The last best cure

"One day Donna Jackson Nakazawa found herself lying on the floor to recover from climbing the stairs. That's when it hit her. She was managing the symptoms of the autoimmune disorders that had plagued her for a decade, but she had lost her joy. As a science journalist, she was curious to know what mind-body strategies might help her. As a wife and mother she was determined to get her life back. Over the course of one year, Nakazawa researches and tests a variety of therapies including meditation, yoga, and acupuncture to find out what works. But the discovery of a little-known branch of research into Adverse Childhood Experiences causes her to have an epiphany about her illness that not only stuns her--it turns her life around. Honest, warm, and always intelligent, Nakazawa shares her unexpected discoveries, amazing improvements, and shows readers how they too can find their own last best cure"-- "One day in her late 40s, Donna Jackson Nakazawa found herself lying at the top of the stairs with a basket of laundry as her husband and two children buzzed around below. Years of autoimmune disease had made her used to having to recover from such exertion. But in that moment she realized she wasn't just tired: illness had made her lose her joy. Her children were growing up and she was missing it. How could she get her joy back? Having tried everything that traditional medicine could possibly offer, she turns to the latest research on alternative therapies. Embarking on a year-long quest to discover what mind-body medicine can tell us about chronic illness, she enlists the help of a young, cutting-edge doctor who is a protǧě of Andrew Weil. What she discovers is both amazing and profound: the brain truly is our last best cure. Donna's original plan incorporates strategies that are easily available to everyone, including meditation, yoga, and acupuncture. But her research leads her to the remarkable discovery of ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences), which powerfully predict how difficulties in childhood manifest in adulthood as illness. Donna suddenly realizes that the untimely death of her father and the dissolution of her family probably triggered her Guillain-Barr,̌ a discovery that overturns her life and sets her on a truly unexpected path to healing. "--