the Anywhere Clinic

Nerdnote #135: a budget herbalist's solution for sprains!

I rolled my right ankle Monday morning while hiking the Lower Jordan Fire Trail in the Berkeley hills in the misty not quite rain. I was able to limp back to the car, leaning on my partner while she commented on what a miracle it is that I managed 7 months' worth of relaxin (a hormone released in pregnancy to relax the tendons and ligaments in preparation for childbirth) without sp...

excerpt from an email to a patient:

You can work on slow breathing. I mean really slow, smooth, and relaxed, like you're sipping sweet air through a straw that's the very back of your airways to fill up your lungs from the bottom to the top. I can get down to 2 breaths a minute (15 seconds inhale, 15 seconds exhale) but you can start by timing yourself breathing normally and try to cut that down by half. For example, if you breathe 12 breaths a ...

 "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." ~Anais Nin

Last week, I texted "It doesn't hurt to look at other options" to a friend who was considering moving. I have been thinking about that all week. I think I was wrong. Change hurts. It hurts to look at other options, because the very act of looking acknowledges the possibility of imminent change, and changing hu...

I hit myself in the face with a bungee cord while trying to untangle it from the spokes of my new bicycle today. It cut the bridge of my nose and bruised my left eyebrow. I wore a bandaid over the cut while I finished working, because it's pretty deep. I remember a time when this would have been mortifying; today it's just hilarious. My boss the podiatrist put a bandaid on it very gently after dabbing the blood off with gauze and recommended I go get a stitch. "I'm not allowed ...