How Body pH Can Affect Your Energy Levels
by: Andy Long
WHAT MOST PEOPLE DON'T REALIZE; WE ARE BIO ELECTRICAL ENGINES
In order to accomplish all the many millions of complex functions
that occur over the course of the day, your body has to be able
to communicate with itself… all the way down to the cellular
level. And do you know how it does this? Through pulses of electricity.
That's right, electricity.
Your body operates on an electro magnetic current. Believe it
or not, all of the organs in your body emit these fields of electrical
current. In fact, nerve signals are nothing more than electrical
charges.
What creates this electrical power in your body is a very fine
balance that exists in your bio chemistry. And of all the systems
in your body that depend on this delicate, bio chemical balance,
one of the most important is your blood stream. This is where
pH comes into play. But what is pH?
WHAT PH IS AND WHY IT IS IMPORTANT TO ALL YOUR BODY FUNCTIONS
PH is a scale that measures how acidic or alkaline a substance
is. The scale ranges from 1 to 14 with 1 being very acid, 7 neutral
and 14 very alkaline.
So what does pH have to do with you and your blood? Well, the
pH of your blood is extremely important. The ideal pH level for
your blood is right around 7.35 and your body goes to enormous
lengths to maintain this level.
Why? Because if your blood pH were to vary 1 or 2 points in either
direction, it would change the electrical chemistry in your body,
there would be no electrical power and in short order you would
drop dead. As you can see, maintaining the right pH level in your
blood is pretty important!!
With this in mind a good way to avoid upsetting this delicate
bio chemical balance would be to take a look at those things that
can compromise the maintenance of the ideal pH level in your body.
And what is the main culprit in this case? The answer is the creation
of acid in your body.
Before we look at what causes acid, here's a graphic example
to give you an idea of what can happen in the blood when your
pH drops to less than ideal. Red blood cells are how oxygen is
transported to all the cells in your body.
As red blood cells move into the tiny, little, capillaries, the
space they have to move through gets pretty small. In fact, the
diameter of the capillaries gets so small that the red blood cells
sometimes have to pass through these capillaries one red blood
cell at a time!
Because of this, and because it's important for the red blood
cells to be able to flow easily and quickly through your body,
they have a mechanism that allows them to remain separate from
each other. This mechanism comes in the form of the outside of
healthy red blood cells having a negative charge. This causes
them to stay apart from each other, sort of like when you try
to push the negative ends of two magnets together. They resist
each other and stay apart.
Unfortunately, acid interferes with this very important mechanism
in a pretty frightening way. Acid actually strips away the negative
charge from red blood cells. The result is that your red blood
cells then tend to clump together and not flow as easily. This
makes it much more difficult for them to flow easily through the
bloodstream.
But it also makes it harder for them to move freely through those
small capillaries. This means less oxygen gets to your cells.
Acid also weakens the red blood cells and they begin to die. And
guess what they release into your system when they die? More acid.
I could describe a whole list of processes that occur when your
system becomes and remains acid but I think you get the idea.
The point is that aside from the acid that is secreted into your
stomach to aid digestion, acid in your body is bad. Really bad.
In regard to producing energy in the body, here's an easy question
for you. What do you think happens to a person's energy level
if over time their system becomes more and more acid, their biochemical
balance is disrupted and their red blood cells can't deliver oxygen
and nutrients as efficiently to all their cells? The answer is
simple. Their energy level drops. Dramatically.
Are you beginning to get the picture here as to the importance
of pH in your body? Good. Now let's take a quick look at what
causes acidity in your body and then look at steps you can take
to get your body pH back to an ideal level.
WHAT CAUSES ACID IN THE BODY
The primary cause of an acidic condition in your body is from
what you put in your mouth. In other words, what you eat and what
you drink. And it isn't how "acid" something may seem
when you eat or drink it. It has to do with what is left over
when you digest it.
Specifically, does eating or drinking something leave behind
an acid or alkaline "ash". For example, I don't know
about you but I love seafood. Scallops are one of my favorites.
However, when your body digests scallops, it leaves an extremely
acid ash. In fact, scallops are one of the most acid foods you
can eat.
Unfortunately, a lot of the things most people put in their mouths
create an acid ash. These include alcohol, coffee and a lot of
flesh protein in your diet. Interestingly enough, stress also
tends to create an acid condition in the body.
STEPS YOU CAN IMMEDIATELY TAKE TO IMPROVE YOUR PH
Fortunately, it is pretty easy to immediately change your pH
for the better and make it more alkaline. The first step is to
understand which of the foods you are eating and the drinks you
are drinking are acid and which are alkaline. Then it's simply
a matter of eliminating some of the more acid foods you are eating
and adding in more alkaline foods.
However, before you start, it's important to get a baseline of
what the pH is in your body so that you can see how you are improving
or if you need to continue to eliminate more acid foods and add
in more alkaline ones.
You can do this by testing the pH of your saliva on a regular
basis. This is really simple to do. More details on how to do
this are provided on some web pages I have created for you to
help you out. A link to these pages is provided below.
In addition to decreasing the amount of acid foods you eat and
increasing the amount of alkaline foods you eat, one of the best
ways to immediately begin changing your pH is to drink "green
drinks". You can make these by simply adding a powder that
is made up of a whole host of vegetables that are highly alkaline
to a glass of water. Information on suggested green drink powders
to use is included on pages that I have a link to below.
RESOURCES WHERE YOU CAN LEARN MORE
Clicking on the following link will take you to some pages I
created that have more information on alkaline and acid foods,
how to test your own pH and what to look for in green drinks.
http://www.ajpip.com/resources/site_map.htm
Start taking the steps described above and you may very well
find your energy levels increasing over time. Mine certainly have.
- Andy Long
About The Author
After years of extreme fatigue, severe digestion problems and
frequent sickness, Andy Long now enjoys energy levels that allow
him to windsurf in 30 mph winds for 3-4 hours at a time.
He now shares with others what he did to completely regain his
health through his health related web sites and newsletter.
Note: Learn about a device that will tell you the antioxidant
levels in your body just by scanning your hand. http://www.splinfo.com
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