I Did My First Speaking Engagement About This Time in 1975

For my first speaking engagement, I was booked to speak the end of February at the Thomas Jefferson Medical School in Philadelphia to doctors and nurses on a program I was calling How to Relax and Enjoy…. I was going to be showing them a breathing exercise, yoga neck and eye exercises, meditation and Shiatsu to get rid of headache in 90 seconds. At the time, all this stuff was unknown by people and probably considered “weird”. Well low and behold, they all participated and loved the program! 

Now the other interesting part to this story is that I lived in Chicago and to get to the program in Philadelphia I decided to drive as I had several other places to go to on the East Coast. On the drive, I picked up a hitchhiker who happened to be going to Philly and he was willing to share the driving. We ran into a snow storm outside Pittsburg and had to decide whether to take I-80 across PA or take the PA Turnpike, which dipped further south. We decided to take the Turnpike and that was the right decision because I discovered later that parts of I-80 were totally shut down from the storm. On the Turnpike since you paid a toll, they had snow plows out which let us get through. BTW, I was driving a Ford Pinto which had no traction, so I had loaded the trunk up with sand bags and old telephone books. We drove through the night and made it.

So…persevering to get to that program began what has been a 41 year career.

Great Book On Outsmarting Autism!  

A new book was recently published that gives hope about assisting a child with autism. It was written by Patricia Lemer and is called Outsmarting Autism: The Ultimate Guide to Management, Healing, and Prevention and its being calling the "Bible" of autism treatment! It has been selected for first prize from The Authors' Zone which is awarded to Western PA authors. She won in the Self-Help/Medicine category

http://theauthorszone.com.

This book is an easy-to-read 500 page tome which guides you step-by-step with practical information from a variety of fields that families, specialists, and educators can put to use immediately to help autistic children. I recently heard her speak and she is an incredible wealth of information. You can order her book on Amazon.

The Fallacy Behind Requiring Double Blind Placebo Controlled Studies For Supplements

Dr. Dean Ornish recently published an article talking about how less than half of the decisions made by doctors on conventional medical care treatments are based on randomized controlled trials, which is considered the gold standard. He reported that the joint cardiovascular practice guidelines of the American College of Cardiology (ACC) and the American Heart Association (AHA) have become important documents for guiding cardiology practice and establishing benchmarks for quality of care. An article in the Journal of the American Medical Association reviewed these guidelines and concluded that only 11 percent of the 2,711 guidelines met the A-level of evidence (i.e., strong evidence from randomized controlled trials) and 48 percent met the C-level of evidence (i.e., based on the personal opinions of experts in the field).

The British Medical Journal reported that of about 2,500 conventional medical treatments supported by good evidence, only 15 percent of treatments were rated as beneficial, 22 percent as likely to be beneficial, 7 percent part beneficial and part harmful, 5 percent unlikely to be beneficial, 4 percent likely to be ineffective or harmful, and in the remaining 47 percent the effect of the treatment was "unknown." The text says, "The figures suggest that the research community has a large task ahead and that most decisions about treatments still rest on the individual judgments of clinicians and patients."

So most medical treatments have not met the standards that they profess are crucial for making medical decision, yet when it comes to vitamin supplements, the critics insist that the gold standard of studies should apply and not the experience of the practitioner and the individual. To me this means that they should first look in their own house before they throw stones at the supplement house.

(Reported HuffingtonPost.com)

 
Meditation Benefits Get Better And Better

Last month, I wrote about the powerful benefits of meditation on students in disadvantaged school systems. In the February 16, 2015 issue of Time magazine, there was an article raving about the scientific benefits of meditation. They reported on these studies:

1.  Fourth and fifth graders who participated in a mindfulness and kindness program showed better social behavior than their peers and these students were less aggressive and better liked.
2. In another study, the mediating group of students had 15% higher math scores. In another, 41% of the middle schoolers gained at least one level in math scores in state test scores.
3. Another group of third-graders, after 8 weeks of meditation and yoga, had fewer symptoms of ADHD and less hyperactivity and these effects lasted for months after the program ended.
4. In a troubled middle school, where children were meditating for 3 years, suspensions dropped from 28% to 4% and teacher turnover plummeted.
5. For British kids aged 12 to 16, just 9 lessons of a meditation program lowered depression scores and stress levels.
6. In an elementary school, the teachers reported better focus, self-control, class participation and peer respect in the kids who meditated.

So…the question becomes a simple one, why aren’t all schools building   
meditation into the curriculum. My researching this area has also found that employees can benefit greatly from meditating at work. So…if you are an employer you might want to consider the benefits by incorporating meditation into the work day.

The How Attitude Affects The Mind And the Body

In the late 1970s, researchers did a fascinating study. They took eight men in their 70s for a five day stay at a retreat in New Hampshire. The men’s health was age-appropriate meaning that they were slow, bent and easily fatigued.

When the men arrived at the retreat, they found that it was decorated as the world looked to them in 1959 when they were in their 50s. Even the music was mid-century played on mid-century radios. The men were also treated like they would have been back then – they carried their own bags, got their own blankets. They kept the conversations to what they would have talked about in 1959. The researchers also removed all mirrors from the building so that the spell would not be broken.

At both the beginning and end of the five-day span, the researchers administered a series of physical and cognitive aptitude tests and on virtually all the test measures the men’s performance improved dramatically and in many cases their results were closer to what would be expected for men a decade or two younger. So… if you think you’re old, that’s how you’ll feel and if you think you’re younger than your age, that how you’ll feel, too! What choice are you going to make? I’ve personally picked younger and even though I’m going to be 68 this month, I don’t look it, act it, or feel it!

(Reported Time February 23 – March 2, 2015)

Anxiety May Accelerate Aging and Relaxing Slows It

While 99% of Americans feel relaxation is important, less than 5% pursue relaxation. In this study, one-third of those polled even said that they felt stressed out just thinking about relaxation.

What relaxation does is stop the effects of stress and anxiety while preventing the manifestation of aging illnesses. As reported in PLOS One, using intense relaxation exercises like meditation, counteracts the negative effects of stress which includes hypertension, anxiety, insomnia and aging. Relaxation increases the genes associated with energy metabolism, mitochondrial function and telomere maintenance. Basically, relaxation techniques used long-term can switch on genes that fight disease and protect against pain, high blood pressure and rheumatoid arthritis. So…you might want to get my book Managing Your Stress in Difficult Times: Succeeding in Times of Change, which gives you all kinds of techniques to stop stress. To order a copy, go to (Sandy, put the link to the book here).

(Reported Mercola.com February 26, 2015)  

New Approach To Preventing And Stopping Peanut Allergies

A study just published in the New England Journal of Medicine has upset the traditional treatment approach to stopping peanut allergies from happening in kids. This approach has been to keep babies who might develop a peanut allergy away from peanut based foods. The researchers have found that this advice is completely wrong!

They found that exposing infants to peanuts before age 1 actually helped to lower the risk of a peanut allergy by 81%. This early exposure seemed to help build up the child’s tolerance. They also found that among 530 five-year-olds who had no sign of a peanut allergy from a skin test that those who ate peanut products only 2% developed an allergy while 14% of those who did not eat peanuts at all developed an allergy.

Even children who had some reaction to peanuts from a skin test wound up with only 11% of the peanut eaters developed an allergy while 35% of those who did not eat peanuts developed an allergy. This study means that eating peanuts helped children to not develop allergies.

The researchers also said that this may completely change the way doctors treat potential allergies in children. Finally, if your baby has some signs of peanut allergy risk, have a skin test done before you start giving peanut products to eat.

(Reported The Associated Press, Marilynn Marchione, February 24, 2015)  

Feedback From A Client On The Impact Of My Program

Here’s a link to a short video from John DeVries, President, Ottawa Construction Association, on the impact of my seminar on the managers from his member companies – (S – put link). Hope you enjoy it.

SPECIAL: Quick Relief For Lower Back Pain!

When Dr. Teplitz first developed his Shiatsu techniques, he found to his amazement they worked almost immediately.  It still amazes him today, and yes, it will amaze you and completely relieve your lower back pain.  Another benefit of Shiatsu's deep and gentle pressure is that it puts both body and mind in a deep state of relaxation. 

You will have a Lower Back Pain instant treatment literally at your "fingertips" anytime and anywhere, without medication, side-effects or waiting.  This technique is quite simply PRICELESS for the pain of Lower Back.

This DVD is regularly priced at $49.95 plus shipping (19.97 regular for the Digital Download version). Click below and get yours at a huge savings and free shipping!

OFFERS GOOD ONLY UNTIL March 31st  SO ORDER YOURS TODAY!

THANKS, THAT'S IT FOR THIS MONTH!