Topic: Health & Healing

Shitake Mushroom Soup

In my years as a psychologist, I have come to believe that most people seeking psychotherapy are unhappy. This is not only due to earlier hurts and traumas, as well as present frustrations and problems, but because they cannot access earlier happy moments often enough. The unfortunate result is not being able to experience enough positive states of well-being. It is these unique states of well being that I have come to label "The Enchanted Self."

Healthy Alternatives by Susie Cooper, ND Board Certified Doctor of Naturopathy

How would you define health?

• Being free of disease?
• Feeling energetic?
• Having a sense of well-being?
• Having a sensation of strength and balance (physically and emotionally)?
• Sleeping well and waking up feeling refreshed?
• Old conditions disappearing, which leaves you feeling better than ever?
• Experiencing a joy for life, an enthusiasm?

Do you often feel overwhelmed by your environment or the people around you? Has anyone ever called you shy, or worse: “too sensitive?” Do you care deeply about everything? You may be a highly sensitive soul, a person of deep empathy and high intensity, with powerful intuition, awareness, and intelligence.

Healthy Alternatives by Susie Cooper, NDBoard Certified Doctor of Naturopathy

Depression is a mood disorder which can be of short or long duration. It can have a variable degree of severity. Headaches, muscular aches, chronic tiredness and sleep disorders are just a few of the symptoms. Depression can also be triggered by medications or physical disease of another sort. Psychotherapy is the normal, orthodox approach to depression as well as prescription antidepressants.

As winter descends we begin to feel the chill of shorter days and less sunlight. For many of us, less hours of light combined with colder temperatures results in us feel less light emotionally. For some of us, who actually have SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) gloom really sets in. This gloom often has to be offset by either full spectrum lighting and/or various psychotropic medications.

Healthy Alternatives by Susie Cooper, ND Board Certified Doctor of Naturopathy

I have often been asked through the years “if I could take just one herb for the best overall health, which herb should that be?” My answer has always been turmeric. Yes, that’s the turmeric we know as a cooking spice, used widely in Indian cooking and Eastern recipes. I always get a wide-eyed look of amazement from people not familiar with the huge medicinal benefits from this herb. How can an herb we have always just thought of as a “spice” be so healthy for us?

At this time of the year, it's almost impossible not to contemplate what the ancients called the "wheel of the year." During the rest of the year, we may be aware that the progression of the seasons mimics the progression of our own lives, but at no time is this more evident than during the thirty days or so after the winter solstice.

Healthy Alternatives by Susie Cooper, ND Board Certified Doctor of Naturopathy

In the world of herbal medicine there exist many old-time favorites, herbs which have been widely used for centuries. One of these is ginger root, Zingiber officinale, a wonderful plant with an incredible list of health benefits, which also has a unique and lovely flavor in cooking. Warm, spicy and even hot to taste, if used in a concentrated-enough amount in recipes, ginger also makes a delicious hot tea. How many times have you had a spicy Oriental meal with ginger root as the main emphasis? How many times have you used fresh grated ginger root or sprinkled some ginger root powder onto vegetables, tofu or chicken? Have you ever had a real old-fashioned ginger ale, so spicy that it made your mouth burn slightly? Did that ginger ale feel good on your sore throat or help to settle your sour stomach?

We are living in a civilization where it has become commonplace to pass pain around. Anyone can be vulnerable as they struggle to live. We all have witnessed the bullying and disrespect that generate helpless feelings in our workplace, our schools, with our neighbors, and within our families. While terrorism may be the overt manifestation of the insanity of passing pain onto others, hidden terrorism continues in each of us whenever we use one another as containers for our pain and carelessly discard them. Everyone's light is dimmed and lessons are lost when we use our pain as the new weapon of mass destruction.