Stimulants & Depressants What You Eat Is How You Feel

Hello folks! Have you had your drugs today? Who? Me? I don't use drugs! I'm a good, clean American I only eat Apple pie!

Well, pal, there is enough sucrose (refined cane or beet sugar) in a slice of common apple pie to reach drug proportions and cause an insulin shock in the pancreas, shooting your blood sugar up to a twenty-minute nerve-bending high; after which you suffer more or less from some form of temporary or permanent hypoglycemia. That spells fatigue in head and body.

So, what other drugs have you had today? Coffee with your pie? Need I go into the massive negative effects coffee has on the nervous system. It's a nerve stimulant. If you drink more than one to two cups a day your stomach crawls, your eyes bulge, your mouth foams, and you feel wired, and later, frazzed. One, maybe two cups of coffee daily can be tasty (grind your own beans and drip-brew it) and valuable as a social or personal ritual. Any coffee beyond that is drugging your body.

"I had my pie a la mode." Swell! The average serving of store bought ice cream has three tablespoons of white sugar (sucrose) in it. Drug proportions.

So far it appears as though America is a pretty drugged out culture. Well, without trying to come off too grandiose, that's a pretty accurate appraisal. Coffee is a stimulant. Sugar is a false energizer, which ends up being a depressant resulting in considerable nutrient depletion. Cigarettes stimulate the adrenals and suffocate and depress the blood system and are reported to create a need for up to 500mg vitamin-C; 100 IU vitamin-E, 1000 IU vitamin-A ;and 50-100 IU vitamin-D per cigarette.

Aspirin is a depressant- the novicane of the central nervous system. It eats holes in tissue, especially the stomach wall. It numbs the nervous system so you don't fee] the discomfort of "tension! anxiety! the 'common cold'! fear! guilt! anger!" the user receives these so-called benefits, the functions of the body in general are impaired because the glands, organs, tissues and various quaint devices don't get the Communications from or to the brain. And now class, what do you suppose aspirin does for health? It suppresses it.

I was looking through a Psychology Today magazine the other day and I realized that the majority of the ads are for alcohol. Farrr away, man! The great Western science of psychology; the science designed to plumb the depths of human mind and related mysteries promises you sex, freedom, wealth and happiness in a five dollar and up bottle. Drugs? Life too much; got a bite where it hurts today? Weary from a day of coffee, cigarettes, sugar, anger, fear, anxiety; full of empty food and an empty heart? Have you had your drink today ta, ta, to the tune of your favorite MacDonalds jingle with a thousand cascading voices in the chorus . . .

OK, so I've made my point. We've made a botch of our world and our inner lives and we turn to all manner of drugs to create an illusion of "everything's alright after all." It doesn't work and in fact, it makes things worse. How can we expect to cope with a problematic day when our bodies, our divine tools for living in the world are being treated so poorly?

I am often asked, "What natural thing can I take to piek me up, get me going, keep me awake?" Well, coffee. But, you don't like the negative effects. There are herbs. Gotu Kola is a brain stimulant with beneficial rather than negative side effects. Ginseng is an herbal tonic for cellular integrity.

People ask for "natural" goodies to calm them down, too. Oh, they've heard this about B-12 and that about calcium; maybe something about an herbal tea or two. Well, friends, that's all backward. If we get into the attitude that this picks us up and that calms us down, we then get to believing that we need help.

When the human body is in decent functioning order there is no need for stimulants or depressants. When the body is not in good functioning order there is a need for nutrients and proper utilization of those nutrients.

Let's see what this means. The body is designed to rest at night; wake up refreshed and alert; work, play and relax all day; and feel heartily tired (sleepy) at night. Sorry to observe that it doesn't work this way for a great many American people. The body almost tends to become a burden instead of an aid. It is stiff and fatigued (not the same as sleepy) much of the time. It moves slowly and aches daily. It just doesn't perform well.

Here's the way it works. The brain controls the biochemical functions of the entire body. Our thoughts and feelings control the brain. Food is taken in to fuel the body and the brain.

If insufficient nutrients and fiber are taken in the brain and the body will starve and malfunction. Growth will be impaired and due to the dying off of millions of cells daily, growth and new cell production is important.

By the same token, if thoughts and feelings of a negative ilk are entertained in the brain, the brain will not provide the messages needed for adequate digestion and utilization of the nutrients. So, even when you're eating the best food in the world, you receive little benefit if your head is out of balance. The effect of thought on health is about 80% of it. This is one of the many good reasons why making a ritual of a meal time is helpful. Sit down, relax, put the trials of the day out of your head and enjoy your food and friends. Laugh, eat slowly. Digestion depends on this kind of mental state.

If you're looking for a "natural" stimulant rest assured there really is no such thing. We stimulate ourselves by becoming excited about what we're doing throughout the day. We stimulate ourselves by keeping our emotional tone high and positive. We stimulate ourselves.

The same goes for a "natural" relaxant. Strung out? Stop. Stop being so afraid in your thinking. Stop trying to be somebody you are not. Stop trying to please everyone; stop trying to be cool or perfect or cosmic all at once and all of a sudden. Take a long walk, breathe deep, and talk to yourself. Do this once a day. Talk to someone you trust about what's cooking inside - someone who knows how to listen and knows better than to try to hand you the answers. Relax yourself.

What about someone who is sick? When we've been beating away at our bodies for so long with frantic minds, we begin to develop organic problems- manifestations of the incessant onslaught of low tone thoughts and feelings. Now, the body needs to be rebuilt. This is where super nutrition and herbs come in. Repair. Repair and/or maintenance of the body amidst a destructive lifestyle. The biochemical strain placed upon the body when you slam on your brakes to avoid a crash on the freeway can create a need for several hundred milligrams of vitamin-C right there. There are 30 mg in a whole, fresh orange. So, I supplement. I recognize the need here in this societal form of daily stress.

People often ask me which vitamin, mineral, or other supplement do they need for this problem or that ailment. The answer is that you need them all, only you need more of them during times of severe stress or illness. The body is using more to toe the line. Food itself can yield only a maintenance amount of nutrients. A long time ago humans ate tremendous amounts of food, calories and fiber. They were very active physically and burned off the energy with no problems. No longer are we very active physically. Most of our activity is going on in our brains. That brain activity is very intense and constant. It puts great demands on the systems of the body and the cali for nutrients is very, very great. However, we cannot use the bulk of the calories. Highly concentrated foods like brewer's yeast, vegetable oils and juices, fish liver oils and protein powders are a tremendous aid to us when we need larger supplies of nutrients. Many people drink brewer's yeast daily and swear it calms their nerves. Well, that's not quite the way it works. Yeast is full of B-vitamins and B's have everything to do with many different functions in the body. They feed intestinal flora which is greatly responsible for the absorption of nutrients through the intestinal wall into the bloodstream. Poor floral condition literally promotes malnutrition. Choline, a B-vitamin is vital to the electro-chemical communication of one nerve cell to another. Alcohol flushes B's right out of the system. Yeast doesn't calm nerves. Rather it feeds the whole integrated network of complicated biochemical relationships within the body and facilitates its proper functioning. When everything goes right we say we feel healthy and vigorous and energized.

Here in the U.S. of A. the government publishes what they call the MDR- Minimum Daily Requirement. What they're saying is that if you take into your mouth the MDR of each nutrient daily, then you will not get scurvy or beri-beri or some other very overt nutritional deficiency disease. Swell! You won't be feeling fit, but you won't be dying like a bag of bones in a prisoner of war camp.

The Russians do it differently. They're interested in health; optimal health. They publish Maximum Daily Intake recommendations for maximum health. Needless to say, they see nutrient requirements much greater than the Food & Drug Administration. The Russian doctors tend to use megavitamin therapy in hospitals regularly instead of drugs. They believe that if you make the body strong, it will heal itself. Drugs do not heal. Only life can heal.

I receive super nutrition. For months I had been having trouble getting very tired in the afternoon and thought I was anemic or hypoglycemic. So off I went to see a doctor who put me through every test in the book. Six hours of bloodletting in the lab. Guess what? I'm in perfect health. Know what was wrong? I was bored.

Many Americans are bored in one chronic way or another and they think there is something wrong with their body. So they want something to "pep them up." So they take uppers. Others fret and stew so much that they turn to downers like Sominex, aspirin and alcohol. Think about it. Think about yourself.

--julian