Integrative Health Blog

The power of touch has a special resonance with me.  My first experience was when I had a biopsy done for breast cancer.  I was in the prone position so I could not see the person.  The biopsy was done on my left breast and was painful.  The person assisting the physician was a nurse and she put her hand on mine and was present.  I could feel her presence with her hand.  This made a difference because I felt reassured and not alone.  I felt a sense of compassion.  This made the experience more bearable. 

Oncology massage is based on compassion. Oncology massage is a lighter, softer touch than regular massage, and designed to relax the nervous system. During cancer treatment our bodies sometimes forget the feeling of being relaxed. Massage is a way in which clients can visit themselves, to acknowledge where they are and what they are feeling. The benefits of oncology massage done correctly are relaxation, better sleep, reduced anxiety and pain, and less fatigue and nausea. 

If you’ve ever experienced stress affecting how you feel physically, whether through feeling nervous and physically jittery, feeling anxious and physically tense, or feeling exhausted and foggy-minded, you may have wondered how all of that stress affects your health in the long-term.

Scientists have repeatedly found that stress affects our physical well-being. More recently, however, scientists have also found that stress and trauma can cause epigenetic changes, or switching on and off of genes that regulate body functions such as stress responses.

The impact of stress can be passed to future generations

Beyond even these alarming individual epigenetic changes, scientists have also begun to find that epigenetic changes due to stress and trauma can also be passed down to offspring. In a study of Holocaust survivors and their children, Rachel Yehuda and a team of researchers at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York discovered just such a phenomenon.

What’s the real reason that we love the holidays like Christmas and Hanukkah so much?  Why do we love holidays and holy days in general so much? 

How do we keep that sense of peace and joy in everyday life?  What does truly make us happy in a lasting sense in life?

You are already an expert in subtle energy, but you probably do not yet know it.

Have you ever attended a ball game or sporting event and “felt the excitement in the air?”

Most people have felt that feeling of excitement in the air somewhere. Interestingly, no one had to tell you that what you were feeling was “excitement,” because the energy itself sends the message, and you are intuitively programmed to feel it and to know what that it is “excitement in the air.”

Have you ever been in a room, perhaps at a meeting, in which the tension was so thick, that as the very old saying goes, “You could have cut the tension with a knife?” No one had to tell you that this was tension that you were feeling. No one had to explain the difference between how excitement feels and how tension feels. You just knew it, and could feel it in your body.

Have you ever experienced someone standing in front of you who was so angry, you could literally feel the anger coming from them? Most people have also experienced this feeling of the subtle energy of anger, and again, no one has to explain to anyone “Hey, guess what: this is anger energy – watch out!” The subtle energy of anger (not so subtle, perhaps) actually sends a message that we understand intuitively is anger, and we know to be cautious.

Can you feel the love?

If you’re like most women, you have cellulite. Believe it or not, over 90% of women have cellulite at some point in their life. Every year you make a vow to eliminate it once and for all! But then, spring comes, you try on your bathing suit and there it is again... mocking you.

To make things more difficult, your internet search yields tons of results on how to get rid of it. Everywhere you look, someone is claiming this works or that doesn’t. It’s enough to send a girl on a search for the best pair of capris she can find and leave them on for the rest of the summer!

A Multi-Faceted Approach