“That’s the worst sentence I’ve ever heard said!” Jon Stewart exclaims during an interview with author Michael Pollan. “Suddenly the health insurers will have an interest in your health, which right now they don’t?!?!”  What are we to do about this?  How we eat, what we eat and how we are manipulated by the food industries to market their goods that poison us is sheer brain washing.  We get upset when told that our insurance companies won’t cover us or a claim because of pre-existing conditions and heaven forbid we change what we are doing that is creating the condition we are rejected for.  But if a doctor says, take Lipitor or a medication to reduce cholesterol or BP we don’t hesitate and follow without thinking of the precautions and many dangerous side effects.

We are eating ourselves to death! Creating modern day illnesses that insurance companies justify eliminating many from their health coverage because they’re too risky to cover. Want to know more about how to change this dynamic and get healthy once again? To learn more click here!

Working in the complimentary alternative medical field (CAM), I too often meet clients that want to be fixed. Something has happened in their life dynamics, they’re not happy, the pain becomes chronic and then all the justifications as to why this has happened develop. They’ve run the course of different disciplines still looking for an answer, is there one? The answer is yes and there’s something you can do about it!

“When you get injured, you limit movement to stop the pain. Once the pain is gone, though, you don’t start to move as if you were never injured — the brain still remembers the injury and protects the area,” says Elgelid. Such compensation can lead to further problems. “Unless you retrain those movement abilities, you limit yourself more and more.”

Our problems are not always from an injury but often from a lack of awareness as we move through our careers or sports passions, locked in habitual patterns of thinking and moving that limit ourself and lead to these debilitating concerns. Sometimes it’s simply that we’re not functioning or playing as well as we know we can.  How do we maneuver through this hurdles when the standard and honored approaches don’t do the trick? To learn more and find out what you can do now to improve how you live life so that you can do what you want when you want, click here!

I have been following the theme of nutrition endorsed by Dr. Joel Fuhrman.  For the past 15 years and more, Dr. Fuhrman has been espousing the benefits of a healthy vegetable based diet with non invasive approaches to reverse our modern day illnesses created by excess.  He is doing noted studies with Johns Hopkins University and now he is sharing with us how to better avoid or reverse cancers.  In this article he focuses on breast cancer but the advise is applicable to all cancers.  Here is a little to wet your appetite -

“Green vegetables are the most powerful anti-breast cancer food. Take note that a vegetarian diet does not show protection against breast cancer as much as a diet rich in green vegetables, berries and seeds. Many vegans eat a high glycemic, nutritionally poor diet, and do not take sufficient Vitamin D, leaving themselves at high risk of cancer. It is the phytochemical nutrient density and diversity of the diet that offers the most dramatic protection against cancer, not merely the avoidance of meat or fat.  Close to 300 case-controlled studies show a protective effect of vegetable consumption against cancer and that cruciferous vegetables are the foods with the most powerful anti-cancer effects of all foods.  While eating fresh fruits, beans, vegetables, seeds and nuts have been all been shown in scientific studies to reduce occurrence of cancer, cruciferous vegetables are different.  Instead of a 1 to 1 relationship they have 1 to 2 relationship with a wide variety of human cancers.  In other words, as plant food intake goes up 20% in a population, cancer rates typically drop 20%, but as cruciferous vegetables go up 20%, cancer rates drop 40%.”  To learn more, click here.

This is really a must! Learn about how we learn and can reprogram ourselves to achieve our real desires.  Thoughts, imagination, movement and creating new patterns, for more information click here.

For those that live with Fibromyalgia there is hope!  When integrating a variety of complimentary alternative medicine (CAM) approaches there is considerable improvement for those living with this condition.  When a combination of CAM approaches are integrated on a weekly basis there is significant improvement in ease of function, reduction of pain and a greater sense of self.  One of my colleagues, Eveline Wu, GCFP worked with clients who alternated Feldenkrais (R) Functional Integration (R) sessions with massage, Reiki, hyperbaric oxygen therapy and Chiropractic specifically of the C1-C2 area and many had marked improvements in their symptoms.  I would gather that CranioSacral Therapy would also be another wonderful approach to integrate.  The one thing that impressed me the most was that it was essential that each of these sessions happen in a close time frame so that the benefits could integrate into the next modality for optimum learning and improvement of symptoms.  Diet is another focus to be addressed.

For more information to find a Feldenkrais practitioner in your area contact the Guild at www.Feldenkraisguild.com.  There are hundreds of practitioners throughout the world too!  To learn more, click here.

This is a beautiful account of one woman’s love for animals.  If we could all be as aware of the need to reach out and lend a helping hand, think of how much better this world would be.  I hope need time you see someone in need whether it be an animal, a person, whomever, take the time to offer help, support and unconditional kindness and notice the love you get back in return!  To learn more read here.

We all know that best intentions don’t always lead to desired results, and when they don’t, who’s to blame? We are too willing to give our power over to someone we consider an authority to teach us how to do something but are we really listening, sensing and feeling what we are doing? Too often the answer is no and then when we incur a problem we are frustrated, angry and sometimes resentful to try something new. We become jaded and either don’t explore other possibilities especially if immediate results aren’t guaranteed or we jump to the next trend in hopes it will be the magic bullet that fixes the problem! Thereafter, it’s the doctors office for a diagnosis and often a prescription to try and fix us or allay the problem we created for ourselves with the best intentions of improving our dynamic. So the question is do our actions best serve our intentions?

A little knowledge goes a long way and if we took a little more time to investigate and really sense and feel if what we are doing is the best approach we could stave off a lot of the compiling issues we create for ourselves. Well, good judgment is a by-product of bad judgment! How quickly do we learn from our experiences to make better calls that serve our intentions?

Stuart McGill, professor of Spine Biomechanics at the University of Waterloo, Canada has outlined a healthy, balanced approach to improve and maintain the concept of true “Core Stability” without straining, damaging and pushing our spines to the point of trauma. Have you ever heard of, it’s how you do what you do that matters, and “less is best”? What is your intention, to strengthen, flexibility, how about both! Think about saying yes and no at the same time! How easy is it to drink and talk at the same time, not very, so why is it so difficult to understand that there are times when we are saying yes and no in our musculoskeletal organization that compromise our actions and over time create a lot of the aches and pains, bulging, herniated, slipped disks that we as a multitasking, driven culture experience. It’s more about what we are doing and how we are going about it. Here is a site from the New York Times that dispels the myths of the latest trend of core exercises. To read more, click here.

So how do we quiet down, slow down to better listen to our bodies, to all of us? It isn’t about being a rag doll, lazy or without desire, but rather how to listen to our inner voice, our gut and mind-body to improve the areas where we feel stuck.

The Feldenkrais Method ® of Awareness Through Movement ® classes are a sure way to improve your life, enabling you to have more freedom in thoughts, movements and returning to the activities you may have felt you can’t do. If you want to, there is a way to restore your wellbeing to be able to have more ease, comfort, balance and vitality. To learn more read the Cover Story article in the Women’s Magazine here.

Being a lover of all animals and especially dogs, this story gave me another feeling of gratitude, appreciation and admiration for our four legged friends.  Also being the parent to many generations of English Black Labs, this story grabbed my heart!  I’ve heard of the ability for dogs to smell tumors and cancers in others so each time I become aware of how we are teaming up with our beloved canine creatures I can’t wait to sing their praise.  Having a dog can do so much more for your spirit, vitality, well-being not to mention their devotion and unconditional love, but now their gifts to sense there’s something you need to attend to in your own health is something to listen to!  I remember a story of a woman mentioning that her Golden Retriever kept pushing his nose into her chest, and it hurt!  After her dog continued to do this repeatedly she thought to go see a doctor to find out why her breast was so sensitive.  There was a cancerous tumor that her dog smelled, alerted her to in time so that she was able to take measures to insure her life.  She has her beloved canine to thank for making her aware there was something life threatening she needed to attend to.  So here’s another example of dogs’ amazing gifts!  To learn more read here.

We look to doctors to help correct an illness, disease or imbalance. How often are we willing to really address root causes and make the shifts to improve the quality of our lives? Whether you are looking to conceive, already have begun your family or simply want to enhance your overall health and well being, tune into Dr. Leila Masson, Harvard-trained pediatrician regarding her fascinating work curing autism. If this can improve the condition of autism, can it not improve any of us whether we are experiencing a medical diagnosed condition yet or not! To learn more click here.