There are so many ways to take care of yourself, especially in this hot summer heat wave but what if you are injured, paralyzed or dealing with a serious health challenge, can water therapy help? The answer is yes! While in the water we are more buoyant and able to maneuver without the added weight of gravity pressing down on us. Especially when there is the need to rehabilitate, water or hydrotherapy is a reliable way to do the work in awakening our brains, nervous and musculoskeletal systems, in fact, all of our 11 systems that make up the human bodily functioning but that’s not just for us!

Many years ago I took my beloved Shembala, an English Black Lab for hydrotherapy to aid and improve her elbow dysplasia.  By the time we became aware of this condition it was too late to attempt surgery.  That is often done when the dysplasia is in the hip but elbows are another story all together and if a surgical intervention is to be considered it needs to be while they are still pups.  The results were impressive.  Shembala regained much mobility and although we could never get rid of this condition, we improved her ability to function and live life to her fullest while we had her in our lives.  And now here’s another story of a 6 year old cat named Nazzaning.  To learn more about this wonderful success story of Nazzaning who after an accident suffered with a paralyzed front paw and quickly rehabilitated the use of his arm and paw/fingers with hydrotherapy. To learn more, click here.

I’ve been following the focus and thoughts of Dr. Joel Fuhrman for several years now. I too have difficulty always being as focused and diligent in my eating regime yet I realize that I can continue to renew my focus.  I notice the things I tell myself, becoming more mindful and returning when I fall of the wagon so to speak to a more balanced, enjoyable and delicious diet that enables me to live life to the fullest!

We all know people who are seriously charging to an early sick bed or worst. And we know how “you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make them drink!” And you can, non- judgmentally present them with information that when they are ready they can make better choices and turn things around. You know, if you’re alive, your hearts still beating and your brain still alive, there’s time.

Give yourself the time to read more about this amazing turn around story that all thought beyond hope. This is a real life story, person and a life now living to the fullest. Learn more about Dr. Joel Fuhrman by clicking here.

How many times have you heard someone tell you what the have to do or they should but you can tell by their expression and body language that their heart really isn’t in to it. Maybe it’s about working out to improve their health or lose weight, it could be any thing that we resist doing. Now what if you could connect the effects of enjoyable exercise and laughter, that’s a thought! You know what it’s like when you’re watching a show with someone or at an outing and someone tells a joke or something funny happens and you begin to laugh and laugh and before you know it you and others are laughing uncontrollably until one of you is grabbing at your gut begging with tears of laughter to stop so you can catch your breath! You know how you feel, rejuvenated, alive, you feel great! When you feel good you don’t feel bad, now that’s a thought! What are the things you are telling yourself, are they good things, insults, what you should be doing, self defeating language or beneficial things?  What if you thought of the things that make you laugh, I mean really give you a chuckle, how many times a day do you do that! We all have experiences, things that we reflect on in our lives that fuel us. Do you fill yourself up with negative thoughts and actions or positive, and how often do you laugh and then laugh out loud.? It’s contagious, laughing and those who catch the bug of laughter don’t always have to know what’s so funny because the excitement and joy of laughter is too much fun to challenge.

So think about the things that make you smile, make you happy and then take it to the next step and reflect on the things that make you laugh even if you are laughing at yourself with humor and love and go take a walk, hike, garden, play with your kids or pets, go to the gym and enjoy the things that you get to do.

To learn more about a study on the benefits of laughter in reducing stress, appetite, weight loss and improving your health, click here.

This was sent to me by a dear friend and colleague. Now, this is true, the differences between the brain of a woman and a man. The Corpus callosum is denser and thicker in a man’s brain then a womans and therefore the lack of information transferring as quickly or the remembering factor that plagues all men and women relationships. We woman distinctly remember the events, all the details, the men tells us, “never happened” and we’re not crazy but this, you just gotta love. Sometimes you simply need to have a good laugh and here’s one. To have your laugh, click here.

“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!

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.

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.