For those suffering from Eczema, a few natural remedies can make a big difference
Submitted by Abigail Hamilton on Sun, 04/17/2011 - 18:48From the Seattle PI, a wonderful roundup of natural remedies for eczema:
Coconut oil
A recent double-blind study showed that virgin coconut oil helped decrease inflammation and itching while protecting the skin’s barrier function in patients with eczema. In addition, coconut oil reduced bacterial colonization of the skin common in eczema, which can help prevent infections of eczema lesions.
Essential fatty acids
Patients with eczema are thought to have a defect in essential fatty acid metabolism. Increasing consumption of omega-3 fatty acids such as cold water fish or fish oil can help decrease inflammation of the skin. Another type of essential fatty acid known as gamma linoleic acid, which is an omega-6 fatty acid found in evening primrose oil and borage oil, also has been shown in some studies to be helpful in the treatment of eczema.
Probiotics
Some studies have shown that probiotics can be helpful, especially in children with eczema.
Chamomile
Chamomile has a long historical use for skin ailments. One study showed that topical chamomile cream was as effective as a type of low-dose steroid cream for eczema. It can also be taken internally as a tea.
Stress reduction
Mind-body approaches such as biofeedback, hypnotherapy, relaxation techniques and meditation are effective tools for managing stress and can be a part of a treatment plan for eczema.Turning self-criticism into dynamic positive change
Submitted by Abigail Hamilton on Tue, 03/22/2011 - 18:27I just read a wonderful post about countering self-criticism by Robert Leahy, Ph.D., who is the Director of the American Institute for Cognitive Therapy. I wanted to share it with you:
Here's a [big] excerpt:
Millions of us find ourselves battling a self-critic that we can never get away from. It makes you feel sad, hopeless and helpless. It makes you feel stuck in regret. You dwell on all of your past mistakes and think the future will be even worse. You can never get away from your own worst enemy: yourself.
Well, the good news is that you can defeat your self-critic and take back your life. You can stand up and put down the voice that puts you down. Here are five steps for answering the voice within you that has made you feel so bad.
Replace Self-Criticism With Self-Correction
You may think that you are being realistic or that criticizing yourself will help you correct your mistakes and motivate you to do better. But it doesn't make you better; it just makes you want to give up. Replace self-criticism with self-correction. If you think you could do better, don't put yourself down. Look for a solution. Change your behavior. Rather than hit yourself over the head with the tennis racquet, correct your swing and hit the ball over the net.
Look At The Positives, Too
You probably don't need any training to pay attention to the negatives. In fact, you might win a prize for being the most negative person who talks about you. But even if some of the negatives are true, why not consider the positives also? One woman criticized herself for choosing the wrong man and thought, "I must be stupid." But when she looked at all the evidence, she realized that she was quite competent and had accomplished a lot. Besides, how could she know the relationship was wrong until she had all the facts?
Be As Kind To Yourself As You Are To A Stranger
We are often much more harsh with ourselves than we are with a friend, or a total stranger. Recognize this double standard, and when you start criticizing yourself, stop and direct the kindness and compassion that you feel for your best friend toward yourself. Just as you need your friends on your side, you need yourself in your corner. Ask yourself, "If my best friend had this problem, how would I support her?" And then treat yourself as you would treat your best friend.
Insomnia be gone!
Submitted by Abigail Hamilton on Sun, 02/13/2011 - 02:28
Recently, Everyday Health tackled the widespread problem of insomnia.
Amonng many great recommendations, they include a section on biofeedback to help combat a busy mind.
Relaxation techniques For some people with insomnia, a racing or worried mind is the enemy of sleep. In others, physical tension is to blame. Fortunately, there are ways to release physical tension and relax more effectively. Relaxation techniques that can quiet a racing mind include meditation, breathing exercises, and progressively tensing and relaxing your muscles starting with your feet and working your way up your body — a technique known as progressive muscle relaxation.
In biofeedback, people use equipment that monitors and makes them aware of involuntary body states (such as muscle tension or hand temperature). Immediate feedback helps people see how various thoughts or relaxation maneuvers affect tension, enabling them to learn how to gain voluntary control over the process. Biofeedback is usually done under professional supervision. Other relaxation techniques — such as progressive muscle relaxation or meditation — can be learned in behavior therapy sessions or from books, tapes, or classes.
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Afraid of memory loss as you age?
Submitted by sv.adm on Tue, 02/08/2011 - 02:28If you fear or are experiencing memory loss as you get older, you're not alone. Polls by Research America and Parade Magazine indicate that for most aging people, the fear of losing mental capacity is much greater than fears of losing physical abilities.
According to Karen Lawrence writing for Suite 101, experiments show that even though stress and depression can damage memory, treatment encourages regeneration of brain cells responsible for long-term memory function.
Paying attention to stress levels in the body by incorporating soothing and healing practices into one’s lifestyle may prove to be one of the best defenses against a deteriorating brain. While stress is certainly an inevitable part of life, adding simple measures to not only slow cell damage by reducing the production of cortisol, but also by encouraging the regeneration of cells can be another easy step towards keeping an aging brain sharp.
In fact, consider these effective techniques:
Deep Breathing. Deep breathing is an ancient and simple way to induce the relaxation response.
Guided Imagery and Visualization. Guided imagery is following the guidance of a soothing voice that is suggesting scenes of inner focus to elicit the relaxation response like “see yourself on a beautiful beach.”
Classical Music. The complex textures and harmonies of classical music can help usher one into a meditation state.
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Coffee helps women cope with stressful meetings but has the opposite effect on men
Submitted by Abigail Hamilton on Fri, 01/21/2011 - 21:22
This just in from Research Digest:
If a meeting becomes stressful, does it help, or make things worse, if team members drink lots of coffee? A study by Lindsay St. Claire and colleagues that set out to answer this question has uncovered an unexpected sex difference.
For two men collaborating or negotiating under stressful circumstances, caffeine consumption was bad news, undermining their performance and confidence. By contrast, for pairs of women, drinking caffeine often had a beneficial effect on these same factors.
The researchers can't be sure, but they think the differential effect of caffeine on men and women may have to do with the fact that women tend to respond to stress in a collaborative, mutually protective style (known as 'tend and befriend') whereas men usually exhibit a fight or flight response.
Click through to read the whole thing, and especially the comments which are insightful.
6 keys to changing almost anything
Submitted by Abigail Hamilton on Tue, 01/18/2011 - 19:40
As part of his work, Tony Schwartz of the Energy Project has put together a great short list of steps to making change that lasts. Lasting change is something we promote at Somatic Vision, and is essentially the goal of Alive and our other work. Ton's list perfectly complements our work, so I am including some highlight below:
- Be highly precise and specific. Imagine a typical New Year's resolution to "exercise regularly." It's a prescription for failure. You have a vastly higher chance for success if you decide in advance the days and times, and precisely what you're going to do on each of them.
- Say instead that you commit to do a cardiovascular work out Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 6 a.m., for 30 minutes. If something beyond your control forces you to miss one of those days, you automatically default to doing that workout instead on Saturday at 9 a.m.
- Take on one new challenge at a time. Over the years, I've established routines and practices, from weight training and running to doing the most important thing first every morning without interruption for 90 minutes and then taking a break...to spending 90 minutes talking with my wife on Saturday mornings.
Betty Ford Clinic uses biofeedback to help drug rehab be more effective
Submitted by Abigail Hamilton on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 20:00
Thanks to an article in the Press of Atlanta City, I learned that even the most prominent facilities that help people recover from drug addiction have been including biofeedback in their programs. This comes as no surprise!
From the article:
Scientists define addiction as a chronic illness characterized by relapses during recovery, such as diabetes or hypertension. As with those health conditions, managing addiction requires a sustained lifestyle change, and most rehab centers — regardless of cost and amenities, and some of these are quite deluxe and expensive — aim to bring about that change through counseling, education and community service.
Because addicts share key things in common, they need care, understanding and hope as they work toward recovery — whether it's in a fancy facility or a simple one.
Betty Ford Center, on 20 acres in the desert east of Los Angeles, offers acupuncture and biofeedback as part of their recovery program. Residential patients share double rooms with views of the local mountains, enjoying meals shaped by the staff dietitian and personalized exercise plans designed by the onsite fitness trainer.
It is our hope at Somatic Vision that more substance-abuse programs will incorporate biofeedback, since we have seen first-hand how effective it is at teaching people to:
- - Find healthier ways to cope with ongoing stress from any source
- - Change ingrained habits for better wellbeing
- - Use the mind to control the body
- - Insert conscious self-management into the tumult of life
Practical tip for stress management: Drink water
Submitted by Abigail Hamilton on Mon, 12/20/2010 - 16:49
A friend sent this to me, and because of my own longtime delight in drinking lots of water (for me, the bubbly kind!) I thought I'd share! The following is by Dr. Neill, Registered Psychologist.
After breathing oxygen, drinking water is the second most essential step in maintaining life. So drink lots of water.
It is estimated that 75% of Americans suffer mild chronic dehydration. Many would be drinking enough water were it not for the fact that they also use diuretics such as caffeine and alcohol which cause dehydration.
A host of problems have been associated with dehydration, but how does dehydration relate to stress? The brain is composed of 95% water. A mere 2% drop in body water will begin to shrink your brain and cause fuzzy short-term memory, difficulty focusing and daytime fatigue. The cluster of symptoms is sometimes called the brain fog.
Brain fog makes thinking harder and life more stressful. Therefore, avoiding or minimizing brain fog is a part of any good [tag-tec]stress management[/tag-tec] program.
Of course, chronic dehydration also leads to a host of physical problems such as hypertension, under-functioning kidneys and joint pain. Physical problems tend to create more chronic stress.
The solution is obvious: drink lots of water to keep your brain and the rest of your body working optimally.
Drink extra water under circumstances of increased body-water loss; for example, when you drink alcohol or coffee, exercise, fly or are under stress.
more »Inviting silence to quiet stress
Submitted by Abigail Hamilton on Thu, 12/16/2010 - 19:13
Especially during the crazy holiday months, it's important to remember how we can cultivate and use inner quiet to combat the frenetic pace of the season and all its attendant tasks. In a recent piece, Arnie Kozack explains:
Four AM is an auspicious time of day in many contemplative traditions. The world used to be quiet at 4 AM, long before 24-hour stores and the ongoing hum of our electrical and now electronic world. Still, Four AM is relatively quiet as are the other early morning hours. The children are not yet awake, traffic has not started piling up, the press of the work day not yet begun.
Of course, we can be in the relaxing silence of the early morning hours and not have inner silence, and this is why we practice mindfulness — to cultivate that inner quiet. And if you’ve tried mindfulness practice you’ve discovered that this quiet is not always so. We move in an out of quiet and this IS the practice. The goal should not be to make the mind quiet for this only sets us up with expectations. Rather, the practice is retrieve the mind back from noise and allow it to be quiet for a moment or however long it is before it is drawn back out of silence. Again, the practice is to keep coming back.
When we can create this space of returning to silence within ourselves we can take this space anywhere. Now when we are in the noisy world of cars, people shouting into cell phones, construction, and just the hum of daily life we can enjoy an inner quiet.
more »What happens when you imagine the experience of eating food before having any?
Submitted by Abigail Hamilton on Thu, 12/16/2010 - 15:42
According to a new study reported by the New York Times, you eat less of a particular food if you spend time before you eat it imagining the act and sensations of eating and tasting the food. Very interesting and delightful way to curb one's tendencies to overindulge in favorite foods!
Call it the Imagine Diet. You wouldn’t have to count calories, track food points or memorize rules. If, say, some alleged friend left a box of chocolate truffles in your home this holiday season, you would neither throw them away nor inhale them all. Instead, you would start eating imaginary chocolates.
You would give yourself a few seconds to imagine tasting and chewing one truffle. (If there’s a picture on the box, you could focus on it.) Then you would imagine eating another, and then another and another...until at last you could open the box of real chocolates without making a total pig of yourself.
So far, the Imagine Diet exists only in my imagination, as does any evidence of its efficacy. But there is some real evidence for the benefits of imaginary eating from experiments at Carnegie Mellon University reported in the current issue of Science. When people imagined themselves eating M & M’s or pieces of cheese, they became less likely to gorge themselves on the real thing.
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