Natural Remedies for Long-term Allergy Relief

Don’t let allergies ruin your summer!  - Tips to help you feel your best this allergy season. 

            Allergies are usually associated with the Spring or Fall, but especially where I practice in the Northeast, it is not uncommon to see allergies occurring right in to the summer, or even all year round (perennial)—these are often connected to chronic food sensitivities and gut imbalances (see below).   

            Since warm, sunny weather seems so fleeting in the Boston area, most of us want to take full advantage of it.  Summer is a time to be enjoying the outdoors—hiking, biking, pool time, beach time, barbeques, exercising outside, or just being with friends and family outdoors.  However, for some, warm weather is associated with a stuffy head, chronic cough, drippy nose, fatigue and headache.  Some people don’t even recognize that their symptoms are actually allergy related, and can be as subtle as slight tension headaches that keep re-occurring, or just feeling bogged down.  Another common symptom that I see which can be exacerbated by allergens is anxiety and insomnia.  Many people don’t realize that allergens can affect the central nervous system, and in a sensitive individual, this can create feelings of nervousness or panic. 

            If you think that allergies may be affecting your health and energy, here are a few suggestions to help you feel your best so that you can take full advantage of every season! 

1.     Acupuncture:  Get regular, weekly acupuncture treatments for about 3 months prior to when you usually start to feel allergy symptoms (eg. If your symptoms tend to start in March, start weekly treatments in December or January).  Starting treatment early helps the body to build and regulate it’s immune system, so that it does not react as strongly to the allergens once you are exposed.  Then, during allergy season, you can come in for symptomatic treatment if you are still feeling some symptoms.  Does this mean that if you missed the preventative treatment stage, that acupuncture won’t work for your allergy symptoms during the flare up?  No.  Acupuncture can certainly help reduce your symptoms and provide some relief during the season, but it is much more effective to start earlier, before your symptoms begin. 

2.     Watch your diet:  Sugar, caffeine, alcohol and common allergens in the diet can interfere with the body’s immune system and make a person more sensitive to environmental allergens like pollen, dust and mold.  By reducing or eliminating sugars, refined carbohydrates, and common allergens such as wheat, gluten, soy, dairy and yeast, many people find significant reduction in their allergy symptoms, if not complete relief from them.  It’s definitely worth a try!  You can do an elimination diet, or a blood test to find out what foods you are sensitive to.  In my clinic, I often do a blood test, as it is easier for many than an elimination diet. 

3.     Exercise:  Our lymph system (the system in our bodies that fights of foreign invaders, viruses, bacteria, etc) requires movement in order to circulate and function properly.  From a Chinese Medicine standpoint, our energy, or Qi, needs regular exercise or movement in order to stay balanced.  Whether it’s brisk walk or a high intensity work out at the gym, the key is consistency—4x/week is a great goal. 

4.     Vitamin D3:  Vitamin D3 helps to regulate our immune systems.  Studies have shown that people who are low in this vitamin are much more susceptible to viruses and infections (and other diseases, including asthma, certain cancers, depression, anxiety, hormonal imbalances).  Taking at least 2000 IU’s a day with food is recommended.  The best way to figure out the correct dose for you is to have your blood levels tested. 

5.      Probiotics:  These little critters are essential for our gut health.  You may ask what gut health has to do with allergies….  An imbalanced gut flora makes person much more vulnerable to illness and allergies.  Take a good quality, high potency probiotic supplement in pill or powder form.  The amount that you get in yogurt is usually not enough to colonize the small intestine where it’s actually needed.  Make sure to take this supplement with a meal. 

Why Can't I Meditate? What's Wrong with me? -- Stress, Anxiety & How Acupuncture Can Help

On my intake forms, I ask the patient to rate their stress levels on a scale of 0-10.  0 being no stress at all, and 10 being the worst stress imaginable.  As you can imagine, virtually no one ever puts 0.  I would say more than 80% of my patients put 5 or higher (usually higher . . . around 7-8).  With conditions such as anxiety, insomnia, and high blood pressure, it is clear that stress plays a major role.  However, based on patients' reporting of their stress levels on my intake forms, I think it's safe to say that stress is a contributing factor to almost any condition in modern society.  Even if stress isn't directly related to the disorder, it is most certainly capable of exacerbating it or hindering healing.

Self-help books, magazine articles and even holistically oriented doctors recommend incorporating stress relief techniques in to your daily life to improve health, boost the immune system and to help heal or cope with many types of disorders.  When I was a freshman in college, I began experiencing strange and vague symptoms such as dizziness, palpitations, shortness of breath, frequent headaches and migraines, frequent colds and flus.  My doctor diagnosed anxiety and stress-related disorders.  I was given medications to help with anxiety, as well as medications to help with individual symptoms that I was experiencing.  Skeptical of the effectiveness of this approach and concerned about the side-effects, I decided to pursue a more holistic path.  I started to read about relaxation techniques and began trying to meditate.  "Trying" being the operative word.  Relaxation shouldn't be so labor intensive right?  I would sit there, back hurting, neck getting sore, mind wandering at 100 mph in all directions, wondering "What's wrong with me?  Why can't I meditate?"  I considered myself a spiritual person-- I did the reading, I did the studying . . . why couldn't I translate that in to practice?  I even signed up for classes and joined a meditation group.  After about 3 months of regular attendance, I was left feeling frustrated.  Sure others in the group experienced and shared their own frustrations, but for me, being a Type A person, I hated not being good at something. 

Now, as a practitioner, I've realized that this is a very common experience.  Most of us would benefit from some daily relaxation exercises, however, we need a little help figuring out HOW to fit it in to daily life, and also how to do it correctly.  What I found is that I was so anxious and stressed, that sitting quietly for even 5 minutes was torturous.  I had no idea what it felt like to feel calm, so how could I get my brain to go there, if I didn't know where the destination was?  My instructor's "road map" was only making me feel more and more lost.  I know that three months is certainly not long enough to master meditation, and that the frustrations are a normal part of the practice, however, I was doing this to help my anxiety, and it was only making me feel more anxious!

When I began receiving acupuncture treatments on a weekly basis, something in my brain changed.  After each session, I had an all encompassing feeling of "bliss" and "well-being"-- like anything could happen in my life at that moment, and I'd be completely fine and able to deal.  After a couple months, I noticed that this feeling would carry over in to my life, even days after my treatment.  I felt like I was better able to cope with stressful situations.  At this point, I decided to try meditating again.  To my surprise, it came so much easier this time.  My mind and body, having been conditioned already through acupuncture to relax, automatically went to that place of "well-being" when I closed my eyes to meditate.  This was also the case with other relaxation techniques that I tried-- they all became infinitely more effective and easier to do since starting acupuncture treatments.  The symptoms that I had been experiencing due to anxiety only rarely bother me anymore-- usually if I haven't been sleeping enough, eating well or if my routine changes drastically due to travel, etc.  The other thing that I realized was that there are all different kinds of meditation.  For my patients who want to meditate but feel like they just can't sit there, I recommend active meditating-- just being mindful when you're doing day to day activities.  Not letting your mind wander when you're washing the dishes, or folding the laundry.  Really let yourself feel and see every part of the activity that you're doing. 

If you're suffering from anxiety or other stress-related conditions, or if you think that stress is making your condition worse, I would urge you to try acupuncture.  Acupuncture is effortless for the patient-- it is a passive activity.  You only need to show up regularly for your treatments, and the needles and the practitioner do the work.  Once your body is trained or re-programmed to respond differently to stress, you will have a much easier time incorporating other stress relieving techniques in to your life.  Another great bonus is that you'll be healthier (physically and emotionally), better equipped to deal with life's stressors, and more likely to reach your full potential.  Don't let stress and anxiety paralyze you, try acupuncture!

Does Acupuncture Work: Symptom Relief vs. Correction

Symptom Relief vs. Correction:

In Chinese Medicine, the goal is to give the patient relief from their symptoms, as well as to address the underlying cause of the symptoms. Symptoms are the last piece of the puzzle to appear. In general, the conditions that created the symptoms were in place years before the symptoms actually appeared. These conditions often are multi-factorial and often go unnoticed by the patient.

Take for example, a leaky roof. Every time it rains, water starts to drip in to the house, making the floor and carpets wet. After some time, the roof and the carpets begin to mold and the wood and ceiling begin to rot. Symptom relief would involve putting a bucket under the leak, catching the water, so that the floor stays dry. However, over time, the ceiling continues to rot and mold and sometimes, if the outside stressors (in this case, the rain storm) are strong (eg. Heavy rainstorm), the bucket isn’t big enough to hold all the water and overflows on to the carpet and floor. Over time, the temporary, symptom relief approach becomes inadequate, and doesn’t actually solve the problem (the mold and rotting), because we didn’t actually address the cause.

Now, let’s say the home owner is still unwilling to spend the time and money to fix the cause of the problem, so instead, they tape a piece of plastic over the leak in the roof. This seems to be effective for a while, however, the roof continues to rot and mold, and eventually the plastic breaks. You get the point. Sure, you could continue to cover the leak with plastic over and over, or use the bucket approach each time it rains, however, eventually, the mold and rotting will cause further problems. People in the house start to develop allergies to the mold that is growing, and after awhile, the rotting causes structural damage to the house, and the roof begins to buckle. You now have more and more symptoms developing from the same root cause. It no longer is safe to leave it as it is. The amount of time and money that is now needed to replace the roof is significantly more than it would have been to fix the original small leak.

Symptom Relief = the bucket and the taped plastic

Correction = fixing the roof

An additional step to making sure that symptoms do not return is maintenance. In the case of the leaky roof, maintenance would entail inspecting the house and treating minor damage BEFORE it becomes a bigger problem.

With Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine, treatment that includes all three phases is the most effective and durable approach. The duration of each phase depends on a few factors, including how long the person’s had the symptoms/condition, age, lifestyle, diet, overall health, consistency of treatment, etc.

Laugh Everyday

In the last post, I discussed the role of sleep in appetite control and metabolism-- specifically the release of the hormones leptin and ghrelin. There are two other activities that have a positive affect on these hormones. The first is an obvious one-- Exercise. Getting regular exercise helps to balance blood sugar and insulin levels, and help to maintain a healthy weight. The second activity is Laughing. A recent study shows that laughing may reduce cholesterol, blood pressure and improve immune activity.

Laughter affects the body like exercise

ANI, Jul 13, 2010, 12.00am IST
Results of the study, from Loma Linda University's Schools of Allied Health (SAHP) and Medicine, showed that laughing not only enhances a positive mood, but lowers stress hormones, increases immune activity, and lowers cholesterol and blood pressure, similar to moderate exercise.

In the study, 14 healthy volunteers were recruited to a three-week study to examine the effects that eustress (mirthful laughter) and distress have on modulating the key hormones that control appetite.

During the study, each subject was required to watch one 20-minute video at random that was either upsetting (distress) or humorous (eustress) in nature.

During the study, the researchers measured each subject's blood pressure and took blood samples immediately before and after watching the respective videos.

Each blood sample was separated out into its components and the liquid serum was examined for the levels of two hormones involved in appetite, leptin and ghrelin, for each time point used in the study.

When the researchers compared the hormone levels pre- and post-viewing, they found that the volunteers who watched the distressing video showed no statistically significant change in their appetite hormone levels during the 20-minutes they spent watching the video.

In contrast, the subjects who watched the humorous video had changes in blood pressure and also changes in the leptin and ghrelin levels.

Specifically, the level of leptin decreased as the level of ghrelin increased, much like the acute effect of moderate physical exercise that is often associated with increased appetite.

Dr. Lee S. Berk, a preventive care specialist and psychoneuroimmunology researcher at Loma Linda University's Schools of Allied Health (SAHP) and Medicine, said that this research does not conclude that humour increases appetite.

"The ultimate reality of this research is that laughter causes a wide variety of modulation and that the body's response to repetitive laughter is similar to the effect of repetitive exercise,” he said.

“The value of the research is that it may provide for those who are health care providers with new insights and understandings, and thus further potential options for patients who cannot use physical activity to normalize or enhance their appetite," he added.

The study is being presented at the 2010 Experimental Biology conference.

Easy Weight Loss? -- Sleep to support your weight loss efforts

Sleep your way skinny?

Ok, so it may not replace good diet and exercise, but based on recent studies, getting adequate and good quality sleep can improve your metabolism and curb your appetite. In fact, the study showed that getting less than 8 hours of sleep and/or poor quality sleep (disturbed sleep) can disrupt your metabolism and increase your appetite by affecting the release of leptin and ghrelin in the body-- two hormones that are involved in appetite regulation. On top of that, the energy deficit that results from lack of sleep then causes the person to be less active, expend fewer calories, and consume more calories. The study showed that "shorter sleep times were associated with increased circulating ghrelin and decreased leptin, a hormonal pattern that is consistent with decreased energy expenditure and increased appetite and obesity"(PLos Med. 2004 December; 1(3): e61).

Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine offer an effective, drug-free approach to addressing sleep issues and enhancing sleep quality. A healthy diet and regular sleep schedule is also important in maintaining optimal sleep and for general well-being.

link to the study: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC535424/

also see article below:

Sleep - A Good Way to Manage Your Appetite and Weight?

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April 27, 2010

Did you know that losing sleep may increase your appetite and as a result your weight? Several studies have been published in recent years have looked at the relationship between sleep loss, weight and appetite and should serve as a guide for how we value sleep.

According to one study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition this year, one night of reduced sleep subsequently increased food intake and, to a lesser extent, estimated physical activity-related energy expenditure in healthy men. These experimental results, if confirmed by long-term energy balance measurements, suggest that sleep restriction could be a factor that promotes obesity. The study observed two groups of men - half of which slept for 8 hours, while the other half got 4 hours of sleep, and found that the men who got less sleep consumed 22 percent more calories than those who slept for 8 hours. A University of Chicago study last year also arrived at similar conclusions when they included women in the study. Such sleep restriction may have been a bit extreme, but it is also not altogether uncommon in our society and is a pattern deemed the "royal route to obesity" by Eve Van Cauter, PhD, who conducted the Chicago study.

Some researchers have found that hormone function is to be blamed for how short sleep duration affects our appetite and weight. Another study published by the National Center for Biotechnology Information found that feelings of hunger as well as plasma ghrelin levels are already elevated after one night of sleep deprivation, whereas morning serum leptin concentrations remain unaffected. The researchers explained that their results provide further evidence for a disturbing influence of sleep loss on endocrine regulation of energy homeostasis, which on the long run may result in weight gain and obesity.

Can thoughts & emotions change our body chemistry?

Biocognition Podcast, Mario Martinez:
http://www.soundstrue.com/podcast/?p=1027

I just came across a great podcast by clinical neuropsychologist, Mario Martinez called "The Mind-Body Code". Martinez expands on the field of psychoimmunology-- the concept that mind and body are inseparable and that our thoughts and emotions can influence our immune and nervous system, and coins the term, "Biocognition". Biocognition factors in our cultural environment, as well as mystical theology.

Martinez states that based on his cross-cultural research, people can only be wounded in 3 ways:
1. Shame
2. Abandonment
3. Betrayal

He says that we all walk around every day carrying the psychoimmunology of one of these processes. I take it to be like a psychological imprint that is learned very early on in life, usually taught to us by people that are very important to us (parent, loved one, etc). This imprint colors our reality, and influences how we perceive and act in this world. For example: Your significant other leaves for a long weekend vacation with his/her friends without you. In a healthy relationship, this event should be neutral. Yes, the partner will be missed for a week, but you should be able to continue functioning normally and welcome the partner home when they return. If you have a history of abandonment, this event becomes more drastic than it should. You may feel as if your partner has left for good, and feel inappropriately sad or overwhelmed with loss. Martinez says that this is you dumping your history on to the moment.

Biocognition theory and recent research studies have shown that these imprints/emotions not only affect our relationships and perceptions of the world, but also directly influence our immune system and nervous system, thereby contributing to development of illness and disease. Based on research summarized in Martinez' podcast, each of the 3 wounds create different and specific biochemical reactions in our bodies:

1. Shame & Betrayal: release inflammatory products just like the body would in response to a physical wound to heal and protect itself. However, chronic over-production of inflammatory products lead to disease (particularly cardiovascular disease and certain cancers, also arthritic conditions). Inflammation is now being studied as a common underlying factor in many chronic diseases.
2. Abandonment: fight or flight response. Tends to release cortisol = stress hormone.

The good news is, that we can also use the power of our minds to reverse and heal this maladaptive pattern and skewed perception of the world. He talks about embodying or feeling the physical reaction when these emotions are triggered and then re-empowering the self using relaxation and meditative techniques. HONOR to treat shame, COMMITMENT to treat abandonment, and LOYALTY to treat betrayal. He recommends doing this work with a trained professional (therapist, etc) who understands this work.

The chemistry of our bodies can change with healing thoughts. We must first learn to recognize our diseased thoughts, and then prescribe ourselves healthy, healing thoughts. He also stresses that it is more than just thought and intentions. These must be followed actions and cleaning of wounds.

Listen to the podcast: http://www.soundstrue.com/podcast/?p=1027

Increase Midwifery Care in Hospitals to decrease Caesarean Rates and Save Money

Timothy R. B. Johnson and Judy Norsigian

The high cost of caesareans

By Timothy R. B. Johnson and Judy Norsigian June 28, 2010

FOR A symbol of what ails the US health system, look no further than hospital delivery rooms, where costly caesareans, many for non-medical reasons, are inching closer to a majority of all births.

Even though caesareans are associated with higher rates of complications than vaginal births, they are becomingly increasingly common. Problems range from infections, including the more serious antibiotic-resistant ones, to blood clots, prematurity, respiratory problems for the baby, and more complications with subsequent pregnancies. There is even a small but measurably higher risk of death for the mother.

Between 2000 and 2006, while the Massachusetts caesarean rate climbed from 16th to 10th highest among all states, the state’s ranking on neonatal mortality has slipped from 4th best to a tie for 9th. Six hospitals in the state have caesarean rates greater than 40 percent for first time mothers, yet none of these hospitals is designated as a high-risk center. So much for the argument that high-risk pregnancies are the reason for these rates.

There are also cost consequences for taxpayers — the caesarean rate for Massachusetts mothers on Medicaid is increasing at a faster pace than among privately insured mothers. Nationally, in 2008, average hospital charges for an uncomplicated caesarean section were $14,894, while such charges for an uncomplicated vaginal birth were $8,919.

What can we do to lower the caesarean rate? Considerable media attention has focused on how extreme obesity can raise the risk of having a caesarean, but more emphasis is needed on these system-based approaches:

■More hospitals need to institute policies that restrict the induction of labor, unless there is a good medical reason. Unfortunately, labor is now sometimes induced solely for the convenience of the physician or the mother, and labor induction increases the likelihood of a caesarean section in many women. Almost all the recent increase in late preterm (34 to 36 weeks) births was related to planned caesareans carried out too soon, and the rise in premature and low-birth-weight babies has required more expensive hospital-based care to address the medical problems of these infants.

■Obstetricians and hospitals should follow the new National Institute of Health recommendations to offer the option of vaginal birth after a caesarean for those women who want to avoid repeat surgery. As noted in a recent NIH press release, “Although as many as 60 percent of hospitals in some states routinely prohibit vaginal delivery by women who have had a caesarean section, that practice is out of step with current medical research.’’

Expanding this option would require that the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists amend a recommendation that hospitals have 24/7 presence of an anesthesiologist if they choose to offer vaginal births after a caesarean. Because of this recommendation, many hospitals concerned about liability refuse to allow them. Yet those same hospitals find it acceptable to call in an off-site anesthesiologist when mothers need an emergency caesarean for any other reason.

■Hospitals could expand access to nurse-midwifery care. In Boston, statistics for hospitals that care for women facing the same risk of complications show that hospitals with nurse-midwifery services tend to have lower caesarean rates than those without a significant midwifery presence.

In 2008, the two Boston-based hospitals without midwifery services (Tufts Medical Center and Beth-Israel Deaconess Medical Center) had overall caesarean rates of 37.7 percent and 42 percent respectively, while hospitals offering significant midwifery care averaged between 27 percent (Mt. Auburn Hospital) and 35 percent (Brigham and Women’s Hospital). Notably, Boston Medical Center — a hospital with both a large midwifery service and an at-risk population — had a caesarean rate of 30.1 percent.

Enhancing access to midwifery care might well be the most effective approach to safely reducing the overall caesarean rate — and could lead to significant cost savings and improvement in other priority areas such as breastfeeding. It would also address the impending shortage of obstetric providers. The Legislature should pass a bill to expand access to midwifery care in Massachusetts. We must finally make midwives more central in maternity care — as do all other countries whose birth outcomes are superior to ours.

Timothy R. B. Johnson, MD, is Bates professor and chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Michigan. Judy Norsigian is executive director of Our Bodies Ourselves.

What can our Economy Learn from Acupuncture?

An Economy in Need of Holistic Medicine

By ANAND GIRIDHARADAS

Published: October 23, 2009

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS — The American economy is having what doctors call an acute episode.

Employment won’t throb. The circulation of capital remains weak. Industry is breathing, but barely. And if we can agree on anything one year into this mess, it is that there is little we can do when the patient arrives already this bad.

That is why the talk now is so often of prevention. Prevent the next crisis through health insurance and a green-energy sector, the American president says. Prevent it by cutting spending and nurturing personal responsibility, American conservatives retort.

But the truth is that politicians, and not just in the United States, are rarely willing to invest in a problem that hasn’t occurred. Consensus and action are easier to come by after a 9/11 or a Lehman Brothers than before. Problems in the embryonic, soluble phase don’t interest us; and those that do interest us are often too big to solve.

Which is where acupuncture comes in.

Western medical practices have attracted similar criticisms in recent years, for an emphasis on intervening in disease rather than preventing it beforehand and promoting quotidian well-being. But in health, unlike politics, an alternative approach called wellness has emerged, focused on investing in health before it breaks down.

What can wellness tell us about our present economic malady? As it moves from fringe to mainstream — with wellness programs in the health care reform proposals now in Congress, wellness manifestos on the best-seller lists and a U.S. Army wellness program that asks soldiers to introspect and meditate — I asked experts about the approach’s core tenets and how they might be applied to the body politic.

Nip it in the bud. Wellness argues for cultivating health a little every day, not just restoring it during calamities. We increasingly accept that it is better to monitor a diabetic’s blood sugar with regular clinic visits than to amputate her limbs. We accept that businesses can avoid costly cancer treatments by encouraging workers to stop smoking. But in our political life, we prefer to wait until things reach the emergency room.

We barely regulate financial markets for years, thinking regulation oppressive, until we are compelled to nationalize private firms. We avoid expensive investments and controversial new methods in public education, then pay the price in lower social mobility and vast prison populations. We neglect building roads and bridges and Internet highways, fearing the cost, and then reap the much greater costs of whole regions falling off the economic grid.

“With a lot of social problems, we’re not sure how to prevent it, and therefore we don’t spend money on it, because we always have a lot of other priorities,” said David Cutler, a Harvard economist who has advised both the Clinton and Obama White Houses on health care.

Go to the roots. Western medicine tends to fight symptoms, whether suppressing coughs or flooding the brains of the depressed with serotonin. Wellness is interested in underlying causes. It is inclined to see an infertile woman, for example, as a stressed woman rather than a woman with defunct ovaries, and may suggest that she eat and work differently rather than take ovary-manipulating pills.

In public policy, a symptom bias rules. A housing crisis? Enact a tax credit! Bank failures? Bail them out!

There is nothing wrong with such steps — except for what they leave out, as most economists will tell you.

Even amid all this action, we have virtually ignored the complex weave of issues beneath the issues: meager savings, a debt addiction, a congenitally spendthrift political system, an almost pathological craving for stuff. And, with our topical cures, we should not be surprised to see new symptoms of the old maladies appearing: insurance again being packaged into derivatives, bonuses again soaring on Wall Street.

“We treat symptoms, and we do not look at the causes of the symptoms,” Deepak Chopra, the famed alternative-medicine and wellness guru, said when asked to extend the wellness metaphor to the economy. “We are totally at this moment looking at it in a reductionist manner. The reductionist manner is a bailout. And somehow that’s supposed to solve the problem, whereas the problem occurred because we were thinking reductively.”

Look within. Wellness sees the causes of and remedies for ailments as lying within us. Avoid infection by building immunity. Defeat disease by eating foods that help the body heal itself.

With the economy, we look everywhere but within. It’s the fault of greedy Wall Street bankers. It’s Washington’s fault. Bush’s fault. Obama’s fault. Greenspan’s fault. Somebody fix it!

But what about us? Why can’t we acknowledge that it was us who bought all those unaffordable houses, us who listened to that zero-gravity financial “advice,” us who bought and bought and never kept a rainy-day fund? And why, in solving the problem, do we expect the state to create substitute dynamism instead of renewing the culture of decentralized dynamism that made the U.S. economy so vital to begin with?

“Conventional medicine is very unbalanced in placing all its emphasis on external interventions rather than looking to advance that internal capacity to maintain healing,” said Andrew Weil, founder of the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine and the author of several books on wellness. Likewise with the economy, he said: “Instead of simply identifying external threats and developing weapons and strategies against them, we should instead identify and strengthen immunity and resistance.”

A politics of wellness would transcend party. It would emphasize the up-front investments that Democrats like in order to achieve the long-run fiscal solvency on which Republicans insist. It would fulfill the liberal belief in a positive role for government in maintaining well-being but would honor the conservative conviction that government’s chief role is to help the social organism heal itself. It would acknowledge, with the left, the complex lattice of cultural and institutional influences that govern a society’s well-being, while emphasizing, with the right, the limits of what any external healer can do.

Think wellness in these hard times. The most urgent problems, after all, may be the ones we haven’t had yet.

Yin & Yang in Daily Life

Health is best maintained through the practice of moderation. To achieve moderation, there must be a balance between activity and inactivity. Yin and Yang are relative terms. Yin in comparison to Yang is associated more with rest/inactivity. Yang, in comparison to Yin, is associated more with activity. Yang activities should be balanced with Yin activities. Engage in more Yang activities during daylight hours. While evening and night time should consist of more Yin activities.

Yang
work
exercise
weight training
television
music
metabolic processes
thinking/planning
eating

Yin
deep breathing
slow stretching
sleep/rest
relaxation

Inner Sage

Medical intuitive Caroline Myss states that true healing is never purely a physical event, but rather, true healing always involves a spiritual experience. A change must occur on a much deeper, spiritual level in order for long-lasting healing to take place.

In today's society, we have become distracted by the superficiality of modern living (toys, gadgets, money) that it's easy to lose track of our true purpose. Because of the way that our society has evolved, we all exist in survival mode, where the goal of each day is to earn enough currency to purchase our own "worth" in the world. This "worth" buys us a sense of security. But of course it is a false sense of security because the infrastructure on which it is based is not immune to the impermanent nature of the universe. Underneath all the superficiality is innate wisdom that exists in every individual. Let's call this an individual's 'Inner Sage'. The Inner Sage is still connected to its origins and remembers the true path. The Inner Sage is a person's true, authentic self. The Inner Sage is free of external influences, and follows their true path in order to realize their full potential. The Inner Sage is connected to their immediate environment, as well as to the Universe. Because of this, they understands the fluid, cyclical and changing nature of the Universe. Therefore, they are able to maintain health and well-being because they remain flexible and resilient like nature.

The role of the practitioner is to act as a facilitator to awaken the Inner Sage in all patients, encouraging them to become their own caretakers and empowering them to take responsibility for their own health. The practitioner is much like the gardener who plants the seed. The patient is responsible for nurturing and caring for the plant (watering, feeding) for it to thrive and remain healthy.

Paths

Imagine life as a path you are walking on. You begin to notice that the path becomes rocky, and the terrain unruly. Perhaps it begins suddenly, or maybe it is a progressive change in the road condition. Either way, you begin to scrape yourself on the rocks. Ouch! It’s painful. As you continue walking, every few miles, you begin to notice in your peripheral vision, tangent roads that appear to lead somewhere else. At this point, there are a few options:
(1). You disregard the new paths, thinking to yourself that they may appear like a good escape, but that this path you are currently on started out fine too, and then became rough. You convince yourself that these other paths are just disasters waiting to happen. You stay on the road you’re on, falling and hurting yourself, over and over again.
LESSON: Out of fear of the unknown, we convince ourselves that change is bad. We can become so caught up in our pessimistic habits to recognize that by making different decisions, we can change our lives for the better.
(2). You are too focused on trying to make your way through the rough terrain, fearful of falling or hurting yourself, that your gaze is focused down at your feet as you trudge along, scared, angry, and depressed. You are so focused on the horrible conditions of the road you are on, that you slowly begin to forget that the tangent roads existed at all. After awhile, they begin to appear less and less frequently. Eventually, you never see them at all, and the memory of them fades to a dim flicker in the back of your cluttered mind.
LESSON: We are too focused on our past and current pain and suffering, that we miss the opportunities to change the direction of our lives.
(3). At first, you disregard the new paths, and continue walking. But as you give them more attention, they seem to appear more and more frequently. At first every few miles, then every half mile. Eventually, you stop to turn your head. Now you are looking directly at this new road. This is a choice point. The new road looks clear, smooth and bright. You can leave this path that you’ve been on for what seems like an eternity, for a new and brighter direction. As you are suddenly presented with this new option, you are overwhelmed by fear. Although the new, bright road is the obvious better choice, you’ve developed a bizarre attachment to this rough terrain. Even though it has hurt you and caused you much pain, it is what has become familiar to you. Out of addiction and habit, you could give up this perfect opportunity to escape the suffering and choose to stick with what you know, even though it has hurt you.
LESSON: You recognize the chance to change the course of your life, but fear of change overwhelms you. So many people get stuck in their pain out of fear of leaving what is familiar.
(4). Like the above scenario, the more you pay attention to the tangent paths, the more they seem to appear. Again, you stop and are now staring directly at the new path. It is brighter, smooth, and clear. You are filled with a sense of promise and excitement for change. You embrace this new opportunity to let go of the old path that no longer serves you. You are not sure where this new path will lead you. But now you know that if things get hard again, you always have the power of choice to change your path, as long as you take the blinders off to look up and around you. This means no longer giving your pain and suffering power by focusing all your attention on it, but instead always keeping your mind and eyes open to paths that will enhance your growth. With this in mind, you take the first step toward your new life, filled with excitement, courage, and confidence.
LESSON: Picking a new path is not immediately the end of suffering. It is the beginning of a new direction. It may still take work and effort, but once you practice your ability to make choices and to shift your attention to where you want to go, you'll begin to notice that more and more opportunities arise for you to get where you want to go.

We often think that, “if only I had the opportunity for a better life”, or “if only I had the chance to start over”, that would be the answer to all our problems. But we are often offered many chances for renewal and change, because change really is the only constant.

We must recognize that we are always presented with opportunities for change-- to change the direction of our lives for the better. But in order to embrace a more positive future, we must first make room for a new perspective by releasing what no longer serves us.

Impermanance

. All elements of life are impermanent. By resisting impermanence, we only cause ourselves suffering. Nature undulates, it rises and falls, and between each rise and fall is a chance for change. Each spring, the trees that lost their leaves in the winter, re-grow new leaves. It doesn’t grow the same leaf it had before, but a brand new leaf. We'd think it ridiculous if it had attempted to hold on to its old leaf, refusing to let it go. We can see from our outside perspective that it was trying to hold on to something that no longer served its purpose. By letting it go, it allowed itself the opportunity to grow a new, beautiful, healthy leaf.

In the same way, by holding on to our maladaptive patterns of thought, we continue to act in addictive ways. These are not limited to addictive behaviors such as smoking or drinking, but also include addictions to unhealthy emotions and thought patterns. If we hold on to our sickness and pain, we are resisting the natural order of change. By letting go of our need to hold on to feelings and thoughts, we allow ourselves to reach for newer, better, and more evolved thoughts, and ultimately walk down a new path; a path that leads to health.

Because life is always in constant flux, there is always an opportunity to change and to heal. No one state is ever permanant. Change is the universal constant. Everything is always evolving. Health depends on how well we are able to adjust to changing conditions in our environment.