Do you ever feel like you are spiraling out of control in an insane matrix of information overload?  Are you caught in the never ceasing stream of teleseminars, webinars, e-zines, and sales letters flooding our lives.  Are you inundated with ‘tweeple’ who can show you how to get 16,000 followers in the next twelve minutes?  Or, better yet, what about those people who are following 2500 people and have 1500 people following them, yet they’ve never ever posted one single tweet?  Are you wishing Facebook had never created the “Event Invitation” or the “How Well Do You Know Me” application?

Yes?  Join the crowd!  It’s time for an Online Sabbatical, my friend.  But how in the world could you possibly do that without getting even more behind than you currently are?

It’s as easy as 1 – 2  – 3:

1.  Announce to your friends and followers that you are taking a break and will be missing in action for a few days.  That way, your fellow online addicts won’t freak out wondering where you are.
2.  Resist the temptation to log on to your Facebook and Twitter accounts for a few days.
3.  Scan the volumes of e-zines cluttering your inbox and delete those that will not enrich your mind, body, spirit, or business.  Then, delete those that are of no interest to you at this point in time.  If there are some that you are truly interested in, take this time of sabbatical to read, enjoy, and learn from these.  While many of them have great content, you should keep only those that you really, really want to read!

Implement these three simple steps and you’re on your way to your Online Sabbatical.  Enjoy!

Be well –
Chad Simpson

The opinions and information provided by Chad Simpson and/or The Chad Simpson Group are for informational and entertainment purposes only. These opinions and information are not intended to treat, diagnose, or render medical advice.  They are not a substitute for medical advice or treatment from your physician or health care practitioner.  Always check with your physician before starting any exercise or physical therapy program.  Never start, stop, or make changes to your medication or health care regimen without first checking with your physician.

1.  Get a second opinion from someone NOT associated with the clinician who made your initial diagnosis.  It’s important to make sure your diagnosis is correct.  You’d be surprised at how often it may not be.

2.  Make sure your team of healthcare professionals is open and accepting of complimentary and alternative medical (CAM) care.  Better yet, make sure your team of healthcare practitioners includes a clinician versed in CAM.  It’s important to treat the mind, body and spirit.

3.  Get mad and then get over it.  Stay positive at all costs.  No matter what.  Force yourself to remain upbeat and positive.

4.  Do not dwell on your illness or pain.  Shifting your focus away from the illness and pain disengages the mind’s connection to the problem and allows the body to relax and rejuvenate.  Invest your thoughts into feeling amazing!

5.  Don’t talk about your illness or pain with everyone you know.  Don’t post it to your Facebook page or send out mass mailings!  Confide only in a handful of very positive, uplifting advocates and confidants who will not dwell on your illness or pain.  There are lots of well intentioned people who will be constantly “concerned” about you and will tell everyone they know about your illness or pain out of concern — if they know about it.  Remember Step #4 above, we want to shift the focus off of the problem and on to how amazing you feel!  You don’t want everyone in your town, church, school, or social club reminding you of the problem when they call, e-mail, or post to your Facebook page to “check on you.”  Most people won’t understand this, but trust me when I tell you that it’s a critical step.

6.  Invest in yourself.  Nourish your mind, body and spirit each and every day.

7.  Laugh abundantly every day!  Belly laugh to the point of tears multiple times each day.  Laughter makes you feel better and helps with healing and feelings of wellness and well-being.

8.  Get plenty of rest.  It allows your body, mind and spirit to renew and re-energize!

9.  Strengthen your daily prayer and meditation practice.  Remember, they are NOT the same thing.  You need to invest in both prayer and meditation.

10.  Eat a daily diet that is organic and vegetarian.  If you can’t make that work, eat a diet that is at least mostly organic and mostly vegetarian.

11.  Go crazy with gratitude!  Be incredibly grateful for everything in your life.  Gratitude raises your spiritual energy — your vibration or vibe — by leaps and bounds resulting in increased feelings of wellness and well-being.

12.  Make up your mind right now to take control of your illness.  Do NOT allow your illness or pain to take control of you.  You are the author of this story … the navigator of this journey.  Feel empowered.  You are in control!

Be well –
Chad Simpson

The opinions and information provided by Chad Simpson and/or The Chad Simpson Group are for informational and entertainment purposes only. These opinions and information are not intended to treat, diagnose, or render medical advice.  They are not a substitute for medical advice or treatment from your physician or health care practitioner.  Always check with your physician before starting any exercise or physical therapy program.  Never start, stop, or make changes to your medication or health care regimen without first checking with your physician.

Be well,

Chad Simpson

If you pay attention to the news and various other media, then it’s quite likely you are stressed … at least a little.  Don’t be!

A few thoughts on the H1N1 Flu situation to help turn that stress around:

1.  Unfortunate circumstances — like H1N1 — sometimes bring out the worst in people.  Don’t fall victim to an H1N1 scheme.  People are often looking for ways to scam others during times of crisis.  Make smart decisions … not fear based decisions.

2.  Fear and stress swoop into our lives when we are uninformed or uneducated about something.  Knowledge is power.  Don’t fall prey to rumors and other Internet nonsense, learn the facts about H1N1 from the experts.  One good source is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) at www.cdc.gov

CDC: H1N1 Testing Kits

3.  Fear is often paralyzing.  Instead of allowing fear to place your life on hold, educate yourself and live your life by taking proper precautions as outlined by the experts.  If the experts are advising you to wash your hands more, then wash your hands more.  If they advise you to avoid crowds for the next month, then avoid crowds.  If they advise you to stay home, then stay home.  It’s that simple.  Your job is simply to continuing living an amazingly wonderful life … without allowing outside circumstances to dictate your path.

4.  Don’t forget the Law of Attraction:  What you think about, you bring about.  Don’t spend your time dwelling on H1N1.  Instead, if you spend your time focussing on being happy, you are likely to bring more happiness into your existence.  Sounds good, right?  It is!

Be well -
Chad Simpson

The opinions and information provided by Chad Simpson and/or The Chad Simpson Group are for informational and entertainment purposes only. These opinions and information are not intended to treat, diagnose, or render medical advice.  They are not a substitute for medical advice or treatment from your physician or health care practitioner.  Always check with your physician before starting any exercise or physical therapy program.  Never start, stop, or make changes to your medication or health care regimen without first checking with your physician.

Although I’m a huge advocate of medication-free strategies, I’m not 100% anti-medication.  Some medications have a very valuable role in this world.  I view herbal, natural, homeopathic, and other nutritional supplements for stress in a similar fashion:  there are times they may be appropriate.

One supplement I do NOT recommend is Kava Kava, sometimes known as just Kava.  It’s not so much the efficacy profile of Kava Kava that I find problematic.  It’s the safety profile.  There has been too much controversial information emerge regarding Kava Kava causing severe liver damage.  In fact, Britain and Germany have already banned the sale of Kava Kava containing products.

The bottom line is simple.  Kava Kava may show some benefit in helping to relieve some of the common effects of being “stressed out”; however, it can also cause major liver problems.  For me, taking Kava Kava for stress is not a gamble worth taking.

As such, I do NOT recommend the use of Kava Kava.  Also, use caution when reading labels to make sure a manufacturer did not sneak Kava Kava into a product (particularly in combination products) without your knowledge.

Be well,
Chad Simpson

The opinions and information provided by Chad Simpson and/or The Chad Simpson Group are for informational and entertainment purposes only. These opinions and information are not intended to treat, diagnose, or render medical advice.  They are not a substitute for medical advice or treatment from your physician or health care practitioner.  Always check with your physician before starting any exercise or physical therapy program.  Never start, stop, or make changes to your medication or health care regimen without first checking with your physician.

Meditation is an amazing tool to increase wellness and well-being.  It’s one of the best ways I know of to clear the the daily junk and clutter from our minds.  Listed below are my seven quick tips to beginning an easy and effective meditation program.

1.  Find a quiet, comfortable place to meditate — free from interruptions.
2.  Play yoga, spa or meditation music — you can find these CDs on end caps at the big box stores and at the big bed and bath type stores.
3.  Sit in a place that is comfortable for you.  Sitting on the floor is nice because it helps to keep you “grounded” to make focussing easier.  If you sit on the floor, try sitting on a cushion to ensure your comfort.
4.  Closing your eyes helps you remain focussed.  Just make sure you stay awake!
5.  Meditate using a mantra — a word or phrase that you repeat over and over.  Mantras keep your mind focussed upon one thing to help prevent it from wandering astray during your meditation session.
6.  Use mala beads (similar to rosary beads or prayer beads) to count your mantras and to help maintain focus.
7.  Allow the benefits from your session of meditation to flow into your life.

Be well -
Chad Simpson

The opinions and information provided by Chad Simpson and/or The Chad Simpson Group are for informational and entertainment purposes only. These opinions and information are not intended to treat, diagnose, or render medical advice.  They are not a substitute for medical advice or treatment from your physician or health care practitioner.  Always check with your physician before starting any exercise or physical therapy program.  Never start, stop, or make changes to your medication or health care regimen without first checking with your physician.

I truly believe routine meditation can provide many healing benefits, including – of course – stress relief.  Before I figured out what I was missing, each time I would try to meditate, I would become distracted by loads of mental chatter:  do this, make this, mail this, call them, schedule that, etc…  Only minutes into my sessions, I would give up meditating and start working on the massive To Do List I’d just created in my head!

I had pretty much given up on meditation when I ran across a very simple way to meditate that I had never tried:  using mala beads (think rosary beads) along with a mantra!

The point of meditation is to clear the clutter and mental chatter from your mind.  A simple way to accomplish this is by using a mantra – a word or phrase that is repeated over and over.  A couple of easy to use mantras include: Thank You and OM … two of my favorites.  Continuous recitation of these words helps the mind to stay focussed only upon the the words themselves and forces out unwanted mental clutter.  The result is a clear and focussed mind.

Sounds great, right?  Truth be told:  Using a mantra can still be difficult because the possibility of distraction remains.  That’s where the mala beads come into play.  With each mantra, you use the mala beads as a “counter” and work your way around each of the 108 beads repeating your mantra each time.  The beads give you a physical tool to help prevent your mind from wandering astray.

If you’ve had trouble meditating in the past because it’s too difficult for you to focus specifically on your meditation, I highly recommend giving meditation another try — this time with a mantra and a set of mala beads.

Be well -
Chad Simpson

The opinions and information provided by Chad Simpson and/or The Chad Simpson Group are for informational and entertainment purposes only. These opinions and information are not intended to treat, diagnose, or render medical advice.  They are not a substitute for medical advice or treatment from your physician or health care practitioner.  Always check with your physician before starting any exercise or physical therapy program.  Never start, stop, or make changes to your medication or health care regimen without first checking with your physician.

A client, who suffers from chronic pain, recently asked me about medication-free strategies for pain control.  Nobody I know enjoys taking pain medications; however, everyone I know loves being pain free!  While most everyone seems to agree that being pain free without medications is optimal, that’s just not always the reality of the situation.

The medication-free options listed below represent only a handful of options available.  They may or may not be appropriate solutions for every situation.  They may help you to become 100% free of pain medications, or, unfortunately, they may not.  As pain is terribly subjective, it’s not possible to have a “one size fits all” solution.  For many people, if any strategy could simply reduce the amount of pain medication required to keep their pain at bay, that would be an acceptable outcome.  I could write volumes on each technique listed, so for the sake of keeping this article blog-size, I’ll list only the topics without any additional details.

Here is a quick list of ten medication-free options for pain relief (in no particular order) you can research with your physician or health care practitioner:

1.    Decrease Stress
2.    Exercise
3.    Physical Therapy
4.    Chiropractic Care
5.    Stretching & Yoga
6.    Meditation & Breathing Techniques
7.    EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique)
8.    Massage Therapy
9.    Acupuncture /  Acupressure
10.  Energy Healing & Reconnective Therapy

Be well -
Chad Simpson

The opinions and information provided by Chad Simpson and/or The Chad Simpson Group are for entertainment and informational purposes only. These opinions and information are not intended to treat, diagnose, or render medical advice.  They are not a substitute for medical advice or treatment from your physician or health care practitioner.  Always check with your physician before starting any exercise or physical therapy program.  Never start, stop, or make changes to your medication or health care regimen without first checking with your physician.

Darvon (propoxyphene), a pain medication more often seen as Darvocet (propoxyphene + acetaminophen) has been been around since 1957.  However, a Food and Drug Administration advisory board recently voted to recommend its withdrawal from the market.

A review of 26 studies involving 2231 patients showed that Darvocet (propoxyphene + acetaminophen), a pain medication, has proven to be no more effective than acetaminophen alone.(1)  Acetaminophen is the active ingredient in the over-the-counter pain medication, Tylenol.  Likewise, an evaluation of patients showed Darvocet to be less effective at controlling pain than taking two over-the-counter ibuprofen tablets — the active ingredient in the medications, Advil and Motrin.(2,3)

So, propoxyphene is a miserable pain reliever.  So what?  Well, it just so happens that it has a nasty safety profile, too.  Between 1981 and 2002, this medication has been linked to 7109 deaths.  2110 of these deaths were accidental.(4)  It’s side effects may be most prevalent in the elderly.(5)  Unfortunately, a review of 21,380 nursing home residents with persistent pain showed that propoxyphene was prescribed for close to 20% of these patients.(6)

For years I’ve said this medication is not the best choice for pain management.  There are many medication-free strategies, and many medications that are safer and significantly more effective than propoxyphene.  As a proponent of safe and prudent medication-free strategies, and of safe and prudent medication usage, I strongly support the recommendation of the advisory board to remove this dangerous and ineffective medication from the market.  How long will it take for the FDA to heed the advice of their appointed advisory board?

Be well -
Chad Simpson

The opinions and information provided by Chad Simpson and/or The Chad Simpson Group are for entertainment and informational purposes only. These opinions and information are not intended to treat, diagnose, or render medical advice.  They are not a substitute for medical advice or treatment from your physician or health care practitioner. Always check with your physician before starting any exercise or physical therapy program. Never start, stop, or make changes to your medication or health care regimen without first checking with your physician.

References:

1.  Li Wan Po A, Zhang WY. Systematic overview of co-proxamol to assess analgesic effects of addition of dextropropoxyphene to paracetamol. BMJ. 1997; 315:1565-71.

2. The Oxford League. Table of analgesic efficacy. Available at: http://www.jr2.ox.ac.uk/bandolier/booth/painpag/Acutrev/Analgesics/lftab.html (accessed 2008 Oct 8).

3.  Collins SL, Edwards JE, Moore RA et al. Single dose dextropropoxyphene, alone and with paracetamol (acetaminophen), for postoperative pain. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2000; (2):CD001440.

4.  Public Citizen Health Research Group. Petition to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. February 28, 2006. Available at: http://www.citizen.org/publications/release.cfm?ID=7420 (accessed 2008 Oct 8).

5.  McEvoy GK, ed. Propoxyphene hydrochloride/propoxyphene napsylate. In: AHFS Drug Information 2008. Bethesda, MD: American Society of Health-System Pharmacists; 2008:2207-8.

6.  Won AB, Lapane KL, Vallow S et al. Persistent nonmalignant pain and analgesic prescribing patterns in elderly nursing home residents. J Am Geriatr Soc. 2004; 52:867-74.

Step 1:  Learn from the past.

Many teachers, mentors, coaches, and spiritual leaders will tell you to focus on the present, not on the past.  Why?  Because there is nothing you can do to change anything about the past.  It’s a waste of your time and energy to live in the past.  For the most part, I find abundant value and truth in this simplistic belief.  Yet, I also believe that by applying that advice at face value — essentially, ignoring the past — you may very well be doing yourself a disservice.

The past is our library of knowledge on which we base and live our present.  It is a compendium of everything we have ever learned.  To ignore the past for the sake of focusing on the present could actually make your present more stressful.  Instead of ignoring the past, glean all of the knowledge you can from it, and use it to build your present.  However, you should not — in fact, cannot — begin to focus on the quagmire of ick and goo (technical terms, of course!) that comprises your past … and everyone has ick and goo in their past.  If you focus on these negative aspects from the past instead of the positive lessons you’ve learned and the beautiful memories you cherish, you will begin to regress into living in the past, and, thereby, ignore your beautiful and abundant present.

Step 2:  Live in the present.

Once you make the decision to treasure your past for the knowledge base it has given you, you will be on your way to releasing yourself from the grip of yesteryear.  Your job is only to learn from the past while ignoring the negativity — all that ick and goo from years gone by.

The present is where life happens … is happening.  Right now.  Not five seconds ago … that’s done and gone.  Not 5 minutes, hours, years, or even decades ago … all gone.  All you have is now.  This very second.  Spending your time languishing over your past ensures you will miss out on every opportunity to create the life you wish to live.  You will miss everything that’s going on in your life.  Your life will pass you by without you even noticing.  Right now is all you’ve really got.  Make the most of it.  Learn from the past.  Live in the present.  Will you be present in the present?

I wish you abundant peace — Chad Simpson