Another hobby of mine is journaling when I seek answers. My normal journal entries start with a question. A few months ago my question was, “Did I make the right decision when I changed careers to become a publisher, did I choose the right “wave”?”

The answer came back a resounding a YES!!! My time as a publisher has been AMAZING. I worked with a production team that is second to none!  I have met readers that have thanked me and told me the ways the magazine had helped them fight and prevent illness of the mind and body. I had the opportunity to publish a book A Year of Inspired Living  (published by the same publisher that published famed Chicken Soup for the Soul book series!!). I grew! “Yes, I picked the right wave!” So if it was the right wave, then the next quest invariably becomes, “Is it time to pop off?” That was a much harder answer to arrive at. But after much reflection, the answer was yes. I share with you all here, the very difficult decision that I have made, that my time as your publisher has come to a close. As I write my final publisher letter, I find it both interesting and ironic that another crisis has befallen Long Island (and the rest of the world). The COVID-19 pandemic has ravaged the globe, and in doing so has shed light on the real dangers of pre-existing diseases, like diabetes and obesity. The coronavirus has made it crystal clear that the health and wellness mission of Natural Awakenings is more important than ever! With that knowledge, I knew I could not in good conscious walk away without first finding someone with vibrant energy and passion to take NALI to the next level. I needed to feel good that your new publisher is a person that will strive to bring you even MORE than we have offered in the past! Trust me when I tell you that I leave you in great hands. I leave you with Michael Lehrman the publisher of the beautiful Natural Awakenings NYC edition at your help. As for me, I hope to find more waves (real and theoretical) to ride! For now, I send you all much love and ask that you follow me @core95lb as the co-owner of Long Island’s premier hot barre and fitness studio, Core 95, in Long Beach, NY when we reopen. No goodbyes—instead, Malama Pono-(Take Care of You).

The post New Beginnings appeared first on Natural Awakenings Magazine.

Please join 34 top doctors, authors and scientists at the world’s largest live health conference, which will be held January 24 to February 2 at the Long Island Hilton, in Melville, from 9 a.m. until 9:30 p.m. daily (ends at 5 p.m. the last day). Come for any or all of the 10 days and listen to the latest, most accurate, unbiased information on health, nutrition, the food system, the medical system, and the environment. The entire conference is free to attend in person and all speakers are live on stage. Free vegan breakfast, lunch and dinner are served to all in attendance, as well as free vegan ice cream and vegan cookies. 

Why do we need this conference when we already get health information from newspapers, TV news, magazines, universities, government agencies and the big industries themselves? Simple, the information you get is often biased in favor of the food, medical, chemical and fossil fuel industries. There is a lot of money being made today by the world’s biggest industries, and these industries don’t want anything to change. They want you to keep buying their products and not thinking too much about the health and environmental results from using what they sell. The problem with all this is that if the information that is reported to you from the media, universities, government agencies, scientific studies, and clinical trials is paid for or influenced by the big industries, then it is likely you are getting information that is more favorable to them than to you. This is why we are bringing together true experts that have no financial agenda and whose mission is to spread accurate information on health and the environment.

A conference like this would normally charge $7,500. It is only available for free because we believe it is urgent that everyone hears this information. The health and environmental statistics show dramatic changes for the worse over the last 50 years. Rates of obesity, diabetes, chronic kidney disease, autism, low sperm count, childhood health issues, and many other diseases have all increased dramatically over this time period. Being proactive and learning what foods, supplements and lifestyle choices can prevent disease has never been more important.

Some of the expert doctors, authors and scientists presenting at the conference include Joel Fuhrman, M.D. (The End of Heart Disease: The Eat to Live Plan to Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease); Caldwell B. Esselstyn Jr., M.D. (Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease); T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D. (The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-Term Health); Walter C. Willett, M.D. (Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy: The Harvard Medical School Guide to Healthy Eating);

Garth Davis, M.D. (Proteinaholic: How Our Obsession with Meat Is Killing Us and What We Can Do About It); Dr. David Katz (The Truth About Food: Why Pandas Eat Bamboo and People Get Bamboozled); Brenda Davis, RD (Becoming Vegan); Brian Clement, Ph.D., LN (Killer Fish: How Eating Aquatic Life Endangers Your Health); Pamela A. Popper, Ph.D., ND (Food over Medicine); Jeffrey M. Smith (Seeds of Deception: Exposing Industry and Government Lies About the Safety of the Genetically Engineered Foods You’re Eating); Devra Davis, Ph.D., MPH (Disconnect: The Truth About Cell Phone Radiation); and Gabriel Cousens, M.D, MD(H), DD (There Is a Cure for Diabetes).

Location: 598 Broad Hollow Rd., Melville. For more information or to register to attend for free, call 516-921-1417, email Info@RealTruthTalks.com or visit RealTruthTalks.com.

The post The Real Truth About Health Free 10-Day Conference appeared first on Natural Awakenings Magazine.

A brand new, exciting specialty practice for upper back pain sufferers opened in Old Brookville in January. The Center for Upper Back Pain Relief exclusively specializes treating upper back pain.

What makes the Center for Upper Back Pain Relief extremely unique is that it’s the very first upper back pain specialty practice in the U.S. Now, those living on Long Island have a convenient local destination to go to for their upper back pain.

During their consultations, the Center for Upper Back Pain identifies nine different factors with 52 different total variables to assess the extent of their patients’ upper back pain. Identifying these many different variables helps patients to understand exactly why they have upper back pain. It also helps to accurately zero in on how many total treatments could be needed to achieve total pain relief.

What sets the Center for Upper Back Pain Relief clearly apart is that it offers the life-changing TrapEAZE Technique. This four-step, patent-pending manual therapy procedure is the first specific upper back pain procedure that’s ever been developed. Perfected during the course of more than 10 years, it methodically helps to eliminate upper back pain by treating its root with laser-like focus.

Past patients commonly report massive reductions in pain; complete alleviation of upper back tension; increases in range of motion of the neck, shoulder and/or arms; increased ability to easily stay asleep; and an overall higher quality of life. Because the TrapEAZE Technique eliminates the cause of upper back pain itself, patients rarely need to return for follow-up treatment.

Upper back pain specialist Justin Mandel, LAc, is the Center for Upper Back Pain Relief’s medical director. With the TrapEAZE Technique, he offers patients an exceptional treatment experience that is 100% noninvasive, without needles, nonsurgical and non-opioid. With more than 20 years of experience in health care, he’s excited to bring this specialty practice to his fellow Long Islanders because of how much he’s been able to dramatically increase his patients’ quality of life.

When someone goes to the Center for Upper Back Pain Relief, they go straight to the source itself because Mandel is the developer of the TrapEAZE Technique. All Center for Upper Back Pain Relief patients will receive a thorough, private, personalized consultation from him and will always be treated directly by him.

All new patients will receive their own visual report of findings following the completion of their consultation. This important document breaks down the nine different specific variables that could be negatively affecting their upper back. The included care plan will outline the approximate number of treatments that will be needed to experience long-term upper back relief.

For more information or to download your free Upper Back Pain Basics booklet, visit the Center for Upper Back Pain Relief’s informative website, UpperBackRelief.com. This brief booklet contains three of the best upper back pain exercises that sufferers can do to quickly get temporary relief.

The post New Upper Back Pain Specialty Practice Has Opened appeared first on Natural Awakenings Magazine.

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Chronic pain affects 100 million Americans, with annual treatment costs reaching $635 billion, according to the Institute of Medicine. Worse, opiate-derived pain medications, conventional medicine’s go-to treatment for chronic pain, are addictive and deadly. The Annals of Internal Medicine reports that an estimated 2 million Americans suffered from opioid use disorder involving prescription drugs as of 2016 while 12 million admitted to misusing them. Legal and illegal opioids killed 64,070 Americans in 2016, 21 percent more than the previous year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Some opioid addiction stems from use of illegal recreational drugs like heroin and cocaine, but the National Institute of Drug Abuse testified to the U.S. Senate that as of 2014 more than four times as many Americans were addicted to prescription opioids (2.1 million) than heroin (467,000).

Natural approaches, less harmful in relieving pain and thereby preventing drug addictions, are addressing and ameliorating long-term back or neck, nerve and even cancer pain, and saving lives.

The first step in preventing dependency is to avoid opioids completely, says Fadel Zeidan, Ph.D., assistant professor of neurobiology and anatomy at the Wake Forest School of Medicine, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina: “Opioids don’t work for chronic pain. They may be effective for acute pain, such as right after an injury or surgery, but they are ineffective and addictive in the long run.” Here are several better ways to feel better.

Mindfulness meditation: Zeidan recommends mindfulness meditation and cites a University of Massachusetts study of people with chronic pain in which pain lessened by at least 65 percent after 10 weeks of this practice.

“Mindfulness meditation is about discipline and regulating one’s attention. It appears to shut down the thalamus, the brain’s gatekeeper, and the brain’s ability to register pain,” explains Zeidan.

To enroll in a new study on mindfulness meditation and chronic back pain, email ZeidanLab@WakeHealth.edu.
For information on ongoing studies, visit ZeidanLab.com.

Yoga: Strongly positive effects have been reported in several studies, including one on 150 veterans with chronic low back pain from the Veterans Administration San Diego Healthcare System. It showed that 12 weeks of yoga classes reduced pain and opioid use, and improved functionality of participants; many of them had suffered back pain for more than 15 years.

Acupuncture: The ancient Chinese modality that’s been used to treat all types of pain for millennia has become such a mainstream treatment that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recommends that healthcare providers learn more about it to help patients avoid prescription opioids.

“All pain starts with imbalance,” says Terri Evans, a doctor of Oriental medicine in Naples, Florida. “Acupuncture is about creating balance in the body and in releasing the fascia, where pain patterns get locked.”

Marijuana: All forms of marijuana, or cannabis, are illegal on the federal level, but medical marijuana is now legal in 29 states and the District of Columbia. In a study from San Francisco General Hospital published in the journal Neurology, researchers found that smoking the first cannabis cigarette reduced pain by 72 percent in a group of patients with painful neuropathy. The body’s endocannabinoid system, found in the brain, organs, connective tissues and immune cells, is one of its natural pain-coping mechanisms, and is most affected by cannabis.

Mitch Earleywine, Ph.D., associate professor of clinical psychology at the State University of New York at Albany, author of Understanding Marijuana: A New Look at the Scientific Evidence and a member of the advisory board of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, is an advocate of medical marijuana. While regarding it as helpful for chronic pain with little risk of addiction, he concludes it’s “great for a small handful of conditions, but it’s not the cure-all that some are suggesting.”

CBD oil: Dr. Hyla Cass, of Marina del Rey, California, an integrative physician expert in psychiatry and addiction recovery, and author of The Addicted Brain and How to Break Free, is more comfortable with CBD (cannabidiol) oil. It’s a hemp product legal in 45 states, provided it qualifies in non-addictive levels of THC, the component of cannabis that induces euphoria (see State-by-State Marijuana Policies).

Some CBD oils contain trace amounts of THC, not enough to induce a “high” or contribute to addiction, but there are also products that contain no THC at all. By definition, hemp’s THC content is less than 0.3 percent versus marijuana’s 5 to 35 percent.

“CBD oil won’t make you high,” says Cass. “In and of itself, CBD oil is very potent. You don’t need the THC for pain relief. There’s no need to go down the slippery slope of using an illegal substance.”

In addition to CBD oil’s pain-relieving effects on the endocannabinoid system, says Cass, it’s a powerful anti-inflammatory, which contributes to its effectiveness in addressing the underlying causes of chronic pain, confirmed by University of South Carolina research.

Kathleen Barnes is the author of numerous books on natural health, including Food is Medicine. Connect at KathleenBarnes.com.

Drumming Out Drugs

Mundus/Shutterstock.com

Music, specifically drumming, stimulates the release of endorphins, the body’s own morphine-like painkillers. Group drumming can help people withdrawing from addictive drugs, especially those having particular difficulty in conventional addiction programs, reports a University of Arizona at Tempe study published in the American Journal of Public Health.

Other supportive studies are listed at ShamanicDrumming.com/drumtherapy.html.

Let the Sunshine In

sirtravelalot/Shutterstock.com

Just getting a little natural sunlight can have a strong effect on chronic pain, according to a study published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine. Hospital patients fortunate enough to have beds on the sunny side of the building cut their need for opioid-based pain meds by 22 percent just one hour after spine surgery.

 

The post Better Options Than Opioids appeared first on Natural Awakenings Magazine.

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Three years ago, the New York Times added a new word to the world’s food vocabulary:

Climatarian (n.) A diet whose primary goal is to reverse climate change. This includes eating locally produced food (to reduce energy spent in transportation), choosing pork and poultry instead of beef and lamb (to limit gas emissions), and using every part of ingredients (apple cores, cheese rinds, etc.) to limit food waste.

Changing our food choices to support this model can have a ripple effect. Researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in a 2017 study published in the journal Climatic Change, looked at how diets impact personal health, the healthcare system and climate. They found that adopting a more plant-based diet reduces the relative risk of coronary heart disease, colorectal cancer and Type 2 diabetes by 20 to 40 percent. National annual health care costs could drop from $93 billion to $77 billion. Direct greenhouse gas emissions could annually drop 489 to 1,821 pounds per person.

Such an approach involves considering the related water usage, greenhouse gas emissions and carbon footprint—the energy required to cultivate, harvest and transport food—plus processing associated food waste. Here are some top choices.

Foods that Go Easy on Water

Hydroponic greens are hands-down winners. The Shelton Family Farm, near Whittier, North Carolina, weekly produces 10,000 to 12,000 heads of hydroponically grown Bibb lettuce. The controlled environment and carefully engineered nutrient delivery systems maximize all resources.

“It’s an enclosed system that runs 24/7, and it’s highly efficient from a water-usage standpoint because we recycle the water,” says William Shelton Jr., a fourth-generation family farmer. “The only water that’s actually consumed is what’s taken up and transpired through the plants.” In a moderate climate, energy costs to recycle the water and keep the plants at an even temperature are moderate, as well.

Dry-tilled heirloom tomatoes, okra, melons and quinoa are drought-tolerant and only use available rainfall.

Foods that Go Easy on Greenhouse Gases

Plants beat meat. “Livestock farming produces from 20 to 50 percent of all manmade greenhouse gas emissions,” says nutritionist and climate activist Jane Richards, of GreenEatz, in Mountain View, California. “You can reduce your footprint by a quarter by cutting down on red meats such as beef and lamb.”

An exception is the vegetarian staple of rice. According to researchers at Project Drawdown, a climate solutions organization in Sausalito, California, rice cultivation is responsible for at least 10 percent of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions and up to 19 percent of global methane emissions. New farming techniques, like mid-season draining of the rice paddies, could cut methane emissions by at least 35 percent.

Richards notes, “Meat, cheese and eggs have the highest carbon footprint; fruit, vegetables, beans and nuts, much lower. The carbon footprint of a vegetarian diet is about half that of a meat-lover’s diet.”

Root crops such as carrots, radishes, potatoes and beets have a lower carbon footprint than above-ground plants due to less food waste. A beautiful beet is easier to grow than a bell pepper that blemishes more easily.

Seasonal, regional fruit, vegetables, herbs and honey have a lighter carbon impact because they are transported shorter distances. Usually what grows best in a region and is consumed locally is also best for the climate.

Foods naturally suited to their environment grow and taste better, and are packed with more nutrients, reports Sustainable Table, an educational nonprofit that builds healthy communities through sustainable eating habits.

Hopeful Developments

New agricultural developments can also benefit our climate environment. According to Project Drawdown research, perennial grains and cereals could be pivotal in reaching soil, carbon and energy targets.

The Land Institute, in Salina, Kansas, has been working with the Rodale Institute, in Berks County, Pennsylvania, to develop a perennial wheat that would not have to be planted from seed each year. This would save soil, carbon and both human and machine energy.

Kernza, a new perennial grain proven to prosper in natural grasslands like the Great Plains, is not yet widely distributed. Maria Speck, author of Simply Ancient Grains, advises, “With up to 15-foot-long roots, it can be harvested for five years and uses less fertilizer than conventional wheat. Kernza tastes almost like a cross between rice and wheat—sweet, grassy, mesmerizing.”

Michael Pollan, author of Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual and creator of the film Food, Inc., suggests we keep it simple: “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” Climatarians would add another guideline—eat as locally as possible.

Judith Fertig writes cookbooks plus foodie fiction from Overland Park, KS.

The post Changing Our Diet to Cool the Climate appeared first on Natural Awakenings Magazine.

not. This month’s edition of the magazine focuses on so many wonderful

things: travel, fitness for optimal bone health, and even

the novel idea of bringing your cat to work! This October

issue also marks my five-year anniversary as publisher! I am ever so grateful to those who

have been part of this journey, including my Layout Designer

Suzzanne; Editor Sara; Calendar Editor Theresa; the guys who help get this information

to you, Clem and Bill; and Marketing Director Carol. Without them, these

five transformative years would not have occurred for me or for the magazine.

I am not being dramatic. You see, October 1, 2012, I launched my very first

issue of Natural Awakenings Long Island. I had amazing intentions for the magazine

and had invested my hard-earned money so that I could publish it. Some 25

days later, I awoke to one-third of my house destroyed—my entire office in ruins—

and my town in shambles, all thanks to Hurricane Sandy who paid an unwelcome

visit. Without the help of these people while I was putting my life back together, I

would not be writing this letter today and would not have been able to write my

first book, A Year of Inspired living (www.ayearofinspiredliving.com), which is available now on Amazon and Barnes and

Noble (shameless plug!).

Here we are five years later watching a phenomenon of destruction in the

form of hurricanes the likes of which we have not seen. As I write this, I pray for

my friends in both Texas and Florida, as well as two Natural Awakenings publishers

that live in a place I love like a second home, Puerto Rico.

Success…complacency…ultimately failure? Perhaps…

When I look back at the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s, our great country grew industrially

at an unparalleled rate. Simply compare electronics of the ‘70s to electronics

of 2017—it is truly mind boggling. Good for us. SUCCESS! Or is it? Don’t get me

wrong, success is not something I am against. Complacency, which often comes

with success—that may be where we have gotten off track. We are failing as a

collective group to protect our planet. Never was this more evident to me than

when I watched the brilliant Jennifer Lawrence and ethereal Javier Bardem in the

movie Mother! Without giving too much away, I went to the film nervous, I was so scared

truth be told I hate scary movies, I think the last one I watched was Wizard of Oz (I still

can’t get that witch and those flying monkeys out of my dreams!) I was scared because I

 thought Mother! was a typical horror film; however, I told myself, “Don’t worry, it’s not

real, it’s just a movie,” I didn’t realize the fear based movie is really an allegory

depicting a far too horrific reality.

We as a society in our successful lives are rapidly exchanging one new item

for the next; we are filling up our landfills and burdening the Earth with both our

heavy waste and our consumption of her resources, and it is proving to have dire

consequences. Humankind must stop the arguing—the left verses right, the religious

verses the agnostic, and even discontinue the whole “one life matters” over

“another life matters” rhetoric—and must recognize HUMANITY IS WHAT MATTERS.

And guess what, humanity? Our grandkids (and their grandkids) are going

to need a place to live. We have but one Earth—care for it, foster it, cherish it, and

in return, all of the riches can be yours. Limit your consumption of resources, turn

off lights, unplug appliances, and simply consume less. Perhaps if we take care of

Mother Earth, she will take care of us. It’s that simple. All I ask of you the reader as

you delve into this month’s issue is that you remain conscious of your own carbon

footprint—well that, and also that you consider bringing your cat to work.

The post “Success breeds complacency- Complacency breeds failure-Only the Paranoid Survive” appeared first on Natural Awakenings Magazine.

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“There are only a few ways to achieve permanent fat reduction,” says Kasten. “One way is through invasive liposuction surgery, which can be a lengthy procedure, and another is through CoolSculpting, an FDA-approved, simple, noninvasive treatment that safely targets diet- and exercise-resistant fat.” The treatment takes only 35 to 45 minutes, and on average, reduces fat by 22 to 25 percent. Kasten’s office also offers the newest applicator called Cool Advantage, which provides greater comfort and shorter treatment time.

The CoolSculpting Body Contouring Procedure takes place in Kasten’s tranquil and private office, which is equipped with a flat-screen TV with cable and an iPad with internet access for patient comfort, convenience and entertainment. While the patient is enjoying their favorite TV show or browsing their social media channels, the CoolSculpting technology is safely delivering precisely controlled cooling to gently and effectively target the fat cells underneath the skin. The treated fat cells are crystallized (frozen), and then die. Over time, those fat cells are eliminated from the body through sweat and urination.

Kasten’s CoolSculpting specialists are highly trained and experienced, and have attended CoolSculpting University, which provides advanced training programs. Whether someone is looking to reduce fat in the inner thighs, outer thighs, love handles, back, bra fat, arms, flanks, buttocks (banana roll), chin, the entire stomach or specific areas of the stomach, CoolSculpting can be a lasting solution.

Location: 1223B Montauk Hwy., Oakdale. For more information, call 631-244-2442 or visit GaryKasten.com.

The post Targeting Diet- and Exercise-Resistant Fat appeared first on Natural Awakenings Magazine.

The body is designed to control all functions; for a variety of reasons (stress, trauma, toxins, etc.), it loses that control. But your body wants control and will do anything to have it. For example, our body will do everything possible to maintain our blood chemistries. It will take, steal and route all necessary compounds to ensure the blood is as normal as possible. This means taking minerals from our bones and organs, and changing the normal state of events.

Did you ever wonder since osteoporosis is so rampant and calcium supplements so ubiquitously recommended why taking our blood calcium levels are not used to access our calcium stores? Our blood calcium is an extremely tightly regulated system with a tight operating range. If blood calcium levels exit that range, extremely serious conditions generally result, like coma, or even death. The body will maintain the blood calcium levels by draining our bones, organs and tissues to keep the levels balanced. But that means certain areas of our body will see calcium deficiency and others not. So bones will demineralize, muscles will weaken, nerves will slow their functions and more—all functions requiring huge amounts of calcium.

So what would a true functional practitioner think about calcium? Your first guess might be vitamin D. In a sense that is correct and often utilized, but the bigger question is, Why does more than 90 percent of the population have this deficiency of this “hormone”? Did I just write hormone? Vitamin D is a hormone, not really a vitamin. A vitamin by definition is a compound the body requires for normal function but cannot make and must be acquired through food, and nowadays supplementation.

But vitamin D should be easily made by the body, right? Sunlight, some say? Remember, 90 percent or more of the population has low vitamin D, but many people work outside for a living. Vitamin D is really a steroid hormone (a good thing, not just for weightlifters)—part of a large family of hormones, including cortisol, estrogen, testosterone, progesterone, vitamin D is responsible for controlling functions from cholesterol balance, blood pressure, sleep, sugar levels and more. In fact, all these hormones can convert back and forth into each other.

Comparatively, vitamin D is much less important than cortisol and the others, so the body if having trouble starts to deregulate its production. So vitamin D deficiency might really be a subtle sign of greater hormone deficiency. Manufacturing these hormones requires not just good fuel/food for their building blocks but that we digest and absorb those nutrients properly and efficiently—and that our liver, kidney, adrenal glands, skin and other hormone systems are functioning at their highest levels. All of these systems can lose their functional prowess as a result of stress, toxicity, poor diet and trauma, all weakening what our individual genes have deemed our “weak spots.” Genes do not cause our health, but they do dictate what will break, if something will break. Despite our heredity, we can have excellent health, and despite even the most complicated symptoms or illness, they can almost always be reversed. It takes some determination on finding the real roots of our problems. Just as medications can lose their effectiveness over time because they are not really treating the cause of the symptoms they treat, natural methods can also be just used on symptoms and lose effectiveness over time. Treating the cause often creates widespread improvements in one’s health that lasts.

Source: Dr. David Pollack, of Pollack Wellness Institute (66 Commack Rd., Ste. 204, Commack). For more information, call 631-462-0801 or visit PollackWellness.com.

The post What Is Functional Medicine (Part 2)? appeared first on Natural Awakenings Magazine.

Yoga helps with bone health better than some other forms of exercise because it puts just the right amount of exertion on the bones. Yoga is a great all-body workout, involving all joints and bones.

Weight-bearing poses that are great for the bones include inversions, arm balances, and standing poses. They affect the whole spine, arms, shoulders, elbows, legs, knees, ankles and feet, encouraging full range of motion.

Incorporate yoga into your weekly routine. A good way to schedule this is to do your yoga every other day, alternating with an aerobic exercise on the in-between day. This will move you forward on the path to good health and a more fulfilling life.

Source: Dr. Nakul Karkare, who is an orthopedic surgeon highly specialized in limb reconstruction and joint replacement surgery. Contact him at 212-951-0182 or visit one of his nine Complete Orthopedics locations at NewYorkHipKnee.com.

The post Yoga for the Health of It appeared first on Natural Awakenings Magazine.

I am going through the whole “ignorant” stage with my brood. Oh, they love me and are respectful (or punished when not), but I know my two teenagers find me “ignorant”—ignorant of the social issues that plague them in the digital world or the pressures that come with this “race-to-eventual-failure” approach (as I like to call it) to education in which we accelerate our children’s learning to the point of failure.

As parents (or aunts and uncles), we talk to kids A LOT. I am guilty of the “talk-a-situation-to-death” parenting style myself. The funny thing is I can talk until I am blue in the face to my children and they may not respond; however, just the other day, they saw me being especially kind to someone and they both stopped in their tracks and said, “Wow, mom, you are really nice.” A little lightbulb went off in my head: If I want them to grow up to be beautiful, kind human beings, I need to stop talking (I think if they read this letter, they will be overjoyed by this bit of news!) and start actively modeling the behavior I want to see in them.

This month’s feature story is by Dan Martinsen, who talks about the selfless choice he made when he decided to be a living donor for his brother who was suffering from cancer. The decision to go under a grueling, and potentially dangerous, surgery was, I am sure, only made more difficult because he was a father of three young children at the time. What an example this father left on his children about living such an incredibly selfless life. This month marks the 10-year anniversary of that transplant. The man that received that liver currently lives a full life of gratitude for the gift. He can be found at his children’s lacrosse games and wrestling matches, skiing out West with them, or surfing the waves in Puerto Rico with them. He uses his gift of life and shows his children how to truly enjoy living. Martinsen’s story is about brothers, yes, but it is also about fathers. This June we celebrate Fathers Day, and I know that these two men are only the men they are because of the behavior their own father, Dan Martinsen, modeled for them.

I think whether we are a father or a mother, aunt or uncle, now is a nice time to reconnect with the youth in our life and maybe do a little less talking and a little more showing. Show them what it means to be selfless (no, I do not expect you to go through the live liver donor transplant to do this, but you can certainly sign your deceased organ donor card!); show them what it means to see life as a blessing; and rather than preaching (read YELLING) about work ethic, respect and gratitude, simply show them what a life lived in gratitude looks like.

As for me, I know I am in the place where my children think I am a tad “ignorant,” much the way that I thought my own father was when I was young. I can’t change that, not with all the talking in the world. But, like my father did for me, I can model the behaviors I want to see in my children. Ray McGrath didn’t speak a lot while childrearing, but he modeled a strong work ethic, respectfulness, gratefulness and kindness. So, I will talk a little less, yell a little less and model a little more, and when my children come out the other end of “teenagehood” and are graduating college, I hope they, too, will be surprised by how much I have learned.

The post Shut up! Stop Talking and Lead by Example appeared first on Natural Awakenings Magazine.