Staying healthy through the holidays; keeping anxiety under control

Who doesn’t love to indulge over the holidays? Most of us are guilty of turning to foods we’d shun at other times of the year: butter-rich cakes and cookies, rum-infused eggnog (you don’t want to think about how many egg yolks are in it), cocktails, creamy overripe cheeses. As Susan Blum, founder of the Blum Center for Health in Rye Brook, N.Y., puts it in “Whole Health News,” “This time of year your liver often gets kicked into overdrive. It has to work harder to process all that rich food and alcohol under conditions of too much stress and too little sleep.” She suggests preparing ahead. Start the day with a cup of hot water with lemon juice, which is packed with antioxidants and Vitamin C. Amino acids found in protein — shoot for 60 grams of protein a day — are also crucial for liver function, so load up on beans and seeds. Read more at The Washington Post