Self Help

Posted by AMusico — Religion / Self Help — No Comments
14
Sep 09

It’s Not Over Until He Says So!

Jonah 3:1-3 NLT “Then the Lord spoke to Jonah a second time: Get up and go to the great city of Ninevah, and deliver the message of judgment I have given you. This time Jonah obeyed the Lord’s command…”

What an incredibly encouraging portion of scripture this is! Jonah ignored the Lord’s command the first time. How many times do we hear deep within our spirits that we should (or shouldn’t!) do a certain thing and just ignore or overlook it? Many times we find out later exactly why we got that warning and must pay the consequences for neglecting to pay attention.

 Haven’t we all experienced that awful feeling that we’ve blown it big time. We were warned – we just didn’t listen. It’s too late now. But God.

 Those are the two best words you can imagine. But God…always gives us second chances, and third and fourth and however many it takes to finally “get it.” He is so generous and so gracious. That is not to say we may not have to pay the consequences for disobeying the first time. But He doesn’t just give up on us as we so often do ourselves. Continue reading →

Posted by AMusico — Medical / Opinion / Self Help — No Comments
27
Aug 09

No More TMJ!

The first time my husband had a TMJ attack was when we were first dating. He was a teacher in Tennessee and up in New Jersey visiting family for the summer. His school district was going through some big shake-ups and he wasn’t sure he’d have a position in the fall. Needless to say, that stress brought on an attack of TMJ, something I’d never heard of before. TMJ stands for temporomandibular joint syndrome. This joint connects the temporal bone, which forms the side of the skull, with the mandible or jawbone. When this joint is irritated and not functioning properly it causes extreme pain in the muscles and joints of the jaw. That pain can spread to the face, neck and shoulder as well. It is difficult to open the mouth. The most common underlying causes of this painful condition are stress, grinding the teeth (especially during the night) and a poor bite. Believe me I got an education in this condition and quickly!

 That first time I witnessed the attack it wasn’t one of his worst and it only lasted a few days. Thankfully, he was told his job was secure and was able to relax and release the stress. Once we were married I realized he was grinding his teeth almost every night. I’d nudge him and interrupt whenever I was awake and heard him. It wasn’t long before he had another attack, which lasted about a week this time. He didn’t get these attacks all the time, but when he did he was in so much pain he was totally bedridden and out of commission for days at a time. Continue reading →

Posted by AMusico — Medical / Opinion / Self Help — No Comments
27
Aug 09

Fenugreek Seed Tea

When I first got married my husband informed me that he had a serious bout of pneumonia as a teenager and ever since then, he gets bronchitis every fall. Well, that did not sit right with me! I love a challenge, so I decided I would figure out how to prevent that yearly occurrence.

As you might imagine, that first year, he was true to his word and got bronchitis as soon as the weather began to change from summer to fall. Chicken soup made him feel better (so did ice cream, but that’s only because he considers it his own personal “medicine”)  However, neither did anything to protect him. We tried different things I was learning about – echinacea, larger than normal doses of vitamin C, bee propolis. They were all helpful to a degree and I believe his colds were less severe, but he still got bronchitis the first few years of our marriage.

I came across some interesting information about a natural substance I’d never heard of at the time – Fenugreek Seed. What I read said it would help keep the lungs clear and was used for bronchitis and other respiratory problems. It was certainly worth a try. I found Fenugreek Seed tea bags at my local health food store and bought a box. Continue reading →

Posted by AMusico — Medical / Self Help — No Comments
27
Aug 09

Always Trust Your Intuition

Mothers know their kids better than anyone. I remember when my son, Matt, was small he had one ear infection after another for a time. We were visiting my inlaws at the Jersey shore and he was actually on an antibiotic, yet I was still up with him all night. I called the doctor and said he must have developed a tolerance to that antibiotic. He told me that couldn’t be. When we got home and I took him in, sure enough he had a raging ear infection and the antibiotic was not touching it. Score:  mom one, doctor zero.

Several years later, Matt was about 9 years old and we were living here in the Hudson Valley in our new home. We have well water here which we’d never had before. Matt began to develop a horrendous cough. You know the type – people would turn around a look at him as if he had typhoid fever and pull their kids away from him. I couldn’t blame them – he sounded awful. I took him to our pediatrician who prescribed, what else, an antibiotic and a cough medicine. His cough seemed to improve slightly while he was on the meds and then went right back once we stopped. Took him in again – same story – and same result. She never tried to figure out what might be causing the cough, just sent us out every time with something to suppress the annoying (and embarrassing) symptom and never giving me an answer as to what may be causing it. Continue reading →

Posted by AMusico — Opinion / Religion / Self Help / Uncategorized — No Comments
20
Aug 09

K-I-S-S

“Keep it simple, sweetheart!” That’s a catchy phrase and acronym. There’s a lot of truth contained there. We love to be complicated – it makes us feel we are somehow more sophisticated, smarter. We want to impress with our knowledge. Most of us can take the most straight-forward, simple thing and complicate it beyond understanding. And think we’ve done a good thing!

The very best and most important things in life are actually very simple. But when something sounds too “easy” we have a hard time believing it. For instance, take God’s plan of salvation. It is straight-forward and simple. Nothing complicated about it. God’s ways are simple and clear-cut. Most times our ways are convoluted and confusing.

Rather than making everything in life more complicated than it needs to be, I believe we should embrace becoming simple people. That description tends to have a negative connotation – people don’t want to be considered “simple-minded” but being simple is something entirely different. If you don’t like that term, how about being uncomplicated? Continue reading →

Posted by AMusico — General Topics / Medical / Self Help — No Comments
11
Aug 09

Should You Consider Hiring a Coach?

Research shows that by reducing just one health risk factor you can increase a person’s productivity on the job by 9% and reduce absenteeism by 2%.  While different people have different needs at various stages in their lives, most people share all six of these to varying degrees:

Being held accountable; being questioned and/or challenged;

being listened to;  being recognized for your achievements;

being accepted; being motivated.

Having a coach guide you in the commitment to do, change or test specific thoughts, habits or behaviors and then have you report on them is a sure-fire way to improve your follow-through.  Accountability automatically improves performance and results.                    

A new study in the Canadian Medical Association Journal found that women were successful in losing weight when they had regularly scheduled, personal interaction with a health professional. You’re simply more likely to succeed if you have someone you check in with on a regular basis, who’s encouraging when you struggle, and celebrates with you when you achieve your goals.  That’s what a coach does! Continue reading →

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