Today’s IntegriTip Bulletin focuses on an aspect of self-integrity called self-care. More specifically, I want to let you know about a widely available but not-yet-well-known nutritional supplement that is showing some powerful promise in helping us age with vibrant health.
Here’s what you will discover in this IntegriTip Bulletin:
- The importance of self-integrity as part of 3D Integrity and how it took me a long time to truly embrace this
- The latest research about Resveratrol (an ingredient in red wine that provides huge health benefits without any of the alcohol)
- A CBS video about the promise of Resveratrol research
- The website I use the most to do my research into nutritional supplements
- The website I use to purchase most of my nutritional supplements, and why I use this non-MLM website
As you know if you’ve been following my work on integrity-centered life fulfillment, integrity comes in three primary forms:
- Self-Integrity
- Relationship Integrity
- Societal Integrity (also referred to as Collective Integrity)
One of the surprising secrets I learned through my decades of assisting individuals as a psychotherapist and executive/entrepreneurial coach, and this has since then been borne out those who have attended my keynotes and training programs or have read my articles and books: most people don’t connect self-care with integrity.
In the true spirit of "we teach best what we most need to learn," I was for a very long time one of those people! Making a positive difference in the world was my top priority. I had huge passion about my mission, and if this is even possible to say, I have even more passion about my mission today than I have ever had. That wasn’t the problem.
My problem was this: I assumed that because I had excellent stamina, that must mean it wasn’t all that important for me to focus on my own self-care. I figured that as long as I remained relatively slender, didn’t get sick often, and didn’t get overly exhausted, I was fine.
I couldn’t have been more wrong about this. I share powerfully illustrative stories in The New IQ, my multi-award-winning book about integrity-centered living, working, loving, and serving, about the huge prices I (and others) have paid because of not adequately appreciating the vital importance of self-integrity.
Re-telling those stories goes beyond the purpose of this post, however, beyond saying this. A huge piece of my part in the demise of my first marriage in 2002 had to do with the impact of my self-neglect on my first wife. A small colony of cancer cells was found in my prostate a few years later.
Now, if you knew my ex-wife and me just prior to our divorce, there’s no need to feel protective toward me when I say this: rest assured that I am well aware of the many ways that both she and I played major roles in its demise. And if you didn’t know me back then, you can read the story in The New IQ.
Rather, I ask you to focus on the point I am trying to make about how these two powerful turning points in my life combined to hammer home to me just how devastating the consequences of self-neglect can be.
Because I plan to die of simple old age many decades from now (I am currently 55), I made a heart commitment to treating self-integrity with as much passion and commitment as I do with relationship and societal integrity. If you want to know all of what I do these days in this regard, take a look at the Self-CareWisepassion chapter in The New IQ as well as the accompanying module in its companion workbook, The New IQ Integrity Makeover Workbook.
One portion of my overall self-care plan includes nutritional supplements. I regularly research supplements to make sure I use the best blend and quantities for my unique body’s needs. And I closely monitor the lab tests I regularly get in order to verify that I’m not doing anything stupid despite my good intentions.
One of the nutritional supplements I have been using since the first half of 2008 is called Resveratrol. As is the case with all the supplements I use, I only added it to my regimen after doing sufficient research to be personally satisfied that it isn’t the latest snake oil and that it is highly unlikely to be harmful to me.
I was delighted when the CBS news magazine show "60 Minutes" did an investigative segment on Resveratrol in early 2009. You can watch it below, assuming that as you have a free program from Adobe called "Flash" on your computer, since this is the video format the CBS website uses. (If you don’t yet have it loaded on your computer, click on the following link to download and install it: www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer)
After you’ve watched, meet me below the video for another couple of resource recommendations.
I have noticed precisely the benefits described in this video that are attributed to eating less and using Resveratrol. In fact, I just returned from receiving some training in San Francisco and one of the things I noticed was that I actually looked forward to vigorously walking up the incredibly steep hills that are a trademark of that amazing city. Last time I was there a year-and-a-half ago, I dreaded those hills because they winded me so quickly. This time I was leaving others in the dust, not because I was trying to prove anything but because my body felt really happy walking up those hills at a more brisk pace than most of the people I was with.
That said, anyone who knows me know that I have never been one to believe in panaceas. So, Resveratrol is but one of a number of supplements I take in addition to eating far more discerningly far more of the time, exercising more than I have in decades, and being much more careful about getting sufficient sleep for my neeeds. And the only reason I chose to add this supplement to my regimen was because I looked through research literature such as the research information available on the website I will mention a little further below.
Now, bear in mind that I am in no way offering you medical advice, in this blog post or anywhere on my website, in my books and audios and in my presentations. That’s between you and the health care professionals you use. All I am doing here is sharing my own personal choices and experiences as a consumer, along with my strongest possible recommendation that you too exert your personal power and your rights as a consumer to take impeccable self-responsibility for your own health care research and choices.
In wrapping up this IntegriTip, I will leave you with two related resources, again as self-disclosure and not as medical recommendations.
The primary website I have used for many years to investigate research on nutritional supplements and their potential usefulness with various symptoms and illnesses is the one maintained by the Life Extension Foundation. Their website is www.LEF.org< /a>
The website from which I purchase the vast majority of my nutritional supplements is VitaCost. I personally love their huge selection of supplements that I am personally satisfied are of the highest quality. And I love the fact that I have personally been unable to find other websites with as wide a variety of quality supplements at as low a cost as this site sells them for (including Resveratrol). Their website is www.VitaCost.com
I have one last thing to add to this post, in the name of integrity: you have the right as a consumer to know that I receive absolutely no direct or indirect remuneration for anything I have written in this post from any Resveratrol manufacturer, from the Life Extension Foundation, or from VitaCost. In fact, none of these are not multi-level-marketing opportunites. They are, one last time, simply personal sharing of resources that I choose to use. Nothing more, nothing less.
I truly hope that, as I mentioned earlier in this post, you become impeccably self-responsible with the health care research and choices you make on your own behalf, just as I do my best to be and do on my own behalf. I wish you vibrant wellness so that you can passionately live, work, love, and serve at the intersection of self-integrity, relationship integrity and societal integrity!
