This Week's Health Goal: Brush Your Teeth With Your Left Hand (Or Vice Versa)

Use your opposite hand!

55% of the population is said to be strongly right-handed, 3% is strongly left-handed, and the rest fall somewhere in between. No matter which hand you might prefer, you may not know that it is actually hooked up to the opposite side of the brain. When we work with our right hand, we stimulate the left side of the brain, and vice versa. It's easy to see that many of us rarely depend on one hand as much as the other. Therefore, one side of our brain is getting less activation than the other. This week's health goal is to practice brushing your teeth with the opposite hand. While you're at it, try throwing some other activities in there as well. Try using scissors, writing, cleaning, or anything else you can think of all while using the opposite hand and see how you do!

Why does this benefit you?

By using both hands, you actually help to connect the left and right side hemispheres of the brain. Experts say that people who use both hands increase the size of their corpus callosum by 9%. The corpus callosum is the part of the brain that connects the two hemispheres together. When practicing new movements, we can also increase and strengthen new and current neural pathways in the brain. It's good for our brain to continuously be challenged and learn new things. Let us know what activities you try this week with the opposite hand and have fun!

yours in health,

dr samantha boldt

This Week's Health Goal: Foam Roll Every Day!

This Week's Health Goal: Foam Roll for 5 Minutes Every Day!

Foam rolling is a fantastic way to release tight and sore muscles. Using a foam roller is essentially a very affordable way to give yourself a deep tissue massage. It helps to break up adhesions and any scar tissue that has formed in the area. The iliotibial band (lateral thigh) is one of the most common areas people use a foam roller on. However, there are multiple areas you can roll out in order to decrease tension throughout the body.

The upper and lower back, calves, and quadriceps are all areas that tend to tighten up easily. Place the foam roller in one of these areas and use your body weight to put pressure on top of it. Either roll back and forth, or for especially tight areas, you can apply constant pressure until you feel the muscle relax. At the end of the week, you'll feel like a new person!

yours in health,

dr samantha boldt

This week's health goal: Gargle With Salt Water

This Week's Health Goal: Gargle 

With Salt Water

One of the easiest and most effective ways to maintain a healthy mouth is to do a simple salt rinse. It combats gingivitis, bad breath, sore throats, and will also help sores heal faster. 

How does it do all of this? Salt temporarily increases the pH of your mouth to create an alkaline environment. This makes it hard for bacteria to survive. Salt water is also an isotonic solution, meaning it contains the same concentrations of salts in our body. Therefore, it doesn't irritate the mucous membranes of our mouth like other medicinal mouthwashes, and can be a very gentle way of keeping the mouth clean. 

From a maintenance standpoint of view, you can safely do a salt rinse three to four times a week. Salt rinsing every day risks weakening the enamel of the teeth. However, when you have a sore throat or are recovering from oral surgery, doing a salt rinse three to four times a day will help your mouth and throat heal faster. 

How to Make a Salt Water Solution

4 ounces of warm water

1/2 tsp of sea salt (or table salt)

1 tsp baking soda (optional)

Swirl the solution in your mouth for 30 seconds 

and then spit it out!

yours in health,

dr samantha boldt

This Week's Health Goal: Get Organized!

This Week's Health Goal: Get Organized!

Clutter can lead to creativity, but the research shows that it can also lead to anxiety, fatigue, weight gain, and decreased health overall. So it's time to get organized! Becoming a more organized person isn't a task that needs to be done all at once. We want to focus on little steps that can move us in the right direction.

There are two main areas of organization in our life. The first is physical, so things like our bedroom, office, garage, etc. The second is mental. Are we clearly able to organize our thoughts or do we have so much going on up there that we tend to forget things? Both physical organization and mental organization are important in maintaining overall health.

This week, spend 5 minutes a day working on organization. You can start by going through that stack of papers that hasn't been touched in 3 months, or taking a few minutes out of every day to write down the different thoughts going through your brain. Below are a few different ways in each category to help you organize your life!

Physical Organization:

-If you carry around a purse, wallet, backpack, or briefcase, spend some time this week pulling everything out and only putting back in the necessities. Everything pulled out needs a home, whether it's the garbage or a folder in your house.

-Go through the papers in your office and make folders for all of the different categories these papers fall under. You don't have to worry about throwing anything away.....yet. However, by starting this process, you will most likely find that some things can very easily be discarded.

-Pick a clothes drawer or part of your closet and go through it for a few minutes each day. Decide what you want to keep, what can be donated, and what should just be thrown away.

Mental Organization:

-Spend 5 minutes everyday jotting down notes of the thoughts or ideas that you had. By actually writing them down, your brain is able to interpret things in a different way and more easily able to decide what is important and what is not.

-TO-DO list: Write out your to-do list every morning, anything and everything that you can think of, and then circle the top three most important ones. Know that the other ones are still on the paper, so you don't even have to think about remembering them until your three most important tasks are done.

-Make decisions: Making decisions is hard, and we have all put it off at some time or another. Every day, take one thing that you have been putting off making a decision on, and sit down until that decision is made. You can make a pros and cons list or use the WRAP method, but don't move on to something else until that decision is made!

yours in health,

dr samantha boldt

This week's health goal: Get Spicy!

This week's health goal: Get Spicy!

No, we don't mean the hot kind of spicy (not that you can't), but you SHOULD experiment with different herbs and spices in your kitchen. Many of these plants are not only tasty, but they also have multiple health benefits. For example, cumin has shown to be anti-inflammatory while also aiding in digestion and helping to regulate the immune system! 

Below we have listed a few spices and herbs commonly found in different cultures. If you're in the mood for something Indian, try adding in turmeric, cumin, and red pepper. If you're in the mood for Moroccan, put clove, cinnamon, and paprika in your dish. You can add as few or as many spices as you want! So get spicy this week, all the while knowing that you're doing something amazing for your body!

Chinese: Anise, Szechuan Peppercorn, Fennel, Cassia, and Clove

Indian: Turmeric, Coriander, Cumin, Fenugreek, and Red pepper

Latin American: Chile, Paprika, Cumin, and Mexican Oregano

Mediterranean: Basil, Bay Leaf, Chervil, Dill, Fennel, Marjoram, Mint, Oregano, Rosemary, Sage, and Thyme

Moroccan: Cardamom, Clove, Cinnamon, Coriander, Cumin, Paprika, Mace, Peppercorn, and Turmeric

Thai: Basil, Black pepper, Cardamom, Chile peppers, Cilantro, Cloves, Cumin, Garlic, Ginger, Lemongrass, Turmeric, and White Pepper

yours in health,

dr samantha boldt

Sweet and Tangy Chicken

Sweet and Tangy Chicken

Today, we are making sweet and tangy chicken! Surprisingly, for as many steps as were in this recipe, there weren't too many mistakes. The chicken also turned out to be quite yummy! We would definitely make this recipe again! This recipe comes from Recipes for Repair - A Lyme Disease Cookbook by Gail and Laura Piazza. 

Ingredients:

2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped

4 large garlic cloves, peeled

2 large chicken breasts with skin and bones, cut in half

1/2 tsp sea salt

2 sprigs rosemary

2 sprigs thyme

2 Tbsp honey

3 Tbsp raw apple cider vinegar

3 Tbsp water or chicken stock

1 Tbsp mustard

1/2-1 cup of water (optional if chicken looks like it is becoming dry)

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

2. Heat the oil in a heavy-bottomed frying pan over medium-high heat for about 2 minutes.

3. Add the onion and saute for 2 minutes.

4. Add the garlic and saute for 1 minute.

5. Remove the onion and garlic from the pan and reserve for later use.

6. Season the skin of the chicken with salt and pepper and add the chicken to the hot pan, skin side down. Cook for 3 minutes, or until browned. Then, turn the chicken and cook for 3 minutes.

7. Add the rosemary and thyme to the pan. (We didn't have sprigs, so we just used fresh rosemary and thyme.)

8. Combine the honey, vinegar, water or stock (just the 3 Tbsp here) and mustard, and stir the mixture into the chicken.

9. Return the onions and garlic to the pan and stir well.

10. Place the pan in the preheated oven and cook for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, check to see if the sauce has become too thick and syrupy; if it has, stir in the remaining 1/2-1 cup water. (Our sauce was already very watery, so we did not add any more. We ended up using chicken thighs instead of chicken breasts and think that is why everything was so juicy!)

11. Turn the chicken breasts and cook for 15 minutes, or until the chicken is nicely browned.

12. Remove the rosemary and thyme sprigs. If the sauce is still too thick, stir in a little more water.

13. Place the chicken on a serving platter and top with the sauce.

This recipe was delicious! Our sauce was very watery and there was definitely no thickness to it, but I don't think that affected the taste at all. However, next time we will use chicken breasts instead of thighs and see if that makes a difference. Good luck and enjoy!

yours in health,

dr samantha boldt

This week's health goal: Try a new vegetable!

This week's health goal: Try a new vegetable!

Most of us know that we should be eating more veggies. If I have a patient coming in with a health issue, and especially for anyone with an autoimmune disease, chances are I've told them they need to consume 6-9 servings of vegetables a day. While most of them look at me like I've just declared that I'm an alien from Mars, some of them really take this idea to heart and receive fantastic health benefits from it. While quantity is great, quantity and variety are fantastic! This week, however, we will focus on that variety part......by trying just one new vegetable you have never eaten before.

Eating a variety of vegetables gives us a greater amount of phytonutrients. Phytonutrients are beneficial compounds found in plants that haven't been classified as a vitamin or mineral. Some examples include flavonoids, resveratrol, and carotenoids. Many phytonutrients are anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, or act as an antioxidant. The more colorful and diverse are vegetable intake is, the more of these benefits we receive!

If you're at a loss for a vegetable to try, here are a few great ones that most people haven't heard of.....or at least haven't eaten before.

•   Jicama
•   Salsify
•  Dalkon
•  Kohlrabi
•  Sunflower Sprouts

yours in health,

dr samantha boldt