Do you have mixed feelings about the impending holiday season? Many of our clients seem more stressed than excited. The holidays can bring up mixed feelings for many. It is exciting yet challenging. You may be doing really well eating healthy, exercising regularly, getting adequate sleep and then it all goes to pot! There is too much to do, no time for the gym, and the exact foods you are trying to avoid haunt you at every turn. What can you do? Here are our 12 top tips for avoiding the extra holiday pounds and staying healthy. Give them...

There are a lot of myths about vein, or venous, disease, and how to treat it. Rather than add to the confusion by repeating them here, I will list 15 facts to consider. Vein problems are among the most common chronic conditions in North America. Approximately half of the U.S. population has venous disease. In this country, 50 to 55 percent of women and 40 to 45 percent of men have venous disease— of these, 20 to 25 percent of the women and 10 to 15 percent of men will have visible varicose veins. Varicose veins affect one out...

When the bag of microwave popcorn burned at my daughter’s school and the fire alarms went off her anxiety about fires began. It’s a loud noise and they’d never held a fire drill before, so she didn’t know what was going on or what to expect. She began crying in the morning before school; was afraid to go to the bathroom while at school in case the alarm went off and she was alone in there. We brought her to therapy for a number of months and she and the therapist worked through the worst of her anxiety. We...

There are seven chakras in our bodies and they are the centers in which energy flows through. Blocked energy in our chakras can often lead to illness, so it’s important to understand what each chakra represents and what we can do to keep this energy flowing freely. The root chakra is at the base of our spine and its color is red. This is the chakra that connects us to the earth and reminds us of our right to be here and to trust our instincts. It starts to develop in the womb, first connecting us to our mothers...

Unless you grew up in the south, collard greens may be at best mysterious and at worst misunderstood. Most people think of them as a southern specialty that involves hours of cooking with a fatty smoked meat. This association has perhaps contributed to collard’s unfortunate reputation as being tough, unappetizing, and unhealthy. But the reality is far from the truth. While long cooked greens in the southern tradition are a highly flavorful dish, quick cooked collards can be equally delicious and may be more nutritious. Collard leaves need only about ten minutes to cook. Stems, will take longer. Like...

With back to school creeping up on us, so is the reality of putting the grill away, eating light meals and having plenty of time to cook. Soon it will be driving the kids around to practice, games and other activities. The pressure of coming home at 5:30 and having to make dinner can be stressful and overwhelming. The easy solutions of frozen dinners and stopping for take-out can lead to unhealthy eating and a dent in your family’s budget. Here are a few tips to help you manage time, eat healthy as a family and save a few...

I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2007. Since then, I have been on a mission to ensure that I never hear that diagnosis from my doctor again. Just as important, I have resolved to share the information that I wish I had known when I was first diagnosed. If I can help just one person avoid this scary diagnosis or keep them from hearing it again, my efforts will have paid off immensely. The fact is we all have cancer cells in our body. A healthy immune system is designed to recognize these cells and eliminate them. When...

A balanced diet. A raw diet. A fad diet. Avoid gluten. Avoid sugar. Go vegetarian. Don’t eat carbs and you’ll get skinny. Remember when the big nutrition debate was as simple as whether or not butter vs. margarine was better? Today’s messaging has gotten so out of control that we seem to be more confused than ever about what foods we should or shouldn’t consume. It’s not just messaging from the media either. It’s our friends, families, and co-workers who also put ideas in our heads or influence us into changing our behaviors. How about a new message; one...

Have you ever had a craving for a certain food? Mmmm, is that rich chocolate cake with butter cream frosting, just calling to you? Have you ever wondered why you crave the cake at all? Why you can’t say, “No, I’m not going to eat that cake today”? EFT Tapping is the path to freedom from cravings and losing those unwanted pounds that you thought would never go away. It’s really not about the food. We keep ourselves in this vicious cycle of thinking we can’t lose weight, yoyo dieting and even negative self-talk because of much deeper issues...

Being a parent is tough on so many levels – there never seems to be enough time, money or sleep. With kids at home come so many important priorities pulling at ourselves and our resources. If someone gave you a thousand dollars right now, you could probably think of seven different places it could go – and that’s before even getting to the fun stuff, like vacations. Besides saving for retirement and college educations, you might have the dream of buying a camp on a lake, paying off car loans or student loan debt, or building up your “life...

It’s been said that Hippocrates would spread a mud slurry over the body of a sick patient and the area where the mud dried first was suspect for underlying disease. He understood that illness often produces heat and locating that heat was the key to finding the ailment. Fast forward hundreds of years to Digital Infrared Thermal Imaging (aka Thermography). Thermography is a non-invasive, screening tool that is highly sensitive to subtle differences in skin surface temperature. Everything gives off some infrared energy or heat. An infrared camera senses this energy and converts it into an image, called a...

Meditation is simple but isn’t always easy. Many of us are programmed to believe we must be doing something all the time. If we are not doing something then we are not doing enough. This is entirely untrue. Meditation practice is dated back hundreds and thousands of years. And it isn’t just someone sitting next to an ocean chanting OM. It comes in many forms of quiet sitting, prayer, gardening, running, breathing and more. People that have a regular meditation practice have claimed to experience many benefits including, but not limited to; stress reduction, better sleep, more focus, feeling...

Sclerotherapy is one of the modern procedures used to treat spider veins and varicose veins. Before I address some common questions about sclerotherapy, first let’s briefly review why someone might need the procedure. Vein disease (also known as venous disease) is a condition that can include varicose veins or spider veins, and it is one of the most common health problems in the U.S., affecting approximately 50% of the population. Healthy veins carry blood from all the extremities back to the heart. The blood in the legs travels up against gravity, so when the valves in the veins become...

As Maine’s medical cannabis program has grown over the last 17 years, program requirements have also evolved. For patients wanting to enter the legal medical program, finding accurate information can be the most daunting part of the process. Here, we outline the easy steps to becoming a Maine Medical Cannabis Patient. Step One: Identify your qualifying condition Maine’s list of conditions that qualify a person to use medicinal cannabis is as follows: Cancer Glaucoma Positive HIV/AIDS status Hepatitis C Post-traumatic stress disorder Lou Gehrig’s Disease (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) Agitation of Alzheimer’s Disease Nail-patella syndrome A chronic or debilitating disease...