6 Herbs to Help Boost Your Brain Power

If you want to join the ranks of the smartest people alive today, you might be able to get a little edge from taking some natural brain power-boosting herbs. Only .05% of people have recorded IQs of over 140. If you want to have the brilliance of Stephen Hawking or the intellectual gusto of Kim Ung-Yong who was auditing college courses at the ripe old age of 4, you can try these 6 plants to get those brain cells charged up and ready to fire:

1. & 2. PERIWINKLE & GINSENG

Both of these herbs improve cognitive function. They have both been studied by researchers at the University of Northumbria in Tyne, England, and can be used together to boost cognitive abilities. Ginseng is great as an alternative to synthetic medications (like those prescribed for ADHD or ADD). It is also known to possess compounds that help protect us from radiation.

3. VINCRISTINE

Extracted from Periwinkle as a natural constituent,vincristine is one of the most powerful anticancer drugs in the world. In fact, it has significantly increased the survival rate for acute childhood leukemia; however, periwinkle’s vincsristine also offers huge positive neuro-cognitive effects, and even reduces brain tumors.

4. GOTU KOLA

While this herb is said to boost brain power in general, gotu kola is also considered to be an adaptogen, which means it lowers stress. Stress has an incredibly abhorrent affect on our brain’s ability to process information and to see things clearly –acting rapidly via catecholamines and more slowly via glucocorticoids. Catecholamine actions involve beta adrenergic receptors and also availability of glucose, whereas glucocorticoids biphasically modulate synaptic plasticity over hours and also produce longer-term changes in dendritic structure that last for weeks – dumbing us down, essentially, with every shallow breath and wrinkled eye-brow. Gotu Kola can help to minimize this reaction and

5. SMELLING ROSEMARY

A team of scientists from the University of Northumbria, UK, has discovered that one of the active essential oils which gives rosemary its favorable scent improves speed and accuracy when performing certain mental tasks. Thanks to 8-cineole, the main chemical constituent in the plant, we can score higher on tests and just function better mentally on a daily basis from smelling the herb. In fact, the higher the levels of 8-cineole in the Rosemary bush, the higher the test scores as evidenced in the journal Therapeutic Advances in Psychopharmacology. Needless to say, boosting the brain is just one of many rosemary benefits.

6. GINKGO BILOBA

This herb actually helps to regenerate brain cells. While the research isn’t conclusive, numerous studies have found this herb to be beneficial for improving memory and adding intellectual zeal. If you are taking blood thinning medications; however, you should check with your doctor before ingesting since the herb can cause brain bleeding if used in connection with blood thinners. Otherwise, the herb is perfectly safe and has been used for millennia. It is at least 250 million years old. Now, that’s a smart tree!

(Yes, we know simply consuming these herbs won’t literally make you a genius).

Source: NaturalSociety

Related Article:

10 Habits That Decrease Brain Function

Power of the Heart: Positive Emotions Prolong Health

"Natural forces within us are the true healers of disease."–Hippocrates

As far back as the middle of the last century, it was recognized that the heart "overtaxed by constant emotional influences or excessive physical effort and thus deprived of its appropriate rest" suffers disorders of function and becomes vulnerable to disease (Hilton, 1863). An early editorial on the relationships between mind and heart accepted the proposition that in about half of patients, heart failure was precipitated by gross emotional upsets. Current research suggests that the progression of a number of diseases is influenced by the consequences of carrying effort beyond physiological tolerance into a condition of depletion and exhaustion that leads to dysregulation of the autonomic nervous system.

Top 10 Lessons from Bruce Lee

• Be YOUR best.  It’s not about following in someone else’s footsteps or trying to be somebody you’re not.  It’s about unleashing your best version of yourself.  According to Bruce, “Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it.”
• Absorb what is useful.  It’s not about blindly adopting patterns and practices.  It’s about taking the best of the best and tailoring it.  It’s also about throwing away what doesn’t work.  Bruce borrowed concepts and techniques from everybody and every art in a relentless pursuit of the best of the best.  According to Bruce, “Absorb what is useful, Discard what is not, Add what is uniquely your own.”

5 Mind Blowing Uses for Hemp

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Industrial hemp has been used for thousands of years to make everything from Food to Clothing. but lets get somethings cleared up first. Hemp and Marijuana are two different strains of the Cannabis plant, while Marijuana is harvested for its flowers high THC content which provided the psychoactive effect desired, Hemp is harvested for its stock and their fibers and has a very low THC content. In fact it would literally take 1 ton of hemp to get a psychoactive effect, and lets be honest, if you’re trying to smoke a ton of hemp, you have a lot more problems than trying to get high.

Hemp can be used to make thousands of different products, but here are five that are simply MIND-BLOWING:


1. Paper
This you’ve probably heard of, but hemp is such an ideal plant for making paper and has been used that reason for the past 2,000 years. reasons for it’s low production in today’s market (0.05%) range from propaganda instigated by the timber industry to the age of the processing equipment being so out of date that it would be several times more expensive to make.

However hemp is a far better and quicker source for renewable and sustainable pulp for paper. Hemp grows from seed to harvest with in a few months, where as in trees can take 30 years of more to be ready to be made into paper. Government studies report that the paper made from 1 acre of hemp, is the equivalent to 4.1 acres of trees to make the same amount of paper

DID YOU KNOW?
In 1916, the U.S. Government predicted that by the 1940′s all paper would come from hemp and that no more trees would need to be cut down.

Imagine that!
If we as a collective society decide that we rather buy hemp paper rather than tree paper, we could SAVE and REPLANT the worlds forests!

2. Building Supplies
Of all the uses for hemp, a real Mind-Opener is all the different sorts of building materials it provides:

Hemp based materials can replace wood and other materials used to build homes and other structures including foundations, walls, shingles, paneling, pipes, and paint. You can make it into insulation as companies in the Netherlands and Ireland are already doing. Hemp can even be used to make ‘hempcrete’, a stronger, lighter, and more environmentally friendly version of concrete, which is lightweight, waterproof, fireproof, self-insulating and resistant to pests..


Houses built from hemp have been found to use less energy, create less waste and take less fuel to heat than conventionally constructed homes.

3. Plastics
Just about everything we buy has some form of plastic involved in the product. Almost everything is wrapped in cellophane and our landfills are littered with them. Standard plastic is made from fossil fuels using very toxic chemicals. From packaging to toys, a myriad of alternatives to plastic can be made from hemp.

 

In 1941, Henry Ford held a media event where he swung an axe at a prototype car body made of hemp and other plant material to prove its strength. The technology was never put into mass production, cars continued to be made of steel, and plastics made from petrochemicals became the norm. Possibly because of the monopolies Carnegie Steel and Rockefeller’s Standard Oil had on the marketplace.

 

... and if that’s too retro for you, here’s a car made by Lotus in 2008, almost completely made out of hemp materials.

4. Fuel
Yes, hemp can even be used to make bio-fuel!

Just like many other vegetable oil, hemp oil can be processed into bio-diesel Unlike fossil fuels, hemp fuel is renewable and produces significantly less carbon monoxide. It also stands to reason that hemp could also be utilized to make liquid fuels that are chemically identical to petroleum-based gasoline as well.

However there still are the concerns of converting the amount of land needed that could be used for hemp production, but the bio-diesel is certainly a viable option. 
 

5. Chemical Cleanup
One of the most intriguing uses for hemp its ability to clean up up soil contamination. In 1998 industrial hemp was tested at the site of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine to help heal the soil. by planting in to the ground in Chernobyl, hemp helped to remove radioactive elements and heavy metals from soil and water in the contaminated area. Because of its fast rate of growing each season, up to 250-400 plants per square meter each up to 15 feet tall, hemp shows good potential in cleaning up land contaminated with fly ash, sewage sludge, or other heavy metals.


Food for Thought: The reason for the under utilization of all these amazing uses for hemp is due to other industries efforts in suppressing this information in the hopes of their product continuing to thrive. But in the age of the internet, we are seeing that these previous industries are not sustainable and are ruining our planet. However something we forget is that these harmful industries thrive because we buy their products, if we all petitioned for and bought more hemp products, the marketplace will turn it’s way. Remember, together we are powerful enough to change anything.

Source: http://www.mindopenerz.com

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It’s Not a Fairytale: Seattle to Build Nation’s First Food Forest

1 Man Produced 6,000 Pounds of Food on 1/10 Acre. Here's How

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Man with Stage 3 Colon Cancer Rejects Chemotherapy & Cures Himself with Vegan Diet

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In this short video Chris Wark tells how he rejected chemotherapy and cured himself with a raw vegan diet. “If you don’t do chemotherapy you’re insane.” -Chris Wark’s doctor

Chris Wark shares his short and powerful story of how he rejected chemotherapy and survived stage 3 colon cancer.

Chris was diagnosed with Stage 3 colon cancer in 2003, at only 26 years of age. Against his doctor’s advice, he refused chemotherapy as a treatment and went on to clear any remaining cancer from his body by strengthening his immune system with raw plant foods and natural therapies.

Consuming organic whole grains, beans and vegetables rather than processed foods (often filled with toxic chemicals) provides an alternative method to curing cancer. Unfortunately, raw plant foods and natural therapies receive almost zero attention from the medical industry due to its inability to generate a profit.

As a multi-billion dollar industry, the booming business of chemotherapy drowns out the organic and healthy advantages of using a vegan diet as a way to counteract the fatal disease of cancer. And despite providing a cure only 2.1% of the time for adult cancer patients in the United States, chemotherapy is still the number one treatment used. A healthy diet and more specifically a plant based diet can prevent over 60% of chronic disease deaths. However, those diagnosed with cancer continue to be heavily encouraged by doctors, family and peers to seek mainstream treatments like chemotherapy.

At the top of the list of organic food products to consume when attempting to cure cancer are raw fruits and vegetables but in particular tomatoes and dark coloured fruit or veggies such as the purple cabbage or grapes.

For a hot drink in the morning and at night, green tea or hot water with a teaspoon of powered barley grass are highly recommended.
The decision to pursue alternative therapies is never an easy one as the intense pressure from friends, family and society to undertake the mainstream option of chemotherapy is often overpowering.

Pursuing a plant based vegan diet can not only cure cancer within you but also dramatically decrease the chances of cancer, or any other chronic disease, ever surfacing again.

Source

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USDA Forces Whole Foods To Accept Monsanto

**USDA Forces Whole Foods To Accept Monsanto**

“The policy set for GE alfalfa will most likely guide policies for other GE crops as well. True coexistence is a must.” - Whole Foods Market, Jan. 21, 2011

In the wake of a 12-year battle to keep Monsanto’s Genetically Engineered (GE) crops from contaminating the nation’s 25,000 organic farms and ranches, America’s organic consumers and producers are facing betrayal. A self-appointed cabal of the Organic Elite, spearheaded by Whole Foods Market, Organic Valley, and Stonyfield Farm, has decided it’s time to surrender to Monsanto. Top executives from these companies have publicly admitted that they no longer oppose the mass commercialization of GE crops, such as Monsanto’s controversial Roundup Ready alfalfa, and are prepared to sit down and cut a deal for “coexistence” with Monsanto and USDA biotech cheerleader Tom Vilsack.

In a cleverly worded, but profoundly misleading email sent to its customers last week, Whole Foods Market, while proclaiming their support for organics and “seed purity,” gave the green light to USDA bureaucrats to approve the “conditional deregulation” of Monsanto’s genetically engineered, herbicide-resistant alfalfa. Beyond the regulatory euphemism of “conditional deregulation,” this means that WFM and their colleagues are willing to go along with the massive planting of a chemical and energy-intensive GE perennial crop, alfalfa; guaranteed to spread its mutant genes and seeds across the nation; guaranteed to contaminate the alfalfa fed to organic animals; guaranteed to lead to massive poisoning of farm workers and destruction of the essential soil food web by the toxic herbicide, Roundup; and guaranteed to produce Roundup-resistant superweeds that will require even more deadly herbicides such as 2,4 D to be sprayed on millions of acres of alfalfa across the U.S.



“compensation.” In exchange for a new assault on farmworkers and rural communities (a recent large-scale Swedish study found that spraying Roundup doubles farm workers’ and rural residents’ risk of getting cancer), WFM expects the pro-biotech USDA to begin to regulate rather than cheerlead for Monsanto. In payment for a new broad spectrum attack on the soil’s crucial ability to provide nutrition for food crops and to sequester dangerous greenhouse gases (recent studies show that Roundup devastates essential soil microorganisms that provide plant nutrition and sequester climate-destabilizing greenhouse gases), WFM wants the Biotech Bully of St. Louis to agree to pay “compensation” (i.e. hush money) to farmers “for any losses related to the contamination of his crop.”

In its email of Jan. 21, 2011 WFM calls for “public oversight by the USDA rather than reliance on the biotechnology industry,” even though WFM knows full well that federal regulations on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) do not require pre-market safety testing, nor labeling; and that even federal judges have repeatedly ruled that so-called government “oversight” of Frankencrops such as Monsanto’s sugar beets and alfalfa is basically a farce. At the end of its email, WFM admits that its surrender to Monsanto is permanent: “The policy set for GE alfalfa will most likely guide policies for other GE crops as well True coexistence is a must.”

Why Is Organic Inc. Surrendering?

According to informed sources, the CEOs of WFM and Stonyfield are personal friends of former Iowa governor, now USDA Secretary, Tom Vilsack, and in fact made financial contributions to Vilsack’s previous electoral campaigns. Vilsack was hailed as “Governor of the Year” in 2001 by the Biotechnology Industry Organization, and traveled in a Monsanto corporate jet on the campaign trail. Perhaps even more fundamental to Organic Inc.’s abject surrender is the fact that the organic elite has become more and more isolated from the concerns and passions of organic consumers and locavores.

The Organic Inc. CEOs are tired of activist pressure, boycotts, and petitions. Several of them have told me this to my face. They apparently believe that the battle against GMOs has been lost, and that it’s time to reach for the consolation prize. The consolation prize they seek is a so-called “coexistence” between the biotech Behemoth and the organic community that will lull the public to sleep and greenwash the unpleasant fact that Monsanto’s unlabeled and unregulated genetically engineered crops are now spreading their toxic genes on 1/3 of U.S. (and 1/10 of global) crop land.

WFM and most of the largest organic companies have deliberately separated themselves from anti-GMO efforts and cut off all funding to campaigns working to label or ban GMOs. The so-called Non-GMO Project, funded by Whole Foods and giant wholesaler United Natural Foods (UNFI) is basically a greenwashing effort (although the 100% organic companies involved in this project seem to be operating in good faith) to show that certified organic foods are basically free from GMOs (we already know this since GMOs are banned in organic production), while failing to focus on so-called “natural” foods, which constitute most of WFM and UNFI’s sales and are routinely contaminated with GMOs.

From their “business as usual” perspective, successful lawsuits against GMOs filed by public interest groups such as the Center for Food Safety; or noisy attacks on Monsanto by groups like the Organic Consumers Association, create bad publicity, rattle their big customers such as Wal-Mart, Target, Kroger, Costco, Supervalu, Publix and Safeway; and remind consumers that organic crops and foods such as corn, soybeans, and canola are slowly but surely becoming contaminated by Monsanto’s GMOs.

Whole Foods’ Dirty Little Secret: Most of the So-Called “Natural” Processed Foods and Animal Products They Sell Are Contaminated with GMOs

The main reason, however, why Whole Foods is pleading for coexistence with Monsanto, Dow, Bayer, Syngenta, BASF and the rest of the biotech bullies, is that they desperately want the controversy surrounding genetically engineered foods and crops to go away. Why? Because they know, just as we do, that 2/3 of WFM’s $9 billion annual sales is derived from so-called “natural” processed foods and animal products that are contaminated with GMOs. We and our allies have tested their so-called “natural” products (no doubt WFM’s lab has too) containing non-organic corn and soy, and guess what: they’re all contaminated with GMOs, in contrast to their certified organic products, which are basically free of GMOs, or else contain barely detectable trace amounts.




Approximately 2/3 of the products sold by Whole Foods Market and their main distributor, United Natural Foods (UNFI) are not certified organic, but rather are conventional (chemical-intensive and GMO-tainted) foods and products disguised as “natural.”

Unprecedented wholesale and retail control of the organic marketplace by UNFI and Whole Foods, employing a business model of selling twice as much so-called “natural” food as certified organic food, coupled with the takeover of many organic companies by multinational food corporations such as Dean Foods, threatens the growth of the organic movement.

Covering Up GMO Contamination: Perpetrating “Natural” Fraud

Many well-meaning consumers are confused about the difference between conventional products marketed as “natural,” and those nutritionally/ environmentally superior and climate-friendly products that are “certified organic.”

Retail stores like WFM and wholesale distributors like UNFI have failed to educate their customers about the qualitative difference between natural and certified organic, conveniently glossing over the fact that nearly all of the processed “natural” foods and products they sell contain GMOs, or else come from a “natural” supply chain where animals are force-fed GMO grains in factory farms or Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs).

A troubling trend in organics today is the calculated shift on the part of certain large formerly organic brands from certified organic ingredients and products to so-called “natural” ingredients. With the exception of the “grass-fed and grass-finished” meat sector, most “natural” meat, dairy, and eggs are coming from animals reared on GMO grains and drugs, and confined, entirely, or for a good portion of their lives, in CAFOs.

Whole Foods and UNFI are maximizing their profits by selling quasi-natural products at premium organic prices. Organic consumers are increasingly left without certified organic choices while genuine organic farmers and ranchers continue to lose market share to “natural” imposters. It’s no wonder that less than 1% of American farmland is certified organic, while well-intentioned but misled consumers have boosted organic and “natural” purchases to $80 billion annually-approximately 12% of all grocery store sales.

The Solution: Truth-in-Labeling Will Enable Consumers to Drive So-Called “Natural” GMO and CAFO-Tainted Foods Off the Market

There can be no such thing as “coexistence” with a reckless industry that undermines public health, destroys biodiversity, damages the environment, tortures and poisons animals, destabilizes the climate, and economically devastates the world’s 1.5 billion seed-saving small farmers.

There is no such thing as coexistence between GMOs and organics in the European Union. Why? Because in the EU there are almost no GMO crops under cultivation, nor GM consumer food products on supermarket shelves. And why is this? Because under EU law, all foods containing GMOs or GMO ingredients must be labeled. Consumers have the freedom to choose or not to choose GMOs; while farmers, food processors, and retailers have (at least legally) the right to lace foods with GMOs, as long as they are safety-tested and labeled.

Of course the EU food industry understands that consumers, for the most part, do not want to purchase or consume GE foods. European farmers and food companies, even junk food purveyors like McDonald’s and Wal-Mart, understand quite well the concept expressed by a Monsanto executive when GMOs first came on the market: “If you put a label on genetically engineered food you might as well put a skull and crossbones on it.”

The biotech industry and Organic Inc. are supremely conscious of the fact that North American consumers, like their European counterparts, are wary and suspicious of GMO foods. Even without a PhD, consumers understand you don’t want your food safety or environmental sustainability decisions to be made by out-of-control chemical companies like Monsanto, Dow, or Dupont – the same people who brought you toxic pesticides, Agent Orange, PCBs, and now global warming.



Industry leaders are acutely aware of the fact that every single industry or government poll over the last 16 years has shown that 85-95% of American consumers want mandatory labels on GMO foods. Why? So that we can avoid buying them. GMO foods have absolutely no benefits for consumers or the environment, only hazards. This is why Monsanto and their friends in the Bush, Clinton, and Obama administrations have prevented consumer GMO truth-in-labeling laws from getting a public discussion in Congress.

Although Congressman Dennis Kucinich (Democrat, Ohio) recently introduced a bill in Congress calling for mandatory labeling and safety testing for GMOs, don’t hold your breath for Congress to take a stand for truth-in-labeling and consumers’ right to know what’s in their food. Especially since the 2010 Supreme Court decision in the so-called Citizens United case gave big corporations and billionaires the right to spend unlimited amounts of money (and remain anonymous, as they do so) to buy media coverage and elections, our chances of passing federal GMO labeling laws against the wishes of Monsanto and Food Inc. are all but non-existent.

Perfectly dramatizing the “Revolving Door” between Monsanto and the Federal Government, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, formerly chief counsel for Monsanto, delivered one of the decisive votes in the Citizens United case, in effect giving Monsanto and other biotech bullies the right to buy the votes it needs in the U.S. Congress.

With big money controlling Congress and the media, we have little choice but to shift our focus and go local. We’ve got to concentrate our forces where our leverage and power lie, in the marketplace, at the retail level; pressuring retail food stores to voluntarily label their products; while on the legislative front we must organize a broad coalition to pass mandatory GMO (and CAFO) labeling laws, at the city, county, and state levels.

The Organic Consumers Association, joined by our consumer, farmer, environmental, and labor allies, has just launched a nationwide Truth-in-Labeling campaign to stop Monsanto and the Biotech Bullies from force-feeding unlabeled GMOs to animals and humans.

Utilizing scientific data, legal precedent, and consumer power the OCA and our local coalitions will educate and mobilize at the grassroots level to pressure giant supermarket chains (Wal-Mart, Kroger, Costco, Safeway, Supervalu, and Publix) and natural food retailers such as Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s to voluntarily implement “truth-in-labeling” practices for GMOs and CAFO products; while simultaneously organizing a critical mass to pass mandatory local and state truth-in-labeling ordinances – similar to labeling laws already in effect for country of origin, irradiated food, allergens, and carcinogens.