Reflexology For The Spirit

spirituality of one's health

Alzheimer’s Disease: This Spiritual Disease is in Your Life Years Before You Know it.

Spiritually, you are overwhelmed with your life’s path  and want to run away to another time.  You do not want to live your life the way it is now because you lost your sense of belonging.  With memory loss, you escaped your roots, your place in your society, and your heritage.

I read somewhere that from one third to one half of people over eighty suffer with this dread disease.  I believe these numbers may be overstated.  Health professionals write about Alzheimer’s disease and dementia with much less certainty than they give their words to heart disease and diabetes.

My experience with Alzheimer’s Disease insists that I share this:  much that is written may not apply to your loved one’s situation, no matter the circumstances.

Professionals believe Alzheimer’s has genetic, lifestyle, and environmental causes.  Alzheimer’s develops slowly, over time.  The same things that put you at risk for heart disease also put you at risk for this disease:  sedentary lifestyle, smoking, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol scores.

Alzheimer’s patients have trouble thinking, speaking, reasoning, and writing.  The personality changes over time.   Disorientation is common and personality changes are to be expected.  One early warning behavior includes asking the same question over and over and over.  A second behavior is forgetting to do familiar things.  Finally, misplacing things and finding them in unusual places is a red flag.

Do you practice Reiki therapy, reflexology, or chakra healing?  Offering sessions of these modalities can be one of the most significant things you will ever do for an Alzheimer’s patient.  Your sessions are a way to spiritually communicate and connect with a person when words no longer work.

Are you a Reiki Master Teacher?  Teaching Reiki to a caregiver can be an important gift for both the caregiver and patient.  Other people living in the household can be attuned to Reiki.  This includes the pets and children.

Alzheimer’s Disease is a thief of a disease.  For starters, Alzheimer’s steals your brain.  Then, it steals your body.  Finally, it steals every penny in your bank and savings accounts.

CHAKRA:

Alzheimer’s is a seventh chakra imbalance.

SUGGESTED HEALING SYSTEMS:

Begin with Conventional medicine, Naturopathy, Homeopathy, and Herbalism.  Supplement your allopathic medicine with complementary and alternative medicine techniques wherever possible.

Alzheimer’s Disease  responds well to complementary, alternative, and integrative medicine techniques.  For now, no treatment can stop the disease.  The goal is to slow symptoms and offer whatever relief you can.

REFLEXOLOGY SYSTEMS TO WORK:

endocrine system, skeletal system, lymphatics, intestinal system, liver, solar plexus

ESSENTIAL OILS:

cedarwood, eucalyptus, frankincense, German chamomile, ginger, myrrh, nutmeg, patchouli, sandalwood, spikenard.

ACTIVITIES WHICH MAY HELP:

Regular exercise along with reflexology will improve your mood and maintain your health.  You’ll sleep better and have fewer constipation problems.

Good nutrition is important.

A calm and stable environment helps.

Keep your schedule regulated.

EMOTIONS EXPERIENCED BY ALZHEIMER’S PATIENTS:

Anger, confusion, depression, fear, frustration, and fear are common.  Anxiety is experienced when noise, being rushed, complicated tasks, or crowds happen.

ACTIVITIES TO REDUCE YOUR RISK OF ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE:

Mentally and socially stimulating activities can reduce your risk.  Preventive steps include keeping physically and mentally active.

One of the most important things you can do is keep your heart strong.  That means you should keep your blood pressure levels normal.  Keep your cholesterol numbers, your weight, and type 2 diabetes numbers in the normal range.

Physical fitness can’t be over emphasized.  Take a weekly exercise class.  Power walking, swimming, running, regular gym workouts help.

Keep your job as long as you can.  If you’re tired of the job you have, get another one.  Whatever you do, never quit working.

Keep yourself socially connected to your community.  A rich social life is important.  Don’t let yourself be lonely.

Take continuing education classes.  Learn crochet, carpentry, knitting, musical instruments, paintings, reading, sculpture, quilting.  Challenge your mind.

Regular massage, reflexology, Reiki therapy sessions are beneficial.  Surf the internet.  Get organized.  Care for others.

A good night’s sleep is one of the best things you can do to keep Alzheimer’s out of your life.

Don’t let yourself get depressed.

A hint:  Do all of these things before you experience symptoms.  You are fighting Alzheimer’s for years before you have symptoms.

RISK FACTORS:

Diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, obesity, sedentary lifestyle, smoking, stress

IS SOMEONE YOU KNOW SUFFERING WITH ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE?

One of the most significant things you will ever do for an Alzheimer’s patient is offer reflexology, Reiki therapy and chakra healing sessions to that patient.  Your sessions are a truly spiritual way to communicate and connect with a person when words no longer work.

DO YOU KNOW A REIKI MASTER TEACHER?  ARE YOU A REIKI MASTER TEACHER:

Teaching Reiki to a person caring for an Alzheimer’s patient can be an important gift for the caregiver and patient both.

Thank you for reading this blog post.  Please refer it to your preferred social media network.

Thank you!

Thurman Greco

heart with wings

Healthy Blood Pressure – 6 Things You Can Do.

We all have a blood pressure.  We don’t see it.  We don’t  feel it.  Unless someone checks our blood pressure, we don’t  know we have it.  And, unless someone tells us our blood pressure is bad, we don’t even think about it.

That makes high blood pressure a quiet killer.  While we go about our lives unaware of the situation, hypertension damages our blood vessels, heart, and eyes.  High blood pressure is a set-up for heart disease, stroke, dementia, and kidney disease.

So, pay attention to your blood pressure.  When your blood pressure is high, your heart is working too much to do its job properly.  This stresses your arteries.

So, what can you do to get your blood pressure down to normal?

For starters, STAMP OUT YOUR CIGARETTES.  Smoking, whether cigarettes or pipes, is not good for your arteries.  When nicotine reaches your blood vessels, they constrict –  which is not good for you.

GET A PET – Statistically, people with pets have healthier blood pressure scores.  So, what is the best pet for you?  I, personally, love dogs and cats.  But you don’t have to get something that barks and meows.  Birds, fish, snakes, even a gold fish  make good pets.   The important thing is to get one that is good for your situation.

DO YOU HAVE A HOBBY? – Find something that you really enjoy and can get interested in.  Drawing, writing, skating, running, walking, and a thousand and one other things can be just what you need to calm your hypertension.

GET RID OF YOUR EXTRA WEIGHT.  –  When you lower your weight you’ll have better blood pressure scores, you will also feel better and look better.    And, this is a segway right into the next suggestion:

NUTRITIONAL COUNSELING – Some foods encourage a good blood pressure score.  Fruits and vegetables are good.  Some people feel oatmeal has magical qualities.  You’ll have better luck with this if you get several  sessions  with a nutritionist whose training aligns with your health needs.

EXERCISE HELPS, TOO!  Yoga is good.  But, so is anything else you do regularly.  This includes almost any physical activity you like.  The important thing is to move.

Not included in this list is pills.  I think they are important and have been taking my blood pressure medication daily for decades.    Just like everyone else I know, I objected to them for a long time.  Once I admitted that I needed them, life became better.  This is a decision for you to make, though.  Everyone I know who takes a hypertension medication, including myself, went through stages of resistance.

After all, it’s hard to face up to needing a medication for the rest of my life.  But, once I matured into this reality, my health improved and my attitude about myself certainly got better, too.

Thanks so much for reading this article.  There are many other posts in this blog which will help you lower your blood pressure.  I hope you get time to check out a few of them.

Please refer this article to your preferred social media network.

Thurman Greco

 

 

 

 

High Blood Pressure and What You Can Do About It.

modernHigh blood pressure happens when the heart is forced to pump harder to maintain circulatory functions.  Often people have high blood pressure and aren’t aware of the situation.  High blood pressure can damage arterial walls and puts  strain on the heart.

If you have high blood pressure, you are at risk of heart attack, stroke, peripheral artery disease, and congestive heart failure.

High blood pressure is often a lifestyle disease because factors affecting your blood pressure include smoking, overweight, inactivity, prediabetes and diabetes, and, finally, our old friend stress.

High blood pressure is also often a spiritual disease because factors affecting your blood pressure include pushing yourself beyond your limits, feeling too much pressure and too many demands in your daily life, holding onto anger and hurt.

If you want to control your hypertension,  take the medication and make some lifestyle changes so  the dose will be the absolute lowest possible.  Often, the lifestyle changes will allow you to discontinue the medication.

Changing your diet can really help.  Work on losing weight.  This means cutting out the junk foods in addition to eating low calorie vegetables, fruits, beans.  Cut out caffeine, alcoholic drinks and any beverage with calories.  Diet is seriously important here…especially if you don’t want to take  pills.

Some specific vitamins and minerals recommended for persons dealing with hypertension include Vitamin C, Vitamin E, Magnesium, Garlic, Flaxseed oil.  Therefore, I advise that you find a nutritionist or call Liz at Village Apothecary in Woodstock (845-679-0790).  She knows the vitamins and minerals you need and she knows what diet is going to work the best for your situation.  You want to make sure that you are taking the right supplement and the right amount of the supplement to do the most good for you.

Exercise is important.  Find something you like to do and then do it every day.  Increase the amount of time you exercise a little each day.  Until you come up with a better exercise, try walking.

Receiving Reflexology for the Spirit sessions regularly can definitely help to stabilize hypertension.  Homeostasis to the rescue!

When offering a session to a person suffering with hypertension, begin the session by working the solar plexus and diaphragm reflexes.

Work the circulatory system with an emphasis on the heart reflex.

Work the urinary system as you focus on the kidney reflexes.

End the session by working the liver and solar plexus.

Thank you for reading this blog/book.

Please refer this article to your favorite social media.

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Peace and food for all.

Thurman Greco

 

 

 

The Sense of Taste – OR – 8 Ways to Reduce Salt in Your Diet

Salt has been with us for awhile.. Go back in time about 6000 years and you’ll find salt being processed in Romania and China. It was prized by Hebrews, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Hittites and Egyptians.
Historians tell us that  salt extraction and rapid rapid population growth happened at the same time.
Salt has a history of being an issue in wars up to and including the 20th century. Governments throughout history have imposed salt taxes on their people…and throughout time people have revolted. Think the French Revolution, and Mahatma Gandhi’s protesters.
Salt has been used as currency. The word salary comes from from the word salt. Salt was traded for gold in some historical cultures.
On a religious level, salt has long been an important part of ceremonies in most of the world’s religions.
Ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans used salt and water in their offering ceremonies. Some scholars tell us that this was the basis of the Holy Water used in some Christian ceremonies today.
We know that the Aztecs used salt and salt water in their fertility rites.
Hindu, Jain, Buddhist, and Shinto followers all use salt in religious ceremonies.
Salt plays a strong part in the Old Testament which has many references to salt. One famous bible story describes Lot’s wife being turned into a pillar of salt as she looked back at the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah as they were being destroyed.
The New Testament has references to salt.
Celtic rituals use water with salt added.

We flavor our foods with seasonings in five categories: sweet, sour, salt, bitterness, and umami.

We exercise our sense of taste when we eat food. The sense of taste works with the sense of smell to help us taste food.
As a culture, we have a taste for salt…so much so that some of our citizens  suffer with high blood pressure, diabetes, chronic kidney disease.
All of us, without exception, will improve our lives if we can reduce our intake to one teaspoon of salt per day. So, how do we do this?
Cut Down on Processed Foods. This is easily done by eating less processed food. Cut back on pizza, bacon, sausage, hot dogs, deli/luncheon meats. Buy fewer canned foods such as chili, soups, stews, ravioli. A key here is fresh foods have lower amounts of sodium.
Cook More Meals at Home. When you prepare meals at home, you’re spending less on food and can control  what goes in it. Cooking meals at home allows you to limit the amount of salt used in your food..
Eat Veggies and Fruits. Fresh and frozen fruits and vegetables naturally have less sodium. Include a vegetable or fruit at every meal.
Cut Back on Salt Slowly, a little at a time. This way you’ll  become accustomed to the natural taste of food. Learn to season your foods with herbs, spices, garlic, and lemon.
Read the Labels Many canned goods have more than a daily serving of salt. Find products that are “low salt”, “no salt”, and “low sodium”. A caution here: sometimes the processed foods which are labeled “low salt” are “high sugar”. Don’t trade one bad habit for another.
Skip the “high Sodium” Condiments. Avoid high sodium ketchup, pickles, olives, salad dressings, soy sauce. Choose those  seasoned with reasonable amounts of salt.
Hide the Salt. Don’t put salt on the kitchen counter or the table. Use low salt seasonings instead.
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Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco

When You Consider the Pace and Demands of Life in the 21st Century, it’s no Wonder that Stress is a Huge Factor and Issue in our Health Care Dilemma

The causes are overwhelming and include lifestyle situations, medications, time management, relationship issues, which produce biological responses, any or all of which can contribute to making a person somewhat, or even very, ill.  Many people live with stressed adrenal glands.

Prolonged stressful situations can have effects lasting an entire lifetime.  In some cases, children growing up in stressful or abusive situations maintain a stress alert throughout adulthood so they never seem unstressed.  This can contribute to disease even decades later.

Stress weakens the immune system and, because of this, becomes a factor in diseases such as angina, anorexia, anxiety disorders, autoimmune disease, cancer, cardiovascular disease, colds, depression, Type II Diabetes, digestive diseases, fibromyalgia, headaches, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, immune suppression, insomnia, irritable bowel syndrome, menstrual irregularities, PMS, rheumatoid arthritis, sinusitis, ulcerative colitis, ulcers.

“Flare ups” because of an event or problem can trigger outbreaks of acne, arthritis, asthma, heartburn, Multiple Sclerosis.

It’s important for your client partners to develop positive coping habits to manage stress.  These include yoga, meditation, tai chi, regular Reflexology for the Spirit sessions.

A healthy diet is essential for stress management.  People suffering from the effects of stress should restrict or eliminate caffeine, alcohol, and refined carbohydrates.  Meals should be eaten in a relaxed atmosphere.

Reflexology for the Spirit facilitates homeostasis.  It can also be used to calm the adrenal glands.  This is essential when dealing with stress.

SYSTEMS TO WORK:  thyroid, parathyroid, and pituitary reflexes as well as the lung, kidney, spinal reflexes and the solar plexus.  Include extra warm ups and warm downs.

ESSENTIAL OILS:  lavender, Roman chamomile, blue tansy, cedarwood, marjoram, rose, sandalwood, and frankincense.

Thanks for reading this blog.  We are approaching the end of this section.  There are three posts  remaining:  Sweaty Feet,  Swollen Ankles, and Thickened Nails.  After those posts,  we’ll explore some spiritual and non-spiritual treatments for different medical issues.

As always, this post is coming to you from my healing space in Woodstock, NY.

Peace and food for all.

Thurman Greco