How to treat heartburn naturally – part 2

Most mindfulness techniques have at their heart a simple instruction. Focus on your breath... This is supposed to be simple, but what if it isn't simple for you?  What then? For people struggling with anxiety it may increase the feelings of panic. Mindfulness involves placing our attention on a chosen anchor, noticing when our mind is distracted or wandering and choosing to return it back, with a king and friendly curiosity towards the experience.  You should start simple by focusing 1 - 5 minutes or even do short 30 second bursts a couple of times during the day.  So, I want to introduce you to a few alternatives to using breathing as the anchor focused around our senses. 1. Look & Focus Choose an everyday object in the room to look at and become aware of the colour, shape or light reflections.  I personally like looking at a light candle as its often flickers so there is movement too.    

By nature Reiki is very intangible.   So in a series of blog articles I will try to explore how Reiki works and what the scientific research says. For me Reiki is merely a modern name for an ancient healing practice.  Which is administered by "laying on hands" and is based on the idea that an unseen "life force energy" flows through us and is what causes us to be alive. If one's "life force energy" is low, we are run down and then we are more likely to get sick or feel stress, and if it is high, we are more capable of being happy and healthy. The benefits of Reiki

• Help some people to feel deeply relaxed
• Help people cope with difficult situations
• Relieve emotional stress and tension
• Help to improve overall wellbeing
• Help alleviate pain & anxiety

My final swap is nettles for spiralina. Spirulina's deep blue-green color reveals its active ingredient — chlorophyll — clearly. Health.com explains it as one of the oldest life forms on Earth and possibly consumed in Aztec and African diets centuries ago. Today it's touted for its ability to strengthen the immune system, reduce fatigue and combat allergies. Nettles are another plant with chlorophyll that even rivals the amount found in spirulina, but they're often found in ditch banks, forests and riverbanks. It's sometimes called "stinging nettle" because it does just that; if you touch it without wearing gloves, the tiny hairs on every surface sting like a bee due to the presence of formic acid, leaving small red welts. But internally, Bon Appetit asserts, it acts like a tonic:

"Taken over time, nettle will strengthen your circulatory, immune, and endocrine systems to promote peak function. The stronger these systems, the better position our bodies are in to deal with whatever might come our way."

"It has been found to help cure mucus congestion, skin irritations, water retention and diarrhea … stimulate the digestive glands of the stomach, intestines, liver, pancreas and gall bladder. Applied externally, nettle tea … relieves rheumatism in both people and animals, makes a first-class gargle for mouth and throat infections, helps to clear up acne and eczema and promotes the healing of burns."