Healthy New Year!

It’s 2020 and all of us at O & A Wellness Group, Inc. want to wish you a Healthy New Year!

We’ve been working in the backgrounds, helping people heal and we neglected to keep in touch. We’re sorry about that and we’ve given ourselves a gentle slap on the hands, lol and we’re changing that.

We’ve resurrected our blog, yay! And you can enjoy previous blogs and the new ones we’ll be sharing. We’re also starting a radio show, stay tuned for that and we’ll have the occasional videos sprinkled in for good flavor.

We thank you for sticking with us as we’re growing our services and helping more people at our locations and through our divisions.

Here’s a short poem that’s inspiring us for 2020; we hope it inspires you as well.

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How to What If... Successfully.

A client recently shared her latest success with me and we celebrated this success. We kept on talking and she brought up the possibility of making a mistake the next time a similar situation arose. And my responses went something like this:

"Very true, you could be presented with the same situation and you could make the same better choice or make a not so good choice. That's like "what if ..." scenario for something you don't have all the premises for and you're anticipating the outcome. I recommend waiting until another situation presents itself and then apply the same process you did for this one and then see how it goes. Personally, I "what if ..." in my favor. I believe in "what iffing ..." to support me. When I have a big project that feels daunting and impossible, I what if on the amazing support I will receive so my project is successful. I what if about everything and get so psyched into action. I must confess that sometimes people have told me, "that's wishful thinking" to which I have responded, "well, what the hell do you call your negative what if...? It is wishful thinking that is scaring the bejeezus out of you and keeping you from acting for your own good; at least my wishful thinking is helping me." 

And we both burst into laughter. Then she said, "You should write about this on your blog," and so I did. 

A while back, I decided to positively anticipate and live in the mindset that everyone and every thing is here to help me. Prior to that decision, I was the biggest drama queen on the largest stage in my mind. I could ruminate and create outright wacky scenarios to no end. If there were ten ways something could go wrong, I could think of 100 ways. But then, I would act, despite the wacky thoughts, and I would yield some or all of the wacked up outcomes I had thought of and be convinced I should not have done anything.

When I began my studies in psychology, I started to psychoanalyze myself. I also realized I was doing effective mental self-talk that will work to support me or hurt me, based on my choice. So I maintained my powerful mental self-talk and changed it to support me. Some people are aware of my "Disaster Report" sheet which I use to "think out loud" and "what if ..." to my heart's content. I called it the disaster report because I used to spin in my mind and freak myself out so much that I would make a mountain out of a mole hill and scare myself.  When I decided to put pen to paper with the usual suspects of questions that would cause me to focus on unfavorable things, I felt it deserved the aptly named, "Disaster Report" to reflect how my sometimes too dramatic thoughts show up. At the same time, I created the "Sabotage Report" for the times I realized I was considering all the ways I could mess up. With both of these, I mess up less, I accomplish more and I laugh at my self way more than I did before. They also serve as preliminary think tank of ideas that jump start my positive what iffing.   

If you are a "what iffer" and would like to use the disaster report to think out loud and positively what if ..., I have provided it here for you.

Something I learned About Long Term Health and Well Being

I recently had the pleasure to be an attendee at a workshop hosted by my friend Linda Easton, owner of Linda Easton Coaching and Extraordinary Organizing. During this "Women Mean Business" workshop, many profound ideas and information were shared. As I listened and participated, my mind began to link some of the ideas she was teaching us. I began to connect some of what she was sharing with lasting health and well being strategies. 

I often encourage our clients to plan and track. You only have to read some of my blogs to get the idea that I consider planning and tracking great strategies. Planning and tracking are important for business and for health and well being as well. Linda shared a short tip about making the day count, rather than counting the days and I immediately thought, "Now that is a great point to make for health and well being."

Each and every single day we have available to us is an extraordinary opportunity to rock our health and well being actions. For instance, rather than focusing on how many months it would take to lose 20 lbs of the excess weight you're lugging around, focus on what you can do each day to get you closer to your ideal weight and then do those things. Several years ago, when I was 45 lbs over weight, I worried about the length of time it would take to get all that weight off my body. Then I decided to apply visioning techniques to my health desires and thus shifted my thoughts about losing weight to how I would look, feel, be, at my desired weight. In a short while, I was not trying to lose weight, I becoming my desired weight and person. I shed the excess weight and didn't sweat how long it took because my focus was on my health and well being and the actions I needed to take to get and stay healthy. 

Several years later, my focus has not changed. It is still about staying well and healthy and each day is focused on the actions supporting my health and well being goals. By focusing on what I can do each day, I make each day count and over 5000 days later, every day's actions has culminated in tremendous life giving benefits I may not have had if I were only thinking about how long it would take to reach my health goals. By making each day count, I have netted years of true health and well being. 

If you are new to the journey, take my friend Linda Easton's advice and begin to make each day count and start today. Wake up tomorrow and start today again.       

What We Can Learn From Spring About Health

As Spring is ushering herself into 2016 and we are about to switch to daylight savings time, a thought occurred to me about Spring and health. Life, nature, environment, and situations bring with them many lessons. To the keen mind, it is easy to garner these lessons after the emotional hoopla has died down. I learned one of those lessons as I observed the new leaves coming in, alerting us to Spring and the freshness, newness, rejuvenation, and rekindling she brings with her. It occurred to me that Spring comes in one leaf at a time and in a short while, we see the fullness of the leaves on the trees and the fresh blooms of colorful flowers that encourage brightness and cheerfulness in many.

When clients come in to talk to us, they always want to know how quickly they can expect results. Although we have several answers to this question, relative to the needs of each client, with Spring upon us, I view the ushering in of new leaves, one at a time and in gradual increments very relevant to getting health results. Each area that is improving within one's health and well being is akin to new leaves in Spring. Like Spring, the timing is not rushed; each leaf goes through its budding stage and in time, a seemingly barren tree is filled with leaves and fruit bearing blooms. 

Spring is also teaching that we ought not to focus on the instant gratification that can sometimes tempt us to not make the lasting commitment to health and well being; rather, we exercise patience and embrace the journey of the new leaves unfolding to draw in the sunlight so the tree can bear sweet, succulent fruits.   

Terpsichore In the Blood

Dancing is one of my favorite activities. When I was a child, I remembered one of our family friends gave me a pet name that roughly translated as "dancing bug" because I loved to dance and would stay on the dance floor at a party and dance till my mother dragged me off the dance floor. As an adult, dancing is still one of my favorite activities. I am one of those people you will see bobbing and weaving to the background music while shopping. 

I love dancing and recently I was going over exercises with a client and she shared how difficult it was to keep her exercise routine while traveling. As she shared all the things she's trying in the effort to keep her exercise routine constant while on the road, I sympathized with the elaborate schemes she had devised and the frustrations they brought each time. I travel often for work as well and I quickly realized that I was not a fan of hotel gyms. By no means am I a serious germophobe, however, I have a little bit of concern with gym equipment hygiene after reading several articles about the hidden cesspools of microbes with certain gym equipment. Moreover, as I shared in another post,  I am not always eager to get up very early, get dressed, go to the gym, exercise, return to my abode to shower and get dressed and then get my day started. So I have gym equipment at home to accommodate my selective laziness. When I realized that I skipped exercises when I travel, I needed another way to keep my routine going. 

So, I shared with my client what I do, even when I am not traveling, that has kept me on the train.  I asked her, "are you an Amazon Prime member?" Her response, "yes."

Excellent! We were golden. With a simple request for her to get out her phone and go to her prime membership page, I showed her the prime feature she was already paying for and not using, "Prime Music." There we found workout music that I encouraged her to use while on the road. Just two days before her and I had the conversation, I was away for business in San Jose and rather than lug resistance bands, ab roller and kettle bells with me, I checked to make sure I had my phone and speakers. From my phone, I simply start Prime music and I dance to various pop artists for 1 hour and 39 minutes in my hotel room. When we downloaded Prime Music to her phone, we quickly jammed to Lady Gaga's "Let's Dance" in the clinic as a sample of what Prime Music has to offer. 

Exercise doesn't have to be a chore or an additional thing to pile into your day. As I am writing this post, my Bluetooth Bose speaker is serenading me to Enya from my Prime Music selections. In the mornings, I enjoy the same at home, dancing to my heart's content or on my stationary bike. I confess, I enjoy the dancing more than the bike so I am sure you don't need to guess which aerobic activity I favor over the other. Moreover, I don't think of dancing as an exercise activity because it is a lot of fun for me and I love to dance. My client also loves to dance and we very quickly realized that we both have Terpsichorean traits that we can call upon to serve the purposes of fun, movement and exercise, especially when we travel. She swayed out of the clinic with smiles on her face, excited to dance. 

I encourage you to check into the uninterrupted dance music compilations via Amazon Prime if you aren't already. Very easily, you can work up some serious sweating and burn some calories. 

Health is: Healing is a Daily Journey

I was in a restaurant with a business acquaintance and overheard the person at the next table question the person they were with, exasperatedly, "how long will it take for things to improve?" I had no idea what they were talking about and although my attention returned to my own meeting; I could not help but wonder what was going on. The same question comes up a lot for us as we work with our clients. Everyone wants to know how long it will take for them to recover from something they are dealing with. My inner response to that age old question is "I forgot to bring my magic 8 ball with me so I haven't the foggiest." Out loud, I simply inform them I cannot predict the recovery or speed of success, it is entirely up to the body and the mind doing the healing.

Every one's journey is different. Some people it's like speed lightning and some it takes a bit longer. Mostly, healing is greatly dependent on multiple factors and although we cover as many facets of healing as we are skilled to attend to, the body and the mind hold the key to how quickly one's healing manifests. We have learned that daily effort compound into massive healing shifts that appear to be sudden although the progress has been incremental. For example, one client had a large growth that he was considering having surgically removed because it was unsightly. We decided to use some natural products and at first, it looked like nothing was improving. He kept using the products and then two months later, the growth was completely gone. There are other instances when a condition impacting health for over a decade resolved in less than 1 year.  

We believe that is how healing occurs when diligently applied as a daily salvo.  We also encourage our clients to be relentless in their decision and actions of healing. There is an adage from the Yoruba tribe of Africa that loosely translates thus, "it only appears to be a long time, when it really is not." In all of our years helping clients heal, we find that the time it took to recover is drastically shorter in comparison to the time it took to accumulate the disease or imbalances. Supported with this truth, we teach ways to healing as a daily journey and help to retrain and retool the mind and body for healing as a daily journey. When we take daily steps towards the path of healing, we can look back and see that we are not where we were twelve months or twelve years ago.   

I also feel that, were I to be the one to answer that question I overheard during my lunch meeting with my business acquaintance, I would have said this, "Given that it took xyz months to earn the deterioration, I would estimate that it would take daily efforts of different action(s) to earn the improvement." 

Health is: Track Your Actions/Successes

As one of my mentors once said, "your results go in the direction of your intention, especially if you track them." I am a tracker. I love knowing what is going on with all I am doing. When I first started with personal and professional development, one of the first few things I learned was about the importance of tracking for success. 

I bring up the importance of tracking many times in a day during my conversations with others. I have some people buck against the idea and even tell me it's too much work. And I get it. After all we have on our plates daily, the last thing some want to do is take account of their day at the end of the day. However, what I have learned, from personal experience and observing others is, the successful ones are chronic trackers. When you track, you know what you are doing and it is easy to adjust the actions, directions, thoughts and anything else you want to track. You easily recognize how to achieve your goals. 

I believe to achieve and sustain lasting health and well being, tracking is important. So important that many of our clients get the choice of daily or weekly tracking journals with after action reviews included. Okay, the former military side of me reared her head with the after action review. It worked while I was on active duty and it still works. How else are we to know how to use the lessons learned to our advantage if we don't review our actions, hmm?

One of our clients adamantly refused to use the tracking journal we provided her. After a few months, she came in with a complaint, "I don't know what I'm doing wrong? I am doing everything yet I'm stuck!" After we moved past the pity party (yes we do that as well as success parties), we reminded her we would have been able to pin point where things went awry if she had used the tracking journal. Since she did not, there was no way for us to know if she truly followed her plan of actions or thought she did. It turns out, she was thinking she did everything, because after 3 months of tracking, she saw her patterns and where she would dove tail off track. With that revelation, we were able to change certain cues in her habits and keep her on track.

Because we work with many people with sensitivities, tracking is important. For those who aren't experiencing food sensitivities, we still want them to track because we can glean gems from the sheets. And some people tell us about "ah ha's" they weren't aware of until they began tracking.  

If you are venturing into tracking your health plan and actions for the first time, it may seem too much. My recommendation is to start slow. Track one thing for 30 days, then add another thing. When you get in the habit, you'll soon be tracking many things and you'll quickly discover the benefits of tracking. 

 

Health is: Learn From Your Mistakes and Move on From Them

I am always amazed by the tenacity babies demonstrate when they are learning to crawl and walk. Babies reach, grab, toddle, wobble and fumble and with each missed take, they are one step closer to mastering the skill of crawling and walking. This determination is innate within us as human beings and yet sometimes, we selectively forget that we have and continue to master seemingly insurmountable feats when it comes to our health and well being. 

In continuation of my "Health Is..." posts, I'll share the story of Helena. Helena is an acquaintance who once told me about an emotional situation that turned her into a food addict.  After several years of poor food seeking behaviors, Helena was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes and depression. Encouraged to seek counseling for the emotional underpinning of her ailments, Helena met a therapist who helped her see the lessons from the issues she was facing. Helena eventually moved from victim to victor and worked hard to turn her health around. When she was sharing this story with me, Helena was free of the diabetes and the depression. She was at a slim weight of 140 pounds, very ideal for her frame and she was thriving in her health and other areas of her life.   

Helena and I spoke about many things that day and one of the other lessons we both gained from her experience was the notion of looking at our experiences and situations as chapters of a book or movie in motion. I shared with Helena that I only have "missed takes" and believe I can rewind and replay, just like if I were in front of a camera, acting out a scene. We chatted about how poignant that could be for our experiences and situations and decided it would be good lessons to impart on others. 

It has been 10 years since I last saw Helena, and I still continue to share the "missed takes, rewind, and replay with the lesson learned" concept with others. We will not be perfect with our daily health goals. As a matter of fact, I advice maintaining the philosophy of being "perfectly flawed" or "living flawsome" so we don't beat ourselves up too much for every little missed take we make. This makes it okay for us to make mistakes and learn from them and move on. The idea that mistakes are lessons helping us to be better is also a good one. 

So, look at areas of your health and well being for "missed take" opportunities that you can rewind and replay with the lesson with the lesson learned accompanying your new actions.  

 

Health is: Access and Maintain the Right Practitioner

We are in the information age and we can find practically every thing on the Internet. One of the many things we can find on the Internet is health and wellness information. On the world wide web, good and bad information abound about health and wellness. As a certified information-a-holic myself, I see things on the Net that make my face and whole body contort into weird forms and many times, I am clarifying information that our clients come across on the web. 

It is a great idea to do some personal research and do some self learning. However, I caution against getting information from questionable sources. When it comes to health and well being, I advice getting your information from practitioners you trust. I admit, I am the first to admit it, I have an agenda. My agenda is to get as many people as possible to live their best lives now and always and we promote that agenda with our work in helping people regain total health and well being. We support this agenda with our dedication to lifelong education and training so we can continue to offer our clients the best in functional medicine and functional health and well being. 

With the right practitioner in your corner, you have a trusted, reliable source that can make sense of all you'll come across as you crawl the Internet for information. You also know that he/she is learned in the information they are giving to you. Also, keep in mind that each practitioner will speak from what they have been taught and what they have experienced and most likely will have differing opinions about various schools of thought about various aspects of health and well being.

When potential clients come to us, we answer their questions so they know how we can work together. If we do not have what they are looking for, we gladly refer them to someone who does. It is important to access and maintain the right practitioner who can answer your questions and provide the services you want. This will help you get the most out of your relationship with your practitioner. And it will help your practitioner help you succeed.  

 

Health is: Execute your Daily Plan

The other day, I wrote about having a plan for success with your health goals. Today, I am continuing with sharing about lifelong health success tips with how to execute your plan for success daily. As many of our clients at the clinic will attest to, I am big on doing. It is not only important to think or plan to do something, the achievement of that something is in the doing of it. When it comes to health, I believe daily execution of specified health actions, befitting the set goals, is the key. 

Not too long ago, I shared about the power of the doubling penny and daily health actions. In that same vein, it is important to make the commitment to your health by having  3 to 5 action items supporting your health planned into your day, every day. Let me illustrate what I mean, my health plan includes:

95% raw foods

water as my beverage of choice

eliminate caffeine (which meant not consuming three of my favorite foods: cacao, kombucha and green tea)

bike 3 times a week

prepare my own foods 

eat out as less as possible when traveling

To fulfill this plan, I made some other changes. I knew a gym membership would not work for me because I am too lazy to get up early in the morning, get dressed, go to the gym, exercise, get back in the car, return to my home, shower and then get dressed to go in to the clinic (if you could see me now, I am grimacing as I am writing this. I have a serious anathema!) So, I bought a stationary bike for my use at home. With the bike, all I now do is get up early (I like that part) and stroll into the living room to bike for 30 minutes on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays while I read something inspirational to spark my thinking plugs. 

With my foods, I do my shopping on weekends and plan each day's meals ahead of the day. I take my food into work or have the ingredients stored at work so I can whip up my meal when I am ready for it. When I am traveling, I have a mini refrigerator and cooler that goes with me. As a reminder of my decision to abstain from caffeine, I penned it into my daily calendar and I also informed my friends so they can keep me accountable. 

I also keep myself accountable with my tracking, which I will go into details about in another article. 

If 4 to 5 things are too much to do, start with one thing and do it until it becomes routine. Then add the next thing on your plan and do that till it also is routine, and so on. Like brushing your teeth, the daily execution of your health plan can become routine very quickly; and one of the benefits of routine is that you don't have to think too much about it, after a while. When your health plan becomes routine, it can become a great habit. 

Health is: Having a Plan for Success

I often hear people lament about how they tried something and it didn't work. My internal, smarty blouse response is, "everything works, it just may not have yielded the results you wanted." Although I usually ask out loud, "what parts didn't work? how do you know it didn't work? or what were the steps you took to make sure what you tried would yield the results you wanted?" and sometimes I get the "deer in the headlights look" and jumbled responses. This often clues me in to the supposition that maybe, just maybe, they didn't really do what they said they did do and it didn't work because they really didn't do it! 

Being in the health field, we hear a lot of stories about failed diets or exercise programs that fell short and when we dig a little deeper, what we find underneath the stories aren't very pretty. People fall off the wagon, however, the successful ones get up, dust themselves down and hop right back on the wagon while the others stay fallen. Someone once told me, "I gave up on my diet when I ate the box of cookies. I figured it was a lost cause, I'll never lose this excess weight, f^*k it!" I looked at her and kindly informed her, "babies try their legs at walking an average of 300 times before they master it. If all babies gave up after the first try, we won't be bipeds and we'll all be four legged." She got the messageand asked me what to do next time.

In response to her question, we created a plan for her health goals and set up trackable action items that she can do daily and weekly toward her goals. With her plan for success, we built in "fall off the wagon" items and safe guards and eventually, she fell off less and stuck more with her goals. This also helped us both to look back and chart her progress and it reinforced her determination to succeed. 

My question to you is, "Where are you in your health plan?" If you don't have one, start by creating one and then write out the actions you will take to make that plan a success.  

I

Why You Really Want the Lime in the Coconut

"...She put de lime in de coconut, she drank 'em bot' up " is a catchy line in a song that many of us hum. It's a catchy chorus and honestly, that is the only line I know in the whole song. I don't even know who sang the song or what it's really about. However, I hum that phrase so often and one time, while humming, I thought, "What if I really put the lime in the coconut? What will I get?" So I put it to test and here are my outcomes:

1 lime, juiced into 2 cups of fresh coconut water, on the rocks = a yummy mocktail

2 coconuts, sliced into chips, drizzled with juice of 1 lime and sprinkles of cayenne pepper, dehydrated = spicy coconut chips snack

pulp of 2 young coconuts, 2 tbsp fresh lime juice, 1 tbsp raw honey, pinch of cinnamon, dash of vanilla = tangy coconut creme

pulp of 2 young coconuts, 2 cups tiger nuts flour, 2 tbsp coconut butter, 6 dates, juice of 1 lime, 4 tbsp dessicated coconut  = yummy cocotig balls

juice of 1 lime, 1 cup fresh coconut water, pulp of 1 young coconut, 3 tbsp acacia powder, 2 tbsp agave nectar, 1 tsp real vanilla = tangy milk

juice of 1 lime, 1 cup of fresh coconut water, 1 cup carbonated water = lime soda (see the picture)

Coconut is one of the yummiest, healthiest foods you can add to your diet. Coconut water is nature's electrolytes and no other man made electrolytes compound compares and lime is alkalizing and nutrients full as well. So, mix it up, shake it up, rock it, blend it, any way you want it and hum the, "lime in de coconut" song while you enjoy your concoctions.

  

[Healthy Acts] 10 Ways to Improve Gut Health

Recently, I wrote about falling in love with your gut. Our guts are like car gas tanks and I often share with people the importance of putting the right gas for the car in the tank so the car can function at its optimum. Today, I'd like to share more action items that can help keep your human gas tank optimal so you can use your food fuel effectively. 

1) Eat Whole Foods: whole foods provide multiple macro and micro nutrients that are often removed in processed foods. 

2) Eat More Plant-based: you'll get more fiber and healthy intestinal floral support by increasing your consumption of plants foods.

3) Eat More Raw: you'll get more readily available enzymes that will help your gut health. 

4) Eat Fermented Raw Vegetables daily: this offers probiotics and digestive enzymes in addition to the nutrients in the vegetables. Here's one of my favorite fermented wrap recipe to get you started:

        1/4 cup raw dill and leek sauerkraut

       1 ripe avocado, sliced and diced

       3 tbsp sun dried tomato (I use Trader Joe's Sun Dried Tomato)

       1 tbsp raw fermented mustard

       3 - 4 Raw Coconut Wrap ( I use Julian Bakery's Paleo Wraps)

In a bowl, combine sauerkraut, avocado, sun dried tomato and mustard, mix well. Scoop mixture evenly into center of each coconut wrap and fold over. Enjoy

5) Drink Lemon and Apple Cider Vinegar and Filtered Water: they help with digestion

6) Eat Tigernuts/Chufa daily: this nourishing tuber packs nutrients such as potassium (more than bananas), magnesium, zinc, B vitamins, omega fatty acids, fiber, complex carbohydrates, protein and prebiotics. You'll get a nice jaw workout when you eat it or you can blend it up and drink it as a beverage or use it as flour in your baked goods. Here's a nice beverage recipe:

         100g raw tigernuts, soaked for 24 hours

         5 cups filtered water

         1 tsp true cinnamon powder

         pinch of cardamom powder

         1 tsp nutmeg powder

         1 tsp true vanilla extract

         agave nectar to sweeten to taste

Blend tiger nuts and water together till smooth. Pour into a jug, stir in cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg and vanilla and sweeten with agave if desired. Enjoy. 

For a warm variation, I keep mine in a covered glass cup and leave it out in the sun for some natural heat infusion and then drink it.  You can also pour the milk on your hot cereal and stir in to enjoy it. 

7) Be Wary of Nasty Cosmetics: our skin absorb many things and cosmetics products and soaps can seep unwanted substances into our body and gut. Check your products and ensure they do not contain damaging ingredients.

8) Use environmentally safe cleaning products.

9) Take additional digestive enzymes.

10) Take probiotics especially if you find yourself under the weather and must take antibiotics.

 

 

  

Mind the ZZZZ's

During our total health assessments with potential clients, we always ask about the quality of their sleep. We discover interesting insights into our clients' sleep patterns when we see the results of their sleep studies. During sleep, we've often found dominant beta brain waves when we expect to find dominant delta brain waves. Along with other data we gather, we very quickly see that they are not sleeping at night. 

So, when we hear complaints of waking up tired, feeling like I ran a marathon in my sleep, falling asleep during the day, foggy brain, forgetfulness, moodiness and fatigue, we know something is going on that involves sleep and endocrine system. Once we carry out additional tests to find endocrine disruptions and imbalances, we begin with proper regulation of their sleep cycles while we are repairing endocrine, neurological, enteric, and nutritional imbalances.

Sleep is not only for rest. We need sleep to repair and rejuvenate our cells, regulate blood pressure and our hormones and appetite. Sleep also helps us to consolidate our memories. What we have accumulated over the span of each day, through our experiences and our learning are collected, sorted, and compartmentalized by the hippocampus. The information are then sent to long term storage in various parts of the brain.  When we are not sleeping, we can suffer imbalances with our appetite, digestion, and energy among other problems that can arise.   

Some of the things we recommend whenever we notice sleep impairments are:

nutrients absorption test to determine how well the gut is absorbing nutrients

neurotransmitters and neurohormones tests

sleep analysis

behavioral modifications

stress relief therapy

brain waves and sleep entrainment therapy  

nutritional and supplementation support, based on the outcomes of the tests.

Because we take a comprehensive investigative approach to sleep impairment, we have been successful with helping people reclaim their sleep health and as a result improve their overall health. If you're experiencing sleep imbalances and have tried some things that didn't quite work, consider having your health care practitioner look into the areas listed above. The sleep problem may require a multi-modal treatment protocol.   

 

 

[Parable] The Girl Who Chucked Her Doll

A little girl had a doll that was so big it held her back from getting very far. One day, as she was dragging her doll along the path, she encountered an elderly woman who moved freely and gallantly and sang happy songs and danced. The little girl stopped the woman and asked how she managed to move freely and gallantly and sang happy songs and danced. The elderly woman told her, "I chucked all the things that were holding me back. Now I can live and move freely and gallantly and I sing happy songs and dance all the time."  Instantly, the little girl realized that her doll was keeping her from getting very far in her daily journey and she chucked it! Her hands were free, her burden was light and she began to move freely and gallantly. Delighted with her newly found freedom, she joined the elderly woman in singing happy songs and dancing. 

 

Penny for Your Health

During a conversation with a financial advisor a few years ago, he shared something with me that I have since adopted for health and well being.  We were chatting about ways to double investments when he told me the penny story. One penny, were it to double in value every day for 31 days would yield $10,737,418.24! He explained how, with consistent doubling of efforts, the lowly penny can potentially yield millions in its value, given the time and effort.

I went home and took out a piece of paper and calculated the daily doubling value of this penny and placed it on my wall to motivate me towards my goals. At the clinic one day, while encouraging a client to adopt healthy living for the long haul, the penny story popped in my mind. I went ahead and offered how the penny, doubling in its value daily, to yield a significant return, is similar to the value of daily healthful actions that yield comprehensive wellness results.

Often times we are overwhelmed by the thought of how much time it will take to achieve a health goal. The reality is we will spend the time anyway so we only need to focus on whether the time will be of benefit or a waste. By taking small consistent action, our daily healthful efforts double in their yields and within a short period of time, we can realize our health goal(s). 

 

 

I Greet This Day With Love In My Heart

A few months ago, one of our clients shared Og Mandino's writings with me. As she told me about "The Greatest Saleman in the World" I was entranced by the message of the little book. I purchased it as well as the part II of the book and commenced reading when I received them. One of the principles in "The Greatest Salesman in the World" is, "I greet this day with love in my heart."

When I read this principle and the entire chapter's poignant message, I thought about its application to health and well being. When we are on a mission to get healthy and stay healthy, it isn't always enough to eat whole foods and drink water. I believe health and well being include how we love ourselves and love others, how we relate to our world, our relationships, our environment, our thoughts, our emotions, and more. Og Mandino's scroll number 2 reminded me of relishing in all that life brings to our path and uses to help us and teach us. Emotions influence physiology and physiology influences emotion. The ping-pong effect inside our cells and tissues refuse to allow us to compartmentalize true health and well being into cookie cutter symptom-driven solutions. It is moving us into the deep evaluative model of wholism for true healing. Like peeling the layers of an onion, aspects of health and well being are multimodal. Therefore, our health and well being are also influenced by how we show up to live life and how life is expressed through us. 

I often share with people that we experience the same physiological responses during excitement or anxiety, and it is our interpretation of those physiological responses that label it excitement or anxiety. The same feeling inside the belly and the fast heart beat can be interpreted by two different people as either excitement or anxiety. The determinant of their respective interpretations is usually a result of past experiences, how they believe the situation is showing up for them, their values, and their overall outlook on life. Therefore, following the maxim of greeting and living each day with love in our hearts can influence the interpretations of experiences. The ripple effects on feeling healthy and well can be monumental. Mandino's scroll encouraged seeing life and all that it offers from a place of welcome and acceptance which can then transform the interpretation of our experiences.

Practicing such an axiom can increase our feelings of happiness which encourages the secretions of happy neurochemicals that fuel various aspects of our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health and well being. To put this statement into practice, for the next 30 days, decide to love and see the love in everything and everyone.  

Confucius Had Something To Say About Health and Wellbeing

"Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall." __ Confucius, c. 550 - 478 BC

Confucius was a philosopher that had much to say about many things. The quote above has been inspiring me to keep going, no matter what. This quote has been instrumental in many areas of my life, including my health and well-being.  

Several years ago, when I found out my health was failing, I fell apart in every way I could: I cried, I ranted and raved, I cussed, I yelled, and I blamed. I also recognized my role in the decline of my health and I accepted responsibility. After conventional medicine could not offer me the solutions I sought, I turned to alternative care. With the help of caring teachers and mentors and my own determination,  I rose from the fall of disease into the glory of health.

I could have regarded the health problems I experienced as the truth, and accepted the prognosis given to me at the time. Then, during one of my visits to the medical doctor's office, I remember him telling me I would require extensive surgery. And his statement triggered my unpleasant experience of two months of infection and three years of post surgical pain and fascia itching after my appendix was removed in the 1990's. That was a minor surgery and my whole body cringed at the thought of how many years of pain and suffering I would endure if I accepted surgery. Then there was the fact that I was going to lose some major organs! So, I kindly informed the nice doctor that surgery was against my religion. 

Curiously, he asked, "what religion is that?" And I replied, "cowardice."

I walked out of his office with copies of my record and decided, if it is to be, it is up to me. I saw the diagnosis and proposed course of action as my death. I admit, my thoughts can be highly dramatic (I can write a book about my mind's dramaturgy), but my drama-full imagination also helps me suss out options. Armed with determination, I decided I would rise from the fall of this dis-ease and get my health back!

I did and the health problems gave me gifts; I am who I am today because of my experiences. The health problems that could have been my downfall became my turning point into a glorious and fulfilling life. I am grateful for the gifts they gave to me. I am grateful for the lessons they shared and I am grateful for the successes they have brought to me. I am grateful for the people they continue to help me serve. I am grateful for the wake up call and the opportunities for growth. I am grateful that my mind helped me realize the problems were opportunities to rise from the ashes of disease into a flourishing phoenix.