Energy Medicine refers to a broad range of therapies that all have one thing in common. They all consider that the human being consists of a physical body capable of thoughts and emotions, but also has an energetic system that supports and nourishes the physical, emotional and mental, with all of these systems being tightly integrated.

The integration between our emotions and our physical body is obvious to anyone who has gone through a period of great stress. By using emotion altering techniques such as meditation and visualization, a person can actually impact on the physical body, triggering its ability to auto-heal, an ability often referred to as the placebo effect. What is less commonly understood is that there is an energetic component to this mix and that both an individual’s emotions and physical body can be directly affected via energetic intervention.

To put things in perspective, let’s examine a few of the more widely accepted therapies that are based on an energetic understanding of the human being. Perhaps the most widely known system is acupuncture. Acupuncture has been around a long time. One of the classic texts of acupuncture, still held to be largely valid today, is Huang Di Nei Jing (The Yellow Emperor’s Medicine Classic), believed to have been written in the second century BC.

The basic premise of acupuncture is that there is a vital energy (Qi) that sustains the body and gives it life. This Qi circulates throughout the body in a system of meridians (like flow lines or highways). Simplistically stated, when some part of this energetic highway system gets blocked or overcharged, then the body does not have what it needs to sustain proper health, and “dis-ease” then results. This “dis-ease” can take many forms. As an example, a weakness in the energy flow affecting the immune systems of the body can result in infection taking hold within the body. Another example would be that an imbalance in the flow of Qi caused by emotional stress or trauma can result in digestive problems. By treating the energetic imbalance, both the physical and emotional complaints can be directly improved.

The professional acupuncturist can diagnose imbalances in the flow of Qi. Once a diagnosis is reached, then the acupuncturist can increase or decrease the flow of Qi along the meridians that require correction. Acupuncture has documented results in dealing with a wide variety of conditions, including many conditions where western medicine has no effective treatment protocol. Because acupuncture is using the body’s own energies to help the body heal itself, treatments are generally safe and are often used as alternatives to medicine or even surgery.

Another type of energy medicine that is gaining popularity in North America is Homeopathy. The underlying premises of homeopathy are quite different from those of acupuncture. One of the fundamental principles of homeopathy is the “law of dilutions”. This law holds that the lower the dose of a remedy, the more effective the results will be. Homeopathic remedies begin with natural plant extracts which are then diluted to a point where virtually no active molecules remain. The belief is that the diluted remedy contains the essence of the original substance and that this essence will interact with the patient’s physical, emotional and energetic being to produce the desired improvement.

Unlike acupuncture, homeopathy has only been around a few hundred years, being first proposed by a German physicist named Samuel Hahnemann in the late 18th century. Homeopathic remedies are best delivered by a homeopathic doctor, who will take into consideration the full situation of the patient in determining the remedy. A case history will include not only the physical symptoms, but will also explore in depth the emotional and mental well-being of the patient so that the diagnosis will result in a solution that considers the whole patient.

A lot of homeopathic remedies are readily available over the counter in pharmacies and health food stores. Some of these are highly effective – Rescue Remedy from Bach Flower Remedies is great for getting past a short term trauma (especially with children) and Arnica is often used in homeopathic form for muscle soreness and arthritis. Homeopathic remedies are completely non-toxic and when properly used can be an effective alternative to medication.
Many other forms of energy medicine are becoming increasingly available within the North American marketplace. Many of these involve interactions with a therapist who is using their own being (usually their hands) to transmit or impart energy to the patient. Some of these therapies have a long history, such as Qi Gong, which like Acupuncture dates to the time of the Yellow Emperor in China, or Chakra healing which dates back even further into the East Indian culture. Most are more recent such as Reiki, which was discovered by Dr. Usui in Japan in 1922 and was first taught in the west during the 1970’s. Therapies that began in the last two hundred years include Cranial Sacral Therapy, Healing Touch, Body Talk and others. While each technique is different, often these practitioners are channelling either their own energies or a “universal” energy into the patient, or are in some other way working to enhance the patient’s own natural energies, removing blockages and enhancing the energetic flows. A key ingredient in these treatments is often the intent to heal and to do no harm.
Numerous forms of energy medicine can be practiced by the individual themself. Yoga, Tai Chi and some martial arts are considered by many to be practices of energy medicine as they work directly on the integration of the physical, the emotional and the energetic.

There is little scientific documentation on the efficiencies of many types of energy medicine, in large part due to a lack of western research. However, more and more established institutions are beginning not only to explore these therapies, but to accept them into their array of healing tools. Brigham and Women’s Hospital is a teaching hospital affiliated with the Harvard Medical School. Included within their organization is the Osher Clinical Centre for Complementary and Integrative Medical Therapies. The Osher Clinic is offering as well as researching such therapies as Acupuncture, Cranial Sacral Therapy, Therapeutic Tai Chi and Yoga along with other alternative therapies. As these therapies become both better known and better documented, we can expect to see more medical organizations responding to their clients’ needs with holistic, non-medicinal approaches.

References:
National Centre for Complementary and Alternative Medicine – http://nccam.nih.gov
History of Traditional Chinese Medicine – http://www.shen-nong.com/eng/history/zhou.html
Acupuncture Foundation of Canada Institute – http://www.afcinstitute.com
Homeopathy – http://nccam.nih.gov/health/homeopathy/
Cranial Sacral Therapy – Upledger Method – http://www.upledger.com/
Cranial Sacral Therapy – Methode Surrender – http://www.methodesurrender.fr/
International Institute of Medical QiGong – http://www.qigongmedicine.com/
Reiki.org – http://www.reiki.org/faq/HistoryOfReiki.html#usui

Alkaline Water Dispensaries, The Future is here ! Awesome... from Dr. Alejandro Junger on Vimeo.

Think water is water? The truth is, water is a generic term for a number of liquids that vary in chemical consistency. Tap water will undoubtedly contain H2O, but it can also contain treatment chemicals, silt, bacteria and other miscellaneous objects brought about by the treatment process. If you go to bottled water, you may be surprised to still learn how much it can differ. The chemicals used to manufacture the bottle, the cleaners and agents used at the bottling factory, and even the natural elements of the spring where the water is gathered can affect its composition.

The bottom line is simple: water is not just water! So, if you’re going to get educated and pick the BEST water for yourself, you may as well go straight to the future.

I had a chance to sample Beyond 02 Water, and this stuff is amazing. It tastes delicious, and you can feel it hydrating you so much efficiently thanks to its alkaline properties which reduce the pH in your body.

http://www.beyondo2water.com/

You can try Beyond 02 Water in the store in Santa Monica or order delivery. Check out this video with Dr. Alejandro Junger, the author of CLEAN, for more info!

Cheers! ~ Lo

Reducing stress may seem hard, but look at how simple it really is! Spend time with loved ones, do the things you enjoy, laugh and be healthy

Live Light – Lo

from The Huff

Brought to you by Deepak Chopra, M.D., Alexander Tsiaras and TheVisualMD.com

The human body responds to stress with a powerful fight-or-flight reaction. Hormone surge through the body, causing the heart to pump faster and sending extra supplies of energy into the bloodstream. For much of human history, this emergency response system was useful: It enabled people to survive immediate physical threats, like an attack from a wild animal. But today, the stress in most people’s lives comes from the more psychological and seemingly endless pressures of modern life. Daily challenges like a long commute or a difficult boss can turn on the stress hormones — and because these conditions don’t go away, the hormones don’t shut off.  Instead of helping you survive, this kind of stress response can actually make you sick.

Chronic stress can harm the body in several ways. The stress hormone cortisol, for instance, has been linked to an increase in fat around organs, known as visceral fat. The accumulation of visceral fat is dangerous, since these fat cells actively secrete hormones that can disrupt the functioning of the liver, pancreas and brain, causing problems such as insulin resistance, inflammation and metabolic syndrome. Chronic exposure to other stress hormones can also weaken the immune system and even change the structure of chromosomes.

How Stress Affects the Brain

Recent research suggests that chronic stress takes a toll on the brain, too. Studies on mice show thatstress-related hormones alter physical structures in the brain in ways that could affect memory, learning and mood. Some of these changes involve dendrites — tiny branch-like structures on nerve cells that send and receive signals. Several studies have shown that stress hormones can shrink dendrites and, as a result, information doesn’t get relayed across nerve cells. When the cell damage occurs in a part of the brain called the hippocampus, it can impact memory and learning.

If stress makes you feel anxious, damage to dendrites might be part of the cause. A 2011 study found that rats whose dendrites had eroded due to stress had higher levels of anxiety. More research is needed to determine the exact effect of stress hormones on people’s brains, but one study of adults with post-traumatic stress disorder suggests that the stress hormone cortisol may actually shrink the size of the hippocampus. Researchers are still trying to determine if this is because of the hormone’s toxic effect on neurons or if there is a genetic component — or if both are involved.

Another part of the brain that seems to be affected by stress is the amygdala — the part of the brain that regulates fear and other emotions. A 2003 study found that in mice under stress, the amygdala grew larger while the dendrites in the hippocampus shrank. Researchers believe that together, these two effects may cause an increase in anxiety. They think that as the amygdala grows in size, you may experience more anxiety and fear. (The amygdala is known to become bigger and more active in people who are depressed). But because the hippocampus cells involved in memory are shrinking and not transmitting information effectively, you can’t connect the feelings of fear to memories of real events. You’re left with a lot of generalized anxiety.

Tips On Coping With Stress

If this news about stress and the brain is giving you a headache — or stressing you out in other ways — relax. The good news is that you can learn healthy ways to cope with stress that will protect your brain — and the rest of your body — from stress’s negative effects.

Not everyone is equally vulnerable to stress. Genetics play a role in how a person’s body reacts. Your past experiences can affect your response, too. If you lived through a lot of stressful situations growing up, you may be more sensitive to stress as an adult. Try to notice your own reactions to stress. Do you stay calm when pressures mount, or can you feel your pulse increase just thinking about a stressful situation? Once you become aware of what sets off your body’s fight or flight response, you can use these tips to try to change your response to stress.

1. Resolve the stressful situation if you can. You may not have much control over many of the sources of stress in your life, but if there is a something you can do to resolve a stressful situation, do it! Talk to friends about what you can do to change a bad situation, and consider getting help from a conflict resolution expert if necessary.

2. Spend time with loved ones and cultivate healthy friendships. Research shows that a good social support network has definite mental health benefits. It can keep you from feeling lonely, isolated or inadequate and if you feel good about yourself, you can deal with stress better. Friends and loved ones can be a good source of advice and suggest new ways of handling problems. But they can also be an excellent distraction from what’s bothering you. If your network of friends is small, think about volunteering, joining an outdoor activities group or trying an online meet-up group to make new friends.

3. Do an activity you like. Part of being stressed out is feeling that you never have enough time, so adding more activities to your schedule might seem like the last thing you need. But if you make even a little bit of time for an activity you really enjoy, the payoff can be huge: You feel calmer and happier and can deal with work and other demands better. Whether it’s playing music, doing a craft, or working on your car, do something that absorbs and relaxes you.

4. Try relaxation techniques. Meditation, yoga, and tai chi can help slow your breathing and heart rate and focus your mind inward, away from whatever is causing you stress.

5. Exercise regularly. Whether it’s walking outside with a friend or taking an exercise class at the gym, getting active can help you relax and help turn off your body’s stress response.

6. Get plenty of sleep. When you’re well-rested, you can approach stressful situations more calmly.

7. Eat a healthy diet. Stress is tough enough on your body, so help it out by feeding it fresh fruits and vegetables and low-fat protein.

8. Appreciate what’s good in your life. It sounds corny, but focusing your thoughts on positive parts of your life instead of the stress-ridden areas can be good for your physical health. Research shows that positive emotions helped people recover their normal heart rate more quickly after it was raised during exertion.

9. Laugh! Researchers are still investigating the precise effects of laughter on stress hormones, but some findings suggest that it has a stress-relief effect on heart rate, respiratory rate and muscle tension. Your own research has probably convinced you that laughing makes you feel better.

10. Seek professional counseling if necessary. Extreme chronic stress is no laughing matter. Enlist the help of a professional if you think you are at risk for serious health effects.

From the blog of KORA Organics by Miranda Kerr, here is a great discussion on chakra and energy work. If you’re looking to explore the topic further, we offer chakra workshops and discussions at Mind Body Manhattan.

What is energy?

So many people talk about their energy and the energy of a place or a house. So I thought it would be good to share a brief understanding of what this energy actually is that people talk about and how it impacts us.

We all have energy centres called ‘chakras’ inside our bodies and we’re surrounded by an energy field called the ‘aura.’

Our life force flows in and out of our chakras into our aura. This life force has many names such as chi, ki, prana and energy. It is the universal life force that all living things have. People have it, animals have it, plants have it, the earth is also made of it, as are the stars and the universe.

This energy can be seen and felt. Some people see and feel the energy quite easily while others can’t see and feel the energy force very easily at all. Even if you find it hard to sense this energy force, there are simple exercises which can help you increase your sensitivity.

The easiest way to understand the feeling of energy is to remember a time when you were with your friends and you felt happy. When you’re with people you love and care for, and you’re in a good mood, your energy is higher. You feel pretty good, you feel on top of things and able to deal with life pretty easily.

When you’re in a lower energy space, things don’t feel as good. You don’t feel as light, indeed you may even feel heavy and low. Our emotions and feelings are all part of our energy.

Our energy can also be affected by other people. Have you ever felt the tension when someone around you is angry? It can feel very uncomfortable! That’s because their angry energy is flowing out from them and impacting you. You can feel it. When someone around you is very happy you can also feel that. Of course it doesn’t feel uncomfortable, it feels good. You can feel their happy energy flowing into you and it makes you feel happy too.

At birth we’re all born with a beautiful loving energy. Next time you’re around a new born baby notice how beautiful and loving the energy feels. That’s why so many people love holding a new born baby. They can feel the beautiful energy that is coming naturally from the baby and they enjoy feeling that energy.

Sometimes when you walk into a room or a house where people have been arguing, you can feel the tension left in the room.

Even some shops can have a good energy feel or an uncomfortable energy feel. If a shop has a good energy feel, it will do better in business because people will enjoy how the energy affects them when they go in.

The way energy moves in and out of your body is through the chakras. There are seven main chakras in a line running from the top of your head to the base of your torso where your legs and pelvis meet. Your chakras are energy centres that filter energy in and out of you. Sometimes you can feel when your energy is blocked with emotion. You can feel blocked in the throat chakra when you want to say something but you can’t – maybe because you feel nervous about it, or perhaps you’re not able to say what you want to out of fear of being judged. You may experience the energy blockage as tightness in the throat. Another example is when you feel nervous, your solar plexus chakra (around your stomach area) feels funny and unsettled. We often call this butterflies in our stomach.

Some people even experience pain in their chest when they feel grief at the loss of someone they love. This is the heart charka. The impact of that experience, and the emotion, creates a blockage in that particular chakra which you can experience as physical pain.

Each of the seven chakras relate to different parts of the body and different emotional states that we experience. It’s important that you learn about your emotions and understand that, as they are energy in motion, you can actually change them. Do not believe that just because you feel something right now it will always stay like that. You do have the ability to change your energy and your emotions, otherwise you may feel like you are a slave to the past and that does not have to be the case.

You can learn more on the chakras and how to balance them in my next article called ‘Chakra Balancing’.

Stephen Bishop

Principal

International College of Healing and Metaphysics

Sydney, Australia

From one of my favorites, KORA Organics by Miranda Kerr. Check out this great post on why a juice cleanse may be just what you need.

So what are the benefits of a juice cleanse? I get asked that question a lot. So let’s tackle it straight up. How about… unbelievable energy, physical and mental rejuvenation, normalized weight, clearer skin, white eyes, restful sleep, elevated mood and sex drive, alleviated allergies, and a more robust immune system! What I love the most is the feeling of lightness. The fulfilment in knowing that everything that goes down your gullet is good for you. A craving here and there – normal, and for some more than others, but that’s a mental challenge. Physically, you have enough. And, speaking from experience, if you indulge in just “one bite” of your favourite whatever, it never lives up to your expectations. Sometimes we get clients stopping by our juice kitchen just to marvel at the raw fruit and veg involved in making a juice. Kilo’s upon kilo’s condensed into one perfect fresh juice – wow. It would take you days to consume that quantity of raw food on its own.

So you get a taste of looking and feeling this good, and then the juice gig is over and it’s back to normal life. The benefits become a distant memory. Your clarity fades, energy plummets and dark circles return. So the real dilemma is how do you continue to reap these benefits? One of the keys to juice cleansing and hydraulic juicing is its authenticity. It doesn’t come in a packet that you mix with water. You are nourishing your cells with the best quality ingredients imaginable. Feeding your cells with food that is ALIVE. Juicing is not meant to be a quick fix, but hopefully integrated into your way of life. You know people who practice this just by looking at them. Clear skin and eyes, unbelievable energy – we call it vibrating from the inside. The goal of a juice cleanse is to offer you the best quality nutrition on a per calorie basis. And, by giving your digestive system a rest, energy and vitality is restored in your body. You are flooded with pure hydration using the most assimilative nutrients available. You can achieve this by periodic cleanses and daily juice intake. This is what maintains the benefits.

You don’t need to be guru in the acid/alkaline balance to benefit from it. Keep it simple, add juice to your daily life, periodically use a focused cleanse period to break bad habits and give your body a break and let the “juice” do its job. The point when your body craves the good stuff and discards the bad without even thinking about it – sweet, you’ve arrived! So hold on tight and don’t let go!

Over the coming weeks I’ll tell you more about the cleanse process, the breakdown of a green juice, how to be an awesome DIY juicer, how to use cleanse enhancers, the lowdown on colonics, the health benefits of rebounding and the beat goes on. This movement is gaining momentum, time to take part.

Stay with us, it’s all good! Heidy

There are plenty of fad diets or self-help rituals out there. These options are like trends – they arise, they fall, they are forgotten. When you’re looking for great advice on success, either in your diet, health, lifestyle or career, focus on time-tested methods. Find options that have been around forever. If something makes it past the “trend” phase and becomes a practice, you know it has worked. Meditation is a great example. Check out this article from the Huff about how a popular 1975 self-help book is once again topping the New York Times Bestseller list!

Live Light ~ Lo

(via Huffington Post)

When I saw that a book about Transcendental Meditation (TM), written by a scientist, had landed on the New York Times bestseller list, my reaction was to quote the great Yogi of Berra: “It’s déjà vu all over again.”

In 1975, “TM: Discovering Inner Energy and Overcoming Stress” was propelled onto the list when its lead author, psychiatrist Harold Bloomfield, appeared on Merv Griffin’s syndicated TV talk show (the Oprah of its day) with TM founder Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The book remained a bestseller for six months, and then had a solid run on the paperback list. During that period, Merv devoted a second show to Maharishi, and TM centers could barely keep up with the demand. By the end of 1976, over a million Americans had learned to meditate.

This was the culmination of a remarkable eight-year run that began when the Beatles famously learned TM and sojourned at Maharishi’s ashram in India. Between that watershed moment and the two Merv programs, meditation moved from the counterculture to the mainstream, from weird to respectable, from youthful mind expansion to middle-age stress remedy. Now, the celebrity meditators were not rock stars but Clint Eastwood and Mary Tyler Moore, and you could not get more mainstream than the nation’s big screen hero and its TV sweetheart.

The route from esoteric mystical discipline to respectable relaxation technique was paved by science. It started in the late ’60s when a young meditator named Robert Keith Wallace was persuaded by his guru, Maharishi, to study the physiology of TM. The research became his Ph.D. dissertation, and then a Science magazine article in 1970. Wallace’s follow-up study, conducted with Harvard cardiologist Herbert Benson, was published in 1971 in The American Journal of Physiology and Scientific American. The data sparked an avalanche of research. By 1975, a substantial body of evidence had demonstrated the efficacy of meditation on various measures of physical and mental health.

Now comes another psychiatrist, Norman E. Rosenthal, with “Transcendence: Healing and Transformation through Transcendental Meditation.” Once again, celebrity endorsements add pizzazz, in this case Mehmet Oz, David Lynch, Martin Scorcese and Russell Simmons, with cameo appearances by the gray eminences, Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney. And once again science confers credibility. Whereas Bloomfield was fresh out of his Yale residency when Merv Griffin showcased his book, Rosenthal has 30 years of distinguished clinical research and more than 200 scholarly articles under his belt. And by now TM has been the subject of over 300 peer-reviewed articles. The book describes the most recent findings, many of them involving common maladies such as ADHD, PTSD and hypertension, but not limited to medical conditions.

That meditation is good for you is no longer an eye-opening news flash. But the new book’s bestsellerdom suggests that a new generation wants to hear the message. In this era of soaring anxiety, depression and health costs, perhaps the only people who don’t think that’s a good thing are the makers of pharmaceuticals.

As someone who has chronicled the transmission of Eastern spirituality to the West, I hope that this time around we can avoid some of the pitfalls of the past. As the title of Rosenthal’s book “Transcendence,” suggests, meditation is not just a medical intervention. The deeper purpose has always been the development of higher consciousness, as described in the Vedic tradition from which practices like TM derive. But when yogic methods become medicalized and their benefits quantified, they tend to get disconnected from their spiritual roots — a loss for all of us.

Another consequence of the popularization of meditation was the rise of imitation practices. Health experts, self-help mavens and entrepreneurs did everything they could to de-Hinduize and de-Indianize the practice. Recently, we’ve seen a similar tendency as practices derived from Buddhism were secularized as “mindfulness.” The advantage of this adaptation, of course, is that it makes such practices far more accessible. The downside is that something vital can be lost in translation, thereby diminishing their effectiveness. Modernizing the language is one thing, but tinkering with the ingredients of a meditation practice is not unlike changing a medical formula or a food recipe.

Finally, in the past, all forms of meditation were lumped together as if their differences were inconsequential. People who should have known better assumed that the initial TM data could be applied to just about anything that resembled meditation. That techniques practiced differently would produce identical outcomes defies logic, yet the premise was accepted on faith and promoted by both healthcare professionals and New Age promoters. Recent findings have corrected that mistake to a large extent, and current researchers are sorting out which practices produce which results under which circumstances.

The scientific investigation of ancient spiritual practices might be one of the most important advances of the modern era. But we have to proceed with care and discernment, assimilating the methods without obscuring or dishonoring their roots. If we get careless, we can dilute them, corrupt them and otherwise fail to harness their full potential. It’s happened to some extent already, and it’s happening as we speak in the trendy world of yoga studios, where complex and profound teachings are being reduced to fitness exercises. Rudyard Kipling’s assertion that “East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet” turned out to be mistaken, to our everlasting benefit. But we have to make sure that East does not become West.