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Acorn Health Blog

What we love is great health...

...and we like to write about how we can all achieve better health, naturally. Sometimes tips on how you can DIY to better health and sometimes on the therapies that can make a difference to you, your health and wellbeing.
Thank you for reading, We hope you enjoy :)

Emotrance Treatment: Unlocking Emotional Well-Being

Therapies Posted by JadwigaPosted on Thu, June 01, 2023 10:47AM

In our pursuit of holistic well-being, we often explore various avenues to enhance our mental and emotional health. One such innovative approach that has gained traction in recent years is Emotrance treatment. This transformative therapy focuses on unlocking emotional blockages and fostering a harmonious flow of emotions. Join us as we delve into the world of Emotrance and discover its potential to enhance emotional well-being.

Understanding Emotrance

Emotrance is a powerful therapeutic technique that draws inspiration from energy psychology and Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). Developed by Dr. Silvia Hartmann, a renowned energy psychologist, Emotrance offers a unique approach to emotional healing and transformation. At its core, Emotrance recognizes that emotions are energy in motion and that blockages in this energy flow can lead to emotional disturbances and imbalances.

The Principles of Emotrance

Emotrance operates on several fundamental principles that guide its practice:

  1. Energy Flow: Emotions are seen as dynamic energies that must flow freely through the body. Blockages in this energy flow can manifest as emotional issues or discomfort.
  2. Subjective Experience: Emotrance acknowledges the subjective nature of emotions and emphasizes the individual’s personal experience as the foundation for healing.
  3. Intention: Intention plays a vital role in Emotrance, as the therapist and the client work together to direct and transform the energy of emotions towards positive outcomes.

The Emotrance Process

During an Emotrance session, the therapist assists the client in identifying emotional blockages and their associated physical sensations. By tuning into these sensations and using guided techniques, the therapist helps the client release and transform the stuck energy, facilitating a natural flow of emotions.

The treatment involves simple yet powerful techniques, such as focusing attention on the sensations, following the energy flow, and guiding the client towards a state of emotional resolution. The process allows individuals to gain insight, release pent-up emotions, and experience a profound sense of relief and liberation.

Benefits of Emotrance Treatment

Emotrance treatment has shown great promise in improving emotional well-being and fostering personal growth. Here are some of the potential benefits:

  1. Emotional Release: By releasing emotional blockages, Emotrance enables individuals to let go of negative emotions and experience a newfound sense of lightness and emotional freedom.
  2. Stress Reduction: The practice of Emotrance can help reduce stress and anxiety by facilitating the smooth flow of emotions, allowing individuals to navigate life’s challenges with greater resilience.
  3. Enhanced Emotional Intelligence: Through Emotrance, individuals can develop a deeper understanding of their emotional landscape, leading to improved emotional intelligence and better interpersonal relationships.
  4. Personal Empowerment: Emotrance empowers individuals to take an active role in their emotional well-being, providing them with practical tools to transform and manage their emotions.

Is Emotrance Right for You?

Emotrance can benefit anyone seeking to enhance their emotional well-being, regardless of age or background. Whether you are struggling with unresolved emotions, stress, or simply looking to deepen your self-awareness, Emotrance offers a unique approach to emotional healing and personal growth.

Final Thoughts

Emotrance treatment has emerged as a powerful and transformative approach to emotional healing. By acknowledging the energetic nature of emotions and facilitating their flow, Emotrance empowers individuals to unlock their emotional well-being and embrace a more fulfilling life.

Find out more about emotrance at Acorn


Is Your World Back & White?

Therapies Posted by JadwigaPosted on Wed, May 03, 2023 12:23PM

By Dr Ranjana Mitra

April was autism month, and it seems a good time to reflect on how this hugely significant, but still relatively unknown (in the public sphere) condition affects our day to day lives. Autism is widely misunderstood, and for many the word conjures an image of someone with a learning disability (LD). While autism and LD can go together, a lot of autistic people are highly intelligent and excel in their field. However they commonly have some challenges around social interactions, the ability to understand and express emotions, and the ability to cope with the changing demands of everyday life. Their lives are usually governed by routine, they may have certain sensory sensitivities and they may live with a lot of anxiety. Chris Packham’s brilliant series on the subject has shone light on the struggles many people on the autistic spectrum face, but have learnt to hide very well.  

A significant proportion of the couple conflict I see in the Counselling room is due to one partner having some autistic traits. Many of us live with these traits (as autism is a spectrum disorder) but do not have autism. Thus there are people who see the world in black and white, and cannot understand why their partner still talks to their sister after they have fallen out once; or why they can’t go to the same holiday destination each year, or don’t want to eat the same food all the time. Some describe being unable to connect with their partners as they are ‘cold’; or very awkward in social situations – to the extent that they cause embarrassment or avoid social interactions for this very reason.

 Conversations between partners attempting to resolve such everyday difficulties can soon get mired in blaming and personal attacks, when all that is needed is an appreciation of each party’s strengths and weaknesses. People with autistic traits are simply ‘neurodivergent’ – their brains are wired differently; they are not choosing to be difficult; they simply have a different way of understanding and negotiating the world. Whilst they may have difficulty with being flexible, they may also have remarkable strengths such as the ability to maintain intense focus on a task for long periods of time. Think of athletes who are at the top of their game – many of them are likely to be on the spectrum. How else can they find the motivation to train from morning to night, day in and day out, forsaking life’s pleasures, without knowing whether they will ever make the Olympic podium?

When a couple can recognise and work with each other’s strengths and acknowledge each other’s deficits with compassion, conflict can be eliminated and a healthy relationship maintained. If you are one of the many whose world is black and white, don’t despair. All that needs to happen is some understanding of what makes you who you are, and working out how to manage the unpredictable world in a way that does not overwhelm you.

If you want to learn more about this condition, go to the National Autistic Society website

If you believe your relationship difficulties may stem from an inability to be flexible, contact me for an initial consultation.  



Breakfast like a king lunch like peasant and dine like a pauper

General Health & Wellbeing Posted by JadwigaPosted on Thu, February 23, 2023 01:16PM

by Sally Race

Breakfast like a king lunch like peasant and dine like a pauper- you might have heard that before, but is it fact or is it fiction when it comes to helping you lose weight?

In some recent research carried out under study conditions, participants ate exactly what they were given, no more no less. It was done over a period of four weeks and they ate the same amount of calories, they all ate the same nutritional values and same balance of protein, fat and carbs. Some ate the bigger meals in the morning and some in the evening.

The results?

The results showed that there is no difference in how much weight people lost. So you may think that when you eat makes no difference. BUT that’s not true & the reason why was actually in the participant feedback rather than the study results. There was a significant difference that in the real world(so non study conditions)I think will make a major impact and that is that, consistently the people that were having the Big Breakfast in the morning and the light meals later on reported that they weren’t hungry as opposed to the other group where they were eating bigger meals at night were hungry on the exact same calorie controlled diet.

So in the real world what’s going to work?

If you’re going to feel hungry, you’re going to eat more. If you’re not going to feel hungry, you’re going to eat less. So maybe there’s something in it after all. I don’t think there’s any one magic bullet when it comes to weight loss, I think a lot of it is in our heads, how we think and feel. There’s a lot of what we eat that messes with our hormones & hormones are a massive thing on how body stores fat, how our bodies work and function so there’s not just one thing, it’s a multitude of things. If we add in one thing here and one thing there, the whole combination together can make a really big difference in being successful in being a healthier weight and having a healthy body in general, not just that but the impact that has on our minds, because it’s frequently underestimated the amount of difference in what we eat has on our mental health. So it all combines!



Going gluten free- is it worth it?

General Health & Wellbeing, Therapies Posted by JadwigaPosted on Thu, October 27, 2022 10:14AM

Many of the foods we eat can irritate and damage the very delicate and critically important digestive system in our bodies, which can in turn lead to anything from inflammation in the gastrointestinal tract to an immune response. Even nutrient absorption can be affected. One such food is wheat, which contains gluten.

What is gluten?

Gluten is a protein found in foods processed from wheat and similar cereals, including barley, spelt and rye. It contains gliadins and glutenins, the two main components of the gluten fraction of wheat seeds. Both are known intestinal irritants. Gluten is primarily used in modern food processing to give elasticity to dough, helping it to rise and to keep its shape, and often giving the final product a chewy texture. Greater refinement of the gluten leads to chewier products, while less refinement yields softer baked goods. One of the most common ways that we now take in carbohydrates is through grains in our diet, especially wheat. It is a staple food, with 600 million tonnes eaten every year. On average, it makes up roughly half of the calorie intake of a person’s diet. Unfortunately, gluten constitutes 78% of the total protein in modern wheat. What this means in practice is that gluten sensitivities and allergies are extremely common. In fact, it is thought that as many as 1 in 10 people are sensitive to gluten, while coeliac disease (an autoimmune condition related to gluten intake) affects almost 1 in 100 people.

Gluten sensitivity

Often, people with a sensitivity to gluten have no digestive symptoms at all. This can make diagnosis very difficult, and may also mean that appropriate dietary changes are not made by the sufferer. Where symptoms are present, some of the most common include:

  • bloating
  • diarrhoea
  • constipation
  • diverticulitis
  • digestive problems, even as drastic as Crohn’s disease
  • fatigue
  • upper respiratory tract problems (such as sinusitis and ‘glue’ ear)
  • depression
  • and behavioral problems in children (such as ADHD).

Of all the grains causing gluten sensitivities, wheat is the number one culprit. Gluten sensitivity is not a food allergy; it is a condition of the gut. After eating gluten-foods, undigested gluten proteins resting in the intestines are treated by the body like an invader, resulting in irritation of the gut and the flattening of the microvilli (finger-like protrusions that run along the intestinal walls). Without the microvilli, there is far less surface area with which to absorb nutrients from food. This is why those with gluten sensitivities can sometimes experience symptoms of malabsorption, such as chronic fatigue, nutrient deficiencies, anaemia, osteoporosis, nausea, skin rashes, depression and more. If gluten is eliminated from the diet, the gut usually heals and the symptoms disappear over time. This is therefore usually the recommended course of action, along with supporting supplementation (see below).

Coeliac disease

Unlike a gluten sensitivity, coeliac disease involves an abnormal immune reaction to partially digested gliadin. Coeliac disease is neither a food allergy nor an intolerance – it is an autoimmune disease. The body’s immune system attacks itself when gluten is eaten. This can cause serious and lasting damage to the lining of the gut and may mean that the body is unable to properly absorb nutrients from food. Symptoms of coeliac disease range from mild to severe bloating, excessive flatulence, diarrhoea, constipation, abdominal cramps, fatigue, aches and pains, flu-like symptoms, and/or mood swings. It is now recognised as one of the most common chronic health disorders in Western countries, yet it is still one of the most under-diagnosed. As the symptoms are so broad, they can be attributed to a wide range of other health conditions. As such, coeliac disease is often misdiagnosed as, for instance, fibromyalgia, lupus, multiple sclerosis, chronic fatigue, irritable bowel syndrome and Crohn’s disease.

Up until about a decade ago, most medical experts believed that coeliac disease was relatively rare and only affected about 1 in 2,500 people. It was also thought to be a disease that primarily affected children and young people. More recent studies, along with advances in diagnosis, have shown that the condition is much more prevalent.

Addressing the underlying problem

Gluten sensitivity can be one of the symptoms of a leaky gut syndrome. It is no surprise that when the lining of the intestines becomes more permeable, it can lead to a problem with many food sensitivities. Gluten (and dairy!) is very commonly encountered ‘maintaining cause’ in the digestive problems I see in my clinic. It is always worth looking back to determine what could have contributed to the body becoming more sensitized to particular food items- did it start after prolonged stress? Bouts of sore throats? Series of antibiotic treatments? Although removing gluten from the diet is always beneficial in such cases, it’s equally important to support the body in ‘sealing’ the damage which might have been contributing to unpleasant symptoms for even a number of years. Addressing the ‘root cause’ of the problem (whether it’s stress management or rebalancing the aftermath of antibiotic or steroid treatment) will help your body build resilience and minimise chances of a relapse.

Extra support for a gluten-free gut

As with a gluten sensitivity, coeliac disease is usually treated by simply adopting a gluten-free diet, i.e. excluding all foods that contain gluten. This is a permanent step in the case of coeliac disease, and usually recommended to be permanent in the case of gluten sensitivity- although it doesn’t have to be. A gluten-free diet is an effective means of preventing damage (or at least further damage) to the lining of the intestines and avoiding the associated symptoms of both conditions, even if such approach doesn’t address the problem in itself. And these days, maintaining a gluten-free diet isn’t the hardship it was even ten years ago. If you are happy to focus on only eliminating gluten out of your diet, there are now whole dedicated areas of most large supermarkets and health stores for “free from” ranges. However, as with any restricted diet, it is important to continue to ensure a balanced diet and the intake of a broad spectrum of nutrients. Given the reduced number of food choices, this can sometimes be a challenge, particularly in the early days. But careful meal planning will help, along with opting for seasonal, preferably organic food. In addition, many people with a gluten sensitivity or coeliac disease choose to supplement their diets for extra support, both in terms of nutrient intake and for digestive health. This can be particularly helpful where the gut is irritated and inflamed from years of gluten exposure. Multi-strain probiotics (beneficial bacteria), prebiotics (food for beneficial bacteria), Omega oils and the amino acid glutamine are particular favourites for supporting a healthy gut, lower levels of inflammation, along with gut wall integrity. What’s more, many of the better food and dietary supplements will also be gluten-free.



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