with Maria Kalima, RN, MS, E-RYT, Ayurvedic Practitioner

Ayurveda, Yoga’s Sister Science, is an ancient healing modality based upon knowledge and awareness of the qualities of nature. Given that we are inherently one with the nature around us, we can start to view the changes of the seasons as key components to our body’s changing needs.

The Vata Season of Ayurveda is the late Fall/Early Winter time of year, when the heat of the summer is often times still built up within us, and the dry air quality of the Fall comes into play. Both of these combined can be felt as a bloating, yet very dry quality in the body and a sense of scattered thoughts and even exhaustion in the mind and body. The Fall season is a great time for releasing the built up heat of summer, nourishing the nervous system and then providing a sense of “refreshment” for the upcoming Winter season.

Although each season is perfect in its own way, there are imbalances that can occur as we move thru our stressful daily lives. Vata out of balance can manifest as dry skin, hair and mucus membranes, a feeling of tiredness to deep exhaustion, nervousness to anxious depression and slow digestion to constipation.

If you want to cleanse safely, joyfully and with guidance, consider joining Maria for 2 weeks of guided cleansing. This is NOT a fast. Maria brings to the celebration of Fall a specialized cleanse based on her vast knowledge and training in Ayurveda, yoga therapy, and wellness eating. She will guide you in this journey through the seasons at the level of your choice.

Program Includes:

$75 Baseline Cleanse for all includes:

• Pre-Cleanse instructions
• First night pre-cleanse lecture presentation fo the concepts and principles of the cleanse. (NOTE: Arrive at 5:45 for an optional ayurvedic yoga class prior to lecture – RSVP required – NO EXTRA FEE)
• Full Cleanse Lecture – Wednesday, October 5
• Ending Cleanse Lecture – Monday, October 10
• Cleanse instructions:
  • How to administer home treatments
  • Background Ayurvedic information
  • Daily contact emails with cleanse updates, reminders and encouragements
  • Cleansing recipes
  • List of other participants for support (optional to have name on list)

$100 Cleanse Herbs and Supplies:

• The key herbs (to be started during the cleanse and continued for approximately 1 month). All herbs are organic and trustworthy in their quality

Other Cleanse Options:

$65 Initial private Ayurvedic consultation with Maria (optional for those who want a more customized program)
NOTE: price is decreased for cleansers only.

$150 Full Bliss treatment w/ Maria – Marma massage, Herbalized full body steam treatment, Shirodhara
(NOTE: this treatment includes a mini ayurvedic consultation)

$65 Exit consultation including a wellness plan from Maria
(Optional: the standard cleanse will include a generic wellness plan)

$175 Cleanse meals for 5 days: 3 meals/day for 5 days
(If you don’t want to prepare your own meals, pick up will be designated; local cleansers ONLY)

NOTE: Additional herbs or teas will be recommended during the Fall cleanse. These are optional and offered at a separate charge depending on item.

Dates of cleanse:

• Friday, September 30 at 7pm PST is the first night of lecture
• Cleanse thru Wednesday, October 12

To have a successful cleanse a pre-cleanse is strongly suggested. The first 5 days will be a Pre-cleanse, the next 5 days will be a Full Cleanse, followed by specific instructions for nourishing and refreshing. All three lectures will be recorded and available for all who have signed up.

Participation is limited in order to provide quality support to each person.

Final Note: For Cleansers outside of Tucson, there will be a separate charge of $6 to mail supplies per person.

Email Maria at MariaAlive (at) aol (dot) com for questions.

Ask The Doctor

Dr. Swidler was interviewed by Traci Moore to answer some dental questions that are important to Natural Awakenings’ readers. We listed the article below, but if you would like, you can download the entire article here.

Dr. Steven Swidler of Medicine Wheel Dental received his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Illinois and his dental degree (DDS) from the University of Illinois dental school in 1972. After two years in clinical and private practice in Chicago, Dr. Swidler relocated to Tucson, where he became deeply committed to holistic and integrative dental approaches. He lectures nationally and internationally on topics related to innovative dental therapies. Dr. Swidler answers Natural Awakenings’ questions about alternative dentistry.

Are there any natural alternatives to a root canal?

When a tooth becomes painful and shows early signs of dying, dentists generally either perform a root canal or extract the tooth. There is, however, an alternative treatment that involves the use of a natural, rice bran-based material. This material contains 70 natural antioxidants and calms nerve tissue. In a 12-year clinical study, the material has had a greater than 80% success rate keeping teeth living and healthy when three conditions are present: the tooth is still vital; the nerve, even if exposed, is still alive; and the anesthetic is effective in numbing the tooth.

What is TMJ dysfunction and how is it treated?

The temporomandibular joint (TMJ) is the jaw joint located on either side of your head, just in front of your ear. When a patient’s bite is “off,” the jaw may become misaligned, which can create headaches, a tight neck, a stiff or painful jaw, and even shoulder, back, hip or knee pain. An expanded bite evaluation during a dental exam can determine how a jaw/bite problem may be affecting the body’s alignment and function. With the aid of dental appliances, patients can gradually re-establish a neutral jaw position so their TM joint can heal, relieving more than 80% of overall symptoms within one to five months. Many other modalities, like one-on-one yoga, massage, and cranial osteopathy can also help eliminate strain or injury and strengthen new body movement patterns.

Are silver fillings really a health concern?

Often mistakenly called “silver” because of their appearance, these fi llings are actually amalgams, composed of 50% mercury. Mercury is the number one neurotoxin. The free ions in mercury can move through tissue and into the blood, cross the blood brain and placental barriers, and distribute mercury throughout the body. When a person with a mercury amalgam fi lling (no matter the age of the fi lling) chews food or drinks a hot beverage, a measurable amount of mercury vapor is emitted. If you decide to have your amalgam fi llings removed, remember that mercury amalgams should be removed only with very safe protocols to prevent you from being exposed to even higher levels of mercury. Speak to your dentist about protective protocols for amalgam removal before considering this action.

Do you recommend dental implants?

In general, dental implants are an excellent method for replacing missing teeth. However, it’s important to consider that the body’s white blood cells constantly fight bacteria and viruses in the blood. Because these bacteria and viruses often settle around foreign implants in the body (knees, hips, jaws, etc.), some dentists will prescribe antibiotics after dentistry in an attempt to prevent bacteria from entering the blood stream and settling around these foreign materials. Until a ceramic or other material is developed that stops unhealthy bacteria from gathering in no-circulation areas, dental implants, despite their obvious benefi ts, may pose a health concern.

Dr. Swidler contributed to the sections regarding: Stress: Easing Up on Life and Spirit: Beyond the Body

Stress: Easing Up on Life

Recognizing how intricately each part of the body functions in connection to every other part is where these holistic physicians place their emphasis. “Happiness is influenced by a lot of things. You can take someone who eats well but if they live under tremendous stress, it’s difficult,” says Cabin.

Stress is a normal physical reaction to threatening situations, according to the Mayo Clinic. However, what may be a normal, healthy reaction on occasion becomes a health risk when one’s lifestyle generates stress on a consistent basis.“Stress symptoms can affect your body, your thoughts and feelings, and your behavior,” warns the Mayo Clinic.

One stress symptom people are often unaware of is jaw clenching or grinding while they are sleeping. Jaw clenching doesn’t just jeopardize your dental health. But it can actually overload the body’s entire system and cause pain throughout your entire body, according to Steven Swidler, DDS, owner of Medicine Wheel Dental, a holistic dental practice in Tucson.

“I tell people, lips together, jaw relaxed,” Swidler says. “he only time your teeth are touching is chewing or swallowing. Think of it as a tuner on a radio. When your jaw is relaxed, the signal is on the right station, but when you bite down, you’re in between stations and there’s a lot of static going to all your muscles, all your organs.” For example, he adds, simply by adjusting your jaw, you can notice relief in lower back pain.

Spirit: Beyond the Body

“I find that once a person is back in balance, in a state of wellness, they are able to choose for themselves the next steps to take to stay in health,” says Phelps.

Yantra Yoga Image

It’s true that adjusting diet and addressing stress management will

take you far in your pursuit of health and happiness, but it’s also crucial to not forget the spiritual component of total wellness.

“I don’t think that you can be happy without having some sort of spiritual understanding of the world,” says Ackerly. “It may be religion, it may be family, it may be a job – but that sense of meaning is really important.”

Swidler begins his day with prayer for guidance, and Cabin practices his own form of spirituality as artfully as he practices holistic medicine. Many of the professionals cited in this article are also strong advocates of regular yoga and meditation for bringing balance to even the most hectic of lifestyles.

Click here to read the entire article from The New Southwest.

Healthy teeth reflect a healthy body, mind

The New Southwest featured Dr. Swidler in this article reflecting on total body wellness. Posted here is an excerpt, but the article is terrific, click here to read it in its entirety.

But what if we experienced dentistry as a portal to high-level wellness for the whole body? Mind? Spirit? What if we said, “My knee is killing me and I’m exhausted all the time. I wonder if my body and jaw are misaligned?” Or we left a dental office feeling refreshed, on the path to reinvigorated head to toe health?

“What would [health] look like at its best?” is a personal challenge that has guided Dr. Steven Swidler, D.D.S. from traditional premed studies to holistic dentistry.

Holistic dentistry provides support for the whole human being, honoring the vital connection between the spiritual, physical, and emotional. In its most primitive form, it “recognizes there’s a person attached to the tooth. We’re not here to fix the tooth and traumatize the person,” says Swidler, founder of Medicine Wheel Dental, an integrative dental practice.

The need to honor his own spirit, mind, and body is what led Swidler into dentistry in the first place. “You know how you start on a path in life and you feel like it’s taking you, instead of you choosing it?” he asks. He experienced that when he was a premed student at the University of Illinois, so he stepped back and envisioned all the things he truly loved. “Biology, helping people, arts and crafts. I wanted to be my own boss.” What could possibly meet all those requirements? Dentistry. Of course.

The Body/Jaw Alignment workshop scheduled for Fall 2011 touches on topics exclusive to Dr. Swidler and Medicine Wheel Dental.

We thought you might enjoy a little preview of the Percussion Table®. Dr. Swidler briefly discusses his journey and gives a quick overview of the table. Enjoy!

For more information on the workshop click here or call Maria at 520-904-3939. See you in the fall.

Three Powerhouse Alternative Healing Practices

Dr. Swidler and Medicine Wheel Dental were chose as one of three “powerhouse” alernative healing practices in Tucson. We listed an except from the article below (the part about Dr. Swidler of course), but you can download the entire article here.

The Medicine Wheel Dental Holistic Integrative Team holds the firm conviction that holistic dental care is a major key to establishing and stabilizing optimal health. The team’s approach to complete wellness combines traditional dentistry with naturopathic, homeopathic and alternative modalities. Steven A. Swidler, D.D.S., founded his practice 34 years ago with a three-pronged care approach: eliminating disease and infection, balancing alignment, and implementing biocompatible materials to restore an optimal bite. All aspects of general and cosmetic dentistry are expertly engaged against a backdrop of holistic techniques for whole-body health. Dr. Swidler and his team use integrative and holistic approaches to address their clients’ dental concerns. He describes this as “taking patients through the layers of the onion to high-level wellness.” The “onion” represents the body’s connective tissue system, likened to a “body glove” of layers and patterns that support your organs, blood vessels and glands. Strain patterns from physical, mental and emotional traumas in ever-deeper layers distort this glove. Postural realignment increases overall function and creates better health, he says. Medicine Wheel Dental offers a head-to-toe examination.

Dr. Steve Swidler

Bite and jaw problems are approached from a balanced alignment perspective, using equal and opposing body/cranial motion. With 40 percent of your body’s nerves located between your eyes and your chin, the jaw acts as a radio tuner, affecting the alignment of your neck and even your hips, Dr. Swidler says. Jaw misalignments can lead to back and head pain, even low energy and emotional “short fuses.”

Dr. Swidler delves into your dental history, examining years of prior care. Past bodily ills offer clues to current problems. One example is the much-reported adversities resulting from toxic mercury in older silver fillings. His state-of-the-art protocols for identifying and removing these fillings ensure minimal toxic exposure. Another difficulty called “galvanism” could be the culprit, which is the result of having dissimilar and conflicting metals in your mouth. Another preventive approach used at Medicine Wheel Dental is a digital x-ray machine that limits patients’exposure to one-ninth of regular x-rays.

Dr. Swidler likes to educate the public about what he calls the “dark side” of root canals. “Using alternative materials and treating nerve (pulp) exposure with natural antioxidants, we have been able to save teeth for patients who were told they needed root canals by keeping the tooth alive,” he says. “Each tooth is a living system with its own circulation; its health or disease can affect other organs, systems and meridians.”

As part of Dr. Swidler’s regular care, he offers a Cranial Sacral Osteopathic approach by experienced practitioners. Cranial Sacral work is a gentle, hands-on method of evaluating and enhancing the body’s whole system of membranes and cerebrospinal fluids that surround and protect the brain and spinal cord. Other Medicine Wheel Dental practitioners offer massage and Dr. Swidler has invented a Percussion Table® that can be tuned in frequency and amplitude to the body’s tissue tension. Using the table’s feedback, the doctor can eliminate stress patterns and traumas. These traumas build up in “onion” layers over time and affect the entire alignment of the body. “It is vital before changing a jaw alignment to identify and eliminate the old patterns first, so as to not build on an unaligned body structure,” he explains.“People come to me from all over the country,” Dr. Swidler, whose face lights up with intense excitement about the ever-expanding nature of his discoveries.

He developed his whole-body dentistry and treatment modalities through 30 years of clinical research into temporal mandibular joint (TMJ) and bite dysfunction. He also studied chiropractic and osteopathic wisdom, which maintain there is a “twin” relationship between the skull base and the sacrum of the lower spine and, indeed, the entire spine. Dr. Swidler takes the concept a step further into what he calls a “triplet” relationship. For example, if the jaw is misaligned, then the cranial base and hips are too. Hips out of position can create tissue restrictions that, in turn, impair blood and lymphatic flow, nerve and muscular function. The result can be sciatic, hip, sacral, back, neck and knee pain.

There’s a whole, holistic world of health to discover at Medicine Wheel Dental. Perhaps one professional’s endorsement of this practitioner says it best. Dr. Weil, featured elsewhere in this issue, declares, “He’s my dentist …need I say more?”

Body/Jaw Alignment: The Integrative Team Approach

Fall 2011

Join Steven Swidler, DDS and his Wellness Team to learn about Medicine Wheel Dental’s new highly effective, cutting edge approach to TMJ issues, along with their unique integrative team method to whole client care.

Combining structurally trained yoga therapists, osteopathic cranial techniques, massage therapists, the Percussion Table© and dental team, Medicine Wheel Dental created a straight forward and highly effective approach using the “Whole Body as the Articulator ©”

Dr. Swidler utilizes customized dental appliances to create a neutral TMJ position while releasing strain patterns through Cranial Osteopathy, Massage Therapy and the Percussion Table ©.  In addition, body use/misuse patterns are analyzed and corrective individual attention is incorporated through the concepts of Functional Yoga Therapy.

The Body/Jaw Alignment workshop will be the first one conducted in our brand new studio over looking the beautiful mountains of Tucson. For more information check out our  Workshops web page or call Maria at 520-904-3939.

We will be conducting a variety of workshops starting Fall 2011. We will announce all workshops on our website and blog. Stay tuned…

If this is your first time to our site, please visit the Start Here section of our website. We look forward to providing you with the best possible total body wellness care.

With awareness we can make a choice to make a difference in ourselves and others. We can create relief and the opportunity for wellness by being present with supportive, compassionate care.