Early October and already the trees are turning in Silicon Valley. In Los Altos, the oaks, madrones and Asian fruit trees are springing in colors of crimson and gold and the farmer’s market apples are the sweetest, fattest and most juicy. I’ve been thinking about what I have done in the summer and where I am taking stock of what still needs be planned for the winter. October is a precious place of both bustle and quiet and getting in the last light-filled nutrients of the summer. While you’re doing that, don’t forget the health of other places in your body and your life…first, the source of all nutrition from the moment we are born: the breasts.
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. As with my newsletter, The Catalyst, we are focusing this month in this blog on natural health strategies to prevent Breast Cancer. First, I’m going to point you towards a wonderful Breast Cancer blog, by an R.N. and Breast Cancer survivor, Lillie Shockney, of Johns Hopkins University. In her October 2 post, Lillie writes:
Now that it’s October, you won’t be able to turn on the television, open a woman’s magazine, or listen to the radio without hearing public service announcements related to breast cancer awareness. Forty years ago this was a hushed disease that was barely discussed in the privacy of one’s home, much less in public.
Today, breast cancer is front and center in the public eye. That’s good news. The more we educate women about this disease, the more women will be diagnosed early and become long-term survivors like myself.
I hope that during this month you will consider doing several things:
- Encourage someone you love to get her annual mammogram. (Include yourself!) Screening mammography facilities book fast, so call now and schedule yours. Take your sister or mom with you. Go to lunch afterwards knowing that you’ve done the right thing for your families by maintaining your breast health.
- Participate in a breast cancer awareness event. There are many to choose from: Race for the Cure, Avon’s 2 Day Walk, Making Strides Against Breast Cancer. Your local breast center may be planning some events that you could join. These events raise local awareness and funds for education and research.
- Donate to a breast cancer organization. The funds raised today will help us find the cure so our daughters won’t have to worry about this disease in the future.
- Wear a pink ribbon to promote awareness.
- Write to a friend or relative who is a breast cancer survivor and tell her how proud you are of her for having taken on this disease and overcome it.
- Write to a friend or relative who has lost a loved one to this disease to say that you are making a donation in her memory.
- Attend women’s health seminars that discuss breast cancer to empower yourself with information about this disease: early detection, prevention, and treatment.
The day will come when breast cancer appears in the textbooks in the chapter "Cured Diseases." Until then, we need to do the right thing for ourselves and those we love.
- From: http://blogs.health.yahoo.com/experts/breastcancer/109/october-is-breast-cancer-awareness-month
This is an excerpt. You can read more of this post by clicking the link above, or go to the homepage of Lillie’s blog here: http://blogs.health.yahoo.com/experts/breastcancer
As much as you enjoy, and have had your children and lovers enjoy the beauty and nurture of your breasts, remember to enjoy and appreciate "your girls" and do that self-check like clockwork.
And, I may be branded a heretic for saying this, but ONCE A MONTH IS NOT ENOUGH!
My mother, grandmother and auntie died of breast cancer….I do not intend to. If you don’t either, there are some simple things you can do to prevent it. Go along to Lillie’s blog and read her tips there and keep this one in mind as well: the more you handle your breasts, the better you will know them and be sensitised to even minute changes in them. That once a month breast-check doctors advocate is not enough to tell you this information for sure. When you give your breasts a healthy, loving daily massage, you’ll know right on the minute if and when something isn’t quite right.
I find it best to incorporate breast-massage into my daily routine, both when I first roll out of bed and before bed. This helps the lymphatic system to draw away toxins and any waste products the breast tissue might excrete, or toxins from other parts of the body that are naturally drawn to embed in fatty tissue like the breasts. Here’s how you can safely massage your breasts and create a mental "map" of them both in your head and fingertips so you will be aware of any changes as they occur, every day:
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Use the pads of your fingers to lift the breast tissue up and massage the crease beneath both breasts. This feels really good after taking your bra off, in addition to every morning and evening, when you want to make sure any sluggish bodily byproducts are massaged out of the breast tissue to be taken away by the lymph system.
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Speaking of bras, don’t wear bras with metal underwires. In addition to cutting off your natural flow of energy at the breast, they dig in and compress acupuncture points, which can have deleterious effects on the immune system, liver, spleen, chest and breast tissue.
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Take one breast in both hands and alternately compress the left and right hands around the tissue, working out towards the nipple from the chest wall. Move your hands into a slightly different position and continue until you feel "done". Repeat on the other breast. This feels really good, and will give you a good idea of where your natural "lumpiness" if any, lies.
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Take one hand and massage the entire breast surface (making small circles then moving on a few fingerwidths to the next spot) in a clockwise motion, going outward from the nipple towards the chest wall in an ever-widening spiral.
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Massage above the top of the breast, on the pectoral muscle. This as most of the above moves can be easily and quickly accomplished in the shower, with plenty of soap lather in lieu of massage oil, to ease friction on the sensitive breast tissue.
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Lift both breasts, especially if heavy, and allow to remain suspended as high as you can lift them, for several minutes. Standing on your head if you’re an accomplished yogini, is the best way to accomplish this. Failing that, less limber gals can hang torsos upside down, off the end of our beds. Breasts love to "hang out in reverse" – opposite to the way they fall when we are upright.
Most of us just ignore our two best girlfriends, because they hang out under our chins all day every day anyway. Why pay special attention to them? Why indeed! Think of having this increased good relationship with your body not so much as "breast cancer prevention", but "Breast Awareness" and promoting "Best Breast Health". Love your breasts completely, even if they’re not as big or small as you want them to be, even if they’re not "perfect". Few people are perfect, but you have the most perfect breasts for you that there will ever be. Appreciate them.
Here’s to our breasts – not a one of us would be alive without their wonderful nurture!
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