November’s Top Lifehacks for Eating / Drinking / Moving / & Aging Better

Oh How I love a good lifehack!

The pragmatist in me gets giddy when I find something that creates better health and/or more ease in life. Here are my top 4 picks for November:

EATING BETTER: SAKARA

For a clean, nutritional reset, I love getting a jumpstart on clean, healthy eating with Sakara. (Because …you know… sometimes it is hard to start! But ….when someone else makes it for you, it’s delicious, nutritious, and delivered to you, and it makes you feel great inside and out– well that makes it so much easier.) It’s  perfect for a wellness reboot: gluten free, dairy free, organic, non-gmo, no added sugars, plant-based.

DRINKING BETTER: DRY FARM WINES/ A HEALTHIER WAY TO DRINK WINES

Did you know that there is a healthier way to drink wine?!

I do not drink often…. I weaned myself when I started getting headaches from wine, from beer, from anything containing alcohol including Kombucha. (Yes. Really. #notproud #wimpstatus) But sometimes I do miss a great glass of vino with dinner! Or I want to have white wine with some girlfriends without losing an entire day to recover. This is why I love Dry Farm Wines: They’ve made my wine headaches disappear. There’s no added sugar, the wine is organic, there are no sulfites, no pesticides, no molds. They are all tested for purity and taste.  And I say Cheers to that. (NOTE: Some Alzheimer’s researchers advise no drinking, others no ore than 2 classes a week if any…and one Neuroscientist from Italy– she says a glass a day is fine. Know your own body…. but do consider drinking some with fewer toxins if brain health is a big priority.)

1.) They offer a 100% happiness promise on every selection. You’ll never pay for a bottle you don’t love and you’ll never need to return a single thing to us. Our goal is to help you find the wine you want to drink all the time.

2.) All of their wines are lab tested to ensure they are sugar-free,low in sulfites, and low in alcohol.

3.) Since wine requires a signature, their  2 best shipping options are a work address or local shipping store so you never have to wait at home for a signature.

What is Dry Farm Wines?

Because they are fanatical about health and taste, they only accept Natural Wines that meet their strict purity standards:

• No sugar or carbs. Some modern wines have more sugar than a liter of cola! All Dry Farm Wines have less than 1 g/L (statistically sugar-free). We celebrate wine as part of a Paleo or Keto (Low Carb) lifestyle that’s optimal for health.
• Low alcohol. Alcohol is toxic. So are water and oxygen in the wrong dose. Dosage matters. Even though alcohol content in wine has been rising on average (currently around 14%), we only accept wines with less than 12.5% alcohol. Lower alcohol wines have a more elegant taste (casual wine drinkers actually enjoy low alcohol wines more), pair better with food, and let you experience the benefits of wine (improved heart health and lower insulin response) without the adverse effects of a higher dose.
• Low in sulfites. While all wines contain some naturally-occurring sulfites, our wines are all lab tested to ensure levels below 75 ppm (the US standard is 350 ppm). Sulfites kill bacteria to stabilize a wine. The lower the sulfites, the more alive a wine remains. You can see the difference under a microscope – low-sulfite wine is vibrant with a diverse spectrum of wild bacteria and yeast.
• Curated taste. Some natural wines are funky. Because we’re fanatical about taste, we only accept wines that are clean, elegant, vibrant, and delicious expressions of what natural wine should be. Of all the wines we taste, only about 30% pass our taste and lab testing.
• Fine wines from around the world. As the largest buyer and reseller of Natural Wines in the world, we have access to the finest wines from all the incredibly diverse winemaking regions across the globe, from France to South Africa. Plus, we are uniquely capable of shipping these wines across the country.

MOVNG BETTER: CLASSPASS

I cannot say enough good things about Classpass and the variety of activities a person can partake in via the membership: From mindfulness, QiGong and Yoga to Fit Boxing, Rock Climbing, weight training, to Cross fitting…to hip hop dancing, and beyond. It’s an amazing way to vary workouts, meet new people and learn new skills– all of which keep it exciting enough for someone like me (who gets bored by working out) to keep moving!

AGING BETTER: KIRTAN KRIYA

In all of my Alzheimer’s prevention and brain health exploration, this is definitely one of the most exciting, profoundly transformative discoveries, in my opinion:

A 12 minute yogic singing meditation with enormously positive results!

It is called Kirtan Kriya, and it is a multi sensory yogic singing exercise with mudras (hand gestures) reported to enhance brain and mental health, increase longevity, and keep the mind sharp, help people live longer and better and it can help alleviate some chronic illnesses– potentially expanding not just lifespan but healthspan. If any of you are like me, and you stillstruggle with mindfulness practices that aim for stillness and an attempt at mind clearing …. this may be a well suited alernative to try.

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Its benefits for health and longevity have been recognized by the Alzheimer’s Research and Prevention Foundation, as well as UCLA.

Practiced over an eight week period, improvements on cognitive performance on memory testing improved and changes were detected on the cellular level.  A groundbreaking study at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) Semel Institute’s Longevity Center, even showed that telomerase were inceased! Those are enzymes linked to structures at the ends of our chromosomes, which affect how our cells age. In fact, telomerase was increased by 43 percent, the largest increase ever recorded.

Other benefits reported include:

• better blood flow to the brain
• decrease in depression
• inflammasion decrease
• decrease in memory loss
• increase in healthy genes

Link to research:

(UCLA) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22407663       Pub Med synopsis           Pub Med article

More info….

Click below for more from THE ALZHEIMER’S RESEARCH & PREVENTION FOUNDATION on Kritan Kriya

Kirtan Kriya Yoga Singing Exercise

An explanation from Dr. Helen Levretsky from the Semel Institute of Neuroscience and Human Behavior- UCLA Longevity Center:

Here is an animated YouTube Video that I play on my phone to utilize as an auditory (and if needed, visual) guide to cue me through the multisensory yogic exercise/meditation.

Any questions? Feel free to reach out.

Best regards,

Michelle Gillette