Ease Pain Through Meditation

A Military Pilot Study Shows How Mindfulness Can Help Ease Pain

It could help heal so many invisible wounds.

• Anna AlmendralaSenior Healthy Living Editor

ZENSHUI/ANTOINE ARRAOU VIA GETTY IMAGES

You can’t change chronic pain, but you can change the way you respond to it, finds a new study. 

Mindfulness meditation may help combat veterans with traumatic brain injury manage their chronic pain, according to a small but promising pilot study published in the journal Military Behavioral Health. 

An estimated 44 percent of U.S. combat veterans and 26 percent of Americans in general suffer from chronic pain, a condition in which pain persists for longer than 12 weeks and in some cases for a lifetime. If the pilot study’s results are borne out in future research, the military will have an effective and economical tool to help treat soldiers who return from the field with lifelong pain, says Thomas Nassif, a researcher at the Washington D.C. Veterans Affairs Medical Center and professorial lecturer at American University. 

What’s more, this mindfulness therapy could apply to civilians with pain problems, providing another way to supplement traditional therapies like pain medication, psychological counseling and surgeries or implants. 

Meditation resulted in a 20 percent decrease in pain

Nassif tested a particular mindfulness meditation program called Integrative Restoration Yoga Nidra, or iRest, which focuses on breathing exercises, guided imagery and progressive relaxation. Because of promising but preliminary research on iRest, it is already offered as an “educational class” (read: not official therapy) at VA medical centers and other active-duty military facilities nationwide.

But Nassif’s pilot is the first time it has been tested for its effect on chronic pain. Past research has shown that iRest can help decrease PTSD symptoms and emotional reactivity in vets, but these studies did not have case control groups, he noted.

The participants in Nassif’s study were all male combat veterans of wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Kosovo and Bosnia. They had all experienced traumatic brain injury during their service and returned to the U.S. with chronic pain. In order to isolate the effects of the meditation, the researchers excluded all men who already seemed to be self-medicating on some level: those who drank a certain amount of alcohol, had used illicit drugs in the past month, relied on prescription medications known to alleviate pain or who were already regular meditators.

That left nine people, who formed two groups. Four of the men spent two months doing at least two hour-long meditations every week, and the five case controls did not participate in the meditation program until after the experiment was over. 

After the two month meditation experiment was over, Nassif asked the men to re-assess their pain, where it hurt and how much it hurt. He found that the vets who had meditated reported an at least 20 percent reduction in pain intensity and pain interference, which means whether or not pain can disrupt sleep, mood and activity levels. The control group that didn’t meditate did not report any pain improvement.

You can’t change pain, but you can change the way you react

Like the tenets of traditional mindfulness meditation, which encourage practitioners to observe their surroundings, thoughts and feelings without judgment, the iRest meditation program encourages practitioners not to avoid their pain but to focus on it from a “nonjudgemental perspective.”

It’s thought that slowly changing a person’s perception of their pain reduces the mental and emotional burden he has to bear, which in turn could help increase their coping skills and minimize the pain’s effect on day-to-day life, explains Nassif. This success could, over time, develop into a sense of empowerment over their pain.

“Our theory is that mindfulness meditation encourages patients to not practice avoidance so much as sustain their attention on painful sensations without judgment and without bringing up any unpleasant cognitions, thoughts or emotions that might accompany these painful sensations,” said Nassif. “The sensations may still be there, but they wont be as bothersome, and we consider that self-management an important process through which mindfulness meditation can help veterans manage their pain better.”

A way to complement pain control

Because the pilot study was so small, and conducted among such a homogenous group of participants, Nassif can’t make any generalizations about whether mindfulness meditation can help others living with chronic pain. But he can say that the program is a promising approach to pain control that empowers people to establish a better quality of life for themselves.

Nassif is also clear that he doesn’t see mindfulness meditation as a complete replacement for things like pain medication or therapy. Instead, he explained, it could provide veterans with one more option to help cope with their pain — especially those who are concerned about the long-term side effects of certain pain medications, or those who find that the pain medications have stopped working for them.

“For many of them, the pain level is sometimes a nine out of 10, or 10 out of 10, every minute of every day,” Nassif said, referring to a traditional pain scale. “This is just one example of a tool that may help make the pain more tolerable and may provide some healing, at least on a mental, spiritual or quality-of-life level.” 

More research is needed on the topic, he concluded.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/military-mindfulness-meditation-chronic-pain-study_us_56bbb28fe4b0c3c5504ff995

Take Control of Your Pregnancy

Take the Wheel – Chiropractic and Pregnancy

By:  Dr. Ron Robinson

In today’s fast paced highly technical world, the journey of pregnancy has become a mixed bag of emotions for women. With all of the doctor appointments and “routine” tests, it leaves many women feeling overwhelmed and fearful for the journey ahead.

These feelings were very apparent during a recent casual conversation with a friend whom I hadn’t seen in a couple of years, and the conversation gradually shifted over to the fact that she was expecting her first baby in just under four months. I generally have these types of conversations quite often with women, because prenatal chiropractic has been my focus for nearly ten years.

This conversation was no different from many of the others, but something she said really struck me: We were discussing who her birth provider was and where she was delivering, when she casually hinted that she wasn’t really happy with her current doctor. Her description of their relationship was, “I feel like I’m a backseat driver along for the ride.” To which my response was, “Maybe you need to take the wheel

The “Typical” Experience

This is your pregnancy. You shouldn’t feel like a “backseat driver.” As most of my conversations go, I started asking her all kinds of questions. Again, her description of what had occurred up to that point was very similar compared with most women. She had first met with her obstetrician around 8 weeks, because she was over the age of 30, and her doctor wanted to keep an eye on things from an early stage and get an accurate due date. Despite having no prior complications or previous pregnancies, the nurses informed her that she was going to undergo some simple blood work and a routine ultrasound. With no previous experience, she decided that her doctor knew best and had the test and the results came back normal.

If we fast-forward three more visits to her OB, she has now had three more ultrasounds, despite her previous normal results and her reluctance for all of these tests. She has also had the famous blood glucose test, which came back slightly elevated. This, of course, lead to another test, but these results came back normal. Despite these normal results she was labeled with gestational diabetes. At this point, she started to ask friends about their experiences. As it turned out, they had experienced very similar situations with many different doctors.

You are probably thinking; “So what?” right? Well, the ultrasounds and the gestational diabetes are merely the beginning of this journey. As technology has advanced, so has our utilization of technology in pregnancy and birth. This is leading to our current rates of inductions, epidurals, and c-sections. I won’t get into the controversy that surrounds the utilization of these procedures during pregnancy and birth, and actually that’s not the issue here at all.

If you noticed, she was not alone in what she had experienced. The primary issue is that many pregnant women are feeling left out when it comes to how this journey may shape up. Women honestly ARE like a backseat driver. They are on this journey, and as they are moving down the path, they may say, “I would like to do this……” but often times are met with a dismissive response or are told, “because of x, y, or z we can’t do that,” or “we don’t do it that way here.”

Taking Control of Your Pregnancy

In my office we encourage seeking options and will help you find answers.

I have seen it first hand too many times; women will come to the office in tears, because they are told something along those lines, and they feel helpless and scared. They feel trapped with no exit options.

Women may come to their doctor with their route planned, only to find that their doctor is using a GPS to navigate to their destination on a different route. Both routes will get the same result, the baby will be born, but they simply are not choosing the same route and probably not the same arrival time to that destination either.

Women are put in the backseat and are saying, “no it’s not this exit, I wanted to take this route”, but the doctors still push forward with their own route. This is never the feeling anyone should have in their healthcare, especially not during pregnancy, when it is so essential for women to feel safe and confident, so their babies feel safe and grow healthy and unstressed. Not only are these women being denied control of their own pregnancy and birth journey, they are not being encouraged to seek out options and answers.

Why Chiropractic?

The truth is that pregnancy and birth MATTER! In my office we unfortunately see this classic story all the time and its long term effects. I would love to never hear these stories again. These stories are why I’m so obsessed with educating and empowering women to take control of their pregnancy and birth to start rewriting the classic story.

I am often asked, “Why does a chiropractor even care about pregnancy and birth?” The answer can be quite simple, yet many people don’t see it. Most people have a skewed view of chiropractic. Our main role as chiropractors is not to treat headaches and back pain. Rather, we are trained to help each and every patient reach their full potential by allowing their body to work with ease and efficiency.

---

How Chiropractic Helps with Pregnancy & Birth

When an expecting mom receives chiropractic during her pregnancy, it has been shown to:

• decrease pain during birth
• shorten birth times
• reduce the number of birth interventions

Each of these benefits are not only great for mom, but important for what all parents want at the end of their pregnancy—a healthy, happy baby.

---

The easier a pregnancy and the birth process are, the less stress and strain babies endure, which leads to better bonding, better nursing, better sleeping, and fewer digestive complaints (colic, reflux, and constipation). With this classic story that we heard above, we find nearly 95% of children have stress at the base of the skull and upper neck which hinders their ability to function with ease and efficiency. This stress on the neck is exactly what pediatric chiropractors are experts at detecting and correcting.

Still people may offer objections to me discussing pregnancy or birth, because I’m not an OB. To be fair I understand that, but you see, an OB is trained to deliver your baby, not raise a healthy baby! When you receive chiropractic care prior to and during pregnancy, not only do you receive adjustments, you will be consistently educated and empowered to ask the questions and take the steps that help you achieve the birth that is best for you and your baby’s long term health. We want what every family wants; for you to have a healthy, happy baby. The best way to achieve that is by preparing, educating, and taking control of your own care.

The best preparation for tomorrow is doing your best today.
H. Jackson Brown

In order to have that healthy, happy baby, you need to be a healthy, happy mom. To become that healthy, happy mom you need to prepare your body to be at ease and function with efficiency. You also need to become educated about the journey ahead, so you can plan your route and know your destination.

---

Source: http://www.premierwellnesschiro.com/take-the-wheel

The Importance of Good Posture

Posture Affects Standing, and Not Just the Physical Kind

PAUL ROGERS

By JANE E. BRODY

DECEMBER 28, 2015

A distraught wife begged me to write about the importance of good posture. “My husband sits for many hours a day slouched over his computer,” she said. “I’ve told him repeatedly this is bad for his body — he should sit up straight — but he pays no attention to me. He reads you every week. Maybe he’ll listen to you.”

So here goes: Yes, dear sir, listen to your wife. Slouching is bad. It’s bad not only for your physical health, but also for your emotional and social well-being. More about this in a bit.

Without delay, get that computer on a proper surface (laps can encourage slouching) and get a supportive chair that enables you to sit up straight with your head aligned directly over your shoulders and hips when your eyes are on the screen.

As a short person who is prone to back pain, I have long been aware of the value of good posture, and seating that minimizes the stress on my spine and the muscles and ligaments that support it. I know within seconds of sitting in a car whether it will hurt my back or neck; when renting, I test car after car until I find one that suits my diminutive frame.

I bought my current vehicle, a Toyota Sienna minivan, largely because I was immediately comfortable when I got behind the wheel for a test drive. My entire back was supported, so not a twinge was felt there, unlike what happens in many other cars. I could also easily see over the steering wheel without tilting my head back, which is not the case in most other vehicles. And I could reach the floor pedals without unduly extending my leg and straining my lower back.

Poor posture can have ill effects that radiate throughout the body, causing back and neck pain, muscle fatigue, breathing limitations, arthritic joints, digestive problems and mood disturbances. It can also create a bad impression when applying for a job, starting a relationship or making new friends.

Poor posture can even leave you vulnerable to street crime. Many years ago,researchers showed that women who walked sluggishly with eyes on the ground, as if carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders, were much more likely to be mugged than those who walked briskly and purposely with head erect. I can’t prove posture was at fault, but this is indeed what happened to a Brooklyn neighbor on her way home one night.

We live in a gravitational field, and when our bodies are out of line with the vertical, certain muscles will have to work harder than others to keep us upright. This can result in undue fatigue and discomfort that can outlast the strain that caused them.

In a study of 110 students at San Francisco State University, half of whom were told to walk in a slumped position and the other half to skip down a hall, the skippers had a lot more energy throughout the day.

Any repetitive or prolonged position “trains” the body’s muscles and tendons to shorten or lengthen and places stress on bones and joints that can reshape them more or less permanently. Just as walking in high heels can shorten and tighten the Achilles’ tendons and calf muscles, slouching while sitting hour after hour can result in a persistent slouch, while standing and walking while slouched can lead to permanently rounded shoulders and upper back.

Although early humans spent most of their waking hours walking, running and standing, today in developed countries, 75 percent of work is performed while sitting. Most people sit going to and from work and while relaxing after work. The longer people sit (or stand) without a change in position and movement, the more likely they will be to develop a postural backache, according to a report in The Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics.

“Text neck,” a term coined by a Florida chiropractor, Dean L. Fishman, is a repetitive stress injury resulting from hours spent with the head positioned forward and down while using electronic devices. This leads to tight muscles in the back of the neck and upper back. And those who lean forward while sitting may be inclined to clench their jaws and tighten their facial muscles, causing headache and TMJ — temporomandibular joint syndrome

Leaning forward or slouching can also reduce lung capacity by as much as 30 percent, reducing the amount of oxygen that reaches body tissues, including the brain, according to Dr. Rene Cailliet, a pioneer in the field of musculoskeletal medicine who died in March.

Additionally, slouching or sitting in a scrunched position compresses the abdominal organs and may reduce peristaltic action that is important to normal digestion and bowel function.

One of today’s most troublesome activities, especially for children and adolescents whose bone structure is still developing, is carrying extraordinarily heavy backpacks to and from school and often throughout the school day. The weight forces them to bend forward, with potentially the same consequences as slouching.

It is time to return the rolling backpack to youthful fashion. I have used one to lug heavy files and books back and forth to work since these packs were first invented as an outgrowth of the wheeled luggage that came into vogue in the 1980s.

For far too many years, I carried everything, including a heavy briefcase and groceries, over my right shoulder, which forced me to raise that shoulder and lean toward my left, clearly an undesirable posture. When carrying heavy items is unavoidable, it is best to balance them on both sides of the body.

Among other postural habits to avoid are these, listed by Britain’s National Health Service.

• Standing with a flat back, with the pelvis tucked in and lower back straight (the normal spine has three curves – in the neck, chest and lower back).

• Standing with chest pushed forward and buttocks pushed back (the so-called Donald Duck posture that exaggerates the lumbar curve).

• Leaning on one leg, which puts undue pressure on one side of the lower back and hip.

• Bending the head back and sticking out the chin while looking at a computer screen or television. Instead, lower the screen or raise the seat.

• Holding the phone on a shoulder. Instead, use a hands-free device like a headset or Bluetooth.

Improving posture requires a conscious effort and often strengthening and flexibility exercises to correct muscular imbalances, according to Nick Sinfield, a British physiotherapist. For example, exercises that strengthen the core, buttocks muscles and back extensors help correct a slouching posture, he said.

Cited from: 

http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/well/2015/12/28/posture-affects-standing-and-not-just-the-physical-kind/?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=1&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fm.facebook.com

• 
  

Benefit your brain by learning a new sport

Learning a New Sport May Be Good for the Brain

By GRETCHEN REYNOLDS

Learning in midlife to juggle, swim, ride a bicycle or, in my case, snowboard could change and strengthen the brain in ways that practicing other familiar pursuits such as crossword puzzles or marathon training will not, according to an accumulating body of research about the unique impacts of motor learning on the brain.

When most of us consider learning and intelligence, we think of activities such as adding numbers, remembering names, writing poetry, learning a new language.

Such complex thinking generally is classified as “higher-order” cognition and results in activity within certain portions of the brain and promotes plasticity, or physical changes, in those areas. There is strong evidence that learning a second language as an adult, for instance, results in increased white matter in the parts of the brain known to be involved in language processing.

Regular exercise likewise changes the brain, as I frequently have written, with studies in animals showing that running and other types of physical activities increase the number of new brain cells created in parts of the brain that are integral to memory and thinking.

But the impacts of learning on one of the most primal portions of the brain have been surprisingly underappreciated, both scientifically and outside the lab. Most of us pay little attention to our motor cortex, which controls how well we can move.

“We have a tendency to admire motor skills,” said Dr. John Krakauer, a professor of neurology and director of the Center for the Study of Motor Learning and Brain Repair at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. We like watching athletes in action, he said. But most of us make little effort to hone our motor skills in adulthood, and very few of us try to expand them by, for instance, learning a new sport.

We could be short-changing our brains.

Past neurological studies in people have shown that learning a new physical skill in adulthood, such as juggling, leads to increases in the volume of gray matter in parts of the brain related to movement control.

Even more compelling, a 2014 study with mice found that when the mice were introduced to a complicated type of running wheel, in which the rungs were irregularly spaced so that the animals had to learn a new, stutter-step type of running, their brains changed significantly. Learning to use these new wheels led to increased myelination of neurons in the animals’ motor cortexes. Myelination is the process by which parts of a brain cell are insulated, so that the messages between neurons can proceed more quickly and smoothly.

Scientists once believed that myelination in the brain occurs almost exclusively during infancy and childhood and then slows or halts altogether.

But the animals running on the oddball wheels showed notable increases in the myelination of the neurons in their motor cortex even though they were adults.

At the same time, other animals that simply ran on normal wheels for the same period of time showed no increase in myelination afterward.

In other words, learning the new skill had changed the inner workings of the adult animals’ motor cortexes; practicing a well-mastered one had not.

“We don’t know” whether comparable changes occur within the brains of grown people who take up a new sport or physical skill, Dr. Krakauer said. But it seems likely, he said. “Motor skills are as cognitively challenging” in their way as traditional brainteasers such as crossword puzzles or brain-training games, he said. So adding a new sport to your repertory should have salutary effects on your brain, and also, unlike computer-based games, provide all the physical benefits of exercise.

These considerations cheered me a few weeks ago when I took to the slopes of my local mountain for a weekend-long crash course in snowboarding. (Crashing, regrettably, is inevitable while learning to shred.) I had wondered if I might be too advanced in years and hardened in the habits of skiing to learn to ride. But the experience was in fact exhilarating and glorious. Learning a new sport or skill when you are old enough to be a parent to your instructor is psychologically uplifting, as well as beneficial for the body and brain. It reminds you that your body can still respond, that it can still yearn for movement and speed.

By the end of the second day, I attempted my first moguls on a snowboard and completed precisely one turn before auguring hindside into the slope and slipping and picking my way down the rest of the run. But one mogul turn was 100 percent more than I had managed before. I now aim to return to the mountain and double that number to two turns, which is how we learn and progress and, with luck, change our minds — both literally and about our limits.

Cited from:

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/03/02/learning-a-new-sport-may-be-good-for-the-brain/?smid=fb-share&_r=0