Oh, my back!

Beaten, bent and frequently weighted, our backs take on a lot of work every day.  The weight of our bodies are carried on our legs, but they have large bones that are the majority of the structure.  In the back the spine sits at the rear and helps us bend, turn, and lean, but far more of it's structure is done with muscles.  The muscles in our back are therefore very suceptable to pain, tension, and fatigue.  Walking is one of the best postures for our backs because it is mobile, and erect, but most of us can't walk all day long.  Sitting and standing can cause pain if we're in a position too long, or if our posture is poor. 

Most of us don't even know what proper posture feels like anymore, so for an interesting exercise, stand against  a wall, knees shoulder width apart and about 10 inches in front of you.  Slowly lower yourself until your knees are at about a 45 degree angle.  If you tighten your buttocks and abs while in this position and then stand, you will feel what proper posture should feel like for your back.  Personally, I know mine could use a lot of work.  Time for me to hit those abdominal exercises.

Straddle stretches, sleeping on your side or back with a pillow (between your legs on your side or under your legs on your back), adequate water, and of course sleep can all help back pain.  In addition to that, work on your posture, get up from your desk and walk at least once an hour, and here it comes (sigh) get to a healthy weight.  You can check your BMI here.

See you tomorrow.

Honey, yum and more stretches

Take the stairs.  If you can, do it.  A lot of lower back problems stem from poor posture and not enough leg strength.  To stretch the lower back, you'll need to bend a little and twist, however the lower back is one of the areas that is easy to injure with poor stretching.  One way to protect yourself is to do the lower back stretches while standing instead of on the floor.

Another great stretch to be added to the previous ones is the skier stretch (not to be done if you have pain or weakness in the knees).  Visualize a skier going down moguls, bend your knees, lean over and stick your hip/rear out to the side.  This will help to loosen the while hip which frequently gets tight from sitting.

Honey - the stuff!  Honey is terrific, it non-perishable, delicious, anti-bacterial, heals cuts, helps with throat pain, and is amazing.  A beautiful blessing from nature.  Honey can also carry a small amount of additional benefits through from the plants the bees draw nectar from.  Want to try something exotic in honey?    Citrus and other bold flavors come through in honey well. 
In addition to it's many benefits, it can be used in a lot of ways.  Add a little honey and salad dressing for a sweeter veggie dip (great with zucchini sticks).  Use it when cooking meat (turkey, chicken, pork).  It's also great in almost all baking.  Ok, now I'm hungry.  See you tomorrow!

Guides

Ok, so after a snowed in week, I had a wonderful weekend with my family and a LOT of advice.  Which brings me to handling advice stress-free.  There's all the important things to remember like, they care about you, or they've had experience, or they just think they know what they're doing.  :)  However, even when it comes from an experienced loving place it can often feel to the receiver like an unwarranted intrusion, judgement, or just wrong.  I am learning in my own life that I need to hear the advice, and notice what I bristle at and then look at that again.  Generally the good advice that feels right usually is, the good advice that is off base usually is, and the good advice that just feels pointed is usually showing me a weakness that I can address.  I feel rather aware of my weaknesses this morning.  Can a good weekend do that to you? 

Health wise, I've received my own further push to become more healthy.  So, I'm working on a short-term 2 month plan for my family, thanks to some "advice" :)  Here's my questions that I'd love your comments on, is it better to start with bigger plans and scale back or start with smaller plans and move up.  I've read a lot about goals and setting reasonable ones so that you can feel success, but I've also love the quote by Thomas J. Watson - “It is better to aim at perfection and miss, than to aim at imperfection and hit it”  (when looking for my reference I found this terrific site.  Read some and be inspired) AIM

So maybe we need both, short term goals we can accomplish with a huge aim at the end.  Breathe in some fresh air, have confidence and faith, and stretch yourself!  (Figuratively as well as literally *smile*) 

Need some stretches? 
Doorway stretch - thanks to driving, computers, and other intricate work, most of us have forward rotated shoulders, give them a break each doorway you go through and hold your arms, hands up, 90 degrees and at shoulder height and lean in to stretch the front of your shoulders.
Neck and down stretch - another excellent one for frequent posture problems.  Extend your arm in front of you and extend your hand back towards your head and then lean your head away from the extended arm.  You should feel a stretch down the side of your neck and through your shoulder.
Stretch your calves and feet while at your desk - keep a can of food or better a tennis ball under your desk and roll your foot over it back and forth.  When rolling forward concentrate on stretching your heel down to stretch your calf, and when rolling back, rock side to side to stretch the arch of the foot.

If you need other ideas, let me know.  See you tomorrow.

Contests up and stir crazy

Ok, the follower contest is up.
Become a follower of AYearOfHealth.blogspot.com and be entered to win one of two Amazon ($25 & $10) certificates.  Winners will be chosen and notified February 25th or when there are at least 20 followers.  Immediate family not eligible. 

Second contest is to reply to this message with ideas for future topics that are health related.  Keep it clean.  2 winners will be chosen and given a choice of a one hour service, or a personal aromatherapy blend for their needs (good for those of you not near Fort Worth).  These winners will be notified February 28th or when there are at least 10 comments.  All comments eligible, well, except for me.

Stir crazy, that's me today.  This is our kid's second snow day, and I'm trying to get my house ready for 20+ people to come this weekend.  Meditation went out the door yesterday, so today I'm trying the benefits of continual movement therapy.  Even sitting to write this post, I'm keeping my legs moving.  Hopefully the feeling of movement will help me to be energized and get everything done, or if not, to at least not gain weight from the stress.  :)  Be joyful today and remember your water and gratitude!  See you tomorrow.

They didn't get here...

I hate broken promises.  They kind of suck.  I hate them when it's a product - sure this will help me lose 10 inches off my waist, or I hate it when it's a BLOG that says the contest will be up, and then they aren't.  I blame technical difficulties, and a sick DH.  (Mostly the DH, but don't tell him that).  Anyway, they'll be up shortly.

So health today.  Moisture, good and bad.  Most people don't think about it unless they get too much or too little, but the thing is, it really is a necessity in our world of water.  Our bodies need it, the earth needs it, the air even needs it.  I finally got around to some necessities this week, and started getting my rain barrels ready for garden season, planned my garden/herb area, and called 2 stores to find my organic helpers.  Thanks to a very well studied grandmother in the area of plants, I am learning EVERYTHING (almost) that I need to plant a great organic garden with helpful and healthful food and herbs.  I'll keep you updated on who gets fried first, me or the plants, but that aside, I'm excited to have a good garden again.

See you tomorrow!

*sigh* Friday

I don't know if that's a sigh of resignation that this week was pretty much a bust for me, or if it's a sigh that yes, I made it to Friday.  If I work on the attitude outlook, it's a good sigh, I made it through illness and next week can be better, which outlook would be a lot easier if the illness had been the only mishap this week.  It's frustrating, life, sometimes.  Don't get me wrong, sometimes those frustrations are just part of the program like with my kids, but other things just feel like a kick in the pants.  Ok, enough wallowing.  I'm excited!  DH thinks he's figured out how to host the contests, so I guess they'll start tomorrow.  Yea!

First look at women's health.  I want to break this down initially at first to say that obviously a lot of health is not gender specific, herbs, massage, fitness, attitude, all unisex.  That being said, men and women are different on a very basic level as well.  We have different chemicals running our gears, different DNA altering our outcomes.  Most of the time I'm grateful to have those differences, but there's times I wish the differences weren't quite so large.

Like weight loss, my husband can decide he wants to lose weight and caught out soda for a week and go for a run once and lose 6 pounds.  I on the other hand, joined a gym last year, worked out 4 times a week, ate more greens, and gained 2 pounds.  Gotta love it.

So women's needs are to address the wonderful chemicals and lifestyles of women.  Women tend to be less muscular (lower metabolism), sleep differently (sometimes related to anxiety), and of course have PMS, prenancy, lactation, Menopause, etc, with the help of our hormones.  The key is learning how to work with our bodies.  I haven't perfected it (or even gotten that great at it) yet, but I'm working on it and I have high hopes.  Here's a list of common women natural cures.

Aloe vera - sunburns, scrapes, heartburn, and more.  Great multi-purpose herbs, and easy to grow plant!
Garlic - anit-fungal, colds, acne, bug repellent,
Cohosh - stabilizing estrogen - helps with getting regular periods (infertility), menopause, and inducing labor.
Peppermint - almost all abdominal problems, stomach, bowels, etc.
Apple cider vinegar - reduce bruising and aid in healing with compresses, baths, or rinses.
Arnica - muscles, yep, good stuff.
Witch hazel - astringent, anti-itch, vericose veins,
Valerian or Kava Kava - calming, antii-anxiety, stress relief

There's others like always, but these are ones I like to have (and usually regret when I don't) have on hand.  Pleased to be a woman. . . most of the time.  :)  See you tomorrow!

Sorry about yesterday

I had every intention of getting on, but woke up with pink eye.  Oozy and all.  So here's a quick post about some herbal remedies to help with pink eye, and I'll get to the woman's herbs later.  :)

I hate pink eye, not so much because it's that bad for me, but I've had a LOT of weird experiences with it.  I got it camping once, I got it on an anniversary trip to a remote place once (while pregnant), and I've gotten it a few other times as well.  I've only had one of my kids get it so far, (thank goodness), and my DH has gotten it a time or two.  Washing hands and sleeping, best things in the world with pink eye.  We don't have a lot of passing it around when we have it because we obey these rules.

• I've tried salt water before (stings!) and it's effective in removing the redness and inflammation pretty quickly, but doesn't help shorten it, that I've noticed. 
• I had a friend that used colloidal silver directly, use caution if you're going to try this, but it cleared up pretty well. 
• I know of a few herbs that help but there's also available in most stores Similasan which contains a lot of them and is already in a convenient drop.
• I also cannot say enough about heat.  Warm, wet compresses (you can add chamomile or black tea as well) work great!  They help to shorten the duration in my experience and frequently remove the pain and itching associated with the pink eye.

Yea for herbs, and after quite a few days with sleep interruptions, yea for sleep!  See you tomorrow.