(The whole podcast is a good listen if you like to keep up with the latest science about health, and… it’s 2 hours long! I listen sometimes while driving into Austin for work several days a week. It’s available on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and other venues.)
First, know that some kinds of mouthwash can actually raise your blood pressure. (Timestamp on YouTube is 1:22:38.)
Wow! That was news to me!
There’s an ingredient in antiseptic mouthwashes that you want to avoid: chlorhexidine. It’s an antimicrobial substance used to treat gingivitis.
Turns out the oral cavity (mouth) has a microbiome that includes microbes that regulate blood pressure!
Who knew, right?
Chlorhexidine in mouthwash kills these helpful microbes, leading to higher systolic blood pressure. That’s the top number.
Dr. Huberman also recommends against using alcohol-based mouthwashes because they deplete the healthy oral microbiome.
Takeaway: read the ingredients, especially if you use mouthwash and have high blood pressure.
Second, xylitol is a low-calorie sweetener that streptococcus mutans bacteria eat (like any sugar). Unlike other sugars, xylitol prevents formation of an acid made by these bacteria that demineralizes the teeth and leads to cavities. (Timestamp is 1:14:23.)
So xylitol keeps teeth mineralized and prevents cavities.
It also helps the body produce more saliva, which also supports remineralization of the teeth.
When I do intraoral manual therapy for my clients with jaw tension, I ask them to swish with a little mouthwash before I put a gloved finger into their mouths. I’ve used salt water too. Although it doesn’t freshen breath, rinsing with salt water helps keep healthy mouth bacteria in balance.
I started doing this when the COVID virus was such a concern, and I still use an air filter.
In my years of doing bodywork, I have encountered three clients who didn’t respond well to my work.
Each one of them had chronic pain.
Keeping up with the current understanding of chronic pain, it appears that when the tissues from the original injury have healed but pain continues, or re-emerges later, the pain has become based in the brain, not in the tissues, even though that’s where people feel it. It’s called neuroplastic pain (neuro = nervous system, plastic = able to change).
Brain-based doesn’t mean “it’s all in your head,” as in “you’re imagining it.” Nope. If you feel pain, and it hurts, it’s real.
In my own understanding, when an injury is accompanied by, or occurs with or near, a trauma (stress, overwhelm, lack of resources or support), neurons in the brain can wire together and start firing together, sending pain signals long past the healing of the injured tissues.
Similar to PTSD, chronic pain can be triggered by memories and/or emotions in the present that the brain associates with the original injury and trauma.
Effective treatment of chronic pain often responds to a mind-body approach to rewire those neurons. Fortunately, the brain has plasticity. With help, people who suffer can learn to rewire those neurons and eliminate the pain.
It’s not that bodywork can’t help. It certainly can. Over the years, I’ve helped numerous people in pain feel a lot better, and often their pain has been longstanding. Sometimes one session does wonders. Sometimes it returns, less severely than before, and we keep working until it resolves.
Sometimes a client with neuroplastic pain finally gets enough relief to resolve the residue of the trauma at the core of their pain, and it never returns.
It’s beautiful when that happens!
We know some things about chronic pain now, and there’s still a lot that’s unknown. Curiosity, inquiry, belief, and patience seem to help.
There are pain coaches who can help. I met one who gets regular craniosacral biodynamics and came in for a session when she was visiting Austin from Colorado. She works remotely. If you want a referral, please let me know. I’m sure there are many others around the country.
This past Saturday, I provided the “ofrenda” at the monthly gathering of women dancing the 5 Rhythms (Step Into Yes) in Austin, facilitated by Lisa DeLand (dancingfirelizards.com).
Lisa and I are old friends. We met at Sweat Your Prayers, an ecstatic dance, in 1995. We have similar paths of recovery from adverse childhood experiences, and now, having worked a lot with our selves, by ourselves and with the help of others, we are in the primes of our lives in terms of creating and offering paths to wholeness and wellness for those in search.
Our paths have some overlap. We both are acquainted with the vast amount of suffering in the world, including our own, and feel moved to offer paths that liberate us and those we work with from conditioning that limits us.
My ofrenda was called Bringing Us Home To Our Existence, and I had 20 minutes between waves of dancing to teach the 28 or so women present about their inner rhythms: breath, heartbeat, and tide.
Background: In late 2022, I began posting on Instagram daily — for 100 days — my experience of what I was then calling Biodynamic Meditation. I’d actually begun practicing it many years previously, in 2013, after I took my first class in Craniosacral Biodynamics and wanted to explore how the concepts of the breath of life, primary respiration, potency, and the tides actually manifested in my own embodied existence.
I sat and sat and noticed more and more. It helped to have some direction from my training, and I could go to my teacher, describe my experience, and have him verify whether I was on track.
That’s one way of learning.
I had planned to start teaching Biodynamic Meditation in 2023, and then I learned I was going to have to move from my home of 12 years, which disrupted my plans.
The move is complete. My foundation training in Craniosacral Biodynamics (and certification) is complete. I’m spending this year learning how best to teach Biodynamic Meditation, and I dipped into in-person teaching of a large group for the first time on Saturday. It was too brief, but they got a taste of it. My take is that some people (who all gathered primarily to dance) were not deeply interested, and others came up afterward and thanked me.
I’m now considering calling it meditation for self-healing, meditation for healing, meditation for health, or simply, how to make friends with your body.
If this is a topic you are interested in, I’d love to hear from you! I’m open to working with individuals, small groups, in person, and online.
I made this vegan curry a few days ago and it was so good I made it again! I like to cook big pots of tasty soups or curries, eat it for a few days (it gets even tastier), and when I want something else, I freeze what’s left and make something else. Then I have something that just needs thawing and heating when I don’t have time to cook.
The veggie count (counting each ingredient only once, because the spices and vegetable stock duplicated some): coconut (oil and milk) yellow onion ginger garlic spices: turmeric, smoked paprika, fenugreek, coriander, cumin, red pepper, lemongrass, shallot, makrut lime peel, black pepper vegetable stock: carrots, celery, leek, parsley, thyme, bay leaf, olive oil veggies: tomatoes, sweet potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, bell pepper, shiitakes, baby Bellas, oyster mushrooms, peas
That’s 30 plants, served over red quinoa, so the total is 31! In one meal!
Honestly, I’m not sure if the red pepper found in the curry powder and red curry paste and also in the vegetable stock is the same as the fresh red bell pepper chunks I added. So maybe the total is just 30…but whatever! I’m pleased with this experiment.
When you add herbs and spices and spice blends like curry powders and pastes, as well as vegetable stock, your plant count goes way up quickly.
The non-plant ingredients were: water, salt, and shrimp and barramundi because I wanted more protein. I added them at the end because they cook fast.
The recipe I used says it makes 6 servings. These are generous servings!
The variety of plants feeds a variety of good gut microbes, increasing digestive health and thus energy and overall health. Another perk: eating a variety of colors of veggies and spices — yellow, red, orange, green, white, brown, aka “eating the rainbow” — has numerous health benefits as well. (Note to self: next time add a blue or purple veggie — eggplant, cabbage, purple onions or sweet potatoes.)
This is a challenge that’s been getting some attention, and it’s worth having fun with!
You’ll get more fiber, eat less processed foods, and it supports your healthy gut microbes. Of course, having a healthy gut influences the rest of the body, improving digestion, energy, mood, sleep, and just plain feeling good.
I didn’t used to eat breakfast, as part of an intermittent fasting regimen. Now, I eat a hearty breakfast and eat again when I feel hungry in the afternoon. Letting hunger drive your eating, and then eating slowly and chewing well until satisfied, makes a difference.
That’s often it for the day. No dinner, and it makes intermittent fasting easier.
I do know the experience of overeating because the taste of something is so satisfying. I’m working with that. Also, I used to have a leaky gut and started working to improve my gut health in 2007, so it’s been a focus for a while.
Here’s what I’ve been eating for breakfast, with minor variations:
The organic sprouted rolled oats came from Wheatsville, an Austin food coop. They cook in 5 minutes, although I changed the proportions to 1/3 cup each of boiling water and oats and immediately turn the heat down to as low as it goes.
Add to that coconut milk yogurt, pecans, dried cranberries, beautiful organic blueberries, flax seeds, hemp seeds, maple syrup, and 5 spices (Ceylon cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, orange peel, and allspice). While the oats are cooking, add everything else to a bowl. When the oats are done, add to your bowl and stir well.
Voila! 13 plants, from Wheatsville, Costco (the pecans and maple syrup aged in bourbon barrels!), and HEB, our beloved Texas chain that does so much for Texas communities in crisis from disasters and Texas public schools.
Really, it’s pretty simple: a whole grain, nuts, seeds, berries, yogurt, a natural sweetener, and spices. Have fun improvising on that!
Next up, a veggie curry served over quinoa.
Can I consume 30 plants in two meals in one day? Stay tuned!
This is the name of a Substack I subscribe to. The writer, Natureza Gabriel, is releasing a book by this title chapter by chapter on Substack now, and the book itself will be published in April. You can preorder it.
This topic is fascinating to me. As a bodyworker, biodynamicist, and teacher of meditation for self-healing, I work with the autonomic nervous systems of my clients/friends in every session (how can I not?), mostly assisting them to move more deeply into a parasympathetic state where healing has more resources to happen — healing like tissue repair, better regulation of metabolic processes, better coordination of the body’s systems, reduction of pain and tension, more wholeness, and more.
People experience themselves differently after a session, and some of each session is cumulative. It lasts. Getting regular sessions changes the autonomic nervous system, reducing stress levels. People sense themselves as more whole, integrated, coherent, healthy. I experienced this myself and changed my livelihood to offer it to others.
When the body is in a more sympathetic state, it’s gearing up for action and doesn’t have resources for healing. And…many if not most people in our culture live in bodies that are more stressed than is healthy. Sometimes way more stressed. And that affects everything: health, relationships, performance, behavior, cognition, presence, intuition…
There are many more autonomic states than parasympathetic and sympathetic. It’s more of a spectrum or spiral than an either-or equation, as seen in the image of the book’s cover above of a poster of the autonomic spectrum. You can get these posters from Gabriel’s organization for your office: https://restorativepractices.com/product-category/posters/
I’m someone who years ago, after being diagnosed with PTSD and processing a major childhood trauma (that occurred before PTSD existed as a diagnosis), asked herself, “How relaxed can I get while awake and not using substances?”
As the antidote to having a “stress disorder” that’s conventionally considered incurable, I set off on a journey of meditation, movement practices, bodywork, NLP, shaking, Zen, vipassana, breathwork, stillness, perception, and craniosacral therapy. Then I trained in craniosacral therapy.
The writer Gabriel has trained in neurobiology and also with indigenous people who have maintained connections within themselves, each other, with the world around them that are not prevalent among people in today’s predominant capitalistic, technological cultures.
I’m familiar with some of these connection states as a long-time meditator and through exposure to shamanic/indigenous and Buddhist/yogic beliefs and practices.
Another book by this author is Restorative Practices of Wellbeing, which I just received and will soon be delving into. Find his books here: https://restorativepractices.com/product-category/books/ You can preorder The Neurobiology of Connection as well.
We make the world a better place starting with ourselves.
I’ve been a yogi for a long time, and also at various times, I’ve danced, biked, swum, kayaked, walked, hiked, worked with a trainer in a fitness studio, done tai chi and/or qi gong, Pilates… I’m sure there are some activities I’ve forgotten at the moment.
I love it when my body moves well, when I have full range of motion in all my joints and can move with fluidity and enough energy and strength to do these activities and get through my days with a minimum of discomfort.
I practiced the MELT Method at home, subscribing to MELT On Demand, for a while a few years ago. It gave me online access to hundreds of videos focusing on rehydrating my body parts using soft foam rollers and balls and stretchy bands.
Hydration. Rehydration. We are squishy beings. Infants are about 70 percent water, but it declines with age, to maybe 55 percent in the senior years, which is where I am now.
In other words, we kinda dry up with age, and this shows up as stiffness.
You know what? It is not inevitable! And it takes more than just consuming enough fluid.
You want those fluids to get into your soft tissues, into your muscles and fascia, bones and joints, tendons and ligaments.
You know how good you feel after you’ve received a full body massage? Well, the secret to that good feeling is the massage therapist gliding their hands with light or firm pressure on your skin. It redistributes your fluids, which relieves stiffness, aches, and pains.
The MELT Method is hands-OFF bodywork you can do by yourself, at home, with MELT equipment and videos. Sue Hitzmann, bodyworker and self-described gym rat, developed the MELT Method and continues to add to it.
Don’t underestimate Sue because she is in great shape, attractive, perky, and wears fashionable workout wear. She’s also disciplined and brainy. She has a master’s degree in exercise science from NYU. She’s participated in dissections of cadavers to learn more about fascia and belongs to the international Fascia Research Society. She’s worked with some big names in the field of fascia research: Tom Myers, Gil Hedley, Robert Scheip, Jean-Claude Guimberteau.
She is a somatic educator, bringing information and practices you can use to enhance your experience of well-being.
I stopped doing MELT for a while but just re-upped my subscription to MELT On Demand because I was feeling too stiff.
If this interests you, @MELTmethod is a YouTube channel with free material on MELT, no subscription needed.
Here is a link to a 10-minute foot treatment. You can do this treatment on one foot and then notice the difference between each side of your body — the side you treated and the one you didn’t.
You’ll get a clear understanding of what rehydration does for you in a way that words simply can’t convey.
In some ways, it’s like reflexology. The sole of the foot maps to the entire body.
As someone who sits still for long periods in my work as a biodynamic craniosacral therapist, I can’t recommend this enough. My work is oriented to fluids and energy in the body. I help my clients experience more ease in their bodies. If I could receive a session every day, I would!
I started a training course in the fall of 2021 that involves making 10 trips to Washington, DC, from Austin, TX. The training was actually in Silver Spring, a suburb.
I was very enthused about working with this teacher! And…I didn’t think much about all the travel, not ever having had to do much business travel back in those olden days.
The first trip was adventurous! I took the Metro and visited museums on the Mall on an extra day. I stayed in a crappy AirBnB that was close to the training so I could walk.
The second trip I stayed in a nice rowhouse in Columbia Heights and took the Metro to class each day. I visited the Phillips Collection, a good art museum, on my extra day.
On the third trip, I stayed in an AirBnB in Silver Spring where the owner (who did not live there) had gone crazy with a label maker.
Oh, yes, you could find “BOWELS” on a shelf in a kitchen cabinet.
I took the Metro to the Mall and walked to the Lincoln Memorial when the cherry trees were first starting to bloom. It was cold and windy, and I wore myself out, but I’m glad I did it.
On my fourth trip, I burned out. I’d been in a high speed car accident a couple of months before, and I’m convinced that even though I wasn’t seriously injured, going from 65 mph to 0 quickly and getting “spine-lash” is not something the human body is designed to bounce back from. It’s taken PT for my body and many months off body/energy work and breathwork and meditation for my nervous system to recover. I’m still taking Cortisol Manager. It’s been almost a year.
And there’s more… I’d planned to arrive a day early, but my one-stop flight ended in Oklahoma City because of bad weather in DC, and I unexpectedly had to book a hotel room and then be at the airport at 4 am to get a three-stop flight to DC. I was in six airports in two days on next to no sleep. I was tired when I got to DC, and things didn’t improve much.
I had signed up for a 3-day training right before my regular 4-day class. I learned that 7 days in a row in a classroom doesn’t work well for me. I love learning, but I need time to rest, to move, to sleep well, and to integrate.
And more… The Supreme Court overturning of Roe v. Wade happened the first day of class. I read articles that night about the white supremacist, anti-LGBTQ intent of the new conservative majority, which felt threatening to my beautiful rainbow family’s integrity, and it was happening right there in DC.
And still more… The AirBnB I stayed in seemed haunted, in hindsight. The location was good, but day by day, I felt lonelier and more depleted, and I simply did not want to be there. I couldn’t tell if “there” was in that AirBnB, in the training, in DC, or on the planet. I felt empathy with Anthony Bourdain’s suicide. He probably just wanted out.
Being not suicidal, I later wondered whether in my depleted state, I was picking up energies from a previous occupant of that basement apartment who’d been depressed and suicidal.
I went home earlier than I’d planned, drained.
Business travel is not like going to Maui. I thought about dropping out. I stayed home and did the fifth class on video.
Given time, I recovered and went back to DC for the sixth training, staying in a hostel in Adams-Morgan, which I liked better than most of the AirBnBs, again taking the Metro to and from class. I got a couple of nice walks in every day getting to and from the DuPont Circle station.
I enjoyed the hostel. It has dorm rooms with privacy curtains around each bunk and a shared bathroom. Sometimes there’s a happy hour with games. The staff and guests are young, vibrant people who come from many places. The staff knows the neighborhood well and are very friendly and helpful.
There’s a free washer and dryer with detergent and dryer sheets, as well as a big, fully equipped kitchen to cook in.
I also treated myself to a floatation tank session one evening during this sixth trip. It was a great reset.
I was curious about other introverts traveling for business, and fortuitously, the wife of a member of my spiritual book group, Laura, sat next to me at our annual December potluck dinner. I knew Laura was an introvert who had to do a lot of business travel for her consulting job, and I asked her for tips for introverts doing business travel.
Here’s what she kindly shared with me:
The key is to reduce stress by making everything as close to your home routines as possible.
Think about when you are ready to face the world each day, and schedule your departure to the airport for after that time.
Book flights far enough in advance to get desirable nonstop mid-day flights (or at least less time in transit) and make the whole day a travel day. It’s way less stressful.
She advised packing everything into one carry-on and one personal item to avoid waiting at baggage claim. She re-wears or washes clothes.
I haven’t done this yet, but it’s appealing. My big bag that I’ve been checking is heavy for someone not quite five feet tall, and baggage claim can be very slow and crowded, not to mention managing the big bag on the Metro.
She recommended staying at the same place. For her, it’s always the same hotel chain, because the layout and rooms are similar no matter where they’re located.
I’m traveling and training on my own dime and can’t afford hotels. Don’t really like them anyway…so impersonal and corporate and don’t feel very fresh.
If I can’t find an affordable nice AirBnB near the training on my remaining trips, the hostel is my next best choice.
Laura advised ordering food delivered from Whole Foods and eating what I’d eat at home.
That works for me. Having a kitchen to cook in is a big plus. I cook for myself most of the time at home, knowing the ingredients are healthy and my food is made with love.
Not to mention, dining out has gotten expensive.
Laura advised setting toiletries out in the bathroom the same way you do at home, and putting clothes in drawers and the closet the same way you would at home.
If your meeting starts on Monday, and you fly in on Saturday, spend Sunday relaxing and reading a good book.
Laura also advised not joining extroverted colleagues in evening activities after workday meetings. Since we introverts recharge our batteries in solitude, make sure you get enough alone time to fully recharge after a day of being in meetings or training with others. It’s also good to reconnect with loved ones back home every evening on the phone.
I got lucky for my seventh class and found an AirBnB on the same block as my training. I could walk to Whole Foods to get groceries, cook for myself, and walk to class with ease. I brought matcha, frother, and add-ins from home.
It was a spare bedroom in a high-rise apartment complex. I saw some gorgeous sunsets from there and a cherry tree in full bloom on my block. My host was someone nice to chat with a few times, and I had privacy. I felt safe and comfortable, staying with her.
I only used Uber to get to and from the airport and never used the Metro this trip. That helped reduce wear and tear quite a bit.
I’m probably not as introverted as she is, because I joined a few of my classmates on Friday night at an ecstatic dance in DC. Since it’s nonverbal movement, it didn’t drain me. It gave me some satisfaction to move exuberantly after so much sitting all week. I blew off a lot of steam.
I slept well that night and returned to Austin the next day. This was the easiest trip so far.
Only three more to go.
What would you add, if you’re an introvert who travels for work or training?
Just back from 4 days in Big Bend National Park, with the big sky, desert, mountains, river, hot springs, ravens, Mexican jays, javelinas, and numerous trails.
And most of all, quality time spent with my beloved 22-year-old granddaughter, Hannah.
And…it’s great to be back home, in my own bed, with comfort, solitude, and time to sit.
After over 3 months of daily meditations, when I start sitting, things start happening…perceptions of radiance at my face, the motions of the Tide, the vitality of my life force swirling within.
I remember when I started doing yoga (asanas) 40 years ago. At some point after my practice became habit, I realized I didn’t just DO yoga, I WAS (and still AM) yoga. It was in me.
Same now. I AM the radiance, the Tide, the swirliness, the health. It’s in me, and it’s in you too, and I can help you find it, if that is your desire.
So…I will continue my practice but won’t be posting so much about it. I will be reviewing my posts (I started on 11/11/22), exploring ways of teaching it, as one-to-one private sessions now, and later as a guided meditation/yoga nidra, for small groups, and whatever else emerges.
Thank you for checking out my posts on this inquiry. Please stay in touch! Links are in my Instagram bio.
I did something different in my Biodynamic Meditation this morning.
I stayed with whole body awareness during my 45-minute session.
I didn’t put much effort into labeling what was happening.
I just felt my life force moving within my body and field, and it felt great.
And wow! So much life force moving within me!
I noticed how pleasurable it was to simply be aware of my life force energy for that entire period of time.
I clipped my HeartMath sensor to my earlobe and set up the Inner Balance app for a session again.
I was in high coherence 88 percent of the time today.
I could see on the report that HeartMath displays after completing a session how my coherence fluctuated. It’s never a straight line. It is always changing.
I just signed up for a HeartMath training called The Resilient Heart: Trauma-Sensitive HeartMath Certification. I so love learning how we can influence the autonomic nervous system since there’s just so much unhealthy stress in most of our lives.
The Well: bodymindheartspirit 