Quantum Intech, Inc. Copyright © 2009, HeartMath LLC All rights reserved.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Winter Wellness
Wellness: Having the resources (physical, mental, spiritual) to meet ordinary life challenges every day; and having the resources to recover and heal from extraordinary challenges like injury, illness, and loss. To be well, we need to support our body’s innate drive for balance (homeostasis). Whether it is biochemical, nutritional, emotional, social, environmental or spiritual.
How do we do this? Through self-awareness, prevention, and self-responsibility.
Awareness: learning to listen to my body’s needs. To rest when I need rest, to eat (wholesome foods) when I need to eat. To be social and active at times and seek solitude at times. To learn to listen to the feeling state, which often makes itself known through sensations in our heart and our gut.
Prevention: how I live my life today provides the building blocks for my body 7-10 years from now. The old saying an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure holds true more than ever. We can no longer depend on job-sponsored health insurance to pay for that pound of cure. We are feeling it directly in our own back pocket, and it is costing more and more. Wellness means planning for my future, and not taking my health for granted.
Responsibility: We must put ourselves back in the driver’s seat and take control of our own health. It is no longer good enough to assign our health to doctors and other health professionals. We alone are the experts of our bodies. Who knows your body better than you? Turning over the controls to others’ leads to depression, the state we sink to when we feel we no longer have any control over our own life.
Winter Wellness: Each season brings its own special health needs. We want to hunker down in the winter, and sleep more with the darker nights. It is certainly a season to get more rest, support the immune system, and not stretch our health dollars too far out of reach. Colder days discourage thirst, but we really need to stay hydrated to protect ourselves from colds and opportunistic viruses. The body will stay strong with hearty warm soups and stews, rich with winter vegetables like roots and squash.
The solitude of Winter gives us time to dream and create the coming year’s projects, letting new ideas emerge from last year’s activities, failures and successes; however, we also need to reach out and maintain social connection for mental health. Lack of sunlight at this latitude leads to chronic Vitamin D depletion. Oral supplementation is practically mandatory, as Dr. Tom Archie demonstrated in a meta-study he performed here. Low Vitamin D levels in the body compromises the immune system in many ways and has links to heart disease, depression, and many cancers.
The dark cold days of winter often discourage us from getting enough time in Nature and taking in fresh air, instead inhaling the concentrated stale air in our highly sealed homes and offices. Making the commitment to get outside for a short 15 minute walk will bring fresh oxygen into the lungs, heart and body. It helps us stay connected to the seasons which helps keep our spirits up. Walking (or any active exercise) boosts our metabolism and keeps us from adding unwanted pounds over the winter months. Find a winter sport to embrace that supports your fitness level, and experience the beauty of our wondrous lake and mountain environment.
Each moment of our lives we are making choices. What to do, what to think, whether to take action or inaction. We always have the power to choose something that is better for us, or worse, whether it is our relationships, our job, our diet, or our attitude.
Contact: Chester-Lake Almanor Chamber of Commerce at info@LakeAlmanorArea.com, 530-258-2426
c. 2009, Jan Davies, CWHE All Rights Reseserved.
How do we do this? Through self-awareness, prevention, and self-responsibility.
Awareness: learning to listen to my body’s needs. To rest when I need rest, to eat (wholesome foods) when I need to eat. To be social and active at times and seek solitude at times. To learn to listen to the feeling state, which often makes itself known through sensations in our heart and our gut.
Prevention: how I live my life today provides the building blocks for my body 7-10 years from now. The old saying an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure holds true more than ever. We can no longer depend on job-sponsored health insurance to pay for that pound of cure. We are feeling it directly in our own back pocket, and it is costing more and more. Wellness means planning for my future, and not taking my health for granted.
Responsibility: We must put ourselves back in the driver’s seat and take control of our own health. It is no longer good enough to assign our health to doctors and other health professionals. We alone are the experts of our bodies. Who knows your body better than you? Turning over the controls to others’ leads to depression, the state we sink to when we feel we no longer have any control over our own life.
Winter Wellness: Each season brings its own special health needs. We want to hunker down in the winter, and sleep more with the darker nights. It is certainly a season to get more rest, support the immune system, and not stretch our health dollars too far out of reach. Colder days discourage thirst, but we really need to stay hydrated to protect ourselves from colds and opportunistic viruses. The body will stay strong with hearty warm soups and stews, rich with winter vegetables like roots and squash.
The solitude of Winter gives us time to dream and create the coming year’s projects, letting new ideas emerge from last year’s activities, failures and successes; however, we also need to reach out and maintain social connection for mental health. Lack of sunlight at this latitude leads to chronic Vitamin D depletion. Oral supplementation is practically mandatory, as Dr. Tom Archie demonstrated in a meta-study he performed here. Low Vitamin D levels in the body compromises the immune system in many ways and has links to heart disease, depression, and many cancers.
The dark cold days of winter often discourage us from getting enough time in Nature and taking in fresh air, instead inhaling the concentrated stale air in our highly sealed homes and offices. Making the commitment to get outside for a short 15 minute walk will bring fresh oxygen into the lungs, heart and body. It helps us stay connected to the seasons which helps keep our spirits up. Walking (or any active exercise) boosts our metabolism and keeps us from adding unwanted pounds over the winter months. Find a winter sport to embrace that supports your fitness level, and experience the beauty of our wondrous lake and mountain environment.
Each moment of our lives we are making choices. What to do, what to think, whether to take action or inaction. We always have the power to choose something that is better for us, or worse, whether it is our relationships, our job, our diet, or our attitude.
Contact: Chester-Lake Almanor Chamber of Commerce at info@LakeAlmanorArea.com, 530-258-2426
c. 2009, Jan Davies, CWHE All Rights Reseserved.
Low Vitamin D Levels Linked to Colds
Study Shows Vitamin D May Have a Role to Play in Preventing Colds and Flu
By Jennifer Warner
WebMD Health News
Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD
Feb. 23, 2009 -- A walk in the sun may be better than popping a vitamin C tablet for boosting your chances of preventing the common cold or flu.
A new study adds to mounting evidence that vitamin C may have been stealing the spotlight all these years from the real cold fighter, vitamin D.
The study, the largest to date on the link between vitamin D and common respiratory infections, shows that people with the lowest vitamin D levels report having significantly more cases of cold and flu than those with higher levels. Vitamin D is produced by the body in response to sunlight and is also found in fortified foods such as milk.
Researchers say that although vitamin C has been used for the prevention of common colds and other respiratory infections for decades, there is little scientific evidence to support its effectiveness. However, several recent studies have suggested that vitamin D, better known for its role in building strong bones, may also play a critical role in immune system function.
"The findings of our study support an important role for vitamin D in prevention of common respiratory infections, such as colds and the flu," says researcher Adit Ginde, MD, MPH, of the University of Colorado, Denver, Division of Emergency Medicine, in a news release. "Individuals with common lung diseases, such as asthma or emphysema, may be particularly susceptible to respiratory infections from vitamin D deficiency."
Vitamin D vs. Colds
Although circumstantial evidence has implicated wintertime low levels of vitamin D to the seasonal increases in colds and flu, some smaller studies have also hinted at a link between low vitamin D level and a higher risk of respiratory infections.
In this study, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, researchers analyzed information on vitamin D levels and respiratory infections from nearly 19,000 adults and adolescents who participated in the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III) from October 1988 to October 1994.
The results showed those with the lowest vitamin D levels (less than 10 nanograms per milliliter of blood) were 36% more likely to report having a recent upper respiratory tract infection than those with higher levels (30 ng/mL or higher).
This association persisted during all four seasons and was even stronger among those with a history or asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease ( COPD).
For example, people with asthma with the lowest vitamin D levels were five times more likely to have had a recent respiratory infection. Among those with COPD, recent respiratory infections were twice as common among those with lowest vitamin D levels.
"We are planning clinical trials to test the effectiveness of vitamin D to boost immunity and fight respiratory infection, with a focus on individuals with asthma and COPD, as well as children and older adults -- groups that are at higher risk for more severe illness," Ginde says. "While it's too early to make any definitive recommendations, many Americans also need more vitamin D for its bone and general health benefits."
SOURCES:
Ginde, A. Archives of Internal Medicine, Feb. 23, 2008; vol 169: pp 384-390.
News release, American Medical Association.
© 2009 WebMD, LLC. All rights reserved.
By Jennifer Warner
WebMD Health News
Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD
Feb. 23, 2009 -- A walk in the sun may be better than popping a vitamin C tablet for boosting your chances of preventing the common cold or flu.
A new study adds to mounting evidence that vitamin C may have been stealing the spotlight all these years from the real cold fighter, vitamin D.
The study, the largest to date on the link between vitamin D and common respiratory infections, shows that people with the lowest vitamin D levels report having significantly more cases of cold and flu than those with higher levels. Vitamin D is produced by the body in response to sunlight and is also found in fortified foods such as milk.
Researchers say that although vitamin C has been used for the prevention of common colds and other respiratory infections for decades, there is little scientific evidence to support its effectiveness. However, several recent studies have suggested that vitamin D, better known for its role in building strong bones, may also play a critical role in immune system function.
"The findings of our study support an important role for vitamin D in prevention of common respiratory infections, such as colds and the flu," says researcher Adit Ginde, MD, MPH, of the University of Colorado, Denver, Division of Emergency Medicine, in a news release. "Individuals with common lung diseases, such as asthma or emphysema, may be particularly susceptible to respiratory infections from vitamin D deficiency."
Vitamin D vs. Colds
Although circumstantial evidence has implicated wintertime low levels of vitamin D to the seasonal increases in colds and flu, some smaller studies have also hinted at a link between low vitamin D level and a higher risk of respiratory infections.
In this study, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, researchers analyzed information on vitamin D levels and respiratory infections from nearly 19,000 adults and adolescents who participated in the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III) from October 1988 to October 1994.
The results showed those with the lowest vitamin D levels (less than 10 nanograms per milliliter of blood) were 36% more likely to report having a recent upper respiratory tract infection than those with higher levels (30 ng/mL or higher).
This association persisted during all four seasons and was even stronger among those with a history or asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease ( COPD).
For example, people with asthma with the lowest vitamin D levels were five times more likely to have had a recent respiratory infection. Among those with COPD, recent respiratory infections were twice as common among those with lowest vitamin D levels.
"We are planning clinical trials to test the effectiveness of vitamin D to boost immunity and fight respiratory infection, with a focus on individuals with asthma and COPD, as well as children and older adults -- groups that are at higher risk for more severe illness," Ginde says. "While it's too early to make any definitive recommendations, many Americans also need more vitamin D for its bone and general health benefits."
SOURCES:
Ginde, A. Archives of Internal Medicine, Feb. 23, 2008; vol 169: pp 384-390.
News release, American Medical Association.
© 2009 WebMD, LLC. All rights reserved.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Childhood Stress and Autoimmune Disease
Cumulative Childhood Stress and Autoimmune Diseases in Adults
Shanta R. Dube , PhD, MPH, DeLisa Fairweather , PhD, William S. Pearson , PhD, MHA, Vincent J. Felitti , MD, Robert F. Anda , MD, MS, Janet B. Croft , PhD
Abstract
Objective: To examine whether childhood traumatic stress increased the risk of developing autoimmune diseases as an adult. Methods: Retrospective cohort study of 15,357 adult health maintenance organization members enrolled in the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) Study from 1995 to 1997 in San Diego, California, and eligible for follow-up through 2005. ACEs included childhood physical, emotional, or sexual abuse; witnessing domestic violence; growing up with household substance abuse, mental illness, parental divorce, and/or an incarcerated household member. The total number of ACEs (ACE Score range = 0–8) was used as a measure of cumulative childhood stress. The outcome was hospitalizations for any of 21 selected autoimmune diseases and 4 immunopathology groupings: T- helper 1 (Th1) (e.g., idiopathic myocarditis); T-helper 2 (Th2) (e.g., myasthenia gravis); Th2 rheumatic (e.g., rheumatoid arthritis); and mixed Th1/Th2 (e.g., autoimmune hemolytic anemia).
Results: Sixty-four percent reported at least one ACE. The event rate (per 10,000 person-years) for a first hospitalization with any autoimmune disease was 31.4 in women and 34.4 in men. First hospitalizations for any autoimmune disease increased with increasing number of ACEs (p < .05). Compared with persons with no ACEs, persons with ?2 ACEs were at a 70% increased risk for hospitalizations with Th1, 80% increased risk for Th2, and 100% increased risk for rheumatic diseases (p < .05).
Conclusions: Childhood traumatic stress increased the likelihood of hospitalization with a diagnosed autoimmune disease decades into adulthood. These findings are consistent with recent biological studies on the impact of early life stress on subsequent inflammatory responses.
http://www.psychosomaticmedicine.org/cgi/content/abstract/PSY.0b013e3181907888v1?ct
Shanta R. Dube , PhD, MPH, DeLisa Fairweather , PhD, William S. Pearson , PhD, MHA, Vincent J. Felitti , MD, Robert F. Anda , MD, MS, Janet B. Croft , PhD
Abstract
Objective: To examine whether childhood traumatic stress increased the risk of developing autoimmune diseases as an adult. Methods: Retrospective cohort study of 15,357 adult health maintenance organization members enrolled in the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) Study from 1995 to 1997 in San Diego, California, and eligible for follow-up through 2005. ACEs included childhood physical, emotional, or sexual abuse; witnessing domestic violence; growing up with household substance abuse, mental illness, parental divorce, and/or an incarcerated household member. The total number of ACEs (ACE Score range = 0–8) was used as a measure of cumulative childhood stress. The outcome was hospitalizations for any of 21 selected autoimmune diseases and 4 immunopathology groupings: T- helper 1 (Th1) (e.g., idiopathic myocarditis); T-helper 2 (Th2) (e.g., myasthenia gravis); Th2 rheumatic (e.g., rheumatoid arthritis); and mixed Th1/Th2 (e.g., autoimmune hemolytic anemia).
Results: Sixty-four percent reported at least one ACE. The event rate (per 10,000 person-years) for a first hospitalization with any autoimmune disease was 31.4 in women and 34.4 in men. First hospitalizations for any autoimmune disease increased with increasing number of ACEs (p < .05). Compared with persons with no ACEs, persons with ?2 ACEs were at a 70% increased risk for hospitalizations with Th1, 80% increased risk for Th2, and 100% increased risk for rheumatic diseases (p < .05).
Conclusions: Childhood traumatic stress increased the likelihood of hospitalization with a diagnosed autoimmune disease decades into adulthood. These findings are consistent with recent biological studies on the impact of early life stress on subsequent inflammatory responses.
http://www.psychosomaticmedicine.org/cgi/content/abstract/PSY.0b013e3181907888v1?ct
Friday, January 16, 2009
How to THINK your way to less STRESS
by Janis Davies, Certified Whole Health Educator
As published January 7, 2009 in:
Health, Mind & Body, special supplement to the newspapers of Feather Publishing Co.: Feather River Bulletin, Chester Progressive, Indian Valley Record, Portola Reporter
13,000. The average number of thoughts we are plagued with each and every day. Think about it… oops! There goes another thought... and another… and another…
Doesn’t it seem like each and every one of those thoughts has substance, reality, validity? We “thought” it, so it must be true, right? We assume every thought is an expression of fact. Even our bodies believe every thought we think.
Take this lemon I am getting ready to cut up. I’ve placed it on the cutting board, removed my sharpest knife, and now I am slicing it, bright yellow and juicy, with spray coming easily off the thick waxy peel. I can smell the tart citrus-y odors, immediately thinking of lemonade, and lemon meringue pie. I take half a lemon in my hands, squeeze gently, and the juices flow into my mouth.
What’s happening in your body right now? Is your mouth filled with saliva anticipating the sour lemon juices? I just tricked your brain into recalling a caseload of memories, and your body responded as if it were real.
What if I ask you to recall the last argument you had? The last time you were ashamed or humiliated? The last time you were mad as a hornet? Give these thoughts the time of day and, voila! Your body is back at that precise moment in time, reliving not just the thoughts and emotions, but also the stress hormones and health compromising effects that come along with it.
Give it more attention and, before you know it a whole lifetime of similar events come swarming at you, filling you with more anger, fear, or sadness; or, conversely, joy and appreciation.
Instant thinking
We can “think” ourselves into most any emotion, but did you know that often the reverse is true? An emotion can be instantly triggered by an event or sensory input (sight, smell, touch, taste, sound), leading the brain to reply with “instant” explanations. The assumption that gets us into trouble is believing that what we think is reality.
However, the brain is trafficking in habitual responses. Like a search on Google, our brain reacts to input by spewing out the most likely combinations of information and memories from the “files” until a plausible reason is reached. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it must be a duck, right? Not always.
Our brains evolved to learn. And learning requires instant memorization of complex environmental stimuli, so that the next similar event can be dealt with as quickly as possible. It is the difference between life and death, in other words, survival. What the brain learns and believes is instantly communicated to every cell in the body, via hormones (neuro-peptides), electrical impulses, and molecular vibration.
Our bodies are listening
This brings us to the relationship between thinking and chronic stress. When we communicate “within,” our cells, organs and tissues are listening. If I am angry, my cells are soaking in anger. If I am happy my cells are soaking in happiness. Directing these feelings at others does not leave me out of the equation. Road rage, feelings of overwhelm and frustration, directed at drivers who do not follow our rules of the road ultimately hurts us.
Transient feelings of hurt, anger, frustration, or shame are not dangerous, and do not cause harm. What causes damage is the habitual indulgence of dwelling in the past hurts and regrets, or future worries and fears, and the endless abuse we silently spew at ourselves, most often at the subconscious level where we are unaware.
If our Inner Voice was a person sitting next to us on a bench, how long would we put up with their insults? Their abuse? The crazy, disconnected verbiage that is our constant companion heard inside our heads? We’d run quickly in the opposite direction!
“Thinking,” is the major source of chronic stress in our modern world, where prior generations have suffered (presumably) under more physical, or primitive, forms of stress, such as untreatable illness and injuries, hunger, providing shelter, and protecting oneself, family and community from predation, competition or invasion.
Thanks to the amazing learning abilities of the brain, thought connections perform like well-traveled roads. The more a road is traveled, the deeper the ruts. At some point the ruts are so deep, a traveler cannot change the path, even when they try to. Our minds work similarly. The more we think a thought, the more instantaneous and transparent the thought/action becomes.
This is fantastic if we are learning to drive a car, or to speak a new language. The less we have to think about our actions, the quicker we can respond with automated action. No longer wasting energy by concentrating on clutch, brake, accelerator, turn signal, traffic, we are able to eat, drink, talk on the phone, apply makeup, balance the checkbook, text your kids and check the stock market, while cruising 62 mph down the highway!
Take a breath!
Stop! Take a deep breath… Step back slowly from the situations of your crazy life. Think (briefly) about how habitually overwhelming yourself with demands and tasks is shortening your life. The resultant chronic stress is hardening your arteries, raising your blood pressure, elevating blood sugar, and picking away at the very fabric of your DNA. Precious DNA, the blueprint for repairs in every cell of your body.
The instinctive way we often deal with “bad thinking,” is negation. We tell ourselves, “don’t think that thought.” We try to push away from the feelings: “don’t be depressed,” “don’t be sad.” Because the focus is still on the unwanted, we tend to remain focused on what we wish to avoid.
The next level of repairing our thinking is zero balance. That’s when people try to meditate by thinking about “nothing.” Don’t think, don’t think, don’t think… Oops! Darn, there goes another thought! Don’t think, I really mean it, DON’T THINK! Before you know it the 13,000 thoughts have you in a strangle-hold. At that point most people give up and decide meditation is clearly not for them. They (think they) have failed miserably at changing their thinking and relieving stress.
We begin to see some results when we practice replacement thinking. Instead of trying to change old thoughts, habits, feelings and the resultant behaviors, we begin to come up with replacement ideas that are healthier. Sometimes these are referred to as affirmations. These are new statements of positive experience we consciously choose over the old.
The old thoughts still come bouncing in, but the more we practice, the better it gets, the more relief we enjoy. This employs re-routing the thought patterns of the brain. Just like building muscles, practicing powerful healthier statements on a regular basis strengthens the neuronal connections giving them more clout.
One of the most practiced examples of affirmation is the Serenity Prayer: “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.” (Commonly attributed to theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr)
Positive emotion connection
Expanding on replacement thinking, and backed by scientific research, are the practices that might be referred to as positive emotion connection. The glue in memory is emotion. By utilizing techniques that employ heart-feeling with mind and body connections, healthier stress-free living becomes more quickly accessible. There are many new, and not-so-new, versions of positive emotion practices. These include a variety of practices with exotic names like Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR), Thought-Field Therapy (TFT), Energy Freedom Technique (EFT), Energy Psychology, the broad field of Guided Imagery, mindfulness or breath meditations, and HeartMath.
Developed by Doc Childre and Howard Martin, HeartMath is focused on teaching “heart-based living – people relying on the intelligence of their heart in concert with their minds to improve health, performance, relationships and well-being at home and in the workplace” (www.heartmath.com). The basic premise is a three-step process called Quick Coherence® Technique: “Heart focus. Heart breathing. Heart feeling.”
By tapping into our bodies innate drive for health, and linking that to the process of feeling and thinking, we can learn to manage stress more easily, building more effective coping, and restoring the ability to thrive in our lives, regardless of our external circumstances.
"All that we are is a result of what we have thought." -Buddha
As published January 7, 2009 in:
Health, Mind & Body, special supplement to the newspapers of Feather Publishing Co.: Feather River Bulletin, Chester Progressive, Indian Valley Record, Portola Reporter
13,000. The average number of thoughts we are plagued with each and every day. Think about it… oops! There goes another thought... and another… and another…
Doesn’t it seem like each and every one of those thoughts has substance, reality, validity? We “thought” it, so it must be true, right? We assume every thought is an expression of fact. Even our bodies believe every thought we think.
Take this lemon I am getting ready to cut up. I’ve placed it on the cutting board, removed my sharpest knife, and now I am slicing it, bright yellow and juicy, with spray coming easily off the thick waxy peel. I can smell the tart citrus-y odors, immediately thinking of lemonade, and lemon meringue pie. I take half a lemon in my hands, squeeze gently, and the juices flow into my mouth.
What’s happening in your body right now? Is your mouth filled with saliva anticipating the sour lemon juices? I just tricked your brain into recalling a caseload of memories, and your body responded as if it were real.
What if I ask you to recall the last argument you had? The last time you were ashamed or humiliated? The last time you were mad as a hornet? Give these thoughts the time of day and, voila! Your body is back at that precise moment in time, reliving not just the thoughts and emotions, but also the stress hormones and health compromising effects that come along with it.
Give it more attention and, before you know it a whole lifetime of similar events come swarming at you, filling you with more anger, fear, or sadness; or, conversely, joy and appreciation.
Instant thinking
We can “think” ourselves into most any emotion, but did you know that often the reverse is true? An emotion can be instantly triggered by an event or sensory input (sight, smell, touch, taste, sound), leading the brain to reply with “instant” explanations. The assumption that gets us into trouble is believing that what we think is reality.
However, the brain is trafficking in habitual responses. Like a search on Google, our brain reacts to input by spewing out the most likely combinations of information and memories from the “files” until a plausible reason is reached. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it must be a duck, right? Not always.
Our brains evolved to learn. And learning requires instant memorization of complex environmental stimuli, so that the next similar event can be dealt with as quickly as possible. It is the difference between life and death, in other words, survival. What the brain learns and believes is instantly communicated to every cell in the body, via hormones (neuro-peptides), electrical impulses, and molecular vibration.
Our bodies are listening
This brings us to the relationship between thinking and chronic stress. When we communicate “within,” our cells, organs and tissues are listening. If I am angry, my cells are soaking in anger. If I am happy my cells are soaking in happiness. Directing these feelings at others does not leave me out of the equation. Road rage, feelings of overwhelm and frustration, directed at drivers who do not follow our rules of the road ultimately hurts us.
Transient feelings of hurt, anger, frustration, or shame are not dangerous, and do not cause harm. What causes damage is the habitual indulgence of dwelling in the past hurts and regrets, or future worries and fears, and the endless abuse we silently spew at ourselves, most often at the subconscious level where we are unaware.
If our Inner Voice was a person sitting next to us on a bench, how long would we put up with their insults? Their abuse? The crazy, disconnected verbiage that is our constant companion heard inside our heads? We’d run quickly in the opposite direction!
“Thinking,” is the major source of chronic stress in our modern world, where prior generations have suffered (presumably) under more physical, or primitive, forms of stress, such as untreatable illness and injuries, hunger, providing shelter, and protecting oneself, family and community from predation, competition or invasion.
Thanks to the amazing learning abilities of the brain, thought connections perform like well-traveled roads. The more a road is traveled, the deeper the ruts. At some point the ruts are so deep, a traveler cannot change the path, even when they try to. Our minds work similarly. The more we think a thought, the more instantaneous and transparent the thought/action becomes.
This is fantastic if we are learning to drive a car, or to speak a new language. The less we have to think about our actions, the quicker we can respond with automated action. No longer wasting energy by concentrating on clutch, brake, accelerator, turn signal, traffic, we are able to eat, drink, talk on the phone, apply makeup, balance the checkbook, text your kids and check the stock market, while cruising 62 mph down the highway!
Take a breath!
Stop! Take a deep breath… Step back slowly from the situations of your crazy life. Think (briefly) about how habitually overwhelming yourself with demands and tasks is shortening your life. The resultant chronic stress is hardening your arteries, raising your blood pressure, elevating blood sugar, and picking away at the very fabric of your DNA. Precious DNA, the blueprint for repairs in every cell of your body.
The instinctive way we often deal with “bad thinking,” is negation. We tell ourselves, “don’t think that thought.” We try to push away from the feelings: “don’t be depressed,” “don’t be sad.” Because the focus is still on the unwanted, we tend to remain focused on what we wish to avoid.
The next level of repairing our thinking is zero balance. That’s when people try to meditate by thinking about “nothing.” Don’t think, don’t think, don’t think… Oops! Darn, there goes another thought! Don’t think, I really mean it, DON’T THINK! Before you know it the 13,000 thoughts have you in a strangle-hold. At that point most people give up and decide meditation is clearly not for them. They (think they) have failed miserably at changing their thinking and relieving stress.
We begin to see some results when we practice replacement thinking. Instead of trying to change old thoughts, habits, feelings and the resultant behaviors, we begin to come up with replacement ideas that are healthier. Sometimes these are referred to as affirmations. These are new statements of positive experience we consciously choose over the old.
The old thoughts still come bouncing in, but the more we practice, the better it gets, the more relief we enjoy. This employs re-routing the thought patterns of the brain. Just like building muscles, practicing powerful healthier statements on a regular basis strengthens the neuronal connections giving them more clout.
One of the most practiced examples of affirmation is the Serenity Prayer: “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.” (Commonly attributed to theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr)
Positive emotion connection
Expanding on replacement thinking, and backed by scientific research, are the practices that might be referred to as positive emotion connection. The glue in memory is emotion. By utilizing techniques that employ heart-feeling with mind and body connections, healthier stress-free living becomes more quickly accessible. There are many new, and not-so-new, versions of positive emotion practices. These include a variety of practices with exotic names like Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR), Thought-Field Therapy (TFT), Energy Freedom Technique (EFT), Energy Psychology, the broad field of Guided Imagery, mindfulness or breath meditations, and HeartMath.
Developed by Doc Childre and Howard Martin, HeartMath is focused on teaching “heart-based living – people relying on the intelligence of their heart in concert with their minds to improve health, performance, relationships and well-being at home and in the workplace” (www.heartmath.com). The basic premise is a three-step process called Quick Coherence® Technique: “Heart focus. Heart breathing. Heart feeling.”
By tapping into our bodies innate drive for health, and linking that to the process of feeling and thinking, we can learn to manage stress more easily, building more effective coping, and restoring the ability to thrive in our lives, regardless of our external circumstances.
"All that we are is a result of what we have thought." -Buddha
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Support for End-of-Life caregivers
What an End-of-Life Adviser Could Have Told Me
By Jane Gross Jane Gross’s mother, Estelle Gross, at a nursing home in Riverdale, N.Y., in 2002.
If only I’d had the 800 number for Compassion & Choices in the last difficult months of my mother’s life. She was paralyzed, incontinent and unable to speak. I watched the light leave her eyes and her body crumple like a rag doll’s, and I knew that one day soon she would say, “Enough.”
During this period, my mother and I talked and talked and talked about her end-of-life choices, as we had for many years. A decade earlier the conversation had seemed totally academic, even a bit weird. But now we were both grateful that this was familiar territory. At regular family meetings at the nursing home where she lived, the social workers, nurses and doctors joined what had been our private dialog. Our willingness to look my mother’s certain death squarely in the eye, they said, was both unusual in families and beneficial to her quality of life.
Despite my mother’s helplessness and misery those last months, she wasn’t dying of anything. She had a garden-variety set of ailments for an 87-year-old woman: high blood pressure, diabetes, arthritis, an inner-ear disturbance. A series of imperceptible strokes, known as T.I.A.’s, had left her body useless. But they didn’t necessarily portend a deadly event. She’d dodged the bullets of cancer, serious heart or pulmonary disease, and dementia. It is not uncommon, having lived past 85, to keep on living for a very long time — “healthy” in the narrow sense of the word, but increasingly incapacitated. That, alas, was my mother’s fate.
She often longed for the oblivion of Alzheimer’s disease. But her sharp mind — she never skipped a beat — entitled her to organize her own death, within legal limits, which she did by deciding to stop food and hydration. We had discussed and researched this option, and we had read enough to be reasonably confident this manner of dying was not a frightful ordeal but rather a gentle death. We trusted that an enlightened nursing home like the one she was in wouldn’t force her to eat and drink. They had readily accepted earlier decisions to forgo diagnostic tests or hospitalizations, and later antibiotics for pneumonia.
Our study of what is known as V.S.E.D., or “voluntarily stopping eating and drinking,” was impressive for amateurs, if I do say so myself. My mother had a pretty good death, on her own terms, and we had the nursing home’s full support. I’m proud and grateful to have been able to advocate for her and to have been by her side. That said, there were several rough patches. And after recently meeting Judy Schwarz, the patient support coordinator for Compassion & Choices in New York, I now can see we’d have had an easier time of it had she been along for the ride.
What follows are a few of the bumps in the road that I bet would have been smoothed with her expert guidance.
* Medical professionals can only guess how long it takes to die of dehydration. (Merely refusing food is a bad idea, as many people who have gone on long hunger strikes can surely attest.) My mother’s nurses and doctors said she’d likely last four, five, six days — a week at most. With that in mind, I settled into a recliner in her room with books, music, snacks and a few changes of clothes, and I intended to stay by her side, as promised, for the duration.
In fact, she lived for 13 days, alert and communicative for about a week and manifesting none of the signs of impending death until the last 36 to 48 hours. Why the discrepancy? People in my mother’s robust condition rarely make this choice. It is typically how people die in the end stages of cancer or Alzheimer’s disease, following a progressive loss of interest or ability to eat and drink — not an abrupt dinner-yesterday-but-no-breakfast-today-thank-you-very-much announcement. I don’t know if my mother experienced time as I did, but to me it felt interminable. To my shame, I did a lot of clock-watching. Eventually I went home at night, leaving behind a private-duty aide.
I doubt I’d have twitched with impatience, just wanting for it to be over, had I known that the average dying time is two to three weeks, as the scientific literature says. Judy Schwarz would have told me that. I think the days would have been more peaceful and contemplative had I not been surprised by how long it took.
* Several of my mother’s caregivers, both nurses and aides, had moral or religious reservations about her decision. To their credit, they didn’t just switch to the other side of the floor. They came to me, in tears, to say this was something their consciences would not permit. They visited her several times a day, but delegated the hands-on responsibilities to others. At the time, I admired their honesty and felt their hurt and love, but I wondered if this behavior was appropriate. Shouldn’t they be able to leave their personal convictions at home?
The answer, I now know, is that they followed the canons of their profession perfectly: no health professional is required to participate if that violates a personal belief system. What they are required to do is ensure a smooth hand-off to someone equally qualified.
* During and after my mother’s death, I was often stung by the implied or expressed judgments of friends, colleagues and even strangers after I wrote about the experience. “You let your mother do that?,” I was frequently asked, with the word “let” heavy with opprobrium. My answer, generally, was that it wasn’t up to me. She was mentally competent and entitled to do as she pleased. My job as her daughter was to be supportive. Left unsaid, once I’d experienced the first episodes of shock and disapproval, was that I totally agreed with her. Expecting the reaction of others would have helped.
* Once my mother began her fast, the nursing home offered two ways to ensure her comfort. The regular staff could stay in place, keeping her mouth from getting too dry and administering sedatives as needed under the supervision of a palliative care physician. Or a team of hospice professionals, part of what was then a new collaboration with the nursing home, could take their places at the bedside. I opted for the familiar. My mother didn’t warm easily to strangers, and I thought she would need the comfort of people she knew well.
A counselor like Ms. Schwarz would have told me that the regulars might ask to be taken off the case, which might have changed my mind. She also would have told me that a hospice team likely would medicate my mother more aggressively, given their training in cutting-edge comfort care. Even if I’d stuck to my plan and later wished I’d chosen hospice, Ms. Schwarz would have suggested a change of course. It never occurred to me that was possible. I was too tired to think straight.
* I have always assumed that what my mother chose to do herself, I could have insisted upon for her, as her health care proxy. In other words, if she were no longer “decisionally capable,” though not on the brink of death, I could have told the staff to stop spooning food into her mouth or bringing the straw to her lips, and they would have listened to me as her surrogate. Ms. Schwarz would have told me this isn’t so. Other end-of-life experts are less certain but know of no test cases. From that I conclude that V.S.E.D. should be considered a viable option only for cognitively intact men and women. Maybe that’s why it’s called “voluntarily stopping eating and drinking.”
To arrange for an end-of-life consultation with Compassion & Choices, with chapters nationwide, call 800-247-7421.
Friday, December 12, 2008
Full Moon Rising, December Sunset
CLOSEST MOON SINCE 1993Original Photo by Jan Davies, All Rights Reserved. 2008
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