General
Cultivating Hope
As we begin to peel and unpack away the layers of experiences in these last two years, we may notice a shift in our ability to access hope. Our relationship with hope changed. We changed. Hope demonstrates the power to support ourselves and those we love. When it is wavered thin due to the chaos and uncertainty around us, mental health issues, and the fatigue in utilizing our survival skills, hope can feel distant and difficult to grasp.
Read MoreThe Power of Movement
Exercise, exercise, exercise - we have all heard it before. Maybe so many times that we start to tune these recommendations out. Read below for some information about how daily movement can help to reduce your overall risk of cardiovascular disease - sometimes, knowing the “why” and “how” can help motivate us to make these changes towards better health!
Read MoreAn Integrative Approach to Cardiovascular Health
Cardiovascular disease is the number 1 killer of Americans in both men and women. Diet and exercise play a very large role in obtaining or maintaining heart health; regular aerobic exercise, whole foods, and a plant-based diet is recommended to improve your heart health. Alcohol, caffeine, and refined sugar impair cardiovascular health and therefore should have limited consumption. Additionally, smoking is detrimental to cardiovascular health, and it should be discontinued entirely.
Read MoreSmall Lifestyle Changes Help Us Win BIG
With a fresh new year upon us, maybe it’s time to reevaluate our habits. Many of us have goals for ourselves no matter the time of year but we all tend to have a heightened focus in January. It’s a time of reflection, taking inventory, if you will. This allows us to objectively assess what went well, what didn’t go so well, and how we might use everything we learned to inform our future decisions. Several key things can help us to have a positive and meaningful direction going into the new year.
Read MoreCurious About Acupuncture? Here’s What to Expect
If you’re curious about trying acupuncture and have any reservations, rest assured it is a wonderful experience. Usually the first thing people want to know is—does it hurt? For the most part, no it doesn’t, sometimes you barely feel it, and here is what else I tell all new patients... The needles are very fine and thin, like a few strands of hair thick, kind of like a dog’s or cat’s whisker. They are either inserted with a guide tube or ‘free handed’ by the acupuncturist. Because the needles are so thin and the insertion is swift, sometimes you do not feel it at all, or if you do it is just a tiny poke that dissipates. If it stays feeling sharp, tell us, we will adjust or remove it. After that, you may sometimes feel a dull ache or pressure sensation that comes to the needle, then goes away within seconds. This is a good sign, we call this the arrival of the Qi or energy to the point, it is being activated, energy is moving, and if in a sore muscle, those fibers are releasing. Sometimes you can feel a warming, spreading or travelling sensation, but it is not an electric sensation, we know where nerves are and we avoid them, we are not stimulating nerves, we are stimulating designated acupuncture points.
Read MoreStrengthening Your Immunity
Our immune system is complex and has many parts and each plays a different role. Imagine your immune system like it is our military, with different branches that serve different functions. Some are highly specific in what they do, they may only consist of small, specialized, tactical teams, and others are more broad like an infantry of men. The small tactical teams are much easier to mobilize, but for an infantry of men it takes more effort and time to mobilize. In this winter season, it is as important as ever to support your immune health. There is the new COVID-19 variant, Omicron, on the rise and recent news that the current flu vaccine is not very effective against this year’s dominant flu strain.
Read MoreShifting Your Resolutions
As the leaves begin to fall, the air begins to grasp tighter around our skin; we reminisce, reflect on our year, and for most of us, begin to feel regret and shame for not accomplishing those new year resolutions we thought of many months before. The end of the year can be met with stress, anxiety, and depression, and especially now, we may have more fear and uncertainty. We tend to put pressure on ourselves around this time of year, mainly because of what is portrayed in the media, what we consume daily, and the shock that is this year ending and another one upon us. Time seems to pass by faster when the years come to a close, we tend to think back on what we could and should have done, what we may have lost or gained, thus looping us back into the shame of not meeting unrealistic expectations.
Read MoreBoost Your Immunity this New Year with IV Vitamin C
Vitamin C, also known as ascorbic acid, is a water-soluble vitamin that is involved in several essential processes in the body. Humans are not able to make their own vitamin C, relying on natural sources such as fruits and vegetables for our daily requirements. We have come a long way with research on the health benefits of vitamin C, including targeted work focusing on the benefits of Intravenous (IV) vitamin C. In IV form, vitamin C can saturate blood and tissues at higher levels than oral ascorbic acid ever could, as oral doses can only achieve a maximum blood concentration of 220 micromoles per liter. It has been hypothesized that when IV vitamin C is used in conjunction with other treatment modalities, it can have synergistic effects on the overall treatment regimen, therefore improving patient outcomes. Additionally, IV vitamin C is cheap and safe, with minimal side effects - - this is significant, as many therapies are quite the opposite.
Read MoreHealth and Gratitude
Being the first born child, I was an easy baby with minimal to no health issues. Little did my parents know that their next child would be quite the opposite picture of health. Following a challenging birth, it was a never ending cycle of visits to children's clinics, new specialists, new medications, surgeries, series of hospitalizations, with a couple of near death health emergencies sprinkled on top. It was easy to feel hopeless, sorrowful, and downright angry for everything that this innocent child had to experience. However, we soon realized that what was out of our control was simply out of our control. It would be essential to embrace what we could control - our mindset towards the situation.
Read MoreThe Keto Diet and Epilepsy Treatment
We keep hearing so much about the Ketogenic Diet, and there’s good reason for that! Being in a state of ketosis (where the body is burning ketones) can have many benefits, from healing chronic illness to improving overall performance. The “keto diet,” as it’s called, was originally studied and used to treat epilepsy. It was proven extremely effective but still not that commonly used until further researched. The ketogenic diet is primarily comprised of fat, moderate amounts of protein, and very little carbohydrate. The diet is called “ketogenic” because it shifts the body’s primary fuel source from burning glucose to burning ketones, which the liver makes as it converts fat into this new fuel source. Ketones are unique because they are one of the only molecules that can cross the blood-brain barrier. This allows ketones to be an alternative fuel source for the brain.
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