One of the things I really enjoy is teaching my patients about yoga because it helps the body stretch out tight muscles, relax the mind, and release stress.

In my book, “Metamorphosis Change your Body, Change Your Mind,” I talk about a complete guide to weight loss including using yoga. Here I will share a highly effective stretch known as Parsvottan-Asana or Intense Pectoral Stretch.

This is a great stretch for people who are working on the computer constantly, stuck behind the wheel, and tense in the chest area.

Over my many years of Medical Practice, one area I continue to enjoy is sports medicine. Sometimes people ask me, “what exactly is sports medicine, is it working with sports teams?” I tell them possibly, but it’s really a term that means working with common sports injuries and, also, everyday injuries that occur in any everyday lifestyle.

Here is a summary of an article I found in my studies that gives a great descriptor of sports medicine “Everything You Need to Know About Sports Injuries and Rehab,” by Dr. W. Morrison. 

Overview

Sports injuries occur during exercise or while participating in a sport. Children are particularly at risk for these types of injuries, but adults can get them, too.

You’re at risk for sports injuries if you:

• haven’t been regularly active
• don’t warm up properly before exercise
• play contact sports

Read on to learn more about sports injuries, your treatment options, and tips for preventing them in the first place.

Water is crucial to life, second only to oxygen in the body’s essential needs.  You can go months without food, days without water but only minutes without oxygen. 

With so many choices of drinking waters, it’s great to know about the basics of water and good health to simplify your life and create a better ripple effect to the world around you. 

Unfortunately, not all water from public municipal systems are safe for drinking.  Let’s not forget what happened in Flint, Michigan where dangerous lead leaked into people’s homes and many people consumed it. These days, there seems to be a level of ignorance and lack of understanding of what constitutes good healthy water. 

Let’s look at some known health functions regarding water and the human body.

One of the easiest things everybody can do to increase their health is to incorporate daily stretching into their lifestyles. Stretching your body regularly has many benefits and is very easy to perform. It doesn’t involve anything other than yourself and can be performed anywhere you feel comfortable within minutes (about 8 minutes).

As our bodies age and undergo the effects of work and physical activities, our muscles have a tendency to tighten up and shorten. So it is important to stretch them out to restore them to the correct length and tone. This is specifically important for things like muscle tendons that affect the joints of the body.

If the muscles are either weak and lax from such factors as chronic injury, lack of exercise, or age, or too tight from something like an acute injury or increased intense physical activity or exercise, it is possible that the muscle tendons (muscle attachments to bones) will not glide correctly in and around the joints in their natural positions.

The effect is like a bridge with the cables drawn too tight or too loose. The natural position is altered and negatively affected which if not corrected will go on to create further accelerated degeneration in the joints and muscles. These negative effects may not allow the muscles and joints to perform their optimum dynamic functions.

by Edwin Chun, D.C., CPT master level ACSM, NASM

Back pain is one of the leading causes of pain and disability in our society. Even healthy young people can experience it and about 80% of people will experience a significant event in their lives that causes low back pain.

There are many different causes to back pain, some being simple such as physical injury to some being complex such as internal diseases like kidney disease and cancer. Also, there are different presentations to back pain. Some have simple pain in the back or neck (spine) to more complex symptoms such as pain in the spine with pain in an arm or a leg.

In addition, there are different qualities to the pain such as sharp, stabbing to dull, throbbing which depend on the pain generators in the body. Many people experience back pain and simply choose to ignore it and wait for it to go away. Even in the medical community about 20 years ago, doctors were trained to tell patients not to worry about common back pain complaints and that most of the time it would just go away.

The only treatment given for back pain was pain medication. This was before the opioid epidemic that caused many people to lose their lives to addiction. Now medical doctors are trained to encourage patients to see other healthcare providers such as chiropractors and physical therapists without using medications.

Did you know that most major chronic diseases respond better when a person is not overweight? Healthy weight loss, which is the reduction of unhealthy body fat as measured scientifically, almost always improves health in all diseases (i.e. high blood pressure, diabetes, cancers, arthritis etc.). It also improves longevity and vitality. It is one of the most important signs of good health. The following is a straight forward article from an Australian university that is a great reminder for us all.

Summary

• Yo-yo dieting makes you gain more weight in the long run because it lowers your metabolism.
• Obesity rates are on the rise because lifestyle is becoming increasingly inactive.
• Any type of regular physical activity, no matter how moderate, can help you to lose body fat.
• Eating a balanced, nutritious diet and being physically active is the best way to stay healthy and help reduce your risk of disease.
• To maintain a stable weight, your energy intake needs to equal the energy you use. If you use more energy than you consume, you will lose weight. On the other hand, if you eat more than you use, you will gain weight.

 You are what you think about, easily stated and understood. The human experience is controlled by how we think about life. Lets read an article by Yash Naik on how we can improve our life with positive affirmations.

Affirmations are basically positive statements that you repeat them consistently in order to create a desired belief or mindset. So basically, they are statements that describe a desired goal, a habit or a situation.
Now, the logic behind this is to penetrate that particular statement/affirmation into your subconscious mind in order to create your desired reality. Now, if an affirmation is used in the right way, it programs your mind to act according to the repeated words. So, this process triggers your subconscious mind to work on those statements. Hence, this helps you manifest those repeated words in your reality.

Let's look at one of the amazing scientific benefits of exercise and mental function. This is a study from Stern et al. (2019) on the "Effect of aerobic exercise on cognition in younger adults: A randomized clinical trial."

Summary:

Regular aerobic exercise such as walking, cycling or climbing stairs may improve thinking skills not only in older people, but in young people as well, according to a new study. The study also found that the positive effect of exercise on thinking skills may increase as people age.

By now you are probably familiar with the problematic issues of single use plastics. They have been in the news for some time now.  Single use plastics include items like straws, plastic bags, food wrappers, and fast food containers, plastic forks, knives, cups, coffee stirrers etc. These items are designed for convenience and meant to be thrown away after one use. The truth is that they are too convenient so that as a society, we have become lazy and created so much of it, that it has become a serious problem trying to get rid of it.  Estimates of the effects of not only single use plastics but all plastics on the environment is staggering. Of all the global plastic created by man since its inception, most of it is still creeping around in the environment and has not broken down or truly been recycled, which is what most of us are led to believe.  Mounds of plastic trash is being hidden away in landfills or floating around in oceans, lakes and waterways.  After many years, much of it in the environment is gradually being broken down into what is known as microplastics which are tiny little pieces of plastic, some too small to even be seen with the naked eye. Microplastics are being ingested in the human diet and the diets of animals as they commonly find their way into ocean marine life and other animals like birds, which mistakenly eat it thinking it is plant life. Humans then turn around and eat some of these fish and get them into their bodies.  Some estimates indicate that there are microplastics in the majority of fish living in the major lakes of our country.  This means that it can be very easy for these things to make it back into human life and start to effect human health negatively as plastics are associated with diseases like cancer, hormone abnormalities, endocrine disruption and more.  A great recent documentary to learn more about this global epidemic is the Plastic Problem on public broadcasting: https://www.pbs.org/video/the-plastic-problem-7kdvzo/

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One look at the dark emerald green color of chlorella should indicate to you that it is a valuable plant-based whole food. Chlorella is a well-known nutraceutical (a food that has shown to be able to improve health & decrease or treat disease) often called a superfood. It’s called this because it has so many health attributes.

As a healthcare provider for over 20 years, I have seen the damage that can be done from unhealthy diets that have been increasingly affected by a worsening state of environmental health. Yearly, many of you already know about stories of contamination of lead in public water systems, the increasing amount of uncontrollable fires, increased smog and air pollution, increased methane and carbon emission from factory farms and increased chemicals, even nuclear wastes in our oceans. All these pollutants find their way into our foods in small or large amounts and they affect human health negatively. One statistical number that we shouldn’t ignore is the rising level of obesity and cancers, so much so that it is now common to see people developing cancer every day.

You may have heard of the "forever chemicals" and how people are starting to become aware of them and avoiding them as it becomes public knowledge that they negatively affect health. These chemicals are everywhere in our modern society but things are changing now as companies aware of their effects are starting to no longer use them.

For instance, I just read over the weekend that Lowes the popular home retail outlet will stop selling carpets sprayed with these forever chemicals known as Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. The problem with these chemicals is that they serve a useful function which is to make products non stick, but they leach back into the environment and concentrate and make it back into our bodies.

Certain groups of people are at higher risk for accumulating larger amounts and they persist in our food, water, products, homes, environment and end up in our bodies where they can increase disease.

With all the things we are constantly learning about to eat for better health, let us not forget the mighty Omega-3 molecule. It can sometimes be forgotten in the shuffle of getting more broccoli, kale and berries into our daily diets. There is quite a bit of science on the importance of Omega-3s in health and sickness. Today we are going to look at an article written by Kris Gunnars, BSc named "Omega-3 Fatty Acids - The Ultimate Beginner's Guide."

Omega-3 fatty acids are essential fats that you must get from your diet. These incredibly healthy fats have important benefits for your body and brain. However, most people who eat a standard Western diet are not eating nearly enough omega-3 fats. This is the ultimate beginner’s guide to omega-3 fatty acids.

Omega-3, or n-3, fatty acids, are a family of polyunsaturated fats that you must get from your diet. They’re termed essential fatty acids, as they’re needed for health, but your body cannot produce them as it can other fats. As polyunsaturated fatty acids, their chemical structure has several double bonds. Omega-6 fatty acids are another type of polyunsaturated fat. The "omega" naming convention has to do with the placement of the double bond in the fatty acid molecule. Omega-3s have the first double bond placed three carbon atoms away from the omega end.

In today’s hustle and bustle society, there are so many things competing for our time. From the minute we turn on our computers and/or television, our brains are getting bombarded by carefully planned strategic ads made by professional advertisers whose main goal is to get us to spend our hard earned money. One of the things they know well is that many of us are pressed for time because of work, kids, caring for our home, chores etc. They like to use this to get us to buy things that make our lives easier. One of the main things that takes time is food. Shopping for healthy food and preparing it does require time and an understanding of nutrition, and many do not choose to make it a priority in their schedules. As a result, to fill this void in our society, there is a giant industry known as fast food. Now you can get anything you want within minutes and not even have to get out of your car. If you see some of the advertisements for these monstrosities of bad health such as the bacon double cheese onion ring burger etc., you can figure out why obesity is a growing epidemic in our society after the number one killer which is heart disease. Fast food ads are designed to get your attention and that’s about it. By stacking up a bunch of fat, salty processed items in these foods, they try to get control of your brain. They know that eating these kinds of foods, even though they are unhealthy, release tons of feel good happy chemicals in your brain just like drugs. With no care for your health, they want to get the attention of your brain. The more junk they pile up the more you may notice and be tempted to try. That is why these fast food creations keep growing by adding additional unhealthy items such as bacon, an extra hamburger patty, egg, nacho cheese, etc. For example, cheese on top of the pizza is not enough. Now they have to put it into the crust as well to add more fat, salt and calories to your meal. To the people eating this stuff, what are you going to do to burn off those extra 500-1000 calories for eating one meal? Are you going to the gym an extra hour this week? Most people don’t and that is why sickness continues to increase in their lives.

Article revised to include only educational material

The soles of your shoes, the fabric of your clothing, your contact lenses, your chewing gum, your phone, food containers, mattresses – all are made with plastic. It’s everywhere. It’s in our salt and it’s in our water. Plastic may be the most insidious and enduring product we’ve ever produced.

While plastic improves our daily life in countless ways, it is also suffocating our planet and causing catastrophic pollution, much of it hidden and microscopic. Just how bad is it? Bottled water samples were collected and analyzed by scientists over a ten-month investigation. The study analyzed 259 bottles from 19 locations in nine countries across 11 different brands and found an average of 325 plastic particles for every liter of water being sold.

This study comes just after a damning study of plastic found in sea salt brands was published in the scientific journal Scientific Reports. They analyzed seventeen commercial salt brands from eight different countries on four continents for plastic particles. They found plastics in all but one brand.

What is cupping?

Cupping is a type of alternative therapy that originated in China. It involves placing cups on the skin to create suction. The suction may facilitate healing with blood flow.

Proponents also claim the suction helps facilitate the flow of “qi” in the body. Qi is a Chinese word meaning life force. A famous Taoist alchemist and herbalist, Ge Hong, reportedly first practiced cupping. He lived from A.D. 281 to 341.

Many Taoists believe that cupping helps balance yin and yang, or the negative and positive, within the body. Restoring balance between these two extremes is thought to help with the body’s resistance to pathogens as well as its ability to increase blood flow and reduce pain.

Cupping increases blood circulation to the area where the cups are placed. This may relieve muscle tension, which can improve overall blood flow and promote cell repair. It may also help form new connective tissues and create new blood vessels in the tissue.

People use cupping to complement their care for a host of issues and conditions.