Wellness Warrior meets Wellness Warrior – Jess Ainscough interviews Lissa Rankin

http://www.thewellnesswarrior.com.au/2013/05/mind-over-medicine-my-interview-with-dr-lissa-rankin/

Two of my favourite wellness warriors get together to discuss Lissa Rankin’s new book ‘Mind over Medicine’.

Both of these ladies are very much on my page when it comes to health.

This interview is well worth listening to.

Important points raised during the interview are;
What does your body need to heal? What prescription does your body need you to prescribe for yourself? What would you do if you could do anything you wanted, to make yourself better?

– Leave your abusive relationship?
– Leave your horrible job?
– Go to college?
– Move countries?
– Get married?
– Do something you always wanted to do?
– Get a new job with a better employer? 🙂

Lissa’s idea about letting the patient write the prescription for themselves is really liberating.

In the context of epilepsy research I think it is relevant to the epilepsy research project what treatment would you prefer?:

http://www.epilepsy.org.uk/research/take-part/projects-you-can-take-part-in/patient-preferences-treatment-options

National Epilepsy Week 19th May 23rd May 2013 What Treatment Do You Prefer?

Nobody is the same, so everyone will need different treatment.

Healing is not neceserraly curing.

The moral of the story – Turn off your stress response, it could save your life.

I love epigenetics!

National Epilepsy Week 19th May 23rd May 2013 What Treatment Do You Prefer?

National Epilepsy Week this week and there is a reason to celebrate, because this month Epilepsy Action magazine published an article about an epilepsy research project titled; ‘Which treatment would you prefer?’.

A very sensible question, its always nice to be asked what you want!

🙂

you can take part by following the information in this link;
http://www.epilepsy.org.uk/research/take-part/projects-you-can-take-part-in/patient-preferences-treatment-options

BIG THUMBS UP TO THIS PORJECT!

*Actually its full title is ‘People’s Preferences and Priorities for Treatment Options and Outcomes in Epilepsy’ but I like to get to the point.

Mind Over Medicine – Lissa Rankin Book Launch

Lissa gave regular readers of her blog the opportunity read the first excerpt of ‘Mind Over Medicine’ by Lissa Rankin MD available to buy from a link on her blog.

I thought that everyone with an interest in healing (themselves or others) would be interested in her book, the subjects talked in the excerpt I read are; The placebo effect and its physiology, spontaneous remission from cancer, healing and belief. That was only a short extract!

Can’t wait to read the whole thing!

http://lissarankin.com/an-eggy-book-launch-happy-birth-day-mind-over-medicine?inf_contact_key=c0c764d605a6c01aaca9c07c0aa6fa3b21abd769dc36d07e70955d70cdb7a98e

Singing for Alzheimer’s and Mysicophilia by Oliver Sacks

 

I recently had cause to dig out my copy of Oliver Sacks book Musicophilia and lend it to a friend, because she has started to volunteer for an organisation that is using singing to help people with Alzheimer’s. This improves memory, health and wellbeing.

For those of you that are interested the Alzheimer’s society project link is very interesting.

http://alzheimers.org.uk/site/scripts/documents_info.php?documentID=760 and shows a video of the project and has links explaining what it is.

I know a lot of people who have said sound effects their epilepsy, I found this  newspaper review that explains what Musicophilia has to say about Alzheimers and epilepsy.

If anyone wants to borrow my copy just let me now and I can lend it to you when it gets back to me!

‘Sacks tells some very moving stories about those with terrifyingly profound amnesia, or Alzheimer’s disease, for whom music can “restore them to themselves”. People with aphasia can be taught to speak again through singing. On the other hand, previously healthy people begin to have “musical hallucinations”, blasted by intrusive ghostly music during every waking second; and others have seizures in response to music, or “musicogenic epilepsy” – which, intriguingly, can be selective. One woman Sacks cites “had seizures only in response to ‘modern, dissonant music,’ never in response to classical or romantic music” – and her husband was a composer of the type of music that gave her seizures, which one suspects may be a hint. But such a violent response to certain music might be more common than suspected: “Many people, [one researcher thought], might start to get a queer feeling – disturbing, perhaps frightening – when they heard certain music, but then would immediately retreat from the music, turn it off, or block their ears, so that they did not progress to a full-blown seizure.” Indeed, certain styles of free jazz have always made me physically nauseous.’

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/nov/03/scienceandnature.music review Stephen Poole The Guardian Newspaper

The Heart of Music

 

Thanks Aelana for this really interesting harp music therapy programme that looks at the relationship between the heart and music.

The site contains an interesting vimeo from the Institute of Heart Math about the heart and music.  Good information on using biofeedback to train heart rate variability, and induce relaxation and healing in the body.

When we lose consciousness or die, the hearing is one of the last senses to go.

Maybe this is why music is so sacred.

This also spreads light on why chanting is so healing.

When we chant or sing we are soothing our hearts! 🙂

Harping Heals

Harp playing relaxes, energizes, soothes, and heals the youngest of children and oldest of adults.

• Releases emotional pain
• Improves short-term memory and attention span
• Increases social interaction
• Builds self-esteem
• Relieves stress

 

http://www.harptherapyinternational.com/

http://www.heartmath.org/

The Five Essentials … For Health & Happiness – Guest Blog

I would like to thank fredphillips.wordpress.com for this guest blog post, which shows, that we humans are not so different; and if you ask the universe (or the internet) you will find people out there who you have a lot in common with. 🙂 thanks fred!

There are five things that are essential for our health and happiness. I call these, oddly enough, The Five Essentials. Catchy, eh?

We are in the midst of enormous suffering on the planet. Rates of disease are spiraling upwards. Bullying is an epidemic, especially in our schools.  Regional and domestic conflicts abound. Many magnificent species are disappearing, or at the risk of disappearing, from the planet.

I could go on and regale you with more depressing stuff, but I really don’t want you to stop reading.

The truth is (and I believe this with all my heart), there is a solution to all this misery and it has to do with … you guessed it  … The Five Essentials. So let’s get right to it. Here they are:

1. To have an awareness of the truths of our existence
2. To feel good about ourselves
3. To heal our emotional pain
4. To eat and drink healthy stuff
5. To get active

Let’s briefly examine each of these essentials to see what they’re all about. (Yes, I know, a couple of them are rather self evident.)

1. To have an awareness of the truths of our existence:

Understanding the truths of who we really are and why we’re really here on the planet (there is little evidence to suggest it has anything to do with getting rich & famous) is critical if we have any hope of changing human behaviour. It certainly inspired me to change mine. I think if we knew for instance, that we live in oneness with God and everything else that exists, we would not treat each other the way we do. We wouldn’t start wars. We wouldn’t exploit the animal kingdom and we wouldn’t pollute. We would let go of fear. We would live with more compassion and love. We would be more altruistic. And we would be more humble.

If you want to know more, immerse yourself in spirituality. Talk to spiritual people. Read books by Eckhart Tolle, Caroline Myss, Wayne Dyer, Neale Donald Walsch and my own book, The History Teacher. Read my spiritual posts at fredphillips.wordpress.com.

2. To feel good about ourselves:

If we all felt good about ourselves … if we all felt lovable, worthy, good enough and empowered … again, we would not behave the way we do. We would not mistreat others. We would be more kind and forgiving. We would be more honest. We wouldn’t put people out of work. We would eat healthier foods.

If you want to change the way you feel about yourself, just be kind.

3. To heal our emotional pain:

We are a society full of unresolved emotional pain. We are loaded with anger, grief, shame, guilt and resentment. If we have any hope of creating peace on earth (one of the reasons we’re here), we need to release this pain. We need to transform it into something healthier and more positive.

If you want to heal your unresolved emotional pain, forgive who you need to forgive, apologize who you need to apologize to, cry if you need to and when you feel anger, scream into a pillow until you feel better.

4. To eat and drink healthy:

With all due respect to those who earn their living working in the fast food, junk food and processed food industries, if we really want to put an end to cancer and all other forms of disease, we need to eat better. We especially need to drastically reduce our sugar intake and eliminate artificial sweeteners and gmos. Why? Because this stuff acidifies our bodies and weakens our immune systems (80% of our immune system is situated in our gastrointestinal tract), leaving us susceptible to disease.

If you want to do one simple thing to improve your diet and your health, start eating fermented foods, especially, sauerkraut. It will put much needed healthy bacteria in your gut.

5. To get active:

As a whole,  we are far too sedentary and we’re paying a high price for it. Our bodies aren’t fit, leaving us vulnerable to stress and disease. We need to get active. I highly recommend martial arts or yoga, but if you do nothing else, go for a walk every day!

I believe in my heart that having an awareness of these Five Essentials, understanding  them and incorporating them into our daily lives will bring us peace of mind, joyful living and love (sign me up for that). They will bring us happiness (that too)!

Neurological Rock Stars 5 – Richard J Davidson Getting to the Heart of Neuroplasticity

Essentially this is the story of Compassion, Monks and an FMRI Scanner.

The heart is seen as primary in relation to emotional regulation in Chinese Medicine. One of the obstacles faced by western science is understanding why this might be. I have written posts before on ‘Towards a spirit of Peace’ (1) which references a text on ‘Shen disorder’, and so I will not go into the more poetic and integrated body mind model from Chinese medicine here. Instead I will write about the work that is putting the ‘heart mind’ into a context that can be referenced and understood by western science and medicine.

Richard J Davidson is professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin–Madison as well as Founder and Chair of the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at the Waisman Center. (2)

I recently saw him talk about his work in ‘Transform your mind, Change your Brain – Google talk’ on youtube.(3)

In it he states “Epigenetics – referrers to the fact that genes are regulated by the environments in which they reside”

“The idea that our genetic structure provide an unalterable blueprint that effects our behaviour in an unalterable way is an antiquated, wrong- headed, Newtonian conception of genetics, it’s not the way things work.”

He emphasises that “the brain is the organ, which is built to change in response to experience more than any other organ in our body.”

Essentially what he is talking about is how behavioural and mental changes can produce more specific neurological changes than biological intervention, for example medication.

One of the books that changed my perspective on the brain was ‘The Plastic Mind – by Sharon Begley’(4).

This book talked about the results of studies involving the Dalai Lama and monks who were being studied under an MRI scanner by Richard J Davidson at the University of Wisconsin. During the scans they were meditating on compassion. The results showed what many Buddhist meditation practitioners already knew, Mediation changes your mind, crucially it showed that it was making neurological changes to the brain and proved neuroplasticity in meditation.

Richard J Davidson works at the cutting edge of Neuroplasticity. He also is also an expert in Affective Neuroscience (study of emotions).

During his talk he describes how when he and his team went to a monastery to explain to the monks what the process for recording data was, his team attached electrodes to the head of Fransisco Varela (5) who would perform the meditation. The response from the monks was that they started laughing. At first he thought it was because the electrodes looked silly on the head of Fransisco, but it emerged that it was because the electrodes were not placed around the heart. He said it took some years to get back to this.

During compassion meditation the Insula is one of the most active areas of the brain.

The Insula (anterior insula) houses a viscera topic map of the body (19min into google talk), visceral organs are mapped in the insula. This part of the brain has descending pathways to these organs and can modulate activity in those organs (there are also pathways to other parts of the brain). The Insula can modulate activity in the visceral organs. Meditation can also affect the amygdala and the TPJ or Temporal Parietal Junction which is associated with empathy.

Research like this into meditation is useful, for example, in understanding regulation of the vagus nerve because ‘many sensory signals conveyed by the vagus nerve terminate here’ – in the insula(6). In relation to the heart this will have big implications because of the relationship between the vagus nerve and heart.(7)

One of the problems with the idea of neuroplasticity is that it isn’t a mainstream idea yet.

Research like this begins to shed light onto the heart mind body brain relationship and forms a bridge in understanding the important relationship between meditation, emotional regulation and the heart and other organs of the body.

This research has far reaching implications not just for medicine but for education as well.(8)

1) https://epilepsymeandneurology.wordpress.com/2012/11/08/epilepsy-in-chinese-medicine-towards-a-spirit-of-peace/

2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Davidson

3) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tRdDqXgsJ0 google talks

4)http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Plastic-Mind-Sharon-Begley/dp/1845296745

5)http://enc.tfode.com/Francisco_Varela

6)http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=32Ucobqp97EC&pg=PA68&lpg=PA68&dq=insula+and+vagus+nerve&source=bl&ots=gwH0yCLiwy&sig=1S9n1L98UZ7DEfMSQjbfcmE7axI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=yV5PUaCCJYWuPOnggNgL&ved=0CEcQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=insula%20and%20vagus%20nerve&f=false

7) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21367742

8)http://www.edutopia.org/richard-davidson-sel-brain-video

The Power of Vulnerability – Brene Brown

I watched this talk this evening and have to admit that I laughed, probably a bit too loudly, through this very touching Ted talk re-blogged by Dr Frank Lipman.  I have seen it before from Be Well and Happy.

For all my fellow onions out there, I think this is a really important and not often enough discussed topic which has cropped up a lot recently (see links).

For everyone  this weekend please share Brene’s Talk  on vulnerability as an idea worth spreading.

 

http://bewellandhappy.wordpress.com/2013/01/10/brene-brown-ted-talk-on-vulnerability/

http://www.drfranklipman.com/brene-brown-the-power-of-vulnerability/

http://fredphillips.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/the-beauty-and-benefits-of-vulnerability/

Get Plugged Into Earth – Thanks Anne!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01r5s20/Ramblings_Series_23_Michael_Weltike_Barefoot_Walker/

Thanks to my chi-gung  teacher for sending this link to aBBC radio barefoot walk and talk about the benefits of barefoot walking.

How to be more grounded with these steps :

Take of your shoes and socks, walk on the ground outside, OBSERVE how you feel when your feet are on the ground!

Simple, and free!

We live on a big round  Earth! 🙂

Advice call after epilepsy drug Epilim study – Epilepsy Care In Wales BBC News

In the wake of the withdrawal of legal aid in the ‘Families who were pursuing a legal case against the makers of an epilepsy drug have dropped their action because legal aid was withdrawn’ BBC News January 20th 2011

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-21523434 London reporting on Pregnant women ‘unaware’ of epilepsy drug risks 25th February 2013, BBC Wales are now reporting:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12242857

“Campaigner Nicole Crosby-McKenna, from Epilepsy Action, wants the Welsh government to review the way information is conveyed to pregnant patients in Wales.

She said: “We would like to know, if they haven’t got access to an epilepsy specialist nurse, who is giving the women that information? Are the GPs passing the information on to women? And also, do the GPs have enough specialist knowledge to accurately give them pre-conception counselling?”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-21733153

See BBC news links for full details.