General

Spring Cleaning

We often think of Spring as being associated with house cleaning, but it is also important to cleanse the body. Removing environmental, processed food, and everyday accumulated toxins is important for maintaining overall health.  Detoxing can help speed recovery and keep our systems in good working order.  Fasting is an excellent method for detoxing.

Exercise 7 Hours Per Week?

Recently there was a study published in JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) that concluded that women need to exercise 1 hour per day 7 days per week  to MAINTAIN weight, let alone lose weight. I have since heard on multiple T.V. and radio broadcasts about the study, and the reaction from women has not been positive, for obvious reasons. Women lead very busy lives and finding the time for 1 hour of exercise every day sounds more like burden than anything else.  So I’m writing this blog to shed some light on this study, and to clarify what the study actually concluded.

Spring Fever

The other day I was marveling at the fact that I hadn’t come down with a cold or flu all year!  To the surprise of my pride, the next morning I woke with chills, mild fatigue, and rhinitis.  Now I do see my missteps of the previous day-getting overjoyed with the sunshine and warm weather I went outside with damp hair and a lighter jacket, thus making myself more vulnerable to cold and flu viruses.  I also had a big cup of hot chocolate and later that night was walking in the cold March wind to my car returning from a concert, wearing the same light jacket.

Working Towards the Gold

The Winter Olympics of 2010 are over.  We the audience had the privelege and pleasure to observe as for hundreds of competitors, years of hard work and a lifetime of dreaming came down to a single event, movement or even a single hundredth of a second.  It was a chance to view life compressed and miniaturized right before our eyes into an intense and emotionally explosive period of days.

Your Sleep Positions Could be Causing Your Pain - Part 1

Would you believe that a good night’s sleep can make you hurt the next day?  Or make your chronic pain worse?  It can. I see many people who wake up in more pain than when they went to sleep.  There are a number of ways that your sleeping positions and habits can make you sore the next morning, or even make existing problems worse.

Here’s what can happen and what you can do to prevent it.

Stretching Has Heart Health Benefits

Here is a big incentive to keep stretching, or add it to your health regimen.  I just learned from an article on MSNBC that a study has found that women who are more flexible have about 7% less arterial stiffness and lower blood pressure than women who are less flexible. When you improve your flexibility by stretching it helps expand the arteries and keeps them more pliable, which improves heart function.

Prevention as a Model for Healthcare Reform

If you are reading this, you may have already embraced the concept of prevention as a model for healthcare reform since you find yourself on an Integrative Medicine website - prevention being the wholemark theory behind Integrative Medicine.