Tag Archives: self-care

How to Have a Stress Free Holiday Season

Posted on by

stress free holidayBy Georgianna Donadio, MSc, DC – The holidays are a special time to pause, give thanks for the richness and blessings of our lives, and enjoy time with friends and family. Shopping, party planning, gift wrapping, visiting friends and family can also be hectic, stressful and expensive.

One of the ways from to ensure a more stress free holiday is to decide what you would like from this year’s experience. There are a number of ways to approach the festivities that will carry you into the New Year renewed, refreshed and fulfilled rather than stressed-out, exhausted and in debt.

Setting unrealistic expectations for yourself or anticipating a particular outcome from others is a common pitfall. Another common problem is feeling the need to create a perfect celebration, buying the perfect gifts and being sure that you don’t forget anyone on the gift list.

We can avoid many of these stressors by identifying the most important outcomes we want and also what outcomes we wish to avoid. Before committing to attend celebrations that could potentially create time stress, or require presents that would create money stress, choose to limit the number of activities and set a very specific budget for gift giving. This alone can really shift your holiday experience from stressful to joyful.

One great way to experience more cheer for yourself and bring joy to others is by being creative with your gift giving. You can personalize the holidays and avoid spending far more than you might intend by baking, cooking, knitting, crafting, and scrapbooking for friends and family. These are all creative, meaningful and personal ways to let others know how special they are to you. Nothing says love like handmade gifts.

It is also important to keep up with your whole health self-care routine which may include exercise, relaxation, vitamins or whatever activity you do to take care of yourself. This is a great way to keep your body producting anti-stress hormones.  These wonderful hormones can assist you to feel healthy, happy and filled with cheer, even during the busiest time of the holiday season!

Happy Holidays!

Doctors Taking Control of Healthcare

Posted on by

Doctors Taking Back Control Of Healthcare

For those us of old enough to remember Marcus Welby, MD and Dr. Kildare, the beloved TV docs we grew up with, we also remember a time when physicians ran healthcare. They set policy, budgets, insurance coverage guidelines and pretty much, back then, “everything healthcare” was directed by the doctors.

The insurance carriers, growing tired of paying for unnecessary surgery, warned the physician groups who ran the show that if they did not clean up the medical abuses taking place, the insurance industry would take away their decision making by enforced second opinions and limit paying for procedures that were being unnecessarily performed. Back in the 1970’s, there were millions of hysterectomies. Of these, 66% were deemed “unnecessary” by what has become the Medical Review Board watchdog.

Now in the U.K., to quote an article from English.news.cn, “The new British coalition government revealed on Friday that it planned to put doctors in charge of funding for frontline services in England’s National Health Service (NHS), in a change hailed as the biggest in 60 years.”

This is big! If this were to be enacted in the U.S., we could see a return of physician driven healthcare that is provided, determined and distributed by the same medical type of physician groups that were unable to police themselves a mere 30 years after the establishment of the American Medical Association and the mainstreaming of the pharmaceutical industry.

Granted, we have in place excellent watchdogs peer review boards and medical review requirements, but this works because of the lack of conflict of interest with the way these structures have been put in place.

The healthcare reform bill has yet to flex its muscles and most of us feel pretty much in the dark about what we can expect. No surprise since an overwhelming majority of politicos who voted on the bill had little to no idea what the bill contained!

The issues we see with today’s healthcare delivery simply reinforce the Whole Health vision of taking control of your body, preventing disease with common sense health hygiene and limiting the use of acute care medicine we as Americans are blessed to have available to us. Every day the news contains articles identifying the long-term use of even over the counter medications and caution us to realize we cannot repeatedly put these chemicals into our bodies and not experience consequences.

Chronic disease, which is the bulk of what is treated in healthcare today, is preventable and cost effective. Let’s create our own healthcare reform with self-directed whole person care – that means taking care of ourselves with consideration to all 5 aspects of health. In advocating this type of care through patient education, we all move toward living well and living long.

For more whole health discussions, listen to Dr. Georgianna Donadio’s radio show Living Above The Drama.

Yoga Is More Than A Trendy Form Of Exercise

Posted on by

Yoga Is More Than A Trendy Form Of Exercise

Somehow our Western world has managed to transform yoga into a trendy form of exercise, while bypassing the wisdom and spiritual enhancement that yoga has to offer. True yogis know that this ancient and sacred method of self-care and self-discipline is not just an exercise, but rather a system that promotes wellness of body, mind, and spirit.

It may be that the challenge in our multi-talking, fast-paced Western society is teaching or learning about holistic health, or mind/body/spirit science, in a way that invites an organic understanding, especially in a hectic culture where everyone seems to be running on limited time and seeking immediate results. Most Western yoga teacher training programs do a good job teaching the asanas, but fall short in providing critical, science-based information about how they affect the body systems.

Kathy Farrell, a 32-year-old Hatha Yoga teacher who runs the Boston Public Health Commission’s fitness center specifically felt that the anatomy and physiology elements were lacking in her yoga certification program. She is quoted as stating that the “broader picture and the evidence of how the mind, body and spirit work together was knowledge I was missing.”

Some programs also seem to be lacking in teaching how to develop mindful, meaningful relationships with students. One of the main reasons people do not continue with alternative modalities, such as yoga, is due to a lack of understanding of the enormous emotional, nutritional, and spiritual benefits as well as physical benefits from continuing such a practice. A remarkable, integrated model of health education, Whole Health Education ® ,  has emerged over the past two decades, providing the teacher and student alike a larger “whole picture of health” that can facilitate how yoga is taught, and very importantly, how yoga is understood by a Western evidence-seeking audience.

Through this whole health, relationship-centered approach, a yoga teacher can possess and share with students a scientific and spiritual understanding of body, mind and spirit health. Farrell agrees: “Whole Health Education ® is essential training for all yoga teachers and anyone in the health arena. Professionally, I am now a better teacher because I have the evidence of interconnectedness and can help my students delve deeper. For example, in the case of a blocked chakra, I can identify the organs that are connected to that particular chakra. I am not just a better teacher but also a better person all around because it has helped me to graduate to a deeper level of happiness. I no longer want to take the band-aid approach but rather, it has made me more aware of looking at all aspects of my health, the ability to identify imbalances, and the knowledge to make the necessary changes.”

In addition, in learning how to develop mindful, invitational relationships with students, yoga teachers can attract more students and provide the additional quality of life benefits they are seeking from their yoga practice. An organic understanding of yoga enhances this experience. This model of teaching and learning also helps to integrate current medial research with the wisdom of various ancient spiritual teachings and a natural outlook on healing, all centered on integrity and compassion. In addition, it demystifies anatomy, physiology, nutrition, environment, spirituality/psychology, and integrates these sciences to give yoga teachers and students an integrated understanding of the “big picture of health.”

In addition to being an outstanding and unique method of teaching and learning, this education model can uncover what the real cause and effect of our diseases are or how we can heal what ails us. The Whole Health Education ® model invites individuals to discern what they know about their health, what choices they can make to eliminate or control their health problems, and what kind of care they choose to utilize. This invites an experience of holistic health through our own filters, and in a way that is compatible with our authentic self and personal beliefs. In this model, individuals become the empowered center of their own health and healing process.

 

 

For more whole health discussions like this, listen to my weekly radio show Living Above The Drama available on iHeartRadio.

 

 

Your Relationship With Yourself Is The Foundation Of Everything

Posted on by

Your Relationship With Yourself Is The Foundation Of Everything

Susannah Conway, author of This I Know: Notes on Unraveling the Heart, said it best when she wrote, “Your relationship with yourself is the foundation of everything.” But what does a healthy relationship with ourselves look like? And how can we develop a good relationship with ourselves if we are unsure of what that is or what that looks like?

A good relationship with ourselves would look the same way a good relationship with anyone looks. It entails respect, kindness, awareness, fulfillment, having needs met, friendship and creating stress-free memories.Here are some ways that we can cultivate a good relationship with ourselves that will influence the relationships we have with others.

Start With Self-Care
We need to look after our physical, emotional, nutritional, environmental and spiritual needs to nourish ourselves on many level. Focusing on caring for ourselves in this most basic way establishes self-respect and healthy habits. It also sends a message of self-love to ourselves, which is the most important component of caring for oneself.

Make Time For What Is Important To You
If you feel good taking time for your first cup of coffee or browsing the bookstore to find a perfect book that uplifts or entertains you, be sure to take the time on a regular basis to give this gift to yourself and brighten your day. Whatever your favorite soothing activity is, be sure to carve out space in your schedule to allow such experiences.

Identify And Set Boundaries
The boundaries we establish for ourselves will have a great impact on the boundaries we set in our relationships. By not allowing ourselves to work too hard, play too little and spend too much, we will be looking out for ourselves as well as identifying appropriate ways to interact with others. Moderation in how we live and avoiding extremes is an ideal way to be centered and stay in that healthy zone.

Be Your Best Friend
Because a relationship with ourselves is the only relationship we can depend on having every single day of our lives, it is most important that we are our own best friends. By developing a positive, nurturing and loving relationship with the most important aspect of our lives (that is, ourselves), we build a strong foundation for all other relationships that follow.

It is often said that we continually repeat the relationship we develop with ourselves with all the other relationships we have in our lives, so it is essential that it is a caring, respectful and nourishing one.

For more information about this topic, you can access a free excerpt from the bestselling book Changing Behavior: Immediately Transform Your Relationships with Easy to Learn Proven Communication Skills by visiting www.changingbehavior.org.

 

FREE Whole Health Consultations available.
888-354-4325 Take charge of your health!