Author Archives: continuum wellness

How to Share the Beauty in You

What is the power of your smile, your own unique beauty?  And what joy would come into the world by your sharing it?  Enjoy this short film, Validation, it may inspire a few answers.

 

Research: Effectiveness of Homeopathic Treatment for Sinusitis

Homeopathy in chronic sinusitis:
a prospective multi-centric observational study

A research trial carried out in India assessed 628 patients suffering from chronic sinusitis.  Read the abstract, here.

Oscillococcinum and the fight against it

Medicine.  It appears that the  meaning and essence of it have been co-opted.  Well, not totally.  But that is the crux of the matter.  Anything outside of, or beyond,  the scope of what is considered conventional and ‘scientific’ seems open to all  types of  ill-will versus discussion, learning and cooperation.

Take the case of Oscillococcinum, produced by Boiron.  At the company’s website the maker states it is product for headaches, body aches, chills and fever.  Many who use the product know it strengthens the body and wards off what might become the flu or other similar ailment.  What is wrong with that?

  • Well for one, it is outside of the conventional medical  paradigm.
  • It is outside of the multi-billion vaccine industry
  • It is outside of the flu vaccine industry, and it works (often enough)
  • To date conventional medicine/science does not understand how it can work, so therefore it can’t work???
  • How can there be “other” – when only my way is the right and only way.

For the record homeopaths (at least this one) have no problem stating that
homeopathic remedies above a certain potency contain no physical molecules of the original substance.  This is in part accounts for the gentleness and strength of  homeopathic remedies.  The homeopathic remedy has its starting point in a particular substance, in this case - Anas barbariae hepatis et cordis extractum 200CK.  The remedy is not prepared only from lactose or sucrose.

Will Oscillococcinum work in every single situation for every single person who feels like they are coming down with something like the flu?  No.  However it would do no harm in that instance.  And millions of people do find that it is effective.  How is that for proof?

Become an Inner Explorer

We all know too well how hurried our modern existence is.  For those of us who work  9-5 we live for  the weekend, chirping to our co-workers “Happy Friday” when that precious day arrives.  The rest of the week went by in a dizzying blur.

It’s because we spend so…much…time…doing.  And hardly any time…being.
Each of us carries a precious gift of divinity within us and that hardly phases us.  Instead current trends pull us, whatever someone else is doing.  Or, the lottery pulls.  We all want the jackpot.  Knowing that we would be different if it were us.  Or we just go here and there.

What if  we took time to be with ourselves, not selfishly, but simply to flip a page in our own book.  Or maybe start a new chapter.  One could even examine  a past hurt and release it.

If we could only find the time or just take the time to explore the richness within us,  the chance of finding real solutions would come.  If we take a bit of time daily to soothe our minds,  how awesome an impact of so seemingly a small act.

Today take time to be yourself, find yourself, explore yourself.

 

Montsanto wants to sue the State of Vermont over Truth in Food Labeling

The Monsanto corporation, which has its origins in subterfuge.  I guess they figure why change now?  Among Monsanto’s initial product offerings was the artificial sweetener, saccharine.  Guess what?  Saccharine,  the artificial sweetener was included as an ingredient in soda for years, before the public knew it.   The company sold it to manufacturers to include in the product without telling consumers.  Who knows where else this may apply?

Here we are now in 2012 and Monsanto has only gotten worse with their weird products, which only boost their profits not the public’s health!

The State of Vermont wants to take a stand against this willful entity by labeling their GMO products (which they should be labeled) so consumers can choose if they want genetically modified  organisms in their food.  Monsanto wants to sue.  If your product is good,  why all the deception?  Because even Monsanto knows the average person in their right mind would run the other way from their evil genius.

Read more on this here.  Why aren’t other States stepping up?   The FDA?  The USDA?  The only way this will change is if you and I take a stand.

04/14/2012 – Update on this story:  here

 

“Cowards die a thousand deaths.  The valiant taste of death but once.”
-William Shakespeare

 

Beads with a Story: Aquamarine and Apatite Bracelet

Blue Joy

Luscious stretchy bracelet of Aquamarine and Apatite with an Apatite dangle.

For promoting joy, healing apathy and sorrow, clearing confusion;  fosters a light heart and a relaxed disposition.

Builds energy and well-being.

for small and medium sized wrists.

Our vibrational  jewelry is handmade with love and intention.

Materials: Apatite, Aquamarine, pewter and non-tarnish silver wire.

 

Unplug the Music for Better Learning

Looking for ways to help your child learn?  While it is common for students to want to listen to music while studying, it may be counter productive.  According to research from the University of Wales, Cardiff, students who studied in silence were better able to retain memorized material.  Liking the music had no effect on the results.  Music from artists such as Rhianna and Lady Gaga, produced poor results.  The sound environment of quiet produced the best results.

However in all fairness, perhaps what is called “New Age” music could have been included in the study.  Listening to soothing music and certain types of classical music has been shown to improve memory and learning.
(want more, the study abstract is below)

Background music can impair performance, cites new study

Cardiff, Wales—— For decades research has shown that listening to music alleviates anxiety and depression, enhances mood, and can increase cognitive functioning, such as spatial awareness. However, until now, research has not addressed how we listen to music. For instance, is the cognitive benefit still the same if we listen to music whilst performing a task, rather than before it? Further, how does our preference for a particular type of music affect performance? A new study from Applied Cognitive Psychology shows that listening to music that one likes whilst performing a serial recall task does not help performance any more than listening to music one does not enjoy.

The researchers explored the ‘irrelevant sound effect’ by requiring participants to perform serial recall (recall a list of 8 consonants in presentation order) in the presence of five sound environments: quiet, liked music (e.g., Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Stranglers, and Arcade Fire), disliked music (the track “Thrashers” by Death Angel), changing-state (a sequence of random digits such as “4, 7, 1, 6″) and steady-state (“3, 3, 3″). Recall ability was approximately the same, and poorest, for the music and changing-state conditions. The most accurate recall occurred when participants performed the task in the quieter, steady-state environments. Thus listening to music, regardless of whether people liked or disliked it, impaired their concurrent performance.

Lead researcher Nick Perham explains: “The poorer performance of the music and changing-state sounds are due to the acoustical variation within those environments. This impairs the ability to recall the order of items, via rehearsal, within the presented list. Mental arithmetic also requires the ability to retain order information in the short-term via rehearsal, and may be similarly affected by their performance in the presence of changing-state, background environments.”

Although music can have a very positive effect on our general mental health, music can, in the circumstances described, also have negative effects on cognitive performance. Perham remarks, “Most people listen to music at the same time as, rather than prior to performing a task. To reduce the negative effects of background music when recalling information in order one should either perform the task in quiet or only listen to music prior to performing the task.”

 

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Beads with a Story: Rhyolite and Crystal Bracelet

Into the Forest
Rhyolite Bracelet   

Materials:

Rhyolite
Swarovski crystal
glass beads
pewter beads
handmade charm

7″                       

       

Research: Healthier Weight from Eating Chocolate

Katherine Hepburn famously said of her slim physique: “What you see before you is the result of a lifetime of chocolate.” New evidence suggests she may have been right.

Beatrice Golomb, MD, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Diego, and colleagues present new findings that may overturn the major objection to regular chocolate consumption: that it makes people fat. The study, showing that adults who eat chocolate on a regular basis are actually thinner that those who don’t, will be published online in the Archives of Internal Medicine on March 26.

The authors dared to hypothesize that modest, regular chocolate consumption might be calorie-neutral –in other words, that the metabolic benefits of eating modest amounts of chocolate might lead to reduced fat deposition per calorie and approximately offset the added calories (thus rendering frequent, though modest, chocolate consumption neutral with regard to weight). To assess this hypothesis, the researchers examined dietary and other information provided by approximately 1000 adult men and women from San Diego, for whom weight and height had been measured.

The UC San Diego findings were even more favorable than the researchers conjectured. They found that adults who ate chocolate on more days a week were actually thinner – i.e. had a lower body mass index – than those who ate chocolate less often. The size of the effect was modest but the effect was “significant” –larger than could be explained by chance. This was despite the fact that those who ate chocolate more often did not eat fewer calories (they ate more), nor did they exercise more. Indeed, no differences in behaviors were identified that might explain the finding as a difference in calories taken in versus calories expended.

“Our findings appear to add to a body of information suggesting that the composition of calories, not just the number of them, matters for determining their ultimate impact on weight,” said Golomb. “In the case of chocolate, this is good news –both for those who have a regular chocolate habit, and those who may wish to start one.”

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Additional contributors to the study include Sabrina Koperski and Halbert L. White, PhD, of UC San Diego.

Funding for this study was provided by the National Institutes of Health.

Think Again About that Burger, Ground Beef Isn’t What it Used to Be.

Ground beef can be derisively referred to as “pink slime,” or what the meat industry calls “lean, finely textured beef.  Perhaps the marketing industry is proud on the “spin”.  The FDA is a government agency which appears beholding to the bottom line of business interests instead of public safety.  It seems they will rail against herbs and vitamins…but ammonia laced beef, arsenic in apple juice or questionable food additives on the gras (generally recognized as safe) list are ok.  What’s going on?  I’m glad to be vegan…yea.  But for those who eat meat, it should be safe and humanely produced.  And I pray this very important organization has the resources and mind set to do its job well.

 

Here’s more:  Pink slime

EDITORIAL

Pink slime perspective

As consumers fight and win the beef-trimmings battle, they might be ignorant of more troubling aspects of industrial food production.

A century ago, cautious housewives demanded that the butcher grind their beef in front of them so they could be sure he didn’t toss in offal or scraps of lower-quality meat.

Not a bad idea for the modern grocery shopper who thinks that the way to get hamburger is to put a fine steak through a grinder. A modern package of ground beef is more likely to come from not one animal but several and, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, will probably include head meat, the esophagus and other internal organs.

And, of course, pink slime. That’s the less-than-thoroughly-accurate epithet bestowed on what the industry prefers to call lean, finely textured beef, which is made by salvaging the fatty scraps left after the animal has been butchered, putting it through a centrifuge to separate out the fat and treating it (read the rest here)

Do you think this is ok?  Chime in.