Enjoy a more balanced life ~ every day in every way!

Holistic Services of the Central Minnesota Heart Center helps men and women use their body’s own healing power. These services complement mainstream medicine to improve overall health and well-being. We offer a comprehensive package -- anchored in modern technology -- to help you discover the best approach for rebalancing your body. We want you to be healthy and enjoy life to its fullest!

Our Approach to Improving Your Health
Holistic Services is designed to merge evidence-based medical approaches with ancient practices to restore harmony and balance to your body. Most disease states, chronic illnesses, and long-term stress result in autonomic nervous system dysfunction. This dysfunction can be evaluated by observing heart rate variability (HRV), a simple way of tracking how well our heart, brain, and nervous system communicate to maintain or restore balance. Effective holistic therapies positively affect HRV and help restore autonomic nervous system balance. Holistic Services uses HRV technology to guide individualized treatment plans emphasizing the body’s natural ability to restore balance and innately heal. Holistic options may include simple body movements, tonal music, forms of meditation, energy movement, relaxation exercises, breathing practices, or other more specific types of therapy as indicated. Holistic options are intended as adjuncts to your current medical therapy.

The goal of Holistic Services is to help people restore balance and live healthier, more joyful lives. Our services are open to all who wish to more fully integrate their lives and move toward wholeness.

At your Holistic Services visit, you will receive one or more of the following:

• Baseline physiology assessment: We use innovative technology to look at heart rate variability (HRV). This non-invasive technology, similar to an electrocardiogram (ECG), can measure changes in your nervous system by looking at the electrical and frequency patterns of your heart rhythm. This simple measurement can be done fully clothed using an ear or finger sensor; it is completely painless. By measuring HRV, we can observe more closely how chronic illness or stress may be impacting your body’s ability to restore its natural balance. The better your heart and nervous system are in harmony, the better you will feel emotionally, physically, psychologically, and spiritually.
• Baseline well-being evaluation: Do you feel stressed, tired, anxious, tense, achy, or have trouble sleeping? Prior to initial visits, you may fill out short questionnaires to identify levels of stress and areas of imbalance in your life. Using these stress analysis and quality of life indicator scales, the Holistic Services specialist will review your results with you to help design a holistic plan that works for you.
• Music analysis: Have you ever noticed how music affects your sense of well-being? Music can be a powerful force for moving the body toward good health. Our program uses Gregorian chant and other forms of tonal music to help your body restore balance. You will experience the power of music, and we will offer suggestions for different types of music to enhance your body’s ability to heal.
• Education: Learn how to choose the best holistic practices for you. Our program will teach you simple breathing and relaxation techniques to improve your quality of life. These practices can lower levels of stress associated with chronic disease and illness. We will help you identify goals and outcomes for your progress and offer follow-up consultations if needed.
• PLUS… With option 1 (described below), you will receive a convenient hand-held device that helps you observe your body’s response to breathing and relaxation techniques. This device does not relieve your stress, nor is it a therapeutic device; it is simply a tool to help you maximize strategies for stress reduction. With your hand-held personal device, you can observe your body’s response to your new health and well-being strategies anywhere, anytime.
  

Frequently Asked Questions about your Holistic Services visit:

Q. Do I need to do anything prior to coming for my appointment?
A. You may receive questionnaires prior to your appointment, which you can complete and bring with you to your appointment.

Q. What should I wear?
A.It does not matter what you wear as long as you are comfortable. You will be sitting in a comfortable chair for most of the session and fully dressed throughout the visit.

Q. What is the difference between appointment options 1, 2 and 3?
A.Option 1 offers a full evaluation and you receive a convenient hand-held device to take home with you. The cost of this appointment covers the full cost of the device, which you keep for observing your body’s response to your breathing and relaxation techniques. Option 2 offers a full evaluation or consult appointment without the hand-held device. Option 3 offers a shorter appointment for consultation or follow-up to re-evaluate progress and goals. Options 2 and 3 also cover consults for those who wish to meet with Sr. Ruth for other alternative therapies or integrative work such as spiritual direction.

Q. What will I do during an initial consult session?
A. You will briefly discuss your medical history, medications, and other pertinent information with the specialist. You will then be connected to a computer monitor using an earpiece attached to your earlobe. This device evaluates your heart rate variability and requires no invasive testing. A baseline measurement will be taken with you simply sitting and relaxing for about 10 minutes. You will then listen to music while also being monitored to determine your body’s response. Based on the results of these tests, the specialist will suggest a regimen to improve your health. With option 1, you will receive a hand-held device to take home with you to help you maximize your breathing and relaxation techniques.

Q. Is the hand-held device a therapeutic or medical device?
A. No, the hand-held device is not a medical or therapeutic device. The device itself does not relieve stress or promote any therapeutic action in your body. The device is a tool that simply measures how your body is responding to the techniques you are using to reduce stress and rebalance your body. The techniques you learn are what lower your stress and improve your body’s response to stress or chronic illness.

Q. Can I bring my own music with me?
A. Yes, you can bring 1 or 2 selections of music that you find most relaxing. These can be used to compare responses to the more tonal music that the specialist uses.

Q. Is it possible to meet with the specialist without having my heart rate variability measured?
A. Yes. S. Ruth is available to meet with you to discuss holistic therapy issues, offer alternative therapies, and provide integrative services such as spiritual direction. Tell the person scheduling what you want and she will set up the appropriate type of appointment. You will need to clarify with S Ruth what you want to do during your session.

Q. Will this interfere with any other therapy or medications that I am currently taking?
A. No. The purpose of Holistic Services is to improve the outcomes associated with your current therapy and medications by enhancing your body’s innate healing response. It is not intended to replace your medications or other therapy. Any change in medication would be at the discretion of your physician.

Q. Who can benefit from Holistic Services?
A. Anyone can benefit from these services who has a desire to seek greater healing or balance in their life.

Q. Do I need a referral from my physician?
A. No. You may call directly for an appointment.

Q. Do you take referrals from physicians?
A. Yes. Although referrals are not necessary for an appointment.

Q. Will my insurance pay for the appointment?
A. No. At this time, there is no reimbursement from insurance for this service. Payment by cash, check or credit card is requested at the time of appointment.

Frequently Asked Questions about stress, chronic illness and your body:

Q. What is stress?
A. Stress is anything the body perceives as a psychological, emotional, spiritual, or physical threat to its current well-being. It is a normal, healthy response your body uses to adapt to changes, usually intended to keep you alive in life threatening situations. However, when the body perceives consistent levels of stress, it creates a stress habit, much like any other habit, to help you adjust more efficiently. This is good up to a certain point, but unfortunately stress habits practiced over a period of time produce a constant state of increased hormone and vascular imbalance. This eventually takes its toll on your body and results in heart disease, cancer, depression, and a host of other diseases.

Q. How does stress affect my body?
A. Stress is a major risk factor for heart disease, cancer, infections, immune disorders, depression, anxiety, and sleeping problems, just to name a few. Stress affects the body emotionally, physically, mentally and spiritually. Some of the signs and symptoms of chronic stress are irritability, frustration, anger, hostility, feeling overwhelmed, nervousness, anxiety, sadness, forgetfulness, fatigue, restlessness, aches and pains, digestive problems, difficulty sleeping, racing heart, addictive behaviors, and loss of energy.

Q. How is stress related to chronic illness?
A. Chronic illnesses place the body under pressure to constantly adapt to the effects of illness. We often do not realize how hard our bodies have to work to function under difficult physical, metabolic, vascular, behavioral, or emotional imbalances naturally experienced with most diseases. Because stress is experienced throughout the body, it often worsens chronic illnesses when the body can no longer adapt in healthy ways. Almost everyone benefits from exercises and techniques designed to lower stress and assist the body in restoring homeostasis or balance.

Program Fees

Option 1: Holistic Services Consult (with hand-held device) cost: $195 (takes approximately 2 hours)

Option 2: Holistic Services Consult (without hand-held device) cost: $50 (takes approximately 1 hour)

Option 3: Follow-up visit cost: $30 (takes approximately 30 to 45 minutes)

Call for information about group sessions, retreat opportunities or spiritual direction.

If you are interested in another heart disease prevention program, learn more about our Women @ Heart Project.

Helpful Resources
CentraCare Online Health Library - Stress Management
CentraCare Online Health Library - Stress News and Information
CentraCare Online Health Library - Women's and Coronary Artery Disease
American Heart Association