Category Archives: heart

Brainwave optimization follow-up, two years later

Posted on by
Reply

I received a phone call yesterday from someone who had read my original post about receiving brainwave optimization. Barbara in Houston was considering it. She’d read this blog and wanted to hear some follow-up. We had a nice long conversation, and I felt inspired by her courage.

This month marks two years since I underwent brainwave optimization — five days of twice-daily sessions designed to help my brain function better using biofeedback.

I have no regrets about doing it. I’m glad I took that leap of faith.

Of course it’s impossible to say how I might be different had I not received it. It’s also impossible to separate the BWO from the meditation, diet, yoga, and other work I’ve done. (I still think BWO is probably the equivalent of five years of daily meditation.)

What I can say is that when I compare how I experience myself now and how I experienced myself then, now is better. I feel more myself — I occupy my body and my life more fully and with more pleasure and serenity and depth and wholeness than I did before. I make better decisions. I am happier.

One of my reasons for doing it was that I had experienced trauma in my childhood that plagued me with ill effects for decades. Facing the trauma, healing and integrating it were turning points toward health in my life. I wanted to see if brainwave optimization could relieve me from any more dysfunctional patterns that might remain.

Last year, a year after undergoing BWO, I did get triggered by someone who didn’t recognize the extent of his own traumatic experiences and was unable to communicate responsibly about it. I experienced the flood of stress hormones and adrenal exhaustion that went along with being triggered.

The useful part of that experience was being able to witness how those stress hormones affected my thinking. I got a clear sense of what I’m like unaffected by trauma and what I’m like after being triggered. Day and night. Equanimity vs. fear and anger. Sunshine and butterflies vs. creepy shadows with hidden monsters.

The unpleasant part was that it took months to completely clear the effects of the cascade of stress hormones and return to robust, excellent well-being. During this time, I forgot that I could have gotten follow-up sessions of brainwave optimization, which are much less expensive than the initial assessment and 10 sessions.

In hindsight, it would have been really smart of me to experience just enough of being triggered to learn its lessons and then to shorten my suffering by going in for some follow-up work. I don’t know if it would have worked, but I believe that it would have made a difference, because when you make an effort on behalf of your own well-being, that commitment to action makes a big difference and amplifies the measures you choose to take. 

I regret now that it did not occur to me to do that.

It’s clear to me now that undergoing BWO does not give someone who’s experienced trauma a bulletproof vest against being further traumatized or being triggered. It does give you more resilience, because experiencing wholeness is so desirable. The brain is aware of its own well-being and likes it and will return to it as soon as it can. That’s a big part of how BWO works, in my understanding.

If you’re not sure your brain has experienced well-being because of past trauma, or if it’s been so long it’s hard to remember what well-being was like, I recommend getting brainwave optimization. It can’t hurt, and if it doesn’t help in the way you think it might, then at the least you’ve ruled something out on your path to recovery. You have not left that stone unturned.

And it might help in ways you haven’t thought of, so please be open to that. It’s hard to describe well-being if you’ve never experienced it. It’s hard to know what to expect before you do it.

Also, the brainwave changes keep happening for a long time after you finish the treatments. Hold your story lightly and keep a journal. I have been told by people who’ve known me for awhile that I’ve changed for the better more than anyone they know.

I also take the Buddha’s Brain supplements to support my post-BWO brain health, and I recommend that.

Buycott: new app for smart phones lets you vote with your dollars!

Posted on by
Reply
Avoid Koch Industries Campaign

Avoid Koch Industries Campaign

A new free smart phone app is quickly gaining popularity. Last week Forbes.com, the business magazine, profiled it in this article, New App Lets You Boycott Koch Brothers, Monsanto, and More By Scanning Your Shopping Cart. (Well done, Forbes! I didn’t know you had it in you.)

The article has already gotten about 440,000 shares on Facebook, which probably qualifies it as being pretty close to viral. I downloaded the app, but apparently they were overwhelmed with new users and still working on some functionality after the Forbes article.

Today it appears to be working fine. I took it for a test ride at my local H-E-B.

To me, this app represents a capitalist democracy functioning at its finest. Companies are of course very sensitive to sales, and at the same time many are making unprecedented use of corporate dollars to influence the governmental representatives that we voted into office to do their bidding. They’ve bought our politicians, and the Supreme Court has given its blessing.

So who’s watching out for us?

We the people can vote with our money and influence those companies to act more in our interests. Yes, we not only get to vote in the voting booth, but now this app makes it really easy to vote with our pocketbooks at the point of sale, which is probably way more effective than just voting in a booth in these days of Citizens v. United.

Here’s how to use it:

  1. Download the free app. When I first went to the website, it said the Android app is coming soon. The iPhone app is available in the Apple app store. Did I mention it’s free?
  2. Open the app and set yourself up with an account, or you can log in with Facebook if you have an account there.
  3. Note the three buttons at the bottom: Activity, Scan, and Campaigns. Click the Campaigns button to view and join campaigns. Next, select a category. For example, I selected Health.
  4. Joining A Campaign

    Joining A Campaign

    A list of health-related campaigns appear. I selected the campaign “YES to Organic+NonGMO — NO to Monsanto+GMOs” (see photo at right). I can now view information about this campaign, lists of companies and brands aligned with this campaign’s purpose, and Buycott members who’ve joined this campaign. I simply clicked a button to join this campaign. Click the Back button to continue to select the categories and campaigns you want to support. Now you’re ready to shop!

  5. When you are in a store considering a purchase and want to know if the money you pay will support or oppose your values, open the app and click Scan. Hover the phone’s camera over the product’s bar code so that you can view the entire code on the screen. Hold the phone steady for 2-3 seconds until a message says the bar code is loading.
  6. Once the company info appears, you can see whether it supports the campaigns you support. You can view company info, its family tree, and the campaigns it supports, and make a decision about purchasing the product that’s in line with your values.
  7. To scan another item, click Close and do steps 5 and 6 again.

If you want to see a history of your actions (campaigns joined, items scanned, etc.), click Activity (see photo below).

My Activity

My Activity

That’s pretty much it!

So, just for fun, next time you go to the store, go to the soda aisle and scan a bottle of Coke. Then take a look at its family tree. The screenshot below shows the companies/brands owned by Coca-Cola. You have to do a lot of horizontal scrolling to see them all. Then click Campaigns to see where the company stands in relation to your values.

Science says massage relieves stress!

Posted on by
Reply

Researchers assigned healthy adults to receive 45 minutes of Swedish massage while the control group received light touch “using highly specified and identical protocols.”

(This is from a New York Times article, Regimens: Massage Benefits Are More Than Skin Deep. Here’s the abstract.)

The researchers took blood samples immediately before and for up to an hour after the massage.

Those who received Swedish massage had significant decreases in stress hormones. Their white blood cell counts went up as well, indicating the immune system was stimulated.

If replicated, these findings may have implications for managing inflammatory and autoimmune conditions.

Those who received light touch showed higher levels of oxytocin, the “bonding” hormone, and greater decreases in a hormone that stimulates the adrenal glands to produce more cortisol.

So basically, massage relieves stress and light touch increases bonding.

Now that science says so, the skeptics can come get on the table and experience it for themselves!

Several things pop out. One is that the research was sponsored by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, a branch of the National Institutes of Health. I’m pretty sure the NIH is heavily biased toward MDs and western medicine, and that NCCAM fields like massage and acupuncture are considered flaky and suspect.

But if 75 or 90% of illness is stress-related, shouldn’t the NIH be emphasizing research on stress relief to prevent illness? That would be a great use of my tax money!

I would like to see more studies done on massage.

  • I’d like to see the blood tested to see how long these changes last, because my strong hunch is that if a massage recipient can avoid stress afterwards, the massage keeps working on the body for hours. Maybe 24 or 48 hours, but no one knows, because no one has studied it. Yet.
  • Could a control group be added of people who don’t receive massage or light touch?
  • Scientific study of prenatal massage and its effect on the women — and their childbirth and babies — would be wonderful.
  • I’d also like to see recipients’ brain waves tested, before, during, and after massage.
  • Does massage work equally well on everyone? Are there people who don’t benefit and “super beneficiaries”?
  • This study was on the effects of a single massage. I’d like to see longitudinal studies done of the long-term effect of regular massage: people who receive massage weekly, biweekly, and monthly for at least a year, five years, and ten years. All we have now is anecdotal evidence that people who receive regular massage are healthier into their senior years, falling and getting sick less often and recovering faster when they do.

The other thing that popped out was that the researchers were surprised by the results! They must have never received a massage. I wonder if they do now.

When I read the abstract, I saw that the authors did a follow-up study in 2012 on the effects of repeated massage. So I did get one wish, but these subjects received Swedish massage or light touch either weekly or twice a week for just five weeks. Otherwise, it was the same as the first study, which means they looked for changes for up to an hour after each massage.

Those receiving weekly Swedish massage sustained a higher level of white blood cells like those receiving a single massage, with minimal effect on stress hormones. Come on, not even the first massage changed stress hormone levels? That contradicts the first study!

Those receiving twice-weekly massage had increased oxytocin levels and lower stress hormone levels. So people getting more frequent massage bond more easily. I wonder if they used the same massage therapist each time.

The abstract says nothing about the light touch group. (And by the way, I have a hard time reading scientific research and understanding the findings and implications in plain English. This is the best I can do. If you know better, please comment!)

The authors conclude:

There are sustained cumulative biologic actions for the massage and touch interventions that persist for several days or a week, and these differ profoundly depending on the dosage (frequency) of sessions. Confirmatory studies in larger samples are needed.

Yes. And I am very glad that this research is happening and raising more questions.

More Austin restaurants offering gluten-free burgers, sandwiches, bread, pizza

Posted on by
1

If you didn’t know, you do now that I eat a gluten-free diet, having a sensitivity to wheat. When I took it out of my diet about 6 or 7 years ago, the difference was pretty amazing. I felt well for the first time.

I don’t eat much grain of any type nowadays (non-GMO corn chips and quinoa — a seed, not a grain —being exceptions), and I eat at home more, but every once in a while I enjoy going out for a burger or dinner with a slice of bread, as long as I can get it gluten-free.

(And no, if you’re curious, I don’t cheat. It’s not like counting calories and cheating. Eating wheat makes me feel a bit sick for several days. It affects my digestive tract within hours, and seems to impair my brain too. I’ve learned that the hard way. I prefer well.)

It used to be difficult to find gluten-free dining out in Austin, but in the last year, more restaurants seem to be realizing it’s not just a passing fad. (Have you not heard of the book Wheat Belly? The cardiologist author says it’s likely that half of Americans are adversely affected from eating the optimized-for-agribusiness wheat grown today.)

I hated that when I asked about gluten-free food after seeing a menu that didn’t mention it, a waitperson brought out a piece of paper listing maybe 6 things, including salads that were always gluten-free anyway. Or said we don’t have a gluten-free menu.

Wow, way to make me feel handicapped and unwelcome.

Anyway.

I’ve posted in the past about how Hopdoddy Burger Bar on South Congress (now also on Anderson Lane) offers burgers on three different buns, and one of the choices is gluten-free (and baked in-house daily).

I think Hopdoddy may have been the first major burger joint in Austin to do so. The beef is hormone- and antibiotic free. It’s a popular, trendy, a-bit-pricey eatery that often has a line out the front door, but the line moves fast and the food is very good. Craft beer and shakes and fries give it a real “burger joint” focus.

I’d like to add that you can now get gluten-free burgers at Wholly Cow Burgers on South Lamar (also at Congress and 7th). They offer a “paleo burger” that uses portobello mushroom caps for buns as well as hamburgers/cheeseburgers using Udi’s GF buns. Other offerings with GF bread include Philly cheese steak and reuben sandwiches. The beef is locally raised and grass-fed.

Yesterday I learned that the Galaxy Cafe (3 locations: Slaughter and Brodie, The Triangle, and West Lynn) offers gluten-free bread and buns for its sandwiches and burgers. Galaxy also offers wraps made with rice-flour tortillas and gluten-free pasta, not to mention a flourless chocolate torte for dessert! All the meat, chicken, and eggs are natural, free-range, and hormone- and antibiotic free. This is my favorite place to eat out close to home.

I want to mention as well that Blue Dahlia Bistro (on East 11th, also now in Westlake) offers gluten-free bread with its delicious entrees (and a flourless chocolate cake for dessert as well). Blue Dahlia is one of my favorite places to dine: fabulous food, a casual European vibe, moderate prices, good wine list. They use local and organic ingredients as much as possible. The bread is delicious and comes from Wild Wood Bakehouse, located on Guadalupe north of UT. I haven’t been there yet, but since everything is gluten-free, it’s now on my must-check-it-out list!

When I first went gluten-free, pizza was something I craved and had to go without. I don’t have that craving any more, but I do want to note that if you’re getting a hankering for gluten-free pizza, more and more pizza places are offering it with a GF crust. (Note: They usually charge more for GF crust.) I found some reviews on Yelp.

Now for one wish: I wish that Central Market would offer more gluten-free soups at their soup bar. I’m glad they’ve picked up on labeling the major allergens their soups contain (wheat, dairy, soy, tree nuts, and so on).

It’s just that quite often, nearly all of them contain wheat — even the ones that wouldn’t  have wheat in them if you made them at home, like chicken tortilla soup. Wake up, Central Market!

This is water.

Posted on by
Reply

Here’s a video made about a  commencement speech, about the banality that is the water we swim in in our modern daily lives, and where our freedom truly lies.

The capital T Truth is about life before death. It is about the real value of a real education, which has almost nothing to do with knowledge and everything to do with simple awareness, awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over, “This is water. This is water.”

What does being healthy mean to you?

Quote

Posted on by
Reply

Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. ~World Health Organization, 1948

Words are important. They influence our thinking greatly, and therefore our behavior. I recently ran across this decades-old definition of health. It made an impression.

How do you characterize health? As “something is wrong” or as “something is right”? As something you move toward or away from?

As an experiment in the power of words, let’s take apart the statement above.

First, say to yourself, “Health is the absence of disease or infirmity.” What does that mean to you? How does it resonate?

To me, it means that as long as I don’t have a disease (that is, anything “wrong” with me, like cancer, chicken pox, an infection) or an infirmity (like being feeble or frail), then I am healthy.

Notice that the statement focuses on physical health. So as long as I avoid getting sick or infirm, I am healthy.

(You may also realize how much of the “health care system” is set up using this model. You go to the doctor to find out what’s wrong with you.)

Now say to yourself, “Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being.” Think about what that means to you.

What would it be like to have complete physical well-being? I imagine waking up each day completely refreshed from a good night’s sleep, feeling able-bodied, with a robust immune system working for me, and having stamina to spare as I go about my daily life. I imagine feeling vibrant, full of vitality, glowing with health.

I imagine eating healthily, getting regular massages, and exercising to maintain and improve my physical well-being.

How about complete mental well-being? What would that be like? Well, I think I would feel good about myself and others most of the time. I would acknowledge disappointments and disturbances, feel the pain, and let go of it, learning whatever I can from the experience.

I would sort whether information coming my way was true or useful, so I wouldn’t be a sucker for the latest buzz in my ears.

I would use both hemispheres of my brain, employing reason and intuition as needed.

I would make it a habit to develop my mental capabilities. Lifelong learning keeps your mind healthy.

Now, what about complete social well-being? What does that look/sound/feel like to you?

In my opinion, it would mean being centered in my own being, having good boundaries with others, and not needing drama in my relationships.

It would mean being open to others while trusting my own inner radar about what is true and good.

It would mean forgiving others but not being a doormat, allowing myself and others to be vulnerable, being trustworthy with good judgment about others’ trustworthiness, being accountable and expecting others to be accountable as well.

It would mean learning and growing from all my relationships.

I like the well-being definition (of course I do, look at the name of my blog!). It has a direction of “moving toward” rather than “avoiding,” which the absence definition does.

The well-being definition brings up a companion question:

How can I be healthier, physically, mentally, and socially?

And it’s that question that is constantly with me. Yes, of course, sometimes I rest, and sometimes I fall asleep, yet the inquiring has become a habit.

Anne Lamott on how to become yourself

Posted on by
Reply

lamottI love Anne Lamott. I follow her on Twitter (oh, my, she’s fierce and funny!) and have read her wonderful Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life and other books. She’s open about being a screwed-up human being, and she has a lot of wisdom to share and the writing skills to convey it truthfully, with humor.

Somehow I stumbled upon a post she’d written for O, The Oprah Magazine (does anyone ever say, “I got my copy of O in the mail”?), that I want to share.

Excerpts:

We begin to find and become ourselves when we notice how we are already found, already truly, entirely, wildly, messily, marvelously who we were born to be. The only problem is that there is also so much other stuff, typically fixations with how people perceive us, how to get more of the things that we think will make us happy, and with keeping our weight down. So the real issue is how do we gently stop being who we aren’t? How do we relieve ourselves of the false fronts of people-pleasing and affectation, the obsessive need for power and security, the backpack of old pain, and the psychic Spanx that keeps us smaller and contained?…

I had to stop living unconsciously, as if I had all the time in the world. The love and good and the wild and the peace and creation that are you will reveal themselves, but it is harder when they have to catch up to you in roadrunner mode. So one day I did stop. I began consciously to break the rules I learned in childhood…

Dealing with your rage and grief will give you life. That is both the good news and the bad news: The solution is at hand. Wherever the great dilemma exists is where the great growth is, too. It would be very nice for nervous types like me if things were black-and-white, and you could tell where one thing ended and the next thing began, but as Einstein taught us, everything in the future and the past is right here now. There’s always something ending and something beginning. Yet in the very center is the truth of your spiritual identity: is you. Fabulous, hilarious, darling, screwed-up you.

Actually, not on purpose, I’ve left out the funniest parts! Read more and enjoy: http://www.oprah.com/spirit/How-To-Find-Out-Who-You-Really-Are-by-Anne-Lamott/

Welcome, reader from Sao Tome and Principe

Posted on by
Reply

I just checked on my blog stats and noticed that someone in Sao Tome and Principe had looked at my blog yesterday. I had heard of it before and knew of it as a very tiny nation, but I wasn’t sure where it was.

I marvel at the reach of the Internet. Chances are I will never go there or meet someone in person from there, but there is now a connection between me, in Austin, Texas, USA, and some unknown person hailing from Sao Tome and Principe. Who could ever have guessed?

By hovering over the name, the map on the blog stats page showed that it’s a tiny island off the west coast of Africa. So of course I had to look up this exotic, enchanting place (where someone has read at least one of my blog posts!) in Wikipedia…

saotomemapIt’s actually a group of islands. Sao Tome and Principe are the two main islands formed from an extinct volcanic mountain range. (I bet the geology is fascinating. I love tropical volcanic islands.) This is the second-smallest African nation, after Seychelles.

The largest island was discovered by Portuguese explorers on the feast day of St. Thomas in 1471, hence the name (Sao Tome is St. Thomas in Portuguese.) The islands were uninhabited, and the Portuguese explorers decided they would make a good base for trade with the mainland.

The volcanic soil was good for growing sugar. Sadly, they imported slaves to work on the sugar plantations (not enchanting), but it became Africa’s largest exporter of sugar…until the Caribbean islands began outproducing it.

In the 19th century, coffee and cocoa were introduced. At one time it was the world’s largest producer of cocoa, still its most important crop. The landowners employed slaves, both legally and later illegally, and its history was marked by labor unrest and riots.

The islands became independent of Portugal in 1975 and is now a democracy.

saotomepeakAnyway, these islands have mountains as high as 6,000 feet! Here’s a photo of one. Yes, it is exotic with fascinating geology! Also tropical, with the average temperature of 80 degrees F. and a rainy season.

About 164,000 people live there, including someone who read a blog post here! (Hello there!)

Demographically it is also fascinating. Populated by mixed blood descendants of the Portuguese colonists and African slaves, there is also a group said to descend from African slaves shipwrecked in 1540 (!) who earn their living from fishing, as well as descendants of freed slaves, contract laborers from the African mainland, Portuguese and Sephardic Jews, and Chinese.

Cesaria Evora’s lovely song Sodade is about longing to return home to Sao Tome.

Mild green smoothie has only 5 ingredients

Posted on by
Reply

Usually when I make green drinks, I add a lot of ingredients. Besides a base of coconut water, I add several green veggies like celery, cucumber, kale and/or chard and/or spinach and/or parsley, garlic and/or ginger for bite and medicine, lemon or grapefruit juice, and a bunch of extras, like hemp seeds, chia seeds, flax seeds, maca, turmeric, spirulina.

Today I decided to simplify. I poured about 10 oz. of coconut water into the blender and added a thumb-size chopped chunk of peeled ginger, the juice of 1 small lemon, a small avocado, and 1 bunch of spinach. Five ingredients, blended after each addition.

It tastes mildly sweet, with just a bare hint of bite from the lemon and ginger. I think this is a green drink that everyone might like. No strong taste, and the texture is very smooth, thanks to the avocado. It’s thick enough to make the straw stand up.

No need to add fruit to make it palatable. I notice that juice bars often add bananas or apple juice to their drinks. I imagine this is in order to please the sweetness-skewed tastebuds of people accustomed to the Standard American Diet.

I don’t have anything against fruit. It’s got a lot of great nutritional benefits. But sugar is sugar, no matter the source. I’m cutting way down on it, especially the really sweet fruits, and I feel better, more stable, for it.

I have had cravings, though. I think sugar has an addictive quality.

Just part of my food evolution….

Gift certificates and referrals

Posted on by
Reply

A massage makes a great gift. We all know someone who would be incredibly grateful to receive one.

If you’d like to give the gift of massage, you can purchase gift certificates from me in any denomination (and you can also buy a package and give some or all of the sessions as gifts).

If you refer someone to me who then receives a full-price massage, you get 30 extra minutes of table time whenever you’d like to use it! I love it when you tell your friends, co-workers, neighbors, and family members about the great massage you received from me.

Your satisfaction and positive word of mouth are the best possible ways to build my business.

To return to the home page for The Well Ashiatsu Barefoot Massage Austin, click here.