Health / Wellbeing Category

Health / Wellbeing posts by Ronit Baras

How to Make International Hugging Day Count with COVID-19

January 21 (great date: 21-Jan-21) is International Hugging Day. It also falls during Walk Your Dog Month, which makes it even greater. But this year, with COVID-19 still running wild, let’s make sure it’s a happy day!

Research has found hugging the most effective anti-depressant. Many experts have written about hugs and their ability to change our chemistry. Touch in general has very healing power.

This year, International Hugging Day will be a bit sad due to the COVID-19. I worry that the forced isolation will disconnect people and that many will forget the hard work of thousands of people around the world, like many free hug campaigns, to connect.

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Amazing Natural Treatment for Hyperactive Attention Deficit Disorder

Children with learning difficulties are very close to my heart. I’ve written about kids with Hyperactive Attention Deficit Disorder (ADHD) before and shared tips and strategies to help them live a happy, fulfilling life. It makes me very happy when readers share their stories and tell me how they’ve used my tips to improve their ADHD child’s life for the better.

Claire is the mother of a boy with ADD/ADHD. She came to this blog and read some of the posts about ways to manage Hyperactive Attention Deficit Disorder. After just one month of trying some of the techniques, her son became a happier child, and she became a happier mom.

When she felt she was on the right track, she sent me a very happy and positive update on her son’s progress and how she’d used my tips. So I asked if I could share her emails with other moms.

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How to Vaporize Psychological Pain with Psychological Painkillers

Bronze sculpture of man holding his head

Everyone understands what physical pain is. And the medical world is full of treatments and painkillers to eliminate this pain. But psychological pain is not that well-known and treating it is a bit more challenging.

Physical pain comes from damage to the tissues of the body. Psychological pain is a suffering with no apparent physical origin. You can even say that all the feelings we don’t like – sadness, grief, anger, contempt, frustration, rage, depression, etc. – are forms psychological pain.

Physical pain is often localized, temporary and associated with some harmful or damaging physical trigger. Psychological pain is a more generalized, lasting, unpleasant feeling resulting from an inability of to cope with emotional challenges. But sometimes, it manifests just like physical pain does.

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Exciting Letters from a Reader: Body, Mind and Gratitude

Recently, I had an opportunity to correspond with one of my readers who found treasures in my blog. She managed to change her life and the life of her family just by following some of my practical tips.

I was very happy, grateful and honored to read her letters. I hope that bringing them here will help you too. Consider your own attitude towards body, mind and gratitude.

I’ve changed the reader’s name to respect her privacy, but left everything else in the letters as it was.

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100 Great Insights I Got from the Coronavirus

A game of Scrabble with COVID-19 pandemic words

We are going through a very tough period. The challenge we all face with the COVID-19 which touched every aspect of our life, is big. It feels like the Coronavirus took over the world and every person, without discrimination, is impacted whether directly or not.

The virus connected us somehow and we are aware of what is happening to our families, our neighborhood, our communities, our countries and the planet.

But challenges can kill us or heal us, depending on our attitude. The challenge can be the same, but the outcome will be different depending on whether we consider it as an opportunity or as a curse.

This post is part 45 of 48 in the series Make a List

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Ovarian Cancer: Awareness is Key

I didn’t know what ovarian cancer was until my mother-in-law died from it. It started with what looked like breast cancer. She removed her breast, and years later, it started again and spread to her bones and liver. Only on her last months of her life, when things were hopeless, the doctors discovered she had ovarian cancer.

My mother-in-law was very dear to me. I knew her since I was 16 years old and she was very special in my life. She was a courageous woman who inspiring to me. I don’t think I’ve recovered from her death yet.

When our daughter got married, she was not here with us. When our granddaughter was born, I was sad she was not here to meet her great-granddaughter. In the last 10 years of our lives, she has not been here to experience life with us.

There were many questions about what she would have done if she knew. If she was diagnosed earlier, she could have been saved. Removing her ovaries earlier (after having all her children) could have guaranteed she would still be with us, and not just in spirit.

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Teen Drug Education Starts at Home

I think most parents are worried their teens might be (or are) using drugs. Those who are not so worried typically used drugs themselves when they were young and keep telling themselves, “I turned out OK, so my child will ‘get it out of the system’ and grow out of it”.

This is nice, but one small mistake will make sure your child will never grow at all.

Every parent of a teen hosting a party at home debates whether or not it is OK for the teen guests to use drugs and what to do about it.

There are some people who give their teens drugs to use in the company of their friends to be perceived “cool”. They say they are using those same drugs themselves and don’t see any harm in doing it.

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From Sickness to Health: Happy Ending

On the third week of my parents’ visit, after the withdrawal from her pain killer patches, my mom came back to life. When we played “3 things that made me happy today”, she cooperated.

We still avoided long trips, but she was willing to walk in the shopping center for 4 hours to buy some gifts she wanted to take home with her. She also walked with Eden and Ayla around the neighborhood.

When we asked her about sweating at night, it dropped to once a night or none at all and she cooked a lot more, because her arm was stronger. For her, cooking is part of her identity. Not being able to cook made her feel useless. The results of her blood sugar were excellent, and she was in pain, but rated it much lower.

This post is part 11 of 11 in the series From Sickness to Health

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From Sickness to Health: Baby Ayla

Baby girl sitting in front of a bed of flowers

When I was studying special education, we used to say that if you hang around kids, it keeps you young. I always believed it was true. Kids are born clean and pure and their energy is only corrupted by the presences of the anxious, angry, frustrated and sad people in their life.

Only later on, I discovered that this is actually done through mirroring. When we hang around other people, we sense what they are feeling and our mind “lights up” in the same way they do.

Babies laugh a lot and trust fully. They love physical touch, enjoy every second and, although they can’t do many things, it never stops them from trying again, and again, and again. There is a lot we can learn from babies.

My mom always loved babies. I first discovered this when my eldest daughter, Eden, was born. I was in the hospital for 10 days and my mom offered to come and stay with us for a week after I got out and help me.

This post is part 10 of 11 in the series From Sickness to Health

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From Sickness to Health: The Placebo Effect

I’m a strong believer in the power of the mind. Recently, I had a chat with a friend, who told me that her mom had died at a relatively young age. She’d had cancer for a while, and then, her doctors told her she had 3 months to live. She died exactly 3 months later. I think that what we believe manifests itself in our life.

For years, I have been using the placebo effect on some of my child coaching clients. I give them “special pills” that make them smart, happy, healthy and friendly (I can only use it on children, because I get consent from their parents, while they don’t know the real deal). The success rate of my placebo treatment is 100%.

Why?

Because when I install in those kids the belief that they are smart, happy, healthy and friendly, they can’t get it out of their system. Their subconscious mind makes it true.

The idea to use the placebo effect on my mother came up after we saw John the Wizard. He said it would take 6-12 months to get the painkillers out of her system and I read somewhere that we needed to go through all the seasons in order for the body to replace all its cells. At first, that freaked me out. My time was limited, and I knew that as soon as she went home, things would be out of my control.

This post is part 9 of 11 in the series From Sickness to Health

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