Vitality Blog and Articles

Vaccination - make an informed choice

Yvonne Stone — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 16:06:08 +0000

This week is Vaccine Awareness Week.

In honour of this week, the following is reprinted from the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) website, an Amercian site, but one that contains good information.

Vaccines are pharmaceutical products that carry risks, which can be greater for some than others. NVIC encourages you to become fully informed about the risks and complications of diseases and vaccines and speak with one or more trusted health care professionals before making a vaccination decision.

If or when you vaccinate, please ask yourself the following questions.

You can also download the If You Vaccinate, Ask 8 brochure online.

Am I or my child sick right now?
Have I or my child had a bad reaction to a vaccination before?
Do I or my child have a personal or family history of vaccine reactions, neurological disorders, severe allergies or immune system problems?
Do I know the disease and vaccine risks for myself or my child?
Do I have full information about the vaccine's side effects?
Do I know how to identify and report a vaccine reaction?
Do I know I need to keep a written record, including the vaccine manufacturer's name and lot number, for all vaccinations?
Do I know I have the right to make an informed choice?

If you answered yes to questions 1, 2, and 3, or no to questions 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 and do not understand the significance of your answer, you may want to review information on NVIC's website with links to other websites and resources so you can better answer these questions designed to educate consumers about the importance of making fully informed vaccine decisions.

Click here to learn more about the role of informed consent in vaccination.

The next edition of the No-Nonsense Vaccination Handbook will be published in the Spring.

Give me a call if you would like to get hold of a copy before then, or if you want to talk about your options now. Mob 07942 816937

Resolve to Reduce Stress in 2012

Yvonne Stone — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 09:50:17 +0000

Don’t let the credit crunch affect your health. You can take back control.

The continuing economic climate could have health repercussions – stress can severely affect health and well-being, making us more prone to illness.

Stress prompts the body to increase the production of the hormones adrenaline and cortisol, causing changes in blood pressure heart rate and metabolism. These help us perform better in the short term, but over long periods they can lead to headaches, indigestion, diarrhoea, insomnia, general tiredness and even palpitations, anxiety and depression.

Meditation can help individuals cope better with the effects of stress. It can help with the mental, emotional and physical symptoms of stress, by triggering the body’s natural system of healing.

If it feels too difficult to start on your own, then come and join our friendly Meditation Group in Carshalton. We meet once a month. Click here to read more and to come along.

Getting over a cold in less than 18 hours

Yvonne Stone — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 10:42:32 +0000

Last Thursday afternoon I was feeling under the weather. I found myself coughing while I was talking to someone. I realised I had a cold!

I was due to go to a the Mannatech European conference over the weekend. I couldn't be ill!!

I decided that quick action was needed and I took my own advice. I looked at my diary and cancelled a non-urgent appointment for the next morning. I also completed just what I had to do and finished work for the day.

I went downstairs, wrapped myself in a blanket in front of the TV and decided to start taking Immunostart, as I didn't want to phone my homeopath and didn't have the brain power to work out what homeopathic remedy I needed. I drank and ate just what I wanted. I sat on the sofa and took Immunostart every hour during the evening.

At around 8pm I got very hot, so I peeled off the blanket and took more Immunostart. I stayed hot overnight, but I woke up in the morning cool and, although I felt tired, I was feeling better. By the time I had to leave for the conference at 11am I was recovered.

I looked back over the experience and this is what I recognised.

I have been excessively busy over the last few weeks, because I have started a multitude of new projects
I had a low grade head ache for a couple of days, which I had ignored
I had been telling people how to nutritional supplements and homeopathy can help them stay healthy, but how they needed to notice the early signs and take prompt action

This experience showed me that my advice worked!

Why I am a loyal customer of Mannatech Nutritional Products

Yvonne Stone — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 09:06:00 +0000

I met a woman last night and we got talking about Mannatech. I told her I had been taking the products for over 4 years and I truly believe they are making a positive difference to my health.

She was a bit dismissive and just said I was very loyal to Mannatech, as if that was a naive action. So it got me thinking.

Why am I so passionate about taking Mannatech supplements, why does Peter take them without me nagging him and why are they the only nutritional products I recommend to my patients and friends?

I think this short video explains it very clearly.

Manual Lymph Drainage (MLD) in Pregnancy. Guest Blog by Astrid Lowe

Yvonne Stone — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 17:27:15 +0000

You don’t have to put up with pregnancy-related swollen ankles, wrists or carpal tunnel syndrome. Manual Lymph Drainage (MLD) therapy can help.

MLD was once described in the Saturday Daily Mail as ‘one of the best kept secrets on the health and beauty scene’. It is a powerful, but surprisingly gentle technique, which helps balance fluid in the tissue. London’s leading fertility expert Zita West recommends MLD as beneficial at any stage of reproduction: to detoxify, boost the immune system, balance hormones and relieve fluid congestion. It is incredibly relaxing and can help you sleep better. It feels like pampering – with a purpose.

The lymphatic system is a waste disposal system. It doesn’t sound glamorous, but it plays a key role in your body. Lymphatic vessels collect fluid from the tissues and take it through the lymph nodes to filter out harmful substances before returning it to the bloodstream. From there, it is eliminated with other body waste. The lymphatic circulation relies mainly on muscular movement and has no pump like the blood circulation has the heart. MLD techniques can help boost lymphatic circulation.

In pregnancy, your body produces and retains more fluid. Oedema (swelling) is most often an issue during the third trimester. It may be worse at the end of a day and in summer. When you press the skin around your ankles, it might not spring back straight away. Your rings might feel tight on your fingers.

In general, oedema is part and parcel of pregnancy, but it is important to check with your doctor to rule out other causes of swelling, for example pre-eclampsia.

Put your feet up. Take breaks from sitting or standing. Go for a walk. Join a pregnancy yoga or Pilates class. Go for a swim. Wear loose fitting clothing. Try flight socks or maternity hosiery (if not too hot!), and put them on before the day starts. Eat healthily. Drink plenty of water.

Have MLD treatment. You might soon notice that you need to go to the toilet more often, as the re-energised lymphatic system starts to move excess fluid and waste.

At your first session, your therapist will carry out a consultation and recommend the number and frequency of future sessions. Treatments usually last for about an hour. Like in classic massage, you will be covered in towels except for the area being worked on.

MLD is one of the safest treatments available to pregnant women. It is a gentle ‘skin technique’ and uses no oils or powders, so nothing is being introduced to upset the developing foetus. There is no need for you to suffer from swollen anything.

Astrid Lowe is a Vodder qualified MLD therapist and member of MLD UK.

You can book a treatment with her directly at her practice

Akana Holistic Therapies,

at The Sunshine Clinic in Send

or the Ascot Natural Health Centre in Sunninghill.

Web http://www.akana.co.uk

Facebook http://www.facebook.com/akanaholistic

Twitter @akanaholistic

Why are you talking about Hayfever? I haven’t got it now, it’s Autumn!

Yvonne Stone — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 08:53:57 +0000

The hayfever season is so miserable, so once it’s over most people are just grateful and forget about it till next summer. But should you?

Homeopaths know that the reason we get the common hayfever symptoms of runny nose and itchy eyes is only partly due to pollen, especially as some people know their hayfever is better when they go outside. Also symptoms are often worse in different locations, so they might be better by the sea and worse in towns where there is more pollution, or when the weather gets really hot.

However, the severity and type of our symptoms is really related to our underlying level of health and our subsequent level of susceptibility, rather than just the environmental conditions.

This is why homeopaths recommend treating your overall level of health in between the hayfever seasons, so that when the spring comes round next year you will find the symptoms are reduced and over a few years may stop altogether.

People often try homeopathic remedies when their symptoms are really bad, but like the drugs you buy from the chemist, they are only palliating the symptoms. Although that can be helpful to get through the worst of the season, it is not treating the underlying susceptibility, so they will just come back again next year and most people find they get worse each year.

A short course of specific homeopathic remedies focusing on your level of health you inherited from your parents and possibly a small change in diet, or a different nutritional supplement, will bring you to a higher level of health overall and will subsequently reduce your susceptibility to pollens in the summer.

Come to see me in October or November for the specific course of remedies and to start to make the nutritional changes at the same time, so they are having an effect by the start of the next hayfever season.

Maternal and Child Nutrition guidelines - New Report on Feeding Toddlers

Yvonne Stone — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 08:30:31 +0000

The latest report and recommendations for Child nutrition were commissioned by the NHS and have just been published.

Click on this link to see the full report

The report is easy to read and contains advice for mothers and children up to the age of 5.

The section on Food Portions is very clear as they are listed for most common foods, but are also shown as pictures on typical plates.

You can download a copy here.

What is a Social Entrepreneur?

Yvonne Stone — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 09:02:25 +0000

Last night we heard from Sam Caster how Mannatech are using the Social Entrepreneur model to tackle the global problem of malnutrition. A plan to link 5 million people who want to help their own health with 5 million children who are dying from malnutrition.

Listen to Sam Caster and call me if you would like to join us and help a child live into 2012.

Children need to drink full fat milk

Yvonne Stone — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 11:29:39 +0000

How can I say that? There are 2 reasons.

Firstly, children use a lot of energy every day, even when they are not doing a lot of physical activity. They need the sustained energy provided by healthy fats. 1g of fat provides 9 kcals, while 1g carbohydrate (CHO) gives us 4 kcal.

So on first look it would seem better to eat the lower calorie option, however CHO is very rapidly converted to energy, or if it is not needed immediately it is stored in the body as fat! The calories from fat provide a more sustained source of energy.

But how can that still be a good thing when we are seeing the biggest rise in childhood obesity in decades? The answer is that because the calories from low fat are replaced with high sugar calories which get used up quickly and need replacing. So children need to eat more.

Secondly, we have taken on the idea of needing to eat a low fat diet to be healthy, and, although we do have to cut down on unhealthy hydrogenated fats which are commonly found in processed foods, we still need to eat healthy fats, as they are the source of nutrients which we can’t make so we have to eat.

These healthy fats contain the fat soluble vitamins, Vit D and Vit E and also essential fatty acids which are needed to keep the heart and brain healthy.

Also we see frequent news items about people have low levels of Vit D. So as well as us not getting out in the sunshine, this could be a result of people drinking skim milk, where all the Vit D is removed along with the fat!

So an easy answer is to give your children a glass of full fat milk with meals, instead of juice. Or as a between meal snack.

It will give them an excellent source of Vit D, calcium for healthy bones and some calories from healthy fats that will give them energy to do all the exciting things on their full timetable.

How do you choose the best type of Multivitamin?

Yvonne Stone — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 14:59:33 +0000

Sam Caster explains the need to include a food source multivitamin and glyconutrients to supplement our diet. These are the supplements that are sent round the world by MannaRelief to help solve the problem of global malnutrition, in the Give for Real prgramme.

The Road to Give for Real - The Solution from Giving Changes Everything on Vimeo.

You can buy them in the UK. If you are interested let me know and I will tell you how to set up an on-line account