Overwhelm and stress are a recurring theme for fertility,  menopause transition patients and achievers of all ages managing career, family, health challenges and more. How do you break the pattern? What do you do when anxiety, fear and overwhelm hit?

Patients and those I do business with often comment on how “zen” I am and how relaxing it must be to be in my profession of Chinese Medicine and wellness. Let me tell you, as much as I completely adore and would not trade my life for a minute, and I have the benefit of the medicine's wisdom all around me— owning and running a company during a recessionis is not relaxing!

Which brings me to my point: managing stress and cultivating peace in our lives is a choice we make and a set of tools we employ moment to moment, day to day. It accumulates. It becomes a habit. It becomes your nature. Calm is a result. Joy and tranquility are the return on an investment!  Fully programmed and trained to worry by family and culture, I can worry with the best of them…but why? Worry is a completely unproductive energy sapping activity.

Worry is no more than a thought-feeling the body is having.  The mind creates a negative outcome on a future event.  Worry is fortune telling at it's worst!

Worry is an emotion.   Emotions are not a sum of who we are or an accurate accounting of circumstance.   But our minds can go crazy leading us down into the fear hole. We can thank our early brains for that. They've been with us all along, keeping us out of harm's way, eternally on the look-out for danger.

Yet, as we say "thank you for sharing" to our mind for the reporting on the brain's scan for potential danger, we must also acknowledge the physics of problem solving.  As Einstein suggested, it is is best done in a state of play, of wonder. Solutions come when we are relaxed, off-topic.  Personally, my greatest breakthrough's arrive while working out or in the shower, not when I am in hot pursuit of an answer.

So what gets us there? What induces that relaxation state? What helps us neutralize worry when it strikes?  Habits that become tools at-the-ready. 

Some of my favorites are breathing meditation, spiritual reading that brings me back to bigger perspective and re-introduces me to the truth of deeper connections, acupuncture naps, exercise, an observation walk (tuning into all that is going on outside of me and my mind on the streets of Manhattan).

Did you ever notice that when you are on vacation and you are still thinking or "working" that you feel a powerful sense of possibility? You come back refreshed not only because you switched physical/spacial gears, but because relaxation allowed you to background focus on your challenges. Inspiration hits. New possibilities and perspectives arise.

How do we bring THAT back with us? We decide upon it, and dedicate time to it every day.  We make a small space every day for play, for relaxing, for self-care, for being non-productive, for exercising.  As achievers, we are constantly in motion, solving, multi-tasking.  In the quality-of-life challenge of breaking the worry habit, we're called to let it all go.  We need to hit the "Enough" button, and shift our own gears.

Call or email Oriens to learn how yoga, meditation, spiritual counseling, acupuncture, massage or other mind-body activities could benefit you!
212-213-5785 or info@oriensliving.com

  Speak privately with Elizabeth about your Women's Health & Hormone needs.

“It’s all in your head.” Only recently, this was not uncommon thinking and the professional medical response to women suffering from the hormone instability natural to the decade or more prior to menopause.

Even now we see patients being given anti-depressants first and questions asked later. Sometimes she is offered birth control pills. But many women in their 30’s and 40’s either don’t want to be on medication or they are hoping to conceive.

Just as we think of puberty as the ramp UP to hormone stability and peak fertility, peri-menopause is the ramp DOWN. We've spiraled around for a second run on the same issues: cycle changes, mood swings, wired-tired, insomnia, concentration issues, acne, anatomical changes, body image issues, attention span shifts, metabolism & weight changes and more.

And, just like in puberty, with all of these changes we're invited to deep pondering and reflection…another opportunity to ask, “Who am I? What do I want in my life? How do I want to DO my life? What turns me on? What isn’t working for me?”

If the menopausal years are the Driver’s Seat—you’ve cracked your career and are enjoying the privileges, or you are making a career change that expresses your talent and interest more authentically, you know who you are, your self-expression is full, you’ve made some money, your kids are independent—then the decade or so leading up is your Learner’s Permit.

You’re in a maturity transition.  :)

This is a natural stage of life. The physical changes in your cycle, energy, cognition and other aspects of your health are NOT just about aging. They are largely about – and can largely be controlled by—your attention to yourself!

In these years we tend to be gunning hard. We’re full throttle professionally; we’ve earned our place. We’re multi-tasking like sorceresses—family, career, aging parents, children, pets, household. And very often we’ve depended on will-power and the regenerative mojo of youth to sustain the pace!

But now the piper needs a payment. And while it may seem like an inconvenience after so many years of doing as we pleased, she’s not exacting a very high price. But default on your payment at your peril!!!

To enjoy the abundance of this time of life and minimize or ELIMINATE many of the symptoms, we need to pay attention to our bodies through nutrition, exercise, sleep. We need to make alone time for introspection to ask those key questions. We need to prioritize and attend to ourselves! “Work smarter not harder”—genius and true.  And for goodness sakes, we need to lighten up and PLAY more.

There is SO much you can do to have an easier and much more enjoyable hormone transition! Talk to us! Get off the hormone roller coaster!

Acupuncture & Chinese Medicine, Maya Abdominal Massage, Nutrition, Counseling and Yoga – every single one of these has been changing women’s lives for thousands of years.

You’re hitting your prime! . . . Enjoy it!

Call or email Oriens to find out how You can be supported through your transition!
212-213-5785 or info@oriensliving.com

  Speak with Elizabeth about Your Menopause Transition 212-213-5785

When you’re a woman in your 30’s and 40’s, who wants to hear the M word—menopause?

Yet, the truth is that most women will experience a 5-13 year ramp toward it, with the average age of menopause being 51. These years leading up, are known as perimenopause or pre-menopause. The experience is different for every woman—just like her period is.

Could we just mention here that this is NORMAL? It’s not a health hazard or a disease! It’s a life stage that is ushering in what are often referred to as your “power years”—yep, the ones where Life gets really good! 

Menopause: when your period—meno, has stopped for a full year-- pause. Up until that one-year mark, pregnancy is still very much possible ---even if your periods are erratic—so be aware!

Menopause arrives in 3 flavors: natural, premature and induced

Natural ~ you gradually shift toward the end of menstruation and physical changes drift slowly.

Premature ~ the whole transition happens fast and early (before age 40) and instead of 5-13 years, the transition is just a couple years.

Induced ~ through hysterectomy, chemo/radiation, other drugs or illness.

For the natural and premature groups, the perimenopause transition doesn’t need to be difficult and uncomfortable.
Our experience notes that it often goes pretty smoothly for women who take great care of themselves. They often need no medical support in the form of hormones.

So what does “taking great care of yourself” look like?

You attend to your nutrition, and exercise, and clearly choose a lifestyle that reduces stress, entertains all the feelings and identity shifts of this time, and weeds relationships into “supportive-&-keep” and “makeover-or-terminate” categories.

And, you create a simple routine for energy fine-tuning, which can make a HUGE difference in your menopause transition experience! We find acupuncture & herbs and/or Maya Abdominal Massage to be “game changers.”

Because hormone balance is so linked in with other physical and emotional cueing systems, this makes perfect sense. Physically, mentally and spiritually you are literally metamorphosing! So when we build Suround & Support Programs for our 40’s ladies, we always feature the Big 4: Nutrition, Acupuncture, MAM, and Spiritual Counseling.

If you are a woman in your forties, you’re most likely at some point in your peri-menopause journey. How’s it going? Let us know what’s going on with you . . . we probably can help!

 Speak with Elizabeth about your health  212-213-5785.

Thyroid issues are underlying so many women’s health concerns in peri-menopause (the decade leading up to menopause) and over 35. 

In my practice, it’s now my routine to send almost every woman straight back to her GYN or RE for FULL labs on thyroid – not just TSH!  It’s impossible to know what’s going on by looking at TSH in isolation.  More times than not it needs support in order to get traction in the more obvious issues showing up:  the symptoms she is complaining of (such as constipation, stubborn weight, wired-tired and insomnia), or for fertility patients, an embryo (natural conception or assisted reproduction) progressing to become a healthy pregnancy.  Thyroid is a key player in many systems, so eventually thyroid imbalance will most likely lead to other problems as well.

This link takes you to an abstract of some research indicating women in the highest 25 percentile range of having the chemical PFFOA (Perfluorooctanoic acid) and PFFOS (perfluoroctane sulphonate) in their bodies were TWICE as likely as other women to have thyroid disease at the time of testing.  This stuff is found in the industrial compound used in non-stick cookware! (among other places)

What to do….

• Check out the new Thyroid Book In the Oriens waiting room (or click the book icon below) by one of my favorite teachers—Dr. Datis Kharrazian—whose courses in functional endocrinology, thyroid and more have revolutionized the east-west/natural-traditional integrative practice model. 
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• Have your GYN or RE run FULL labs on your thyroid—including thyroid antibodies check.  If you have values out of line in any panel, before you jump on synthetic replacement hormones, come see Sharon  or me to review options and discuss whether a natural support strategy makes sense for you or if indeed you’d be better served by the straight western route.

 

Enjoy Maya Abdominal Massage, PreNatal massage and more with Simone!


Ever since an early age I was drawn to water. A beautiful abundant river ran on the back of our house and we daily splash on the water and people wash their clothes, women did dishes and so I lived in the semi-paradise small town where everything was so abundant and organic, no plastic bottles, no worries with tomorrow just freely leaving daily what life brought to us.

Later on in my life, while in high-school in the big city, I would reflect on this state of beauty and nature and tears would come out of my eyes, for the river I knew no longer existed and it was being polluted with a tire company and pesticides for farmers and cattle farming.

I have been thinking a lot about the amount of synthetic estrogen that has been thrown in our waters and consequently our bodies, and my question is how are we going to be able to maintain a balance in progesterone to be able to create, a fertile body --- will avoiding these chemicals, once infertility is diagnosed, make much difference? Who can say?

Let’s raise our consciousness to the fact that the cause is not only one problem, there are several. I have been meditating on clean water this week, and when I say clean I mean not plastic bottled water which contains bisphenol A or BPA’s which are suspected of causing breast and prostrate cancer, diabetes, hyperactivity and other serious disorders in laboratory animals.

If you want to avoid these chemicals in your plastic water bottles, look for and avoid the number 7, usually found within the recycle symbol. The "number 7" plastics contain BPA. This chemical mimics estrogen in the human body, scientists say.

An article in the British Telegraph newspaper, Infertility: Handle With Care, implies that these chemicals are the cause of a number of health problems, including infertility. While the article itself makes clear that the scientists are "suspicious" but can't prove its effect, the chart at the end of the article makes it seem like there's no doubt these chemicals are to blame to a number of heath problems, including infertility and miscarriage, in mice... mice -- not people. Genetically mice are actually very close to people, which is why researchers use them. Our intake of these chemicals is far below what the mice were purposely fed, in large quantities.
www.keepitorganic.org/category/packaging-concerns/bisphenol-a-bpa.

As a preventive matter lets keep our bodies and planet clean from so many pollutants. Eat live, pesticide-free food, grown with clean water.

With love,
Simone


World Water Day The international observance of World Water Day is an initiative that grew out of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED).

“There is enough water for human need, but not for human greed.”
– Mahatama Ghandi