Avaya Wellness Centre

01/27/2022

The first sign of an adequate sleep is that you have woken up refreshed and do not need any external boosters to make you feel refreshed.

Did you Wake up refreshed today?
Waking up refreshed is a sign that your body has repaired itself and is ready for the day with a booster immunity.

The first sign of an adequate sleep is that you have woken up refreshed and do not need any external booster like caffeine. Waking up tired almost every day is a sign that something inside your body is asking for attention. Inadequate sleep contributes to sugar and hormonal imbalance, high blood pressure, depression and anxiety.

While sleep duration of 7-8 hours every night is very important, it is equally necessary that you sleep soundly and wake up refreshed. Waking up tired means your body has not been repaired during the sleep.

A cumulative effect of inadequate sleep can be a cause of health concerns in later life. Find a way to sleep soundly, adequately, and naturally every night.

01/26/2022

The taste buds in our mouth allow us a rounded flavor experience of our food. This includes the complicated combination of basic tastes and their intensity. When we combine 6 tastes in varying degrees, our mouth can experience millions of flavors. Know your Taste Buds here –

How do we perceive Taste?

If we did not have Taste Buds in our mouth, a raw potato would taste no different than a delicious steak or a leather purse.

Taste buds are gustatory organs located in the groovy external surface of the tongue, soft palate, pharynx, larynx, and upper oesophagus. The receptor proteins sense food particles and the receptor cells in the taste buds convert the chemical signals to electrical signals. The neurotransmitters carry the electrical signals to the brain for taste perception.

Adults have 2,000 to 5,000 taste buds. The sensory cells in the tastebuds are replaced every 2 weeks.

About half of our receptor cells are designed in varying degrees of sensitivity to different basic tastes. Each cell has a specific taste palette and a unique sensitivity profile. A particular cell might be most sensitive to sweet, followed by sour, salty and bitter, while another cell may have a different sensitivity profile. The roundedness of taste is produced by the meeting of all the taste profiles from different parts of the tongue.

The other half of the sensory cells are designed to react to only one basic taste in varying degrees of intensity. They inform on the intensity of the taste – HOW sweet or bitter is our food.

Assuming 6 basic tastes and 10 levels of intensities, we can experience more than a million flavors. Combined with the senses of touch, temperature, and smell, the flavour possibility is near infinite.

**Our perception of taste plays a crucial role in our gut health. **

01/21/2022

Our multisensory perception of food triggers the neural control of salivary formation and secretion . These sensory triggers slowly and gently ignite our digestive fire. The more elaborate our sensory experience, the better our digestion and sense of satiation. The more satiated we are, the less we crave for unhealthy foods and in between meal binges. Know more here

Eat with all your senses for digestive wellness
Traditional Cultures across the world insist on the multisensory perception of eating. The wholesome sense of flavour of food comes from its combined experience through all our five senses.

SMELL - The ‘whiff‘ triggers our flavor sense even before we see the food. We have all salivated to the aroma of fresh or the smell of cinnamon or pot roast in the house during Christmas.

LOOK - Visual aspects of our food like color, gloss, evenness, shape, and texture stimulate a gustatory response. This offers a cue to our digestive system.

TASTE – Our tongue is laced with cells that respond to the taste of our food and alert our brain and gut for the subsequent course of action.

SOUND – The Auditory contribution to salivary formation and secretion is subconscious but crucial. We usually experience these in form of the crispy, crunchy, and crackly sounds we hear while biting and chewing.

TOUCH – Certain cultures stress on using fingers to eat food. We feel the texture of food with our fingers, tongue, teeth and palate. We develop our texture palate as we grow.

Each of our sensory perceptions of food trigger the neural control of salivary formation and secretion. These sensory triggers slowly and gently ignite our digestive fire. The more elaborate our sensory experience, the better our digestion and sense of satiation. The more satiated we are, the less we crave for unhealthy foods and in between meal binges.

01/20/2022

The human brain reaches maturation in the early twenties and most of this process happens during sleep. Know more here –

Why do teenagers tend to make irrational decisions?

Irwin Feinberg, Profession of Medical Psychiatry at University of California found that the human brain reaches maturation in the early twenties. Science may have confirmed it only recently, but parents of teenagers have known this all along.

Complete maturation in the brain enables rational thinking and critical decision making, until then they will have a brain that takes irrational risks and makes poor decisions.

So, while we may be driven up the wall by our teenagers, we must remember that their bodies are still in the process of maturation. A large part of this maturation happens during their sleep. It is not surprising that we find our teenager grown a up a little more after a night’s sleep.

01/19/2022

Gluten is a complex mixture of proteins, mainly gliadin and glutenin, stored in the grain along with starch. Know more about the food you eat and the alchemy of sustainable health with Dr Tirtha Mendake

WHAT IS GLUTEN

Gluten is a complex mixture of proteins, mainly gliadin and glutenin, stored in the grain along with starch. Gluten stores carbon and nitrogen for germination of the seed to form new wheat plants
Gluten is found in Wheat, Barley, Rye, Bulgur, Spelt, Semolina, Kamut or Oriental Wheat. Wheat is the most widely consumed source of gluten in America, through breads, cakes, bakes, and pasta.

The viscoelasticity (stretchy) and cohesiveness(binding) in the wheat dough which allows it the baking gymnastics like rolling, tossing, spreading, twisting, and molding, is a result of gluten. The rise in the dough due to yeast fermentation, water retention in the bread, is all due to gluten.

Wheat is composed of 85% carbohydrates and 10-15% protein. 80% of that protein is gluten.

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01/18/2022

During sleep our brain nourishes our learning ability, memory, and decision making. Sleep repairs our psychological health and recalibrates emotional brain circuits to enable optimal mental health. Know more here

Brain functions during sleep

Our brain undertakes a variety of functions when we are asleep.

During sleep our brain nourishes many functions, including our learning ability, memory, and decision making. Sleep repairs our psychological health, recalibrates emotional brain circuits, enables us to navigate next-day social and psychological challenges with a composed calm.

Research shows that while dreaming we release certain neurochemicals that soothe (even heal) painful memories and allow a virtual reality space where the brain merges past and present knowledge inspiring creativity.

Hence, in order to keep our mental abilities in optimal health, it is imperative that we sleep soundly, naturally and adequately every night.

01/17/2022

Water interferes with digestion by diluting the digestive juices. Drinking water during meals could hamper efficient digestion which in turn could also affect your sleep. A few sips of lukewarm water will not hamper digestion.

Drinking water during meals
Drinking water during meals is such a subjective thing! The concern here is the temperature and quantity of water you are drinking. A few sips of lukewarm water will not hamper digestion but gulping down water at any temperature is not advisable.

The digestive juices break the food down for digestion and absorption. Drinking water in large amounts dilutes the juices which may interfere with digestion. Consistent hampering of digestion weakens the gut.

Weak gut may cause obesity and other issues related to digestive dysfunction, which may further cause sleep disorder. I see many patients complaining of insomnia actually having digestive issues at its root.

Ideal is to wait for 30 minutes after meals, so the digestive juices function optimally. If you must, then take SMALL SIPS OF LUKEWARM WATER during meals to aid digestion and absorption of food.

01/16/2022

When life-force energy is balanced between Yin and Yang aspects, it flows smoothly promoting physical and emotional health. Disharmony between Yin and Yang inside our body causes the life force to deplete and damages our health.

01/15/2022

Sleep deprivation disturbs your hunger hormones and is known to cause weight gain.

Sudden Weight Gain?
Are you experiencing sudden weight gain??
Did you check your sleep duration and quality? It could be one of the possible culprits.

Increased hunger in sleep deprived individuals is quite usual. Ghrelin and Leptin, also called hunger hormones, are responsible for signalling the brain of hunger and satiation respectively.

During sleep, leptin levels rise normally, subduing hunger by sending the signal of adequate energy reserves to the brain.

Sleep deprivation increases ghrelin levels and simultaneously lowers leptin levels in the blood. This signals the brain of inadequate energy reserves, triggering hunger and encouraging eating without real necessity.
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01/11/2022

01/11/2022

12/17/2020

While there is much discussion about plastic waste these cups make, no one is talking about the microplastics in your tea. These microplastics are definitely affecting human health and fertility. "An average person drinking three regular cups of tea or coffee daily, in a paper cup, would end up ingesting 75,000 tiny microplastic particles, which are invisible to the naked eye," explains Sudha Goel, MD, the lead author on the study. "In the 15 minutes it takes for coffee or tea to be consumed, the microplastic layer on the cup degrades."

While we have been talking so much about plastic waste the cups make, most of us have not thought of this.

A new study in The Journal of Hazardous Materials says drinking from paper coffee cups may be flooding your body with hazardous microplastic particles.

12/12/2020

I am so happy to hear this. For years now everytime I get take out I feel this pang of guilt for all the plastic that is packed it with. Not to mention it also tastes of plastic. When food is hot plastic leaches into it more easily. Not good for environment or for our health. BPA and Pthalates added ot these containers to make then soft have been implicated in infertility, hormonal issues and asthma among others. Yes, garbage is convinient but is it really! I am getting my food from Zuni Cafe now. Go Zuni!

They say they’re the first restaurant in San Francisco to fully commit to reusable packaging

07/07/2020

01/15/2020

Avaya Wellness Center is holistic space envisioned by Dr. Tirtha Mendake who brings together a variety of healing modalities to offer holistic solutions to San Francisco residents. We offer unique pain management solutions combining Acupuncture, herbal medicine and low force Chiropractic work. We also specialise in working with infertility, IVF and pregnancy care using Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture work. In addition Dr. Tirtha treats patients with digestive issues, skin issues like eczema, sleep issues and stress/anxiety. Check out our office & Book Online at: AvayaWellness.com

12/30/2019

Year 2020 will be year of sustainability at Avaya Wellness. Let’s start with our food. Eat local, eat seasonal and eat colors.,