Key Takeaways:

• Aloe vera deeply hydrates
• Coconut oil seals moisture
• Oatmeal soothes irritation
• Herbs reduce inflammation
• Mindful self-care works wonders

Embracing Natural Care for Dry Skin

Dry skin can disrupt your day. It can create sensations of itchiness, flakiness, and discomfort that sometimes affect how you feel about yourself. Have you ever woken up, glanced in the mirror, and felt frustration because of those fine lines and rough patches on your cheeks? If you nod in empathy, you're not alone. People around the world search for the best herb for dry skin, hoping to restore the soft, supple glow that seemed effortless years ago.

I'm a firm believer that skin health and mental health link closely. When your skin feels dry or irritated, a sense of vulnerability can bubble up, affecting mood and self-esteem. Psychological theories suggest that physical discomfort often amplifies stress, especially if you identify strongly with your appearance. We also see how a single skin concern can spiral into self-conscious thoughts that may dampen social activities. Fortunately, many people find relief in herbal treatment for dry skin. These time-tested, safe, and gentle dry skin herbal remedies replenish your complexion while boosting a sense of self-care and tranquility.

“You have the power to heal your life, and you need to know that,” wrote Louise Hay in You Can Heal Your Life. That resonates on many levels, including in how we treat our bodies. You have more control than you think. Nurturing your skin with natural ingredients helps you reconnect with an inner sense of well-being. After all, how we care for our body can reflect how we care for our mind. So take a moment to step away from fast-paced routines. Let's explore the top herbal solutions that are gentle, effective, and can make a tangible difference in how your skin looks and feels.

In the following sections, I'll share eight herbal methods that can help you embrace natural care for dry skin—from the succulent aloe vera to the sweet humectant that is honey. You'll find tips on how to use each remedy, plus insights on how your emotional well-being is intertwined with caring for your skin. Let's begin.

1. Aloe Vera—Nature's Evergreen Moisturizer

Aloe vera often earns its place as one of the best herb for dry skin. Its thick, succulent leaves contain a gel that is rich in vitamins, minerals, and an array of polysaccharides that support skin hydration. When you apply aloe vera topically, you deliver a soothing, cooling effect to irritated or flaky areas. It can help your skin feel less parched and more revitalized.

This plant-based gem is also known for its potential mood benefits. Simple self-care rituals, such as gently massaging aloe gel into your skin, can feel like a mini spa treatment. In my therapeutic work, I see how these small acts of self-compassion—like applying a calming gel—can lower stress levels and reinforce positive self-talk. Taking a few mindful moments with aloe vera can even become a form of daily meditation, particularly helpful if you struggle with anxious or negative thoughts about your skin's appearance.

Applying Aloe Vera for Deep Hydration

Choose high-quality aloe gel or use the inner pulp of a fresh leaf. Cleanse your skin first with lukewarm water and a gentle cleanser. Pat dry. Then, smooth a generous layer of aloe gel over the dry patches. Allow it to absorb for a few minutes before applying moisturizer or sunscreen. Regular use bolsters your skin's protective barrier. This simple process is one of the most time-tested dry skin herbal remedies around.

2. Coconut Oil—An Emollient Must-Have

Coconut oil has a dense texture loaded with saturated fats, lauric acid, and vitamins. This combination makes it excellent for sealing in moisture and creating a protective film that guards your skin against further dryness. Many people embrace coconut oil as part of their herbal treatment for dry skin because it's readily available and easy to incorporate into a daily routine.

Psychologically, the ritual of applying coconut oil can evoke feelings of warmth and comfort. You engage your senses with the rich tropical aroma, which can be particularly uplifting during cooler months or on days when stress runs high. Some cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) principles note the importance of sensory grounding techniques; focusing on a pleasant scent can shift your mind away from anxious ruminations or negative self-talk. In other words, that soft coconut aroma could be more than a fragrance: it might be a self-soothing tool.

How to Harness Coconut Oil for Dryness

Look for cold-pressed, virgin coconut oil. Scoop a small amount and warm it between your palms. Gently massage it into your skin, focusing on rough areas like elbows, knees, and heels. Let it soak in for at least 10-15 minutes before dressing. If you plan to apply it overnight, protect your bedding with an old shirt or towel. Doing so encourages deep hydration while you sleep.

3. Oatmeal—A Soothing Shield

Oatmeal stands out as a staple in many dry skin herbal remedies. It contains beta-glucans that soothe inflammation and help lock in moisture. Dermatologists often recommend oatmeal baths for irritated or eczema-prone skin because oatmeal acts as a gentle barrier, helping calm redness and itching. It provides a sense of relief that supports both physical and emotional well-being.

From a psychological perspective, a warm bath in general fosters relaxation and stress reduction. People who struggle with dry skin might experience additional anxiety, worrying about how their skin appears in social situations or even how it feels against clothing. Immersing yourself in an oatmeal soak can ease those concerns, at least momentarily, and let you refocus on sensations of comfort and tranquility.

Draw a Comforting Oatmeal Bath

Blend one cup of finely ground oats into a fine powder. You can use a grinder or buy colloidal oatmeal. Fill your tub with warm water, then sprinkle in the oatmeal powder. Swirl the water to distribute it evenly. Soak for 15-20 minutes. Afterward, pat yourself gently with a soft towel. Follow up with a moisturizer or body oil to prolong the soothing effect. Regular oatmeal baths help reduce the appearance of dryness over time.

4. Chamomile—A Calm in the Storm

Chamomile ranks high as a go-to herbal treatment for dry skin thanks to its anti-inflammatory properties and mild, comforting scent. You often see chamomile used in teas to encourage relaxation, but its benefits extend to topical skin care. Chamomile's gentle nature can help quell irritation, while the pleasant aroma promotes a sense of serenity.

Stress is a common factor in skin flare-ups. The mind-body connection plays a powerful role in how our skin heals and regenerates. If you struggle with chronic dryness, tension and anxiety might be part of the equation, making it harder for your skin to repair its protective barrier. Chamomile stands out as a great herb to integrate into your routine because it addresses both sides: dryness and stress.

How to Apply Chamomile for Irritation

Steep a couple of chamomile tea bags in warm water for a few minutes. Let them cool slightly. You can do one of two things: either dip a clean cloth in the chamomile infusion and place it on the dry area, or create a chamomile-infused oil or cream by mixing a few drops of chamomile essential oil into a carrier oil like jojoba. Use circular motions when applying, and pair the ritual with slow, calming breaths.

5. Calendula—The Skin's Healing Hand

Calendula, derived from marigold flowers, has a long-standing reputation for supporting wound healing and calming inflammation. It's a vivid bloom that often appears in salves and creams aimed at moisturizing sensitive or reactive skin. Calendula also boasts antioxidants that combat environmental stressors, helping your skin maintain its moisture levels longer.

In a psychological sense, actively seeking relief through calendula can cultivate a sense of control over your dryness. Rather than feeling victimized by your skin condition, you make the proactive decision to engage in a nurturing, constructive activity. This shift from helplessness to empowerment can boost your emotional well-being significantly. Michael T. Murray, ND, author of The Healing Power of Herbs, once said, “Herbs are nature's pharmacy.” Calendula exemplifies this idea beautifully.

Practical Calendula Techniques

You can find calendula in balms, ointments, or dried flowers for DIY infusions. If you purchase dried calendula petals, steep them in a carrier oil—like almond or olive oil—for a few weeks to allow the plant's goodness to infuse. Then strain the petals and store the oil in a clean container. Massage it onto dry skin or use it as a base for homemade lotions. The process can become a creative self-care project, reminding you to slow down and value simple forms of self-nurturing.

6. Shea Butter—A Vitamin-Filled Wonder

Shea butter, derived from the nuts of the African shea tree, is an excellent candidate for anyone seeking the best herb for dry skin. While technically a seed fat rather than an herb, shea butter frequently appears in discussions about dry skin herbal remedies because it pairs so well with botanical oils. Rich in vitamins A and E, as well as fatty acids, shea butter tackles flakiness and encourages skin elasticity. It melts upon contact with body heat, making it easy to spread over parched areas.

One reason I often recommend shea butter is because it offers a luxurious experience. Spreading a luscious, creamy butter on your skin can feel deeply comforting. Self-care often involves creating safe, enjoyable experiences that ground you in the present moment. When you savor the texture of shea butter, you practice mindfulness. This mindful approach can alleviate mental tension that builds up throughout the day, especially when negative thoughts about your skin overshadow your confidence.

Deep Nourishment with Shea Butter

Look for unrefined, raw shea butter. Scrape a small dollop and warm it by rubbing your palms together. Apply it right after your shower or bath, when pores are still open and your skin is slightly damp. Pay extra attention to areas prone to dryness, like your elbows or hands. You can also blend shea butter with essential oils or other herbs, such as lavender or chamomile, to boost its soothing properties.

7. Jojoba Oil—The Balancing Act

Jojoba oil is prized for its similarity to our skin's natural sebum, making it a standout in herbal treatment for dry skin. Technically a liquid wax extracted from the jojoba plant seeds, jojoba oil sinks in quickly, so it rarely leaves a greasy residue. It's particularly helpful for people who suffer from dryness yet also experience occasional breakouts.

When your skin is imbalanced, you may feel emotionally off-center, too. There's a psychological term called “mirror checking,” where you frequently scrutinize your appearance, often magnifying any perceived flaws. A balanced skincare routine can reduce those urges and help you practice body neutrality or positivity. Using jojoba oil might feel like a small step, but it represents a healthy choice to support both your complexion and your self-image.

Jojoba Oil for Harmonized Skin

Use a few drops of cold-pressed jojoba oil. Warm it between your fingers and gently press it onto your face or body. Focus on areas that feel tighter than usual. Its light texture also makes it an excellent base for mixing with other herbs, like a drop of lavender essential oil or chamomile essential oil, for added relaxation benefits. You might feel an immediate sense of relief because jojoba oil imparts a velvety softness without clogging your pores.

8. Honey—The Sweetest Moisturizer

Honey isn't just a topping for your toast; it ranks high among dry skin herbal remedies. Honey is a natural humectant that draws moisture from the air into your skin. It also contains enzymes and antioxidants that benefit your complexion. And let's not forget its gentle exfoliating properties, which help remove dead cells that contribute to that dull, flaky look.

Honey also carries a rich symbolism of care and nurturance in many cultures. Sometimes, when people feel down about their appearance, they gravitate toward sweet flavors or comforting foods. Replacing a sugary snack with a honey-based skincare ritual can be an empowering alternative. You show yourself love not only in a culinary sense but also through a holistic approach to health and beauty.

DIY Honey Mask for Soothing Results

Take a teaspoon of raw, unpasteurized honey. Gently spread it over your face or other dry areas. Let it sit for about 15 minutes, then rinse with lukewarm water. Notice how your skin feels immediately more supple. For enhanced effects, mix the honey with aloe vera or a drop of jojoba oil. This simple mask can be a weekly treat that helps you stay consistent in your self-care routine.

Conclusion: Reclaiming Your Skin's Serenity

Herbal treatment for dry skin goes beyond mere cosmetics. When you explore these dry skin herbal remedies, you practice a level of self-compassion that resonates on both a physical and emotional level. Each herb or plant-based extract offers unique properties. Aloe vera delivers a soothing coolness, coconut oil sets up a moisture shield, oatmeal bathes your skin in a gentle buffer, chamomile calms redness, calendula promotes healing, shea butter provides a rich layer of nourishment, jojoba oil balances your natural sebum, and honey sweetens the deal by drawing in moisture and lightly exfoliating the outermost layer.

Remember that dryness can become more noticeable whenever you feel anxious, stressed, or disconnected from your routine. A cyclical effect can arise, where physical discomfort and emotional strain feed into each other. Breaking that cycle with natural care for dry skin can help you build resilience. You might notice improvements not only in your complexion but also in your sense of self, thanks to the psychological boost that comes from nurturing yourself.

You deserve kindness and well-being. By carefully selecting and applying these remedies, you create personalized rituals that let you listen to your body's needs. Be it a chamomile compress for inflamed patches or a honey mask for a midday pick-me-up, each step contributes to an overall sense of empowerment. Give yourself permission to explore these herbs, track the results, and adjust based on what feels most comforting to you.

Your skin might not transform overnight. However, consistent use of these herbs and consistent practice of self-care can reestablish a protective barrier and a positive mindset. Adopting healthy habits—such as staying hydrated, reducing excess stress, and getting enough quality sleep—further amplifies the benefits of these herbal remedies. Trust in your ability to move closer to a more radiant, well-nourished version of yourself.

Recommended Resources

• You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay
• The Healing Power of Herbs by Michael T. Murray, ND
• Prescription for Nutritional Healing by Phyllis A. Balch
• Mind Over Mood by Dennis Greenberger and Christine Padesky
• The Mindful Way Through Depression by Mark Williams, John Teasdale, Zindel Segal, and Jon Kabat-Zinn

Excerpted from
Chinese Medicine for Maximum Immunity: Understanding the Five Elemental Types for Health and Well-Being
By Jason Elias, Katherine Ketcham

Nature's richness lies in its power to nourish oil living things; Its greatness lies in its power to give them beauty and splendor. - The I Ching

You are a unique individual, unlike any other human being on this planet. Just as your fingerprints are yours and yours alone, so arc your ideas, opinions, and behaviors completely distinctive. Your eyes behold a different world from the one that others perceive. The sound, smell, taste and touch of your surroundings tires your senses in unique patterns and intensities. No one else feels your impulses, thinks your thoughts, or dreams your dreams.

What makes vim unique? Why does a Beethoven sonata move you to tears, while a Bach concerto leaves you cold? Stricken by fear or grief, why do you seek the solace of solitude, while others crave the comfort of loving arms? Why do you eat nonstop when you're feeling blue, while your sister goes shopping and your brother jogs for two hours? Why is spring or summer, fall, or winter your favorite season? Why do you crave sweet or salty, sour, bitter, or spicy foods? Why do you love the color blue or given, red, yellow, white, or black? Why would you rather sit by a river or a mountain, forest, meadow, or sundrenched beach - than anywhere else on earth?

The Chinese believe your unique responses to the world are determined by your affinity to certain basic energy forces that How through you in distinctive ways. The balance and interaction between these natural forces determine the risks you take or avoid, the goals you set, the fears and doubts that assail you, the situations that cause you stress or conflict, the talents you have or have neglected, the values that motivate you, and the dreams that inspire vou. Just as you can't change the color of your eyes or the shape of your hands and feet, your nature is part of you - you are horn with it, and every aspect of your life will he shaped by it.

Thousands of years ago Chinese philosophers created the Wu Hsting (the Five Element System) to explain how the primary powers ol nature - Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water ebb and How within human beings. Wood is the restless, aggressive energy that gives a tiny seed the power to develop into a firmly rooted tree. Fire's passionate, radiant energy is symbolized by the sun, which provides life-giving warmth to the world. Earth is the stable, balancing force that keeps us grounded and centered within ourselves. Metal's strong inspirational energy is symbolized by the precious gems and essential minerals that give form and structure to the world. Water's adaptable, infinitely resourceful energy can be seen in the rivers that How to the sea, cleansing and invigorating everything that they touch.

Each of the Five Elements depends upon the others, and life itself depends upon their intricate balance and interdependence. Water irrigates the fields and forests so that Wood can grow. Wood feeds Fire, which burns to ash, nourishing the Earth. Faith provides a firm foundation and stable support for the mountains of Metal that rise upward toward the heavens. Metallic ores and rocks underlie the river channels that give Water its direction, while minerals and trace elements give Water its nourishing richness. Each element nourishes and is nourished by the others.

Just as the elements teed and sustain each other, so do they restrain and inhibit each other. Water controls Fire by quenching it. Fire restrains Metal by melting it, allowing it to be shaped and molded. Metal inhibits Wood by cutting it (symbolized by the ax chopping the tree). Wood restrains forth by covering it, literally rooting it in place and preventing erosion. Earth controls Water by absorbing it and forming natural dams and riverbanks to prevent it from overflowing its channels.

The Five Element System is ancient and exotic, yet it is eminently practical and immediately accessible. If you are energized by Wood, you can recognize the similarities between the force that drives the sap in the tree and the energy that pushes you to seek out challenges and adventures. If you have an affinity to Fire, the power literally burns within you, a steady pilot light that infuses your life with passion and joy. Faith types need only look out their window at their green, growing gardens to understand the nourishing, stabilizing nature of their energy. Metal types (eel a powerful connection to the core issues and underlying structures of life, intuitively understanding that its most meaningful moments occur when movement stills and silence reigns. Water types know from observing the behavior of rivers that their power resides in remaining flexible and adaptable, always yielding to current conditions.

Excerpted from
All Women Are Healers: A Comprehensive Guide to Natural Healing
By Diane Stein

Laying on of stones and gemstone crystal patterns are both the newest and the oldest of women's healing techniques. An outgrowth of Goddess women's Intense Interest In crystals and gemstones. In the past ten years, healing work with stones reaches back into the herstory of every culture. Quartz crystal composes fully a third of the physical makeup of Goddess Earth, and gemstones and crystals are available in some form everywhere. They were known and used for healing In Native America, South America, Africa, Europe and Egypt, and were a highly developed art in ancient India.

Going back further than herstory, the legends and stories of Atlantis, an ancient culture destroyed by earth changes thousands of years ago, are filled with both positive and negative uses of clear quartz crystal. The continent of Atlantis was a highly developed technological civilization with correspondences in its technology and problems to modern western society. Their major source of energy was based on crystal technology, and their healing was powered by crystal and gemstone use beyond current knowledge. Enough Information about healing work in Atlantis remains to consider this fabulous, highly developed culture the beginning of gemstone and crystal healing on earth.

A number of women today are bringing to light crystal and gemstone information by psychic means, channeling or automatic writing of directed information. In this method, women in the meditative state allow non-conscious Information to be given to them, and they repeat it verbally or write it as it's given. An Increasing number of women arc linking with this psychic source of powerful Information and arc channeling material on healing and crystal work stored from Atlantis. Putting the material to experiment and use, they find much of it to be highly valuable. By applying and teaching the Information, and by further experimentation, women are developing and Increasing modem knowledge of gemstone healing.

Many women believe that a large number of souls who were alive at the height or destruction of Atlantean civilization is in reincarnation now. Women in past life regression work report the knowledge of lifetimes in Atlantis, or In ancient Egypt soon alter, where much of Atlantean learning was preserved from extinction Many of these women arc crystal and gemstone workers today, some drawing from an intuitive source barely remembered or totally unremembered, which nevertheless gives them Information when they need It for healing. Much of the crystal and gemstone Information available to women has been given to us quickly in these ways. In a major burst of new and detailed healing knowledge unknown just a few years ago.

The reasons for the sudden gift of crystal and gemstone technology and healing can be speculated. That women returning to Goddess worship and seeking healing methods are ready in their development to use it and that the present need is great is one Idea. That women have reached the psychic sensitivity required to receive the Information Is another possible reason, along with the readiness of supplies of gemstones now available to work with. Other speculations are that the west is reaching a crisis, as Atlantis once did in Its long-buried past.

We are at a point of deciding to use our technologies for the betterment of life and surviving, or of using our technologies in negative ways and being destroyed by them. Atlantis was believed to have been destroyed by its negative use of crystal technology to oppress others. Many souls who witnessed this choice in Atlantis arc reincarnated on earth now, working to prevent another major destruction of a technological empire, hop Ing to assure a positive and life-affirming world. Women healers arc an important part of the choice for life-affirming values with their Insistence on real values above technology-for-its-own-sake and their insistence on cleaning up the earth and on healing themselves and correcting current abuses.

Laying on of stones is a method that survived Atlantis and the matriarchies' destruction. In more recent herstory than Atlantis, the Egyptian Pharaoh Queens, early queen-healers like Mentuhetop (2300 BCE) and Cleopatra (69-30 BCE) worked extensively with colored stones in healing patterns. Egyptian healing was respected In the Middle East and Africa, and healers from several nations came to Egypt to learn methods from these women. The learning was spread by students to the Mediterranean, and later from Greece to Europe. India was also known as a healing center, claiming with Egypt its invention of various healing skills including gemstone work. Work with colored gemstones and crystals was highly developed In India, probably from matriarchal times. In Native America, shamans and medicine women of a number of tribes carried crystals in their medicine pouches and used crystal patterns, and turquoise was used extensively on various parts of the body In the North American Southwest.

In Africa, the foremothers of the West African Market Women were revered as sailors and explorers. Black women sailors may have been the ancient Phoenician traders who travelled the world as far as the Americas and the Orient, long before Columbus. From their stops In Egypt and Greece, gemstone work would have been known to these women, and their travels carried knowledge throughout the world. Striking similarities between the Indian Goddess Saras vat J. the Chinese Goddess Kwan Yin and the South American Goddess Chalchluhtltque indicate that the ancient cultures had knowledge of each other or a common origin such as Atlantis.

The Goddesses arc drawn much alike in art, and both Kwan Yin and Chalchluhtllque are represented by Jade, an all - healing gemstone of great power. By the similarities, including gemstone knowledge, it is speculated that world communication may have existed long before the modem day, and that the world was once connected by the Phoenician women sailors. Only speculation is now possible, as that communication and herstory are lost, destroyed by the cataclysms that sank Atlantis or the chaos that ended the matriarchies. The evidence, however legendary, is Intriguing and, even lacking stronger proof, is as valid as what men have written about women's past.

Whether crystal work and laying on of stones is from Atlantis, from the ancient women's matriarchies, or is something totally new is less important than its use and success by women today. Information is growing rapidly in this remembered field, and is being transmitted to women for immediate use. Along with Its ability to release physical disease, laying on of stones has power in working with the emotional sources that cause much physical Illness. By use of crystals and gemstones and particularly by laying on of stones, women release the emotional abuses of patriarchy from their Being, work through Issues, and reaffirm their Goddess-within self love. This type of healing is important, as physical manifestation of disease (lack of case) is a reflection of the nonphysical body from these unseen levels, which arc known worldwide.

Where the medical system treats women from physical symptoms only, women's healing works with the physical by way of causes, through working with the unseen psychic layers. Science has agreed by now that the body is surrounded by an electrical field, and healers call that energy the aura. The aura is composed. In eight levels of energy or light, of four unseen bodies that surround and effect the physical body. In esoteric thought, this is where the soul or Being is located, and is also where the physical body's health and growth arc directed from.

Excerpted from
Healing Herbs A to Z: A Handy Reference to Healing Plants
By Diane Stein

In 1985 when I wrote The Women's Spirituality Book (now titled Diane Stein's Guide to Goddess Craft), I wanted to include a chapter on using herbs. At that time, I had been working with herbs for a few years and was very excited about it, but I felt I didn't know enough to write even a chapter on them. When I wrote All Women Are Healers five years later, I got a little braver and did an herb chapter. After twenty-five years of studying and using herbs and making my own tinctures, I am finally compiling an herbal, as I have always wanted to do. I still feel that I don't know enough and could never know enough - but that I have to start where I am and hope the real experts will be indulgent with my effort.

This book is not designed for herbal experts, though they may find useful information here. This book is for the confused layperson who wants to regain control of her health but doesn't know where to start.

The first thing an herb user needs to know is which herb will do what she needs. The second is to find the herb and identify it accurately (a mistake in the field can be toxic or even fatal). And the third is to know how to use the herb appropriately. A traditional herbalist learns from those who know how to use herbs, information that used to be passed down from teacher to student, or from mother to daughter, over many generations through ancient and time-honored oral tradition. She learns how to recognize herbs accurately, along with when to pick them, and which plant parts to harvest and use. She also learns how and when to use them - and when not to.

Tragically, that oral tradition has been lost. Most of us who wish to learn about herbs do so from books, the Internet, or by taking a workshop here and there, followed by limited experience with personal use.

Traditional herbalists used what was growing in the neighboring woods and fields, and locally harvested herbs were considered the most useful for people living in that area. But this limited the number and variety of plants available. Today's herb users have many more plant varieties available to them from all over the United States, South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia.

For those who choose herbal healing, the way to do it may not be to go to the woods and fields to identify, pick, and process the right local plants. It may simply mean a visit to the local health food store, natural pharmacy, or herb website to buy what's needed.

This book is a reference guide for the herb shopper who, while not having the benefit of ancient oral tradition or personal instruction, still wants to use herbs as knowledgeably as she can.

Herbs used properly are very often as effective as medical drugs - or more so - without the side effects, cost, and potential for dependency. Herbs help people become enabled, instead of disabled. They leave us stronger, not weaker. But we need to learn how and when to use them, as well as when to seek more expert help, which might mean consulting a physician, midwife, or acupuncturist. We need to understand the appropriate uses of herbs - for example, when it's safe to substitute black cohosh for hormone replacement therapy (which for many of us presents an unacceptable risk of cancer) to treat the uncomfortable symptoms of menopause.

This book is intended for the herb shopper, not the professional practitioner. It explains what's in the bottles lined up on the shelves of the local health food store and the conditions that each herb helps heal. The information is presented in a highly concentrated way - not pages of explanation and description, but a quick reference of the herb's primary attributes and uses. Where a more comprehensive herbal reference book might also describe how to identify the plant, where to find it, when to pick it, which parts to use, and how to prepare those parts, this book assumes that the user will buy already identified, prepared, and ready-to-use plant material. Dosages and dosing instructions (how many drops or capsules, how many times a day) are listed on the bottle, along with how long the herb can be used safely, and contraindications for its use.

Ready-pre pa red herbs come in several forms. Traditional use is as an herb tea, called a tisane, or the harder-boiled tea, called a decoction, for preparing woody plant parts, which may be ingested or applied externally in a compress (wet a cloth with the tea or decoction and place it on the body) or a poultice (wrap the boiled herb matter in a cloth and place it on the body). Herbs also come in capsules, which are easy to take but may be less effective than ingesting a tea or decoction, because the raw, dried herbs in them may not be as fresh and harder for the body to assimilate. Some herbs also come in salves, creams, or ointments for external use only.

Another frequently found form for internal use is the tincture or extract, where the herb is steeped cold in alcohol (brandy, vodka) for several weeks. The herb matter is then strained out, and the alcohol, which has extracted the herb's benefits, is used medicinally. To remove the alcohol from an alcohol extract, put the drops of herb preparation in a few teaspoons of boiling or near-boiling water and the alcohol will evaporate in a few seconds, leaving the potency of the herb.

Alcohol-free glycerin tinctures are also available and are often used for children or by those who do not wish to ingest alcohol. Glycerin is sugar, however. It does not keep as long or as bacteria-free as alcohol preparations, is not as medicinally strong, and is not safe for diabetics.

The one herbal usage to avoid, for the purposes of this book, is the essential oil. This is an entirely different branch of healing, where the oils from some plants are distilled into a highly concentrated form. Essential oils are not to be taken internally, as they can be highly toxic and even result in death with just a few drops. They are used externally, and the healing benefits come from inhaling their fragrances. If you are interested in this form of healing, there are many books on aromatherapy (the use of essential oils) to get you started. For external use, only the essential oils of lavender and tea tree may be used directly on the skin. All others must be diluted, usually one drop of oil to a teaspoon of "carrier oil," generally a vegetable salad oil.

The few oils found in this book are the essential fatty acids and meant for ingestion - evening primrose oil, flaxseed oil, borage oil, sea buckthorn oil, black currant oil - and they come in capsules for that purpose. Wild oregano oil needs lo be diluted, and sometimes comes that way. These are not essential oils, and no essential oil is to be taken internally without the direction of an aromatherapy expert.

Essential oils, by the way, are not the same as flower essences (also known as essential essences), which are the vibrations of flowers preserved in alcohol or a vinegar tincture. Flower essences are not discussed here, but refer to my book Healing with Flower and Gemstone Essences for more on their use.

The information in this book focuses on using one herb at a time. Single herbs used alone are traditionally called "simples." Experienced herbalists often use several herbs together, but for those who are learning, it's less confusing and more important to learn what each herb does before combining them. Some commercial herbal combinations may contain a dozen or more herbs, which to me seems to miss the point. If you want to understand how herbs work, you must do it one herb at a time. Also, not all herbs work well together. It's best to use them individually until you gain experience.

Read labels for warnings and possible drug interactions. If you are taking any medications, their effects can be increased, decreased, altered, or deactivated by a particular herb. It is very important to research your medications' interactions with any herb you are considering. (For example, blood thinners, such as the anticoagulant warfarin, are contraindicated due to potentially dangerous interaction.) The Internet has made this relatively easy to do, but be aware that there are a number of websites whose main purpose seems to be to scare people away from using herbs altogether. Herbs used properly are safe, but it is essential to make informed decisions.

With each herb entry, I have included information on side effects, warnings, and possible drug interactions. In some cases it has been very difficult to separate fact from fiction on this subject. For the most part, herb side effects happen only with misuse, overuse, or contaminated herbs. Some side effects are simply the effects of the herb itself. Increased sweating or diarrhea, for example, may be among the herb's uses, one of the ways the herb works for healing. Most toxic side-effect disasters are caused by ingestion of essential oils that were never meant to be ingested.

It is important to realize, too, that each person is different, and how an herb reacts for you may be slightly different from another person's reactions to it. Also, anyone can be allergic to anything, whether peanuts or goji juice. Obviously, if you have an allergic reaction to an herb, or any other disquieting effect, stop taking it. I have tried to responsibly list as many drug interactions and side effects as possible, but my information cannot be considered complete; there are thousands of medications available, with more being added daily.

For acute conditions, such as a cold or sore throat, expect the right herb for the condition to begin having benefit after two or three doses, sometimes sooner. For chronic conditions, such as menstrual difficulties or arthritis, it will usually take longer. Some herbs (and conditions) can take as long as two or three months for the benefits to become evident. So be patient, and adjust your expectations. Healing often occurs gradually, and you may experience more improvement than you realize at first.

If you have a serious disease - I use this form of the word to note that we are not "diseased" but may have "lack of ease" in our bodies - it is best to seek professional advice for it. Whether this means advice from a physician, an herbalist, or another kind of healer, that is your choice. If you choose to use herbs for serious conditions, it is wise to seek the advice of an experienced herbalist.

This is also the case if you wish to have herbal support in pregnancy or for an abortion. Some of the herbs in this book are designated safe for pregnancy and some are not. Those that are listed as not for use in pregnancy or nursing may be acceptable with the advice of a skilled herbalist or midwife. Many herbs are labeled "not for pregnancy or breastfeeding" simply to err on the side of caution. Some herbs listed in this book are abortifacients; they bring on menses that can cause an abortion early in pregnancy. Although the information belongs to women and adamantly needs to be available, herbs should not be used to replace a professional medical procedure in a sanitary clinical setting.

There is a list of specialized terms that herbalists frequently use, each one indicating an herb's attributes and providing a shorthand description of what the herb does. An experienced herbalist looks at the list and immediately knows how to use the herb. Sources often differ on the attributes assigned to an herb. In this book, I have tried to reconcile various sources, and in cases where an herb has no research list, I have attempted to assign one. I have also attempted to make it a list that is understandable to nonherbalists. For example, an herb listed as an "emmenogogue" (classic definition: brings blood flow to the pelvic area and uterus) may be described as a uterine toner or "brings on menses." I have done my best with these terms. For a version of the classic list, see below.

I hope this book will be a convenient reference for those who wish to learn about using herbs. Even more, I hope it will help those who need healing and are looking for safe alternatives to drugs. Herbs link the past, present, and future of human life; they are a vital part of our herstory.

Excerpted from
The Women's Book of Healing: Auras, Chakras, Laying On of Hands, Crystals, Gemstones and Colors
By Diane Stein

Women's healing, like Women's Spirituality, is a connecting of the seen with the unseen, and women's sensitivity to the unseen, her psychic ability and knowledge, is healings greatest hope today. Women's use of psychic sensitivity, of intuition of aura awareness, has been laughed at and repressed in Western patriarchy, but is recognized and respected in Native America, Africa, India, China, and South America - many still matriarchal and Goddess cultures. Women are re-claiming and re-sourcing the lost skills in the West that the witches knew, paying attention to inner knowledge and inner health. Like other "women's work," "women's intuition" has real things behind it, and is a wisdom for survival and well-being.

Inner awareness, sensitivity, attunement, intuition arc available to all and arc women's keys to the Goddess and Goddess-within, to healing and to self-healing power-within. By connecting and making conscious the four parts of Being, the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual, women use Being and the aura to heal. Though human energy is much more complex than the first four bodies and their chakras, only the basic four bodies will be discussed in this very basic book.

Surrounding a woman's dense physical body is her unseen body, the aura, composed of layers of energy The physical sell first has an energy-layer double, called the etheric body. Health begins here, is mirrored here, and this is where disease manifests first, before it reaches the physical flesh. The emotional/astral body is the next aura layer, woman's feeling level, her connection between body and mind. Her menial body the next layer beyond the emotional, has two aura levels, the lower and higher mental, or rational and intuitive thought. The spiritual body's three aura levels, the lower, middle, and higher, are a woman's spirit or soul, her connection with the Goddess and the universe. A woman's aura is composed of the lour energy bodies, the physical/etheric, emotional, mental, and spiritual, which are in turn seven layers or levels. More discussion on them follows. A "silver cord" of life energy connects the unseen bodies, and connects a woman to Be-ing and non-Being (life to death).

In simple examples of using the unseen bodies for healing- a woman holds an amethyst in her hand, and opening to its energies, she uses the stone and her powers of emotion and mind - her etheric, emotional, and mental unseen bodies - to relax herself into sleep. Medicine calls this biofeedback. In another instance, she holds a crystal over an inflamed foot. She uses the crystal and laying on of hands, her own auras etheric body, connects spiritually with the Goddess, and visualizes and wills the swelling and redness gone. The pain and inflammation disappear overnight. In the same way, she uses the energy of her hands (etheric body) and a crystal with another woman, and the woman's three-day headache goes away. She can do the work with only her body and aura - her physical hands and etheric double directed by her mind via emotions, and relaxed into spiritual level calm - or she can do it with her hands and gemstones using these aura levels as well. When working with another woman, both women's auras are affected. Medicine calls the results spontaneous remission or the placebo effect; it cannot explain and it discounts this, but the woman and the women together know that they did it themselves and how. Healing is using the unseen aura bodies, the energy bodies, to change conditions on the seen and earthly plane.

Male medicine and patriarchy fragment the parts of woman's Be-ing. They not only separate the seen from the unseen whole, but separate the physical self. One doctor treats the back and another the heart, a different one the uterus and ovaries. None treats the whole woman or re-cognizes her energy bodies, the unity of her whole Be-ing. The power-over system denies the non-physical, the non-scientifically measurable, the psychic and irrational, as it denies the female with her connection to these things. It refuses to acknowledge, derides and represses the emotions, mind, and spirit in healing, and cuts itself off from studying or making use of them.

The earthly physical body is accepted as fact, is provable, measurable and treatable, but is also seen in Judeo-Christian patriarchy as "evil," as something to be punished or dominated with force. Medicine to this day holds this attitude. The auras physical body/etheric double bond is not recognized. Its emotional/astral level is not considered. The mind and mental body is downgraded to physical brain, and the spirit is left to male religions that fail to satisfy or fulfill it.

Science denies and ignores the teachings of thousands of mystics, psychics, and healers across all cultures and times. In addition it denies women's inherent aura intuition and even the Bible, both of which describe the aura and lour bodies. It also denies the "silver cord," the life thread that connects the lour bodies to earthly flesh and existence. By doing so, male medicine loses valuable resources and treats disease in only a fraction of the patient, on her earthly flesh plane only. Its "cures" are partial and ineffective, are traumatic and drastic - and could be much better and easier.

A woman with insomnia, for example, is given barbiturates to deactivate portions of her brain. She comes to depend on them, can no longer put herself to sleep alone, but needs the pills to do it for her. A woman with an inflamed foot is given drugs to kill the infection, instead of using her own aura and bodies to remove it herself. The "cure" takes more than a week, the cause of infection is not gone, and the drugs leave her body resistant to them and without immunities. A woman with a headache takes another aspirin, and her pain is gone for four hours. She has had it for three days and it returns.

Women's healing is psychic healing; it includes a woman's physical body, her etheric double, her unseen emotions, mind, and spirit. It includes her will and her whole Be-ing. The skills of visualization, meditation, psychic healing, crystals and gemstones bring the unseen to affect the physical, and bring the invisible energies into conscious reach of solid mass. The methods work with free will, with the Goddess and natural law, with the aura, the dense physical body and power-within, lo achieve cell-source healing in harmony with all the levels. It works where male medicine often fails because it connects the four planes of existence: the body, emotions, mind, and spirit; connects the seen and unseen, the mass and energy levels of the life force.

A woman's energy aura is an electrical force field, the easily fell but usually unseen energy that envelops the earthly physical body. It contains seven mirror layers or energy ring levels, and these make up the four bodies. Each of the aura layers has in turn seven levels of its own for a total of forty-nine levels. The next chapter describes the seven major chakra or energy centers located in the etheric double, the physical layer of the aura. There are also forty-nine total chakras, including smaller centers, and the seven major chakras correspond to the seven major aura layers. Only the major levels and chakras are fully considered in this book.

Of the seven major levels of the aura:

The first ring reveals her slate of health (etheric double), the second (astral or emotional body) her emotions, the third her intellectual makeup, the fourth her higher mind (both together are the mental body) ... the fifth her spirit, or the link between the individual and the cosmos (spiritual body), and the sixth and seventh reveal cosmic aspects (also the spiritual body).

The etheric double contains the chakras and is the level of psychic diagnosis and laying on of hands; the emotions or astral body is the one of changing colors that women who can see or sense auras are aware of, and healing requires emotion; the mental body is made up of two aura bands, the intellectual and intuitional levels, and is the place of creative visualization/mental healing; the spiritual body is three aura layers, the Maiden/Mother/Crone aspects of the Goddess, the highest of which is woman's connection with divinity and the universe. Women connect with the Goddess and their spiritual bodies for healing through meditation stales.

The menial and spiritual auras are the levels least likely seen by women who sense auras, but the ability to see or sense the physical aura/etheric body and the emotional/astral levels can be taught. The physical aura is usually sensed as a very thin bluish or clear line around the earthly body, above and below the etheric double, and is part of it. The etheric double is a reddish black, lined ribbon between layers of light. The emotional/astral body is the wider, color-changing vibrant band that starts about four inches from the body and that varies with the woman's emotions and thought forms. Thought forms are transmitted by the lower mental body and can sometimes be seen as shooting colors or lights inside the emotional aura.

The visible, physical, earthly flesh body that the aura envelops is dense, low-vibrating matter, and each of the unseen aura levels and aura bodies vibrates at a faster rate above it. The earthly dense body is the woman seen; it eats, breathes, and talks, digests and eliminates, menstruates and experiences life by the earthly senses of sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste. Male medicine treats and works totally on this earth plane, on reactions that arc measurable and empirical lo science by cause and effect. It treats mass, where women's healing treats energy, and its expectations are based on norms and averages, rather than on the individual patients responses, chemistries, or astral dimensions. Acting on the lowest energy vibration, it is the crudest level for healing effectiveness, the site of surgeries and drugs. The earthly dense body is the only reality that male medicine accepts, and a partial one, until science discovers the aura that's always been there.

The newest theories of physics and body chemistry have some interesting ideas on the seen body's makeup, theories that scientifically verify what psychics and healers have said for thousands of years but doctors still laugh at, and that give scientific credence to the aura levels. Dr. W. J. Kilner's chemical screens made the etheric double visible to anyone and a tool for diagnosis as early as 1911, and Kirlian photography makes visible the auras surrounding people and animals, plants, crystals, and inanimate objects. The science of X-ray crystallography is a growing specialty, pioneered by woman scientist Rosalind Franklin in the 1950s.

Quantum physics' discoveries of the structures of the atom posit great empty spaces between atoms and atom parts, which are energy field (aura) areas. Even the densest matter is composed mostly of empty space. In the explanation of healer/science writer George Meek, the solid portions (mass) of the human body are composed of 75 to 80 percent water, and the distance between atoms in that very solid matter/flesh makes the body 99+ percent void! The example is that if an atom in the body were the size of an apple, the next closest atom to it would be one lo two thousand miles away. The idea of this is that solid human flesh on the earth plane is composed mostly of energy, of the spaces between atoms, and healers cross-culturally know that energy is what composes the four bodies and the aura, and is what they use to heal with. Medicine treats the little bit of solid matter that exists.

Another scientific theory that discovers healing is the composition of the water molecules that make up most of the earthly seen body. The body is mostly water, and water is an unstable compound of hydrogen and oxygen that is changeable lo almost any form of energy. Healing energy in laying on of hands and in crystals and gemstones is an energy that can transform water's bonding structure and change growth in the body's enzymes. thereby explaining the change from disease to health. Sister Justa Smith in Buffalo, with several other American scientists and many more outside the United States, are working to measure and document these changes. A healer using laying on of hands creates changes in the unseen energy bodies of the aura, and also changes in the earthly "solid'' material flesh by changing its water composition and the energy balance between atoms. More on crystals' part in this and laying on of hands later.

A third interesting theory scientifically verifying the work of healers is the new knowledge of cell intercommunication and rapid changeover. "Most of the 60,000,000,000,000 cells of the physical body ... are linked by a highly perfected communications system," and cells are generators of living energy and DNA. A single cell from any body part can be used in cloning an entire new organism; this is fact and one of today's great scientific controversies. Each cell contains the full blueprint of the individual. Cells die and are replaced by new cells at a rate of 5,700.000 per second. Protein, the major body component alter water, is also being replaced continuously the matter of the lungs, brain, bone, skin, muscles, in varying amounts of time from days to months.

Only the design of our bodies, changing slightly with the passing years, remains constant.... If the healer and the patient can help these new cells to be born in a slate of health and perfection, rather than as a facsimile of the diseased and ailing cells which died, then the body is on its way back to health."

The seen human body is totally new every six months by these cell changes and replacements, and each cell is an aware microcosm of the whole body mass. Changing the information of the cell from diseased to healthy, by healing energy of laying on of hands, by creative visualization and thought forms, by the energies of crystals and gemstones, brings disease back to well-being rapidly, far more rapidly and thoroughly than the trauma of surgical recovery or drugs. Disease is written out of the actual cell-source blueprint by women's healing methods, and allopathic medicine is failing its patients by not investigating and making use of such methods. The cell theory is one known to Eastern healers since before Christianity and Judaism, and before Christianity and Judaism were the Goddess matriarchies of women's healing.

The etheric double is the unseen mirror of the earthly physical body its next dimension. It's the first level, the life force band of a woman's aura, and interpenetrates the earthly dense body. Also called the physical aura, health aura, or bioplasmic level, its purpose is to maintain life by distributing energy, and to connect the earthly body to the astral/emotional plane. The basic seven chakras are located in this level (discussed more thoroughly in the next chapter), and the etheric double is responsible for the intake and use of prana (vitality and the life force), the energy sent and utilized in crystal work and laying on of hands. Changes made in the etheric double or the chakras by creative visualization, gemstones, or absent healing work can remove disease, re program the etheric body, and transmit the changes to the dense earth level, to the cells and organs. Like the root chakra that this aura band has correspondence with, its color is black or red, its circle direction is north, and its element is earth." Beginning gemstones for this level are garnet and black tourmaline.

A woman sees her own etheric double. She sits skyclad on a dark rug floor, candles lit on her altar, no other light in the quiet nighttime room. She breathes deeply and rhythmically and relaxes her physical body step-by-step, holding a crystal in her left hand lo help. Casting a circle if she wishes or inviting the Goddess's presence, she asks to see. Looking at her leg or arm lit against the dark background, she clears her mind and holds her eyes steady on one spot. If she wears eyeglasses or contact lenses, she takes them off, allowing her physical vision to unfocus and her third eye, her aura vision, to open. Slowly and elusively the aura appears. When she blinks it wavers but returns; she does not move her eyes.

The woman sees a very thin line of light at the edges of her skin and following her body's contours. The line is a quarter inch or less wide," and connected to it and above it is another line, a flat red/black band. The dark band has lines or striations through it and is the texture of grosgrain ribbon. The ribbon is her etheric double, following the contours of her body and the thin line of light between it and her skin. It is a half to one inch wide. Above the etheric double is another band of light, wider this time, bluish, silver, rainbow-like, or clear. In her quiet meditative stale, the light band is one-half to two inches wide, or may be as wide as several inches. It's of even width all around her body, and shimmers, seeming to be there and not-there.

Healing takes place in the etheric double before it manifests in the earthly body, and disease both manifested and pending is visible in the etheric double. W J. Kilners 1911 book, The Aura, was the first to scientifically observe both healthy and diseased physical auras in women, children, and men. He used lenses coated with the chemical dyes dicyanine and carmine to make the etheric body visible.

Excerpted from
Gemstones A to Z; A Handy Reference to Healing Crystals
By Diane Stein

A Rainbow of Rocks and Colors

When I first discovered gemstones and crystals for healing and metaphysics, there was very little to choose from. Working with gemstones primarily meant using clear quartz crystals, always from Arkansas and usually small, rough, unpolished quartz points of an inch or two in size. Colored gemstones included only a few basic choices such as amethyst and rose quartz. A few healers who had great interest in gemstones knew how to use smoky quartz, blue sodalite and lapis, green aventurine, and peach carnelian - but not much else. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, there wasn't much else available.

Gemstones and crystals were hard to find at that time. Most of my first stones were tumbled pieces, about an inch long, and came from a museum gift shop; there were no metaphysical stores then. A few came from lapidary stores that only sold raw specimens in varying sizes, which were unappealing and usually dirt-covered chunks often at very high prices. Some gemstones came from old jewelry, usually beads and an occasional pendant. The rest came from the women's music festivals that were just beginning to happen, where raw stones, tumbled stones, gemstone jewelry, and sometimes even gemstone pendulums were available and much sought after.

Things are much changed today. Gemstones and crystals are available in a great many types and colors that were unknown twenty-five years ago, and they come from sources worldwide. They can be bought from metaphysical shops, nature stores, jewelry stores, gift shops of all kinds, pagan sources, department stores, lapidaries, gem and mineral shows, bead shows and stores, commercial and designer jewelers, on the Internet including eBay, and a variety of other outlets. Stones may be ordered online directly from crystal and gemstone mines worldwide, and sometimes by visiting the mines. Gemstones and crystals are found in every kind of jewelry and come as specimens, beads, raw pieces and points, polished and cut points and shapes, gemstone skulls, carvings, chips, wands and obelisks, eggs and spheres, cabochons, faceted jewelry shapes, sacred geometry sets, hearts, and animal and Goddess statues - to list just some of the possibilities.

Gemstones and crystals arrive in the United States from all over the world. Hong Kong is the central clearinghouse for gemstone beads, with India a close second. Brazil is a primary source for such stones as amethyst, rose quartz, smoky quartz, the tourmalines, aquamarine, and clear quartz crystal. Moonstone and many of the rarer specimens and precious stones (rubies, sapphires, and emeralds) come from India. China has become a major player in mining and selling fluorite, turquoise, jade, and gemstone carvings, as well as other stones for which Hong Kong is a clearing center. Poland and various former Soviet Union countries offer amber, moldavite, and zincite. Africa provides malachite and many varieties of jasper. Australia offers opals and prehnite. And these are just a few.

The high prices of gemstones twenty-five years ago limited most healers to using tumbled stones, crystal points smaller than three inches, raw chunks, and a few less expensive lapidary specimens but this is no longer the case. Tumbled stones are still inexpensive - several for a dollar - even cheaper now than they used to be, and many more gemstone forms are available and affordable. Many women prefer jewelry and beads including gemstone chip necklaces that cost only a couple of dollars, striking gemstone jewelry and bead strands at a wide variety of prices. Gemstone spheres now start at less than twenty dollars, and less than ten dollars for small ones. Small carvings can cost even less. Crystal skulls remain high priced but are more available, and many people are drawn to working with them. Small quartz points can cost as little as a dollar apiece and affordable larger specimens of all sizes are common. Stones that once seemed totally unattainable are now affordable, even precious stones like natural opals, rubies, sapphires, and emeralds in raw pieces, cabochons, beads, or tumbled form. Shopping around to find the best price is always a good idea. The variety is endless and gemstones and crystals are more available and affordable today than ever before.

The Confusion of Gemstones Today

Along with availability, however, come inevitable problems. Not all merchants are honest or even knowledgeable about what they are selling. Commercial names may not reflect what a stone really is. The large and beautiful variety of jasper types that has appeared in the last several years is a case in point. Each type of jasper has a name, but sellers don't always use the same name for the same type of stone. Ocean jasper can mean a stone with a variety of mixed colors in it, usually green, brown, dark red, and grey. The same name can also be given to a type of jasper that is black with swirls of white through it, or one that is brown, grey, cream, and black. Picture jasper is the name for a jasper type that is usually caramel brown with darker hair-like inclusions - or for a stone that is brown with grey and moss green in interesting landscape patterns. Fancy jasper may be the name for the mixed colors of ocean jasper, or it may refer to red and green bloodstone. It can also be a generic name given to any jasper variety by confused sellers. A jasper that is grey black, and light brown is called Picasso stone, but it can be mislabeled as any of the other jasper names. Chrysocolla jasper is a dyed form of jasper; it is not chrysocolla. With so much confusion, it is necessary to view a stone before buying it to know what you're getting, and even then you may only be sure that it's jasper, not which type.

Likewise a stone I know as Chinese writing rock, a darker caramel brown stone with inclusions and line markings of orange or gold, is called golden lace agate by some sources. African jade is not jade, but is another form of jasper, as is yellow turquoise, which is not turquoise at all. New jade is not jade but serpentine, though higher quality serpentine jade does have healing properties similar to those of traditional jade (which is nearly extinct and therefore much harder to find and more expensive).

Some of this may be attributed to confusion about definitions of similar stones, but other examples are plain dishonesty. When man-made, lab-created, or synthetic stones are not plainly identified, it can only be dishonesty. Hemalyke is an example of a synthetic material often confused for the natural gemstone hematite. Magnetic hematite is also synthetic; the natural form is not magnetized. Swarovski crystal is not natural quartz crystal but is man-made lead crystal. It can be easily distinguished from natural quartz crystal as it glitters in rainbow colors where natural quartz does not. Cinnabar is red lacquered wood, or machine-carved layered lacquer. It is sometimes added to reconstituted (heat melted) quartz and called cinnabar quartz. Goldstone and blue goldstone are ceramic materials and are not natural gemstones. Larimar, a lovely and increasingly rare gemstone from the Dominican Republic, is found only in light robin's egg blue, sometimes with reddish inclusions. Pink larimar is not real larimar but is made from pink conch shells.

Some turquoise is not natural turquoise but dyed howlite, a white stone that absorbs dye colors easily. Turquoise, by the way, is usually stabilized with plastic since turquoise is soft and crumbles easily when used in jewelry. (As previously mentioned, yellow turquoise is a variety of jasper.)

Another of the more egregious of these deceptions is the recent appearance of rainbow moonstone in a variety of garish primary colors. Rainbow moonstone is mottled clear and white, and it is actually white labradorite rather than moonstone. It is being sold today in a variety of dye treatments - purple or amethyst rainbow moonstone, sapphire rainbow moonstone, ruby rainbow moonstone, red onyx rainbow moonstone, and aqua rainbow moonstone. The blue rainbow moonstone found in jewelry pendants is created by placing a piece of black electrical type between the setting and the stone. The natural stone does not come in any of these colors.

Be wary of stones that are dyed glass, dyed quartz crystal or even plastic, usually dyed to bright unnatural colors. These can include cherry quartz, pineapple quartz, and some of the colors of serpentine, or new, jade. If a gemstone's color is improbable, it is likely not a natural stone. If you suspect that the material is glass or plastic, look closely for seams or bubbles in it. Natural gemstones do not have either. "Reconstituted" means that gemstone scraps have been heated until they melt together, sometimes with plastic added as a binder, and then molded. Reconstituted quartz with cinnabar, called cinnabar quartz, is an example of this. A less suspect example is copal amber, which is melted amber formed into beads or often used as incense. Amber is soft, and it is a resin rather than a stone, though it is generally known as a gemstone, and copal is considered an honest use of it.

Some precious stones today are being grown in laboratories, and they are called lab-created gemstones. Most of the sapphires and faceted rubies and many commercial opals with "fire" are created in labs. So are such stones as alexandrite (which is extremely rare and expensive as a natural stone) and Siberian quartz. Whether to consider these stones or any of the other previously mentioned variations - except those that are synthetic, glass or plastic - as valid for healing is very much up to the individual user. Lab-created stones are beautiful, and they definitely have energy. Misnamed stones are still gemstones with valid healing properties. Unnaturally dyed stones, in my opinion, have been artificially altered and are less effective for healing. Synthetic and reconstituted materials are worthless, as are glass and plastic; they are not gemstones.

Also be aware of natural gemstones that have been altered or changed in other ways. If your smoky quartz specimen is shiny but completely and deeply black, it is quartz crystal that has been turned black by irradiation. The life force in the stone is probably dead, certainly wounded, and not a good energy for healing work. Natural smoky quartz is not black; when held up to the light it is a translucent, beer-bottle brown. The only natural smoky quartz that is truly black is from Colorado and has a rough matt finish, rather than the shiny glassy finish of irradiated quartz crystal. Citrine may be altered amethyst, heat-treated to turn the color from purple to yellow. Most heat treated citrine is an orange color, while natural citrine (from Brazil or Scotland usually) is a very pale shade of yellow. If the stone feels dead, burnt, or wounded, it is not suitable for healing work.

An interesting use of irradiated gemstones is turning quartz crystal into aqua aura crystal by irradiating it with gold. Opal aura crystal is irradiated with zircon, and rainbow aura irradiated with titanium. These stones are beautiful, and the healing properties seem to be enhanced rather than diminished by the treatment process. Again, it is up to the individual as to whether to use them for healing work or healing jewelry and on what occasions.

Choosing Gemstones for Healing

We choose gemstones for healing by how they feel. If the stone feels wonderful, it doesn't matter what its correct name is or where it comes from. A material that feels dead, uncomfortable, or inert is not good for healing, no matter what it is, and you won't choose it. You may pick a stone, decide that you like how it feels and then ask, "What is it?" People often ask me, "What's the right gemstone for me?" I always tell them, "It's the one you are drawn to, the one that feels so good you don't want to put it down." How a stone feels, or how it makes you feel while holding it, is the first criteria for what stone is best for you to use for healing. It is important to note that what feels good to you may not feel good to someone else. We all have different energies and needs.

How are gemstones used for healing? They can be used formally or informally. It can be as simple as selecting a stone that feels wonderful and carrying it around in your pocket. It can be as simple as choosing a pendant, earrings, or a string of beads that you are drawn to and wearing them often. Anything that brings the stone into your aura is the beginning of gemstone healing. A stone across a room from you is mostly outside your aura and not likely to be useful unless it is a large specimen that could effect the energy of the entire room. Larger stones are often good healing tools in a room where you spend a lot of time. Put the stone close to where you usually spend time in the room. For example, to help with peaceful sleep, place a larger (four inches or more) chuck of amethyst under your bed or on your nightstand.

You can use gemstones as altar objects as wands (or at the end of a wand) to cast a Wiccan ritual circle, or as objects to hold in your hand while meditating or doing psychic work. Use a crystal sphere, a raw piece of clear quartz, or another translucent colored gemstone, natural or polished, for scrying. (Scrying is the art of seeing psychic pictures by using a crystal to focus the meditation.) Gemstones can also be placed in a glass with a few ounces of filtered water on a windowsill overnight; after removing the stone, the water can be consumed as a gemstone essence. Do not do this with malachite, chrysocolla, or cinnabar as they are poisonous to ingest. Also, do not do it with angelite, halite, or other very soft gemstones as they may melt in the water. If you want the essence to last longer than overnight, add a teaspoon of brandy or vinegar to preserve the energy. For more information on making and using gemstone essences see my book Healing with Gemstones and Crystals (Crossing Press, 1996).

Gemstones are also used for making pendulums. They are traditionally placed at both the weighted end and the holding end of a pendulum, whether you make your pendulums at home or buy them in a store. Although gemstones are superior for a pendulum's energy-conducting ability, they are fragile.

They break easily and can become "dead" after dropping them or after a long period of hard use. Gemstone pendulums, and any pendulums, have to be kept energetically cleared to work effectively, as do all gemstones used for healing. (See my book Pendulums and the Light, Crossing Press, 2004.) More information on clearing gemstones and crystals follows.

Another use of gemstones is in laying on of stones for healing. In this case, the person receiving the healing lies flat on her back on a floor or massage table, and the healer places gemstones and crystals on her body. The color of the stones usually matches the color correspondences of the chakras they are placed on. For example, orange or brown gemstones (such as carnelian, brown jasper, or redaventurine) are placed over the belly chakra since orange (and alternately brown) is the color for that chakra. The stones are placed along the center line of the front of the receiver's body. Stones are also placed in the receiver's hands, between her feet, and above her head. The stones shift and fall off when they have done their work, which is to balance the body's chakras and entire energy system. More information on chakra colors follows.

Dedicating and Clearing Gemstones

All gemstones and crystals, no matter what uses they are put to, must be dedicated to the Light and kept energetically cleared. This is essential. Quartz crystals and most colored gemstones absorb energy, and they will carry that energy until it is released. If you carry a stone in your pocket, it will absorb from you your discomfort, illness, emotional distress, tiredness, and other negative energies, while giving back to you the support you need. However, if you do not clear the stone, it will become overloaded with what it absorbed. It will then give back to you all the negatives it took from you, or it may shatter or even disappear from your pocket or room. Beads break, a stone that was on your dresser when you went to bed is gone in the morning, the pendulum won't work well or at all, and the crystal or colored gemstone cracks, disintegrates, or chips.

Clearing is a simple thing to do. The most common crystal clearing technique is to place the crystal, beads, pendulum, or other stone in a bowl of dry sea salt overnight or soak it for an hour in a strong sea salt-and-water solution. Salt can be too harsh for jewelry, however, as it will eventually rot the cord the beads are strung on and turn silver black. Placing jewelry or pendulums under a pyramid works beautifully, but it can take as long as three days to clear them. Placing stones in sunlight or moonlight, under running water, on a clean patch of ground outdoors, or passing them through incense smoke are other clearing methods. Avoid direct sunlight for amethyst, citrine, kunzite, and rose quartz, as they will fade. Avoid water (with or without salt) for angelite or halite, as they melt. Stones should be cleared after every use, and if you wear or carry them aura all day they should be cleared every night.

Excerpted from
Essential Psychic Healing: A Complete Guide to Healing Yourself, Healing Others and Healing the Earth
By Diane Stein

Healing with the GoddessThe healing that I do for others has always been based upon my own healing journey. What works for me in my own growth I develop into techniques to use in healing sessions and ultimately to teach other healers. The techniques that prove successful continue, and by using them in varied situations they evolve into healing tools with basically predictable results. Techniques developed by others or learned from reading about them take on new form and I adapt them for best results, often changing others' methods drastically. I combine methods and frequently use more than one technique at a time, sometimes several in one healing session as I work very selectively.

My own healing process began in 1983 and is ongoing today. I started it by dedicating myself to the Goddess at Candlemas and choosing Wicca and Goddess Spirituality as my life path. I opened to the Goddess for the first time as a religion and lifestyle, replacing the intellectualism I had viewed it with for the previous five years. When I finally made the connection between Wicca, healing, and psychic ability, my life changed in ways I could not have dreamed of. I accepted my growing psychic awareness as part of the package and welcomed it as part of my life. I frantically sought information on what it meant and how to use it. I began to explore and study Wicca. For the first time, I started to meditate, to learn visualization and ritual, work with crystals, and to study the folk remedies that I was beginning to be aware of.

In June 1983, a Tree of Life meditation from Star-hawk's The Spiral Dame (Harper and Row, 1979) became a kundalini opening experience, my first. I saw and felt myself as the living, growing tree and the colors of the chakras rushed through me from roots to leaves. The same day I received laying on of hands energy briefly for the first time from a woman friend. I felt it move through me in the same way as the colors had and with intense heat. The energy on my hand and arm completely and immediately healed a painful hairline fracture in my palm, and as soon as I felt it I knew I had to learn to do it, that healing from that moment on would be my life.

That day was preparing me for what I afterwards termed a walk-in, though I had no name for it at the time. In bed in the middle of the night a few weeks later, in a state somewhere between sleep and waking but very alert, I felt and watched vivid green and red ocean waves move through my body. They were beautifully formed, like the ocean breakers in a Japanese painting, and intensely hot like the energy that had healed my hand. I perceived them as stunningly beautiful and was not afraid. Then I felt and saw myself hovering above my body, detached from it while being in it at the same time. An aura of bright white mist enveloped that hovering self, took her completely away, and a different "mc" returned and settled into my body on the bed. There was a discussion with someone I couldn't see about just how to enter and several readjustments before it was done. From that time of soul exchange, I felt that I was someone else, and my former self, though present, seemed moved to the background, watching but no longer active. All my perceptions were greatly different in every disconcerting way.

Every aspect of my life immediately and often frighteningly changed. I had difficulty functioning in my body for the next few weeks, had trouble remaining upright to walk at first and difficulty in remembering how to do many formerly automatic actions. I couldn't remember the route driving to work that I had taken every day for the past three years or how to fit the key into the car ignition. Those first few days of driving were definitely scary, too. What made it more difficult was that I didn't understand why I was having so much trouble doing these things, or why I was even doing most of them. I quickly became a strict vegetarian, eating rice and fresh vegetables, and drinking herb teas. I who had always kept a complete diet of meat and donuts. I left my high stress, emotionally destructive office job within days, after being caught meditating on working time, and started my first published book. The Kwan Yin Book of Changes (ret it led A Women's I Ching, The Crossing Press, 1985), two days later. I broke contact with my even more destructive parents and family within the next few months.

That August I went to my first Michigan Women's Music Festival, though I had been out as a lesbian for many years. Abandoned at the gate by the women I had traveled with, I was there all alone, with little in the way of warm clothing or camping equipment. I had never been camping before; it was cold and raining, and there was no indoor shelter.

Unable to manage my dyslexia and agoraphobia in that situation, yet thrilled by the festival itself, I ended up camping at the HART (Differently Abled Resource Team) community sleeping tent. There I received a thorough education in disability awareness and positive self-image from the women, and I began to know my own abilities and disabilities.

I attended my first workshops on women's healing - on herbs and meditation. Goddess ritual, and crystal healing. I discovered women's music and crafts, women's culture, and knew I belonged. There was no turning back. In just a few weeks I had become someone very different from who I had thought I was. The old self and old life were irrevocably gone, and the new life, totally unknown, was just beginning. When I returned from the festival, my apartment of twelve years no longer felt like I lived there, and my agoraphobia was gone.

The following summer, having completed Kwan Yin and looking for a publisher, I moved. I took a job out of state that proved too exploitative to tolerate, and I returned home destitute, my savings gone. I was all but homeless for three months and on welfare. I experienced extreme poverty and solitude for the next several years. Refusing to return to office work where the new computers gave me chronic migraines and seizures, I waitressed but made little money at it. I was on Food Stamps for several years, while sometimes also working two jobs for fourteen hours a day. When the survival issues eased and books became my source of money, the next steps in healing began.

I had to come to terms with my physical limits first, to understand and validate myself within those limits and then to overcome and heal them. I was in chronic neck and back pain with a curvature of the spine, and frustrated by dyslexia - neurological disabilities that manifested as a lack of directional sense, with poor spatial ability, poor physical balance, clumsiness, and a confused sense that things were never in the same place twice. I lived in a state of chronic stress, hyper-nervousness, anxiety and fear, poor self-image, close to the surface rage, and

Frequent debilitating panic. I was exhausted for no obvious reason. I had devastating migraines during which I thought I was dying and wished to die. I began to lose my reading ability, as my vision focusing muscles failed, and I began to realize that I had been severely battered and emotionally abused by both parents and my sister as a child and into adulthood. Emotional abuse along with sexual harassment had continued with many male bosses.

When an attempt at a much wanted relationship failed miserably, I knew that I needed healing that was not available from any doctor. I had to find it for myself. I began with herbs, crystals, and Reiki I. I started receiving monthly massages, and finally was able to have optometric vision therapy, which corrects reading disabilities, balance, and short-term memory. A friend learned neurolinguistic programming (NLP) and wanted someone to practice on. I volunteered and experienced extensive NLP sessions twice weekly (or a year, opening up all the buried issues of my miserable childhood. I examined every incident of battering all the way back to diapers and even in the womb. I then entered two years of bartered nontraditional Gestalt therapy with a woman who was also a psychic healer.

I moved from Pittsburgh lo Florida. On my own again and very alone in a new place, I worked at healing depression and rage. I gained my Reiki II and III degrees, and learned to work with spirit guides and spirit guide teams from the Earth and other planets. After a few weeks of using Machaelle Small Wright's MAP (from the book, MAP: The Co-Creative White Brotherhood Medical Assistance Program. Perelandra Publications, 1990), my curved back began to straighten. It normalized completely and dramatically over a period of a few months. I learned deeper meditation that led to chakra healing, inner child work, past life regression and release, uncording, soul retrieval, karmic release, and the ongoing art of emotional healing. I received help from others I felt drawn to as often as possible, but did much more of the process alone. Every forgotten and half episode of emotional and physical pain in my life surfaced again and again to be viewed and then relinquished, and the process seemed to go on forever. Then the past lives started. I learned to feel emotions fully instead of denying them until they exploded into rage.

I completely healed my spinal curvature and greatly relieved a newer, lower back injury, healed many of the neurological problems, the adrenal exhaustion, and all of the migraines and seizures, plus an infected uterus and large fibroid tumors. I combined the psychic techniques with massage, herbs, homeopathy, crystals and gemstones, flower essences, and Reiki. The years of poverty dissolved as well. I no longer live in pain, fear, misery or anger, and I want to be here - a very new feeling.

Along the way I learned what worked and what didn't, and began using the things that helped me to help others. I participated in two-and-a-half years of healing work with AIDS patients, a year with a woman who had breast cancer, many sessions with incest and multiple personality disorder survivors, as well as healings with women for countless other emotional and physical diseases. The techniques in this book (and my previous books) come directly from that learning.

The strongest thread through the whole process was Reiki. While the techniques in this book do not require Reiki training, I recommend it strongly for all healers. The 1995 release of my book, Essential Reiki (The Crossing Press), has gone a long way toward making this healing system available to all who choose to learn it. When I train a psychic healer I begin by giving her Reiki training, as it is a basic framework for all psychic healing and laying on of hands touch healing methods. The attunements also open the receiver to her psychic abilities and connect her with her spirit guides and healing guides. By the time a healer has received the Reiki Third Degree, most of the methods in this book have been opened to her, if she frequently uses the healing for herself or others. Without Reiki, women's psychic abilities open, too, but not so quickly, naturally, or easily.

After Reiki training, healing ability developed most fully by experience. No matter how much information a woman receives, it is doing (he healing sessions that make the healer. There is no substitute for doing the work, and every healing is a learning session for both parties. Once I give a student Reiki, I ask her to do healing on others, coaching her through the sessions as she needs it and helping her to define what she perceives. Within a few healings, she has learned how to access her spirit guides and how to gain nonphysical level healing information. After many healing sessions the information comes easily and is easily understandable.

Connection with healing guides and the ability to work with them is the central skill new healers must learn. Reiki opens this connection quickly and reliably, though it is not the only way to develop it. I sincerely recommend Reiki training, all three degrees If possible, to every serious psychic healer.

Psychic healing is not medicine nor is it in any way accepted by the standard medical system, yet it offers profound answers in the quest for wellness and the healing of diseases both physical and emotional/mental/spiritual. The modern medical system focuses its "cures" on the dense physical body only, while psychic healing looks to nonphysical levels for the sources of disease. Medicine cures by suppressing symptoms while healing works by addressing and releasing the non-body causes of illness. In finding the emotional, mental, and spiritual sources of disease and thus healing the whole person, illness is finally released from the physical body. Symptoms disappear and the disease is healed, but healed on more than dense body levels.

Medicine has until very recently denied the existence of anything but the body. It is now slowly opening to the idea that mind and body are connected, but only very slowly. When patriarchal medicine stole its basis from witches, midwives, healers, and shamans of the pre-inquisition, pre-Christian female past, it turned its back on the nonphysical totally and irrevocably. Women's healing - state of the art medicine in every culture before the male takeover - has always honored the body's nonphysical Medicine without the feminine psychic has become a cold and mechanical bodyshop of isolated human parts. Drugs with dangerous, noxious side-effects and too many unnecessary surgeries and amputations are modern medicine's invasive and mechanical answers to pain and illness.

Excerpted from
Acupuncture; The Ancient Chinese Art of Healing: How it Works Scientifically
By Felix Mann

General Considerations

Acupuncture is an ancient Chinese system of medicine in the practice of which a fine needle pierces the skin to a depth of a few millimeters and is then withdrawn. The only thing of real importance in the study of acupuncture is to know at what point to pierce the skin in relation to which disease.

The notion that a pinprick, often in a part of the body far removed from the seat of die disease, can cure an illness is alien to conventional thinking. It is unfortunately the case that many doctors, even when faced with one or several patients who have been cured by acupuncture where their own efforts have been fruitless, refuse to believe the evidence.

The oldest records of acupuncture (acus = needle, punctura = puncture) are to be found on bone etchings of 1600 B.C. The first book of acupuncture, which contains a wealth of detail, is the Hungdi Neiging Suwen written about 200 B.C. It is one of the earliest treatises in Chinese on any subject.

Acupuncture is not the exclusive possession of the Chinese. The papyrus Ebers of 1550 B.C. is the most important of the ancient Egyptian medical treatises. It refers to a book on the subject of vessels which could correspond to me 12 meridians of acupuncture. These vessels certainly could not refer to the arteries, veins or nerves of the four limbs of the human body. However, my enquiries at the Egyptian Department of the British Museum have not been able to make matters clearer as the ancient Egyptian language is not well enough known to distinguish between the words for 'vessel' and 'meridian.

The Bantu of South Africa sometimes scratch certain parts of the body to cure disease. In the treatment of sciatica some Arabs cauterise with a hot metal probe a part of the ear. This practice probably corresponds to a lesser known form of acupuncture called Ear acupuncture. Some Eskimos practice simple acupuncture with sharp stones. An isolated cannabalistic tribe in Brazil shoot tiny arrows with a blowpipe at specific parts of the body. The only observer ever to have returned from them thinks that, as the tribe show distinct Mongoloid features, this might also be related to acupuncture. Possibly the cautery practiced in mediaeval Europe is also related to the tradition though this was mainly applied at congested or painful places and would therefore correspona to the simplest form of acupuncture in which only the locus aolenti, and not the distant part, is stimulated.

The great contribution of the Chinese to the primitive, or probably largely local form of acupuncture mentioned above, is that they have developed a fairly complete systematic method. Catalogued and described in numerous text books, it is taught at university and is reproducible at will under experimental conditions.

In China today the intending medical student can enter a university to learn, as in almost all parts of the world, Western medical practice. Or he can choose to study traditional Chinese medicine in another department of the same university. The student who chooses the Western path also studies the rudiments of the Chinese tradition while the other also follows courses in basic anatomy, physiology, pathology and other modern basic disciplines. Both courses take three to five or even seven years. Very few doctors of one school are also experts of the other, but in some hospitals doctors of each medical culture work together: the surgeon performs the operation, the acupuncturist treats the post-operative retention of urine, thus obviating the need for a catheter, and stimulates the lungs to prevent post-operative pneumonia.

Many Chinese are over impressed by Western medicine for they sec that everything that has impelled China, or indeed any other non Western civilization, into the twentieth century originated in the Western world. Quite literally, everything of practical importance: electricity, cars, mass production factories and the like, derives from the applications of Western science. Without Western technology China would still be where she was 100 years ago, that is in conditions relatively little different from those of 1000 years ago. The impact of the West has been so great that the Chinese have forgotten even those parts of their own culture which, in certain respects at least, is better than that imported from the 'fair haired, big nosed devils'.

One of the very few almost exclusively indigenous discoveries that surpasses its Western equivalent in several respects, is acupuncture. There are many diseases, or physiological dysfunctions, which do not yet amount to a disease that can be cured by acupuncture and not by Western medicine. Naturally, there are also diseases that can be cured by Western medicine which are intractable to the acupuncturist. The Chinese people themselves often do not sufficiently value the traditional skill of the acupuncturist They take it too much for granted, much as we in the West take for granted the services of electricity, piped water or rubbish collection, only realizing their value when a strike or other action interrupts their functioning.

In this book the viewpoint moves backwards and forwards between traditional acupuncture and scientific medicine. Acupuncture is for the most part based on observed facts which have been woven into a fairly complete system of medicine by a system of theories. The theories themselves are often surprisingly accurate at least insofar as concerns clinical treatment Not infrequently, however, the theory has been based on philosophical and mystical speculation and can then, often, only be useful as a thread which the mind follows as it weaves together the multitudinous and seemingly isolated threads of factual observation.

Much of what is factually observed in acupuncture could be explained in a way completely different from that of the traditional Chinese account. One example might be a different account by way of the discipline of neurophysiology.

In the chapters that follow I have mentioned nearly all the traditional Chinese theories as I think it is important that they should be known and understood before one starts one's own research. Furthermore, I suspect that much of what seems mystical nonsense to some, in reality portrays many of the laws of nature (even where these are as yet unknown to us) despite the fact that they are expressed in a language that we might call unscientific

Some doctors or patients may indeed wonder how one can practice a form of medicine where the theories on which that practice is based are possibly suspect. Just as a doctor will prescribe aspirin because he Knows what are its effects in the body of a patient; so an acupuncturist will needle a certain acupuncture point because he knows what die consequent reaction of the body will be. It is of secondary importance to the doctor to know just why it is that aspirin has its specific effects, no matter how intellectually interesting such knowledge might be. At the time of writing little is understood of why the known effects of aspirin take place, yet aspirin, with its simple chemical formula, is the most commonly used drug in the world.

The reader will be made aware by various remarks throughout this book, particularly those in chapter XI, that I believe neither in the major part of the traditional Chinese theoretical explanation of acupuncture nor even in its practical application where this is based solely on traditional theory. Doctors who follow my courses in acupuncture will find that this divergence in both theory and practice is no hindrance to the successful treatment of a large number of diseases occurring in their patients. Doctors who wish to study acupuncture are welcome to write to me. From time to time I give courses, largely of a practical nature, during which I concentrate on those aspects of the subject that would be difficult to describe in a book.

By Margarita Nahapetyan

Acupuncture can prove helpful in the management of the stress and could significantly reduce anxiety that is associated with dental treatment, scientists from the United Kingdom and Denmark have revealed.

It is estimated that severe dental anxiety, known as odontiatophobia, affects approximately 5 per cent of individuals in Western countries, with another 20 to 30 per cent having moderate anxiety. A number of techniques has been used in order to help people overcome their fear of dental treatments, such as relaxation therapy, biofeedback, and hypnosis. Some of these techniques may be really helpful, but professionals say that they are time consuming and require considerable levels of skills to use properly.

In a new small study, the treatment of acupuncture was performed in 20 patients - 16 women and 4 men - from eight different dental practices. The average age of all the patients was about 40 years old. Each of them was moderately or extremely nervous about going to a dentist for treatment, as reported in a validated questionnaire, called the Back Anxiety Inventory (BAI).

According to these questionnaires, on previous visits to the dentist, 3 patients had reported requiring general anesthetic to be able to handle their anxiety and fears, while in six others the treatment was started but not completed. In 14 other cases, the doctor had to cancel the treatment because the patient could not even sit in the chair. Seven of the patients had agreed to come back for minor dental procedures, such as cleaning, and thirteen had returned for a dental screening.

When the patients arrived for their new appointments, they were offered the procedure of acupuncture to make them feel more relaxed. Five minutes before dental treatment, needles were administered, targeting two specific acupuncture points (GV20 and EX6) on the top of the head. Professionals say that these points are very effective when it comes to reducing stress and anxiety. The needles remained applied throughout the treatment. The acupuncture was performed by the dentists themselves, all of whom are members of the British Dental Acupuncture Society.

When the results were assessed, it was revealed that the average BAI scores of the patients that were recorded before and five minutes after acupuncture treatment, fell from 26.5 to 11.5. The acupuncture treatments were so effective that all 20 patients were able to have their dental procedures completely carried out. Researchers from Weston Park Hospital in Sheffield believe that acupuncture may become a simple and inexpensive method of dental treatment although they cautioned that more studies involving larger numbers of participants were needed in order to confirm the value of acupuncture in these sorts of cases.

According to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, acupuncture has proved beneficial for a variety of different aches and pains, including carpal tunnel syndrome, fibromyalgia, menstrual cramps, headache, low-back pain, myofascial pain, osteoarthritis, tennis elbow and also post-operative dental pain. Therefore, the experts say that if acupuncture can be helpful in some of the above mentioned issues, it might be able to ease anxiety and stress, which is ultimately the pain of the mind.

The study is published in the journal Acupuncture in Medicine.

By Margarita Nahapetyan

Oxytocin, a hormone associated with emotional bonding between mothers and their babies and linked to romantic love, may help people with autism become more sociable and pay better attention to visual cues on other people's faces, claims a new study from France.

Oxytocin is a hormone known to promote delivery and lactation. It plays a significant role when it comes to enhancing social and emotional behavior. Previous research that focused on measuring the levels of oxytocin in the blood of patients showed that this hormone was deficient in people with autism. Autism is a disorder that is characterized by difficulties in communicating effectively with other individuals and developing social relationships.

A team of French researchers led by Angela Sirigu of the Center of Cognitive Neuroscience in Lyon (CNRS), has found that the nasal inhalation of oxytocin significantly improved the abilities of autistic patients to socialize with other people. To come to this conclusion, the experts administered oxytocin to 13 autistic patients with high-functioning autism (HFA) or Asperger syndrome (AS). In both these forms of the disorder, people retain normal intellectual and linguistic skills but experience difficulty to engage spontaneously in social situations. Therefore, during a conversation, these individuals usually turn their heads away and avoid eye contact with other people.

The participants in the study, eleven men and two women, did not take any medication two weeks prior to the experiments, which also included a control group of an equal number of healthy men and women. In the first experiment, in order to measure behavioral changes, the researchers observed autistic patients and those in a control group, who were not given the hormone, in a virtual game of tossing a ball. In the second experiment, the researchers measured the patients' ability to express emotional feelings when looking at pictures of human faces as well as their ability to recognize these faces.

The scientists found that those participants who were taking a placebo, looked at the mouth of the faces in the photographs or away from the photo. But after inhaling oxytocin, the patients demonstrated a higher level of attentiveness to visual cues when viewing human faces: they looked at the faces, and indeed it was even possible to see an increase in the number of times they looked specifically at the eyes of the faces in the photos. The participants who inhaled the hormone were also more likely to process social cues during the virtual ball passing game when compared to those in a control group in both experiments, the authors wrote.

During these experiments, the experts also verified patients' behavioral effects by measuring physiological plasma oxytocin levels before and after nasal inhalations. Before the inhalations, levels of plasma oxytocin were very low, but they rose after an inhalation of the hormone.

The results of this study have demonstrated that the intake of oxytocin hormone allowed patients with autism to adjust to their social context by identifying the differing behaviors displayed by people around them and then acted accordingly, expressing more trust towards the most socially cooperative people. Oxytocin was also found to decrease their fear of other individuals and promoted closer social relations.

The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on February 15, 2010.

Excerpted from
The Way of Qigong; The Art and Science of Chinese Energy Healing
By Ken Cohen

Sometimes we learn the lessons we most desperately need in the form of illness. That was my experience, and I know it is the experience of many persons who will read this book. Let me explain why Kenneth S. Cohen's insights could have helped me, and why they will benefit you.

As a first-year student I attempted to drop out of medical school because of chronic, classical migraine headache syndrome - recurrent episodes of blindness, nausea, vomiting, and insufferable headache, followed by periods of incapacitation. I was concerned I might injure someone during surgery if the blindness came on unpredictably, as it always did. My medical school adviser, however, convinced me to endure the problem and remain in school.

I was unaware at the time that my problem was compounded by anxiety, stress, and overwork. I was an excellent student - intelligent enough, and utterly compulsive and driven. I had no insight whatever into the mind-body relationships so commonly discussed today. In fact, I was unaware I had a mind-body connection. That came years later - when I discovered biofeedback and meditation, which for the first time allowed relief from the problem that nearly halted my career and made my life miserable.

When I recall my medical school experience, I regret that there were no Kenneth Cohen's around. If there had been, I am certain my experience would have been pleasantly different. But at that time we medical students had never heard of qigong. I am delighted that the situation is changing.

Someday soon, the principles of healing you are about to read about will be taught in all our medical schools. In fact, this is already beginning to take place, as an increasing number of institutions develop courses in alternative or complementary medicine, including qigong.

There are two main reasons for the growing acceptance of these methods: They constitute both good science and authentic wisdom. Science and the venerable tradition of qigong are joining hands, as you are about to read. As a consequence, qigong can no longer be considered just a matter of faith or belief, nor as only a body of practical knowledge accumulated across the centuries, although this would be impressive enough. When the methods Cohen describes are subjected to rigorous empirical tests, they repeatedly demonstrate their worthiness. These developments are immensely important. They indicate not only increasing acceptance of qigong, but increasing openness within science and medicine as well.

Modem medicine, as everyone knows by now, can be spectacularly successful and woefully inadequate. It alternately inspires praise and condemnation. Almost every thinking person, both inside and outside the profession, realizes we need more than a mechanical, technical approach to healing. We hunger for a balance between body, mind, and spirit - which is contained in the healing approach of qigong.

In his discussion of qigong, Cohen wears two hats, as all modem healers should. First, he is a scientist. He realizes that science has become the dominant metaphor of our culture, and that we cannot ride roughshod over its methods and messages. Unlike many unorthodox healers who seem to carry a grudge against science, Cohen realizes it has something valuable to offer.

Among other things, it remains a valuable way of guarding against certain kinds of delusions. Cohen's other hat is that of a healer and mystic - one who honors the great mysteries of existence, and who feels that a union with the Divine Principle - God, Goddess, Allah, the Dao, the Universe - is possible. I would never trust a healer who does not have respect for both science and spirituality. That is why I trust Cohen. That is why I recommend him to you.

Neither would I trust a healer who does not have a sense of humor. Cohen's lightness of heart comes through on every page. In a time when people are often "dead serious" about their health, humor and levity are needed more than ever.

Reading Cohen's book, I felt a connection that stayed with me from start to finish. One of Cohen's mentors was the late Alan Watts, the great scholar, teacher, and author of books on the wisdom of the Orient, particularly Zen Buddhism. Cohen pays homage to Watts in his acknowledgments; I pay mine here. In the spiritual desert of medical school, Watts's writings and tapes helped me to regrow my spiritual roots, for which I shall always remain grateful, and they remain a tonic with which I periodically refresh myself. His wisdom comes through in Cohen's insights. That is one reason I admire his book so much.

Throughout The Way of Qigong, Cohen never trivializes the great mysteries of healing. He is quick to acknowledge our limited understanding about how qigong healing takes place. He implies throughout that it is acceptable not to know. This is expressed in many ways - for example, the admonition to go slow in qigong practice; to be content with gradual, not meteoric, increases in wisdom; to occasionally do less ritual instead of more; and to rely on the invisible wisdom of the body and of nature, instead of always trying to make things happen.

Cohen's advice to cooperate with the healing power of nature will be a great challenge to many who encounter qigong for the first time. In our typically aggressive, extroverted way, we often try to whip nature into line. We "fight" our disease and try to "conquer" our illnesses. Prepare for a gentle approach. Qigong is not a hammer. In fact, its primary purpose is not to defeat disease at all, "but to become expert at being more fully who you are" (p. 183).

And who is that? The answer to the great question of who we are lies at the heart of the greatest healing traditions, including qigong. Gently, wisely, Cohen invites us to discover our Self - that part of us that is beyond illness, disease, and death - to discover, in the end, that we did not need his book to begin with.

Until that realization dawns, enjoy the paradox - and read on.

-Larry Dossey, M.D.
Author of Healing Words:
The Power of Prayer and
the Practice of Medicine

Excerpted from
A Consultation With the Back Doctor
By Hamilton Hall, M.D.

Phineas T. Barnum, often regarded as America's greatest showman, lived by his own maxim, "There's a sucker born every minute" I am always disappointed when his words ring true in the world of spine care. Our technology is constantly opening doors to avenues that will lead us forward in our conquest of back and neck pain. But it also opens doors onto blind alleys where charlatans wait to prey upon the unsuspecting, eating their time and money. If you have chosen to begin our consultation here, looking for the shortcut to spine care, I've caught you. Spine care is not easy, but it is simple. And it is a partnership. Caring for your back or neck is your responsibility, and anyone who says otherwise is probably trying to sell you something.

I can't lay all the blame on those who offer magic solutions. Any successful confidence scheme must have a mark: someone who is willing to suspend rational thought in the hope that, this time, it will really work. Because back and neck pain are nearly universal, and because they apparently respond to so many different things, fraudulent claims are easy to make and difficult to disprove. All the more so because patients want to believe.

I recall a patient who came to see me two or three times with uncomplicated mechanical low back pain. His symptoms responded to a simple program for a Pattern 1 fast responder. I provided the necessary education, offered my support, and prescribed the appropriate series of treatment sessions. But that is not what he wanted. He had heard from a friend that injecting an anaesthetic into the painful lump he felt in his back at the top of his buttock would solve his problem. It had worked for her, so why wouldn't it work for him?

I explained that the lump (doctors call them fibrocytic nodules) was one of the body's non-specific responses to his underlying structural pain. Anaesthetizing the lump would be like blowing the smoke away from a fire. It would produce some temporary comfort, but it couldn't last. My patient's mind was made up, though. He had no interest in my other options, and so he demanded that I give him what he wanted.

Trigger-point injection, as the technique is called, is a safe, well-established procedure. I use it occasionally to give patients with those tender lumps the temporary relief they need to embark on a more lasting solution. I am reluctant to resort to trigger-point injections when I believe the needle is all the patient wants.

Recognizing that I was not going to change his mind, and to escape from his repeated demands, I agreed to give him the injection. I promised him nothing more than a short, pain-free interlude, but I was wrong. The injection worked, and it worked dramatically. His pain was gone and, with no further effort, his life returned to normal. I have no idea how the injection could have worked so well. Did it break a pain cycle that relieved other areas of muscle tension? Had it affected the gates to his pain-sensing system in the spinal cord? Whatever the reason, there was no doubt of its success. We parted company on the best of terms.

About a year later, I received a telephone call from a physician in Florida. He had recently seen a patient from Canada who came to his office complaining of low back pain and, in particular, a very painful lump at the top of his buttock. It was my former patient, and he had told the doctor of my injection and its miraculous result. The doctor hadn't heard of any drug available in the United States that could produce such a dramatic effect. He had called to inquire what I had used and whether there was any way he could obtain a sample. I could feel his disappointment, or perhaps it was his embarrassment, when I told him that my injection had been nothing but a long-acting local anaesthetic available all over the world.

For every patient who gets a good result from a trigger-point injection, there are dozens more who gain relief only for the time it takes for the local anaesthetic to dissipate, or who gain no benefit at all. One of the keys to a durable spine program is reliability. Mechanical spine pain will respond predictably to a physical treatment selected on the basis of the correct pattern. This obvious and open approach is more certain, efficient, and cost-effective than most of the highly publicized medicinal options or the mysterious secret remedies.

Excerpted from
The Pill Book Guide to Natural Medicines: Vitamins, Minerals, Nutritional Supplements, Herbs, and Other Natural Products
By Michael Murray, N.D.

Natural Medicine Today

According to the 1999 Gallup Study of Vitamin Use in the United States, nearly one out of two adults (48 percent) now report current use of nutritional supplements, with 42 percent of the adult population taking three or more supplements daily. These numbers have increased by a third since 1993. Today, vast amounts of information on natural products are available from a variety of sources. But how reliable is this information? And even with the best information, consumers are often confused about how to make the best choices. This book is designed to make the process easier by providing answers to the key questions consumers have about the proper use of natural products. This book will provide you with the facts about the role of natural products in promoting health for you and your family. You'll find answers to help guide you to the proper use of products in the prevention and treatment of over one hundred common health conditions, from acne to varicose veins.

The Science of Natural Medicine

You may have noticed the designation N.D. after my name. The N.D. signifies that I am a naturopathic doctor. I am a graduate of Bastyr University in Seattle, Washington, and licensed in the State of Washington as a primary care physician. Naturopathic medicine is a system of medicine that emphasizes the use of natural, nontoxic therapies to prevent and treat disease and to promote optimal health. The scope of practice of an N.D. includes all aspects of family and primary care, from pediatrics to geriatrics, as well as the full range of human health conditions, including cancer. The natural products described in this book are the medicines that many naturopathic physicians rely on.

It occurred to me very early on in my educational process that if natural medicines are truly effective, their value should be evident in well-designed clinical studies. With that in mind I began a data-gathering process that continues to this day. Over the past twenty-plus years I have collected over fifty thousand articles from medical journals and other scientific literature that provide strong evidence of the effectiveness of diet, vitamins, minerals, glandular extracts, herbs, and other natural measures in the maintenance of health and the treatment of disease. It is from this constantly expanding database that I base my recommendations on health and healing. This database is also the basis for the rating scales for effectiveness and safety that are a prominent feature of this book. (See "How to Use This Book" for a complete explanation of the criteria.)

It gives me a sense of great pride that I have played a significant role in bringing many safe and effective natural products to America, including:

• Ginkgo biloba extract
• Glucosamine sulfate
• Silymarin (milk thistle extract)
• Enteric-coated peppermint oil
• Saw palmetto berry extract

These natural products are now household names because of their ability to make a difference in the health of the people who take them. They are prime examples of natural products whose efficacy is clearly demonstrated by solid, clinically based evidence. Unfortunately, not all natural products have the level of scientific and clinical support that these products have. And not all natural products are safe and effective.

When people refer to me as an expert in "alternative medicine," I usually correct them. I am a proponent of what I like to refer to as "rational medicine," which combines the best of both conventional medicine and alternative methods. We have all been helped by the wonders of modern, high-tech medicine. It can make a life-or-death difference when heroic measures are needed. As far as improving our general level of health, however, I believe it is woefully deficient.

Modern medicine fails us most in the treatment of chronic degenerative diseases such as heart disease, high blood pressure, arthritis, and diabetes. In many diseases, the natural approach is simply a much more rational approach. Rather than relying on drugs and surgery to suppress symptoms, I believe it makes more sense to use natural, noninvasive techniques whenever possible to promote health and healing - especially when studies indicate that adverse reactions to conventional medicines may be the fourth leading cause of death in America.

Using Natural Products as "Drug Substitutes"

To illustrate the use of natural products as an alternative to drugs, let's take a look at the use of glucosamine sulfate versus the drug approach to osteoarthritis - the most common form of arthritis. Osteoarthritis is characterized by a breakdown of cartilage. Cartilage plays an important role in joint function. Its gel-like nature protects the ends of joints by acting as a shock absorber. When this cartilage degenerates, it causes inflammation, pain, deformity, and limitation of motion in the joint.

The primary drugs used to treat osteoarthritis are the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDs, including aspirin, ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin), naproxen (Aleve, Naprosyn), piroxicam (Feldene), and diclofenac (Voltaren). These drugs are used extensively in the United States, but research indicates that while they may produce short-term benefits in the treatment of osteoarthritis, some of these drugs actually accelerate the progression of joint destruction and cause more problems down the road. NSAIDs are also associated with side effects such as gastrointestinal upset, headaches, and dizziness.

Simply stated, aspirin and other NSAIDs are designed to fight disease rather than promote health. Glucosamine sulfate, on the other hand, works by stimulating the manufacture of key cartilage components responsible for the shock-absorbing qualities of cartilage. The use of glucosamine sulfate in the treatment of osteoarthritis is consistent with the philosophy and practice of naturopathic medicine because of its action in facilitating the body's natural healing process. The clinical benefits of treating osteoarthritis with glucosamine sulfate are impressive. In head-to-head comparison studies, glucosamine sulfate has been shown to provide greater benefit than NSAIDs and to do so without any significant side effects.

The treatment of osteoarthritis with glucosamine sulfate is just one example in which a more natural approach produces better results and does so without side effects. Frankly, in my opinion it is a more rational approach than the drug approach.

Complementary Aspects of Naturopathic Medicine

In addition to being used as primary therapy, natural products are often useful as a complement to conventional medications. This situation is especially true with serious illnesses that require prescription drug and/or surgical treatments, such as cancer, angina, congestive heart failure, Parkinson's disease, and trauma. For example, a patient who has severe congestive heart failure that requires such drugs as digoxin and furosemide can benefit from the appropriate use of thiamin, carnitine, and coenzyme Q10 supplementation. Although there are double-blind studies demonstrating the value of these agents as complementary therapies in congestive heart failure, they are rarely prescribed by conventional medical doctors in the United States.

Natural Medicine Goes Mainstream

The astonishing increase in the popularity of natural products has several explanations. First, increased scientific investigation into the importance of nutrition and the value of antioxidant nutrients such as vitamins E and C led to more credible information on the value of nutritional supplementation. This information was well accepted by the early devotees of nutritional supplementation. Initially, demographic studies of supplement users indicated that they tended to be better educated and have a higher social status than nonusers. That is no longer the case, as more and more people from all walks of life have begun to use vitamin C to ward off a cold and vitamin E to possibly prevent heart disease.

The next major development was the tremendous influx into North America in the 1980s and early 1990s of high-quality products that actually produced noticeable results. Many of these products, such as Ginkgo biloba extract, St. John's wort extract, and glucosamine sulfate, carried with them significant scientific documentation of their safety and efficacy, leading to even greater credibility and acceptance.

Perhaps the biggest reason for the tremendous explosion in popularity for many products, however, occurred in 1994 when Congress passed the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA). This landmark bill was the result of tremendous support from the American public. In passing DSHEA, Congress recognized that many people believe dietary supplements offer health benefits and that consumers want a greater opportunity to determine whether supplements may help them.

DSHEA essentially gave dietary supplement manufacturers freedom to market more products as dietary supplements and to provide information about their products' health-promoting benefits. Under DSHEA, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is still responsible for overseeing the supplement industry and the truthfulness of the claims that are being made. In addition, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regulates the advertising of dietary supplements.

How Natural Products Are Regulated

As with any food product, federal law requires manufacturers of dietary supplements to ensure that the products they put on the market are safe. It is the FDA's responsibility to police the safety of nutritional supplements. But under DSHEA, once a dietary supplement is marketed, the FDA has the responsibility for showing that a dietary supplement is unsafe before it can take action to restrict the product's use or take it off the market. In regard to supervising label claims, in response to DSHEA, the FDA instituted new requirements for the product labels of dietary supplements. All natural products that fall under DSHEA must meet these label requirements.

The FDA's Requirements for Dietary Supplement Labels

Information that is required on the labels of dietary supplements includes:

• Statement of identity (e.g., "ginseng").

• Net quantity of contents (e.g., "60 capsules").

• Structure-function claim (e.g., "promotes joint health") and the statement "This statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease."

• Directions for use (e.g., "take one capsule daily").

• Supplement Facts panel (lists serving size, amount, and active ingredient[s]).

• Other ingredients in descending order of predominance and by common name or proprietary blend.

• Name and place of business of manufacturer, packer, or distributor. This information provides the address to write to for more product information.

The Limit of the Health Claims

What separates a dietary supplement from a drug is that a dietary supplement must not make a claim to treat, cure, or prevent disease even if it is obviously true that it does. For example, it is generally accepted in even the most conservative medical circles that vitamin E supplementation helps to prevent heart disease, that vitamin C can reduce the severity and duration of the common cold, and that Ginkgo biloba extract is quite helpful in treating cerebral vascular insufficiency (decreased blood supply to the brain). Even though these statements are true, a manufacturer may not put them on a label. To do so would constitute a drug claim. A product sold as a dietary supplement and touted in its labeling as a new treatment or cure for a specific disease or condition would be considered an unapproved - and thus illegal - drug. Labeling changes consistent with the provisions in DSHEA would be required to maintain the product's status as a dietary supplement. In the case of vitamin E, for example, under DSHEA a manufacturer could say only that vitamin E is necessary for proper heart and vascular function.

DSHEA allows supplement manufacturers to use claims referring to the supplement's effect on the body's structure or function, including its overall effect on a person's well-being. These are known as structure-function claims. Examples of structure-function claims are:

• Calcium builds strong bones.
• Antioxidants maintain cell integrity.
• Fiber maintains bowel regularity.

Manufacturers can use structure-function claims without FDA authorization, but like all label claims, structure-function claims must be true and not misleading. Otherwise the FDA or FTC will step in. Structure-function claims can be easy to spot because, on the label, they must be accompanied with the disclaimer "This statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease."

Manufacturers who plan to use a structure-function claim on a particular product must inform the FDA of the use of the claim no later than thirty days after the product is first marketed. While the manufacturer must be able to substantiate its claim, it does not have to share the substantiation with the FDA or make it publicly available. If the submitted claims promote the products as drugs instead of supplements, the FDA can advise the manufacturer to change or delete the claim.

The Goal of This Book

Obviously the current situation regarding label claims and intended uses of natural products is less than ideal. There is a tremendous gap between the usefulness, safety, and effectiveness of many products and what the manufacturer is able to tell consumers. My goal in this book is to set the record straight on the value of virtually every natural product on the marketplace. As a person who has dedicated his life to understanding how these products work, both in my clinical practice and through my ongoing involvement in the natural products industry, I know firsthand the relative merits of a particular natural product compared to conventional drugs, and also how it compares to other natural products.

I am such a strong advocate of responsible self-care with natural products because I know they can make a huge difference in the quality of life of people who take them. I want to see the natural health movement flourish, and I believe the best way that I can contribute to this movement is for people to get real, positive results when they use natural products. I believe in the healing power of nature and natural products, but that power is available only if you use the right product for the right indication at the right dosage. All of the information in this book is meant to ensure that you have a good experience with natural medicine.

This book does not tell you which brand of a particular product to buy. Branded products are profiled individually only when they represent a special formulation or combination of substances. Other brand names are mentioned within the profiles when a brand has a substantial amount of original scientific research behind it or has established a dominant position through marketing and/or unique features. Compared to over-the-counter and prescription drugs, there are relatively few unique branded products within the natural products category. This constitutes one of the key differences between the pharmaceutical world and the natural products industry. Drug companies invest huge sums of money to create the required research support for their products. (It is estimated that achieving FDA approval for a new drug costs in excess of $300 million.) They spend even more money marketing their brand names. They can afford to make the investment because they have been granted patent protection for their product-exclusive rights to manufacture and sell it for a given number of years. Only after the patent has expired are generic versions made available, usually at much lower prices. However, a natural compound per se cannot be patented. Extraction or manufacturing techniques, and sometimes the use of a natural product for a specific application, may be patented, but not a naturally occurring plant, vitamin, or mineral.

Because of the lack of patent protection, when a particular manufacturer does invest in clinical research on a natural substance, it is often co-opted by other manufacturers to promote the sale of their knockoff product - which may or may not be identical to what was used in the study. In the supplement industry this is referred to as "borrowed science." For example, let's take one of the most popular natural products in North America, glucosamine sulfate. All of the clinical research on glucosamine sulfate was conducted using a compound developed by Rotta Pharmaceuticals of Milan, Italy. The Rotta product is available in the United States, but it is priced substantially higher than generic glucosamine sulfate.

Most physicians and pharmacists allow for generic substitutions for branded prescription drugs because a generic drug is legally required to contain the same level of the active ingredient as the branded drug. Theoretically, the same should be true for natural products, but quality control standards are still a problem within the natural products industry. For example, in December 1999 and January 2000 ConsumerLab.com purchased a total of twenty-five brands of glucosamine, chondroitin, and combined glucosamine/chondroitin products. These products were then tested to determine whether they contained the amounts of glucosamine and/or chondroitin stated on the label. Nearly one-third of the products tested did not pass.

Although I do not recommend particular brands, I can offer you a rule of thumb in making your purchases: Buy from respected manufacturers that employ good manufacturing practices (GMP). A manufacturer that follows FDA (or HPB in Canada) guidelines for GMP for a drug manufacturing facility is the most likely to have a higher-quality product. In general, if one product is substantially cheaper than a seemingly identical product, buy the more expensive one. With nutritional and herbal products (as with many other things), you get what you pay for. Companies that follow appropriate GMP and have their own quality control laboratory will have higher overhead than manufacturers who do not follow GMP; as a result, they will have to charge more for their product.

In an effort to establish quality control standards for the supplement industry, the National Nutritional Foods Association (see www.nnfa.org) - the largest trade association in the natural products industry - is in the process of developing its own set of standards for GMP. The NNFA program currently in place, the TruLabel program, has been extremely successful. Members of the NNFA who manufacture dietary supplements and herbs under their own label are required to be members of NNFA's TruLabel program. More than seventeen thousand product labels are currently registered as part of the TruLabel program, the industry's most expansive and successful self-regulatory program. Since 1990, NNFA's TruLabel program has garnered national and international respect by promoting quality assurance, safety, and guideline compliance to dietary supplement suppliers.

Responsible Self-Care

With the use of natural products for self-care comes personal responsibility. Here are some important points to consider:

• Although this book discusses the use of natural products for numerous health conditions, it is not intended as a substitute for appropriate medical care.

• If you wish to try a nutritional supplement or herbal product as a therapeutic measure, discuss it with your physician first, especially if you are taking any prescription medication. Doing so can help avoid potential side effects and adverse interactions.

• Do not self-diagnose. Proper medical care is critical to good health. If you have symptoms that suggest an illness described in this book, please consult a physician or health care provider immediately.

• If you are currently taking a prescription medication, you absolutely must work with your doctor before discontinuing any drug or altering any drug regimen.

• Make sure your physician and pharmacist are aware of all the nutritional supplements or herbal products you are currently taking.

• Many nutritional supplements and herbal products are effective on their own, but they work best when they are used as part of a comprehensive natural approach to health that incorporates diet and lifestyle factors.

Michael T. Murray, N.D.

Excerpted from
Between Heaven and Earth; A Guide to Chinese Medicine
By Harriet Beinfield, Efrem Korn

Different people have different patterns of conflict that reflect their constitutional dynamics. Key problems often arise between the Five Phases along the fee sequence-this refers to distorted interactions occurring between the Lung-Liver, Liver-Spleen, Spleen-Kidney, Kidney-Heart, and Heart-Lung. Since we define problems within the context of these relationships, we designed constitutional remedies called "harmonizing formulas" to reconcile these primary conflicts.

In the healthy individual, the role and function of the Organ Networks are complementary-that is, they balance each other and maintain the necessary tension that keeps us active and alive. However, if tension develops into friction, what was complementary becomes antagonistic. Heart (Fire) and Kidney (Water) should complement each other so that warmth (Yang) and moisture (Yin) are evenly distributed throughout the body. If friction or conflict ensues, warmth will turn to Heat in the upper regions, leading to Dryness and thirst, and Moisture will accumulate below, leading to Dampness or Cold in the lower regions. Reorganizing these patterns of conflict is the purpose of the harmonizing formulas, the usefulness of which is clearer after having read the typology section of this book, which elaborates upon the psychological and physiological manifestations of Organ Network disharmonies.

Metal-Wood. Lung Liver

To harmonize Lung-Liver is to reconcile Metal and Wood. This is accomplished by tonifying Blood and Moisture, dispersing Blood and Qi, and purging Heat and Wind. This formula contains bupleurum, white peony, and cyperus, which keep the Liver cool, relaxed, and decongested. These same herbs relieve spasm of blood vessels, nerves, and muscles, especially in the diaphragm, and fullness or pain of the liver and gallbladder. Chrysanthemum and Morus resolve inflammation and congestion of the upper-respiratory tract and eyes; and platycodon, fritillary, and licorice soothe and moisturize the Lungs and eliminate phlegm.

Wood-Earth: Liver-Spleen

This formula harmonizes Liver-Spleen and makes peace between Wood and Earth. The herbs used here regulate digestion, blood circulation, and the distribution of Nutritive Essence, the source of Qi and Blood. The herbs bupleurum, peony, and angelica relax Liver Qi and nurture and distribute Blood. Ripe citrus and saussurea warm and activate the Spleen and Stomach, promote digestion, and relieve accumulated Moisture. Peppermint and licorice dispel Wind and Heat and counteract spasm and tension. This formula adjusts and subdues the appetite and corrects indigestion associated with gas, acidity, and queasiness. It also relieves constipation due to tension in the abdomen and allays the irritability, bloating, and lethargy of premenstrual distress.

Earth-Water Spleen-Kidney

The formula to harmonize Spleen-Kidney stabilizes Earth and Water. By redistributing Moisture and promoting circulation of Qi and Blood, the herbs in this formula help to overcome stiffness, swelling, and inertia. Poria, atractylodes, and ripe citrus rid the Spleen of Dampness and circulate Qi, while alisma and cinnamon remove surplus fluids (Moisture and Blood) from cavities, joints, and tissue. Astragalus and curyales support the Qi of both Spleen and Kidney and protect them from being overly drained. This formula relieves dryness of skin and mouth, soreness of the joints, puffiness of the face, hands, and feet, the feeling of heaviness in the head and limbs, diarrhea, and difficult urination.

Water-Fire: Kidney-Heart

To harmonize Kidney-Heart a formula must reunite Essence (Jing) and Spirit (Shen), Wafer and Fire. Cooked rehmannia and schizandra nurture and consolidate Essence, Blood, and Moisture, while salvia and polygala soothe the Spirit and vitalize the Blood. As assisting herbs anemarrhena protects Yin by supplementing Moisture and clearing Heat, while motherwort and cardamom respectively encourage the downward flow of Blood and stabilize and warm the Qi. This rectifies the lack of concordance between Heart and Kidney that results in problems like insomnia, sexual and emotional anxiety, excessive perspiration and nervousness, lumbar weakness, fatigue, and intense mood swings.

Fire-Metal Heart-Lung

The Heart-Lung harmonizing formula soothes and cools the friction that antagonizes Fire and Metal, calming the mind and freeing the breath. Lily bulb, trichosanthes fruit, and licorice lubricate and moisturize the Lungs, skin, eyes, nose, throat, and intestines. Ganoderma, polygala, and schizandra quiet the psyche, settle the nerves, nurture the Blood, stabilize the Qi, and regulate perspiration. To give support, ripe citrus, platycodon, and pinellia mobilize and disperse Qi and phlegm from the chest and throat, reducing congestion, constriction, and pain. This formula eases mental stress, adjusts body temperature by adjusting perspiration and respiration, stops coughing, aids expectoration, and quenches thirst. It also relieves dryness and inflammation of the skin, throat, bronchi, and intestines.

Excerpted from
Perfect Health; The Complete Mind, Body Guide
By Deepak Chopra, M.D.

A Place Called Perfect Health

Remarkable transformations have occurred in the world since I wrote the first edition of Perfect Health almost a decade ago. Ten years ago the ideas that there was more to health than the absence of disease, that natural approaches could enliven our intrinsic healing system, and that the human body was a network of energy and information rather than a frozen anatomical structure seemed radical. And yet today we see that these concepts have become woven into the very fabric of our modern view of health and sickness, and of life and death. A recent report in the journal of the American Medical Association found that over 40 percent of Americans are now regularly accessing unconventional medical care that goes beyond a materialistic view of the human body. More than two in three medical schools have introduced courses on alternative and complementary medicine to their students. And, recognizing that patients are demanding greater choice and access, increasing numbers of insurance companies and health maintenance organizations are covering the costs of holistic medical care.

The scientific community has shifted from outright rejection and ridicule of alternative healing approaches to serious investigation. If you access the National Library of Medicine's database, you will find over forty thousand articles on alternative and complementary medicine with over sixteen hundred on herbal medicines alone. Meditation, yoga, massage, and nutritional approaches are increasingly embraced as mainstream tools for healing. St. John's wort, ginkgo biloba, and echinacea have become household words, with almost every pharmacy in America carrying its own line of natural medicines. Through the proliferation of journals, books, and the Internet, people have unprecedented access to information on health, and are taking increasing responsibility for their own well-being. Although this may be threatening to the established medical community, I see the trend toward increasing self-awareness and empowerment as a sign of expanding personal and collective health.

At the Chopra Center for Well Being in beautiful La Jolla, California, we have created a healing environment to directly explore the power of Ayurveda and mind body medicine. We have developed courses applying the principles and practices of holistic medicine to the most common health concerns. Our Magical Beginnings program provides information and inspiration for pregnant couples to nurture their unborn children as incubating gods and goddesses in embryo. We have certified birth educators around the world teaching this program, which will help create a new generation of healthy, conscious beings.

Mind body educators on every continent in the world have been trained at the Chopra Center to teach Creating Health, our premier course on mind body medicine and Ayurveda. More than five hundred people have been certified worldwide as instructors in Primordial Sound Meditation, our stress-relieving program that enables people to directly experience their inner field of energy and creativity. Return to Wholeness, our course for people facing cancer, has had a transformational effect on those dealing with this challenging illness. Programs for people with chronic fatigue, women transitioning through menopause, and those struggling to lose weight have helped thousands to realize their intrinsic potential to consciously transform their lives. Over the past decade I have repeatedly seen the profound effect that the approaches described in Perfect Health have on people's lives.

It has been very gratifying to witness the changes occurring in world consciousness. We are in the midst of a revolution that will forever change the way we view the world and ourselves. The timeless wisdom tradition of Ayurveda and the most advanced theories of modern physics both point to a deeper reality that encourages us to see the universe as an eternal, infinite field of potentiality that we can access for healing and transformation. This is the core message of Perfect Health.

This updated version contains some significant changes. I have introduced new healing techniques that we have found useful with patients at the Chopra Center. Guided visualizations and meditations are presented that can provide the direct experience of more expanded awareness, the key to changing your perception of your body. I offer subtle mind body approaches to consciously connect with your cells, tissues, and organs. Learning to influence so-called "autonomic" functions is important in creating and maintaining perfect health. I have updated the sections on nutrition and herbal medicines, with an emphasis on a wholesome, balanced diet.

These days, in the rush to ensure health with nutritional supplements, it is important not to overlook the basic health-promoting value of a balanced nutritional program. The Ayurvedic diet promoted in Perfect Health is characterized by its simplicity, elegance, and sumptuousness. I have introduced new, updated references, which draw from the growing body of scientific research on mind body interactions in health and sickness. It is very fulfilling to see objective documentation of health principles and practices that go back thousands of years. Expanded ways to nourish your body through the five senses are explored that use healing sound, touch, sight, taste, and smell to awaken the body's inner pharmacy. Understanding that the environment is our extended body, I have introduced fun exercises to enliven the connection between our inner and outer worlds. Overall, this edition of Perfect Health is designed to be practical, accessible, and very user-friendly.

In my continuing exploration of healing, I am totally convinced that true health is much more than the absence of an abnormal laboratory finding; it is even more than optimal mind body integration. Health in its essence is a higher state of consciousness. For thousands of years the great Vedic seers have proclaimed that the purpose of attending to the body is to support the state of being known as enlightenment. In this state our internal reference point shifts from the ego to spirit, and we recognize that the knower, the process of knowing, and that which is known are one and the same. The boundaries of time and space become fluid as we remember ourselves as unbounded beings temporarily masquerading as individuals. This state of wholeness is the basis of all healing. This is the state of perfect health. I am grateful for the opportunity to escort you to this place that is very near to where you currently reside.

By Margarita Nahapetyan

A new evidence has demonstrated that exercise and electro-acupuncture treatment can reduce sympathetic nerve activity in women with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS).

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is one of the most common endocrine disorders, that affects an estimated 10 per cent of women of reproductive age. Among the problems that are linked to the condition are increased levels of androgens (including testosterone, the 'male' hormone that can be found in both sexes), ovarian cysts, irregular menstrual cycles and infertility. PCOS is also associated with higher sympathetic nerve activity in the blood vessels, part of the 'fight or flight' response that leads to constriction of blood vessels. Chronic activation of the sympathetic nervous system can be a risk for developing diabetes, high blood pressure, heart attack and stroke.

The new study by the investigators at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, involved 20 female participants with an average age of 30 years. All women were randomly split into three groups, with 2 groups receiving either low-frequency electro-acupuncture treatment or exercise therapy, and the third group acted as untreated control group during the 4-month-long experiment.

The women in the electro-acupuncture group received fourteen treatments with needles placed in abdominal muscles and back side of the knee and stimulated with low-frequency electrical charge, which was enough just to cause muscle contraction, but not actual pain. The participants in the exercise group were instructed to take up brisk walking, cycling or perform any other aerobic exercise for at least half an hour on a daily basis. They were provided with pulse meters and were asked to maintain a pulse frequency rate above 120 for the 30-45 minute duration.

As to women in the control group, all of them received information about the importance of physical activity and a healthy diet, the same information the other two groups received, but were not specifically instructed to do anything differently. The investigators measured the muscle sympathetic nerve activity at the start of the study and after the 16-week period.

Following treatment, the results revealed the following:

• The participants in both, the acupuncture and exercise groups demonstrated significantly reduced muscle sympathetic nerve activity, when compared to the participants in the control group.

• Women in the acupuncture group showed a drop in waist circumference, but not a reduction in body mass index (BMI) or weight.

• The participants in the exercise group experienced a drop in weight and body mass index but not in waist size.

• Women in the acupuncture group had fewer menstrual irregularities but the exercise group did not experience any effect on the irregular menstrual cycles.

• The electro-acupuncture treatments were associated with reduced testosterone levels. This is an important finding because the strongest independent predictor of high sympathetic nerve activity in women is the level of testosterone.

This is the first study to show that repeated low-frequency electro-acupuncture and physical exercise can bring down high sympathetic nerve activity seen in women with PCOS, wrote the study authors. "Furthermore, both therapies decreased measures of obesity while only low-frequency electro-acupuncture improved menstrual bleeding pattern." The researchers said that their study has some limitations, such as a small number of participants, and that is why further research is necessary in order to support the new findings.

The study was published in June 2009 issue of the American Journal of Physiology-Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology.

By Margarita Nahapetyan

It turns out that acupuncture can be very helpful when it comes to relieving indigestion and heartburn, the symptoms that bother many women throughout their pregnancy, says a new study from Brazilian experts.

Indigestion is quite common during pregnancy, with 45 to 80 per cent of future mothers experiencing discomfort with stomach pain, heartburn, reflux, belching and bloating. Symptoms tend to get worse by the third trimester, and women who do not want to take medication not to harm the development of the fetus, have now an opportunity to use an alternative treatment.

For the study purposes, the investigators involved 42 women with the ages between 15 and 39 years who were between 15 and 30 weeks into their pregnancy. All the women reported symptoms of indigestion and none of them had had acupuncture in the previous year. Also, none of the women had an underlying condition that could have triggered the symptoms, and none reported a history of similar problems before they became pregnant.

Researchers randomly assigned all moms-to-be with indigestion into two groups: one group was receiving conventional treatment - counseling on dietary changes with antacids (indigestion remedies); and ladies in the other group received dietary counseling and antacids plus acupuncture once or twice on a weekly basis. During the acupuncture procedure, on average, twelve needles were used and were left in the body for about 25 minutes per session. The experts assessed the women's symptoms at the beginning of the study and every 2 weeks after that for the period of 2 months.

The results revealed that heartburn, the symptom that caused the most discomfort in pregnant women, was reduced by half in 75 per cent of the study participants who had been assigned to the acupuncture therapy. Women receiving acupuncture also showed improvement in their appetite and sleep, said a principal investigator, Dr. Joao Bosco Guerreiro da Silva, from the department of internal medicine at Rio Preto Medical College.

Twenty of women who received acupuncture treatment and completed the study said that their symptoms got milder and much more tolerable and reported taking less medication, compared to the 16 ladies who received conventional therapy, the experts found. Fewer than half the women who underwent traditional treatment said that their heartburn was halved.

The study found that among the 14 women who were taking medication for indigestion, seven in each group, those who underwent the acupuncture therapy took 6.3 fewer doses, whereas those who received conventional treatment increased the amount of medication they took by 4.4 doses. In addition, 15 women in the acupuncture group reported that their eating habits improved by 50 per cent, compared with less than one out of 3 in the other group. Fourteen future moms who received acupuncture said that their sleep had improved by 50 per cent, when compared with just one out of 4 women in a conventional therapy group.

According to Dr. da Silva, regardless of its small size, the study demonstrates that acupuncture can relieve symptoms of indigestion that are pretty common in pregnancy and can lead to loss of life quality in the final months of pregnancy, interfering not only with eating habits, but as well with a woman's sleep.

The research was carried out involving a small group of pregnant women, and the investigators acknowledge that further studies on larger numbers are needed in order to confirm their new findings. "Acupuncture is simple to apply and if used in an appropriate manner, can reduce the need for medication," they concluded.

The findings are published in the June issue of the Acupuncture in Medicine journal.

By Margarita Nahapetyan

Taking antioxidant vitamins C and E may reduce some of the most important beneficial effects of exercise, says a new study by German scientists, who found that taking these vitamins after a workout appears to prevent physical exercise from improving the body's energy regulation.

Dr. Michael Ristow, of the University of Jena, and his colleagues have shown that antioxidant supplements like vitamin C or E can interfere with the benefits of exercising. Also, according to some previous studies, taking antioxidants may expedite lethal outcome through an unknown mechanism. The experts say that one possible reason of such negative reaction could be that the free radicals might be used by the body in order to prevent cellular damage after exercise.

To come up with this conclusion, Dr. Ristow and his team recruited 40 volunteers with the ages between 25 and 27 years. Twenty participants were previously trained and another twenty were previously untrained. The participants were randomly assigned into two groups - half were asked to take 1000 milligrams of C vitamin and 400 IU of E vitamin on a daily basis, which is an equivalent to the amounts in some vitamin supplements. The participants were also asked to workout for 85 minutes every day, 5 days a week, for a period of one month. The investigators examined insulin sensitivity in all young men before and after 4 weeks of workout.

The investigators found that those volunteers who took vitamin C and E supplements showed no improvement in insulin sensitivity as well as in changes of their free radical levels, while those participants who did not take these antioxidant vitamins showed increased levels of free radical oxidative stress. After a month of intensive exercise training, insulin sensitivity was restored only in the group of men who did not take vitamin supplements. Participants who took the vitamin supplements fared worse, metabolically. Previous training had no effect, according to the researchers.

Previous research has shown the evidence according to which antioxidants protect cells against the damage caused by free radicals, therefore putting off the process of aging and diminishing the risk of certain diseases such as cancer, for example. German scientists, in turn, found that these free radicals are good for people as they protect the body against diabetes by increasing sensitivity to insulin. In the conclusion the investigators said that free radicals are hazardous in excess or if allowed to persist for a long period of time. But short term doses of these compounds act like a vaccine, they said, helping the body to increase its defenses against chronic stressors.

The study is published online May 11 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal.

By Margarita Nahapetyan

The U.S largest scientific study of back pain and acupuncture found that acupuncture can relieve chronic low-back pain much more efficiently than customer medical treatment than involves medication and physical therapy. The study also found that the toothpick method, which involved no piercing of skin, was just as effective as needle insertion.

Several studies have indicated that simulated acupuncture or shallow needling on parts of the body that are not considered key acupuncture points appears to be as effective as acupuncture that penetrates the skin. For many patients, this benefit lasted for a year, the team of scientists of Group Health Center for Health Studies in Seattle reported Monday in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine. "Our study shows that you do not need to stick needles into people to get the same effect," said Dr. Daniel Cherkin, a lead investigator of the study. Researchers explained that historically, some types of acupuncture have been using needles that did not penetrate the skin. Such treatments may involve physiological effects that make a clinical difference.

For the purposes of the new, large and very carefully controlled study, the team of experts involved 638 back pain sufferers and randomly assigned them into several different groups. The first group of 158 patients received seven weeks of standardized acupuncture course which is known to be effective in treatment of back pain. The second group of 157 participants received an individually prescribed 10 acupuncture treatments. A third group of 162 patients was treated using 10 sessions of a simulated acupuncture that involved mimicking needle insertions using toothpicks hidden in guide tubes that did not pierce the skin as regular acupuncture does, but targeting the correct acupuncture "points." 161 patients in the fourth group just got regular medical treatment, which included medication and physical therapy.

The treatment lasted for three weeks twice per week and then once on weekly basis for a period of one month. At intervals of 8 weeks, 6 months and one year, the investigators analyzed the symptoms of back pain and their effect on patients' quality of life. Eight weeks later, 60 per cent of the patients who received any type of acupuncture reported clinically meaningful improvement in their ability level to function, when compared with 39 per cent of those who got just regular medical care. At the one-year point, between 59 and 65 per cent of patients who received the acupuncture treatment, experienced an improvement, compared with 50 per cent of individuals in the standard care group. However, the placebo "toothpick" treatment turned out to be just as good at combating back pain as real acupuncture.

Dr. Cherkin said that the experiment helped the scientists realize that "fake," simulated acupuncture, without penetrating the skin, produced as much benefit as needle acupuncture, and this is the factor that raises questions about how acupuncture works. A physical process that is not known yet may take place here, but another possible explanation could be a "mind-over-body" effect, the expert suggested. Dr. Cherkin added that the investigators have no proven facts so far which could indicate why individuals had back pain relief from the simulated acupuncture. "Maybe the context in which people get treatment has effects that are more important than the mechanically induced effects," he concluded.

By Margarita Nahapetyan

Nowadays in the United States millions of Americans offer prayers on a daily basis to heal themselves, their families, friends, colleagues and even people they briefly know, considering it as the most common complement to medicine, vitamins, herbs, acupuncture and other healing remedies. Prayers are offered everywhere - in churches, mosques, ashrams, "healing rooms," and prayer groups. Surveys have found that perhaps half of Americans regularly pray for their own health, and at least a quarter have others pray for them.

"Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism -- every religion believes in prayer for healing," said Paul Parker, a professor of theology and religion at Elmhurst College, Chicago. "Some call it prayer, some call it cleansing the mind. The words or posture may vary. But in times of illness, all religions look towards their source of authority."

Few years ago a small group of researchers tried to test scientifically the power of prayer to heal people. The results turned out to be highly controversial. Skeptics called the research a "complete waste of money" in its attempt to put together the supernatural with science. And some believers said that it is useless even to try to divine the workings of God with experiments invented by mortals.

Proponents, however, pointed that the research was valuable, and showed large numbers of people who believe in the power of prayer to improve health. "It's one of the most prevalent forms of healing. Open-minded scientists have a responsibility to look into this," explained Marilyn J. Schlitz of the California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco.

Many scientific studies demonstrate that devout individuals are physically healthier and live much longer. Churches, synagogues and mosques may help people take better care of themselves. For example, the quiet meditation and incantations of praying helps individuals to lower blood pressure and incidence of stroke and heart disease. Regarding mental health, believers tend to have lower rates of depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and suicide. Religion can promote health by discouraging unhealthy behaviors, such as alcohol and drug use, smoking, and high-risk sex, and providing social support and a sense of life to those in need.

Therefore, prayer is making a medical comeback. From 94 per cent of Americans who believe in God, or a higher power, 75 per cent of patients , for example, would prefer if their physician addressed spiritual issues as part of a medical treatment. In addition, 40 per cent of patients would like their physicians to actively discuss religious issues with them, and about 50 per cent percent want their physicians to pray not just for them but together with them. In a growing trend, 43 percent of American physicians privately pray for their patients.

Praying for the sick is one of the most common prayer topics for many people today, no matter what religion they belong to, but some people are confused not knowing exactly as to how to pray for those who are sick, and worry that their prayers may not appear to be heard and answered.

To start with, it is always good to be persistent in praying for the recovery and healing of someone who is close to you, and who you deeply care for. Even when it seems that prayer is the only hope that is left, do not give up on praying. Also, it is good to keep in mind that when someone is close to death and suffers too much, the healing prayer can turn into a prayer for peace and a merciful end to the suffering and pain. This is a reflection of a very deep heartfelt concern for the sick person.

It is always better to be specific, and to pray for the variety of issues connected only with the ill person. You may not only want to pray for the healing of the particular disease, but for the sick person's inner strength to be able to handle and cope with their condition, for a quality of rest or sleep which would help the recovery, for concerns that are causing anxiety, for the rest of the family and so on.

Human experience suggests that most of healing and cure happens through the medical interference, but this should deny neither the hand of God in it, nor the corresponding influence that prayer can have in medical healing. God has given certain skills to people, and has equipped the human mind with the creativity to discover and realize more about ourselves and how to take care of our lives.

By Margarita Nahapetyan

Acupuncture has been a major part of primary health care in China for the last 5,000 years. The general theory of acupuncture is based on the premise that there are patterns of energy flow Qi through the body that are essential for health. Qi is believed to flow through channels, called also meridians, in a body. These meridians and the energy flow are accessible through more than 350 acupuncture locations. Interruptions of this flow are considered to be responsible for illness. And by inserting needles into these points in various combinations, acupuncture practitioners believe that your energy flow will re-balance.

On the contrary, the Western explanation of acupuncture combines modern concepts of neuroscience. Many practitioners see the acupuncture points as places to stimulate nerves, muscles and connective tissue. This stimulation appears to widen the activity of your body's natural painkillers and increase blood flow.

Acupuncture literally is translated as 'needle piercing,' the practice of inserting extremely thin needles into the skin to stimulate specific anatomic locations on or in the skin (known as acupoints, or acupuncture points) for medical purposes. Together with the usual method of puncturing the skin with the fine needles, the practitioners of acupuncture also use a variety of techniques, such as heat, pressure, friction, suction, or impulses of electromagnetic energy to stimulate the locations.

Although scientists do not completely understand how or why acupuncture works, some studies show that it provides a number of medical benefits. It is being practiced extensively for different medical purposes ranging from the prevention and treatment of disease, to relieving pain and anesthetizing patients for surgery. Like in most oriental medicine practices, acupuncture emphasizes on prevention. In traditional Chinese medicine, the highest form of acupuncture is given to enable people to live a long and healthy life.

Acupuncture is best known for the control of pain. However, acupuncture can treat a wide variety of common and uncommon disorders. According to the World Health Organization data, conditions that can be treated by acupuncture include arthritis, bursitis, headache, AIDS, Bell's palsy, bladder and kidney problems, breast enlargement, bronchitis, colds, constipation, diarrhea, dizziness, epilepsy, fertility problems, fibromyalgia, flu, gynecologic disorders, high blood pressure, hot flushes, migraines, nausea, nocturnal enuresis (bed wetting), paralysis, post traumatic stress disorder, sciatica, sexual dysfunction, sinus problems, athletic injuries, and post traumatic and post surgical pain. It is also used for treating chronic pain associated with immune system dysfunction such as psoriasis (skin disorders), allergies, and asthma. Acupuncture is also known to be very effective for the treatment of mind and body disorders, such as anxiety, chronic fatigue, irritable bowel syndrome, hypertension, insomnia, PMS, menopausal symptoms, and depression. Some modern application of acupuncture is in the treatment of disorders such as alcoholism, drug addiction (cocaine and heroine), smoking, and just about anything else that might bother a human being.

As with most medical therapies, acupuncture has both benefits and risks. Remember, that acupuncture is safe when performed properly. It has very few side effects, and it can be useful as an addition to other treatment methods. Also, acupuncture helps control certain types of pain, and what is very good to know - it can be used as an alternative option if your organism does not accept, or you simply don't want to take a regular prescription medicine.

However, acupuncture may not be safe if you have a bleeding disorder or if you are using blood thinners. The most common side effects of acupuncture are soreness, bleeding or bruising at the needle spots. Rarely, but a needle may break or an internal organ might be injured. The most common serious injury reported from the needles of acupuncture has been accidental puncture of the lung. Other side effects include local bacterial infections at the site of needle insertion in the skin. But these risks are very low if you are in the hands of a competent and trained acupuncture practitioner.

Acupuncture seems to be useful as a stand-alone treatment for some conditions, but it is also being used more and more in combination with more conventional Western medical treatments. Lots of medical practitioners these days combine acupuncture and prescription drugs to help, for example, control pain and nausea after surgery and in post-operative dental plan.

Today acupuncture, in one form or another, is practiced in many countries, both developed and developing, by thousands of acupuncturists on millions of people and their animals. To really understand how acupuncture works, it is necessary to get acquainted and understand the basics of Chinese philosophy. The philosophies of the Dao or Tao, yin and yang, the eight principles, the three treasures and the five elements are all fundamental to traditional Chinese acupuncture and its main goal to help people maintain their well-being and good health.

Excerpted from
Hormones, Health, and Happiness: A Natural Medical Formula for Rediscovering Youth with Bioidentical Hormones
By Steven F. Hotze, M.D.

When thirty-two-year-old Maggie came to see me, she was experiencing a host of medical problems that had arisen after the birth of her first child two years prior. Her menstrual cycles had become irregular, with her periods occurring as frequently as one to three weeks apart, lasting as long as seventeen days, and being accompanied by severe cramps. She also experienced bouts of severe abdominal bloating, cramping, and constipation.

In the previous year, she had experienced four sinus infections and was plagued by recurrent sinus headaches. Although she had no history of allergies, she was now having wheezing attacks and allergic reactions to perfumes, hair sprays, smoke, and a variety of chemical fumes.

On top of all this, Maggie suffered from severe depression and fatigue. She complained that she was in a "brain fog" much of the time.

Maggie had sought the care of a number of physicians in her hometown of St. Louis, Missouri. She had been given antibiotics for her sinus infections, which had made her abdominal bloating worse, and antidepressants for her mood problems, which had provided no relief. When a friend of hers, who was a patient at the Hotze Health & Wellness Center, told her there was a natural alternative treatment for her problems, Maggie flew to Houston for an evaluation.

After telling me of her numerous problems, Maggie asked, "Dr. Hotze, am I a hypochondriac?"

Why Doctors Don't Understand Women

The physicians Maggie consulted made her feel as if her problems were all in her head. As you will see, they were wrong. Although their attitudes toward Maggie's complaints were condescending, they were not surprising. If their medical education was anything like mine, then a callous disregard for women's health problems was virtually guaranteed. Let me explain.

During my first semester of medical school, I took a class called History and Physical Diagnosis. This is a basic course in which medical students learn to interview a patient, identify the chief complaint or symptom, and then perform a review of the systems (digestive, respiratory, cardiovascular, musculoskeletal, and so on), asking about other symptoms the patient might be having.

The professor teaching this course instructed us that if a woman in midlife had more than one complaint during the review of systems, then she was a hypochondriac and should be placed on an antidepressant.

Now, imagine this. The class was overwhelmingly comprised of young men in their early twenties. Every man in that room had already experienced numerous problems with a girlfriend or spouse. Now they knew why. The professor was asserting that women were emotionally unstable individuals, so much so that they often needed antidepressants to make them tolerable. This was a small seed that was sown in the minds of all those young would-be doctors. It was a seed that would sprout years later when they finally began their own medical practices. The first time they had to interview a middle-aged female patient, she would typically describe a long list of complaints. Voila, they would think. The professor had been right about women. And of course they knew exactly what to do: prescribe an antidepressant.

What a sad commentary this is. The vast majority of women who have come to me for evaluations are already taking antidepressants, which are one of the most widely prescribed classes of drugs today. Now you know why.

Maggie's Story: "I Feel Like I'm Falling Apart"

When Maggie and I sat down for our first meeting, I asked her how she was feeling.

"I feel like I'm falling apart," she said. "I expected motherhood to be a time of enjoyment and excitement, but instead I feel sad and cry all the time. It's difficult for me to sleep, and I never feel fully rested. I can't focus, I have no desire for sex, and I'm not the mother or the wife I want to be."

"How has this affected your relationship with your husband?" I asked.

"He doesn't understand what is going on with me. At first he tried to be supportive but then he became totally exasperated. So I did what most women do. I went to see my doctor."

I asked Maggie what her doctor had done to help her.

"My doctor said that I was depressed and sent me to a psychiatrist, who put me on antidepressants. They both made me feel like I was a hypochondriac. When the antidepressants didn't work, I was scared they might be right. But deep down, I know I'm not crazy and that something isn't right in my body. I can't imagine living this way the rest of my life."

I reassured Maggie that she didn't have to live this way. I told her that there was a simple explanation for her symptoms and a simple solution to her health problems.

Estrogen Dominance after Pregnancy

Maggie's condition can be traced back to estrogen dominance, which can occur after pregnancy. During pregnancy, the baby's placenta produces high levels of progesterone-ten to twenty times higher than a woman normally produces. When the baby is delivered and the placenta expelled, there is a precipitous drop in progesterone levels. Estrogen levels also rise significantly during pregnancy. After childbirth, unless the ovaries can produce adequate amounts of progesterone to balance the estrogen, the condition known as estrogen dominance will occur.

Childbirth is not the only cause of estrogen dominance. It can also occur at puberty, after discontinuing birth control pills, after tubal ligation or hysterectomy, or simply as a woman moves through her menstrual life. Imbalances in the levels of estrogen and progesterone are inevitable for women in their thirties, forties, and beyond. Regardless of the cause of these imbalances, the health problems that arise are often severe and debilitating. For Maggie, the dramatic change in her hormonal balance following the birth of her child stressed her adrenal glands, altered her thyroid function, and triggered her allergic disorders.

Maggie's Treatment Program

I reassured Maggie that her symptoms were common to women in her age group and could be easily treated. We started by addressing the imbalance in her female hormone levels. Since Maggie was producing adequate estrogen, boosting her progesterone levels would be the key to restoring proper hormonal balance. This could be accomplished safely with a natural, biologically identical progesterone supplement to be taken on days fifteen through twenty-eight of her menstrual cycle.

Maggie's history indicated that she was suffering from low thyroid function, so I prescribed Armour Thyroid, a natural thyroid hormone, to correct this deficit. Because Maggie's hormonal imbalance had stressed her adrenal glands, I also advised her to take a small dose of the natural adrenal hormone Cortisol.

Maggie's recurrent sinus infections are a classic feature of allergies. Skin testing enabled me to determine the level at which to start her allergy treatment for common airborne allergies. Rather than giving her a series of shots to desensitize her to allergens, I prescribed sublingual (under-the-tongue) allergy drops. I explained that this innovative approach to the treatment of allergies is safe, convenient, and very effective.

Maggie was weaned off antidepressants, which were replaced with a natural mood-elevating compound, 5-HTP. This molecule is the precursor to serotonin, a neurotransmitter that plays a key role in regulating both mood and sleep. Maggie started a customized program of nutritional supplements and nutritionally balanced eating.

Because Maggie's antibiotic use had contributed to yeast overgrowth and digestive problems, I explained that it was important for her to remain on a yeast-free diet for at least three months to restore health to her digestive tract. She was prescribed medication to kill yeast, along with preparations of Lactobacillus acidophilus to replenish the beneficial bacteria in the colon that are so important to intestinal health.

Maggie responded beautifully to this comprehensive program. Within one month of beginning treatment, her depression and fatigue had resolved and her menstrual cycle had normalized. She was sleeping well and feeling rested upon awakening. Her energy levels were so much better that she even began a daily jogging program.

Two years later, Maggie gave birth to her second child. Because her hormones were balanced, she bounced back quickly and had none of the postpartum problems that she had experienced after her first pregnancy. When she returned to the office recently for follow-up, she told me, "I feel healthy, energetic, and happy. Thank you for giving me back my life."

A Road Map to Recovery

Women like Maggie are seen at the Hotze Health & Wellness Center every day. Many travel from out of state, and most have already been evaluated by several doctors before we see them. They have been prescribed numerous drugs to treat their hormonal imbalances, menstrual irregularities, depression, allergies, infections, and other health problems. Yet despite the fact that they have been given "the best that medicine has to offer," they feel no better than they did before they took the drugs prescribed to them. In fact, they often feel worse.

This is no surprise to me. The simple fact is that, with few exceptions, prescription drugs are not cures; nor are they intended to be. By and large, prescription drugs are designed to relieve symptoms. But just as putting a new coat of paint on a house won't fix a cracked foundation, prescribing a drug to alleviate a patient's symptoms will not restore the patient to good health. It's no wonder many women who come to me tell me they feel like they are falling apart.

In the next chapter, I will tell you more about how and why I stopped practicing drug-based medicine and began to explore safe and effective alternatives to help my patients restore their health. As you will see, I didn't venture off the beaten path without a struggle. After all, I had been inculcated with the belief that practicing medicine was virtually synonymous with prescribing drugs. The truth is, I left mainstream medicine reluctantly and only-after a series of events in my personal and professional life convinced me that there was a better way, a more natural way, to help my patients regain their health and vitality. Once I began to witness the amazing recoveries of my patients as they implemented these natural therapies, there was no turning back.

This book is a road map that will guide you to the path of health and wellness that thousands of my patients have traveled. It is a map that you can use in your own quest for good health, abundant energy, and the joy that comes from living life to the fullest.

Excerpted from
The Complete Book of Ayurvedic Home Remedies
By Vasant Lad, B.A.M.S., M.A.Sc.

The goal of Ayurveda is to maintain the health of a healthy person and heal the illness of a sick person. Part III of this book contains hundreds of suggestions to help you if you have fallen ill. But staying well is far easier than curing an illness, especially once an imbalance has progressed through the later stages of the disease process. That is why prevention is so strongly emphasized in Ayurvedic medicine. In this chapter we will consider some of the fundamental principles and approaches recommended by Ayurveda for remaining healthy

Awareness

The master key to remaining healthy is awareness. If you know your constitution, and you can remain alert to how your mind, body, and emotions respond to the changing conditions in your environment and the numerous facets of your daily life, such as the food you cat, you can make informed choices to maintain good health.

As we saw in chapter 3, the cause is the concealed effect and the effect is the revealed cause, as the seed contains the potential tree and the tree reveals the potency of the seed. To treat the cause is to treat the effect, to prevent it from coming to fruition. If a kapha person always has kapha problems in the spring season, such as hay fever, colds, congestion, sinus headaches, and weight gain, such a person should watch his diet and eliminate kapha-producing food like wheat, watermelon, cucumber, yogurt, cheese, candy, ice cream, and cold drinks. (Ice is not good for a kapha person; it will produce congestive disorders.)

The knowledge of the causes of disease, and the understanding that "like increases like" and "opposites balance," give us all the information we need to maintain or restore our health, simply through conscious attention, moment-to-moment awareness of our behavior.

If I am living consciously, I may observe that after I ate yogurt two weeks ago, I felt congested and a cold developed. Then it cleared up and I was okay for a few days. When yogurt comes my way again, the memory will come up and my body will say, "Hey, last time you ate yogurt, you got sick!" If I bring lively awareness and listen to my body, it will tell me, "I don't want yogurt." To listen to the body's wisdom, the body's intelligence, is to be aware, and this is one of the most effective ways to prevent disease.

Developing an awareness of the potential causes of imbalance, and of one's moment-to-moment state of well-being, is the necessary first step to maintaining health. The second step is taking action.

Taking Action to Modify the Cause

You can't control the weather, but you can dress properly, so that cold winds, or rain, or summer's heat will not aggravate the doshas. Changes in the weather are a potential cause of doshic imbalance. Windy, cold, dry weather will aggravate vata dosha,- hot, sticky weather is sure to provoke pitta,- cold, cloudy, wet weather will increase kapha dosha. Once we have knowledge and understanding, it is time to take action. Put on a hat, a scarf, a warm coat; stay out of direct sunlight. Modify the cause.

Potential causes of illness and imbalance are constantly arising, both within us and on the outside. The weather is changing, our surroundings are changing, our thoughts and feelings are changing, and stressful situations are coming and going. In response to these changes, we have to act skillfully. As the Bhagavad Gita says, "Skill in action is called yoga."

I have to be smart enough to know my previous history and to learn from it. When I cat garbanzos, I get a stomachache, so this time I should not cat them. Or if there is nothing to eat except garbanzos, then I can add cumin powder, ghee, and a little mustard seed, and it will be suitable for me to eat. The garbanzos' dry, light vatagenic effect will be modified by the moist, oily ghee and the warming spices.

A substantial part of the Ayurvedic pharmacy is the Ayurvedic art of cooking. Adding specific seasonings changes the property of food and can cause a "forbidden" food, one that might have provoked imbalance, to become acceptable. Some people, for example, are sensitive to potatoes. Potatoes give them gas and little aches and pains in the muscles and around the joints. But if they peel off the skin and sauté the potato with ghee and a little turmeric, mustard seed, cumin powder, and cilantro, it mitigates the vata-provoking property of the potato and the body can then handle it. One can take action to modify the cause, the body's response will be different, and that particular causative factor will not have an adverse effect.

This principle applies equally well to psychological factors. You may know that watching violent movies upsets you and gives you nightmares. The violent imagery disturbs your doshic balance, provoking anxiety and fear. You have observed this happening to you,- the next time you are confronted with the "opportunity" to subject yourself to a violent movie, you can just say no.

It keeps coming down to the same central issue: consciousness, awareness, finding out, "What is my role in this situation? What do I know? What can I do?"

Excerpted from
Healing Joint Pain Naturally: Safe and Effective Ways to Treat Arthritis, Fibromyalgia, and Other Joint Diseases
By Ellen Hodgson Brown

One reason arthritic damage has been considered inevitable and irreversible may be that most people with arthritis now take NSAIDs and other analgesic drugs for it, and these drugs have been shown to actually impede the body's ability to repair itself. Few studies have looked at the natural course of the disease without the use of analgesics and other drags-few, but there are some. In one study, the researchers followed patients with advanced osteoarthritis who were given no drugs for a full ten years Surprisingly, fourteen of thirty-one hips studied-or nearly half-showed remarkable clinical improvement and recovery of joint space as confirmed by X ray. The difference between patients who recovered and those who did not involved something else besides drags. Evidently, some lifestyle change was involved.

In the 1960s, Dr. Paavo Airola wrote in There Is a Cure for Arthritis that conventional medicine has failed to cure arthritis only because it hasn't yet recognized the disease's cause. Dr. Airola was a leading proponent of the naturopathic approach to healing. Naturopathic medicine is an alternative system involving a number of different modalities, including clinical nutrition, acupuncture, herbal medicine, homeopathy, and manual manipulation. What they have in common is that rather than suppress natural functions, they work to support the body's own efforts at cure. The first step in this endeavor is to understand what the body is trying to do.

Tracking the Cause of Osteoarthritis OA

Osteoarthritis (OA) is conventionally attributed to the inevitable wear and tear that comes with age. When the cartilage cushion that keeps the ends of the bones from rubbing together deteriorates to the point where the bones grate against each other, inflammation of the joint occurs. Formation of the bony roughness known as osteoarthritis follows.

In "secondary" osteoarthritis, damage can be traced to an old injury, old fracture, tissue damage from disease, overuse of drugs injected into the joint, or occupational overuse. In overweight people, arthritis in the knees is traced to the extra burden their weight puts on those joints. Secondary arthritis can develop from a single traumatic injury experienced in youth, or from a less traumatic but sustained stress on a joint continued over a long period of time.

Far more common, however, is "primary" osteoarthritis, which just happens. You wake up one morning with it, with no identifiable precipitating cause. It usually hits suddenly, typically around age fifty; but X rays reveal that degeneration starts as early as age twenty.

Under the wear-and-tear theory, the joints have just broken down over time. But this theory fails to explain those native groups following traditional lifestyles and diets among whom the disease is rare. Africans in the bush stress their joints daily, yet they generally manage to escape this "inevitable" wear and tear. Rheumatoid arthritis is also rare among these native populations. Heredity doesn't explain the discrepancies, since when these same Africans move from their villages to the cities, they are subject to arthritic disease like everybody else.

Some scientists have blamed arthritis itself on heredity. They assert that about 6 million people with OA have a defective gene giving them a genetic predisposition to develop the disease. But surveys have indicated that over 40 million Americans have arthritis, including 80 percent of people over fifty years of age. If 80 percent of a population has a condition, it can hardly be due to an abnormal gene. The condition is normal. Looking for a responsible gene, like looking for a responsible germ, takes responsibility and control away from the patient and makes us victims dependent on doctors and drugs.

Inevitable Wear and Tear or Reversible Toxicity?

It used to be thought that cartilage could not repair itself sufficiently to reverse damage to the joints. Skin would regrow and bone would knit together again, but damaged cartilage just seemed inexorably to get worse. Clinical evidence that degenerative changes in the joints are not inevitable and irreversible came with the invention of the artificial hip Research by Leon Sokoloff, M.D., involving hip joints replaced with metal implants showed that new cartilage could grow on the bone protected by the metal Dr. Sokoloff concluded that the real problem is that stress on the joint keeps intervening and preventing this process. Cartilage can repair itself if given a chance.

Evidence that OA is not the inevitable result of normal wear and tear on the joints was reported by a team led by Dr. Derek A. Willoughby in England, who traced the damage not to raw joints rubbing together but to calcium deposits within the joints rubbing on and irritating them. An accumulation of unwanted calcium deposits is potentially reversible. When Dr. Willoughby's team examined the synovial fluid of 100 patients with osteoarthritis under an electron microscope, three-fourths of these patients were found to have tiny crystals in their fluid that turned out to be hydroxyapatite, the same mineral that makes bones and teeth. The effect was like throwing sand into the joint. The crystals irritated the rubbing bones, causing inflammation, tenderness, and swelling.

To make sure these crystals were in fact what was responsible for joint damage, the intrepid researchers proceeded to inject the crystals into themselves. Sure enough, the injected joints became sore and inflamed just as if the researchers had osteoarthritis; and inflammation increased with the amount and size of the crystals. The researchers concluded that the crystals, not the raw bones themselves, were what roughened the smooth cartilage, reduced its ability to cushion stress, and caused swelling.

They hypothesized that these crystals were the result of an inherited disorder that impaired calcium balance in the blood. But again, the magnitude of the problem of joint dysfunction, which now strikes 80 percent of the American population over 50, hardly makes it sound like a genetic aberration.

An Alternative Theory of Osteoarthritis

Dr. Airola thought that OA is not a localized disease of particular joints but is a systemic condition that affects the whole body. Particular joints develop symptoms first only because they are the most susceptible to damage due to prior injuries or stresses. OA is caused not by normal wear and tear on the joints but by prolonged abuses involving faulty nutrition, overeating, a sedentary lifestyle, and emotional and physical stresses. The result is diminished vitality and resistance to disease, intestinal sluggishness, and an impaired ability to eliminate toxic buildup in the joints and soft tissues.

Dr. Max Heindel, an early twentieth-century German writer, reduced aging to its most basic terms. He observed that the stages from youth to old age involve a gradual "ossification"-a hardening or calcification-of soft body tissues. This process results from the deposit of "ash"-earthy matter consisting mainly of phosphate of lime (bone matter), carbonate of lime (common chalk), and sulphate of lime (plaster of paris). The fact that arterial (incoming) blood contains more of this ash than venous (outgoing) blood indicates that ash is progressively deposited in the tissues, bones, and joints with the nutrients the blood carries. The source of this ash, said Dr. Heindel, can only be our food and drink. The result is a progressive increase in the degree of hardness and solidity in the bones, organs, and joints, which destroys the flexibility of the joints, muscles, and other moving parts; thickens the blood; and chokes up the tiny capillaries so that the circulation of fluids and the action of the system progressively diminish until death ensues.

Later research confirms that extraskeletal calcification-the deposit of bits of calcium in normally soft tissues-characterizes most chronic disease In coronary heart disease, bonelike matter is deposited in the vital arteries feeding the heart. In hypertension, calcium deposits clog the tiny capillaries in the extremities, preventing the free flow of blood In the kidneys, they occur as kidney stones; and when the kidneys begin failing, they can appear throughout the arteries and internal organs. Atherosclerosis is the deposit of fat hardened with calcium in the arteries. In cancer, mineral deposits tend to be localized in the region of the tumor. In tuberculosis, calcium is deposited in the lungs. In the eyes, they produce cataracts. In bursitis, they occur in the bursae (sacs of fluid cushioning the joints). In scleroderma, calcified patches appear on the skin. And in arthritis, they occur in the joints.

Research also confirms that the accumulation of extraskeletal calcium in soft tissues is related to lifestyle rather than heredity. In one study, researchers determined the degree of calcification in the aortas of seventy South African Bantus and fifty-eight Johannesburg whites who had died and had been autopsied. Calcium in the aortas of the Bantus had barely doubled between the ages of fifty and eighty, while in the whites it had increased sixfold-a difference of 300 percent. Whites over sixty-five years of age had three times as much calcium in their aortas as Bantus of equal age. Reflecting these differences in extraskeletal calcification, none of the Bantus had severe atherosclerosis, while ten of the whites did. Again, these differences aren't genetic, since prosperous Africans frequently fall victim to coronary heart disease when they adopt American or European dietary habits and sedentary ways of life.

Where does the calcium come from that settles in the joints and soft tissues? Evidently from the bones Atherosclerotic calcium phosphate deposits have been found to have the same composition as bone. Their X ray diffraction patterns are indistinguishable from apatite, one of the two mineral constitutents of bones and teeth. John McDougall, M D , a professor at the University of Hawaii and the author of a number of popular books on nutrition, blames protein in the Western diet for weakening the bones by causing calcium loss. Protein is highly acidic, requiring calcium to buffer it To do this buffering, calcium is pulled from the bones, not only weakening them but causing their joint surfaces to be more easily injured. The calcium pulled from the bones to neutralize the highly acidic Western diet may also settle in the joints as extraskeletal calcium deposits, grating on the joint ends like sandpaper and roughening and damaging their surfaces.

On that theory, osteoporosis (age-related bone loss) is the flip side of the pathological buildup of calcium that clogs and hardens the joints and soft tissues in old age. Both result from our protein-laden diet, which leaches calcium from the bones. Americans have one of the highest calcium intakes in the world; yet our incidence of osteoporosis also remains among the world's highest, and so does the incidence of degenerative diseases such as atherosclerosis and arthritis involving the pathological buildup of calcium deposits. The good news is that this process seems to be reversible. The idea that degenerative disease is not inevitable and can be reversed reflects an exciting new paradigm in medicine, discussed next.

Excerpted from
The Hormone Solution: Stay Younger Longer with Natural Hormone and Nutrition Therapies
By Thierry Hertoghe, M.D.

I developed tools like these in pursuit of my own hormonal balance as well as for my patients. Since I'm forty-five, my glands aren't doing it on their own anymore. I started taking thyroid hormones to correct hypothyroidism when I was very young, thanks to my father. (This disease typically goes undetected in young people, and especially in young men.) I also take Cortisol, DHEA, testosterone, melatonin, and growth hormone on a daily basis-and have for years. I depend on these supplements to maintain my mood, energy, and physical fitness. Of course, I also follow the basic principles of a healthful diet and use a handful of vitamin and mineral supplements to support the hormonal balance I'm after.

I started taking thyroid supplements as a child. As an adult I switched from a diet heavy in dairy products and meat to a diet moderate in protein and rich in fruit, and I was soon able to reduce the dose of thyroid hormone I took by two-thirds. I still do need the supplement, however; when I don't take it, I'm tired and stiff and cranky in the morning, and I don't think clearly.

Without supplemental Cortisol, I have powerful sugar cravings. I need to eat absolutely anything put in front of me. I could put away an entire box of chocolates in one sitting. Maybe worse, I could eat all day long. You make more Cortisol when you eat, so overeating was my body's way of getting the hormone balance I needed.

Without enough Cortisol, I also feel drowsy and can't concentrate. Every stress feels like too much to handle. (Too much Cortisol, on the other hand, leads to an unhealthy feeling of euphoria, so it's important to be vigilant about the doses.) I'm getting a cosmetic benefit from Cortisol as well. On my father's side of the family, everyone's face thins out unattractively with age-a classic sign of insufficient Cortisol. Thanks to my Cortisol supplements, I've avoided that particular family trait.

Growth hormone is the supplement I'd be least willing to give up for any reason. I started taking it seven or eight years ago for reasons of vanity: I was starting to get jowly. Taking growth hormone stopped and reversed that process, but I found I also reaped other amazing benefits.

I'm now able to work more and sleep less, without any negative side effects. I'm cool, calm, and cordial even in the midst of heated conflict. I'm less anxious and more decisive. When half my house burned down-only days before a huge conference presentation-everyone thought I would lose it. But I was able to keep going, deal with the fire, comfort my wife, and deliver my speech without a hitch. Thanks to the growth hormone.

I started taking 0.35 mg daily of natural growth hormone in my thirties. As often happens, the supplement rejuvenated my own pituitary gland and I started to secrete more of the hormone. When my hands and feet started to swell slightly, I knew I had to cut back. Now I use 0.02 IU a day, which gives me all the benefits with no side effects. Unbelievable as it might seem, growth hormone is usually prescribed at forty times my current dose, though the young adult body normally only makes between 0.2 and 0.5 mg a day. To make matters worse, growth hormone is often prescribed on its own rather than in balanced combination with other hormones-the way I recommend it.

Balance Is Everything

Of course not everyone needs as many hormone supplements as I do. I have quite a few deficiencies, and given the pace of my life, I also need higher levels of some hormones than the average man my age. But there are usually at least three hormones involved in regaining anyone's natural balance. Standard hormone therapy is often ineffective or plagued by unpleasant side effects because only one or occasionally two hormones are given, and given without regard to context-which only serves to create further imbalance in the system as a whole.

Whether I'm treating myself or my patients, I always prescribe the smallest effective doses, in a plan carefully customized to the individual. Random or recreational pill-popping is never an option. Hormones are powerful medicine-which is why their appropriate use can improve your life so dramatically-and are not to be taken irresponsibly.

To create the right hormonal balance for your own body, fine-tuning and readjustment must be an ongoing process. I always encourage my patients to become aware of the signals and messages carried in their bodies. As you learn how to listen to your own biochemistry, you'll sense when doses need to be increased or decreased depending on circumstances on a particular day or season. For example, you might need more thyroid hormone when it's cold and less in warm weather. You might need increased doses of certain hormones, such as growth hormone and Cortisol, in times of extreme stress. Or you might need to use a particular hormone only occasionally, the way I use aldosterone only when I have to sit or stand for a long time (to combat the negative effects of low blood pressure).

I am not recommending self-medication. I am, however, strongly suggesting that everyone can become more aware of his unique hormonal profile. Your body usually tells the truth. Listen carefully to what it is saying. But you must always talk to your doctor before making any changes in medication.

The delicate dance of hormones throughout your body is exquisitely designed to keep you in optimal health. But as you add more candles on your birthday cake, you need to give that system some active support to keep reaping all the benefits. The unique blend of low-dose natural hormones and nutritional balance I'll explain in this book restores your birthright: a strong, healthy, attractive body and a clear, quick, and powerful mind for nearly all of your life.

This book explores the entire spectrum of human hormones and their properties symptom by symptom. More important, it provides specific natural hormone and nutritional prescriptions proven to erase the negative signs of aging by balancing your unique hormonal profile.

Setting Life in Motion

The word hormone comes from the Greek, meaning "to set in motion." Hormones are made in the endocrine glands, then flow into the bloodstream and are carried to every part of the body to produce their varied effects. Some, like the thyroid hormones, act on practically every cell of the body. Others act in a more focused manner on just one or two organs, like aldosterone, which works in your kidneys to retain water and salt in your body, thereby maintaining blood pressure.

Hormones direct and coordinate the body's cells to ensure their proper functioning. From the blood they penetrate deeply into the cells, usually acting on the genes in the nucleus, unlocking a portion of the genetic code, accessing the information the cells need to do their jobs (including making hormones). With hormonal deficiencies, the cells simply won't-can't-function as well. Total absence brings total disorganization. To take just one example, the complete absence of thyroid hormones would turn a human being into an unconscious organism, incapable of forming the simplest thought or feeling the most basic emotion. In a sense, we wouldn't even be human without hormones.

Teamwork

When it comes to hormones, the brain acts more or less as project manager. The brain influences the production of hormones by most endocrine glands through two other small but powerful glands-the pituitary gland and the pineal gland-though the effects are not direct, but rather the result of chain reactions. Hormones secreted by other peripheral glands influence (usually by slowing down) the secretion of hormones by the pituitary and pineal, forming a system of checks and balances to make sure the body gets enough of what it needs, but not too much. In addition, one hormone might stimulate, or sometimes inhibit, the effect of another hormone on target cells.

Hormones are interactive, mutually pumping each other up or slowing each other down. If just one is missing or insufficient, many others will no longer act with the same effectiveness and the health of the body suffers. On the other hand, with a harmonious balance of levels the body functions properly and good health prevails. The effects of the various hormones are synergistic; combining them is a case of the whole being greater than the sum of the parts.

The complexity of all these systems accounts for the importance of proper dosage and multihormone balance when using supplemental hormones.

Aging

For years we enjoy hormonal abundance. But then, gradually, we all experience some degree of glandular deterioration and so some decrease in hormone secretion. Toxins from an ever more polluted environment accumulate in the glands and damage them. Additionally, our blood vessels-which carry the blood, which carries the hormones-get worn out or collapse over time, and blood circulation toward organs and endocrine glands gets more and more difficult. Oxygen and nutrients (and hormones!) end up arriving drop by drop rather than in a steady stream. Poor diet aggravates the situation, weakening the glands by depriving them of what they need to maintain themselves and what they need to create hormones. Repeated exposure to microbes, bacteria, viruses, parasites, and fungi destroys glandular tissue and function, either suddenly or gradually, depending on the situation.

But the major cause of low hormone production with age is the inevitable aging of the glands themselves. They simply get used up and worn out. They can no longer replace their own dead cells, and waste products build up and get concentrated in the remaining cells, which slows down their activity and reduces their effectiveness.

Deficiencies appear progressively, though the signs are not always noted or understood They might become obvious only late in life, though by then there might already have been irreparable damage. That's why I advocate a proactive, preventive stance.

Most fifty-somethings have hormones that have tapered off to insufficient levels far below the ones they enjoyed in their twenties and into their thirties. No one with a normal life span will escape hormonal deficiencies without hormone replacement. In fact, most of us would benefit from it starting in our mid-thirties. Each person is unique, with an optimal hormonal and nutritional state all his own. If I ran the world, I'd have people get a baseline assessment of their hormonal and nutritional status when they are young and in optimal health, between eighteen and twenty-three for women and between twenty-one and twenty-five for men. At that age, people rarely show large deficiencies, and the hormonal levels can be considered (for that particular person) optimal. That would give us a target as to what is to be maintained through later hormonal supplementation as it becomes necessary.

From this good start, hormonal levels could be regularly monitored. If they were, we'd see the subtle shifts starting somewhere in the mid-twenties to mid-thirties, ahead of the signs becoming visible (at least to the perceptive observer), generally between forty and fifty years old. Under this plan, most people would probably start using supplemental hormones somewhere between thirty and forty-five years of age.

Of course, some people need to be treated with hormones at much younger ages-even from birth, in some cases-though they are clearly the exception. I believe the rest of us should do everything we can to optimize our hormonal levels through diet, supplements, and natural hormonal treatments from as young as possible.

Besides simply growing older, difficult periods in anyone's life can increase his need for vitamins, minerals, and/or hormones. Any long-term stress increases hormone consumption while decreasing production. Malnutrition, to take just one kind of long-term stress (as in anorexia, for example), causes a drop in hormone levels. The same goes for overeating, immoderate consumption of alcohol, smoking, drug use, infections and illnesses, exposure to pollution, and intense athletic training. All of these stress and strain the body, ultimately weakening it and wearing it out and influencing the pace at which it needs supplemental hormones.

Excerpted from
The Chiropractic Way: How Chiropractic Care Can Stop Your Pain and Help You Regain Your Health Without Drugs or Surgery
By Michael Lenarz, D.C., Victoria St. George

What is life? Where does it come from? What is this wondrous thing we call a human being? And how do the fundamental molecules that make up a strand of DNA "know" how to come together to create living, breathing, conscious creatures-us?

These questions about the origin of life are basic to our very nature. They have intrigued and perplexed scientists, philosophers, and theologians ever since those disciplines first appeared. From the ancient written records of all societies, including the works of Hippocrates and Plato, the Hebrew Bible, the ancient Sanskrit texts of India, and many others, you'll find one thing in common: a recognition that life is mysterious. Life's origin and destination can be theorized about but never proven. Modern science has the ability to measure everything, from the path of the smallest subatomic particle over the course of one ten-billionth of a second to the movement of galaxies in the vast untrackable distances of the universe. But as any scientist will acknowledge, life cannot be reduced to the movement of subatomic particles, and consciousness cannot be discovered by knowing the electrochemical reactions in the brain.

Answering the question "What is life?" is a key component of chiropractic philosophy and has a direct bearing on how chiropractic works. Surprisingly, theories proposed by some of our most cutting-edge scientific and medical disciplines are coming ever closer to the truths that chiropractic has espoused from the beginning. From astronomy to quantum physics, from neurobiology to psychoneuroimmunology-chiropractic truths dealing with the source of our own life, and our link to life as it exists all around us, are being discovered by these other disciplines. They explain how our bodies know how to heal themselves, and how we are part and parcel of the energy that imbues every particle of the universe. When you understand the foundations of chiropractic's answer to the question "What is life?" you will see how this particular form of health care can help you express your own life on a more vibrant level.

From Quarks to Quasars: The Energy of the Universe

Astronomer Carl Sagan referred to human beings as "children of the stars." He based this declaration on the theory that all planets (including the earth) and everything on them were created from elements that exist as the result of the formation and dissolution of stars. But how are we related to the universe-or, more important, how is the universe related to us?

One of the primary tenets of physics today is that ultimately all matter is composed of the same "stuff." Most of us have been taught that everything is made of atoms. We now know that atoms are made of even smaller components called subatomic particles. Subatomic particles form relationships called atoms. (I say "relationships" because subatomic particles can enter and leave atoms at will, being replaced by other subatomic particles performing their same functions.) We have learned that an atom is not a thing but a fluid relationship of particles. Atoms form relationships called molecules, molecules make up relationships called cells, and so on.

The same subatomic particles that make up atoms also express themselves in the form of energy. Ever since Albert Einstein stood theoretical physics on its ear in 1905 with his equation E=mc2 , scientists have been exploring the amazing concept that matter and energy are the same stuff. Matter is nothing but an expression of energy in a different form, and energy is matter accelerated to the speed of light. But what is this "stuff' that composes both matter and energy? Where did it come from? And how does it show up in so many different forms? Like the origins of life, the origins of energy and matter have flummoxed scientists throughout history.

But philosophy has stepped in where science faces its limits. One way that philosophy works is by looking at how energy/ matter expresses itself. It looks at the galaxies, stars, and planets; at the cohesiveness of an atom; at the interaction of sunlight and cells in green plants; at the millions of ways energy and matter come together. And philosophy says this is not random. There is order and organization to the expression of matter and energy, more than can be explained logically by random happenstance. Order and organization imply that something is doing the organizing, that there is an intelligence underlying the orderly expression of matter and energy. There must be some kind of Universal Intelligence that creates and sustains all matter and energy in existence. This particular school of philosophical thought is called vitalism (from the Latin root vita, "life"), and it is one of the key principles of chiropractic.

By "Universal Intelligence," I don't necessarily mean God in a religious sense, although it does not exclude the possibility that Universal Intelligence is what many people mean when they talk about God. Universal Intelligence is definitely outside of and greater than the parameters of the physical nature of the universe. Because of this, it is ultimately immeasurable by science. Yet, interestingly enough, science has come to recognize the existence of Universal Intelligence, simply because so many phenomena can be explained only by its presence. In his groundbreaking book Quantum Healing: Exploring the Frontiers of Mind Body Medicine, Dr. Deepak Chopra described how quantum physics has moved science toward the recognition of a universal organizing principle in the universe. The solar system, life on earth, the moon pulling on the oceans, and the beating of our hearts are all examples of the brilliant organization of energy and matter. Once we acknowledge this underlying order, not believing in Universal Intelligence is actually more absurd than believing in it. It's like believing a house can build itself, or a car can move down a road, make turns, stop, and arrive safely at a destination without someone at the controls. As Chopra puts it, "Science tends to be skeptical in the face of any claim that intelligence is at work in nature.... However, if there is nothing outside ordinary reality to hold things and events together, then one is led to a set of impossibilities."

There's a joke about two old friends, a preacher and an atheist. For twenty years these two men have argued back and forth about the existence of intelligence and purpose behind the creation of the universe. One day the preacher has an idea. He goes down into his basement and constructs an elaborate model of the solar system to scale He builds it so the sun will revolve and the planets will turn in their correct orbits at absolutely accurate speeds. Then he invites his atheist friend over and brings him down into the basement. The atheist is amazed. He looks at the model and says, "Wow, this is incredible! It's one of the most awesome things I've ever seen. Who built it?" And the preacher smiles and replies, "Nobody."

The "happy accident" theory of matter and energy is losing credence, even with scientists. The smaller our investigations into matter and energy and the larger our explorations of the cosmos, the clearer it becomes that some intelligence is creating order out of chaos. (Even chaos has intelligence behind it, as exhibited by chaos theory, a field built around the study of randomness, which has discovered patterns in the most disorganized-seeming responses of matter and energy.) And nowhere is the functioning of Universal Intelligence more evident than in the unique, inexplicable, dynamic interaction of matter and energy we call life.

Excerpted from
The Extraordinary Healing Power of Ordinary Things : Fourteen Natural Steps to Health and Happiness
By Larry Dossey, M.D.

Optimism was repeatedly put to the test during the twentieth century with two world wars, the Holocaust, repeated genocides, and a death toll unparalleled in any era. Challenges to optimism are continuing into the twenty-first century.

On December 26, 2004, an earthquake on the sea floor off Sumatra generated a monstrous tsunami that lashed coastlines as far away as Africa, killing an estimated 150,000 individuals. Entire families and whole villages vanished. Hearts around the world ached for the victims and, in another kind of flood, millions of dollars of aid poured in from governments and individuals everywhere.

The disaster generated around-the-clock news coverage in which pundits tried to find meaning in the disaster. These programs featured agnostics, atheists, scientists, philosophers, statesmen, politicians, and clerics of various religions. I he agnostics, atheists, and scientists generally saw the tsunami as an expression of the blind laws of nature-"nature red in tooth and claw." To them, there was no essential meaning to the event, because the laws of nature, they believe, are coldly impersonal and inherently meaningless. In contrast, several Islamic commentators managed to find positive meaning and optimism in the event. They said that the Christians, Jews, and Westerners who perished at seaside resorts were infidels and heretics who deserved their heaven-sent punishment. As Saudi cleric Muhammad al-Munajjid said in an interview on Saudi/UAE's Al-Majd TV, "Haven't they [Western tourists celebrating Christmas holidays] learned the lesson from what Allah wreaked upon the coast of Asia, during the celebration of these forbidden [festivals]? At the height of immorality, Allah took vengeance on these criminals." But what of the thousands of Muslims who died alongside the infidels? They were considered martyrs. It was a sorry moment. Optimism, in the hands of religion, can take alarming forms.

These comments illustrate an eternal problem with optimism: What seems optimistic to one individual can be disastrous for another. Even in matters of health, things are clouded. All mothers, for example, want their newborns to be well and never to get sick. Yet the only way infants develop immune systems capable of resisting infections is through repeated exposures to swarms of microbes that stimulate mini-illnesses and the production of antibodies. If the hopes of the optimistic mom were realized, her child would wind up a "bubble baby" who must live inside a plastic shield to ward off the myriad bacteria, fungi, and viruses that are a part of daily life.

Another widespread expression of optimism is the hope or belief that we will recover from any illness that may strike us. If this universal wish were realized, no one would die, and the earth would have become disastrously overpopulated millennia ago and rendered unfit for human habitation.

The most egregious abuses of optimism, however, take place on a large scale and in full view. The entire advertising sector is driven by a strategy of faux optimism: your life will be happier, sexier, and better if you buy a particular product, whether or not you actually need it or can afford it. Similarly, the self-help industry also rests on a doctrine of cheery optimism and happy outcomes, if the strategy of the month is followed. And politics oscillates crazily between optimism and pessimism, each political party painting the other as pessimistic, retro, and out of touch, and itself as forward-looking, creative, and positive about the future.

Pessimism's Paradox

Pessimism, if carried to the extreme, often undergoes a weird transformation and becomes funny. This is the sort of thing that occurs in gallows humor, in which "things are so bad I might as well laugh."

Many comic geniuses understand keenly that pessimism can morph into humor, and they use this to great effect. It is no accident that some of our greatest comedians have been self-styled pessimists, such as Charlie Chaplin, W. C. Fields, Red Skelton, and Rodney Dangerfield.

Even when people try to be genuinely pessimistic, they often come off as funny and we laugh at them through their seriousness. Consider Henry Millers put-down of optimism and hope: "Hope is a bad thing. It means that you are not what you want to be. It means that part of you is dead, if not all of you. It means that you entertain illusions. It's a sort of spiritual clap, I should say."18 Or the curmudgeon who said. "Life is a sexually transmitted disease with a one hundred percent fatality rate." Or Baron de Montesquieu, who said, in all seriousness, "A man should be mourned at his birth, not at his death."

If we are trapped in pessimism, perhaps we should not hold back, but plunge in and be seriously pessimistic, nothing halfway. If we did so we might wind up laughing, and liberate ourselves from pessimism's grasp.

The Health Connection

One of the most significant breakthroughs in twentieth-century medicine was the discovery of the importance of attitudes, emotions, and beliefs in health-what is now called mind-body medicine. Prior to mid-century, it was decidedly odd to hear clinicians speak of such things; now it is commonplace. I he key premise of mind-body medicine is that our mental life is not isolated above the clavicles. Each thought and emotion is a message to the rest of the body, mediated by an intricate array of nerve signals, hormones, and various other substances.

A major development was the findings of behavioral scientists Suzanne Kobasa and Salvatore Maddi, then at the University of Chicago. In a series of landmark studies in the early 1980s, they elaborated the idea of psychological hardiness-a behavioral pattern found in stressed individuals who almost never got sick and lived long, fulfilling lives. The key, they found, was the "3 Cs"-Control, Commitment to work, family, and self, and a strong sense of Challenge. Even during periods of intense psychological stress, individuals possessing these traits remained healthy, while those who had low hardiness scores had significantly poorer health.

Kobasa and Maddi observed that the critical starring point for hardiness and effective coping is an "optimistic appraisal" of a situation. When an event is viewed with less pessimism, its psychological and physiological impact is reduced. They concluded that hardiness, effective coping, and optimism are not fixed but are flexible.

Excerpted from
Hands of Life: Use Your Body's Own Energy Medicine for Healing, Recovery, and Transformation
By Julie Motz

My own journey into energy healing has been an attempt over decades to truly inhabit my body, although this was not at all clear to me when that journey began. It started one February night in 1970 with my introduction to Fusion Groups, in the heyday of the human potential movement. The current glut of tabloid talk shows, in which everything is being shoved out of the closet and into our faces is, I believe, the cultural residue of this movement, and basically a healthy one But before Oprah there was Synanon and its many offspring; and before nationally syndicated show-and-tell, there was the encounter group.

Run by Mike and Sonja Gilligan, Fusion Groups were a brilliant and effective example of this genre; the basic format involved fifteen to twenty-five people, including the two group leaders, sitting in a circle. After going around once with names, someone would "ask for the involvement" of the group and talk about some aspect of his life for which he wanted support or help The person speaking would often not have a clear idea of what he was feeling about what he was saying, and it was the group's purpose, among other things, to supply this clarity.

I came into the groups at the suggestion of a fellow cinematography student at the graduate School of the Arts at Columbia University. I had missed ten days at the beginning of the semester because an episode with an overdose of sleeping pills had landed me in the emergency room, the ICU, and then the ward of the very hospital where I would later practice my healing skills. No one at school knew what had happened to me, but apparently the cloud of depression I walked around in when I came back was intense enough for someone who cared to notice.

My first direct experience of the group process (of which I was, for the first few weeks, a fascinated and terrified observer) came when someone in the group-a woman who was, not coincidentally, much like my mother-forgot my name when she was addressing me in the circle. I hadn't consciously allowed any feeling about this to register, when I suddenly heard Sonja's voice, very loud in my ear, although she was sitting halfway across the room: "How do you feel when someone forgets your name, Julie?" I stared at her blankly, my mouth dry, and couldn't think of anything to say. Except for an eerie sensation of being detached from everything in the room, including the chair I was sitting on, I wasn't aware of feeling anything. "I think you're angry," Sonja said, after what seemed like a gaping chasm of silence. "I have a knot in my stomach.

By a mechanism I did not yet understand but developed some theories about later, she was feeling in her own body my angry response to being slighted, which was, at the time, below the level of my own perception. Terror, almost tantamount to shock, was holding the anger at bay. Following Sonja's instructions, although I felt barely able to stand, I walked to a place in the circle facing a bare wall and visualized my mother standing in front of me. Taking a deep breath and making fists, I attempted to shout the word "Liar!" at her image. Twenty minutes later, after feeling I was going to faint or die, and after much encouragement from the group, I actually felt the strength of the anger moving through my body. I returned to my seat feeling more real than I had in months.

Six months before, I had finally gotten the courage to leave a man who was intensely jealous and physically abusive. I also left my old therapist, angry that she had not counseled me to get out of the affair. The new one to whom she referred me ended up seducing me, and the insanity of that affair had ended with the sleeping pills. During this period I had gone back to living with my parents and was thus thrust back into ancient terrors. I dealt with them by detaching myself emotionally through depression. On some profound level I was raging, as I had been for years, about the wounds inflicted on me as a child. Bulimia had been one method of deflecting this rage, but it hadn't been sufficient. When I wasn't depressed, I was paranoid, feeling that the world could fall in on me at any moment-that I had no substance, no reality. What I really was missing was a connection to the anger that could defend me and give me the energy to both ground myself and move forward.

That night in the group, for the first time I allowed my body to feel the power and the truth of my anger surging through me. I felt as I had not felt for many years-as if I belonged to the human race and to myself My sense of being some kind of freak who couldn't feel or function the way other people could would not disappear completely for a long time. But I could smell freedom and sanity in the air-the freedom to feel, and the sanity of knowing exactly what I was feeling. It was intoxicating.

The Energy of Emotions

Anger was not the only feeling with which the encounter group concerned itself, although it appeared to be the one that most people had to experience fully in order to get to the other feelings. The Gilligans and others in the human potential movement were, I believe, the first people to identify anger as a good feeling-not something to be avoided, suppressed, or even gotten rid of but a necessary force of nature, to be felt, understood, and used.

Sonja Gilligan's unique contribution was to realize that there are four and only four basic feelings:

1. Fear is the same as excitement. It is the feeling state of perception. Fear tells you what is safe and what is danger oils, although we have been trained from child-hood to identify it only with the perception of danger. Hate is the defensive form of fear.

2. Anger, negatively identified with a "kill" feeling, is the emotion of action. If your fear tells you that what you have perceived is safe, your anger carries you forward to get what you desire. If your fear tells you it is dangerous, your anger gives you the energy to fight or flee to protect yourself or what you value. Resentment is the defensive form of anger.

3. Pain, in the emotional sense, is self-knowledge. It is the feeling that comes up when you have either achieved what you have pursued or protected what you value and love. It puts you in touch with the core of your being and frequently moves you to tears (although people also cry to hide anger or fear). It also comes up when a loving feeling from someone else touches this core and reminds you where you live-a child's hug or a great artists painting, poem, or symphony. Contempt is the defensive form of pain.

4. Love is the feeling that flows out from you, once you know who you are, to connect you to other people. It is sexuality and creativity. Joy is the defensive form of love.

The defensive form of a feeling is one that attaches itself to another feeling, so that we feel neither one clearly. We use the defensive form when the feeling itself seems too risky. After years of training ourselves to use defensive feelings, the defensive feelings often use us, taking over and denying us access to the basic feeling.

I was as fascinated with Sonja's theory as I was excited by the effects of the group process on my life I became seized with a desire to understand how these forces called feelings manifest themselves on a physical level, and I made inquiries at the lop biology research centers in the city: Rockefeller University, Columbia, and NYU. To my great disappointment, the physiology and biology of emotions wasn't on anybody's research agenda.

During this time I began to conclude that emotions are some kind of energy. After six months in those laboratories of emotions, the Fusion Groups, I found myself mysteriously endowed with the power to feel what other people were feeling, just as Sonja had done with me Since I could do this over the telephone as well as face to face, visual clues did not seem to be a factor. Somehow feelings just traveled across space from someone else's body into mine. Even more interesting, this ability to feel other people's feelings-even feelings they didn't know they were having-was something that most people in the groups acquired in time. Apparently it was a skill that could be learned.

I believe that other people are giving us information about their emotions all the time (just as we are always in the process of having some emotion ourselves, even when we are sleeping). We're not trained to believe that these informational signals have any meaning or importance, so we usually don't focus on them. Occasionally when we are in the presence of someone with a great deal of unacknowledged or suppressed rage, we may feel extremely uncomfortable, or suddenly very sleepy, without knowing why. But the feelings are out there everywhere, all the time, available to everyone

Learning to identify and interpret these physical signals as fear, anger, pain, or love is something like learning how to track with an Indian guide. At first, you are amazed that he can tell that a deer stood next to this particular tree, or that a fox came through the underbrush at just this point. Then the guide shows you the place where the buds have been stripped from a branch, or some dry leaves displaced along the path It's not that you didn't "see" these things. They passed across your visual field, just as they did across his. But you didn't "notice" them, because you had not trained yourself to consider such signs as bearers of important information.

Excerpted from
Gingko Biloba: An Herbal Foundation of Youth For Your Brain
By Glenn S. Rothfeld, M.D, M.Ac., Suzanne LeVert

Millions of Americans have decided to jump on the growing ginkgo biloba bandwagon. Some do so after reading about the herb's properties in a magazine or a book like this one. Others begin taking it after their doctors or other health care practitioners recommend it. But just what is ginkgo, and can it help you? Those are the two main questions we'll answer for you in this book.

First, it's important for you to understand that, even though you might have heard of ginkgo only recently, it's been used as medicine for centuries. In addition, there have been almost 300 modern scientific studies performed to date that verify its safety and efficacy in treating a wide range of diseases and conditions, including:

• Asthma and allergies
• Memory loss and poor concentration
• Alzheimer's disease
• Headache
• Depression
• Heart disease
• Peripheral vascular disease
• Impotence
• Premenstrual syndrome
• Vision problems, including macular degeneration
• Tinnitus (ringing of the ears)
• Dizziness and other balance problems

How can one herb act on so many different parts of the body and alleviate so many different conditions? That's what we'll explain in more depth in Chapter 2. For now, let's take a look at where ginkgo came from and how modern medicine has begun to take note of its remarkable effects.

The "New" Promise of Ginkgo

In October 1997, headlines in newspapers around the world proclaimed a medical breakthrough. The prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association had just published the remarkable results of a study on the effects of a new treatment for Alzheimer's disease, a devastating brain disorder that strikes thousands of the elderly every year. Researchers concluded that this new treatment appeared to stabilize and, in 20 percent of cases, actually improve the functioning of 309 Alzheimer's disease patients-better statistics than those for any medication yet developed. Many studies now being conducted in laboratories around the world are designed to evaluate this remarkable finding and determine just how powerful a remedy ginkgo really is. The initial results are very encouraging.

What does this new treatment consist of? Did a pharmaceutical company create a new synthetic drug? Did it employ some high-tech ingredient or method just developed?

Hardly. The substance "discovered" in 1997 to treat Alzheimer's disease is ginkgo biloba, an herb used as medicine for centuries. In fact, a story about ginkgo biloba appears in one of the first medical texts ever written, Pen T'sao (The Great Herbal) in 2,800 B.C., foreshadowing the twentieth-century breakthrough. According to the text, China's first emperor, Shen Nung, had a vision in which a voice whispered that the ginkgo tree standing outside his window would "restore the minds of friends and relatives." Shen Nung instructed his staff to pick some leaves and create a tea, which he then served to those people around him with memory or concentration problems. Within weeks, every one of those afflicted had regained much of their lost mental capabilities.

And so we've come full circle. As we head toward the new millennium, scientists are reaching back into the past to find more effective ways to treat human disease. They are also increasingly looking to the East, to the countries and cultures of Asia, which continue to maintain approaches to health and disease very different from our own. Asians also look to us for our remarkable technological advances in the same field. In our increasingly interdependent world, the merging of our philosophies is proving beneficial in a variety of respects, and no more so than in the area of health and medicine.

The scientific focus on ginkgo biloba and the increasing use of this herb are the latest examples of this trend. Used for centuries in China, Japan, and other Asian countries as a medicinal herb effective in the prevention and treatment of a wide variety of conditions, ginkgo biloba is now one of the most widely prescribed formulas in Europe. Doctors in Germany and France dispense more than 1.5 million prescriptions every week to patients suffering from memory loss, lack of attention, depression, circulatory disorders, and other conditions. In 1997 alone, annual sales of ginkgo surpassed $500 million in these countries, and sales are beginning to soar on this side of the Atlantic as well.

The Living Fossil

Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and shallow seas and murky swamps covered the continents, ginkgo biloba trees dotted the landscapes of both the Eastern and Western Hemispheres. These deciduous trees with their short branches and pale green two-lobed leaves shaped like nubby fans were as at home in the largely unpopulated Mesozoic era 200 million years ago as they are today in crowded late-twentieth-century cities. Often called the "living fossil" because of its remarkable duration-it remains the world's oldest living species of tree-it's no wonder that Steven Spielberg insisted that ginkgo trees appear in his blockbuster movie Jurassic Park!

Found throughout the United States today, where it is also known as the maidenhair tree, the ginkgo biloba decorates college campuses, front lawns, office complexes, and city streets. You've probably seen ginkgo trees yourself: They grow to be about 100 feet tall and are pyramidal in shape, with slender upright branches that spread wider at the top. The leaves have a distinctive shape: Each one has two lobes divided by a deep notch. The ginkgo is deciduous, which means that its leaves change color with the seasons. In the autumn, they turn a lovely buttery yellow before falling to the ground in winter.

The tree is remarkably resilient, able to withstand infection by disease, infestation by insects, and destruction by pollution and other man-made toxins. In fact, a ginkgo was the only tree to survive the 1945 atomic bomb blast in Hiroshima, and remains as part of a shrine that marks that disaster.

Indeed, it took an environmental cataclysm the magnitude of the Ice Age to threaten the ginkgo tree, almost wiping it out in North America and Europe. Ginkgo trees continued to thrive in China and Japan, however, where they were considered sacred, and where their medicinal powers were discovered and preserved. Folklore has it that ginkgo trees survived because the priests and priestesses considered them guardians of Chinese temples, and therefore blessed with strength and immortality.

For centuries, the Chinese used ginkgo not only as a tonic for the brain, but also as a remedy for asthma, bronchitis, and certain parasitic diseases. Chinese herbal texts from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries note the use of roasted ginkgo seeds as an aid in digestion, and recommend soaking ripe ginkgo fruit in vegetable oil for 100 days before using it as a treatment for tuberculosis. Leaves were boiled to make a tea to treat diarrhea, and to make a lotion to apply to skin affected by frostbite, freckles, and sores. In Japan, herbalists discovered that the coatings of the seeds contained a powerful natural insecticide, and placed them between the pages of books or near scrolls to protect their valuable papers from insect infestation.

Excerpted from
The New Healing Herbs: The Ultimate Guide to Natures Best Medicines
By Michael Castleman

Twenty years ago, when I wrote the first edition of The Healing Herbs, it was clear that herbal medicine was becoming increasingly popular. But no one involved with herbal healing in the late 1980s had any inkling of the explosion in popularity that herbal medicine would enjoy as the 20th century turned into the 21st. And in my wildest dreams. I could not have imagined how popular The Healing Herbs would become-now more than one million copies sold in English, Spanish, French, Italian, and other languages

Herbal medicine is now an industry worth more than $4 billion a year, about five times the size it was when the original edition of this book was published in 1991. According to a national survey conducted for Prevention magazine, 49 percent of American adults-more than 100 million people-use an herbal medicine each year, and 24 percent-some 25 million people-call themselves "regular users." And a study published in 2005 in Archives of Internal Medicine shows that in adults over the age of 18, 16 percent of men and 19 percent of women use a medicinal herb every week.

This third edition has been expanded from 100 herbs to 130. The new herbs-including andrographis, butterbur, cat's claw, elderberry, and maitake mushrooms-are not "new" in the sense of newly discovered. These plants have been well known for centuries, and in the case of elderberry, since ancient times. But only during the past decade have studies clearly shown how medicinally valuable they are.

Twenty years ago, the medical profession was, at best, skeptical of herbal medicine. No longer. Today, it's not at all unusual for physicians to recommend echinacea for the common cold, ginger to prevent motion sickness and morning sickness, black cohosh for menopausal discomforts, cranberry to prevent urinary tract infections, St. John's wort to treat depression, or elderberry to treat flu.

Doctors have become more open to herbal medicine in part because their friends and family members have reported success with it. But in addition, mainstream American medical journals have changed their position on herbs. Twenty years ago, major journals were quick to publish reports of medicinal herbs' hazardous side effects (including several reports that-turned out to be erroneous), but only rarely did they publish information about herbs' benefits. Today, these same journals publish a steady stream of studies in support of herbal healing. A report in the British Medical Journal (now BMJ) was largely responsible for popularizing St. John's wort as an antidepressant. A review in the Journal of Family Practice concluded that echinacea is an effective cold treatment. Studies published in Lancet have demonstrated the effectiveness of feverfew in migraine prevention. A study in the New England Journal of Medicine, once openly hostile to herbs, showed that cranberry juice helps prevent urinary tract infections. And reports in the Journal of the American Medical Association, another traditional herb-basher, have supported ginkgo as a treatment for Alzheimer's disease and saw palmetto for benign prostate enlargement.

In other words, herbal medicine is more mainstream in the United States today than it's been in 100 years. It's still not as medically accepted in this country as it is in some other countries, notably Germany, nor as mainstream as it was in 19th-century America, before the pharmaceutical industry took medicine out of the herb garden and moved it into the laboratory. But herbal medicine is no longer the fringe practice that it was when the first edition of this book appeared in 1991.

Medicinal herb products have also come a long way in the last 20 years. Not only are there many more of them, but they are much more widely available, now stocked by many pharmacies and even some supermarkets. And they have become more reliable with the advent of "standardized extracts." preparations from plants bred to contain a certain concentration of pharmacologically active compounds, and then grown, harvested, stored, and prepared under controlled conditions to produce reasonably reliable dose uniformity. Standardized extracts are not quite as dose-controlled as laboratory-synthesized pharmaceuticals, but they're close, and considerably more dose-controlled than bulk herbs.

Unfortunately, the past decade has also witnessed a few serious safety problems with herbs, two in particular. In one, an estimated 30 young adults died after taking mega-overdoses of Chinese ephedra (ma huang). They were not using this herb medicinally, but rather to experience amphetamine-like intoxication. They took hundreds of times the dose that responsible herbalists would recommend. In addition, 82 people worldwide suffered liver damage-and nine died-while using kava. the South Pacific herbal tranquilizer. It turned out that kava's meteoric rise to popularity led to adulteration of the root with aerial parts of the plant that contain compounds toxic to the liver. Because of the scandal, kava's popularity plummeted, adulteration ceased, and so did reports of liver damage.

But despite occasionally scary headlines, herbal medicines have an admirable safety record overall. With more Americans using more medicinal herbs than at any time in the past century, there have been few serious mishaps, especially when compared with the side effects-and deaths-from pharmaceuticals.

Nonetheless, safety concerns seem destined to remain the most pressing issue in herbal medicine, largely because the Food and Drug Administration has to date refused to reopen its review process for over-the-counter drugs to include evaluation of herbs. But for the first time, considerable numbers of FDA staff support the use of healing herbs. I'm cautiously optimistic that over the next decade, the FDA will adopt medicinal herb labeling regulations that are more appropriate to Americans' needs.

Meanwhile, The New Healing Herbs -completely revised, updated, and expanded-should help you use medicinal herbs confidently, effectively, and above all, safely.