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Holistic Is Not A Four-Lettered Word
If you are anything like me, then you've got a certain picture in your mind of what *holistic* is supposed to be. For me, it's conjured up pictures of holy men, or shaman, doing a ritual dance while chanting mantras, and rubbing *energy crystals* in an effort to remove evil spirits from your life. It wasn't until I started doing research for my new book, *5 Keys To Health: A Holistic Approach* when I realized that my preconceptions could not have been more further from the truth. I had originally planned to write a book on fitness. I know that*s a pretty general term, but I intended it to be about how one can achieve health through physical fitness. It wasn*t going to be anything fancy. It was going to be a guide for the busy person, and how they can get fit, and stay that way while still being able to live a busy lifestyle. I've always been interested in health and fitness. As a matter of fact, I think I'm in pretty good shape. I work out with weights at least 3 days per week, and I engage in some sort of cardio- vascular activity at least 2 days per week. I eat right; I stretch after every work out. I don't smoke or drink excessively. I thought I was doing pretty well. That is, until through the course of my research I came to realize that there's a lot more to being healthy than being physically fit, and eating right. That's when I ran into the word *holistic.* In the past, it's always had a negative connotation for me. I've always thought of it as something used by metaphysical crackpots trying to sell snake-oil. As it turns out, holistic is not what I thought it was. The real meaning of holistic is looking at the whole system rather than just concentrating on individual components. So, when it comes to being healthy, it looks at every aspect of health instead of just the physical. Do you realize that when we consider health, we usually look to see if our diet is right, or how often we exercise? There's so much more to consider. I found out that there are several aspects you must work on in order to consider yourself truly healthy. Among them are the obvious physical, but there's also the mental and the spiritual to consider. If any of these is deficient, it could have serious repercussions in your life. Ask yourself this, *Am I really healthy?* Yes, you work out religiously. Yes, you eat chicken breasts, and egg whites, and you take your vitamins, and do everything else a *healthy* person is supposed to. But is there anything you are missing? Let me ask you this: how often do work on relieving stress from your life? How often do you work on building positive relationships? How often do you seek to build spirituality in your life? These are just some of the aspects you must work on if you are searching for true, and total health. Holistic doesn't have to have a negative meaning. It can simply mean a philosophy of well- being that considers the physical, mental and spiritual aspects of life as being closely interconnected and balanced. I cover all of these points, and several more in my book, *5 Keys To Health: A Holistic Approach.* I show you how to apply the holistic approach to health without any of the metaphysical mumbo jumbo. You can check it out at http://5keystohealth.com. Take it from me, a one-time skeptic. *Holistic* doesn't have to be a four-lettered word. It can be something positive that will help you create a fuller, healthier life. About The Author Edgar Cisneros is a health and fitness author. His articles and ebooks can help you achieve your personal fitness, and health goals faster and more efficiently. He can be reached by sending an email to mailto:echealth@5keystohealth.com, or by visiting his website at http://5keystohealth.com.
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Alternative Medicine Use Digestive Enzymes to Reduce Hemorrhoid Inflammation Using digestive enzymes when you have hemorrhoids is a good idea. Digestive enzymes help reduce inflammation, reduce fibrin, and clean the blood of foreign particles. These enzymes activities strengthen your immune system and give it more power to work on your hemorrhoids. Aromatherapy Favorites - Beautiful Rose Oil Ah, Wonderful Rose Oil Disabilities Stuttering There are many types of disablity. Would people class stuttering as a disability? Feuille D Menthe: The Cooling and Uplifting Fragrance of Green Grass Feuille D'Menthe is a blend of several fragrant grass essential oils, with the main ingredients being sage, vetiver, mint and basilic. The perfect combination of these fragrant herbs exudes a rich and fresh aroma, without gloom and turbidity. The addition of mint further accentuates the refreshing and uplifting fragrance, all enveloped in a richness of grass fragrance. What Is Reiki? Reiki is an ancient form of energy healing in which a properly attuned Reiki Practitioner serves as a conduit for Universal Life Force (or ReiKi). The Reiki practitioner opens them self up as a conduit for a semi-sentient energy summoned from a higher source to facilitate healing or correct a person's aura. The Reiki Practitioner is not a healer per se but the energy moves through them to work with the recipient's higher will in correcting imbalances and treating situations from the core causal point rather than the effect. This is thought to have a beneficial effect on the body, mind, and spirit, emotional and in Indian systems - the chakra system. Cleansing Liver Herbal Teas When spring comes it is time for a liver cleanse. This is a good time to rejuvenate the liver for the coming year of work. One good way to cleanse the liver is to use herbal teas. They are easy to use and they provide a powerful punch to reawaken the liver. Body Calling: All Natural Cures Natural remedies can heal and have been around for centuries. They are affodable cost wise: vitamins, minerals, calcium supplements, digestive enzymes and essential oils. In the 1970's vitamins, minerals and natural enzymes were considered a cure for the fatal and terminal inherited disease Cystic Fibrosis. This research and discovery took the lifespan of 5 Year Old children into 30 years of age and some now into 60 years of age! The quality of life was dramatically increased 25 to 50 years to what was once only known as a "Childhood Disease". There is now a dire need for Physicians for "Adult Cystic Fibrosis" to help them maintain and continue optimal health. Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, donated $20 Million dollars to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation in 1999 due to the fact research was doing it's job helping to extend all these children's lives! The point is our bodies all need all natural herbs, vitamins, minerals, supplements, essential oils, fatty acids to reach optimal health. It has been proven over and over most problems go away and many diseases and "the New Diseases" or so they are now labeled "Disease" can be cured and or maintained. Cleansing Your Elimination Organs to Achieve Good Health Benefits of Cleansing Your Elimination Organs Colon cleansing, kidney cleansing, and liver cleansing routines are key elements to an overall body cleansing and detoxification plan. Proper cleansing of toxins from these important elimination organs frees up your body's resources to more effectively fight disease. In addition, proper cleansing will often help clear up those mysterious symptoms that modern medicine can only hide. The colon, kidneys and liver are the primary elimination organs they eliminate waste and toxins from your body. If they are not functioning properly, there is a likely buildup of toxins in your body. Cleansing these organs is an important part of keeping them healthy. Revolutionary Medicine: Shockwave Therapy for Chronic Pain Sufferers Stripped from the scenes from science fiction novels and films, shockwave therapy is a newage alternative to chronic pain sufferers. Utilized not only on humans for over 25 years for urologic and orthopedic conditions, shockwave therapy has even been introduced to veterinary and equine medicine as well. Helping individuals suffering from a range of conditions, including: golf or tennis elbow, stiff shoulders, calcaneal spurs, joint calcification, chronic tendon pain, and many other musculoskeletal disorders; shockwave therapy could possibly be the answer to help and healing. Therapeutic Massage Goes Main Stream Have you ever bumped your knee or elbow? What was the response? Well, of course, you rub them in order to ease the pain and make them feel better. As the ancient art of therapeutic massage is enjoying a modern-day revival it is interesting to note that as far back as the fifthth century BC, Hippocrates, wrote: "The physician must be experienced in many things, but assuredly in rubbing?for rubbing can bind a joint that is too loose and loosen a joint that is too rigid" Toxins Make You Fat and Shorten Your Life When your body is toxic, toxins hide and embed themselves in your body fat. This causes your cells and organs to become sluggish and lose efficiency. The fatter you are, the more toxins you can store. As your organs and body systems lose their ability to function properly, they lose their ability to metabolize and process fat effectively. This is one reason why some of you find it difficult to lose weight - your body is not functioning properly. When you start to lose weight, this causes fat to be used up in your cells as energy and causes toxins to be released into your blood stream. If you lose weight to fast, you will have excess toxins released into your blood and this creates a variety of unhealthy symptoms and conditions - headaches, mucus, flu like symptoms, joint pains. Excessive toxins in your blood can remain there for over a year and cause you harm and that is why you need to lose weight slowly like 2 lbs a week. What are toxins and where do toxins really come from? They come from What Causes Osteoporosis and Ten Changes You Can Make to Reduce Your Risk of Osteoporosis Ten Simple Lifestyle Changes You Can Make to Reduce Your Risk for Osteoporosis Home Spa and Bodys Adaptation. The More the Better? The More The Faster The Better?Or Some Words About The Body's Adaptation. Cleaners And Our Health Many people use strong cleaners or acid cleaners to make the house clean and to get hard to clean stains out, but people don't realize that many cleaners are bad for our health they contain ingredient that irritate the skin and the fumes that those cleaner produce are dangerous if we inhale them. Fun is a Powerful Alternative Medicine - Just Dont Confuse it with Funny You're familiar with the phrase, "there's the rub," meaning "there lies the difficulty"? It's usually used to describe a stumbling block in your path or the central dilemma. But while it's associated with Hamlet, did you know that this phrase was not coined by Shakespeare? I'll finish this thought in a moment... Natural Aromatherapy, Essence of Health Bringing Home Nature's Forest Correctly and Safely Fight Cancer With Broccoli Sprouts Mom was right to insist on us eating our vegetables. She knew they built health and gave us the minerals we need. Now scientists have found that we can eat foods to help us both prevent cancer and fight cancer. Tobacco Hypnosis: Cigarettes Are My Friend Practicing hypnotherapists hear many peculiar statements from smokers who ask for help in quitting. The idea that cigarettes could be someone's "friend" is just one of them. One man believed that he could not write music unless he was smoking. Others have been convinced that they could not relax unless they were inhaling tobacco fumes. Those people were suffering from what I have come to call "tobacco hypnosis". They had hypnotized themselves into some odd beliefs about the effects of tobacco and smoking. Hypnosis Way of General Indications of Deceit When the subject is changed, he's in a better, more relaxed mood. The guilty wants the subject changed; the innocent always wants a further exchange of information. Taking Control of Your Health & Well-being Taking Control of Your Health & Well-being by Georgianna Donadio D.C., M.Sc., Ph.D. Do you ever wonder why, in spite of all your good intentions, you just cannot seem to take control over your health and wellness the way you really want to? The answer to that question can be found in the words of Albert Einstein, who reminded us "you cannot correct a problem with the same thinking that created it". In other words, you cannot change old behaviors without new information. The Institute of Medicine recently published a study that indicates ninety million Americans are "health illiterate", which means we do not know how to interpret or use health information to control or improve our health, or prevent chronic disease. Data compiled previously identified, "lack of information as the number one root cause of death". Understanding that there exists a cause and effect relationship between what we know and how we behave, we need a model of integrating this important information to change the behaviors that lead to chronic disease. According to a 7-year, 1996, Harvard Medical School study, approximately 70% of all cancers are preventable through lifestyle changes. Furthermore, our diseases and conditions are primarily a result of stress, food, environment, attitude, emotions or beliefs that keep us in behaviors that lead to illness. Which invites the question, are we consciously choosing to be unhealthy, or do we just not understand sufficiently the relationship between what we think, how we behave, what we put into our bodies and how we keep ourselves well or make ourselves sick? In a world exploding with health information, especially on the internet, we are caught in the dilemma of having abundant amounts of information, without a context through which we can understand and utilize this information in a way that is appropriate for our own unique personal health needs. There is, however, good news - making its way into the mainstream of health care is an integrated model of health information and education that provides a "whole picture of health" perspective, allowing each of us to discern and create our own unique approach to taking charge of our health and well-being. Whole Health Education, developed over the past 28 years, in cooperation with Boston physicians, nurses and educators, is an approach to understanding the cause and effect our behaviors and choices have on our state of health. Demystifying the five major factors that influence how sick or well we become, Whole Health Education provides a perspective on human anatomy and physiology, bio-chemistry, psycho-social, environmental and spiritual aspects which allows for an authentic understanding of what we need know to resolve chronic health problems or to stay healthy. Integrating evidence-based information with the wisdom of various spiritual teachings and a whole-person overview of behavioral options, Whole Health Education offers each of us a tool for personal health management by providing personalized health information that explains the physical, emotional, nutritional, environmental and spiritual aspects of a health concern.For example, Mature Onset Diabetes affects approximately 18.2 million Americans and is the leading health concern in our culture today. As all chronic conditions are, Mature Onset Diabetes is a multi-dimensional disease state and the unique Whole Health perspective, can facilitate the restoration of health for those with chronic diseases such as diabetes. Physical/Structural What happens on a physical and structural level with Mature Onset Diabetes? The specialized beta cells of the pancreas, which produce insulin, become incapable of producing adequate amounts of the critically necessary secretion. This happens over a period of years and can begin in our bodies, over time, by eating large amounts of insulin-provoking foods. These insulin provocateurs, which are sugars and starches in the form of complex carbohydrates, require the pancreas to produce more insulin so that the sugars can be carried over the cell membranes to all parts of the body. Serious disturbances occur when we do not have enough insulin to carry the sugar over the cell membranes. Insulin hooks onto the sugar molecule and acts like a lock and key mechanism to bring that sugar into the cell which is then used in the energy cycle of cell metabolism. The nervous system, brain and the lungs cannot function without the proper metabolism of sugars. Emotional/Social Just as diabetes is a lack of nourishment on a chemical/nutritional level, so is it a lack of emotional nourishment on an emotional/mental level. It relates to the "feel good" nourishment component of your body. What do we know about carbohydrates and serotonin? Carbohydrates provoke the production of serotonin. Serotonin is a neuro-transmitter that produces a feeling of well-being. There is a direct relationship between what our body is doing chemically and how we feel emotionally. When we crave or build our diet around carbohydrates, this can be a way of "self-medicating" our emotional needs by eating carbohydrates to provoke insulin production. Sugar problems can affect us emotionally. Let's say you have a pancreas that is not working properly. What can happen somatic/psychically from the pancreas to the brain? If we are feeling the ups and downs of hypoglycemia, and its biochemical/neurological symptoms, it may undermine our sense of security, self esteem, and produce anxiety and fear. What is the emotional component of diabetes and the pancreas? Often, it can be a poor sense of self-esteem and a fear of not being "good enough" or not belonging. These feelings, medicated by the serotonin foods, can lead us to not look deeply enough into what is causing our health concerns and allow the feeling/feeding cycle to continue. Chemical/Nutritional On the nutritional side, the treatment for people with Mature Onset Diabetes is to decrease the stress on the pancreas by making changes in their diet -- decrease starches and sugars and decrease calories. Eat less, eat right. What kind of a diet would be best for preventing Mature Onset Diabetes? Vegetables, vegetables, and vegetables combined with lean proteins such as fish, chicken, water, a little fruit and a little fat. In a hypoglycemic situation, it is wise not to eat grain or sugar, but sprouted grain bread, and other substitutes can be healthy and satisfying. Because hormones are chemicals, diabetes and hypoglycemia are both hormonal-based problems. What we know about the hormone system is that it works as a balanced interdependent system. Diabetes is an endocrine-related, systemic problem. With a systemic problem like diabetes, you have a body system problem--you do not just have a condition by itself. It is known that the pancreas is related, through hormone interaction, to the adrenals, and the adrenals are in turn related to the reproductive system. It is known that these glands are related through hormone interactions to the pituitary and the pituitary is related to the thyroid gland, the thyroid is related to the thymus, and the thymus is related to the immune system. Environmental/Internal & External The environment that we work in, live in, walk through, live near -- how does that environment have an impact on the way that we feel and the way we feel about ourselves? How do we learn to trust in the order of the universe? By behaviors that come from trusting the order inside ourselves. We do this by setting boundaries -- codes of conduct of how we are going to behave, eat, work exercise and live. If we don't violate our own boundaries, we are less likely to let anybody else violate our boundaries. We have to start with ourselves. Our experience of victimization can begin with our own self-victimizing behavior. Spiritual/World View A Hindu Vendata truth is that "the whole world is one family". It is said that there is only one disease, the disease of separateness, separating oneself from the awareness that we are one living organism. Competition creates isolation. The spiritual challenge presented by hypoglycemia and diabetes appears to be involved with over- or under-valuing the self: judgment of self and then others. Where are we in the process of getting to the truth that we are all equally important? The drama created by a one-up or one-down dynamic that we may allow to be part of our experience can lead to psychophysiology and the behavioral issues which can contribute to and create Mature Onset Diabetes.Whole Health Education can transform our experience of taking care of ourselves. It can provide an understanding of our health concerns and conditions from this multi-dimensional perspective that makes sense in a way we can utilize the information directly and in a meaningful way. In addition, having the information provided in a mindful, respectful way that invites each of us to discern what we know about our health and condition, how to choose to resolve the problem and what kind of care we choose to have, allows each of us to experience whole-person health care through whole health information. Then, WE become the center of our health and healing process, rather than the doctors or practitioners we go to for guidance.
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