Archive for January, 2009
Health Reform Video From The New England Journal Of Medicine
January 23rd, 2009
Thomas H. Lee, M.D., James J. Mongan, M.D., Jonathan Oberlander, Ph.D., and Meredith B. Rosenthal, Ph.D. engage in a round table discussion of the challenges to health care being caused by the recession.
Click to view the program (the video will open in a new window).
NEJM offers a transcript of the health care reform discussion.
Visit the New England Journal of Medicine here: http://content.nejm.org/ You’ll find a variety of resources including a free newsletter.
Posted in health care | 
Tags: health care and the recession, health care crisis, health care reform | 
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Adaptogens: Nature’s Answer to Handling Stress
January 20th, 2009
Nutrients and Health:
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Wouldn’t it be great if an herb could help you handle stress better and stimulate your body’s own ability to bring itself back into balance (instead of “forcing” it to do something the herb “makes” it do)?
Well, there IS an entire category of herbs that do just that – Adaptogens!
Adaptogens have been known in Chinese and Ayurvedic healing systems for thousands of years. But it was not until the second half of the 20th Century that adaptogenic herbs underwent major scientific scrutiny and began to become better-known in the Western World.
Do you remember the dominance of the Russian Olympic athletes in the 70′s and 80′s? Many believe that this was due, at least in part, to the application of a major research project led by a Russian scientist named Dr. Israel Brekhman. In a series of major experiments, adaptogenic herbs were shown to increase worker productivity, improve athletic performance, and normalize many body processes.
Russian athletes benefited from the use of these herbs, and went on to dominate many Olympic sports for a period of time.
Adaptogens have been shown to reduce the release of stress-related cortisol in humans. An excess release of cortisol has been associated with weight gain, hypertension, depression, many degenerative diseases, as well as accelerated aging.
Adaptogens help people:
- “adapt” to stress
- sleep deeply and more soundly
- balance body systems
- improve immune resistance
- focus and concentrate
- improve recovery time
- improve athletic performance
- decrease anxiety
- improve muscle tone
- increase strength
- increase energy and stamina
- improve feeling of overall well-being
An excellent adaptogenic formula I use in my private practice includes the following nine adaptogenic herbs: Ashwaganda, Schizandra, Tribulis terrestris, Siberian Golden Root, Siberian Ginseng, Rhododendron caucasicum, Shilajit, Maca, and Wolfberry.
Due to their balancing effect, adaptogens are usually very safe to take, even on a long-term basis. I have personally taken the formula mentioned above six days per week for the last 2 1/2 years. I wouldn’t leave home without it!
If you’d like to learn more about the health benefits of adaptogens, a highly-rated book for a general audience is Adaptogens: Herbs for Strength, Stamina, and Stress Relief, by David Winston and Steven Maimes.
[Ed Note: David Kamnitzer, D.C. is an expert at helping people achieve high levels of health and well-being -- far beyond what is available simply through drugs and surgery alone. He combines his 20-year clinical experience and extensive knowledge in structural, nutritional, and energetic balancing to offer individuals cutting-edge approaches to healing. To learn more, click here.]
This article appears courtesy of Early to Rise’s Total Health Breakthroughs which offers alternative health solutions for mind, body and soul.
Posted in Natural Healing |
Tags: adaptogen, ayurvedic healing, herb, Increase Energy, natrual stress cure, sleep soundly, stress |
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The Will Power Myth
January 16th, 2009
If you have been fighting the battle of the bulge for any length of time, you have undoubtedly been told to just suck it up and use a little bit of will power. If it were that easy, we wouldn’t have an obesity epidemic in this country. In this article, we’ll explore why using “will power” is usually so ineffective.
According to a fascinating experiment published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, “Just one act of self-control depletes your ability to have self-control in another unrelated area.”1For example, when subjects were told not to eat chocolates sitting right in front of them, their persistence in puzzle solving deteriorated.
This is not just related to food, When subjects were told to suppress an emotional reaction to a movie, they had problems solving an easy anagram. It turns out that you only have the conscious resources to exhibit willpower on one (or at the most two) fronts at one time. The research is overwhelming in this area.
This is why it is SO HARD to stay disciplined with eating and exercise. This is true for any form of will power, which is why we often don’t do the things we tell ourselves we are going to do.
In short, any self-regulatory strategy has costs with respect to depleting a person’s general resources for self regulation.2
To make it worse, according to research on information processing, your conscious mind is only able to process approximately 50 bits of information per second, while your unconscious mind processes approximately 11 million bits per second.3 This means your unconscious mind processes information about 220 THOUSAND TIMES FASTER than your conscious mind.
Going back to the willpower research, it makes more sense now. The part of your experience that you are aware of has very limited resources, while the part of you that you are NOT aware of, is extremely powerful.
Further evidence of this comes from the famous study done by Dr. George A. Miller of Princeton University. He proved that the conscious mind can only handle 7 (plus or minus 2) chunks of information at a time.4
So you can see what a drain it is trying to use willpower to follow a healthy diet, exercise regularly, etc. on a daily basis. This is also why when people try to quit smoking AND lose weight at the same, they are bound to fail!
Now you understand that the trick is to somehow get the part of you that you are not aware of (the unconscious mind) to make the changes for you.
So how do you get your unconscious mind to naturally desire healthy green foods, water, healthy portions, exercise, etc. without having to think about it consciously?
The trick is a combination of positive association, priming and ritual.
With positive association, think Pavlov and the dog (you remember how Dr. Pavlov was able to get dogs to salivate at the sound of a bell). You need to set up an environment where every time you take an action that leads to your goal, you will reward yourself. Your brain will quickly learn to create this behavior without you having to think about it.
With priming, you need to put in place cues that lead to your desired behaviors. The research is solid that environmental cues determine a great percentage of your behaviors. Every time you see a fast food advertisement, you are receiving a prime (in this case for a behavior you don’t want)!
So level the playing field by putting pictures of healthy foods in your home and office. Eat off of smaller plates so you are primed to eat smaller portions. Remove “bad” snacks from your sight as they call for you to eat them! The point is to set up your environment for success.
Finally, use the power of ritual. It takes 21 days to change a habit. Pick one ritual that you can easily do every day that will lead to your weight loss goals. One powerful, easy thing you can do is to change your morning ritual.
Prepare a healthy meal every night before you go to bed, and pick any 20-minute form of exercise you can do in the mornings. When you wake up, do 20 minutes of exercise (even if it is just walking), then eat your healthy meal. This is easy to do and because it is the first thing you do every day, the stresses of the day will not prevent it.
References
- Source: RE Baumeister et al. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 74, 1998.
- Moraven, M., et al. (1998). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74. 774-789.
- Zimmerman, M. (1989). In R. F. Schmidt & G. Thews (eds.), Human Physiology, pp. 166-173. Berlin, Germany: Springer-Verlag.
- Miller, G. A. (1956). Psychological Review, 63, 81-97.
[Ed. Note: Michael Lovitch, M.A., Founder of The Hypnosis Network, is a social science researcher and a connoisseur of effective psychologists. His company publishes the best selling hypnosis program for weight loss available today, independently verified to help 92% of those who use it. Find out how to put your weight loss on auto-pilot by clicking here.]
This article appears courtesy of Early to Rise’s Total Health Breakthroughs which offers alternative health solutions for mind, body and soul.
Do You Snore? Are There Cures For Snoring
January 15th, 2009
Are there cures for snoring? You probably already know that snoring possibly means you have sleep apnea and all of the dangerous things that may go with that — from just being tired all the time to high blood pressure, weight gain, and a host of things. It’s bad stuff.
Your doctor will send you for a sleep study that will cost you a lot even if you have good insurance and then it’s likely that you will get an expensive (even after your insurance pays their part) CPAP machine (continuous positive airway pressure).
Oxygen flow is reduced as your throat muscles relax and your airway is restricted. These machines help hold the airways open while you sleep by blowing air into your nose. They help some while others have wasted their money. Still others do not have access to CPAP due to the prohibitive costs.
Here is an anti-snoring program – remember some of the same issues cause snoring also cause sleep apnea, and snoring is a precursor to sleep apnea. This program uses exercise to strengthen muscles in the throat-neck, mouth, tongue, and nose to eliminate the problem. There are 24 exercises in the program to naturally and inexpensively solve the problem naturally by strengthening the air passages. Here is an example of one of the exercises:
Try out this jaw strengthening exercise
The best way to see how simple these exercises are is to try one out.
So here’s an exercise that helps to loosen your jaw – because tight or clenched jaws are considered one of the leading causes of snoring.
This exercise takes only a minute, but before you’re done, you should feel your jaw muscles strengthen and the back of your mouth opening up.
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This is just one of the 24 exercises that have been developed to stop people from snoring. Each exercise is designed to strengthen a specific area – turning relaxed, weaker muscles that block your airways and flap like a flag into toned and well-controlled muscles.
We’ve explained what causes snoring, That there are cures for snoring and this is an inexpensive program that you owe it to yourself to tryout. Here is our affiliate link, the owners of this website will receive a commission if you order here.
You should always check with your doctor if you think you have sleep apnea. Have him work with you on the program.
Posted in Healthy Living, lose weight, positive living |
Tags: causes of snoring, cpap, cures for snoring, sleep apnea, snore, snoring, weight loss, what causes snoring |
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