Community News
A Powerful Wellness Combo

A holistic approach to whole-body health is made up of interdependent parts – body, mind, and soul. If one of these parts is not working properly, all the other parts are affected. If you have imbalances (physical, emotional, or spiritual) in your life, it can negatively affect your overall health. Holistic healing involves multiple complementary medicines and alternative healthcare practices that can overlap with modern-day Western medicine. During a unique Nutri-Aroma consultation, which combines nutrition, aromatherapy, and Reiki, you learn how to achieve the best results for healthier living in the shortest amount of time.

What’s Your Path to Wellness?

Most of us face health challenges at some point in our lives. As we experience these challenges, we strive to return to wellness but often get overwhelmed with health options or frustrated with advice and approaches that simply don’t work. An Integrative Health Coach helps to sift through wellness options to guide you to the most meaningful health strategies that make sense to you. As your Integrative Health Coach, I draw on a wide knowledge base of diverse healing practices to find the most helpful options that align with your goals and life experiences. What’s your path to wellness?

The Do’s and Don’ts of Dentures

To get the most out of your dentures, it’s important to take proper care of them. Here are some do’s and don’ts when it comes to denture care. DO: 1) Handle your dentures carefully. 2) Remove and rinse after eating. 3) Remove before bed and soak overnight. 4) Rinse before putting them back in your mouth. 5) Brush dentures daily. 6) See your denturist regularly. DON’T: 1) Use whitening toothpaste, abrasive cleaners, bleach products, sharp objects, or hot water to clean your dentures. 2) Use tugging motions when eating. 3) Neglect your dentures. 4) Wear ill-fitting dentures.

Balance Your Hormones Naturally

What does hormonal imbalance look like? Hot flashes, night sweats, bloating, irritability, brain fog, irregular cycle, and fatigue are just some of the symptoms. If you suffer from any of these symptoms and haven’t been able to find relief, why not try balancing your hormones naturally. Biofeedback testing and treatment help to detect imbalances and stimulate hormone-producing organs to balance the body. Another effective option is to get your body tested to see if it is lacking specific hormone-related nutrients. If you are, natural nutritional formulations can be taken to correct the hormonal imbalance and relieve your symptoms.

Acupuncture for Post-Partum Depression

Post-partum depression involves depressive symptoms or episodes after giving birth, affecting up to 30% of new mothers. The rates of suicide linked to post-partum depression continue to increase, so it’s important to address any symptoms of the condition as soon as they become apparent. Along with psychological intervention, acupuncture may help with the symptoms of post-partum depression, and some studies have shown that this combination can be as useful as certain anti-depressants. It’s thought that acupuncture helps to stimulate the nervous and immune systems and balance various neurotransmitters, reducing the brain’s reaction to stress and therefore the depressive state.

Enriching the Life of Your Pet

Keeping your pet in good physical shape is an important part of their wellness, but it’s crucial to provide mental stimulation and enrichment for them as well. Depending on the breed and personality of your dog, a walk doesn’t always provide enough stimulation. Drop-in visits from a pet sitter give your dog the opportunity for an extra play session during the day. For high energy dogs, or those needing more socialization, daycare is a great option. Even if it’s not every day, it gives your dog something to look forward to during the week. There are also many cognitive enrichment toys and puzzles you can purchase for your dogs, cats and birds to keep their minds sharp.

Caring for Hearing Devices

Taking good care of your hearing aids can significantly prolong their life. *Make sure your hands are clean and dry before handling your hearing aids. *Clean them regularly using your hearing aid cleaning kit. *Remove hearing aids before showering, bathing or swimming and store in a dry location away from condensation. *Remove them before applying perfume or hair spray. *Store them in their case or drying cup away from heat sources and direct sunlight. *If you won’t be using your hearing aids for an extended period, remove the batteries and store them separately. *Use a hearing aid expert if you need repairs.

Meet Your Practitioner

Barbara Balshaw-Dow is a clinical social worker/therapist who received her Master of Social Work in 2007 and has been practicing since 2015. She has a passion for highlighting mental wellness and works with clients who are experiencing anxiety, depression, trauma, as well as other life challenges. She helps her clients develop strategies to do things differently and move forward by using tools such as: solution-focused questions, strategies from cognitive behavioural therapy, and basic eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy. Barbara is also a registered yoga teacher and is working towards certification in equine-assisted counselling.

Needing Orthopedic Surgery?

Are you at your wits end? Are you in pain and tired of waiting for knee, hip, or spine surgery? ONZ Spine specializes in more than 10 years of assisting thousands of individuals in traveling to Germany for orthopedic surgery. Have you been told you are too young for knee or hip replacement? Dr Wolfram Steens at ONZ Spine in Germany can do up to 4 knee and hip replacements in a person’s lifetime, staring at a young age, if necessary, thanks to their state-of-the-art technology. Newly available to Canadian patients is knee cartilage replacement – with use of technology not yet available in Canada.

Acupuncture for PTSD

PTSD is a physiological disorder that results from being exposed to a traumatic event. It can affect anyone at any point in their life. The disorder can result in several symptoms including, but not limited to anxiety, irritability, insomnia, nightmares, and flashbacks. Acupuncture for PTSD is administered by stimulating specific auricular points as well as others in the body. These points are responsible for signaling areas of the brain to help control nervous functioning as well as mitigate stress levels. Acupuncture treatments also have benefits such as a decrease in depression and physical pain. Soldiers, police officers, fire fighters and countless others who have been diagnosed with PTSD are using acupuncture to experience relief.

Trusting Myself Fully

I invite you to take out a pen and paper and complete this sentence with your dominant hand: “If I trusted myself completely, I would do/say or make happen” ……? Then with your non-dominant hand respond: “What holds me back from fully trusting” ….? When we struggle to create or share what we truly want, it’s often because there is a missing part of ourselves lost, frozen or trapped in time. When we seek validation from those outside ourselves over the wisdom that resides within us, this leads towards 2 big compromises: 1) Seeking and chasing the need for constant approval (anxious attachment) or 2) avoiding and rejecting what we desire, so we don’t feel the disappointment and rejection (avoidant attachment). Relationships are a shared energy, the more we trust our gut knowing, the better we can trust, share and receive what we truly desire.