Strategies for Stress-Free Living

On 30 April 2011, the transitional protection under the Directive on traditional herbal medicinal products (Directive 2004/24/EC) expires.  This means that the ‘herbal exemption’ from licensing under Section 12(2) of the Medicines Act 1968 will no longer be available.  This change will only allow a number of herbal medicines to be available solely to medical professionals who are “statutorily regulated”, such as GPs.

What does this mean in practice?

• Section 12(2) of the Act allows a herbal medicine practitioner to sell-ready-made products (”unlicensed manufactured herbal remedies”).
• Section 12(2) has also in effect provided a legal basis for a herbal medicine practitioner to draw up a prescription and commission a third-party supplier to prepare that remedy for a particular patient.
• From 30 April 2011, third parties will no longer be able to fulfil prescriptions or sell any products that are deemed to be “industrially produced”. 
• This means that herbs which are now available as tablets, capsules and other pharmaceutical finished forms will be classified as “industrially produced” and will therefore be illegal.
• Although Section 12(1) does allow a herbal medicine practitioner to blend unprocessed herbal ingredients into a product tailored to the needs of individual patients, herbal products that have been blended for herbalists to use in their practice will no longer be available.
• In order for these products to remain available to herbalists, the government needs to introduce statutory regulation of herbal medicine practitioners.

Please support us in becoming statutory regulated by supporting the campaigns being run by the following organisations:

• European Herbal & Traditional Medicines Association - http://www.ehtpa.eu/index.html
• National Institute of Medical Herbalists - http://www.nimh.org.uk/
• Register of Chinese Herbal Medicine - http://www.rchm.co.uk/

Tags: Herbs, Uncategorized // Add Comment »

How will you remember 2009?  And how will 2009 shape your 2010?

I’ve included a link to Tony and Sage Robbins ‘Special Holiday Message’.  The second half of the clip is a short video featuring Jim Rohn who passed away recently.  I’ve personally found this video very inspiring as I start to take stock of this year and dream of what is to become.

wishing you a peaceful Christmas and a prosperous New Year!

Special Holiday Message from Tony and Sage Robbins

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The Department of Health has commissioned a UK-wide joint consultation process on statutory regulation of acupuncture, herbal medicine and traditional chinese medicine.  The deadline is 2 November. 

You can read the document by visiting this website ( http://www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_dh/groups/dh_digitalassets/documents/digitalasset/dh_103566.pdf ).  But, be warned, it’s a big old document!

The majority of medical herbalists support statutory regulation.  The National Institute of Medical Herbalists ( http://www.nimh.org.uk/ ) provides information on the need for statutory regulation. 

Right now, we need your help! 

If you believe complementary therapies such as herbal medicine, acupuncture and traditional chinese medicine should be subject to statutory regulation, please write to your MP and let him or her know.   If you are unsure about who your MP is, you can find out from this website http://www.writetothem.com/

Other useful sites that have posted information in relation to this issue include:

 The National Institute of Medical Herbalists

http://www.nimh.org.uk/news-and-events/news-and-press/regulation-action-plan

European Herbal and Traditional Medicine Practitioners Association

http://www.ehpa.eu/

The Herb Society

http://www.herbsociety.org.uk/guidelines.htm

Please act now to save herbal medicine!

Tags: Uncategorized // 2 Comments »

A Swedish study published in PsychCentral on 2 September 2009 has suggested a link between work-related stress and inflammatory conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis. 

They defined work-related stress as somewhere where psychological demands were placed on the individual and there was a limited opportunity to make decisions.  The study found people who had a limited ability to make decisions at work were predisposed to developing rheumatoid arthritis. 

This finding was similar to the relationship that has been defined between high levels of stress and cardiovascular disease.

Tags: Stress Related Illness, Work-Related Stress // 3 Comments »

You have got the pieces, now it’s time to put it all together so you have a complete Mind and Body Maintenance Programme.  Just as you might spend 30 minutes a day taking care of your body by exercising, it’s important to take care of your mind too!

Here’s where it’s a good idea to focus:

1. Relaxation is the key.  Have you arrived at that place where you are doing something relaxing every day?  It doesn’t have to be a big thing.  For me, I make lip balms.  I absolutely love it and I feel relaxed whenever I put them on. 
2. Give your mind a mini break.  You don’t need to carry around an endless list of problems.  Put them in the suitcase so you can deal with them when you feel ready.  Carrying them around with you won’t solve your problems, it will just wear you out!
3. Where are you keeping your tension?  Check in with your body every day to strengthen that mind and body connection.
4. When you find a tense area, get that tension out.  You can use creative visualisation exercises, like the ones in my programme, Reduce Your Stress - Your 7-Day Turnaround Programme.  Or try out some body therapies or ayurvedic therapies such as shirodhara (tension melts from your mind as soothing warm oil is poured over your forehead).
5. Notice your triggers.  How does your body feel before you get stressed?
6. Catch those trigger thoughts by noticing how you are feeling.  Change those thoughts and you stop stress at its source.
7. Build in helpful rituals.  Check out your relationships.  Who can you talk to?  How do you problem solve or share issues?  Monitor your food and fluid intake.  Check out my special report on stress busting foods for more information on this one.

We are not here to have no stress.  We are here to learn and to grow.  Learning and growing involves short bursts of stress and challenge, followed by down-time where we relax, regenerate and integrate.  Not learning is a stress in itself.  Leaping from one stress to another stress is chronic stress and really is not helpful. 

The trick is to make sure that you are not chronically stressed - that’s when you wear yourself out and create or exacerbate health issues. 

By building in these tools and strategies, you can enjoy stress-free living.

Tags: Focus and Meaning, Reduce Your Stress Programme, Relaxation, Stress Related Illness // 2 Comments »

What you are focussing on can have an impact on your body and how you are feeling.  Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) is a very powerful example of this connection.  Some forms of IBS are caused or aggravated by stress.  It’s as if your body is trying to get your attention.  Research shows, reducing stress can reduce the symptoms of IBS. 

Anxiety is another example.  Some forms of anxiety are triggered by your thoughts.  It’s as if the fire alarm in your body has gone off but there’s no fire.  Although the result of the anxiety can feel very real and have a very real effect, the trigger is just like that false alarm.  Here’s an exercise you can use that helps alleviate panic attacks and anxiety.  It’s called the Emergency Exercise.

Imagine that you are breathing in a white mist.

Breathe in through your nose and as you breathe in, see that mist circling in and around the inside of your head.

On the out breath, breathe out the white mist allowing all the tension to leave your body with this out breath.

Let your shoulders droop and feel your body go limp.

Now repeat this three more times in your own time.

Stress really is a mind and body game.  What we think, effects how we feel and we act or react based on how we feel (whether we are trying to avoid pain or move towards something pleasurable).  By changing what you are thinking about, you change how you feel and as a result change how you behave.  This works the opposite way too. 

You don’t have to monitor your every thought to catch what is triggering your stress.  You can track back by noticing how you are feeling or what you are doing.  If you catch yourself worrying try the Heavy Load exercise and put all your thoughts in one of the suitcases to be dealt with at a more appropriate time. 

If you catch yourself stressing over something, hold the image of a beautiful pink rose or a gorgeous friendly butterfly in your mind.  Now that you have that image in your mind, change your thoughts to something more helpful.  You might like to change the image of the rose or butterfly to something that always makes you feel good when you think about it.

Change the meaning you give to a situation or event and you have the power to change the whole chain reaction; stopping stress at its source!

Tags: Focus and Meaning, Reduce Your Stress Programme // 2 Comments »

Today we are looking at the early warning signs of stress.  Often we are not aware of the little stress triggers and before we know it, things have built up and we discover we’re really stressed.  If you register when your body is sending you the signal then you can take action before you get to the straw that broke the camel’s back!  Just because you are not registering you are stressed, doesn’t mean that you are not stressed.

The key to understanding when something is triggering your stress is by noticing how you feel in your body.  Remember, stress starts when you perceive a situation to be threatening.  That decision launches a cascade of reactions in your body that culminate in something helpful (for example, when things are going well) and something less helpful (for example when you’re tense but not in a life threatening situation). 

Take some time to write down how you feel when you are stressed.  It may help if you think of a stressful situation. 

Now work backwards.  Before that something happened, how did you feel in your body. 

Keep working back and record that trail of feelings.  Now you know what to look out for. 

When you notice these feelings, check in with what you are thinking.  If you can, change what you are thinking about.  Also build in some of the tools that we have already talked about.  Schedule in some extra relaxation time, map and release the tension in your body.

Tags: Reduce Your Stress Programme // Add Comment »

Today we are building on what was covered yesterday.  Now that you know where you keep your tension, we need to get the tension out of there!

Did you notice any patterns in your tension storage areas?

There are 4 common stress patterns that your body uses to get your attention:

1. starting at the base of your neck and going up over your head (I had this one after my exam the other day);
2. starting at the base of your neck and moving across your shoulders, down your arms to your elbows;
3. starting at the base of your neck and travelling down your back to your lower back;
4. in your gut, right near the duodenum

You can follow these patterns to monitor your stress levels or to work with your body to get the tension out.  I have included an exercise that allows you to move tension out of your body using your breath in my book, Reduce Your Stress - Your 7-Day Turnaround Programme.  Alternatively, body therapies such as shiatsu, stretching or therapeutic massage are also a great way of getting the tension out.

If you are not able to complete the Tension Dispursing Exercise on page 48, consider booking yourself a massage or body treatment.  Personally, I love Indian Head Massage for when I’m dealing with mental stress and my mind is full.

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Today we are focussing on where you keep stress in your body.  Regardless of how you get through a stressful situation or series of stressful situations if you are chronically stressed, the effects of it will get stored in your body somewhere.  We perceive it as pressure which gradually builds up in your body.  That’s one of the most insidious things about stress, it sneaks up on you gradually and quietly until one day it’s all a bit too much and we find ourselves with constant headaches, in floods of tears without really knowing why or with gut disorders such as Irritable Bowel Syndrome - they are all ways in which our mind is trying to get our attention, encouraging us to modify our behaviour so your body can get on with what is does best - regeneration and repair.

So why does understanding where you keep your stress help so much?  If you know how stressed you are, you can take action and repair what has been done, modify your lifestyle (even temperarily) so your mind has the space it needs to sort your body out.  One of the ways of doing that is by assembling your body map (instructions are on page 42 of the book, Reduce Your Stress - Your 7-Day Turnaround Programme: visit the shop at www.TurquoiseRay.com to get your copy). 

You can also do a quick body scan by becoming aware of each part of your body.  Ask yourself:

• how do my feet feel?
• how do my legs feel?
• how does my back feel?
• how does my stomach feel?
• how does my chest feel?
• how does my throat feel?
• how do my neck, shoulders and arms feel?
• how does my head feel?
• how does my face and jaw feel?

Note wherever you find tension, and give yourself the instruction for that part to relax.  For example, back relax.  Keep doing this exercise and you will feel your body relax, even if it’s just a little bit.  The more often you do this, the more your body will respond and the easier you will find it to relax your body on command.  Remember Day 1?  Relaxation is the antidote to stress.

By taking time to get the tension out of your body, building in relaxation and letting go of the things that are worrying you, you can live a stress-free life!

Tags: Focus and Meaning, Reduce Your Stress Programme, Relaxation // Add Comment »

I’ve got a pathophysiology exam today, so day 2 has arrived just in time!  If ever there was a need to let go, it’s today!

Today we look at the important role your mind plays in your stress response.  It really is the conductor of the orchestra known as your body.  Stress starts in your mind when you perceive a situation to be threatening.  You decide whether the situation you are facing is stressful or not.  That one decision triggers a cascade of events in your body and you will feel what you feel based on the question you asked and the answer you gave.

Carrying things around (like have I done enough study or do I really get it) will keep your subconscious mind occupied forever (well, until you decide to stop carrying it around with you).  It’s still weighing you down, using up energy and affecting how you feel.  Worrying about something won’t change the outcome so rather than carrying things around, choose to park it, let it go.  There’s a great exercise on Day 2 called the Heavy Load exercise that allows you to do just that.

For those of you who follow Reiki, Dr Mikao Usui devised 5 principles:

1. Just for today, do not worry.
2. Just for today, do not be angry.
3. Just for today be grateful; honour your teachers, parents and elders.
4. Just for today, earn your living honestly.
5. Just for today, show compassion to every living being.

Here’s a little exercise to help you let go of that which you no longer need.

1. Think of something or someone that you are now ready to let go of and write it down on a piece of paper.
2. Relax your body (for example by listening to the Light Exercise)
3. Once you are feeling relaxed, bring your piece of paper to your heart and imagine there is a beam of rose pink light travelling from your heart and into this piece of paper.
4. You might like to acknowledge this experience by saying thank you for the learning and voicing that you now feel ready to let this issue go.
5. Imagine you are a tree and dig your feet deep into the Earth so that you feel really grounded and connected.
6. Go into the park or the woods or pull out an old flowerpot and bury your note in the ground.  As you do this, imagine yourself letting go of whatever is written on your piece of paper.  (if you have buried it in a flowerpot, you might like to get some nice herbs or flowers to plant in the pot)

Tags: Emotional Stress, Exam Stress, Focus and Meaning, Reduce Your Stress Programme // Add Comment »