Mikhail Health Coaching

Reached 25 donations.

I donate both whole blood and plasma, and this milestone feels quietly special.

With whole blood donations, Lifeblood sends a message when the donation is on its way to a hospital — this time, seeing Launceston General Hospital on the SMS made the impact feel real again.

I’m grateful to be healthy enough to keep doing this, and quietly proud to have reached this milestone. It’s a simple act, but it may mean a great deal to someone I’ll never meet.

If you’re able to donate and have been thinking about it, please consider this a gentle nudge.

Got this from Australian Red Cross Lifeblood today, turns out I’ve been donating fairly regularly in 2025 — enough to be in the more consistent donor group.

It reminded me how easy and quietly rewarding blood donation becomes once it’s part of your routine.

Grateful to the staff at the Caulfield donor centre — always calm, kind, and professional.

If you’ve ever thought about donating and weren’t sure — it’s simpler than it looks.

Get well anonymous patient at Bendigo Base hospital young or old.
Please consider donating as blood banks are getting empty.

Today I've ticked off my target to achieve 10 blood donations🥳. Woohoo! It feels great🤩. It literally saves lives too and this is one of my strongest motivations to stay healthy.

As a side, but important reminder – do you know that the high level of iron in your blood is very damaging? Male prone to this more often than females. It is extremely difficult to get rid of the excess iron. One of the proven ways is regular blood donations.

I’ve come across a solid study (based on 540,000 hospitalised adults) regarding COVID-19 from the US. If you want to see the probability of ending up in ICU, being ventilated or dying and what underlying medical conditions make it worse – read on…
There are 9 medical conditions that significantly increase your chances of needing serious medical attention or dying if you hospitalised with COVID-19. I’d like to highlight number one and number three in the list:
Obesity – 30% (death), 50% (ventilation), 16% (ICU)
Diabetes with complications – 26% (death), 43% (ventilation), 16% (ICU)
This is staggering… If you are obese or have diabetes with related complications, you have 30% and 26% respectively higher risk of dying if you are hospitalised with COVID-19.
Obesity and diabetes are preventable and reversible with lifestyle changes. If the above isn’t strong enough reason to start acting and get healthy, I do not know what ever will be. If you don’t know where or how to start - contact me.

Link to the study -https://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2021/pdf/21_0123.pdf

Sulforaphane, an active compound in cruciferous vegetables🥬 and especially broccoli🥦 sprouts have an impressive array of health benefits. Once inside the body, sulforaphane is the most potent naturally occurring activator of a molecule called NRF2, which plays a major role in the body’s defence against oxidative stress (aka human rusting or aging). It has been referred to as the activator of cellular defence, the master antioxidant switch and the guardian and gatekeeper for health and longevity (more on NRF2 here - https://www.fxmedicine.com.au/blog-post/power-nrf2-pathway ).
Here are 6 evidence-based amazing sulforaphane health benefits:
1. Reduces inflammation
2. May help prevent cancer
3. Boosts liver detoxification & increases Glutathione
4. Improves Cardiovascular health
5. Improves Autism symptoms
6. Positively affects the gut microbiome

So, when Hippocrates said “Food is Medicine” he was obviously referring to broccoli sprouts😀. The great news is broccoli sprouts are very inexpensive and can be easily grown at home – see pictures how I turn 3 tablespoons of broccoli seeds(i.e. per jar) into heaps of sprouts just in 3 days !

These wonderful cheese🧀 crisps are easy to make. They are very tasty and definitely are keto friendly.

All it takes is – 3 types of cheese (Parmesan, Cheddar and Manchego). I found that Parmesan can be easily substituted with Grana Padano without affecting the recipe.
Steps:
- Shred 1 cup of Parmesan and Cheddar, and ½ cup of Manchego. Add black pepper and mix gently but well
- Use tablespoon to put the mix into a backing tray
- Put into pre heated to 200C oven for about 10-12 min until dark yellow/light brown in appearance. The crisps burn easy, so you must watch them.
- Let them cool and enjoy!

From heat stress (see previous three posts) to cold❄ stress now. The cold exposure can come from many ways whether you just take a cold shower, swim in a cold water or use luxurious CryoSauna.
Cold shock increases norepinephrine – a neurotransmitter and a hormone. It makes you feel better and even used pharmacologically to treat depression. The norepinephrine plays the key role in browning of adipose tissue (i.e. fat) and starts the process of burning fat to create the energy to warm up the body.
Also, as a bonus, norepinephrine leads to substantial increase in muscle💪 endurance. So, this is why you often see athletes up to their waist deep in the freezing Port Phillip bay in the winter in Melbourne .

There are three main areas that benefit from the heat stress – brain (see previous post 1), overall longevity (see previous post 2), muscle💪 and tissue repairs. This post is about effects of the sauna on muscles and tissues repair. Next post will be about cold stress benefits - stay tuned.

Muscles and Tissues Repair Benefits:

20 min sauna session increases human growth hormone by around 2-3 times! This hormone is essential in muscles and tissues repair. It hugely helps with weight loss. It also benefits quality and appearance of the skin. It can help to speed up healing after an injury. Sadly, human growth hormone naturally declines with age, so if you are over 40 going to sauna is even more important!

This is the last post in the series of sauna benefits. There is more to come though on cold exposure benefits!

There are three main areas that benefit from the heat stress – brain 🧠(see previous post), overall longevity, muscle and tissue repairs. This post is about overall longevity effects of the sauna. Next post will be about muscle and tissue repairs - stay tuned.

Longevity Benefits:

Have you heard of HSPs - heat shock proteins? Yes, sounds a bit scary🤯. These proteins are a family of proteins that are produced by cells in response to exposure to stressful conditions – the sauna heat in our case. HSPs repair damaged body proteins. These damaged body proteins linked with Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Cardiovascular diseases. If this is not enough to convince you re sauna benefits, the heat also activates Foxo3 gene. It is also called a longevity gene. It does a lot of cool stuff and if you really want to dive into Foxo3 I suggest you google it. In simple terms – Foxo3 is like a master regulator of many other genes.

More to come…