Black Pepper - Your New Culinary Best Friend

Salt and Pepper.

These two condiments sit on millions of counter tops and kitchen tables across the world. Salt has gotten its fair share of attention lately with the increasing popularity of mineral-rich exotic salts. But the body of evidence for the benefits of black pepper is growing too large to ignore. Piperine, a key substance in black pepper, has been used for Ayurvedic medicine for thousands of years. Now we have science to back it up:

Increased Nutrient Absorption

Did you know that by sprinkling freshly ground black pepper on your food, you're revving up the bioavailability of the dish? Bioavailability refers to the proportion of nutrients available in a food for your body to absorb. Some foods have a high level of bioavailability, like proteins, fats, and carbohydrates (called macronutrients), but we can gain even more access to vitamins and antioxidants in vegetables, which have lower levels of bioavailability.

Piperine/Black pepper increases bioavailability by:

• Inhibiting enzymes that are responsible for metabolizing certain substances,
• Stimulating transporters of amino acids within the intestinal lining,
• Inhibiting the removal of beneficial nutrients from food, allowing them to continue to be available for use for longer periods of time, and
• Decreasing activity in the intestinal tract to allow for more nutrients to enter the bloodstream.

Improved Digestion

Have problems with indigestion? As long as you are otherwise healthy, you might want to try adding black pepper to your food. The strong taste of black pepper stimulates taste buds and gets the digestive process started immediately. (Did you know that the process starts in our mouths? Crazy, huh?) The taste buds signal to the stomach that food is coming its way and the stomach in response increases secretion of hydrochloric acid, which is key to digestion. When there's enough acid in your stomach, food doesn't sit in there for too long, and the likelihood of indigestion and other problems is greatly reduced. *Consult your doctor if you have stomach or digestive issues like ulcers of IBS before increasing your intake of black pepper

Brain-Boosting Properties

Research has shown that certain pathways in the brain are stimulated by piperine. Although the studies are ongoing, it looks like black pepper can help Alzheimer's patients, dementia sufferers, and others dealing with cognitive impairments. The strong flavor also causes you to pay attention to your food, thus increasing your positive relationship with food in a mind-body kind of way.

One Last Note

Piperine is present in black pepper, and it best accessed through freshly-ground black peppercorns. Other peppers, like jalapenos, bell peppers, etc contain the beneficial antioxidant capsaicin, which has shown to decrease pain signals in the body and is great for a number of other body conditions.

Image via Morguefile.com by jmiltenburg

What Makes Meditation Beneficial?

Are you curious about meditation's benefits? 

Check out this video from Scientific American magazine:

Emotional Benefits of Meditation

Meditation benefits us in many ways, including improving our emotional well-being. Meditation practitioners often experience:

• Increased self-awareness
• Increased ability to remain present
• Reduced stress
• A new perspective on an old situation or current worry
• New tools that help in the management of stress
• Overall happier outlooks on life

Physical Benefits of Meditation

We have long since known that stress affects the body, contributing to chronic pain, elevated cortisol levels, and interrupted sleep patterns (just to name a few). Doctors are researching meditation's affect on several conditions and there's evidence that meditation positively affects people with the following conditions:

• Anxiety 
• Elevated blood pressure
• Chronic pain
• Problems with sleep
• Heart disease

(image via)

What are you waiting for? Contact me today to start your meditation journey!

Anger, the Brain, and How to Respond

Anger. It’s like the huge, swirling monster that wants to devour everything in its path for a brief moment (in context of the rest of our lives) but acting in anger is something we should never do. I don’t know about you, but I blank out and I start shaking when I’m angry.

Something set me off earlier today and I was seeing red. I had all of these ideas about how I was going to deal with the situation, but I knew that I would not be handling it until tomorrow, so I took a deep breath and tried to return my body and mind back to its previous homeostatic state. Even if I were going to handle it today, I’d only do so after I’d calmed down. That is one lesson from my father that I will never forget: Don’t react; respond. I intend to respond tomorrow. For now I’m exhausted, which feels like such an evolutionary response to the stress.

From what I’ve read and experienced, anger is very similar to the fight or flight response. It’s our animal brain (our limbic brain) that gets going and our forebrain–the part of the brain where language and empathy and reasoning come from–just starts shutting down. We don’t want to listen to reason; we don’t care what the other side of the story is. We just want to rail against the injustice of it all.

As this article from Colorado State University states, anger “occurs when we sense that our progress towards a goal has been hindered, or when we feel hurt by another person’s actions or words.” Sometimes we can redirect this energy into something productive, and sometimes the best we can do is to take a deep breath and move along. Anger isn’t an emotion that I’m all that acquainted with lately; I used to be angry all the time, but now I don’t feel it very often. So, when it appears like that swirling tornado monster, I feel broadsided by it. I don’t think I’m the only one with that experience, though.

Originally posted on my other blog, The Brainy Babe.

A Day of Doing Nothing: Why Being Lazy is Healthy

Do you have a hard time doing nothing? I totally do, but it’s something that really gives us a chance to rejuvenate. Relaxation is good; I think that’s something that we tend to forget here in the US, where productivity is valued above most states of being.

Yesterday was Sunday, and as I was milling about the house, Mike looked at me and said, “It’s so against my nature to sit around on a Sunday.”

I laughed. It was harder for me than for him to do it yesterday (although that’s not always the case). I’d been to the hardware store for air conditioner filters and the grocery store already, and he was saying this to me as I was chopping veggies for dinner later. Yes, it was certainly hard.

But then he said something that I think we should all take to heart: “I pushed it this week. I need to remind myself that it’s okay to do nothing every once in a while.”

We run around like crazy during the week, getting to all the stuff on our densely packed to do list. We NEED to sit around now and again to feel better. Don’t believe me? Here’s some scientific evidence that might change your mind:

We Can Make Up Sleep Deficits

Isn’t that cool? According to Harvard Medical School,  we can actually make up for lost sleep on the weekends. Although it’s certainly not the same thing as getting a week of good nights’ sleep, adding a few extra sleep hours onto the weekend can keep you even-keeled.

So why is sleep so important? According to a study by the University of Chicago, test subjects who voluntarily kept their sleep to four hours a night for six consecutive nights experienced higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol, higher blood pressure, and fewer antibodies for certain diseases. With a sleep deficit, not only does your body’s ability to function properly decrease, but you start cutting off your ability for higher mental processing with the elevated stress hormones. Not to mention that cortisol-related belly fat accumulation. Not cool.

We Need a Chance to Unplug

Sure, a lazy Saturday means that you may be lying around watching a movie, but it’s different than being attached to your smartphone or Facebook. Most of us multitask like crazy during the week: Facebook is up in one window, Twitter is chiming on the phone, friends are texting, work emails need to be answered, and you’re rushing off to a meeting or killing yourself to reach a deadline. Putting all the mobile devices down is something wonderful that we can do for ourselves and our families.

Better yet, grab a book. Reading gives us a chance to exercise our imagination muscles. We’re active participants in the story, rather than passive viewers of something going on on-screen.

Daydreaming is Good for You

Want to boost your memory? Try daydreaming on the couch next Sunday afternoon.

According to researchers at the University of Wisconsin and the Max Planck Instituted for Human Cognitive and Brain Science, daydreaming is correlated to an increased ability to exercise one’s working memory. “Cognitive scientists define this type of memory as the brain’s ability to retain and recall information in the face of distractions.” says the article via Smithsonian.com. So when you daydream and use your imagination, you’re helping your brain use those memory muscles…and that’s got to make for easier work weeks.

So the next time I feel bad about lazing around on a Saturday afternoon, I’m going to try to remember that it’s good for me. I encourage you to do the same!

Originally posted on my other blog, The Brainy Babe