We Interrupt this Programming for a Special Message . . . a Look at Television
I decided to go on a "no TV diet" for a week.
Normally, as the days get shorter I can find myself watching more and more junk food TV. Last week, I started a "no TV diet" and have been free of TV for seven days. Do you know that in the U.S. the average person watches 4.5 hours or more of TV a day?
In a yoga class a couple weeks ago my teacher read a quote during relaxation pose: "watching TV is like painting black paint over your third eye." Our third eye is our chakra center for intuition and clarity. Her words echoed in my mind and got my attention. I don't want to hinder my intuition or my thinking.
This started an internal dialogue about my TV habits and I asked myself the question: Is what I'm watching on TV what I want to fill my mind with? The answer was a resounding no.
When we watch TV we go into a passive trance-like state where our subconscious mind soaks up everything we see and hear with little, if any, discernment. Have you ever noticed that once you turn on the TV it's hard to turn it off even if there is nothing you really want to watch? Have you noticed that you'll find yourself channel surfing and settling for the best of the worst?
Some of the detrimental effects of TV that have been studied include: TV increasing the risk of depression, dampening creativity, reducing the power of imagination, decreasing attention span, and increasing our waistlines. TV also robs us of our time. Yikes, none of this is good.
If you have ever gone on a diet, and who hasn't, why not go on a "no TV diet"? You could aim for a few days, a week, or longer and see how it goes. If you find yourself feeling restless check out this article on things to do instead of watching TV. This is your life and you get to choose how to live it.
I don't plan to stay on the" no TV diet" forever, but for now I've noticed a new bounce in my step. When I do watch TV I plan on being a lot more mindful about what and how much I watch.
We often live on auto-pilot failing to realize that every day we can start anew. This is why it behooves us to stop what we are doing and evaluate how we use our sweet time. We can make conscious life-affirming choices starting today.
Choose wisely and have fun.
This was written by my friend Lisa Guyman, Owner of Inner Sanctum.
A growing body of evidence suggests that a popular family of osteoporosis drugs may actually lead the weakening of bones, increasing the risk of fractures.
Use of bisphosphonates such as Merck's Fosamax for more than five years may predispose women to break their femurs (thigh bones), yet neither Merck nor the FDA has made any effort to warn doctors of this fact.
"We are seeing [thigh fractures in] people just walking, walking down the steps, patients who are doing low-energy exercise," said Dr. Kenneth Egol of New York University.
The injuries in these patients appear more similar to those that would be expected from a car accident than from a minor fall, he said. Noting that "the femur is one of the strongest bones in the body," Egol called the pattern "very unusual."
"Over the last 18 months we are seeing this more frequently," he said.
Fosamax, sold generically as alendronate, has become a best-seller, with doctors now prescribing it even to women who are considered "at risk" of osteoporosis. Yet even before the risk of femoral fractures emerged, the drug had already been linked to severe musculoskeletal pain and a jaw disease known as osteonecrosis.
In 2008, the FDA first contacted Merck about the emerging evidence regarding thigh fractures. Sixteen months later, Merck added the fractures to a list of potential side effects without further comment
"It took Merck an entire year to respond," said Richard Besser, senior health and medical editor for ABC News. "Just six words: 'low energy femoral shaft and subtrochanteric fractures.'"
Because Fosamax is designed to interfere with the body's natural bone-maintenance mechanisms, researchers believe that over the long term, it undermines the skeleton's ability to regenerate.
"When they are on it for five, six, seven or eight years, they lost their ability to remodel and regenerate their skeleton," said orthopedic trauma surgeon Joseph Lane of the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City. "[Some women] are very vulnerable and they will then develop problems of brittle bone."
This article is from www.naturalnews.com
]]>On the causes of female hair loss, the human hair growth cycle, and safe, natural options for women to help stop thinning hair and reverse hair loss
by Marcy Holmes, NP, Certified Menopause Clinician (womentowomen.com)
One of the most emotionally devastating concerns I hear about from my patients is thinning hair and hair loss. At Women to Women, we understand that a woman’s head of hair is her crowning glory — and losing too much hair can be a serious and frightening blow to her self-esteem.
Reacting so strongly to the physical state of your hair may seem like vanity, but it’s not. Your hair is one of the first areas, along with skin and nails, to manifest signs of hormonal imbalance, poor nutrition, or illness. Understanding how hair regenerates and paying attention to any changes in your hair growth and appearance are important parts of taking care of yourself.
The truth is, a certain amount of hair loss is normal, but excessive hair loss and hair thinning indicate that something is not right. Unfortunately, many conventional doctors downplay hair loss as an inevitable part of aging for both sexes, treating it with topical products like Rogaine that enhance existing hair but offer no real solution to the causes of hair loss, and therefore no prevention of continued hair thinning. This leads many women — especially those in menopause — to think that there is nothing they can do to stop their hair loss. The good news is that we’ve seen many cases resolve over time with a holistic approach.
While we wouldn’t claim to know the ultimate cure for hair loss (don’t believe anyone who says they do!), we don’t think a balding woman should resign herself to shopping for hair thickeners or wigs when there are so many other natural choices she can make to support natural hair growth where it counts — at the root.
]]>(NaturalNews) When you look at statistics about breast cancer, it's no wonder that the very mention of the disease causes dread in many women. After all, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) says about 210,000 Americans, almost all females, will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year and about 40,000 will die from the disease. However, although it's rarely reported in depth by the mainstream media, there's actually a lot of good news accumulating about specific ways to stop breast cancer from ever developing in the first place.
For example, a mounting body of data shows cruciferous vegetables like broccoli fight breast cancer (http://www.naturalnews.com/028822_b...) and six studies have shown eating an apple a day can reduce the risk of breast cancer, too (http://www.naturalnews.com/025685_c...). Now comes word of yet another natural substance that helps keep breast tumors away -- scientists have discovered that fish oil can slash the chance a woman will get breast cancer by approximately a third.
The new study, just published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, was conducted by a research team at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington. They investigated 35,016 postmenopausal women between the ages of 50 and 76 with no history of breast cancer who were participating in the Vitamins and Lifestyle cohort study (dubbed VITAL, short). The woman was asked to complete a 24 page questionnaire about their use of supplements other than vitamins and/or minerals.
After six years of follow-up, 880 of these women had been diagnosed with breast cancer. However, those women who reported regularly taking fish oil supplements, which contain high levels of the omega-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA, were found to have a 32 percent reduced risk of invasive ductal breast cancer -- the most common type of breast cancer. The use of other specialty supplements, such as the herbs black cohosh and dong quai which are often taken by women to relieve symptoms of menopause, was not associated with raising or lowering breast cancer risk.
As NaturalNews has previously reported, fish oil has been found to have a host of remarkable health protective properties. For example, a study published in the European Heart Journal concluded that consuming fatty fish and the marine omega-3 fatty acids in fish oil protects men from heart failure. And fish oil has been shown to be helpful in preventing mental illness, too (http://www.naturalnews.com/026130_h...).
For more information:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/...
If you're a woman over the age of 50, your risk of heart disease, osteoporosis, and dementia goes up significantly. Fortunately, the reason is easy to explain. And, more importantly, it's easy to fix.
What's more, this is strictly a female issue. Unless it is his wife who has it, and then it can become a distinct issue, men don't have to worry about this cause. That's because the obvious reason for this increased risk is menopause. When menopause hits, a woman's body slows way down in its production of hormones, particularly estrogen.
Fortunately, of all the hormones, estrogen deficiency is the easiest to diagnose. This is because it happens to women so suddenly - when they hit menopause and stop menstruating. At that point, you know you're deficient. You also may notice other problems. You may start to lose your hair, your breasts might sag, you might see more facial hair, and you may have more bladder problems (including infections and incontinence).
What's more, you can encounter a number of common symptoms of estrogen deficiency. These can include:
Hot flashes
Fatigue
Headaches/migraines
Night sweats
Stiff, achy joints, particularly the fingers and hands
Vaginal and/or bladder irritation
Forgetfulness - "brain fog"
Insomnia
Decreased libido
Painful intercourse
Depression, moodiness, anxiety
Feelings of despair
Crying easily
As I've said before with other hormones, lab tests aren't the best way to determine if you're deficient. The symptoms are all you need. If you have a significant number of these symptoms, ask your doctor to give you a trial of bio-identical hormone replacement therapy. I always start with a cream that contains estradiol (0.5 mg), estriol (2 mg), progesterone (40 mg), testosterone (0.5 mg), and DHEA (2 mg) in every gram of cream. Your doctor can order this cream through a compounding pharmacy.
Yes, it's easy enough to prescribe the estrogen as a separate cream. But the reality is that any woman who needs estrogen therapy is likely deficient in the other hormones as well. So I put them altogether.
Start off with one-half gram per day. Increase the dose by one-quarter gram every one to two weeks. Continue to increase the dose until either the symptoms are gone, or signs of estrogen excess show up. This is easy to spot. You will feel very similar to the way you felt in the days leading up to your menstrual period. You may experience irritability, swollen breasts, water retention, vaginal bleeding, and a swollen feeling in the lower abdomen. In most women the correct dose is the lowest amount that keeps the hot flashes and night sweats down to one to two per week.
For more information, see below. This may be a solution for you. You won't know until you try. This post is from Dr Frank Shallenberger who does a weekly newsletter about Real Cures.
To contact us:
Real Cures
PO Box 8051
Norcross, GA 30091-8051
800-610-5605
770-399-5617
Trained as a chemist, specializing in environmental chemistry, Dr. Paul Connett is known throughout the world as a leader in the movement against water fluoridation because of his knowledge base.
He is truly dedicated to the cause of ending water fluoridation, and heads up an organization called the Fluoride Action Network or www.fluoridealert.org that contains a wealth of information.
In addition, his book, The Case Against Fluoride, is scheduled for release in late September, but is available for pre-order.
In this timely and important book, Connett and his two co-authors, Beck and Micklem, take a new look at the science behind water fluoridation and argue that just because the medical establishment endorses a public health measure, that doesn't mean it's safe.
In the case of water fluoridation, the chemicals used to fluoridate the water that more than 180 million people drink each day are not pharmaceutical grade, but rather hazardous waste products of the phosphate fertilizer industry; it is illegal to dump these into rivers and lakes or release the parent gases into the atmosphere.
In addition, water fluoridation is a prime example of one of the worst medical practices possible—forced medication with no control over the dose or who gets it. Perhaps most shocking of all, it is not subject to any federal regulation.
At once painstakingly-documented and also highly-readable, The Case Against Fluoride brings new research to light, including links between fluoride and harm to your brain, bones, and kidneys, and shows that while there is possible value in topical applications like brushing your teeth with fluoride toothpaste, the evidence that swallowing fluoride reduces tooth decay is surprisingly weak.
In this interview, Dr. Connett shares important information about fluoride and water fluoridation that you may have not been aware of before, and offers practical advice for what you can do to help get fluoride removed from the water supply of the United States and in other fluoridating countries.
Very interesting, I know I have been aware of a battle for and against flouride. I wanted to give you the other side which I find there usually is one, if you do your research. This is from Dr Mercola's site at http://www.mercola.com
]]>(NaturalNews) `Green exercise` refers to any physical activity that takes place in the presence of nature. It can be as simple as a walk through the park or time spent gardening. All that really matters is that the body is in motion and nature is in sight. A study recently published in Environmental Science and Technology has shown that green exercise leads to improved mood and self-esteem.
It is already well documented that exercise benefits both physical and mental health. It is also known that exposure to natural landscapes can enhance mood. Researchers at the University of Essex set out to determine whether a combination of the two could produce synergistic improvements in mental health. According to their findings, exercise and nature do complement one another. The positive outcomes of exercise are increased when the experience takes place in a natural setting.
The current study, conducted by Jules Pretty and Jo Barton, examined data from 10 previous studies in order to assess the effect of green exercise on health outcomes. From these studies, a total of 1,252 individuals were included in the analysis, allowing the authors to show that green exercise improves mood and self-esteem.
The most notable improvement for both markers of mental health occurred after only five minutes of physical activity, suggesting that green exercise imparts immediate positive effects. This finding offers great news for those looking to fit more exercise into their daily routine. Even on the busiest of days, it`s possible to carve out five minutes for a walk.
It turns out that all natural environments are beneficial, especially those that include a body of water. Apparently, green and blue together provide extra benefit. Another interesting aspect of this study is its recommendation that green exercise be viewed as a form of prescribed therapy to be administered in regular doses. According to Dr. Pretty, this research is the first to "show dose-response relationships for the positive effects of nature on human mental health."
On a larger scale, this study and others like it have the potential to impact city planning in such a way that would increase access to recreational facilities, greenways and parks.
from the website of www.naturalnews.com
The paragraphs below are taken from Dr Northrup's site about her revised book, Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom. Check it out! This is not how we were raised obviously, to pay attention to our feelings. - It would benefit us to pay attention to what feels good so we can go toward that and what does not feel good so we can go away from those things that give us those feelings.
Dr Northrup writes:
"It is possible to thrive in a female body instead of simply waiting for disease to happen. It boils down to this: Regardless of our individual circumstances, our pasts, or our ages, each of us has inner guidance available that we can tune in to in order to create vibrant health—now.
We are born with this inner guidance, which comes in the form of the emotions and desires that lead us toward things (including thoughts) that feel good and are good for us, and away from things that feel bad and are bad for us. It’s that simple.
We are hard-wired to seek love, joy, fulfillment—and health. Though we’ve too often been talked out of our desires as children, I’ve learned that we can trust those feelings that make us want to get up in the morning. Our desires are the way that the healing life force comes through us and replenishes our bodies. They are what make life worth living. They make up our hopes and dreams. And they invariably hold the keys to healing not only our bodies but our entire lives."
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Sleep is essential. It is the time when our bodies replenish, repairing the mental and physical wear-and-tear we suffer during the day. However, our "always-on" culture has created a sleep-deprived generation. Cell phones, computers, PDAs and 24-hour cable television keep our brains stimulated. The result is fatigue, poor health and, surprisingly, weight gain.
If you are experiencing problems sleeping and think your sleeping disorders might be causing you to gain weight, you should consider visiting a doctor, who can discuss ways to help restore your normal sleeping pattern.
You may even want to consult a sleep lab for evaluation. There, you will spend the night hooked up to electrodes, which will monitor your brain activity during sleep. The process is painless and may be covered by your insurance.
If you are diagnosed with sleep apnea, your doctor may prescribe one therapy, or a combination of therapies. Regular exercise will improve your quality of sleep, as will reducing or eliminating you intake of alcohol, caffeine and tobacco.
If enlarged tonsils are obstructing your airway and causing sleep apnea, the doctor might want to surgically remove the organs. He or she also may prescribe sleep medications to help you sleep through the night. While some newer sleep medications may be used for long-term sleep problems, it's important for you and your doctor to weigh their risks and benefits.
Getting your sleep problems diagnosed and treated may be the first step in accomplishing your weight loss goals. If you've tried everything to lose weight and nothing seems to be working, don't give up. Lack of sleep may be keeping you from achieving weight loss success.
This article is from the site of Sleep Deprivation.Com - www.sleep-deprivation.com
]]>(NaturalNews) Natural cures for hair loss have been around for centuries and are generally very effective. Conventional treatments for alopecia include topical steroids and synthetic substances which have damaging side effects. Try age-old natural treatments instead to prevent thinning and to stimulate hair growth.
Chinese Herbal Remedies
Hair loss is attributed to liver and kidney problems. Specific herbs to rectify this problem include wolfberry (goji berry), mulberry and fleece flower root.
Ginkgo biloba, fo-ti and dong quai are Chinese herbs said to be useful in the treatment of hair loss.
Traditional Home Folk Remedies for Hair Loss
Sage tea, drunk and applied externally, stimulates hair growth. Nettle tea cleanses the system and encourages re-growth. Since hair loss is often the result of poor nutrition, try this healthy and nourishing nettle soup recipe:
Ingredients:
2 cups of young nettle tops
2 potatoes, diced
1 carrot, diced
1 small onion
Method: Boil vegetables until the potatoes are soft. Blend and season to taste.
Aromatherapy for Hair Loss
Essential oils are highly concentrated extracts from the flowers, leaves, bark and roots of various plants. Blend a few drops of rosemary, lavender, grapefruit, cedarwood, lemon or ylang ylang into a carrier oil, such as grapeseed or jojoba oil. Massage into the scalp and leave for at least 5 minutes before rinsing out.
For sensitive skin, use only a few drops of lemon or grapefruit oil, as these oils may be slightly irritating.
Homeopathy for Hair Loss
Visit a qualified homeopath for a professional consultation, as each case varies considerably.
Selenium is often used by homeopaths to treat a painful scalp and loss of hair.
A homeopath may prescribe lycopodium in the case of hair loss after childbirth, and sepia for hair loss related to the menopause or childbirth.
Other treatments a homeopath may prescribe include aurum (for hair loss and boils on the scalp), phosphoric acid (for hair loss relating to grief and/or exhaustion) and arnica (for hair loss after an injury).
Good Nutrition
Cut down on alcohol, fast foods, a nutritionally deficient junk food diet, sugar and caffeine. A natural, healthy diet that includes good fats, protein, whole grains, vitamins and minerals can help to prevent hair loss, thinning hair and balding.
http://wwwsupremehealth.com/the-inc...
http://www.stophairlossnow.co.uk/Ar...
The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Healing Remedies by C. Shealy, page 307
From http://www.naturalnews.com