No time for exercise? Sitting in your car/at your desk all day? Too lazy to get up from your couch?
Here is the ideal exercise for you: micro-movements!
For the first time, it is best learned on the floor, on a folded blanket or a yoga mat – but once you know what it is, you can do it wherever you feel like it. There is not much more to it than the title gives away: You wiggle your spine. Start with your shoulders (up-down movement) or your pelvis (down-up), or do a combination.
In the beginning it will feel jerky, uncoordinated. But the more you get the hang of it, the more it flows. The more it extends your spine. The more you feel the effect. The more you become aware of what you are doing: mindful movement.
You might think that exercise requires throwing around your legs and arms. No, what really counts for opening your body is the spine. Move your spine and the rest of your body will follow. It is like a mini yoga session and will give you all the benefits of exercise – suppleness, body awareness, improvement of posture, relaxation of muscle tension – short of cardio-vascular effects. But it does use up calories! (Do it in the car only at red lights!)
Once aware of your spine, you can do the micro-movements everywhere, especially when you are waiting and are bored. Why not use that time for a little, private bliss? Read More
Blog: On Health. On Writing. On Life. On Everything.
Simple Health Is Attainable
May 10, 2010
Do you have diabetes?
Yes? Do you really HAVE diabetes? Or is it just a label you are carrying?
Not to dispute the reality of the symptoms you feel or the havoc the diabetic condition can wreak in your body - but they are, after all, just names doctors made up. A diagnosis helps to find a pill against the diagnosis.
That has its good sides, and its bad. Especially with a diagnosis of diabetes: Do you really believe that a single little pill can reverse years of not exercising and eating the wrong foods? I don’t.
But I do believe in simple sheer good health. Instead of fear-mongering with labels, let's focus on what we can do to stay/become healthy. Your body actually wants to get healthy and has a vast ability to repair itself - if you just give it some room and help. If you eat your green veggies, move briskly through life (instead of lingering on the couch or a chair in front of TV and computer), if you drink fresh water, do not smoke, relate warmly to other people, get enough sleep - you might never have to see a doctor all your life.
Admittedly, bad things happen to good people, and environmental hazards are as yet under-reported and not well understood in their impact on our bodies. But aside from that (and genetics), you are responsible for a good portion of your health. Estimates are not scientific – but an educated guess is that you hold about seventy-five percent of your health outcome in your hands.
Our bodies are really old, old things – not meant for driving in a car, eating TV dinner and marshmallows, staring at a screen for most of the day, exist holed up in our individual cubicles (at home and at work), exposed to noise, electronics, polluted air and other ills of modern times.
We don’t want to move back into the cave; we like the amenities of modern life – for instance the ease of connecting with loved ones via telephone of computers. The more it behooves us to counteract the bad modern influences and have as many of the natural elements in our lives as our good old bodies need: Water, movement, fresh food, herbs, and balance.
Back to diabetes (or any other diagnosis): If modern lifestyle is at the root of diabetes (and it is!), then go to the roots, make some meaningful changes, and don’t expect betterment from a little pill, please - not like the patient whom I once counseled against smoking: “The heck, when I get lung problems, they’ll give me a nice, new heart-lung transplant.” Read More
Back Pain - One Riddle Solved
April 17, 2010
My neighbor comes by yesterday, limping and moaning: Acute back pain. Knee jerk reaction: I send him to a Trager practitioner.
The neighbor returns later, with his son, to tell me about the miraculous treatment. The practitioner seems to think this is not a disc but a sacrum problem, somehow. I offer the son a piece of chocolate (dark, milk-free - of course); the boy declines politely because he just had chocolate - with nuts. The father brags that he is eating a lot of nuts, for health - especially cashew.
Cashew?? Cashew is in the poison ivy family (Anacardiaceae, or sumac family). It is well known for inducing inflammation in the body - especially in the back and joints.
So, this is the diagnosis: Cashew-induced sacroiliitis. Probably not helped by a recent flight from Europe and long hours of sitting at the computer. Not to mention a little bit of weight gain (when your belly grows, you bend backward and compress the area of your lower back - just watch a pregnant woman waddle by).
Besides Trager movement education, I recommend Zyflamend (an herbal concoction that is expensive but has anti-inflammatory action). And, needless to say: No more cashews. Oh, and no mangoes - same family. Read More