Health Tips

There has not been a scientifically definitive physiology of female anatomy until quite recently but strange images from its ambiguous history still haunt the common imagination and impact on women’s self image. None is stranger than the female womb.

An anatomical "reality" that persisted in Western medical lore since ancient Greece was that the female uterus becomes displeased and displaced, and wanders through the body, negatively influencing the brain (I kid you not!). "Hysteria" is derived from the Greek word for uterus.

In a fit of fury the female uterus went travelling through the body, causing all manner of emotional disturbances – hence hysteria, hysterical – and hysterectomy.

The mental condition of hysteria afflicted legions of women of all ages throughout the patriarchal centuries, and was considered the most common disease after fever. In menopause, specifically, "the belief was that the failure to menstruate caused the uterus to travel around the body, eventually negatively influencing the brain".(Louis Banner In Full Flower)

The descriptions of hysterical patients painted a terrible caricature of the feminine. Old treatments included bed rest, binding, beating, purging, bloodletting, and, in worse cases, hysterectomy and/or clitoridectomy.

A kinder treatment evolved in the 19th century, when hysteria became a veritable epidemic, especially in the white middle classes. The doctor massaged the genitals until there was a healing convulsion and moist spasms (an orgasm by any other name), which relieved the patient for a while – until the next appointment. Hysteria was considered chronic and incurable, requiring ongoing treatment.

Electric vibrators were developed in the mid 19th century to help the overworked doctors and ease the hysterical women. They were even marketed to women at home for self-treatment, and were advertised in consumer catalogues and magazines. (There were vibrators in the house before vacuum cleaners.) However, by 1930 vibrators had gone underground, and were not openly advertised again until they re-emerged as sex toys in the 1960s. (This is according to Duana R Anderson in The wondering Uterus & A Brief History of the Vibrator)

The treatment of hysteria was taken over by psychology, and Freud pretty much evolved his world-shattering theories based on his work with hysterical (and frigid) women. And, well, we should be grateful for that.

He explained hysteria as the physical and psychological expression of inner psychic conflicts about sexuality. (Psyche turned into soma.) He explored his patients’ personal history for clues, practised the talking cure (hugely innovative for its time), and developed psychoanalysis.

In my view, these legions of hysterical women were literally quivering with centuries of misogynist repressions, bursting to break out of the traumatized collective psyche; an epidemic erupting out of the universal unconscious where the goddess of myth lay buried.

In the good doctor’s own words, "The character of hysterics shows a degree of sexual repression in excess of the normal quantity, an intensification of resistance against the sexual instinct (which we have already met with in the form of shame, disgust and morality), and what seems like an instinctive aversion on their part to any intellectual consideration of sexual problems.

"This trait … is not uncommonly screened by the existence of a second constitutional character present in hysteria, namely the predominant development of the sexual instinct. Psychoanalysis … reveals the pair of opposites by which it is characterised – exaggerated sexual craving and excessive aversion to sexuality."

Modern psychology succeeded in shifting hysteria from the realm of superstition. You could say it cured the mass hysteria; by 1952, it was officially declared a non-disease.

Freud introduced the concept of libido, the psychic energy expressed through sexuality that lies at the root of every living individual, and drives our desires and impulses. It can be repressed, expressed, controlled, or transmuted. But it exists – a priori!

Psychology helped to make conscious the compulsion of instincts hidden in the unconscious psyche. Basically ordinary people could now understand their behaviours and symptoms as expressions of underlying psychic/psychological conflict. Jung introduced the idea of the collective unconscious, which illuminated the universality of dream images and personal unconscious content.

The hysteric’s subjugated sexuality was now the very stuff of the modern age, just waiting for the 1960s to burst out on to the world stage of the post-war baby boomers. The sexual liberation of that period was a huge and abrupt cultural change. Perhaps we forget now just how radical and fundamental it was - this sexual break from the past.

However, before we get too satisfied with this development, we need to ask ourselves why, with hysteria safely unplugged, we now have a virtual epidemic of hysterectomies, now the second most frequent surgery among American women, with caesarean section delivery being first. One in three women in the United States has had a hysterectomy by age 60!

If our hysterical uteruses are no longer travelling through our bodies affecting our brains, why are so many women having them cut out?

Often hypothyroidism is associated with elevated levels of cholesterol and specifically those raised triglyceride levels. Another symptom of hypothyroidism is a specific form of high cholesterol that shows a very great resistance to cholesterol-lowering drugs.

But let us start with the beginning – what is cholesterol? Well, cholesterol is a substance of a very waxy consistence that naturally occurs in all parts of the body. Our bodies do actually require cholesterol in order to produce different substances such as Vitamin D and bile acids, but also to produce other hormones. A high level of cholesterol in your blood will start building up on arteries including coronary arteries where an eventual block can cause a heart disease. However, build-ups all over the body can be very dangerous since they can lead to heart attacks or strokes.

The treatment for hypothyroidism – thyroid hormone replacement can reduce cholesterol levels to normal for those whose elevated cholesterol levels have not been yet diagnosed. But that is for those lucky cases. In other cases, even with the treatment for hypothyroidism the cholesterol levels remain elevated and cholesterol lowering treatment is needed in addition to thyroid treatment.

Lowering cholesterol levels

What are your options when you need to lower your cholesterol? Losing some extra weight and beginning to do some regular exercise is most of the time, a very good idea for a low cholesterol lifestyle start. Prescription medications, changes in diet, supplements – these all come in addition to those above to help lower your cholesterol. In conjunction with your practitioner or dietitian, you should also make other decisions about your new lifestyle changes.

Low cholesterol diet

A change in diet is a primary line of attack in lowering cholesterol. One of the first steps to be done in this direction is reducing high-cholesterol foods, but also emphasizing a more low saturated fat / high fiber diet. Into diet it is recommended to introduce foods that specifically lower your cholesterol. Such foods include oatmeal – slow cooking steel cut oatmeals (for the best health value) and of course, only a bit sugar. Also, you can try the special cholesterol lowering margarine spreads such as Benecol, Take Control to help reduce cholesterol levels.

These spreads help lower your cholesterol with their sterols/stanols content that compete with cholesterol in the intestines and when taking its place allowing cholesterol to be passed through the system. The good part is that these products cut those LDL cholesterol levels with as much as 10-15 percent. On the downside, these products are pretty calorie-dense.

In order to lower your LDL cholesterol levels, you have a lot a work to do since it involves losing excess weight, regular physical activity, but also following a diet that is first of all low in saturated fat and cholesterol, but also high in fiber.

Medications to lower cholesterol

When one cannot reduce, or has tried to reduce their cholesterol levels through natural ways such as lifestyle changes (diet, exercise etc) medications are prescribed. Statins are the most effective and widely used medications that help you lower your LDL cholesterol levels. It has been shown through recent studies that heart attack and stroke risks, benefits of high levels of LDL cholesterol have been diminished by the use of statins. Nicotinic acid is another component included in some other medication used in lowering LDL cholesterol and in altering cholesterol profiles.

Normal cholesterol blood levels

Normal ranges can be set by taking measurements from a large number of healthy subjects in most other blood tests in medicine. A simple example is with blood sugar levels – normal fasting blood sugar levels can be established by simply performing a blood test between a number of healthy subjects that do not suffer from diabetes mellitus.

It is as simple as that because if a patient’s blood glucose is in the normal range, then he or she most likely does not suffer from diabetes mellitus. But if the patient’s fasting blood sugar is not in the normal range then he or she probably suffers from diabetes and further tests may be performed to confirm the diagnosis. In order to lower abnormally high blood sugar levels, medications such as insulin or oral diabetes medications can be prescribed.

Getting back to the matter at hand – the normal range of LDL cholesterol between healthy adults (those that do not suffer from coronary heart disease) in the United States may be too high. Still, in the mean time the atherosclerosis process may be quietly developing in the meantime in many healthy adults with average LDL cholesterol blood levels putting them at the risk of developing coronary heart disease somewhere in the future.

Triglyceride has in its composition three fatty acids. Just like cholesterol, triglycerides enter the body through two ways – they are either produced by the liver or they are inserted into the bloodstream through diet. Also, just as cholesterol it can only circulate in the blood by combining with a lipoprotein and it cannot dissolve. Thus, after a meal, cholesterol and triglycerides are absorbed into the intestines and are packaged into some round particles known as chylomicrons before they are released into the blood circulation.

A collection of triglycerides and cholesterol that is surrounded by a lipoprotein outer coat is called a chylomicron. (Chlymicrons have a chemical composition of 10 percent cholesterol and 90 percent triglyceride). The liver removes chylomicrons and triglycerides from the bloodstream and it synthesizes and packages them into VLDL or very low density lipoprotein particles and it releases them back into the bloodstream.

Triglyceride levels and atherosclerosis

The subject whereas atherosclerosis and heart attacks are lead by elevated triglyceride levels in the blood is controversial. Nowadays, most doctors believe that a risk factor for atherosclerosis is actually an abnormally high triglyceride level, it is difficult to conclusively prove that atherosclerosis is caused by those elevated triglyceride levels themselves. Still, it is increasingly recognized that triglyceride levels that are elevated are most of the time associated with conditions that increase the risk of atherosclerosis, such as obesity, low levels of HDL cholesterol, dense LDL cholesterol particles, poorly controlled diabetes and insulin resistance.

Causes of elevated triglyceride levels

Abnormally high triglyceride levels or hypertriglyceridemia may be in some cases inherited. Hypertriglyceridemia cases that are inherited generate disorders such as mixed hypertriglyceridemia, familial hypertriglyceridemia, and familial dysbetalipoproteinemia. However, non-genetic factors such as kidney disease, estrogen containing medications (such as birth control pills), diabetes mellitus, and excessive alcohol intake can all be causes of hypertriglyceridemia.

Treating elevated blood triglyceride levels

A low fat diet with regular aerobic exercise, loss of excess weight, reduction of alcohol consumption, ceasing cigarette smoking and limited amount of sweets is the first step in treating hypertriglyceridemia. Also, in patients that suffer from diabetes mellitus (type II diabetes) a meticulous control of elevated blood sugar is also very important.

In some cases, medications may be necessary. Fibrates (Lopid), nicotinic acid and statin medications may be prescribed in some cases. Lopid increases HDL levels and LDL cholesterol particle size, and it also decreases triglyceride levels. Nicotinic acid increases the size of LDL cholesterol particles, increases HDL cholesterol levels, lowers the levels of Lp(a) cholesterol and decreases triglyceride levels.

I am continually discouraged by the mistreatment of nurses in the workplace.

Doctors continue to be verbally abusive.

Managers continue to send harassing e-mails.

Suddenly dress codes are an issue, and now we must dress to look exactly like everyone else. All button pushing, rage producing material for this former hippy of the 1960’s!!

So I took this issue to one of my round robin sessions, where we do The Work, originated by Byron Katie.

Byron Katie’s "The Work" is a process where a "problem" is scrutinized with Inquiry, or a series of questions, that puts the responsibility right back where it belongs– inside yourself.

I prepared for this opportunity by filling out the Judge-Your-Neighbor worksheet, found in all of Byron Katie’s books, and on her web sites and blog. T

HE 4 QUESTION AND TURNAROUND

1) Is it true?

2) (If the answer is "yes"): Can you absolutely know that this is true?

3) How do you react when you think that thought?

4) Who would you be without that thought?

And turn it around.

Nurses are subjugated women. Is this true?

Yes.

Can you absolutely know that this is true?

Yes.

How do you react when you think the thought: Nurses are subjugated women?

I feel angry and tense. The stress centers in my neck. In fact, the neck pain first began when I started nursing school 27 years ago. I have found that the more I squeeze myself in an Allopathic box, the worse the neck pain becomes, and the more alien I feel in the medical profession.

How do you feel emotionally when you think the thought: Nurses are subjugated women?

I feel a sense of hopelessness that the work I am doing to save the nursing profession is not being received, because no one is advocating for nurses, nor are nurses advocating for themselves.

How do you treat other nurses when you think the thought: Nurses are subjugated women?

I become impatient and want to grab the entire nursing profession by the neck and shake some sense into "It," because nurses still take poor treatment from Doctors and their surrogates.

And nurses treat each other poorly in a kick the cat kind of retaliatory response to negative feedback.

How do you treat yourself when you think the thought: Nurses are subjugated women?

I feel rushed, uptight, unloving and judgmental when I think the thought: Nurses are subjugated women.

How do you treat your patients when you think the thought: Nurses are subjugated women?

I feel dishonest because while creating a healing environment around the birth, sick or death bed, I have to continually cover up doctors yelling at me to my face, on the phone, and I have to pretend that they aren’t acting this way.

I have to ignore this behavior, internalize the abuse, join with the other nurses while we all do perfect impersonations of each individual perpetrator, thus making chicken salad out of chicken shit.

I feel like a schizophrenic person by playing these games day in, month in, year in and out, without any one advocating for the nurses, nursing or for myself.

Describe your life before this thought occurred to you: Nurses are subjugated women.

I was carefree, believed nurses were saints, delivering care with the gift of unconditional love.

Does this thought bring peace or stress into your life?

Total Stresssss!!!

Who would you be without the thought: Nurses are subjugated women?

I would continue to love my patents, staying focused on their needs, elevating the vibrations surrounding the birth, death or sick bed with love and transcendent joy.

I would continue to build my portable empire without any stressful thoughts about the workplace.

And when I can finally leave the time clock reality, I will have done justice to the present moment, instead of wishing most of my life away.

I would simply love every moment of life, enjoy the seasonal changes, be with my dogs in the late summer days, with cricket song everywhere around me.

Turn it around: Nurses are subjugated women?

Nurses are NOT subjugated women.

My thoughts about nurses are subjugated.

Nurses are liberated women. Why?

They love their patients. Many of us do stand up to the abuse and rise triumphant in our new strength.

We give unconditional loving service on the same level as a Mother Teresa or Joan of Arc!!

I will remember this: This is not a stressful world. But there are plenty of us thinking stressful thoughts.

Shine the light of Inquiry on these thoughts and watch them melt away!!!

It is gradually becoming accepted that bathing in a sauna is more than just a relaxing experience, and could also bring wide-ranging health benefits. These benefits are numerous, but among the most common is the saunas ability to improve muscle pain, to lower blood pressure, to detoxify the body and to help in the treatment of skin disorders. This article will look at these in turn and discuss some consideration to be borne in mind when using a sauna for health reasons.

The treatment of muscle pain is probably one of the most common uses of a sauna for health benefits. The reason that a sauna helps with muscle pain is a simple one is that muscles are often sore when they are tired and stiff. A sauna uses heat to soften the muscles and therefore bring relief. The heat of a sauna has also been show to have some effect on increased blood flow, which may help injured muscles to repair more quickly.

The increase in blood flow is a way in which the use of the sauna may lower blood pressure, with all the attendant health benefits. As the body heats up the veins and capillaries find it easy to transfer blood to the vital organs such as the kidney and the liver, resulting in less pressure and therefore causing the blood pressure to drop. For people with high blood pressure this could be a natural and gentle way to treat the condition.

One of the main responses of the body to the heat of a sauna is perspiration, and it is this which can the help the body to detoxify itself. As the body begins to sweat it begins to rid itself of poisons that are in the blood and the skin, and also in the vital organs such as the liver. Getting rid of these poisons is essential to health, and a sauna can be a way to help this process along. The role of the sauna as a detoxifying mechanism is covered further on the website http://www.saunabenefitsplanet.com.

The sweating process may also help in some types of skin disorders, especially those in which the skin is dry. As the skin sweats, it brings oils to the surface which may help in hydrating the skin and helping the skin to stay supple. It should be remembered however that a sauna will dehydrate the body overall, so there should be a proper intake of fluids after the sauna treatment is over.

As can be seen, there are several benefits to using a sauna beyond that of simple relaxation. With its ability to detoxify the body, lower blood pressure and increase blood flow to vital organs, a sauna could be one of the most natural ways there is to enhance health.

This article is based on a technique that demonstrated an 80% success rate in eliminating symptoms of anxiety panic attack. This is a description of the fourth session with the first client, Jane, with whom this technique was discovered. Six months prior to the onset of agoraphobia panic attacks, Jane had uprooted her family and moved from Florida to NJ to be with her sisters and mother. I had in-home sessions with her as she was house-ridden.

Jane’s homework was to practice observing various objects we chose at random—pen, drinking glass, table… At the beginning of the session, I asked her to read me her written observations. Even with the focus on observation, she noticed how easy it was to still come to conclusions—table legs, clip… She was totally fascinated with the new world of “Observation” and found it relaxing to do.

I had her “on the path,” to recovery and now I wanted to shift to the cause of the “alarm” reaction of the General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS). The goal was to refocus—have her unequivocally understand that anytime she experienced what in the past she called “anxiety” her subconscious merely wanted to “run away” from a disappointment or a reminder of a disappointment. To “take it home,” I asked her to make a list of her disappointments. She told me I didn’t have enough paper. She started describing the disappointing symptoms and how disappointing it is to always be in situations where she might feel them. I guided her away from these situational disappointments and onto her life’s disappointments. She wrote and wrote and then started listing disappointments of which she was fearful in the future. She knew her husband loved her, yet she was fearful that he’d get fed up with her antics and divorce her.

By now generalization (fear was spreading everywhere) had begun and it was important for her to understand that it wasn’t the lights in the store that were going to attack her, but they merely reminded her that she had a disappointment. She acknowledged that the problem just showed up with no reason and then she began wondering when it was going to happen again. And just as she feared, it started happening whenever she feared it would—open spaces, while driving, in stores… She practically became a prisoner in her home and could only go out if someone else drove her. Strangely, it was easier to feel the anxiety than it was to deal with the disappointments—at least with all the anxiety she had no time to deal with her disappointments.

She asked about when we were going to do biofeedback again and I informed her that at this time, biofeedback would only contribute to activation of her fight/flight. I wanted her to observe tension rather than try to get rid of it. In fact observation is the second step to change. Once she learns to make it OK to have tension in her chest muscles and her breathing, it could stop at that point with no need to kick it into Clara Weekes’ third stage.

I went on to share that the first step to change is to own the problem. To know that somehow she contributed to it. I asked her if she’d like to run off from her son, husband, sisters, mother… to Hawaii and start all over. She laughed and said, “No, I’d probably screw it up again.” But the bottom line was that she wouldn’t abandon her family—she was too responsible. She was also a perfectionist and wanted things done right. In fact it was in the nature of her personality that contributed to her developing the flight response…and… her lack of understanding of the GAS contributed to her jumping to conclusions.

This all sounded too good to be true. I left her with a renewed outlook and more observation homework plus a challenge to refocus onto her actual disappointments—her son’s issues, dealing with a change in relationship with her mother and sisters, fear of telling her husband the truth about why she was no happier in NJ than she was in Florida.

If you suffer from anxiety panic attack, make a list of your life’s disappointments? A bit depressing, right? Why am I using Jane’s experience?

Because it’s the model upon which this program is based. I’ve worked with dozens and dozens of clients since Jane and in "every" case there were dramatic parallels with respect to personality, accumulation of disappointments, nutrition, assumptions or conclusions and each found peace from symptoms running their lives.

Regardless of what you’ve been told, using a revolutionary technique, anxiety panic attack and agoraphobia is only a disease of ignorance and can be gotten rid of through understanding of a few basic concepts!

Being one of the purest minerals on earth, gold interacts with none of the body’s substances; this means that during any treatment, no other chemical compounds are formed from gold and body enzymes. Due to the non-existing toxicity level, colloidal gold, just like colloidal silver, can be administered without any reserves to pregnant women, small children and to people who suffer from various health conditions. Furthermore, it has a maximum level of tolerance as the body processes it naturally without taking its action as interference. However, mention should be made that for the proper administration you’ll need to have the right dosage prescribed by a homoeopathist.

The only case when colloidal gold must not be administered is when you know to have an allergy to the metal; that could be easily identified by the skin reaction to the contact with golden jewels. An allergic form appears as a rash on the skin, redness and itchiness; this is the result of the gold cells from a necklace, for instance, entering the deeper skin levels and triggering an adverse chemical reaction. Make sure to inform any therapist about such a problem, before being prescribed any form of colloidal metals. If you have a gold allergy, it is not unlikely to develop a similar reaction to silver as well.

If you have difficulties in choosing the type of colloidal gold supplement, all you need to do first is follow the recommendations of the homoeopathist and find the proper dosage. The gold concentration in the active suspension varies from one colloidal product to another. For instance, a colloidal gold soap will have a lower gold concentration than a solution meant to be taken orally. In the writing of a prescription, the naturopath usually takes into consideration a multitude of aspects. First and foremost, even though it is not toxic for the body, an incorrect treatment, may lead to poor assimilation problems.

In order to avoid taking a colloidal gold overdose, it is good to know that the safe quantity for this mineral is 1200 micrograms per day. We cannot call gold toxic in such a case, however, unlike vitamins, minerals are very hard to eliminate from the body once they excessively accumulate in the tissues. Stick to such a safe ratio and no discomfort should appear in relation to the colloidal gold administration; keep in mind that the recommendations stay valid for both therapeutic and preservative treatments.

weight loss program
quick weight loss
fast weight loss

Quick weight loss is not only difficult, it can be unhealthy. While many sites and organizations tout “fast weight loss” programs, these are rarely effective – at least in the long term.

The fact is that weight gain did not happen overnight, and neither will effective weight loss. Programs such as eating nothing but protein, cutting out white flour and sweets can produce dramatic results in a fairly short time – but can have serious health consequences in the long term.

A “traditional” weight loss program that involves simply cutting back on food intake can be counterproductive as well. This has to do with the nature of fat build-up in the first place. Our earliest direct ancestors evolved on the hot, dry savannahs of eastern Africa – a place where food supplies were far from certain. In times of famine, the bodily metabolism slowed down in order to conserve energy; it was during these times that the bodies of these early hominids would survive on fat stored during times of plenty.

Although society, technology and culture have changed greatly in the past 6-7 million years, biology has not; when you deny yourself food, your body perceives it as a famine, whether you are in the lush agricultural regions of California or the dry plains of Kenya. Therefore, the metabolism slows down, and those extra pounds refuse to come off, preventing quick weight loss.

Recent research indicates a strong connection between the use of “high-fructose corn syrup,” a largely artificial sweetener added to nearly everything from cola drinks to commercial breakfast “cereals” and snack foods, and the current epidemic of obesity. The “fattening” of America began in earnest around 1980 – the same time that big corporations began using high-fructose corn syrup in virtually all commercial food products. As the use of this substance has increased, so has the weight of the average American. Is this a coincidence?

While there are no sure ways to accomplish fast weight loss in a healthy manner, there are steps one can take in order to be more successful in a weight loss program. One is to read the ingredients of prepared foods. If it contains high-fructose corn syrup, and/or has ingredients that sound like they came from a chemistry lab, avoid it.

Better yet, join the “slow-food” movement. The closer a food is to its natural state, the more nutrient-dense it will be – and the less of it you will need in order to feel satisfied while maintaining good health.

Any exercise program used in conjunction with a weight-loss program should include strength training as well. Muscle tissue tends to burn more calories, even when one is at rest.

You may not achieve quick weight loss, but your weight loss program will have better long-term results.