Autophagy is one of the best methods to keep our bodies in good shape. It is quickly becoming one of the most preferred body check methods by health instructors. To some of us, autophagy might be a very new word for us. If you fall under that category, don’t worry, this article is meant to help you have a clear picture of what is autophagy is and how it can be used to improve our health.
First, let us start by defining what autophagy is. When you directly translate the word autophagy from Greek, it literary means to eat yourself (auto means self and phagy means eating). So how can a word that has such a senseless meaning in Greek be of any use to us? Well, read on!
Our bodies can improve in many ways when we opt to put them under a definite form of stress. To understand this better, let’s picture this situation. During the early years, when humans were hunters and gatherers, their bodies weren’t aware of the next time a meal will b available. Consequently, the human body went into a form of stress and carried out natural cleansing when it went for several hours or days without food.
When the cleansing process takes place, some toxic and dangerous components, as well as damaged cells, are consumed by the body. Such cells are the ones that can cause harm to the body in various ways, like inflammation or cancer.
A study shows that the modern-day dietary of having three meals a day and snacks in between the meals is not a suitable method at all. It does not help our bodies naturally, and it causes more harm. To prove this claim, the researchers behind this inventory say when a person fasts for sixteen hours, their bodies start the responsive mechanism that will see a shift in metabolism.
The body adjusts to fat metabolism, production of ketone as well as stimulating adaptive stress responses that go a long way in preventing and repairing molecular damages.
The title of this article is how we can introduce autophagy in our daily life, so how can we do that? Discussed below are some of the simplest ways you can incorporate autophagy in your day to day to life.
Autophagy and body cleansing are the phrases used to describe our body’s natural tactic of keeping it safe by working on it from the inside. One of the significant benefits of autophagy is you will be allowing the body to reduce the stress that occurs from the tedious daily activities. This also benefits the overall process of aging.
What makes autophagy an exciting prospect is a fact that you don’t have to a person who often fasts to get the best results out of it. A good number of people have chosen to introduce autophagy in their routine by having a single or two nutritious meals daily. This had proven to help to some extent as it gives their systems cleansing of up to sixteen hours per day. Similarly, others opt for 24 hours or more periods of cleansing. Adding workout sessions in your routine can also massively improve your health as well as reducing hormonal imbalances.
You should be able to determine which is the best option for your body, as experts recommend. By giving the body a natural relaunch or restart, you will be putting it up for a whole lot of benefits from the improving general health to being able to prevent dangerous diseases like cancer. Others can be liver diseases, frequent infections, diabetes, as well as autoimmune viruses.
So how can you merge autophagy in a routine? Read on!
One thing you should keep in mind that when starting autophagy, the primary reason shouldn’t be losing weight but rather, cleansing your body. The purpose should be more of shedding off incompetent cells that are maybe dead or not working at the required pace. This process will allow new cells to grow to replace the old ones.
Therefore, don’t venture into autophagy when your main aim is about superficial reasons or personal satisfaction; it should be more of improving general health. Experts suggest that the best way to increase autophagy into a daily routine is by gradually increasing the length of time in between your meals: it basically means if you had breakfast at 8 in the morning, and your next meal is usually 5 or 6 hours later, you can increase it to 10 or 11 hours.
Autophagy can be felt, or rather, its signs are evident after 6 hours since you stopped consuming energy. So if you are to autophagy, the best way you can start it is by separating your meals into thrice a day with each meal being after six hours. Do this for around two days. Improve your rate by increasing the length in between meals to ten hours by consuming two diet meals for two days.
The final stage is by increasing the length of time to twelve hours apart in two days. This stage will see you achieve a natural body cleansing procedure. Once you have accomplished it, you can now go back to your regular eating habits.
Tips on Having a Successful Autophagy
Below are some tips that will help you go through the process of autophagy successfully. Read on!
i) Always ensure you are Hydrated
Water is an essential ingredient when it comes to autophagy. It plays a critical role not only in the external exfoliation but also in other critical processes like internal exfoliation. Experts recommend that you should take in at least sixty four ounces of water daily. It could also be other sugarless liquids water infused with sugarless fruits.
ii) Ensure Electrolytes
Electrolytes are one of the methods of being physically healthy. It is therefore advisable that if you are undergoing body cleansing or any other kind of weight loss procedure, you should have an adequate number of electrolytes in the body.
Are you wondering where you can get such body nutrients from? Don’t worry; they can be found in natural elements like sodium and potassium. Electrolytes help prevent all kinds of lightheadedness or a form of hypertension from water. This is a very necessary procedure that can help balance the body’s general functioning as it goes through several cells in a bid to cleanse them.
iii) Have Nutritious Meals
For anyone looking to experience the benefits associated with body cleansing, they must be willing to supply their bodies with richly nutritious meals that can help provide the right amount of vitamins required for your body cells to function effectively. Wondering what some of these meals could be? Well, here is a sample: amazing green grass powders, protein shakes, vegetables, organic fruits or salads, fish, milk, or chicken.
iv) Ensure You Are Properly Cleansing
Fasting can come with a whole lot of problems. One of the most significant setbacks that come with body cleansing is lightheadedness and a reduction in blood sugar.
As we have said early, autophagy should never be used as a method of losing weight. The only that can be done is through reducing inflammation, a process that will see your body lose weight efficiently. Use autophagy as a means of body cleansing, rather than a method of shedding off extra pounds.
To be in good shape, generally, you need to be involved in exercises. Pregnant women are, however, advised to be very careful with autophagy as it can lead to complications such as renal dialysis as well as heart stents. This does not mean they are completely restricted from engaging in autophagy; it is just that whenever they do so, the process should always be supervised by dietitians or health officers.
Having known about how we can successfully undergo an autophagy process, we next discuss how autophagy works. Getting to understand how such a complicated procedure works can go a long way in ensuring motivating you to undertake it. Autophagy works by optimizing our bodies to cleanse themselves naturally.
It does so through a process where cells are instructed to come up with new membranes that can help get rid of the dead, incompetent cells. Autophagy is technically a process where our bodies initiate recycling procedure that is essential in dealing with diseases like cancer.
What are some of the benefits of autophagy? We discuss that next, read on!
The Benefits and Importance of Autophagy
Sufficient evidence has been provided to prove that autophagy plays a crucial role in controlling and managing inflammation, as well as improving the immune system. During research done by certified professionals, it was found out that autophagy protected our bodies against insulin resistance, cancer, inflammatory diseases, among others.
Similarly, the study also proved that failing to practice autophagy can be very disastrous to our bodies. This was proved by experimenting with a mouse. The autophagy gene was extracted; this led to a massive increase in its weight; there was also an increase in cholesterol levels and a case of brain impairment.
Autophagy is like a repairing machine that makes our bodies get rid of incompetent parts, fight cancer growths as well as repairing metabolic dysfunctions like diabetes and obesity.
Having known the important roles autophagy plays in our bodies, we next discuss how you can kick start the process of autophagy.
Starting the Process of Autophagy
Asking yourself how your eating habits are is probably something you have never wanted to know about. This segment will help you understand why you need to be more cautious about your eating habits. As we mentioned earlier, we need to put our bodies in some problematic situation to agitate increased rates of self-cannibalism. Well, you might be asking yourself what I could be referring to by saying that, right?
As we have seen many times before, a short term period of pain can go a long way in bringing about long term benefits. In terms of the feminine, for instance, our bodies tend to produce a natural response to keep us surviving. Prolonged starvation and lack of water is a possible cause of death, but it more sensible to acknowledge that adapting to such harsh conditions only made humans stronger, health-wise.
Discussed below are three ways you can use to boost or improve the rate of autophagy in your system.
i) Start by reducing the Carb Intake
Starving yourself is not the only you can induce the process of autophagy in your system. But there is one concern thou, don’t eat candy!
The ideology behind this process is known as ketosis. It aims at bringing down the number of carbohydrates in our bodies to a superficial level such that our bodies have no option but to out in use fats. Does this ring a bell? Yes! It is the mystery or rather the magic used in the popular ketogenic diet!
Ketogenic diets tend to have a high amount of fat and increasingly very low in carbs. Some of the foods with these characteristics include peanut butter and beacon. Biology reveals that over sixty percent of calories in your body comes from body fat. Additionally, proteins are responsible for creating about thirty percent of calories, while only five percent comes from carbs.
Ketosis is a procedure that can help individuals get rid of excess fats and keeping their muscles. Research has also shown that ketosis is key in helping fight cancer tumors, protect the body against severe brain disorders like epilepsy as well as lowering the risk of diabetes.
In an experiment done in March 2018, rats that were fed a keto diet had much less brain damage when they experienced seizures.
Ketosis is, therefore, a significant procedure in autophagy as it helps you get the same metabolic benefits you could have achieved by fasting. The only difference is that you won’t have to fast! You might have difficulties in keeping up with ketosis, but i would advise you not to give up! It is worth the try!
A study done in 2012 revealed that people that went through ketosis successfully had a healthier life afterward compared to those that did not. You, however, note that before engaging in the ketosis process, you should first check if you have health issues, especially regarding the liver or kidney.
ii) Try Engaging in Fasting
This can be a robust way of introducing autophagy in our daily life. Skipping or avoiding meals is one way we can add ketosis. It is a method our bodies may not like, but for sure, it is a method our bodies will benefit from. Health research has shown an overwhelming number of benefits that are associated with fasting.
Some of the benefits associated with fasting are, one, it makes cancer drugs and treatment more effective and protecting cells from damage and side effects. A study done on mice showed that fasting enabled them to improve brain function and to improve the ability for it to organize and rebuild itself.
Even though the benefits aren’t directly associated with autophagy, they have something to autophagy ultimately. However, some people argue that the experiment should have been done on a human instead of mice to be justifiable.
I would, therefore, advise you to try fasting. A person experienced in it could last for up to 18 hours a day and several per week, for this might be tough for some of us. Different styles of fasting have both shown significant results.
It was associated with having a healthier body weight as well as reducing the risk of contracting diseases hence in the long run, leading to an increased lifespan.
You should, however, keep in mind that fasting is a process not recommended for young children and people living with diabetes, pregnant women, or people with low blood sugar.
iii) Engage in Physical Exercises Regularly
If you find the first two methods quite stressing or maybe not well suited for your body, I have another option for you: exercising.
Engaging in exercises helps reduce the amount of stress your body encounters. Intense workouts damage our muscles and cause a tear in deeper parts of the muscles that our bodies quickly work on healing.
Consequently, it makes our muscles much stronger and resistant to any damage that the workout can cause. Exercising is one of the popular activities people engage in to help their body systems cleanse up. This explains the renewed feel of freshness you experience after working out.
A study done in early 2012 focused on autophagosomes, which means the kind of structures that are formed the cells that have been recycled. The experiment also engineered the mice to produce a glowing greenish autophagosome.
The mice were put onto a treadmill, and the results were impressive; they began drastically demolishing their worn-out cells after thirty minutes run on a treadmill. The rate increased gradually as the minutes also went up to 80.
So how can this apply to a human body? It is honestly very difficult to estimate how long you should exercise for our bodies to switch on autophagy.
iv) Having Sufficient Deep Sleep and Circadian Rhythm
One of the methods to effectively introduce autophagy in our daily life is through having a high quality sleeper. Having poor sleeping habits will make you have a terrible cognitive function.
A research done by MyHealth International revealed that not having enough sleep will negatively alter the autophagy located in our brains. Therefore, the length and quality of sleep matters when it comes to autophagy.
Health professionals will recommend you to get a least seven to eight hours of sound sleep every night. So that brings us to the question, what are some of the things you should do to increase sleep?
You can start by maintaining a highly propagated circadian rhythm. Secondly, you can also participate in the producing and releasing of the melatonin elements at night.
Research has shown that our sleep cycle has control over autophagy and to some extent, plays a critical role in cognitive decline. Some are beginning to ask what melatonin means. Well, it refers to the type of hormone our pineal glands release and is found in our brains.
This is the part of the brains that controls our sleeping cycle or, rather, the circadian rhythm. Having a sufficient amount of melatonin in our body plays a critical role enabling you to fall asleep faster and deeply at night.
The melatonin element is found to induce the process of autophagy in the brain of a human being as well as reducing the danger of having neuropsychiatric problems.
Every kind of drastic change in the environment we live in can have a massive impact on our sleeping cycle. It can also alter melatonin production by reducing the rate at which it is done hence affecting autophagy in the long run.
Having learned about the problems related to lack of melatonin, below are some of the things you should do to sustain a good melatonin production, maximize the quality of sleep as well as keeping the active cycle of it:
Always make sure you expose your eyes to the sun when you wake up in the morning. It helps set your rhythm of circadian.
The other thing you can is keeping a regular sleeping schedule by going to bed at the same time per night.
Natural lights like the bluish ones that you might across in your usual activities can significantly reduce your body’s capability to produce melatonin, which leads to a massive disruption of sleeping patterns as well as the incompetent functioning of the nervous system.
So once it gets dark outside, I advise you to switch off any source of blind light. It is recommended to be using red light bulbs at night instead. Additionally, you can put on the blue light blocking glasses that will help prevent a fire from reaching your eyes.
The other method you can do so is by avoiding a meal three hours before you go to your bed. Things like honey, MCT oil, and broth, which are easier to digest, are not restricted; they can instead help you fall asleep faster.
You are also advised not to watch movies or TV programs that are likely going to stimulate you before going to bed. Avoiding caffeine in the afternoon is also very important; in fact, most of us are advised to avoid it when it passed at 2 PM. Caffeine can have a massive impact on the quality of your sleep.
Another tactic that most people find it challenging to practice is sleeping in a completely dark room with curtains that don’t allow in any light. When we sleep in a place where the lights are on, it reduces neurogenesis ad well as impairing the overall cognitive performance.
If you have to use some light in the room, you are sleeping, for instance, an alarm clock or nightlight; you are advised to have an orange or red light instead of the blue one.
Lastly, you can achieve perfect sleep by reducing the amount of stress you have before going to bed. You are also advised to avoid alcohol before because it will affect your nervous system.
The production of melatonin is likely to be affected by EMF exposure; you are therefore advised to switch off mobile phones as well as other electronic devices before going to bed.
If the above procedure doesn’t help you achieve a night of good sleep, you can try a sleeping supplement that has natural components vital for the production of melatonin.
vi) Through Practising Oxygen Therapy
One thing you should keep in mind that when starting autophagy, the primary reason shouldn’t be losing weight but rather, cleansing your body. The purpose should be more of shedding off incompetent cells that are maybe dead or not working at the required pace. This process will allow new cells to grow to replace the old ones.
Therefore, don’t venture into autophagy when your main aim is about superficial reasons or personal satisfaction; it should be more of improving general health. Experts suggest that the best way to increase autophagy into a daily routine is by gradually increasing the length of time in between your meals: it basically means if you had breakfast at 8 in the morning, and your next meal is usually 5 or 6 hours later, you can increase it to 10 or 11 hours.
Autophagy can be felt, or rather, its signs are evident after 6 hours since you stopped consuming energy. So if you are to autophagy, the best way you can start it is by separating your meals into thrice a day with each meal being after six hours.
Do this for around two days. Improve your rate by increasing the length in between meals to ten hours by consuming two diet meals for two days. The final stage is by increasing the length of time to twelve hours apart in two days.
This stage will see you achieve a natural body cleansing procedure. Once you have accomplished it, you can now go back to your healthy eating habits.
vii) Carry Out Acupuncture
As we have said early, autophagy should never be used as a method of losing weight. The only thing that can be done is through reducing inflammation, a process that will see your body lose weight efficiently. Use autophagy as a means of body cleansing, rather than a method of shedding off extra pounds.
To be in good shape, generally, you need to be involved in exercises. Pregnant women are, however, advised to be very careful with autophagy as it can lead to complications such as renal dialysis as well as heart stents.
This does not mean they are restricted from engaging in autophagy; it is just that whenever they do so, the process should always be supervised by dietitians or health officers.
Having known about how we can successfully undergo an autophagy process, we next discuss how autophagy works. Getting to understand how such a complicated procedure works can go a long way in ensuring motivating you to undertake it.
Autophagy works by optimizing our bodies to cleanse themselves naturally. It does so through a process where cells are instructed to come up with new membranes that can help get rid of the dead, incompetent cells. Autophagy is technically a process where our bodies initiate recycling procedure that is essential in dealing with diseases like cancer.
