February 23. Coldest Night of the Year! Fundraiser Walk. The Comox Valley Transition Society and Dawn to Dawn are teaming up for our second annual Coldest Night of the Year Walk to end homelessness. This family event will take place in downtown Courtenay. For event details or to volunteer, walk by yourself, join a team or start a team at CNOY.org/location/comoxvalley

Research shows that on a conventional and scientific level that we can communicate with trees. To communicate with a tree, using your hands, connect with its energy field. With your heart ask permission to spend time with it. Place your hands on the tree, smell, feel and touch it’s leaves. Stand and hug or sit with your back against it’s trunk. Sit quiet and connect with the spirit within you. Ask a question and breathe in your answer. Thank the tree before leaving. This takes practise but overtime your communication will intensify.

Thinking about some resolutions for the New Year? Quitting smoking may be the most important change you can make to improve your health. There are numerous immediate benefits to quitting smoking including reducing your blood pressure and heart rate, improving your sense of taste and smell, and improving your circulation, making it easier to exercise. With every year that you are smoke free, your risk of stroke and lung cancer decreases. After 15 years, your risk of a heart attack is the same as someone who has never smoked. (source: www.quitnow.ca). Talk to your healthcare professional today about quitting. It’s never too late!

There are athletes and non-athletic types alike who consume kombucha regularly, not only for improved digestion and energy, but because they find it supports their mobility and speeds their exercise recovery. Many lab studies have confirmed that properly brewed kombucha contains several specific constituents that can directly improve joint health. Among these important substances, we find glucuronic acid, which is a detoxification agent otherwise only found in a healthy liver. Additionally, kombucha contains tissue-rebuilding enzymes such as chondroitin sulphate, heparin, hyaluronan, mucoitin sulphate, and the more well-known glucosamine, which is a primary building block of tendons, ligaments, and cartilage.

Most conventional skincare products contain irritants like alcohols, sulphates and formaldehyde-releasing preservatives. These chemicals strip the skin of its natural oils, dissolve beneficial bacteria, and irritate the skin, leaving it sensitive, reddened and inflamed. By stripping the natural oils in your skin, your sebaceous glands either start to overcompensate, producing excess oils which results in an oily complexion, or become overly dehydrated, leading to dryness, sensitivity, and premature wrinkling. Oil cleansing is a gentle alternative to using conventional cleansers. Plant-based oils gently bind to and remove dirty oils and makeup from the surface of the skin, replacing them with nourishing oils. Great for all skin types!

Rather than bore you with New Year’s resolutions, here’s some food for thought for your finances in 2019: Never mind the negative news and the loses in stock markets – THIS IS NORMAL. Maybe not comfortable, but normal. Stay invested and don’t fear stocks. Growth doesn’t come without some pain and nothing worth having comes easy. Take advantage of drops in the market with monthly contributions and buy in at lower prices. Great news for investors, the new TFSA contribution limit for 2019 has gone up to $6,000! Here’s to your happiness, health, and wealth for the new year and beyond!

2018 is over and you’ve made resolutions. 2019 is different! Or have you sworn off resolutions because its “futile” and your tried of failure. What if your understanding of failure is the problem? And doing something wrong is the way to arrive at your goal. An example is the black box of an airplane. If examined would reveal it is off course 50-70% of the time. So how can that be if it arrives on time at its destination? The reason; it self-corrects its course all the time. Resolutions are the same. We can help you keep your resolutions!

IMS stands for “intramuscular stimulation“ and refers to the insertion of a fine needle (such as an acupuncture needle) into muscle tissue to release shortened muscle fibers. It can also be called trigger point or functional dry needling. Some physiotherapists and other health care practitioners utilize this technique to decrease tension in muscles that may be compressing nerves, restricting joint mobility, or otherwise causing pain and irritability. IMS can be extremely effective in the treatment of various conditions from headaches to tennis elbow to low back pain. When combined with the appropriate exercises it can provide long lasting results.

Diana Beresford-Kroeger, a world-renowned natural scientist, has concluded that trees contain natural medicines to keep them healthy. They share those medicines with us. “Aerosols flood the air and bathe every part of the body, the skin, the mouth, the nasal passages with medicinal molecules”. This is known as forest bathing. Diana believes that if everyone planted one tree every year for six years, climate change would be solved.