JBA Central Blog System

Summer vacation is the time of year we are suppose to set aside for rest and relaxation. Ironically, trying to get to your destination is stressful. But here are a few simple tips to help streamline the beginning of your next summer vacation.

• Be aware of the peak travel hours in the areas you will be traveling through and try to avoid those times with high volume traffic.
• Even if you are equipped with GPS, make sure to carry a paper map as well. Just in case of technical difficulties.
• When taking a road trip make sure to pack plenty of healthy drinks and snacks. This will help avoid unplanned stops, save money, and provide your fellow travelers with healthier options.
• When flying, dress for speediness. For airport security, limit jewelry and accessories to avoid setting off metal detectors and wear slip-on shoes.
• Last, but most important-Leave work behind. Turn off the cell phone and don’t check email. This is your time to reconnect with your family and friends, work will be there when you get back, I guarantee.

The less problems you run into along the way, the sooner you'll want to take your next vacation. And there is nothing better than a vacation that everyone gets to enjoy.

As we all know, the connection between the body and the mind, as well as the physical body and the emotional body, is one of much overlapping. In much of western society, by the time an imbalance is learned of, there is already a physical manifestation present. Disease, for example, often begins much much earlier than the onset of symptoms. There are a few occasions where there can be a sneak-peak of what's going on in the body. Take breast thermography, for example.

Changes in blood flow patterns, for example, can indicate areas of higher metabolism that have yet to develop into anything a doctor could see via mammography or find via biopsy. This means that lifestyle changes, at this very early period, could actually help to prevent some of the issues that could - but haven't yet - developed.

One of the most fascinating ways of relaxing and relieving that build up of stress is meditation. This practice allows people to focus internally and completely wash away everything external, giving way to peace, harmony, and learning. One such focal point is figuring out who you are. Deep within the confines and dark recesses of our minds, we can find ourselves and from that, a whole new world opens up to all. This journey into finding ourselves is not easy, but is very rewarding once attained. Learning about our sincere likes and dislikes can lead us to ensuring personal happiness as well as reaching our goals that were once thought unreachable. Finding yourself can also lead you to living as you truly want to live and not as those around you wish you to do. Loving your true self is also important as it allows you to have confidence and a sense of well-being, which can’t be deterred by those that would wish to bring you down.

Yoga poses for kids are poses that have been adapted to appeal to children. They are poses that inspire the already playful nature of children, and they are poses that children can undertake and achieve success with. In many cases, poses that are difficult for adults are easier for children who don't have the same fear of falling and whose bodies are often more limber. Kids yoga poses may be exactly the same as the 'adult' or 'real' version of the pose, or they may be slightly amended, or undertaken with a different focus- such as howling at the moon in upwards dog and barking in downwards dog.

Either way, teaching children yoga poses early enables them to learn a great deal about themselves and how to interact with the world. The technique of meditation, which is so clearly intertwined with the practice of yoga, has stress relief benefits that may actually help children avoid diseases which are becoming all to common in this day and age. The benefits go on and on, and the downside? Well, there really is no downside for children learning yoga.

Many questions have been asked by a variety of doctors, researchers and now almost everyone about how and why so many potentially dangerous chemicals and unnatural elements have entered the food chain. From high fructose corn syrup to mono-unsaturated fats, this list of food additives are now being found to cause a great many diseases in young people that were once only found in the elderly population. Type II diabetes, high blood pressure, and gout are now being found in people as young as 10.

Let's tackle just one of those additives: high fructose corn syrup. This substance is a highly processed corn byproduct that makes food sweet like sugar but the body doesn't process this sweetener like sugar- it is not recognized by the pancreas as a sweet. Worse yet is the fact that since the pancreas can't process this, there is also no way for the brain to signal that a person is "full." This makes it possible for one individual to drink an entire 2-liter bottle of soda, sweetened with high fructose corn syrup and never feel full. The other disturbing issue with HFCS is that it adds more empty calories to what it is sweetening. Once these facts are known, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how obesity is becoming a major contributor to other life-threatening diseases.

When it comes to yoga in the classroom many teachers are finding that the benefits extend far beyond teaching children physical fitness. Obviously, yoga poses for kids do help kids to build strength, flexibility and balance. However, they also instill a sense of self confidence in kids as they learn new poses and overcome challenges.

In the classroom, yoga poses are ideal for helping an overstimulated class calm down as well as helping to increase the concentration span of the kids. Yoga poses can help to restore energy flow in the body, and it helps to regulate the nervous system- two things that any teacher will tell you can greatly increase any child's ability to sit still, stay awake, and pay attention in school.

In China, they use needles. In Japan, they use body parts. Acupressure, also known as shiatsu massage, is the art of applying pressure along a network of trigger points in the body that affect healing. The ideology behind this is that by using your hands, fingers, and elbows to press on specific parts of the skin, that pressure will excite the self-healing reactions of the body. It is said that acupressure is older than acupuncture, dating back some 5000 years, yet the end results are the same as acupuncture. Applying pressure to different triggers on the body can help fight off disease, cure insomnia, lower high blood pressure, relieve stress and so on. Even arthritis and menstrual cramps have been eased away by this art. Whether it is by needle penetration or extremity manipulation, these ancient arts have worked for over 5000 years and are important components of Eastern medicine.

For many people, the idea of kids yoga poses has come at a time when they truly needed something that would help their children. It might have been because of attention problems, or self-esteem issues. The idea may have been given to them because of a physical issue, or even just an interest on the part of a parent in helping their children to develop a practice that that they can take with them into adulthood that teaches more than just physical fitness, but mental and emotional wellness as well.

Teachers who have used yoga in the classroom have most certainly learned that children benefit in many ways from the practice. Even just a few poses every day can have a phenomenal impact on children's performance in the classroom. There is very little else that is so easy to incorporate into daily life that will have such widespread effects.

Holistic, or alternative, medicines have been around for hundreds of years. Typically, these practices focused on the whole body and taking preventive measures rather than attacking the symptoms directly. This promotes positive health instead of eliminating the disease. While this may seen backwards, the amount of positive outcomes from this method are astounding. To go along with this method, many patients have been encouraged to switch to a healthy diet, practice smoking cessation, and exercise more frequently. Other forms of holistic practices include yoga, acupuncture, chiropractic massages, hypnosis, reflexology and much more. All of these practices have helped the body restore muscle, heal itself, and help the person feel renewed. Do holistic medicines work better than the main stream medicines that are offered in hospitals all around? For some, they would say that holistic medicines are the way of the future as they offer the body much more than main stream medicines can offer.

Holistic practitioners across the country are doing amazing work. Simply by working in a community practitioners help raise the consciousness of the general populace toward a healthier way of living by making them aware of the existence of alternatives and introducing the concept of holistic lifestyles. This presence can be simple, such as just practicing and advertising one's practice, but it can also go much deeper by being a living example.

Obviously living a life rich with exercise, healthy eating, community involvement, and a balance of work, private, family, and social time is hopefully already a natural part of the holistic practitioners life, and community presence. The big opportunity is in practitioners' home and work energy use. That means using alternative, renewable energy sources. In many parts of the country, like So. Cal., solar panels installation is available for business and residential settings. Micro-hydro, and wind are also increasingly available. Hopefully more and more holistic practitioners will embrace the opportunity and become an even greater living example.