One of Dr. Connie's favorite places to Muse is in the gardens at Pacific Naturopathic Retreat in Hawaii

On Being Overwhelmed With Often Conflicting Health Information

* * * 

Watching the development of naturopathic medicine and the unfolding of my own naturopathic practice over the past twenty some years, I marvel at the endurance and power of seemingly simple actions. Practice moderation in all things. Stay positive and grateful. Love deeply. Laugh often. Wash your hands before meals. Eat your fruits and vegetables. Limit sugar. Stay hydrated. Sweat twice daily.  

The list goes on....

Yet, in this polluted world, a world of technology and information overload, many folks are mired in the complexity of it all. Can't drink the water as it is chlorinated, fluorinated and otherwise chemicalized. Don't know what to do to purify it. Can't eat the vegetables for the pesticides; the fish for the mercury; the poultry for the hormones; the wheat for the gluten. Can't avoid the omnipresent electromagnetic smog that subverts intracellular communication. Can't breathe the air for the pollution. Can't trust that the motive of pharmaceutical companies is health rather than greed. Can't trust that medicines won't kill you and vitamins won't cause cancer. 

The list goes on....

The result is anxiety and despair, hand wringing and inaction. In a way, these are luxuries of our educated and affluent society.  Hungry people and people without resources eat, drink, and breathe what is available to them; take the medicines that are offered; trust in their healers. The educated and affluent are beyond that point. Google just about any treatment and you'll find passionate and diverse opinions, pro and con.  Check out Yelp, and you'll find people who love your practitioner, and people who vilify your practitioner.

So what's a person to do?

Guidelines are just that, they are not laws, with obvious exceptions such as life threatening allergic reactivities. Exercise control when you can. Let it go when you can't.  Purchase the safest produce you can find.  A mouthful or two of pesticides is unavoidable in our world today. A diet of sugar may feed cancer, but a piece of chocolate birthday cake will not undo a cure. Use your own intuition, experience and knowledge to find healers whose expert advice you trust.   

Develop a doable protocol that makes sense to you. We've often published lists of simple dietary principles you might follow. I would also suggest, as a foundation, learning some basic home health care techniques. (See Dr. Connie's article below.)

Staying Healthy:  

It's a Habit Pattern

Here's the quandary about this topic: Most people reading this newsletter know the gist of what I am going to write and could probably have written a version of the column themselves.  Our Pacific Naturopathic Newsletter readers are intelligent, educated, health-conscious and are already following, to one degree or another, the nine suggestions I'll write about below. Nevertheless, we repeat personalized versions of these suggestions during patient office visits because hearing the information again, in a different way from a different source, often motivates behavior change.  One of the curious things about we humans is that we often need to hear things a number of times in different ways before we finally "get it."

Behavioral psychologists say that it takes about eight weeks to reach the tipping point in breaking an old habit or establishing a new habit pattern.  So the longer you are able to stick to a new healthy habit, the greater the chance of incorporating that pattern as a part of your overall lifestyle. The key to staying healthy is not periodic binges of good behavior; but everyday, conscious affirmation and maintenance.  Here are a few habits worth establishing:

1) Make your psychological health a high priority. Maintain a positive attitude. Say YES to life and greet perceived bumps in the road with equanimity, patience and understanding.  Anger, frustration and negative thoughts have a profoundly damaging impact on all the cells of your body.  Develop stress reduction techniques (yoga, meditation, music, exercise, biofeedback, martial arts, hypnotherapy, EFT, bodywork, etc.). Focus on developing deep relationships with people who see the best in you and reflect those qualities back to you.  Spend as little time as possible in trivial socialization and more on meaningful conversation. Remember to seek activities and situations that make you laugh.

2) Deepen your spiritual life.  People who lead conscious, spiritual lives are happier and more able to cope with illness and adversity than those whose focus is purely on physical, tangible reality.  Also, many life changes need to begin on a conscious spiritual level, then trickle down through the mind into the physical realm.

3) Maintain healthy eating habits. Follow the few basic rules of good nutrition: organic whenever possible, low intake of refined carbohydrates, variety and rotation foods, good oils, adequate protein and generous amounts of fiber from legumes and vegetables. Eat a rainbow of veggies every day.  Eat smaller, more frequent meals to keep your blood sugar levels constant.  Avoid fad diets like the plague. Drink plenty of water.  If you are unsure of any of these strategies or need more help in determining what specifically works for you, make an appointment to come in and see us for personalized nutritional recommendations.

4) Try to get enough sleep every night.   Sleep researchers say that the best sleeping pattern for adults is two 3-1/2 to 4 hour sessions a night. School-aged children should get 10 to 11 hours. Sleep is the time when your body regenerates and recovers, and when your immune system is re-energized.  A survey conducted by the American Cancer Society concluded that people who sleep less than 6 or more than 9 hours per night had a death rate 30 percent higher than those who regularly slept 7 to 8 hours. Even those who slept 6 hours or less who otherwise had no health problems had death rates 1.8 times higher than those who slept "normal" hours.  If you are having sleep problems, we would be happy to discuss strategies with you.

5) Stick to an appropriate exercise regimen. Years of research clearly and unequivocally reveal that an exercise regimen is essential for both psychological and physical health.  If you do not already have an exercise program, you probably have a good excuse or rationalization for why you don't.  The docs at Pacific Naturopathic have heard them all.  We will be happy to discuss your reasons with you and help you develop a personalized regimen that works for you.

6) Follow your dreams. Make music, do art, take photos, build models, fall in love, write your memoirs, learn to meditate, cook gourmet meals, hike in the wilderness, learn something new, go back to school part-time. If you can't think of anything you would like to do and life seems without options, seek counseling for values clarification.

7) Stay far away from behaviors that will compromise your health, like smoking, drugs, excessive alcohol intake, food binging, and risky behaviors like aggressive driving, unsafe sex, and thrill-seeking.

8) Exercise your mind as well as your body. Use it or lose it.  Reading, solving word or number puzzles, strategy games like chess, and playing music all help improve your memory.  Be conscious of never stopping learning new things, no matter what your age is.

9) Finally, be easy on yourself.  Make lifestyle changes a step at a time. Each step forward offers an opportunity for celebration. If you backslide, just try harder without self-recrimination. Allowing yourself the occasional indulgence to blow off steam will make you much more satisfied with your new lifestyle choices.  Stick to working through the small stuff.  It's all small stuff. 

Be Well.

Find out more about Dr. Marcel's work with men at:

Basic Home Health Care Techniques

* * *

Connie Hernandez, N.D.

Tired of popping pills? The following home health care techniques are tried, true, and powerful.

1. Dry skin brushing. The skin is the body's largest organ of elimination. Use a loofa or dry skin brush to remove dead skin and cellulite, stimulate the flow of blood and lymph, enhance immune function, and detoxify and energize the body. Brush your dry body, head to toe, always towards the heart. Then shower to cleanse debris away.

2. Salt water rinses. Salt inhibits microbes and decreases inflammation. Gargle with salt water to chase away sore throats and gum infections. Use a neti pot or saline nasal spray to combat congestion. Be sure to use sea salt or other natural salt sources in order to benefit from other micronutrients not found in the chemical sodium chloride.

3. Hot/cold and hot/cold contrast. Alternating hot and cold applications over any area of the body will cause dilation and contraction of underlying blood vessels, relieving stagnation and promoting immune response. Showers treat the entire body. A cold damp scarf wrapped around the neck will cause a reactive vasodilation and an immune response in the throat. Cold damp socks, covered by warm dry socks, over warm dry feet will draw congestion out of the head.

4. Castor oil packs. These "packs" are basically hot oily cloths.  Most often applied over the liver, the castor oil pack relieves liver congestion and stimulates enzymatic action. Many people do a series of castor oil packs at the change of season to help with detoxification and to promote liver function. Castor oil packs are a mainstay of protocols used when working with uterine fibroids. A word of caution to menstruating women: don't use during menses as you will promote blood flow.

5. Oil pulling. Inspired by Ayurvedic medicine, in which sesame oil is the preferred oil, and currently popular with coconut oil officionados, oil pulling involves retaining oil in the mouth and squishing it through your teeth, then spitting it all out after 10 to 20 minutes. Oil pulling is good for all manner of tooth and gum problems.

6. Dew walking, earthing, grounding.  Call it what you will, walking barefoot on the earth aligns your magnetic field to the magnetic field of the earth, stimulates the immune system, tones the cardiovascular system, and claims many other benefits.

(see link with newsletter)

7. Rebounding. Pick up one of those mini trampolines at a garage sale and start bouncing. The bouncing clears stagnation and enhances lymphatic flow while giving a good workout as well. Rebounding is currently recommended in many weight loss programs.

8. Breathwork.  Conscious breathing and yogic breathing techniques calm the mind, balance the sympathetic/parasympathetic nervous system, and tonify the entire body.

9. Yoga, tai chi, chi kung, energization exercises. Meditative breath/movement exercises stabilize the mind and body, and can be directed towards the healing of most ills.

Profound in its impact and easily accessible, I favor the Energization Exercises for healing of body, mind and soul. See Dr Connie's article here.

10. Meditation. Tuning in to your inner Self affects not only you, but everyone in your world. Research has shown that meditators influence the serotonin levels of people for blocks around the room in which they are meditating. We do not exist independent of our environments. Healing ourselves helps heal the world.

 * * * 

Find out more about Dr. Connie's consulting services at:  

Rapid Pain Relief 

With Elijah Free

Elijah Free, MH, CMI, CMT  

To contact Elijah, please either call the clinic at 650-917-1121 or e-mail at [email protected].

Dr. Vivek Shanbhag: Latest Information & Offerings

Dr. Vivek Shanbhag, ND, MD(Ayu), BAMS, CYEd.   Licensed Naturopathic Doctor, Ayurvedic Practitioner & Professor

 

Services Provided at 

Pacific Naturopathic

 

                           

For information, please contact us at 650-917-1121.

* Naturopathic Consultations For All Health Conditions

* Intravenous (I.V.) Nutrition Therapy 

* Breast Thermography

* Rapid Pain Relief

* Tongue and Fingernail Analysis

* Craniosacral Therapy

* Adjunctive Cancer Therapy

* Bioidentical Hormone Therapy

* Men's Health

* Women's Health

* Vitamin B12 Shots

* Flower Essence Therapy

* LaStone Massage

* Earth Friend Herb Company Products

For the following services, please contact each individual provider:

* Transformational Medicine (Shanti Rubenstone, MD, 650-209-5813)

* Ayurvedic Medicine (Vivek Shanbhag, ND, MD (Ayu), 408-876-0636)

* Ayurvedic Nutrition & Diet Therapy (Gayathri Shanbhag, MS, 408-876-0636)

* Foot Reflexology (Nancy Schuet, CNRT, 408-891-4759)

* Clinical Hypnotherapy, Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), Matrix Reimprinting (Jane Hernandez, CCHT, 510-676-1460)

Looking for a conscious, meaningful, caring gift for a birthday or special occasion? 

A gift certificate to a Pacific Naturopathic practitioner lets a special person know you really care about their well-being. 

Gift certificates for all practitioners and modalities offered at Pacific Naturopathic are available by phoning our front desk at 650-917-1121, or just stopping by.