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I slept and dreamt that life
was a joy.
I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold! Service was joy. Tagore
Welcome to the premier edition of the Tree of Life Center Newsletter. Through this medium it will be possible to keep you up to date with news and events here at the Tree of Life Center as well as new research on health and wellness issues and other articles of interest. A note from Dana; Many of my clients know the extent of which I go to in order to explain session goals and techniques I employ and to help them understand my observations. I am known to bring out anatomy books, charts and even a skeleton on occasion. I routinely provide current research papers on any given topic. Even though at times some issues may be controversial, I believe in providing the mind with an active process to stimulate thought and dialog. I also believe an educated patient has the best chances of success with prevention and recovery from injury or illness. Many people are coming to the realization their doctors do not have all the answers, that medications alone aren't the answer, that wellness is inclusive of multiple factors. It is within this theme that we present this newsletter. In the context of a dynamic newsletter we encourage your feedback and inquiries. You may contact us through our website with questions about the material we present or request for information you would like to see. This newsletter is by subscription (free of charge). As a current client you have been added to our mail list. You may opt out at anytime by contacting us. Your privacy is respected. We will never sell or share your information at anytime. So sit back and enjoy, read what you want and leave the rest. We hope what we provide is interesting and helpful. Yours in wellness, Dana NEWS Dana Tavares LMT, CPT now offers individual personal fitness training. Press release in Lincoln County News. read more......... EVENTS EFT / Emotional Freedom Techniques for Stress Relief Sylvia Tavares presents adult education class on stress relief using the EFT techniques at Great Salt Bay School. read more........ Upcoming EFT classes include: Weight Loss with EFT, Breaking addictions with EFT (smoking, food issues etc.). Time and dates to be posted at a later time. Health and Nutrition Making a new exercise program work for you. read more........ The Simplest Weight Loss Tips No One Follows! read more........ article Guest column: by Will Brink (re-printed with permission)
How to maintain a Healthy Brain read more........ Guest column by Todd Goldfarb (re-printed with permission)
Disclaimer: Throughout these newsletters and articles I will be presenting ideas, concepts, product reviews etc. that are intended to educate, inspire further research, and possibly open dialog for the purpose of better health and wellness choices. It is important to realize that I am not a doctor or ever had medical training beyond that acquired through my massage training and research conducted on my own. I am a Maine State licensed massage therapist and a Certified Personal Trainer. I do not diagnose or treat medical conditions. I believe a educated patient is most likely to receive the best care and that an "ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure". Therefore I hope the material presented provides a springboard for further learning and communication between yourself and your healthcare providers.
 
Tree of Life Center for Wellbeing now offers individual personal fitness training. (press release for Lincoln County News) Dana Tavares, co-owner of the Tree Of Life Center for Wellbeing completed the NAFC Personal Trainer Certification last fall and is now offering fitness training on an individual basis or combined with therapeutic massage. Tavares has worked as a licensed massage therapist for the past six years and believes the combination of fitness training and therapeutic massage is a perfect union. "Together fitness training and therapeutic massage can accomplish a great deal more for the individual in far less time than either by itself". Many people think personal training is for athletes or bodybuilders however more and more people of all ages are turning to personal fitness trainers to improve the quality of their daily life. With the Functional Fitness for Daily Living Program, Tavares helps individuals to balance their biomechanics, increase strength, gain flexibility and balance, increase stamina, achieve a healthy weight, and improve cardiovascular health. As a licensed massage therapist Tavares works every day with men and women of all ages suffering with back pain, neck and shoulder pain, as well as conditions like sciatica, carpal tunnel, arthritis, and various sprains and strains. Tavares believes that many of these issues could be largely eliminated or even avoided entirely through proper conditioning that includes balanced strength and flexibility. The time to start is before a problem occurs according to Tavares but is truly effective at any stage or age. Everyone can benefit from proper conditioning. Most of us have occupations or daily activities that over use certain muscle groups and under use others whether it is the office worker sitting at the desk day after day working on the computer, the fisherman trying to stabilize his / her self on a constantly moving surface while hauling heavy traps, or the homemaker placing a sudden demand on the body by carrying heavy bundles of groceries or carrying young children. Many injuries or chronic pain issues are more subtle and develop over time such as overuse / repetitive task injuries or postural distortions. Chronic back and neck pain or tendonitis of the wrist or elbow are examples. Athletes have used a combination of massage therapy and personal training for centuries. They keenly realize the importance of maintaining flexibility and strength for performance and injury prevention. Many people beginning to start exercising on their own tend to take the "shotgun approach" using high intensity aerobics and mismatched strength training with minimal or no flexibility training. This may not only be ineffective but could also be dangerous. Caution must be employed when a relatively inactive person begins exercising or starting a new sport, so as not to injure oneself or set oneself up for failure. In some cases a physician’s clearance for exercise is recommended. Tavares works one on one in a private setting. Many people sensitive about their body image or lack of exercise experience enjoy this comfortable private setting. To begin with, a detailed medical history is taken along with the client’s goals and exercise preferences. Next, a biomechanical assessment is available to assess strength, flexibility, and postural distortions. And finally base line statistics are gathered such as body fat percentage, blood pressure, weight, and maximum oxygen uptake (VO 2).Tavares works with each individual to craft a program that is enjoyable with achievable goals. Another concern for many people is affordability. Tavares states that effective exercise does not have to be an expensive commitment. Whether you wish to exercise at home, at the gym, at the Tree of Life Center, or any combination. The guidelines presented with your personal training sessions can be used anywhere and tailored to fit your budget. A computer printout to track your exercises along with 4x5 index cards describing each exercise will benefit you wherever you choose to do your exercises. Some people choose to have training sessions weekly, twice a month or once a month to have support, guidance and learn new exercises depending on their requirements. If desired, therapeutic massage sessions can be worked into the program at various intervals or with short duration sports massage before or after training sessions. The Tree of Life Center for Wellbeing is located on Egypt Rd. in Damariscotta. Appointments are required. Availability is limited. For more information call: Dana Tavares LMT, CPT at 563-2737 or go to Fitness Training
EFT/ Emotional Freedom Techniques for Stress Relief Learn how to simply and quickly relieve stress and anxiety using this healing technique. EFT has also been called " Acupuncture without needles" and is extremely effective at reducing stress and anxiety in any situation almost immediately. This one night class will teach through demonstration and hands-on experience how to "tap" on powerful meridian points on the body and reduce your stress level in minutes. Once learned, this basic EFT procedure can be applied to a wide variety of issues. If you would like to learn more about EFT, you may visit her website at www.center4wellbeing.com/EFT.htm. Sylvia Tavares is an EFT practitioner and Reiki Master. Her practice is located in Damariscotta at the Tree of Life Center for Wellbeing. Making a new exercise program work for you. Dana Tavares Most people will agree they believe that exercise is good for them because we intuitively know that it is. Why then do only 8% of men and 3% of women in the USA do any regularly scheduled exercise? Many people who actually start a fitness program only continue for several weeks then stop. Anyone can get in an exercise rut where inspiration and motivation drops, and there are many reasons for this. Most people will agree they feel great, or at least a lot better, when they regularly exercise. And most people will agree that once they have stopped exercising for any length of time it becomes exponentially harder to get going with it again. Ok, so we know the reasons why we need to exercise, eat right, balance work and relaxation, and we know that when we do we are all the better for it. So what's the problem? I will devote a series of articles in the future on this topic because it is big, and it is important. Of course you can read articles until you are blue in the face, but the fact is something needs to change. A change in your list of priorities, and this involves lifestyle changes, no small task but certainly achievable. This starts with coming up with your "compelling why". Your "compelling why" is more than just goals. Goals (other than just exercising itself) may be to to lose weight, improve your body shape, reduce chronic back pain, the list could be endless. Not to say goals are not important. In fact they are absolutely necessary and will determine how you go about doing what you need to do. No, I am talking about your "compelling why". For example, why is losing weight important to you? Really explore this and see where it goes. Possibly you are starting to suffer from reoccurring knee pain that is a result from carrying additional weight. If you project down the road a bit you may see if this progresses it may interfere with your ability to enjoy the outdoor activities that are important to you, play active games with your kids or new grand child, or could lead to more widespread chronic conditions that would affect the quality of your life and possibly those around you. Your "compelling why" needs to be deep and palpable. Sometimes initially it is easier to make changes in and for ourselves for someone else's benefit, like our children. What ever is a very deep motivation is important. It will get you through the tougher beginning times until the benefits of your changes take hold and the habits of the past are in the past. If you don't have your "compelling why" you don't have any reason to go to the gym, take that walk, or make the changes you need to make. You'll never feel any real sense of accomplishment and absent of any sense of accomplishment it's going to be hard to enjoy your routine or stick to it. This may all sound very difficult, but really it is not especially when approached with help, guidance and support. Now that you have connected and explored your "compelling why" it's time to set some basic goals. Setting a goal helps you design your program and to track your progress. Having a goal that is reasonable and achievable is very important. It becomes a great motivator and just as the sight of the finish line gives a runner the strength to make the final dash at the end of the race, as you get closer to achieving your goal you'll feel more drive to go to the gym or do your exercise program. Having help setting your goals can be very important. Many people starting a exercise program feel overwhelmed as to where to start and what specifically would benefit them. For example, if you want to lose weight and improve your body shape, contrary to popular belief, I would recommend resistance training, not cardiovascular exercise as the primary mode. Resistance training builds muscle, which has the highest metabolic rate of all our tissues. The more muscles you have, the more calories you burn, even when resting! Cardiovascular training does the opposite, and tends to take muscle off your body. Now many women might say they don't want to bulk-up and look like a body builder. By adjusting your program accordingly this would not happen, even though you would be adding muscle mass. If however your concern is a family history of cardiovascular disease and you want to do what you can to avoid this for yourself, then it is important to include cardiovascular exercises that will address this (in a safe fashion). Once you've set your goal, you need to make achieving it fun. For some of us exercise is an exciting part of our day, but anyone is subject to boredom of repetitive exercises. Of course doing anything repetitively without variety tends to get old pretty quickly. This is a sticking point for many people. So to keep motivated it is important to have variety of different methods to keep your exercise routine interesting. As an example of applying the variety principle to any activity lets take walking for instance.
All exercise counts. You will be surprised at how creative you can get, and how much better you will start feeling. Comparing your starting baselines every couple weeks with your progress will be reinforcing. Over time you will learn enough about exercise and know enough exercises to keep it interesting. If you get stuck or unsure how to proceed, or lack inspiration, ask for help. Hire a fitness professional to design a personalized exercise program for you, that you can then do by yourself at your gym or at home. You can check in when you need the help and support or to learn new exercises. Make sure you select a well-trained professional who will listen to your goals and help you to reach them, not someone who will just five you the latest one-size-fits-all fad workout. So to keep yourself fit and healthy remember this simple formula. Find your "compelling why", set a goal and make getting there fun. Add a little variety to your workouts and you'll find yourself getting results that you never thought possible. Title: The Simplest Weight Loss Tips No One Follows! Author: Will Brink (re-printed with permission) Article: I have a Cheez-It problem. You're not listening, I really have a Cheez-It problem! I have never met a Cheez-It I didn't like.* Some people can't resist chocolate or ice cream, some people it's pizza or some other food or sweet. While I enjoy all of those foods on occasion, Cheez-It's are the food equivalent of crack cocaine for me. It takes all my willpower to pass up the isle where the Cheez-It's reside on the shelves at my local grocery store. My ever-loving girl friend Kimberly rolls her eyes at me in shear disgust when she sees how weak I am to the power of these little crackers, which draw me in like a cheese flavored black hole. "But you have given advice on nutrition to millions of people Will, how could you of all people be so weak willed about some little cheese flavored cracker?!" she says. I hang my head in shame and avoid eye contact with her for the rest of the day.... The point of this introduction is to point out we all have our weaknesses and we are all human... even me. I find Cheez-It's to be cheese flavored morphine! This small problem got me to thinking. If there is one thing I have learned after all these years of doing nutritional research, writing countless articles on the topic of nutrition, and working directly with people on their diets, it's this: it's rarely one single thing a person does that is sabotaging their efforts to lose fat and or gain muscle, but a bunch of little things that have an accumulated effect. There are some amazingly simple behaviors and strategies we can all add to our nutritional goals and workout plans that will have a positive effect. Using my own addiction to Cheez-It's as the primary example, I am going to cover a few of these surprisingly simple yet effective strategies. A few issues to keep in mind: (1) Taken alone, these simple tactics will have very little effect. Used alone without any other dietary changes and an exercise plan, these strategies wont amount to much. However, as I mentioned, it's often many minor mistakes adding up to a lack of results for people, and taken in that context, these are some simple mistakes that can be avoided, hopefully resulting in an accumulated effect in a positive direction. (2) I didn't invent any of these tips. They are some of the oldest and simplest tips you will ever read. I don't even know who first came up with them, and I bet most people have seen these strategies in other places, such as various diet books, articles, or web sites. I do however think that they may be so old and so simple that most people with the best of intentions about their nutrition and exercise plan, don't follow these simple concepts. These tips are more about behavior changes and psychology then nutritional science, study results, or research. I have written many articles based on the later topics, but this is not one of those. If you are looking for more in-depth science oriented information about nutrition, supplements, and fat loss or gaining muscle, I suggest reading my ebooks on the topic and the many free article on my web site. Tip #1: Never Ever Go Food Shopping Hungry This is one of the most effective strategies I know of to avoid unwanted junk and various snacks from finding their way into your shopping cart, which ends up in your home, which ends up on your butt! Make sure to eat something before you go food shopping and you will be able to resist the junk that often finds its way into your cart. If I go food shopping without a good meal in my stomach, I often come home with a family sized box of Cheez-It's and feel like sh*& for days after eating the entire box! Human hunger and appetite are regulated by a phenomenally complicated set of overlapping feedback networks, involving a long list of hormones, psychological factors, and others way beyond the scope of this article. Suffice to say, we often make snap decisions and impulse purchases with certain foods due to one or more of these feedback loops being activated due to an empty stomach while we shop. Translated, your "willpower" to resist junk foods will be much greater if you eat something healthy at least 20-30 minutes before you go food shopping. You can either plan your meal schedule so that one meal is eaten before you go shopping, or have a snack (at least 20-30 minutes before shopping) which will have the desired effects. A yogurt with some flax oil mixed in is a good choice, as is a half cup of cottage cheese and a handful of walnuts or some other nut. A protein shake or MRP will suffice, but solid food tends to be more satiating. Tip # 2: Never Keep Snack Foods In The House This tip is a logical extension of tip number one. If it does not make it into your cart at the food store, it's not in your house. However, many people use excuses like "I have snack foods for the kids" or "my spouse keeps a box of Oreo cookies in the kitchen cupboard" as reasons they can't avoid the snacks that sneak into their diets and sabotage their efforts. Many of the foods we eat that we know we should not be eating are based on an impulse. Impulse control goes a long way here but no one will deny it's far harder to resist that impulse if your favorite junk food is under your nose. That's human nature. When I have an impulse for some Cheez- it's, I wont resist it well if it's only a few steps to the kitchen vs. having to get in the car to go get a box. The former I can't resist, the latter I can. Remember an impulse is defined as "a sudden desire, urge, inclination." That means it's short lived and will go away given sufficient time, so it's a matter of not having foods in your house that allow you to act on the impulse while it lasts. As for the excuse of the spouse, kids, etc. That is more an issue between your kids and or your spouse. Should the kids be eating that stuff anyway? No! I had a client tell me one day "I keep eating hot dogs 'cause I keep them in the house fort the kids." I said "so you're Ok with feeding your kids foods you know to be unhealthy for you and them?" She stopped feeding her family hot dogs shortly after.... ...Bottom line here is, those foods should be occasional treats for both kids and adults, not staple foods that can be found in your kitchen. It's more an issue of teaching the kids good dietary habits young so they don't end up overweight unhealthy adults. As for the spouse, I like to have some chips in the house, which I can resist without a problem. That is, unlike the Cheez-it's, I can walk past the chips without having to eat them all. I can regulate myself with them. However, Kimberly can't. Chips are to her what Cheez-it's are to me, so I make it a rule not to keep chips in the house. Point being, your spouse needs to support your efforts by making some small sacrifices. If you were an alcoholic trying to avoid alcohol, you would (or at least should!) expect your significant other to not keep booze in the house. If they wont support your efforts here, then relationship counseling is in order or a long talk, and I can't help you there; sorry! Tip # 3: Eat Off Of Smaller Plates The first two tips are common sense, this one is less so. However, I find it helps, albeit not to a great extent. Again, how much we eat is based on many variables. One of them is the visual cues we get looking at the food we are about to eat. We are extremely visually oriented creatures and part of deciding how large an object is must be compared to other objects, in this case, the food we put on the plate in comparison to the size of the plate we put the food on. Some of you may remember this little visual test from grade school. Looking at these two horizontal lines here: http://www.brinkzone.com/images/plates.gif which one is longer?Answer: both lines are identical in length. As you can see, the bottom "plate" looks longer then top "plate", yet they are the same length. It's a visual illusion that shows how our brains are set up to interpret certain visual cues. It is my experience that people will put less food on their plate if they eat from smaller plates as a smaller plate full of food looks like much more to eat then a large plate with the same amount of food on it. I know for myself I tend to put 2 slices of pizza on a small plate and three on a large plate! Now this is only one minor cue we have to self regulating how much food we eat, and other feedback loops (i.e., hormonal, psychological, etc.) can kick in and easily offset this strategy. For example, you could simply come back for a second helping using the smaller plates. However, it's my hunch (and it's only a hunch as research is lacking here) that over the course of say a month, a person may end up taking in fewer total calories using this strategy as has been my (admittedly anecdotal) experience with both myself and the many people I have given advice to over the years. Again, as already mentioned, taken alone, this strategy will probably have no effects on your efforts to lose fat if there is not a specific diet and exercise plan involved in the overall equation. It is however one simple small change that may improve compliancy to your efforts. It would be interesting to see a study on this, but whatever effects it may have, would be subtle and fairly small I suspect. Even so, over the course of a year say, it may help. Tip #4: Know Thy Self Lesson here is, we are all human and we all have our weaknesses. Trick is to know your weakness and develop strategies for coping with them. How well do you know yourself? That is, do you know what cues/triggers tend to set you off? Have you examined that issue for yourself? It's essential to recognized the cues that sabotage your efforts. We all have them. Find yours and take steps to avoid them where possible. For example, try making a list outlining the things you know tend to set you off and how you react to the, then add a column for how you could deal with it. For example you might write "talking to my crazy mother makes me anxious and I eat things I shouldn't immediately after the phone conversation" which would be followed by a suggestion of steps to change it, such as "always eat a meal right before talking to mom" and "only take calls from mom when I am ready and able to deal with her" and "go for a walk immediately after talking to mom to distress and give me time to get over impulse to eat junk" and so on. Develop coping strategies to your known triggers. I know for example going food shopping on an empty stomach means I will most probably end up with a large box of Cheez-it's in my house. I have also found if I go shopping irritated over something I will buy more foods I don't need as food is one of many ways we self medicate looking for some comfort. Hence the term "comfort foods" which is commonly chocolate, ice cream, and so on. Bottom line: Learn what your hot buttons are that lead to a negative behavior. Learn to identify when it's happening. Develop strategies for coping with it. How do you go about doing that? As entire books have been written on that topic, my advice will fall short here. That journey is also highly individual. For some it's working with a therapist or behavioral specialist, for some it's reading a few good self-help type books, and for some it's activities such as meditation, joining support groups, and others. It's also a life long journey. Conclusion The purpose of this article is not as much to supply tips for success in your fat loss endeavors but to actually remind people of what is stated in the intro to this article: most people fail in their fat loss/diet goals not due to a single mistake they are making (with exceptions) but many small events that have an accumulated effect that sabotages their efforts. If the tips in this article help, all the better. Some people are amazed how many extra calories slip into their diet from snack foods that they are not accounting for, or the fact they tend to take the elevator when they could take the stairs, and so on. 99 out of 100 times the person that says "I have tried everything and nothing works" actually translates into "I have not stayed on any one plan long enough for it to have an effect and sabotaged it with small unaccounted for negative habits and behaviors." Now, if I can just get the funding for that adult Cheez-it rehab center I want to have built.... * Cheez-It's are a cheese flavored cracker made by Sunshine foods and can be found on the shelves of any major food store in the US. About the author: For more article from fitness author Will Brink See: http://www.brinkzone.com/ Note from Dana: EFT can be a simple, totally effective way of breaking food addictions and cravings. It can be used by yourself anytime, any place, to break the compulsive impulses that tend to take hold seemingly out of nowhere and effect us on a very deep level. Watch for upcoming classes here at the Tree of Life Center for EFT and food addictions / cravings. How to Maintain a Healthy Brain by Todd
Goldfarb “Physical activity” is usually regarded as the pursuit of exercising the muscles, tendons and joints of the body, and rarely thought of as benefiting our internal organs (outside of the heart). But this is a limited viewpoint, as effective fitness can have a profound impact on all of our vital organs, especially the brain. Researchers now believe that we can work-out our brains by adopting many of the same habits that sustain a healthy body, from focusing on good nutrition and physical fitness to managing stress. This is important for us because the well-maintained brain is quicker, smarter, less forgetful, and less prone to age-related decline. Here are several ways to treat the brain real good. Food Choices Roughly 50% to 60% of the brain’s overall weight is pure fat (the rest of it is a mix of protein and carbohydrates). The brain uses fat as insulation for its billions of nerve cells. The better insulated a cell, the faster it sends messages and the speedier your thinking. For this reason, fats are excellent food for the brain. But all fats are not created equal, and it is necessary to educate yourself on which fats will serve the functionality of the brain best. As a general rule, any source of omega-3 fats such as walnuts, flaxseed, flaxseed oil or dark, leafy green vegetables will help the brain run smoothly. [To learn more about omega-3 fatty acids and the omega-3 content of foods, click here.] However, FISH provides the brain with its favorite form of fat: DHA (docosahexaenoic acid). According to David Perlmutter, co-author of The Better Brain Book, “DHA is far and away the most important nutrient for brain health.” Salmon and anchovies are excellent sources of DHA. Relaxation Chronic stress takes a heavy toll on the brain because stress hormones (such as corticosteroids) contribute to a general environment of inflammation and attack the brain’s memory center, the hippocampus. According to researchers, stress is most damaging when you let it eat away at you. Therefore, it is extremely beneficial to find a way to do something about it. Deep breathing is an excellent way to relax, as is the practice of meditation which has long been known to alter brain waves. In fact, recent studies have shown that meditation can change the physical structure of the brain (in a positive way). Therefore, our thoughts do play a major role when it comes to the health of our brain. Antioxidants The brain produces more free radicals - highly reactive cells that contribute to cell damage - than any other organ. Antioxidants are the body’s clean-up crew, and work around the clock to scrub the body clean of free radicals. They are found primarily in fruits and vegetables, and are in great abundance in berries (especially blueberries and Goji berries). [See “The 5 Greatest Foods For Your Health.”] Exercise Working up a sweat is critical for brain health. “Across the board, exercise increases brain function, memory retention and other key areas of cognition up to 20 percent” says Arthur F. Kramer, PhD, neuroscientist at the University of Illinois. The brain accounts for only 2% of the body’s weight, but accounts for 15% of its blood flow, and regular exercise keeps the brain’s arteries open and unclogged. New research is suggesting that exercise may actually encourage the brain to make new connections between neurons and build new vascular structures. Bottom line, get on that treadmill and lift some weights - it’s good for your brain!* [*Ed. Note: Clearly, ME/CFS patients must consider their exercise very carefully, to ensure they stay within the exertion 'envelope' that will avoid damaging payback. For insights, see Dr. Lucinda Bateman's article "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and the Exercise Conundrum," which suggests thinking in terms of 'physical conditioning' rather than 'exercise.'] Refined Sugars The brain needs sugar (glucose) for energy. However, it prefers a nice steady and natural supply of it - the kind you find in fruits and vegetables - not in the refined sugars heaped in energy drinks and candy. High sugar foods send a tidal wave of glucose crashing into the bloodstream, overwhelming the body’s ability to restore balance. Habitual ingestion of simple carbs and processed foods causes chronic inflammation, type-2 diabetes, and a host of other health problems. Needless to say, none of this is good for the brain, and it is great practice to limit your intake of refined sugars. Purposefully flexing the brain muscle through physical activity, proper nutrition, and deep relaxation is a great way to live a longer and healthier life! ___Note: This information has not been reviewed by the FDA. It is not meant to prevent, diagnose, mitigate, treat, or cure any disease. It is very important that you make no change in your healthcare plan or health support regimen without researching and discussing it in collaboration with your professional healthcare team.
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