GrandmaBetsyBell

overstretching

Posted on March 29, 2014

Gentle Reader,

Stretching—overstretching—can hurt your muscles. Last week I put pigeon pose on a pedestal. If you read the post closely, you will see that the yoga instructor did not introduce pigeon pose until 60 minutes of preparation. To go straight into pigeon pose would be like expecting your fingers to play the Moonlight Sonata after three weeks of piano lessons. Slowly, slowly after many lesser hip openers would you attempt pigeon pose.

This week, I bring back Julie Donnelly for some advice about stretching appropriately. She has a series of articles about preventing and healing repetitive strain injuries. Stretching can be a culprit. In this article there is a link to some materials she sells called Trigger Point Yoga. I have not tried these tools so can not recommend them from first hand experience. I have used a tennis ball placed between the floor and the knotted muscle and pressed down to release the knot. I’ve done this successfully for knotted places in the bottoms of my feet, my shoulders, and calves. I have used a broom handle and rolled along it with the outside of my thigh to release knotted T-band muscles. These techniques help. The key take-away is to avoid overstetching when the problem is a knot in the muscle. Read on….

Why do muscles cause pain? She calls this the Stretching Misconception.

STRETCHING SHOULDN’T HURT!

Have you ever felt so tight when you tried to move a joint that you decided to stretch? The odds are that you answered “yes” to that question. However, many people complain that they feel worse after stretching than they did before stretching.

Before getting into the specifics of the stretching misconception there are two words that need to be clarified. Many people confuse the word “spasm” with “cramp”. A cramp (also called a “Charlie horse”) normally involves all of the fibers of a muscle, and is when a muscle suddenly contracts totally. A spasm is like tying a knot in the center of the muscle and while it may only involve a few fibers; there can be multiple spasms throughout the muscle.

Each spasm feels like a bump when you slide your fingers deeply down the length of the muscle. These spasms normally form over an extended period of time, often from repetitive strain on the muscle fibers. Spasms are at the heart of the stretching misconception, so it is important that you think of a spasm as a knot in the muscle fibers in order to understand why it can hurt to stretch.

A muscle begins on a stationary bone, crosses over a joint, and then inserts into a moveable bone. When the muscle pulls on the moveable bone, the joint moves, however, if the muscle has a “knot” in it you can actually cause micro-tears to the fibers as you stretch.

HOW STRETCHING CAN HURT YOUR MUSCLES

Think of this analogy: visualize a strong tree with a rope tied to it. The rope is the perfect length to attach to a flexible tree without bending the second tree. You can imagine if you pulled on the rope the flexible tree would bend over, and if you let go of the rope, the flexible tree would stand up straight again. This is a simple explanation of how a muscle pulls on a bone and causes the joint to move.

However, if you tied a knot in the rope, the tree would bend. If you tied a second knot, the tree would bend even further. If you then tried to stretch the rope so the flexible tree was standing straight, you would cause the knot to get tighter and the remaining rope would have to overstretch on both sides of the knot in order for the flexible tree to stand up straight.

This is exactly what is happening when you have a spasm, or multiple spasms, in your muscle. As you stretch you are causing the knot within the muscle to get tighter, and you are also causing the fibers on either side of the spasm to overstretch. This overstretching may cause the fibers to actually tear either along the length of the muscle, or where the fibers attach to the bone at either end of the muscle. This can be avoided by simply massaging the muscle to release the spasm before you stretch.

It’s now easy to understand why the repetitive movements that you do on a regular basis will cause the muscle to ultimately shorten into knots that we call spasms or trigger points. As I mentioned, when you try to stretch a spasm you can be causing yourself potential problems, and may even tear the muscle fibers.

Fortunately there is a solution. First you need to release the spasms that are causing the muscle to tie up into a knot, and then you can safely stretch. TriggerPointYoga was designed and developed to first eliminate the spasms in the muscle you will be stretching, and then continues to give four separate session of traditional yoga poses – two for the upper body and two for the lower body. You will gain flexibility and range-of-motion without injuring your muscle fibers.

Julie Donnelly is an internationally respected muscular therapist specializing in the treatment of chronic pain and sports injuries. She has co-authored several self-treatment books, including The 15 Minute Back Pain Solution,Treat Yourself to Pain-Free Living and Carpal Tunnel Syndrome-What You Don’t Know CAN Hurt You. Julie is also the co-developer of TriggerPoint Yoga. She teaches Julstro self-treatment workshops nationwide and is a frequent presenter at Conventions and Seminars. Julie may be contacted through her websites: http://www.julstro.com and http://www.TriggerPointYoga.com.

© Julie Donnelly 2013

Before you sign off, let us know if you have been successful identifying the difference between soreness in the muscles caused by knots or over use? And what did you do for the knots that helped?

Be Well, Do Well and Keep Moving,

Betsy

206 933 1889

For pain relief products by Shaklee go to www.HiHohealth.com

Arthritis, Be Well health tips, Keep Moving: Managing Arthritis

pigeon pose pain free

Posted on March 20, 2014

Gentle Reader,

I had a plan for this week to bring you the information Julie Donnelly eveloped about muscle strain. and the myth that strenghthening the muscle can heal the pain. I can not find the sequel to my last posting. Stay tuned. The information may show up through further research. At least one reader was eager to hear what she had to say about that.

Instead I will tell you about my own unexpected healing from severe arthritis in my hips. I can recognize the healing because when I went to yoga on Tuesday, the instructor led us through an opening of the first shakra. The idea behind this came from her reflection about St. Patrick’s Day, March 17th. What was the pot of gold that brought good luck all about? The pot of gold found at the foot of a rainbow. Our seven chakras are energy centers in the body located along the spine. They have been associated with the full spectrum colors of the rainbow, beginning at the base, or shakra #1, Red.

We lucky humans are the pot of gold when we open, connect and release our chakras. Our primary chakra is found at the base of the spine, the tail bone, floor of our body when we sit on the ground, sits bones creating support for all the other six chakras. This is our root, where issues of survival reside. Survival in terms of money, a place to lay our head, sufficient food to sustain life. When chakra #1 is healthy, we feel stable in life, supported, able to manage. Perhaps my own sense of security around these foundation elements contributes to the lessening of arthritis pain in the hips.

Our yoga instructor began her guidance with us lying flat on our backs. Layer upon layer of complexity opened the base, pelvis and hips. After an hour she asked us to find pigeon pose. I have not done pigeon pose for 8 years because of the terrible pain in my hips. This is a posture which requires the right knee to fold in front of the body, the left leg stretched out behind, the hands and arms lifting the torso to find a comfortable position. Once this position is stable (I put a block under my right hip to support it as forcing it to rest of the floor is painful), you see if you are able to rest your elbows on the mat in front of your bent knee. I was amazed that I could find this pose without pain. Two days later, there is some ache in the hips, but nothing a couple of the herbal pain relief tablets can’t handle.

What has happened over the last few years? It would be hard to pin point all the actions and attitudes that may have contributed to more pain-free mobility in my hips.

Let’s explore some possible causes of the lessening of arthritis pain.

Diet

I have a dear feiend who suffered so much from arthritis in her hips and especially one knee that she took the drastic steps to see if she could eliminate her pain. She has cut out all dairy, all grains (that’s right, ALL grains), all night shade plants which include potatoes, tomatoes, peppers and eggplant. She does not deviate from this diet. She does not cheat. I eat with her often so I can testify to this. She was on a heavy duty prescription pain killer. She takes no medication today. And she is gorgeous. A side benefit.

Personally, I am not rigidly adherent to my dietary rules, but I avoid dairy (no cheese or ice cream, no milk except in my coffee), and I avoid grains, especially wheat. I do eat a mixture of steel cut organic oats, barley and rye during the cold winter months when I am going skiing or feeling the need of comfort against the weather. I eat brown rice. Raw tomatoes seem OK for my body, but those tiny red, yellow and orange peppers that I love are not so good. Roasted, they seem to be less bothersome. I am absolutely convinced that diet has a great deal to do with arthritis. If you haven’t tried the extreme measures practiced by my friend and you are in pain, by all means, give these dietary suggestions a try.

Exercise

Over-exercising does not seem to help arthritis pain. Rather too much exercise exacerbates the problem. I have been working with a new-to-me program since before Christmas. The program is the invention of JP Glassey. His three facilities here in the Puget Sound area are called Xgym. This this approach to excercise is completely different from anything I have ever experienced. Today I dressed for the day, which includes dinner and theater with friends later on. In these clothes I showed up for my 21 minutes guided workout. My wonderful trainer, Clayton, watched over me with care, encouragement and ruthless insistence while I made slow, measured progress through 5 muscle groups until there was not one more move left. Complete muscle failure. No sweating. No strain on any joint, absolutely none. No impact. Just pure muscle development. I jokingly ask for a wheel chair assist to get to my car. Doing this 21 minute workout twice a week is what it takes to change your muscle strength. Not hours in the gym lifting weights. I am not bulking up, either.

I decided to work with PJ and his trainers in order to keep my bones healthy. Bones get stronger when muscles make demands on them. A side benefit is the loss of 5 pounds of fat. The weight loss only showed up last week. Three months of fat-to-muscle conversion came first, then the excess pounds are disappearing.

If you can’t go to the Xgym, buy PJ’s book, Cracking Your Calorie Code.
He describes the science behind his methods, his approach to food, exercise and dieting. He describes the five basic excercises and how to begin, plus one progression to the next level. A person could easily do these at home. I do. The only problem is that is very hard to force yourself to complete muscle exhaustion on your own. You could find a buddy.

Exercise: Part II

Walking is still one of the best ways to keep the body moving. PJ’s approach to cardio can best be described as a burst of effort. He has a couple machines that we are invited to use, however they are not necessary. Find your self a stair case and go up for 3 -4 minutes as fast as you can until you think you are going to have a heart attack. Rest a minute or less and do it again. A couple repetitions are enough. How efficient is that?

Mt. to Sound Greenway Snow Shoe hike, Commonwealth Basic 3/15/2014 — Snow shoeing along Commonwealth Creet, Snoqualmie Pass, WA

I still love walking, or snow shoeing, or cross country skiing for long steady breathing and enjoyable movement and as long as time allows, I’ll be outdoors or a long day on Wednesdays. It’s more about the forest, the quiet, the friends who share the experience than the fitness goals. PJ claims, and to look at him, it must be true, that he can maintain his level of fitness with one or two cardio moments a week along with one or two 21 mnutes muscle grouip workouts.

Attitude

Suffering from arthritis pain is a real downer. My 81 year old friend was in such pain in her apartment, she could barely get to her bed, much less get in it. Going to the bathroom was an big “ouch!” all the way. So she stopped moving. Her grandson is her personal trainer. “Grandma, you have to keep moving!” Today she’s at her doctor’s and will hopefully find out what the origin of the pain is.

Her grandson is right. The absolute worse thing you can do is sit down. Avoiding the wheel chair requires that we keep moving. My neurologist told me back in 2004, after he looked at my xrays, that if he didn’t know me, he would expect to see me in a wheel chair due to the advanced arthritis in my hips and lower back. I am no where near a wheel chair.

Without any scientific evidence to support my belief, I am convinced that listening to Peggy Cappy’s “Back Pain relaxation” cd every night as actually helped to heal my joints. She reminds us that our cells die off and new one are formed regularly and that over time, given healthy nutrition, our new cells can be healthy cells. The joints can change for the better.

So, Gentle Reader, I hope these personal experiences help you in your journey to better, pain-free mobility. If you have your own experiences to share, let us know.

Be well, Do well and Keep moving,

Betsy

206 933 1889

www.EmpoweredGrandma.net

www.HiHohealth.com

Be Well health tips

Preventing and Healing Repetitive Strain Injuries

Posted on March 7, 2014

Gentle Reader,

How great to share with you several article about preventing and healing repetitive strain injuries. From time to time excellent articles come across my desk that are worth passing on to you. Jule Donnelly does a great job of presenting the details of the major over-strained muscles used by athletes, and even us old gals who are hiking and cross country skiing. I hope this information will help you understand a little better how to prevent and heal these injuries.

PREVENTING & HEALING REPETITIVE STRAIN INJURIES – PART 1

AUTHOR: JULIE DONNELLY, LMT

Quadriceps

Using the words “pain” and “free” in the same sentence causes people who love to exercise laugh since it seems to be a contradiction of terms, but it is not only possible, it’s easy to achieve. It is understood that exercising, or even just daily living, causes muscles to ache and will also put stress on joints.

When the pain begins you are told to use “RICE” (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation) – but you don’t have the time, or you simply don’t want to rest! So, you keep going and just as you’ve been told, it gets worse, even to the point where you may need to stop your world!

You’ve also come to realize that resting (when you do decide to rest) only lasts for a short time, and then the pain returns. The good news is you can be a pain-free; you just need to know how to find the source of your pain and then how to effectively treat it.

HOW MUSCLES CAUSE JOINT PAIN

RICE certainly works immediately after having a traumatic injury, but repetitive stress on your muscles requires treatment of the knots that are putting tension onto the tendons and joints. Getting back to basic anatomy will help to unravel the misconceptions that plague both athletes and non-athletes alike. Once you understand the logic of why you are feeling pain, you will know exactly what needs to be done to immediately release a muscle-related pain anywhere in your body.

This is NOT going to be a complicated lesson in Anatomy & Physiology, but I’ve found that a little knowledge of the body goes a long way. I’m going to put the proper names for the muscles and tendons into a parenthesis so if you want to actually see the muscles that are causing you pain you’ll be able to look them up.

I always tell the clients I work with “the most challenging part is finding where the source of the pain is located, and then treating it is easy”. This article will help you to find the source of your problem. Let’s begin at the beginning…

THE BASICS – HOW A JOINT MOVES

Movement is a simple process:

1. A muscle originates on a bone.

2. It then merges into a tendon.

3. The tendon crosses over the joint to insert into a movable bone.

4. When the muscle contracts it pulls on the tendon. The tendon then pulls on the moveable bone and your joint moves.

EXAMPLE: THE MUSCLES OF YOUR UPPER LEG

Hamstrings

All joints have two (or more) muscles that determine the degree and angle that the joint will move. While one muscle is contracting, the other muscle must relax and stretch. A good example of this principle are the muscles of your upper leg. (quadriceps and hamstrings).

The quadriceps originate on the front of your hip (pelvis), merge into a thick tendon (patella tendon) and cross over the knee cap to insert onto the front of your shinbone (tibia). When they contract normally you fully extend your leg so it becomes straight. Meanwhile, your hamstrings originate on the lower edge at the back of your pelvis; go down the back of your thigh, with the tendons crossing over the back of your knee and inserting onto the back side/top of the lower leg bone.

Consider this analogy, if you attached your pants to the front of your shinbone, and then pulled up at the waist, you would feel the pressure at your knee and you also wouldn’t be able to bend your knee. Likewise, since your quadriceps originate up at the front of your pelvis and insert into your shinbone, when your quadriceps are tight they can’t stretch and you can’t bend your knee.

For example, to demonstrate an analogy of what tight hamstrings would do, consider what would happen if you bent your leg and then attached your pants to the bottom of your posterior pelvis (the bone you sit on, at the top of your thigh) and the back of your knee, you wouldn’t be able to open your leg up straight. But, clearly, you don’t have a knee problem, you have tightness in the upper thigh (hamstring) preventing your knee from moving.

When this has happened you begin to feel stiffness and a lack of your full strength. Some therapists will tell you that you need to strengthen your thigh (quadriceps) muscles. You may also think you need to stretch your hamstrings, but stretching a spasm is counter-productive and can actually make the spasm become more complicated while over-stretching the rest of the muscle fiber.

In Part II we’ll look at the first misconception – strengthening the muscle will heal the pain.

Julie Donnelly is an internationally respected muscular therapist specializing in the treatment of chronic pain and sports injuries. She has co-authored several self-treatment books, including The 15 Minute Back Pain Solution,Treat Yourself to Pain-Free Living and Carpal Tunnel Syndrome-What You Don’t Know CAN Hurt You. Julie is also the co-developer of TriggerPoint Yoga. She teaches Julstro self-treatment workshops nationwide and is a frequent presenter at Conventions and Seminars. Julie may be contacted through her websites: http://www.julstro.com and http://www.TriggerPointYoga.com.

Be well, Do well and keep moving,

Betsy

www.grandmaBetsyBell.com

203 933 1889

Arthritis, Be Well health tips, Health and Fitness, Keep Moving: Managing Arthritis

Sleep and Arthritis Pain

Posted on February 28, 2014

Gentle Reader,

What’s up with not getting a deep, long sleep at night? I have heard from several of my customers that falling asleep is no problem, but they wake up in the night and can’t get back to sleep afterward. Not getting a good night’s sleep is a serious concern in our modern busy world and it seems to worsen when we develop arthritis aches and pains in our later years. Read on for a thorough discussion of arthritis and sleep.

What are the health risks of interrupted, inadequate sleep?

Turning to WebMD we get a lengthy discussion about 10 things to hate about sleep loss.

In a nutshell:

1. Sleepiness causes accidents: 100,000 a year resulting in 1550 deaths. Mostly people under 25 were driving when drowsy, not to mention the 1979 nuclear accident at Three Mile Island, the massive Exxon Valdez oil spill, the 1986 nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl.

2. Sleep loss dumbs you down. You just can’t think well when you are sleepy and without deep rest, your brain cannot store and catalog all the things you learned today. Nighttime is memorization time.

3. Serious health risks of chronic sleep disorders

Heart disease
Heart attack
Heart failure
Irregular heartbeat
High blood pressure
Stroke
Diabetes

4. Lack of sleep kills the sex drive. Need I say more?

5. Sleepiness is depressing. May I add that it is depressing to the sleepy person and to those who would like to play, work, and enjoy life with that person.

6. Lack of sleep ages your skin. It is the cortisol produced by stress that causes those extra lines and dark patches under the eyes. And missing sleep is stressful.

7. Sleepiness makes you forgetful. Maybe you don’t have early onset Alzheimer’s; you only suffer from poor sleep.

8. Losing sleep can make you fat. When you are sleepy, you crave fat-laden carbs.

9. Lack of sleep may increase early death. Read the report to see the study.

10. Sleep loss impairs judgment, especially about sleep. We cannot see how impaired our brain function is.

Since this is a blog about arthritis, I wanted to see if lack of sleep affected our joints. Turns out there is a vicious circle of pain and lack of sleep going on when you have painful arthritis. From a study reported in the Daily Mail about this problem,

Experts say insomnia is common among the ten million arthritis sufferers in Britain, with some estimates suggesting that nearly two in three experience trouble sleeping. However, until recently restless nights were viewed as a secondary and almost inevitable problem for people with arthritis. But now scientists are realising that this problem is a two-way street: not only does joint pain cause sleep loss, but sleep deprivation makes joint pain worse, and can even accelerate joint damage. There is growing concern that sleep disturbance exacerbates osteoarthritis (wear-and-tear arthritis) and rheumatoid arthritis (where the immune system attacks the joints), and experts believe that treating insomnia could lead to an improvement in the condition.

Osteoarthritis develops when cartilage that protects the surface of bones becomes damaged and starts to break down. The exact causes remain unknown, but genes, weight and age are all thought to be involved. Much of the pain and swelling is caused by inflammatory molecules in the body travelling to the joint.

For reasons that are not fully understood, disrupted sleep leads to increased numbers of these inflammatory markers, which further aggravates sore joints. One of these markers is called interleukin-1 (IL-1), which is made by white blood cells. One expert thinks IL-1 is the ‘primary trigger’ of osteoarthritis. Lack of sleep causes arthritis pain and visa versa.

Professor Peter Wehling, an orthopaedic surgeon whose Dusseldorf clinic has become a pilgrimage site for sports stars seeking to prolong their careers, says even a limited amount of sleep disruption can cause the immune system to ‘go into overdrive’. It then begins to ‘flood the body with white blood cells in a vain attempt to address exhaustion-related distress’, as he puts it in his book The End Of Pain.

Many of the IL-1 producing white blood cells lodge in the joints and cause ‘discomfort and gradual erosion of cartilage’, he says. Professor Wehling warns that even one bad night’s sleep can set this in motion.

Professor Silman from Arthritis UK agrees that inflammatory compounds play a role in arthritis. ‘Sleep disturbance can change the body’s natural cycle of hormones as well as possibly adversely affecting the underlying levels of inflammation,’ he says. He agrees that IL-1 is ‘an important player’ in the development of inflammatory arthritis, but says other cytokines — inflammation-causing chemicals — may also be involved. He adds that some of the symptoms of osteoarthritis, especially in its early stages, may be a direct consequence of inflammation.

And while loss of sleep may release damaging inflammatory chemicals, it also means the joints miss out on the healing benefits of sleep.

Sleep is the longest time during which the body has low levels of inflammation and opportunity to heal. Around 15 to 25 per cent of it should be deep sleep — this equates to around 1½ to two hours every night. During this time, energy levels are restored and the immune system strengthened. But it can take up to 45 minutes of sleeping to enter deep sleep — and these deep phases seem to occur only in the first half of the night, for reasons not understood. This means that if someone is tossing and turning they may have very little deep sleep. This not only increases the number of inflammatory markers in the body, but it can also disrupt the workings of hormones vital for joint healing, says Professor Wehling. Perhaps most notably it lowers production of human growth hormone, sometimes called the ‘master hormone’ because it is vital to many processes in the body including tissue repair, weight management and continuing replacement of bone and collagen. Though human growth hormone is produced in small surges during the day, by far the biggest burst comes 60 to 90 minutes after falling asleep as we enter deep sleep.

Inflammation suppresses human growth hormone — and so deep sleep causes levels to surge.

But without much deep sleep, we may not produce enough growth hormone, speeding the decline of tissue and bone, causing it to become worn in joint areas. Furthermore, weariness makes people more sensitive to pain, and can lead to them becoming even more immobile.

Professor Kevin Morgan, director of the Sleep Research Centre at Loughborough University, explains: ‘Moving involuntarily in the night can wake you up with a lightning shaft of pain and a cracking sensation. ‘This sleep disruption makes pain worse the next day, and makes a person less inclined to want to move around. ‘However, movement and activity makes joints hurt less.’

Arthritis Research UK is funding a study by King’s College London’s Institute of Psychiatry, which aims to identify and treat the issues preventing patients with rheumatoid arthritis from being physically active and sleeping well. Around 200 people with the disease are taking part in the research, which it is hoped will lead to new techniques to tackle inactivity, sleep disruption and pain.

A similar study by the University of Washington in Seattle involving 375 patients with osteoarthritis is also being held and is due to report next year. It is examining whether targeting pain and sleep problems is more beneficial than a regimen focusing on pain alone. The researchers have hypothesised that the dual approach will have greater long-term benefits for sleep and pain, increase physical activity and lead to a reduction in healthcare costs.

Jo Cumming, head of helplines at Arthritis Care, says the charity speaks to 12,000 people a year, and 63 per cent say they don’t get a good night’s sleep.

‘It is a huge burden to bear. When GPs are considering medication or joint replacements one of the things they ask patients is whether the pain stops them sleeping,’ she says.

But Professor Morgan argues that previously GPs have considered insomnia as an unfortunate consequence of another health problem, rather than an important health problem in itself.

This has led to patients not always receiving the best treatment.

‘You have to put in a lot of work convincing clinicians that sleep problems are not just collateral damage from the main disease,’ he says.

So what can help those with joint pain achieve a good night’s sleep?

Tips include cutting out afternoon naps, using lamps rather than ceiling lights in the evening, avoiding caffeine after 3pm and not drinking alcohol after 9pm.

Professor Wehling also recommends ‘keeping a consistent bedtime and rising within an hour of sunrise’.

Avoiding midnight snacks can also help.

An estimated 50 per cent of our body weight is carried by the menisci, small pads of cartilage in the knee, so piling on the pounds adds substantially to an already considerable strain. Excess body fat can also heighten arthritis directly because our fat cells expand and produce more cytokines, which fuel inflammation.

However, a lack of sleep can lead to weight gain, which is known to make joint pain worse.

Levels of melatonin, the key hormone in regulating our daily body cycle or circadian rhythm, are also disturbed by sleep loss, and this in turn upsets the balance of two other hormones.

The first is ghrelin, known as the ‘hunger hormone’. Elevated levels of ghrelin at night can prompt people to raid the kitchen, craving carbohydrates in particular. It also causes extra insulin production, making the body store more fat.

The second is leptin, which usually helps regulate appetite, but may be disrupted by loss of sleep. Studies in mice also suggest that leptin may itself have inflammatory effects.

What are some solutions to this problem?

Talk to your doctor and help him/her see that lack of sleep is important enough to work through the available medications to find one that works.

If you are like me and prefer to solve this problem through alternative methods, I have found a number of strategies that work for me. While I still wake up in the night, I can nearly always get back to sleep and return to a deep, untroubled sleep, waking up well rested.

Shaklee makes two supplements which help induce a restful sleep at the beginning of the night.

Gentle Sleep Complex swallowed all at once or made into a tea about 1/2 hour before bed along with

Stress Relief complex. Taking 2 seems to be the best amount for helping with sleep at night.

Lavender oil dabbed on the bottoms of the feet. (I know, sounds woo woo but it seems to work. You can also buy a little chimney with a dish on top for the Lavender oil. The odor wafts through the bedroom and helps with sleep.) WebMD has information about lavender oil.

There are some other oils that some people use like Rescue Remedy. You can find these oils in most stores that sell supplements. I have used a drop of Rescue Remedy under my tongue when other methods did not result in a return to deep sleep at that 2 a.m. hour.

Insomnia Relief Audio CD — Peggy Cappy’s sleep meditation

I also have used Peggy Cappy’s soothing voice on her mediation for back rejunvenation. I have it on an Ipod which I keep at the head of my bed. Peggy Cappy has a CD for sleep which I just ordered. I’ll give a full report when I have used it. I often begin my night listening to her Back Care CD and fall asleep immediately. I swear my back pain has lessened considerably over the years I have been listening to her. I have blogged about Peggy Cappy in the past.

Another thing I do routinely is make a note of anything I must do the following day so I know they are scheduled and I can trust that I will get back to them.

I recently discovered that my trusted Feldenkris practitioner addresses this problem with a new series/private consultations/workshops. http://www.becciparsons.com/Sounder_Sleep_System.html I haven’t taken her classes, but she is the practitioner who got me walking/sitting/standing/bending again after herniating my L5 disc in 1989. Becci Parsons has been a guest blogger for me. Please read that post for more information.

Happy Dreams,

Be Well, Do Well and Keep Moving.

Betsy

I would love to hear from you how you manage sleeplessness. Please send me an email.

betsy@hihohealth.com

206 933 1889

Business Op

Practice makes perfect

Posted on February 24, 2014

Hey, there,

I just watched a Hip Hop and Rap program at the new Museum of History and Industry at the south end of lake Union here in Seattle. I was with a couple of my grandchildren and their parents. It was an outing to honor Carsten who just turned 16 and has tried to do some Hip Hop moves. A team of 5 dancers performed and then the lead guy invited members of the audience to take a little lesson. He broke down the dance steps into segments of 8 and get them slowly making the moves. I couldn’t take my eyes off him to see how the participants were doing. They performed again and I could identify the dance steps he was teaching in their fabulous and intricate presentation.

This video came across my desk today.

It demonstrates how practice makes perfect and the desired thing comes true. Anything you do in life, or want to do with a burning desire, you can achieve if you wholeheartedly practice. Over and over and over again without giving up; every waking moment. That’s how people succeed. In dance, in other sports and in business. Practice makes perfect.

I can coach you to success in business, but I cannot practice for you. You must do that yourself. Your practice makes you perfect.

Be Well, Do Well and Keep Moving,

Betsy

206 933 1889

www.HiHoWealth.com

Want to evaluate what I am doing from home (practicing everyday)? Watch these videos in sequence to get a good idea. If you like what you see, get in touch.

Arthritis, Be Well health tips, Health and Fitness, Keep Moving: Managing Arthritis

Arthritis or Tendonitis?

Posted on February 20, 2014

Gentle Reader,

Tendonitis or arthritis? Which is it? My oldest daughter (52) was feeling sprightly one morning in Ecstatic Dance and accepted an invitation to do a cartwheel and round off. Why not? She is fit, exercises daily and used to do them easily when she was a gymnast back in high school. So off she sped across the floor, executing the perfect cartwheel and round off, landing smartly on her heels, arms out in a victory pose. Immediately she felt the sharp pain in her right buttock but went on dancing. That was last August. By December she could not bear weight on that leg, on her sit bone which made walking and sitting painful and challenging. The diagnosis was a torn hamstring tendon, a rare accident usually confined to linebackers. Most orthopedists see a hand full in a life-long practice. She found one who, in twenty years, had repaired twelve such injuries. The operation was successful and she is walking, driving, and sitting comfortably again. This condition is a torn or ruptured tendon. Definitely not tendonitis or arthritis of the hip, which she fleeting believed it might be.

Tendonitis, commonly called tennis elbow, swimmer’s shoulder, trigger finger, is an inflammation of the fibrous, cordlike connective tissue that attaches muscle to bone. Tendons can withstand amazing amounts of force, but they are not indestructible. Witness my daughter’s round off. The pain of tendonitis accompanies stiffness and swelling near a joint. Arthritis presents in the same way. When you get this pain, stiffness and swelling, you usually take some anti-inflammatory drugs such as ibuprofen; apply ice and rest the affected joint. But this could be a miss-diagnosis. [information from an article in Johns Hopkins Health Alerts]

Perhaps the inflammation is actually in the sheath around the tendon. Tendons do not contain many blood vessels, so they are seldom inflamed. If you are over 50, it is possible your tendons are degenerating. The collagen that makes up the tendon breaks down, causing multiple microscopic tears. What little blood circulation there is to the tendon also decreases with age, making the healing of these microscopic tears more difficult. This degenerative condition is called tendinosis. Can you tell the difference between tendinosis and arthritis?

It is common to develop tendinosis and have no symptoms until some sudden trauma or the gradual build up of repetitive motion in work, sport or exercise. Perhaps my daughter had tendonosis compromising the tendon’s elasticity. She would not have known that she was at risk for a major trauma to the hamstring tendon.

Here’s a way to tell if your joint pain, stiffness and swelling is tendon related or bone and joint related: try taking glucosamine (Joint Health Complex by Shaklee) for two weeks. If it helps, you likely have osteoarthritis. If not, it is more likely a tendon problem.

Glucosamine has been shown in quite a few scientific studies to help with cartilage formation. Cartilage is what your joints are made of, and what arthritis attacks, so upping the rate of production of cartilage helps your joints. You feel better….if you have arthritis.

On the other hand, glucosamine will not help with collagen formation, and tendons are made of collagen. So it stands to reason that if you feel like you have “joint pain”, take glucosamine, and do not experience any relief, one very likely culprit could be your tendons. Tendon insertion points are often very close to joints and it can be difficult to tell exactly where the pain is coming from.

Taking NSAIDs (anti-inflammatories) using ice and rest can provide temporary relief for either tendonosis or arthritis, but since both are the result of inflammation, using these treatments will not help you distinguish between the two. Knowing which one you have is important if you intend to treat the condition yourself. If you take NSAIDs and they do not help, you probably have degeneration of the tendon.

This information comes from a web site http://www.targettendonitis.com/ by Alex Nordach, who is marketing his ebook (for $29) on how to treat degenerating tendons. I have not purchased this book so I can’t recommend it. If you are interested, follow the link and see for yourself.

What I can tell you about natural healing for both joint and tendon caused pain, is the following:

Acupuncture can relieve pain, stiffness and swelling.

Vitamins C and B Complex, plus Alfalfa help build collagen naturally, reduce inflammation and increase blood flow into the area. And I do not mean one or two tablets. 3000 mgr. of Sustained Relief C and 6 tablets a day of Shaklee’s B Complex can make a difference. I could tell you stories of people who have avoided surgery for carpal tunnel syndrome by taking lots of B Complex. Alfalfa tablets are small pea sized pills and should be eaten by the spoon full, not one by one. We are talking food. Can’t swallow that many pills? Chew them up. Shaklee’s Alfalfa tablets smell sweet when you open the bottle and taste like new mown hay with no sticks or twigs.

Whether your joint pain is tendonosis or arthritis, these supplements will help. Since glucosamine is expensive and NSAIDs mess up your stomach, check out the treatments to see what you are dealing with and then proceed with these three supplements. Their side benefits are legion.

In most of my blog posts, I talk about the various causes of arthritis and things you can do to manage arthritis short of medication and surgery. This blog addresses another cause of joint pain, tendonitis and tendinosis. I hope this refinement — arthritis or tendonitis–helps you.

If this information is helpful, please let me know.

Be Well, Do Well and Keep Moving,

Betsy

206 933 1889

Arthritis, Be Well health tips, Health and Fitness, Keep Moving: Managing Arthritis

How flexible should I be?

Posted on February 16, 2014

Gentle Reader,

How flexible should I be? Should you be? It is amazing to me how much more flexible I am after a weekend Yoga retreat and 3 additional sessions with the instructors; more to come. But in no way do I lean to left or right as far as the others in the class. Nor can I make my shins line up on top of each other in that bent knee sitting position. I sit for opening and closing O-m-m-ms on a rolled up blanket to gain some height.

How flexible show we be? Dr. Pierre Dubois has some ideas that may help. He begins with asking, “How do you measure flexibility?
Man Touching Toes “Watching a dancer her leg to her nose is an impressive sight, and many of us can perform similar feats when we’re children. But we begin to lose flexibility as we age if we do not make a conscious effort to remain limber.

“Inactivity causes muscles to shorten and stiffen, and muscle mass is lost with increasing years as well. However, maintaining flexibility as we get older is of great importance, since it allows us to retain our mobility and reduces the likelihood of aches, sprains and falls as we age.

“How Flexible Should I Be?

“Optimal flexibility means the ability of each of your joints to move fully through their natural range of motion. Simple activities such as walking or bending over to tie your shoes can become major difficulties if your flexibility is limited. Unfortunately, sitting for hours at a desk, as so many are forced to do on a daily basis, eventually leads to a reduction in flexibility as the muscles shorten and tighten.
Dr. Dubois suggests this simple Test For Measuring Flexibility
“There are a number of different tests used to measure flexibility, but the one test that has been used as a standard for years is the sit and reach test. It measures the flexibility of your hamstrings and lower back. The simple home version of the test requires only a step (or a small box) and a ruler.

In Seattle’s Pacific Science Center, there is an interactive exhibit in the Human Body room where you climb on a bench that is set up exactly as described here. I was interested in the flexibility range presented by my own 11 teen-aged grandchildren who were with me. The ones who move a lot in sports were more flexible. I expected that. What surprised me was the lower measure of flexibility in the ones who did not move very much in their everyday school life.

“Before the test, warm up for about 10 minutes with some light aerobic activity and do a few stretches. Then place the ruler on the step, letting the end of it extend out a few inches over your toes, and note where the edge of the step comes to on the ruler.

“Sit on the floor with your feet extended in front of you, flat against the bottom step (or box). With your arms extended straight out in front of you and one hand on top of the other, gradually bend forward from the hips, keeping your back straight. (Rounding the back will give you a false result).

“Measure where your fingertips reach on the ruler. They should ideally be able to reach at least as far as the front of the step. Any measurement past the edge of the step is a bonus. No matter how far you can reach on the first measurement, do the test periodically and try to improve your score every few weeks”.

Increasing Your Flexibility

“If you find that you are less flexible than you should be, some regular stretching exercises combined with visits to your chiropractor can help to restore flexibility and improve range of motion, helping to ensure that you remain limber into older age.”

The Bottom Line

• Optimal flexibility means a full range of motion for all of our joints.

• Age, inactivity and desk-bound work environments all can cause loss of flexibility.

• The sit and reach test is a good measure of flexibility.

• If your flexibility is not what it should be, do stretching exercises every day.”

I am convinced that with gentle, persistent and consistent effort, you can increase your flexibility and that in turn can decrease arthritis pain. I’d love to hear from you, so shoot me an email about how flexible you are.

Be well, Do well, and Keep moving,

Betsy

206 933 1889

Be Well health tips

Yoga for Arthritis

Posted on February 6, 2014

Gentle Reader,
I have a diagnosis of arthritis, osteoarthritis and spinal stenosis. I gave up yoga for arthritis about 6 years ago, as it seemed to exacerbate the pain in my hips and spine. However, when my youngest daughter Ruth raved about her 6 a.m. yoga class and the teacher, I took notice. She convinced me that Laura could instruct me in a way that would build from the core so that I would not hurt myself. Furthermore, Laura and Beattie, her partner, were conducting a yoga retreat at the hot springs retreat center in Oregon called Breitenbush. I have always wanted to go. It would be wonderful to spend a weekend with my daughter. I signed up.

Have you ever enrolled in a program only to have buyer’s remorse? My thoughts raced around my head: I can’t do yoga for arthritis. I’ll hurt myself again. How will I spend my days with no internet or telephone? (That’s right. No connectivity at Breitenbush.) I planned to take a book, attend the first hour and bow out politely.

With the right yoga instructor, yoga for arthritis is not only possible but builds strength, stamina and flexibility. That is an all-important caveat: the right yoga instructor.
I not only lasted the first hour-and-a-half session on Thursday night, but the morning two hours on Friday as well. I took the Friday afternoon session off. By 10 a.m. on Saturday morning, Ruth and I had soaked in the hot springs pools four times. I was ready to try again. Not only was I able to practice with the other 12 participants for two hours on Saturday, but again that afternoon.

And, Ruth and I took a spectacular 4 ½-mile hike through the emerald green forest surrounding the Breitenbush site. Sunday morning’s two-hour session was beautiful. I did not try handstands or back bends, but everything leading up to those poses was restorative and strong.

How do you choose a yoga instructor that will help and not hurt your arthritic joints? If you are serious about including yoga for arthritis management, I recommend you visit studios and sit in on the session labeled hatha yoga, slow-moving emphasis on arriving at the pose from a core-strengthened place. I found of the various yoga practices. If you have arthritis, I would not recommend the fast moving practices. Participate as best you can, stopping short of anything that twists or hurts.

If you are a Type A competitive person used to high achievement goals (that would be me), you need to monitor your progress in a class very carefully so as to not over do. The personal triumph of the weekend retreat at Breitenbush was to opt out of the Friday afternoon class without feeling like a failure. I needed to rest my body in order to benefit from the rest of the weekend.

Open heartedness and acceptance are two attitudes to cultivate as you find a yoga practice for arthritis. Leave your judgments at the door and listen to your body.

I have posted information about Peggy Cappy many times before. She is a Public Television personality and yoga teacher who works with older people. Her videos and especially her CD mediation for healing the arthritic back are part of my daily routine.

The joy of practicing in a room full of other people over the weekend reminded me how much I have missed breathing, moving and meditating with others. I loved the group experience so much, I have been to one of Laura’s and Beattie’s Seattle classes and I plan to incorporate their practice in my week.

Do not settle for less than a careful, hands-on instructor if you want to use yoga for arthritis. It could get you into trouble. I wish you luck in finding a good instructor. Let me know how it goes with yoga if you already incorporate this modality in your arthritis or other health management.
Be well, Do well and Keep Moving
Betsy
BetsyBellsHealth4U
206 933 1889
betsy@hihohealth.com

Scientific resources

Immune support

Posted on January 28, 2014

Gentle Reader.

IMMUNE SUPPORT: NUTRIFERON

I tried to make sense of developing breast cancer at age 34. One thought was to blame too much use of antibiotics as a child, along with cold and flu suppressants. No doctor has been willing to go there with me. My approach to my own health these past 42 cancer free years has been to strengthen my immune system in every way possible.

To my great relief and delight, the man who discovered a key to the immune response, Interferon, developed an herbal compound that stimulates our own body’s ability to make interferon. Shaklee has the exclusive right to market this herbal complex, Nutriferon. Herbs provide immune support.

I wish everyone I care about and people I don’t even know yet would take this Nutriferon every day. We would have a lot fewer sick days if they did.

What is Nutriferon? Scientific results

Individual ingredients in the immune boosting blend include

pumpkin seed (Cucurbita Moschata) extract, which has been reported to induce interferon in cell cultures. It also contains

Plantago seed (Plantago asiatica), which has polysaccharides thought to stimulate non-specific immunity.

Safflower flower (Carthamus tinctorius) polysaccharides have been shown experimentally to prompt macrophages to produce cytokines. And

Japanese Honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica) flower buds have been traditionally used to fight infections.

What does Nutriferon do?

Experimentally, it’s been reported to increase the activity of immune cells. For example, clinical studies demonstrate that this novel, patented botanical blend is effective at inducing the body’s natural production of interferon, a key conductor and activator of immune response processes. Nutriferon activates and increases the phagocytic activity of macrophages and may increase the activity of natural killer cells, immune system defenders that seek out and destroy invaders at the cellular immune response level.

Human Clinical Trials

1. Administration of a Botanical Blend in Patients with Chronic Hepatitis C

High dose interferon is approved as a treatment for hepatitis C. The investigators in this study chose to look at [Nutriferon] for its potential natural interferon induction and the impact on patients with chronic hepatitis C.

The three month study conducted at Kanazawa University Hospital in Ishikawa, Japan, was an open-label trial of patients with chronic hepatitis C who ingested 1gm of the blend [Nutriferon] daily. Of the 35 patients that completed the study, there were improvements reported in malaise, abdominal bloating, nausea, and vomiting with no adverse changes in hematology or biochemical examination parameters. There was a statistically significant decrease in HCV-RNA virus levels in patients with high viral titers after 1 and 3 months administration of [Nutriferon] and no serious adverse events were observed with botanical blend administration. The study findings suggest that [Nutriferon] has antiviral activity and may be both safe and useful for administration to patients with chronic hepatitis C, especially in those with high viral titers.

Think about what this implies!

2. Administration of a Patented Botanical Blend in Patients with Pollenosis [allergies like hay-fever]

Allergies such as hay fever are hyper-sensitivities in which immune responses to environmental antigens cause inflammation and damage to the body itself.

Three uncontrolled trials on 113 subjects with mild nasal allergy or hay fever were conducted between 1998 and 2000. In these trials, subjects who used the botanical blend reported specific improvements in subjective measurements such as sneezing, nasal discharge, teary eyes, and nasal blockage. 10 subjects with nasal allergy consuming 2 g daily of [Nutriferon] for 4 weeks showed a statistically significant increase in peripheral blood gamma interferon levels after 4 weeks when compared to the pre-treatment measurement. Reduced allergy response!

3. Effect of Administration of a Botanical Blend in Menopausal Women

Biological factors including hormones and cytokines, as well as psychological factors determine menopausal symptoms. The negatives associated with hormone replacement therapy are driving the search for alternative therapies. Thirty-two post-menopausal women were given 2g daily of [Nutriferon] for 6 months to measure effects on the immune and endocrine systems. There was a significant decrease in systolic and diastolic blood pressure, significant decrease in facial skin surface blood flow, and a significant decrease in plasma TG and LDL-cholesterol after 3 months administration. [Nutriferon] appears to have clinically improved menopausal symptoms in postmenopausal women and may help to maintain or improve normal biological function and quality of life as measured by these indicators in postmenopausal women. Think about this!!

4. Some Effects of [Nutriferon]

In a follow up to the previous study, there was a significant decrease in plasma FSH level, and a significant increase in plasma GM-CSF levels and after 6 months administration of the botanical blend in the 32 subjects. It is significant that [Nutriferon] reduced menopausal symptoms in postmenopausal women. [Nutriferon] may have acted as an immunomodulator and an endocrine modulator.

5. Administration of [Nutriferon] on Physical and Mental Symptoms Accompanying Premenstrual Symptoms (PMS)

Forty-two women ages 20-35 years old with PMS symptoms took 800 mg daily of the blend for 3 months reported statistically significant improvements for abdominal cramps, low back pain, swollen breasts, acne, breast pain, constipation, nervousness, sleepiness, short temper, and reduction of concentration after one month.

So much for the scientific medical-babble. What does this mean for you and me?

A couple of testimonies:

My son gets sick a lot and travels for his job. He is usually sick for 4 days. He took 6 Nutriferon when he started to get sick, took 6 more when he woke up at 4 a.m. By 9 am at breakfast, he was shocked to feel well.

I’m allergic to pollen, dust, grass, weeds, trees, feathers, fur, certain scents, dogs, cats, and certain foods (citrus, fish, cashews or anything processed in a plant with tree nuts). I also have asthma. I suffered oozy itchy rashes on my hands so bad I could hardly bend my fingers and couldn’t work as a nail tech. For years I would break out all over my body every time the wind blew. I was always getting nosebleeds. I was constantly sick with bronchitis, and pretty much had no voice for 4-6 months out of the year. I tried over-the-counter, and every prescription med, inhalers, nose sprays, you name it. Zyrtec worked the best but made me absolutely crazy and I had to quit taking it. I was getting allergy shots for a while and they helped a lot, but the series were sporatic, due to red tape in the MediCal system, and a couple times I had analphylactic reactions to the shots.

I was a non-committed Shaklee user, but decided to give the Nutriferon a try. My God, what a difference! I doubled up on it the first few days, then took two a day regularly for a long time. I did go without it for about a week at one point, and that is where I really saw the difference because the symptoms came back! Other than that, I’ve been basically symptom free since I started taking the Nutriferon.

I have seven children, one with severe allergies who also takes Nutriferon. My oldest daughter who is in college, takes it every day and was the only one in school that didn’t get sick the whole year. The other kids take it when others around them are getting sick at school and work. Tara Colvin

How about that for immune support!?

Be Well, Do Well and keep moving.

Betsy

For more studies and stories, visit www.GrandmaBetsyBell.com/blog

BetsyBells Health4u

4455 51^st Ave. SW

Seattle, WA 98116

206 933 1889

Business Op

Corporate Ex. turns Sales leader

Posted on January 24, 2014

What a testimony to this business opportunity! Shaklee’s corporate executive, Laura Evans, is now a Sales Leader in the field. Here is her story:

Laura Evans Joins the Shaklee Field!

We have exciting news to share! After ten years of encouraging people to join Shaklee as a distributor, Laura Evans, our Senior Vice President of Sales has finally decided to listen to her own advice. Laura has decided to become a Field Leader in our business, which makes her the first senior executive at Shaklee to leave corporate to be a distributor!

We are thrilled for the opportunity this creates for Laura, and of course we wish her the greatest success, but we are also very excited by the fact that a top industry professional of Laura’s stature and credentials has chosen to pursue building her future as a Leader in our business. This is unprecedented and an outstanding example of the opportunity that Shaklee represents.

We’d like to share Laura’s message below in which she explains why she believes this is the next great phase of what has already been a brilliant career in our industry.

I am so excited about the future growth I see for each of us in Shaklee. I am so confident in the incredible potential Shaklee holds for us as Independent Distributors that I want to pursue this rather than my corporate career. For many years, my heart has longed to be in the Field as a Shaklee Leader helping others to achieve their goals on a more personal level while developing my own business.

Recently, doors have opened up for me enabling me to make the shift from corporate, and I was able to acquire a Shaklee distributorship. It is full of loyal and committed leaders and customers. It will be my honor and privilege to work for this team helping them to achieve their goals. And I have absolute confidence in the talented and dedicated team inside the company led by President of Shaklee North America and Chief Operating Officer Dan Rajczak and new Senior Vice President of Sales for North America Justin Rose to support each of us along the way.

For years I have been promoting the powerful business opportunity I see available in Shaklee. Shaklee has the winning combination of what any entrepreneur would look for in a successful business model:

Products of the highest quality. My family and I have been using Shaklee products for 10 years now, and the difference in our health and vitality is immeasurable.
Partners in business whom you can trust. With the leadership of Roger Barnett and Dan Rajczak, I feel confident in the alignment of values, the foundation created for the next 50 years and the future direction the company is taking. I truly believe there has never been a better time to build a business in Shaklee, and I don’t want to wait any longer to take advantage of our trajectory.
People. Terrific people. Shaklee is a family to me. It is wonderful to be surrounded by people with integrity, both internally as employees and externally in our vibrant Field leadership. And I also look forward to being in a position to help others around me on a more personal level.
Potential. A Shaklee business is at the intersection of all major growth trends: health, wellness, weight management, green cleaning, the potential to build internationally, and the trend of millions wanting to build a home-based business. The future for all of us in Shaklee is truly unlimited.

Many of you who know me won’t be surprised by this decision. In my heart, and from the time that I first fell in love with this industry, I’ve identified very closely with the Field, no matter where I’ve worked. But when I came to Shaklee in 2004, I felt I’d come home. And since that time, the desire has been growing in me to be what I feel I am destined to be, and that’s what you are – entrepreneurs with a mission and a cause to make others’ lives better, and to help people to achieve their greatest potential in every possible way. That is what I believe in, and that is what I look forward to dedicating my life to every day. As one of you.

I look forward to seeing all of you at a Regional Event in April, and at our 2014 Shaklee Live event in Long Beach.

Best wishes for good health and success,

Laura Evans

View a special video message in which Laura shares her excitement about this announcement!

Last update:01/24/14

Be Well, Do Well and Keep Moving, Betsy

If you are interested in how you can become a Shaklee Sales Leader, I would be happy to show you how. Visit my website and leave your information so I can get back to you.