I fall into the category of the “uninsurable.”

It doesn’t matter that I wake up most mornings to swim 160 laps, am borderline obsessed with eating salads and whole grains, and that I haven’t drank a drop of alcohol in 24 years; that I do yoga twice a week, keep a mood journal, engage in cognitive behavioral therapy, and have a rich spiritual life; that I take omega-3 fish oil capsules, vitamin D, calcium, and other supplements with my extra-pulp juice in the morning; or that I work really hard at communicating anger, frustration, and disappointment so that the repression of feelings doesn’t end up as a tumor somewhere inside my body.

I can’t get an individual or family plan short of signing up for a $10,000 deductible.

Because I have a history of depression.

Acupuncture is often touted as a “cure-all” for anything and everything. People seem to either think that acupuncture is an amazing alternative medicine or it is a placebo sham.

I first decided to try it in 2010 to see if it would be able to help ease my lifelong sleeping issues.

Usually I put a lot of thought into the medical providers I work with. In this case, I did not do any research into which practitioner I wanted to use; I simply chose the acupuncturist located one block from my house. It was certainly convenient, and seemed like a good idea at the time.

I recall those sessions as being strange. In addition to needles being placed all over my body, my sessions also involved smoke and fire. Sometimes, an herb would be placed on top of the acupuncture needles, then set on fire. Smoke was used in a procedure called “cupping” where glass jars were suctioned all over my back.

Psychologists are increasingly integrating alternative and complementary treatments into their work with clients, according to a recent article in Monitor on Psychology.

So what is alternative treatment? You may already have some experience with the most popular, according to the Monitor on Psychology. Meditation, biofeedback, hypnosis and progressive muscle relaxation are all popular complementary or alternative psychological treatments. 

Although you may be familiar with the most popular, there are dozens of alternative and complementary treatments, which typically fall into four categories:  mind-body medicine, biologically-based practices, manipulative and body-based practices and energy medicine.

Ein-shei Chen was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease) in 1995. Yet she hasn’t let the degenerative disease derail her daily life or dull her dreams. Chen is the president of the Motor Neuron Disease Association of Taiwan. She’s given speeches at ALS conferences all over the world. She’s even convinced the government to build an ALS clinic in her city of Taichung — the second facility in all of Asia.

Chen can only move her big toe. She writes emails and communicates with others using special technology. Composing an email with five short sentences takes her 20 minutes. But she continues to email with her family, friends and other ALS patients. She also visits patients in person with the help of her caregivers and relatives.

Chen’s remarkable story is featured in Richard Cheu’s empowering book Living Well With Chronic Illness: A Practical and Spiritual Guide. Cheu provides pastoral counseling to patients in New York City medical and hospice centers. He helps patients find peace with their illness and live their lives to the fullest.

Living with chronic pain is one of the most difficult things a person can do …

The term and concept of “stress” has become ingrained in our vernacular. There are scores of articles on how to manage stress in everything from our homes to our health to our workplace and for everyone from moms to dads to the kids. (I’ve written many myself.)

However, according to Dana Becker, Ph.D, author of the thought-provoking book One Nation Under Stress: The Trouble with Stress As An Idea, by focusing on how each person can manage stress, we’re obscuring the bigger picture and issues: the social, political and economic problems that spark and perpetuate our stress in the first place.

Today’s articles and rhetoric on stress imply that if we fix ourselves, we’ll fix everything. Instead of stress-reducing tips empowering us, according to Becker, “we’re being sold a bill of goods.” We’re buying into an illusion that “blames the victim.”

Do you want to improve your health and decrease your stress level?

If you’re experiencing some of the common symptoms of stress, such as irritability or anger, fatigue, feeling overwhelmed and changes in sleeping habits, then the physical and mental consequences of stress are all too clear.

And if you have made efforts to improve your stress levels, you’re not alone.  According to a new survey, Stress in America: Missing the Health Care Connection, which was conducted online by Harris Interactive, Americans think it’s important to improve their health and levels of stress.

Over the past five years, 60 percent of adults have tried to reduce their stress and more than half are still trying to meet this goal, according to the survey.

In fact, according to the survey’s findings, Americans are struggling to keep their stress at levels that they believe are healthy.  But how well do we do that?

Low salaries, lack of opportunity for advancement and heavy workloads have more than one-third of Americans reporting feeling chronic work stress.

And women are feeling it more acutely than ever.  After decades of making progress in the work force, many women are feeling less valued than men, according to a recent APA survey on Stress in the Workplace.  They’re feeling they don’t receive adequate monetary compensation for their work and feel that employers offer them fewer opportunities for internal career advancement than men.

Why are women feeling less appreciated than men, when it comes to compensation and why are they stressed by lack of opportunity?

Possibly because they are.

Have you tried to lose weight? 

More than one third of U.S. adults currently are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Physicians and other health care professionals urge us to lose weight or risk becoming vulnerable to a host of diseases, including diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease. Weight loss has become a national conversation.

On an individual basis, most of us either have tried to lose weight or are actively engaged in maintaining a healthy weight.  Why we struggle with weight and how best to lose weight are hotly debated topics.  The nation’s current weight struggles have been attributed to a range of biological, societal and personal problems such as unhealthy school lunches, media advertising, too much corn and corn syrup in our diets, sugar substitutes, lack of willpower, overreliance on fast and prepackaged foods and many more.

But what gets in the way of your ability to lose weight?

Like the flu, work stress has become epidemic. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that up to 40 percent of Americans rate their job stress as extremely high. The damage isn’t just emotional, however. Chronic stress debilitates the body and lowers resistance to disease. Fortunately, you can take simple steps to relax and beat the grind.

When Stress Works Overtime

Physiologically, working under constant stress is like racing your car’s engine with the parking brake on. Parts start wearing out. Integrative medicine expert Dr. Andrew Weil notes that while our minds have embraced modern life, our bodies haven’t changed much in ten thousand years. They are not designed for long, sedentary hours facing chronic anxiety.

A major culprit is the hormone cortisol. Cortisol plays a crucial role in the fight-or-flight response, arming us with short-term energy, enhanced memory and pain tolerance. However, extended stress triggers chronically elevated levels that lead to health problems. Common effects are insomnia, depression, poor memory, and lowered immunity. Longer term, cortisol overload contributes to heart disease, cancer and autoimmune disorders.

This guest article from YourTango was written by Mary Jo Rapini.

February is heart awareness month, so this study in the European Society of Cardiology caught my eye. It says that being unmarried increases the risk of fatal and non-fatal heart attacks in both men and women regardless of age.

Researchers also note that being married, especially among middle-aged couples, is associated with better prognosis of acute cardiac events before hospitalization and after reaching the hospital alive. Even when the couple is unmarried but co-habitating, there is a better prognosis after coronary events before and after hospitalization.

How can you gain these kinds of benefits from marriage?

Many people today find that there are not enough waking hours to accomplish all we need to do.  Work, long commutes, email, family responsibilities and household chores can eat up much of our waking time.

In order to get chores done or get in a little extra leisure time, many cut corners on sleep.  We rationalize that a few hours here and there won’t make much difference.

But sleep deprivation can have effects on both your mental and physical health.

So what are these negative effects of not getting enough sleep?