Innholdsfortegnelse for Vol 3 Issue 64 i The Art of Healing

Gains in the ability to sustain attention developed through intensive meditation training are maintained up to seven years later, according to a new study published in the Journal of Cognitive Enhancement. Regular meditation effectively supports mental, emotional and physical health in numerous tangible ways. Several studies support the hypothesis that meditation training improves emotional regulation and meditation training programs can have measurable effects on how the brain functions even when someone is not actively meditating, especially in areas related to pain. The study, which was based on the Shamatha Project, is a major investigation into the cognitive, psychological and biological effects of meditation led by researchers at the University of California, Davis, Center for Mind and Brain. “This study is the first to provide evidence that intensive and continued meditation practice is…

People diagnosed with cancer and their families often use therapies such as acupuncture, exercise, diet and meditation to cope with the physical, emotional, and spiritual effects of the cancer, and in search of relief from symptoms that their conventional treatments have not addressed. Some of these therapies are evidence-based and proven. Others are not. In the early 1990’s Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) was popular as evidenced by the establishment of NIH-NCCAM (National Centre for Complementary and Alternative Medicine). However, these two words - complementary and alternative - meant opposite ideas. Complementary meant in addition to conventional medicine, whereas alternative meant instead of conventional medicine. In the medico-legal world, practising alternative medicine, and especially treating cancer patients with ‘alternative medicine’ remains controversial. Manuela Boyle, PhD scholar, MHSc, an expert in…

Colleen Garsed had what the doctor’s described as a stress-induced asthma attack after she was verbally threatened at her workplace. Previous to this incident she had never suffered from asthma. As of that moment in time, Colleen lost her taste and smell – for 12 years. In this interview with The Art of Healing, Colleen SHARES HER STORY. So Colleen, you said the name of the condition when you lose your taste and smell is Anosmia? Yes. It’s actually quite common. People have got it after a car accident and banging their head against the windscreen for example, and horse riders often get Anosmia. So can you talk us through what happened to you? A lady that I worked with threatened to kill me, and as I knew she had…

When caring for the whole person, getting to know a person and what helps them thrive is so very important. When Baz and I first met in my clinic at Chris O’Brien Lifehouse, it was pretty intense. Baz was still dealing with the new diagnosis of his disease returning, and was worried, as most people would be, about the impact it could have on his life, and the life of his family and friends. The two of us had to get to know each other and work out what he needed to help him through his cancer journey. I was immediately struck by how beautiful a person this guy was – a heart of gold, authentic – and how open and vulnerable he allowed himself to be. I quickly learned…

Healthcare systems are rife with cultural problems. Doctors are forced to work dangerously long hours, and are bullied by those more senior than them. Nurses often feel disrespected, have to deal with the stress of an emotionally challenging job, and also might work ridiculously long shifts. Non-medical staff, such as those behind the front desks, the cleaners, the cafeteria staff, are treated as lesser colleagues. These are all common occurrences in almost any hospital around the world. The issue of bullying is well known, but is kept silent behind the same veil of social abuse that has caused the problem in the first place. Drama is usually a negative word. But here, in the arts, it speaks of passion and love, of conflict and resolution. It speaks of emotions and…

THE SETTLER Herbal Remedy for Nausea Reach for this one when you’re feeling a little nauseous. Ginger is the major player in terms of its herbal actions, but the rosella turns the tea a beautiful deep pink and adds its tartness to ginger’s spicy kick. Rather than using ground ginger from the spice rack (which wouldn’t make a very nice brew), use dried ginger that is specifically for making tea and is in small pieces rather than a powder. WHAT YOU’LL NEED 35g dried ginger rhizome 15g dried rosella (hibiscus) petals METHOD Combine the ginger and rosella petals, mix well and store in a sealed, labelled glass jar. TO BREW Use 1 teaspoon of the herbal blend per mug, then pour over boiling water. Leave to infuse for 5 minutes,…

“Clinicians are increasingly realising that one drug or a one-size-fits-all approach is not enough when combating cancer, and that a combination immunotherapy, such as blocking two distinct targets in the same immune cell is the future of immunooncology. Our approach capitalises on this concept,” said co-corresponding author Ashish Kulkarni, PhD, a former instructor in the Division of Engineering in Medicine at Brigham and Womens Hospital and assistant professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Kulkarni and colleagues have previously reported on the design and engineering of supramolecules --therapeutics that are built from component molecules that click together like building blocks. To reinvigorate macrophages, the team designed a supramolecule that could block the “don’t eat me” signal that cancer cells can produce and simultaneously inhibit signalling…

Self-monitoring of type 2 diabetes used in combination with an electronic feedback system results in considerable savings on health care costs especially in sparsely populated areas, a new study from the University of Eastern Finland shows. Self-monitoring delivers considerable savings on the overall costs of type 2 diabetes care, as well as on patients’ travel costs. Glycated haemoglobin testing is an important part of managing diabetes, and also a considerable cost item. By replacing half of the required follow-up visits with self-measurements and electronic feedback, the annual total costs of glycated haemoglobin monitoring were reduced by nearly 60 per cent. With fewer follow-up visits required, the average annual travel costs of patients were reduced by over 60 per cent per patient. The study was published in the International Journal of…

Integrative oncology, the diagnosis-specific field of integrative medicine, addresses symptom control with non-pharmacological therapies. Known commonly as complementary therapies, these are evidence-based adjuncts to mainstream care that effectively control physical and emotional symptoms, enhance physical and emotional strength, and provide patients with skills that enable them to help themselves throughout and following mainstream cancer treatment. The colossal disease-oriented health system in Australia needs all the help it can get from lifestyle medicine, integrative medicine, functional medicine, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chiropractic, Personal Training and naturopathic medicine to combat multiple epidemics including cancer, obesity and diabetes, and the treatment of resistant pain syndromes. The rising system of medicine known as integrative oncology, is an unstoppable change in healthcare that requires the real co-operation of different modalities to reflect the complexities of each…

Last night on The Living Room, the Channel 10 show I’m on with my good friends Amanda Keller, Chris Brown and Miguel Maestre, I announced, to tears all around, that the cancer I’d been hit with six years ago was back. It’s back and it’s aggressive. I was shocked when the doctor told me. I didn’t believe it when he told me six years ago and I didn’t believe it this time. I was about to take Leonie and the kids to Turkey for a month on our yacht. I negotiated with my doctor to let me take the trip. It’d been a big year. I was tired. I wanted to relax ... but what if it was my last-ever holiday with the kids? Everything that has happened since my…

To enable patient-centred care, safety and joy to flourish in any health care setting, we must first build a system of support, trust and understanding around the staff providing care so they can do their very best work. So that when a parent of a child in the hospital says to them, “Can I just check the dosage? Something looks different from the last time my child had that medicine.” Instead of feeling defensive, the staff are enthusiastic and double-check. Maybe that parent noticed something they didn’t? Until staff feel empowered, until we give them an environment where they feel respected, until they are confident speaking up about problems and mistakes, we will continue to have an unhealthy working culture in healthcare. Sometimes there is more healing to be done…

Australia Reimagined Hugh Mackay “When it comes to our ecological, social, cultural and economic future, misplaced optimism is as dangerous as blind faith. What is needed is the courage to face the way things are, and the wisdom and imagination - informed by the best available evidence - to work out how to make things better.” Australia’s unprecedented run of economic growth has failed to deliver a more stable or harmonious society. Individualism is rampant. Income inequality is growing. Public education is under-resourced. We no longer trust our major institutions or our political leaders. We are more socially fragmented, more anxious, more depressed, more overweight, more medicated, deeper in debt and increasingly addicted - whether to our digital devices, drugs, pornography or ‘stuff’. Yet esteemed social researcher Hugh Mackay remains…

I have to talk here with you about matters of the heart. Over the last couple of weeks, in the community where I live, two people have passed away. Both of them were very well known, because they happened to be big contributors to the community, and both of them were women – in their 50s or 60s. So. You feel it. You are amazed how much you feel it. One of these women I didn’t know, and the other I knew of. It does make me feel sad. I feel dis-heartened, even though, who knows where these two beautiful souls are now. I hope they are skipping and are joyous. And at the same time, I have been reading a book called The Lost Art of Healing by Bernard…

BioBalance Health was founded by Bruce Jeanes and John Skelton in 1998, after hearing William J Walsh PhD speak at a Conference in Canada. I joined shortly thereafter. Bruce spoke to Bill at the Pfeiffer Treatment Center (now closed) in the USA to see if he would come to Australia to train an Australian doctor in his protocols, because we were so impressed at the outcomes being achieved in treating mental and behavioural disorders. A not-for-profit voluntary community organisation was set up, dedicated to the task of making comprehensive biochemical assessments and advanced complementary nutritional treatment techniques available in Australia. After considerable preliminary work to ensure access to the required laboratory tests (at that stage not available in Australia), Dr William Walsh came to Australia in 2004 to train an…

A year has passed yet again and here I am back in paradise. The beauty I see and feel here is accentuated this time around due to the year of ugliness that has been. This time last year I was hoping against all odds that sis would win her battle with cancer, but sitting here on a weather beaten log at the waters edge with a heart still freshly bruised from grief, reminds me that the battle was lost. The bay is quiet and kind today, almost sensing my delicate state. The sea offers me its strength and certainty with its constant rolling back and forth. It’s a strength that I don’t seem to find anywhere else but here, a strength that is offered up freely and willingly without expectation.…

Meditating has helped me – wait, more than helped me, it’s lifted me – over those moments when I’ve felt overwhelmed by stress. I do it everywhere. In my car. At my desk. On a beach. If I feel mentally tired, I’ll close my eyes and sit with my hands on my knees and take a couple of deep breaths. By the third or fourth breath, I’m feeling this beautiful, clean air entering my body. It gets cooler with each breath and I can feel the freshness coming in through my nostrils. I imagine the air as being so beautiful and so perfect it inflates my lungs into these giant balloons. After a few moments, I’ll open my eyes and look across the room. And it’s there that I’ll see…

From bloating to bellyache, the tips on the following pages will help you conquer your daily discomfort. Of course, bloating and indigestion are simply symptoms of something else, and mostly, it’s the result of years of low-grade inflammation in the gut due to stress, poor diet and some medications. It can also be a symptom of an anxious or unhappy mind however, or even an intolerance to a particular food. If your symptoms persist it’s important to go to see your doctor and work out exactly what’s going on. But for day-to-day complaints that arise from impaired digestive function, you might just find that good nutrition and home herbal medicine can help get them under control. By championing specific ingredients proven to decrease inflammation, the demulcents and the carminatives, and…

You know how when you’re a kid, and you don’t quite understand how the world works yet, everything seems simpler? No one was having sex, no one taking away rights, that we knew of. There were no grey areas. Everything was pretty black and white. Even after we grow up, we never really fully appreciate the rose coloured glasses we wear, and of true hardships, not these so called “first world probs.” But I guess that’s the perk of growing up in a first world country. Neil Gaiman writes “I am thinking about the fragility of civilisation. Look around you, at the building you are in, the road you travel on. What you see was made by people who agreed that they would get up in the morning and go…