Health | Wellness | Yoga

If youre like most people you probably have vague recollections of boring high school chemistry classes when you hear the word, pH. Dont let chemistry class stop you from accessing one of the greatest factors for health, including your reproductive health. All you need to know about pH to start reaping the health benefits of a more balanced body chemistry, is that it is a measure of acidity (think vinegar) or alkalinity (think baking soda) from 0 to 14. Zero is the worst level of acidity possible and 14 is the highest level of alkalinity possible, with neutral being in the middle. Your body maintains much tighter reins than that and will work diligently to balance your blood at a just slightly alkaline rate of 7.36. However, our highly acid-forming diet (meat, dairy products, sugar and other sweets, wheat and white flour baked goods and pastas, coffee, tea, trans fats, and food additives found in most packaged and prepared foods) and our high stress lifestyles can take their toll on ou...

Although ayurvedic healers do not recommend consumption of fermented foods (such as yeast breads), they make an exception for yogurt because it boasts so many healing properties. Yogurt soothes the stomach, making it an ideal food for battling problems such as bloating. Vegetarians should include at least a cup of yogurt in their diet daily, because it gives you protein, calcium, B complex and other essential minerals. In ayurvedic terms, yogurt, being a sour food, balances an aggravated Vata dosha. But wait: dont set out to buy your cup of yogurt at the supermarket just yet. Store-bought yogurt is cold, heavy and hard-to-digest. Thats because it has been sitting on those shelves, and no longer has the active, digestion-friendly bacteria that a fresh batch of home set yogurt gives you. Besides, the sheer taste of fresh yogurt beats the store-bought stuff! Home-made yogurt it is easy to set. Directions: 1 quart whole milk 2 tbsp yogurt (the freshest batch you can find) Heat milk until ...

For over a decade after losing my virginity at twenty, I suffered from painful sex (dyspareunia). Although my body would lie there, feeling like I was getting stabbed with a knife while being rubbed raw with sandpaper and having acid poured on my wounds, the rest of me would go running for the hills every time I saw a penis coming my way. I literally dissociated from my body during all those years of painful sex that led to the disintegration of my marriage. My poor husband suffered too. The dude adored me, so he felt like a total schmuck because he knew how much sex hurt me (you couldnt miss the signs the tears, the yelps, the grimaces, the avoidance of anything as innocent as a hug because it might lead to more pain.) At first, the diagnosis was vulvar vestibulitis, inflammation of the glands in the vestibule (opening) of the vagina. But finally, my body got to the point where it just flat out shut down. You couldnt get into my body if you wanted to because the muscles in the vagina...

By Heather Ashare, MPH for DietsInReview.com You might be surprised to learn that lavender is much more than an aromatic scent used to enhance soaps and candles. In fact, there are a number medicinal uses for lavender , as well as in cooking, that go back centuries. Here is a list of just a few ways to use lavender: Stress Relief If youve ever inhaled a breath of fresh lavender your senses are immediately awakened by its soothing fragrance and its almost immediate ability to bring a sense of relaxation. Aromatherapists rely on lavenders essential oil for calming nervous conditions like anxiety or stress. Burn a lavender candle or add a few drops of lavender essential oil into a carrier oil like olive oil, then apply a small drop to your wrists or across the clavicle. Breathe deeply and relax. Skin Treatment Lavender oil works as an antiseptic and anti-fungal, making it a natural treatment option for skin disorders, acne, scars, cuts, sunburns and psoriasis. Reverse Hair Loss One study...

By Sarah Noel, MS, LMHC Picture it: Thanksgiving Day, 2011. Youve just joined your family at the table to feast on turkey and stuffing when suddenly, a festive, well-meaning relative suggests that everyone go around the table and share something that they are thankful for . Ugh. If you are one of the millions of Americans who is suffering with depression , this may feel like an impossible, unanswerable question. If youve been feeling such deep despair that you havent been able to get out of bed for the last several days, then you probably feel that you dont have anything to be thankful for. Youre probably just trying to get through the day. And you probably want to push your chair away from the table, tell your relative to mind his own business, and crawl back into bed. Fortunately, Thanksgiving isnt here just yet. So, lets take a step back and think about what you might do to keep the holiday from worsening your already beleaguered emotional state. First, as a person struggling with d...

Im a doctor, but I call myself a recovering physician. As in, Hi, Im Lissa Rankin, and Im a doctor. (The physician 12-steppers in my made-up rehab respond, Hi Lissa.) No, Im not an alcoholic or a drug addict or battling obesity in some [Fill In The Blank] Anonymous. Instead, Im recovering from the wounds of 12 years of medical education and a decade of medical practice, which wounded me so deeply that, one day, after a grueling 72 hour labor and delivery shift, I found myself hunched over a grocery store check out counter, while a teen guy with sweat on his brow struggled to swipe my breakfast through the scanner. Without thinking about what I was about to say, I heard these words come out of my mouth. If I did my job the way you did your job, there would be dead people everywhere. Now mind you, I hadnt slept in three days, Id delivered 19 babies and saved the lives of one dying fetus and one woman hemorrhaging from a ruptured ectopic pregnancy, and the only thing keeping me from my we...

by Greg Meyer MD, MD(H), CCH Contributor to Homeopathy on All Things Healing Editors Note from Christine Breen : According to Kaviraj in Homeopathy for Farm and Garden, Silica is the remedy par excellence to use in the garden especially when transplanting or for strengthening otherwise weakened plants. It also kills weeds! I just planted a new tree in the front yard. Im hoping for some future great shade, and beautiful flowers from this Hong Kong Orchid Tree. The nursery had it pruned so that it seems like a tall stick with some leaves on top..but now it will be free to do what it wants for a while. So I dug my hole in the Arizona soil, and backfilled a bit mixing in a little compost. Then I had to dig two additional holes for the poles to lend some support until the trunk grows strong enough. This tree has spent its entire life in a 15 gallon plastic container. Its branches have been trimmed off every yearforcing it to grow taller on a thin trunk. The trunk was taped in several pl...