What Really Works: The Insider’s Guide to Complementary Health. Susan Clark

want a good complexion, swimming is the sport for you.

      Try not to develop just one stroke, because they all have different body toning benefits. The breaststroke, for example, tones the upper part of the body and the inner legs, but will exacerbate back problems. The crawl is a good aerobic exercise and will get the heart pumping, but if you are after serious levels of fitness you will need to practise the more demanding butterfly stroke. The backstroke releases stiff shoulder joints and is probably the gentlest way to get from one end of the pool to the other.

      At the end of your swim, tone your bottom with a series of leg squats before you jump out of the pool. Hold on to the side, bend your knees and turn them outwards, and then drop down, rather like an inelegant ballet dancer. Hold the squat for as long as feels comfortable for you, and repeat until your legs grow tired. The body has its own innate wisdom and the more you trust this, the more you will benefit from your chosen form of exercise.

      Yoga

      I could write pages and pages on the shapeshifting benefits of yoga. If you are serious about toning up, sweating a little and finding your Moola Bhanda (the muscles which keep a tummy tucked in) then turn to Hands-On, page 255, and read about astanga yoga, which helped Madonna regain her fantastic figure after childbirth. Astanga, though, is not for everyone and even the less dynamic forms of yoga will help trim tummies, tone waists, lift bottoms and increase your overall flexibility. Having seen yoga being taught badly in various gyms and church halls up and down the land, I thought it was an exercise cop-out – but I was wrong. With the right teacher you are going to make friends with muscles you thought you had left somewhere in your more active teens.

      Whichever type of yoga you favour, it will work on as deep a level as you choose. Force is never used, but you will learn how to control the breath to help tight muscles release, to stretch your body that little bit further and to master twists and leg raises which will help banish fat from around your waist. More importantly, what yoga will show you is that being happy with your shape is not about being fatter or thinner. It is about being strong, healthy and confident with the shape you are.

      A lot of the postures (or asanas) take their names from animals to give you a clue as to what they are all about. The Cat, for example, is practised in Pilates too and gives the spine a wonderful stretch. It also works the abdominal muscles and lifts the bottom. The Cobra revitalises abdominal muscles which may have become lazy and stimulates both the liver and pancreas so your appetite improves. It also heats up the body to help get rid of toxins. The Camel tones the entire pelvic region and so is great for women, and the simple leg raises, which are perfect for beginners, strengthen the stomach muscles and break down surplus fat.

      To get started, I recommend you find a good teacher in your area and take a few private classes. This means when you do join an established class you can really benefit from the postures and will not spend half the class worrying about the strange Sanskrit names of everyday positions which everyone else already knows. Yoga classes are excellent for overcoming inhibitions – nobody looks that good hanging upside down – and for helping you to feel comfortable with, and proud of, your body.

      Tai Chi and the Magic Wand

      Millions of Chinese men and women cannot be wrong. There is nothing more Zen-like than the site of a crowd of city dwellers, old and young, gathering under the spring blossom in a municipal park to practise their early morning Tai Chi exercises. A gentle, non-violent form of exercise that originated in Chinese martial arts and a Chinese philosophical system called Taoism, it consists of 108 complex and slow-motion movements that bring about mental, physical and spiritual harmony.

      As with other disciplines, there are less well-known forms of Tai Chi. One of my favourites is the Chinese wand workout. It puts the emphasis on having fun as you learn to rebalance your mind and your body, so you end up feeling even more relaxed. The wand is a 4-foot bamboo cane, but if the budget cannot stretch to that, you can use an old broom handle. All the exercises you then perform are designed to make you healthier. As well as encouraging greater flexibility, they will lower blood pressure, promote good digestion and help drain the lymphatic system, which clears toxins from the body and which, as we have learned, responds best to gentle movements.

      To improve digestion, for example, stand with the feet hip-width apart and hold the wand at the back of your neck. Bend forward slowly, releasing from the hips, as if moving into a bow. Keep the legs straight and avoid hunching the back. Hold this bow for a few seconds and move back into your starting position. (If you have done any yoga, a lot of these moves will come easily to you.)

      All this bending and twisting with a stick in your hands is not as bonkers as it sounds. Canes or wands were used in Traditional Chinese Medicine as a diagnostic tool to pinpoint imbalances in the body, and can still be helpful in detecting underlying postural and muscular problems which, if left uncorrected, may lead to more trouble in the long term.

      Whichever form of Tai Chi you decide to investigate, remember it is not demanding enough to give you an athletic level of fitness and will not increase cardiovascular performance, but it is the perfect shapeshifting exercise since it will make you feel – and look – taller, slimmer and more poised.

part two

       Top-to-Toe:

       An A–Z of 80 Ailments and their Treatment

       Introduction

      When seeking natural and complementary health remedies, you are going to be investigating three main areas – nutrition, herbalism and homeopathy. Often, a holistic practitioner, especially a naturopath who treats illness without resorting to conventional drugs, will prescribe a combination of all three. It helps before you begin to take some of the reponsibility for your everyday health into your own hands, to know some of the basic tools and the reasons you are likely to benefit from the following remedies.

      Nutrition – Why Take Supplements?

      In a perfect world we would not need to take dietary supplements, but with food production and processing techniques that strip so many natural nutrients from the raw ingredients, we need to supplement our dietary intake to come even close to getting optimum levels of these important vitamins, minerals and trace elements. Self-diagnosing for everyday ailments can be helpful in the short term, but if the problem persists, and for more serious conditions, it is always best to seek advice from a qualified nutritionist or naturopath. A simple biochemical sweat test or hair analysis will reveal exactly which minerals and vitamins your body is lacking, a good practitioner will prescribe the exact amount you need to take. One big problem with the Do-It-Yourself approach is that these substances can work with and against each other, and so levels of one nutrient can affect levels of another in the body. This is what nutritionists call synergy. If you take a calcium supplement, for example, for protection against osteoporosis in later life, you also need to take magnesium.

      I cannot understand why there is still any debate over whether supplementing a diet is helpful. My preference is to try the path of what I call ‘True Nutrition’ first, where you rely on natural foods to try and remedy the problem, but there can be no question there is an important place for supplements in holistic healthcare.

      One of the counter-arguments is that there is no scientific research to support the growing use of vitamin and mineral tablets. This is not true. The research is out there but it is often fragmented, which means you just have to look harder for it. It is true there is not the same volume of research as for allopathic medicine. One reason for this is that companies which make and sell natural products cannot by law patent the active (natural) ingredient. This acts as a disincentive, since a small company could practically bankrupt itself funding clinical trials, but would then have no way of preventing other companies from jumping on the bandwagon and using that research material to make the same product but sell it cheaper, since it has incurred no research costs. This is an ongoing problem in complementary health,