"Music Heals the Soul" Fundraiser

On May 19th (a Monday), the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute will be holding a fundraising night at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Museum and Library in Boston. The proceeds will go to the Leonard P. Zakim Center for Integrative Therapies at Dana-Farber, which Rami has worked with for a number of years now. Please consider coming out and supporting this incredible organization and its good works!

In addition to the fundraiser, Rami's good friend, Red Sox CEO Larry Lucchino, will be recognized with an award for his long-standing support of the Zakim Center. Congratulations, Larry! WCVB-TV/Channel 5 Boston reporter Kelly Tuthill will be there to emcee.

According to the Press Release Dana-Farber in sending out, the event starts at 6pm, and "will also include a seated dinner, live music, a silent auction, and complementary therapies from the Zakim Center, which offers integrative therapies such as massage, acupuncture, qigong, and creative arts. Tickets are $200. For more information, call 617-203-2064."

If you plan on purchasing a ticket, PLEASE be sure to double check the time and date by calling that number.

We wish the Zakim Center many more years of great work!

---

Addendum: Here is the video that was shown at the fundraiser in honor of Larry Lucchino and Leonard P. Zakim, enjoy!

Balance is Everything.

Mindfulness and Eastern medicine/lifestyles have taken the US by storm in the last ten years, and I couldn't be happier. The power of the mind, or what I like to call the "Placebo Effect," is a vital part of holistic health care. Everyone should be doing some kind of meditation on a regular basis, whether it is sitting, standing, or moving. I have no doubt that the medical community will continue to discover far-reaching health benefits associated with practices like Tai Chi for years to come.

However, these Eastern traditions are not a cure-all. The key to holistic health is balance. Mindfulness has been linked to decreased anxiety and decreased depression symptoms, but if you are taking a medication for either or both of these issues, beginning a Tai Chi or meditation routine does not mean you can suddenly stop the prescription. Supplementing your treatments with mindfulness practice should mean being more involved with your physician about your health, not less.

The goal, of course, can be to wean yourself off of prescriptions. No one wants to take pills every day of their life! But you have to first build a foundation of effective mind-body prescriptions, to give you and your physician enough confidence to decrease your reliance on pharmaceuticals. Don't try moving all of your eggs to another basket at once!

I teach my students from the body first, and gradually, I teach them to add layers of mindfulness and meditation to their stretching and moving. The greatest, and longest lasting health benefits are achieved after the mind and the body are both fully involved.

After all, it is called Mind-Body medicine for a reason!

Health Care Costs and the Elderly

Being elderly (commonly defined as 65+) in the U.S. has changed significantly in the last few decades. The elderly are not on the last leg of their life, but rather just starting the last quarter of their life, as the life expectancy continues to rise. Many of them are staying in the workforce, either because their bodies allow them to, or to support the children that they had (later in life than their parents) through college and other financial hurdles.

This is not an indicator that the elderly are experiencing all-around better health, however. Heart attacks, cancer, and other fatal health events have been pursued with billions of dollars of research funding to increase survival rates as much as possible. But chronic, non-fatal health problems that arise in old age like diabetes, arthritis, joint and muscle pain, etc., are still only see "treatments." 

As the elderly age group grows, everyone has a responsibility to understand the impact on our healthcare system. Does longer life expectancy mean fewer chronic issues, or just more time to have them? At this point, it is latter.

This is why preventative health routines are so important, especially for the elderly. The last thing the elderly want is to be a burden, financial or otherwise, on their children and grandchildren. Learning tai chi and qigong now may mean free arthritis treatment for life.

Can Mindfulness and Internal Martial Arts Cure Obesity?

My team and I have a lot of exciting new things in the works, and there will be more information forthcoming.

Today's post is something I have been working on recently. Is America going about the fight against obesity all wrong? The First Lady has done extensive work to get the weight of America's children to a healthy average. Her "Let's Move" program focuses on eating healthy and getting physical exercise, which are valiant goals. All health professionals agree that children need to eat right and exercise.

But are exercise routines and removing sugary snacks from schools really treating the problem? Or are these initiatives just alleviating the symptoms?

Maybe it's us, the parents, who force "professionally optimized living" on our children. Our children need a good job to make it on their own, and to get one, they'll need a great degree. To get one of those, they need to out-shine the competition when applying to college by having straight A's and a veritable laundry list of extracurricular activities. Most of these "check points" start by the time children are in middle school, ten, eleven, or twelve years old. Do kids have time to be mindful of health when we are already asking them to focus on grades, extracurricular activities, internships, saxophone lessons, and more?

This may seem counter-intuitive, but maybe parents need to slow down, and let their kids slow down too. If kids had time to look for really fulfilling physical activities, and healthy food choices, they probably would. But when they only have 5 minutes of free time, two or three times a day, what is there for a kid to do but watch a quick Youtube video and grab a candy bar?

No one can take care of themselves if they don't have the time or the energy, whether they are a child or an adult. What are you teaching your children to focus on? Health, or wealth?

What is Affordable Care?

As America transitions into the policies put in place by the Affordable Care Act, the future of American health care is on everyone's mind. There is anxiety on both sides, all centered around affordability. Costs are too high, there is no doubt. Is this legislation a move in the right direction? Only time will tell.

In my 30 years of training, I have learned that $100 of prevention is worth $100,000 of treatment.

Think about it this way: $100 running shoes, well used, are a good investment if they prevent the need for a $100,000 heart surgery 30 years down the road.

A $100 yoga class is well worth the money if it prevents $100,000 in joint-pain medication later.

Spending $100 more on groceries to get high-quality, nutrient rich food is smart spending if it saves you $100,000 in cancer treatments when you're 70.

Preventative care is always cheaper in the long run, but it looks expensive up-front because we're feeling good. If we're healthy, why should we spend money on health? That is the "crisis" or "treatment" healthcare mindset. Investing in our health is desirable only when the immediate alternative is death or serious lack of function. This leads to late diagnoses, earlier and earlier onset of diseases like arthritis, diabetes, and cancer, and an unsustainable reliance on pharmaceuticals.

What are the benefits of putting health off until it is bad? Time. It takes time to attend yoga twice a week. It takes time to look over the nutrition labels in the supermarket. It takes time to notice subtle mood changes or drops in our energy level. And if there is anything that always seems in short supply, it's time.

But even time is not a real benefit of today's style of healthcare. Healthier people live longer and experience a higher quality of life, so whatever time you save now by skipping your morning workout is time on loan, and older you is going to be the one who pays the balance.

Changing our healthcare system is not something that can be done overnight, even by the President. But if we can take an hour every day and practice a little mindfulness centered around our health, we can change.

Not long ago, avoiding a disease wasn't within an individual's control. Our grandparents didn't have access to nutrition facts, scientifically studied exercise routines, etc.. Now, in the age of information, we have no excuses for treating our health like a game of chance.

Your health is the most valuable thing you will ever own. Be mindful of that wisdom the next time you are making a purchase, and ask yourself, "Is this money better spent on preventative healthcare? Am I doing enough to ensure my health in later years?"

The Soft Tissue Tension You Don't Know You Have

I've been posting a lot of exercises, stretches, and tips for upper back and neck problems recently. If you've found them helpful, be on the look-out for my upcoming course on upper back pain relief. I'm finishing up this upper body series next week with the first installment in a new video segment called "Hey Rami!" where I answer questions from clients, patients, and customers.

This week, we're talking about a group of muscles that everyone uses everyday, but few people ever stretch and relax: facial muscles. There is a lot of technique and mental preparation involved in the face meditation that I detail in my Sunset Tai Chi book. For people who want a quick taste of what is it like to relax your facial muscles, try this mini meditation:

• First, open your mouth wide, like you were yawning, but keep your eyes wide open. Hold this for a few seconds. (I know, it looks weird!) This is to balance the usual, scrunched state that our faces take on during the day while we pour over emails and textbooks.
• Now, start doing deep breathing like I've posted about here. Make sure you are in a comfortable sitting or standing position. You will be maintaining the meditation for about 5 minutes, and the goal is to be as still as possible.
• Relax the muscles in your face as much as you can. This is 20% body control and 80% mind control. When I do it, I picture my face in layers, like an onion. Each layer of my face has its own tension, and I visualize peeling away that tension layer by layer.

And that's it! You won't believe how much tension you can hold in your face. Consider the reasons you hold tension in certain muscles in your face while doing the meditation. Are your cheeks tense because your job requires you to smile all day? Do you work in the sun a lot? That may lead to a constant furrow in your brow. Do this meditation in a dark room. It will help the muscles in and around the eyes relax.