Aid for Morning Sickness

Welcome to "Old Wives Tale Tuesday!"  I've got quite a few friends battling morning sickness lately, and I thought I would share a few things that I have learned and/or used over the years to help with that special time of pregnancy.

Let's start with WATER... being dehydrated is, in my experience, the number one reason for morning sickness, followed closely by constipation.  My mom always told me that pregnancy is a natural part of life and as such, it shouldn't stop us from living a mostly normal life (of course you should listen to what your doctor or midwife tells you first).  She would go on to say that if it did then we should look at what we were doing on a consistent basis that could be causing the discomfort. When ever I started to feel nauseous I would think about how much water I had been drinking and then reflect on how long it had been since I had a good bowel movement. 100% of the time I was not doing well in either area.

Pregnancy and Peppermint.  I love using peppermint (or spearmint if you have high blood pressure) for so many things during pregnancy.  It eases morning sickness by relaxing headaches and relieving gas.  One cup of peppermint tea in the morning and after meals can drastically reduce nausea.  It does this by naturally stimulating the digestive system to move things along and hydrating both mommy and baby.  Putting a drop of essential oil on the wrists, ear lobes, back of the neck, or rubbing into the palms of the hands and cupping over the mouth and nose while breathing in brings alertness to sleepy mommies to be.

Dr. Christopher's Lower Bowel formula.  Let's face it, most pregnant women battle constipation during pregnancy.  This is due to the higher levels of hormones which slow the digestive process and leads to constipation.  Some people recommend Psyllium, but there are so many mixed beliefs about this product that I just don't go there.  Lower Bowel is designed to give you a temporary boost until your body can start taking care of things on its own again.  Dr. Christopher designed all of his products so that your body would not become dependent on them, that's part of what I love about his stuff.

Ginger.  This is my last resort aid for anything.  For some reason, I just really don't like Ginger, in any form...but a lot of people really swear by it for pregnancy.  they say that it is a good replacement for peppermint if you can't use it for any reason, and does so many amazing things...but I dislike it so much that I have blocked all of the good things from my memory.  Just know that if you are pregnant and you like Ginger (as a spice), then you should eat a lot of it, as often as you can.

One day when I am on a computer that is a little faster than a toddler walking to the mail box, I will come back through and add fun pictures and a link to find lower bowel.  If you have heard of any other traditions to ease morning sickness that are not included here please add it to the comments.  We'd love to know.  You never know when something that you say might be the only thing that can help someone reading this.

Mastering the Mundane

This water challenge really is just that...a challenge!  I did pretty good for a few days and then life got busier and as my routine changed so did my success with the challenge.  I love that other people are doing this challenge with me.  Each of you have been a motivation for me to keep trying.  Waking up with the sun was tough (for a night owl like me)...but it was easy in the fact that I only had to add 1 thing to my day.  Drinking a gallon of water a day changes things because I can't just drink the entire gallon in one sitting (maybe some of you can, but I need to pace myself).  It involves adding several things to my day.  I tell you, drinking water for me, normally, used to happen only when I first woke up in the morning or if I was thirsty throughout the day (which wasn't very often), and even then I only swallowed enough to quench the thirst...so drinking a gallon is a really big step up.

On a recent trip to Utah, AJ and I listened to a book on tape (CD, haha) called "The Slight Edge."  It talks about how really successful people are those people who can "Master the mundane things in life." They are talking about everyday things that have to be done all the time...the really boring things that seem endless, like washing the dishes, sweeping the floor, washing the laundry, etc,.  Even before we heard this CD we were attempting to do this by creating a chart of things to do before bed and first thing in the morning.  Many of you were probably raised with a similar chore chart.  How many of us are constantly striving to survive the mundane tasks of life?

After being forced to watch the classic movie "Gone With the Wind," AJ compared me to Scarlet O'Hara, saying that I am similar to her with my passion for life and undying determination to succeed at whatever I undertake.  I hope I'm not too much like her, because she wasn't very nice to people when she wanted something and they stood in the way.  The good news is that I married for love the first time and won't have to go through 3 men to figure out that what I have wanted all along is right in front of me, haha.  The take home lesson is that when he said that it made me think about what I can do to be more successful with this challenge.  I have to master the mundane parts of it.  I believe that if I can master it, or make it second nature I will be successful, and it will give me the keys that I need to be successful at the next challenges that come my way.

If you have any ideas on how I can "Master the Mundane" of this water challenge, please leave your comments below.  If you are doing the challenge with me I would love to hear how you are doing!

A Gallon of WATER a Day...Start slowly.

I did it!!! Drinking a gallon of water every day is not the easiest task to undertake when you are used to drinking 8 to 16 ounces of water per day.  A good thing to keep in mind is to start slowly but to stay focused.  It's okay if you aren't able to drink the full gallon for the first few days.  It may take a few days to get your body accustomed to that much water.  It wants it, but might not know what to do with so much so quickly (if you aren't already drinking that much). My advice is don't take 3 weeks procrastinating before you start, Just do it! Measure out your water and get started early in the morning.  The more you can drink before noon, the more likely you will be to succeed.  Yesterday I realized about 5:00 pm that I still had over half a gallon to go so I tried my best (finishing 3/4ths of the way by midnight), but paid dearly for it in the night.  Between Charlie teething, Amelia kicking our heads (because she is sleeping in our bed while her room is under re-construction), and getting up to empty my bladder every half hour, I feel like I slept about an hour total.  Today I was bound and determined to be better.

I set a timer for Amelia (potty training) and every time I took her in to try I drank a glass of water while we waited.  She is doing much better with the training and I finished my gallon of water before midnight.  In fact, Amelia had a perfect record today...until I typed that last line while she was tugging on my arm to take her to bed.  Focused on writing my blog it took a moment for me to realize that the trickling water sound was not a soothing waterfall made up in my imagination, it was a sweet little girl who forgot to go potty because mom forgot to set the timer.  Tomorrow is a new day.  AND tomorrow is the first day of class for a new set of students.  YAHOO for more foot zoners in Arizona!  This is a great group and we have one more opening in class, if you know anyone who wants to join us, let me know.

Time for a new challenge!

Waking up with the sun turned out to be a fantastic challenge for me.  I've never been a big morning person. I wasn't really the type to sleep in late, but you could be sure that I wouldn't wake up before 7:30am unless prodded with something much like a pitchfork.  I was able the wake up with the sun every day for 21 days and I feel like I may have become a morning person (I'm not fully convinced yet, haha).  We have been on vacation for a few days now and although the room is completely dark when the sun rises I am still finding myself waking up around 6am.  Not quite with the sun, the room darkening curtains throw things off a bit, but I will get back into the groove in a few days.  I knew that my 21 days were up but what I didn't realize was that I had gone an extra week.  I began the challenge on April 14th and today is May 14th...Where does the time go???

It is definitely time for a new challenge.  I have so many things that I teach that I want to explore further that it was a challenge to try to put them into priority.  It was obvious to me that the next one should be focusing on water because I am ALWAYS telling my clients "Water is the cheapest medicine", and everything in foot zoning and life seems to come back to the importance of water.  Do you know how many strange things happen to you if you are not drinking enough water?  We will be getting into some of them, and you might just be surprised.  Just the other day a client came to me with a myriad of complaints thinking that he had a very serious illness and through discussing his habits we realized that he was actually dehydrated.  For him I recommended the book "You're Not Sick, You're Thirsty."

Drinking water has not been a strong point for me and I definitely need a kick in the pants to get my act together with drinking water.  I have learned that the average person needs to drink half their body weight in ounces...but as a good rule of thumb I think the average person should drink a gallon of water a day...so that is the challenge.  For the next 21 days I challenge myself to drink 1 gallon, or more, of water everyday.