“The monthly hormonal cycle of menstruation serves as a constant backdrop for the mental and emotional life of every woman, as well as being an important factor in her overall state of health. From the spiritual point of view, the days around the menstrual period are very powerful and auspicious for a woman to practice meditation and japa yoga. The period commencing three days before the onset and continuing for five days of menstrual bleeding and the first five days of the new cycle is a time when a woman gains a heightened level of awareness naturally, by virtue of the altering hormonal balance. This is a time when her natural insight and intuition become very prominent, and it is a most powerful time for psychic awakening.“  –Excerpted from Asana Pranayama Mudra Bandha by Swami Satyananda Sarawati

I love this quote as it pertains to the relationship between yoga and our menstrual cycles. As we all know, our periods have a pretty bad rap these days – how many times have you complained about your PMS and the inconvenience of Aunt Flow in your life?  Oh yes darling, I know. I think this quote is great because it provides a different perspective on the subject.

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As many of you know, I’m a bit of a green freak and have a strong dislike for chemicals, especially those in personal care and household products.  That’s why a particular study that came out last month caught my eye.  It suggested the chemicals in hair relaxers might be causing early on-set puberty and uterine fibroid tumors, particularly in the African American community.  According to the National Women’s Health Network, African American women are 3 to 5 times more likely to develop fibroids than women of other racial groups. Fibroids have been linked to the estrogen dominance syndrome I often talk about in blog posts, on my webinars and in my programs.  Estrogen becomes dominant in many ways but one often overlooked cause is the chemicals we are exposed to on a daily basis, especially the ones in our personal care products.  Many of them are what we call Xenoestrogens, this means that they actually mimic estrogen in our bodies.  Yes, not good!

Since the study came out, there have been numerous debates about its scientific credibility with most people in the medical community citing its lack of verified and tested evidence as a reason to toss the entire study, and subsequent debate, out the window.  Dare I say that these naysayers are wrong?  Yeah I’m gonna.  I’m not a scientist and would never claim undeniable authority over their opinions regarding any scientific study but I’m not going to allow them to do that same thing to me!  Since when did we need absolute, unequivocal, scientific proof that covering our bodies, treating our hair, or washing our clothes with toxic chemicals could cause harm?  As far as I’m concerned, the science is in – based on the staggering cancer statistics alone!  Isn’t the suggestion (one that every scientist on the planet would agree with) that these chemicals could be causing health issues for us and our families be enough for us to try and eliminate as many as we can from our households and environments?   Too often I feel like we wait until the absolute truth is revealed and don’t heed the calls, as scientifically unverified as they are, until it’s too late.

When it comes to chemicals, like the ones used in the hair relaxers in this study, we could wait forever for verifiable and incontrovertible truth about their impact on our bodies.  We have become a society surrounded by these kinds chemicals (about 80,000 of them to be exact) and there is simply no way to fully test how they interact with us, much less how they interact with the other chemicals we’re in contact with.  Rather frightening! The producers of these toxins are only required to test them in isolation, as if we were only in contact with the chemicals in their product, whether it be hair relaxers, make-up, perfume, or deodorant.   But the reality is we’re in contact with all of these products every day.  We use the make-up from one company the deodorant from another, wash our hair with the shampoo from a third, and then spray ourselves with our favorite eau de toilette and that’s all before 9am!  There is no study large enough to encompass the variety of human activity.  So why does it seem like so many of use wait for this undoubtable proof before we ever decide to make any changes?

I know there is a lot of information out there.  I know the internet gives us access to so many different opinions that we struggle with what is true and what is, well, bullshit.  But too often I think we look upon this sea of suggestions, ideas, opinions, studies, and advice with more and more skepticism and, like the medical community in regards to this latest study, toss all of it out the window.  Please don’t.  Don’t continue to spray your hair with toxins while you wait for a definitive verdict on them, don’t wash your children’s clothes in poisonous detergent because the latest studies lack evidence, don’t send your dress to the dry cleaners, bleach your sheets, or lather your kids with bug spray, just because no authority has proved undeniably, unequivocally, and scientifically that they are harmful.  Don’t wait.  The scientific community may never agree about the full impact that these chemicals have on us and our environment but they do agree on one thing, removing them won’t hurt!

To see what’s really in your personal care products go to the Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep Database. If nothing else, it will at least make you question where you get your next lipstick!

Okay, so it wasn’t quite the Mexicoma that Carrie experienced in the Sex and the City movie…

I recently got back from an amazing trip with my friend Vanessa to Mexico City. We visited the incredible Teotihuacan pyramids, went to the Frida Kahlo museum, walked through colorful and vibrant markets, and met some really interesting people along the way. The city has a dusty beauty to it that I didn’t expect to find and it was so cool to spend a few days submerged in a different culture with a great friend.

But the trip had an unfortunate ending. On our last night there both of us began to feel ill. We thought it was the churros (I know, bad me!) that we had after lunch that day. Whatever it was, it had infected both of us and we were now steadily feeling sicker and sicker by the minute. By the next morning things had not gotten better. I went out and found myself a green juice…yes, only a health coach would find a green juice in the middle of Mexico City, and I think that helped me out.  Vanessa, on the the other hand wasn’t so lucky. I won’t go into the graphic details but to make a long story short, she left the airport in an ambulance and spent 6 hours in the emergency room hooked up to an IV! I changed our flights and attempted to translate (haha!) what all the nurses and doctors were saying through my nausea. It was a brutal end to an otherwise amazing trip. As Vanessa said, “that’s why they call it Montezuma’s revenge!” LOL At least she had a sense of humor about it.

But this got me thinking. Why is this the case? Why is it that people from Western societies seem to be so fragile when visiting countries in the developing world? Is it just that these places are too dirty, or is it the case that we’re just too clean?

Coincidentally, on the same day Vanessa and I were hanging out in a Mexican ER, a study was published in the journal Science entitled, “Gut Microbes Keep Rare Immune Cells in Line”, that suggests our obsession with germs is weakening our immune systems. The study, conducted on mice, showed that mice that had been exposed to microbes had much stronger immune systems than the ones that were germ-free. In addition, the germ-free mice were more susceptible to intestinal inflammation and asthma and also had an unusually large amount of what are called “natural killer” cells, otherwise known as T cells. These cells trigger inflammation if they sense microbes or molecules known as antigens that are made by our bodies. Basically, having too many of these cells running wild increases the risk of autoimmune diseases.

We are continually learning about autoimmune diseases but what we do know is that they are dramatically on the rise in the developed world, particularly among women. Of the 50 million Americans suffering from autoimmune diseases, 30 million of them are women. This is because our immune system affects our entire body and a woman’s body simply has more elements at risk than a man’s, due to our reproductive systems. So, for example, endomitriosis is a disease that has been linked to autoimmune disorders but one which only affects women. So, as I’m sitting here recovering from my attack of the killer churro, I’m wondering, could my body’s sensitivity and the rise in these diseases both be the result of a weakened immune system caused by an over-obsessive fear of germs?

I’ve always known that antibiotics have a devastating effect on the delicate balance of good and bad bacteria in our guts, but this is just one area of microbes out of many. Bacteria occupies almost every single part of our bodies. Did you know that there are 10 times more bacterial cells in our bodies than human cells? We are more bacteria than we are human! And yet we are brought up to think all germs are bad and must be eradicated. Hello you hand sanitizer addicts, I know who you are! Scientists are now finding compelling evidence that this attitude towards our bacterial bedfellows has wide and far reaching consequences and could be the main cause of the dramatic increase in asthma, allergies, inflammatory bowel disease, and autoimmune diseases in the developed world.

So what to do? As Dr. Allen Meadows from the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology said, “As we’re taking better care of our food, have less dirt and bacteria in our diet, our immune system isn’t being stimulated by those microbes” leading to a less exercised weak immunity. But Doctor, what are you suggesting I do about that? Eat dirtier food??

If that is the solution to this problem, I know a great churro stand in Mexico City you should try!

We live in a world of exponential progress.  The speed that things change and technology improves has had huge ramifications on our lives and our behaviors…everyone knows I’m pathetically addicted to my iphone! The world has become smaller as travel and the internet has brought distant cultures into contact with each other that were once too far removed.  Globalization has brought food, clothes, and everything else imaginable from distant lands to our doorsteps almost magically.  We’ve become so accustomed to this high-paced progress that anything seems possible, nothing is unimaginable.  Humanity’s future potential is infinite.

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This week Kerri and I are doing a liver cleanse with our fabulous Fix Your Period group.  Today is actually Day #2.  So far so good, no detox symptoms yet. Some of you might be wondering why we’re specifically cleansing the liver. Well my pretties, read on to find out!

Your liver functions in your body in much the same way a pool filter functions in a pool. Just as a pool filter cleans a pool by catching the dead leaves, dirt and insects, the liver detoxifies our bodies from harmful chemicals and toxins found in food and our environment. Too much booze, drugs (illegal and legal – xanax has to pass through your liver too), pesticides in foods, chemicals and environmental pollution (your liver doesn’t like smog) can cause your lovely liver to get really bogged down.

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