Celebrating Mother's Day: Improving Health is a Family Affair

As we all know, the concept of health care treatment has radically changed over the last ten years. Preventive measures like exercise and diet are now considered to be as important or, in some cases, more important than treatment. Alternative healing approaches like acupuncture have become mainstream and even accepted by many health insurance carriers.  

Santa Monica residents, Rita Ashton and her daughter Sarah Nargiso, embody these progressive attitudes and even donate their time and personal funds to help.  Rita has been teaching exercise classes for over twenty years at locations like the Palisades YMCA and the Westside YWCA, focusing on the active adult and super senior population. According to Rita, “They serve as inspirations to me, wanting to get the absolute most out of their lifestyles--especially the super seniors who are dedicated to remaining mobile and functional as long as is humanly possible.”

Several years ago, Rita became a skillful Zumba teacher. For those unaware, Zumba is a fusion of Latin and international music and dance that creates a fun and efficient cardio workout. Every Saturday morning, Rita can be found leading a Zumba class on the rooftop level of Santa Monica Place, where people of all ages gyrate to the cardio calypso or salsa body sculpting. Two Thursdays a month, Rita donates her time to lead a Zumba Gold session at the Senior Recreation Center in Santa Monica. (Zumba Gold is a version designed especially for seniors or the true beginning exerciser.) While some may see her volunteer work as charity, Rita feels she’s the real beneficiary, adding, “My participants give me back that special feeling of ‘paying forward’ in being part of their life in some small way.”

Rita’s daughter, Sarah Nargiso, found her health calling through Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). A recent Summa Cum Laude graduate from Santa Monica’s Emperor’s College of Traditional Oriental Medicine, she was also the college’s 2011 Founders Scholarship winner. While earning her Masters degree, Sarah completed internships via the UCLA Arthur Ashe Clinic, the Simms/Mann Venice Family Clinic, and the Disney Family Cancer Center (part of the St. Joseph Hospital,) where she was fortunate enough to work under Dr. Robert Chu, a world renowned acupuncturist.

Ironically, Sarah decided to pursue TCM while studying to be a traditional physician. Faced with some health challenges of her own, which no MD could resolve, Sarah turned to acupuncture and oriental medicine for help. “It was through first-hand experience that I realized just how powerful the Eastern Approach to medicine could be. I instantly knew I wanted to be part of it to try and make a difference in how pain and disease are managed, today,” said Sarah.

Like her Mother, Sarah appreciates the value of “paying it forward” and is the co-founder and outreach coordinator of the non-profit org, “One World Health Project” (OWHP.)  Sarah has treated hundreds of patients in Kenya and helped start the first acupuncture clinic in a rural Maasai Village. She has also trained Kenyan healthcare workers in basic acupuncture protocols for pain, malaria and HIV/AIDS, which is such a scourge in Africa. OWHP health projects like these are all self-funded.

Mother’s Day is the time of year we each pay tribute to our moms for all the help they’ve provided and for just being there. Perhaps someone should invent a Mother/Daughter day for those rare individuals who are there for all of us.  

If you’re interested in taking exercise or Zumba classes with Rita Ashton, you can contact her at razor.rita@gmail.com.

You can learn more about Traditional Chinese Medicine and Sarah Nargiso on her website at www.SarahNargisoLAc.com. Her private practice is located at 2901 Ocean Park Blvd, Santa Monica.