Here is a great article that was in my Wild Divine newsletter this month.
I recently got a copy of Healing Rhythms from the company, and I've been playing around with it.

The system is based on Galvanic Skin Sesponse and Heart Rhythm Coherence biofeedback.

The original research on Heart Rhythm Coherence was performed by The Institute of Heartmath.

Strangely, neither the original research, or HeartMath, is mentioned in the WildDivine literature. Hmmm...

But I must admit, they have come up with well designed and well packaged products.

The Healing Rhythms system is a collection of guided meditations on breath, heart, mindfulness, and positive emotional states. The following article reviews some medical information that supports the usefulness of this type of feedback:





Heart Disease: it is partially in your head

-Harvard Health

For worse or for better, how you think, feel, and live your life affects your heart.

Intimate connections between the heart and mind were once taken for granted. In some cultures, the heart was believed to be the seat and source of emotions. As Western medicine gradually unraveled these connections, heart and mind drifted apart. A new field, behavioral cardiology, is trying to stitch them together again, this time with strong scientific threads.

This work is opening up new ways to prevent and treat heart disease that will be good for the mind and the rest of the body.

Psychosocial factors For better or for worse, your emotions and moods, and even parts of your personality, can influence your heart. It isnt a one-way street. The health of your circulatory system can affect how you feel. Habits that are good for the heart seem to be good for the mind and brain, too.

Psychological factors and social factors are sometimes lumped together as psychosocial factors. They affect heart disease in two basic ways. Some contribute to atherosclerosis, the slow, corrosive process that damages artery walls and puts you at risk for a heart attack or stroke. Others can add the final insult that triggers a heart attack or stroke.

Chemical conversations between the heart and the head affect both. Depression, stress, loneliness, a positive outlook, and other psychosocial factors influence the heart. The health of the heart can affect the brain and the mind.

Psychosocial factors arent small potatoes. According to a comprehensive international study reported in The Lancet in 2004, their contribution to heart attacks is on a par with smoking, high blood pressure, obesity, and cholesterol problems. This isnt just in the stress-obsessed West, but in the Middle East, China and Hong Kong, Latin America, and Africa, too.

Depression. Symptoms of depression, as well as full-blown major depression, contribute to heart disease. People who become depressed after a heart attack or stroke, heart surgery, or the onset of heart failure dont fare as well as those who arent depressed.

Anger/hostility. Atherosclerosis seems to advance faster in people who score high on anger or hostility scales. Anger can also trigger heart attacks. In the Harvard-based Determinants of Myocardial Infarction Onset Study, 1 in every 40 heart attack survivors reported an episode of anger in the two hours before the attack.

Anxiety. Intense anxiety, the kind associated with fear of enclosed places, heights, crowds, and the like, can sometimes set off a sudden cardiac arrest. These often-fatal heart attacks happen when the heartbeat abruptly turns fast and uncoordinated.

Social support. Among heart attack survivors, social isolation is almost as important as high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and smoking at predicting long-term survival.

Chronic stress. Constant stress from work, financial problems, a troubled marriage, taking care of a parent or partner, or even living in an unsafe neighborhood has been linked with the development of heart disease and doing poorer with it.

Sudden emotional stress. Sudden emotional turmoil can set off a type of serious but reversible heart failure dubbed broken heart syndrome. Researchers at Johns Hopkins have documented its appearance in people after a death in the family, a surprise party, a robbery, a car accident, and even fear of speaking in public.

Whats the connection? How do emotions, behaviors, or social situations promote heart disease or make it worse? No one really knows. But there are plenty of theories.

Stress hormones top the list. They constrict blood vessels, speed up the heartbeat, and make the heart and blood vessels especially reactive to further stress. Psychosocial factors have also been linked with increases in C-reactive protein, interleukin-1, and tumor necrosis factor. These signal increased inflammation, which plays important roles in artery-clogging atherosclerosis.

Psychosocial factors could influence heart disease via a less physiologic route, through habits that tip one toward heart disease or away from it. Depression or isolation, for example, can keep people from taking the heart medications they need, while a positive outlook or strong social network can help people stop smoking or watch their weight.

What to do Most psychosocial risk factors are neither bad nor good. A little dose of stress, for example, can motivate you to face a challenge or finish a project. Constant stress, though, can be harmful. The same can be said for anger, anxiety, or isolation.The point is not to eliminate particular negative emotions, but to regulate them better, either to integrate them or bring them into balance with positive emotions or behaviors,says Dr. Laura Kubzansky, an assistant professor at the Harvard School of Public Health whose research focuses on the role of stress and emotion in cardiovascular disease and aging.

Getting started isnt easy. Admitting to yourself that youre chronically worried, stressed, sad, angry, or alone is hard. Telling someone else, like your doctor, is even harder. But its an important first step.

There is no one-size-fits-all way to make changes. Some people can do it on their own. Beginning (and sticking with) daily exercise can be a great way to ease stress or beat depression. A do-it-yourself program like the one described in Mind Your Heart, by Aggie Casey and Herbert Benson of the Mind/Body Medical Institute in Chestnut Hill, Mass., offers help with stress management, relaxation, and healthier habits. Just taking more vacation time might help.

Many people, though, need the kind of help that comes with talk therapy or formal, structured behavior modification programs.

The connection between psychosocial factors and heart disease is so strong that todays cardiologists should start the discussion by asking their patients about moods, energy, stress, and support. Most dont, at least not yet.

If yours doesnt, its worth bringing up these issues yourself. Your doctor might extend the conversation, offer good suggestions, or gather information you can use. Because cardiologists and primary care physicians get little training in this area, though, dont be surprised if yours is uncomfortable talking about depression, anger, loneliness, or other psychosocial factors, or doesnt know how to help. If thats the case, dont hesitate to ask for a referral to a mental health professional.

Dr. Kubzansky calls anger, depression, chronic stress, loneliness, and other negative psychosocial factors a signal that there is a problem, much like that of chronic pain. Its time to treat them with the same urgency and respect.

As a side note, I showed the software to a couple of the monks at the Pittsburgh Buddhist Center.

They liked it. They thought that it was a good way to introduce Anapanasati (Mindfulness of Breathing) meditation.

That is not a small statement coming from a Theravada monk, since according to the Buddha:

"Anapanasati bhikkhave bhavita bahulikata cattaro satipatthane paripurenti. Cattaro satipatthana bhavita bahulikata satta b ojjhange paripurenti. S atta
b ojjhanga b havita b ahulikata vijjavimutti paripurenti"

"O monks, when mindfulness of breathing is developed and cultivated, it fulfills the four establishments of mindfulness. When the four establishments of mindfulness are developed and cultivated, they fulfill the seven factors of enlightenment. When the seven factors of enlightenment are cultivated and developed, they fulfill knowledge and deliverance"

I've also hooked a couple of the monks up to the HeartMath emwave PC system.
I gave them no instructions other than "sit and breath as you normally would during meditation".

They immediately showed high coherence scores. Scores that most people don't get without a fair amount of practice using the system.

I'm becoming convinced that I need to incorporate more of this type of biofeedback into my practice(s)...both my professional practice and my personal practice.

those that forget the past....

The history of the valley that I live in; The "Westinghouse Valley" continues to amaze me.
this week, Jill took me to the "Atom Smasher" in Forest Hills. She was actually taking me to the Kar Hing Restaurant for a Szezchuan dinner and a couple of TsingTao Beers, but it is within a stone's throw of the Atom Smasher.

This was the worlds first industrial particle accelerator. It was built in 1937, significantly before nuclear power was a practical reality. Today it is another decaying, abandoned industrial facility in Pittsburgh. It will possibly be demolished in the near future...another loss to world history. I took a number of pictures of the site with Jill's camera. i'll post some of them when I get them.

I was able to take a few photographs of the demolition of the KDKA building; the site of the worlds first commercial radio broadcast. These are the photos that are included with this post.

The building took several weeks to demolish. It fought the demolition every step of the way....Says something about the comparative quality of recent buildings.

But the building is gone now...

Truly a loss to history.
Not just local history but world history.

Mindfulness

I've come to the conclusion that LENS neurofeedback is, in many ways, technologically assisted vipassana meditation.

Vipassana is one of the oldest methods of Buddhist meditation, and is a central meditative practice of Theravada Buddhists.

Joseph Goldstein is a well known American teacher of vipassana meditation. Here is a link to a soundfile of Goldstein giving basic vipassana instructions and leading a meditation practice.

Dropping your tailbone

The following is a post that I have plagiarized from the venerable Aikido-L mailing list:

The original post is from John Costello, and it was answered by Pauliina Lievonen.
Pauliina is an Alexander Technique teacher as well as an experienced aikido practitioner.

the discussion is about a very common postural distortion found in NMT practices, and I think that Pauliina did a great job of answering John's inquiry.


John:
I've been reading Blandine Calais-Germain's "Anatomy of Movement",
which provides a well illustrated and quite detailed account of which
muscles, joints, bones, ligaments, and tendons are involved in various
bodily movements; but it has the disadvantage of being very focused --
it will tell you which muscles are co-opted to move a certain body
part a certain way, but it doesn't move beyond that to tell you what
other muscles and motions are weakened or strengthened synergistically
with a given motion.

I've also been reading Eric N. Franklin's "Dynamic Alignment Through
Imagery", which is *very* holistic, concentrating on how to achieve
various whole-body postural adjustments and movement qualities through
imagery. It has the disadvantage of not being all that technical
about the relationship between movements. (Though I find that the
imagery involved often provides an insight into the
muscle/bone/ligament relationships which the more biotechnical
"Anatomy of Movement" lacks. It has a beautiful illustration of the
skeleton looking down from the point of view of our head, for instance
...)

Both these books are really excellent (and I also really like Frédéric
Delavier's "Strength Training Anatomy"), but none of them has answered
this question:

Often I have been told to do a physical process which is variously
described as "dropping your tailbone", "not sticking your butt out",
"shutting your asshole", or "rotating the sacrum under". What is the
muscular / skelatal / whateveral advantage to this posture? (Or is it
an instruction meant to indirectly correct some *other*, harder to
describe postural deficit?)

Would you more physiologically (or kinesthetically) minded listka mind
taking a shot at clarifying this for me?

Actually, it might be kind of cool to make a list of all the
postural/physical adjustments we've been told to make, and try to
catalog their physiological effects on the body's powertrain. "Bend
your knees" is another favorite, as is "drop your shoulders"... Any
other ones you can think of? And what are their physiological bases?

Pauliina:

My head is kinda fuzzy right now but I'll have a shot at it...

If you look at page 214 in Anatomy of Movement, that is a very nice
drawing of a very typical pattern in standing. For those without the
book, it's a girl standing with the top of her pelvis tilted forward and
her butt sticking out. :) The picture is an illustration of the effect
of the iliacus.
http://www.meddean.luc.edu/lumen/meded/grossanatomy/dissector/mml/ilia.htm

Almost everybody I've worked with has that to some extent. The below is
what I've observed myself - I don't know if someone has actually done
research into this.

That forward tilt of the pelvis means that if there's a horizontal push
on your torso (say someone grabs your wrist and pushes...) the force of
that push will travel along the spine but at the hip joint it can't get
effectively transfered to the legs. So you are more easily out of
balance. Plus it makes it harder for your legs to work efficiently
because there's tension in front which tends to get communicated to your
leg muscles and if they are already working before they need to they
have less potential to work with.

You might be able to feel this: When you sit in a chair, the psoas needs
to be active to support your spine in an upright position, but the
iliacus doesn't. However, because those two run so close to each other,
they tend to want to start working together. The result is that people
tend to tighten the iliacus unnecessarily in sitting, tilting their
pelvis forward almost sort of sitting on top of the upper thigh - and
hollowing the lower back. Or conversely, they want to relax both the
psoas and the iliacus and then find it very difficult to sit straight up
without a back rest because they find themselves slumping backwards.

Now when the same person stands up, they tend to keep that tightness in
the iliacus, and so you see the same tilt of the pelvis forward.
Actually I don't know if sitting is the main reason for this but it's
where it often is recognisable for my students.

The tricky thing is that the effect of this can often be felt as
tightness in the lower back. There can be tightness in the lower back,
too, but if one doesn't look at the _front_ of the hips and pelvis, it's
hard to get anywhere with it.

One exercise that I like is actually going into horse stance (a pic:
http://wongkk.com/images-3/general-5/horse-stance01.jpg), but on the way
very consciously softening the front of the crease between the top front
of the legs and pelvis. The image I have is of my back staying straight
up and oriented back and my kness going forward and away from my back.

kvaak
Pauliina

Yeah..Yeah... I Know..

I'm terrible about updating my website/blog. Basically, I've come to the conclusion that I'm not a writer. I like the idea of being a writer. I sometimes come up with something reasonably good, and by a sheer act of will translate it into text, but it isn't something I do as a recreation.

At some level I would like to be one of those people. Tom Myers really impresses me (see http://www.anatomytrains.net). You can tell that he loves language; the texture, imagery and flow of words. I can appreciate the gift, but the encoding of thoughts into artful language isn't something that flows easily for me.

The last few months have been productive. I've been teaching an introductory physiology class at the Pittsburgh School of Pain Management. In a couple of weeks I will start teaching a 10 week introductory neurology class at PSPM. Tanya Chaney planned the syllabus and developed a fantastic PowerPoint presentation for the material. I wish I could post the whole thing on the website, but the material belongs to Tanya.

I've been attending meditation and discourses at The Pittsburgh Buddhist Center. The center recently had its one year anniversary. It opened the same weekend that I moved back to Pittsburgh.

Good Karma.

Learning Methods

A somewhat lengthy, but quite worthwhile essay on posture, movement, gravity, and awareness:

http://www.learningmethods.com/statlect.htm

Thanks Pauliina

MSG and Brains

A well meaning relative, who is also a fantastic cook, sent the following to me.
Take a good look at the line in red. This statement is completely false.

The person who wrote this is simply going by wht he has heard and what he believes, and is not trying to deceive or harm anyone.

The recipe is taste great, I've eaten a lot of it. I've also had a lot of physical and neurological issues that may have been exacerbated by consumpton of MSG. I know that I have noticed dramatic improvements in mTBI related issues now that I have made it a point to eliminate as much MSG from my diet as possible. It is nearly impossible to eliminate completely without going strictly Organic/Vegan, but it can be reduced dramatically by careful purchasing and label reading.

Here is the recipe:

Hundreds of my adoring fans have asked me to share my mighty meat (steak/pork chop/hamburger/etc) marinade recipe.

Since I am approaching retirement and want to share good things with the rest of the world, I will let this secret out of the bag. It is very simple and quick to make and guarantees a fantastic flavor for meat you broil on a grill.

Combine and mix together in a shallow dish (glass pie plate, deep plate, platter, etc) the following ingredients:

1/2 cup oil (I use peanut oil, but other cooking oils will do)

1/2 cup paprika (I use sweet paprika that I buy at Sam's)

2 heaping tablespoons of dried or fresh basil (sweet, if possible)

1 tablespoon of garlic powder

2 tablespoons of MSG (Accent) -- This really is a natural ingredient and won't hurt you.

2 tablespoons of Worchestershire Sauce (even the cheap stuff works in this marinade)

2 tablespoons of Dale's Steak Seasoning liquid. (I think this is available in all grocery stores?)

DIRECTIONS:

You can apply this 15 minutes before grilling -- but it is best to marinade the meat several hours before cooking.

Put the meat in the marinade mixture and turn it over several times. Spoon up the "paste" on the bottom of the dish and rub it on the top side of the meat.

Turn the meat several times during the marinade process.

Do not drain the marinade when you start to grill.

CAUTION: The marinade will cause big flame ups for the first two or three minutes of grilling -- you will have to move the meat around until the flaming dies down. But, the final results are worth it.

DO NOT SAVE OR RE-USE MARINADE -- THROW IT AWAY AND MAKE A FRESH BATCH NEXT TIME YOU GRILL. (Unless you enjoy being sick from a food borne illness.)

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Individualize your marinade. Maybe you like more garlic or want to add soy sauce, ginger, etc, etc. Whatever -- try it and develop your own distinct grilling marinade and maybe you'll have hundreds of fans, like I do, begging for your recipe!

Good luck.
It would still be a good recipe without the MSG, and I'm pretty sure that the brand of Steak Seasoning mentioned also contains MSG, and would need to be substituted. It might not get the "rave reviews" without these ingredients, and based on animal studies, the people that ate meats marinated in this recipe would probably be satisfied portions about 30% smaller. In a country that has an amazing obesity problem, I think recipes that satisfy you with smaller portions are probably a very good idea. Here is some info on MSG that you may find useful: http://www.truthinlabeling.org/l-append.html

The above link discusses the way the FDA defines MSG, and undr what conditions it can be called "Natural" and under what conditions it can't. As you can see, it is a word game, it is the same substance whether it is called "natural flavoring" ,"hydrolyzed vegetable protein", "sodium caseinate" or anything else from the long list of psuedonyms.

The following is an excerpt from the article:

"Much of the argument for the safety of MSG is based on this meaningless distinction between food additive monosodium glutamate and other hydrolyzed protein products. The distinction is meaningless in a discussion of adverse reactions to processed free glutamic acid because glutamic acid that has been freed from protein or excreted by bacteria through a manufacturing process causes brain lesions, neuroendocrine disorders, and adverse reactions regardless of the method of processing, regardless of the source of the protein, and regardless of the name of the ingredient that contains it."

The article also discusses the banning of MSG in U.S. manufactured baby foods and the reasons behind it. What i can't figure out s why the same logic hasn't been applied to "adult foods".


Somone else who receive the recipe by Email wrote a response that I think is wonderful.

It also applies to the recent "Indigo" topic.

Here it is:

Dear ******,
You're scaring me here!
I have been pondering over your e-mail on Indigo Children in combination
with conjunction with some research I've been doing on excitotoxins.
Short answer:

1. "Indigo Children" are the response to 20th century environmental
assaults never before experienced in the history of the species.

2. One of these assults is MSG (and other excitotoxins such as
aspartame, NutraSweet, etc.)

Yes, glutamates are natural, but never never NEVER in the concentrations
now put in food.
They're put there because they DO create wonderful taste.
They DO that by over-exciting the braincells -- to death, hence the term
"excitotoxins."
They cross the blood brain barrier AND the placental barrier.
The hypothalamus (which controls appetite, the endocrine
system/hormones, etc.) has no blood-brain barrier at all because its job
is to monitor everything in the blood and respond accordingly.

MSG actively destroys brain neurons, and is now linked by researchers to
thyroid / endocrine problems, obesity, AND to Parkinson's, ALS,
Alzheimers (known in Europe as "the American Disease") and other
neurodegenerative diseases.
It is not a huge leap to the current autism epidemic.
Consider the pattern -- normal baby, normal developmental progress until
around age 2 when there should be an explosion of growth and neural
wiring AND when infants are graduating from baby food up to eating adult
food. And strangely the neural connections don't get made.

MSG was removed (we think) from baby food in about 1970 thanks to the
grim determination of a Dr. Olney, a neuroscientist -- over the screams
of the food industry. They (and the FDA) didn't seem to care that MSG
actively destroys the arcuate nucleus of the infant brain. So Olney went
to Congress.

Yes it is natural, tho it never occurs naturally in the quantities that
are now pumped into our food supply so that Consumers will consume more
and more and more.
The damage it causes is precisely BECAUSE of its "naturalness": the
brain, and the hypothalamus in particular, has zillions of glutamate
receptors. What the hypthalamus does not have is a blood / brain barrier
-- because its job as CEO of the body is to monitor everything in the
blood and respond accordingly.

Yes, the FDA has long said that it's safe -- but it turns out that the
pamphlet they gave out for years was actually written by the Glutamate
Council. It's one of the tragic problems of our system that the
understaffed and underfunded FDA has turned safety testing over to the
companies themselves who are hardly objective -- not with billions of
dollars in potential sales at stake. Safety testing seems to have become
an exercise in: "How can we best fudge the data before we turn in the
glowing $afety report$?"

Of all test animals, human brains are the most sensitive to glutamates
(and children's brains are at least 4x more sensitive than those of
adults).
Monkeys aren't much bothered.
Mice are closest to (tho less sensitive than) humans, therefore the test
animal of choice -- IF you are looking for REAL results.

So . . . for the definitive study for a Generally Recognized as Safe
(GRS) decision, what would you pick for study subjects?

The most-quoted safety study used MONKEYS, fed them huge amounts which
induces VOMITING, then kept them sedated during the course of the trial
with a compound which is known to be the most powerful GLUTAMATE
ANTAGONIST known. Not surprisingly, they didn't find much damage after
the chemical was vomited out and the remaining material safely
neutralized.

The definitive book on the subject is by Dr. Russell L. Blaycock,
neurologist and neurosurgeon. -- someone who actually SEES the damage
done by these compounds. You need not take his word for it: it includes
full references to all the studies so readers can make their own
educated decisions.

Here is the Amazon link:
http://www.amazon.com/Excitotoxins-Taste-Russell-L-Blaylock/dp/0929173252/sr=8-1/qid=1172762698/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-8905431-1491263?ie=UTF8&s=books

I know what MSG does to me.
What really scares me is what I don't know about what it does or has
done to me -- or what it will do. It's almost impossible to avoid in any
processed food.
I hope you will look at this.
When you do your consulting, when you write your book, when you feed
your grandchildren, you of all people are in a wonderful position to
save so many people so much grief and pain.

Blessings!
***** *********

Something I have never seen discussed extensively amid the concerns
over excitotoxins in the diet (primarily glutamates from MSG and
aspartates from aspartame)is the effect of elevated glutamate/aspartate
levels on TBI, either immediately following an injury or during
recovery.

Fortunately, high plasma levels of these excitotoxins are blocked from
entering the brain by a healthy blood/brain barrier (except at the
hypothalamus, but that's another discussion)

How about when the blood/brain barrier isn't healthy...TBI or stroke?

Would getting into a car accident on the way home from an MSG loaded
Chinese Buffet result in a more severe brain injury?

How about damage to the HPE axis?
More severe if loaded up with nacho cheese tortilla chips and diet
soda?

And what about recovery?
Can an existing injury be exacerbated and recovery slowed by an
excitotoxin loaded diet?

just random thoughts.

From Wikipedia (which is has become an amazingly handy source of quick
info in the last couple of years):

"Excitotoxicity can occur from substances produced within the body
(endogenous excitotoxins) . Glutamate is a prime example of an
excitotoxin in the brain, and it is paradoxically also the major
excitatory neurotransmitter in the mammalian CNS.[10] During normal
conditions, glutamate concentration can be increased up to 1mM in the
synaptic cleft, which is rapidly decreased in the lapse of
milliseconds. When the glutamate concentration around the synaptic
cleft cannot be decreased or reaches higher levels, the neuron kills
itself by a process called apoptosis.

This pathologic phenomenon can also occur after brain injury. Brain
trauma or stroke can cause ischemia, in which blood flow is reduced to
inadequate levels. Ischemia is followed by accumulation of glutamate
and aspartate in the extracellular fluid, causing cell death, which is
aggravated by lack of oxygen and glucose. The biochemical cascade
resulting from ischemia and involving excitotoxicity is called the
ischemic cascade. Because of the events resulting from ischemia and
glutamate receptor activation, a deep chemical coma may be induced in
patients with brain injury to reduce the metabolic rate of the brain
(its need of oxygen and glucose) and save energy to be used to remove
glutamate actively. (It must be noted that the main aim in induced
comas is to reduce the intracranial pressure, not brain metabolism). "

On a related note:

The symptoms of brain wave slowing are part of a continuum. In the
extreme how are they different from a lowered GCS score other than in
degree?

Can severe apraxia be viewed as a loss of the ability to multi-task
taken to the extreme?
Taken to the point that the client is unable to cordinate the multiple
muscles involved in a complex movement?

Too much coffee on a quiet, snowy, Pittsburgh Sunday,
Wiley