Designed by a neuro-phychologist Dr. David Lewis out of the University of Sussex in Britain, breathing has been found to directly correlate to our overall health. When you are stressed or under extreme anxiety, you breathe quicker and ultimately change chemicals in your blood causing carbon dioxide levels to alter and your mood to worsen. After the pulse quickens, a faster heartbeat can cause sweating, chest pain, distractions, panic attacks, vision problems, and the inability to concentrate which would often result in more stress.

With over twenty years of experience working with connections between breathing and stressors, Dr. Lewis first came across this link while working with Buddhist monks and meditation techniques in Thailand. Breath therapy, however, has been around for thousands of years as spiritualists, yogis, and healers have tried to focus on the incredible healing energies created by the simplest of movements: breathing. While lung function is the main priority of healthy breathing for scientists, spiritualists would also like to see a consistent pattern of breathing with a clear mind and stress-free brain.

While the idea of training yourself to breathe is not new, Dr. Lewis has been honing his strategy for decades and hopes that his method can help people to eradicate their everyday anxieties. Dr. Lewis has helped people deal with a magnitude of conditions aside from stress like insomnia and tension by using a grouping of specific breaths:
Energising – for vitality
Relaxing – for calming and to help center the patient
Focused – for concentration
Diaphragmatic – used by singers to pull from your diaphragm to oxygenate your blood
Deep Sensualisation – to help unwind

As each cleansing breath provides an individual goal to conquer, Dr. Lewis’s approach is to teach the brain to breathe better when put in stressful situations and to avoid what is called a ‘breath lock.’ A ‘breath lock’ is a little bit like triggering a memory, but uses the action of breathing with a connection to a negative event someone has experienced in the past. Being a performance enhancement specialist, Dr. Lewis helps patients break down the psychological barriers that exist between the physical and the mental world.

Bo-Tau is being taught across the world in workshops led by trained technicians and can also be purchased on DVD for home practice and regular use. If stress can be banished by breathing and anxieties can be erased through retraining the brain to energize instead of breakdown in crisis, Bo-Tau may just be the answer to a lot of internal problems. Next time you are trying to juggle work, school, kids, relatives, family events, or social responsibilities, take a step back and a deep breath.

Source: HealthNews

According to Dr. Josephine Briggs, director of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, “We are talking about a very wide range of health practices that range from promising and sensible to potentially harmful.” She further explained that there is a critical need for more research into which therapies are effective due to the substantial amount of money consumers are spending on them.

Briggs also noted that as the number of uninsured Americans increases, the use of these therapies may grow even more as some of them are relatively inexpensive. Because the data gathered for the estimate was collected prior to the current recession, it is not know if the economy played a role in jump in alternative medicine spending.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) surveyed more than 23,000 adults across the nation and found that over one-third of American adults use alternative medicine. A report of this information was released in December of 2008.

The newly released report on the survey revealed that pain was the primary reason people sought massages and chiropractic care as well as other alternative therapies. Approximately 35 cents of each dollar spent on alternative went for appointments with acupuncturists, chiropractors, massage therapists and other practitioners. With a total of almost $12 billion, this represents about one-fourth of what is spent on mainstream physicians.

The most popular supplements used were found to be glucosamine to battle against joint pain, and fish oil to reduce the risk of heart disease. A total of $15 billion, or 44 cents out of each alternative medicine dollar spent, went for such products as these and echinacea. This is about equivalent to one-third of what American consumers spend out-of-pocket for prescription drugs.

Regarding supplement use, Briggs said, “I personally am pretty conservative about supplement use.” She also said that the center’s research has played a role in consumer behavior regarding their use. For example, when studies revealed that echinacea was ineffective for colds, and that St. John’s wort did not quell major depression, consumers use of these products dropped. On the other hand, the use of fish oil has increased following research indicating that it might help lower risk of heart problems. Although many consumers believe that all products that they purchase have been cleared by the Food and Drug Administration, the fact is that they do not need proof of safety or effectiveness to go on the market.

The survey also showed that a stunning $3 billion was spent on homeopathy. Homeopathy is a system of medical practice that treats disease through the administration of minuscule doses of a remedy that would produce symptoms in healthy persons when used in larger amounts.

Findings concluded that 38 million adults visited alternative medicine practitioners for which they paid less than $50 on average per visit, and the average annual spending per person was about $122. For services such as acupuncture, homeopathy and hypnosis, the average was a higher at $75 plus. The average spending for products was $177.

Source: HealthNews