EXTRA CREDIT Tuesday, Februyary 28th 7pm

Essay#3: Due March 30

Pregnancy, Labor and Childbirth

Having a baby is a process which differs across cultures.

In most societies, birth and the immediate postpartum period are considered a time of vulnerability for mother and child.To deal with this danger and with the existential uncertainty associated with childbirth, societies tend to produce a set of internally consistent practices (rituals) and beliefs about the management of both physiological and social aspects of childbirth. 

For this project: 

Interview at least one individual about their birth experience. (If you are one of the people there needs to be at least two). 

Using the seven dimensions presented in Birth in Four Cultures — the local definition of the event; preparation for birth; attendants and support systems; the ecology of birth; the use of medication; the technology of birth; and the locus of decision-making — describe and analyze the childbirth experience of your informant.

Your description and analysis should reveal the definition of pregnancy relative to our medical system, and the meanings, expectations, values and beliefs about power and agency within American culture.

Crazy Like Us????

How a culture thinks about mental illness, how they categorize and prioritize symptoms, attempt to heal them, and set expectations for their course and outcome-influences the disease s themselves. In teaching the rest of the world to think like us, we have been, for better or for worse, homogenizing the way that we go mad.

Indigenous forms of mental illness are being bulldozed by disease categories and treatment made in the USA

DSM (Manual of Mental Disorders)-bible of the profession

Biomedical approach will reduce the stigma of mental illness and that our drugs of the best we can offer. We are certain that by throwing off traditional social roles and engaging in individualistic quests for introspection they will be more mentally healthy.


ETHNIC PSYCHOSES

• amok (extended period of brooding and murderous rage)
• koro (s asia-genitals are retracting into their bodies)
• zar  (spirit possession bringing about dissociative episodes)

WHAT ARE OUR MOTIVATIONS?

• drug company profits
• the science behind our drugs and illness categories and theories of mind have put the field beyond the influence of constantly shifting cultural trends and beliefs

BUT: The experience of mental illness cannot be separated from culture, whatever the cause, we rely on cultural beliefs and stories to understand what is happening.

• influence is always local and intimate
• we should WORRY ABOUT THE LOSS OF THIS DIVERSITY OF VISION in exactly the same way that we worry about the loss of biological diversity in nature.
• modes of healing and culturally specific beliefs about how to achieve mental health can be lost to humanity.

THE IDEAS BEHIND FEMALE BODY IMAGE IN HONG KONG

• young women worshiped in some contexts for their attractiveness
• in other situations vilified 
• Chinese anorexia was unlike that found in the West. CHARACTERISTICS:
• no fear of fatness did not see themselves as overweight (body dysmorphia)
• connected to failed or unrequited relationships
• little stigma in China surrounding larger body shapes
• larger shapes and ability to eat is to have "luck"
• later onset of puberty compared to the West
• girls spoke of their desire to get back to their normal body weight
• refusal to eat attributed to:
• bloating, blockages in throat or digestion, feeling of fullness in stomach
• feeling of no appetite
• from poor families and the lower achievers in school
• no hint of moral superiority often found in anorexics in the West.

YIN YANG & CHI

traditional diagnosis is that there is a blockage of Qi

GLOBAL SPREAD

• Lee knew that he had to understand anorexia at two different levels
• why women began the behavior of self-starvation
• what happened to their mind and body as the regimen of starvation gained momentum in their daily life.
• feeling of hyper-alertness and sense of mastery over the body
• feeling superior to others who were ruled by their need for food
• getting on a train even if it was going in the wrong direction
• Origins in Victorian Culture
• HYSTERIA (part of popular magazines and popular culture)
• Epidemics of vomiting 
• refusal of food
• self-starvation
• 1873: received formal recognition in medical community (hysterical anorexia)

Does the naming of a disorder allow doctors to suddenly recognize and report what they had previously overlooked? Or is there an interplay between the codification of a new mental illness and the sudden appearance of those symptoms in the general population?

• What are illnesses like Anorexia?
• unconscious mind trying to speak in  a language of emotional distress that will be understood in its time and place (culture)
• symptom is a distillations of emotions translated into a culturally recognized signal of suffering
• patient is unconsciously striving for recognition and legitimization of internal distress-drawn to symptoms which will achieve that ends.
• why naming an illness is perilous
• ILLNESS NEGOTIATION-patients and doctors  create a CULTURAL FEEDBACK LOOP that further establishes the legitimacy of a new symptom and provide scientific validation for it.
• illnesses become widespread after they have an agreed upon cultural expression
• MENTAL ILLNESSES DO NOT EXIST INDEPENDENT OF SOCIAL AND HISTORICAL CONTEXT

 Chinese

• historically looked to bodily sensations to indicate psychological distress (somatisizing)
• no Cartesian distinction between mind and body
• ADOLESCENTS are most vulnerable to "catching" these disorders...they are most consumers of Western pop culture
• thinness is not highly valued traditionally

WESTERN ASSUMPTIONS in Hong Kong media coverage

• anorexia is a threat to young women who are prone to anxiety or depression or facing problems in school or with their families
• severe food restriction in young women should be read as a cry for help
• shifting ideas about thinness and beuty are also contributing
• fat phobia and a distorted body image defined the illness
•  usually attacks the most promising young women
• well to do families
• PROBLEM: many of these Western assumptions had little menaing for most of the anorexics Lee saw in his practice
• biomedical categories IMPERIL ILLNESS NEGOTIATION and curtail local healing opportunities
• as symptoms became known, it became ever more likely that a teenager would try food restriction as a method of communicating internal distress (fashionable)
• SHOULD HEAR COMPLEX TRUTHS instead of adopting these assumptions -women's voices are being drowned out by Western narratives about the power of fashion, dieting and pop culture
• DSM and Western categories of disease have gained dominance
• POPULAR WRITERS as the carriers of a disease!!!!
• glamorize disease
• elevate the social role of the sufferer
• create fashionable expressions of angst

PTSD in Sri lanka

Bringing PTSD to Sri Lanka after the Tsunami

Assumption: the psychological reaction to horrible events is fundamentally the same around the world.

• a victim processes a traumatic event as a function of what it means drawn from their society and culture and this shapes how they seek help and their expectation of recovery
• The assumption that traumatic reactions exist outside and unaffected by culture
• “We were spreading these ideas around the globe so effectively that PTSD was becoming the way the entire world conceived of psychological trauma,” said Allan Young, a medical anthropologist at McGill University
• The idea that people from different cultures might have fundamentally different psychological reactions to a traumatic event is hard for Americans to grasp.
• PTSD Culture: calls for solidarity with the survivors of violence; incitements to share an enlightened moral outrage against the atrocities of war and social injustice;
• Traumatologists have also advanced the idea that psychological rehabilitation is best managed by mental health experts Western 
• trauma must be SPOKEN to be dealt with
• against these assumptions---“A victim processes a traumatic event as a function of what it means,” they wrote. meaning is drawn from their society and culture and this shapes how they seek help and their expectation of recovery.”
• competition among plethora of AID groups for the attention of the children (especially)
• ZOLOFT
• Ganesan noted a key difference between the aid groups offering medicine, food, and shelter and those offering trauma counseling. The groups focusing on basic material needs would immediately meet with local officials and families to try to assess what the community was lacking. Was shelter the first priority, or food, or first aid? In contrast, those setting up PTSD counseling services seldom asked leaders in the local community what they needed or desired in terms of help.

• that the Sri Lankans—because of their intimate familiarity with poverty, hardship, and war had evolved a culture better able to integrate and give meaning to terrible events.

• the shared ethnocultural belief in spirits and the palpable nearness of the spirit world. Often closely tied to religious traditions is a wide variety of healing customs. Health

• The lines between these practices, delineating, for instance, traditional healing from modern medicine, are not clearly drawn. A Sri Lankan often consults two or more of these traditions in search of relief from illness or psychological distress.

• Sri Lankans had culturally distinct reactions to traumatic events as well as culturally specific modes of healing. She believed that unless these local idioms of distress were understood, appropriate interventions could not be formulated. Without a deep understanding of the illness, in other words, it would be impossible to treat the disease. Fernando took on the task of trying to understand the local meaning of trauma in post-tsunami Sri Lanka. She began by gathering a sample of local informants from a rural area in the southern province of the country. All were Sinhalese Buddhists, most from poor families. All had personally witnessed the tsunami, and fifteen of the twenty had lost family members. Instead of quizzing these subjects with a predetermined set of PTSD symptoms, Fernando asked each person to tell her two open-ended stories in their own language.

• Unlike the PTSD symptomatology, Sri Lankans were much more likely to experience physical symptoms after horrible events. Sri Lankans who lost family members or whose lives were otherwise devastated by the tsunami were more likely to complain of aches in the joints or muscles or pain in the chest.

• reacted to the disaster as if they had experienced a physical blow to the body. In addition to these somatic symptoms, there was another, more subtle and pervasive difference. By and large Sri Lankans didn’t report pathological reactions to trauma in line with the internal states (anxiety, fear, numbing, and the like) that make up most of the PTSD symptom checklist. Rather Sri Lankans tended to see the negative consequences of an event like the tsunami in terms of the damage it did to social relationships.

• The failure to manage one’s social responsibilities—to find and fulfill a place in the group—was identified as the primary symptom of distress and not a consequence of an internal psychological problem.
• Sri Lanka’s, an emphasis on healing the individual away from the group, particularly in one-on-one counseling with strangers, is problematic.

• But the medical records of war veterans kept over the past centuries show that the manifestation of the injury is always tied up with cultural beliefs contemporaneous to the time.

• The unconscious mind of a soldier latches onto culturally current symptoms of distress (chest pain for the Civil War soldier and muscle spasms for the World War I soldier)

• “Most of the disasters in the world happen outside of the West,” says Arthur Kleinman, a medical anthropologist from Harvard University. “Yet we come in and we pathologize their reactions. We say: ‘You don’t know how to live with this situation.’ We take their cultural narratives away from them and impose ours. It’s a terrible example of dehumanizing people.”

• According to this belief it is not witnessing violence that is destructive. Rather, the moments of terror that come from violence leave one vulnerable to being afflicted by the gaze.

• central tenet of Western trauma counseling—that traumatic experiences must be retold and mastered—ran counter to the local customs regarding the use of euphemistic speech. Rural health care workers were suddenly insisting that experiences of trauma be spoken about directly.
• By isolating trauma as a malfunction of the mind that can be connected to discrete symptoms and targeted with new and specialized treatments, we have removed the experience of trauma from other cultural narratives and beliefs that might otherwise give meaning to suffering.

SCHIZOPHRENIA IN ZANZIBAR

Why did people diagnosed with schizophrenia in developing nations have a better prognosis over time than those living in the most industrialized countries in the world?

• Because our emotions come into our consciousness unbidden and often surprise us with their intensity, we often assume that they are not influenced by cultural cues or social scripts. But with careful study, anthropologists have learned that emotions are not like muscle reflexes; rather, they are communications with deep and sometimes obscure meanings.

• what we know about culture and schizophrenia is… [that] culture is critical in nearly every aspect of schizophrenic illness experience:

• Kimwana was allowed to drift back and forth from illness to relative health without much monitoring or comment by the rest of the family.

• Kimwana felt little pressure to self-identify as someone with a permanent mental illness.
• Social stress is a known trigger for psychotic episodes, and a number of studies testing diastolic blood pressure, skin conductance, and electrodermal reactivity all pointed to the connection between high-expressed-emotion relatives and increased feelings of stress in a patient.

• spirit possession in Zanzibar was not an uncommon or necessarily an extreme experience. As Amina explained to McGruder, we all have “creatures in our heads.”  JINNS

• A spirit handed down from one’s ancestor is generally thought to have a protective effect for the person who carries it. Such an entity will cause difficulties only if it is ignored or not properly appeased.---LESS STIGMS ASSOCIATED WITH ANTI-SOCIAL BEHAVIOR

• “conception of the illness as nervios enables the maintenance of close identification of family members by fostering the view that the relative is ‘just like us only more so.’” The label and its connotations allowed family members to keep the relative within the fold.

• European Americans are indeed “more individualistic—valuing personal independence more.… To contemporary Americans, being an individualist is not only a good thing; it is a quintessentially American thing.”

• “Mental illness is feared and has such a stigma because it represents a reversal of what Western humans have come to value as the essence of human nature,” 
• McGruder believes. “Because our culture so highly values self-control and control of circumstances, we become abject when contemplating mentation that seems more changeable, less restrained and less controllable, more open to outside influence, than we imagine our own to be

• Which cultural beliefs tend to exclude the sufferer from the social group and which allow the ill individual to remain part of the group?

• the fact that healthy people do not dwell on the “brain chemistry” story as an explanation for their own moods and feelings should be an indication of how unappealing and

DEPRESSION IN JAPAN:THE DRUG COMPANIES

that every culture has a type of experience that is in some ways parallel to the Western conception of depression: a mental state and set of behaviors that relate to a loss of connectedness to others or a decline in social status or personal motivation. But he had also found that cultures have unique expressions, descriptions, and understandings for these states of being.

• Nigerian man might experience a culturally distinct form of depression by describing a peppery feeling in his head. A rural Chinese farmer might speak only of shoulder or stomachaches. A man in India might talk of semen loss or a sinking heart or feeling hot. A Korean might tell you of “fire illness,” which is experienced as a burning in the gut. Someone from Iran might talk of tightness in the chest, and an American Indian might describe the experience of depression as something akin to loneliness.

• In one culture someone feeling an inchoate distress might be prompted to search for feelings of unease in his gut or in muscle pain; in another place or time, a different type of symptom would be accepted as legitimate. This interplay between the expectations of the culture and the experience of the individual leads to a cycle of symptom amplification. In short, beliefs about the cause, symptomatology, and course of an illness such as depression tended to be self-fulfilling.

• culturally distinct symptoms often hold precious clues about the causes of the distress.

• feelings and symptoms that an American doctor might categorize as depression are often viewed in other cultures as something of a “moral compass,” prompting both the individual and the group to search for the source of the social, spiritual, or moral discord.
• By applying a one-size-fits-all notion of depression around the world, Kirmayer argued, we run the risk of obscuring the social meaning and response the experience might be indicating.

• The clinical presentation of depression and anxiety is a function not only of patients’ ethnocultural backgrounds, but of the structure of the health care system they find themselves in and the diagnostic categories and concepts they encounter in mass media and in dialogue with family, friends and clinicians. 
• In the globalizing world, he reported, these conceptions are in constant transaction and transformation across boundaries of race, culture, class, and nation. 
• In this context, it is important to recognize that psychiatry itself is part of an international subculture that imposes certain categories on the world that may not fit equally well everywhere and that never completely captures the illness experience and concerns of patients.

• WESTERN VIEW: suicide in Japan was an indicator of undertreated depression; that Western SSRIs represented proven scientific advances in treatment; that primary care physicians should use simple three-minute surveys to help diagnose mental illness; that patients not meeting the criteria for depression should still be considered sick; and that the Japanese should be helped to reconceive social stress related to work and industrialization as signs of depression that should be treated with SSRIs.

• Cultures are most susceptible to outside ideas about the nature of the human mind at times of social change and upheaval, and the second half of the nineteenth century was just such a time in Japan.

• neurasthenia came not only from the mental health professionals of the time but from popular culture as well.

• Indeed, because neurasthenia was at first considered an illness of the elites, the diagnosis became somewhat trendy.

• Fueling the rise of the neurasthenia diagnosis was a popular idea that some Japanese were too pure of heart to live with the conflicts, compromises, and demands of modern life.

• It wasn’t until after World War II that depression became a disease category of its own.

• “According to this model, the depressed person is like someone carrying a psychotic time bomb, for whom depression begins when the internal clock goes off and ends after it runs its course,”

• JAPANESE: someone with a melancholic personality possessed a highly developed sense of orderliness as well as “exceptionally high demands regarding one’s own achievements.”

• in the late twentieth century no word in Japanese had the same connotations as the word “depression” in English. Consider the various words and phrases that have often been translated into English as “depression.” 
• Utsubyô describes a severe, rare, and debilitating condition that usually required inpatient care and thus was not much of a match for the common English word “depression.” 
• Yuutsu , which describes grief as well as a general gloominess of the body and spirit, was in common use. There was also ki ga fusagu , which refers to blockages in vital energy. 
• Similarly, ki ga meiru is the leakage or loss of such energy. 
• Although each of these words and phrases had overlaps with the English word “depression,” there were also critical differences.

• Not only did Japanese ideas of sadness include both the body and the mind but, metaphorically at least, they sometimes existed beyond the self.

• The top ten word associations for the native Japanese were 
• 1. Rain 
• 2. Dark 
• 3. Worries 
• 4. Gray 
• 5. Suicide 
• 6. Solitude
•  7. Exams 
• 8. Depressing 
• 9. Disease
•  10. 
• Tiredness For the Caucasian Americans, the top ten word associations were 
• 1. Sad or sadness 
• 2. Lonely or loneliness
• 3. Down 
• 4. Unhappy 
• 5. Moody
•  6. Low 
• 7. Gloom 
• 8. Failure 
• 9. Upset 
• 10. Anxious 
• Comparing these answers, Tanaka-Matsumi saw a notable difference. In the responses given by the Japanese natives, only a few of the words (such as “worries” and “solitude”) were related to internal emotional states. On the other hand, the majority of the word associations supplied by the American students related to internal moods. The Japanese, in short, were looking outward to describe yuutsu , and the Americans were looking inward to describe depression.

• Feelings that we might pathologize as depressive were often thought of in Japan as a source of moral meaning and self-understanding.

• Buddhist belief that suffering is more enduring and more definitive of the human experience than transient happiness.

• This cultural embrace of sadness, Lock believes, might have been motivated by society’s discouragement of other emotional states.

• karoshi, death from overwork,...This form of depression was different from the endogenous depression in the Japanese psychological literature because it hadn’t resulted from an inherited defect in Oshima’s brain; rather it was brought on by the circumstances of his life.

• Yet the Japanese public remained split as to whether suicide was an intentional act with moral or philosophical meaning or a desperate act of a mentally ill person.

MARKETING OF DEPRESSION;ZOLOFT

• First, it implied that utsubyô was not the severe condition it was once thought to be and therefore should carry no social stigma. Who would think less of someone for having a cold? 
• Second, it suggested that the choice of taking a medication for depression should be as simple and worry-free as buying a cough syrup or an antihistamine. 
• Third, the phrase communicated that, like common colds, depression was ubiquitous. Everyone, after all, from time to time suffers from a cold.

• represented the proud march of scientific progress across the world.

• turns out that there is currently no scientific consensus that depression is linked to serotonin deficiency or that SSRIs restore the brain’s normal “balance” of this neurotransmitter. The--CULTURALLY SHARED STORY

• drug companies first started ghostwriting scientific papers for university researchers in the 1950s.--funded them too

EXTRA CREDIT

AIDS WALK
Sunday, May 7th, 2017
Atlantic City

NEED VOLUNTEERS

Ethnic Psychosis Essay

World Perspectives on Health
Spring 2017
Crazy Like Us
DUE THURSDAY MARCH 2nd


Mental illness is culturally constructed. Anthropologists recognize the unique occurrence of mental illness as an "ethnic psychosis". Choose an "ethnic psychosis" from the book CRAZY LIKE US and discuss the following:

1. How is the illness a product of American Culture? In doing this you will identify the way that the illness is culturally constructed, and how American norms, values and beliefs are the basis for this construction.
2. How have the changes in values in other cultures resulted from the spreading our mental illnesses? Be specific in describing this process in your example.
3. What role does biomedicine (and its allied institutions-drug companies, professional organizations, etc.) have in this process?

The Body & Sensual Medicine

THOMAS CSORDAS "the body is not an OBJECT to be studied in relation to culture, but is to be considered as the SUBJECT of culture, or in other words, the existential ground of culture".

• eliminates the Platonic distinction between MIND & BODY (dualism)
• MONISM: The body is the place where all understanding happens-culture is interpreted through the body. no distinction between mind and body.
• an infants growth into a social person happens through gradual experience, by taking in tastes, touching the textures, inhaling the smalls, viewing the sights, and walking the walks of the world into which we are born. We are the sum total of these continuing experiences.

SYNESTHESIA: Looking at the senses and healing

• Ability to experience one sense as another
• SESELELAME (Anlo)-sense awareness that straddles the supposed divide between cognitive perception, and physical sensation: hearing, tasting, smelling, understanding, obeying, sexual arousal, heartache, passion, inspiration to dance or spaek, tingling of the skin that indicates impending illness. ---synesthetic "metasense"---very different from the organ based 5 senses of Western culture
• Mechanisms the cultures use to identify sensory input:
• ATTENTION: focuses on a particular sensation in an area of the body
• ANXIETY & DEPRESSION: causes increased brain reactivity to stimuli & changes in the autonomic nervous system which may produce things like cold extremities
• CULTURAL SYNDROMES: culturally specific patterns of distress (ethnic psychoses)
• ETHNOPHYSIOLOGY: local concepts and concerns about organs and body processes
• EXTERNAL STIMULI: sensitivity to particular sensory imputs based on the meaning attributed to the stimulus and its relation to the state of the operson
• IMAGINATION: flashbacks, attention, anxiety
• METAPHOR: inducing sensations by metaphorical means
• SELF-IMAGE: sensations feeding into particular self-images
• SENSATION KINDLING: repeated experiencing  which creates sensitive circuits for experience
• TRAUMATIC MEMORY: evocation, somatic flashbacks, etc
• Healing can take place through these mechanisms as well because sensations are KEY SITES for these processes
• Birth Stories & cultural ideas influence women's birth experiences of pain
• embrace pain or reject pain or fear pain

Smell & Taste

• we are accustomed to our own smells, but reject or find foul or indicative of disease the smells of others who are unfamiliar
• women- low status will me that their smells are vilified or indicative of disease
• Puta (spanish) means putrid (comment of sexual behavior as well as smell)
• Western culture attempts to remove all bodily odors
• plants herbs and spices may also be seen as intolerable
• Senses inform us about threats and boundaries and smells are among the most powerful triggers of emotion, desire and repulsion
• "taste" is about social class as well as the sensations gotten from the tongue
• roles in safety from poisons
• role in learning and memory
• eating and drinking as fundamental social activities
• restrained by rules and taboos

TACTILE EXPERIENCES

• healing benefits of skin to skin contact
• ICU and neonatal units
• cortisol decrease (stress hormone) with touch-based therapies
• manual medicine (osteopathy & chiropractic)-no longer alternative?
• healing touch (HT) channeling energy healing through the hands
• magnets
• crystals,
• electrical, ultrasound stimulation
• hands
• oils
• therapeutic touch (TT): healers become empowered ans sensitized to their bodily perceptions through CENTERING and energy manipulation (smoothing and ruffling of fields).
• Reiki
• SHIATZU (Japan)
• relief from illness encompasses both resolution of SOCIAL DISHARMONY and BODILY HOLISM-attention to diet & well-being
• embodied confluence (blurs bodily boundaries between practitioner and patient)

RHYTHM, MOVEMENT & MUSIC

• Sound therapies
• swaddling and body contact enable babies to feel the rhythms of others
• vibrations are soothing
• music is cathartic, evocative-peak emotion
• sound healing in nada yoga
• Rhythm therapies
• repetitive sounds
• drum circles
• rhythmic dance-emotional release=CATHARSIS
• dance therapies: combination of breath, sound and movement
• hatha yoga(mindful movement)
• Tai Chi
• qigong
• nia
• RAGA: music and mood in Hindu-used as homeopathic remedies
• OM (theosis-personal communion with the divine)

AROMATHERAPY & ART

• mid-twentieth century invention in its modern form
• uses scents to heals because of their inherent properties and has been incorporated into integrative techniques in Western medicine
• becoming a GLOBAL INDUSTRY (Auracare, ie)

ESSENTIAL OILS AGAINST VIRUS, BACTERIA AND FUNGUS

A landmark study on the broad antiviral effects of essential oils and their components was presented at the 1st Wholistic and Scientific Conference on the Therapeutic Uses of Essentials Oils, 1995.  In this study, the broad spectrum of activity of essential oils for conditions of the upper respiratory tract, skin, gastrointestinal tract, urogenital tract, nervousness, and arterial conditions were demonstrated. An overview of the antibacterial and antifungal effectiveness of essential oils was given also.  There are many other countries that are researching essential oils against these "incureable" diseases. I applaud their actions. Information is on websites around the world.

It is known that a body can't become "habituated" to essential oils. The results remain the same; they do not lessen over any length of time. On the other hand, the organism does become habituated to chemically synthesised narcotics, and the result is known as tolerance. One may start out by taking a single sleeping pill , before long one may well have reached the stage of taking anything from four to ten pills and still be unable to get to sleep.

Essenial Oils and Their Uses

Allspice (Pimento) - Scent: Clove. Traditional uses: Warming to the body, reduces stress, calming, relaxes tight muscles, lessens pain, mood uplifting, vapors help breathing, improves digestion, disinfectant.

Anise - Scent: Licorice. Traditional uses: Calming, lessens pain, aphrodisiac, promotes restful sleep, vapors help breathing, improves digestion, increases appetite, stimulates lactation in nursing mothers.

Basil  (Sweet) -  Scent: slightly licorice. Traditional uses: to brighten mood, strengthen nervous system, improve mental clarity and memory, for relieving headache and sinusitis. Avoid during pregnancy.

Bay Laurel - Scent: strong, sweet-spicy. Traditional uses: as an immune system stimulant, to regulate the lymphatic system, for relieving melancholy, anxiety, to stimulate the mind, for healing bronchitis, sinus infection. Avoid during pregnancy. Do not over-use.

Bergamot - Scent: sweet & fruity. Documented in old herbal texts. Traditional uses: balancing nervous system, relieving anxiety and stress, lifting melancholy, for restful sleep, antiviral, cold sores, psoriasis, eczema and insect repellent. Bergamot may cause skin sensitivity to bright sunlight.

Birch - Scent: sweet-woody, wintergreen-like. Used as an analgesic, anti-inflammatory, antiseptic and astringent.

Cajeput - Scent: camphor. Traditional uses: Slightly warming to the body, calming, relaxes tight muscles, relieves muscle aches and pains, promotes restful sleep, breaks up congestion, vapors help breathing, disinfectant, repels insects.

Camphor - Scent: sharp, pungent. Traditional uses: skin care, relieves pain, coughs, colds, fever, flu, infectious diseases.

Carrot Seed - Scent: warm, woody-earthy.  Used extensively in skin and facial care for mature skin, circulation problems and PMS symptoms.

Cedarwood - Scent: woody. Cedarwood was believed to have been used extensively by the Egyptians in cosmetics, perfume and medicine. Traditional uses: to relax tense muscles, calm emotions, help breathing, for enhancing meditation, easing pain, repelling insects, for hair loss. Avoid during pregnancy.

(German) Chamomile - Scent: strong, sweet, warm-herbaceous. Blue in color. German Chamomile has many of the same properties as Roman Chamomile. But, with a much higher azulene content its anti-inflammatory actions are greater. Traditional uses: to relieve muscular pain, to heal skin inflammations, acne and wounds, as a sedative, to ease anxiety and nervous tension, to help with sleeplessness. May cause skin reactions in some people.

(Roman) Chamomile - Scent: sweet and fruity. Traditional uses: to relieve muscular pain, as a sedative, ease anxiety and nervous tension, to help with sleeplessness.

Cinnamon - Scent: cinnamon. Traditional uses: warming to body, relaxes tight muscles, lessens pain, mood uplifting, aphrodisiac, helps relieve fatigue, improves digestion, increases appetite, helps reduce cellulite deposits, disinfectant, repels insects.

Citronella - Scent: fresh grassy-woody. Traditional Chinese medicine currently uses this herb for rheumatic pain. Traditional uses: as a mosquito repellent, for colds, flu and neuralgia, to relieve pain of rheumatism and arthritis, melancholy. Avoid using on sensitive or damaged skin.

Clary Sage - Scent: spicy, hay-like. It has been called "clear eye" and was used for healing eye problems in times past. Traditional uses: relieving stress and tension, lifting melancholy, easing pain, restful sleep, as an aphrodisiac; contains estrogen-like hormone, for menopause and PMS, relieving nervous exhaustion. Avoid during pregnancy, or if you have endometriosis, breast, ovarian and uterine cysts and other estrogen dependant conditions (cancer).

Clove Bud - Scent: spicy, fruity, warm and sweet. Traditional uses: for toothache, colds, flu and fungal infections, as a mosquito repellent, to relieve fatigue and melancholy, as an aphrodisiac. Not used on damaged or sensitive skin. Use in moderation.

Cypress - Scent: spicy, refreshing pine-needle. Cypress incense is used today by Tibetans for purification. Traditional uses: to increase circulation, relieve muscular cramps, bronchitis, whooping cough and painful periods; reduce nervous tension and other stress related problems, as an immune stimulant. Avoid during pregnancy, have high blood pressure, cancer or uterine and breast fibrosis.

Elemi – Scent:  resinous, pungent aromatic. Egyptians used this aromatic oil in the embalming process.  Excellent essential oil for the respiratory system; helps coughs to be more productive. Great for cuts and inflammation; aged or wrinkled skin, calming for nervous tension and stress.

Eucalyptus - Scent: strong camphorous. odor. Aborigines have used eucalyptus leaves to remedy many ills. Traditional uses: for colds, as a decongestant, to relieve asthma and fevers, for its bactericidal and anti-viral actions, to ease aching joints. 

Fennel - Scent: earthy-peppery. Traditional uses: for neuro-muscular spasms, rheumatism and arthritis; bronchitis, whooping cough, as a nerve tonic in relieving stress and nervous tension. Use in moderation. Avoid if you are pregnant or have epilepsy.

Balsam Fir - Scent: fresh balsamic. Traditional uses: to relieve muscle aches and pains, for relieving anxiety and stress related conditions, to fight colds, flu and infections, for relieving bronchitis and coughs. Said to ground one mentally.

Frankincense - Scent: spicy, balsamic. Frankincense was known as one of the most precious substances to ancient man and is associated with religious practice. Traditional uses: to calm, enhance meditation, elevate mind and spirit, help breathing,  for care of mature skin and scars.

Galbanum - Used in incense. In Egypt used in cosmetic & embalming. Traditional uses: treating wounds, infections and skin disorders, expectorant in chronic bronchitis, insect repellent.

Geranium - Scent: leafy rose. Geranium has been long revered for its fragrance. Traditional uses: reducing stress and tension, easing pain, balancing emotions and hormones, PMS, relieve fatigue and nervous exhaustion, to lift melancholy, lessen fluid retention, repel insects.

Ginger - Scent: warm, spicy-woodsy. Ginger has been used as a healing remedy for thousands of years. Traditional uses: reducing muscular aches and pains, increasing circulation, relieving bronchitis and whooping cough, nervous exhaustion, in healing colds flu and fever and to stimulate appetite.

Grapefruit - Scent: fresh, sweet, citrus. Some traditional uses: to lift melancholy, relieve muscle fatigue, as an astringent for oily skin, to refresh and energize the body, stimulate detoxification, as an airborne disinfectant.

Helichrysum - Scent: intense, honey, tea-like. Some traditional uses: to heal bruises (internal and external), wounds and scars, to detoxify the body, cleanse the blood and increase lymphatic drainage, for healing colds, flu, sinusitis and bronchitis, to relieve melancholy, migraines, stress and tension.

Juniper Berry - Scent: pine-needle. Some traditional uses: to energize and relieve exhaustion, ease inflammation and spasms, for improving mental clarity and memory, purifying the body, to lessen fluid retention, for disinfecting. Avoid during pregnancy or if you have kidney disease.

Lavender - Scent: sweet, fresh. Lavender has been used for centuries as a fragrance and a medicine. Some traditional uses: balancing emotions, relieving stress, tension and headache, to promote restful sleep, heal the skin, to lower high blood pressure, help breathing, for disinfecting.

Lemon - Scent: fresh lemon. Lemon was used to prevent scurvy by our ancestors who traveled the seas. Some traditional uses: to balance the nervous system, as a disinfectant, to refresh and uplift, for purifying the body. May cause skin sensitivity to the sun or irritate sensitive skin.

Lemongrass - Scent: powerful, lemon. There has been recent research in India which shows that lemongrass acts as sedative on the central nervous system. Some traditional uses: as an insect repellent and deodorizer, for athlete's foot, as a tissue toner, to relieve muscular pain (sports-muscle pain), increase circulation, for headaches, for nervous exhaustion and other stress related problems. Use with care and avoid in pregnancy.

Lime - Cold pressed from the peel. Scent: fruity-lime. Some traditional uses: to purify the air, for alertness, to relieve coughs or congestion, for uplifting and cheering the spirit, to heal colds, flu or inflammations. Lime may cause skin sensitivity to bright sunlight.

Mandarin - Scent: intensely sweet, floral citrus scent. Traditional uses: restlessness, insomnia, nervous tension, for children and pregnant women.

Marjoram - Distilled from the leaves and flowering tops. Scent: warm & spicy. Sweet marjoram was used medicinally by Romans and ancient Greek physicians. Some traditional uses: to relax tense muscles and relieve spasms, calm and promote restful sleep, ease migraine headache, for comforting the heart, lowering high blood pressure, to help breathing, disinfecting. Avoid during pregnancy.

Myrrh - Scent: sharp, warm balsamic. Some traditional uses: to heal wounds and nurture mature skin, for bronchitis and colds, to relieve apathy and calm. Avoid use on damaged or sensitive skin.

Niaouli - Scent: fresh, camphoraceous. Traditional uses: skin care, muscle aches and pains, asthma and bronchitis, sore throat, colds, fever, flu.

Nutmeg - Scent: spicy, nutmeg. Some traditional uses: for warming muscles, easing muscle aches and pains, to invigorate or stimulate the mind, an aphrodisiac, to stimulate heart and circulation, for relieving nervous fatigue. Avoid during pregnancy and use with care (can be moderately toxic if over-used.

Orange - Scent: fruity, sweet. Orange trees were once rare and native only to China and India. Some traditional uses: to brighten mood, calm and reduce stress, as an environmental disinfectant.

Oregano - Scent: spicy, warm herb. Some traditional uses: as a muscle relaxant and to ease muscle aches and pains, to heal colds, flu and bronchitis, as a stimulant, to energize the mind and body, and for relieving headaches. Avoid during pregnancy and with babies and children.

Palmarosa - Scent: flora-rose. Palmarosa is used today in Ayurvedic medicine. Some traditional uses: stimulate cellular regeneration,  moisturize skin, for nervous exhaustion and stress conditions, to calm and uplift.

Patchouli - Scent: musky, woody. Some traditional uses: for athlete's foot, as an aphrodisiac, to relieve stress and nervous exhaustion.

Peppermint - Scent: strong mint. Herbalists in ancient Greece and Rome used peppermint for nearly every ailment. Some traditional uses: for energy, and brighter mood, reducing pain, to help breathing, improve mental clarity and memory. May irritate sensitive skin. Avoid during pregnancy.

Petitgrain - Scent: sweet, woody-orange floral. Petitgrain was one of the ingredients of the original "eau-de-cologne". Some traditional uses: for relieving respiratory infections, to ease nervous tension muscle spasms, for relieving joint inflammation, to balance the central nervous system, for stress relief and restful sleep.

Pine - Scent: strong, coniferous, woody. Native Americans placed dried pine needles in their mattresses to ward of lice and fleas. Some traditional uses: to ease breathing, as an immune system stimulant, to increase energy, for relieving muscle and joint aches, to repel lice and fleas. Avoid use if you have prostate cancer.

Rosemary - Scent: camphor like. Some traditional uses: to energize, for muscle pains, cramps or sprains, brighten mood, for improving mental clarity and memory, easing pain, to relieve headaches, disinfecting. Avoid during pregnancy, if you have epilepsy or high blood pressure.

Rosewood - Scent: slightly rosy. Some traditional uses: to relieve stress and balance the central nervous system, for easing jet lag, to create a calm for meditation, for easing colds and coughs, to stimulate the immune system, as an aphrodisiac and in skin care.

Sage --  Scent: camphoraceous, pine-like. Skin care, circulation, muscles and joints, asthma, coughs, colds, fever, flu.

Sandalwood - Scent: woody, balsamic. Sandalwood is believed to bring about calmness and serenity and is linked with incense and meditation. Some traditional uses: to lift melancholy, enhance meditation, heal the skin, help breathing, for calming and reducing stress, restful sleep, disinfecting, as an aphrodisiac.

Spearmint - Scent: minty. Some traditional uses: for relieving bronchitis and sinusitis, to ease nausea and headaches, for relieving colds or flu, to stimulate, energize and relieve fatigue.

Spruce -- Scent: sweet-fruity. Used for: muscular aches and pains, asthma, colds flu, infections, anxiety and stress-related conditions.

Tangerine - Scent: sweet, citrus. Some traditional uses: for relieving muscle spasms, to soothe and calm nerves, for stress relief and relaxation, to stimulate the liver and increase lymphatic drainage. May cause skin sensitivity to bright sunlight.

Tea-Tree - Scent: spicy, medicinal. Tea-tree is one of the most scientifically researched oils. Traditional uses: an immuno-stimulant particularly against bacteria, viruses and fungi, for relieving inflammation, as a disinfectant.

Thyme - Scent: hot and spicy. Thyme was used by ancient Greeks to disinfect air and inhibit infectious diseases. Some traditional uses: To heal colds, bronchitis, for relieving muscle aches and pains, to aid concentration and memory, for relieving fatigue and said to heal anthrax. Avoid use if pregnant or with high blood pressure.

Vetiver - Scent: heavy, woodsy, earthy. Some traditional uses: for muscular aches, to increase circulation, to relieve melancholy and nervous tension, for restful sleep.

Yarrow -- Scent: slightly camphoraceous. Uses: acne, burns cuts, eczema, rheumatoid arthritis, high blood pressure.

Ylang Ylang - Scent: exotic sweet floral. Some traditional uses: brightening mood, relieving anger and anxiety, relaxing tense muscles, to calm and promote restful sleep, lower high blood pressure, an aphrodisiac.

Please note: This information is not intended to diagnose, or prescribe any form of treatment. The statements in this information have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. The products herein are not intended to treat, cure, or prevent any disease, and are meant solely for Aromatherapy purposes alone. If you are suffering from any illness or medical complaint, always first seek the advice of your physician.

Energy Medicine

TYPES OF SPIRIT

• ANIMISM-belief in unique spirit beings which animate the world
• SYMPATHETIC MAGIC
• CONTAGIOUS MAGIC
• ANIMITISM- belief in one force that animates the world
• mantra: vital force (magic) of words
• RITUAL in which magical and spiritual elements are invoked, relies on the POWERS OR PERSUASION, FELICITY and NORMATIVELY rather than requiring proof like in science.

MANA (Pacific Islands)

• impersonal spiritual substance which may be present in all things (animalistic force), and which concentrates in persons of high social standing, who can share its powers and benefits with others.
• grows with generosity and warfare
• diminished through arrogance, anger and selfish deeds

ILLNESS AS RITES OF PASSAGE (Van Gennep)

• sees severe illness as a transformative journey (especially for chronic, life threatening illnesses), where sufferers experience a deathlike loss of their former selves and then a transformed sense of self
• change in spirit

ALTERED STATES

• SHAMANS: purposely place themselves in altered states in order to bring healing and wisdom to their communities and the afflicted.
• herbal medicines
• magical incantations
• readers the causes of misfortune
• experiences
• being pricked by needles Zambia
• shook violently as you were undertaken by a spirit -nepal
• visions and frightful dreams -soviet shaman
• Hungary-postural trance with the use of drums to invoke healing
• WITCHES & SORCERERS: dark/white magic
• use the powers of nature
• seek to cultivate the divine within
• Most cultures to not embrace CARTESIAN DUALISM, the clear distinction between mind, body and soul. 
• Understanding of the soul is diverse
• ELIADE "techniques of ecstasy" (trance)
• commonly interpreted as experiences of union with the divine, revelation or enlightenment

HPNOSIS, SPIRITS & HEALING

• Hypnosis gained popularity in the 18h century because of the work of Franz Anton Mesmer in France & James Braid (hypnotism)
• value of mental creativity, ope and trust in these endeavors
• Example:Marginalization of African Women and Spirt possession
• in the ritual act of embodying spirits, women can challenge  patriarchal authority and traditional norms, behaving in ways commonly forbidden in "proper" society, bending gender roles and expectations, and resisting the pressures, demand and violence they encounter in everyday life.
• PLACEBO EFFECT: the power of belief to induce positive changes
• Variety of Hallucinogens are used indigenously
  
  
  • Mescaline
  • mushrooms
  • Psilocybin 
  • LSD
  Active Ingredients:
  
  
  • similar to neurotransmitters in the human body. 
  • therapist or shaman acts as a GUIDE to help the patient integrate the experiences within the larger life context
  • uses ritual, mythic, and symbolic elements to change the patient's awareness of self and break up habitual experiences of the world (become more suggestible)
  WINKELMAN: Therapeutic uses for hallucinogens:
  • effecting neural, sensory, emotional, and cognitive processes
  • can be effective in treating ADDICTIONS due to their ability to induce the RELAXATION RESPONSE, enhance THETA WAVE PRODUCTION, and stimulate endogenous opted and sterotogenic mechanisms and their MOOD ELEVATING effects.
  • shamanic drumming approach to treating addictions 

  FAITH HEALING
  • ritual healing and religious pilgrimage
  • COMMUNITAS: collective consciousness which emerges during religious ritual, infusing the community with power and solidarity
  • health and longevity benefits of social involvement
  • ECSTACY/ENSTACY: (Eliade) Ritual offers humans the opportunity to renew themselves and the world around them by uniting with the divine through ritual action
  • example: girls puberty rituals as healing among the Apache
  • PILGRIMAGE (Turner): pilgrimage is a breach of time and space
  • when social order is temporarily suspended or challenged-possibility for great change-personal and communal.
  • LIMINALITY: socially ambiguous states often incorporating hardships or challenges into transitions
  • exorcism
  • pilgrimage (extended period of liminality)-Vietnam War to the Wall, Hajj to Mecca (path of Mohammed), Kumbh Mela (Allabbad), Lourdes---
  • identity differences suspended, communitas, modifications of perceptions & consciousness, possibility of transformation & healing
  • sickness=sin: cure is to be "touched" by sacred-object, person, place
  • healing restored or enhanced social status
  • suffering is remade into a meaningful and powerful narrative in culture
  • miracles
  • vision quest
  • sweat lodge
  • drum circle
  • ritual has the potential to rejuvenate self and society

Humoral Medicine: Ayurveda

Throughout various cultures the concept of substances which ebb and flow as a consequence of life forces are described and managed to maximize the health and wellbeing of communities and individuals. These competing forces necessarily interact in the human body (microcosm) and in the universe (macrocosm)

• Ndembu (Turner): describes three forces
• white rivers (milk & semen)
• red rivers (blood and loss of blood-particularly menstruation)
• black rivers (death, waste, decay)
• Flow, Fluidity and Flux are important processes for health & healing in African cultures, Papua New Guinea, India, China and ancient Greece.
• based on the belief that the flow of substances in the natural environment and the human body is needed for survival, wellness and healing.
•  Harm comes from the stoppage of this flow or "flooding"
• path to longevity is the MIDDLE WAY
• modern medicine : "homeostasis" (state of internal balance attained by living things regulating their physiological processes-sweating on a hot day, restricting capillaries when it is cold)

• HUMORS (vital fluids that a culture recognizes are fundamental aspects of life)
• must be kept in balance (often by consuming certain foods and liquids)
• notions of hot/cold/cool are key to understanding humoral activity-as are Wet/Dry
• activities, weather changes, emotions all can deplete or restore vital fluids
• MELPA (png): 2 humors (blood & grease)-form two separate but interconnected sources of vitality which must flow freely and be exchanged appropriately for health & harmony to be maintained.
• can be depleted in people and communities
• a man uses up his grease through intercourse, a woman through regnancy and breastfeeding-must be replenished by consuming pork fat and juicy vegetables
• optimal conditions for health are found in balancing the "hot" and "cold" in "cool" (fair minded-cool- actions of a chief provide grease for the community, eg)
• pigs are exchanged between families to restore group harmony
• The flow of drinks, food, gifts and commodities and the essential and complex functions of these circulations establish and maintain strong social bonds in all cultures and societies.
• KULA RING (ti)
• MAWRI (Niger): the health of a market depends on the the presence of "spirits" who protect it and animate it by their presence. The flow of material and spiritual gives RAI (life) to the market.
• INTERNET (markets) need "traffic" to be healthy in this same way.

WATER: VITALITY & CONTAMINATION

• Bodies of water (Nile, Euphrates, Ganes & Jordon Rivers) are considered SACRED
• purification by babtism (Christian)
• holy well visitations in Ireland (cures a variety of illnesses including headaches, abdominal pain, warts, whooping cough, sore throats & eye problems).

• Water can be used for HEALING and RITUAL PURIFICATION in many cultures
• Hippocrates: baths for healin
• Judaism: Mikvah for purification
• Public Mineral baths : japan, Rome, Turkey-important part of social and cultural life
• Rainmaking rituals : Egypt, Native Americans, Rural Romania (Parapuda)

• Water is a great FORCE OF NATURE (may be unpredictable & uncontrollable)
• floods, storms, drowning, sunami
• contamination and carrier of disease (typhus, yellow fever, parasites, environmental toxins & bacteria)
• modern fact: shortage of clean drinking water
• Apache: White Painted Woman-culture hero emerges from water
• women are often associated with water and cycles of the moon that are connected to the movement of tides and cycles of fertility. 
• female water spirits are the source of danger and disease in many cultures-particularly for men (Mermaids)
• MAMI WATA: female serpent deity found throughout the African diaspora-giver of prosperity beautiful but also life-threatening

• Water in HUMORAL SYSTEMS
• commonly seen as an element in wet/dry dyad that needs to remain balanced
• Chinese medicine
• associated with the yin/yang principle
• YIN: contractive, centripedal, responsive, positive, cold, wet, female)
• YANG: expansive, centrifugal, demanding, negative, hot, dry, male)
• health: life force (qi/ki/chi) must be allowed to flow unimpeded or restored through various therapeutic methods, especially foods and herbs, but also acupuncture. 
• yin and yang are integrated. they contain a seed of eachother, and the whole is essentiial

• Feng Shui: Spaces and interiors can also be imbalanced and effect health. Uses colors and objects along with laying out interiors according to the cardinal directions to create greater harmony, health and prosperity).
• the human being is an integral part of nature and subject to the same natural laws

• Ayurveda
• Islamic Humoralism
• Greek humoralism

• FOUCAULT (Water and Medical Treatment)
• several mental illnesses were treated with water immersion and showers in the 18th century in France

• cold water (hydrotherapy)England

MODERN PRACTICES
HOMEOPATHY:

• Homeopathy was a flourishing practice originating in 19th century Europe and gaining international scope, especially in India where it has many affinities to Ayurveda (traditional Indian medicine)
• founded by German physician SAMUEL HAHNEMANN it provided a gentle alternative to "heroic" medical practices of the day
• Medical material: thousands of substances from plant, animal, mineral and even disease sources which are diluted until virtually undetectable. The more the remedy has been diluted, the longer and deeper it acts and fewer doses are required
• The physician chooses the remedies that mirror the symptoms experienced by the sufferer, aiding the healing process rather than suppressing the symptoms.
• key principle/techniquess:
• principle of similars (like cures like)
• principle of infinitesimals (greater dilutions have deeper effects)
• techniques of preparation:
• potentization (multiple dilutions)
• succession (firm striking of the vial against a leather pad or palm of ones hand)
• WATER is used to DILUTE the active ingredient multiple times until only the energetic signature or "memory" of the original substance remains in the fluid. For solid preparations, lactose is used.
• Administered based on CONSTITUTION (body type)
• determined through an elaborate interview based on a person's physical, emotional, mental and social experiences
• PURPOSE: TO RESTORE THE vital force (energetic and informational)-based on the understanding that WATER, plants, animals, minerals, chemical substances, textures, colors, sounds, behaviors, thoughts, emotions and life circumstances are complexly intertwined through webs of homeopathic relationships
• REMEDIES: (can make their own remedy out of any substance)
• minerals
• plants
• animals

 ENERGY, LIFE-FORCE & THE POWER OF THE SUN

• VITAL FORE?ENERGY plays a key role in tradional and alternative medicine
• Qi -chinese medicine
• Prana-
• Ki-
• Chi-
• traditional notions of the sun include the divine giver of life
• positive benefits include vitamin D absorption, bone development, bone pain, and bone loss.
• epidemic low levels in northern hemisphere
• MS? Autism? internal cancers? (more common in Norther latitudes)
• versus skin cancer and other negative effects (Western)
• SUNLIGHT VITAMIN is highly contested in Western medicine

COSMIC ENERGY & MATTER

• only acknowledged this relationship in the West since Einstein (E-MC2 )
• Recognized in many traditional cultures & healing traditions
• KUNG! San of sub-Saharan Africa---30,000BP
• Indian Ayurveda  (Chakras)--4000BC

• Energy manifests itself in many forms and can be seen in ENERGY MEDICINE
• where energy loss manifests as illness, practitioners will use various methods to restore balance, store, or replenish the energy of a person, particular organs, or unblock energy flow using particular points and channels of the patient's body.
• Energy medicine is seen with suspicion in the West-hard to substanciate, measure & explain with "science"
• Reiki
• chakra balancing
• thai massage "heated hands"

NOURISHMENT & HEALING

• much of what is promoted as cutting edge alternative medicine in terms of the relationship between what is consumed and health, is elsewhere time tested ancient knowledge
• KUNG!-highly variant/diverse diet-105 edible plants consumed regularly
• INUIT- oily sea mammal protien (Omega 3)
• Nutricional variety decreases while chronic and epidemic illnesses become increasinglycommon as FOOD PRODUCTION and ANIMAL DOMESTICATION become widespread-10,000 BP
• food producers claimed more fertile areas and hunters and gatherers were marginalized.
• worst mistake in human history???
• sanitation issues with sedintary life and growing populations
• crowd/communicable diseases
• lowered nutritional value of domesticates
• decreasing variety in diet to reliance on monocrop
• poor nutricion
• chance of starvation from famine/blight

•  Industrialization initially brings improvement in the flow in of resources and out of waste 
• decreases in child mortality and increased life expectancy and reduced birth rates
• followed by increases in "DISEASES OF CIVILIZATION" 
• diabetes, asthma, allergies, auto-immune disporders
• bacteria resistant viruses, particularly among marginalized & institutionalized populations
• market capitalism creates increased social inequality
• processed high fat and carb foods
• increased low wage labor
• subject to resistant diseases

• Dietary choices are not easily changed for they mark group identity (ethnicity), being in a special state (pregnancy), or a particular kind of relationship (Shabbat, Passover, Communion)
• take advantage of all that is available in an indigenous environment
• tend to be nutrious and balanced dites
• may require ample processing to remove toxins, etc.
• bitter manioc
• blow fish
• drying, smoking (less perishable)

• All cultures have TABOO FOODS
• pregnancy
• kosher rules (contaminated pork)
• Mary Douglas -animals that did not fit into per-existing categories
• marvin harris- pigs not suited to living in arid environments-do not sweat
• Brahmanic vegetarianism (sacred cow)
• Marvin Harris-need for protection of oxen for draft animals

• Colonialization and Westernization lead to the replacement of local food sources and traditions with imported Western-made or Western-style items like macaroni, sodas, and potato chips, while local plant relaxants and beverages supplanted by cigarettes and alcohol.
• native modes of subsistence are threatened by property lines (land rights)
• epidemics (sedentary living-reservations)
• industrial pollution
• factory/wage labor
• conflict in values

FOOD MOVEMENTS IN THE USA

• date back to 1910(discovery of vitamins)
• 1940 food rules and pyramid established
• counter cultural movements of the 1960s-ALTERNATIVE CONSUMPTION MOVEMENTS IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD- against fast-food corporate food culture
• raw foodists
• health food movement
• organic food movement
• no GMO movement
• veganism/vegitarianism
• ecological, humane, health, spiritual
• gluten-free
• slow food
• freegans
• zero carbon footprint-avoid purchase-dumpster diving
• locovores--promote local "artisinal" producers, promote sustainability
• permaculture
• humans need to return to growing their own food-create sustainable designs for living and food production---heal the earth
• urban gardens & green spaces, self-sufficiency
• vertical gardens and "green walls
• HUMERAL MEDICINE & TRADITIONAL FOODS
• food as medicine
• FOUR HUMORS of ancient Greeks were forces which needed to be kept in balance and proportion for health to be maintained or restpred. these forces were connected with bodily fluids, times of day, seasons, stages of life and personality traits
•  EARTH-mucus, phlegm, night, winter, 
• AIR-black bile, melancholy, evening, autumn, late middle age
• WATER-blood, morning, spring, childhood, youth
• FIRE-yellow bile, mid-day, summer, adulthood
• TASTES and FOOD
• childhood, safe foods...salty & sweet
• bitterness commonly associated with medicinal properties
• SPICES: antimicrobial properties (hot climates, meat dishes)
• Fermented foods: probiotic-antimicrobial effects-fight cancer, most are inedible if unfermented
• raw, unpasteurized food provide important microbes
• Case Study: ELTA (Romania)
• promotes raw, lacto-vegitarian, locally grown diet believed to be essential for spiritual growth, social healing & human evolution.
• people are sickened and anesthetized by modern life & diet regimen cures modernity
• healing movements seem most prevalent when people feel lost, dislocated or in times accelerated social change or upheaval.
• utopian communal groups
• critical view of society is characterized in a demanding regimen, charismatic leader, messianic ideals, apocalyptic interpretation of current history-replaced by a community of the awakened.

THE BODY AND THE NADIS

Nadis are pathways of pranic, mental and spiritual currents which form a matrix throughout the physical body. They provide energy through every cell, and organ through their vast network. Nadis are not physical or measurable but channels of energy which underly and sustain life and consciousness. Out of the 72,000 nadis, 72 are considered important. Out of these 72, 10 are considered to be major. Among the 10 major pranic flows, three are the most significant. (Situated in the spinal column which pass through every chakra.)

• Eda (Mental channel = female; Chandra = lunar/moon nadi) 
• Pingala (Vital channel = male; Surya = sun/solar nadi)
• Sushumna (Spiritual channel) 

The 7 lesser major nadis include:

• Gandhari 
• Hastijihva
• Yashaswini
• Pusha
• Alambusha
• Kuhu
• Shankhini

The three most important nadis are also referred to as the 3 most important rivers in India:

• Ganga (Eda) 
• Yamuna (Pingala)
• Saraswati (Sushumna) 

The junction where these three rivers join is called Prayag, located outside Allahabad in North India. In the pranic body, they converge at ajna chakra. 

• Eda governs the left side of the body and Pingala the right side of the body. 
• Eda and Pingala dominance is directly related to the flow of breath in the nostrils. 
• The specific functions of the brain are correlate with the activities of Eda and Pingala. The right hemisphere governs the left side of the body and the left hemisphere governs the right side of the body. Eda is connected to the right hemisphere and Eda to the left. 
• The right hemisphere (Eda) processes information in a diffuse and holistic manner. It controls spacial awareness and is sensitive to vibrations and the external senses. 
• The left hemisphere which relates to Pingala processes information in a sequential, linear and logical manner. It is responsible for analytical and mathematical ability. 
• The Eda controls manomaya and vijnanamaya koshas, whereas pingala controls anamaya and anandamaya koshas. In pranamayakosha, the Eda and Pingala forces reach out in both directions. 
• Sushumna, the neutral channel- when the two forces of Eda and Pingala are balanced, the third channel of Sushumna becomes active. When the sushumna is active, the breath flows through both nostrils simultaneously. 

__________________________________________

Ayurvedic Cleanse (you could try this!)

Ayurveda (Sanskrit for “the science of the lifespan”) is a 5,000-year-old system of natural healing that has its origins in the Vedic culture of India. This Ayurvedic cleanse and diet will reset the body in balance!

Adapted from Melissa Weinberger DC, RN

Daily Cleansing Routine

*Starred points are to be followed only during the cleanse. All other points should be followed during the pre-cleanse, cleanse and post-cleanse

·         Begin each morning by drinking 6-8 oz of hot water

·         *Optional: drink ghee (see instructions below)

·         Abhyanga: Ayurvedic Massage

Before bathing, rub a thin layer of warmed or room temperature oil (unrefined sesame or coconut) over entire body. Use long strokes for your limbs and circular strokes for your joints. Ideally, let the oil sink in for 20 minutes before showering.

Since sesame and coconut oil are natural skin cleansers it is best to not wash the oil off with soap; the hot water will wash most of the oil off. Then pat dry with a towel. (1 teaspoon of baking soda in the wash will help to remove oil from towels)

·         Exercise before breakfast (if this is not possible you can exercise in the early evening)

·         *Breakfast – prepare porridge or kitchari (see recipe below)

·         Sip hot water throughout the day

·         *Kitchari for lunch and dinner

·         Supper should be the lightest meal of the day and preferably eaten before 6 pm

·         Drink only herbal tea and honey or water after supper

·         Try to avoid snacking between meals. If you feel hypoglycemic, try drinking 8 oz. of water first. If you still feel hungry, have a snack of veggies, berries or kitchari.

·         The purpose of the cleanse is to eliminate all processed foods from your diet and give your digestive tract a break.

·         However, make sure you are eating enough food that you aren’t starving. Once you feel starving, your body moves from a relaxed state to a stressed state.

·         Optional: 2 Triphala capsules before bed. This is an Ayurvedic blend of herbs that assist with detoxification and rejuvenation.

·         Take time for self-reflection. Emotions are stored in fat cells, so as fat cells are being metabolized emotions may surface that need to be processed.

Pre & Post-Cleanse Instructions

·         The pre- and post-cleanse will last three days

·         Eat a low-fat vegetarian diet of fruits, vegetables, beans, rice, salads, seeds and soup.

·         Eat as many steamed and raw vegetables as possible

·         Add seeds, lean chicken and egg whites for protein

·         Avoid nuts, unless they are prepared properly

·         1 grated raw beet with lemon juice per day is a good addition because it helps to thin the bile and emulsify fat

·         Do not add any sugar, oils, wheat or dairy to the diet

·         Salad dressings should be low in fat but preferably homemade

·         Try to eat three meals a day without snacking

·         Continue the daily routine of sipping hot water in the morning, followed by abhyanga, shower and exercise.

Meal Options for Main Cleanse

·         Kitchari Only (requires strong digestion and balanced blood sugar) – can eat 4 meals/a day if necessary with this option

·         Kitchari with steamed veggies (requires strong digestion and fairly balanced blood sugar)

·         Kitchari, steamed veggies, fruit and salad (Better for weaker digestion and fairly balanced blood sugar)

·         Kitchari, steamed veggies, fruit, salad and lean protein (best for weak digestion and blood sugar issues)

Morning Ghee Protocol & Castor Oil Protocol

**this is optional, depending on how intense you want your cleanse to be**

·         Upon waking (on an empty stomach) drink the prescribed amount of melted ghee (clarified butter). You can mix it with warm almond milk to make it more palatable.

·         Wait a half hour before drinking or eating anything else so ghee has time to collect toxins.

o   Day One: 2 tsp ghee

o   Day Two: 4 tsp ghee

o   Day Three: 6 tsp ghee

o   Day Four: 8 tsp ghee

§  Only increase the dosage if you are tolerating it

Laxative Therapy – do not skip this step

·         On the evening of day 4 take a warm bath followed by ingesting 4-6 teaspoons of castor oil OR 1 ½ cups of prune juice

o   Castor Oil Tip: cut an orange into slices. Put castor oil in ½ cup warm water. Mix the juice from one orange into castor oil and stir vigorously. Hold your nostrils, drink the mixture and immediately bite into a slice of orange. Rinse cup, release nostrils.

·         You should have a laxative effect from 1-15 hours. It is ok if you don’t have one.

Suggested Meal: Kitchari (Rice and Lentils)

Makes about ten ½ cup servings

Ingredients

·         1 cup organic White or Brown basmati rice (you can mix them)

·         1 cup organic Mung Dal (yellow lentils)

·         4 cups water

·         2 tablespoons organic ghee

·         2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger OR 1 tablespoon dry ginger

·         1 ½ tablespoons cumin powder

·         1 tablespoon Cumin seeds, fennel seeds, mustard seeds, coriander

·         1 teaspoon turmeric

·         Salt and pepper to taste

Optional Garnish

·         Chopped cilantro, Greek yogurt, Sour Cream or Ghee

Directions

Bring water to a boil in a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan. Put rice and dal in a fine mesh colander and rinse mixture under cool water until it runs clear. Pick over rice and dal to remove any stones. Add rice and dal to boiling water. Cover and lower heat to a simmer and cook about 30 minutes or until the water has been absorbed (add more water if you prefer a soupier consistency).

Sauté spices in ghee or butter in sauté pan until fragrant, then remove seeds. When rice is finished cooking, remove from heat. Pour ghee-spice mixture into rice and stir together thoroughly. Serve with chopped cilantro and a dollop of yogurt or sour cream.

Variations

·         Add roughly diced spinach, carrots, zucchini, green onion and bell peppers to the boiling water when you add the rice and dal. Add a few tablespoons of lemon juice when finished.

·         Use a low sodium chicken or vegetable broth instead of water

·         Add diced sweet potatoes and asparagus to boiling water when adding rice.

·         Add cubed, cooked chicken breast to rice when finished.

·         For a sweet version: add ½ cup low fat organic coconut milk, maple syrup to taste, and cinnamon and nutmeg to ghee. Omit the cumin and turmeric.

Example: