Valerie Reiss: February 2009 Archives

This hilarious, beautiful "chant" is from Sadie Nardini, one of the fiercest, funnest yoginis around.

Holly, I feel you and your sniffles! I've caught every little bug this year (thanks, stress!). But, in general how I kick a common cold is the following (oh and I am sooo not a medical professional, so definitely check with your doctor before taking any of my advice).

1) Load up on Emergen-C Lite. I'm a big fan of these powdery packets. They each have 1,000 mgs of vitamin C and the "lite" version doesn't have much sweetener--fake or otherwise--so it goes down fizzy and easy. And it's only got 5 calories if you care about that sort of thing. I try to chug 3 a day when I feel something coming on.

2) Cut out all sugar and dairy. I stop eating anything sweet, including fruit, for a few days to help "alkalize" my system--help shift my PH level from acid to more basic. One theory says this can ward off any disease because the icks thrive in an acidic internal environment, but not a basic or more neutral one. It's controversial, but makes sense to me. (Here's a list of acid and alkaline foods). Dairy products also acidify the system, plus they just make me phlegmier.

3) Eat lots of leafy greens. Also along the alkalizing line of thought. Plus they're packed with minerals and chlorophyll and all things healthy bodies thrive on. I like to order an all-green juice from the health food store--and I ask them to add a little green apple or carrot juice to take off the bitter edge.

4) Sleep. Might seem like a no-brainer, but deep sleep restores everything and all heals so much faster.

5) Drink hot tea with lemon. The lemon cuts the phlegm, the hot water soothes. (Holly actually just created a brilliant a gallery on the health secrets of lemons you might like.)

6) Take acidophilus. Getting your colon working properly ensures that you process toxins and keep things moving along properly.

7) Take Wellness Formula. I pop these giant horsepills of a multi-vitamin every three hours (the label says to) when I'm run down. It really helps.

8) Take the oscililipholo-a-rama stuff. Ok, I can't pronounce or spell it, but on the off-chance you're coming down with a flu, these homepathic magic pills are great.

9) Drink lots of water. Also a no-brainer, but the faster you can get things flushed out of your sytem, the sooner you will feel better.

10) Have fun! The whole "laughter heals" thing is not a joke. Try to get in some giggles--you'll release some happy-making oxytocin and your cells will function better and at the very least you'll keep yourself from getting Common Cold Mopey Misery Syndrome. 

11) Give in. You know, sometimes the body needs to get sick. It's telling you it has to release something and rest. Listen in to know when to stop battling and start popping in Gilmore Girls on DVD in your robe and blanket.  

What are your secret tricks for kicking out a cold before it settles in? 

From Victoria Moran, Beliefnet's incredibly talented Life Coach blogger:

"I don't always bound out of bed with grand expectations about the day ahead, but when I can hear my grandmother saying, 'This is a day the Lord has made: I will rejoice and be glad in it,' it helps. And when I get up at the early side of morning instead of the snooze-alarm side, ah, what a difference!

1.    It stretches out the morning. You could even see it as a way of  living longer.
2.    There's no excuse not to meditate.
3.    Or go to the gym.
4.    You'll be sure and make your bed before you leave the house. Just remembering that you did that gives you a better day.
5.    There's time for a real breakfast."

For five more reasons to get up early, click here for Victoria's full post.

A couple of weeks ago when I was recovering from bronchitis, my lips were so chapped they were ready to fall off--it hurt to smile. For days I had been addictively applying my Aveda lip balm and some other health food store lip balm, to almost no effect. Then my friend Loren whipped out the Emu Lip Refresher. Maybe it's because we've known each other since we were 16, but she was willing to share with germy old me, and Oh. My. Gawd. Within the first few hours I could smirk, two days later my lips were smoooth. If I could do an informercial, I would.

Only problem is, the magic ingredient is emu oil. I like emus (tall ostrichy birds from Down Under) and generally don't like to consume animals unless it's essential. The company that makes the balm I'm using, Thunder Ridge Emu Products, makes a zillion petroleum-free emu-based products, from vitamins to cuticle cream. They claim the stuff is anti-inflammatory and heals everything from fostbite to scars to acne. My concerns are slightly alleviated by knowing the oil comes from organic, free-range emus on a ranch in Virginia; the company gets its name from the Australian aborigines' nickname for the howling creatures: "thunder chickens." So, it all depends how you feel about animal-based cosmetics, no matter how happy the living animals. I'm ambivalent. But man, thunder chicken has made my lips very happy. Oh, and it's only $3.50 a pop.  

Do you have a favorite healing lip balm? Please share!

  It was a stressful weekend. An article I handed in six months ago came back for edits. Again. It's a story about love and yoga. It's supposed to be helpful and happy and light. Not saccharine, but, you know, not grim reaper stuff. But I and the editor and her editor realized the problem: 3,500 words and not much joy. I finally confessed that I've been in love-sucks-and-is-hard mode for months. It was clear that despite my attempts, this was tinting things.

So then I did what every good writer does: Procrastinated. Worried. Stressed myself out by staring at the computer screen, canceling fun plans, and not going to yoga. And once that was all in place, I spent lots of time berating myself for being such a procrastinating, non-exercising fraud of a yogi and a terrible writer with the efficiency skills of a meth-head on crack.

Sometimes when I start setting myself up like this I can catch it. Some loving part of my brain goes, "Oop, honey, watch out, you're spiraling into some dangerous territory." And then I go for a walk or call a friend or write in my journal to exorcise the inner haters. But sometimes the self-punisher just takes over. "Nope!" he says, hovering over me, large and leather-clad, giant paddle in hand, "No light for you! You deserve to be this miserable, you procrastinating wretch!"

And then I'm in the Bad Place. And last night that Bad Place was my bedroom floor, me propped on a bag of undone laundry (more proof of my horrible, unfit-for-humanity-ness), sobbing and saying mean things to myself about my fundamental unloveablity, cataloging all of the good evidence to support the notion that anyone I would ever love could never possibly love me because look, this IS me, at core. A crying, needy, dirty-laundried, procrastinating wreck. "Ha!" I thought. "People think I'm so together (well, some), but this is the REAL me. If only they knew that I'm just a swirl of pathetic darkness." Yadda, Ibid, etc. Ad infinitum. You get the idea.

And I wish I knew what the next little teeny flicker looked or sounded or smelled like--and I really wish I knew where it came from. (Click below for the rest of the post.)