Life Changes
Healing Through Storytelling: Lessons from The Odyssey
The journey of Odysseus in Homer's 'The Odyssey' offers profound insights into healing...
- Details
- Written by: Carol Smith, Our World
What do you know about your endocrine system? Possibly not as much as you should, seeing as how almost every organ and cell in the body is affected by it. This under-appreciated collection of glands selects and removes materials from the blood, processes them and secretes the finished chemical products, or hormones, back into the bloodstream.
- Details
- Written by: Lisa Chedekel-Boston University
"The simple step of incorporating weight history clarifies the risks of obesity and shows that they are much higher than appreciated," says Andrew Stokes.
- Details
- Written by: Andrea Rinaldi, SciDev.Net
Farming insects on a large scale is no more of a biological or chemical hazard than other livestock farming, says a report by a European food safety body.- Details
- Written by: Clifton B. Parker-Stanford
People don’t read diet books just to lose weight. They serve as both “myths and manuals” for a better world, a new analysis of contemporary diet books suggests.
- Details
- Written by: Blake Bauer
Everything happens for a reason, including health challenges of the mind and body. Although this may be difficult to accept, my view is that we make ourselves sick and miserable looking for love and attention outside ourselves.
- Details
- Written by: Kitty Gifford-Cornell University
Scientists are taking a closer look at the main breakdown product of aspirin, called salicylic acid, and its potential to treat neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
- Details
- Written by: Ondrea Levine
Before i was informed that I was “profoundly dyslexic,” I just thought I was stupid and too weird to cultivate friends. In school, I would get an A for creativity over a D for atrocious grammar. I was having considerable difficulty reading anything, much less a map. I had trouble telling my right from my left, I could not comprehend most directions, I was lost much of the time.
- Details
- Written by: Brad Willis aka Bhava Ram
With all the noise of society—busy highways, bustling cities, mass media, and television sets blaring everywhere—our minds can’t help but be highly agitated and polluted. I now avoid all this as much as humanly possible, especially the television. It’s now hard to believe that I was a reporter on television for more than two decades.
- Details
- Written by: Gregory Martin, M.D.
As a knee surgeon who has helped thousands of patients with knee pain, I know there are treatments and options that can not only reduce the pain, but also postpone knee surgery — or avoid it entirely.
- Details
- Written by: Susan Kelley-Cornell
When older parents become frail or disabled, it can place a heavy burden on adult children. But the parent-child relationship appears to be a two-way street—with adult children having a profound effect on their parents’ psychological well-being.
- Details
- Written by: Amy Pullan, University of Sheffield
Researchers found a significant association between a patient’s vitamin D levels and the severity of their IBS symptoms, particularly the extent to which IBS affects their quality of life.
- Details
- Written by: Janette Hillis-Jaffe
In the first year of my illness, one of my all-time favorite healers asked me something along the lines of, “Are you fully expressing your will in your life and your relationships?” A couple of years later, a particularly insightful and opinionated homeopath put it more bluntly: “Are you living a life that you want to show up for?”
- Details
- Written by: Marc Airhart, University of Texas at Austin
Obviously prevention would be the best approach," says Molly Bray, "but there are literally millions of individuals who are currently obese and are in dire need of more effective strategies for long-term weight loss that will ultimately improve overall health
- Details
- Written by: Jasmine Aguilera, YES! Magazine
Celia Aguilar wears a long, loosely fitted white dress with touches of red embroidery and red bandanas tied around her head and waist. The 29-year-old Chicana dances alongside men wearing large, feathered headdresses, the seashells on their ankles rattling. Here in El Paso, Texas, they gather in a ritual of Danza Azteca, an Aztec dance preserved in Mexican culture.
- Details
- Written by: Lisa Lewtan
The holidays bring with them an abundance of festivities centered around eating and drinking. And, not to play Scrooge, but much of our favorite holiday fare sits atop the list of those opiate-like "trigger foods." These foods fall in the "naughty" category because they set off chemicals in the brain that make us want to gorge ourselves...
- Details
- Written by: Nora Caron
I once did a survey amongst my close friends and out of 18 friends, 15 admitted that they suffered from seasonal depression. Most of them replied that they would prefer to live anywhere else but in a cold country during winter and...
- Details
- Written by: Quinn Eastmann-Emory
About one third of people with depression have high levels of inflammation markers in their blood. New research indicates that persistent inflammation affects the brain in ways that are connected with stubborn symptoms of depression, such as anhedonia, the inability to experience pleasure.
- Details
- Written by: InnerSelf Staff
Sulforaphane is found in vegetables such as kale, cauliflower, and cabbage—and in particularly high concentrations in young broccoli sprouts. Sulforaphane also is available as a dietary supplement called BSE.
- Details
- Written by: Liz Carlisle, University of California, Berkeley
An informal network among farmers may be more important than federal regulation in building trust in the organic industry — and it needs greater support. If you live in the U.S., chances are you are among the 84 percent of American consumers who purchase organic food.
- Details
- Written by: Jane Gardner, University of Melbourne
Many people are not aware that while reducing your sugar intake does reduce your risk of dental decay, the chemical mix of acids in some foods and drinks can cause the equally damaging condition of dental erosion.
- Details
- Written by: Farah Qureshi, Journalist Resource
Heart disease is the single leading cause of death in the United States, with nearly one in four Americans dying from heart-related chronic illnesses each year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
