Reflexology for Insomnia and Better Sleep

I've had a lot of requests on how reflexology (and other things) can help insomnia and other irregular sleep patterns.  I've put together a foot and ear reflexology map for you to explore.

First let's explore the foot map. This map is pretty general as it covers a lot of different points. Before going to bed each night sit upright with your foot in your lap (if you can do this). With your thumb, deeply press in and walk your thumb on the large plantar pad of your big toe. Work deeply for at least 1 - 3 minutes on each of the big toes. Also work on the 2nd toe for a minute. The toe points will work your head, brain, pituitary, and pineal gland reflexes... all important to balance for a good night's sleep.

If you can't reach the bottom of your toe, have someone else help you. If that isn't an option, find a firm, (not to sharp) solid corner of a wooden coffee table and press the plantar pad of your large toe on it for a few minutes.

Next walk your thumb along the inner (medial) edge of each foot (one at a time). This is your spinal reflexes, which will help balance your body systems.

Now you can either continue to walk your thumb in the rest of the purple areas marked in the picture (along the ball and arch of each foot), or you can now take a high-bounce rubber ball and stand up and very slowly step on the ball. Once the ball is deep in the muscle of the sole of your foot, slowly roll your foot backward and forward to deeply work these points. Five minutes on each foot will be great. This works your heart, adrenals, solar plexus, liver, gall bladder, pancreas, stomach, intestines, and all your abdominal organs. It also relaxes the muscles on your plantar foot, which in turn, radiate up the back of your legs, lower and upper back, and neck. Relaxing these muscles also helps aid sleep, especially when muscle tension is part of the culprit.

Next, let's take a look at this ear reflexology map. (This information is from Terry Oleson's Auriculotherapy Manual).

The main points to work are the non-blue areas. If you want extra support, then do the secondary blue points.

How to work the Ear Points: Either before or while you lie down to bed each night, hold these points either between your fingers or pressing on them with your finger tip for a minute or so on each point. Personally, I like to end with the Zero Point for at least 5 minutes. Keep in mind to keep your body, arms and hands as relaxed as you can while holding these points. If you are lying down, make sure your elbows are supported properly with any pillows or support they may need. If you want to work on these points prior to lying down, sit at a table and prop your elbows on the table while resting your head in the palm of your hands while your finger tips reach your ears to press on the points.

Other things that may be able to improve your sleep are:

1. Be active during the day. Get at least 30 minutes of cardiovascular exercise each day.
2.  Eliminate caffeine. If you absolutely won't give it up, at least give it up after 12 noon. This includes tea and chocolate.
3. Avoid alcohol. 
4. Do yoga before bed. Do some calm, slow yoga with special breathing techniques, in a very dim lit room prior to bed. This relaxes your body AND your mind.
5. Keep your environment stimulant free at least an hour before bed. This means lower the lights, turn off the computers, tv's, cell phones, and other electronic gadgets.
6. Eat a diet that is mostly plant-based, especially eating a lot of dark greens like kale, broccoli, and spinach. 
7. Create a regular bedtime and wake up time.
8. Do the Hook Up. Donna Eden in her book "Energy Medicine" gives us this great exercise. While in bed, press down your belly button with the middle finger of one hand and with the middle finger of the other hand press and hold above the bridge of your nose between your eyebrows.  Breath in deeply through your nose and out through your mouth for at least 20 seconds. (I like to do this for a few minutes). This creates a connection between your central meridian (which sends energy up the front of your body) and the governing meridian (which sends energy up your spine). 
9. Keep your body temperature comfortable. Being either too hot or too cold will make going and staying asleep hard to accomplish. If your feet or too cold or too hot, the same thing happens. 
10. These are some great books to help calm the mind and create a heart-based peace.
    The Genie Within by Harry Carpenter
    and The Heart Math Solution by Doc Lew Childre

I hope this has been helpful!  Wishing you a great night's sleep!!!

Grand Opening of the Community Holistic Health Center!

I am so pleased to announce the Grand Opening of the
 Community Holistic Health Center in Lafayette, Colorado,
and my new office space!!!

I will be celebrating my own Grand Re-Opening of my practice as well!
My new hours will be Thursday and Saturday from 9am - 1pm!
Please visit my website to book your session!

And, please join me and my fellow health practitioners for the Grand Opening of the CHHC!  

On Saturday we will be offering sample sessions of our healing work. 

CHHC Grand Opening Events

Join us in Celebration Friday, 11-11-11
6 pm to 9 pm
We will have live music, appetizers and fascinating conversation!
Meet our Board Members and Practitioners.

Enjoy the offerings of our practitioners Saturday, 11-12-11
10 am to 4 pm
Our practitioners will be offering samples of their services at our first CHHC Health Fair.
Some of the services offered:
Acupuncture
Massage
Reiki
Reflexology
Aromatherapy
Flower Essences
Intuitive Readings

Activating Pineal Gland

Here are some good references on how to detox and activate your pineal gland:

• Meditate on pineal gland and visualize it glowing in white golden light and feel it tingling or vibrating in the center of your brain. 
• Do the Aum (Om) chant every day (sit upright, hands folded together on lap, right thumb over left.) Take a deep breath in (filling first the stomach/diaphram, then mid-chest, the upper chest.) Then exhale with the A (soft a) sound while emptying the stomach/lower chest. Continue exhaling and say U (cross between oo and strong O) sound while emptying the mid-chest. Finish by closing your mouth and saying the M sound while emptying your upper chest and feel vibrations on the roof of your mouth.Pause and repeat several times. Quiet your mind and focus internally on the sounds, the waves of vibration it creates, your breath, and your internal stillness within the breath movement.
• Avoid all things fluoride, including: tap water, cooking with tap water, fluoridated toothpaste, conventional fruits and vegetables, showers without filter, and anything made with artificial food and drinks, and red meat.
• Drink only pure water: drink spring, distilled, or reverse osmosis purified water. Buy a shower filter, go to whole foods and buy organic fruits, veggies, and toothpaste without fluoride.
• Avoid processed foods, sugar, additives.
• Eat only whole, organic plant-based foods.
• Consume super foods:  Chlorella spirualina, blue-green algea, iodine, shilajit, cystine, blue skate liver oil, monoatomic gold,  raw cacao, goji berries, watermelon, bananas, hemp seeds, seeweed, and noni juice.
• Hold Master Reflex Points on the Ears.  Lie on your back, and hold the following points (see image) on your ears. The Shen Men, Pineal, and Zero Point are particularly potent. Hold gently with your middle or index finger for several minutes each. I usually end with the Zero Point and hold for at least 5 minutes. 

• Hold Pineal Gland Reflexology Points on Hands and Feet.  There are many reflexology charts out there that will tell you different locations of the pineal gland point. So I recommend putting firm pressure in these various areas: FEET: On the Big Toe press in the middle of the plantar (bottom) toe pad - in the toe print spiral. Also hold firm pressure on the top medial (towards body's midline) edge. HANDs: Same as on Big Toe except use your thumb. Press firmly on the middle of the thumb pad (in the spiral of the thumb print), and also on the upper portion of flesh along the thumb nail on the medial edge (away from your index finger).
• Use Crystals. Amethyst, Charoite, Dumitorite, Pietersite, Lodestone, Quartz, Purple Fluorite, Purple Sapphire, Dragonite, Moonstone, Purple Lepidolite, Rhyolite, and Ruby. Hold a crystal over 3rd eye for 15 - 45 minutes during meditation. 
• Herbs: Chamomile, Pine Bark, Lavender bud, Wild Indigo Bark, Violet, Licorice, and Ginseng.

Some links for Pineal Gland activation:.

1. http://dherbs.com/forums/index.php?topic=171.0
2. 1 Hour 741Hz Conscious and Intuitive Expansion Meditation Recalibrated to 432 Tuning
3. 1 Hour 432Hz Schumann Resonance Meditation
4. http://www.mindpowermp3.com/The-Benefits-of-Pineal-Gland-Activation.html
5. http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message1672873/pg1
6. http://www.ehow.com/how_5092561_activate-pineal-gland.html

How Does Your Sunscreen Rate?

The EWG's 5th annual sunscreen report is here! They analyzed more than 600 beach and sport sunscreens and found that they could only recommend one in five sunscreens for this summer! The rest either don't protect enough or contain hazardous ingredients that don't belong on your skin.

I know you count on sunscreens to protect you and your family from sunburn and to help prevent sun damage and skin cancer, so please take a moment to check out our most comprehensive Sunscreen Guide to date. You can look up your sunscreen or find out our top-rated sunscreens.

Click here to check out this year's Sunscreen Guide!

This report is packed with invaluable information from the best sunscreens to sun safety tips. There's even a Hall of Shame to shine a light on the sunscreen industry's worst practices.

Patriotism on a Plate

"Patriotism on a Plate" is a must-see talk given by Robyn O'Brien that she presented at Tedx Austin 2011. She shares her amazing journey with her own child's food allergies, her type-A personality to find out why so many of our children now have food allergies, why our food industry is affecting the health of our nation, and why organics cost so much. This is brilliant, informative, eye-opening, and inspiring to all of us to make big or little changes to move ourselves, our families, and our country, patriotically, into a healthier, happier, and more economically sound future.

Our Love-Hate Relationship with Sweets

Oh those sweets! We love them. We hate them.

We love the taste of sweets. We love the feeling of sweetness in our mouths. In fact, we love the "feeling of sweetness". Oh but the guilt that follows the bite down is enough to spoil that love affair with each swallow.

I can hear it now... "this is bad for me, I will gain weight, my face will break out, where is my will power, this causes inflammation, this causes addiction, this causes disease..!" * Gulp! * You just ate that, all that. The guilt is punishing enough to make you never eat another sweet again. That is, until the next bite tempts us. "Oh, hello my sweet love!"

Sweet food is, for many of us, a love-hate relationship. We crave sweetness for many reasons. One reason people eat sweets is that we have become "programmed" unconsciously to do so. We have become mindless when it comes to putting something inside our bodies based on triggers that aren't the hunger triggers. How many times have you had a bowl of sweets while you were at the computer or watching TV, and magically, it disappeared without you realizing it! Do you procrastinate by eating sweet food? Do you shove emotions inside with sweet food? Do you eat sweets because some emotion or part of your life is missing? Do you eat them because they just somehow magically find their way into your mouth?

Mindful Eating with Sweets:

The next time you find yourself about ready to put a sweet in your mouth...

• Push the "pause" button. If you can, put the food down for 10 minutes. This gives you a mental break in your actions (that may not be conscious or mindful).
• Be curious about your actions. Ask yourself: Are you hungry? If so, is this the best choice? Why this and not something healthier? Does the activity I'm doing now usually trigger me to eat sweets? Don't be judgmental or harsh on yourself. Just be curious, interested, and obtain some conscious information.
• Conjure up some wonderful, "sweet" feelings. This can be happy memories, people, pets, things you love, or something you are appreciative and grateful for. Sometimes we crave "sweetness", and the easiest way we give it to ourselves is through food. After all, grabbing a cookie might be easier to some than digging to find that "sweet-self-love" we all truly want.
• Check back in 10. After the 10 minutes is up, see if you are hungry. Do you still want the food? Is there something else you want that is better for you? Just observe. Don't guilt yourself if you do eat the sweet.
• Learn and enjoy. This was a lesson in mindfulness. See how you feel while you are eating it. See how you feel afterwards. Remember that how you feel is nourishment too. Be as kind to yourself as you can.

Beyond the mindfulness of eating, there are other factors to look at with our relationship with sweets. Another main reason we crave sweets is simple enough... because like attracts like. The more sweets you eat (even if they are artificial), the more we are begging for more.

When eating sweets, aim for whole foods made and packaged by Mother Nature herself. Fruits, veggies, nuts, and seeds are great choices. Try to make sure you are also having fiber and protein while eating sweets, as it slows the sugar release down in your body.

Here is a great article (link below) on some great ideas on how to Tame Your Sweet Tooth.

Tame Your Sweet Tooth

When it comes to sugar, it helps to be strategic, says Jacob Teitelbaum, MD: “I’m not saying you can’t have pleasure in the form of sugar, but it’s time to start making informed choices.” Here are some tips:

* Put protein, healthy fat and fiber in the mix. All of them slow down the digestion process, averting blood-sugar spikes. Get creative by adding slow-digesting nutrients to your favorite sweets. If you’re going to have jam on your toast, make sure you’re also having an egg, some nut butter or other fat with your breakfast. If you’re going to eat cereal, put some walnuts on it. Top pear slices with crumbled Gorgonzola. Choose dark chocolate, which contains some fat, over fat-free candies.

Read more: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/7-tricks-for-taming-your-sweet-tooth.html#ixzz1MiJ66Udo

New Science of Yoga Program

If you're like me, if/when you started yoga you may have felt very confused by all the choices. Making sense of yoga and figuring out the right approach was, for me, frustrating to say the least. Then I found something that made all the difference in the world. It took the mystery out of yoga and gave me all the tools and guidance I needed to totally transform my health and my life ...

What if there was a way for you to stop spinning your wheels too and finally start realizing all the great health benefits of yoga ... quickly and more easily than you even imagined?

Well, I'm excited to tell you that now there is! Yogacharya, director of International Yogalayam, has just released his newest (and in my opinion, best) yoga home study program called The Science of Yoga.

This one of a kind yoga training course just got released to the public today, and with the special offer on it for the next 72 hours, you really can't go wrong (there's even 3 excellent free bonuses included too!) So don't delay ... in 3 days this opportunity will be gone.

P.S. The nicest thing about The Science of Yoga is that it is 100% Internet based. You could be using it within minutes of reading this email... And Yogacharya offers a no questions asked, 100% money back guarantee too. So what have you got to lose?

Namasté my friends!

[Learn More about The Science of Yoga]