Potassium Please!

Potassium deficient muscles simply don't relax. REM sleep is like rebooting a computer. Your skeletal muscles seem shut down. They are no longer given a signal to relax - but all signals for contracting are turned off. High muscle voltage is relaxed, but the contraction of a muscle is a low voltage condition.

When every skeletal muscle in the body is allowed to relax at the same time, during a REM sleep reboot and there is not enough potassium available (potassium=voltage) then the large skeletal muscles of the legs will cramp, or contract without being told to. After all, our entire body is powered by potassium ion voltage. 

Nerves, muscles, brain cell, the mitochondria of every cell, all need sufficient potassium. It's always required for your blood's electrolyte balance.

Your blood or serum potassium level should never gets low. Blood does the best it can to provide potassium to vital systems such as the heart and brain. To do this during the day, the blood borrows slowly but surely, as needed, from blood vessel walls (high blood pressure) and yes, that old faithful supplier, bone. 

It's a fact that 70-80% of Westerners have high blood pressure, and this can be addressed just by reducing salt and increasing potassium.

A study of potassium consumption in 21 countries including the United States, China, New Zealand, Germany and the Netherlands, by researchers at Wageningen University in the Netherlands concluded that the average intake varies between 1.7 and 3.7 grams per day, much lower than the 4.7 grams per day recommended for positive health effects.

Eating lots of fruits and vegetables can help bring potassium consumption up to healthier levels. (I mean lots! 10-12 serves a day!) But to reduce blood pressure, the increase in potassium needs to be matched with a lesser intake of salt by three or four grams per day (0.1 ounces). 

In Western countries, salt consumption can be as high as nine to 12 grams per day (the World Health Organization recommends five grams). So where does it come from? Mostly from processed foods and snacks.

That's one reason I like to take AlkaBalance anywhere I go. It's basically a water alkalizer, but it uses potassium to do it. Just two drops in a  cup of tea, coffee or even on a meal and you've alkalized and 'potassiumized'.