Eirflower Wellness

What is optimum health? What does it mean to be "well"? These are loaded questions and aren't easily answered. Health and Wellness aren't a destination, but a journey. It isn't as if you get to a point and you say, "oh, I'm healthy, I can stop now." Your health is constantly evolving and changing and that makes it hard to answer. Not only is your own body changing, but the science is changing as well. Years ago, low fat was the answer. Now, we know that some fat is good and is an important part of our diet. Who knows what we will learn in the future?  While health and wellness can be overwhelming, it's important not to dwell on the minutia. So, let's take a deep breath and learn some basic things that you can do to increase your health.   Take In Vital Nutrients One of the most important parts of nutrition is, nutrients! Yes, you could focus on making sure that you have exactly 78 grams of protein per day and 1000 mg of calcium while making s...

Microbiome is a new buzzword that is being said all over, but what does it really mean? And why should you care?  The microbiome technically means a habitat for bacteria, but is more commonly referring to the bacteria that live inside of your digestive system. There is so much to learn about the microbiome, and it is a relatively new science. This means that everything we know is rapidly changing as more research is done. One new thing that is really cool is that you have many different microbiomes within your body! The one in your gut is currently the most popular, but there is a completely different set of bacteria that live on your skin, and different ones that live in your heart!  The most mind-boggling thing that I have learned about the microbiome is that the number of bacteria that live in your body actually outnumber the amount of human cells you have by 10 to 1! You are technically really only 1/10th human! For clarification, this refers to the number of cells, not ma...

If your body was High School, the Brain would be Valedictorian, the Heart would be the Quarterback, the Lungs would be the Cheerleaders, the Liver would be the Cool Guy who has all the parties. But, the Kidneys would be the nerds. Yup. The ones that do all the hard work, but never actually get the credit. The little guys in the back of the room, picked last for Dodgeball, but are secretly endurance machines? That's the kidneys.   The main function of the kidneys is to filter out blood and create urine. That sounds really simple, right? NOPE! There is so much more to your kidneys. Only about the size of your palm, or a computer mouse, but there is a lot packed inside.  The kidneys are located in the back of your body, just below your rib cage. The right kidney is slightly lower and a little smaller because the liver sits right above it. They are just the start of your urinary system (one of the reasons they get picked last for dodgeball), which is another story altogether. They...