Articles in Health
Media Release: February 5, 2013
How to make yoga an integrated part of your every day life
NZ book just released: ‘Forty Days of Yoga – Breaking down the barriers to a home yoga practice’
By Kara-Leah Grant, …
The Wholefoods Handbook ten years on – a guide with big appeal and altruistic intentions
—Rae McDowell
Authors of the tenth anniversary edition of the Wholefoods Handbook, Joanna Piekarski and Marsha Jones, celebrated with a launch at …
By Shanti Burgess, Reflexologist and Herbalist
Q: My three year old, who is usually a very mellow toddler is hurting with an ear ache, is there anything I can do for her with reflexology to make …
By Shanti Burgess, Reflexologist and Herbalist
Q: My three month old won’t stop crying and I think she’s got a sore tummy, I’ve tried everything and I can’t work out how to sooth her tummy, got …
COMFREY Symphytum officinale
Comfrey was first brought to my attention after the birth of my son more than thirty years ago. My domiciliary midwife, the wonderful Joan Donnelly was a staunch advocate of eating weeds and …
“I have been interested in developing countries since I started my physiotherapy degree. I don’t want to wait until I have graduated and worked for a few years before I can start making a difference. …
Joel Le Blanc
The Christchurch Earthquakes have affected thousands of people living in Canterbury since the seismic events first began in September, 2010, and many residents continue to suffer from heightened anxiety and insomnia as a …
Yarrow is a plant many of us welcome into our gardens without really knowing the depth and breadth of her true personality. She’s been around for centuries, used on battlefields of old to staunch many …
Cats face the same issues in commercial food that push many people every year to turn towards eating whole and organic foods. Many brands of commercial cat food are highly processed, and are full of …
Diabetics get on their bikes
Team Type 1 cyclists to compete in New Zealand
Young New Zealanders living with diabetes will join leading professional cyclists, Team Type 1 Sanofi, in fun Cycle Challenges in Auckland, Wellington and …
Slip, Slop, Slap — with Natural Sunscreens!
Have you ever thought about making your own sunscreen? You don’t need a laboratory or a degree in pharmacology to do this. Nature provides us with a whole host …
When I was a little girl, I remember feeding some chooks that belonged to my grandparents neighbours. The chooks were kept in a little A-frame house that was moved around the lawn. Always, the patch …
It seems that so many things in life increase the risk of illness and disease — especially the foods and beverages that bring the most pleasure and enjoyment to everyday life. However, coffee drinkers and …
Dear stinging nettle, you are a plant much maligned by many, myself included. Yes I am intending to change my ways. Even though, uninvited, you have made yourself quite comfortable all through my orchard, and …
It’s a funny shrub, my hamamelis virginiana. The skinny branches arch up in an ungainly manner, reminding me of an awkward teenager. No longer a cute little kid and not yet a robust and fully …
By Tricia Curtis
Today as I went wandering through the garden looking for cleavers to photograph I was captivated by the variety and abundance of weeds growing everywhere. Healers all, I felt such a gladness come …
When I was seventeen years old I become a vegetarian as well as a skillfull forager. I was the salad queen. It seemed as if I could make a salad appear out the ether. I …
The Common Lawn Daisy – Bellis Perennis – by Tricia Curtis
Who hasn’t at some time made a daisy chain from the common lawn daisy and worn it as a circlet or crown. Bellis Perennis as …
Mental Health Awareness Week – Day Two – Time to Give
October 10 – 16, 2011
With the country being gripped by rugby fever and our cherished All Blacks still in the hunt to bring home the …
By Tricia Curtis
THYME Thymus vulgaris
Three years ago, whilst doing a tour of the South Island to visit herbal clinics and health shops, I fell in love with thyme. We were driving across from Queenstown and …
By Tricia Curtis
Rosmarinus Officinalis
Rosemary has to be my favourite culinary herb. It is the herb that I most often go racing outside to collect when I am cooking a meal. I love it’s stong, resinous …
By Tricia Curtis
Aloe vera is a bit like the homeopathic remedy arnica. Everyone has heard of it, or has used it at some point and like arnica it never fails to deliver. This sadly is …
From Europe with love – by Tiziana de Biagi
Trauma is the body’s own response to alleviate an impact greater than the body can cope with alone. Every trauma, physical or mental, is linked to the …
Don’t you sometimes wish you could just gather up some of your seasonal medicinal herbs and stick them in a bottle and keep them for later use. Well you can, and it is literally …
NZ Natural Products
New research indicates that Vitamin C may be critical to maintaining good eye health and could be protective for those at risk of glaucoma. The study done by Oregon Health & Science University …
Gathering data for this blog to be honest was far from satisfying as I found so much negative information about this wonderful herb, and I wondered how much was based in fact. …
PlanBigger Ehon Chan launches a national grassroots mental health campaign:
Soften the F Up – “Soften the F*** Up is the first of, hopefully, a few more campaigns to come in challenging young men’s …
Calling all women in these times of change
Something has been missing from the world for a long, long time – so long that we don’t even recognise the vacuum its absence creates in the way …
By Charlotte Squire
Yesterday I found myself at the end of a Bodytalk session enjoying a good old fashioned belly laugh. The more Tania Marsden told me she’d found, the deeper …
The Mental Health Foundation is proud to announce their team of celebrity ambassadors for the 2011 Great Lake Relay.
“The Foundation is very excited to have such inspirational New Zealanders pledge their support to help …
The last day of September is already here…days have slipped and flipped around like yoyos. Seasonal change has brought much excitement and left me feeling somewhat unsettled, scattering the mind in the wind with the …
Well you are reading the blog of someone on a health mission who isn’t very good at it. I confess to a couple of drinks yesterday whilst in Nelson picking up my partner’s daughter from …
Sometimes life gets so busy with all the myriad of things it contains – suddenly one remembers that she must write another blog!!! Amongst the busyness: moving house/setting up house with my man, computer course, …
It’s Monday morning in Golden Bay and again, it’s not so golden. The rain is incessant; we’re experiencing a late wintery blast and so I sit here, delaying getting out of bed for as long …
Good day, ladies and gentleman. It’s shaping up to be a cold and wet one here in Golden Bay, but I am warm and cosy at my computer course in town, putting off the inevitable …
It’s grey and misty out in this Valley, perfect for my reclusive, pensive state of mind. I’ve spent the weekend moving in with my beloved, and I am shattered from it all, despite it not …
Yesterday afternoon had more in store for me on the body front. I visited Tania Marsden for my first session of Bodytalk. I walked in the door knowing nothing about it; having filled in a …
I have just walked in the door after a night in Nelson with my beloved, and before my head hits the pillow I wanted to update you all on what has been happening. An interesting …
Greetings and welcome to the first of my twice-weekly blogs for the month of September. I recently approached Charlotte about blogging for a month about my journey back to living healthily, in part because you …
By Cress Spicer
One client of mine was a teenage boy of 11 years who had autism and severe teretts syndrome. He had recently been diagnosed at the B.C Childrens Hospital and had a particularly bad …