Tips for Supporting Your Mitochondria: The Importance of Healthy Stress & More

Support your mitochondria and manage stress effectively with tips from Next Health. Prioritize your cellular health for optimal functioning. Call us now.

Next Health Staff

January 8, 2024

How Can Stress Actually be a Good Thing?

Mitochondria, famously nicknamed the “powerhouse of the cell,” are responsible for producing 90% of the body’s energy. How? Through a process called cellular respiration, mitochondria utilize food molecules in the form of carbohydrates and combine them with oxygen to produce the ATP (the compound that provides our cells with energy).

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In other words, by producing energy at a cellular level, mitochondria in turn empower your entire body with the energy you need to function every single day.

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How can you support your mitochondria for optimal vitality throughout your life? By being your own best advocate when it comes to knowing what hinders mitochondrial function and what optimizes it:

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Tips to Support Mitochondrial Function

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Balanced & Healthy Stress Levels

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Did you know your mitochondria actually need stress? Despite there being a lot of conversation about how stress is a known health inhibitor (as it can compromise immunity, cardiac wellness, thyroid health, and more), a certain amount of stress is needed for a balanced mind and body:

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“Mitochondria, your source of cellular energy, function best with just the right amount of stress.” - Dr. Darshan Shah, Next Health Founder & CEO

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So what is the “right” amount of stress? In short, the right amount of stress is not about overworking your mind, fatiguing your body, or dealing burn out. Healthy stress is about getting your mind and body into flow state, where you are challenged, but not overdoing it.

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Below we dive into healthy ways to stress your mitochondria in order to enhance your overall sense of health:

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Exercise

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When you exercise, mitochondrial function accelerates to provide your body with the energy it needs. When done regularly, research shows that your mitochondrial numbers and density can increase long-term, empowering you to maintain healthy energy levels for years to come.

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A new study featured in the Cell Press found that exercise, and in particular high-intensity interval training in aerobic exercises, caused cells to make more proteins needed by energy-producing mitochondria. Science Daily noted that these results had promising results by “effectively stopping aging at the cellular level.”

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Examples of high-intensity aerobic exercise include speed walking, hill walking, biking, skiing, jumping rope, and more.

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Cold Therapy

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Cold therapy improves your mitochondrial health through a process known as “mitochondrial biogenesis,” or in other words, by producing more of them. More mitochondria means more energy for you throughout your day.

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Cold therapy is a great example of healthy stress as it forces you to become comfortable with discomfort. It increases both your mental and physical capability to withstand stress.

Cold therapy introduces a good stress, called”‘eustress” to the body. Eustress helps your body to better adapt to bad stress (distress), caused by emotional stress, lack of sleep, and other lifestyle factors.

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Types of cold therapy include: ice baths, cold showers, and cryotherapy.

If you’re interested in advanced cold therapy, consider Cryotherapy, just 3 minutes in temperatures as low as -150 degrees Fahrenheit for enhanced energy, immunity, and more.

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Request a Cryotherapy appointment here

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Sun Exposure

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Moderate amounts of natural sunlight exposure has numerous health benefits including improving vitamin D levels, supporting your circadian rhythm, elevating mood, and enhancing mitochondrial function.

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This is because sunlight increases NRF2 (an antioxidant gene) that has anti-cancer properties and increases mitochondrial signaling and function. This is because, like plants, mitochondria have the ability to photosynthesize (convert light into energy).

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Thus, sunlight exposure increases ATP levels and cellular respiration, giving your cells more energy.

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If you’re looking for all the benefits of natural light exposure but are worried about sun damage, consider Infrared Light Therapy at Next Health. Our LED Bed is equipped with over 13,000 high-intensity red, blue, and infrared LEDs which are positioned close to the skin for maximum effect.

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The lights activate ATP (energy within body tissues), stimulate white blood cells to repair damaged tissues, and increase collagen production. This treatment also triggers the release of endorphins, which provide relief for chronic and acute pain.

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This light therapy harnesses the healing power of infrared light, a specific light wavelength that dramatically increases circulation, reduces inflammation, and promotes healing. After a 30-minute treatment, blood flow is enhanced, which is great for both chronic and acute pain.

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Request an appointment here

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NAD+ IV Therapy

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NAD+ stands for nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide and this coenzyme reacts with oxygen in every cell of the body, specifically in the mitochondria. Unfortunately, the health of our mitochondria decreases with age due to a variety of factors including stress, travel, toxins from city life, deodorant, cleaning products, lack of sleep, and more.

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We know now that as we age, our levels of NAD+ decline, which results in signs of aging due to cellular dysfunction. In fact, we lose approximately 40% of our NAD+ by age 40. This is one of the main reasons we feel increasingly tired and sluggish as we age: our cells simply have less energy to function properly.

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There is a large body of research that links improving your NAD+ levels to enhanced mitochondrial health. At Next Health we offer NAD+ IV Therapy, which is considered the most effective method of delivering NAD+ to your cells. This is because intravenous therapy maximizes the bioavailability of NAD+. When NAD+ is taken orally through supplementation, much of it is destroyed in the digestion process, limiting the amount available to cells.

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Because our NAD+ supply naturally decreases with age, most people are depleted of their NAD+ stores. In order to see maximized results with NAD+ IV Therapy, our medical experts recommend the Optimal Aging Trifecta (3 infusions of 750 mg of NAD+ over the course of 7 days). This essentially front-loads your treatment to see optimal results.

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Although NAD+ supplements and IV add-ons are beneficial, the research shows 750mg is the dose that is most effective at improving telomere health (cellular longevity) and improving the aging process.

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NAD+ IV Therapy may have a variety of other benefits including:

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