Increase Your Brain Fitness

Although physical exercise helps improve your brain health, brain exercises are a great tool for developing or maintaining a mind like a steel-trap.

Lumosity.com is a new site offering a complete brain fitness program.

Designed by neuroscientists, their program has been scientifically demonstrated to improve your memory, attention and processing speed.

The program consists of 30 sessions, each session consisting of three to five games, which automatically adapts to the difficulty best suited for your current abilities, getting more difficult as you go along. You can track your advancement and improvement as you go through the program.

Users of the program claim they have experienced clearer and quicker thinking, better memory retention of names and numbers, increased alertness, elevated mood and better concentration while on task.

For example, one game called Birdwatching is designed to improve your peripheral vision. This is an important ability in many everyday activities, such as driving, since having good peripheral vision is tied to a reduced likelihood of having an accident.

www.Mercola.com

Budget Savvy Tips For Healthy Eating

It’s a common misconception that eating healthy food is expensive. In reality, healthy eating is cheaper than eating junk food -- that is, if you know where to look.

For those of you looking to stick to healthy food while also sticking to a budget (which is most everyone!), here are some great tips:

• Skip prepared or pre-cut foods, which can cost far more than unprepared versions.
• Plan your meals ahead of time (including cooking large batches and freezing some for later) so you don’t have to splurge on expensive, unhealthy fast-food at the last minute.
• Pass on costly junk foods like potato chips, soda, cookies and other snacks.
• Buy lots of fresh veggies. They’re usually less expensive than canned versions. Only buy what you need.
• Keep track of what’s in your pantry so you don’t double-up on foods unnecessarily.
  St.LouisToday.com July 2, 2007

It’s true that shopping at trendy food stores can easily cost your whole paycheck, but taking advantage of sales on healthy items and clipping coupons, as well as looking for fresh, locally grown foods at a farmers’ market or a CSA, can all add up to big savings on your food bill.

Prepared foods can cost up to double the unprepared versions, so looking buying whole foods that you can make into meals, rather than prepared foods in a box, can actually lead to great savings.

And if you plan your meals ahead of time, you can get exactly what you need, when you need it, and prevent yourself from buying too much and wasting some of it when it goes bad.

If you still don’t buy the notion that your family can afford to eat healthily, take a look at this breakdown of how your family can eat organic foods for the same price as processed ones.

And of course, there are even bigger, indirect savings that come with eating whole foods.

Consider, for example, the difference in medical care needs between those who eat whole foods, and those who instead eat processed and factory farmed foods containing MSG, carcinogens or nerve poisons such as pesticides, trans-fats, massive amounts of sugar, and artificial synthetic sweeteners.

By Dr Mercola

Perfect Tomato Sauce From Scratch!

Today, Dr Mercola will be showing you how to make your own homemade tomato sauce from scratch. It might sound like a very simple recipe, but in reality, how many of us actually do it? I'm sure, like me, you very often just go out and buy a can or jar of tomato sauce, because it's much easier.

Well, this recipe is incredibly easy to do, and you can make it in bulk ahead of time and freeze it for later use.

Kitchen supplies:

• Large pot of boiling water
• Large bowl for mixing/blending
• Immersion blender (or regular blender or food processor)
• Large bowl of cold water
• Large slotted spoon

Ingredients:

• At least 4 large, fresh, ripe tomatoes
• 2 cloves chopped garlic, or to taste

Preparation:

• Place tomatoes in boiling water for approx 20 seconds.
• Remove tomatoes and plunge in cold water for about 12-15 seconds.
• Remove tomatoes from cold water.
• Peel tomatoes with fingers, breaking peel with fingernail or knife.
• Blend tomatoes with garlic to desired consistency, either smooth or with tomato chunks.
  Alternately, you may use a blender or food processor.

Makes 2-4 servings.

Note: You may add whatever flavorings, in addition to garlic, that you like, such as fresh basil, Italian herbs, black pepper, etc for a pasta sauce. Or, add any other spices or curry paste or sauce.

How easy was that? Raw, homemade, delicious and incredibly good for you. I hope you enjoy this recipe.

How to Choose a Personal Trainer Who Will Help You Lose Weight

Firstly, you need to ask these 5 important questions:

• 1.What are your qualifications? Make sure you ask the trainer about their qualifications and experience to make sure they know what they are doing and you’re in safe hands.
  2.Do you keep with current research? Personal trainers should continually be updating their knowledge by attending seminars, workshops, books, etc., in order to provide you with safe and useful information.
• 3.Are you available on the time and days I’ve selected? A Personal Trainer needs to work around you, so you need to make sure they are available to fit into your schedule and give you the expertise and motivation you need to workout efficiently.
• 4.What is your pricing?
  Personal training can cost from as little as $25 up to $100+ per hour, so make sure you choose one that’s within your budget. Be sure to ask if their rate includes the use of the local gym. It’s a good idea to find out about the policy on additional fees, contracts, cancellations, and billing procedures.
• 5.Can you supply client references? A good personal trainer should have plenty of satisfied customers and won’t hesitate to let you contact them. You should ask them about the trainer’s strengths and weaknesses, if they were professional, informative, dependable and how well the trainer helped them reach their goal.
  

Extra Tips:

Determine your fitness goal, whether it is to lose some weight, run a marathon or being able to have enough energy to play with your kids. This helps narrow down personal trainers based on their experience and field of expertise.

Consider where you want to work out. Location can often determine your selection of trainers. Personal Trainers perform their workouts with you in their studio, local gym or they can even come to you.

Some trainers are willing to train small groups; using this method will reduce your cost. If you have a friend who has the same goal as you, think about working out together at a reduced price.

After your first workout with your Personal Trainer, ask your self these questions?

1. Will I be able to get along with this trainer and look forward to working with him/her?
2. Does the trainer have good listening skills and communicate well?
3. How motivated does the trainer make you feel?
4. How does your body feel after the session?

James Penn is an expert at planning fitness training programs and especially abdominal routines. You can learn exactly what he teaches for free at http://www.firmupyourabs.com/ including abdominal workouts and abdominal exercises to help you lose abdominal fat.

The Best Way to Get Enough Calcium

A new study suggests that calcium from food sources may be more effective than calcium from supplements.

It found that women who get most of their daily calcium from food sources have healthier bones and greater bone density, even though those who took more supplements tended to have higher average levels of calcium.

Researchers asked 183 postmenopausal women to document their diet over the course of a week, after which their bone mineral density and estrogen were tested.

Women who got at least 70 percent of their daily calcium from food sources instead of supplements took in the least calcium (830 milligrams per day, on average), but higher spine and hip bone density than women consuming 1,030 milligrams of calcium per day primarily from supplement sources.

Women who got calcium in relatively even amounts from both food and supplemental sources had both the highest bone mineral density and the highest calcium intake (1,620 milligrams per day).

Calcium from dietary sources is usually more completely absorbed than calcium from supplements, which could explain the difference. Women who got getting calcium from foods also had higher estrogen levels; estrogen is needed to maintain bone mineral density.

The connection between dietary calcium and estrogen is as yet unknown, although it could be the result of eating plant sources containing the hormone.

Those who got calcium from food sources might have also taken in more vitamin D, which would aid in calcium absorption.American Journal of Clinical Nutrition May 2007, Vol. 85, No. 5, 1428-1433Yahoo News June 27, 2007

Dr Mercola's comments:

This study bears out what common sense would tell you: getting calcium from food is far better than getting it from a pill. But for many of us common sense is not very common and we seek to maximize our convenience and swallow our vitamins and minerals conveniently rather than focus on receiving them from high quality supplements.

Ah, if life were just that easy that simply swallowing a few pills would solve our nutritional needs. While supplements of course can be useful, they should be viewed just as that, supplements to a high quality diet that is used in addition to not in place of a high quality diet.

As often happens when it comes to food, quality is more important than quantity; even though the women taking supplements had higher average levels of calcium, the women who got their calcium from food had stronger bones.

Calcium from food is simply better absorbed and utilized by your body than synthetic calcium from a pill.The best food source of calcium out there is that from raw milk (NOT conventional, pasteurized milk) and other raw dairy products. Dark green, leafy vegetables is another great source of calcium.

Of course, it’s not just calcium that you’re better off getting from whole foods, it’s all nutrients. Your best choice is always to favor getting nutrients the way nature intended.

Vitamin D is also important for calcium absorption, so along with your raw milk and vegetables, make sure that you are getting plenty of safe sun exposure this summer.

Because of this, adequate vitamin D levels help to prevent osteoporosis and hip fractures. You should also remember that, just as exercise and diet work in tandem to beat obesity, the same can be said for osteoporosis.

Strengthening bone mass, especially during puberty, can build a good foundation that can last a lifetime. In fact, there is a stronger connection between exercise and improved bone density among teens than taking calcium.

Finally, make sure your diet contains healthy levels of omega-3 fats, which are the stealth dietary weapon in preserving your bone density.

Even many nutritionists are not aware of the important relationship between healthy bones and optimal fat intake.

Sex to Earthquakes: What Causes Heart Attacks

By Robin Lloyd, LiveScience Senior Editor
http://www.livescience.com/

Anger really can trigger a heart attack.

But then, so can:

• getting sick,
• being too hot,
• being too cold,
• air pollution,
• lack of sleep,
• grief,
• overeating,
• natural disasters,
• exercise and sex.

In fact, simply waking up is the worst thing you can do if you're trying to avoid a heart attack.

Heart attacks, strokes and cardiac arrests seem to come out of the blue, but actually most occur upon rising in the morning, according to the July 2007 issue of the Harvard Heart Letter.

Before waking, our bodies release stress hormones into the bloodstream to give us the energy to get out of bed, but this also strains the heart slightly. That bump can cause a cardiac event if one's arteries already are rife with festering cholesterol-rich plaque. The dehydration that normally occurs after a night of sleep also puts a plaque-plagued circulatory system at risk.

Also, heart medications wear off during the night.

A bout of anger can increase the chances of having a heart attack up to 14-fold for two hours following a flare-up, the Letter states.

Strenuous exercise such as shoveling snow or running can be a trigger, but exertion is much less likely to cause trouble in people who exercise regularly. So stay in shape, the authors advise.Infectious diseases such as pneumonia and the flu can also trigger heart attacks and strokes.

The fact is that most people sleep too little, rise and shine, make love, shovel snow, eat too much, overheat, argue and recover from the flu without getting a heart attack. "Still, knowing what sets off heart attacks, strokes or cardiac arrests can help you avoid triggers or blunt their power," the Letter states.

wellness works comments:

As you can read from the article, there are many circumstances that can trigger a heart attack, and all should be taken into consideration. But if you have a pre-existing condition, this is what effect the emotion of anger can have on your bodily systems, especially your circulatory system.

The destructive emotions of the human mind are many, and the individual who understands how to control and neutralize their e-motion is indeed fortunate.

During fits of anger, every function of the body operates in an extravagant fashion, all bodily work is performed in a most wasteful manner. All muscles become tense ands contracted. This tenseness pervades even the sympathetic nervous system.

As a result, sympathetic discharge creates pronounced circulatory changes. The heart beats more rapidly and with greater amplitude. The smaller blood vessels contract in spasmodic fashion. This constriction of the arteries, together with increased heart action, produces a higher blood pressure and more effective circulation through the organs involved in bodily action.

Thus the heart is overworked, the circulation, digestion and elimination are interfered with; and breathing becomes deeper and more rapid. The entire physical mechanism is disoriented.

Concept Therapy Institute, Rays of the Dawn, Natural Laws of the Body, Mind and Soul.

www.concept-therapy.org

Why Americans Keep Getting Fatter

The average American eats 142 pounds of sugar a year, or about 2.5 pounds each week.

That's a 23 percent increase over the last 25 years, and it is a major cause of the currently soaring rates of obesity and diabetes.

Dr. David Ludwig, who treats childhood obesity at Boston Children's Hospital, says that one of the problems is the fact that the average convenience store is a nutritional disaster area.

Ludwig says that highly processed carbohydrates and refined sugars are causing hormonal changes that "drive hunger, cause overeating, and increase the risk of diabetes and heart disease."

Sugar in some form is present in nearly every packaged product in a grocery store, including spaghetti sauce, salad dressing, peanut butter, mayonnaise and ketchup. CBS News June 17, 2007

Dr. Mercola's Comment:

If you haven't read my recent article, Finally Science Confirms the Secret Key to Weight Loss, I would encourage you to do so, as it documents recent studies that support the insulin connection to weight loss and maintaining optimal weight. Due to deceptive nutritional labels and general lack of knowledge of where the hidden sugars are, Americans are eating far more sugar than they know. When searching for sugar, you must also keep a vigilant eye out for high fructose corn syrup and those dangerous artificial sweeteners. These are included in a wide variety of foods that you might not normally suspect. When consumed in the massive quantities, sugars cause hormonal changes that lead to overeating. And don't forget, carbohydrates found in processed foods, such as white bread and rice, break down to glucose and affect your body in the same way as refined sugar does. Any meal or snack high in carbohydrates or sugars generates a rapid rise in blood glucose. To adjust for this rise, your pancreas secretes the hormone insulin into your bloodstream, which lowers your glucose (sugar) level. Insulin is, though, essentially a storage hormone, which is used to store the excess calories from carbohydrates in the form of fat. Insulin, stimulated by the excess carbohydrates in overabundant consumption of grains, starches and sweets, is responsible for all those bulging stomachs and fat rolls in thighs and chins. Even worse, high insulin levels suppress two other important hormones -- glucagons and growth hormones -- that are responsible for burning fat and sugar and promoting muscle development, respectively. So insulin from excess carbohydrates promotes fat, and then wards off the body's ability to lose that fat. Excess weight and obesity lead to heart disease and a wide variety of other diseases. But the ill effects of grains and sugars does not end there. They suppress the immune system, contributing to allergies, and they are responsible for a host of digestive disorders. They contribute to depression, and their excess consumption is, in fact, associated with many of the chronic diseases in our nation, such as cancer and diabetes. If you're still not convinced that life can be twice as sweet without sugar, take a look at these 76 ways sugar can ruin your health.

Seven Ways Your Body Tells You You're Hungry ... Even When You're Not

This interesting Time article details seven reasons why you may eat more food than your body really needs.

Factors involved in overeating can be subtle and unobvious.

Reasons for eating when you aren't hungry can include:

• Time of Day. Your body is conditioned to eat at certain intervals through routine. If you normally eat breakfast and find yourself in too much of a rush one day, your body will signal it's starving.
• Sight of Food. The body anticipates when food is about to enter the system. That's why your mouth starts watering at the sight of Mom's homemade pie.
• Alcohol. Drinking has a tendency to impair judgment, which can lead to indulging in more food than usual.
• Refined Carbs. Any meal or snack high in grain and sugar carbohydrates typically generates a rapid rise in blood glucose. To compensate for this, your pancreas secretes the hormone insulin into your bloodstream, which lowers your blood sugar. This "crashing" usually leads you right back to the fridge in search for more food.
  

You can check out the link below for the remaining items that can make you lose control over your eating.
Time.com

Dr. Mercola's Comment:

There are a variety of problems that lead to overeating. Some of them are familiar and widely publicized, such as stress and the holiday season (not to mention both of them combined!)

Others, however, are not -- although the judgment-impairing properties of alcohol are well-known, few people think about them in relation to food.

Carbohydrates, especially refined carbohydrates, but even whole wheat grains are perhaps the most important item on Time's list. They do their dastardly dead by raising your insulin levels. You may have noticed hunger setting in within just a few hours after a hefty pasta meal, this is due to elevated insulin levels.

We all need a certain amount of carbohydrates, but too many people are addicted to grains, potatoes and sweets, consuming far too many dangerous carbs that can lead to serious chronic health problems like diabetes and cancer.

Since your body's storage capacity for carbs is rather limited, when you consume more than you need they are converted (via insulin) into fat and stored as fat, thereby increasing both your waistline and your risk for nearly every chronic degenerative disease.

Currently, we face an obesity epidemic. If it is not reversed we will, for the first time in history, see children living shorter lives than their parents.

I am committed to helping as many as possible wake up long before that. That is one of the primary purposes of this newsletter -- to reverse this catastrophic trend by providing the tools to escape from the ravages of poor food choices and reliance on dangerous band-aid drugs.

Important steps you can take are:

• Retool your diet based on your body's unique nutritional type.
• Use the many resources on my Web site to start an exercise program that works best for you.
• If you need a boost you can use brown seaweed that help accelerate your metabolic rate and help you loose weight.
• Address emotional issues that contribute to your physical health by learning an effective energy psychology tool like the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT).

Whole Foods: The Whole Truth

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June 25, 2007

Whole Foods, the fast-growing chain of upscale "healthy" supermarkets, may not be quite as wholesome as they would like you to believe.

It's important to remember, though, that not everything at Whole Foods is automatically healthy and good for the environment.

Money Magazine has highlighted some of the key issues to be aware of when shopping at Whole Foods so you don't end up spending your whole paycheck on not-so-great foods. Among them:

Whole Foods offers only a limited supply of local produce, meaning the environmental damage it causes in transportation is just as high as most other supermarkets.

Although Whole Foods doesn't carry products with trans fats or artificial coloring, everything else is fair game.

The in-store prepared foods do list ingredients, but there's no nutritional information provided.
Money Magazine June 24, 2007

Dr. Mercola's Comment:

Whole Foods Market has certainly helped to bring organic foods to the mainstream market, and is now the most popular and fastest-growing health food chain in the United States. But, like most large corporations, it does not have a perfect track record. And while Whole Foods does offer a wide variety of organic foods, they tend to sell foods at a higher price.

They have been roundly criticized in books such as Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma.

For many in urban areas Trader Joe's seems to provide similar healthy but less expensive options.

It's important to remember that buying local is often even better than buying organic, because you get fresher foods that didn't use up excess fuel to be transported a long way. Studies have determined that the long-distance transportation of organic produce causes an environmental impact large enough to cancel out any benefits.

Whether you choose to buy your food at Whole Foods or another store, make sure you are buying foods that are fresh and, ideally, grown nearby. Farmer's markets and community-supported agriculture programs make great alternatives to markets like Whole Foods, and they tend to be much more affordable, too.

For more tips on eating healthy on a budget, check out Your Family Could be Eating Organic Food for the Same Price as Processed Foods -- or Less.

Sicko Medical System Debated

If you haven't seen Sicko yet you simply MUST. It is, without a doubt, one of the BEST films I have ever seen.

To make it easier for you I have provided the link to the film FREE in Google Video below.

The California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee has joined other nursing organizations that are hosting 3,000 screenings Michael Moore's film Sicko, which premiered June 29.

The film argues that for-profit insurance companies should be eliminated, as they are financially motivated not to provide the best medical care, but instead to deny claims and withhold care as often as possible.

A press conference held on Capitol Hill featured clips from the film, along with testimony from congressmen who favor greater government involvement in medicine.The film has already started debates on the subject; film maker Stuart Browning has made a short internet movie attempting to debunk Moore's claim that 45 million Americans have no health insurance and no access to medical care.

Other critics have argued that guaranteed health care is not always as good as the film claims, sometimes resulting in death because patients have to wait too long for medical care. AAPS June 24, 2007

Dr. Mercola's Comment:

If you haven't yet seen Sicko I would STRONGLY encourage you to do so. Michael Moore did an absolutely outstanding job of documenting many of the major problems that are currently wrong with the current medical system.

The movie chronicles Moore's interpretations of the problems with the conventional health care industry. And no matter what Moore's critics may argue, there can be no debate that the current medical system, run by multi national corporations with an eye on their profits rather than on your health, is fatally flawed.

What I would caution you though is to ignore Moore's solutions. He would have the US government pay for all the care for the uninsured. While the movie makes some compelling arguments and it might make sense for acute traumas, the bulk of the disease in this country are chronic degenerative diseases.

With the government NOT paying for these expenses the US is already paying more than two trillion dollars a year for "health care" and headed to three trillion per year by the end of the decade.

If the government assumes these costs it will bankrupt the country even faster.
The real solution to all the non trauma disasters that Michael documents is to revert back to natural healing that treats the cause of the disease. I carefully document a comprehensive plan in my ne book, Take Control of Your Health.

A 2001 U.S. study showed that about half of all bankruptcies in 2001 were the result of medical problems -- and most of those who went bankrupt for this reason (more than three-quarters) were covered by health insurance at the start of the illness. Medical bankruptcies affect more than 2 million annually.

It is true that the guaranteed health care practiced by almost all other industrialized nations isn't always perfect. It costs money in taxes, and there can be long waits, especially for problems that are not critical. But most people are already shelling out thousands of dollars each year in insurance premiums, and long waits are infinitely preferable to simply being denied care because the insurance company doesn't want to pay out -- a situation that happens far more often than you might think.

There is no question that we have an ever-increasing insurance crisis in this country for medical coverage. Please don't let the media persuade you otherwise -- this problem is only going to get worse. The solution is to change the entire system. Unless we change the system, drug companies will continue to extract hundreds of billions of dollars from our economy with virtually no benefit -- other than making themselves richer.

The solution is to redirect the spending to care that will build the health of the country. When our nation is focused on health achievement, rather than disease treatment, the total cost of providing medical care would dramatically decline, because healthy people require less medical resources.

Four Ways to Lower Your Blood Pressure Without Drugs

Up to 90 percent of high blood pressure cases are thought to be caused by lifestyle habits that constrict blood vessels.

When your blood vessels are constricted tightly, your heart must work much harder to keep your blood flowing, hence the higher blood pressure.Increasing a compound in your blood known as nitric monoxide can help to open constricted blood vessels and lower your blood pressure. Four ways to increase nitric monoxide in your blood are:

• Aerobic exercise
• Taking a warm bath
• Breathing in and out through one nostril (by closing the other nostril and your mouth)
• Eating bitter melon, which is rich in amino acids and vitamin C
  Indigo World 2007

Dr. Mercola's Comment:

Successfully treating high blood pressure without medications is really very simple. It is actually one of the easiest things that our staff does in the office, and we are able to help nearly all of the patients that see us discontinue their blood pressure medications.

While high blood pressure is a serious condition, it's also one that can easily be treated by:

• Following a healthy nutrition plan
• Exercising
• Getting emotionally balanced

Insulin is a major reason that high blood pressure persists. Most hypertensive patients have insulin receptors that are blunted; they don't work very well anymore. Therefore, the body needs to generate more insulin to get them to work.

This can lead to devastating consequences, as excessive insulin will cause serious complications -- far more so than blood sugar -- and is one of the prime causes of complications from high blood pressure and diabetes.

So the first step is to eliminate most grains and all sweets from your diet until your blood pressure and weight normalize; sugars and grains only tend to make your insulin levels remain elevated. Another way to lower your insulin levels would be to use exercise wisely.

Most overweight hypertensive patients require a very comprehensive set of aerobic and anaerobic relatively intense exercise.

It is my experience that changing one's diet and exercise will normalize blood pressure in over 85 percent of people. However, there are clearly some individuals where unresolved current or past stresses are the primary culprit in high blood pressure.

Additionally, many individuals are unable to make the lifestyle changes necessary to normalizing their blood pressure because of emotional self-sabotaging behavior.

This is where energy psychology tools are absolutely invaluable.

We use the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) in our office -- it's a simple tool that can help you in this area. Many people initially are skeptical about EFT because it is so different than other treatments, but it is clearly one of the most helpful tools that I have ever used in taking care of patients.

I've compiled a comprehensive page that includes all the details you need to treat high blood pressure without drugs.

Wellness Work's comments:

While I aggree with Dr. Mercola's methods to reducing blood pressure, I would also recommend talking and working with your Doctor closely before stopping or reducing any medication. As some cases might be more serious than others.

The Natural Way to Rid Yourself of a Migraine Headache

BY
Dr. Mercola

It is possible to stop headaches by stimulating your body's natural painkilling ability.

By putting pressure on a nerve just under your eyebrow, you can cause your pituitary gland to release painkilling endorphins immediately.


You can learn more about the details of the method by clicking at Squidoo Health & Medicine.

Another method for releasing endorphins is to take 10 teaspoons of cayenne pepper in a glass of water. Endorphins are released by the brain when the cayenne hits your stomach lining.

Other useful techniques include:

• Putting a cold compress on your forehead or behind the neck
• Massaging the ears and ear lobes
• Massaging the "crown" of your head -- the ring of muscles that circle the head where a crown would sit
  Squidoo Health & Medicine June 18, 2007

Dr. Mercola's Comment:

Headaches can be basically divided into two types, tension and migraine.

Americans spend more than $1 billion every year to get relief from migraines. The pain associated with migraines can be incredibly debilitating. I have seen a number of patients who were seriously contemplating suicide because the pain was so bad.

Many of the drugs used to treat migraines are effective in relieving this severe pain and are a welcome relief. Unfortunately they do absolutely nothing to treat the cause and in fact actually contribute to the problem as after a short while they actually cause rebound headaches themselves.

This is very similar to drinking large amounts of coffee or soda for awhile and then trying to go off. If you go cold turkey off of caffeine you will most likely have a severe withdrawl headache.

Fortunately, there are many natural treatment options that exist to treat migraines. These should always be considered first, as drugs to treat migraines can actually make the problem worse.

In addition to the massage and endorphin-release techniques linked above, I have been incredibly impressed with the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), a type of psychological acupressure, is also a remarkably effective tool to relieve the pain of migraines.

Most migraines also seem to include a food-based reaction relating to wheat, dairy, sugar, or artificial preservatives or chemicals. Eliminating these foods and incorporating the principles of my nutrition plan frequently improves migraines.

One final, simple tip to free yourself from migraine pain -- start an exercise program. This will help to improve your response to stress along with the underlying inflammatory conditions that can trigger migraines.

Brain Scans Reveal Why Meditation Works

If you name your emotions, you can tame them, according to new research that suggests why meditation works.


By Melinda Wenner, LiveScience.com


Brain scans show that putting negative emotions into words calms the brain's emotion center. That could explain meditation’s purported emotional benefits, because people who meditate often label their negative emotions in an effort to “let them go.”


Psychologists have long believed that people who talk about their feelings have more control over them, but they don't know why it works.


UCLA psychologist Matthew Lieberman and his colleagues hooked 30 people up to functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machines, which scan the brain to reveal which parts are active and inactive at any given moment.


They asked the subjects to look at pictures of male or female faces making emotional expressions. Below some of the photos was a choice of words describing the emotion—such as “angry” or “fearful”—or two possible names for the people in the pictures, one male name and one female name.


When presented with these choices, the subjects were asked to pick the most appropriate emotion or gender-appropriate name to fit the face they saw.


When the participants chose labels for the negative emotions, activity in the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex region—an area associated with thinking in words about emotional experiences—became more active, whereas activity in the amygdala, a brain region involved in emotional processing, was calmed.


By contrast, when the subjects picked appropriate names for the faces, the brain scans revealed none of these changes—indicating that only emotional labeling makes a difference.
“In the same way you hit the brake when you’re driving when you see a yellow light, when you put feelings into words, you seem to be hitting the brakes on your emotional responses,”



Lieberman said of his study, which is detailed in the current issue of Psychological Science.
In a second experiment, 27 of the same subjects completed questionnaires to determine how “mindful” they are.


Meditation and other “mindfulness” techniques are designed to help people pay more attention to their present emotions, thoughts and sensations without reacting strongly to them. Meditators often acknowledge and name their negative emotions in order to “let them go.”


When the team compared brain scans from subjects who had more mindful dispositions to those from subjects who were less mindful, they found a stark difference—the mindful subjects experienced greater activation in the right ventrolateral prefrontral cortex and a greater calming effect in the amygdala after labeling their emotions.


“These findings may help explain the beneficial health effects of mindfulness meditation, and suggest, for the first time, an underlying reason why mindfulness meditation programs improve mood and health,” said David Creswell, a UCLA psychologist who led the second part of the study, which will be detailed in Psychosomatic Medicine.

Wellness Work's Comments:

In order for someone to learn the art of meditation, they must learn how to concentrate their mind on a single object for an extended period of time.

The mind has been compared to a ship without a rudder, you can't steer it, you can't direct it, you wind up wherever the tide takes you. As long as we allow our mind to run around aimlessly from one thought to another without awareness we are at the mercy to wherever it takes us.

Descipling the mind is the first step towards developing a sound meditation practice.

Second, developing awareness in your meditation practice, will allow you to descriminate to which thoughts you want to give your attention to.

The one great law is; like attracts like, positive thoughts attract positive things in your life. Desciplining and awareness will allow you to choose and descriminate to what kind of life you want to create in the physical world.

To start your practice, find a confortable and peaceful place, where you won't be disturbed.

Focus the mind on the breath is a simple and effective technique to get the mind under our control.

Inhale slowly through your nose, hold the breath for a few seconds and then exhale slowly through your mouth. Allow the mind to follow the breath and if you find yourself drifting off to whatever thought comes around seeking your attention, just be aware, let it go, don't identify with it and bring your focus back to the breath.

Start with this exercise a few minutes a day and slowly increase your time.

Just like the light bulb has illuminated the outer world, meditation will illuminate your inner world, it will bring greater health, peace of mind and true happiness.

Seek and you shall find!