Month: April 2007

Overall Wellness

Balance In Medicine

YourStellarSelf

Two of my favorite resources came together last night when Dr. Andrew Weil appeared on The Colbert Report. Weil and Colbert engaged in an interesting conversation on the topic of integrative medicine. Rather than espousing alternative medicine alone, Weil is a proponent of integrating allopathic and complementary medical methods in order to provide the best possible patient care.

This topic was very interesting for me in light of a conversation I had with a friend yesterday evening. Three days earlier, her husband, Brian, had been quite literally on the brink of death, having contracted Necrotizing Fascitiis flesh eating bacteria a highly virulent form of strep. On Saturday morning, his vital organs were shutting down. My friend is a holistic wellness practitioner, with strong connections to both the biomedical and complementary medical communities in the DC area, and was able to use her network to locate an expert in this area. Using a combination of antiobiotics and surgery, the physicians were able to stop the infection and literally save Brian’s life.

This very scary medical situation reminded me of how important it is to look at things in a balanced way. While there are many things that can be done to prevent or treat various illnesses using complementary medicine, there are some situations where conventional, or allopathic, medicine is the absolutely right and necessary way to go. Like Dr. Weil, I believe that rather than just espousing to either conventional medicine or complementary medicine, it is important to look at a given situation and use an integrative approach to healing.

I wish you love and light, Brian, on your journey of healing.

Recommended Reading:
Dr. Weil’s definition of Integrative Medicine

The National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine offers a free online course on Integrative Medicine with credits for qualifying professionals

Sleep

Don’t Lose Any Sleep

YourStellarSelf

I had two interesting sleep-research related experiences this past week. First, I got to test the new website for the National Sleep Foundation at their headquarters in Washington, DC. I have been a fan of their website for a few years now, as it is a great resource for research, advice and anything else you want to know about sleep. So, it was a privilege to have a chance to browse the redesigned site and give my feedback about navigability and overall design. As an added bonus, in exchange for my volunteer time, I got a cool book of New Yorker Magazine sleep and health-related cartoons, plus an interactive educational CD, Cycles of Sleeping and Waking with the Doze Family, which they sell in their online shop. Their first round of feedback on the new website is being done in person, but soon they will be putting out a call for online feedback. I’ll keep you posted.

The other interesting find was a discovery relating to the work of Stanford University’s William Dement, MD, PhD, who, among other accomplishments, is the world’s leading authority on sleep, sleep deprivation, and the diagnosis and treatment of sleep disorders, founder of the world’s first sleep disorders center at Stanford University, and scientific advisor for Sleep Quest, a website dedicated to the field of sleep medicine. One of his lectures is available on iTunes, part of an initiative created by Stanford University that includes several interesting offerings in a wide variety of subjects. I downloaded his lecture on sleep disorders.

Body, Law of Attraction, Mind, Overall Wellness

Everyday Qi

YourStellarSelf

My colleague, fellow wellness coach Ellen Britt, has assembled an amazing group of speakers for a free teleconference. The series was launched last week with a live interview with Dr. Alan Sears who has some radically interesting ideas about exercise, heart health and weight management. She is offering this 12-week series at no charge (she makes her money by selling the recordings at a later time), and I highly recommend it. I’m looking forward to hearing tonight’s speaker, Dr. Symeon Rodger.

Here is the letter that she sent out announcing the series. Even though it has already started, you can still sign up.

You’ve probably heard the term *Qi* (pronounced *chee*), that ancient Asian term that means one’s vital energy. The Chinese knew that if your Qi was blocked or stagnant, illness was sure to follow.

It’s no different with your own life if your EveryDay Qi is blocked or slow, you are headed for trouble. You may struggle to stay fit, maintain your weight, keep your junk food cravings under control, and cope with your soaring stress levels, but nothing you do seems to work.

You know you have to do something, but where do you turn for real help, with all the health and wellness hype and jargon that’s out there?

If your EveryDay Qi is blocked, you turn to the Masters, but who are these Masters? They are the Masters of EveryDay Qi.

And you don’t have to climb the high Himalayas or live for years in an isolated mountain cave to have access to their wisdom. This is your opportunity to learn from the best.

Just by enrolling in the EveryDay Qi Wellness Intensive, a totally free 12-week teleseminar series featuring LIVE in-depth interviews with some of the most respected names in health and wellness today.

Our speakers will be teaching you cutting edge wellness information such as:

*accessing the 5 Keys to everyday bliss
*why the cardio workout is a myth
*getting unshakable inner peace…on demand
*being a savvy hypnosis consumer
*using biofeedback to sky-rocket your personal development
*increasing your wellness with every action you take
*why losing everything could be the best thing that happens
*the ancient Hawaiian healing system to manifest health and wellness
*how your can use A.D.D. to your advantage
*implementing a simple technique to amp up your energy
*how to get fit…even if you are *over the hill*
*eliminating stress and anxiety…permanently
*reactivating your native fat burner

…and much, much more!

You will be learning from the most respected health and wellness EveryDay Qi Masters on the planet, including…

*Dr. Joe Vitale (one of the prominent teachers in The Secret movie…plus…
*Dr. Al Sears, M.D.
*Tellman Knudson
*Michael Lovitch
*Dr. Symeon Rodger
*Maryam Webster
*Jon Benson
*Peter Shepherd
*Stephen Pierce
*Mark Joyner
*Ryan Lee…

The EveryDay Qi Intensive begins Wednesday, April 11th at 8PM Eastern so get this written into your calendar now!

Seats are limited, so make sure you reserve your place early…and did I mention that for a limited time the EveryDay Qi Intensive is totally FREE!

P.S. If you can’t make Wednesdays, register anyway…all calls will be recorded and available later
for your listening…but only if you register.

==> http://www.everydayqi.com

Uncategorized

Grieving for Virginia Tech, and all of us

YourStellarSelf

Even though I don’t normally write about about the news, I felt compelled to write down my thoughts on the Virginia Tech tragedy. When I heard the news, I began to cry. The senselessness of this extremely violent act touched me at a very deep level — I felt the pain of the students and faculty and staff who were the direct victims, I hurt for the people who lost loved ones, I grieved for the family of the shooter, and I cried for our entire society, where things like this shouldn’t happen, but do.

We need to become better as a society at being aware of individuals’ pain, and expressing our own pain, so that this kind of thing will be less likely to happen in the future. We need to show compassion and interest in every individual. We need to support one another so that nobody ever falls through the safety net. We need to know that, even though we are a nation of rugged individuals, we are all in this together.

My sympathy and prayers go out to all the students, staff, family and friends of Virginia Tech.

Body

Treating Like With Like

YourStellarSelf

A friend just told me that this is World Homeopathy Awareness Week. I wasn’t aware of that until she told me.

The National Institutes of Health has a very informative description of homeopathy. Essentially, it works by introducing very small doses of substances that would produce the same or similar symptoms of illness in healthy people if they were given in larger doses (for example, something that would induce nausea, in an extremely diluted form, is used as a remedy against nausea). This helps to bolster the body’s natural defenses. Homeopaths select remedies according to the total medical history of the patient, including lifestyle, emotional and mental states, as well as physical symptoms.

I really like the idea of homeopathy since it works with your body to boost your natural defenses rather than just curing individual symptoms. Because of this, it is a wonderful complement to allopathic (Western) medicine. Another wonderful aspect is that it does not cause side effects. Use of homeopathic medicine is much more prevalent in Europe than here, and there has been quite a bit of clinical research conducted in Europe showing its effectiveness for a wide variety of medical conditions.

Two products that are staples in my medicine cabinet are arnica and Oscillococinum. Arnica is great for bumps and bruises. Recently, I dropped a full bottle of shampoo on my big toe. The bottle was angled on top, and the edge of the angle fell full force on my foot. The pain was excruciating, and there was a 1/4 inch-deep dark purple dent in my toe, which quickly turned into a huge lump. I put arnica cream on it, and within a couple of hours, the bump and the discoloration had gone away. It never bruised.

Oscillococinum is used to stave off the flu. I have found that if I take it at the first signs of flu, it helps to make the impending illness go away. As a result, I have only been sick with the flu a couple of times in the past 5 years.

You can find both of these items, plus a whole array of homeopathic remedies and books at your local natural food store. And when you are first starting to use homeopathy, it is best to consult with a medical professional who is trained in its use, as he or she can advise you as to how it can best be applied to your particular situation. The National Center for Homeopathy, right here in the DC area, has a searchable database of practitioners by locality, plus a ton of other resources on all things homeopathic.

Happiness, Mind

The Importance of Being Happy

YourStellarSelf

The new discipline of Positive Psychology (the study of positive emotions, positive character traits, and institutions that support people in emotionally healthy ways) has been gaining steam. Introduced to the public in a 2000 issue of American Psychologist, the premier journal of the American Psychological Association, this discipline has continued to gain public interest through the efforts of pioneer Martin Seligman, author of Authentic Happiness and creator of several programs that successfully teach people to be happier.

Stanford University psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky is an expert on the topic of happiness. She has found the following benefits of being a happy person: happy people have overall higher incomes, greater productivity, higher quality of work, more satisfying and longer-lasting marriages, more friends, stronger social support and better social interactions. They also experience more energy, more flow, stronger immune systems, lower stress levels, less pain and even longer lives than unhappy people. She also found that study after study indicated that happy people are “more creative, helpful, charitable, and self-confident, have better self-control, and show greater self-regulatory and coping abilities.”