Category Archives: Health

The Power of Poetry

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533600_445285395556194_177837279_nThere lies infinite healing powers inside a pen and paper. This art form provides a medium for the restless, dancing words inside the mind, wishing only to become liberated. They are happier dancing on pages of a book and the ears of others.

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In a word Storm,

Poetry is that expression that turns life’s trepidation into instances of pure intellectual elation.

Has everything we see, hear, or feel, been perverted by the awareness of by our own inadequacies?

Or paralyzed by the fears that encroach like the foggy mists that invade the Irish hills early in the morning?

Poetic expression for me is much more than a way to see Wisdom’s influence on the spaces between the words I write.

The paper is the battlefield my pen marches onto to pay homage to the mastery of thought that reigns over all reality.

Yes, that’s right, I do think, I do contemplate, I do meditate, the Why that is a prevalent question verbalized by the Silence.

There is no other way to escape the penance of a life sentence of imprisonment in and to one’s own mind.

If you finally choose to satisfy the nagging voices of Intention and hear reality’s voice of reason, then a positive outlook can find the meaning of your life’s purpose.

Do you hear me, I mean really? Finally the house-guest who has spent 14 years Marionetting my life like a Master Puppeteer, has found the Emergency exit. This exit is through my mouth; In Spoken Word my ideas find the freedom to get born into existence.

My mouth, like the barrel of a gun spits the projectiles that add the thunder to the rain. The rain that is currently soaking society; why should we seek cover? Why not go dancing in the rain?

Every so often the lightning strikes, and then all we are left to do is count,
to find out, how far away is the eye of the storm.

Surprise, we are in the eye of the storm, and safe here,
but here, have an umbrella just in case….

Poetry has been that one outlet that is always accepting of my mental confusion. Surviving catastrophic brain injury in 1999, for me poetry has been instrumental to my recovery; socially, motivationally, and too therapeutically; even romantically. Sometimes it is true that the paper is the only one who will listen to my pen. Such a mental exchange brings light to the darkness that sometimes shadows my world.

Thank you poetry, you’ve saved me!
—
~ Michael Gardner (2013)

Chill Out with an Essential Oil Steam

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Chill out with an aromatherapy session using essential oils! Many essential oils work on altering your neurochemistry to provide sedative, analgesic, and/ or anti-depressive effects. A few of these include eucalyptus, peppermint, jasmine, lavender, and lemongrass.

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A simple and accessible way to use essential oils is through the steam method:

1. Boil a quart of water and pour it into a bowl.
2. Add a few drops of the essential oil of your choice.
3. Right away you may begin inhaling the steam. A typical session lasts around 15 minutes.

Using essential oils is very effective because you are actually forced to focus only on your breathing. Breathing exercises with the essential oils steam multiplies the mood boosting, calming, de-stressing effects of the scents themselves, further activating parasympathetic nerves, decreasing stress hormones, and increasing GABA (the ultimate anti-anxiety neurotransmitter). Therefore, this method is very handy if you need a major pick-me-up on the go!

The Medicinal Properties of Pranayama (Breath Control)

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Pranayama (breathing exercises) exude vast brain and body benefits through stimulating parasympathetic nervous activity and increasing vagal tone.

Our body’s Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) helps us to regulate stress and threat responses, and branches off into two main categories: the Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) and Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS). The SNS responds to threatening environments by increasing metabolic activities and facilitating energy mobilization (“fight or flight”), while the PNS responds to social engagement & safe environments (“rest and digest”).

Prolonged and consistent activation of the SNS is associated with a plethora of mental illnesses such as major depression, epilepsy, and post-traumatic stress disorder – while its opposition, the PNS, helps to maintain optimal homeostasis.

The PNS is composed of five sets of vagus nerves projecting information to and from different areas of the body (ie. abdominal viscera, pharynx, larynx, lungs, heart, trachea, external sensory receptors, etc) and the Central Nervous System (CNS; brain and spinal cord). Therefore, there lies a bidirectional influence between emotional states/ cognitive thought processes and their somatic/ bodily expressions with vagus nerves bridging the comunication. In other words, the body listens to the brain, but the brain listens to the body as well.

So where does yoga come into play?

pranayamaIn one word: breath.

“The fact that breathing is the only autonomic function that can easily be voluntarily controlled provides a portal through which specific selected breathing patterns can be used to send messages to through PNS, SNS, and interoceptive systems to affect how the brain perceives, interprets, and responds to stress or threat.

Because breathing is vital to survival, information from the respiratory system must be noticed and attended to immediately.” ~ Streeter, Gerbarg, Saper, Ciraulo, & Brown (2012)

This not only means that breathing exercises can tell the brain that it can chill out and veer into a more safe allostatic state, but that this communication is extremely rapid.

Different types of breathing exercises have been shown to increase PNS activity. For example, ujjayi breath (resistance breathing involving laryngeal contracture and partial closure of the glottis) increases intrathroracic pressure, baroreceptor stimulation, respiratory sinus arrhythmia, and heart rate variability, while using breath holds with ujjayi multiplies PNS effects. In addition, chanting om (resistance breathing while contracting the vocal cords) increases vagal tone and physiological relaxation.

Therefore yogic breathing can be a powerful tool in preventing and combating a number of chronic illnesses involving hyperactive SNS activity by defeating allostatic load. And furthermore, it’s simple, accessible, and effective!

Thank you!

Streeter, C., Gerbarg, F., Saper, R., Ciraulo, D., Brown, R. (2012). Effects of yoga on the autonomic nervous system, gamma-aminobutryic-acid, and allostasis in epilepsy, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Medical hypotheses, 78 (5), 571-579.

Yoga as a Treatment for Eating Disorders

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Bodily Hatred

Recent studies are beginning to reveal the promise of yoga as a supplementary prevention and treatment aid for eating disorders (ED) anorexia nervosa (AN), bulimia nervosa (BN), and binge eating disorder (BED); six of the seven recently emerged studies reveal positive findings.

Yoga may be effective for the prevention and treatment of EDs due to it’s abilities to treat common co-morbid symptoms such as hyperactive stress, chronic anxiety, depression, and obsessive-compulsion as well as ED related neurological deficiencies such as impaired interoception (internal sensory signalling), proprioception (perception of body in space), and visual association (ie. inaccurate perception of body shape and size leads to body dysmorphia).

Read Flow’s full review: Yoga as a Treatment for Eating Disorders [PDF].

1:2 Breathing Sings Lullabies to Sympathetic Nerves

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Yoga for Emotional Balance1:2 breathing is the practice of patterning your breath as to make your exhales twice as long as your inhales. Bo Forbes, psychiatrist and yoga therapist shines light on the power of this breath control practice for alleviating anxiety in her exceptionally handy book, “Yoga for Emotional Balance: simple practices to help relieve anxiety and depression.”

1:2 breathing, like every other pranayama (breath control) technique, takes a bit of foundational work and practice; acknowledge this and let go of nailing it to perfection at the first try now, otherwise the meditative practice may grow to agitate you and as a consequence become counterproductive. These foundations include familiarizing yourself with general nostril breathing and ujjayi breath, which you may learn how to do here; once you have a fair grasp on those foundations, 1:2 breath will come much easier.

You may begin 1:2 breathing by assuming a comfortable position, whether seated or supine. If seated, ensure that your spine is aligned, with a slight lumbar curve, shoulders rolled back and down from your ears, and crown of the head reaching tall. If lying supine, just be sure to fully relax your hips and shoulders, surrendering them to gravity. Start with four counts for your inhales, and five counts for your exhales. Become comfortable with this ratio before moving onto four counts for inhales to six counts for exhales. Gradually, you will make it to four count inhales and eight count exhales. Be sure to resist increasing the ratio until you are fully comfortable with the current one – this may take over the course of many separate sessions.

A few things to note: you can (and should) take a few normal breaths in between bouts of breath control at any time you feel that you need to. I also suggest taking little to none throat constriction for the inhale, while constricting the throat more for the exhale, as so air can slowly pass through your airway (this is where ujjaiyi breathing comes in handy). If you do find the four to eight ratio easy, you may work to increase the overall counts as well.

Engaging in this breath practice for as little as five minutes can dramatically slow down a fast paced sympathetic nervous system – it creates a state where being physiologically anxious is nearly impossible. Try a little 1:2 breathing to evaporate your anxiety and sing your insomnia away for a good night’s sleep.

Reference:

Forbes, B. (2011). Yoga for Emotional Balance: Simple Practices to Help Relieve Anxiety and Depression. Boston, MA: Shambhala.