Traditional Chinese Medicine:Suggestions for Long Term Breast Health

# Eat as many fresh, lightly cooked vegetables as you wish. Go easy on spicy, sweet, or greasy foods

# Avoid overeating. This stagnates the stomach qi - the stomach channel irrigates the breast tissue. Stagnant qi in any form is bad for the breasts.

# Try to avoid becoming overweight. There is a known relationship between body fat, fat consumption, and breast cancer.

# Stay relaxed. Remember the "Serenity Prayer" or simply learn to know the difference between what you can and cannot change and control in your life and in the lives of those around you. Try to let go of what you cannot change and work at changing what you can.

# If you cannot relax, use relaxation tapes or meditation techniques to help you learn to do so. Stress, when not released or diffused by some method, is an enemy of breast health.

# Avoid caffeine in as many forms as you can. Stop eating chocolate except as a rare treat. Switch from coffee to black tea, or better yet, to green tea.

# If you can, get some form of exercise every day, or at least every other day. It burns fat
cells, reduces stress, increases energy, and improves self image.

# Eat meat sparingly. Use it in broths, soups, stews, and not necessarily every day. Don’t just eat chicken and fish; a variety of meats is better over the long term.

# Grains, well cooked and/or in the form of noodles, should be the foundation of any diet. Try eating something else instead of bread. Try cutting back to bread products only once per day.

# When you use oil, use olive oil. Studies show it to be a better option for breast health than other oils or fats.

#Breast massage and any form of self-massage is helpful in keeping qi and blood circulating. Learn a simple self-massage regime from a book or make one up for yourself.

Mnemonic for Shock: signs and symptoms

TV SPARC CUBE:

• Thirst
• Vomiting
• Sweating
• Pulse weak
• Anxious
• Respirations shallow/rapid
• Cool
• Cyanotic
• Unconscious
• BP low
• Eyes blank

Yoga as an effective treatment for back pain

New researchs from the U.S. suggests that the millennia-old therapy of yoga could benefit millions of people who suffer from back pain problems. In an article published in the Annals of Internal Medicine on December 20, researchers concluded that yoga act as a more effective treatment for back pain than conventional therapy.
A study conducted at the Group Health Cooperative in Washington State required 101 adults to follow a choice of remedial treatments – a 12-week course in yoga, 12 weeks of standard therapeutic exercise or the same period following instructions in a self-help book. The results showed yoga both expedited relief from pain and had longer lasting benefits. Lead researcher Dr. Karen Sherman said this was because “mind and body effects” were in collusion.

The article states that: “Most treatments for chronic low back pain have modest efficacy at best. Exercise is one of the few proven treatments…however, its effects are often small, and no form has been shown to be clearly better than another. Yoga, which often couples physical exercise with breathing, is a popular alternative form of ‘mind–body’ therapy…[It] may benefit patients with back pain simply because it involves exercise or because of its effects on mental focus. We found no published studies in western biomedical literature that evaluated yoga for chronic low back pain; therefore, we designed a clinical trial to evaluate its effectiveness.” Millions of people worldwide swear by yoga to improve their mental and physical health.