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Dr. Sara’s Book Club #4: EatQ by Susan Albers, PhD
Do you love diet books? Read them for fun? I understand that most people just want to find ONE weight loss program that works and call it a day. But when it comes to our relationship with food, I find the wide variety of approaches absolutely fascinating. I love to learn more about what’s involved…
Read MoreThyroid Questionnaire
I love this questionnaire from Dr. Hotze, another integrative physician. It gets to the heart of whether you should be tested for thyroid dysregulation, even if your conventional doc has dismissed your concerns. I also like to use these questions to build a tracker for how you improve with different therapies, as trial-and-error continues to…
Read MoreKnitting as Mantra
I cannot get enough knitting time. It’s my favorite meditation and I love the product. It’s therapeutically and aesthetically rocking my world right now. Why? I think Herb Benson, MD, a mentor of mine from the Harvard Mind-Body Institute articulated it best. “Working with yarn provides stress relief. Like meditation or prayer, knitting allows for…
Read MoreSacred Socks & Pablo Neruda
Maybe you didn’t quite get just how obsessed I am with knitting. Here’s an example: I could not properly express the joy I feel with my new socks, knitted from delicious “soft girl” yarn from local Petaluma sheep, until I came across Pablo Neruda’s Ode to Socks, excerpted way below in English and Spanish. Thank you,…
Read MoreConverted
Was getting a little veggie henna applied to my lashes today on Fourth Street in Berkeley when I stumbled upon a new eco boutique in the ‘hood: CONVERT. WOW. Waltzed in and explained my organic experiment: one year – 100% organic in what I wear and schmear. No blank stare. Instead: efficient march through store, all arms…
Read MoreOrganic Right Up Next to Your Skin: Undies
Perhaps the most important layer in my organic experiment is my undies. Right up next to your privateness, you want no endocrine disruptors or heavy metals. Surprisingly, I found this to be one of the harder items to procure before January 1, 2011 when my experiment begins. Here in Berkeley, there’s a foxy brand called Pact. Check…
Read MoreDr. Sara’s Book Club #3: Hardwiring Happiness: The Hidden Power of Everyday Experiences
I wanted to let you know about a new book that I think you’ll like…. Because I LOVE it. It’s called Hardwiring Happiness: The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm, and Confidence. It’s written by my colleague — neuropsychologist and bestselling author Rick Hanson, Ph.D. — and it lays out a simple method that uses…
Read MoreMental Vitamin: Sewing | Knitting | Cooking
Love this idea from neuroscientist Kelly Lambert, PhD’s book on depression, about choosing alternatives to the conventional quick-fix of changing your neurotransmitter mix with a prescription for Lexapro, Prozac or Wellbutryn or some new pill. “Lambert shows how when you knit a sweater or plant a garden, when you prepare a meal or simply…
Read MoreOrganically Jeaned: Change Up the Paradigm
Learned today that the European Union has rigid boundaries on the type of cotton they import – no toxic dyes, no cheap cotton laced with DDT, as several cottons from China and India were recently demonstrated to contain. The EU regularly tests their imported textiles carefully; we in the US do not. One of the worst…
Read MoreKeepin' It Real: Bolinas for Holiday
Signing off for a week of reading, doodling, strolling, yoga, meditating, cooking, writing, and, oh yeah, hanging out with my kids and DH. Guess where I am? Thinking I need more honor system in my life, like this Gospel Farm stand. Let’s develop that idea…. Back in a week or two. Officially off duty as…
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