fredag 21 februari 2020

Wim Hof and Adrenal Fatigue

Ice Man! Isn´t he fantastic? Instead of just making his life more and more lazy, warm and cosy he has thrown himself into ice water  and discovered the benefits of this heroic action and in this way, he has become a superman that challenges our common view upon modern life where everything should be more and more comfortable. Back to nature and boost your natural energy! 

A real super hero who is actually doing the impossible and not just talking about it.




Cold bath as tradition in Sweden, Russia...
In Sweden we have the old tradition of the sauna combined with an ice bath. Making a bath in a frozen lake in the middle of the cold winter is also popular in Russia and some other countries. If you live in a cold country it is good to teach the body to be able to deal with the cold. It makes you stronger and less prone to diseases.

Stress and neurotransmitters
All exercise can be seen as a short stress reaction and a boost of cortisol and it corresponds to a natural way of living in an original nature where you every now and then have to fight with something, maybe with enemies, maybe with wild animals and maybe to get food if you are a hunter. So our body is built for this and the hormones have to swing up and down between active state and rest in a natural rhythm that is in coherence with day and night and also with active hunting or working and then food intake and rest.

A hunting predator jumps upon the prey animal because he gets an enormous kick that we can call a "hunting kick" and the transmitter agent dopamine is active. This is a very pleasant kick, the animal likes it and it is an urge that he cannot go against. It is the meaning of life. 

Dopamine and serotonin
When he starts eating he swallows blood and this blood is full of serotonin, which calms him down and starts up the digestion. So now, while eating, he gets calmer and finally, he falls asleep. Now the fight is over and metabolism is the dominant job for this body. 
Serotonin not only makes you tired, but it also takes away all the urge to fulfill the meaning of life (which was the hunt). This strong urge to fulfill the meaning of life is no longer of any importance because in reality the food processing and the sleep is equally much the meaning of life, but it is something that we have not to consciously act on. Just drop it all and sleep!

The hunting kick
So it is also for modern people: we like the dopamine kick and the hunt which we experience as the meaning of life. But now it is not a running away animal in the forest that we hunt - it is perfection, acceptance, status, and money! 
In a book, I once read that the "hunting kick" is stronger in those persons who have a lack of a dopamine receptor. For this person, life is kind of senseless, meaningless and boring when nothing happens. He needs to feel the agitation of some extra dopamine release to be able to see life as something fun and meaningful. Such a person would correspond to the predator.
But now, in reality, there is a difference. 

Dopamine is experienced as divine energy
The pleasant and meaningful dopamine kick is there but many people find this so meaningful that they want to keep the kick going on all the time. If the job is the meaning of life, then why not give a full and constant focus on it? And get better and better to finally win the fight. But dopamine release is not meant to be turned on to a constant flow.
"Dopamine release is also responsible for people becoming addicted, in that they are always seeking pleasure so that they can reach higher and higher dopamine levels," explains Harald Sitte of MedUni Vienna's Institute of Pharmacology.
For some people, the natural dopamine kick gets strengthened by will and prolonged, even with artificial methods because it is so desired and important, and the natural serotonin release gets crippled and has no chance to function properly. A serotonin release can be experienced as a failure as it takes you down and blocks you from doing anything as it is meant for eating and sleeping.

Modern hunting can end with a crash
The next station might be that the dopamine function gets crippled and stops working. It refuses to continue to hunt a prey animal that can never be reached. This is also how it works in nature. If the tiger sees that it cannot catch the prey it stops hunting (to preserve energy).
If this person had been an animal in nature he would just have laid down for sleep if he was tired.
But a modern person can not just stay home and sleep and regain his power in a natural way - he has to go to either the job or the doctor (who has to give him a pill to make him go to the job again). Dopamine and cortisol can be replaced with coffee and energy drinks and also heightened by mental focus on something that triggers it. 
I think that a breakdown of this system can also send you into a state of panic because you are not able to solve the situation, which gets more and more alarming and dangerous. 

This system of neurotransmitters and hormones can stop functioning in a way that finally you can neither be active nor sleep. 
So the doctor prescribes an SSRI remedy to restore the level of serotonin. If you have panic it would take you down and make you calm (and happy again?) It is an artificial mirror of the predator´s eating up his prey animal and thus getting boosted with serotonin and "calm and satisfied". 
The serotonin might be a happy substance when it takes you down from panic, but what happens when you do not have panic? 
Serotonin is a substance that takes away your hunting-kick, which also means that it takes away your active focus on the meaning of life. You just get apathetic and lose your will power. So now life isn´t worth anything anymore? You have lost your will power.
Serotonin is strongly vasoconstrictive so it takes down the blood flow in the brain so you cannot think or desire anything anymore. Nothing is of any importance. But that is what it is meant to be = to stop the hunting impulse.

Ice bath and intense exercises trigger cortisol /stress
Ice bath and other types of short but very intense exercise (work-out, jogging) can recreate the body´s original experience of a fight or other form of a dangerous situation. If it is combined with eating and sleeping it can restore the lost balance, but remember that an animal is usually not actively hunting for more than a very short time. Often just less than a minute. (It waits for the perfect situation before it jumps off.) And right after it eats and sleeps! A predator sleeps very much. Just take a look at a dog or a cat.
As dopamine is addictive it is possible to get addicted to jogging and training also, but you can get very sick from that (similar to drug addiction as it basically is the same thing).

Adrenal Fatigue as a result of stress
A problem that has become almost something normal today as a response to all our stress addiction is Adrenal Fatigue, which means that the balance between important hormones has got out of balance and the endocrine system doesn´t work anymore. This creates a lot of other problems and diseases like inflammatory conditions of various sorts. Adrenal Fatigue is a direct result of long-term stress and cortisol no longer works in a normal way.

To take a brief shower with ice-cold water can be seen as a small Wim Hof-method for daily practice. Totally free and very effective because if you feel tired (in the morning?) in just a couple of seconds it can boost your energy and make you feel like you are iceman himself or another kind of superman! 
From just being a lazy nobody you suddenly feel that you can conquer the whole world! Such a cold-kick is something which far exceeds a cup of espresso as it can keep you alert for the rest of the day. It is like a drink of cortisol and it works in the same way as if you suddenly noticed that the house was on fire.

I was thinking about this and it fell upon my mind that everything that gives a quick boost of energy can be referred to as stress. That is the reason why you get an alert from it! Just to wake up in the morning is biologically the same as stress. Any energy kick can be equated with stress.

Oversensitivity to stress
But if you have got those problems with malfunctions of the adrenal glands, if you are so run-down that the hormones and the impulses no longer work properly you might have got also oversensitive to stress, which means that even a small stress-kick can be too much for your nervous system which now strongly overreacts to it. It can create strong stress reactions in response to almost nothing, and I believe that this can also often be behind electrosensitivity. A tiny happening, a tiny signal, that the nervous system has learned to recognize can be the trigger that sets off a series of reactions with extreme alertness, dizziness, headache, fatigue and more, as the body memory now regards it as a potential threat to life. The result of this can be quite incomprehensible.

Let´s say that your adrenals are worn out and you are oversensitive to any little impulse that triggers you to overreact... How is it now with training like jogging? How is it with short term activation of cortisol?

Oversensitivity to speed
I know a man, who was part of the Swedish National Running Team and when he had got "over-stressed" he could not run anymore. Only walk! And I have experienced the same thing. If I move too fast or even talk too fast I might first get a kick and feel high but then I get a hangover in the form of some extra headaches. And I feel an imbalance that spreads all over the body. Even the experience of something speedy can trigger a reaction, as for example to walk fast or to drive fast. It is "the feeling of speed" that is the trigger.

Gravity Stress
Standing up on the floor from the bed - even that is a stress reaction and it is called Gravity Stress. So you can check your ability to tolerate stress by checking your blood pressure before and after standing up. The Ragland’s Test is a test to determine the level of adrenal health and function.

Saltwater
I have experienced that drinking saltwater or salt broth can help against such a hangover and that is also what is being said in the texts about Adrenal Fatigue because it is a condition that influences the release of aldosterone, which is of importance for the kidneys´ability to retain salt in the body. And as serotonin causes vasoconstriction it is of importance not to be dehydrated.

Salt: An Essential Treatment for Adrenal Fatigue

Salt, aldosterone and adrenal fatigue

Cold shower is healthy but causes stress
If also a cold shower is something that causes a stress reaction, then normal logic would suggest that for a person with Adrenal Fatigue cold showers would not be recommended. With this in mind, I searched on the Internet to see if I could find anything that could verify my theory.

First I get overwhelmed by all the films and articles that want to spread all the benefits of taking ice-cold baths and showers. Yes, it is true! It makes you stronger and prevents diseases! 

Cold water triggers cortisol release
Quickly I also found that cold water is causing a stress reaction. Cold-stress is a common expression! So the reason why I get alert from cold water is that the body perceives the situation as something life-threatening that it quickly has to get away from, so for this purpose it releases cortisol.
So if you are healthy and in balance just take a cold shower when you are tired in the daytime and you will quickly wake up and it will also strengthen your immune system and generally make you stronger. But if your adrenals are unbalanced - don´t do it!

Wim Hof has developed a meditation method that enables him to stand extreme cold and when the scientists have investigated him they have found this (quote):
Scientist have measured Wim Hof’s cortisol levels and found that they spike during his resistance feats and while he meditates.
The power of mind
Wim Hof is able to use his mind to artificially induce a stress response so when exposed to the cold he activates a release of opioids, cannabinoids, dopamine and serotonin which induces euphoria and also prevents the feeling of pain or cold by inhibiting those signals. By repeated practice, you train the brain to more and more easily release these neurotransmitters.
This is also seen as a potent placebo effect, which is based upon a stored expectation that gets fulfilled releasing these neurotransmitters in a self-fulfilling cycle.  Read more...

Wim Hof has said that when he once had promised to do an unusually heroic performance in the cold he thought for a moment: "What am I up to?" but as soon as he felt the cold snow under his feet he felt good again and he easily got into that euphoria that he had been training to achieve.
This means something very interesting!
It is a good lesson in how our placebo or mental power works. If you have been involved in an experience that had such an effect on your neurotransmitters that the body remembers it, then the nervous system also remembers a lot of other sensations that were experienced simultaneously. It can be a touch, a picture, a smell, a sound or any kind of signal.
All of this gets stored together and later only the signal, only one of the sensations, can bring you back to the same feeling and also create a release of the same neurotransmitters that had been active the previous time. One tiny feeling brings back the whole memorized effect.
Mr. Hof had deliberately learned how to get into euphoria to combat the cold and the result was that just the feeling of cold snow immediately drew him back into euphoria.
If such an event is repeated over and over again it gets stronger and more and more easy to get into.

This mental method is also traditionally being used in religious and spiritual ceremonies. Only the smell of the incense draws you back to the God-experience, but only if that is what you have encoded.

Negative mind power
But ... what can be made consciously to obtain a certain desired experience can also be something that happens when we do not want it. The nervous system is working in this way to teach us to remember and learn from our mistakes and also to remember what was pleasant. So it remembers both good and bad and can create a repetition of any sort.

Electrosensitivity = an effect of stored memory
My impression is that this can also be a good explanation of how electrosensitivity can work sometimes. You have been in a situation that was causing much stress to the body (positive or negative stress) and at the same time, you were exposed to a certain frequency. Let´s say that this experience was either very strong or it was repeated over and over again for a long time.

Repeated stress can cause Adrenal Fatigue and then the body can get oversensitive to any kind of stress. What happens then if the body hears that signal again = picks up the same frequency? It reproduces the stress reaction and releases the same old neurotransmitters and here we go again without understanding what happens. Because there is nothing to cause such a reaction! Other people do not react in that way to that signal so why do you?
Wim Hof gets into euphoria just from the feeling of snow! Other people do not react in that way so why does he? The same answer goes for both cases: it is something that has been learned and encoded into the body. But it is not to be called "something you believe"! It is not so easy! This is something that the nervous system has learned and stored so it works automatically.
The intention of the body is that you should react to everything that has been associated with a good or bad sensation in the past. Good memory makes you immediately eat it up. Bad memory makes you immediately run away or attack. Any reaction is encoded and works automatically in a second.
This is why PR-people make bright pictures that can create a positive emotion.
The more something is repeated the more the brain adapts to it and gets changed until the whole dance has become a permanent ability and quality. In the long run, there is certainly an effect on the genes which adapt to it and for future generations, this learned ability becomes inherited and also shapes the form of the body and in this way, a people with certain characteristics is created, a people which is specialized on a certain environment. 

Cold shower against depression
When you are in danger the body ignores minor problems and if you get exposed to a sudden flow of cold water your body cuts off all other problems, and this might be an explanation of why cold showers can be effective against depression. Whatever problem you have gets bigger and bigger when you constantly think about it and finally, it becomes the whole reality that overshadows everything else. An ice-cold shower can make your mind turn away from that problem because the cold is a much bigger problem which you can die from if you don´t deal with it immediately.
Wim Hof makes the same step, but on the next level. He seems to be mentally creating a very big stress effect which takes over in a way that the body identifies the cold as a minor problem and ignores it. 

If you are healthy this cold-stress (and other short stress-producing work-outs) might also restore the balance that would otherwise have been the effect of a natural life where stress and sleep more actively alternate in harmonic cycles (because for a hunting animal it is the only way to get food and survive). That can also help against depression.

You have chronic stress problems?
But if you have problems with stress-related symptoms like Adrenal Fatigue there is a possibility that ice-cold showers could make the situation worse. If you have become over-sensitive to stress even a small amount of stress can cause a big reaction in the wrong direction.
I was reading a long article about The Benefits of Taking Cold ShowersThe lists of all the benefits are very long and impressive, but at the end of the article I found a little warning:

Contraindications for Cold Showers:
Absolutely do not take cold showers if you are pregnant, have a heart condition 
(arrhythmia, pacemaker, etc) or have extreme adrenal fatigue as it could be dangerous. 
In adrenal fatigue, the body is unable to adapt to the stress of the temperature change.

Dr. Jockers who wrote this article has even added a red warning sign about it. 
He has also made a video about Adrenal Fatigue.


Experiment med upprepad köldorsakad stress.
Rats were exposed to chronic intermittent cold...
Chronic stress-induced plasticity in the acute stress response may be important for stress adaptation, but may also contribute to pathophysiological conditions associated with stress.





We often hear people say: "That is psychic!" when they mention other peoples´experiences, especially if they have not had the same experiences themselves. 
But the word psychic doesn´t say much. It is not something simple that is immediately easy to grasp. The same thing can be said in other ways also and then we talk about placebo, about the power of the brain, of thinking, of imagination, of God etc. We have many expressions for our ability to choreograph and influence our mind, body, experiences and emotions and the scientists who are investigating the body of Wim Hof cannot yet fully explain how he can do what he does. 







söndag 2 februari 2020

Essential oils against coronavirus

Certain essential oils can be effective against flu virus.







Bergamot
Eucalyptus
Red Thyme
Cinnamon Leaf
Tea Tree
Lemon Balm

Read more about:
Eucalyptus
Blue yarrow
Rosemary
Kumquat
Lavender
Cinnamon bark

Especially for respiratory tract
Eucalyptus
Thyme
Douglas fir

Eucalyptus against Swine Flu virus.

Essential Oils to Prevent the Spread of Flu
This is a long scientific article about the biology of influenza and there is also a chapter about the treatment with essential oils.

Chemical Constituents of Essential Oils Possessing Anti-Influenza A/WS/33 Virus Activity

Antibacterial, antifungal, and antiviral effects of three essential oil blends

Off The Grid News: 8 Antiviral, Antibacterial Essential Oils

Nature´s Gift: A very long list of Antiviral Essential Oils
In their opinion, the most powerful antiviral oils are Ravensara Aromatica and Ravintsara.