I’ve never tried acupuncture therapy for anything. Not that I don’t want to, I just have never had the opportunity to try this type of alternative therapy for anything.  I have known a few people who swear by it, but I guess there is still just something about sticking needles in different areas of my body that just doesn’t sit too well with me. I know that they are barely even inserted into the skin, and that they are just hitting different pressure points, but I guess it’s my weird fear of all needles that makes me wary.

Since menstrual cramping is a big problem, with over half the menstruating women in the world claiming to get these annoying side effects of their period, it’s a relief for many women who have insufferable cramps to get effective therapy. Apparently acupuncture has been found to have a very relieving effect on women going through these types of cramping.

The reason cited for acupuncture being so effective for some people when it comes to pain relief is that it stimulates the central nervous system and it creates an environment for more seratonin – the “feel good” hormone – to secrete out into the blood stream. Seratonin is kind of like an antidote to pain because it intervenes with it’s pleasure causing effects on the body.

Most women who have menstrual cramping and bloatedness, and lower back pain which is commonly associated with menstruation, often turn to popping over the counter pain medications like Aleve or Advil, when in fact they may be over doing it. Many OTC pain relievers are ok for short term use, but over use can lead to liver damage and also can throw hormone balance off, so it’s awesome that such an effective non-drug alternative has been found for those that have unmanageable cramping.

My husband and I have been taking the dietary natural sleep aid supplement melatonin now for years. We don’t take it every single night, but about four nights per week when we know we have to get up early and go to work. We usually take 3 mg. of the supplement, but we have occasionally doubled that dose up if we really need to get the sleep and are worried we might not get it without some serious help.

I have never had any problems that I know of with melatonin, and there are actually some great health benefits to taking it, but there are some side effects that have been reported in some people that I have heard about, and I was going to talk to you a little about those potential side effects today.  Also make sure you check out our natural sleep aid information here for future reference if you have trouble getting to sleep from time to time.

There are some great all natural, side effect free remedies for sleeping, you just have to know what’s right for you, which may take a bit of experimentation on your part.

The reported side effects of melatonin have been irritability, anxiety, and even some depression. Another one I heard about was constipation. I have never personally experienced any of these side effects from melatonin, but that doesn’t mean that everyone will have the same good experience as I would with this supplement.

It seems so odd that  supplement that makes you feel so relaxed and helps you sleep throughout the night would potentially cause issues like this in the body.  The anxiety especially surprises me, because it is, by nature, a relaxant hormone that is released by your body (especially at younger ages, you produce tons of melatonin when you are younger, it dwindles with age, so you’d think that supplementation would be a good thing).

I guess it just seems counterintuitive that these types of symptoms would occur, but then again, nothing surprises me, because everyone reacts differently to varying supplements, drugs, and even foods.

I have a few New Year’ s Resolutions. Of course, I’ve already broken a few of them, but one of them was to detoxify my system from eating all the crap I stuffed down my gullet over the holidays, and revitalizing my sense of health and well being by getting the fats and chemicals out of my system from my holiday indulgences. New year, new colon I suppose, right!?

There are a couple different ways to detox your system actually. First, you can go on a cleansing diet like the Master Cleanse, which I tried and didn’t care for personally. There’s something unnatural about consuming only liquids for at least ten days straight. I know a few people who have done it and dropped weight that way, but it always comes right back on and some critics of it think that it actually may hurt your metabolism.

You can also take supplements which are designed to rid your body of excess waste (ie make you go to the bathroom a lot), and also to replenish certain flora that are lost in the process, or that you may be lacking in the first place.  The Dual Action Cleanse detox system does that, which is why so many people love to use it when they’re feeling weighed down and toxic.

It’s important if you are doing a colon cleansing, that you consider replenishing your healthy bacteria – the little peacekeepers of the colon, otherwise known as lactobacillus, or probiotics. These are commonly found in yogurt with active cultures, so you can either eat a lot of yogurt when you’re doing a colon cleanse, or you can make sure you are taking a supplement that has probiotics in it to help balance out the healthy bacteria again.

My favorite yogurt for this purpose, and it also happens to taste yummy too, is the Activia line of yogurt.  It helps keep you regular too, so it’s great for people who suffer constipation or irregular bowel movements.

I became a little bit concerned when I started to experience something at first that I thought might be panic attacks, but then I realized I might actually have somewhat of an arrhythmia of the heart. I’m going to go see a doctor to confirm it is nothing serious, but decided I would also look online to see what natural ways might be an alternative to any sort of undoubtedly expensive and potentially dangerous or side effect laden drugs I might be put on, if anything. I found a few interesting ideas, but one of them that was consistently referred to was a supplement called magnesium citrate.

Magnesium citrate is just a very processable form of the mineral magnesium. It is thought to be great for nerve health, but more importantly, is thought to help improve conditions where the heart beats out of control or has a rapid or uneven beat. It may be that this supplement helps to regulate the heart rhythm by improving the electromagnetic pulses that are responsible for the correct, timely beating of the heart. Now, I’m no expert, so please go out online and do your own research on this, and it certainly should not be used in place of a doctor’s consultation if you think you may have a problem.

This of course came to the forefront after the talented actress Brittany Murphy’s death, of what they said was a full on cardiac arrest – at the age of 32 years old, which is obviously a very young age to have a major cardiac accident that leads to death. She may have had a pre existing condition of course, but one can’t help wonder if she was on some sort of natural remedy or even medication to help her heart beat be more regular, if her death could have been prevented.

There were reports that she had been diagnosed with a slightly irregular heartbeat, but the doctors did not think it was significant enough to be life threatening or to put her on medication for. Of course, there is also speculation that she may have had an eating disorder that may have spurred an already existing condition to become disastrous, or that she had taken some sort of drug that spurred it, but that is all speculation at this point.

This made me think more about my little episodes, which I by and large used to ignore because I thought they were just a fluke. They rarely happened, but I did notice one happened the other day for no reason at all where it felt like my heart was beating out of rhythm and too fast, so it has become a concern for me. I did buy a magnesium citrate supplement to start in the meantime, and I can let you know how that affects me soon.

Antibiotics have garnered quite a bit of attention over the past several years, due to the fact that many strains of virus are developing resistance to the most commonly prescribed antibiotics, and because the medical community is having to come up with stronger and stronger strains of antibiotics to over come adapted strains of viruses.

The fear is that eventually our viruses will out-evolve our antibiotic technology, and we will have a basically incurable disease on our hands that otherwise could have easily been cured through antibiotic use just years prior. While that disastrous picture hasn’t occurred, it’s still on medicine’s radar as a potential occurrence, and doctors are becoming more discriminating in prescribing antibiotics so that they are not overused, and new viruses don’t have as many opportunities to find ways to beat the latest antibiotics.

Not only that, but we have recently learned that the use of antibiotics, especially long term use, actually kills the healthy flora in our intestines, and it can not only lead to diarrhea while on powerful antibiotics, but it can also lead to various issues with the digestive system and waste elimination, and what is called a candida, or yeast imbalance in the body.

So, are there any herbal alternatives to traditional antibiotics? Well, there supposedly are, but of course these cannot be construed as any type of replacement for the real medical deal if you are dealing with a serious virus that needs to be addressed by antibiotic intercession. Apparently, there are some herbs that help to get rid of viruses and cleanse the immune system, or boost it against these pesky invaders. One of them is to be expected, since it is already known as an immunity booster, and you’ve undoubtedly heard of it unless you’ve lived under a rock or only recently became interested in alternative medicine or herbal supplements, that is echinacea.

Echinacea is of course a purple flowering herb that has been used to boost one’s immune system around the flu season. Many people swear by it, and it may be because it kills invaders before they even hit, and that is why it is known to fend off colds and other sicknesses like the flu. Another is Goldenseal, whics is interestingly also used by many a college student to help them take clean drug tests. Another one is garlic, which I love to consume in foods, so it’s a wonder that I ever get sick of all. They’re worth a look into if you want to help boost your immune system and get rid of bugs before they invade totally.