By Donna K. Kelly

Plastic is all around us. The science of this material began in the 1850s and by 1925 a new word was introduced into our language. Unfortunately, every piece of plastic every produced, if not recycled, is still somewhere on the planet.

Plastics have many chemical compounds in them. A couple which are especially troublesome are BPA and phthalates. These chemicals help to make the plastics more pliable. But they are bad for our health.

They are known as endocrine disruptors. They interfere with our body’s ability to read its own hormones correctly. Such hormones would include estrogen, testosterone, growth hormone, insulin, and thyroid.

BPA is literally everywhere, including the air. Commonly found in baby bottles, water bottles, food and beverage can liners, pacifiers and baby toys, water bottles and cash register receipts. You may see products saying “BPA free” but these are not necessarily safer.

Phthalates are chemicals derived from naphthalene, of moth ball fame. That smell kills moths, but it is also carcinogenic and toxic to humans. Phthalates are solvents and help carry fragrance in products.

Fragrance free products may be a good place to start reducing your exposure to this chemical.    

Phthalates are commonly found in wellness, personal care and cosmetic products, such as
pharmaceuticals, nutritional supplements, herbal remedies, nail polish, lotions, soaps, cleansers and hair care products (shampoos, sprays). They reduce cracking of nail polish, reduce stiffness of hair spray, and allow products to penetrate and moisturize the skin more easily.

Phthalates are volatile and can leach out from the plastic container and into the food or product being stored. These compounds are also linked to certain cancers. BPA and phthalates are found is virtually every human tested.

Wildlife can be affected many ways also. Young birds may die of starvation because of the plastics found in their stomachs. Fish are negatively influenced since much plastic eventually winds up in the ocean.
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Larger sizes of plastics may be found in areas of the ocean such as The Great Pacific Garbage Patch. This patch is currently twice the size of Texas. Plastics may be reduced in size to microparticles and fish consume them.
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A few additional resources to learn more are:

National Geographic Planet or Plastic at
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/planetorplastic/

Life without Plastic
https://lifewithoutplastic.com/about-us/

My Plastic Free Life
https://myplasticfreelife.com/

Environmental Working Group
https://www.ewg.org/research/dirty-dozen-list-endocrine-disruptors

By Donna K. Kelly
Wednesday, April 22nd, is Earth Day, and 2020 is the 50th anniversary. We have made some progress in saving the Earth, our home.

But there is much room for improvement.

Did you know that your food choices are a powerful way to help the planet sustain us? To eliminate greenhouse gases would be a giant step forward, but what about removing CO2 from the atmosphere? There is a movement working on removing CO2 and it is called Project Drawdown.
 
Food touches everything about our world. Food influences our environment. Local, sustainably-raised food requires healthy soils. Sustainably raised produce uses less, or best, no pesticides or herbicides. This may allow the workers in the fields to experience less disease due to lower exposure to these harsh chemicals. Court cases are now being won by farm workers harmed by pesticide exposure.

Food produced with pesticides and herbicides may negatively impact bees, insects, and the microbial diversity of the soils, as well as wildlife and ourselves. Sustainably grown produce may be more nutritious because the produce has less pesticide residue. In addition, the soils are healthier because of the lower pesticide use.

Locally grown, sustainably raised produce helps your community. Nearby farms can sustain themselves financially while providing fresher foods. Fresher equals more nutritious food since it may be consumed closer to the time it was picked.  Locally grown means less transportation cost in getting your food to you.

Victory Gardens planted during World War II made up 40% of our food needs. Victory Gardens were instituted not only to help feed people, but also to free up transportation and labor for the war effort. We could learn from those times and reap the benefits of fresher, nutritious food grown closer to home. This may be important as we learn supply chains can be disrupted.

COVID-19 gave us the opportunity to appreciate how we can help to make ourselves more resilient going forward.
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Our bodies need the most nutritious food we can give them. All the building blocks of optimal nutrition need to be present to give us the best possible health. Food can indeed be our most powerful medicine.

To celebrate the anniversary of Earth Day, the April 2020 issue of National Geographic highlights How We Lost the Planet and How We Saved the World. Education is a wonderful way to give ourselves the insight we need to help the earth and ourselves.

By Donna K. Kelly

Joy is a pillar for good health. Do you allow yourself to experience joy every day? Does joy truly help us to stay healthy? Do you even know what brings you joy or happiness? I hope your answer to each of those questions was yes. 

We may now have to opportunity of time to explore these questions in a new way. We may learn joyous opportunities we took for granted in the past. These might be as simple as sitting in a café and enjoying a cup of coffee or tea. We may miss hanging out with friends in our favorite restaurant. We may be missing attending lectures, going to the library. The list can truly to on and on as we are given the chance of a lifetime to experience the joy of life in an entirely new way due to our mandatory stay at home and social distancing orders. Now just a simple free walk outside and seeing other people at a distance can be comforting. Being outside with the sun and blue sky is rejuvenating and brings joy.

Our immune system is the front line for fighting any infection, viral or bacterial.  Of course, we know COVID-19 is a virus which we want to fight. So how does joy help us to keep our immune system optimal?

Our nervous system has two pathways. One is the sympathetic pathway, which is our fight or flight system. It is important when we are under stress or danger. This fight or flight system helps us to stay alive from injury. It helps our blood to clot more quickly and constricts our blood vessels, so we don’t bleed to death. Longterm, one may see how this may raise blood pressure.  

More importantly for dealing with COVID-19, stress decreases the optimal functional of our immune system, which requires a lot of energy for the body to maintain. If our bodies sense danger, they prioritize energy use on processes that enhance short term survival. Stress, whatever the form, activates our body’s fight or flight system, which does not know the difference between the proverbial tiger bite, the common cold, or COVID-19.  

The balance of our fight or flight system is our parasympathetic system. It is our rest, digest and repair system. We would be well served if we lived most of our day in this state. Here our body may more easily digest our food to absorb the life-supporting nutrients of our food. Our heart is at rest and pumping more slowly.  Our blood vessels are not constricted. Experiencing joy during the day may allow us to more easily drop to sleep at night, which is also critical for our health.  

Both paths of our autonomic nervous system are important for health. We would like to easily shift from one system into the other. In our hectic world, we rarely allow ourselves to be at rest. People may experience mental and emotional stressors. But we also face environmental stressors, like water and air pollution, nutrient deficiencies, injuries and of course infection from virus and bacteria.   

Joy may be a path to allow us to tip our body back toward the rest, digest and repair mode. Repair helps us to overcome sickness and injuries. As a bonus, it may help us to age more successfully.

Joy and happiness help us to be more optimistic. There are measurable changes in the body when we allow ourselves to experience joy. We have a decrease in cortisol (our stress hormone) and increases in endorphins, which help us to feel less pain. With less stress, our body feels safe and more easily shifts functions to long term survival; therefore, our immune system is given the energy it needs to functional optimally. Think, fighting infection. Our mood may be lighter because there are increases in serotonin (the happiness neurotransmitter) and oxytocin (the connection hormone). There is an increase in Brain Derived Neurotropic Factor (BDNF), which helps us to grow new neurons in our brain to protect our memory. We dilate our blood vessels and increase our lung capacity which helps to send more oxygen throughout our body. Laughter may force us to breathe more deeply. Just breathing deeper stimulates the vagus nerve, which runs through the entire body to let all the body’s systems know to rest, digest, and repair.  

How can we bring more joy into our lives?  There are comedy clubs, funny movies and books, and even laughter yoga. I am finding many humorous websites for jokes helpful. We would like gentle humor, not humor at the expense of another. You may want to google Christian jokes, Reader's Digest jokes, jokes for children, coffee, cats, dogs, computers, diets, daily life, dads, and moms. The laughs can go on and on. I am experiencing the joy of learning how to find humor to share.

Our bodies will react the same even if we are faking the laughter or smile. When was the last time you experienced a good belly laugh?  It might be helpful to have a good laugh every day.
In closing, I offer you this.

Day 4 of our new 6 social distancing: I struck up a conversation with a spider today.  Seems nice.  He’s a web designer. 

Disclaimer: This information is being provided to you for educational and informational purposes only.  It is being provided to you to educate you about healthy eating and lifestyles and as a self-help tool for your own use.  It is not medical or psychological advice.  This information is to be used at your own risk, based on your own judgment. For my full disclaimer, please go to www.donnakkelly.com.

By Donna K. Kelly

Sunday, March 8th, at 3:00 AM, we will spring forward and be on Daylight Savings Time (DST) in most of the United States, Europe and Canada. This abrupt change in time in relation to daylight may be the cause of a variety of negative health and safety effects. Many people struggle for a week to overcome the time change. People experience lost productivity, lower quality of life, increased illness and complain of just feeling tired.  

Focusing on selfcare before the time change may help to alleviate some of the impact. You might:

• Try to go to bed 15-20 minutes earlier each night for 2-3 nights before the time change. This may allow your body to adjust more easily. 
• Begin to adjust the timing of your meals a little earlier each day for 2-3 days. This may be especially important with dinner.
• Get some early morning sunlight, especially on the first day of the time change, Sunday. The bright light helps to set your body’s clock to the new daytime hours and become fully awake.
• Be careful driving and operating machinery if you feel drowsy. Your reaction times may be delayed, and accidents may happen.
• Stick with your normal bedtime on Sunday to get plenty of sleep for your Monday normal waking routine.
• Avoid using phones and computers in the evening to decrease the blue light wavelengths which decrease melatonin, your sleep hormone.
• Avoid caffeine, nicotine and alcohol for several hours before bedtime. Caffeine is best consumed before noon. 

 
Studies show the negative health consequences of DST. 

Monday is routinely associated with more heart attacks than any other day of the week. It is known as the “Monday cardiac phenomenon.” After DST there is an additional 24% increase in heart attacks on Monday. Conversely, there is also a 21% drop in heart attacks on Tuesday following the end of DST.

There is an increase in traffic accidents and workplace injuries on Monday after DST. 

There is lost productivity after DST. Cyberloafing, surfing the web for unrelated content to work, increases after the time change. 

Judgement may be impaired.  There are studies showing increase in spending on the Monday after the time change. A study of federal courts found 5% longer sentences handed down on “sleep Monday.” Managers may find themselves doling out harsher criticisms.

Students taking a test on the Monday after DST may find a decrease in test scores. 

Our European neighbors have plans to phase out DST in 2021. The European Union has noticed these negative consequences to their population’s health and economy and are acting. Russia stopped their time changes in 2011. Asia and Africa do not change their times during the year.  

Disclaimer: This information is being provided to you for educational and informational purposes only.  It is being provided to you to educate you about healthy eating and lifestyles and as a self-help tool for your own use.  It is not medical or psychological advice.  This information is to be used at your own risk, based on your own judgment. For my full disclaimer, please go to donnakkelly.com\disclaimer