This Omron pedometer is the kind I use.

Walking is the easiest exercise to include in your daily life without needing bulky equipment or a gym membership. Just be sure to wear good shoes for walking, and then take off. You can go for walks alone or with family members or neighbors. You can walk a dog — yours or someone else’s. If shopping, walk some extra distance in the store or parking lot. If you get a pedometer and keep it in your pocket, you will be able to measure how well you are doing, and this can provide a lot more motivation.

I have kept an inexpensive pedometer in the right front pocket of my jeans or other pants for close to five years now. I glance at it from time to time during the day. This helps me gauge how I’m doing so far that day. I can see if I should get on my jogger, go for a walk, or go outside and toss balls for my dog for a while in our fenced yard… of course, that only works if I walk or run around with the dog, rather than staying in one place. When the weather is bad, I will also just pace around inside my house.

As I work at home, with many hours on the computer, I do best if I take a break every hour or two. That’s a perfect opportunity to get in some walking. Don’t walk late in the evening if it keeps you awake.

Research indicates that many people walk about three to five thousand steps a day. Ten thousand steps is a commonly recommended goal, but I have found that with my knees, I am better off with a goal of seven to nine.

I’m on my second pedometer now, and both have been made by Omron. But whatever brand you come across, pedometers are widely available in stores and online. They aren’t expensive, and they only require a rare battery change of a common small battery. On mine, the instructions were clear for how to set it up, and they likely will be on any model. Even if you didn’t set the pedometer quite right for what your pace length is, that doesn’t really matter for counting the steps; it would only mean that the number of miles shown could be a little high or low.

Walking briskly gives you better health benefits than just strolling along, but it all helps. People are becoming more obese, and there is a very long list of health problems that come with obesity. You don’t want them. Not only will they cut into your enjoyment of life and your effectiveness, but they are expensive. Some can even shorten life significantly. But just walking with a pedometer can help you keep your weight down.

I wish I could brag that due to using my pedometer, I am a perfect size 8 but in fact I am a bit pudgy myself. A period when one of my knees was bad and I couldn’t walk much showed me how beneficial walking routines are, as my weight went up then. I admit to overeating at times of stress too. But now my knee is good, there isn’t much stress, and I’m working on getting my weight down. My pedometer helps me keep walking, and I suggest you try one too! The link takes you to the one I use, on Amazon, where I got mine.

This article came from: Why Use a Pedometer? You Will Walk More as the Pedometer Keeps Count at SimpleGreenLiving.com..

Did you get pretty uncomfortable toward the end there? We have a powerfully built-in mechanism to be sure that we keep breathing. Our bodies need the oxygen.

Yet, paradoxically, another mechanism in the body often keeps us from getting all the oxygen that we could benefit from. When we feel afraid or threatened or discouraged, our breathing typically becomes more shallow – not shallow enough to threaten life, but shallow enough that our bodies don’t work optimally.

For most of us, during the process of growing up, this unconscious process of making our breath more shallow occurs thousands of times, and gradually our habitual way of breathing becomes more shallow than it was when we were infants. We pay a price for this loss in our breathing – some  systems of our bodies may not work as well, we may be less relaxed, we may feel less connected to the world around us. Different people will experience different effects, but almost nobody has any idea that it has to do with the breath.

So there we are, habitually breathing in a somewhat limited manner, when along comes a crisis of some kind. It doesn’t have to be climate change or losing your job. Even a minor argument can do it. We breathe more shallowly still!

There is a way out of this dilemma, and it’s to learn to breathe deeply. Once you do that, the next step is to develop the habit of breathing deeply when you are feeling stress. “Remember to breathe!” my friend Char and I used to say to each other frequently. A third step is to make deep breathing part of your daily routines.

Belly Breathing

While sitting in a chair or lying down on your back, put one hand on your chest and one on your belly, below your waist. Take ten or twenty deep breaths, and notice what moves. Did your belly move out much? That’s the goal.

Practice taking a big breath in, and bringing it down below your waist so that your abdomen sticks out. (I sometimes visualize that a balloon is being blown up in my abdomen.) Once the abdomen is full, then let your chest expand as well. Then let the breath out: chest deflating, then belly.

There are various schools of thought about whether to pause at the top or the bottom of the breath. I like connected breathing best myself, where the inbreath and the outbreath flow continuously, but do whatever you like. Practice this until it’s natural for you to breathe deeply whenever you think about it.

When you notice something stressful going on, just a few breaths like this will release the tendency to hold your breath. For more benefit, quite possibly a lot more benefit, make deep breathing a part of your daily habits.

This article came from: Decrease Your Stress with Belly Breathing at SimpleGreenLiving.com..

So, here I am, in a wheelchair, unable to do anything other than talk (with a short of breath slur that makes people ask me to repeat myself a lot), think (which I do so well I can’t get to sleep), listen (which I love except when listening to somebody stupid enough to be stupid but not stupid enough to mock), and love (a renewable resource that grows exponentially as my ability to do everything else diminishes).

I bolded that bit as it surprised and moved me. I read on and on. Later, she says:

The things we value are only things. I look at my world and I look back at my life and it’s not the shows or the CDs or the degrees or even the fabulous shoes that matter. It’s you. And You. And You. And all of the people who have been my teachers, my friends, my accomplices and my family.

The blog is very funny in places, and and if you are a conventional person, it may be a bit strong for you at times. It’s at http://carlamuses.blogspot.com/

I’ve been mulling over her situation and it seems to me that she’s living an extreme (and unasked-for) example of a simple life, and she’s showing us “lifers” (as she calls the rest of us) what really matters. Thanks, Carla, I’m sure you’d rather be doing something else, but I hear you.

ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s Disease

Ever heard of it? Know anything about it? Carla has discovered that people really know very little about it and she is making it her mission to educate us. One way she did that was by making a calendar she’s selling at https://alwayslookingsexy2010.alscommunity.org/GroupSite/tabid/54/albumid/278/view/ViewAlbum/Default.aspx

And you can find out about the disease at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lou_Gehrig%27s_Disease

This article came from: Involuntary Simple Living at SimpleGreenLiving.com..

A neti pot is a small container that looks a little like a miniature teapot. You put a salt solution in it and stand over the bathroom to irrigate your nostrils and sinuses. I do this with a tissue at the ready in my other hand, to  blow my nose gently afterwards. I breathe through my mouth while doing it.

This process isn’t always the most fun,  but I really do like the results. My nasal allergies are greatly diminished, and I do think I am getting fewer colds. It’s quite common for me to feel like I might be getting a cold, use the neti pot, and not catch the cold. This is not proof, though, as I usually throw vitamin C, garlic, or echinacea at the cold as well.

Here is a neti pot… clicking on the image will take you to its page at Amazon, where you can read more about it. Neti pots come with little instruction leaflets.

Neti pots can be ceramic, plastic, or metal. I started with a ceramic one but when I traveled this past summer I left it at home. I found I missed it so I bought a plastic one and I like it better. This has something to do with the fact that my cats sometimes jump up on the bathroom counter when I’m at the sink!

They say it’s good to use warm water in it, but I make up my own neti pot solution by boiling water in my teakettle. Then I pour out a pint of the hot water into a measuring cup or mug. The boiling gets rid of any chlorine in the water. I add 1/2 a teaspoon of salt — I use sea salt, not regular iodized table salt. Pickling salt is fine. I give it a stir and the salt dissolves. Once the solution has cooled, I put about half in my neti pot and the other half into a very clean jar for use later. I find room temperature water to be pleasant enough, but it would be easy to make it fresh from warm water each time if you preferred.

Neti is Sanskrit for “nasal cleansing” and sometimes people misspell it as nettie pot or netty pot. Holistic doctors are more likely to recommend neti pots than are conventional doctors, but their use is pretty widely accepted.

Curious? Here’s a list of Neti pots at Amazon.

This article came from: Neti Pots at SimpleGreenLiving.com..

1. Wash, wash, wash your hands — specially when you have been around someone who is ill, when you come home from being out, or after you have been handling money. Regular soap is actually better than anti-bacterial, because the anti-bacterial diminishes the number of the friendly bacteria, and you want those! Also, run a nail clipper tip or something under your fingernails. I am not suggesting you develop an obsession but a habit is good.

2. Get enough sleep, even if it means sacrificing some of your evening. Keep in mind that you don’t get as restorative a sleep after consuming any significant amount of alcohol.

3. Take a probiotic supplement and/or eat a good quality yogurt. It turns out that our digestive system is a significant source of our immune protection. I just learned that recently and have been diligent about this step since.

4. Drink lots of plain water. I shoot for two quarts a day. When the weather is cold, I sometimes drink plain hot water.

5. Eat a healthy, natural diet, with plenty of fresh produce — organic if possible. Go easy on preservatives, chemically altered foods, and sugars. Supplement with vitamins as you wish; I normally take a good multi-vitamin plus 2 grams (2000 mg) of Vitamin C. You can tell if you are getting too much Vitamin C because you will experience loose stools.

6. Do exercise, in line with your body’s capabilities. I walk a lot, do QiGong (links to my review of Wild Goose QiGong) and some yoga stretches, and sometimes swim. Exercise helps our bodies’ immune systems as well as just about every system.

7. Here’s one that you may not know: Vitamin D is really important in preventing illness. Here in Mexico, I get mine by walking out of doors in the sun with my arms and legs bare. In colder climes, you may not be able to get enough sun in the winter. You can take Vitamin D supplements but be careful about the dosage. See http://www.mercola.com/article/vitamin-d-resources.htm for a lot more on this.

8. Garlic can be very helpful in warding off illness. If he thinks he might be coming down with something, my husband Kelly cuts a thin slice of garlic at bedtime and holds it in his mouth all night. (This is not conducive to romance, choose your times!) I prefer my raw garlic chopped up in tiny bits on a salad. A well-known tonic is to cut up some garlic and put it in a small jar of honey. After it has steeped for a few days, take a teaspoonful or so. It will last a long time; we always refrigerate it but I don’t know if we need to.

9. There are numerous homeopathics that can help prevent flu, or can help alleviate symptoms if someone has it. I have long used the widely available if unpronounceable Oscillococcinum made by Boiron. This year, I also have some Engystol to take as a protection and if I get something, and Fluplus for relief of any flu or cold. Both are made by another Homeopathic company called Heel. I am sure that various other homeopathic remedies can help as well.

10. Herbal remedies: there must be hundreds, but I get good results with echinacea. I don’t take it for long stretches at a time, as I’ve heard it becomes less effective as a cold and flu fighter if you do. I rarely take it longer than 2 or 3 days, because by then it has usually worked its magic. Or if I have become ill anyway, the echinacea isn’t going to help me get over the bug. I also use a Chinese herbal complex called Yin Chiao. Goldenseal is another well known thing, but I can’t speak from experience about it. I routinely keep powdered cayenne in a salt shaker and sprinkle it on many foods.

It’s worth remembering that just because something is herbal doesn’t mean it has no side effects. If you are pregnant, nursing, immune-suppressed, or have allergies, check with an alternative health professional. Some allopathic doctors are becoming more educated on herbs too. (Is that more in Mexico? One doctor I went to here had grown up learning about hundreds of Mexican, Chinese, and Indian herbs that his mother and grandmother grew in their garden.)

If you or someone in your family gets the flu, a lot of rest is good. Eating healthy foods becomes more important than ever, and chicken soup is well known for its benefits. Part of the benefit is the hot liquid so if you are vegetarian, make up a good vegetarian soup! Many of the tips above still work, but go easier on exercise, skip the echinacea, and curl up with a good book or DVD.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here’s a large pack of  Oscillococcinum at Amazon:

They have the Engysol… I didn’t check for the other one.

Hey, they even have my favorite echinacea-yin chiao combo, which can be hard to find:

This article came from: Instead of a Flu Shot: Natural Flu Protection at SimpleGreenLiving.com..

The Environmental Working Group has  released a free downloadable report in PDF format, titled Cell Phone Radiation: Science Review on Cancer Risks and Children’s Health. It’s at http://www.ewg.org/cellphoneradiation/fullreport

I just read it… well, skimmed it. It’s not exactly light reading, but the first sections summarize the findings.  Here is an example of the writing, where I bolded the main point:

Strikingly, the field of research on the health effects of cell phone use has exhibited the signature pattern of a so-called “funding effect,” a biased outcome due to source of funding, observed in studies funded by tobacco companies or the manufacturers of industrial chemicals such as the endocrine disrupting plasticizer BPA (vom Saal 2005). In 2001, the U.S. Government Accountability Office voiced a strong concern about the reliability of results from industry-funded studies conducted without government oversight (GAO 2001). A recent systematic review of the source of funding and results of studies of health effects of cell phone use indicated that studies funded by the cell phone industry were ten times more likely to report no adverse effects compared to studies funded by public agencies or charities (Huss 2007; Huss 2008). Thus, some of the heterogeneity in the earlier literature could be related to the source of funding, whereby research sponsors could influence the design of the study, the nature of the exposure, and the type of outcome assessed.

The Environmental Working Group also offers a guide to reducing cell phone radiation exposure, which it seems you can read on the site or download.

I already do one of their recommendations– when I’m home, I always use the speakerphone on my cell phone, holding the device away from my body.  On the purple sidebar on the right side of the website, one of the choices is Easy Ways to Take Action, and that takes you to a page where you can email the FCC and the FDA. I did that, and suggest that you do too.

Another website that tracks the cell phone – cancer news is www.mercola.com — just type cell phone in their search box. I get their daily email newsletter, which covers health and other topics.

I’m sure cell phones are not going to disappear but I for one am using mine way less now!

This article came from: Cell Phones and Cancer at SimpleGreenLiving.com..

He goes through a variety of his own experiences and those of others. It’s not the kind of book that is loaded with tons of references, but a few are woven into the text. By the time I had finished reading the book, I was not 100% convinced, but I had decided to experiment myself.It’s only been a couple of weeks, and I can’t say I have noticed anything except more peeing and possibly a little more energy. I will continue to evaluate.

I have found this arrangement works for me: I drink a quart of water in the morning before I have anything else to drink, and I start in on the second quart not long after lunch, not having any other beverages till it’s down the hatch. I finish by around 5 or 6.

Because I don’t much like the taste of room temperature water, at least not the filtered water we use here, I fill up two glass quart jars with water each evening and put them in the fridge.

I work at home, which makes this easier. On the days that I am out and about a lot, I drink less, due to the basic principle that what goes in must come out!

Coffee, green and black tea, and alcohol all produce the result of less water in the body than if you hadn’t had them. I haven’t stopped them but have cut back some.

I must admit I have never been sure that I really need to drink the water pure. Would it be okay to mix in, say, 10% fruit juice, a squirt of lemon, or a dash of herbal tea? A friend of mine who is big on drinking water said, “You wouldn’t wash your clothes in fruit juice!” when I asked her this. Good retort, but I don’t think I have a washing machine in my gut.

So I am still unclear on this, but for the experiment, I decided to go with pure water. I am finding that it’s pretty easy to get it all down, and getting easier as I get used to it. As it gets colder in the winter, I might try hot water.

And here’s the link to that book at Amazon:

This article came from: Do You Drink Enough Water? at SimpleGreenLiving.com..

I asked my dentist if there was something more natural I could use, perhaps involving salt. Generally, Mexican medical specialists know more about herbs, homeopathy, and natural remedies than their North American counterparts, and this dentist was no exception.

“Certainly,” he said. “Make a strong manzanilla tea — how do you say that in English?”

“Chamomile,” I said.

“Ah yes.  Make about a liter and add a coffee spoon of salt.”

I tried to think what a coffee spoon would be. “Oh, a teaspoon?”

“Yes, thank you.  Use it 3 times a day till your gums are better, then use it whenever you want.”

So I mixed up a quart of this Mexican natural mouthwash, and it is helping. And it tastes okay.

This article came from: Easy Natural Herbal Mouthwash at SimpleGreenLiving.com..

My Take on the Swine Flu

I live in Mexico at present, and I take statistics here as rough estimates. There are so far only two labs in the country that can do testing for this flu, so some of the numbers you hear are inaccurate. They really can’t say how many people have had it for sure. The first known case is said to be a little boy in a region with lots of huge hog farms. But I can imagine that the flu may have existed for a good while before gaining official attention. Where I’m going with this is that I suspect that possibly many thousands of people have already had this flu. I suspect that just as most cases in other parts of the world are being reported as relatively mild, so too most cases here probably have been.

Now this is conjecture, and only time will tell, but I think it is quite likely that this flu is not going to be a serious global health threat.  But it is well worth doing everything you can to take good care of yourself – in any case!

Nine Natural Approaches That Help Protect You From Swine Flu and Other Diseases

You may be surprised at how simple these ideas are, but do you do them all? I have trouble with some of them myself. All but one are commonsense and widely known.

1. Get enough sleep. Take naps if you like them and can.
2. Eat a healthy, natural diet emphasizing vegetables and fruit. Eat a good bit of your food raw.
3. Stay away from preservatives and chemically altered foods.
4. Go  easy on the sweeteners. All the chemical ones are known to be bad for you, and sugar itself isn’t great. Honey, agave syrup, and other more natural sweeteners aren’t really health foods either!
5. Drink plenty of liquids, and I don’t mean the ones that come in cans or oversized plastic bottles.
6. Exercise – walk, do sports, do stretches, do yoga, whatever. This matters!
7. Wash your hands quite a bit, and especially when you come home from being out or after handling money.
8. Do something peaceful every day. This could be relaxation processes, prayer, visualization, listening quietly to lovely music, whatever.
9. Here’s the one that is less well known: get enough vitamin D by being outside in the sun with little enough clothing that you can absorb the rays. Here in Mexico, I walk in my yard quite early in the morning. In colder climates, you may need to do other things. Vitamin D helps protect you.

Specific to flu and colds: keep a bit of distance from other people when you are out shopping or in public places. Often this isn’t possible, so don’t obsess about it.

For More Reading on Swine Flu

[1] Dr. Mercola of mercola.com had written a scathing book on the bird flu scare, so I have been very curious what he would have to say about swine flu. This morning he came out with this long article:

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/04/29/Swine-Flu.aspx

You may have to try more than once to get through, as I think his servers are having quite a heavy load. He goes into the politics of flu and how some people get very rich from having others frightened. He also has some interesting points: more people died of bird flu vaccine than of bird flu, for one. Lots of footnotes in his article.

You will recognize that my tips resemble  his. That is partly because they are common sense, and partly because I have read his daily newsletter for years!

[2] Here’s an interesting article from Grist about the factory farming of hogs in Mexico and the start of this flu. Lots of comments.

http://www.grist.org/article/2009-04-25-swine-flu-smithfield/

I think the fear that the swine flu has engendered is a real problem – I had a bout of it myself. Just keep in mind that much of the media makes its living off drama!

A Resource on Homeopathy for Flu

Here’s a link that a friend of mine who does homeopathy professionally sent me:

http://www.hpathy.com/diseases/Swine-flu-symptoms-treatment.asp

This article came from: H1N1 or Swine Flu: Natural Approaches at SimpleGreenLiving.com..

About six months ago, my sister-in-law Alexandra came to visit us for a few weeks. She brought us this DVD:

Wild Goose Qigong 1: The First 64 Movements

Alexandra taught us some of the QiQong on the DVD, and explained that Wild Goose QiGong is a medical form, enhancing health in many ways.  She herself had had great benefit from a class where she lives, combined with DVD use.  Her knees had been bothering her so much that she sometimes had to use a cane, and now she’s walking everywhere vigorously. A good friend of ours, who also takes that class, comments that she has had fewer colds since doing the practice.

Well, I haven’t heard of any QiGong classes where I live, but I found that I could learn the QiGongs reasonably well from the DVD. I did it by watching on my computer, using Windows Media Player, which allowed me to run the sections at half speed, and to easily go back over and over them.

I learned about 1/4 of the sequence that way, and plan to continue this year. I still do that form at least once a day. I found another DVD by Dr. Bingkun Hu:

Creating Flexibility through Qigong

I’m using this as my primary QiGong practice for now. I can’t get nearly as low as Dr. Hu is in that picture, but I can tell that I am WAY more flexible than I was before I started.

Here’s a bit about Dr. Hu from the cover of the DVD:

Dr. Bingkun Hu is a medical Qigong master and Qigong therapist. He has been practicing Qigong for over 50 years and is a disciple of Grandmaster Yang, Mei-jun. Dr. Hu combines a background in Traditional Chinese Medicine with a Ph.D. in Western psychology to bring the essence of both the Taoist and Buddhist Qigong to the West. In 2001, he was awarded Outstanding people of the 21st Century in honor of his contribution to medical Qigong. Dr. Hu holds many workshops each year and also has a private practice in Berkeley, California.

There are quite a few more programs with Dr. Hu at Amazon. I read that his Wild Goose Qigong 4: Spiral and Tripod Qigong is one that can beginners can do too, so I’ve got it as well.

I had studied QiGong a little before this, and used to do tai chi, but this is a real find for me. 

This article came from: Wild Goose QiGong with Dr. Bingkun Hu at SimpleGreenLiving.com..