LOL With Lauren: Back To School Demands

Back to school for children is back to school "squared" for the parents and caregivers involved in their education.

While the children prepare to meet new teachers, learn new information and navigate new social demands, parents are gearing up for the daily juggling act that each school year brings.

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Children happily choose from a wide ranging wish list of new, extra curricular activities and return to some of their favorites, while parents painstakingly chart out a schedule that considers everyone's needs and allows it all to work smoothly like a well oiled machine. Parents, if they are involved and parenting well, are truly performing a magic act of delicate proportions. If you pull back the curtain, you will see mother's and father's making it all happen as best they can.

When parents schedule the school year calendar, it's like a table of standing dominos, one false move, or one sick parent or child can set off the beginning of the complete collapse of the plan. Because back to school means back to a daily dose of demands of being up early, operating at peak performance during the day and sleeping fewer hours than our bodies need, we have to arm ourselves for a type of "back to school battle," by strengthening our bodies for top performance.

In addition to the rigors of the basic schedule, back to school also means back to a daily dose of school germs. Parents and students would do well to eat, sleep and exercise like they are in training for a prize fighting match. It's beyond me how people function on little sleep, eat junky, yet tasty high caloric, but low nutrient foods and still get up and get it all done. It's certainly risky to succumb to sloppy eating and sleeping habits, because we leave ourselves vulnerable to a compromised immunity, which can allow us to get sick.

It's funny how when mom's and dad's are sick, their work has to get done anyway. Parents are the lone dominoes still standing that have to pick all the others up, regroup and get back on track.

The Centers for Disease Control has some suggestions on staying healthy for fall at www.CDC.gov/HealthLiving

There are powerful immunity boosting foods that science has shown serve our bodies in powerful ways, consider;

  • 1. WATER !!!! I can't say it enough from what I have learned, it is truly the elixir.
  • 2. GREEN foods. Kale, collards, broccoli, spinach to name a few. All of these can be cooked easily or even enjoyed raw.
  • 3. Berries. Blueberries, strawberries, raspberries have all been called brain food
  • 4. Omega-3 foods. Salmon and flax seeds
  • 5. High Fiber foods. Apples, fiber cereals, yams are great for regularity, a key to boosting your immunity.
  • 6. Teas. Most teas are great for you and green and black teas have been shown to have increased antioxidants.

Of course while we have to include these foods as some of the main ingredients in our meals, there are a whole host of foods that we should ban from our diets because they are nothing more than a drain on our system, slowing us down after the few moments of chewing and tasting pleasure they bring.

Foods that are mostly full of flour, refined sugars, dairy and or preservatives and fillers can all be culprits in compromising our systems. I know we don't like to hear it, but it's true. Ask people who have had real disease challenges who have been catapulted into a quest for better health. They will generally tell you how our food can create sustained health, like great natural medicines or promote life changing disease in our bodies.

So, while we wait at the bus stop with our thermos of green tea and we shuttle our children to and fro with blueberries and veggie burritos being scarfed down en route, and contemplate all the details for the day and beyond, parents should be applauded for stepping up for another high impact school year and stacking the dominoes in their child's favor.

That brings me to another thing. We'll talk about that next time ...

Lauren