Tag Archives: antioxidants

What helps when sitting around all day: Italian workshop

Gentle Reader,

This is the view from the grand guest house bedroom window at the Villa Lina, a working 80 acre farm in Lazio, just minutes north of Rome in Italy.  I was there to write with Natalie Goldberg, the guru I’ve been following for several years.  She begins each day with sitting in a meditation room large enough to hold 45 people in a square.  Breakfast is after that and then sitting again before instruction and writing begin.

Without daily stretching and exercise, I am toast.  Full of pain in the hips and knees.  Why we have to keep moving to keep from hurting, I explained in a lot of detail in my last post.  Let me tell you a couple techniques I used faithfully every day while away for the month, even when on the over night train from the Netherlands to Zurich Switzerland.

1) Use the theraband, towel, shirt, scarf to stretch those calves.  Lie on the bed/floor/rug first thing in the morning one leg straight along the surface, the other up over head.  The scarf is over the ball of the foot, and end in each hand.  Relax the ankle and let the toes be drawn toward your nose.  Hold it no matter how much it hurts, easing off and then drawing down again for 20 breathes at least.  Then take the ends of the scarf in the outside hand and draw the foot and outstretched leg to the side, not too far down, and pull the toes toward the nose for another 15 or so breaths.  Change hands and extend the leg across the body. This probably hurts a lot.  It certainly hurts when I do it.  It’s the T-band on the outside of the thigh that gets so tight.

2) No matter what keep moving.  At the Villa, I got up a little early and walked for an hour before the sitting began.  It was a spectacularly beautiful place.   There were ripe grapes waiting for harvesting. I picked a whole bunch and ate them as I walked.  I had my shoes with me that I could get wet in the morning dew. Don’t leave home without them even if they make your bag heavier.  The hotel consierge can tell you a safe route to walk in the early morning.  Even in Las Vegas when I was at the Shaklee convention in August and it was blazing hot, early morning walks saved me.  And there are always stair cases in the city.

pre-dawn, one of the pools at Villa Lina

3) diet is the hardest.  At the Villa our food was incredible, but still not enough vegetables to please me.  Or fiber.  I bought a package of prunes at a grocery store.  Helpful.  This is where you are glad to have your multivitamins with you and perhaps extra special vitamins that concentrate the good stuff found in fruits and vegetables.  The ones I like are here.  

4) Drink plenty of water.  Some people worry about water in a foreign country or different city.  You know your own body and how it reacts to digestive changes like different water.  Personally I don’t bother with bottled water.  If the locals drink from the tap, so do I.  I keep my system functioning with some friendly bacteria that comes in a little capsule.  These millions of little guys keep my bowels functioning and protect me from catching every little bug that comes along.  Did you know that your immune protection is mostly in the lower intestine?  Keep that area healthy and strange water and other bad bugs probably won’t bother you.

5) one last thing, at the end of a busy day either sitting and writing or tromping around as a tourist, stick your feet up on the wall behind your bed.  This restorative pose drains all the aches and pains out of your tired legs.  This is good for any person who has tired achy legs at the end of the day.  It’s hard to get into the position.  Here’s how to do it.  Sit next the wall on the floor (or at the head of the bed where the pillow have been cleared away).  Your left hip is against the wall, your bunt on the floor.  Swing your torso down to the floor (bed) and your straight legs up the wall.  Here’s a funny picture of me doing just that on a picnic table bench when spending a day with my grandson tromping around Montreal.  It embarrassed him, but not me.  Don’t let your pride get in the way of comfort.

Happy travels,

Fondly, Betsy

Be Well, Do Well and Keep Moving

BetsyBell’s Health4u

www.GrandmaBetsyBell.com

206 933 1889  1 888 283 2077

betsy@hihohealth.com

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How about Stinging Nettles?

Gentle Reader,

If I could tell you why some days I wake up with no pain whatsoever– like today– and catalog the food I ate yesterday, the stretches I made, the delicious sleep, the supplements, the aerobic activity—why surely I would have a recipe for a pain free life.  I cannot. I cross country skied on Wednesday; stayed up too late fussing over numbers; ate on the run, albeit extra nutritious homemade vegetable-drawer soup; got tied up in knots over the traffic delays.  You know the drill.  I took no herbal pain pills today and no Aleve.  Instead of analyzing the good things in life that seem to happen randomly, I suggest robust all out celebration and thanksgiving.

I will offer you some spicy advice that came to me from a good friend who faithfully reads these pages and a few others from the web which she passes on to me when relevant.  I especially appreciated her reprint from NaturalNews.  Since I harvested stinging nettles on my walk Tuesday, being careful to wear gardening gloves, I am eager to eat them and see what they do for me. See the article below for details.  Stinging nettles are abundant in the northwest right now, small plants with tender leaves.  All the sting goes away with cooking.  If you try it, let me know how it goes. It’s inexpensive to try these natural remedies from the kitchen cupboard, way-side and grocery store.

Relieve arthritis and joint pain with home remedies

 (NaturalNews) Homemade remedies for arthritis, gout and other joint pain are never farther away than the kitchen cupboard or the refrigerator. Joint disease is the result of various causes ranging from aging, to over-use and autoimmune diseases that attack joints and surrounding tissue. Pharmaceutical companies have designer drugs that reduce inflammation to help relieve pain and often cause significant side effects. The ingredients for homemade remedies can be purchased at grocery and health food stores and many may already be stocked in your pantry, offering significant savings over costly pharmaceutical drugs.

Anti-Inflammatory triad

On their own, turmeric, ginger and bromelain work as effective anti-inflammatory agents. Each works to relieve pain, stiffness and swelling. In combination, they provide a powerhouse of natural medicine. The three substances are synergistic to one another, each boosting the other’s effectiveness…

Stinging nettles

Homemade remedies from stinging nettles are numerous. A traditional herbal treatment, stinging nettles are used to relieve symptoms of joint pain, arthritis and gout. A tea can be made from the dried herb or the fresh leaves. Use caution and wear gloves if harvesting fresh nettles. As their name implies, the little hairs on the plant can cause serious skin reactions including hives and other painful outbreaks. These are neutralized when heated into tea or when the plant is dried. The tea can be consumed hot or cold or used as a topical soak for painful joints.

Cayenne pepper

Found in most spice cupboards and known for its spicy-hot taste, cayenne makes an excellent topical ointment that relieves joint pain. Capsaicin, the active ingredient in cayenne pepper, tricks the brain by causing local irritation to skin where signals then travel along nerve pathways, distracting the brain from the true source of pain. In time, repeated topical applications of cayenne pepper will reduce arthritis pain significantly. To make topical homemade remedies, mix 2 tablespoons of cayenne pepper with 1/2 cup of cocoa butter, lanolin or coconut oil. Apply it directly to the sore joint. Alternatively, mix 1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper with 1 cup of apple cider vinegar and add to a foot bath with warm water. Soak hands or feet for 20 minutes, then rinse. Cayenne pepper can cause skin irritation.  (I have not tried this, so go forward at your own risk.)

Pectin Grape Juice

Homemade remedies made from fruit pectin and grape juice can relieve joint pain, and reduce swelling and stiffness. Pectin is found in the cells of many plants and acts as a thickener in preparations such as jellies. Grape juice is loaded with antioxidants, among them, anthocyanins, noted for its effect on reducing inflammation. Pectin regulates the flow of fluids in plant cells and is believed to act to relieve fluid buildup in the joints of arthritis sufferers. The best pectin is found at the health food stores and is free of MSG and other additives. Mix 1/2 cup of juice with 2 tablespoons pectin. Add water if needed and drink twice daily for 6 weeks. Reduce the frequency as symptoms disappear.

Sources for this article include:

DermNetNZ: Capsaicin
http://dermnetnz.org/treatments/capsaicin.html

Holistic Online: Tumeric
http://www.holisticonline.com

Science Daily: Turmeric Prevents Experimental Rheumatoid Arthritis, Bone Loss
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/10/061030071152.htm

MotherNature.com: Arthritis and Alternative Medicine
http://www.mothernature.com/Library/bookshelf/Books/42/1.cfm

Joint-Pain.com: Natural Arthritis Treatments
http://www.joint-pain.com/natural-arthritis-treatments.html

The People’s Pharmacy: Pectin for Arthritis Pain

Be Well, Do Well and Keep Moving

Betsy

Betsy Bell’s Health4U

206 933 1889

www.HiHoHealth dot com

www.TiredNoMore dot com

 

 

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