Every month, I know when it's that time in my menstrual cycle: the time to cue up sad movies and bust out the dark chocolate. There are signs my luteal phase has arrived, and it used to make a grand entrance, but I learned ways to dampen its arrival.
Posts filed under Alternative Medicine
Sustainable Health: The Seven Steps Blueprint for Optimal Health
Over the 29 years of studying and practicing nutrition, I have developed a seven-step blueprint for optimal health. My expectation is that patients will start to experience positive physical changes within a few weeks when following this regimen. As an example, I just helped a patient reverse her terrible heartburn 100% and get off the prescription drugs in four months.
Compassionate Depossession and Curse Unraveling
Over the years, whenever something began showing up in my work with clients, I always looked for more information to address the issue in a knowledgeable, grounded way. That’s how I got into animal communication; that’s also what brought me to Betsy Bergstrom, a shamanic expert who has developed unique training in curse unraveling and compassionate depossession. A part of the training includes psychopomp, psycho from the Greek for “spirit” and pomp meaning “to accompany.” Basically, helping a person or animal to prepare for the transition to have a good death and a good crossing over.
Sustainable Health: Enhancing Detoxification-- A Path to Lifelong Wellness
The idea of enhancing detoxification to improve health has been known and practiced in the natural healthcare community for decades. Herbs, saunas, activated charcoal, juicing, and body wraps are just a few of the ways practitioners and patients have sought to rid the body of toxins and waste more efficiently. These different approaches have gone in and out of fashion, and with the advent of social media you can find any number of people claiming they’ve got the perfect shake, supplement, or potion for everyone to achieve a cleaner body. Let’s face it, some of them are scams, but the theory is sound—help the body detoxify and you’ll have more energy, clearer skin, better bowel elimination, and avoid chronic illness later in life.
Sick of This — Understanding Long Covid and Local Resources for Recovery
Nearly three years after SARS-COV2 emerged, we are coming to realize that acute Covid-19 disease is, for many, only the first phase of an ongoing health challenge. For a large percentage of people who have had Covid, fatigue and other symptoms last for months or even years after the initial infection. Officially known as “Post-Acute Sequelae of Covid-19 (PASC)” or “Post-Covid Conditions (PCC),” this constellation of lingering symptoms is commonly known as “Long Covid.”
Healer of Ann Arbor: When is a Massage Not a Massage?
Lisa Teets is a local Bowenwork healer, Tai Chi instructor, and fan of wellness modalities in general. I met her in a local Tai Chi class several years ago, and we hit it off. As many of us struggle with stress into year three of the pandemic, I wanted to learn more about her primary modality—Bowenwork—to ask what makes it different from a massage and how people might know if they would benefit from trying it.
The New Context of Essential Oils
Take a moment to imagine a beautiful rose garden. Notice your surroundings. Feel the sun warming the surface of your skin, as a gentle breeze dances by. Listen to the sounds of nature around you. The leaves on the trees sway in the breeze. Birds off in the distance. A sense of stillness within the activity of nature.
Mind and Spirit — A Return to (Psychedelic) Plant Medicine
If you live in America today, you might have noticed a mental health epidemic unfolding. While debate rages over the cause of the decades-long upswing in depression, anxiety, and PTSD, one thing is clear: most of us know at least one person who has been, at some point, dangerously depressed. Worse still, we probably all know someone whose depression has not responded to first-line medications like SSRIs.
Sustainable Health: Ask for Help!
The weeks and months after my first child was born were some of the most difficult I have ever experienced. I was depleted from blood loss, and it felt like all the nutrients in my bones and muscles were being concentrated into the growing baby and breastmilk. For the first few days, my husband carried me down the stairs. He changed every diaper for the first month. However, the sleep deprivation, the intense emotional changes, and continual nutritional depletion converged to bring me to a point of stress in my system I was unprepared for and had little facility to manage.
Healers of Ann Arbor: Acupuncture with Dr. Cynthia Esseichick
You can try a new type of massage or read a chiropractor’s online reviews, but how do you really know when a healing modality is right for you? Columnist Laura K. Cowan goes in depth with local healers to give you a behind-the-scenes look at what they really do to help people relax and heal.
Bowenwork for Gentle Healing
I had been suffering from neck and shoulder pain for many years due to a car accident. Although weekly chiropractic and massage helped, my problems never fully resolved. Over the years I tried many healing modalities with no lasting relief until a friend suggested I try Bowenwork. I found a practitioner and gave it a try. Since I was used to vigorous massages, I was surprised with how little force was used with Bowenwork. After the second session, I started noticing some wonderful changes. Eventually, my neck and shoulder issues resolved, as well as other issues that I had not communicated to my practitioner.
Healers of Ann Arbor: Greg Knollmeyer Reflexologist and T’ai Chi Instructor
You can try a new type of massage or read a chiropractor’s online reviews, but how do you really know when a healing modality is right for you? Columnist Laura K. Cowan goes in depth with local healers to give you a behind-the-scenes look at what they really do to help people relax and heal.
Book Review: The Five Element Solution By Jean Haner
Author and teacher, Jean Haner, has carved out a unique niche for herself as an expert on Chinese spiritual methods, including: the art of Chinese face reading, the Nine-Star-Ki (a form of numerology), and Space Clearing. Her latest book, titled The Five Element Solution: Discover The Spiritual Side of Chinese Medicine to Release Stress, Clear Anxiety, and Reclaim Your Life was inspired by her clients who wanted more support after their sessions with her.
The Raindrop Technique
Essential oils—they’re everywhere! You can find them in the grocery store, home improvement stores, the mall, and even the gas station. Aromatherapy, with essential oils, is extremely popular right now. As the saying goes, “everything old is new again.” That’s truly the case with essential oils.
Plant Medicine and Magic
When people ask what drew me to herbalism, there are two stories that I tell. One is of my time working in the Mojave desert, where my boss—a botanist by training—would point out various native plants and tell me snippets of how the indigenous people of the area used them for food or medicine (he always spoke of this in the past tense). For him, it was an interesting tidbit of information, but I thought, “couldn’t we still?” This story is true, but the deeper truth goes back many years, to my childhood.
From Nixon to Michigan: A Brief History of the Legalization of Acupuncture in the U.S.
Which state do you think was the first to legalize the practice of acupuncture? You are probably thinking California, right? Or maybe New York? Did any of you guess Nevada?If you got this question right, then perhaps you happened to have been living in Carson City, Nevada in the spring of 1973 and saw the line of patients with canes and wheelchairs waiting outside a hotel across the street from the state legislature.
