Scratch That: 7 Steps To Eliminate Eczema Naturally

Our bodies are amazing communicators. If something isn't right on the inside, you can bet it will show up on the outside too. Eczema is uncomfortable and annoying to deal with, so most people only address it from the surface. That means the root cause remains - and that dry itchy peely party never really ends.

Functional medicine doc, Mark Hyman, is throwing inflammation under the spotlight and showing us how to eliminate eczema for good...

What is the cause of this painful and often embarrassing condition? Simply put, eczema is a sign that your body is inflamed. The solution is figuring out what’s going wrong inside your body and reducing that inflammation. Unfortunately, traditional medicine has us slathering potentially dangerous potions onto our skin to treat the symptom, without identifying the cause.

As I said, the root cause of eczema is a disturbance within your immune system. Your body is overreacting to something that is attacking you from the inside. Many people don’t make the connection between gut issues and immunity. But over two-thirds of your immune system resides inside your gut. Small changes in the intestinal tract from multiple insults (such as food sensitivities, too many antibiotics, acid-blocking drugs or infections; too much ibuprofen, stress, or even toxins) allow food particles to enter your bloodstream, which get exposed to your immune system and create systemic havoc.

What Causes Eczema?

There are plenty of culprits. For example, chemicals and other weird additives found in creams, lotions and detergents can certainly trigger eczema. But in my experience, I’ve found there’s a more adverse reaction to these topical substances when your body is out of balance.

So the questions really become: Why are you so reactive? Why is your immune system so out of whack? If I had to narrow down the two primary causes of eczema, I would say the following are the culprits:

Leaky Gut | Leaky gut is medically called “increased intestinal permeability.” This is a sign of a good gut gone bad. Leaky gut occurs when the lining of the gut thins and small food particles literally leak through the gut wall. Your immune system deems these food particles attackers because the food particles are supposed to stay within the gut. This creates low-grade inflammation and food sensitivities, especially to gluten and dairy, which are the biggest food causes of eczema. Leaky gut also triggers many other health problems including fatigue, brain fog, headaches, depression, allergies, sinus problems, irritable bowel, reflux, joint pain, acne, autoimmune diseases and more. Inflammation causes weight gain, which is triggered by insulin resistance, food sensitivities and food allergies. Learn all about it here.

Abnormal Gut Flora | The condition of abnormal gut flora is called dysbiosis, which occurs when the three pounds of bugs in your gut become overrun with bad bugs and yeast. Yeast overgrowth is a common cause of eczema. It can be caused by a processed food diet that is high in sugar and refined carbs and low in fiber. It also can be triggered by the use of antibiotics, steroids, hormones and even birth control pills. Getting rid of the overgrowth of bad bugs and yeast can make a huge difference in eliminating eczema.

7 Steps To Eliminate Eczema Naturally

Now that we’ve identified the main culprits, before you take another pill or apply another toxic lotion, try these seven strategies to help you eliminate eczema:

Try an Elimination Diet. The two most common and harmful food sensitivities are gluten and dairy. Try an elimination diet that will remove gluten, dairy and sugary, processed foods.

Incorporate Anti-Inflammatory Foods. Eat plenty of wild-caught fish and a colorful array of plant foods. Use spices, like turmeric, liberally. And incorporate fish oil and curcumin - two of my favorite anti-inflammatory supplements - into your daily routine.

Normalize Gut Flora. Restoring normal gut flora reduces overall immune activation and many inflammatory diseases including asthma, eczema, rhinitis and inflammatory bowel disease. Prebiotics, probiotics and digestive enzymes are among the things I use to normalize healthy gut flora. Please keep in mind it may be necessary to work with a functional medicine practitioner to address gut issues, but you can start immediately on your own by removing food sensitivities and incorporating gut-healing nutrients.

Use the Right Supplements. The protocol I use to reduce eczema includes fish oil, evening primrose oil and vitamins D and A.

Get Better Sleep. No surprise: Studies show sleep loss fuels the flames of inflammation and exacerbates eczema and other conditions. These are among the many reasons you want to aim for eight hours of quality, uninterrupted sleep every night.

Exercise Regularly. Studies show regular exercise reduces inflammation and boosts your immune system. Whether you’re a newbie or a seasoned pro, make it your own.

Control Stress Levels. Besides making you absolutely miserable, studies link chronic stress levels with inflammation. Whether you do meditation, deep breathing, yoga or another form of stress reduction, make it a priority and do it regularly.

The Chalkboard Mag and its materials are not intended to treat, diagnose, cure or prevent any disease. 
All material on The Chalkboard Mag is provided for educational purposes only. Always seek the advice of your physician or another qualified healthcare provider for any questions you have regarding a medical condition, and before undertaking any diet, exercise or other health related program. 

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The 15 Best Gluten-Free Bread According To Top Wellness Pros

It wasn't long ago that the best bread option for gluten-free folks was 'no bread at all'. Eventually, a couple of commercially-made loaves appeared - each with a strange and notable likeness to cardboard.

Finally, the gluten-free marketplace has found it's delicious sweetspot with a wide-variety of pretty great gluten-free bread options available in grocery stores across (most!) of the country. We're also partial to the local loaves that can be found here in some of LA's best healthful bakeries.

We asked our community of gluten-savvy women in wellness to dish out their faves and we're sharing their responses below.

Erewhon Market's housemade loaves are the clear winner of our 'best gluten-free bread' competition. Grindstone Bakery pulled in as a close second with their fresh-baked GF gems. And our personal special mentions must go out to Surya Spa's killer almond flour breads and these Brazilian-made frozen cheese bread bites!
What's The Best Gluten-Free Bread Ever?

Kelly LeVeque, celebrity nutritionist | SRSLY is the absolute best gluten-free sourdough bread made in the traditional style.

Kerrilynn Pamer, CAP Beauty | Vegan Mario's and Grindstone Bakery. Both are AMAZING.

Sophie Jaffe, Philosophie | Canyon House or Barely Bread

Kat Odell, food writer | The best gluten-free bread I’ve had was at a restaurant named Geranium in Copenhagen — number 19 in the world on the S.Pellegrino list, and the cir’s most famous restaurant after Noma. And the trick to the bread was milling a myriad of seeds into a flour and using that to add extra moisture to the bread.

Jennie Miremadi, integrative nutritionist | Erewhon makes an organic, gluten-free, vegan bread that tastes delicious and is made from real ingredients.

Zelena Montminy, positive psychologist | Manna Organics Sesame Bread or Trader Joe's GF Whole Grain or Rudi's

Summer Sanders, raw food chef | Grindstone Bakery breads is amazing. I love their millet loaf.

Ally Walsh, Canyon Coffee | My New Roots life-changing bread is soooo good! Also, Erewhon sells their own brand of gluten-free bread and a paleo bread thats gluten free as well. They are both delicious.

Nitsa Citrine, Sun Potion | Love the paleo bread baked in-house from Erewhon.

Jordan Younger, The Balanced Blonde | I love SRSLY bread!

Ashley Neese, energy healer |  Grindstone Bakery has the best gluten-free bread.

Meredith Baird, plant-based cookbook author | I love Vegan Mario's in Ojai. Their fermented sourdough is insane! You can purchase it at Erewhon locally.

Jannette Ogden, Shut The Kale Up |  Erewhon Market in LA has the best paleo, gluten-free, vegan bread on the planet. They don’t share the recipe but there’s nothing like it!

Learn more about about gluten-intolerance here, how to build a balanced GF lifestyle here.

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Pollution Report Cards are a Thing; How Clean Is Your City?

Did you know that your city has a pollution report card?

We've been thinking a lot about air pollution lately - it's unavoidable when living in LA. This recent story from the L.A. Times on the effects of car culture on our health is worth a read, especially if you live near a major thoroughfare.

Want to know how your own part of town and country hold up? We recently came across Scorecard, a giant database of information on the environmental, health and social impacts of consumer products. Based on aggregate in-depth research, each city in the data base is assigned a pollution report card rating it's overall toxic chemical load including air and water quality, plus environmental justice activity.

Find out if your neighborhood is earning A's or F's by grabbing your city's pollution report card here. Then check out these three pieces to upgrade your indoor pollution game stat.

Improve Your Indoor Air Pollution | Amping up the quality of our home's O2 can be as simple as swapping out commercial candles for chemical-free versions. From an easy dusting tip to air filters at every price, we love this list of simple and accessible solutions.

Keep Getting Planty | NASA's study on the best air-purifying indoor plants will point you in the direction of a new green roomie that will brighten your space and remove toxins from the air. The report recommends at least one plant per every 100-square feet of indoor space, so feel free to stock up! Find our faves from the list here.

Eat Those Antioxidants | The more high antioxidant foods and products we welcome into our lives, the more able our bodies are able to stop of delay the damaging of cells. Of course, we aren't going to eat a crate of blueberries for every meal. The herbs on this list are easy to integrate into our cooking and have a significantly higher concentration of antioxidants than other top ranking foods.

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Make Honey Hi’s Sprouted Pumpkin Seed Pesto At Home

Forget cake. We're sticking a candle in this cult-status pesto bowl and wishing Honey Hi a very happy one year anniversary. The small, but mighty Echo Park cafe just celebrated their first first year in business and we speak for healthy girls across the city by sharing a major "congrats!".

Thanks to Honey Hi, a girl can grab a grass-fed, wild-fermented lunch in the city and try a bite of whatever other ingredients are trending hard in wellness for the week. The besties behind Honey Hi don't cater to just one diet - whole food nourishment is the focus of their interesting menu. That makes for an inherently healthy, refreshingly grounded, and inspiring lunch date every time.

Try Honey Hi's pumpkin seed pesto recipe below. The ladies use this in  'That One Bowl' alongside sprouted quinoa, cherry tomatoes, cucumber noodles, massages kale, beet pickled onions, watermelon radish matchsticks, lemon zest, a turmeric poached egg, and paprika roasted pumpkin seeds. [olists num=1]

Peek inside our Mother's Day cooking class with the Honey Hi babes here!

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The Real Coconut: Living Well With Daniella Hunter From Tulum To L.A.

Between white sand beaches, turquoise waters and tropical fruit on fleek, we honestly can't imagine living un-well in Tulum; it's the ultimate environment for deep wellness ideologies to come to life. For foodie and hotelier, Daniella Hunter, a vision of holistic health centered around sustainability and plant-based eating manifested in the form of The Real Coconut.

Found within the Sanara Tulum Hotel -- an eco friendly, and idyllically white hotel for which Daniella is the creative director -- The Real Coconut is a restaurant that focuses on plant-based cuisine made with easily digestible plants that are globally abundant, grow rapidly without pesticides, and most importantly offer major nutritional bang for your buck. Everything on the menu is dedicated to digestive health, and made without grains, gluten, dairy, soy, refined sugar, and GMOs.

Recently, to spread the love beyond the beach, Daniella launched a line of coconut-flour chips and most recently, a local catering kitchen also called The Real Coconut here in LA. Both brands share the same dedication to holistic health and sustainable practices.

We simply can't get enough of Daniella, her products and her wellness philosophy. Read on as she shares about her own daily practices, including a sea-spired smoothie with major gut health benefits. [olists num=1][olists num=2]

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Amanda de Cadenet: 10 Things I Wish I Could Tell My Younger Self

If you loved author, actress and photographer, Amanda De Cadenet's The Conversation on Lifetime a few years back, you're in luck - it's coming back and coming to you.

Amanda's interview series, The Conversation featured Hillary Clinton, Jane Fonda, Lady Gaga, Arianna Huffington and more -- honest chats on the topics, concerns, and experiences relevant to women today.

With her brand new books It's Messy: On Boys, Boobs, and Badass Women and Girlgaze, Amanda is bringing her raw honesty and decidedly female perspective back to the masses, and plans on touring with The Conversation beginning later this year.

We asked Amanda to divulge ten lessons she's learned along the way - and boy did she. Here's what Amanda de Cadenet wishes she could reach back and share with her younger self...

One:
Getting Fired Is Part Of Succeeding
Getting fired is usually accompanied by feelings of embarrassment and shame -- the idea that one has failed in a task that they have taken on. But actually, being fired is one of the healthiest things that can happen to you! It teaches you a lot about yourself and forces you to take some serious consideration as to where your talents lie, your passions, what you value, your truth. It is an invaluable tool for understanding how to move on and create a positive change from an unpleasant experience. Roll with the punches, pick yourself up and move onto something that you will be better at and appreciated for.

Two:
Don't Be Afraid To Take Risks
Life is messy. Everyone makes mistakes and everyone fails, but you need to be willing to take risks -- and that means risking failure. If you are not willing to take great risks, then how do you expect to achieve great success? And ultimately you will learn more from any failure than you will success. Any failures I have experienced in my lifetime have helped shape me into who I am today.

Three:
Question Those Who Know More Than You
Don’t ever be afraid to admit that you don’t know something. Everyone started at some point of not knowing and was then taught, so if you want to learn more about anything, ask questions! Then one day, when you know, pass your knowledge on, and help others to understand too.

Four:
Understand The Difference Between Love + Obsession
I’ve lost my mind over a love or two in my life, and it has taken time and practice - practice in heartbreak and healing, as well as practice in knowing myself - to understand there is a difference between love and love addiction. Falling in love with a raging lover can happen to anyone; what’s important is how you respond to it. Some of the most beautiful, talented, intelligent, creative, kind and loving women I know have been unable to overcome their love addiction to leave an abusive relationship. So why, you ask, would I or anyone stay in a detrimental relationship? Because I didn’t think I was lovable, I didn’t believe I deserved better, and I didn’t believe that anyone would ever love me again. It doesn’t matter how many people claim to adore you, or how fit, successful, smart, talented, funny, kind or compassionate you are. None of it matters if you don’t see and cherish your own wonderful self. And back then, I certainly didn’t.

Five:
If You Don't Understand What Feels Good Sexually,
How Can You Expect Others To?
From a young age, women tend to define good sex by how pleasurable it was for their partner, not for themselves, but sex is and should be reciprocal. It’s not about girls serving boys (I have found, in my experience, this applies more specifically to heterosexual relationships). Our experience is equally as important to our partners and if we do not value the importance of our sexual experience over others and don’t know what feels good, then we can’t expect anyone else to. Knowing what turns us on and knowing how our bodies respond is so important for enjoying a healthy sex life, and we can’t expect someone else to figure it out for us.

Six:
Your Vagina Is Your Own + You Should Never Conform To Any Societal Expectations of What It "Should Look Like"
From my first experience of getting a full bikini wax (nothing but skin), I discovered a lot about my vagina and how it had changed over time. What I discovered were stretch marks that snaked from one side of my pubis to the other and a FUPA —a fat upper pussy area, as described by my friend Amber V. At first I was shocked, “If you hadn’t opted for that natural twin birth… now look what you’ve done to yourself.” But I then reminded myself what was truly important, that my body has held three full-term, healthy, strong, fully formed babies. People I love. With all my heart. Be thankful, Amanda, not resentful. My vagina is my own, and when I see it I am reminded of the absolute joy in the world that it has brought me, not what porn culture has conditioned me to expect.

Seven:
Being Skinny Isn't All It's Cracked Up To Be
As someone who has experienced being thin and miserable, I can tell you that the whole ‘nothing tastes as good as skinny feels’ line is a bullshit myth. The truth is, when I have been at my thinnest I have also been my unhappiest. I now refuse to be body shamed! My boobs, which have raised three happy children and accompanied a very happy husband for over 25 years, are also healthy boobs! And after many years of navigating my shape and the ‘problems’ my body has caused other people, I’ve committed to never allowing anyone, including myself, to make me feel bad about me.

Eight:
You Have The Ability To Do What Makes You Happy
Every successful woman or person I’ve ever interviewed has talked about the difference between having a good idea and actually acting on it. They’re not like, “Oh, I’m going to wait until it’s all perfect.” No. I’m launching. I’m putting it out in the world, and then we’ll clean up whatever we need to clean up. Every single person has the ability to make the things that we dream of come true; you just have to have the courage to act on your ideas.

Nine:
Forget That There is Only One Love Of Your Life
Life is constantly in motion and it seems that we are always changing with it. Although you may think at one point in your life, the person that you are with is the only one in the world for you, as time changes so do people. A better concept is that there is a love for different stages of life, and that might be one person or different people. I look back at the different loves of my life and consider myself lucky. Lucky that I had some very important loves of my life and lucky that I have such an amazing love of my life now, and I concentrate on taking it one day at a time.

Ten:
The Platonic Love Of Your Girlfriends is Crucial To Long-Term Sanity + Success
Following on from loves of my life, I cannot emphasize enough the importance of the female loves of my life, and these ones tend not to break my heart or move on like the other variety of loves. These are the ones who are there for me, without judgement, with reason and reliability to support me and celebrate me, through thick and through thin, ’til death do us part. Our connection is just as deep and meaningful as those of my lovers and should be honored and valued. I would be there within a heartbeat for any of my closest girlfriends in the hour of need to help them as best as I know how, and I also know that they would for me too. And that support, trust and honesty is the basis of the most meaningful relationships.

What lessons would you want to teach to your younger self?
Share your wisdoms below!

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