The benefits of exercise, for both mind and body are numerous. It fights cancer, it fights dementia, it fights osteoporosis, and it fights insomnia. Just to name a few. We should not be letting a day go by without it. Yet, there are a million and one reasons not to exercise. One is lack of space, another is lack of money. There are a several ways to get a good workout without space or money.

There are plenty of bodyweight exercises that are strenuous enough to provide a good work out. One of my favorites is burpees. Burpees are a full body workout and aerobic exercise in one. They can get boring after a while though.

To do a burpee, stand in a place where yo have room behind you. First squat all the way down, then put your hands flat on the floor and jump your legs straight behind you so you are in a push up position with your arms straight. Do a push up, and jump your feet back to the original position. Finally, quickly stand up and jump with your hands in the air above your head. That’s one round.

Suryanamaskar, or sun salutation, from hatha yoga is a bit like a burpee, but more complex, and usually not quite as vigorous. I like to do variations on suryanamaskar, to avoid boredom. Sometimes I speed them up for a more intense workout.

I don’t understand why people are always buying ab equipment. There are several great ab exercises that do not require any equipment. In fact you probably get a better workout without the equipment. If the equipment is designed to make it easier, it’s not better, just easier. Generally easier exercise is less effective exercise.

Tai chi and yoga are both excellent forms of exercise. Learning one or both of them is well worth the effort and expense. Both of them can be managed in fairly small spaces.

A chinning bar is a good cheap addition to round out your exercises, but not so easy to take on a trip. Especially if, like me you like to only take carry-on luggage. These days, they probably wouldn’t let you on with a big metal bar like that!

The best way to get a good all round workout on the road (or at home) is probably with exercise bands. Not just any bands, though. You need a system that will give you a full body workout, at your ideal resistance. The only one I have found that really does the job is the bodylastics system.

You may have noticed that I don’t do much advertising on this site. My main purpose is not to make money, but to share information. However, when I find something worth promoting I will do that. Bodylastics is worth promoting. I suggest you check them out.

Get Your Bodylastics NOW!

The Forgetting Cure: New Hope for Individuals Suffering from Memory Loss

My grandmother is a sweetheart. She’s a little four foot nine spark plug with a dry wit and a twinkle in her eye. She’s got a white afro and meanders about her little house in bright purple mumus. A brilliant woman educated in literature and art, an incredible poet with a voice like a nightingale, and an avid lover of roses, my grandmother now suffers from dementia.

At first it was the little things. She would forget where she placed a book or secreted a piece of jewelry. Completely ignorant to the nature of the degradation, I thought, “Well that’s not so bad, that happens to me too.” But then she began to lose people of her past and what happened to her yesterday. She forgot her great-grand-daughter’s name and the lines of her favorite poem. It was sad; sad for me and sad for my family and very, very sad for her. Being the researchers that we are (my sister-in-law refers to the dictionary as the “Family Bible”) we discovered that there are natural treatments available which can slow or reverse the effects of dementia. In fact, supplements such as Ginkgo biloba, Sage, Bacopa, and Ginseng have shown great promise in clinical trials.

One such clinical trial, performed by researchers at the New York Institute for Medical Research in 1997, found that Ginkgo biloba may be effective in the treatment of Dementia. This randomized, double blind, placebo controlled trial studied the effect of Ginkgo biloba extract in a group of about 300 people suffering from dementia. The results showed a stabilization of cognitive functioning in the Ginkgo administered group while the placebo group got systematically worse.

I am happy to say that we did try Ginkgo biloba with my grandmother and it does, in fact work. Not only is she quoting Emily Dickenson once again, but she is much, much happier. I don’t expect that this is a cure-all, and I’m not saying that she doesn’t still struggle a bit from time to time, but I can say that it does help a lot, and to my family, that is very good news.

References:

1. rVita: Alternative Medicine

2. Le Bars, P.L. et al. A placebo-controlled, double-blind, randomized trial of an extract of Ginkgo biloba for dementia. Journal of the American Medical Association 1997;278:1327-1332

3. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9343463

]]> http://edshealthtips.com/the-forgetting-cure-new-hope-for-individuals-suffering-from-memory-loss/feed/ http://edshealthtips.com/how-an-allergy-is-like-a-phobia/ http://edshealthtips.com/how-an-allergy-is-like-a-phobia/#comments Wed, 11 Jun 2008 23:31:40 +0000 Ed http://edshealthtips.com/how-an-allergy-is-like-a-phobia/ Do you know anyone who has a real phobia? They will do what ever they can to avoid the thing they are phobic of. Take someone with clautophobia, the irrational fear of elevators, to a high rise building and they would rather climb thirty flights of stairs than get into the elevator. If you even try to get them near the elevator, they will break out in a cold sweat and get very anxious. The whole body mounts a response designed to keep them away from the object of their fear.

Now, take a person with hay fever out into a meadow. The immune system, instead of recognizing all of those pollens as benign particles floating in the breeze, sees them as attacking enemies and orders up a full scale assault. The immune system does everything it can to destroy the enemy, never mind the collateral damage due to friendly fire (sneezing, running nose, itchy puffy eyes, etc.).

In both cases the body-mind complex is producing a huge fear response to a non dangerous situation. In both cases dealing with the response realy doesn’t help much. What is needed is to convince the body-mind, that there is no threat here.

One of the most efficient techniques I have found for treating both allergies and phobias is EFT. EFT, like acupuncture, looks at us in terms of energy, rather than biology, as Western Medicine does. It sees allergies and phobias, primarily as an energetic imbalance. Once the energy is brought back into balance the problem is resolved. Not that it’s always a quick and easy thing to do.

When treating most problems there are different aspects to the situation that need to be dealt with. Say we are treating our clautophobic. We know he is afraid of elevators, but what is it about elevators that frightens him. First he tells he is afraid of it falling. So we clear up that fear, but still he is not totally comfortable getting into the elevator. What other aspects are there to his fear? Perhaps he is afraid of being somewhere he cannot get out of. Perhaps he is afraid of being crowded by other people. With EFT, each of those aspects is neutralized with until the person is perfectly calm while riding in an elevator.

The same is true for allergies, although the aspects can be more difficult to dig out. As the aspects are dealt with, one at a time, many people find their allergies slowly improve. Once all of the aspects of an allergy are dealt with the person should be able to have contact with the allergens without any allergic response.

So next time you have an allergy attack, just say to yourself, “That’s not a snake about to bite me, that’s just an old piece of rope on the ground.” Or learn EFT and get to the root of the problem. To learn more about EFT, go to emofree.com, or for an individualized session, contact me. Between email and telephone, I can teach you the technique, and help you with the whole process.

My email is edward (at) prhealthworks.ca

How an allergy is like a phobia. Have you ever considered that there really isn’t any difference between a phobia and an allergy? Both are an irrational overly fearful response to something relatively harmless in our environment. The body sees a dust mite, and thinking it is a very dangerous intruder, it mounts an assault against it, inducing allergic symptoms in the innocent bystander. There are many techniques for curing phobias, such as hypnosis, NLP, and EFT. These techniques have also been found useful in curing allergies.

Chinese Medicine cures the problem when it is not there. If you have Spring allergies, this is the time to see your acupuncturist. Chinese medicine sees allergies as an imbalance in several of the body’s energy systems. It is much easier to correct the imbalance when it is not active. Besides acupuncture there are a number of self help techniques you can use to heal yourself.

Keeping passages clear. Keeping both the nasal passages and the digestive track clear and flowing smoothly greatly reduces the effects of allergies. Allergies are closely related to digestive health. In Chinese Medicine the colon meridian runs up to the nose.There are several things you can do for yourself to keep things clear.

Healing a leaky gut. Leaky Gut Syndrome can lead to many different symptoms, including allergies. See my earlier post on Leaky Gut.