Time to Move with Spring Energy!

I love Spring. The renewal of life, energy, and all it brings is breath taking to me every year.

Today is March 5th. As I walked in the woods with my dog, I can feel the pull of the sun. It is getting warmer, brighter, stronger... another winter survived! I can smell scents that were not there even 2 days ago; scents of the coming Spring.

I even found a Great White Pine whose south side's snow was already melted away. I sat my butt, right in the pine needles, and pressed my spine up along this mighty pine's trunk. The sun was in my face and the pine needles under me were fragrant in the sun's warmth.

The earth I sat on.

The Great White Pine, looking up her trunk, as I sat in the sun.

Spring motivates movement: sap rising, buds opening, shoots sprouting, doors and window being moved up and open, people getting out of their homes, and on & on.

I want to encourage you to move this Spring. Get outside and reap the benefits of moving your body, being exposed to natural light, and breathing in the fresh air.

Movement of the body is a natural, sacred, and healing thing. People moved constantly to complete the tasks of daily living and food gathering (as I sit here click click clicking!) before modern technology and labor saving devices.

• digging
• gathering
• hoeing
• walking
• chopping
• on & on the movement went!

We have traded daily, steady and slow going movement for either next to no movement or run-run-run and get high intensity exercise into an hour movement. It is like we have to fit the whole day's movement, pre-tech, into 1 hour. From a functional medicine perspective, slow and steady is better. Slow and steady does not create the free radicals and inflammation of high intensity, high metabolism exercise. Slow and steady: walks, yoga, tai chi, qi gong, canoe, kayak, hike, bike, mt. climb, moderate weight lifting, push ups... movement for low impact and longevity.

Embrace the Spring the renewed energy of the sun, and more movement this season.

Things I do during my day of client support and education, business work, and blog / newsletter writing:

• get up and do a yoga pose or two or three every half hour holding the pose for 7 long, deep belly breaths
• stop to do the dishes while dancing at the kitchen sink
• walk around my house, up & down the stairs and toss in some push ups for good measure
• throw in a load of wash, I hang all of my wash so the bending to get clothes out of the basket and lifting arms to hang is a good motion to break up the sitting habit 
• go out for a walk around my home and maybe do a hand stand or two up against the red pine or the stone wall 
• resist the call of the Great White Pines in my back woods... or not and wander off to commune with the White Pines, sit with my back to her trunks, and gather some life force energy while enjoying the peace - solitude - and earthy scents of the woods (then it is back to work for me)

My requests of you:

1. Comment below and share what you do to move more as the Winter breaks into Spring.

Also, I have a request for you natural remedy peoples out there. The sacred, great white pine spot in the pictures above is a favorite spot of mine. Sitting with my back to the trunk, my face is towards the southerly sky and the sun. I am looking over a sweet little body of water. The problem is: when spring rolls on the poison ivy grows there.

2. Does anyone have a natural way of getting rid of poison ivy? Please comment below. 

My idea is to use my hand clippers and start clipping it back when the shoots are just popping up out of Mother Earth. If I keep doing this every few days, my logic is this clipping will starve the roots of nourishment (no sun on the new shoots means no photosynthesis keeping the roots nourished) and eventually kill off the roots and plants. 

I have never had poison ivy and walk through it frequently. Yes, I now avoid touching the plants as I have become older and wiser. As a kid, I did not care and never got more that 1 - 2 tiny blisters on my bare feed from trodding through poison ivy patches for the reward of a swim in the St. Regis River.

Happy Spring Equinox! Happy Spring Moving! Cheers.

PS  I know the season's names are not proper nouns, require no capitalization, but I cannot help but believe they deserve to be honored with capitol letters. The seasons are sacred; nature is sacred, you are sacred (you are nature).

Gluten Free Bread Recipe:   

http://www.paulayoumellrn.com/gluten-free-bread/

No Quick Fixes

The "quick fix miracle" I can offer to you...

Almost daily I receive emails and/or FB messages asking me for quick fixes for all sorts of health symptoms and ills including weight loss products... "Will this really work for me and make me lose the weight?" I have stopped sending answers with suggestions. Truly, for me to even consider responding to these messages is unethical on my part as it does not serve the person's best interests.

Quick fixes do not exist for problems that have settled into our body cells over a lifetime of eating and other less than optimal lifestyle habits. Truly it takes motivation to change and commitment to the process for the "fix" to be had. And... the fix is a lifetime process, a lifetime commitment. When we reach the goal, be it weight loss or the end of some cluster of ill health symptoms, our wellness walk is not over. The walk is a walk of life and for life: a commitment to self to make the best choices every day for cellular health and overall vital wellness.

Now I will tell you this: sometimes there are quick relief strategies for problems and symptoms. What I mean is I can suggest a little tweak here and a little tweak there to give quick relief for some issues while we work to get at the underlying reason these problems exist. Then we can work on changing what needs to be changed to get rid of the problem symptoms forever.

Examples of some quick relief strategies (keep in mind these are not long term solutions but rather a "get me over the hump until we can figure better solutions":

• muscle spasms and cramps (especially at night making you shoot up out of bed in crazed agony): take magnesium 400 mg at bedtime and drink more pure water throughout your day.

• constipation: again, magnesium (of the citrate variety) will assist here as well as more fruits and veggies, more pure water, move your body daily, and maybe use some herbs for a bit of relief until we can correct the underlying issues.

• sleep issues (keep in mind sleep issues can vary from trouble falling asleep, to staying asleep, to experiencing quality sleep): magnesium can help here as well, get off the caffeine and sugar, get outside and move...

Divine Weight Loss eCourse

Last night I was told the story of a local man who has transformed himself (over 2 years... it is about the long haul and commitment to self). He went from a 340 pound ill health human with serious cardiac issues; severe back, hip, knee, and ankle/feet issues; diabetes; depression with 3 medications; and high cholesterol to a 180 man with no health issues, no medications, and a healthy, fit body free from disease and depression.

What did he do? Changed the way he ate, what he ate, and got his butt to the gym and out for walks every single day. Sunshine. Fresh air. Movement. Real food, nothing processed. No sugar. Inner Conscious Connection work: how he thinks about himself and the world.

Why? Because his body was falling apart from the way he had ill treated it. It was a conscious decision on his part: stay grossly obese and sick or choose health.

He is a happy man for his endeavors and I wish he was my poster child! He did this on his own - Woo Hoo for him!

Lifestyle choices are up to you. I am offering you the opportunity and support to make health and healing choices in your life.

Blessing of good health and happiness on your personal path, Paula

E-Courses To Walk Your Health Path

Traditional Foods, Traditional Movement

Eating whole foods, real foods, the foods that are traditional to one's area of living and thriving on this planet is one key to healing personal (and global) health. I praise the cell enhancing and body healing benefits of a 100% whole food diet all the time.

I now want to introduce you to traditional movement, the act of simply moving your body in flexing and strengthening ways, the time honored ways people on this planet have always moved their bodies. This is moving the body in the simple acts of daily living tasks that involve using the body not auto door openers and mechanized, labor saving devices. 

The farmers of Birdsfoot Farm, Canton, NY going about their daily tasks: moving, flexing, and strengthening their bodies all while creating something tangible... whole foods! Explore Birdsfoot Farm's website to see what they are up to and what they have to offer towards your healing plan!

We are a culture that simply needs to move more. Movement creates all sorts of healing effects in the body and creates an upward spiraling ripple effect to entice us to make other healing changes in our lives. When we move and then feel better... we naturally want to make even more changes to feel even "More Better!" (My kids used to use this grammatically incorrect more better making the term very endearing to me.)

We are told by the media, scientific sources, and all sorts of exercise specialists that we need to get our butts in gear, dramatically increase our heart rates for at least 20 minutes daily, lift weights to keep our muscles and bones strong, etc., etc., etc. I am not going to tell you to not engage in such activities if you are so inclined to do so. What I am going to tell you (if you are not one inclined towards hard core, butt hauling, sweat inducing, heart pumping, serious shit at the gym exercise...) is that simply getting up and moving your body, several times daily, has huge benefits for your whole body, and yes for your each and every beloved body cell!

As I grow older, I like to think common sense and wisdom is growing with me. I am one who has run miles daily (getting those miles in at 6 1/2 minutes or less was imperative), rode my bike for long and hard miles, lifted my body weight in all sorts of ways (bench presses, squats, lunges, etc.), and swam laps across rivers and lakes... I think you get the picture. In comes the wisdom (I am glad I did those things as I have always had too much energy that I needed to burn but my wisdom also tells me that some of it wore hard on my body parts)... all 4 of my grandparents lived to be just months shy of 89 years old. Not one of them ever did hard core, sweat inducing running, biking, weight lifting, swimming, etc. They simply worked hard in their tasks of daily living, moving their bodies constantly throughout the day to take care of farm animals, gardens, orchards, wood for winter fires, hay for winter feed, etc. Their exercise and weight lifting was part of life and survival from year to year. 

Lifestyle Hints: walk away from the computers (Yup, me too) go for walks, even short ones, several times daily. Walk up the stairs to use your upstairs bathroom every time you need to go (Or do laps about the house, even outside, if you only have a down stairs bathroom). Drop and do some push-ups before peeing, drop and do some crunches or V-seats (boat pose) when you are finished on the pot. Stack wood (I have 4 more cords needing stacking if anyone is interested in assisting with some free movement, no gym membership fee required and I might even make you lunch!) Walk more, do work by hand instead of using machinery, i.e.: push that lawn mower instead of sitting on it (do push-ups and pull-ups before and after mowing), split wood by hand, hoe-rake-shovel-weed, do everything you need to by hand using those glorious muscles and save the drive, and membership fee, to the gym.

I am off now to do some muscle flexing-strengthening-balancing yoga, push-ups, and a walk in the woods with my dog. I will contemplate the wood stacking and lawn mowing!

Create some Movement Magic in your own life!

Sean Corn, Yoga Teacher. Image from Yoga Journal August 2015, page 23, Rainbow Light Nutritional Supplements ad.

This chilly, wet weather on June 28th has me looking for something to do in my oven. With a hankering for yummy granola and my local yogurt, the timing seems perfect to whip up a batch of...

Gratifying Granola

Please feel free to assume that all ingredients are whole (unrefined), organic, non-GMO, pasture raised animal products, and as local as I can get.

• 2 1/4 cup oats
• 1/2 cup spelt or amaranth flour
• 1/2 cup corn meal
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• 1/3 cup water or milk of choice
• 1/4 cup butter, melted
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• pinch of unrefined sea salt
• 1 tbsp. vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 250 F.
2. Blend dry ingredients together in large mixing bowl.
3. Beat eggs in a separate bowl.
4. Add other wet ingredients to beaten eggs and mix well. If batter is seemingly too "wet" add tiny amounts of flour and meal to create a damp batter.
5. Drizzle wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and stir to blend well.
6. Spread granola batter in a thin even layer in baking pan(s).
7. Bake for 2 hours at 250 F. Set a timer for every 20 to 30 minutes and stir granola well and redistribute into a thin layer on the pan(s).
8. When granola seems crunchy and well baked (not burned) remove from oven and allow to cool in the pan.
9. Transfer cooled granola to air tight containers. I prefer wide mouth quart canning jars with the 2 piece metal lids.
10. Enjoy in any and every way you enjoy granola!

Yoga IS Snake Oil!

Yoga IS My Drug Of Choice For EVERYTHING.

Snake Oil, urbandictionary.com, comes from the 19th-century American practice of selling cure-all elixirs in traveling medicine shows. Snake oil salesmen would falsely claim that the potions would cure any ailment.

Snake oil, wikipedia.com, is an expression that originally referred to unproven medicine.

I made this bold statement, the blog post title, with a big chuckle and a twinkle in my eye. Snake oil is such a fun pairing of words!

My making the statement that Yoga is snake oil is only in fun as Yoga IS now being recognized for the amazing healing modality; the healing tool that it is. India has been aware of and using Yoga as a healing tool for somewhere between five and ten thousand years. Yoga has a very long history of healing body, mind, and spirit!

I started my yoga practice over 25 years ago. I was not looking for healing; I was looking for change. I had been lifting weights and running for too many years. I was bored of the same old, same old. I wanted something new, something challenging to mind and body. Little did I know I would be challenging my spirit as well!

Yoga builds strength in body, mind, and soul. Yoga is a great way to keep the body physically toned, flexible, and fit. While all of this physical transformation is going on, seeds for deep inner transformation are being planted. The very act of deep breathing through and with your body movements creates a gentle binding of body, mind, and spirit. This creation of the whole is the healing transformation.

My first Yoga pose book. I borrowed it from the Potsdam Library, 17 years ago. This is my library copy; an Amazon purchase of some library's throw away book.

Another book I have used for years to share healing Yoga poses series with clients is:

This book has healing Yoga sequences for every ill health issue you can imagine. There is a lot of prop use. I do the poses as close to the pictures as possible.

A new Yoga book I picked up in the last year has become another favorite of mine: 

Tera's pose series are simple and easy to incorporate into a busy life. 

Yoga's Effects:

Yoga is a valuable tool to place (and actively use every day) in your holistic toolbox for healing body, mind, and soul.

I will give you 7 simple reasons that yoga IS what you have been looking for, a tool to take you to the next level on your personal path of healing.

1. Your body will respond physically to the beauty of yoga.  Your muscles, bones, tendons, and ligaments will become longer, stronger, and physically fit.  Stick with yoga; you will see the results in your mirror!

2. You will intuitively move towards healthier choices in your life.  Around food, this is a healing event! Your food choices will become healthier, whole foods.  Your body will respond by balancing your weight into a healthy space for you.

3. Your mind will become calm.  The breath awareness, on the mat yoga poses, will follow you off the mat.  A calm, centered, grounded life is the benefit. Bonus: you will sleep better and move through your day in bliss!

4. Your body will be in the flow of life.  Your Chi life force energy flows, unimpeded, when you regularly practice yoga. This healing energy, flowing freely through your body, helps to heal ill health symptoms. Your body heals!

5. Better circulation of blood (not just Chi life force!).  This means heightened  nourishment of your body’s cells and more efficient removal of cellular waste. Every organ will function better as your cells glow with vibrant health.  Results: higher level of thoughts, your intelligence will shine, intuition flows, creativity sparks, and your spirit soars.

6. Yoga is Movement Magic!  In a world where much sitting happens, Yoga is a gift of movement, flexibility, and balance.

7. Yoga creates inner peace. ☮️ It’s the breath thing and vagus nerve toning. Your vagus nerve is the seat of Chakras & kundalini energy flow. Patience & peacefulness relaxes body-mind-spirit and aids your healing.

   When we are stressed, even our DNA gets tight. Peaceful presence relaxes DNA & the healing energy of your being can easily buzz up & down the DNA strands repairing & healing. Healing happens when you sleep 🛌 because you are relaxed. Yoga supports you living in relaxed peace mode. Yoga supports your DNA healing 24-7. 🧬🧘🏽‍♀️❤️‍🩹🧘🏻‍♀️💕🧘‍♀️🧬

Truly, I could go on and on about the benefits of yoga.  My purpose here is to somewhat quickly entice you to engage in a daily yoga practice; even 10 to 15 minutes a day.  With a regular yoga practice, the benefits become obvious and you will yearn for more.

Yoga IS an answer to your mind, body, and soul’s healing prayers! Your personal healing snake oil!

Namaste'

Kissing Low Back Pain Goodbye

Movement is essential to treat, heal, and prevent low back pain. I want to introduce you to my friend, Lisa Huck. Lisa is a Functional Movement Fitness expert, she lives in LA, California. Lisa's YouTube video explains the anatomy of the low back and essential information about movement and low back pain. 

Here is an article from Mercola.com that talks about back pain, movement, and exercise: http://fitness.mercola.com/sites/fitness/archive/2014/01/31/back-pain-exercise.aspx. If the article seems blank, be not fooled, scroll down and it is there! It is the 2nd video in the article.  Lisa huck is a gifted functional movement exercise therapist in California.

This is the above mentioned video. The first 14 minutes gives amazing anatomy & physiology healthy and pained back issues. Go directly to minute #14 and you will see the simple, easy to do, and takes maybe 4 minutes low back relief exercises. They work!

Posture: 

Good posture is essential for ridding and preventing back pain. Most people's body alignment, posture, is way off course. Pay attention when you sit and stand. Does your body feel comfortable, natural, bones stacked above bones where they are meant to be.

Some of you may be saying, "What? How am I supposed to know where my bones are supposed to be stacked? I am not an anatomy expert." 

To which I will reply, "All wisdom about your body is inherent within you. We have ignored this wisdom for so long that we no longer can find the information, readily, in our heads. We need to look deep into our heart and spirit and the information is there."

Call it up - this wisdom, bring it back into your life. It will help you to heal in so many ways.

When you sit:

• Lift your hips up slightly so that your hips are higher than your thighs. This will create a downward slant to your thighs (if you put a wooden dowel on your thighs it would slowly roll down your thighs and off your knees).

• Chin up

• Lift you heart towards the sky. This simple positional change will pull up your whole body carriage (your skeletal structure) into proper alignment.

Check out the seat in your car. Does the back of the seat (where your butt sits) incline or decline? 99% (my guestimate) of car seats have a decline here. Your butt sinks down in and makes the slant of your thighs run opposite to proper posture alignment. 

Easy fix here: put a towel roll in this dent in the seat space so your butt is lifted up higher than your thighs. This single action, on your part, will do wonders for your back on the daily drives. 

Spend much time sitting at work? Lift your butt up on this chair as well. (Get up and move every 30 minutes or so. Moving the body helps prevent back pain from sitting, sitting, sitting all day.)

Standing:

• Again, lift your chin and lift your heart towards the sky. Feel how your whole spinal column moves into correct alignment, how your whole skeletal alignment changes for the better? 

• Heels: your heels function best when just slightly lower than the rest of your feet. (Yes, ladies who wear high heels, this does not bode well for the fashion statement!) This is why Anne Kalsø designed the Kalso Earth shoe:

                        Anne Kalsø 's passion for yoga led her to study in Switzerland and eventually in                                  Santos, Brazil. It was there, in 1957, that she observed the excellent posture of                                    indigenous Brazilians, and the impressions left by their bare footprints as they walked                          through beach sand. She observed that the footprints laid were deeper in the heels                             than in the toes. This natural body position resonated with the thoughtful Kalsø. It                                 echoed a formative yoga pose she knew well – Tadasana (the 'Mountain' pose). 
                      As she herself emulated the pose of the native Brazilians, she noticed how her own                             posture improved, and how her breathing passages opened. She was inspired.

                                   From: http://www.earthbrands.com/kalsoearthshoe/kalso-the-kalso-story

Lifestyle:  This is where I say what I always say. No, do not click the x and close me out... listen people, I am trying to help, support, and love you!    : )

Your lifestyle is not independent of your aches and pains, health challenges, disease symptoms, and illnesses. If your body is not nourished well with whole foods, your cellular health suffers, you will feel pain eventually from weakened body systems. A wellness lifestyle makes all the difference!

Making changes in your life, choosing whole health lifestyle choices, heals the body. Check out the free health info pages on my web site. http://www.paulayoumellrn.com/free-health-info/

• Whole Health Lifestyle Choices

• Whole Food Eating

• Movement Magic

Get moving & eating whole foods, get rid of back pain!  Tell me your back pain healing story in the comments section. Do you use chiropractic care? Acupuncture? Massage?

Bye Bye Back Pain (cont.): this is the next part of Kissing Back Pain Goodbye

PS  Check out my YouTube video on defining holistic health & healing. 

Divine Weight Loss Tip #7, #8, #9, #10

Jake, my oldest son, practicing Tree Pose in a tree!  Teaching lifestyle habits for a lifetime of wellness!

Wait, what?!  Tips #7 through #10 in one fell swoop? 

My answer is yes. These are basic lifestyle habits that make your body soar with feel good energy, happiness, and balance your body weight.  When you feel good... you want to feel better. Health begets health; wellness begets wellness. It is an addictive thing!

Now that I have brought up the issue of addictions... Have you labeled yourself as an addictive personality type? "I can't give up sugar (or soda, or chips, or whatever), I am so addicted."

Why do addictions always seem to be for "bad" things, unhealthy choices? If we can get addicted, why not get addicted to:

• healthy choices,

• fitness,

• fruits and veggies,

• choosing to be happy despite what is going on around you,

• real food grown by real farmers,

• yoga,

• walking in the woods,

• gratitude,

• taking your health into your own hands?

Go ahead; ponder over what being addicted to healthy things could be like in your life. Sit. Be quiet. Breathe. Visualize healthy living coming from your core being. What does that look like? Feel Like? How can you put it into action, reality, in your life?

Eli, my youngest son, doing what he does when frustrated, angry, or overwhelmed with energy: quiet, breathe, visualize being calm.

Seeing 2 of Eli? Can you guess why? Leave a comment with your guess.

OK, now for Tip #7 through Tip #10

#7  Get plenty of sleep!  Skimping on sleep to “get things done” is not a whole health habit!  Getting to sleep before 10 PM maximizes production of melatonin and works with the earth's circadian rhythms for great sleep and health.  

Going to sleep, before 10 PM, reduces cortisol levels. Cortisol is a stress hormone that helps the body put on and keep on abdominal weight. Sleep peacefully to reduce your cortisol levels.

Stay away from bright lights and screens (computers, etc.) for 3 hours before sleep.  Bright lights make your body think it is daytime and impair the sleep cycles.  Get all lights out of the sleep area; even LED lights disturb good sleep hormone production. 

The moon and stars are fine!

#8 Daily physical activity. Start now and continue for life.  Your body is a beautiful creation meant for movement, poetry in motion. Your bones, muscles, and joints are singing out to be put into this motion. Listen; hear your body begging to be moved!

Hint: Get outside and move.  Fresh air and natural light are imperative to good health, endorphin, hormone, and neurotransmitter production. See below.

#9 Daily exposure to natural sun light and fresh air.  Exercise, work, play, read, and relax outside! And for an extra bonus... get to sleep (before 10 PM) outside! Seriously, sleeping outside is a health enhancing habit!

The natural light exposure, again, enhances the body's circadian rhythms. Fresh air and the sounds of nature calm and soothe body, mind, and spirit.

When our bodies function, with the rhythms of the earth, we are so much more balanced as human beings. This inner balance makes it easier to choose healthy lifestyle habits.

#10 Increase your intake of water; clean, pure water!  Water is crucial to healthy cell function. Just as your body cells need to be nourished with whole foods, so too they need water to carry on the processes of metabolism. Keep your cells happy, feed them water.

Use clean, pure water to make herbal teas. Herbal teas are high in minerals and nutrients that add to body cell nourishment.

Your gorgeous body cell. You want all of them to be healthy! There are trillions. One thing I find amazing about this is that every thing we eat has an impact on trillions of life forms (all a part of you!).

If your water supply is chlorinated, filter it.  Use a chlorine shower filter so you are not absorbing and breathing in chlorine as you shower.

Divine Weight Loss Tips 1-6 & final Tip:

1. https://www.paulayoumellrn.com/blog/2014/8/2/divine-weight-loss-tip-1

2. https://www.paulayoumellrn.com/blog/1370

3. https://www.paulayoumellrn.com/blog/2014/8/4/divine-weight-loss-tip-3

4. https://www.paulayoumellrn.com/blog/2014/8/5/divine-weight-loss-tip-4

5. https://www.paulayoumellrn.com/blog/2014/8/6/divine-weight-loss-tip-5

6. https://www.paulayoumellrn.com/blog/2014/8/7/divine-weight-loss-tip-6

7. https://www.paulayoumellrn.com/blog/2014/8/11/divine-weight-loss-final-tip-11