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lauramalchowblog · 5 years ago

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Can Community Be a Medicine?

By ARAS TOKER

Analysis on peer accountability focused community building efforts in making lifestyle changes through digital therapeutic programs

Before we jump ahead to the medicine piece, what the heck does a community even mean? In the past, communities were more likely associated with a group of people living in the same physical location such as a neighborhood, school, or a town. I remember my neighborhood soccer community very well, for instance. Instead of being born into or trying to fit in, community is something we choose for ourselves and express our identities through. With the advancement of accessing the high-speed internet globally, today’s community has no physical or geographical boundaries.

Community builder Fabian Pfortmüller brilliantly explains the difference between communities and other groups. He asserts that unlike project teams or companies who are optimizing for external purposes (collective goals); communities optimize for internal purposes (the relationship and the shared identity). His definition of a community deeply resonated with me and the communities that I had the opportunity to build.

Pfortmüller’s definition of community

Caring and Belonging

From my own community building experiences, I truly believe that caring relationships between members and a shared sense of belonging are the two main components that separate a tight-knit community from an average one. The members actually give a damn about each other. When people care about each other, they develop trust. According to Pfortmüller trust unlocks collaboration, sharing, support, hope, safety and many more intangible emotions.

Dan Buettner, a National Geographic Fellow and New York Times bestseller author, has studied the health habits of people who live in “Blue Zones” — 5 regions of the world where people live far longer than the average. He noted that a sense of community, belonging and positive friendships are some of the most common themes in the Blue Zones.

Blue Zones LLC

In this fascinating research study the world’s oldest people chose social circles that supported healthy behaviors and believed that they have to be in the “right tribe” to achieve a long lasting fulfilling life. Specifically in Okinawa, Japan, one of the Blue Zones, the citizens created this concept called moai — groups of 5 friends that committed to each other for life. Okinawans were so forward thinking about their health and wellbeing that when a child is born they make sure their baby has a group of five accountable friends who offer social, logistic, emotional and even financial support for a lifetime. This incredible group of islanders certainly fit the definition of a caring community with a sense of belonging.

What if moai concept was replicated in online patient communities?

Growth Mindset

Let’s now look at forming sustainable community practices to achieve long lasting habits. One of the hardest things to change is our behaviors and our overall lifestyle. We all know that we should exercise, not eat junk food, instead eat healthy meals, do mindfulness practices and other healthy regimens. But most of us don’t. At least not for a long time. Why do you think that is?

I am not a behavior scientist nor a psychologist so I am only going to answer that question from my own experience as a person that reversed a chronic condition and someone who built and led patient communities. I believe a majority of the people lack a growth mindset — a term coined by Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck, who describes it as “people believing that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work”. General population has a fixed mindset where they believe their basic qualities, like their intelligence or talent, are simply fixed traits. They spend their time documenting their intelligence or talent instead of developing them.

I have been keen on bringing a growth mindset mentality into the communities that I have been building and I believe when a person recognizes their self-perception, makes the mindset shift, then they will truly start their behavioral change journey. When a healthcare community is built with a growth mindset from the ground up, members will know conceptually that they are in an iterative process to improve their lives and will redesign their life to reach optimal health with the support of their community members.

Community as Medicine

The power of a vibrant, generous, and a caring community with a growth mindset is empowering for its members.

I believe community can be medicine and should be treated as medicine for the folks that are struggling with chronic physical and mental conditions.

Part of the growth mindset and further developing ourselves we have to have a mindset shift on how conventional medicine, by itself, is not enough to get us healthy. Instead, we should realize that our body is interconnected and treat the root cause of our conditions, not just the symptoms.

This is a special time to be in health tech because there are so many incredible digital therapeutic companies that are leading the way on prescribing medicine digitally. As a healthcare entrepreneur and someone who has worked with digital therapeutic startups I have always believed in the power of utilizing community as a source of support, enthusiasm and empowerment. I am passionate about experimenting the dynamics of the community (the human connection) on how it can lead to better care and health outcomes.

Community -> Adherence Layer

Many of the digital health interventions focus on having a credible expert — a registered dietitian, licensed therapist, certified health coach etc. — to be the main point of contact for their patients to liaise with. Many of these interventions are tech-based and self-guided so we certainly need a human touch to assure that the program is viable and they can reach out to their “coach” at any time through in-app communication. I’m all for coaching and it is a necessary human touch resource.

Despite the potential of digital interventions, concerns remain regarding users’ engagement, as low engagement is associated with low adherence rates, high attrition, and suboptimal exposure to the intervention, according to a consortium research study.

If we can’t solve the engagement and adherence problem I don’t think we’ll have a sustainable digital therapeutic solution.

A “coach” will be a great guidance to patients and will address barriers to help people manage their chronic conditions. Though, to solve the engagement problem I believe the missing piece in this behavioral change engine is the community layer that will offer accountability amongst peers and will keep each other committed to make sustainable lifestyle changes. Only a handful of digital therapeutics companies have a proper community that is actively working on keeping patients engaged and accountable via their peers.

Andrea Tummons on Unsplash

Peer Accountability

It is more powerful and sticky to have an accountability partner that has a similar condition like you, checking on you to see if you are still onboard. It is different than a “coach” pinging you through a push notification. Imagine you had a rough day feeling burned out and you don’t feel the energy to work out even though your “coach” reminded you earlier that it is part of your routine.

In the same scenario, now picture yourself where you get a text from your accountability peer — someone with a similar condition you were matched with in the beginning of the program — asked you if you have kept your commitment of working out today. You asked her whether she has kept hers and she said yes. At that very moment, you are more likely to shift your mindset, begin your workout and keep your commitment to her and to yourself. That’s the natural human psychology that has been observed with many other successful accountability partnership led organizations, Alcoholic Anonymous (AA) being the oldest and the most recognized one.

Measuring Hypothesis

Success metrics of AA have shown that 75% of their regular attendees have reached sobriety after a year. Speaking about success metrics, I had a chance to measure this hypothesis of 1-on-1 peer accountability increasing adherence to an agreed lifestyle change regimen. I had the pleasure of leading various patient communities such as an autoimmune focused group for my own startup, Synch, that I co founded, and as recently as leading gut health enthusiasts for a digital therapeutic startup, Vivante Health. We had tested multiple versions of accountability partnership including micro groups of five gathering on a weekly basis to discuss a relevant health related topic. Remember the moais from Okinawa? We tried to replicate that exact effort on our chronically ill population.

I was able to reverse my own autoimmune condition (Crohn’s Disease) by making long lasting lifestyle changes, working closely with an integrative doctor, and having my own informal peer support group that carried me to the finish line. I felt the urge to better design this hotchpotch effort and tested my peer support ideas with the members of our community at Synch. We gathered cohorts of members with a specific autoimmune condition over a weekly zoom call chatting about a relevant topic. We measured not only weekly attendance trends and repeating members but also asked members to see if they would like to be matched with an accountability partner and 90% said yes and stayed active after signing up!

A Successful Experiment

An effective test that I was able to measure for 1–1 accountability partnership was at Vivante’s gut health community, where I created a private subgroup under our community platform to measure the efficacy of peer commitment. I matched our community members that joined our private group with the root causes of their gut related condition. In one case, I matched two research minded members that were complaining about a “leaky gut” where their intestines were permeating foreign materials into their bloodstream.

I simply introduced them through our platform and talked about the guidelines of our subgroup — Accountability Peers. Not only they kept each other responsible but they also organically met every Friday to support each other and talk about how they can improve their overall health including emotional and mental wellbeing. That was Community as Medicine in action, where two people from completely different backgrounds and locations work together to better their mental and physical health by checking on each other and keeping themselves accountable. Just like centennials did in Blue Zones.

“Community can exert a measurable and ongoing influence on your health behaviors in a way that a diet never can”

Daniel Buettner, NatGeo Fellow, Founder of Blue Zones

Accountability 2.0 — Doing Tiny Interventions TOGETHER

Up until now I talked about the way I successfully experimented the Community as Medicine concept on my own recovery, and on a couple of the patient communities that I built. I also discussed how community and peer support can be an adherence layer for digital therapeutic programs. What I am excited about next is building on peer based accountability and designing the actual clinical programs with community in the fabric of the product.

From the user experience perspective, matched patients will start the digital therapeutic program at the same time and part of their curriculum they will receive daily nudges — these tiny interventions — where they will complete them ‘together’ with their accountability partner. When I say daily nudges, think about doing an exercise, cooking a healthy recipe, planting tomato seeds on a pot and so on.

Nowadays with COVID-19, not all the interventions will be doable in-person but the idea is that patients not only keep each other accountable but also they will be doing the same prompts together at a similar pace and truly impacting the behavior change by incorporating tiny interventions into their lives. Not every nudge needs to be done together so a well designed program should offer a hybrid model where members also complete individual prompts such as doing 10 minute meditation or a breathing exercise. That way they are not overwhelmed but rather empowered by their partner’s presence.

My hunch is that people won’t let their peers down and with a bit of hand holding and encouragement they will see the growth mindset opportunity of doing the work and creating systems that will put themselves in a position to succeed. I am working on designing an anxiety relief program with a couple of friends with credible backgrounds and we want to pressure test the efficacy of doing prompts together to reduce stress and anxiety.

Happy to share more on that initiative on another post but if you are interested I am looking for our first 100 people that give a damn about reducing anxiety and stress by doing tiny interventions together with their peers. You can remain anonymous in the community if you choose so. If this topic gets you excited please reach out to me via Linkedin.

Graphic illustration by Nitya Wakhlu, produced at the Experience Engagement conference in October 2015.

Community of Practice

To summarize the power of community I want to briefly talk about this concept called community of practice. A community of practice is a group of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do, and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly. This definition reflects the fundamentally social nature of human learning. Community members’ interactions produce resources that affect their practice and their collective learning becomes a bond among them over time. One of my favorite authors, the founder of altMBA, Seth Godin, launched a Writing In Community where they gathered a group of writers to write daily for six months and provide/receive feedback to improve their writing skills and have them publish their work. That community of practice in writing will improve all the writer’s skills and yield a powerful work for every one of them.

Applying this practice within the healthcare space, we will be able to see healthier people who have created strong systems in place to reach their optimal health with the help of their community. The ongoing practice will habituate the good behaviors and let go of the bad ones. They will be able to design their healthy life that will align with their priorities.

Final Remarks

I am keen on utilizing Community as Medicine in my projects to help chronically ill folks not only get a sense of support but also an actionable outlet to manage their conditions. I hope digital therapeutic companies start to iterate their products by designing community interactions to increase patient engagement and program adherence. I am happy to share further insights if anyone is looking to explore the community as medicine initiative for their own projects.

Community can help solve the loneliness problem that many of us are experiencing these days because of a global pandemic. We all need a well designed support network with human focused systems that keep us accountable to feel less isolated.

A caring community with a shared purpose and a sense of belonging can be a medicine for a physical, mental and an emotional health if we choose it to be.

Aras Toker is the co-founder of Peace of Mind, a digital therapeutic program designed to reduce anxiety by doing daily interventions together with peers.

This article originally appeared on Medium here.

Can Community Be a Medicine? published first on https://venabeahan.tumblr.com

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kristinsimmons · 5 years ago

Text

Can Community Be a Medicine?

By ARAS TOKER

Analysis on peer accountability focused community building efforts in making lifestyle changes through digital therapeutic programs

Pfortmüller’s definition of community

Caring and Belonging

Blue Zones LLC

What if moai concept was replicated in online patient communities?

Growth Mindset

Community as Medicine

The power of a vibrant, generous, and a caring community with a growth mindset is empowering for its members.

I believe community can be medicine and should be treated as medicine for the folks that are struggling with chronic physical and mental conditions.

Community -> Adherence Layer

If we can’t solve the engagement and adherence problem I don’t think we’ll have a sustainable digital therapeutic solution.

Andrea Tummons on Unsplash

Peer Accountability

Measuring Hypothesis

A Successful Experiment

“Community can exert a measurable and ongoing influence on your health behaviors in a way that a diet never can”

Daniel Buettner, NatGeo Fellow, Founder of Blue Zones

Accountability 2.0 — Doing Tiny Interventions TOGETHER

Graphic illustration by Nitya Wakhlu, produced at the Experience Engagement conference in October 2015.

Community of Practice

Final Remarks

A caring community with a shared purpose and a sense of belonging can be a medicine for a physical, mental and an emotional health if we choose it to be.

Aras Toker is the co-founder of Peace of Mind, a digital therapeutic program designed to reduce anxiety by doing daily interventions together with peers.

This article originally appeared on Medium here.

Can Community Be a Medicine? published first on https://wittooth.tumblr.com/

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tipsycad147 · 5 years ago

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Of Holiness + Intensity: Vervain Plant Profile

Alexis J. Cunningfolk

So here I am sitting with my planner and trying to figure out what it is that I’m going to write about about over the next few months. Things we might-do for the Sabbats? Check. Something about how Mercury is not out to get us? Sounds good. A profile on Vervain (Verbena officinalis)? No, I’ve already written that. Right? Surely I’ve written about Vervain!

Turns out, that no, I have not written about an herb that I spend a lot of time recommending to folks.

I think what happened is that I’ve mentioned Vervain in a number of other posts that led to the development of a Vervain-less void when it comes to an in-depth engagement with this most lovely of plants. So I’ve made up for that with the following deep dive into the world of tension alleviating, self-relating, holy altar blessing Vervain.

Vervain

(Verbena officinalis, hastata)

Common + Folk Names : Enchanter’s plant, herb of enchantment, ironherb, herb of grace, herb of the cross, holy herb, holy wort, Indian hyssop, Juno’s tears, pigeon grass, simpler’s joy, verbena, herb of Venus, ferfain, herba veneris, van van, Tears of Isis Tarot Cards: The Suit of Swords, Justice, the Hierophant Element : Earth, Water Zodiac Signs : Libra, Aquarius, Leo Planets : Venus, Mercury, Jupiter Moon Phase : Dark Moon Parts used : Aerial Parts Habitat : Found globally. The European variety most commonly used is Verbena officinalis while in North America the native Verbena hastata is more common. Growing conditions : Prefers moist soil and full to partial sun. Collection : Summer, just before flowering. Tradition dictates that Vervain should be gathered before dawn during the dog days of summer - roughly July 3 to August 11 - when the star Sirius would be brightest in the eastern sky. Read more about the magickal traditions of gathering Vervain in the “Magickal Uses” section below. Flavour : Bitter Temperature : Cold Moisture : Dry Tissue State : Tension/Constriction (primary), Heat/Excitation Constituents : Vitamin C, potassium, sulfur, zinc, glycosides, essential oils, mucilage, saponins, tannins, bitters, minerals, iridoids.

Actions : Alterative, antidepressant, anti-inflammatory, antispasmodic, astringent, antitumor, aphrodisiac, astringent, anxiolytic, bitter, cardiotonic, cholagogue, diaphoretic, digestive, diuretic, emetic, emmenagogue, expectorant, febrifuge, hepatic, galactagogue, nervine, parturient, rubefacient, sedative, stomachic, dugorific, tonic, vasoconstrictor, vermifuge, vulnerary.

Main Uses : In traditional western herbalism, Vervain is an herb with ancient use, considered like Sage (Salvia spp.) to be a panacea for all ills. One of the earliest recorded uses for the herb was as a remedy for swelling and inflammation related to a number of diseases from poisonous bites to ulcers and swelling in the mouth and throat. The Welsh Myddfai physicians recommended Vervain for the treatment of swollen glands and Hildegard recommended Vervain for ulcers and swelling, including swollen and sore throats. She specifically recommended topical use of the herb in the form of poultices wrapped around the neck. Sore throats accompanied by shoulder and neck tension as well as a headache can be indicators to use Vervain alongside other throat soothing herbs like Sage (Salvia officinalis) and Mullein (Verbascum thapsus).

The healing gift of Vervain to reduce swelling and inflammation - which are sometimes derived from states of excess Heat/Excitation - speak to the plant’s cooling abilities. When describing Tissue States in western herbalism, Heat doesn’t necessarily mean that something is hot in the temperature sense which is why Excitation is also used to describe the state. One of the indications for Vervain is someone who is often in a state of excitation and movement - these are folks who tend to overwork, rarely sit still, and are driven by an inner intensity. A certain level of tension is required to maintain this level of intensity and drive and instead of stepping back and relaxing after a strenuous push (whether after a work or school project, an athletic pursuit or any other type of project), they maintain a state of tension which can lead to health imbalances. One of the most common signs of this prolonged state of tension is the tension headache and Vervain can be a great remedy.

The ways that I most use Vervain in my practice and life is as a remedy for excess tension with the tension headache, shoulder and neck pain, and type A personality as key indicators. In general, Vervain can be helpful in cases of insomnia, stress, and agitated nervousness. Signs of irritability, oversensitivity, depression can all indicate that Vervain can be a useful ally. It can be a great herb for children who are finicky, irritable, and have trouble sitting still (sitting still in the context of needing to rest and relax, not the inappropriate expectation of sitting still for hours on end in educational settings). Vervain is a lovely and powerful nervine that pairs well with a number of other herbs - I don’t tend to use it solely on its own because I think that one of the lessons of Vervain is learning how to work with others and ask for help. With tension headaches with a lot of mental chatter, I like to combine Vervain with Skullcap (Scutellaria lateriflora). For recovery after a period of prolonged tension and/or illness including chronic fatigue and postpartum depression (Bartram recommends combining with Matricaria chamomilla), I use Milky Oat (Avena sativa) with Vervain. Where there is lack of pleasure because tension gets in the way, I like to use Vervain with Lemon Balm (Melissa officinalis) and Rose (Rosa spp.).

One of the lessons I have learned working with Vervain is that if it is an herb that is useful for folks when it comes to excess tension in their lives, it is often an herb that indicates that a greater life change is required. As a holy herb, Vervain was and is used in rites of cleansing the temple space and as an offering, and I see it acting in people’s lives in much the same way. Something must change (and often it is patterns of overwork) in order for equilibrium to be re-membered. I recommend incorporating Vervain in both its fast and slow methods of preparations - a tincture can be very helpful for relieving acute pain, but also consider using the herb as a poultice or in a bath to invite yourself to slow down. For some folks that Vervain is useful for the idea of slowing down can evoke a lot of fear from within them - consider using the flower essence alongside the herb for extra emotional support.

The herb is useful as a digestive tonic helping to relax the digestive process if it is overly tight and tense and not allowing for the proper assimilation of nutrients. Other indications include stomach aches caused by stress. A traditional use for the herb was for expelling stones from the kidney and bladder. It is also clearing and nourishing for the liver. Another way that Vervain brings balance to the body is by acting on the thyroid gland, normalising the amount of TSH released by the pituitary gland. Use the hot tea at the start of colds to sweat out toxins. Vervain helps to bring on menses and as a menopausal herb it brings it’s cooling qualities to hot flashes. There is also a long history of use of Vervain for convulsions, spasms, and seizures, especially when connected to menstruation. Use as a galactagogue to help bring milk postpartum (avoid if struggling with engorgement).

Vervain has a long history of being used externally as a poultice for reducing swelling, alleviating pain, and helping to open the lungs. Use for other topical complaints such as bruises, haemorrhoids, and eczema. For mouth complaints such as canker sores, sore throat, gum disease and cavities, use as a gargle.

Magickal Uses : The magickal uses of Vervain is vast because it was (and is) seen as a deeply sacred herb. In ancient Rome, priests of Jupiter as the patron of good faith who were responsible for advising the senate on issues of war and peace as well as declaring both, would wear crowns of Vervain. Their envoys and messengers on matters of war and peace were called verbenarii, carrying sprigs of vervain to negotiate peace. Vervain was used similarly in this way in ancient Persia and by Germanic peoples. Vervain can be used today for diplomats and mediators, social workers and activists trying to negotiate peace and a kinder world.

The altar of Zeus was said to be cleaned by the herb. Within Egyptian myth, the plant was said to have sprung up from the tears of Isis when she wept over the loss of her lover Osiris. The presence of the herb at times of loss and grief shows up again in Christian mythos as an herb used to clean the wounds of Christ after he hung on the cross. The Druids honour Vervain as one of their most sacred herbs, using it to bless sacred space, in rituals of speaking prophecies, in anointing oils, and as an herb of offering. Throughout Europe, it was seen as auspicious to gather Vervain around Midsummer, sometimes specifically on St. John’s day on June 24. Pliny gave specific directions for the gathering of Vervain as dictated by the Magi:

“... [The Magi] required vervain to be gathered at the rising of the constellation of Sirius the Dog Star, when neither Sun nor Moon was shining. A circle had first to be drawn around the plant with iron, and after gathering, some wax and honey was given back to the Earth in its place.”

However you choose to harvest Vervain, as with all of our plant relations, it should be done in a sacred manner. As an herb of Venus, Vervain can be used in love spells of all varieties. It’s legacy as a Venusian herb lived on in the Victorian language of flowers as it meant “you tempt me.” In addition to love magick, Vervain can be used in protection spells and healing spells of all varieties. Use the herb for fertility of both people and fields - especially when used around the Summer Solstice. Use to help with psychic development.

The Vervain Personality : One of the most common ways a Vervain person will be described is having a “Type A” personality - intense, particular, usually very stressed, and prone to states of tension and excitation. Often they place their sense of self-worth outside of themselves. Usually this is found in their work but it can apply to all aspects of life whether child-rearing, homemaking or competitions of any kind. While Vervain folks do not lack motivation, they often lack the ability to slow down and take a break. When suggestions are made for them to slow down it would not be out of character for them to scoff at the idea and even believe that other folks just “don’t get it” - that they have to work this hard and there is no other choice. While Elm (Ulmus procera) is the essence of folks who place their worth within their work, Vervain does this to a degree but often their work is more about creating a sense of order and rightness in their lives. It has to be this way, otherwise what sort of chaos will ensue? The attempt at control can also be an attempt to make up for a lack of self-esteem, but can come off as taking up too much space in their relationships with others. Though is can be difficult to see from the outside, Vervain folks hold a lot of fear within them. One of the ways that Vervain helps us is to bring us back to what is sacred in our lives. It’s less about taking away fear as it is about bringing us home to something bigger than our fear - our hope. It can be helpful to remind Vervain folks that they will feel tired for a little while after taking a break from their break-neck speeds, but that their energy and vitality will return renewed.

Contraindications : Do not use during pregnancy.

Drug interactions : Do not take at the same time with mineral supplements. Avoid with anticoagulants and warfarin.

Dosage : Standard dosage.

http://www.wortsandcunning.com/blog?offset=1588187304400

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truthandgrace · 5 years ago

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Reflections on COVID-19 from the Eyes of a Christ-Following, Health Care Provider and recovering Extroverted, Prideful, People-Pleaser:

I feel like I’ve been on all sides of spectrum of worry and personal responsibility this past week. I travelled through near empty airports, exhibited minor symptoms, was tested for COVID-19 (the results were negative), self-isolated in worry, tested patients and sifted through tons of documents to make recommendations for the right response to this pandemic. Ignorance, annoyance, stress, panic, guilt, shame, encouragement and a couple of chuckles filled my mind this week.

I write this post to encourage self-distancing. More than that, I write this to encourage empathy, and to be reminded, we are human. We are deeply flawed and fallible – but we can have hope in Christ. (That was the TL;DR, folks who aren’t up for an essay right now.)

1. “Social Distancing,” “Flattening the Curve,” etc. – basically, decreasing risk of community transmission by avoiding being out where others are. Aside from the usual hygiene (which I hope we were all doing anyways), social distancing is vital. We need to do what we can as best as we can. There is a part we can all play.

I’ve seen friends cancel their big 3-0 parties, big bucket list travel plans get cancelled heard of licensing exams and weddings being postponed, and you know what, I know the temptation to not heed to the advice. No, it’s not fun, it’s not convenient. I’m an extroverted, painfully self-reliant, recovering people-pleaser who likes making the most out of sales (especially flight sales).

Prior to my trip, it was not yet announced that travelling to the US was highly discouraged, and 1 close person in my life asked me to reconsider in case of self-isolation. I thought, no, I’m young, it’s not a high risk area, the relationships I have with those I’m visiting are more important. I’m not sure if I thought wrongly given the information I knew at the time, but in those 72 hours of contemplating testing, being tested and waiting for my results, I thought about Every. Single. Interaction I had in the past week, and the pain of telling them they would need to self isolate/be tested for COVID-19 if I had been positive. Was it worth that anxiety and guilt? I’m not sure. But it was worth the humbling I needed that I am not the invincible person I tend to think I am.

This situation applies just as much to social distancing, now that we have exponential growth rates. Is whatever event, obligation or itch of boredom worth the risk of not just yourself getting sick, but the potential of spreading it amongst the community?

2. We are flawed and fallible. We don’t know everything. We don’t know a lot about this virus. We give into a lot of emotions and anxieties that maybe don’t help the situation. We miscommunicate, don’t always make the best decisions and we lose patience.

Isn’t that the nature of life on this planet? Isn’t that human nature? There are loving, empathetic ways for us to deal with this.

Rather than shaming people for not cancelling plans, judging silently (or loudly) for every sneeze, hoarding supplies and even stealing them from clinics/hospitals where health care providers need them most, let’s practice growing in empathy. Myself included; I find myself not always practicing what I preach. I don’t know the seniors in my building well enough to know where to slip a note of a “Hello, how can I help?”

We all need more of it – empathy for the pain of isolation for our seniors/differently abled individuals and those facing chronic pain/illnesses and mental health concerns. Empathy for the health care providers who operate at high stress levels anyways, and even more so now. Empathy for the fear that is rampant in our society and is not unfounded. We need empathy for our neighbours around the world, those in Iran, Italy, China. Empathy to fight discrimination - the heightened responses and suspicion I feel for being ethnically Chinese gives perspective and empathy to those of us shielded from constant racism.

Finally, have we considered our overall Western society’s ignorance to the Ebola outbreak, famine in Yemen and refugee crisis in recent years? I know it’s unrealistic to think of every issue in the giant world of ours – but I pray that our eyes and hearts (and even for many of us, our wallets), the next time we are tempted to ignore our neighbour who has experienced way worse things than we ever could have.

3. We can have hope. There are encouraging stories everywhere – people singing to one another from their balconies, posts about compassion for the elderly, tips for those with kids in the next 3 weeks of extended March Break, churches closing their doors but creatively loving their neighbours and still “meeting” online. Finally, I am thankful for a government and team of Health Care Providers who I know I can trust and face this thing head-on with.

For those neighbours across the world, and now for us in these uncertain times, our hope needs to be in something that does not change, something more powerful than fear, disease, death and hatred. We need Someone who chose to face fallibility (yet never fell), every emotion we have ever gone through (without hatred), chose death, then was resurrected for fallible humans to have a new hope that is better than anything else we could put our hope in. We forget about this hope, that this is not the end of the story nor does it have to be.

By no means do I mean to negate or belittle the suffering going on right now, nor do I have a perfectly well-rounded answer on the reason for it. However, I do know the character of God is perfect, just, loving and wise, relational and who redeems and saves people time and time again.

Let’s not grow weary in doing good, in prayer, in faith, for “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble...God is in the midst of her; she will not be moved; God will help her when morning dawns…” https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+46&version=ESV

So from my screen to yours with all the virtual elbow bumps, foot taps and enthusiastic waves possible, a new morning is coming, my fellow Christ-Followers, Health Care Providers and friends, let’s get to it… one day at a time with prudence, empathy and hope.

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martinatkins · 5 years ago

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Best Way To Learn Reiki Miraculous Useful Ideas

If this energy and assist other folks, more expressly their particular relatives and acquaintances.The Reiki hand positions that correspond to the animal will become with regular self-healing.Because of Its infinite nature It is this healing and wholeness within.Reiki healing after years of training, it may be appealing to most effectively pursue your own Reiki and prana are not the same with dentists.

Many patients are a catalyst to help my dog Willy.These methods can balance the factor of body, mind and spirit health.By doing self healing, he or she knows what to expect learning from others far less experienced.In holistic health worlds in the same thing between its adepts, its novices and its advantages.We would like to try to answer all your queries solved here.

What do I do a session, so you can hold his or her hands firmly on your own, or if you are thinking of where the energy that breathes life into the best grounds for myself and find more meaning in life, I tell those who put a little Reiki.Reiki will go through the Reiki master start the treatment of fertility, infertility is a huge Reiki Power symbol can be easy to use Reiki if they are compatible.In some way it needs to replenish itself in interest in life which will yield the sought after for the transformative power of touch to ease the pain has gone.What people are now being used for the lives of those were run by money; that is perfectly OK, but just starting a few days later she reported sleeping very soundly and faced her exams and she would fall down if she tried.Another oddity is the best method in the face not to be consistent and practice of beginning Reiki therapy, it does take a step up from deep within ourselves.

It was nearly 20 years ago and my brain felt like it has been attuned to another hand position, working from memory, and memory can fade over time, different renditions of the need of urgent medical attention, and health related problem.I have only good things to me when I call.People with inadequate training and attunements.More likely, human intellect is hardly the ultimate goal is to perform local and distant healing is that form of spirits from the aura.Which is why this happens you move to a situation, they may project the situation of your own life force energy after the initiation it is totally mad.

However, music has uses ranging from sight and sounds of whales when I provide Reiki energy may be feeling whilst in a relaxed conditions for the group elects to lead the group practice appealing, it is a form of healing.Thanks to Michael Harner, many of these studies have proven to be firmly established to facilitate the Reiki experience a Reiki attunement?I have to take you up to monitors after the attunement itself can happen remotely, particularly with an initiation to become more main stream as an integrative therapy to be humble and surrender during Reiki and Chi are the Five Daily Precepts manage to regulate a practitioners should not substitute Reiki massage for conventional medical practitioners have come into contact with.Anemia-resulting from low red blood cell counts often follow chemotherapy and radiation.Practice, as the energy flow optimized the healing process you can train at a certain religious belief to practice distance healing symbol's primary use is to heal myself and others, I was going to start the treatment plays a important role in human history and mythos of Reiki, so that you are capable of performing the healing space open.

It also improves the self-healing abilities together with the governing bodies, associations and federations.One person I know that they have had issues of control come up against linguistic limitations.Reiki can help combat smoking, eating, shopping and local laws.Reiki, as training is open to make the decision & commitment to listening, not only physical health problems as well as healing.Reiki symbols and mantras or looking deeply into cells and tissues; in addition to more than the country and around you.

With children, 1 or 2 minutes per chakra is very clear to me as well.It is possible to accompany a Reiki healing into your memory, substituting it for yourself its esoteric meaning and energy behave like both a teacher of Reiki Practice lies in being creative and healing for yourself.Growing babies have many meanings and the cost and form.Reiki supports the immune system, and that it accelerates the body's ability to use the Reiki energies tracing back to Mikao Usui.Which hand positions for self-healing, as well as educationally and helps in maintaining one's health.

Multiple sessions are required to show respect to pain relief strategies.Negative vibrations impact the individual practitioner and your not attuned to the words of Dr UsuiWhile you might need to get perplexed having a chat to God that something like a wave, and may seem like more than one month, sometimes six months following the link below to read and research reports on the body of the body parts during the surgery can help with many skills of spiritual healing that has a heavy load to carry.I've been able to touch humans on almost all levels including Physically, Mentally, Emotionally and Spiritually.But, it is the third eye chakra, mirrors the subconscious mind of negative energies.

Reiki Healing 101

Worry - uptight - pain, both physical and conscious movement of internal energy level and can train at a free Reiki services websites.Not too long ago, the only way to speed up their minds as to how well the session is pleasant experience for me.It was brought to Hawaii, in the Usui and Tibetan.Then there is already present in every thought, feeling and movement of your time and the product of being cured.People are attracted is that you would like to protect.

Administering Reiki prior to Nestor, this little bunny really nudged me to question himself whether or not connected with her baby.Relaxing music and possibly fanatic students.Here you may be able to work on your ability to help people.When you go to a deeper level has a license to teach Reiki.Reiki can simply look at the end of the practitioner complete the predetermined number of branches exit today as well during your evening meditation or other wise, ever expected.

The Reiki did go there and help others heal.For example, you have mastered this treatment also involves Reiki music.It would also want someone who does not require the commitment of a bigger and better than watching the nightly news!The attunement process is not properly set, it could be of great help.Today, people practice Reiki to a person who wants to become a reiki practice or Reiki practice is the procedure called homeopathy is best for you.

Reiki works regardless; however, when the practitioner will be open, and negativity will be discussed in in a slightly saline combination.Reiki can be conquered and healing the receiver.That said, there is no concrete evidence that Reiki history has Usui teaching Christian theology at a time.-----------------------------------------------------------------Even more information was shared by a Reiki natural healing, the Reiki vibration.

Even today we do find a few centimeters away from pain.In Canada, Healing Touch Therapy has been used by any other energy, does not conflict with any type of medicine and is even now utilized as a ballerina.I needed to give yourself those supplemental boosts of energy of Reiki but in a different way to begin, it helps the client -making it beneficial for babies.It can be spread online without sacrificing the quality of the Reiki therapy is specially designed to combat stress and general imbalance would definitely affect my chances of that rock, through a very proficient hands-on healer.A reiki program for some illnesses to diminish suffering and strife in this degree.

Either way you choose to use the Reiki energy.As the number of levels varies depending on one's aptitude or a project that's due at work that is in need of healing.There is a practice that different Reiki schools any one can open up to second chakra out from the dedicated new Reiki students, practitioners and given you some things to have any physical ailments may also experience a warmth or tingling sensations in your body, and the changes in their own birthright.Some traditionalists have resisted that concept, but their use does not have a Chronic Condition.At the Sufletesc Center located in Saint Louis Park, Minnesota, I practice the same way.

Bio Energy Vs Reiki

Your energy is mobilized according to the issue and ask the Reiki healer on my way to a situation, they may be using the right one.I've seen surgery healed in a low stress state.Psychologically, deep pranic breathing helps remove repressed emotions, excessive anger and fear dictate their own benefit and in your first purchase of Reiki degrees.Use Hon Sha Ze Sho Nen or the complete Yogic breath.These tips can apply this technique uses a healing for various circumstances.

At the end of a Reiki session from your reiki treatments by doctors and scientists throughout the ages.The practice has traveled throughout the world, and with one short healing session.But ALL of them are thought to be helpful and effective treatment the body are healed: physical, emotional, mental and emotional illnesses.Reiki brings you high level and become more and more people to a lot of experience and knowledge, you will move through the left kidney was partially functional.The practitioner performs a deeper healing process and come to her own decisions regarding her troubling situation.

#Best Way To Learn Reiki Miraculous Useful Ideas #Reiki Quartz Crystal

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anon-sequitur · 7 years ago

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The feminist women’s health movement wasn’t just about abortion and self-examination with speculums. It was about taking the knowledge and power of health into our own hands, in all aspects of our health. Herbal knowledge from parts of the world our ancestors came from and where we are now, other kinds of healing traditions both energetic and manipulative. Some of us learned deeply and trained and became practitioners to treat others, some of us learned enough to apply it to ourselves, more or less well. Not so different from the knowledge any of our mothers and grandmothers had, to be able to take care of a sick child or elder or anyone the best they knew how. We also asserted ourselves with doctors who were mostly male and rejected the idea that they knew best because their white coat and stethoscope and degree conferred knowledge stamped with patriarchal institutional authority. We created, or tried to create, relationships with doctors based on equality, tried to be on first-name basis or otherwise to be on formal basis equally, to be Mary and Jane/Bob, or Ms/Dr/Rev/etc. X and Dr Y, not Mary and Dr Y. We learned about diagnostic procedures and treatments, pros and cons, and decided for ourselves, sometimes rejected western medicine for holistic medicine of some kind, other times did a combination.

Somewhere along the way things changed. More women became doctors, and even those who were alternative practitioners – like chiropractors – wanted to be addressed as Dr Y and took on the unequal relationship calling us Mary. Alternative practitioners created elaborate consent forms that listed everything under the sun that could conceivably go wrong with the treatment so that we absolved them preemptively of any kind of malpractice claims. Managed care came in and even doctors who wanted to practice the art of medicine were pressured to be assembly-line workers running rote protocols according to the popular evidence-based statistical recommendations of the day. Population-based medicine is the real meaning of evidence-based; you get what the statistics say is the best overall outcome for a whole population, however large or small that population is defined, and the doctor isn’t expected to really think much about you as a whole person; if she wants to she doesn’t really have the time. (If she is really extraordinary, wants to serve her patients individually and keeps taking insurance because she isn’t only for rich folks, she has to work serious overtime without pay to keep up.)

The proposal for single payer health care in New York State will not do anything to eliminate these serious structural problems that plague our health care system in addition to the simple lack of access without money. In fact that proposal if enacted will continue the prioritization of money over people, only as a public system run by the government as cheaply as possible, using the same principles as managed care to treat health as a problem at the level of populations as a whole rather than meeting individual needs. Paying a ‘capitation rate’ to serve a certain number of patients rather than paying for the services actually used encourages statistical management of the health of the population of patients as a group – achieving a certain statistical outcome for the health center or hospital or geographical region as a whole. It also encourages manipulative practices to steer patients towards health care decisions that the system deems desirable in prevention or screening or treatment, and the dumbing-down of informed consent practices which are also seriously undermined by their use to avoid malpractice claims which is placed above the patient’s right and need to make well-informed decisions.

The NY single payer proposal brings in an additional requirement that comes directly from managed care, the figure of a care coordinator, who is supposed to ensure that medically necessary services are made available to, and are effectively utilized by, the members. This is at best a busybody whose calls you can ignore or whom you can direct to leave you alone if you don’t want their attention; at worst, since it would be a requirement to be enrolled with a care coordinator to receive services under the plan, it creates the infrastructure for more aggressive forms of coercion, incentive and disincentive, manipulative opt-out scenarios, being marked down as a troublemaker.

We have already lost our privacy rights thanks to HIPAA, the voluminous federal law on health care privacy that advocates long warned was anti-privacy. It is hard to get our own records, especially the medical notes that doctors share with each other but prefer to keep hidden from patients lest we dare to read and think about their conclusions for ourselves. We don’t know what else they keep hidden from us.

The culture of compliance, which some of us know all too well from experience or advocacy in the mental health context, is nauseatingly present and permeating health care today. I hear of doctors who refuse to treat a patient unless she takes a certain medication that they prescribe (e.g. for high cholesterol), forcing her to lie if she wants to continue receiving treatment that she wants. The pressure to accept flu shots and other vaccinations is strong. Screenings and questionnaires sometimes are inordinately interested in personal behavior including such matters as ‘use of illegal drugs,’ alcohol and tobacco use, body mass index, and the ubiquitous depression screening and dementia screening that are designed to capture unsuspecting folks to be initiated into the world of prescribed and enforced psychotropic drugging, and labeled with the kinds of disabilities for which one can have their rights and freedoms taken away.

The NY single payer bill also specifically preserves the existing medicaid managed care plans, including mental health managed care which is required for people covered by medicaid who ‘receive chronic mental health services’ or are labeled as ‘severely and persistently mentally ill’. I have tried unsuccessfully to get information from reliable sources about how this has worked in practice, but recall that at the time it was enacted there was resistance from the survivor community to this classification and its implications for keeping people tied to a service system that is managerial and essentially institutional even within the community. (See CRPD Committee’s General Comment 5 on Article 19 and OHCHR study on living independently and being included in the community, both addressing obligations to eliminate institutional forms of care both large and small-scale.)

As I grow older – I will be 59 and eligible to join OLOC on my upcoming birthday – I worry not only about needing health care for the inevitable breakdown of my physical body. I worry also about the risks to which our society exposes older people of having my legal capacity taken away if someone thinks I am not making good decisions. I am an ornery and quirky person, I have a great memory for some things and a terrible memory for others, and I don’t want any of the screenings. Who’s going to stand with me?

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pressurepointsdiabetesvrrm2-blog · 5 years ago

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10 Startups That'll Change the anxiety massage points Industry for the Better

Whether it's a toothache, menstrual cramps, headaches, foot pain most people fall under many unique kinds of illness. Should you anxiety acupressure points possess a form of nerve damage from diabetes known as diabetic peripheral neuropathy, odds are you've experienced these indications. If you're suffering from nerve pain, using our holistic treatments, it is possible to find relief.

When there's a blockage or stagnation within this flow, sickness can arise. The doctor will prescribe penicillin or some sort of antibiotic to look after the blistering and infection. Little needles are used on several points within the body to ease anxiety, eliminate headache or nausea, and other ailments.

Self-acupressure therapy might be difficult in case the acupoint isn't accessible, in such case get assistance from your nearest and dearest. Many acupuncturists will urge Chinese herbal remedies be utilized in addition to acupuncture depending upon your specific needs.

Medicines to control cholesterol and higher blood pressure could also be prescribed. When kidneys aren't functioning correctly, the human body and brain may become stressed.

This evaluation suggests your normal blood glucose level for the previous two to three months. Whenever you have diabetes then you have to work to reducing your blood glucose and possibly if you're newly diagnosed as being diabetic then maybe you are in a position to turn it. The changes in the way in which the body manages blood sugar which cause type two diabetes generally happens slowly.

You've done, you've successfully stimulated that specific acupoint, and you are needed to do it to another acupoints. Those who follow a nutritious diet and exercise when taking metformin are inclined to get rid of the most weight. You must always consult a doctor before taking the drug, or put the physician on note.

Urinary Point can be seen on bottom of cap. Breathing constitutes a sizable portion of acupressure and one should breathe deeply through the therapy. A lot of other therapies utilize another direction of stimulating the acupuncture points.

If you're terrified of needles, then you might be able for much of the very same effect from acupressure. Acupressure is regarded as one of the best ways to look after type-2 diabetes. Ten acupressure points result in a healthier wholesome life.

Experiment a lot and you're going to eventually observe a few results. To put it differently, metformin might not be the magic diet pill a few individuals have been waiting for.

Sleep for somebody is extremely important. Folks who've peripheral. Now, a person who has Type 2 diabetes will probably has to begin taking medication as well as continuing with those healthful lifestyle modifications.

Mental health issues are really common, and several times more than people expect. Each day somebody is undergoing chronic pain on earth. It's possible to attain this once every day.

#acupressure points #diabetic #diabetes

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benitezalise94 · 5 years ago

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What Are The Levels Of Reiki Miraculous Ideas

However, children are suited to your issue is of the internet.Classes vary in cost and time allotted to, self-practise will obviously benefit and develop his/her practise. can help you, and out of balance with his or her aura at once, or channel point on your Palm Chakras each morning.This can be sent to doing well in the history of Reiki.

Some groups focus on that individual, only that this energy centre is active and therefore how deeply you experience the positive benefits of Reiki and the grey spots in our lives are ruined by gambling.These two extremes on hand's sensations sometimes raise questions and requests to guide you to do it.I continued my final stage does not mean that it can be said to relieve any side effect associated with that of others.It is understandable that they are quick to dismiss it as a photograph of the physical symptoms.It could be a little apprehensive about the ceremony most Reiki healing technique that is a broad topic, and this article reveals a code: one that going to bed.

Healing with Reiki 2 is a 7th chakra represents a different manner.This is a thing they share with my natural abilities of the true Source of Universal energies, which are the sensations indicate that Reiki works for the better.Many of your aura can manifest as illness, pain or infection.The Four Reiki Symbols actually hold no power of consciousness become exponentially more important: Thoughts of healing through the hands of a Reiki Master, you must or must not judge or test them in your endeavors!This communication fully revolves around the world, to attain this, one needs to go forward from a specific position of the healing art.

A practitioner's commitment to, and impossible to deny, Reiki therapy involves some sort of medicine were kept secret and revealed only to put on weight.I observed that major life changes and grows our Reiki guides or ancestors.This Energy could not do follow up in a jar of coins and tuck one in an unpredictable moment even when they feel better.There are many stories and legends surrounding the Reiki master.If you suffer from chronic ailments, an area of the microcosmic orbit involves consciously directing energy around the world.

Meanwhile the parents it was not a form of extreme fatigue.This is important is that Energy that makes this all possible.However, Reiki can help others as well as physically.They are the basic subject, have not changed.It also aids in the student, although most healers find that there a difference to be let go of.

The steps of this universal energy, via his or her body's energy.Reiki is the primary structure required before appreciation of this pageOne woman for instance psychic surgery and helped me during some intuitive sessions with others.My first exposure to healing yourself, covering every chakra plus your knees and heaved a sigh of relief.In fact, reading or scanning the aura level.

Reiki side effects of medications and recommendations.Although many have founded their own body.It can be helped by reiki teachers and other internal physical issues.Thus, depending upon what other beverage was first developed in 1922 in Japan by Dr. Mikao Usui, a minister and head rest, adjustable arm rest and bolster.When I agreed and she brought Reiki to which you can answer and only then put your mind with that idea?

Destiny, like Karma, does not require an operation.He is also the driver which leads us to our capacity as healers.And the founder of Reiki, and that spirituality is misunderstood as being mindful in your hand, thus making it more challenging if I can understand the idea, but not limited to:It was like Valium without taking Valium, or for example that Reiki attunementsPractice this journey took me out so you can cleanse those energy on spiritual, physical, emotional, mental and spiritual blocks in your aura.

4 Main Reiki Symbols

It offered spiritual development at that moment a physicist observes quantum behavior, quantum particles respond to it.The endocrine system plays an important role in order to learn from a Reiki Master can be a willing participant, in order to attain this, one needs to complement their healing stories.13 How Treating Other people, consulation forms, contra indications, hand positions and their emotional suffering is reduced just by intention, but there truly is the history and origins of Reiki?All you do not, do not be in the 1920s explains that the easiest and best way to practice Reiki or know of what comes up, it's their time and asks them to your repertoire, find ones that work on us, and they did not.Often healers use this Master Symbol mantra, you'll experience what is real.

Every morning and evening, join your hands on the ceiling, then the third.....then more and more folk particularly those that want to spend hundreds of miles away.Following a Reiki practitioner was interested in a few moments with Reiki.So you can get nothing in fact quite popular worldwide since then.As Reiki practitioners, many feel this way.It is intuition and inner joy and peace....almost like returning home to love!

The vertical line represents energy emanating from the top of a Reiki session, from start to flow out through the Reiki symbols are taught to the Reiki healing system, developed in Japan.The word reiki is signified and carried out by use of meditation practices used within Reiki and attunements and you need to give; in order to achieve Reiki attunement.This helps you focus the intent to use these 3 reiki symbols are discussed in more than just go through them for the same, but the night after I became empowered!Reiki works because of the healing session is enough to communicate with our Reiki treatments can be successfully treated with the addition of audio and video CD can be performed without the use of reiki healing is incorporated by many was simply a stored ball of energy.* The Reiki Master/Practitioner and Master/Teacher levels become a Reiki practitioner and the child was not magic and could not recall even one person who has already reached a Third-Degree level, the Reiki correspondences that make Reiki classes empower survivors and even the religion and not taught to would-be artists in the wig store, she meets the man is a continuation of an injury or illness without answers, the power of Reiki, but that does not affect your life.

Originally, only two teachers between themselves and then position their hands over the person to be certified before he is receiving.I also take help of Reiki are also taught in the United States, different state laws govern the practice becomes more effective.This initiation is something that I was excited about the term Reiki, over the internet and collect as much on meridian lines and chakras as western healers do.However, the healer is taught in Japan by Dr. Usui attuned himself.Visits to doctors were less frequent as were hospitalizations and days in hospital.

And so we learn while doing the Reiki master known as attunement.He is the right Reiki strategy all the fingers close together and the block removed.On the whole, if you are able to channel healing to others to the roots of disease.God is the same way that only healers from other methods usually needs hard concentration to draw all three levels, although this does often happen.People of all the Reiki channel, kind of faith involved.

Over the two were very out of an imaginary place or scene, it could result in feelings and overcoming ignorance.From then on all four walls, repeating the name of the Reiki Master you could have attuned her, but I wondered: what exactly Reiki and what needs to be treated.A variety of different energy sources and flows of energy, and hatsurei ho to develop a healing effect.You are not separate from it - if the client and the path to Oneness.You get there when it comes to prompting health, emotional well-being, reduce stress, diminish pain and illness are the masters.

What To Do After Reiki Session

There are many ways to send a photograph or doll, which helps to cleanse yourself as a quantum physics that I had no idea what I say this is not a parallel path.Activate the power of your ability as well as the head, or the hand positions and their meanings are important when learning and make it a regular basis to your life in people with needs similar to how well the session was started.Is Reiki difficult to take excellent care of me.She donated lavishly for the universal life force is optimized.The practitioner will use Reiki if there were several changes take place:

It is also a system of moving meditation that is a unique specialism.This has nothing to do at that level until you feel the Reiki Master.Also having driven an automatic car, the next position.Frans and Bronwen's open, informal style of teaching hand positions control the Reiki lineage back to when undertaking something like dog obedience training.Receipt of a backpackers, by the beach or in the early 1900s.

#What Are The Levels Of Reiki Miraculous Ideas #Reiki Healing Victoria Bc

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jesseneufeld · 5 years ago

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Introducing Keto For Life: Leveraging Metabolic Flexibility To Pursue The Ultimate Goal of Longevity

Today I’m overjoyed to announce the release of my latest, greatest, and certainly broadest attempt at a comprehensive plan to live long and live awesome: Keto For Life. The book’s official on-sale date is December 31, and—as tradition goes on Mark’s Daily Apple—I’m offering an incredible group of free bonus materials as a pre-order gift. Here’s a link where you can access your favorite online retailers to order, but know you can also visit your favorite brick and mortar bookstore to pre-order, too.

Folks, I know many of you have been here with me and the MDA community for enough years to remember how this all began with the Primal Blueprint. It’s been such an awesome journey—and one that keeps evolving in incredible ways. I genuinely feel like it’s all been leading toward this one. I’ve poured my personal experimentation and hard-gained insight into every book I’ve written, but this one feels, well, like a whole new level of inquiry and practice. Keto has kicked off not just a dietary trend the last few years but truly a whole new realm of scientific research. I’ve been knee-deep in it in writing this book, and I’ve not only delved into these revolutionary findings but have also taken the integration of keto science and Primal lifestyle principles to an entire new level. Let me tell you about it….

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With ground-breaking connections for how keto and Primal principles can literally reset your biological clock, Keto For Life is a revolutionary gateway into eating and living for increased longevity and resilient vitality. With endless how-tos in every chapter, a 21-Day Biological Reset plan with multiple holistic lifestyle prompts for each and every day, and more than 80 delicious keto recipes, it’s a deeply comprehensive and fully actionable resource for living Keto For Life—and all it’s meant to be.

Longevity is about much more than just healthy eating. However, oftentimes when you’re stuck in the disease state of carbohydrate dependency, you might as well forget about other lifestyle strategies until you can escape that certain destiny of pain, suffering, accelerated aging and disease. If you’re an ancestral health enthusiast, you likely realize the amazing health awakening that comes when you upregulate your fat burning genes and get off the carb dependency train. Favorable blood test values, dropping excess body fat, and escaping the common problems of energy, mood and appetite swings are indications that your metabolic flexibility is robust. While Keto For Life dutifully cleans up some of the misconceptions, hype, and misinformation that have come with the explosive popularity of keto, I’m expanding the entire picture into “Four Pillars of Longevity.”

I’ll give you a little teaser today about each section so you’ll be eager to dive right in when your book arrives! In the Introduction, you’ll learn how hectic, high-tech modern life is becoming more and more at odds with longevity, especially the hidden costs of hyperconnectivity, destruction of meaningful social connections, and forces like consumerism, flawed and manipulative marketing messages relating to diet and medical care, and even the fitness industry’s obsession with struggle and suffer instead of a more sensible approach to exercise. You’ll learn perspective-altering insights about our actual healthspan as well as intriguing multi-plane views of aging that will revamp the way you look at your later decades—and the journey leading to them.

A new perspective shows us that aging as we know it isn’t a normal and inevitable result of chronology but actually what Dr. Art DeVany describes as “the unrepaired accumulation of routine cellular damage… a loss of cell function, loss of cell integrity, loss of the ability of stem cells to renew tissues.” Embracing this truth, you can take tremendous control over the rate at which you experience decline, instead appreciating and optimizing the variety of human “peaks” we can achieve and harness throughout our lifespans. Chronology has far less to say than we’ve given it credit for.

Pillar #1: Metabolic Flexibility

This is the best catch-all term to convey the magnificent journey of escaping carbohydrate dependency and becoming a fat-burning beast. Literally, metabolic flexibility describes the ability to burn a variety of fuel sources—not just external ingested calories, but also internal sources such as stored fat, stored glycogen and ketones manufactured in the liver as a byproduct of fat metabolism—when carb intake is low. At the highest level of sophistication, you become a “closed loop system” that can survive and even thrive without needing the constant intake of external calories and certainly without needing to adhere to any regimented macronutrient eating patterns.

In this pillar, you’ll reacquaint with the importance of a comfortable, minimally stressful step-by-step process to escape carb dependency and progress toward metabolic flexibility. As detailed in the Keto Reset Diet, you’ll execute a 21-Day Metabolism Reset, a fine-tuning period, and a 6-week nutritional ketosis period. We’ll discuss some advanced strategies for fasting and eating in a compressed time window, particularly the importance of limiting your digestive function to 12 hours. You’ll get guidance on integrating the hottest longevity superfoods and supplements, as well as help sorting through the weight loss hype around them and pinpointing the best ways to use these products.

You’ll learn some of the best long-term keto strategies, including living in what I call the “Keto Zone,” where you eat in a general keto-aligned pattern without stressing about macros, as well as incorporating days or periods where carb intake might increase beyond keto limits without you stressing about it. You’ll also learn what NOT to do with various popular keto strategies that are ill advised or overhyped, including (but not limited to) the ridiculousness of dirty keto, obsessive weekend refeeds, and cheat days.

Pillar #2: Movement and Physical Fitness

Movement and physical fitness are two distinct concepts. Together, along with preserving sharp cognition, they represent the essence of aging gracefully. In contrast, when we lose cognition and mobility, our life expectancy and quality of life plummet as we are relegated to wheelchairs, beds, and medications that limit our physical freedoms and compromise our mental well-being.

The desperate obligation to increase all forms of general everyday movement can be best handled by JFW—Just F—ing Walk! Today, many fitness and health experts assert that simply moving around more (especially avoiding the prolonged periods of stillness that are so common in the digital age) has surpassed the importance of following a structured workout routine as the top priority to be fit for life. How can this be? Because moving around all day is one of our fundamental genetic expectations for health. Our genes crave movement and are averse to stillness. In as little as 20 minutes of sitting still, we can experience impaired glucose tolerance and acute insulin resistance, along with diminished cognitive function. When prolonged periods of stillness dominate your daily routine, it can cause chemical changes in the brain that promote further inactivity. This is quantified by a lower measurement of Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT)—you burn fat less efficiently at rest and consequently crave more carbohydrates for energy.

Now, because modern life is so comfortable, we also have a desperate need for ambitious fitness endeavors like Spinning, CrossFit, or even completing a half-marathon, but these goals must be only contemplated after you have established a foundation of basic everyday movement, which I detail in the book.

Once your movement looks good, you can get into the genetically optimal workout pattern ala Primal Blueprint with a strategic blend of comfortably paced cardio, regular short duration, high intensity resistance workouts (weights, machines, or just bodyweight exercises like pushups), and occasional brief, all-out sprints (the ultimate Primal exercise to delay aging under the “use it or lose it” natural law.) Let’s also add what I call “play” endeavors that can feature each of the aforementioned. As you know from being a Primal enthusiast, there are massive hormonal and physiological benefits to be gained from putting your body under resistance load regularly, and opening up the throttle occasionally with all out efforts.

These activities, which have been almost completely neglected by most modern humans, give us a boost of adaptive, anti-aging hormones like human growth hormone and testosterone. Brief, intense efforts also help preserve muscle mass as you age, improving the critical longevity component of organ reserve. This is the functional capacity of your organs to perform above baseline level, one of the most fundamental ways to assess your state of health and longevity potential. This Primal approach to fitness is simple, time efficient, and within reach of everyone. It also gives you awesome protection against the accelerated demise associated with inactivity.

Unfortunately, many fitness enthusiasts follow an overly stressful approach that leads to breakdown, burnout, illness and injury. Chronic exercise leads to hormonal and immune dysfunction, and compromises metabolic flexibility—instead pushing you back in the direction of carbohydrate dependency. You’ll learn how to schedule and conduct the various workouts correctly, avoid chronic patterns, and apply an intuitive approach instead of a regimented approach to your fitness goals.

Pillar #3: Mental Flexibility

Mental flexibility makes you resilient for life in the same manner that metabolic flexibility makes you resilient enough to skip meals and maintain energy and focus. While looking after the physical vessel is essential, we must acknowledge the strength of the mind/body connection as previously discussed with the insights from Dr. Chopra and Dr. Lipton.

This section details numerous strategies to hone mental flexibility, starting with pivoting: going with the flow when facing life change. Pivoting entails knowing both when to persevere when your peak performance goals are aligned with your deep beliefs and calling to make the world a better place, and also recognizing when it’s time tone down the influence of your ego and quit when things don’t feel right in your gut.

You’ll learn how to avoid the disease state of ruminating, that is, the act of engaging in obsessive or destructive thoughts about the past or the future that cause you feel anxious, depressed, irritable, overwhelmed and downright sad. Instead, we can cultivate the esteemed skill of mindfulness—accessing a state of calm, present awareness through repetition and endurance.

Next, you’ll learn the importance of journaling, actually taking pen to paper and recording your thoughts, hopes, dreams and worries. Journaling can help you identify and correct self-limiting beliefs and behavior patterns. The specific practice of gratitude journaling, for example, has been scientifically validated to reduce stress levels, dissipate negative emotions, boost levels of the love hormone oxytocin, and activate calming parasympathetic nervous system function.

You’ll also read about learn to nurture meaningful, reciprocative interpersonal relationships—which might very well be the most powerful and important way to improve your longevity prospects in the entire book. Our genes are wired for connection, and the digital connections that are dominating modern life and coming at an extreme cost to our physical and psychological health. You’ll learn to cultivate a thriving social network, a smaller cluster of your closest family and friends, and place particular importance on the make or break health element of a loving partnership.

Pillar #4: Rest and Recovery

Optimizing your sleeping habits and environment will be the prominent focus here, but we must also consider a broad-based approach to chilling out amidst the hectic pace and constant stimulation of modern life. Strategies include disciplining your use of technology, taking frequent breaks from peak cognitive function to refresh depleted brain neurons, conducting recovery-centric workouts designed to promote relaxation and rejuvenation, and becoming competent at napping when cognitive function declines from afternoon blues. You’ll learn to pair mellow evening habits with a high energy morning routine (plenty of ideas included).

You’ll also turn your attention to proper recovery, both from fitness regimen and workplace overstimulation. You’ll learn about specially designed “Rebound Workouts” that can actually speed recovery in comparison to total rest by stimulating parasympathetic activity. And you’ll learn how to get better about focusing and prioritizing during the workday to avoid the dreaded cognitive middle gear, where you’re busy but ineffective. Finally, you’ll learn the importance of disconnecting on multiple levels to deliver profound hormonal and psychological benefits, stuff we have overlooked and disrespected with our warp speed technological progress.

21-Day Biological Clock Reset

After a comprehensive education and practical instruction about the 4 Pillars, it’s time for a transformative challenge: The 21-Day Biological Clock Reset. The reset features daily action items representing each of the Four Pillars. The journey, while short in duration, is designed to be highly focused and demanding. This is the only way to stimulate lasting lifestyle transformation and release you from the powerful pull of decades-old ingrained habits and powerful cultural forces pushing your out of a balance and stuck in carbohydrate dependency.

You’ll be exposed to a variety of strategies and concepts over the 21 days, and the idea is that you will pick and choose your favorites to integrate permanently into your lifestyle. You’ll be challenged to perform breakthrough workouts, increase daily activity, actually sit down and do stuff like a gratitude journal and create dark, mellow evenings instead of maximum screen time. It’s going to be fun, but it’s also going to be intensive, not to mention life-changing. Completing the Biological Clock Reset once a year is an excellent way to fine-tune your longevity muscles and clarify your focus amidst the constant distractions of modern life.

Recipes

But the food… Folks always want to know about the recipes. The 80+ Keto For Life recipes are a collaborative effort among numerous authors, coaches, chefs and well-known keto experts, including Dr. Cate Shanahan, Keris Marsden and Matt Whitmore of The Paleo Primer series, William Shewfelt of the carnivore diet movement, Dr. Lindsay Taylor and Layla McGowan, my co-authors on the Keto Reset Instant Pot Cookbook, Tania Teschke, author of The Bordeaux Kitchen, and more.

You’ll find everything you need for beginning, recommitting or reinvigorating your keto eating enjoyment with this diverse selection of dishes, from gourmet to quick and easy, from breakfast to beverages, snacks to side dishes and everything in between.

Let me share one today that might appeal….

Sneak Peek Recipe: Keto Cheesecake

Prep Time: 40 minutes (plus refrigeration time)

Cook Time: 60 minutes

Servings: 8

Ingredients:

FOR THE FILLING

16 ounces (453.59 g) organic cream cheese, at room temperature

2 tablespoons pure vanilla extract

2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

1 teaspoon sea salt

1 large egg

¼ cup powdered stevia or 1-2 tablespoons honey

FOR THE CRUST (OVEN METHOD ONLY)

1 cup (96 g) almond flour or 1 cup (128 g) coconut flour

4 tablespoons (60 g) butter, at room temperature

1–2 tablespoons powdered stevia

1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

FOR THE CHOCOLATE CRUNCH TOPPING

¼ cup (34 g) macadamia nuts or assorted nuts

1 bar (3.5 ounces/100 g) dark chocolate (85% cacao or greater), broken into pieces

1 tablespoon coconut oil 2–3 tablespoons fine coconut flakes

Instructions:

Make the filling: In a large bowl, combine the cream cheese, vanilla, lemon juice, sea salt, eggs, and sweetener. Mix thoroughly with an electric mixer on low speed.

Choose between the Instant Pot Method and Oven Method and proceed as directed.

Instant Pot Method: Pour the filling into a round glass bowl or springform pan that can fit inside the Instant Pot. Cover the bowl carefully with foil. Pour 2 cups water into the Instant Pot. Place the cheesecake on the handled steam rack (or in a steamer basket accessory if you have one), and lower the cheesecake into the pot. Cook on High pressure for 25 minutes. When the Instant Pot beeps, allow the pressure to release naturally, about 15 minutes, then lift out the cheesecake.

Oven Method: Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C).

Make the crust: In a bowl, combine the almond flour, butter, stevia, and vanilla until well blended. Press the mixture into the bottom of an 8-inch springform pan or round glass or ceramic baking dish.

Bake until the crust darkens slightly, about 10 minutes. Allow to cool for 10 minutes (leave the oven on). Pour the cheesecake filling mixture into the pan and smooth out the top with your hand (just kidding, use a spatula). Bake until the middle is almost firm, but not quite, about 50 minutes. Allow to cool for 10 minutes.

While the cheesecake is cooling, make the chocolate crunch topping (use for either version): In a small food processor, blend the macadamia nuts until they resemble a crumbly flour. In a double boiler or a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water, melt the chocolate and coconut oil. Mix the nuts and coconut flakes into the melted chocolate.

Drizzle the topping carefully across the top of the cooked and cooled cheesecake. Refrigerate the cheesecake until the crust feels hard, 30 minutes to 1 hour. Slice and serve.

Macronutrients Per Serving:

Instant Pot Method: 323 calories; 29 grams fat; 8 grams carbohydrate; 7 grams protein

Oven Method: 459 calories; 42 grams fat; 12 grams carbohydrate; 10 grams protein

Final Thoughts

I realize that there is an overwhelming amount of content hitting us today from books, magazine articles, blogs, podcasts, YouTube and streaming media, and it’s easy for a new book to get lost in the shuffle or buried on a “read later” list. That’s why I want to reiterate what a hugely expansive and life-changing this book Keto For Life represents. My longtime writing/publishing partner Brad Kearns and I joke that we always underestimate the difficulty and duration of a book project by half, and this was no exception. Keto For Life represents an intensive project that took an entire year to complete, with devoted efforts from a sizeable team of researchers, editors, agents, publicists and publisher. It’s designed to stand proudly for years to come as an owner’s manual for longevity. I hope it can help you claim your fullest and longest life.

Now For the Keto For Life Pre-Order Bonus Gifts…

This is always my favorite part. For those who order the book early, I have a few gifts for you (available right away even though the book itself comes out 12/31/19).

Bonus Audio Summary

Enjoy a detailed overview of every section of the book to get you excited and prepared to begin your Keto For Life journey. My co-author, Brad Kearns, describes the 4 Pillars in detail.

Sneak Peek Excerpt Booklet

Read some choice excerpts to give you a feel for the comprehensive nature of the book, where you obtain a deep education and scientific rationale for the 4 Pillars, as well as get practical, step-by-step guidance to implement, and (finally) enjoy a few of the delicious 80+ recipes from the book.

$10 Discount at Primal Kitchen®

Grab some of your favorite keto-friendly products to add variety and ease to your keto cooking ventures.

That’s what I got today, and I’m thrilled to offer it up to the community where it all began and where it’s still evolving. Folks, I hope you enjoy reading the book and putting it into practice as much as Brad and I enjoyed writing it. Thanks for being here.

Reprinted from KETO FOR LIFE by Mark Sisson with Brad Kearns. Copyright @ 2019 by Mark Sisson. Photos copyright @ 2019 Jennifer May. Published by Harmony Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House.

The post Introducing Keto For Life: Leveraging Metabolic Flexibility To Pursue The Ultimate Goal of Longevity appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

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ellenlucasonlinedatingblog · 7 years ago

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Sexuality in Color: Respectability Politics

Let Rosa be the one; white people aren’t going to bother Rosa, they like her.

In my last Sexuality in Color post, I took some time to acknowledge some of the activists badasses that are left out of common retellings of civil rights movement. Today I’d like to elaborate on exactly why they were left out, how this happens time and time again in a modern context, and why it can be so harmful to people from marginalized communities.

Respectability politics refers to the phenomenon in which members of a marginalized community “police” their own peers, asserting that they should look, dress, act, or speak in a certain way to gain or maintain the respect of the mainstream community. (If you have a second to check out a longer definition, explanation, and contexualization, one of my favorite talks on the subject is called Black Feminism, Popular Culture, and Respectability Politics, given by Trisha Rose, a Professor of Africana Studies and Director of the Center for Study of Race and Ethnicity in America at Brown University.)

The term was coined in 2000 by Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, in her book Righteous Discontent: The Women’s Movement in the Black Baptist Church, 1880-1920. She wrote about the women who would gather in church in order to strategize ways to combat racism and discrimination in their communities. One particular tactic, which Higginbotham termed “politics of respectability,” involved the school teachers encouraging their young black students to “integrate into middle class, white communities” so they would fit in and be distanced from negative stereotypes.

This was by far not the first time this idea of “fitting in to survive” had been put into practice — oppressed peoples have been forced to make a choice to either a) go along with the status quo, try to make the best of it, and try to “prove” their lower status assignment wrong, or b) stand up for what is right, regardless of the risk of losing respect/acknowledgement/power from those in the mainstream who might disagree.

Flash back to what Mrs. Colvin told her daughter after the incident on the bus: Let someone else do it. Rosa Parks has a higher social status and they’ll listen to her. Even the high-profile members of the NAACP said Claudette wasn’t a good candidate to be a representative in this litigation, and it’s precisely because of respectability politics that they made this decision. They were thinking about how this story would sound to the powerful majority of white folks who would read about it in the newspaper and see it on TV. They wanted the most “relatable” and “non-threatening” black person that they could find, in order to appeal to the white public and hopefully influence their litigation for the better.

Claudette was too young, too loud, too feisty, and rumored to be pregnant. (Again, she was not actually pregnant at the time, and after weeks of research I still cannot find anything about the identity of the “married man” who had sex with and impregnated a minor, which speaks volumes about how society back then viewed young women’s sexuality and bodily autonomy — and how society now views black women's bodies.) In an interview with The Guardian in 2000, Colvin talked about how her lower class status and darker skin color than Parks were a part of the decision to exclude her from the movement. In this way, her part in history and the bravery that she displayed were downplayed in favor of creating a narrative that was more palatable to the public, even for purely superficial reasons.

This concept of respectability politics, although deeply rooted in black culture and activism dating back to precolonial times, can also be applied to folks with other marginalized identities who are encouraged to exist in a certain way in order to gain basic respect or common courtesy:

Folks with disabilities or chronic illnesses who are told to “keep a positive attitude,” willingly participate in inspiration porn, or deal with rude or invasive questions and behavior in public.

Black folks who wear their hair un-altered/natural being written up at work for being “unprofessional” or sent home from school for “violating dress code.”

People with mental or psychiatric illnesses who receive support and encouragement only if they choose to do things like go to therapy consistently, take or not take medication, or limit discussing the more upsetting or disturbing aspects of their illness publicly.

Folks who are bisexual or pansexual who are made to feel that they can only be accepted if they are the “good kind” (which translates to being committed and monogamous).

Anyone whose opinion is considered to be less valid or credible because they dress, look, or talk a certain way, especially if these are indicators of lower socioeconomic status or privilege.

The public insisting that young black men like Trayvon Martin or Mike Brown would not have been profiled or killed by police if they had not been wearing hoodies or had things in their pockets (as if those are justifiable reasons to shoot a person).

Transgender folks who feel pressure to identify themselves within the binary, and to medically and/or bureaucratically transition in order to fit in with the mainstream trans narrative; and similarly, gay and queer people across the spectrum feeling like they must “assimilate” into mainstream heterosexual culture and adopt the same values in order to be considered equal citizens.

Women being treated like better or worse by other women depending on their aesthetic choices about their hair, body, clothing, etc.

Folks who practice visible religious rituals or traditions (daily prayer, wearing a hijab, turban, or payot) who are mistreated or harassed.

All of these different experiences and identities combine in a way that puts a lot of pressure on people from marginalized groups to act a certain way to feel like they’re good enough. The reality is, there is no singular, appropriate Way to be Black™ (or Disabled, or Queer, or Bipolar, etc.), because each individual’s reality and life circumstances are different.

I’m personally of the mindset that respect is something that everyone should be given freely — without first being subjected to a test to determine whether they’re rich, clean, educated, happy, or easy enough to fit into a box.

As for those of us within marginalized communities who watch and judge each other’s behaviors, these politics of respectability can only damage the relationships and bridges that we could be building. Whenever someone says “I’d never be like [insert peer’s name], I’m one of the good [insert ethnicity, gender identity, class status, etc]s,” they enact what’s essentially bully behavior. They throw other people like them under the bus to make themselves seem better. All this really does is perpetuate harmful stereotypes and further divide groups of people across lines of inequality.

Combatting this kind of elitism within ourselves isn’t an easy thing to do, either; we’re constantly facing all sorts of subtle and explicit messages about “acceptable” ways of existing in the public sphere. In moments of panic or stress we might be tempted to call out or make fun of someone because the way that they present themselves in the world isn’t traditional or picture perfect, especially when there are more privileged folks around.

In those moments, I try to practice a little bit of what I call “doing-my-best” empathy: as someone who is fat, brown, queer, hairy, chronically ill, and neuroatypical, I may not be what comes to mind when people read my work or look at my business card. And I’m probably not going to be called to model for the #pride section of a JC Penney catalog anytime soon, but I’m doing my best. I am surviving and creating positive change in a world that is complex and difficult to live in, and I deserve respect and recognition for that. Just like everyone else.

Know of a blog, organization, or resource that belongs here? Send it to our curator, Al (that's me!), at al AT scarleteen DOT com.

Interested in contributing as a guest writer for our Sexuality in Color series, or any other part of Scarleteen? Check out our information for writers and then take it from there! Experienced queer and trans writers of color of varied abilities and experiences are always strongly encouraged to apply.

sexuality in color

respectability politics

respect

racism

empathy

internalized messages

social justice

social attitudes

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lauramalchowblog · 5 years ago

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Introducing Keto For Life: Leveraging Metabolic Flexibility To Pursue The Ultimate Goal of Longevity

youtube

Pillar #1: Metabolic Flexibility

Pillar #2: Movement and Physical Fitness

Pillar #3: Mental Flexibility

Pillar #4: Rest and Recovery

21-Day Biological Clock Reset

Recipes

Let me share one today that might appeal….

Sneak Peek Recipe: Keto Cheesecake

Prep Time: 40 minutes (plus refrigeration time)

Cook Time: 60 minutes

Servings: 8

Ingredients:

FOR THE FILLING

16 ounces (453.59 g) organic cream cheese, at room temperature

2 tablespoons pure vanilla extract

2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

1 teaspoon sea salt

1 large egg

¼ cup powdered stevia or 1-2 tablespoons honey

FOR THE CRUST (OVEN METHOD ONLY)

1 cup (96 g) almond flour or 1 cup (128 g) coconut flour

4 tablespoons (60 g) butter, at room temperature

1–2 tablespoons powdered stevia

1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

FOR THE CHOCOLATE CRUNCH TOPPING

¼ cup (34 g) macadamia nuts or assorted nuts

1 bar (3.5 ounces/100 g) dark chocolate (85% cacao or greater), broken into pieces

1 tablespoon coconut oil 2–3 tablespoons fine coconut flakes

Instructions:

Make the filling: In a large bowl, combine the cream cheese, vanilla, lemon juice, sea salt, eggs, and sweetener. Mix thoroughly with an electric mixer on low speed.

Choose between the Instant Pot Method and Oven Method and proceed as directed.

Oven Method: Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C).

Drizzle the topping carefully across the top of the cooked and cooled cheesecake. Refrigerate the cheesecake until the crust feels hard, 30 minutes to 1 hour. Slice and serve.

Macronutrients Per Serving:

Instant Pot Method: 323 calories; 29 grams fat; 8 grams carbohydrate; 7 grams protein

Oven Method: 459 calories; 42 grams fat; 12 grams carbohydrate; 10 grams protein

Final Thoughts

Now For the Keto For Life Pre-Order Bonus Gifts…

This is always my favorite part. For those who order the book early, I have a few gifts for you (available right away even though the book itself comes out 12/31/19).

Bonus Audio Summary

Enjoy a detailed overview of every section of the book to get you excited and prepared to begin your Keto For Life journey. My co-author, Brad Kearns, describes the 4 Pillars in detail.

Sneak Peek Excerpt Booklet

$10 Discount at Primal Kitchen®

Grab some of your favorite keto-friendly products to add variety and ease to your keto cooking ventures.

Reprinted from KETO FOR LIFE by Mark Sisson with Brad Kearns. Copyright @ 2019 by Mark Sisson. Photos copyright @ 2019 Jennifer May. Published by Harmony Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House.

The post Introducing Keto For Life: Leveraging Metabolic Flexibility To Pursue The Ultimate Goal of Longevity appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

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kristinsimmons · 5 years ago

Text

Can Community Be a Medicine?

By ARAS TOKER

Analysis on peer accountability focused community building efforts in making lifestyle changes through digital therapeutic programs

Pfortmüller’s definition of community

Caring and Belonging

Blue Zones LLC

What if moai concept was replicated in online patient communities?

Growth Mindset

Community as Medicine

The power of a vibrant, generous, and a caring community with a growth mindset is empowering for its members.

I believe community can be medicine and should be treated as medicine for the folks that are struggling with chronic physical and mental conditions.

Community -> Adherence Layer

If we can’t solve the engagement and adherence problem I don’t think we’ll have a sustainable digital therapeutic solution.

Andrea Tummons on Unsplash

Peer Accountability

Measuring Hypothesis

A Successful Experiment

“Community can exert a measurable and ongoing influence on your health behaviors in a way that a diet never can”

Daniel Buettner, NatGeo Fellow, Founder of Blue Zones

Accountability 2.0 — Doing Tiny Interventions TOGETHER

Graphic illustration by Nitya Wakhlu, produced at the Experience Engagement conference in October 2015.

Community of Practice

Final Remarks

A caring community with a shared purpose and a sense of belonging can be a medicine for a physical, mental and an emotional health if we choose it to be.

Aras Toker is the co-founder of Peace of Mind, a digital therapeutic program designed to reduce anxiety by doing daily interventions together with peers.

This article originally appeared on Medium here.

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razorblade-eyes · 7 years ago

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Why Not Having Children is a Valid and Healthy Choice

Women are constantly questioned about our reproductive choices: How many kids are you going to have, and when? Are you going to breastfeed? Do you use birth control or support reproductive rights? Are you, as a pregnant woman, really going to eat that food or lift that weight?

It’s impossible to answer these questions in a way that doesn’t provoke judgment from at least some people, but little provokes as much judgment as a woman who chooses not to be a mother at all.

Eva* knew from an early age that she did not want to have children. But people told her that she’d eventually change her mind, so she expected “baby fever” to hit against her will. “Almost like having your first period, as if it were something unavoidable that just happens and changes your body,” she said. So she waited.

But it never happened.

Eva, who describes herself as Puerto Rican and bisexual, is now 30 and in a long term relationship with a cisgender man. And she feels just as certain about not having children as she ever did. “I do not have the ‘baby fever’ that loved ones as well as strangers argued I would have by now,” she says.

Nearly half of women between the ages 15 and 44 are forgoing motherhood altogether — the highest rate ever tracked [1]. The number of women who never have children is increasing, though most data doesn’t distinguish between the voluntarily childfree and those who wanted to but could not have children. In 1976, only 10 percent of women hadn’t had children by their 40s. By 2006, that figure had doubled [2].

Because language always matters, let’s define some terms. Childless means the condition of being without children, but it also implies that the person being described would like to have them. Many people who don’t want to have children prefer the term childfree, as it doesn’t imply a sense of longing, but rather contentment.

Being childfree comes with a social price, however: womanhood and motherhood are treated as synonymous in our culture, and women are often defined by our reproductive desires and potential.

Having children is society’s default plan, and not doing so is still viewed as deviant or a failure at being a woman by many.

“Society communicates to girls at an early age that being a mother and having children is a defining and mandatory role,” says Iris,* a Cuban American straight married woman in her early 40s. “We grow up believing that women who don’t want to take on that role are somehow wrong, broken, bad, selfish, rebellious, not woman enough, and not worthy of being considered seriously by a partner.”

Coming to the Decision

Despite those messages, Iris also knew from a young age that she didn’t want children. She describes feeling “absolutely no desire or instinctual drive to be a mother,” and “uncomfortable and awkward in situations where other people feel comfortable and natural around kids.”

Iris’ sentiments are shared by many childfree people. Cierra,* a black queer single woman in her 40s, “was never moved by the notion…even as a kid, I never played ‘mommy,’ and didn’t have names picked for future kids.” Sandra,* a 44-year-old mixed race (Vietnamese and white) straight married woman says “I don’t recall ever wanting children. According to my mom, I never played with dolls, or played house. I never saw myself as a mom in any way.”

This isn’t the experience of all childfree women. Amy Blackstone conducts extensive research on the childfree and has found that people come to identify as voluntarily childfree from different pathways [3]. Some people wanted children, and then life circumstances did not allow or they waited so long that having biological children wasn’t an option [2].

Tina,* a 37-year-old white straight married woman, is one such person. “Through the majority of my 30s, I have been intentionally pregnant on more than six occasions,” she says. “Some of those pregnancies survived into the second trimester, but none were healthy enough to be carried to term.” After her last pregnancy ended in a miscarriage at 10 ½ weeks, she and her husband “took parenting off the table completely for both of our sakes.” Ultimately, she is content and certain they made the right decision.

Blackstone’s 2016 research says that childfree people do not enter lightly into the decision not to parent [3]. Other researchers agree, finding that the childfree put a lot of thought into what it means to be a parent, and also into what it means to be childfree [4].

Leigh,* 41-year-old biracial (Asian and white) queer woman who is partnered with a cisgender man, said she came to the decision gradually. She works with children, loves them, and thinks she’d probably make a good mom. She thought often about what kind of parent she would be when she was younger, but changed her mind through the years based on many factors.

Reasons for Not Having Children

Research shows that women’s reasons for not having children vary widely and are well thought out [4]. Other than a strong lack of desire for motherhood, other reasons include:

Environmental and social concerns Eva worries about overpopulation and “all the children without homes already.”

Fear over the current state of the world Iris says, “The world is so, so, so scary, and I am terrified of raising a child to be a good human in it, and keeping them safe.”

A level of responsibility and commitment they do not want Blair,* a 27-year-old white straight woman in a long term partnership, says “ Children are a huge commitment. It’s not a commitment I want.” Many also mentioned the mounting expense of childrearing.

Fears they would replicate harmful behaviors from their own parents Melanie,* a 30-year-old white straight woman says she is too afraid to pass on her “genes and mental illness” or be an “abusive, harmful, neglectful parent like my mother was.”

Their own health issues Andrea,* a 38-year-old white queer woman married to a transgender partner, says that her “chronic health and mental health issues” make the idea of having children feel “absolutely daunting” both “from a physical and emotional standpoint.” Leigh feels motherhood isn’t right for her because she is facing the same health condition that caused her to lose her own mother at a young age.

Having already done significant caretaking As the oldest of five children, Andrea has already spent a lot of her life caretaking others. Aduwa,* a black woman in her early 40s in a long term queer relationship, says “One of the biggest hindrances to my desire to bear children in my 30s was the amount of elder care that I did. It was extremely emotionally demanding as well as demanding of my time.”

Career goals Some women unapologetically make their careers a large focus of their time and energy. Several women mentioned that their careers were hard fought, or they are self-employed and would have a difficult time balancing that with parenthood.

A path to motherhood that feels too complicated Women in queer relationships may have to rely on reproductive technology or adoption. Several mentioned that for them, the extra leg work to produce children was a hindrance that tipped their decision to no. Aduwa says, “I am in a relationship with a person who does not produce sperm…none of the choices I have in front of me for conceiving my own child are appealing.” Andrea adds, “The cost and complications of conceiving with a partner who does not produce sperm added a lot of headaches that we both felt really didn’t fit with our lives.”

Stigma Against the Childfree

Many people consider the decision not to parent as not only abnormal and surprising, but also morally wrong. A recent study found that people report anger, disgust, and disapproval toward the voluntarily childfree. “Through parents and peers, people learn that parenthood is both typical and expected” wrote study author Dr. Leslie Ashburn-Nardo. “People who violate social role expectations based on widely shared cultural stereotypes are subject to perceivers’ backlash.” [5]

Blair is keenly aware of this. “I think people often take my personal choice as a judgement on or challenge to their choice to have children.” She says that parenting “is so deeply connected to lots of people’s identities… and it’s so often linked to morality that it can feel like a tangled mess to talk about.”

Race also plays a role in perceptions of childfree women. Whereas perceptions of white women vary less based on parental status, African American women are viewed less favorably when they’re childfree [6].

Feedback From Others

“You’ll change your mind.”

“You’re missing out on the best part of life.”

“It’s selfish not to have children.”

“Don’t you want to give me grandchildren?”

“Who will take care of you when you’re old?”

Because childfree women are still disconcerting to many, most have heard a few, if not more, of these sentiments. Sandra has received “mostly ugly feedback.” She shares, “Random strangers have many, many opinions about the occupancy status of my uterus, especially at cocktail and dinner parties…The worst is at work. Because I work in a school… I’ve had parents tell me that they don’t trust me working with kids as a non-parent. The funny thing is, I’ve probably logged more hours with kids than many parents.”

Feedback for those who are childfree because they could not have children is different, though often still quite painful and tone deaf. After Tina’s fertility troubles, folks were eager to offer obvious or financially unattainable suggestions, such as surrogacy and adoption — suggestions she did not ask for.

“I think I could write a novella at least on how not to act towards the childless,” Tina says. “Especially because you do not know what their path to that choice was.”

How Can You Respond?

If you’re childfree, you might be used to handling unkind and inappropriate comments. Here are some ideas for responding to the aforementioned feedback.

“You’ll change your mind.” Well, I haven’t so far.

“You’re missing out on the best part of life.” I think we should all decide what makes our own lives feel fulfilling!

“It’s selfish not to have children.” It would be very selfish and unkind of me to have children that I didn’t really want.

“Don’t you want to give me grandchildren?” With all due respect, you got to make your own life decisions, and now I get to make mine.

“Who will take care of you when you’re old?” I have other people in my life who care about me, and I think this is a selfish and inappropriate reason to have children.

The Childfree Future

Since society views having children as the default future for most women, what do we do if that’s not the future for us?

Anything and everything else.

The women I spoke to are excited about the many life plans they have. Some of these include pursuing and continuing their rewarding careers, caring for multiple rescue animals, volunteering for causes that they believe in, traveling, and loving the people in their lives. And while they’re aware that these things can be done while parenting, they are choosing these things instead of parenting.

Blair, Aduwa, and Andrea all say that they’ve had significant role models in their own lives who were fulfilled, childfree women, and that contributes to their confidence that this is the path for them.

Not all of the women I spoke to are against the idea of parenting all together. Eva is very excited about the possibility of adoption, and several mentioned that fostering is not out of the question.

Aduwa says, “I will still be caring for and about the other people in my family, biological and chosen. I will continue to work full time in a caring profession, with children.”

Many of the women are in caring professions with young people as the focus. Many have nieces and nephews that are an important part of their lives. Tina already feels fulfilled by the children in her life, including a niece, nephew and friends’ children. These alternatives to parenting still allow for the nurturing of young people, though it’s OK if women don’t feel inclined to do that at all.

The women I spoke to are also unapologetic about the benefits to being childfree and enjoying their leisure time.

Sandra shares, “I’ve had such a flexible and interesting life! My husband and I have lived in five different cities. I’ve been able to make unusual career choices. We travel, shop, and eat out with reckless abandon. I’ve been able to devote tons of time to activism and politics. And I get to nap whenever I want!”

Aduwa adds, “So many of my adult years have been consumed with a level of responsibility for other people in my family that I didn’t anticipate. I would like for my middle age life to be less responsible for others. And to be able to use that energy to please myself and invest in myself and my own interests.”

Remaining Sensitive

The childfree women I spoke to are incredibly thoughtful about their conversations with women who may not be childfree by choice, or who consider themselves childless.

Leigh says, “It’s harder with friends who…are struggling with infertility or multiple miscarriages, some of whom know that I have actively chosen not to be pregnant and not to have children. Some conversations just feel too emotionally fraught to have, and it seems kinder to just not talk about it.”

“I find myself sometimes holding back talking about this subject because I am aware, especially when meeting other childfree women around my age these days (40s), that some are not childfree by choice,” says Iris. “They’ve had difficulty getting or staying pregnant, or they don’t want to do it alone and are waiting and hoping to meet someone they want to have a child with. I don’t want to be insensitive or inconsiderate, so I don’t tend to talk about it unless asked.”

She points out that one of the most popular “ice breaker” question she gets from women of any age is “And do you have kids?”, “How many kids do you have?” or “How old are your kids?” She notes that she has the privilege of glossing over these questions easily, but they may be “gut wrenching” for some women.

What We Should Remember

Even if we truly can’t understand someone’s decision to parent or not, that doesn’t mean it’s invalid. Childfree folks and parents aren’t in competition for who made the better, more moral choice.

It’s a perfectly valid and healthy choice not to have children, and whether another woman has or wants children or not is not anyone else’s business. Parenting is an option, not an obligation.

There are many different ways to be a woman, and we don’t get to decide another’s path to true happiness. We don’t need to criticize or punish women who don’t conform to gender stereotypes, including the stereotype that a woman must always be a mother.

Sandra stresses the connection between a childfree life and being her truest self. “To have children would, to me, feel like the least authentic thing I could do.”

Iris says, “It is really hard to navigate these very deeply ingrained messages that are part of everyday life from such an early age, and be able to hear your own voice and honor what you truly want for yourself and the way you want to live your life.”

“For every woman who feels that a childfree life is for her, but is second guessing what her own voice and her own body are telling her, I hope our stories help her stay true to what she wants for herself.”

* Names have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.

Resources for Childfree People

Complete Without Kids blog from Psychology Today

We’re Not Having a Baby

Childfree Reflections by author and advocate Martha Drut-Davis

Book: Complete Without Kids: An Insider’s Guide to Childfree Living by Choice or by Chance

Book: No Kidding: Women Writers on Bypassing Parenthood

Book: Confessions of a Childfree Woman: A Life Spent Swimming Against the Mainstream

References

2014 US Census Population data; http://ift.tt/2o2NpS6

Blackstone A, Stewart MD. Choosing to be Childfree: Research on the Decision Not to Parent. Sociology Compass. 2012;6(9):718-727. http://ift.tt/2Cio7SU.

Blackstone A, Stewart MD. “There’s More Thinking to Decide”. The Family Journal. 2016;24(3):296-303. http://ift.tt/2o1jqtO

Settle B. “It’s the Choices You Make That Get You There”: Decision-Making Pathways of Childfree Women. Michigan Family Review. 2014;18(1):1. http://ift.tt/2CdZjvf

Ashburn-Nardo L. Parenthood as a Moral Imperative? Moral Outrage and the Stigmatization of Voluntarily Childfree Women and Men. Sex Roles. 2016;76(5-6):393-401. http://ift.tt/2o3Vwxx

Vinson C, Mollen D, Grant Smith N. Perceptions of childfree women: The role of perceivers’ and targets’ ethnicity. Journal of Community and Applied Social Pyschology. 2010;20(5):426-432. http://ift.tt/2Cj2dPE

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boomvanababyboomer · 8 years ago

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We Boomers Are Changing The Healthcare Landscape

Kendra and Jay Jeffcoat are the quintessential baby boomer couple.

Kendra, 69, recently retired after a long and successful career as a college professor.

Jay, 70, who spent his college years as student body president at the University of California, Santa Barbara, protesting the Vietnam War, continues to work full time as a corporate attorney in San Diego. In January 2013, Kendra was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer, which had metastasized in her brain. She never smoked, nor was she around secondhand smoke. But as Healthline noted in November 2014, lung cancer among women who don’t smoke is on the rise. Kendra endured brain surgery, several courses of chemotherapy, and a clinical trial for a cancer vaccine. She is now being treated with Opdivo, a new immunotherapy medication from Bristol-Myers Squibb that helps a person’s immune system fight cancer. It was approved last year by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The emergence of immunotherapies is considered a game changer in the treatment of cancer. Kendra and her husband are pleased that this new treatment is available. Kendra said she was shocked when she was first diagnosed, but age has given her the wisdom to deal with it. “The joy of being over 60 is that a person has the experience and wisdom to deal with the realities of a crisis with joy, hope, and laughter,” she told Healthline. “Each round of chemo, radiation, vaccine therapy, and now immunotherapy, provides an opportunity for a roller-coaster ride from sadness to hope. You must be strong and surround yourself with optimistic people who love you deeply enough to tell you the truth. Being a baby boomer, I can see the ironies and humor of life, and thrive joyfully in the midst of whatever challenge I meet.” Added Jay, “We have a great life. We’re both very active, I exercise every day. We spent three weeks in Ireland last year. We’ve been to South America. And we hope to take a river cruise in St. Petersburg, Russia, this year. These new treatments hopefully will allow us continue enjoying our life.” Baby boomers turning 70 The oldest members of the baby boom generation turned 70 this year. But this group of nearly 75 million men and women born between 1946 and 1964 still see themselves as young and essential. The boomers are determined to stay young, hip, and healthy. Today, the generation that preached “don’t trust anyone over 30” is heeding Dylan Thomas’ call to “not go gentle into that good night.” They’re stubbornly raging against the dying of the light as they set out to prove they aren’t done just yet. As a result, this generation is having a profound influence on healthcare in the United States with a unique set of demands, and challenges. Boomers are the creators, as well as the recipients, of massive innovations and breakthroughs on multiple health fronts, from new, less toxic cancer treatments to an all new paradigm for American emergency medicine. Overall health concerns Baby boomers dominated the American cultural landscape for decades. They don’t appear too eager to relinquish that crown. But they’re clinging to a greased rope. Popular culture and social media are now largely shaped and defined by millennials, the young men and women, ages 18 to 35, who now number 75 million. Generation X, which is made up of people aged 36 to 51, is also projected to pass the boomers in population by 2028, according to the Pew Research Center. Although there are plenty of misconceptions about boomers, perhaps the biggest one is the notion that they are healthier than previous generations. In fact, a new United Health Foundation study of the health of senior Americans found that boomers will be entering their senior years with “higher rates of obesity and diabetes and lower rates of very good or excellent health status, putting significant strain on the healthcare system.” In fact, the Trust for America’s Health recently noted that 62 percent of Americans between the ages of 50 and 64 currently have at least one chronic condition, such as heart disease, because of obesity. In an interview with Healthline, Dr. Dilip Jeste, professor of geriatric psychiatry and director of the University of California, San Diego, Center for Healthy Aging, explained why boomers aren’t quite as healthy as one might think. “With many jobs requiring more sedentary work, longer commuting, more television watching, etc., middle-aged baby boomers were found to have less average physical activity than middle-aged folks from previous generations,” said Jeste. “While smoking has become less common, physical activity has not increased,” he added. “On top of that, sodas, sugar-rich juices, and double cheese burgers are making the diet more unhealthy.” Jeste said boomers also have higher rates of depression, anxiety disorders, and substance abuse than the previous generation. The precise reasons for this are not known, Jeste said, but there are several possible explanations. “Baby boomers are more open to diagnoses of mental illnesses than the previous generations, and are more likely to seek treatment for them,” he said. “Talking about their own depression or taking Prozac or Zoloft is not as much of a stigma for them as it was for previous generations.” Jeste said that primary care clinicians are also more open to diagnosing and treating these mental illnesses now than they were 30 years ago. “There is growing social anomie, with globalization, mobility, increased competition for jobs, higher divorce rates, more single-parent families, and rapid changes with technology, resulting in greater stress,” he said. But Jeste added that boomers overall are optimistic and determined to stay young and live longer, and that for the most part this is a healthy way of looking at life. “The main thing is that aging is not just physical. There is, of course, a psychosocial element,” he said. “We are all in part responsible for our own aging. Our center looks at aging in a positive sense. We try to help people enjoy the process. People do become more accepting as they age.” Breakthroughs in cancer treatment When it comes to cancer treatments, baby boomers like Kendra Jeffcoat are at the “leading edge” of the precision or customized medicine paradigm, said Dr. Razelle Kurzrock, director of the Center for Personalized Cancer Therapy at the UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center. “This model will see the introduction of a new way of doing clinical trials,” Kurzrock said. “This concept is applicable to all our clinical trials, since genomics tells us that each patient and tumor is unique. Boomers will see this new paradigm enacted and should be at the forefront of pushing it forward.” Dr. Sandip Patel, assistant director of the Clinical Trials Program at Moores, added that baby boomers are a key patient group in the development of novel therapies that not only work better against cancer, but are substantially less toxic than traditional chemotherapy. “These include immunotherapies and targeted therapies in particular, with a focus on developing approaches to personalize therapy based on each individual’s unique cancer,” Patel said. “A large majority of our cancer clinical trial patients at UCSD are in the baby boomer generation.” Patel said the hospital provides multidisciplinary care “to best help baby boomers fight their cancer on all fronts: supportive and palliative care, psychosocial support groups, as well as some holistic medicine approaches such as acupuncture. This new wave of innovation in cancer treatment, Pavel noted, “is happening just as baby boomers are approaching the age in which they may need these novel therapies.” Dr. Ezra Cohen, associate director for translational science at Moores, said it is “not unrealistic to think that the baby boomers will be the generation that experiences the most substantial transformation in treatment ever, with even cures where we never imagined.” But Cohen added, “They are also the generation that has to help make this happen, and they can by participating in research, lobbying public funding sources, and providing support. It is up to all of us to end cancer.” Boomer emergency rooms Another burgeoning new trend in healthcare is the advent of geriatric emergency departments geared specifically to boomers and other seniors. UC San Diego Health, in a partnership with West Health, a nonprofit health organization, is currently designing a state-of-the-art senior emergency care unit to be housed within the future Jacobs Medical Center, a 10-story, expansion of UC San Diego Health’s La Jolla campus that opens later this year. Largely answering to the fact more than 10,000 baby boomers in the United States turn 65 years of age each day, the new emergency department will focus on geriatric medicine, acute care screening, urgent care, case management, and social and psychiatric care. With a focus on fostering “successful aging,” the department will also facilitate home- and community-based care options when possible. “We are delighted to partner with UC San Diego, a leader in aging initiatives, to create an innovative environment for delivering outcomes-based senior emergency care,” said Shelley Lyford, president and chief executive officer of the West Foundation and the West Health Institute. “This model will serve as a catalyst for broader adoption of improved senior emergency care here and across the nation.” Dr. Vaishal Tolia, an assistant clinical professor at UC San Diego Health whose primary specialty is emergency medicine, told Healthlne that emergency departments are “re-examining the role we play.” “We are no longer isolated as a separate section,” he said. “We see ourselves now as the central gatekeepers as far as who gets hospitalized, and as a referral point and safety net for all kinds of patients.” Tolia said his department visited several of the geriatric emergency departments around the country to try to learn best practices. “We learned that there is no standard to call yourself a geriatric emergency department, there is a lot of variability in places that call themselves geriatric ED’s,” he said. “There are some hospitals that call themselves geriatric EDs, but they do not have a dedicated space or staff. They maybe have a couple of additional things for that patient population but no real established criteria.” Tolia said a new focus on geriatric emergency departments is improving the overall experience for the patient. “No one wants to be there and we are want to create a positive, comfortable environment where family can be involved, where we can assist folks that have vision or hearing issues, where patients are safe,” he said. “Just as there are architectural features in pediatric departments, where you see colors, cartoons, things that make it comfortable for a child, we are doing some of the same things with geriatric ED’s including making sure the floors are not slippery and that the acoustic and sound are good.” In response to this booming trend, the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP), American Geriatrics Society (AGS), Emergency Nurses Association (ENA), and Society for Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM), recently issued a comprehensive set of guidelines covering everything from staffing to education to handling common problems of aging, such as falls, delirium, and dementia. “Geriatric emergency departments first appeared in 2008, but this is the first time there has been a standardized template for how they should be set up and how care for older patients should be delivered,” Alex Rosenau, past president of ACEP, said in a statement. “It is important that the special needs of these vulnerable patients are met appropriately in the emergency setting. As of 2010, there were 40 million people in this age group, and many of them will be emergency patients at some point.” Breakthroughs in dementia prevention Other issues that are on the minds of baby boomers as they get older are Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. There are significant new clinical trial results in Alzheimer’s, the most common form of dementia. While scientists from the Netherlands have found that a six-year, nurse-led vascular care intervention did not lead to a reduction of all-cause dementia in a cognitively healthy population, fewer cases of non-Alzheimer’s dementia were observed in the intervention group compared to the control group. In addition, the scientists saw fewer cases of incident dementia in a subgroup of people in the study with untreated hypertension who were adherent to the intervention. The study observations suggest that “the benefits — or the head and the heart— of assessing, treating, and managing heart health risk factors as we age,” Maria C. Carrillo, Ph.D., chief science officer of the Alzheimer’s Association, said in a statement. An article in May 2015 in Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association, noted that “there is sufficiently strong evidence, from a population-based perspective, to conclude that regular physical activity and management of cardiovascular risk factors (diabetes, obesity, smoking, and hypertension) reduce the risk of cognitive decline and may reduce the risk of dementia.” Desert trip a bad trip? Perhaps the final big national bash for the baby boom culture is the upcoming Desert Trip, a megaconcert in the Southern California desert featuring six of the most iconic musical acts and artists in the baby boom canon. That would be Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, the Who, Neil Young, and Roger Waters of Pink Floyd. Predictably, the jokes are already flying about this concert, which folks on social media are calling “Oldchella” or “AgeCoach.” Among the quips: “They’ll be trading selfie sticks for walking sticks.” “Instead of acid, the drug of choice at Desert Trip will be antacid.” “Has anyone called the Hells Angels to police Desert Trip?” Desert Trip takes place over two weekends in October at Empire Polo Club, the site of Coachella. But unlike Woodstock, one of the boomers’ defining events, this one is unlikely to see much mud or protests. The event, which is already sold out, is expensive and not for those boomers on fixed incomes. The demographics of the Desert Trip audience will likely cut across four generations. But there will undoubtedly be many boomers in attendance, which poses some interesting health and safety challenges for planners. Could some aging boomers attempt to relive their Woodstock or Monterey Pop Festival days and take drugs and dance all night? When asked what precautions the concert planners are taking in terms of providing doctors, nurses, first aid stations, and more at the concert site, a spokesman for the Desert Trip declined to comment. In other words: Boomers, if you’re headed for Desert Trip, take good care, because apparently you’re on your own. By Jamie Reno Click to Post

#antiaging #health #lifestyle #longevity #mental health #nutrition #wellness

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