Current Issue

The Diet Dilemma: Finding a Sustainable Path to Health
by Judith Graile

As spring arrives, you might find yourself thinking about getting into shape for your favorite summer outfit. While it's natural to want to feel your best as the warmer months draw near, it's important to approach this goal with a mindset of long-term health and well-being. In a world obsessed with quick fixes and miracle weight loss solutions, navigating the maze of diets can be overwhelming. From ketogenic to low-calorie approaches, each diet promises extraordinary results, but which one actually delivers sustainable health benefits? Let's dive deep into some of the most talked-about dietary approaches and uncover what science really says about their long-term effectiveness.

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What the Cup?!
What is myofascial cupping and why is it becoming so popular now?
by Paul Buffel

Eastern style cupping therapy has been used for thousands of years focusing on the meridian system, stationary cupping, and as in intended outcome of the therapeutic goal, marking where the cup is applied. A recently developed form of cupping is becoming increasingly popular due to a growing body of research and discoveries about our fascial system and its central role in movement, pain, and the immune response. Myofascial cupping can be used on its own, or in conjunction with other therapies, to address many common conditions, injuries, and pain syndromes that many seek treatment for. Cups may be “parked” for short durations of time, but are otherwise used in motion. Some treatments also use simultaneous movement by the client, providing profound changes in range of motion, tension reduction, and pain relief. Physiotherapist Dr. Chris DaPrato of the University of California, San Francisco Health, using functional MRI to show the positive effects of this type of cupping treatment, presented his research at the last International Fascia Research Congress in Montreal.

Healing Your Emotional Wounds Through Conscious Movement
by Lorrel Elian

Do you ever dislike how it feels when you do physical activity like a gym workout or yoga? Occasionally one of my yoga students will say they feel nauseous. Occasionally newbies quit because they just couldn’t get past the sensations in their body. Not until I was forty eight did I find a style of yoga that I didn’t absolutely hate. Only after consistent classes did my body start to reveal to me a whole new world of pain-free pleasure I would never have expected to find on a yoga mat. Most impressive to me was how my attitude about my body started to change. I fell deeply into a love affair with this method that was teaching me to be consciously in my body. Each class left me craving more, and I never looked back. But this isn’t about yoga.

Preventing Osteoporosis and Promoting Your Bone Health
by Dr. Louise Gagné

Osteoporosis is a skeletal disorder. It is characterized by compromised bone strength that predisposes individuals to a higher risk of fracture. You can use many strategies to strengthen your bones and reduce your risk of osteoporosis. These include an anti-inflammatory diet, stress reduction, supplements and regular exercise. Your bone mass peaks at approximately 30 years of age. However, repair and renewal of bone continues throughout your life. About 15% of your bone mass turns over each year.

Natural Health Products on the Brink of Extinction
by Michelle Schoffro Cook, PhD, DNM

If I told you that your favourite natural remedies for sleep, digestion, energy, and pain relief were about to go the way of the dinosaur, you probably wouldn’t believe it. Unfortunately, it’s true. Thanks to recent legislative changes in Canada, these remedies and many other herbal medicines, probiotics, nutrients, and other natural health products are about to go missing from store shelves and from the Canadian natural health products marketplace entirely. The industry risks decimation. And, if the loss of critical natural health products (NHPs) wasn’t enough, many natural health product manufacturers, distributors, retailers, and natural health practitioners like herbalists, homeopaths, naturopathic doctors, nutritionists, may also go out of business as they lack the tools to achieve effective health outcomes for patients, and face massive financial risk as well.

Five Elements in Sound
by Tara Semple

My favourite place to be, is deep in the Sound Field. I often wake up in the morning and find myself sitting in the quiet of my sound studio. Slowly waking up, while softly letting the sounds out of the instruments that are before me, I listen deeply into each sound and wonder what wisdom it has for me. Can I listen to a sound, until my ear has to reach to grasp the end of it? What happens to a pitch when I stack sounds on it like a multi-layer cake? Does the speed of beats of one sound change in response to the other vibrations? When I sing a note, which of my instruments vibrate and join in the resonance of my voice? What qualities in this sound catch my ear? Where do I feel this frequency in my body? Does this sound engage me… Quiet my mind… Or simply wash over me…? There are more questions than answers when I am quiet in my listening.

Breaking Free from the Pain of Trauma: Heal, Grow, and Thrive
by Giti Caravan

Trauma has a way of sneaking into every corner of your life, shaping your choices, your relationships, and even how you see yourself. It whispers lies like, “You’re not enough” or “If you just try harder, everything will be okay.” Before you know it, you’re trapped in painful cycles—people-pleasing, toxic relationships, and misplaced empathy—desperately trying to fix the world around you while your own needs go unmet. If this sounds familiar, take a moment to breathe. This is not your forever. At Caravan Counselling, we believe that the pain of trauma doesn’t have to define you. In fact, with the right guidance and support, that pain can be transformed into wisdom and strength. Reclaim your identity after trauma and take back your true self.

Editorial
by Melva Armstrong

Welcome to the March/April 2025 issue, which completes 30 full years of publishing WHOLifE. I am ever grateful for being able to do this work for this length of time. I have been blessed with meeting and working with hundreds of people over the years, and I have many wonderful memories to hold in my heart. I was guided by spirit to start a wholistic health publication for Saskatoon in December 1994, and once it was established there, I eventually distributed it to various locations around the province, along with a few subscribers. This has been a very rewarding journey for me and I thank all those who have supported WHOLifE along the way, and there have been many. This March/April issue means that spring is just around the corner, and with it we will be letting go of the long, cold, snowy winter, and welcoming the warmer days and longer light, as we celebrate the sweet March 20th equinox!

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Plus:

Do You Trust Your Plate? by Dennis Bulani
All-Day Yoga: A New and Powerful Habit, by Reema Datta
News of Note