Healing Process

This is an overview of a healing process that you might consider or at least ponder:

These are remedies you can use for your problem in order from safest to most dangerous: Step 0 is the safest; Step 6 the most dangerous. Use Steps 0, 1, 2 and 3 as preventive medicine. Prevention is an important, though often invisible, way of healing. Deep relaxation, information exchange, energetic engagement, optimum nourishment (including touch) and exercise promote health with little or no side effects.

Examples are in parenthesis: (with a few of the modalities available at each step)

Step 0: Do Nothing 
A vital, invisible step.

• sleep
• meditate
• unplug the clock or the telephone

Step 1: Collect Information 

• low-tech diagnosis
• books
• support groups
• research

Step 2: Engage the Energy 

• prayer
• homeopathy
• ceremony
• affirmations
• color
• laughter

Step 3: Nourish and Tonify 

• herbal infusions and vinegars
• hugs
• exercise
• food choices
• gentle massage
• yoga stretches

     Note: Healing with Steps 4, 5, and 6 always causes some harm.

Step 4: Stimulate/Sedate 

For every stimulation/sedation, there is an opposite sedation/stimulation. Sooner or later addiction is possible if this step is overused

• hot or cold water
• many herbal tinctures
• acupuncture

Step 5a: Use Supplements

• synthesized or concentrated vitamins
• fresh juices
• minerals
• food substances such as nutritional yeast, blue-green algae, bran, royal jelly or spirulina

Supplements are not Step 3. There’s always a risk with synthesized concentrated substances that they’ll do more harm than good.

Step 5b: Use Drugs 

Overdose may cause grave injury or death.

• chemotherapy
• tamoxifen
• hormone
• high dilution homeopathics
• potentially toxic herbs

Step 6: Break and Enter 

Side effects are inevitable and may include permanent injury or death.

• threatening language
• surgery
• colonics
• radiation therapies
• psychoactive drugs
• invasive diagnostic tests such as mammograms and C-T scans

HOW TO USE THE SIX STEPS OF HEALING

If you want to remedy your problem with the least possible side effects and danger,

• start at Step 1.
• After reading Step 1, pick one remedy from Step 2 and set a time limit for working with it. If your problem is unresolved within that time, decide if the time limit needs expanding or if you are ready to go to Step 3.
• Continue in this manner, moving to Steps 4, 5 or 6 as needed, until your problem is solved.

Each step up increases the possibility of side effects and their severity so try at least one of the Step 2 techniques, even if they seem strange to you, before going onto the remedies of Step 3 and beyond (note also that time spent at Step 2 will help you choose appropriate remedies at Step 3 and so on). When your problem is resolved don’t stop. Go back through the steps, in reverse, before resting at Step 0.

You can continue to take remedies from a previous Step after moving on, but be cautious about the use of Step 4 remedies in combination with Step 5 remedies.

If you deem it necessary to heal through Step 5 and/or 6 (and real healing can and does take place with the aid of drugs and surgery) and have not yet tried any techniques from Steps 2 and 3, do so immediately. Engaging the energy, nourishing and tonifying will aid and abet the healing powers of the more dangerous healing ways and help prevent or moderate their side effects.

• Not the Same Old Song and Dance (triuneoflife.wordpress.com)
• The Healing Touch (templeofhealthcare.wordpress.com)
• Intuition and Natural Healing (juliehansenintuitive.com)
• Cayenne Pepper the Healing Catalyst (drdebbys.wordpress.com)
• Survive and Thrive: Healing Crisis (theanjananetwork.net)
• The Quantum of Health and Healing (healcitylife.wordpress.com)

Let the Juices "Move" You

Organic fresh made juices have cleansing and laxative action, which will help you eliminate constipation. Taken regularly they will help you have daily bowel movements.

Organic juices contain loads of mineral, bioflavonoids, vitamins, enzymes, antioxidants, and other nutrients. Citric fruits have citric acid and the more tart they are the more acid they have.

Fresh juice is a fast way to get all types of nutrients into the blood quickly. As juice nutrients get into your blood, they suck out toxins and build up tissues. In your colon they destroy bad bacteria, feed wall tissue, pull out toxins, and have laxative action.

Even though juices provide helpful action throughout the body, it is best to limit their use and drink them in larger quantities only when trying to accomplish certain health benefits.

If you use natural foods with laxative effects, their laxative effect diminishes after long-term use.

If you have diabetes or adrenal fatigue, limit your use of fruits and juices when you first wake up in the morning. However, exercise in the morning will help you tolerate drinking some juices in the morning

When juicing fruits and vegetables, the more fiber that is left with the juice the better results you will get with your constipation.

It is always best to use fresh juices, but as a last resort using frozen juices will be better than not drinking anything.

Apples and Apple Juice

Apples are good for eliminating constipation because they are high in pectin, a soluble fiber, have many minerals, and contain sorbitol - a natural sugar, which stimulates peristaltic action. Pectin helps to detoxify the intestines and promote regular bowel movements.

The fiber in apples adds weight and bulk to your fecal matter and helps draw water from your colon into the fecal matter keeping the stool from becoming hard and thus preventing constipation.

Apples are one of best fruits to eat because they are high in minerals, which provide alkaline electrolytes to your body. What electrolytes do is neutralize acids that are created during illness, anxiety, anger, exercising, breathing pollution, and improper eating. Body acid is a major reason we get deadly diseases as we age

Make eating apples or drinking fresh apple juice a daily habit. They are also effective in liver and gallbladder problems. 

Here’s what to do.

Use crisp and hard apples such as granny smith, Fuji, or gala apples for juicing.

Drink three glass of apple juice during the day - morning, noon, and evening. In combination with drinking fresh apple juice, eat 3-4 apples each day to get fiber. The combination of eating and drinking apple juice will activate your colon to start moving stagnant matter.

One-day apple and apple juice fast

You can also do a one-day or two-day apple and apple juice fast by, eating 3-4 apples during the day. Drink apples juice every two hours. Don’t eat anything until the next morning. Then, start changing your eating habits as listed in some of my other articles.

Related articles

• Juice recipe (roigragefitness.com)
• Nutritional Benefits of Green Apple Juice (healthylifestylesliving.wordpress.com)
• Apple Juice me (valentinejohn14.wordpress.com)
• A Juicy Problem (mathema-tricks.blogspot.com)
• This is How Old People Party (funnystrange.net)
• Jungle Juice - Jane recommended. Tarzan approved. (fruit-lover.com)
• Detox & Juicing (thetrendyvegan.blogspot.com)
• Carrot, Apple, Ginger Juice (silkandspiceblog.wordpress.com)

Flat, Toned Abs in Just Ten Minutes a Day

Summer, and swimsuit season, is just around the corner. That means it’s time to start working on those flat abs you want so badly. Don’t have time to work out for hours every day? Not to worry, with a little planning and ten minutes a day, you can have the flat, toned abs you want.

Step #1 Pay attention to your fuel. Track what you eat and what you burn each day. Abdominal fat is just that, fat. If you want to see the muscles underneath and get rid of the bulge you’re going to have to consume fewer calories than you burn.

There are wonderful, free, and easy to use programs and iPod/iPhone applications that will help you track what you eat and what you burn each day. Use them to stay on track. One pound of fat is 3500 calories. That means that by simply burning 500 more calories a day than you eat you can lose a pound in 7 days.

Tracking what you eat will also help you see what foods fill you up longer and what foods burn quickly. Quick burning foods mean you’re hungry soon after you eat them. Aim for lean protein, lots of fiber and fruits and veggies.

Step #2 Get moving!  Move your body; it wasn’t designed to sit on a couch or at a desk all day. Take the stairs, take a walk around the block, move your body and find a way to take at least 10,000 steps a day. Studies have shown that people who take 10,000 steps a day lose weight faster and keep it off. They’re healthier and thinner. You can be too!

Step #3 Okay, now you have pounds melting off just by tracking your intake and moving your body. The next step is to work your core muscles, and you can do that in just ten minutes a day. The best fitness activities are ones that focus on your entire core, your back and stomach. Sit-ups are great but they only work specific muscles in your abdominals.

Instead of sit-ups, spend ten minutes working through a low rep workout. Do full crunches where your legs also come off of the ground, bridge, single leg abdominal press, plank pose, and side plank. Move through each repetition slowly so you get the full benefit of the movement and hold the exercise for a few seconds before releasing it. You’ll build muscle and burn more fat. Repeat each exercise 8-10 times then move onto the next exercise.

The good thing about these core exercises is that you don’t need any fancy equipment to do them. All you need is ten minutes. Get down on the floor during your favorite television show or do them right when you get up in the morning before your shower.

With commitment, a plan of action and a little bit of willpower you can have those flat abs you want. Watch what you eat, get moving and find ten minutes each day to work your core muscles. You’ll have that beach body in no time.

Managing Attention Problems

The following strategies are offered for enhancing attention and managing attention problems. This listing is by no means exhaustive, but rather is meant as a place to begin. The best resources for strategies are the creative, inventive minds of enlightened assessment professionals, teachers and parents, in partnership with the students they serve. Together they can create multiple alternative strategies.

1. Take the Mystery Away

The first and perhaps most important management strategy is to insure that all students understand how attention works and identify their particular profiles of attention strengths and weaknesses. Then, students should be taught attention management strategies.

2. Understand Consistent Inconsistency

Teachers and parents should understand that the inconsistency of children with attention problems is not evidence of a poor attitude or lack of motivation. It is a part of their biologically based attention dysfunction, and is beyond their easy control.

3. Explore the Option of Medication

For many children and adolescents, medication can be helpful in dealing with attentional difficulties. Medication can improve mental alertness and the intensity and duration of concentration. In addition, it may diminish impulsivity and hyperactivity. The student and his parents may wish to explore this option with his physician.

4. Allow for Movement and Breaks

It is helpful for students who have problems with inconsistent alertness and mental effort to be provided with opportunities to move around. For example, at school, teachers could ask the student to erase the board, collect papers or take a message to the office. At home, parents and/or the student could schedule regular breaks and change work sites. That is, the student could work several minutes at the kitchen table and several minutes on the living room floor. Each time the location is changed, the student may experience a burst of mental energy. Additionally, students may need to be doing something with their hands while seated. They may doodle, roll a piece of clay or perform some other manual tasks that enhance their alertness and arousal.

5. Vary Instructional Strategies

Teachers should use a variety of instructional strategies and these should be changed approximately every 15 to 20 minutes. For example, they could deliver information for 15 minutes via lecture. This strategy could be followed by small group work or cooperative learning for 20 minutes. Next, students could engage in individual seatwork or watch a video.

6. Use Signals

The teacher and parents should have a private way of signaling students when they are tuned out. For example, a gentle tap on the shoulder may be effective. Also, the student's teachers and parents may need to signal him when something important is about to be stated. Looking right at him, his teacher or parent could say, "Now listen very carefully. I am about to give you important instructions about tomorrow's test.”

7. Leverage Interests

Attention is enhanced when interest is heightened. Thus, students should be encouraged to read, write and talk about subjects in which they are interested. Additionally, students' attention is enhanced when information is personally relevant to them. For example, if students need to learn a chronological timetable, the teacher could begin with having the students develop a chronological timetable of the important events in their own lives.

8. Minimize Noise & Other Distractions

Students who are easily distracted should benefit from a structured auditory environment. They may need preferential seating near the front of the classroom so that noise and distractions from other students are minimized.

9. Develop Previewing and Planning Skills

Teachers and parents can help students develop previewing and planning skills by requiring them to formulate plans for writing reports and completing projects. For example, when completing a book report, the students could submit plans for how they are going to accomplish this task. They will likely need specific instruction, followed by modeling, then guided practice, and finally feedback on performance. The concept of previewing should be explained to the students and they should be aware of the fact that the activities they are engaging in will help them develop previewing/ planning skills. It is helpful if they are first given practical examples of planning, such as planning for a party.

10. Use Behavior Modification and Self-Assessment

The use of behavior modification and self-assessment strategies can be helpful in increasing desired behaviors (e.g., task completion) and/or decreasing behavior problems (e.g., impulsive blurting out during class). The specific behaviors that need to be changed should be identified (e.g., completes reading classwork; raises hand before answering questions; brushes teeth before going to bed; puts dirty clothes in laundry). The specific consequences for behavior change should also be identified. The consequence for positive behaviors must be more rewarding to the student than failure to complete the positive behavior. For example, if the child is allowed to stay up an extra 15 minutes in the evenings, this behavior must be more rewarding than leaving his/her dirty clothes on the bathroom floor. Additionally, performance of the targeted behavior must be the only way that the student is able to obtain the reward. In the previous example, the child is only able to stay up the extra 15 minutes at night if he puts his dirty laundry in the designated place. School-home notes can be used to communicate back and forth between home and school. In both settings, charts and graphs can be used to monitor progress toward the goal. Students should be encouraged to assess their own behavior in addition to being assessed by the adult. They could be given an additional reward for accurate self-assessment.

11. Discourage Frenetic Work Patterns

To help students refrain from rushing through their work, teachers and parents could avoid making statements such as, "You can go out to recess as soon as you finish your assignment" or "You can watch television when you finish your homework." Offers such as these may inadvertently encourage students to work too quickly and carelessly.

12. Get Organized

A notebook with three sections labeled "Work to be Completed," "Work Completed" and "Work to be Saved" may be used to help students organize their assignments. Color-coding notebooks for different subjects may also be helpful for organizing work.

13. Use Daily Planners

A student should use a structured daily planner to help him organize his assignments and activities. A planner that is broken down by subject within the day and has sufficient room to write all the information he needs would be preferred. ELAN Publishing offers a number of good student organizers. Alternately, he may benefit from using a personal digital assistant (PDA).

14. Set Up a Home Office

At home, parents should guide their child/adolescent with setting up his/her own well-organized "office.” Parents should schedule a weekly time that their child/adolescent will dedicate to straightening up the office and making sure all office supplies are well-stocked (e.g., post-its, pencils, pens, highlighters, paper, paper clips, stapler). The student should find his/her best time(s) for studying (his/her most alert times of day), and post these times as his/her "Office Hours." The student should also experiment with different kinds of background noise levels that work best for him/her when doing homework of studying. Some children/adolescents actually concentrate better in a noisy environment or while listening to music while others may need to use ear plugs.

15. Allow Time to Wind Down

Many students with attention problems have trouble falling asleep at night. It is helpful for them to have an established routine for going to bed at night. For example, they could read a book or have a book read to them. They can engage in stretching exercises before getting in bed. They could drink a glass of milk or hot chocolate prior to going to bed. They might also listen to quiet, easy music while falling asleep. “White noise,” such as a fan, may also be helpful in facilitating sleep.

Help your kids learn schoolwork

The following strategies are offered to help students develop a more efficient and effective memory. This listing is by no means exhaustive, but rather is meant as a place to begin.

1. Take the mystery away.

The first and perhaps most important strategy is to insure that all students understand how memory works and identify their particular profiles of memory strengths and challenges. Then, students should be taught memory management strategies.

2. Give directions in multiple formats.

Students benefit from being given directions in both visual and verbal formats. In addition, their understanding and memorizing of instructions could be checked by encouraging them to repeat the directions given and explain the meaning of these directions. Examples of what needs to be done are also often helpful for enhancing memory of directions.

3. Teach students to over-learn material.

Students should be taught the necessity of "over-learning" new information. Often they practice only until they are able to perform one error-free repetition of the material. However, several error-free repetitions are needed to solidify the information.

4. Teach students to use visual images and other memory strategies.

Another memory strategy that makes use of a cue is one called word substitution. The substitute word system can be used for information that is hard to visualize, for example, for the word occipital. These words can be converted into words that sound familiar that can be visualized. The word occipital can be converted to exhibit hall (because it sounds like exhibit hall). The student can then make a visual image of walking into an art museum and seeing a big painting of a brain with big bulging eyes (occipital is the region of the brain that controls vision). With this system, the vocabulary word the student is trying to remember actually becomes the cue for the visual image that then cues the definition of the word.

5. Give teacher-prepared handouts prior to class lectures.

Class lectures and series of oral directions should be reinforced by teacher-prepared handouts. The handouts for class lectures could consist of a brief outline or a partially completed graphic organizer that the student would complete during the lecture. Having this information both enables students to identify the salient information that is given during the lectures and to correctly organize the information in their notes. Both of these activities enhance memory of the information as well. The use of Post-Its to jot information down on is helpful for remembering directions.

6. Teach students to be active readers.

To enhance short-term memory registration and/or working memory when reading, students should underline, highlight, or jot key words down in the margin when reading chapters. They can then go back and read what is underlined, highlighted, or written in the margins. To consolidate this information in long-term memory, they can make outlines or use graphic organizers. Research has shown that the use of graphic organizers increases academic achievement for all students.

7. Write down steps in math problems.

Students who have a weakness in working memory should not rely on mental computations when solving math problems. For example, if they are performing long division problems, they should write down every step including carrying numbers. When solving word problems, they should always have a scratch piece of paper handy and write down the steps in their calculations. This will help prevent them from loosing their place and forgetting what they are doing.

8. Provide retrieval practice for students.

Research has shown that long-term memory is enhanced when students engage in retrieval practice. Taking a test is a retrieval practice, i.e., the act of recalling information that has been studied from long-term memory. Thus, it can be very helpful for students to take practice tests. When teachers are reviewing information prior to tests and exams, they could ask the students questions or have the students make up questions for everyone to answer rather than just retelling students the to-be-learned information. Also, if students are required or encouraged to make up their own tests and take them, it will give their parents and/or teachers information about whether they know the most important information or are instead focused on details that are less important.

9. Help students develop cues when storing information.

According to the memory research, information is easier retrieved when it is stored using a cue and that cue should be present at the time the information is being retrieved. For example, the acronym HOMES can be used to represent the names of the Great Lakes – Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie and Superior. The acronym is a cue that is used when the information is being learned, and recalling the cue when taking a test will help the student recall the information.

10. Prime the memory prior to teaching and learning activities.

Cues that prepare students for the task to be presented are helpful. This is often referred to as priming the memory. For instance, when a reading comprehension task is given, students will get an idea of what is expected by discussing the vocabulary and the overall topic beforehand. This will allow them to focus on the salient information and engage in more effective depth of processing. Advance organizers also serve this purpose. For older students, CliffNotes or other similar study guides for pieces of literature are often helpful aids for priming the memory.

11. Use Post-Its.

The use of Post-Its for jotting down information can be helpful for students who have short-term memory or working memory challenges.

12. Activate prior knowledge.

In order to enhance the likelihood that students will elaborate on new incoming information, teachers should activate their prior knowledge and make the new information meaningful to them. An easy way of accomplishing this task is to ask, “What do you know”, “What do you want to know”.

13. Give extended time.

If students have difficulty with the speed of retrieving information from memory, they should be given extended time for taking tests so that a true picture of what they know may be gained.

14. Use multisensory methods.

When learners, both young and old, experience something through multiple senses, they are much more likely to remember it. Use a Multisensory approach by engaging as many of the senses as possible when teaching (seeing, touching, hearing, smelling, and tasting).

15. Review material before going to sleep.

It should be helpful for students to review material right before going to sleep at night. Research has shown that information studied this way is better remembered. Any other task that is performed after reviewing and prior to sleeping (such as getting a snack, brushing teeth, listening to music) interferes with consolidation of information in memory.