My Yoga Mat IS My Magic Carpet
OR... Why I Love Yoga, Take 3!
4 1/2 years ago I wrote an article titled Why I Love Yoga and Other Thoughts on Whole Food, Whole Health Healing that has been published on several Yoga, Mindfulness, Health, & Healing websites. It was my attempt to lure you into a personal practice that will transform the manner in which you exist in this world and support you making the best health and healing choices with each and every choice you need to make!
Did I lure you? Are you immersing into yoga to change your inner landscape so your outer world blossoms?
OR... Why I Love Yoga, Take 3!
5 years ago I wrote an article titled Why I Love Yoga and Other Thoughts on Whole Food, Whole Health Healing that has been published on several Yoga, Mindfulness, Health, & Healing websites (In a professional holistic Nursing journal as well). This writing was/is my attempt to lure you into a personal practice that will transform the manner in which you exist in this world and support you making the best health and healing choices with each and every choice you need to make.
Did I lure you? Are you immersing into yoga to change your inner landscape so your outer world blossoms?
Yoga plants seeds. Seeds that are possibilities for life long change.
Yoga lifts you up (body, mind, and spirit) so you can soar and sway with the breezes of life, being calmly flexible. Yoga also roots you down and grounds you into your life so you can be stable and steady no matter what comes your way.
Yoga has taught me, reminded me, that my human body is a sacred vessel for spirit. My body is the home of the divine essence that is me.
I am a soul in a human existence not a human walking around with a soul (Wayne Dyer, one of many, kindly reminded us of this). Once we embrace our divine essence and purpose, in our human form, it becomes easier to make those healing lifestyle changes and stick to them.
Your lifestyle choices can and will build your soul a home that is a castle that can weather life with grace. Your lifestyle choices can also cobble together a shack that feels unwell, daily, and falls apart easily.
When we come home to this, truly embody the fact that we are divine beings within a human body, it makes the task of choosing healthy lifestyle habits the path of least resistance.
Our inner conversation goes from impulsively eating, without conscious thought, those two pieces of cake sitting there just because they ARE sitting there to being about making choices that are best for body-mind-spirit.
Building Castles not Shacks.
A regular Yoga practice creates new neural pathways of thinking in body, mind, heart, and spirit. These pathways create inner calm, peace, and presence in the hear & now. I have always called this Inner Conscious Connection. Mindfulness is the word we all here now.
Stepping off of my Yoga Mat Magic Carpet, navigating the world in a magical way, transforms the whole world into my Yoga Mat Magic Carpet.
Sending Love from My Castle to Yours. Namaste.
Join Shelby Connelly & I at Five Elements Living Retreat Center for a 3 hour Yoga - Acupuncture Mini-Retreat: April 8th (evening retreat) or April 11th (morning retreat), 2018
Beginner's Yoga : Letting Go Of Awkward Yoga-Acupuncture-Self Care Evening Or Morning Retreat
More articles to inspire you to jump on a Magic Carpet of your own:
Green is the Heart Chakra... Love Your Yoga!
Grounding Yourself for Emotional Healing
1. Remind yourself that you are in complete control of you.
2. Start your day with an AM grounding experience. I do a blended visualization / meditation that takes 5-7 minutes and grounds me for the day. I sit on the stone steps in my back yard with my feet in contact with the ground. (Urban dwellers, sit and visualize your feet in the grass, connected to Mother Earth!) I close my eyes and visualize white light coming from the ground, up through my Chakras and Nadis, then turns around at the crown Chakra and goes back into the earth taking all negative (dark light) energy back into the earth to be absorbed. I visualize white light coming from above, through my crown Chakra, and circling back up at my root Chakra taking negative energy back into the atmosphere. I do both of these twice.
1. Remind yourself that you are in complete control of you.
2. Start your day with an AM grounding experience. I do a blended visualization / meditation that takes 5-7 minutes and grounds me for the day. I sit on the stone steps in my back yard with my feet in contact with the ground. (Urban dwellers, sit and visualize your feet in the grass, connected to Mother Earth!) I close my eyes and visualize white light coming from the ground, up through my Chakras and Nadis, then turns around at the crown Chakra and goes back into the earth taking all negative (dark light) energy back into the earth to be absorbed. I visualize white light coming from above, through my crown Chakra, and circling back up at my root Chakra taking negative energy back into the atmosphere. I do both of these twice. Next I visualize white light coming from the earth again, up through my root Chakra. When It turns the corner at my crown, this time it goes back into the earth and creates a root system from my tailbone down into the earth. Now visualize white light from the crown Chakra, turns at the root Chakra and turns again at the crown Chakra to go back into the earth. Again, visualize the roots coming from your tailbone deep into the earth to ground you for the day’s challenges. Finally, I swirl white light energy around my body, from feet to head, like a twister moving up my body. This is to protect me from negative energy and other’s stress.
3. Create peace in your life with a regular yoga practice. The benefits of Yoga are profound. You will intuitively move towards healthier choices in your life. Your mind will become calm. Your body will respond physically, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually to the beauty of yoga. Your body will be in the flow of life. This is true mind -body -spirit healing.
4. Nourish your body with 100% whole foods. To get started on whole food eating, pick up a copy of my book, Hands On Health: Take Your Vibrant, Whole Health Back Into Your Healing Hands. Read the Free info on my website: Principles of Whole Food Eating, Whole Health Lifestyle Choices, & more Free Health Info
5. Get to bed and be asleep before 10 PM. When your body is asleep before 10 PM, the level of stress hormones in your body drops. When you stay up late, burning the midnight oil, your body pays through higher levels of cortisol hormones. This is stress. Sleep, sweet dream sleep, before 10 PM and your body’s glandular system works for you in a balanced manner, making happy feel-good hormones!
6. Get outside every day, preferably moving your body. Yes, I mean exercise. Call it movement magic that heals the divine you! Something as simple as a brisk paced walk in the fresh air and natural light can do much to reduce stress, create feel good hormones, help you sleep better at night, and ease the challenges of daily life so you can think clearly and make healing choices around food and your health habits. Get outside in sun/wind/rain/snow/fog, walk barefoot, sit on ground, hug a tree, rest your spine against an old growth tree… just breathe in the world around you. Your body, mind, and soul will thank you for this grounding, earthy experience.
Positive, holistically-minded, lifestyle choices make for healthier, happier living. For a full list of lifestyle choices I recommend to my holistic health coaching clients, click here. More Free Health & Self Healing Info, click here.
7. Create a grounding habit you can return to, in a moment's notice, for immediate calming energy. Here is how...
- Find a body motion (hands in Namaste or prayer position or a Yoga Mudra that calls to you),
- a "saying" or mantra* (Amen, Namaste, Blessed Be, Mitakuye Oyasin, Om mani padme hum), and
- a visualization of a space in nature that is sacred to you.
When you close your eyes and do all three you will bring yourself to a place of inner calm. Proceed forth from a space of thoughtful action as opposed to emotional reacting. The ideas in parenthesis are just that, ideas. Create a 5 second ritual that is your special way of coming into your calm. Use it daily. Use it in any moment that you need to stop and think rationally before you proceed forward in your next step or choice. This is a quick grounding experience.
Be Well; Very, Very Well, Paula ; )
Extra posts on creating calm, grounding, and healing eating/health habits:
To find more related posts do a search on my blog for: yoga, weight loss, &/or mindfulness.
*Saying or Mantra meanings, they are all Blessings
- Amen: So be it, the well wishing of your prayers & meditation being sealed for integration and to come to fruition in the world
- Namaste: Sanskrit, the Divine in me honors the Divine in you
- Blessed Be: Wish good and positive things upon self & others
- Mitakuye Oyasin: Lakota, we are all related, interconnectedness of everything, we are all brothers & sisters (all beings on Earth, not just humans)
- Om mani padme hum: Buddhist, No literal English translations, jewel in the lotus, invokes compassion
Create Constant Calm
Anxiety and panic attacks are a common health concern. The ages of affected people range from young elementary kids to our wise seniors. Anxiety seems to be across the board and a common denominator in many of my client's health struggles.
I will not tell you there is a quick fix, a silver bullet, or magic wand answer.
Anxiety and panic attacks are a common health concern. The ages of affected people range from young elementary kids to our wise seniors. Anxiety seems to be across the board and a common denominator in many of my client's health struggles.
I will not tell you there is a quick fix, a silver bullet, or magic wand answer.
I will tell you there are some self-help triage habits you can put into place, now, while you work on the long-term lifestyle changes that will weave and create an inner magic of calm and bliss.
Yes, I know, there is some eye rolling going on here. I cannot tell you often enough how you are in complete control of your own health: body, mind, and spirit. You have the personal power to make every change necessary to create vibrant health, inner calm (even when the world around you is spinning out of control - remember, we can ride the merry go round, we just don't have to get carried away with the ride), and radiant self healing.
Quick Fix Triage:
This is to help you get on with your life right now BUT please realize you need to work on the long-term solutions below for creating true, lasting calm. Healing body (physical) - mind (emotional) - spirit (soul) is key to whole health.
Teach yourself to deep breathe right now. Yes, right now. Sit, relax, and close your eyes. Now deep breathe way down low into your belly. Remember the "take 5-10 breaths before you knee jerk respond in anger" advice. It is a truth. Do this deep breath at least 5 times in a session. Repeat several times daily.
Deep breathing habits, doing while in yoga poses is fun as well, supports toning of the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve is a large nerve in your parasympathetic nervous system, your rest & digest - “Constant Calm” branch of your nervous system. Constant stress keeps the sympathetic nervous system branch activated, your fight-flight-freeze branch of the nervous system.
Create a grounding habit you can return to, in a moment's notice, for an immediate calming energy. Here is how... Find a body motion (hands in Namaste or prayer position), a "saying" or mantra (Amen, Namaste, Blessed Be, Mitakuye Oyasin), and a visualization of a space in nature that is sacred to you. When you close your eyes and do all three you will bring yourself to a place of inner calm. Proceed forth from a space of thoughtful action as opposed to emotional reacting. The ideas in parenthesis are just that, ideas. Create a 5 second ritual that is your special way of coming into calm. Use it daily.
Chamomile tea is a blessing. Add some passion flower, calendula flower, peppermint or spearmint, lemongrass, lavender flowers (use lavender in small amounts)... there are many tea blends offered by many companies. Buy 3 or 4 and use a different one each time. This prevents developing resistance to the plant medicine's affects. (Teas: Yogi Tea Calming, Tazo Chamomile Calm, Traditional Medicinal's Cup Of Calm, Yogi Relaxed Mind, Yogi Stress Relief, Celestial Seasoning's Tension Tamer - this tea is in glued tea bags so cut the bags open and use the loose herbs to avoid steeping glue into your tea. How to steep medicinal infusions: click here.)
Paula's Tea, below, is available at the Potsdam Food Co-op. It is a simple, calming, medicinal tea recipe I threw together to create a video with Shelby Connelly of Five Element's Living, Colton, NY.
Magnesium: this is a body, mind, spirit relaxing mineral. Think Epsom's salts baths. Try a product called Natural Calm by Natural Vitality. Available at Nature's Storehouse in Canton. The 2 teaspoon dose is 325 mg. I recommend 400 mg at bedtime. This is magnesium citrate and will assist if you are constipated. If constipation is not an issue, this could create loose stools. Pay very close attention. After 1 week, up the dose to 500-600 mg daily by using Calm in the morning and at bedtime. If your bowel movements get too loose try using magnesium glycinate for part of your daily dosage. Magnesium deficiency is common in many people and contributes to tension and anxiety. Taking Vitamin D uses magnesium for integration into the body and can contribute to magnesium insufficiency/deficiency. Pure Encapsulation brand is available in citrate and glycinate form as well as magnesium malate.
Herbs Etc. Brand Stress ReLeaf tincture or gel caps. This is the link for the tincture because it has the reviews of the product: http://www.herbsetc.com/stress-releaf-1-oz/ I would buy it in the gel cap 60 bottle; 120 bottle if they had one.
Create a habit of gratitude for everything. This is both an in the moment triage habit and a long-term lifestyle habit, much like the take a deep breath advise above. When we cultivate a true attitude of gratitude in our lives it helps to bring inner peace.
Are You Ready for Lifestyle Changes to Create Vibrant Health (and prevent & heal anxiety)?
1. Food is the foundation of your health. If you are eating a whole food diet you are doing these things for your body:
Creating vibrant body cells that retain their level of health with each new regeneration of cells (degenerative disease, including anxiety, is a degeneration of body cell health contributed to by eating food that is not real, not whole)
Feed your gut microbial population for health and well being. Whole foods feed the gut bugs you want living in your body and starves the ones you want to see less of in your life. The reverse happens with junk, packaged, processed foods.
Feeding neurological health by creating healthy neurons (see cell health info above) and healthy neurotransmitters (those feel good hormones manufactured by your gut microbes - see advice above).
I could go on & on about the impacts of whole foods on each and every body system. If you want this info; please, give me a call and we will chat.
2. Get rid of sugar and caffeine in your life. They both feed poor mood health. Sugar is a get rid of completely issue. Yup, bye-bye sugar. (I have a donation based online class to help you kiss sugar goodbye for good. Click & Scroll down to Sugar Addiction Be Gone.)
If you drink one cup of coffee a day, and it does not interfere with your sleep at night, don't deprive yourself of this pleasure. Life is about pleasure and the morning, calm & peaceful coffee ritual is a daily self gift.
3. Sleep, my friend, sleep. You know how much sleep you need to function at top notch capacity and feel happy and energetic. So do this! Keep in mind: sleep needs change with monthly cycles, seasons of the year, and your age. Pay attention to you and your individual needs and fulfill those needs! Lack of sleep causes stress. This sleep deprivation just feeds into the cycle of anxiety. Get off this particular merry go round ride. : )
4. Move your beautiful body. Exercise (that is not a dirty word) fuels your body with energy, feel good hormones, and helps you sleep at night. Move yourself outside so you get the added benefit of...
5. Natural sunlight (even on cloudy days): the sun does really recharge your personal batteries. Remember to get plenty of sunshine that is not interfered with chemical sunscreens. You need healthy levels of vitamin D, manufactured by your skin, to prevent anxiety. Be smart; don't overdo it and burn your skin but get out there and manufacture some vitamin D. If you need sunscreen for extended outdoor time: use a natural one. Chemical sunscreens are toxic to the very body cells you are feeding whole foods to create vibrant health. Why do counter-productive things in life?
6. Get your digestive health in order. You body needs a well functioning digestive tract to digest food and move nutrients to your body cells. Healthy digestive tracts have a gut microbial population that manufactures mood hormones that keep you happy and calm.
7. Yoga is a gift you give yourself to reclaim your body, mind, and spirit for a peaceful presence in this world. Any body, mind, spirit exercise will do here if yoga is not your thing: Tae Kwon Do, Tai Chi, Qi Gong... If you want to learn more about the benefits of yoga: go to your right on this page, type yoga into the search bar, and click. You will pull up many posts I have written about the healing beauty of yoga.
I have many more suggestions to alter your lifestyle and create vibrant health for anxiety prevention. Check out my WHOLE HEALTH LIFESTYLE page and make your sense of calm and peace soar to new heights.
A Yoga blog post to deepen your wisdom around creating inner peace: Why I Love Yoga and Other Thoughts on Whole Food, Whole Health Healing More yoga posts from a search on my blog: http://www.paulayoumellrn.com/search?q=yoga&f_collectionId=539c849de4b01d9b6dd2fef4
Grounding Yourself for Emotional Healing
My books below were written to support your path of healing.
Hands On Health is a lifestyle primer to support your making healthy choices across all aspects of your life.
Weaving Healing Wisdom is a book on mindfulness and how to create it in your life with activities, food, yoga, herbs, essential oils, and lifestyle habits. Jenny Morrill, of 3 Marigolds Mindfulness Consultation Services, and I co-authored this book. Enjoy with love from Jenny & I.
My work in this world is to support true health and healing for everyone who is interested in making personal Lifestyle Medicine changes. When we grow and heal ourselves… we heal family, friends, our communities, and the world.
Coffee & Donuts not currently available; publisher's issues.
Active Vs. Passive Medicine
Healing oneself takes an individual's active participation in the process. This participation can be physical (body), emotional (mind), or spirit work. Often times, all three woven together into a beautiful Self-Healing tapestry is your healing magic in action.
We live is a culture that generally works from a space of passive health care.
One western medicine scenario:
Active Vs. Passive
Healing oneself takes an individual's active participation in the process. This participation can be physical (body), emotional (mind), or spirit work. Often times, all three woven together into a beautiful Self-Healing tapestry is your healing magic in action.
We live is a culture that generally works from a space of passive health care.
One western medicine scenario:
- Visit your practitioner.
- Explain your symptoms, issues, challenges.
- Have a prescription handed to you.
- Go home and take your pills.
Rarely does a western medical practitoner ask you to participate in the process of regaining your health. Drugs and surgery do not get at what is causing your health crisis. Drugs cover up the symptoms. Surgery removes the damaged organs but never opens up space to determine why this organ is in a state of dis-ease and how can I change my habits to reverse the damage that has been done? What is actually causing the symptoms usually continues in a person's life because no one asks us to take a hard look at what made us arrive at this space of ill health. When we do take this hard look, unravel the causes that led to the problem, we can then start working in reverse to remove the problems and recover health.
Examples of the "You don't have to do anything active about your health problems" scenarios:
- High blood pressure: just take this pill and it will bring your blood pressure down.
- Type 2 Diabetes: again, take this pill and continue doing what you have been doing. Until, of course, your diabetes get worse and now you need to... inject yourself with insulin at least once daily.
- Joint problems: take this pill, come on in for a replacement... keep eating and drinking all you have been because like the problems above... these problems are not your fault. You know, it's just bad genes. Take this pill and call it a day.
I could go on & on... PMS, menstrual irregularities, infertility, arthritis, auto-immune disorders, cancer... Nothing you eat, drink, or do in your life has anything to do with the presence of this health problem in your life.
Or so we are led to believe by mainstream media, mainstream medicine, and mainstream agriculture.
Active Participation in your health and healing means taking ownership of your lifestyle habits; true Lifestyle Medicine. Lifestyle Medicine is Active Medicine. You are asked and required to take a participatory role in your health and healing. You are invited to make changes towards whole health eating and whole health living that will ultimately repair your body cells.
- How has the food I have been eating over the course of my life impacted my body's cellular health? (Unhealthy cells mean an unhealthy body.)
- How are my daily lifestyle habits impacting my health, my display of symptoms?
- How is my body weight affecting my heart, blood pressure, diabetes, joints, back problems, and overall health?
It is time for your health care providers to invite you and inspire you (that is right, health care professionals who activley participate in their own well being and are good role models of real health). Your health cae providers need to be asking you questions:
"Stand up people. Take a hard look. Where can you change habits that have contributed to this crisis in your health? What can you do to actively return your body to vibrant, vital health?"
Trust me, return to health is a reality. You just need to get active about the process. Invite healing support into your life:
- Lifestyle medicine professionals (think Functional Medicine, Functional Nutrition, Naturopathic Medicine, Holistic Health Coach)
- Acupuncture
- Massage
- Reiki
- Shamanic Care
- Chiropractic Care
- Spiritual Counselor
- Osteopath who practices lifestyle medicine
So where does preventative health care fit into this?
There is a difference between mainstream medicine's view of preventative health care and "holistic - whole health care - lifestyle medicine's" idea of preventative health care.
Mainstream's Idea of Prevention - Whole Health Care's Prevention (Lifestyle Medicine)
- mammogram whole foods
- colonoscopy deep, restful sleep
- cholesterol screening maintain healthy weight
- prostate exam yoga, meditation mindfulness
- bone scan moving the body daily
- vaccines immune building lifestyle habits
- diabetes screening good posture
- blood pressure screenings hydration with pure water (no chlorine and fluoride)
Natural health habits are preventative health care; TRUE preventative health care.
The "get your annual mammogram, colonoscopy, cholesterol screening type of prevention" (which often leads to your lifetime pharmaceutical prescriptions) does not actually prevent anything but instead is an early detection tool so your symptoms of dis-ease can be treated, managed, for the rest of your life. This is management of disease through management of disease symptoms.
Healing, active medicine, needs to be part of this equation.
Active Health Care is about real preventative health care... choosing lifestyle habits that build amazing cellular health & vitality so you truly prevent dis-ease from ever darkening your doorstep and actually knocking on your door.
If disease symptoms are already part of your life, Active Health Care invites you to heal your symptoms of disease.
I invite you to become an active part of your own healing team AND I will do my best to educate you and inspire you (be a healthy role model) towards whole health choices and self healing!
Join me at 5 Elements Living for
Creating Inner Wisdom: Your Personal Health Journey
Register Today
3 Class overview
• March 27th: Eating for Cellular Health
• April 3rd: Natural Food Know How
• April 10th: Wise Woman Nurse "Movement Magic"
for Digestive Health & Herbs for Gut Health
Monday Evenings 6-8 PM
More info? Click here.
Ready to join us? Register here.
Not All Vitamin Supplements Are Created Equally
Nature Made? Hmmm, name sounds safe enough. It is Nature made, correct?
People grabs these cleverly named supplements off the shelves of drug stores, grocery stores, and discount department stores feeling confident in something that was nature made.
Cheaper department store vitamins are enticing. Who doesn't like to save a few bucks when and where they can. Money is the currency of our life force energy and we only have so much (life force energy) to burn up in our time on this planet. Is saving a few bucks on cheaper vitamins worth it?
Nature Made? Hmmm, name sounds safe enough. It is Nature made, correct?
People grabs these cleverly named supplements off the shelves of drug stores, grocery stores, and discount department stores feeling confident in something that was nature made.
Cheaper department store vitamins are enticing. Who doesn't like to save a few bucks when and where they can. Money is the currency of our life force energy and we only have so much (life force energy) to burn up in our time on this planet. Is saving a few bucks on cheaper vitamins worth it? Am I supporting or harming my cellular health? This is one of those instances where you get what you pay for and it is best to invest in high quality. Your health is worth it and cheaper versions can be harmful in the long run (your body has to process out, detox through the GI tract and liver, the synthetic vitamins that are not readily or not at all usable by your body).
Reading the nutrient list and ingredients weaves a completely different tale; a tale of deception around these cleverly brand named products.
Reading vitamin labels to avoid synthetic forms of nutrients is as important as reading food package labels to avoid synthetic ingredients.
One of my biggest pieces of advice around packaged food is to read every ingredient in the product with major scrutiny:
What is/are the ingredient(s)?
Is/are all ingredients 100% whole food?
Where was it sourced from? US or foreign?
Organic?
Naturally raised, naturally fed (as in cows being grass vs. grain fed)?
Ahhh, the beauty, simplicity, and purity of nature (you are nature!)
Even when you get used to the safeness of a particular product... read the ingredient list every time you buy this product. Companies change hands, ingredients are swapped out for cheaper options... always put your health as #1 priority:
So, let's move on to vitamin/mineral supplements.
Reading labels for the "form" of certain vitamins or minerals in the nutrients line-up can give you a quick idea if the product is quality ingredients or made with cheap versions of the vitamins/ minerals. (The habit by many manufacturing companies is to use the cheapest form of a substance, vitamin or mineral, and charge the customer as much as possible. This ensures the company has the largest profit margin.)
Look for these indications of high quality supplements; it is the natural vs. synthetic form of the nutrients. If the nutrient form is natural, the product just may be of a higher quality. If the nutrient form is synthetic, throw your red flag up to full mast and investigate the entire list with a scrutinizing eye and mind.
This is just 3 easy nutrients to scutinize the label for and start painting a picture in your mind of the quality of the product in your hand (or on your laptop screen if cyber-shopping for vitamins).
Natural Form Vs. Synthetic Form
Folate (Vitamin B9) Folic Acid
Methylcobalamin (B12) Cyanocobalamin
d-alpha tocopherol (Vitamin E) dl-alpha tocopherol
You can use the above information to quickly scan the list of nutrients in a vitamin /mineral formula. If any of the above are in their synthetic form, I would seriously scrutinize the rest of the product. The "red flag" to me would be... Cheap, synthetic forms of these nutrients. Most likely the rest of the product was not formulated with high quality, bioavailable ingredients. Lay-person's terms: synthetic is not used well by your body. Nutrients need to be in a form that is usable by your body: meaning the nutrient can be
digested by your GI tract,
absorbed into your bloodstream,
circulated well in your blood, and
taken in by your cells (pass freely through your cell membranes) to be used in metabloic processes.
Buying quality supplements means getting a product that can actually be used by and benefit your body cells. Body cells are the building block of your body. Vibrantly healthy body cells are the building blocks of wildly happy and healthy bodies.
Vitamins I recommend to clients/students/family/friends/people I pass on the streets: ; )
Pure Synergy: I always recommend 2 daily with a whole food eating lifestyle. The bottle says 4 daily. The bottle will last 2 months at 2 per day and will supplement a healthy, whole food diet. Pure Synergy also has great herb supplements such as Turmeric, etc.
Garden of Life
Superfood Plus (HerbDoc.com)
New Chapter
Mega Food
Some of these are available at Nature's Storehouse in Canton, NY
How about those herbal supplements Paula?
Again, cheaper brands are not always quality products. If you are going to put your money into herbal supplements (or homeopathy, or essential oils, etc) you do want to get what you are paying for. Opt for companies that are high end, high quality, have a known reputation for efficacy of their products. After all, you do want them to work for you.
Companies whose herbal products I have used and trust:
Herbs Etc.
Herbdoc.com
Oregon Wild Harvest
Wise Woman Herbals
Nature's Sunshine
Dr. Christopher's Original formulas
Living Earth Wild Yam
Nature's Secret
I am sure there are more but these are the companies I rely on for quality products.
Bottom Line:
Be wise.
Read labels on everything you put into or onto your body.
Know what is natural and supposed to be part of your cellular health.
Avoid synthetics that are counter-productive to cellular health.
Shopper's Rut: Why do I need to avoid this?
Shopper's Rut Defined: buying the same 'ole fruits and veggies every week:
- bunch of bananas
- few apples
- an orange or two on occasion and maybe a pear here or there
- stock of broccoli
- pre-washed & prepared lettuce of some sort
- carrots
- maybe a cuke or bell pepper
- perhaps some celery because it is easy
Why Should You Avoid This Same 'Ole - Same 'Ole Produce Shopping Experience... (Hint: to avoid eating the same things day after day, week after week!)
Shopper's Rut Defined: buying the same 'ole fruits and veggies every week:
- bunch of bananas
- few apples
- an orange or two on occasion and maybe a pear here or there
- stock of broccoli
- pre-washed & prepared lettuce of some sort
- carrots
- maybe a cuke or bell pepper
- perhaps some celery because it is easy
Why Should You Avoid This Same 'Ole - Same 'Ole Produce Shopping Experience... (Hint: to avoid eating the same things day after day, week after week!)
- Variety in fruits and veggies creates variety in the vitamin, minerals, anti-oxidants, and phytonutrients your body is graced with. There are so many nutrients in food that we have not yet discovered. Opting to eat produce that varies with the season opens your body, your body cells, to receiving all of these nutrients.
- Phytonutrients fight oxidative stress, inflammation, and allow your body to heal for disease prevention and disease healing (You want this, trust me and yes, your body is capable of healing from any disease. It is how we are genetically programmed. The "you must take this drug for the rest of your life" medical mentality erases the fact that the body has the ability to heal.).
- Mixing up your fruit & veggies provides your body with different kinds of fiber, the roughage in food. Fiber, complex carbohydrates are good on so many levels. See below for some gut bug info.
- Your taste buds, eyes, nostrils, hands, and brain will be happy for the variation in sensory stimulation. All the colors, textures, smells, and tastes are an amazing way to stimulate your neural pathways. Think of that beautiful summer salad on your plate and then the slow rotation into fall and winter veggies giving us tantalizing root veggie and cabbage slaws. Then there is my favorite winter veggie... beets! A winter, cooked beet salad with walnuts & feta cheese is a taste bud tantalizing change from the same ole - same ole steamed or sauteed broccoli.
Above picture borrowed, with permission, from the website of Martin's Farmstand, Potsdam, NY. Look at the seasonal abundance available in Northern NY! Go to their website and have fun clicking on the "previous newsletter" links. The pictures from the farmstand, the farm fields, and gardens are amazing. Lush and juicy, fresh, local, and seasonal food everywhere! And all this food is tended to with love by wonderful people. For your fall & winter veggies... give them a call.
Looking for a winter CSA in Northern NY State?:
- Kent Family Growers,
- Birdsfoot Farm,
- LittleGrasse FoodWorks OR check out
- GardenShares website to find a farmer close to you that sells produce, meats, cheeses, milk, herbs, spring plants, etc.
Try these ideas to eat more variety in your fruits and veggies:
- Get Creative in the Kitchen
- Eat Seasonally Fruits & Veggies & Naturally Rotate Your Phytonutrients
- Use Root vegetables instead of grains to add plenty of complex carbohydrates and starches to your eating habits. This is good gut pre-biotic food that feeds the gut bugs you want to survive and thrive in your intestinal tract. A healthy gut microbiome is a self-responsibility tool in your personal medicine bag to prevent intestinal disease, auto-immune diseases, cancer, and a host of other preventable human ills. And food is your easy, at home medicine!
- Grate veggies on a grater (or use a fancy spiralizer); use these grated veggies instead of pastas. Depending on the veggie, I use some raw and gently saute' others.
- Learn what fruits & berries grow in your area, what their season is, and freely indulge in them.
