We all have regular maintenance duties to attend to in our life.  The car needs a new oil filter, the air conditioner filter needs to be changed, we clean the lint filter on the clothes dryer. This year, clean your body’s filter, the liver, with a detoxification diet.  I’m encouraging all my clients and their families to experience the healthful results of a 10 to 14 day cleanse at the beginning of the new year. I do it myself and highly recommend its benefits!

Cleansing diets, or detoxification diets, have become more widely known in the last few years. They are considered detox diets because they are reported to remove toxins or poisons from the body that have purportedly built up due to years of unhealthy eating or exposure to pollution and other toxic chemicals in everyday life.

As a holistic chiropractor, when I see in my practice a patient whose stress levels are off the charts, I often recommend that we start addressing those conditions with a 10-day detox protocol to help return the body systems to an even balance.

One very popular result of cleansing diets is that they help people lose weight. This is most likely due to a combination of factors.  During a cleansing diet, there is quite often a release of waste from the colon. This waste may have been impacted or lodged there for some time and its elimination shows up as a weight loss!

Another factor that causes weight loss during a cleansing diet is that the person doing the cleanse has changed their diet to one that contains more fresh fruits and vegetables. When raw fruits and vegetables are the bulk of a person’s diet, rapid weight loss often occurs. Fruits and vegetables are full of fiber and many also have low calories and a high water content. This helps the person doing the cleanse to feel full, eat less, and feel satisfied.
Besides weight loss, some other great results that have been reported after doing a cleansing diet are:

Overall health improvement – less achiness in joints and bones, better and more restful sleep at night, and more clear thinking (not foggy or clouded)

Dissipation of mild depression – For many, a cleansing diet has been found to restore a zest for living!

Younger looking body, skin, and face – A nice side effect many people enjoy after a cleansing diet is that their skin has a new refreshing glow.  Their appearance may be more rested, rather than previously haggard or drawn.

A cleansing diet can be a great way to rejuvenate your body and have more energy. It gives your body a clean slate on which to build a more healthy way of life. Even if you’re not ready to commit to a cleansing diet, simply adding more raw fruits and vegetables to your daily diet will flood your body with pure nutrition. Your body loves to get “real food” to eat each day. So give it a whole fresh food treat often!

In addition to all the vegetables you want, the detoxification diet that I recommend (and what gives the cleanse its “punch”!) includes a shake that you drink three times a day, one with each meal. This shake gives your digestive system a vacation and activates the liver detoxification pathways.  I offer all my wellness clients my coaching assistance and expertise as they go through the cleanse protocol.

To begin your New Year with a clean start, please call Amber in our Ventura office at 805-644-0461 to schedule your appointment today!

Stress – It’s a part of modern life and almost everyone gets stressed at some time or another. We may stress about finances, relationship problems, losing our jobs, or health worries. Short-term stress is ok and normal in situations such as taking exams or going for a job interview. However, long-term stress can take its toll on your health.

 
Symptoms can include insomnia, lowered resistance to colds, high blood pressure, heart palpitations, anxiety and depression. With severe stress you may also have a loss of appetite and feel nauseous.

Stress can be sneaky. You may become so habituated to stress that you are not aware of it. Your body is amped up all the time and that feels normal to you. You may be under physical or mental stress and only become aware of it when you have an unusually high blood pressure reading!

(Later in this article, I will tell you about a new technology I am offering my patients that gives you a look at the current stress-load on your body!)

 
So how can you de-stress yourself?

 
1) Talking to family and friends can often help, yet in cases of severe stress, counseling may be the best option. A stranger is often easier to talk to about sensitive issues than close friends and family who you feel may judge you. Counselors are also professionally trained and know how to help you.

2) Exercise is a great way to help reduce stress and anxiety. A brisk 30-minute walk each day (even if you don’t feel like it) will really make a big difference! Exercise releases endorphins into the body. These natural painkillers also give a feeling of well-being and can help strengthen the immune system.

3) Write down your worries and anxieties. Just the simple process of writing them down on paper can put them into perspective and make them seem less threatening.

4) Meditation can calm the mind and help you to focus. Often when you are stressed you may find it hard to concentrate, as your mind is preoccupied with whatever it is that is making you stressed. Quieting the mind reduces stress and promotes relaxation. You can buy CDs that guide you into a meditative state and help you to relax. Consider also taking up a calming hobby such as painting or playing a musical instrument.

 
5) Getting enough sleep is essential. If you find yourself working late and not giving yourself time to unwind before you go to bed, you may find that you can’t sleep as your mind is turning over problems in your head. Try cutting back on caffeine and don’t drink caffeinated drinks such as coffee or cola prior to going to bed.

6) Taking a power nap during the day can really help to boost your concentration and also help relieve stress.

 
My patients here at the Wellness Center are using our new Heart Rate Variability (HRV) technology, which gives a snapshot of their current nervous system function. HRV measures the autonomic nervous system, specifically looking at the balance between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. This gives an indication of how much stress their system is experiencing.

The body’s way of coping with stress often results in the autonomic nervous system being out of balance. Stress in the form of poor diet, fear, danger, lack of sleep and overall general stress accumulates over time and can lead to the development of degenerative conditions and premature aging.

 
The HRV test is neither invasive nor time-consuming. It is available right here at the Wellness Center and is a valuable tool for evaluating the effects stress is having on your health. Call our front office and ask Amber Perrin to schedule your appointment today — 805-644-0461.

Our best selling meditation is now on sale — Download or CD

Want to make somebody feel really great and thank you for it
– even if that someone is you?
Get them one of the most loved meditations of all time!

We’ve been producing high quality guided meditation programs since 1984! Our sales have long since passed the 100,000 mark, first in cassettes, then CDs, and now in MP3 download form. We receive so many thank you notes, letters, and comments from our customers, it inspires us to make more!

Click here for more info.

All of our recordings are written and developed by Max Highstein, and when you purchase from this website your payment goes directly to the artist, not a reseller or third or fourth party. We’d love to hear from you, so let us know what you think, and what else you would like us to produce. We’re open to suggestion!

We have great music, too – peaceful, healing music for massage and relaxation. Sample some of the finest relaxation music available anywhere, from Max Highstein, a master composer of healing music. Listen to free samples of healing music.

Click here to check it out now!

Due to the overwhelming response to our last cardiovascular screening, we will be offering another breakthrough cardiovascular/ autonomic nervous system screening using Max Pulse^(TM) technology on Saturday, October 29, 2011 at the Roth Wellness Center, 1787 Mesa Verde, Suite 140,  in Ventura, California.

Why?

Because Cardiovascular Disease is the nation’s #1 cause of death and it exceeds the next four causes of death combined.  Also, 70% of our population suffers from high blood pressure or hypertension.   We want all of our patients to be tested so we can have a base line score for them.  We want you to be a part of this screening and invite any family members and friends to be tested as well.  We feel this is just another piece of the puzzle to your overall wellness. 

We want all of our patients to live a long and healthy life and it begins with educating yourself on your heart health.

The screening is $50 dollars and you can call (805) 644-0461 and make an appointment with Amber. The test will take 20 minutes but please arrive a couple minutes early to complete your screening form. We will be screening from 11am-2pm.  We will call you the day before to confirm.

Please feel free to share this invitation with your friends, as I assume you may have a family member or friend that hasn’t been tested before that would like to be tested as well. We have all spent more than $50 dollars on something less important than testing the health of our heart.

You will receive the results that day and we will give you a copy to keep. The Max Pulse^(TM) testing device will give four very important readings: Heart rate, Blood Pressure and Pulse Wave which is testing your circulation. The Max Pulse will also test your Heart Rate Variability which pertains to how well your nervous system is controlling your heart function.

Availability will be limited to 30 people. So please call early and reserve your time. Every doctor I have spoken to had to turn people away as the schedule filled up quickly. Please call (805) 644-0461 today to reserve your spot!  Hope to see you on the 29th!

Sincerely,

This month, I’d like to address a health challenge that I am seeing more often in my practice: the client who is overweight and has insulin dependent diabetes.

“No matter how heavy you are, you will significantly lower your blood sugar if you lose some weight,” says Cathy Nonas, MS, RD, a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association and a professor at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. “We know it’s true — that if someone with diabetes loses 5% to 10% of their weight, they will significantly reduce their blood sugar. We see it all the time: people can get off their insulin and their medication,” she says. “It’s wonderful. It shows you how interwoven obesity and diabetes are.”

Even losing 10 or 15 pounds has health benefits, says the American Diabetes Association. It can:

• Lower blood sugar
• Reduce blood pressure
• Improve cholesterol levels
• Lighten the stress on hips, knees, ankles, and feet

Plus, you’ll probably have more energy, get around easier, and breathe easier.

We often assume weight loss is good and healthy. A slow steady intentional weight loss using nutritional change and exercise is associated with beneficial effects on the heart, blood pressure, and cholesterol levels. In addition, for a person with insulin dependent diabetes, weight loss can reduce “insulin resistance” and make muscles and fat tissues more sensitive to circulating insulin levels in the blood.  Furthermore, insulin is a hormone that likes to store fat!

A reduction in insulin resistance is important because insulin is needed to help glucose (a sugar) enter these tissues to be metabolized. If these tissues are resistant to insulin, higher than normal levels of insulin are needed for this process to occur. As a result, a vicious cycle occurs: the higher the insulin levels are, the harder it is to lose weight; the heavier a person is, the more likely they are to have higher insulin levels. As you can see, the cycle is often hard to break.

On a Diabetes Weight Loss Plan, Watch for Changes in Blood Sugar

Cutting back on just one meal can affect the delicate balance of blood sugar, insulin, and medication in your body. So it’s important to work with an expert when you diet. “For anyone, losing weight is challenging enough,” says Dr. Luigi Meneghini, director of the Kosnow Diabetes Treatment Center at the University of Miami School of Medicine. “For people who inject insulin, it’s even more difficult because they have to eat when they have low blood sugar. When you have to reduce calorie intake, prevent overmedication, and eat to correct your low blood sugar, it’s very challenging.” Indeed, both low and high blood sugar levels are the two big concerns for people with diabetes.

If you have insulin dependent diabetes, and want to improve your health and lose weight, I want to work with you! QNRT (Quantum Neurological Reset Technique) is the modality I most often use with my clients who want to make positive changes in their health and wellness. As a team, we will work together to identify and neutralize key emotional issues that often accompany weight gain, such as anger, disgust and even struggle!

I will work with you to balance your blood sugar with diet and nutritional supplements.  As a knowledgeable practitioner and holistic chiropractor, I bring over 20 years of service meeting my patients’ health challenges and fostering their well-being. If you or someone you know has insulin dependent diabetes, please call for an appointment at Roth Wellness Center, 805-644-0461.

A great many of us enjoy having pets as  companions. We cherish them, pamper them, and play with them. In return, a pet, whether it is a dog, a cat, or a guinea pig, provides us with a sense of comfort, companionship and even unconditional love.

The fact is most pets will not outlive their masters. Losing a pet can be devastating. The feelings a pet owner faces are similar to feelings experienced when losing a family member: sadness, denial, anger, guilt, and depression.

What can you do to move through the feelings of loss? Here are some ideas.

First, do not deny the feelings. They are very real to you and it does not help to keep them bottled up inside. If you feel like crying, then cry. That is nothing to be ashamed of. You have just lost a best friend.

Second, do not let others trivialize your feelings. Sometimes it is best to be by yourself for a while to give yourself time to let your feelings out.

On the other hand, often you may feel the need to express your feelings to someone who understands. It is quite likely that you know someone who has already lost a pet and would understand. Seek them out and ask if they will meet with you.

When we don’t express our feelings, they can become stuck in our bodies in unexpected ways. Occasionally in my practice, a patient comes to me with symptoms of ill health that turn out to have their origin in the loss of a pet.

For example, a patient with watery eyes and excessive sneezing thought she had allergies. One session of QNRT (Quantum Neurological Reset Technique) identified the recent loss of her dog as the underlying cause of her symptoms, which disappeared completely by the end of her session.

Finally, prepare a place of remembrance for your pet. It may not always be possible to bury your pet in your yard, but you can create a memorial by burying some of your pet’s belongings, such as a food dish, collar, or some of its favorite toys and placing a small marker at the site. Much like a funeral, this is often one of the best ways to bring closure.

Do not be in a big hurry to replace your pet. Give yourself some time to grieve. Give yourself a few weeks before deciding to get another pet.

If you or someone you know are having a challenge moving beyond the death of a pet, or have recently lost a pet and are having unexplained symptoms of ill health, please call my office for an appointment – 805-644-0461.

In my last post we discussed the Sympathetic Nervous System, and the way it affects the body.  This time, we are going to explore the other part of our nervous system, the Parasympathetic, and discuss the interaction between the two.

Your body is more than blood and bones and muscle.  It is an elegant system that also includes glands and organs and is designed to work with perfect circulation, perfect assimilation and perfect elimination.  Yet, I see patients daily for whom this “perfection” is only a pipe-dream.  Sometimes, the culprit that is responsible for a body that is not functioning properly is the nervous system.

The parasympathetic nervous system works to nourish, heal and regenerate the body.  It is anabolic, which means it is concerned with rebuilding the body.  Its nerves stimulate digestion, and the immune and eliminative organs.  These organs include the liver, pancreas, stomach and intestines.  The parasympathetic nervous system, when activated by rest, relaxation and happy thoughts, is essential for balanced living and for all healing.

The sympathetic nervous system activates the glands and organs that defend the body against attack.  It is called the fight-or-flight system.  Its nerves direct more blood to the muscles and the brain.

The heart rate and blood pressure increase, while it decreases the blood flow to the digestive and eliminative organs.  It also activates the thyroid and adrenal glands to provide extra energy for fighting or running away.  Nervousness, stress or feelings of panic are what one feels when in a sympathetic state of readiness.  The sympathetic system is catabolic, which means it tears down the body.  Energy is used to prepare for defense, rather than for nourishment or for elimination of wastes.

The feeling often associated with the parasympathetic state can be one of lethargy or fatigue, as one is so relaxed.  This is not unhealthy.  Rather, it indicates a state of repair and rebuilding in progress.

Symptoms of parasympathetic nervous system dominance often include feeling depressed and cynical.  An individual may be paralyzed by their fear or anger about their situation.  There may be a decrease in clarity of thought as a part of a numbing process to avoid pain and overwhelming emotions.

When a patient arrives at my office in parasympathetic dominance, I often see a person who tends to be more fatigued and prone to depression and whose adrenal and thyroid glands tend to be underactive. They may experience multiple allergies. Other symptoms include weight gain, dizziness and light headedness, low blood pressure and diarrhea.

Many of my patients have already gone from doctor to doctor looking for a cure before they come to my office.  In my many years as a holistic chiropractor, I have studied and practiced effective procedures and techniques, along with nutritional supplements, that balance the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.

When the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems are working as they should, the tendency is to rest often and easily. The parasympathetic system reduces the activity of the brain, the muscles, and the adrenal and thyroid glands.  When no situation is pressing, the balanced person can comfortably choose to rest and can sleep deeply. In this restorative sleep, the parasympathetic system renews and heals any damage to the body caused by an over-active sympathetic nervous system.  Balance between the two systems is a key step toward greater health and wellness!

Modern man has named that choice to react “fight-or-flight”, a term that is often used when talking about the human stress response. Though we no longer face bears on a regular basis, when we react to a car alarm with the same heightened response we would to a dangerous animal, we are stuck in the fight-or-flight mode!  Over my 25 years as a holistic chiropractor, I have treated many patients stuck in this pattern, and they have successfully released it and re-balanced their nervous system.

The human nervous system has two major divisions, the voluntary and the autonomic systems.  The voluntary system is concerned mainly with movement and sensation.  It consists of motor and sensory nerves, among many others.

The autonomic system mainly controls functions over which we have less conscious control.  These include the digestion of food, blood pressure and heart rate.  Its nerves leave the spine and connect to all the major organs and glands, either inhibiting or stimulating their activity.

The autonomic nervous system maintains a balance by regulating the internal organs, blood vessels, and hormones.  It is divided into the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.  The sympathetic is active, controlling functions that include those associated with fight-or-flight.  The parasympathetic is passive, controlling the functions of rest and repair.

When we are in fight-or-flight mode, the sympathetic branch activates the glands and organs that defend the body against attack.   Its nerves direct more blood to the muscles and the brain.  The heart rate and blood pressure increase, while it decreases the blood flow to the digestive and eliminative organs.  It also activates the thyroid and adrenal glands to provide extra energy for fighting or running away.  Nervousness, stress or feelings of panic are what we feel when in a sympathetic state of readiness.

A constantly active sympathetic nervous system results in sympathetic dominance and puts the individual at risk for increased disease and illness. What drives a person into sympathetic dominance?  Chronic stress and overwork are the most common culprits.

The symptoms and illnesses associated with sympathetic nervous system dominance are those of fight-or-flight, and include: excessive worry, the inability to relax, nervous energy, and a strong self-will to “keep going.” Often my patients experience a dry mouth and sensitivity to bright lights and find loud music extremely irritating. Possible illnesses include: hypertension, heart disease, high cholesterol, type 1 diabetes, anxiety, panic attacks and poor sleep.

If you recognize yourself having any of the above symptoms, know that there is a way to remove yourself from the fight-or-flight pattern.  I am experienced in cutting-edge techniques and protocols, and offer nutritional supplements as needed, to relieve your nervous system of the underlying stressors that are hindering it from functioning optimally.

When the sympathetic dominance pattern is broken, and balance is restored between the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems, the body’s innate knowing rushes in to restore the individual to an improved level of health and wellness!

Find out more about how your nervous system affects your health and your weight  here.

I have been a holistic chiropractor for over 25 years now, helping people manage pain, stress levels, weight levels, and addictions.  I would like to share with you a very powerful, yet simple technique that can instantly “reboot” your system when you are experiencing stress.  Please watch the video below and try the technique.  Then, please leave me some feedback as to how this technique has helped you or someone you love manage stress!

As a holistic chiropractor, I have worked with people to improve their health and well-being for over 25 years. I witness the power of the body to renew and heal itself on a daily basis.  Some clients come to me as their last resort in a quest to rid themselves of chronic pain.

What kind of pain is chronic pain?

Chronic pain persists. It is pain that lasts for at least a month longer than it normally would after an injury or illness. Some guidelines say it is pain that lasts for six months or more. It can also be pain that goes on for months or years as a result of a chronic condition. Pain is the top cause of disability in the United States. The longer you ignore pain, the harder it is to treat.

With chronic pain, signals of pain remain active in the nervous system for weeks, months, or even years. This can take both a physical and emotional toll on a person.

Chronic pain wears people down, causes fatigue and insomnia, and results in missed work and social isolation. Chronic pain may originate with an initial trauma/injury or infection, or there may be an ongoing cause of pain. However, some people suffer chronic pain in the absence of any past injury or evidence of body damage.

The emotional toll of chronic pain also can make pain worse. Anxiety, stress, depression, anger, and fatigue interact in complex ways with chronic pain and may decrease the body’s production of natural painkillers. Even the body’s most basic defenses may be compromised.  There is considerable evidence that unrelenting pain can suppress the immune system.

What can you do if chronic pain is interfering with your life?

It has been my experience with people who come to me with chronic pain, that something is blocking their healing.  Usually, that something has its origins in the person’s emotional arena.

All of us have suppressed our emotions at one time or another. In fact, most of us develop life-long habits of emotional suppression. We do not realize how emotions affect our body.  Our beliefs and ideas about ourselves and our world also impact our body.

My focus is on removing the emotional stressors that prevent your body from functioning at its best and living your life to the fullest. The procedures I use allow you to heal not only traumas from the past but also those emotions that were locked in at the time of the event, leading to chronic pain and disease today.

These non-invasive, gentle techniques affect change in the body at very deep, cellular levels, removing blocks that have up until now, prevented the body from completely healing and restoring itself. Chronic pain has no foothold when the healing energy is unblocked!