I went to a social gathering last week and one of the topics we discussed was New Year’s resolutions. One of my resolutions is one that I have on my list every year and do practice consistently. It is doing a daily meditation. I feel that meditation is so important for overall well being – the perfect tool to unite mind/body/spirit. In our crazy stressful demanding lives, we need a tool to help us stay in balance with everything. This tool is meditation. It does not cost anything, you can do it anywhere and it is a great way to start and/or end your day.

The benefits are numerous: meditation improves immune function which is paramount to reducing risk of not only acute colds/flu but also indirectly reducing risk of chronic diseases like cancer and auto-immune disease. Studies have shown that meditation can decrease emotional disturbance associated with neoplastic diseases. Meditation decreases inflammation which is at the root of chronic disease. It appears to do this by down-regulating pro-inflammatory gene expression. It has been shown to decrease c-reactive protein which is a lab marker of inflammation. Many people rely on meditation to live with chronic pain. It can help increase feelings of well being and can help you transcend your current level of pain whether it be physical or emotional.

Meditation decreases feelings of loneliness, decreases depression and anxiety and can improve your ability to regulate your emotions. I see clients regularly that are having a hard time keeping their emotions in a balanced state so I always recommend that they start meditating. It can increase feelings of social connectedness thereby reducing  feelings of isolation which are a known health risk. It can help you feel more compassionate and allow you to access your heart space more easily.

As I work with corporate clients on a regular basis, meditation serves their needs very well. It increases gray matter in the brain and increases attention and memory which can come in handy when you need to be productive and multitask at your office.  Meditation improves your overall focus. I start my day off with a 10-20 minute meditation in the am. I find it increases my clarity and connection to my intuition which serves me in my job. It allows me to remember important details and increases my retention of important facts. Meditation helps you function under higher stress levels while reducing those negative effects of stress on the body/mind/spirit.

Start with a simple ten minute exercise: focus your attention on your breath. Buy an egg timer and set it for 10 minutes. Sit in a position that is comfortable for you and breathe. Meditation is a discipline and your mind will show up to distract you with many random thoughts. Keep returning your attention to your breath. Over time it will get easier to focus your attention on your breath. There are many styles of meditation to choose from- explore your different options-mindfulness meditation, loving-kindness meditation, compassion, yoga nidra, vipassana, etc. I highly recommend that you stick with it because it will change your life. If you want further instruction, please book an appointment with me at parallel wellness. Until next time, be well…

References:Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction for Health-Care Professionals. Int. Journal of Stress Management, Volume 12(2), May 2005, pg. 164-176.; Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction training reduces loneliness and pro-inflammatory gene expression in older adults. Vol. 26, Issue 7, Oct. 2012, pg. 1095-1101.; J. Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 95 (5), Nov. 2008, 1045-1062.

I had an interesting experience last weekend. I was in my bathroom brushing my teeth and I noticed a single medium sized ant walking up the wall beside my mirror. When I stopped to look at it, it stopped walking and looked at me. I was thinking to myself ‘where did this ant come from? where is it going and are there more ants to follow?’  The ant had stopped and lifted one of its legs up- almost like a yoga pose with its antennas quivering. It made me laugh initially but what really struck me about this little interaction that I had with the ant was that it was alone. It almost looked scared and lonely; like it had lost its ant hill.That got me reflecting on this time of year and how important it is to have community around you especially if you are on your own and don’t have a family that is in close proximity to you.

You need to find your own community or even build your own community of like minded souls around you. How do you do that? First of all start with your immediate neighborhood- get to know your neighbors- say hello to them when you go out to start your car if they happen to be outside. Find out about them- what do they enjoy doing with their weekend- do they have a significant other or do they have kids? Start to care about your neighbors by building a relationship with them. I am grateful because my sister invited me over to her annual neighborhood potluck block party. It is a potluck dinner so everyone including myself brought a dish of our choice to share with everyone. What a great way to get to know your neighbors! At the end of the night, I concluded that my sister lives in a warm and welcoming environment of people. We all have interesting people around us- we just have to find out about them and this is a way to open our hearts to others and receive love coming back from them. This honors the spiritual law of brotherhood.

I walk every weekend with one of my neighbor friends. We head out the door at 9 am for a walk. We both get our exercise and we both get a social interaction. One of my other friends in the neighborhood has a potluck brunch that she hosts probably four to six times a year. Another friend hosts A Course in Miracles night from time to time. There is something you can always bring to the table so to speak to build community. I invited an older woman that I see at the bus stop to a Christmas concert that my local church was hosting last weekend. She loved it. I asked her last year as well because I had found out that her husband died and she was missing him.

Another person that I ride the bus with occasionally mentioned a singles group that he attends that meets on Thursday nights and he invited me to come to the group about a month ago. I have been going regularly to this group and I appreciate it. Last week we put together Christmas hampers and delivered them for people that were alone and were in need. It felt great to be in the company of like minded souls. There are plenty of other ideas that I am sure you can come up with to build community. Host a book club or a prayer group, arrange to go snowshoeing with a group of people- open your hearts and minds and seek to build love in your community. Until next time, have a happy holiday with all the people that you love…XO

I was all ears for the Autoimmune Summit that was put on by Dr. Amy Myers, MD. It was a free week long summit and featured many experts in the autoimmune field. I will share with my blog readers some of the highlights so you can feel like you were listening right along with me! Autoimmune disease begins in the gut so focused healing must look at the gut. Somewhere in your past history you may have had an insult to the gut which compromised the integrity of your gut lining. The insult might be caused by repeated ingestion of foods that can contribute to increased permeability of the intestinal lining (e.g. sugar, dairy, gluten, soy, legumes, nightshade vegetables, legumes, grains). Because there are a lot of foods that you could be reactive to, I recommend food allergy testing along with testing for yeast for starters. Your autoimmune disease could be the result of an infection of some sort that you had or have (c.difficile infection in my past hx), yeast, bacteria or parasites could play a role here also. Whatever the cause was, it has essentially created a situation where your gut is leaky or more permeable than it should be; this means incompletely digested food proteins can be absorbed into your bloodstream across the intestinal lining triggering the immune system to go on high alert for these dangerous invaders. Molecular mimicry can then cause the immune system to react against your own tissues if the amino acid sequence in the food protein is similar to a sequence found in your own tissues. This is one theory as to how autoimmune disease gets started. The first essential step then is to remove the offending insults that you can control in your diet.

Remove any bad bacteria, yeast, parasites from the system through specific targeted eradication of infectious organisms. Replace any nutrient deficiencies that may be detected.You might uncover deficiencies in Vitamin A, Vitamin D, zinc, magnesium, or iron for example. Supplement enzymes as needed or phytogens to improve digestive function. Use aggressive probiotic and prebiotic factors to restore gut function. Repair integrity of intestinal lining using targeted support factors like glutamine and herbs like Vaccinium vitis-idaea. Foods that are supportive to the gut include kim chi, raw sauerkraut, leeks, garlic, Jerusalem artichoke and asparagus. Omega 3 from wild seafood sources and insoluble fiber from veggies contribute to healthy gut bacteria. If you can stomach it, try eating organ meat such as liver which has increased nutrient density and is a source of cobalamin (Vit. B12) as well as Vitamin A and D. These are a few ideas to start you eating in a more targeted way to balance your immune system. Please book into see Dr. Vinge if you want to find out more about treating your autoimmune disease using naturopathic medicine. Please google autoimmune summit if you want to purchase the seminars that were featured on the autoimmune summit.