Melanie St. Ours

02/21/2019

Cabbage soup got a bad reputation thanks to the terrible 90s crash diet based on eating nothing but a bland version of this brew for days and days, but it's time for a re-brand!

Red cabbage is *the* most affordable source of an incredible array of anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant compounds, with proven gut-healing properties and plenty of research proving that it can help to prevent and reverse heart disease and cancer. And in this sweet and sour soup, it's downright delicious!

Check out the recipe on the blog and let me know if you make a batch! https://psycheandsoma.com/ruby-red-sweet-sour-soup/

08/20/2018

Are you a fellow practitioner? - https://mailchi.mp/fc5b44d886e8/are-you-a-fellow-practitioner

04/03/2018

Did you know that I have a newsletter? I'm starting a new series this month on "Money and (Herbal) Medicine" and you can preview it here if you'd like -

There's one aspect of healing that I've wrestled with longer and harder than any other: the relationship of money and medicine. (I'm using the word medicine broadly, as described here.) I've been the person in need of healing who couldn't afford care. I've been the recipient of sliding scale fees ...

03/07/2018

Nimble Heart, Unwavering Soul is coming LIVE to Baltimore!

We'll be learning and practicing skills to build our emotional resilience using natural methods, as always. The difference is that we'll be together, body-next-to-body, in a space that couldn't possibly be more gorgeous and heart-lifting.

Enrollment is capped at 20 participants, so if you're thinking about joining us, I encourage you to give some time to make your decision in the next couple of days so that you won't be disappointed if the class fills up.

If you have any questions at all about the program, I'd love to answer them. I'm on a tight deadline with the final edits of my book and running a clinical practice, so please know that it might take me up to 24 hours to respond during the week. I might be a little slow, but I would love to hear from you if I can help. :-)

Tagging some folks who came to our intro workshop, previous Nimble Heart (online version) graduates, and friends who I think *might* be interested or know somebody who needs to hear about this. I'd love your help in getting this announcement to the people in our area who've been waiting for a resource like this. I know there's a HUGE need for support around resilience-building, and I want to make sure this little workshop does the most good that it can.

01/05/2018

Have you ever wondered about your thyroid function? Many of my clients come to me because feel like something isn't right with their energy, metabolism, and/or mood. Often, they've felt frustrated because they just *know* something is off with their thyroid, but their blood tests have come back normal and the doctor says something like,

"You're healthy! You just have to eat right and exercise. It's pretty normal to feel tired and gain weight as you age...."

Here's the thing: your doctor is right not to put you on supplemental thyroid hormones if your numbers are still within the normal range. Too much thyroid hormone is very, very harmful! But this doesn't mean that there's nothing you can do to feel better!

This case study video shares a detailed history of one of my clients who had significant hypothyrodism and recovered her health through herbal and lifestyle measures. Herbal medicine works even better when the imbalance is in an earlier stage and your blood tests still look good!

If you're struggling with your energy levels, unexplained weight gain, dry skin, hair loss, or low mood --- get your thyroid checked. And if you find out that everything's good with your numbers, that's great! It means you're a perfect candidate for a natural approach to recovering your health and feeling like yourself again.

http://psycheandsoma.com/work-with-me/ Herbal medicine can make a big difference for people suffering from fatigue, whether it's accompanied by hypothyroidis...

07/03/2017

The longer I practice, the more unflappable I become. (And -- nope --the results of Chinese Herbal Medicine are not due to the placebo effect!)

This is an excerpt from the full-length class, "Placebo, Magic, and Questions of Ethics" which you can find in the "Tea & Teaching" playlist on this channel....

04/12/2017

Here's the recording from tonight's class!

https://youtu.be/M-ni45cEFTs

http://psycheandsoma.com/the-nature-of-medicine/ Someone once told me that medicine is anything with power. This definition strikes me as too broad for daily...

04/03/2017

Our first free class in the Foundations of Herbal Medicine series is tomorrow. And we're starting with the most intoxicating subject: poison.

(Everything you need to know to participate is in the linked blog post, but feel free to ask any questions that you have in the comments below!)

http://psycheandsoma.com/the-nature-of-poisons/

01/12/2017

When's the last time you checked up on your medication interactions?

There's a very helpful (free!) tool online from Medscape called the Multi-Drug Interaction Checker. I like to share it with my clients because even though I believe we can trust our doctors to know this stuff and keep an eye on it, sometimes even really good doctors overlook something by mistake. Sometimes a new doctor prescribes a medication that interacts with something that a different doctor prescribed. Stuff happens.

If you have a tool that allows you to check into possible interactions yourself, it can help you to ask questions that will set your mind at-ease and also make sure that nothing is getting overlooked.
So, if you need a self-care activity for today, why not take a few minutes to enter your meds into this tool? If it flags some interactions, that doesn't mean you're necessarily in immediate danger (and it DOES NOT mean you should discontinue your medication without your doctor's permission!), but it might be an indication that you have something to ask your doctor about.

All of these pharmaceutical ads tell you to "ask your doctor" about adding a new drug to your routine.

I'm here to tell you that it might be time to ask your doctor about the meds you're already taking!

http://reference.medscape.com/drug-interactionchecker

01/04/2017

Last month, I tried an experiment. After feeling like I *wished* I could break free from needing to check FB every day, I finally gave it a try. "What if I get a work-related message?!" had always been my big excuse whenever I thought about taking a break before.

Then I read a book called "Deep Work," which makes a compelling case for cultivating the kind of focus that's necessary to make a sustained and profound contribution as a knowledge worker. (I'm not *just* a knowledge worker, but I'm aspiring to bring that aspect of my work forward in 2017 and beyond. And depth is very important for healing work, too.) The author proposed a challenge for people like me who were afraid to sign off of FB.

"Try it for a month," he said. And, crucially, "don't announce to anyone that you're taking a break! Test it out and see what happens."

There were a couple of hiccups, and I did pop in to check my messages every few days. So it wasn't a "perfect" experiment...but it was enough to show me the path forward. I spent SO much less time on FB.

Most importantly, I felt so much better. And contrary to my fears, I had a greater number of new clients reach out to me during my FB break than I'd had for the three preceding months!

Moving forward, I plan to continue this scaled-back approach to social media. As wonderful as it's been for Psyche & Soma in the past, I think the price that it asks me to pay in terms of the depth of my focus is just too high to keep going in the same way that I used to. You can always reach me via email, or through the "Contact" tab that will be debuting (soon!) on the new website. If you enjoy reading my writing, you can keep up with it by subscribing to my newsletter. (And I hope that by choosing to say "No" to lots of social media posting, I'll be able to say a bigger "Yes" to putting forth a more substantive body of writing that will make a bigger impact.)

So, this isn't a gauche "goodbye, Facebook!" post.... It's my way of saying "thank you" to everyone who has made this space so compelling to me over the years, and a way of letting you know not to worry when you don't see me posting or replying here as often. It's also a way to encourage you to connect with me in other ways, as my goal is to become slower and slower to respond on FB as it becomes less and less a part of my routine.

I'm wishing you all kinds of good things in 2017 and hope to stay connected in ways that will enrich us all.

09/07/2016

One of the key things to realize when you're embarking on a program of metabolic healing is that stress of any kind can set you back. When the stress you feel is coupled with the act of making food choices and actually eating, it has an even bigger impact.

That's why you have to heal your relationship with food in order to heal your metabolism. Not to mention that life just feels better and easier when you're not fighting yourself or your food choices.