Being Mindful

We are all busy, no doubt, and we often try to multi-task throughout the day to save time, but are we fully connected?  Are you missing the life right in front of you?  Worrying about the future?  There is a lot of talk today about being mindful.  What exactly does it mean to be mindful?  It is often associated with meditation but according to the dictionary being mindful is: a mental state achieved by focusing one’s awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one’s feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a therapeutic technique.  Being aware of the moment, the here and now.  Not always an easy thing to do!   Many go through life on autopilot, or live in a trance like state, reacting to life instead of being proactive.  Sometimes reacting in the way we were taught to react by our environment, influenced by our culture, by family, and often causing extreme stress and anxiety.  Being mindful gives you the capacity to choose how to deal with any situation.
Studies have shown that being more mindful reduces anxiety, stress and depression, and may increase happiness.  Being fully engaged in the moment can increase your overall well being.  It can increase your physical health by lowering your blood pressure, help reduce pain and improve sleep.  Here are a few simple steps to be more mindful without meditation.

• First acknowledge the moment.
• Focus on your breathing.
• Take a long breath in through the nose and slowly breathe out through the mouth.
• Feel the sensations in your body.
• Fully engage yourself in the task at hand.
• If your mind wanders, gently bring it back to the present situation.
• Focus on another breath if necessary, to bring you back to the present.
• Don’t get frustrated if your mind wanders. Give yourself time to learn this skill.

If you want to get into a deeper form of mindfulness then meditation might be something you’ll want to practice.  Although many people get intimidated when they hear the word meditation, it really is just a learned skill of deep concentration or focus.  So don’t let that aspect of being mindful distract you. Try to make it a daily habit.  Maybe as you brush your teeth in the morning, or on your commute to work. You might find you already have the skill and not realize it.  Choose to be mindful.  Join me on my journey to be more present in the everyday, consciously making decisions and choices.  It would be great  to see others become more present in their lives and finding the happiness in all that is around them!

Your Health.  Your Journey.  Your Choice.  Choose You.

Food is Thy Medicine… or you really are what you eat

What does that mean, let thy food be thy medicine and thy medicine be thy food?    Basically, it means that you can have a significant impact on your health by changing the way you eat.  We believe in eating real, whole foods.  It really is that simple.   From a health perspective, this is the easiest way to change your health for the better.  Make half your plate green veggies,  a quarter of your plate protein, like chicken, fish, pork or occasionally red meat.   And make a quarter of your plate a starch like sweet potatoes, carrots or peas.  Your snacks are a handful of nuts or a piece of fruit.  You see, no where in this way of eating are chips, cookies, crackers, bread or pasta.  These are processed foods which do significant damage to your body.

The processing of food adds additives, preservatives and chemicals to foods to make them shelf stable.   They have trans fats in them, which cause heart disease, and most have added sugar.  Even those items that are low fat are bad for us.  They remove the fat and add sugar to make them taste good.  Processed foods damage our bodies.   And they make us fat.   They cause widespread inflammation and can cause brain fog, headaches, muscle and joint pain, fatigue, heart disease and insulin resistance which leads to diabetes.

When buying foods, look at the ingredient list, the longer the list, the worst it is for you.  If you can’t pronounce items on the ingredient list, put it back!  Shop the outer edges of the grocery store.  Those items tend to be healthier than those in the inner aisles.  Stock up on leafy greens.  If you always eat iceberg lettuce, try arugula.  If you love a good steak, try bison or pork.  Pick up a new fruit or vegetable that you’ve never tried.  Look it up on our website to see how it tastes, why you should be eating it and how to prepare it.  Prepare you meals with new and different spices.  Explore new foods and enjoy the journey!

Read the testimonials to see real people  who have obtained real results eating this way.

 

Your Health.  Your Journey.  Your Choice.  Choose You.

New Year, New You

So, everyone is doing their New Year, New You posts.  There are weight loss challenges, fitness jump starts, New Years resolutions, beauty routines;  you name it, it’s out there.  We propose a different sort of New Year New You concept.  We want you, to choose YOU.  Begin your journey to health, right here, right now.  Make the decision to make YOU important.  To put yourself first.

We know how life is, you run here and there taking care of everyone else, leaving no time for YOU.  Debbie is battling that right now.  It’s hard, when you are being pulled in different direction by your family, your job and life in general.  But if we don’t take the time, to make time for ourselves, we end up tired, cranky and unhealthy;  reaching for the nearest cookie, chip or glass of wine.

We want you to try to carve out time in your day to focus on you.  For some, early in the morning is the best time, before they become distracted by the day.  For others, the end of the day works well, as they settle down and relax before bed.  It doesn’t matter when you choose, just do it.  Take the time to think about you.  What makes you happy?  What makes you sad?  What do you like about yourself and your life?  And what would you like to change?  This is your first step on your journey to discovering you.

For me, my journey is about health.  As I get older, I am less concerned with appearance, and more concerned with health.  Okay, appearance does matter, but what’s most important to me is being able to live a long, productive life.  I see people, my age even, who have a long list of medications they take.  They eat horribly, they don’t exercise because their joints hurt and they look sad and defeated.  We don’t need to be that way!!  We CAN fix our health by changing ourselves.  Change the way we eat.  Change the way we think.  Change the way we act.  The power to be healthy is within ourselves.  Unleash your inner warrior today!  Be the change!  Choose you!!

Your Health.  Your Journey.  Your Choice. 

Welcome

Welcome to Crossroads in Health,  a place where you come first.  Debbie and I have been friends since high school.  We lost touch along the way;  you know how it is, life, family, jobs all got in the way.  We reconnected a couple of years ago and it was like we had never drifted apart.  We immediately realized that although our lives followed different paths, they were parallel paths.  We both went into nursing and I became a nurse practitioner and began to focus on healing patients through nutrition. Debbie began studying mindfulness and the mind body connection.  We both have learned to combine traditional and integrative medicine to the benefit of our patients.

As nurses, we are listeners, teachers and nurturers.  One of the things we both became frustrated with was the lack of time we had with our patients.  As healthcare changes, we are forced to do more with less, as most industries are.  Unfortunately, what suffers is that patient connection that we so love.  So we tried to figure out a way to connect with people and get information to them as easily as possible.  And Crossroads in Health was born.

Crossroads in Health is our push to get health and wellness information to as many people as possible.  We want our site to be a one stop shop, where all of your questions are answered.  You don’t know what kale is and why your should be eating it?  We have your answer.  Your medical provider diagnosed you with gout and you don’t know what you can eat?  We can tell you.  You want to learn about essential oils?  We can help.  You don’t understand what mindfulness is and how it can help you?  We have that too.

We want our site to be your site.  If you need information about something, ask us.  Because of our medical and nursing background, we are uniquely able to help you understand what is going on in your body.  Debbie and I are on our own journey to health and we hope you will come with us down our path to health.  And if we occasionally take the road less traveled?  That’s ok. Every path we take teaches us something.  Let’s begin our journey!!

Your Health.  Your Journey.  Your Choice.  Choose You.

Crossroads and Choices

“You are free to choose, but you are not free from the consequence of your choice.”

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What do you do when you reach a crossroad?  Do you follow the path of least resistance?  Or do you take the road less travelled?  Sometimes, the hidden path can open your mind to new and exciting ideas.  At Crossroads in Health we want to take you down a healing path, a pathway to health.

The American lifestyle promotes “unhealth”.  The daily ‘rat race” leaves people stressed, tired and dissatisfied.  The Standard American Diet (SAD) is a poor source of fuel for the body.  It’s ironic that the acronym is SAD.  You WILL be sad if you eat this way.  Consuming large amounts of processed foods and transfats leads to heart disease, diabetes, autoimmune disease and a multitude of other health issues.  SAD causes widespread inflammation in your body.  That inflammation causes all sorts of health problems.   Eating clean can reverse alot of this damage.

Our bodies have a remarkable capacity to fix themselves.  By changing the way you eat, exercising and becoming mindfull, you can change your life. “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.”  Hippocrates

This is your health.  Your journey.  Your choice.   As you stand at your crossroads, make the choice of better health.  Take the road less travelled.  Open your mind to new ideas.  Choose YOU.  Because YOU matter.  Join us on our journey to health.