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Tips for inner peace
Dr. Susan E. Brown

Learn how to cultivate inner peace amid outer turmoil

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As a women’s health advocate who is concerned about human rights, the health of our Mother Earth, and world peace and justice, it’s clear to me that 2020 will be challenging. But I refuse to be discouraged. After all, the times of greatest challenge offer the greatest opportunity for growth.

I’ve decided to meet the challenges of 2020 by putting more attention toward becoming the change I want to see in the world. Allowing myself to be tossed around by the waves of discord, negativity, and controversy would be an injustice to my true self and a direct assault on my physical, emotional and spiritual well-being. So my first step is to cultivate inner peace and hope — and to help you do the same, here are some tips.

10 tips to finding inner peace

  1. First things first: take care of your body. That means get enough sleep, eat regular, nourishing meals and make time for fun and relaxation. Exhaustion, hypoglycemia, and over-scheduling don’t promote inner peace.
  2. Set your intention for inner peace. When you wake, take three deep breaths and decide that inner peace is the day’s goal. It may take practice, but what you put your attention on grows stronger in your life.
  3. Give yourself 10 minutes of silence daily. Sit quietly and breathe deeply, inhaling to the count of 5 and exhaling to 8. Focus on the breath and observe the wanderings of your mind. If distracting thoughts arise, simply shift your attention back to your breathing.
  4. Change your mind (literally). Practice being aware of what you are thinking, and when worry or fear shows up, deliberately exchange them for more harmonious thoughts based in love or kindness.
  5. Practice coexistence. Deliberately set aside judgmental thinking. Peaceful coexistence is possible when we respect each other’s unique expression of self, whether we find it pleasing or not.
  6. Follow your heart’s desire. It’s all too easy to become distracted and even obsessed with the comings and goings of worldly and personal affairs. Focus your attention on what makes you happy, not wasting precious energy on criticizing or judging others.
  7. Be kind, no matter what. As former President Obama is fond of saying, “We can disagree without being disagreeable.” Let your guiding principle be kindness.
  8. Relax and have more fun. Times are troubled, but this too will pass. Take enjoyment where you find it.
  9. Note positive feelings. Cultivate and encourage positivity.  You will feel better and so will your environment.
  10. Get out in Nature.  We ourselves are a grand manifestation of the supreme intelligence and order of Nature. The rhythms of the natural world flow through our veins enlivening inner balance.   Visit her often and accept Nature’s gifts of endurance, peace and harmony.  
Mind Body Bone Connection
Dr. Susan E. Brown

Mind over muscle — how using your brain could help your bones

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Perhaps you’ve heard of the “placebo effect” in clinical trials — that strange situation when some people who don’t receive a beneficial intervention see a benefit to their health anyway, for no obvious reason. By way of explanation, most clinical researchers think that when participants believe they will improve because of the “treatment,” their body takes its cue from the mind and responds as if a therapeutic agent is actually being used.

If only we could capture this seemingly magical ability of the mind to direct the body — what could it do for our own ability to heal?

Mental imagery makes a difference

In fact, a few years ago, some researchers showed that we can capture this ability (Clark et al. 2014). They induced muscle weakness in 29 adult volunteers — healthy people who had more or less similar muscle strength at baseline — by immobilizing the hand and wrist of the subjects’ non-dominant arm using a rigid cast (15 other volunteers had nothing done to their arm and served as controls). They trained 14 members of the group with immobilized wrists in a mental imagery program in which they were told to imagine their immobilized hand and wrist was doing specific movements, such as flexing and pushing, without actually activating the muscles. An electromyogram was used to make sure they didn’t actually flex their muscles during the mental imagery sessions. The remaining 15 people whose arms were immobilized were not given mental imagery training.

What they found was startling: In the participants who underwent mental imagery training, the loss of muscle strength associated with immobilization was half that of those who didn’t get training. They also concluded that lack of neurological activity, rather than lack of muscle activity, accounted for almost a one-third of the strength decrease in the immobilized arm. In other words, simply directing the brain’s attention to the nervous system in a specific part of the body provides sufficient stimulus to the musculoskeletal system to make an important difference.

A mind-body-bone connection?

I’ve noted before that bone strength depends on muscle strength, and most of us know that muscle strength is a “use it or lose it” proposition. This study shows how the power of the mind can be brought to bear on muscle strength — and though it didn’t look at bone specifically, if you’re supporting muscle, you’re also supporting bone. I can’t help but wonder whether a study that also looked at the effects on participants’ bone mass might not show a similar improvement in bones! I bet you dollars to donuts it would.

Better bones affirmations

Better bones affirmations

Reference

Clark BC, Mahato NK, Nakazawa M, Law TD, Thomas JS. The power of the mind: the cortex as a critical determinant of muscle mass. J Neurophysiol. 2014;112(12):3219–3226.

Dr. Susan E. Brown

Can stress change your pH balance?

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I often talk about the connection between body and mind, and recently a client showed me something that clearly demonstrated why the connection between your body and mind is so important. In this short video we talk about how stress can change your pH balance.

Stress is bad for your bones

Over the years, I’ve noticed again and again that emotional distress worsens metabolic acidosis. We know that emotionally charged thoughts such as worry or fear cause production of stress hormones, the best known of which is cortisol. Cortisol impacts the body in many ways, promoting a loss of minerals from the body and increasing the acid load – which is bad for your bones.

Dramatic data from my client Lynn

As with all clients, I asked Lynn to measure her first-morning urine and see how close her first-morning urine pH was to the ideal 6.5 to 7.5 pH range. After working with the Better Bones Program for several weeks, using our Alkaline for Life diet combined with our bone building supplement program, she achieved the ideal urine pH of 6.5 to 7.5 on a very regular basis. Lynn kept careful records of her diet, supplements, and emotional state while recording her urine pH level daily. She actually enjoyed seeing her chemistry move from a bone-depleting low pH level to the ideal bone-preserving 6.5 to 7.5 level.

At one point, however, Lynn noticed that her pH dropped dramatically. Looking back at her records, she realized that this drop in pH occurred after a few days of highly internalized emotional distress. Recognizing this, she modified her stress response and found healthy ways to cope — and sure enough, her first morning urine pH returned to the ideal range.

Listen to Lynn tell her story of how she discovered the link between stress and pH balance:

With any form of stress, half the battle is recognizing that the stress is there. Mindfulness — recognizing what’s challenging you and whether your response to it is helping or hindering — is an important key to ensuring that your thoughts don’t have a lasting effect on your body. Once you know the problem, taking steps to find inner peace can help you cope — and avoid harming your bones.

Reference:

Brown, Susan E. The acid alkaline food guide, 2nd ed. Square One Publishers, Garden City Park, NY, 2013

 

Dr. Susan Brown PhD
Dr. Susan E. Brown

Challenge 28: Expanding Love

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Every day is a new opportunity to grow and transform our body, mind and spirit.

When we slow down to listen to the wisdom within us — and in the world around us
— wonderful changes can occur.

To help you get started, I’ll share a weekly “Transformational Challenge” that can
bring both growth and joy into your life. I’ll also be focusing my attention on
the challenge right along with you, so I would love to hear about your experiences.

Yours in Health, Susan

Like Our Facebook Page for the Latest News!

There are only two emotions, love and fear.

“There are only two emotions: love and fear. All positive emotions come from love, all negative emotions from fear. From love flows happiness, contentment, peace, and joy. From fear comes anger, hate, anxiety and guilt. It’s true that there are only two primary emotions, love and fear. But it’s more accurate to say that there is only love or fear, for we cannot feel these two emotions together, at exactly the same time. They’re opposites. If we’re in fear, we are not in a place of love. When we’re in a place of love, we cannot be in a place of fear.”  -Elisabeth Kubler-Rosslove-or-fear2

This month we challenge you to take stock and see if your thoughts, words, and actions are coming from a place of love or of fear. If coming from Love you will feel expanded (joy, peace, well being, etc.);  from fear you will feel contracted (worried, unhappy, angry, etc.).

Better Bones Blog
Dr. Susan E. Brown

Try 22 minutes of this exercise for bone health

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Become a Patron!

I’m always looking for simple yet challenging new ways to get exercise. In fact, I recently surprised my colleagues by wearing my weight vest at the office.

But if that understandably doesn’t work for you, I’ve discovered a great form of exercise to introduce you to that helps build bone in just 22 minutes a day. It’s called Essentrics and almost anyone can do it.

What is Essentrics?

Essentics is an exercise technique that features a full body workout with dynamic strengthening and stretching exercises.  It includes movements from ballet, Pilates, tai chi, and yoga that are designed to lengthen and stretch your muscles, relieve the pressure on your joints and nourish your bones. You may recognize Essentrics and its creator, the best-selling author Miranda Esmonde-White, from the long running show Classical Stretch on PBS TV.

I do one of Miranda’s routines several mornings a week and I love that I feel more flexible and “open” after doing them. These exercises definitely help me maintain strength and increase muscle tone.  Also, doing them on a regular basis helps me control that unwanted “belly fat” — which I really appreciate.

Try safe, comfortable combinations

Another reason I like Essentrics exercises is that almost any woman can do them.  In our recent survey, many of you asked about specific exercise options for those of us with painful knees, achy joints and other limitations on movement. Miranda’s Classic Stretch exercises are mindful, gentle and can be adapted to suit most everyone. You go at your own pace and never over-stress the muscles or joints.

Of course, you should always check with your healthcare practitioner before beginning any exercise program if you have special health concerns.

Watch to learn more

Here’s more about Essentrics and Classical Stretch from a recent conversation with Miranda who explains how Essentrics helps to build bone and muscle. The video I use, Classical Stretch 8, is available for you to try in our Shop.

Dr. Susan Brown PhD
Dr. Susan E. Brown

Challenge 26: Make Your Own Gifts

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Every day is a new opportunity to grow and transform our body, mind and spirit.
When we slow down to listen to the wisdom within us — and in the world around us
— wonderful changes can occur.

To help you get started, I’ll share a weekly “Transformational Challenge” that can
bring both growth and joy into your life. I’ll also be focusing my attention on
the challenge right along with you, so I would love to hear about your experiences.

Yours in Health, Susan

Like Our Facebook Page for the Latest News!

Homemade gifts can often express more love and appreciation than a commercial gift may offer

They also give us the opportunity to be a bit creative and to really think about what might make that other person happy. This week’s challenge is to make a homemade gift for the holidays. A gift  that comes from the heart for someone you love —  a homemade pie or treat, a knitted scarf or cap, or any one of these 51 ideas from Country Living magazine. If you are not handy or run out of time you can offer your services to someone —  babysitting, driving someone to the store, cleaning someone’s house, making a calendar with family birthdays on it, etc. This list goes on and on and is only limited by your imagination.

handmade-christmas-tree

Bonus: Share your own holiday gift idea with our community.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS from Dr. Susan Brown

Dr. Susan Brown PhD
Dr. Susan E. Brown

Challenge 22: Get Creative!

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Every day is a new opportunity to grow and transform our body, mind and spirit.
When we slow down to listen to the wisdom within us — and in the world around us
— wonderful changes can occur.

To help you get started, I’ll share a weekly “Transformational Challenge” that can
bring both growth and joy into your life. I’ll also be focusing my attention on
the challenge right along with you, so I would love to hear about your experiences.

Yours in Health, Susan

Like Our Facebook Page for the Latest News!

Unleash your inner artist and see what develops.

We at the Center for Better Bones were all surprised at the creativity that flowed at a local #paintingwithatwist class that we attended! This week’s challenge is to participate in an artistic activity at home or in your community. You might surprise yourself at how creative you can truly be!

creative

 

Bonus: Share this Challenge with your friends and inspire them also.

 

Better Bones Blog
Dr. Susan E. Brown

Challenge 19: Humor Week

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Every day is a new opportunity to grow and transform our body, mind and spirit.
When we slow down to listen to the wisdom within us — and in the world around us
— wonderful changes can occur.

To help you get started, I’ll share a weekly “Transformational Challenge” that can
bring both growth and joy into your life. I’ll also be focusing my attention on
the challenge right along with you, so I would love to hear about your experiences.

Yours in Health, Susan

Like Our Facebook Page for the Latest News!

Laughter is the best medicine.

Research shows that laughter and humor are good for our minds and bodies. This week we want to share with you a video especially funny to those of us with children. Share it with a friend.

Bonus: Share a funny video with us so that we can all laugh.

Better Bones Blog
Dr. Susan E. Brown

Challenge 17: There is nothing you cannot do™

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Every day is a new opportunity to grow and transform our body, mind and spirit.
When we slow down to listen to the wisdom within us — and in the world around us
— wonderful changes can occur.

To help you get started, I’ll share a weekly “Transformational Challenge” that can
bring both growth and joy into your life. I’ll also be focusing my attention on
the challenge right along with you, so I would love to hear about your experiences.

Yours in Health, Susan

Like Our Facebook Page for the Latest News!

Get inspired by Tao Porchon-Lynch, a 96-year old yoga instructor and dancer.

This week’s challenge is to identify one thing in your life that you are holding back on because of fear and make a tiny shift in overcoming that fear.

fullsizerender

Bonus: Watch Tao’s Inspiring TED talk about her life and know there is NOTHING that you cannot do.

 

Dr. Susan E. Brown

Challenge 11: Make Every Day Mother’s Day

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susancircleEvery day is a new opportunity to grow and transform our body, mind and spirit.
When we slow down to listen to the wisdom within us — and in the world around us
— wonderful changes can occur.

To help you get started, I’ll share a weekly “Transformational Challenge” that can
bring both growth and joy into your life. I’ll also be focusing my attention on
the challenge right along with you, so I would love to hear about your experiences.

Yours in Health, Susan

Like Our Facebook Page for the Latest News!

Appreciate the mothers of the world.

A mother’s love is unconditional.  List 10 things you have come to appreciate about your mother and consider expressing gratitude either directly to your mother for all that she has done. If you can’t, then you can express this same gratitude to any mother.

 

mothers