Monthly Archives: July 2016
-
Posted: July 29, 2016Categories: Inspiring Stories
Read more »Sarah Andrews is a much loved faculty member at Case Western Reserve University’s Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, who has used guided imagery to train her graduate students and for her own health and well being. Here is the story she told us:
-
Read more »It’s been a long time since a research team studied the impact of guided imagery on the symptoms and side effects suffered by chemotherapy patients – there were quite a few clinical trials in the 70s and 80s, but it’s been hard to find recent studies until now.
Researchers from Cyprus, Finland and Greece tested the effectiveness of Guided Imagery (GI) and Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR) on a cluster of symptoms experienced by 208 chemotherapy patients - pain, fatigue, nausea, vomiting and retching, anxiety and depression.
-
Read more »An adult survivor of childhood abuse wonders if guided imagery can help her, with her diagnosis of complex PTSD, layered over many years; and if so, which should she listen to, given the limitations of her budget.
Read on as she tells her story and asks her question...
-
Posted: July 25, 2016Categories: Update from Health Journeys
Read more »We hope you've sampled Julie Lusk’s new guided meditation audio, Yoga Nidra: Guided Meditations for Relaxation & Renewal. The downloadable tracks have been available for a couple of weeks, but the CDs are arriving this week and will ship as soon as we get them.
We’d been getting steady requests for a yoga nidra offering, and knew there’d be a strong response, but the enthusiasm and demand has surprised and delighted us.
Listen to what Julie herself has to say about yoga nidra – it’s pretty compelling.
-
Read more »One of the most frequent reasons people start using our guided imagery is because they’re facing an upcoming surgery and they’re feeling anxious. Actually, scratch “anxious”; they’re feeling a terrified combination of fear, loathing and dread.
Here are three typical stories, all of them found among the 37 reviews currently posted on our site. It’s pretty much the same story, give or take. Each of them supports the finding from research at Blue Shield of California and Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, that the more anxious the pre-op patient, the more dramatically better they feel with guided imagery. Go figure.
-
Read more »In this small pilot study, researchers from the Tacoma VA Medical Center tested the impact of yoga nidra (iRest®), a form of guided mindfulness meditation, on women veterans suffering from symptoms of sexual trauma and military sexual trauma.
Ten women participants experienced nineteen 90-minute sessions, twice a week, for 10 weeks, except for one week with a holiday.
Participants completed self-report measures pre- and post-treatment: the Brief Symptom Inventory-18 (BSI), Posttraumatic Cognitions Inventory (PTCI), and the Post-traumatic Stress Disorder Check List (PCL).
-
Posted: July 20, 2016Categories: Professional E-Newsletter Volume FiveRead more »
We are utterly elated to announce our new and improved Private Label Download Launch.
We can now give you a quick, easy, low-cost way to provide our guided imagery and meditation downloads to the people you serve, whether they are iPhone and iDevice users or Droid People, Mac or PC peeps…..
This new platform works whether you’re part of a hospital, clinic, group practice, social service agency, health spa, EAP, student health department, executive coaching service, cancer treatment center, etc.
Here’s how it works:- We build your organization a custom page, with your messaging and brand.
- You pre-select the downloads that, in your considered opinion, your people need most.
- We offer budget-friendly, quantity pricing for them, starting with a minimum order of 500 downloads.You send your people to the page, where they have free access to the titles you recommend.
- The downloads are equally accessible to iPhones and other iDevices as they are to Android users and desktops, thanks to our new app. (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/my-hj/id1108318326?mt=8)
- We support ongoing success by sharing back-end data to help you adjust your selections, tweak your messaging and evaluate the effectiveness of the program.
Simply put, it allows you a quick, easy and low-cost way to get the audio downloads you’ve pre-selected into the ears of the people you serve, at no cost to them and at way discounted cost to you.
A sample page of what we could build gives you the idea. Check it out and all will be revealed. (You'll need this passcode to get into it: HJTrialPage )
(p.s. We also have a fantastic new app for iDevice users that purchase individual downloads – check out the details here if you’re interested: https://www.healthjourneys.com/weeklyupdates/FreeApp.html -
Posted: July 20, 2016Categories: Professional E-Newsletter Volume Five
Read more »In other news, we’re pumped to add Julie Lusk’s two new guided meditation audio titles to our library. As many of you already know, Julie is a well-known author, guided imagery trainer, yoga instructor and stress reduction expert, whose latest titles are Guided Mindfulness Meditations: Practicing Presence & Finding Peace and Yoga Nidra: Guided Meditations for Relaxation & Renewal.
Several of you have already asked about how these differ from Traci Stein’s new mindfulness offerings – Mindfulness Meditations: Finding Peace & Perspective in the Present Moment and Mindful Meditation Mix. Great question! Mindfulness takes many forms, and there’s something for everyone in the marvelous range it covers.
Basically, Traci’s work is psychologically geared, and deploys all therapeutic nuances of her training as a psychologist and hypnotherapist, focusing brilliantly on issues of self-esteem, attitude change and motivation for new behavior. Her soothing, hypnotic pacing and poetic language reflect this approach and know-how. (Listen to an audio sample)
On the other hand, Julie’s work reflects her decades of work as a brilliant yoga teacher, with mindfulness content that focuses on body awareness, physical sensation and supreme knowledge of how to position the body. From this centered core of body awareness, she leads listeners into organic behavior and attitude change. The Yoga Nidra has its own centuries-old logic and structure that works like a charm every time. (Listen to an audio sample)
Julie’s pacing is a little faster than Traci’s, her narrative more conversational and less immersive. This will suit some people who don’t want to get too relaxed – we’ve sometimes found this preference among some of our service personnel, who enjoy the peppier pace.
In all, we’re thrilled about the variety of options we can offer you and the people you serve.
As always, feel free to call us with your questions or to get our take on your unique practice or facility.
-
Read more »Talk about feeling vulnerable twice over! This question came from a woman who loses her speech in stressful situations, probably brought on by the death of her spouse. As I say in the reply, this is a situation made to order for generating panic attacks, and she’s got enough trouble as it is. Check it out – this reaction is more common than you might think.
-
Posted: July 18, 2016Categories: Update from Health Journeys
Read more »Please listen up, long-suffering iPeople! We have heard your pain. The Cavalry is here!
You can now download our guided imagery audios directly to your iPhone, iPad, or iPod, thanks to our new free app.
Truly, Cheryl, Maggie and Elizabeth have shared your pain. They’re the ones who’ve been answering dozens of calls each day from baffled people asking how to get our downloads into their Apple devices. The answer involved a multi-step process that was a pain in the tush for all concerned.
Sometimes callers would just throw their hands up and go to iTunes for our audios. The problem is not everything in our library is there.
So at last, we’ve got a simple, easy solution for this!
