Holidays are over and you’re feeling “not so great”? Maybe a little blue? Tired? Sluggish?
You may be experiencing a “Holiday Hangover”. This is the phenomenon that occurs when you’ve been indulging a little more than usual in treats and beverages that include lotsa extra sugar, carbs, alcohol and caffeine the next morning to help you get going as your body tries to process all the damage from the day before! Here are some tips & tricks to help you recover a little better and get back on track….

Possible symptoms and signs you have a “Holiday Hangover”

• Bloating
• Gas
• Weight gain
• Fatigue
• Sleeplessness
• Congestion
• Constipation
• Skin irritation
• Headaches

What can you do about it?

• Water, water and more water…drink between 48 and 64 oz of filtered water a day. Make sure it’s a good filter so you are not getting toxins like fluoride, chlorine, bacteria and heavy metals in your water!
• Speaking of water…think about getting a shower filter. They have them at home depot and you would be surprised how much chlorine you are absorbing in your skin and breathing in through your lungs when you shower in the morning. This can make it difficult for your body to do it’s job properly and it affects your immune system and your digestion.
• Now is the time to cut sugar out of your diet…take a month off all sugars. Sugar is also included in fruit, honey, agave, many cereals, “milks” like coconut milk, rice milk (get unsweetened), salad dressings (read labels)
• Cut out soy…it affects thyroid function, metabolism and inhibits mineral absorption. Sugars throw off your mineral balance which can result in depressed moods, fatigue, irritability and hormones.
• Cut out artificial sweeteners…the chemicals in artificial sweeteners act like formaldehyde in your body and cause many problems with digestion and immune function and actually can make you gain weight as your metabolism and thyroid can’t work properly with these artificial sweeteners…they are in gum too so be careful!
• Take a month off from wheat…there are so many great substitutes out there. You can get brown rice pasta at Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods and you can even do Ezekiel bread or Alvarado Bakery bread. Even though there is wheat in those breads, as long as you don’t toast them, they are a live sprouted wheat and therefore provide the enzymes that can help your body break down and assimilate nutrients properly.
• Get enough protein! Choose organic, free range meats and have some good quality animal protein at every meal with lots of fresh veggies.
• Cut out dairy…isn’t dairy basically just mucous from a cow or goat? You will be surprised how much better you will feel without dairy! You can use unsweetened coconut milk or almond milk instead of regular milk and you don’t need cheese….really…

Bottom line…sugar, wheat, and dairy just promote yeast and/or bacteria in your body (fungus…ie candida) and once you get an overgrowth it causes many annoying symptoms like fatigue, gas, bloating, constipation, mood swings and more because these foods feed bacteria and fungus/yeast and make them grow. The first step is to address it with some dietary changes as mentioned above to help boost your immune system and starve those buggers! In some cases, that may not be enough, and it’s always good to come to a holistic health practitioner to see if you may need some additional digestive enzymes or minerals (lost in sugar consumption) to help boost your body and get it back on track. You may even be able to benefit from some homeopathics or herbal mixtures to help kill that fungus or bacteria and get it out of your body ASAP!

At MLH Wellness, we provide holistic support and solutions for many of these issues and we can create a homeopathic remedy tailor made just for your body and it’s specific needs. We utilize the Asyra PRO which
is a revolutionary software and hardware technology that gathers information about how the body is functioning and creates a unique homeopathic formula tailor made for each individual body. The Asyra PRO identifies problem areas and then pre-screens thousands of potential homeopathics for your body. It measures your body’s response and then chooses the most ideal combination of homeopathics to balance your body properly.