New Website and Photos

Hello friends!

This is a quick post to update about a new website / business I'm launching.  I've been working on this business for quite awhile and polishing the website has been the final step.  Please feel free to share my information with the people in your life whom you feel might benefit from it.

Visit my new site for description of services and updates.

I also did a photo shoot with a photographer (many of you have seen already) and I want to put his name out there.  His name is Carl Jr. and he is amazingly talented!  He's a stand up guy all around and it was a pleasure to work with him.  His website is http://www.cmsjrphotography.com/ and my album can be seen on his site here.  I've made my own photo sharing site with Picasa on google too for more personal use.

Many of my blog posts are being published on another blog / website of a colleague, view The Yoga Treehouse to read more.

Thank you all for your support, it means the world to me and it wouldn't be easy without you!

With all the love I have,
Alicia

The Deadliest Diagnosis

Let me preface this post by saying a few things:

• If you're going to read, devote enough time to finish...at least a half hour unless you're a bionic speed reader.  This post is VERY long, unlike most of my posts.  The information is too useful to leave out.
• I am not forcing the idea of the "Zone Diet" on anyone.  I am just providing the facts given by one man who seems to have found something that works.  I fully support that everyone should find the way of eating that works for them and that feels best.  These ideas can simply be a support in mode of thinking when you decide how to eat.  Or it can be nothing to you at all.  We are all free to take what we want out of theories.

What is the deadliest diagnosis today?  The topic of silent inflammation is an interesting one.  In a lecture given by Barry Sears, PhD, I learned a whole lot about inflammation and its’ nature and causes.  Inflammation is traditionally defined as redness, swelling, and pain.  The modern approach to treating inflammation is anti-inflammatory drugs (Aspirin, Aleve, Motrin, Cortisone and the list goes on).  All these drugs do is change the level of chemical in the body that causes pain.  A more dangerous type of inflammation (discussed by TIME magazine) is silent inflammation.  This kind of inflammation can linger for decades without even presenting pain, and causing more harm over length of time.  This inflammation below the perception of pain attacks the brain, heart, and immune system.  If under attack for long enough, the body is then riddled with cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, etc.  The purpose of this post is to help us wake up to the possibility of silent inflammation within ourselves even if we don’t notice it, and how we can try to combat it.  Silent inflammation is the root of the cause of so many deaths.  By using diet as medicine, we can keep it in check.

Obesity and type 2 Diabetes are some of the most deadly diseases in America today (caused directly by silent inflammation).  Asthma, allergies, and any condition ending in “itis” is caused by silent inflammation.  There are three stages of disease; in America we tend to focus on the last stage.  This last stage is chronic disease, it’s what we see the doctor for.  We can then take drugs every day the rest of our lives to control inflammation.  The problem with this approach toward wellness is that these drugs have side effects such as immune suppression, osteoporosis, heart failure, and finally: death.  More people die in America from taking the prescribed dosage of anti-inflammatory medicine, than from AIDS.  So what can we do?  We can think of our food as a drug.  Yes we eat dinner with our families, holiday meals, but it is so much more than that.  All of the nutrients we eat at every meal interact with each other to control our hormonal responses.  Hormones are ten times more powerful than any pill you take.  The food you eat can either increase or decrease the inflammation in your body.

I can’t go into the explanation of specific hormones and their reactions without writing a short book, but if you’re interested you can read up on insulin, glucagon, and eicosanoids.  Eicosanoids aren’t a popular topic in the world of nutrition today, and they are very sparingly discussed, but they are VERY important to this process.

Where did all of this come from?  To start, let’s talk about the increased consumption of refined carbohydrates (bagels, pasta, junk food). Have you ever seen a bagel tree, or a pasta bush?  Nope!  On top of this increase, our levels of Omega 6 fatty acids has sky rocketed…this means more oils we never used before.  This adds a flame to the kerosene when we’re talking about inflammation.  One thing that does control inflammation is the consumption of Omega 3 fatty acids.  When consumed at high enough levels, this can be the biggest factor that can control inflammation.  Unfortunately our intake of these acids have decreased significantly.

This is mostly a case of good genes turning bad.  The genes of our ancestors are now being turned against us.  We’re changing the expression of our genes.  Thousands of years ago they never knew where the next meal would come from.  These days we define famine as more than two hours between meals and snacks.  Years ago the only medical treatment that could prevent you from dying early was a strong immune system.

We’re told that low fat diets are the way to go.  “If no fat touches your lips, it won’t touch your hips”…right?  Hormonally, not so much.  Fat is not the villain!  Replacing fats with carbohydrates does not reduce the risk of coronary disease, according to leading nutrition experts.

We can re-think our epidemic of obesity not as sloth and laziness.  Obesity is adipose tissue and excess fat.  When these tissues grow, it’s a tumor.  When we think of obesity as a tumor, the options of treatment becomes different.  We say we eat too much and don’t exercise enough…so we try to eat less and exercise more.  Somehow this doesn’t seem to be working! 

What does a calorie really represent?  A calorie is nothing, if you put it in a furnace and turn the heat up, you see how much energy is released.  This process is different in the body.  The calories come in the body and are converted into chemical energy (we’re talking the process of ATP and how it runs the body.  Without ATP, we’re dead within seconds).  When thinking of metabolism, the metabolic rate simply tells you how efficient your body is in turning those calories into ATP.  Those with a slow metabolism are efficient in making the chemicals of life.  Those with a fast one are not as good at making the necessary chemicals…they pay the price down the road that they never anticipated.

Our genetic tendencies to become overweight is just the same as our tendency to reach the height we’re at.  This doesn’t mean we will become fat, it just means we have that gene.  This is all about how we express our genes.  Obesity is a fat trap…the excess calories we can’t use at that time are converted into fat and stored.  Those who are overweight aren’t bad people, they simply have more of a fat trap.  They have to eat more food to feel okay to function throughout their day.  If we consume too many calories, then we’re seen as a glutton.  It’s important to know whether you have genetic predisposition for obesity, and to watch our your body expresses it’s genes. 

If we don’t have a fat trap, we erase the calories quickly and make enough ATP and life is great…right?  Like those people who eat excessively and never gain a pound.  The fact is they are simply inefficient at converting calories into adequate ATP.  They too have to consume more calories, otherwise their cells run out of fuel.  They have a high metabolic rate, which seems like a good idea, except the calories they’re consuming are wasted in free radical generation.  Simply because they can eat all they want and look great in designer clothes, doesn’t mean their insides are healthy.  They are putting themselves at risk, and that is how the aging process is accelerated.

In either case, what happens when those who have a fat trap or a high metabolism try to cut back on calories?  Easy answer: starvation.  When we lose fat rapidly, our body starts using itself, literally.  Our muscles and organs are cannibalized.  That’s why when overweight people claim that they don’t eat a lot, they’re telling the truth…they really don’t.  If the fat trap is operating (can’t use the fat) and we reduce calories, the body has to get the energy from somewhere.  First choice is muscle and then organ tissue.  This is how highly motivated people lose weight, plateau, and gain weight back again.  This is the starvation format: they must either have more calories, or they slow down.  It’s all an energy balance.  Overweight people don’t keep expanding until they take up the whole room, nor do people who lose weight keep losing weight….eventually the body will balance itself out.

Unfortunately there is no cure for heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and obesity.  But we can manage these conditions over a lifetime.  We can keep it within our reach so it doesn’t get out of hand.  Does the obesity cause inflammation, or does inflammation cause obesity?  When there’s no clear answer, tons of smart people get together to talk for days and figure it out.  Harvard medical school held a conference to discuss and finally reached the conclusion that inflammation proceeds obesity…”we don’t have an obesity epidemic, we have an inflammation epidemic.  It’s not obesity that causes the disease; it’s only when the obesity spreads to other parts of the body that we get chronic disease.”  One treatment for diabetics is to give them Aspirin…this balances blood sugar almost automatically.  The problem there is they have to take a very high dose and this kind of dosage continually holds the risk of death.  Dr. Barry Sears asks what if we had an anti-inflammatory diet that we could use day in and day out to ensure our good health?

It’s a fact by data that overweight people live longer in the US than normal weight people.  Many obese people are actually healthy.  There are actual health benefits from extra fat, until it starts to spread into the organs.  One of the issues with rapid fat loss is that as you lose a lot of weight fat cells shrink.  The toxins are squeezed out of the fat cells into the blood stream.  The toxins then look for the next best place that is rich in fat….which is the brain.

Understanding the concept of the glycemic load measures the rate at which carbohydrates enter the blood stream.  Before this system came to be known nutrition was simple: there were good (complex) carbs, and bad (simple sugars) carbs.  Then someone did an experiment that proved that bad carbs entered the blood stream slower than the good carbs.  Unfortunately the glycemic index is useless in terms of the real world (it’s great in laboratories).  It’s been impossible to test the real effects of carbs from vegetables (it’s impossible to get one person to eat pounds of greens in one day).  What’s important is to think about the glycemic load (this measures the amount and the quality of carbs and how one meal effects the body).  For example the glycemic index is about the same for a serving size of a carrot, a potato, and a Coca-Cola.  The glycemic load, however, is drastically different…the carrot is the lowest, then the potato, and the Coca-Cola throws blood sugar into a roller coaster.

Harvard medical school tells us it’s important to rate everything we eat based on glycemic load.  The rate is higher for heart disease, diabetes, and obesity the higher the glycemic load in the diet.  So, we all know junk food is bad (very high glycemic load).  What we sometimes don’t consider is the glycemic load of “healthy” foods such as rice, pasta, and whole grains.

Ok so all of this basically sucks and we’re all doomed…what are we going to do, right?  Wrong!  It can be simple.  Dr. Sears weighs the pros and cons of major diets followed by most people in the US (in the end one is the best to reduce silent inflammation).  There’s Atkins (carbs are bad, evil, don’t eat them especially in the beginning).  The next is the Zone diet (not too much carbs but you need some, carbs in moderation).  Next we have the diet promoted by the US government, the Food Pyramid.  This is the high glycemic load diet (the typical American diet).

First discussed is the Atkins diet.  At first dieters lose a lot of weight, but most of it is water and muscle mass.  They have eggs, sausage, and steaks!  This diet is difficult to maintain not because people cheat, but because the hormonal reactions are difficult to manage.  Who would want to cheat on this diet with what you get to eat?  People typically lose a lot of weight in the first 6 months and then gain it back in the second half of the year.  Another issue without a lot of the good healthy carbs is that people miss the vitamins and minerals.

Next the Food Pyramid, which preaches that fat is bad.  The government spends billions of our tax dollars to push the idea that fat is bad for us.  Telling us to eat lots of grains and starches, the USDA’s primary goal is to promote agriculture and business.  What do we grow the most of in the US?  Grains and starches!  Easy formula huh?  Dr. Sears joked: “How dare I say that the US government may be lying to you?”  The Harvard medical school said “The USDA food pyramid is built on shaky scientific ground.  It offers wishy washy scientifically un-sounded advice.  It has never been tested to see if it really works.”  Would you go to a doctor who asked you to try a medicine that has never been tested?  Unfortunately the USDA food pyramid has been adopted by other countries in the world as the “right way to eat.”

Next we come to the Zone diet (between the two extremes).  The Zone diet isn’t high in anything…any diet that is “high” or “low” in anything, is probably hard to sustain.  The kind of diet we want to be eating uses moderation: moderate fat, moderate protein, moderate carbs.  This is based on the glycemic load: lots of fruits, vegetables, and a balance of carbs and fat.  Moderate in the carbs and fats.  It’s flexible: you eat anything you want (within reason) as long as you can balance out the carbs and fats.  This is more a way of life than a diet.  It’s sustainable for a lifetime.  In every study, the Zone diet has been found superior in insulin control, blood glucose control, blood lipid control, appetite suppression, fat loss, and reduction of inflammation.  It’s confusing why most doctors are still recommending the USDA food pyramid diet to patients, when in a test done at Harvard medical school showed that without fail, the Zone diet was more effective in reducing chronic disease.

This can be really confusing without a personal computer to calculate everything you eat.  Dr. Sears tries to put it into simpler terms to use in the real world: for every one gram of fat, consume two grams of protein, and three grams of carbs at every meal.  It’s simple as 1 2 3!  The trick is to do it the best you can every day.  To understand this balance, we can use simple rhymes such as “protein moves around, carbs grow on the ground.”  So fish and chicken = protein.  Carbs can be the hard one: wheat, breads, pasta is obviously a carb.  But what is asparagus?  Welllllll it grows on the ground…..ding ding, carb!  Apples are carbs too.  Fruits and vegetables are low glycemic load carbs though, which is what sometimes confuses people thinking about carbs.  At each meal divide the plate into three equal sections.  One section is for one serving of protein no bigger than a hand (yes some hands are bigger than others, tough luck for the small boned people!)  The other two thirds are filled with low glycemic load carbs.  A hint is, these carbs should have COLOR!  Then you add fat.  How much?  A DASH = a SMALL amount.  Mostly mono-unsaturated fat (olive oil, guacamole).  The burning question (and possibly the decision maker for some) is: can I drink alcohol?  Good news is that alcohol pulls out the color from what it’s made from.  Those properties that pull out the color (in high concentrations) are anti-inflammatory agents.  The bad news is the more alcohol you drink, the more pro-inflammation you produce.  So we come back to moderation.  That means one glass of wine is good, two may be pushing it….one bottle empty on your own = you may have more to worry about than your glycemic load.  At the end, the Zone diet looks a lot like the Mediterranean diet.  The one difference is you eat less high glycemic load carbs like pastas and breads, and replace those with fruits and vegetables.  More vegetables is always the answer, because 200 calories per day is the desired amount of vegetables to be eaten in one day…this is two pounds of vegetables.  If the Italians can do it, we can do it.

Dr. Sears also goes into detailed studies done with animals that are deprived of fats.  Quick summary = not good…we need fat!  The only way to squeeze off inflammation is to control the diet.  He discusses a patient of his in Mexico who weighed 1,230 pounds.  This man was obviously highly inflamed.  Desperate, the patient worked with Dr. Sears.  He has lost 400 pounds so far and he has a lot more to go before he reaches 200 pounds.  He’s already eating as if he weighs 200 pounds…it’s hard for this man to eat as much as Dr. Sears wants him to eat.  And the shocking fact is that all of his blood work is normal and 100% healthy.  He may be the healthiest man on our side of the world!  Yes he has a tumor (obesity), but it is benign and it’s still shrinking in size.

The last point Dr. Sears stresses is the importance of taking fish oil.  When taken in consistent high dosage and when one uses the best quality, this is a major anti-inflammatory drug.  After discussing a study that showed that even when pigs were living on a “krispy kreme diet”, if they took the fish oil, their inflammation was kept at bay.  This doesn’t mean we should try to live on a krispy kreme diet, but it gets the point across.  He also discusses other examples of treatment of extreme illness with fish oil as a last resort, and that patients had miraculous recoveries.  For example, multiple sclerosis is inflammation of the brain.  A study that gave patients tons of fish oil and advised them to eat more fruits and vegetables, patients were having improved symptoms.  It’s not that the progression was stopped, it was literally beginning to reverse.  This is because drugs don’t get in the brain readily…but long chain fatty acids can.  If we get enough in the brain, we reduce inflammation.  Another study discussed the use of fish oil to treat children with ADHD…it worked!  Childrens’ behavior significantly improved but as soon as the children stopped taking the fish oil their behavior once again turned bad.  I’m not going to discuss this study at length because this post is already painfully long.  Point is, the clinical benefits of using fish oil as a drug is robust.

Unfortunately there is no fish in this world today that is not contaminated.  Even the purest kind, still toxic on some level.  So when you buy the fish oil at the health food store, you’re buying the sewer of the sea (in capsule form).  It was discovered how to make pure, concentrated fish oil.  This is the kind we use for children with ADHD, for the patients who need real medical treatment.  We need to buy the kind of fish oil that is EPA / DHA concentrates.  This is “weapons grade” fish oil.  If you’re healthy, a moderate regular dose is for maintenance.  If you’re sick, the dosage goes up based on your toxicity level.

Let’s think about the future.  If you’re a diabetic, try this: close your eyes.  Lift one left.  Try to walk around.  This is what the future will hold.  The costs for health care for diabetics is increasing.  Though we can’t cure these diseases, we can manage them by using food as medicine.  The future of Medicare holds asking recipients:

• Do you mind if we withhold your free healthcare for 5 more years?  Well this won’t happen because they will vote.
• You paid 1970’s dollars so now we’ll give you 1970’s healthcare.  This means here’s two Aspirin and call me in the morning.  This won’t happen either because they vote.

On the other side let’s think about those whom are under the age of qualifying for Medicare.  Ask them if instead of paying 2.9% of income for Medicare, how about paying 29%?  That won’t happen either because they vote too.  So then what happens?  The government prints more money. 

No…in all seriousness, this will happen unless we can turn back the tides of diabetes, the most expensive of all diseases.  This can be done not with new drugs or gastric bypass surgery, but with an anti-inflammatory diet!

If this is the only paragraph you read in this entire post, remember it!  This is your job for the rest of your life:

• Take fish oil daily (the pure kind)
• Do your best to balance out the glycemic load of every meal.  Food should maintain satiety (lack of hunger)…snacking a lot should not be necessary because it simply changes the hormones and blood sugar in a way that we don’t need.
• Moderate exercise is a must (for most Americans this can mean 15 minutes of brisk walking). 
• Sit back to “smell the roses” as Dr. Sears puts it.  This is hard to do when we have so many things on our to-do list, but it’s important.  Sit back in a comfortable chair and think of absolutely nothing for 20 minutes.  Some may call this meditation, some may call it zoning out.  Whatever it is for you, do it.

** Information and data for this post taken from Dr. Barry Sears lecture on “Silent Inflammation."  Barry Sears, PhD is the founder of the Zone Diet, a pioneer in bio-technology and nutritional research, developing drug-delivery systems for cancer and heart patients, and a former MIT researcher.  He holds over 13 patents for cancer treatments and the dietary control of hormones.  For more information visit www.DrSears.com and www.zonediet.com.

My next post will be on the pharmaceutical drug industry, it goes hand in hand with some of the information discussed here.

The Art of Yoga Adjustments

From love to science, there’s always more to learn about.  As a yoga teacher, I was particularly interested to read someone else’s perspective on the technique of giving adjustments to students in yoga class.  I have often felt somewhat uncomfortable at times giving adjustments to every single student.  So, like any human might, I shy away from what I’m not comfortable with.  Which is of course, the best decision when it involves touching someone and putting yourself in their personal space.  I would definitely never want to make someone uncomfortable in a way that would make them not want to return to a yoga class.  That is the exact opposite of what we strive for as teachers.

What we DO strive for, is to help people feel well taken care of, and assist them in a process of exploration.  I personally love and crave adjustments in class…the more the better!  Yet I know this is not the case for many.  Things become extra touchy when a woman is adjusting a man, or vice versa.  And if a man is adjusting a man, there are probably few people (especially in America), who would be comfortable with this.  So when adjusting men, unless I am extremely comfortable with them and know their practice, I keep it on the extremely light side, or nothing at all.  There are those token male yoga practitioners who are so skilled in knowing their body and appreciate full on body weight assists, (and have been regulars in class), that I have been comfortable to give them intense adjustments.  This, is a rare yet wonderful occasion.

I’ve been present in numerous classes where the teacher is wonderful and very sensual…almost in a way that’s over the top.  It is when the teacher knows how to handle themselves in the way they interact with students that influences the class’ experience.  Of course I have no idea what the student is going through, but at times I have noticed teachers being too hands on in a way that is almost jarring to the student.  Part of this is simply because of the nature of yoga.  Yoga helps us get deeply in touch with how we feel and what’s happening for us.  This can be a scary and vulnerable time!  Sometimes it’s not always wonderful, and if someone is already uncomfortable, a yoga teacher being too hands on is the last thing they want. 

When someone is new to yoga, emotions fly and it’s hard to know how to process them.  As yoga teachers it is our job to leave them be and let them work it out.  If we can assist them in making them more comfortable physically with a light touch, or a verbal cue, that’s the way to go in my book.  It’s SO important for teachers to be mindful of everything that happens in their class…not only physically but emotionally and energetically.  Sometimes it’s easy to get super excited about yoga and helping people feel it.  We want them to get it right, we want to push them!  We know how amazing it can be, but we can sometimes forget that this amazing feeling is how we feel it.  Our students don’t need to be pushed; they need space to create it for themselves.  They need to open to it when they are ready.  I’ve learned the hard way you can’t make someone understand or feel something.  If we are mindful, we can usually tell who’s sending us the signal that they would like the adjustment because it’s helpful or simply because it feels great.

Ayurveda Made Simple

Cleaning the lymph and keeping it flowing.  It’s all about our drainage system!  All issues really come down to our drains and how healthy our lymph is.  If our drains are clogged we get GI inflammation, inflammation of the joints, bowel issues, acne, mood swings, etc etc the ailments go on.  The basic of the science of Ayurveda (the Indian medicinal system) is keeping the lymph and drains flushed and open.  Ayurveda doesn’t have to be complicated; it is simply following the natural course of life and balancing our activities and diet to support what we need.

Here are some simple tips to clean the lymph:

• Rub oil all over the body gently (olive, sesame, coconut all work well; in the shower is less messy)
• Rub oils in the ears and up the nose in the winter time to stay lubricated and open (I gently use a Q tip with oil on the end and then wipe away excess oil with a tissue)
• Neti pot: nasal cleansing pot with water and salt
• Dry brush / body scrub: stimulates the skin system to move what’s underneath
• Balance diet according to your “dosha” or type.

There are three different types of body / mind according to Ayurveda.  Most of us typically have two main types (there are some whom embody all three and some whom are primarily one).  There are also many of us whom exhibit traits of one type in our mind but of another in our body.  Eating and living according to your type doesn’t mean you can ONLY eat certain foods and only do certain activities.  It is a simply guideline on what may help bring you into a more balanced state.  When you feel out of balance you can look to how you’re living and eating to make small adjustments to meet your full potential.  For example someone who is Pitta (fiery) in nature may not want to eat a lot of spicy food during the warm summer months.  Below is a brief description of the types and ways to balance them.

The types are Vata (air), Pitta (fire), and Kapha (water).  Vata are usually thin, light, spacey, quiet, and artistic (by general description).  Vata people may be more subject to anxiety, weight loss, varying appetite and energy, and depression.  So Vata people will do well with warm, calming, grounding foods.  They should stick to light activity and exercise that can help ground them such as meditation, dancing, yoga, light aerobics, and weight lifting to give them more strength.

Pitta is the fiery dosha.  These are the people whom have tons of energy, average athletic physical builds, and good motivation.  They can be subject to temper flares, over-heating and over-eating, and inflammation.  Their balancing lifestyle will include light and calm / cool foods, steady physical exercise with some competition, and calming activities to balance with rest.

Kapha is the cool and damp dosha.  People of this type are calm, grounded, and comforting.  They can be subject to laziness, obesity, and stagnation.  Activities to balance this dosha will be anything stimulating and vigorous.  They have the strength for high intensity exercise and need it to balance their high need for food.  They also do well with creative activity because they are very intelligent.  Food wise they will do better by staying away from overly damp foods such as ice cream, pizza, cheese, and a lot of meat.  Foods with lighter and higher energy such as chicken fish, grains, and all kinds of vegetables and fruits will be good for them.

So you see, Ayurveda can be simple when you break it down.  If you’re interested in finding out what type you are, visit this site.  And if you’d like to find out which foods suit your type (it’s often based on season as well), visit here.  Ayurveda also follows food combining guidelines (only eating certain foods together) but as long as you stick to more natural foods, food combining isn’t always necessary.

Grieving and Healing

I’ve noticed a recurrent theme circling my thoughts and life in the past few months.  Perhaps this theme hasn’t been true for my own life experience, but it’s present in the outer layer of my mind…which makes it real for me in a sense.  This theme isn’t a pleasant one, and it has left me feeling unsettled at times.  A few months ago I read a book with a detailed rape scene.  A few weeks ago I experienced two heavy conversations surrounding the topic of rape and violence.  And just two days ago, my community suffered the burden of a tragedy so unwarranted, we are still left speechless.  I won’t discuss in great detail what happened (if you want to research, look up Lululemon Bethesda Homicide), but two women were assaulted in the middle of an affluent and popular area in MD.  One was raped and left to be found, and one was killed.  In this day and age, tragedies like this strike the news everyday.  Yet we live in our bubble, and when it’s not completely real to us, we don’t experience it fully.

I was in New York City when I learned of what happened so close to my home, and tried not to give it much thought.  After my recent conversations I was somewhat avoidant of the thoughts of such violence.  I was exhausted mentally and physically from two traveling weekends, and simply didn’t have the energy to put into grasping the situation fully.  When I set foot in my work place on Monday I was greeted with more details than I could have read in the news, and emotions flew.  I encountered people at work who knew the victims, and this changed the emotions once again.  It went from an awful image in my mind to a tangible, real experience.  I experienced their pain, their questioning of life, their disbelief.  While all of us avoided processing real emotion, we did our best to work through it and make jokes to keep happy faces.  What else were we to do besides cover our emotions and work professionally?  Upon leaving work, I was happy to be back at my regular yoga class at Sacred Space.  Being in Kim's is always an emotional experience, but this proved to be quite a test for me.  She dedicated the class to those suffering in Japan (worthy of a whole different blog post).  She encouraged us to focus 100% of our energy on those who are suffering in the world, and to do only what we are able to do for them.  Even if we don’t have the means to physically give back, or give cash, we were invited to give our pure energy of devotion to the healing of the world.  This stems from our everyday actions, whether it is being friendly to who you encounter at the bank and the grocery store, or doing something special to remind someone you love them.  I chose to dedicate my practice to the victims of the local tragedy, and their families and friends.

Throughout practice, my mind circled continuously and my emotions ran through my like a river.  My tears were constant and it felt wonderful to release it through a physical practice.  What I struggled with (and I still am), is the justification of it all.  When we try to wrap our minds around the awful things that people do to each other, we can sometimes find the reason.  For example, a war is waged based upon political disagreements, accusations, etc.  Yet an act like this one, seemingly unexpected and unprecedented, is extremely hard to find reasoning for. 

I’ve been interested in the flow of life and why things happen the way they do for a few years.  I’ve done my best to wrap my mind around the theory that we all attract what comes to us.  Just because something happens to us that is painful or negative doesn’t mean we’re bad people, but we somehow did attract it….right?  How on earth did these women attract an act so horrific that it makes me sick to my stomach?  How do we justify THIS?

As I always do when I encounter an emotionally trying situation, I discussed it with my closest friends.  I asked them these questions, I pleaded with them to help me understand.  What they offered for me was not the cure I was grasping for, but perhaps a push in the right direction of acceptance.  They shed the light for me that while this act committed was so painful and damaging, there must be some kind of light at the end of the tunnel.  Out of all pain comes beauty and healing.  Perhaps this situation will teach us all something.  It may not be easy to see it now, when we’re in the midst of the darkness and confusion.  My dear friends helped me to remember that now that the act is done, it is finished.  The healing starts now, for everyone involved and for everyone on the outside.  These situations bring up emotions for all of us, and it is up to us to take hold of our own healing.  Once we begin our healing, we can send out our positive energy to those who need it.  Everyone needs healing on some level or another, at some time in their life.  

I’m taking the recent tragedies as a reminder to me that life is short.  We have only one that we know of, and it is not to be wasted.  Perhaps this occurrence will inspire women to explore self defense that will someday help save a life.  What I do know is that it’s time to tap into what I really want out of my life, and to create it.  For if this life is taken from me or changed unexpectedly in a way that will limit my capacity to live the way I do now, I want to know with every fiber in me that I didn’t waste a second.  I’m taking this lesson as a reminder.  I’m dedicating my practice and my teaching this week and in the coming weeks to those who suffer with lingering questions of "why"?

Hangover Home Remedy

Along with the theme of natural cold busters, I came up for air one morning after just one too many glasses of champagne (it was New Year’s Eve and free, what is a girl to do?)  Anyway due to the fact that I don’t drink very often, I had quite a long process of getting out of bed.  Once I did I was bent on curing my hangover quickly so I could be productive.  Some things I tried definitely worked.  I’ve heard of others too.  Read below to find out quick and easy hangover home remedies:

• Ginger: good for nausea.  Simply cut a few slices of raw ginger, boil, add honey/lemon juice/orange juice to your liking, and sip.  Sipping hot liquids in general helps to drain the lymph which will increase circulation to get toxins moving out of your system faster.
• Food: I know it’s not fun to think about eating when dealing with a hangover but food is energy!  Light and easy to digest foods are best (toast, soup, some people can tolerate fruit).  For me, I had an orange to boost my blood sugar a bit, and a banana (to re-distribute lost potassium), an apple, and avocado with some honey.  Worked wonders!
• Evening primrose oil is said to help prevent hangovers.  Eating peanut butter before drinking is an African remedy, and eating Almonds before drinking is a Native American prevention technique.
• Exercise: obviously exercising is NOT on the list of things to do.  But if you can get it in you to take a leisurely walk it will increase circulation and get oxygen to the brain (it needs it, trust us!)
• If you can remember WHILE you’re partaking in the liver damaging beverage, drink lots of water before going to bed.  This will cut de-hydration in half.
• Of course sleep is always the magic aid for almost any ailment.  If you’re unable to sleep, simply close the blinds and rest.  Rest does wonders.

So there we have it.  Natural hangover remedies.  Of course the best remedy is to watch yourself and make sure you don’t overpass your limit that will leave you feeling bad.  We’re all so perfect that we should be able to do that right?  Well, we can do our best most of the time…but sometimes we are human beings and we do things that are probably not so great for us.  Don’t beat yourself up just treat yourself well and you can heal yourself in no time.

Look ahead for tips on balancing your life and diet with Ayurvedic medicine made simple.