Tag Archives: Health

Happy Earth Day!

22 Saturday Apr 2017

Posted by in Holistic Health, Nature & Gardening

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It seems odd to me that we have a day to celebrate virtually everything you can think of! That said, Happy Earth’s Day to you all!

I am finding it difficult to spare the time to update this site, but I do intend to keep it going, and I would like to thank you all who continue to contact me having read some of my older posts, it is appreciated, and nudges me to try and find more time!

So, Earth Day – it is rare to find people who truly respect, appreciate, and share the importance of the Earth in their everyday life. But as black and white as it possibly can be, Earth is paramount to our daily breath. Obvious I know, but translated a few times, ask yourself, when did you last focus purely on the Earth we stand on . . . hmm you see, it’s a phenomena that raises a smile on peoples faces.

Seeing today has been chosen as a special day to remind ourselves about the importance of the Earth, spend a moment looking at the surface of this Earth; feel it with bare feet,  smell it, touch it; widen your gaze and look at the sheer magnificent beauty of it. How it sustains life not only for us, but for every other creature on the planet, every living plant and organism. Everything we know relates back to the Earth. If you let your mind wander and your imagination time to ignite, the concept becomes even more ‘mind blowingly’ magnificent! We are so small, almost like a grain of sand in the grander scale of the planet, probably not even that! And we only exist within the tiniest depth of the Earth’s surface, so, how small do you feel now?!

Many of us love our lives, love our gardens; our walks in the countryside, our expeditions to more adventurous pursuits; love every minute we get to spend looking out of the window watching birds or butterflies, or simply admiring the view of flowers, trees, far reaching views, the sea, hills, rolling wolds, mountains, the list goes on. We have such diverse scenery, wildlife, plant life, we should be thankful and grateful with every breath we take.

Being mindful, and living in the moment we are in does bring a harmony within our souls, only possible when you engage with the Earth and all it offers around us.

Enjoy your day appreciating and loving the Earth, that boost of love today, can only help in healing the many scars we have given the planet. We need to give back instead of taking and living with an ignorance that it will always just be there without any thought and care given. We are only here for such a small amount of time, which flies by faster every year; lets make it our mission to embrace and better the Earth around us in any, and every way we can. It is precious and we owe everything to its existence, literally!

Happy Earth Day!

Druantia

New Year, New Incentives

11 Wednesday Jan 2017

Posted by in Holistic Health

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Hello again and a belated Happy New Year!

It’s the time of year when thousands of well intentioned people convince themselves, this is the year they are going to get healthy, fit, slim and happy!

Whilst I encourage everyone to strive to achieve all of those brilliant states, I also advise caution. Make your aspirations achievable. We tend to want everything now in this day and age, and with the minimal of effort and cost, which often thwarts the end results.

My humble advice would be, think twice, and then think again about what you want to change the most, write it down. Look at it again after a couple of days, amend anything you previously wrote down, leave it again for another day; then start to plan your journey. Take into account your lifestyle, in the sense of what time you have to dedicate to the task. Your finances, your true expectations, and a realistic timescale, and whether you can, or want to do this alone, or with a group, then off you go.

Should you want to be slimmer this year, and healthier from eating better, then this can be a lot simpler than you imagine. Eating wholesome real foods will help you shed the pounds and reward you with more energy, less potential headaches, better bowel, better sleep, better skin and hair and, have a less stressed physical body. So think about what you are eating on a normal day, and tweak it. Cutting down the amount you eat will start the ball rolling. Changing the snacking on sugary biscuits, chocolate to having fewer, and adding alternatives like, unsalted nuts, raw carrot, celery, an apple, banana, red grapes, or a pre-made health snack that could be fruit and nut based, or oat and seed based. These will have sugar in them, so you get your sweet fix, but will have nutritional value that will be adding to your ‘Health Account’, as opposed to depleting it with bad foods.

Your new regime doesn’t have to be drastic unless you want it to be, and have the will power, stamina and determination to follow it through. Eat more fresh natural foods, and less refined processed foods. Sometimes eating a little and often suits people better than three set meals when you tend to over indulge. If you want to stick to your meal times, then add more fresh foods like the vegetables, salads, nuts and cut down on the pastry, sauces, bread, gravy, keeping the emphasis on green steamed vegetables and raw foods. If raw foods is a new concept, eat in small quantities until your body gets used to it. Grated carrot, celery, spring onion, red cabbage and beetroot, with little mayonnaise makes a great addition to a meal. Be experimental with your choices; ginger root, leeks and stir fried greens takes minutes to prepare but full of goodness, cooked in a tiny amount of coconut oil. If cooking your vegetables always steam, stir-fry, or roast them, never boil them.

Exclusion diets can be tough and often do not give you the long lasting result you seek, so I would suggest you tweak what you eat now, favouring smaller healthier quantity and quality, than drastic changes. Eat more fresh natural foods, allow yourself a treat everyday, a biscuit or some chocolate preferably dark, and feel good about yourself, instead of feeling guilty when you need that treat.

You do need to check the labels on packets at the shops though. Many cereals are full of sugar, so look for Shredded Wheat for example, instead of the Cheerios, which should be banned in my opinion; sugar free muesli instead of the sugar laden granola cereal cluster types. Natural live plain yogurt that you can add your own blueberries or other fruit and nuts to, rather that the fruit yogurts which nearly all have added sugar. Live yogurts rather than non-live and yogurt-like deserts. There are hundred on the shelves nowadays, and nearly every single one is packed with sugar, such is due to our sweet tooth of today. You can get the sweetness from natural fruit, organic honey, it won’t take long for your tastebuds to accept the natural sweetness in foods rather than the added sweeteners. Avoid ‘diet’ foods, they are often nutritionally void and have artificial sweeteners added, none of which are good.

Drink more water, have smoothy nutritional rich drinks that are freshly made, and remember to “chew your liquids, and drink your solids” to help the assimilation of the nutrients from whatever you are ingesting. In other words, take your time to eat and drink whilst in the mouth. Don’t gulp your fluids, nor hoover your food from the plate. Take your time to chew solids until they are liquidised and mixed with all the saliva and enzymes needed for proper digestion. The same with fluids, take your time to drink it, rather than gulp the whole glassful in one action. The process of extracting all the nutrients out of what we eat and drink, essential for health, starts in the mouth, and taking that little bit longer to taste, and enjoy your food and drink is an excellent start to improve your overall wellness.

Breathe, stretch and walk. All of which are free and possible every day of the week. Breathe good and deep (see other posts on the importance of breathing correctly). Nice deep abdominal breathing everyday, will help calm your body so that it can assimilate the nutrients and digest your food better. Making the bowel work better and takes some of the stress from your internal workings generally. We naturally have to breathe to be here, so how easy is it, to make sure the breath is working for you and not against you. Breathing correctly is a key stone to total well being and cannot be over stated, it is an essential part of being healthy.

Stand up more often if you have a sitting occupation, just stretch, lift the arms over the head and stretch upwards. Roll the shoulders slowly and relax them and the neck. Bend over towards your toes, and dangle your body, allowing gravity to free tension from the spine. It also helps circulation to the brain. Bow your body forwards – standing up push your pelvis forward and gently stretch. This is particularly beneficial to people who sit for long periods of time, it creates an opposite stretch to how you will have been sat. Get into the habit of stretching whenever the opportunity arises through the day, then, particularly first thing in the morning, and last thing at night.

Walk more every day; if you already walk, give yourself bursts of walking faster so you get a work out. Proper footwear that cushions impact on the heel and supports your feet is better. Think about once a week at least, go for a really good walk, either in distance, or endurance. If there is a walk you can do that makes you sweat and increase your breath then you know you are working out! A walk that involves steps, or a hill, will naturally increase the calories used. This can be the highlight of the week, walk with family or friends, dogs, or by yourself, deciding where you are going to go, make it a social event, helping others get outside and enjoy the great outdoors too, it’s a win win situation.

Most importantly, your mental health is essential to wellbeing. So this year, make that a daily focus too. If you are happy and balanced in your mind, then everything you do will be  easier. You will be able to achieve more goals and targets when you are not battling against yourself. Those invented reasons for not doing the exercise, for really needing that extra chocolate bar, will be replaced with a kinder mental approach, not the guilt. If you really really need the chocolate, then have it. If you are in the right state of mind, that chocolate bar will be taken in your stride and you will automatically compensate with extra effort in your walk, or less sugar elsewhere in that day. It isn’t failure, it’s balance.

So have fun, laugh, sing and enjoy your life and do something exciting whenever you get the chance. Be kind to yourself, be true to yourself, and as long as you are gracious and truthful in your efforts, a healthier you will be waiting for you at the end of the year!

Druantia

 

Advancement? . . .

24 Monday Oct 2016

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We are made aware in every newspaper we read, every news bulletin we watch on the TV that the world and therefore us, are facing hardship and destruction. It is often a depressing snapshot of the world as a whole. The sad thing is that the vast majority of imbalances we face are manmade, in the environment, with our health and society.

To me, for as long as time has been recorded, earth has evolved. The climate has constantly changed, from the eras of the prehistoric dinosaurs, cavemen, Bronze and Iron Age to date. We have had eras of geographical changes due to the Earth flexing its muscles and fracturing land mass, and being covered in glacial ice. We are still discovering much of our planets evolution. Global warming I believe is part of the constant cycle of the Earth evolving. I do think we should be far more mindful of how we treat the Earth without doubt; take responsibility and become far less of a scar on the plants surface and be responsible for what we are doing.

It takes time for changes to evolve and be adapted to. We have flown through so many developments in the last twenty years, never mind the last 100 years, and it is too soon for many of the health implications of these changes be fully assessed. Think about our technological development over the past 30 years alone. It has been nothing short of staggering. Our lives are unrecognisable to those of my grandparents’ time, even to my parents’ youth; but there will be costs to our human psyche because of it. All the electrical technologies that dominate our lives and world, Wi-fi connections virtually everywhere, and many other electronic pulses bombarded our atmosphere every second of every day. Whilst being amazingly convenient and helpful to the way we live our lives now, it is destroying the natural energy forces that affect our wellbeing. With these ‘pulse waves’ being something we can neither see nor touch, ignorance gives the façade that our atmosphere is pure and clean. Satellites surround our planet with billions and billions of signals bouncing back and forth, with a cellular charge, that must, no matter how you look at it, must make our energy fields different to those of the pre digital world. I am not suggesting we unlearn our technical developments, and go back to sending messages by pigeon, but we do need to acknowledge the potential weakening effect the world today poses to our own body energy fields, those that make us healthy human beings. It also affects everything else that lives in our atmosphere too, plant and animal alike, and it potentially affects the cycle of Mother Nature.

Someone once said, ‘We are the only species on Earth who believe in a God, yet we are the only species on Earth that lives as if there is none’. I agree with that wholeheartedly, I do have issues with us as a species; we destroy, kill, harm, and ruin each other and this fabulous planet with an arrogance not seen in any other species. We are ruled by some very strange ethics, but these are often disguised in the names of religion, politics, and greed. I don’t believe there is a religion on earth that advocates violence and hatred to the scale we see today, nor have seen in the past. All religions were written by human hand at some point in history, and from history we know how those words were altered to suit the Ruler of the day, sometimes many times over to how they appear today. Conflicts and abuse under the banners of religion and culture should be a thing of the past.

Everything in life is open to extremism, and fanatics, it is sad but true. Nearly every aspect of life has an element of extremism infiltrated in it. Diet – you can’t beat a natural wholesome diet, yet every week we read of an extreme type of diet. Diets tweaked to create money, sometimes with little health benefit to be gained and usually not sustainable. Kundalini Yoga is the mother yoga, an art form and lifestyle discipline; aspects of it have been exaggerated and diluted to give us the diversity of yoga available today. Don’t get me wrong, exercise is generally good, particularly stretching based ones, but sometimes the dilution of the discipline creates imbalance. Therapies also, once you had to study to know your subject in depth, then if you qualified you had to be mentored before you could practice your discipline. Now you can do a weekend course as a complete novice and afterwards call yourself a practitioner; without any knowledge of how the body works. No meaningful knowledge of anatomy and physiology, no true time spent to study the art of the therapy, and no mentoring to assess your suitability to the profession. I find it is frightening people are putting their health and wellbeing into the hands of these dilutely-trained ‘therapists’.

We no longer put the emphasis on what I think are the key issues to sustain health and wellbeing. We do not eat for nutritional need or value, we want food now, we eat it fast, we keep on the move. We do not exercise our bodies or minds as a priority to live well, and to heal. We are detached from our intuition which has kept our species alive to date. We are becoming more robotic as the world around us becomes more technically developed. Everything is done with speed and detachment. We are beginning to treat health in a similar manner, pop a pill to kill the pain, we eat to feel full, we spend hours looking at devices that weaken our health force. We are surrounded by electronic fields that jar with our own natural flow of energy. We expect everything now, and take short cuts to save time and try to achieve the unachievable. We have stopped living by the natural flow of energy, by the flow of nature.

On a grander scale, you look at the poverty and horrendous lives some people suffer daily around the world, yet within the same country there is wealth. There is so much going on in the world that could influence your inner thoughts on a daily basis, which in turn, can create imbalances within us. It does take some dedication to keep your mind, psyche and projection in a positive optimistic way. Some people are completely ignorant of the world outside their immediate circle, and maybe they are right to do so. Because once you broaden your horizons, it is a balancing act to not become judgemental in what you see. It takes strength to stick to your core beliefs and you are fortunate if you can live your life by those beliefs.

As a general overview, as human beings, we seem to be altering the face of the planet and the atmosphere around it, at the fastest pace since our existence. I think a time will come when the speed at which these changes have happened, will manifest itself in our bodies and our health. Our bodies are having to cope with more external influences on a daily basis than has ever been the case before. We feed our bodies foods that have never existed before, our homes are environments we have not experienced before, our pace of life, and our focus are all new too. So only time will tell, what the real outcome all of this so called advancement will be for us; but to me, I think we are a very mixed up species indeed!

Druantia

 

Your Reflection . . .

16 Sunday Oct 2016

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Isn’t it strange when you ask most people to look in a full length mirror, they laugh, squirm, ask if they ‘have’ to and generally feel uncomfortable in seeing themselves in the way everyone else sees them?

When treating a patient, with say a back problem, it is important to assess their gait, how their body is contorting to accommodate the injury. You need to assess how they walk, bend, move, assess the level of the hips, the shoulders, and see any curvature in the spine. I always had full-length mirrors in the clinics I’ve had, so when explaining what has or is happening with a body, the visual imagery can help enormously in the patient grasping an understanding of what their bodies are dealing with.

But usually, with women, the suggestion of them having to look at themselves head to foot, in their underwear is not a happy prospect. I find this fascinating. It isn’t to assess whether you are beautiful, or that I’m asking you to be vain, it isn’t to study your attributes, nor criticise, it is to see the body you are in for what it is, and how it is physically adapting to the injury in question.

Within seconds the embarrassment and uncomfortable initial phase passes and they start to see their body in a way they have never seen themselves before. Seeing how potentially the waistline is more curved on one side than the other, the hip line may be higher on one side, shoulders the same, the head may be slightly turned to a side, off centre. The centre line down the front of the body may be way off straight. It is fascinating and to see the awakening of how their own body is in a patient’s eyes is a wonderful experience, they have seen themselves from outside their body’s maybe for the first time in a non judgemental way, and to add to that, in the company of someone who is just appraising the body whilst respecting the soul.

I keep threatening my yoga ladies that I am going to introduce full-length mirrors into our yoga hall to their many moans and trepidation! But most gyms are equipped with mirrors not only to help disperse the lighting to make the gym appear larger, and also make it easier to keep an eye on everyone for safety reasons; but also for people who want to visibly see they are lifting weights and exercising correctly; and yes ok, some people love to look at themselves too! But seriously, our minds can make us believe we are the most flexible person, who’s arms are always straight when they should be, who’s body’s ability to flex is the same left to right; who’s body is relaxed when it should be; but in reality the very opposite could in actual fact be true.

I usually ask anyone who wants exercises from me to be done at home, that they do them wherever possible in front of a mirror. Again, that concept is met with disapproval and negativity. But I am asking not for the vanity of how gorgeous you are, but to help you check your starting stance, and acknowledge the areas that become apparent from this appraisal. As a teacher, I can see your body, and when I ask you to stand up straight and relax your shoulders down and back, I can see that you are not straight, your shoulders are not relaxed, but in your head, we see ourselves in near perfect posture. It’s the same for me too.

To be truthful and seeing the true movement and shape of your body can be very liberating. It does help prevent some people from kidding themselves, because when the exercise they have been doing is actually seen, they realise their posture has been wrong, hence the benefits they have been expecting have never been felt.

To be able to see your body from an outward perspective has many benefits into its welfare. It also adds a dimension to yourself that may not have been recognised before. So when you next do some stretching, some yoga, or when you want to try and work out why your back hurts, or why you have regular headaches, spend a little time and look at yourself in a mirror. Look at your face, relax the frowns, soften the face, look at your shoulders, see whether one appears higher than the other, look at muscle definition and see whether a muscle appears tighter across the front of the shoulder than the other side, the same into the arm. Look at the waistline and see if there is a difference in the curvature of your outline; put your fingers on the top of the hip and see whether the fingers line up horizontally across your body or whether one side is higher than the other. Look at the knees; again do they look the same, look at the ankles and how the feet are rotating. Look at the spread of the feet on the floor, and the angle of the feet.

The body has a towering effect to keep us upright and functioning. If you have an ankle lets say that rotates slightly differently to the other, then the knees will be first to try and rectify the imbalance, then the hips will feel it, which in turn puts tension into the lower spine unevenly. This will tower itself, left to right, then right to left up the length of the spine, to the neck and shoulders. So no one place in the body works alone, the whole body works as one. Little differences are completely natural, but if the differences are because of injury, or are left to become bigger differences then at some point the body will manifest a pain or problem that will need attention.

So look at yourselves in that mirror; see your body; then see yourself; the ‘you’ inside and be proud you’ve ‘separated’ the two. Much can be achieved when the body is given what it needs, and you can see it as it really is.

Oh and, don’t forget to give yourself permission to be honest and not turn that into a negative mindset. If you can’t stretch visually as well as you can mentally, so be it, don’t beat yourself up, just lessen the stretch to the point of how it should be done, and with practice, the rest will follow to the best of your body’s ability, and that’s all you can ask of it. Be mindful of having fun when you exercise, whether it’s a daily practice or purely for a weekly de-stress. To have a happier state of mind to start with helps every body respond better. Of course we all have off days, and for some the daily schedule has to be adhered to, but generally speaking, mix the routine up a little, doing the same thing every day, can make the body lazy in assimilating the benefits of the what you are doing, and thus will be reflected in your image in the mirror. Plus mentally you’ll get bored and lazy in your approach, and then skip the next session, and then the next when something else sounds more exciting. We’ve all been there I’m sure.

Looking at yourself in a mirror not only has huge educational benefits; it can also fuel our confidence, help us rehearse how we deliver a presentation; help us decide on the best clothes choice. It allows us to communicate directly with ourselves, and the better we know ourselves the happier and fuller life we can live. We owe it to ourselves and our bodies, to know them and look after them the very best way we can. So embrace and enhance your image, give yourself the freedom to be you, and you are most definitely, allowed to admire yourself inwardly and out!

Druantia

 

Kinder . . .

10 Monday Oct 2016

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Be kinder than is necessary

because, everyone you meet could be

fighting some kind of battle.

Your kindness could help them win their day.

There are always those worse off than ourselves, sometimes we can visually see their impairment, other times, and more oftenly so, we cannot see their inward struggles; that doesn’t mean they are any less painful, nor the damage hard to cope with.

Kindness can heal many mental wounds, and offer hope to someone who feels they have none. You never know, one day it may be you in need of some human kindness to help your day pass.

Druantia

Mental Health Day

10 Monday Oct 2016

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Today is the national day when we address Mental Health issues. To limit this to one day I think is futile because as I’ve said many times, our mental health can change so quickly. One day we are fine and flowing well, the next we can experience something or our grip on the mental balance we have, slips and our mental health hits a low. It is a fluid state of who we are. For most people it remains within a health scale of balance, for other people the balance can be a bit more of a yoyo, and it does take some coping with.

Either way, our mental health is precious and needs to be treated with great love, care and understanding. Give it respect, space, acceptance and enough time of calm for it to process the data it constantly receives. It is a beautiful facet of who we are as individuals and varies as much as our physical bodies do. Be mindful, literally, of how your mental health state is, honesty is the best policy to adopt, because the mind is with you for every second and every breath of your body. We know much about the scientific workings of our brains and minds, but the vast majority of it and its abilities are out of reach of scientific assessment. That doesn’t make it not real, nor important, to me it means the opposite, it’s the hidden elements of what makes us, us. There are hidden abilities that intuition and instinct tap into, it’s fascinating don’t you think?!

If you have a bruise, a cut, a broken limb you automatically get sympathy and consideration because they are visible. So someone with a broken leg set in plaster is given special consideration for the duration of the plaster, and even after, the rehabilitation time is all given acceptance and understanding. Mental health is invisible to the naked eye, so someone’s mental state cannot be seen. If a person paints on a facade, a smile and jovial persona, why would you assume or even consider how they really are. People who suffer from fluctuating mental wellness, are often masters of disguise, often to their detriment. Mental health is better thought of today than in years gone by, but still it is not easy for some people to express they are struggling mentally. It is not expected to be the case, we are expected to be mentally strong all the time, irrespective of how we live our lives and bombard our consciousness with imagery, data etc. It is precious, it is delicate and it can be damaged and bruised, we just can’t outwardly see the injuries.

Take a moment to assess your own mental health, and then think about family, friends, people around you, and just spend a few minutes thinking what they’ve been through and see if you can see a veil of disguise as to how they are coping. Whether their persona has changed but until you stop and think, you haven’t really noticed. Most of us, at some stage struggle and a sympathetic ear of someone willing to spend a little time focused on you, can be the best and biggest remedy out there. That offering of help, listening, sharing can lift a ton weight off someones shoulders, and to endorse we all struggle at times means that it’s not a stage of failure. We cannot be strong all the time, but we can attain a safe zone of balance which encompasses ups and downs – levels we know we can cope with by using either time out, breathing techniques, counselling, chilling out, de-stressing, supplementation, and many other natural mediums. People perceive weakness in many forms, but our mental health does dictate our quality of life to a great degree, so it is as important to keep healthy as our physical wellness is.

All our mental states are real, so if the mental state is in a bad, negative way it is important to recognise it and find ways to help balance it into a more positive vibe to achieve optimum holistic health.

Druantia

 

Slow the pace . . .

06 Thursday Oct 2016

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Today, I caught up from yesterday;

By tomorrow, I should be ready for today!

The pace of life we are expected to live at times can be bewildering as I’m sure you will all know. However; remember life is flying by incredibly fast, that we cannot change, but make sure you do live your life before it passes you by. Take time to breathe, relax and smell the flowers, daily! Feed your body fuel to attain health, and give your body the sleep it needs to recharge every cell, ready for your tomorrows, with a broad smile!

Druantia

Those Questions . . .

01 Saturday Oct 2016

Posted by in Ankylosing Spondylitis AS, Holistic Health

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Everybody at some stage in their life gets a persistent, an ever-swirling question that resonates in their minds, that just doesn’t go away. One of them I think we all have and probably do have is “what’s it all about, me, life?”

Most of us find a purpose in life and that can fluctuate as you live your life, some people don’t. Some people are fulfilled with the different roles they play, like being a parent, then possibly a grandparent, the roles continue but there is a common thread of being a parent. Some find their fulfilment with the job or career they have. Others have a defining moment when something they do, create, invent has a dramatic effect that literally can define someone’s life. There are numerous ways of evaluating your life and the purpose of it, because surely there must be a purpose for us existing as individuals . . .

What happens to the many people who do not have that purpose, that defining moment or cannot think of a reason they are here? I’ve spoken before about mental strength and the hidden depths to our conscious and subconscious minds yet to be understood. In my life I have come across a vast array of people’s take on their ‘purpose’ and it is amazing the diversity of what fulfils people’s expectations and needs. For some, it is a lifetime quest and their life leads to an awakening that suddenly makes all the pieces fit together to create a scenario that offers the answer. Other people find a niche that gives them all they dream of; it is truly an immeasurable calculus, so the question that resonates is as individual as we are and can change at different chapters of our lives.

Often people get physical problems caused by a psychological disturbance or state. When you start treating a physical condition, the mental/emotional imbalances show themselves. Sometimes you know from the start that the problem is not physical, and it is just the manifestation causing the person to find treatment. The body stores our emotions, stresses and worries in the tissue and joints of our body. Tense shoulders, tension headaches, some so called IBS when you’re anxious, sleepless nights with a whirling mind fuelled by worry etc. When you start releasing the muscles and joints, emotions often flow; and many many a time, patients release during or after a treatment whilst still in the room. In Yoga too, the different breaths, stretches all release inner often hidden emotions, that when released, reveal a deeper labyrinth of layers to the true state of the body and mind. To take something at face value, in my opinion, is often a naive stance to ever adopt when treating patients.

To treat holistically means you have to be aware of these hidden layers, and have the ability to deal with them when they are revealed. You are taking that patient into your care, and you cannot leave them exposed and vulnerable post treatment.  Sadly though, many of today’s ‘practitioners’ do just that.

When the body stops working as we perceive to be normal, questions flood the mind; ‘why’ ‘why me,’ ‘what have I done wrong’. Sometimes there are literally no answers to these questions, but some people cannot stop the questions rattling round their minds. Part of helping people is to listen, be patient, and show care and understanding without being judgemental.

That question, the one that comes back time after time, often when we are at a low state of mind, can be obsessively consuming. If a patient has a specific problem that, really to overcome it involves changes, be it dietary, physically, emotionally and those changes are not addressed, then on a return appointment, I am usually met with “I don’t know why its come back again.” Well, if something needs change to improve the status quo, and the change isn’t made, then the problem won’t go away. It has to be addressed at some stage; which stage is down to the individual and their own circumstances. Advice and guidance can help in the explanation of how the body and mind are assimilating the imbalance or problem, but no amount of counselling will resolve the scenario until the individual accepts and takes responsibility for whatever needs to be done for themselves. So many questions that resonate in our heads, and many I have heard over the years, can be resolved by change. There are still some questions though, that plague some people.

There are many a time when counselling during a treatment, I question the patient, why do they need to answer that question;  what purpose would it serve to the here and now; if the answer was given, how would it better their situation. Some people try to find answers to questions that have no answers, in the hope, and often convince themselves the answers are the only way, to make their lives better. These sorts of questions can be very destructive to body and mind.  This state of mind can be fragile, and therefore delicate. We are all different, and sometimes you can make it obvious that the search of some answers is futile, because the answer is only relevant to whoever is offering it; it wouldn’t answer to your own satisfaction, only create other questions. We can laugh at ourselves, trying to solve the questions of millennium, ‘what is this life all about’; there are no definitive answers, only the opinions of other people, and why should their opinion be any more correct that someone else’s that state the opposite, or indeed your own instinctive, intuitive opinion? No one knows!

The power of our minds is immeasurable, and as such no one can really tell or know the depths of another’s. So if something is playing on someone’s mind, causing distress, then it is real. It may seem insignificant to us, but to that individual it is something of importance and needs treating as such. Sometimes the questions breed uncontrollably in the mind, you no sooner ask yourself one question and half a dozen others rapidly follow it; spiralling that potentially becomes mentally all consuming. Fear, anxiety, loneliness, unhappiness, paranoia; there are dozens of mental states which start from the simple asking of a question that has no answer. Physical conditions can and do manifest from such mental distress. A question that cannot be satisfied no matter how you try or reword it, the fact is, there are simply no answers to some questions, they do not exist.

Questions like, ‘what’s my purpose for being here?’ being left unanswered can have dramatic consequences. One of low self-esteem, lack of confidence, depression, confusion, disassociation and often tragically can have suicidal consequences. When life cannot be justified because of a lack of answers to the questions, they often resolve themselves to the fact they are worthless, and they can resort to very distressing acts, self harming for example. So whilst we all experience the repetition of a question in our minds, if that repetition gets out of control it can destroy life, literally.

I don’t think anyone is exempt from questions that test us. As someone who was unable to have children, I have had my share of unanswerable questions, and what my purpose for being here is; questions about my body and the condition it has; questions about the twists and turns my life has taken, at times from circumstances not of my making nor of my choosing. I can find some answers, but if I am brutally honest, I have to shut down some questions that I know I cannot find an answer to, otherwise they would start burning a hole in me, become destructive to the life I have. There is sadness in not having the peace of mind answers would bring, but as I’ve mentioned in other posts, we have a vast array of emotions and feelings, and we have to have opposites to balance the scales of mental health. There is a narrow line and some days it is hard to stay on the right side of that line, when you feel tired, fed-up, resentful, a general lethargy in body and mind, when questions do raise their heads and often add to the negative vibe of the day. These days pass one way or another, and the sun shines again, but for some people the cloud doesn’t pass without help and support. They often are masters of disguise too. To the outside world they appear strong confident happy people, but behind closed doors, the mask comes off and they face their struggle alone.

For all the questions our minds may ask, take time to chat to your nearest and dearest; offer a sympathetic ear to help someone unload a burden they may have. You may not have the answers they seek, but by being able to verbalise the question out loud, sometimes lessens its grip. Often words said in passing can give a change of consciousness. A problem shared is a problem halved. You can also put out there your own questions, to see what other people’s thoughts are on the subject. It can be extremely liberating and fascinating to have other opinions and that feedback indirectly could answer your own questions anyway. Never be afraid to talk to someone if you feel a barrage of questions or merely a single one is swamping your mind. It is relevant and is important, we all deserve to have happiness of mind, a balanced equilibrium.

There is comfort to be had, realising that we all have questions we don’t have answers to. Knowing that doesn’t automatically make it easy to accept or deal with them, but it is part of life. However, at the end of the day, I believe, if we were meant to know all the answers, then we would; we just have to workout which are those unanswerable questions and which are not!

Druantia

 

 

 

Fragility Of Mind . . .

23 Friday Sep 2016

Posted by in Ankylosing Spondylitis AS, Holistic Health

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Over the past few weeks we have had the pleasure of having family members coming to stay as part of their summer and school holidays. It has been brilliant but I must admit, my usual stretching routine has had to be shortened and somewhat rushed, the consequences of which was felt almost straight away.

The first morning of being back to normal, when I was able to do the usual longer exercise session, instantly reconnected me, and my mobility has felt freer again since. During this disrupted period I became aware again of the fragility of our minds. It is such a narrow line between coping and not coping.

To live in, let’s say a ‘normal’ body, you can get up in a morning, do what you want, eat what you want, and just get on with your daily life at will. You don’t have to think about it, your body just works and moves without having to give it any special thought. But when you have a body that has ‘quirks’, you do not have that luxury. You have to think about all the things you do, often from the pre ‘doing’, to the then ‘doing’, to the post ‘doing’ stages. And that process applies to everything you do, and I mean everything: getting in and out of bed, getting dressed, walking, sitting, standing, lifting the kettle, driving, shopping; every single thing, every day has to have a flash thought, to a considered thought, for a plan of action; it’s a constant reality. It takes mental strength and focus to keep the flow of your everyday life going, it can so easily become a heavy chore.

If you have pain, it can be the severity of which that stops you in your tracks and your daily life accordingly, but when it passes, life returns to normal. However, daily life for someone living with constant pain, even ‘low’ pain, or a body that does not function ‘normally’ is exhausting, as it never goes away. Having constant pain, be it an ache, or restriction that is always there is very mentally challenging, pushing you to your limits of coping. So pain is relative, bodily restrictions too, but whether severe or minor, they are hard to cope with, putting demands on our mental ability to keep living in a positive light. It is a daily challenge, and on some days, an hourly, even down to a minute-to-minute challenge.

People as you will have realised are all different, and their abilities to cope vary tremendously from person to person. Some soldier on regardless of their affliction, others sit down at the slightest hint of an ache and don’t move until the threat of it has gone. There isn’t a right or wrong, but the fragility of your mental state can make a world of difference to your quality of life.

I have been on the wrong side of depression before, brought on by having to cope with this constant challenge plus the challenge of some difficult life events combined. It has made me very aware of the scale of mental well-being a person can experience, and the speed at which it can change. It can feel very lonely, isolating and desolate when you know the problems you face are not going to go away. It can feel like you’re on a slide and no matter how hard you try to get a grip on something to steady the descent, it’s too slippery to be able to stop yourself sliding into a deeper, heavier place. A daily existence of living like it’s a real ‘Groundhog Day’. There are always ‘stages’ though, when the journey has easing slopes. Not that you can always see them for yourself at the time, but with knowledge, understanding and support, those ‘stages’ can steady the descent, enabling us to climb back to higher levels again; it isn’t necessarily a permanent one-way trip. Our mental strength is a huge factor on whether these opportunities are acknowledged in any way shape or form, never mind acted upon. To talk, share and ask for help and support are often incredibly hard acts to do. The feeling of failure and weakness having to ask, and thinking you could be burdening someone with your problems when they maybe have enough of their own, add to the scenario. You know that it could also alter the way that person then perceives you; you have no control over how they react. But that is down to the individual and who you feel you can relate and confide in, there will always be someone, either a friend, family, or a professional, a doctor, a counsellor, someone who will not judge you for who you are nor for what you are struggling with. It’s all relevant, no matter how large or small or trivial the problem may seem to be, acknowledgment of it is never a waste of time.

It is tiring mentally as well as physically to keep positive when you have a body that requires extra attention. And when you have a break from that programme of daily attention, you know it requires even more effort to get you back to where you were before, hoping that that is still possible. To live knowing you have to maintain the status quo, or suffer, is a gruelling mental state. When you want to be more active but have to weigh up the pros and cons to become so, is a mental process many people never have to contemplate, whereas others, myself included, have to consider it all the time, and I mean ALL the time.

There are times when you just want to stop the daily motivational pep talks you constantly give yourself for a while, and not feel like it’s an all consuming burden that engulfs you; it has no soft side. It is a reality that takes a lot of adapting to, and acceptance, some can adapt others cannot. Some are grateful for what they can still do; others pine for what they cannot.

For myself, even now all these years on, and with all the knowledge and experience I am lucky to have in my armoury, there are times when I can be momentarily overwhelmed by my own demise. It’s a flash of near dread that floods my senses, causing a wobble of whether I can cope with a future not of my choice. A time follows when I contemplate and reassess where I am mentally, and whether I need to search out another string in the bow of coping. Whilst my general health is excellent, my fitness is excellent, my quality of life is good – there isn’t an activity in my daily life that hasn’t been adapted because of my inflexible spine and neck. The process of wanting to do things I love is crippling, when you know you can’t do them. Even being able to freely play with young members of the family is extremely restricted. I have always loved being physical, through my work and leisure time, I loved the feeling of healthily ‘working’ my body. Despite pain, for the bulk of my life so far, I have been able to have a bearable mix of activity, and still do. But I know any sudden jarring to my body, could result in me being in the wheelchair I am told I would be in; and maybe not because I am in pain but because I would be paralysed. I could have a fall, a bump in the car with a whiplash type jar to the neck; I could do so many everyday things, that for me could paralyse me because I have no flex in my spine, it would, in essence, break and that is a very humbling but also a scary possibility. It is a scenario that any day could be my reality.

To allow fear, that foreboding emotion to come to the forefront of my mind is something I cannot afford. Knowing that any day a simple mishap could manifest in paralysis is a fear that has to be managed, never ignored but directed into a state in my mind that does not make me frightened to get out of bed. I have wobbles but so far not often and not for long. All I have been through has forged a strength I would never have been able to have had I not had my journey so far; it has been a process and still is. Ignorance is bliss as they say, but when you live ‘knowing’ something, it can be terrifying and the fragility of the mind is tested on a daily basis. Sometimes the analogy of keeping one step ahead of the fear feels very true, and a lapse, be it in the stretching routine, or a lapse in concentration when doing something can result in life changing circumstances. This creates an element of pressure on you, to keep doing the most you can whilst assessing whether it is enough or too much. The line between the two can be very narrow, and can vary from day to day. So you are always in a self-assessment mode, trying to evaluate the best approach for that day and time. Sometimes you want to stop the ‘ride’, have a break from the pressure of keeping it all up; and inevitably you momentarily start to wish. Whilst hope is fantastic almost essential, wishing for the impossible is costly to mind and body.

Mental turmoil is easily triggered; you need to be able to calm the effect before a calm ripple in the mind becomes a white water rapid out of control. Breathing, meditation, music and space help balance the mind, and I rely heavily on these disciplines and others to keep my mind stable at times of vulnerability.

Our minds are so fluid and fragile, at the same time, incredibly strong and utterly amazing. There is far more to be learned about them than we know to date. They are so precious and can define who we are over and above anything else. Take some time to evaluate your mental well-being today, don’t take it for granted because its equilibrium can change in a second. A healthy mind is invaluable to an able-bodied person but imperative to someone who has a body that doesn’t allow them to partake in ‘normal’ activities of life. It facilitates the quality of life in all of us; we all benefit from a fluid balanced mind. Maintaining the equilibrium is key to coping with the continual challenges we face in life’s learning curve. But the maintenance varies tremendously dependant on our individual bodies and minds.

The pressures and expectations put upon us from society is hard enough to mentally process, but when added to that all the other influences and pressures of life – the list is long, but to save you from the entirety – the concept that even a ‘normal’ fully functioning and able bodied person, can struggle to keep their mental equilibrium. For folk who have afflictions of one form or another, have a completely different perspective, ultimately the challenge of coming to terms with their own abilities on top of the afore mentioned. These minds need fine-tuning and in fact are often more in tune out of necessity than those of someone who hasn’t had to contact their inner strengths to cope and survive. To me, this can be seen as a positive slant, we tap into deeper depths of our survival instincts than most. The more we can use our inner strengths and intuition I believe leads to a more holistic life and many levels.

Despite all I’ve been though, and of course I wish I could do things I now can’t do, I am so grateful and thankful to have the mind I have today. How it is today has only come to be from all the pain and inner strength discoveries I’ve made on my journey through life so far. Hopefully I still have a long journey ahead of me, but one thing that is as vague as the day I started, I do not know what tomorrow will bring. Being mindful and aware are attributes that have enormous presence in my daily life. We have to allow ourselves the right to feel down, the right to feel sad, we need those emotions to balance us. Just like there is hot and cold, wet and dry, happy and sad, without one there isn’t the other, so hard as life often is, it could definitely be a lot worse. Being mindful of that helps keep me in a more positive vibe for the journey I am on.

Search out your inner mental strengths to help you cope with whatever afflicts you, emotionally, mentally or physically. My bias is to help anyone suffering from Ankylosing Spondylitus and the problems associated with it, but I hope it also resonates with everyone who reads it; we can all connect deeper with our inner strengths, always.

Druantia

 

 

Thoughts About Food Shopping

03 Wednesday Aug 2016

Posted by in Holistic Health

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Everything we eat and drink has an effect on our bodies and minds. Some things we ingest have a quite neutral effect, some extremely healthy, good, positive response, but there is a vast amount of stuff – it’s hard to call it food – that we ingest that has no benefit at all to our bodies, minds nor general health, such stuff actually weakens us.

In many ways we have lost our way when it comes to what our bodies need as fuel, food, and sustenance, in other words – nutrition. No matter what day of the week it is, nor time of day, ‘food’ is available. We can eat virtually whatever we like, round the clock. The supermarkets of today have increased our bad eating habits and are relentless in advertising its products, all geared to make us part with our hard earned money, not geared to what we nutritionally need. They obviously do sell some nutritious foods and ingredients, but you do have to search for the healthy sections and even then read the labels, (which are being printed smaller and smaller!) as many what should be natural products are manufactured for a longer shelf life at the expense of its nutritional value!

Our TVs are full of programmes showing us how to create the most amazing looking dishes, and how quickly we can prepare meals, but how many of these programmes educate us in the nutritional values of what we eat? What nutrients our bodies need on a daily basis to maintain the best level of health we can have? What foods are rich in what nutrient, and how to best prepare that food to preserve those nutrients? The answer is none; I cannot remember seeing one programme, which educated me in the nutritional value of foods or prepared dishes. It’s the same in the dozens of magazines that are full of recipes showing us how to create wonderful looking dishes, but their nutritional value is often only listed as a Calorie number, or the quantity of sugar, fat or salt, that’s as good as the educational score gets.

Knowing how I like to keep things simple, try this analogy: when it comes to the fuel we put into our bodies, think of our bodies like a car. We put in either petrol, usually unleaded because it’s better in our modern engines, or diesel. There are electric and bio-fuel engines, but I’m keeping a simple line of thought in petrol and diesel. We use oil and that varies depending on the engine type, we would never dream of putting non-oil product in the engine, nor non-fuel in the fuel tank. Why do we not think the same when it comes to putting ‘fuel’ into our own living breathing bodies?

If you like gardening, you will want to produce the best possible show of flowers, or vegetables and fruit. We go to great lengths to prepare the soil, mulch in the appropriate food source at the appropriate time of year, and feed throughout the growing season; as well as that, we prune, dead-head, nurture throughout the plants cycle to get the best we can, and that means ultimately keeping the plant in the best possible state of health and strength. It’s a natural process of looking after the plant in the best possible way to get the best end result. Why does that policy not apply to our own bodies and our own well being? Could it just boil down to ignorance and being easily overwhelmed with choice and availability?

I could use the same analogy to our pets; sadly their diets are not great nowadays. Many pet foods and treats are made with horrendous toxic ingredients, and every now and again the media does report on such issues. The Daily Mail reported on some dog food in America that has toxic levels of chemicals including propylene glycol, which can be used as an anti-freeze and mycotoxin. (dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2986195/3m Purina Dog Food); why on earth would you ever consider putting such chemicals into something that’s going to be eaten by a living creature, it’s unbelievable, but sadly true. It’s usually only the conscientious pet lovers who do the legwork, look online, research, read the labels on the products before buying, who avoid these hidden toxins. Our pets are totally reliant on us for their food, it’s a serious responsibility we undertake as a pet owner; we should give them as near as possible to their real natural food for promoting and maintaining their well being too. But our supermarket shelves are stacked with pet foods that is cheap, that is nutrient void, with so little goodness that it leads to weak digestive systems in our carnivore pets, weakness in joint support, vision, coats and teeth; our pets would never naturally eat such stuff. We look after our cars’ fuel and oil needs, better than we do our pets and ourselves. Maybe it’s because we are not bombarded with other types of fuels and oils for our cars to the extent we are for our, and our pet dietary needs.

Shelves with products for human consumption are pretty much in the same bracket as the pet foods a lot of the time, i.e. natural nutritionally void, made from unnatural ingredients, processed and refined; or fortified with certain synthetic key vitamins. Whilst we are in many ways dictated to by what manufacturers can conjure up as ‘food’, and what the supermarkets stock, we have to remain realistic and understand that profit by far outweighs nutritional value in a product. There are some areas of food production that I think are almost criminal in their marketing. Cereals geared for children for example, they are full of sugar, and the other thing they do is fortify them with a few certain vitamins. You will then find the bread they eat, the cheese and yoghurt pots they eat, the drinks they drink, and lots of foods geared for children are all fortified with the same few vitamins! How can that be healthy? What about all the other vitamins and minerals they need? The needs of young growing developing children should be of paramount importance in the products formulation, how do they get away with it? The overall synopsis doesn’t bode well when this line of thought is applied.

Diet, calorie controlled drinks and foods are another field of foods that are not exposed for what they are. They are often sweetened with artificial sweeteners like aspartame – this particular sweetener has some alarming claims against it in America who have been into this unhealthy ‘Diet everything’ kind of food intake longer than us and in greater numbers than us. They have now got statistical proof of the side effects like cancer, brain tumours to name a couple of things linked to the high consumption of these unnatural ingredients. The sheer quantity of foods eaten with this sweetener accumulatively causes damage to the human body. The producers of such ingredients often rename the additive or sweetener to try and throw us off scent and keep ahead of the claims. In a country where we are trying to address childhood obesity, we erroneously let ‘diet’ labelled products dominate these vulnerable children’s food intake – it cannot be right. Sugar is ok for us, just reduce it to a healthy amount, it doesn’t pose the risks of these artificial sweeteners potentially do. They are not a natural substance for our bodies to assimilate, less so in children.

The only way to be as healthy as you can be is possibly to think of your body more in the way we think of our cars. Keep it simple, keep it natural, and keep it wholesome. Feed our bodies with the nutrition it needs to promote and maintain health. Reduce the refined and processed foods. Increase natural wholesome food, fresh and real food; it can and often is easy to achieve. If you put nutritionally ‘empty’ foods, junk foods into your body, how do you expect your body to have the fuel and energy it needs to not only continue functioning in your every day activities, but how is it supposed to keep mentally and physically well when you are not giving it the basic nutrients it relies on to survive. Think about your diet, how processed it is, how much do you eat – the more empty the food is of nutrients, the more you will eat, because your body will still be hungry – its ‘Nutrient Bank Account’ will be empty, and goes more into debt as it uses more energy overworking in an effort to absorb some nutrition from what you eat.

People often remark on how healthy people were after the War in the 1940s; there is truth in that belief, as the rations did limit food availability, and the foods that were available endorsed the wholesome, natural, fresh foods consumption on a daily basis. They didn’t have our disadvantage of all the sweet refined ready foods jumping off the shelves into our baskets, they made their own meals and baked with these basic ingredients and became very creative with it. Because it was simple food, the body was able to utilise most of the nutrients, so the body’s nutritional levels were met. They didn’t have endless adverts on the TV and magazines promoting these modern day processed foods, they didn’t exist, and frighteningly, we are not talking that long ago.

How our eating and shopping habits have changed; gone are a lot of the little individual grocery shops who had to buy fresh and local because they didn’t have the storage means supermarkets do; we do still have our little bakeries, and some of those do offer fresh made breads, unlike some of the supermarket bakeries who bake from frozen dough, and have shelves of rubbery sliced mass produced breads. We have local butchers who in an effort to pull back some shoppers do advocate locally sourced produce and its usually fresh and wholesome. Bacon from our farm shop might as well be a completely different product to the water, salt pumped bacon you buy at a supermarket. It’s the same with a lot of the prepacked meats in a supermarket; they are often pumped with water and additives to preserve its shelf life, and when cooked shrink away to a fraction of the size – none of that is the case with fresh butchers’ produce, it’s in it’s natural state and much better for you, should you want to eat meat.

So yes in my humble opinion, whilst we have a wider variety of produce available to us than ever before, and whilst some of that is excellent for the health conscious shopper, the vast majority of foods we fill our trolleys with are not chosen for their nutritional value, they are cleverly marketed products that we ‘think’ are good for us, when they are not. The foods that were very limitedly available Post War were natural healthy wholesome foods. And the meals made from those ingredients were free from additives, artificial flavourings, and were served in a quantity that didn’t cause obesity issues. There was less food around, but it was of better quality for our bodies to use. It’s a vicious world out there today, trillions are spent in advertising and marketing products to get you to buy them; you need your faculties about you. Having an understanding of the importance of what we eat, and which foods gives us health and which do not is the best form of defence against the marketing strategies. We can of course all have the occasional treat, but we need to address our body’s requirements to then know what food best suits it.

I, for example, am a vegetarian of over 30 years; I’ve had time being a vegan, and for awhile, a raw food vegan; I’m now happy being a vegetarian who does some dairy like cheese and yoghurt, occasional egg and milk in cooked dishes. I have loved the diets I have followed, and I have the experience of them etched in me. I also have the flexibility of mind to think if my body needs to be vegan again for a while, then that’s something I would do, without doubt. I would not however, concede to eating meat of any kind, white, red nor fish – that’s my personal choice. The majority of us do have the choice as to what we eat and to me I think it is an important part of who we are by taking responsibility for our choices. No matter what type of diet you follow, you still need to know what a balanced natural wholesome diet consists of, to satisfy your bodily needs and to suit your taste; hence it is so fantastically individual and varied!

Generally speaking the healthier the food, the less you will need to eat, the fuller you will feel, and remain feeling full for longer. The trouble is, it usually tastes so good, you want to eat more! It will generally give you more energy, improve digestion, reduce stress, improve skin, hair and nails, whiten teeth and eyes too often become whiter and brighter! It can help you sleep better, think clearer and improve memory. It’s all about balance as with most things in life; think about what you put in your shopping trolley next time you’re in the supermarket, and see if you can seek out the healthier alternatives to the overly processed nutrient deficient products you are bombarded with.

I hope this post has given you, excuse the pun; ‘food for thought’, I will be posting more articles on other aspects of what we eat and drink. It’s a vastly diverse subject and there are individual likes and dislikes, there are medical restrictions and needs, and there are availability and lifestyle influences to take into account. I’ll try and address as many slants as I can whilst hopefully keeping your attention!

Druantia