What is Integrative Medicine?

by Georgia Tetlow, MD, Philadelphia Integrative Medicine

Integrative medicine is an approach that puts you at the center and addresses the full range of physical, emotional, mental, social, spiritual and environmental influences that affect your health. This health strategy considers your unique conditions, needs and circumstances, and uses the most appropriate interventions from an array of scientific disciplines to heal illness and disease to help you regain and maintain optimum wellness.

Prevention

Many people think of prevention in terms of early detection, such as prostate cancer screening and breast examinations. Within integrative medicine, prevention means participating in behaviors and actions that foster health and wellness. This includes eating healthy, breathing clean air, drinking pure water, exercising on a regular basis, eliminating toxins from one’s home and work environments, and taking steps to reduce daily stress levels (I saved one of the most important for last!).

The importance of prevention lies in the fact that the majority of our health care dollars are currently spent after we are in crisis, when it costs the most to intervene and when the possibilities for full recovery are the slimmest. (1) Chronic conditions — asthma, heart disease, diabetes, some cancers, hypertension, stroke and obesity — account for more than half of all health care costs and more than 70% of deaths. Yet many chronic conditions are largely preventable and even reversible by making positive changes in personal behaviors.

Because changing one’s lifestyle is not always easy, inte­grative medicine providers like me create clinics and ways of relating that help you make the needed changes. Not everyone is the same, so individualized testing and a customized approach to communication and personal change are needed. Whether it is lowering blood pressure and cholesterol through lifestyle choices, herbs or supplements, or performing intracellular micronutrient testing to address deficiencies (to resolve headaches, low energy, brain fog, etc.), an integrative approach combines the best of conventional and alternative medicine for your optimal health.

Dr. Tetlow’s patients are getting well and she is ready ready to see you! Georgia Tetlow, MD, is integrative physician at The Resiliency Center. She completed an integrative medicine fellowship at the University of Arizona, has a faculty affiliation at Thomas Jefferson and has expertise in mind-body medicine, herbal therapies and diets and energy medicine to address chronic illness, cancer recovery and pain. Visit www.philly-im.com, call (888) 702-7974 or email info@philly-im.com.

Dr. Tetlow is a fee-for-service provider and provides you a receipt for you to submit to insurance for reimbursement at an out of network rate, after your deductible. She has programs at every financial level and hopes to soon offer insurance-reimbursed group classes at The Resiliency Center. Please call to inquire!

References

1. Oz, MD, Mehmet. (2009). Real Health Care Reform: What’s Next. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mehmet-oz/real-health-care-reform-w_b_356123.html. Retrieval 2011-1-18.

A Golden Hammer by Dean Solon

the Master said:
   "i bless the connection,
     i disdain the attachment."

forgetting His words for a moment,
i dozed for many years,
i slept for many lifetimes.

then a golden hammer
tapped me
squarely
on the forehead.

in a moment
that opens
as eternity
i hear the Master say
   "i bless the connection,
     i disdain the attachment."

After Midnight by Dean Solon

(well after midnight)  a present-moment, and perhaps ongoing, and certainly recurring, take on why does the world exist...

     all there is
     is God

     and He/She/It/Whatever
     had/has/will have
     a DivineWhim

     and here we are
     briefly
     ever so briefly
     full of life

Tapping Your Way to Emotional Resiliency By Delia Nessim

Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT, or tapping), has recently been featured on Dr. Oz, but there are still some who have not heard of it yet. Tapping is a technique that calms the nervous system and balances the natural flow of energy. It is extremely easy to learn and do anywhere and anytime. Tapping is a powerful tool that is completely safe and effective at improving a broad range of issues including physical pain, stress, phobias/fears and emotional traumas.

Basically, it is a matter of tapping your fingers on certain spots on the face (called meridian endpoints). The tapping is combined with thoughts and words that allow the feelings to be expressed and released. As a therapist, I am very excited about this technique because I like to see my clients feel better quickly. Tapping is used to help relieve trapped emotions from past experiences but it is also very effective at alleviating strong emotions such as anger, frustration or sadness, right on the spot. This is important because so many of our negative core beliefs occur when a connection is made between the experience and the powerful emotions that accompany the event. If people can stop the emotions from reinforcing the negative thoughts, those thoughts will eventually lose their power. In other words, your buttons are less likely to get pushed.

Tapping is an especially great tool for parents to teach children. It is so harmless that parents can tap lightly on an upset child while speaking softly and validating their feelings. Getting into the habit of tapping early and often serves to let those negative emotions dissipate quickly before more harm is done by acting on the emotions. In addition, I like the idea of children learning to use this technique because they can prevent a lot of limiting beliefs early on by not allowing an emotional upset to contribute to a low self-image. This is a wonderful, self-soothing technique that can build resiliency in a child. A quick caveat...If the parent is upset with the child, the parent should tap on him or herself first to get rid of the anger, then tap on the child (the oxygen mask rule applies here).

If this has piqued your interest please come and join Delia Nessim on Monday, September 23rd at 7 PM for a free workshop. Delia will describe the process of tapping, how it works and why it works. This will be an interactive workshop that will show the participants firsthand how quickly emotions can be released. We will also discuss how tapping can help you get more out of your affirmations and achieve your goals. So if you are a parent who would like to have this important tool to help with your children or if you are a person who has difficulty coping with your own emotions, this workshop might just change your life.

What Weight Remains by Dean Solon

rumi:  "last year, i gazed at the fire.
              this year i'm burnt kebob."

this morning am awaking with this:
You have finished me off.
You have completed the work on me.
You have completed the work in me.
reconstruction---inclusive of construction and deconstruction---is done.
a project over [under sideways up and down] with,
and within.
here i am, Your clay toy, Your play boy,
blown open, highly sensitized.
am on the living, breathing floor.
am on the killing floor,
not knowing what hit me.
knowing full well what hit me.
You never absent, an activity of presence,
a full force gale,
concluding a work in progress.

i never saw You coming.
i am seeing You, am hearing You,
am feeling You, here.
i not knowing what hit me,
knowing full well what hit me.

blown open,
whereabouts unknown.

this morning, am awake with this:
am washed ashore,
an ocean crossing
leaving a body
crawling on the sands,
no footholds,
no feet!  no ground, no floor,
only these shifting sands
bearing what weight remains.

Celebrate the Joys of Summer with Qigong

by Karen Steinbrecher

Summer is the season of the heart according to Traditional Chinese Medicine.  This is the season to step into your joy.  An important teaching of Chinese medicine is that there is a seamless continuum between the body and the environment around us.   In Five Phase Theory we have entered the cycle of summer, the time, cycle, of greatest Yang, and this season is also called ‘Fire’.  All cycles are manifestations of the movement of Yin and Yang, and the seasons are no different.  The time of Yin in autumn and winter is a time of resting while both spring and summer are Yang seasons.  Yang represents growth, expansion and outward movement.  Spring begins this movement of growth, and summer takes over to allow growth to expand to its fullest.  During summer we stay healthy trying to mimic this Fire/Yang movement of nature, yet we want to be mindful, to not overdo things.  Both too little and too much divert us from harmony.  Thus with Qigong practice we work to balance the Yin and Yang. 

Fire stands for heat and the color red.  In the body Fire is the Heart, representing a Yang organ and the Small Intestine represents the Yin organs.  This is the season to step into your joy.  This means that it is okay to take a moment away from your busy schedule.  Remind yourself that no matter what is going on, it is always possible to feel peace in your heart.  It is good to nourish your being, your spirit, to be kind to yourself.

Remember also to nourish yourself with foods.  That is the Yin organ, the small intestine.  This is the organ where the most extensive process of digestion and absorption of foods and nutrients take place.

With Qigong we dance/practice movements to nourish our being with compassion towards joy and happiness.  Some of the many movements connecting the  Heart meridian are  the “Coming and going of the waves, Letting up a balloon, the Swan spreads it wings, Twisting your Body to view a distant Full Moon and the Lotus is Rising from the Water.”

“Turning the Ball of Light” connects the Small Intestine meridian.  These flowing and peaceful stretching movements with the breathwork feel so good.  For example, the Lotus flower symbolizes Harmony and Love and Peace and Compassion and more.  When we practice the Lotus movements, we envision rising up through the muck and the mud to become a flower resonating with purification and growth and happiness.  This is a favorite movement with my classes.

Come join us to return to your Heart during these Lotus days of summer with Qigong on Thursdays at 2 P.M. and at 6:15 P.M.

The class lasts for 1 hour with a charge of $10.00

There will be No Class on Thursday July 18^th, 25^th and August 1^st.  I offer a free Qigong in Ambler Borough Park on Sunday July 7^th at 2 P.M. for 1 hour. The park is located at the intersection of Hendricks St. & Valleybrook Rd.

With Qi Blessings and Gratitude,

Karen

Find It Now by Dean Solon

a birthday.  #63.

am noticing, am FEELING, a loss, a grieving, a sensing of changing, and of being older in this life.  an almost-seeing---isn't this what much of seeing is?---of  long linking chains of lives, lifetimes unwinding undulating unfolding in and with and through, over under sideways down.
there is this life "on top" of all the lives....filled and filling with a wisdom of experience, a strange and sacred concoction of anything and everything under the brilliant blazing sun that sits in the center of the Big Sky,  i am depth, am breadth, am full and am empty with loss, with love, with grief, with grace and gravity and gratitude.

under the bright sun
there is no lacking.
how can there be lacking when so much experience has been lived?  when so much life has been experienced?
with so much time and space filled with lived and living moments, how can there be a hole in the fabric?

if there is a hole, if there is something unfulfilled, find it now.
and may it be filled, now,
may it be fulfilled, now...