1/2 cup butter, cubed
2/3 cup brown sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
3 medium peaches, peeled and sliced
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup gluten free baking flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup milk
2 tbsp. butter melted
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Place egg whites in separate bowl and let stand at room temperature for 30 min.  In an oven proof skillet, such as cast iron, melt butter and brown sugar.  Stir until smooth.  Remove from heat and top with chopped walnuts and line peach slices decoratively.  In a separate bowl beat egg yolks until smooth and gradually add sugar.  Beat in flour, powder, salt, milk, butter, and vanilla.  Fold in egg whites.  Top oven proof skillet with batter and bake at 375 for 30 minutes or until golden brown.  Let stand 10 minutes and then invert onto a plate.  Simply beautiful!