Post-surgical inflammatory neuropathy has been studied by these authors as they felt that other mechanisms maybe at play other than the usual mechanical factors (stretch, compression, contusion, transection). They analysed the clinical features, nerve conduction, imaging and biopsy of the nerves demonstrating some interesting findings indicative of an inflammatory-immune response. For example, Staff et al. (2010) found increased nerve size, abnormal biopsy (increased epineural perivascular lymphocyte inflammation, microvasculitis, ischaemic nerve injury and axon degeneration). Those treated with immunotherapy showed good improvements in pain and nerve function supporting the notion of an immune response.
Typically this kind of neuropathy is found remote to the surgical site and presents at a median time of 2 days (0-30 range). This does not fully explain a presentation that occurs on the same limb.
Overall this study suggests that the inflammatory-immune response is not uncommon and should be considered as a mechanism to guide treatment. The authors also point out that it may be difficult to distinguish between a mechanical cause and an inflammatory cause and therefore a biopsy would be required to confirm. Of course there could be concurrent mechanisms that we know occur in LBP.
Thursday, 30 September 2010
Tuesday, 28 September 2010
How to be happy
Editorial: Don't get too happy
It's good for your health, it makes you smarter – and our brains are hard-wired for it. New Scientist counts our reasons to be cheerful
DOOM and gloom are the order of the day across most of the western world. Economies are faltering, the cost of living is going up and many people's real income is falling. For some, unemployment is a reality now or in the near future. If the pursuit of happiness is supposed to be one of our goals, prospects appear bleak.
Take a closer look, and it isn't that simple. In fact, economic hard times have little impact on how happy most people feel. Indeed, it would appear that we humans are built to experience happiness, and understanding why is helping us work out what enhances our feelings of well-being. It even points to ways we can adapt to cope with the hardships the recession may bring, and keep smiling whatever happens.
One thing that is clear is that once life's basics are paid for, the power of money to bring happiness is limited. In fact, it can be positively harmful to our sense of well-being. Jordi Quoidbach of the University of Liège, Belgium, and colleagues recently asked a group of people to taste a piece of chocolate in their laboratory. They found that the wealthier members of the group spent less time savouring the experience, and reported enjoying the chocolate less than the subjects who weren't so well off. The same was also true of one group in a separate experiment. This time, half the people had been primed with images of money before they tasted the chocolate. These participants enjoyed the tasting less than a group who had not seen the images, suggesting that just the thought of money is enough to stem our enjoyment of life's simple pleasures (Psychological Science, vol 21, p 759).
So just what is it that makes us happy? Happiness can take the form of many different positive emotions (See "Happiness is..."), and some hints of what makes us happy may come from work that questions why these emotions first evolved. The answer isn't as obvious as it is in the case of negative emotions. These are clearly beneficial in the rough and tumble of survival: anger readies us to fight an opponent, fear makes us run away from danger, and disgust steers us away from contaminated foods and other sources of infection. Although there is no shortage of evidence that feelings of pleasure - obtained by finding a tasty meal or a sexy mate, for example - are important in rewarding and consolidating beneficial behaviours, it is harder to explain how the more diffuse positive emotions such as awe, hope or gratitude evolved.
This troubled psychologist Barbara Fredrickson of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, so she started looking for evolutionary benefits that pleasure might confer. "I thought there must be more to it than this," she recalls.
Fredrickson's "broaden and build" theory proposes that happiness and similar positive states of mind improve our cognitive capacities while we are in safe situations, allowing us to build resources around us for the long term. That's in marked contrast to the effects of negative emotions like fear, which focus our attention so we can deal with short-term problems. "Positive feelings change the way our brains work and expand the boundaries of experience, allowing us to take in more information and see the big picture," Fredrickson argues.
Positive feelings change the way our brains work, allowing us to take in more informationSince she proposed it in 1998 in the Review of General Psychology (vol 2, p 300), her theory has gathered a wealth of experimental support. Eye-tracking and brain-imaging experiments, for example, have revealed that positive moods increase and broaden the scope of visual attention, helping the brain gather more information.
A happy solution
Feeling good has also been shown to improve people's creativity and ability to solve problems. In one experiment, subjects were shown a video of comedy bloopers to lighten their mood, before being presented with a practical problem involving a box of matches, a box of tacks and a candle. They were told to attach the candle to a pinboard in such a way that wax didn't drip on the floor (the solution is to use the matchbox as a plinth for the candle). The experimenters found that people who had viewed the comedy clips were more likely to solve the problem than controls who saw a mathematics documentary intended to put them in a more neutral mood (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol 52, p 1122).
Other experiments have found that a good mood improves people's verbal reasoning skills (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol 104, p 383). And various studies have shown that when people are in a good mood, their social skills improve: they become more gregarious and trusting of others, and deal more constructively with criticism.
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Optimistic Twaddle?
Tue Sep 28 21:29:48 BST 2010 by Cannonfodderson
Here we have some 'cheer up your not dead yet' kind of optimistic nonsense and yet there's another article on your website saying there's only 5 billion years till the end of the Universe.
Optimism ? I'm not too happy about that
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How old do you feel?
We all know of people who look fantastic ‘for their age’. How do some individuals achieve this status whilst others feel twice their age? There are a number of physical and psychological factors that affect the process of ageing such as general health and wellbeing, disease and our own perception of our age. It is this latter point that we shall focus upon with a growing body of scientific literature identifying the very real physiological links between thoughts, beliefs and the physical body.
Beliefs are grooved through our upbringing and molded by experience. Behaviours are driven by our beliefs and therefore the choices we make depend upon what we believe to be ‘true’. The importance of this in terms of ageing is that if we believe that we are ‘old’, ‘past it’ or ‘getting on a bit’, then typically the way that we go about our business will reflect this attitude. This of course includes our outward appearance to the world. Believing that you are ‘old’ may lead to the choice of clothing that supports this belief rather than considering an outfit that enhances your positive features and gives you a sense of femininity, glamour or sexiness.
Age can be noted in three ways, chronologically, physiologically and psychologically. Chronological age is the actual number of years that you have been alive, physiological age is the age of your organs and tissues and psychological age is your own perception of your age. The former is clearly unchangeable, however physiological and psychological ages vary according to our health. For example, smoking, drinking and a lack of exercise will have a detrimental effect upon our organs and tissues and hence the physiological ages of these structures. Interestingly, psychological age has an effect upon the physiology of the body as proven by a famous study completed in 1979. In placing individuals in a 1950s environment their measurable health parameters changed for the better, including eyesight. These individuals became ‘younger’ by manipulating the environment to alter their perception of the era.
So what does this mean? Essentially we can affect our health by feeling younger, changing our thought patterns and our beliefs. This is really very exciting as there are practical ways of becoming healthier and enjoying life to the full by changing our thinking and perception of ourselves. A makeover and styling session that optimises your look will have a significant impact upon your perception of who you are including how old you feel. Combining this with an exercise programme and healthy diet and you can really feel and look different. We know that exercise makes your brain fitter and more capable of concentrating, learning, remembering, reverses some of the effects of ageing by promoting the growth of new brain cells and improves mood. There’s no time like the present to ‘grow younger’.
See NHJ Style website: click here
Clinical Investigation of Pain-related Fear and Pain Catastrophizing for Patients With Low Back Pain
Check out this website I found at pdfs.journals.lww.com
Useful measures to identify factors that can affect outcomes: FABQ-PA & PCS
How injured nerves grow themselves back
via sciencedaily.com
Good new information about how injured nerves grow back, in particular identifying Schwann cell and fibroblast activity and inter-communication.
Monday, 27 September 2010
Pain Physio Tweeting
PAINPHYSIO ON TWITTER
Having dabbled lightly in social media, my interest in Twitter was first aroused by hearing Aggers and Bumble talk of ‘tweeting’ during a test match. Wondering what it was all about, I thought I would check out this phenomena and here we are some 450 tweets later. In fact, Twitter is a really good way of passing on information in a quick and ‘no-fuss’ way, either making a brief comment or linking to a page on the web. If you take a moment and click on link above you will be able to see that the vast proportion of the painphysio tweets relate to pain, science, health and medicine that is relevant to clients and health professionals.
Can't focus? Maybe it's the wrong time of month, finds estrogen study on attention and learning
via sciencedaily.com
Pain is influenced by hormone activity. Focus and concentration are affected by pain. It is good to think about these interrelations and how we can consider our treatments in response. If pain is amplified at certain times in the cycle and focus is a problem at particular points or when in pain, education can be tailored and exercise programmes prescribed accordingly.
Emotional and Neuropsychological Profiles of Children With Complex Regional Pain Syndrome Type-I in an Inpatient Rehabilitation Setting
Check out this website I found at pdfs.journals.lww.com
Expected findings from clinical experience, good to quantify.
Avatar therapy: From couch to cyberspace
Psychotherapy in a virtual world has its advantages – particularly if the real world is what you can't cope with
BY MY fourth interview, I'd developed a checklist to use before each meeting. For starters, I would make sure I had grown some hair. I'd also check that I was fully clothed - I had learned the hard way about that one. Only then would I teleport to the interview, hoping that this time my avatar wouldn't materialise in anyone's lap.
Welcome to Second Life, a virtual world with almost 20 million players globally, where the avatars - digital stand-ins for the players - create everything around them. Every cobbled street, every tree swaying in the wind, even the wind itself, is the product of someone's imagination.
For some users, though, this isn't merely a game. It is precisely this ability to construct and control a virtual environment that is creating a new branch of psychotherapy - avatar therapy - in which therapists interact with their clients avatar to avatar.
On the face of it, this might sound like a pale imitation of a real-life therapy session. Yet its proponents say avatar therapy has some unique advantages that take psychotherapy to the next level. In Second Life, therapy sessions are not confined to the therapist's virtual office; they can also involve role-play scenarios to allow the patient to practise their newly learned coping skills in virtual environments tailored to their needs. All the while the therapist gives real-time feedback, like a medically qualified Jiminy Cricket.
Launched in 2003, Second Life was one of the first virtual worlds known as massively multiplayer online games. It was designed not for fighting monsters, but for people to socialise and, increasingly, emulate real life. Musicians have concerts, artists display their work and scientists go to meetings. People work, learn and connect in these virtual worlds. So can they be used for healing too?
As a technophile, I love the idea; as a psychotherapist used to working the old-fashioned way, I had reservations. So I decided to meet some of the advocates of virtual therapy in their own domain, avatar to avatar, to see if they could address my concerns.
One of my first interviews was with Dick Dillon, a real-life psychotherapist with Preferred Family Healthcare, a Missouri-based non-profit organisation that also leads the field of virtual therapy. In Second Life, Dillon's avatar is a bald, square-jawed hunk with a passing resemblance to Bruce Willis. He took me through a typical therapy session.
Talking by voice chat or instant messaging, you and your therapist may decide it is time to revisit the site of a traumatic event - a car crash, say. But in real life it is too far away, or perhaps you don't yet feel happy driving. No problem: your therapist builds, or "rezzes", the scene in a matter of minutes. Soon you are driving on a familiar road, with a steep bend similar to the one that you lost control on in the rain. As you approach the turn, your anxiety increases and your breaths become faster.
The therapist coaches you, reminding you of symptom-management techniques. If it all becomes too much, they zap you instantly back into the office.
According to Dillon, this set-up lets the therapist give real-time feedback while providing an experience that feels genuine, yet takes place in the safe environment of a simulation. The emotions are real. The rewards are real. Only the location is fake.
The emotions are real. The rewards are real. Only the location is fake"When the brain sees a 3D object in real life it converts it to a 2D object in the visual cortex," says Jeremy Bailenson, head of the Virtual Human Interaction Lab at Stanford University in California. Perhaps that's why a virtual scene can still provoke a strong psychological reaction, he says.
Phobia exposure
One of the first applications of avatar therapy was in treating social anxiety disorder, a crippling shyness that can confine people to their homes. James Herbert, head of the anxiety treatment and research programme at Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was among the first wave of researchers to investigate avatar therapy. Encouragingly, clients generally rated the treatment highly, though there were exceptions. "Some patients and therapists reported frustration with not being able to see the individual's face," he says, and sometimes technical difficulties interrupted the sessions.
Avatar therapy has also helped people with phobias. In real life, the usual treatment is to gradually expose people to the source of their fear, but this can sometimes be difficult. An avatar therapist can introduce the phobia source while remaining in complete control, scaling the experience up or down according to the client's reaction.
In fact, many of the conditions treated by face-to-face talk therapy can also be treated virtually, including depression and anxiety. Avatar therapy is proving useful for more diverse conditions too, such as traumatic brain injury, schizophrenia and Asperger's syndrome. So far studies have shown similar success rates to traditional therapy for social anxiety (Cyberpsychology & Behavior, vol 8, p 76) and post-traumatic stress disorder (Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, vol 13, p 3). Dillon's team will soon publish a study showing its effectiveness in drug and alcohol addiction.
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Count Me In. . . World.
Sat Sep 25 03:33:52 BST 2010 by Rick Schettino
http://futuretimes.netI really can't wait to see where all this is going. virtual worlds have not caught on as fast as I thought they would, but it's great for this kind of stuff. I'm a life coach and coach for people who want to be self-employed and I can certainly think of creative ways to incorporate SL into a session and I expect to be offering lectures in Second Life some day. Perhaps when I can get it on an iPad with a cam
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Interesting concept, may allow for 'conversations' that would not otherwise take place face to face. Cannot see this working for physical therapy....virtual massage & manipulation..mmm
The Development of Sensory Hypoesthesia After Whiplash Injury
Check out this website I found at journals.lww.com
Possibility to identify those at risk of poor recovery with these tests: vibration, electrical & heat stimuli, quite simple in the clinic
Wednesday, 22 September 2010
Spinal cord
My 2-year old daughter painted a spinal cord for me yesterday. Never too early to start biology! (Actually it is a butterfly)
Tuesday, 21 September 2010
What's in a name? The words behind thought
You think more words than you speak – perhaps because language really does shape the way we navigate the world
THERE I go again, talking to myself. Wherever I am, and whatever I'm doing, words bounce around my head in an incessant chatter. I am not alone in my internal babbling. Measuring the contents of people's minds is difficult, but it seems that up to 80 per cent of our mental experiences are verbal. Indeed, the extent of our interior monologue may vastly exceed the number of words we speak out loud. "On average, 70 per cent of our total verbal experience is in our head," estimates Lera Boroditsky of Stanford University in California. The sheer volume of unspoken words would suggest that language is more than just a tool for communicating with others. But what else could it be for?
One answer to that question is emerging: language helps ...
I found this article really interesting and potentially applicable in the clinic. Simply asking the patient to name the body part that they are about to move or exercise could enhance their perception. Increasing normal feedback is a rehabilitation aim, either verbally from the therapist or by vision via a mirror, but using the patient's own language maybe we can engage other higher processing systems top-down.
Thursday, 16 September 2010
Heart disease-depression 'danger'
via bbc.co.uk
This is a finding to be considered when discussing co-existing & past medical histories with patients. Physios are in a good position to identify risk factors when looking at the patient's health status.
Aerobic exercise relieves insomnia
via sciencedaily.com
Regular exercise has many benefits and here is one more. Reading John Ratey's book (Spark) gives a great overview of the advantages that include musculoskeletal health, cardiovascular health and the release of chemicals in the brain that nurture brain cells. This latter activity increases our capacity to learn, remember and feel good to name but a few benefits.
Royal Mail celebrates British medical and scientific breakthroughs
I've never been a stamp collector, but if I was, these would be a definite feature!
Interleukin-6 Levels in Tension Headache Patients
Check out this website I found at journals.lww.com
There is so much data supporting the role of the immune system in pain that we are obliged to consider this in our on-going education and reasoning as physiotherapists. We must understand the modern concepts and how we can influence the immune system in our approach and what we ask patients to do. We have an impact on the immune system at every interaction and of course this can be positive or negative.
Religion causes a chronic biasing of visual attention
Perhaps any life philosophy that we hold will have the same impact, not just a particular region.
Fart sniffer to hunt for life on Mars
IF THERE'S life on Mars, we might smell it before we see it. A chemical involved in bad breath and flatulence in humans could lead us to alien microbes on the Red Planet.
The sulphur-containing molecule methyl mercaptan is naturally produced in significant quantities on Earth only by microbes, including some that make their pungent presence known in the human body. NASA's next Mars rover is highly sensitive to the smelly chemical, which could betray the presence of Martian microbes, says Steven Vance of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
The instrument in question is the Tunable Laser Spectrometer, which will fly on the Curiosity rover - set to land on Mars in 2012. TLS was designed to analyse the carbon isotopes in Mars's methane to search for signs that the gas has a biological origin. But the isotope tests might produce ambiguous results, so finding methyl mercaptan would help bolster the case for Martian microbes, Vance says. TLS should be able to detect the gas at concentrations below 100 parts per billion, according to his team's tests on a similar spectrometer (Planetary and Space Science, DOI: 10.1016/ j.pss.2010.08.023).
The rover should be able to detect the biomarker gas at concentrations below 100 parts per billionThe researchers are also planning to check TLS's sensitivity to other gases produced by terrestrial microbes, like ethane. "We're demonstrating its ability to look at additional biomarkers and hopefully that will help us in our search for life," Vance says.
Kenneth Nealson at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, who was not involved in the study, says finding several potential indicators of life in the same place would make it a good target for follow-up missions. "I think you'd get pretty excited," he says. "You'd want to make sure that the next lander would spend time at that site."
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Nice work if you can get it!
Thursday, 9 September 2010
Learning tricks
Benedict Carey does a nice summary of what we do and don't know about different approaches to enhancing learning.
Take the notion that children have specific learning styles, that some are “visual learners” and others are auditory; some are “left-brain” students, others “right-brain.” In a recent review... in the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest, a team of psychologists found almost zero support for such ideas...Ditto for teaching styles...Some excellent instructors caper in front of the blackboard like summer-theater Falstaffs; others are reserved to the point of shyness...the common threads between teachers who create a constructive learning atmosphere have not been determinedIn recent years, cognitive scientists have shown that a few simple techniques can reliably improve what matters most: how much a student learns from studying…For instance, instead of sticking to one study location, simply alternating the room where a person studies improves retention. So does studying distinct but related skills or concepts in one sitting, rather than focusing intensely on a single thing.
Varying the type of material studied in a single sitting — alternating, for example, among vocabulary, reading and speaking in a new language — seems to leave a deeper impression on the brain than does concentrating on just one skill at a time. Musicians have known this for years, and their practice sessions often include a mix of scales, musical pieces and rhythmic work. Many athletes, too, routinely mix their workouts with strength, speed and skill drills.
When the neural suitcase is packed carefully and gradually, it holds its contents for far, far longer. An hour of study tonight, an hour on the weekend, another session a week from now: such so-called spacing improves later recall…cognitive scientists see testing itself — or practice tests and quizzes — as a powerful tool of learning, rather than merely assessment. The process of retrieving an idea is not like pulling a book from a shelf; it seems to fundamentally alter the way the information is subsequently stored, making it far more accessible in the future.
None of ... these techniques — alternating study environments, mixing content, spacing study sessions, self-testing or all the above — will turn a grade-A slacker into a grade-A student. Motivation matters.
In terms of modern physiotherapy I feel that we are teaching clients/patients new skills (physical and psychological) and providing the body with the opportunity to learn. The main principles outlined in this blog are applicable to the clinic:
1. alternating study environments, 2. mixing content, 3. spacing study sessions, 4.self-testing all with a healthy dose of motivation. Translated into the clinic perhaps we should think about: 1. changing treatment areas (rooms, gym etc), 2. using a range of interventions (although this means it becomes difficult to measure effectiveness of a particular intervention), 3. giving adequate time for the patient to absorb information, undertake exercise programme and develop self management skills between sessions, 4. experimentation, i.e. experiencing a particular task or movement that has been identified or prescribed successfully.
Judgement and Experience
Judgement and Experience
Saturday August 21, 2010About eighteen months ago, I wrote a post here about judgement and about the need to test judgements against the fine grain of experience. In that post, I quoted the story – a story that I have been fascinated by for a long time – about the friend of the painter Courbet who used to wake in a cold sweat crying “I want to judge! I want to judge!”
I’ve been thinking again about judgement, because I have been noticing whilst travelling that the mind does very curious things. This will not be news to anybody who a) has a mind and b) pays it any attention. But the particular thing that I have been noticing is the way, when I come across a new experience, I find myself succumbing to what could only be called a kind of restless hunger to pass judgement. So, for example, I arrive in a new town. Let us say Anyang in China (not the Anyang in Korea), where I am now. And as I come out of the railway station or the bus station, I find my mind doing the following. “Hmmm….” my mind says, “Looks a bit dowdy here. Not as good as the last place I was in. Oh look, there’s a person doing something unappealing. Just goes to show. I knew it. This town is rubbish. Aha, what’s this? Somebody has just pushed in front of me. Typical, eh? Looks like it’s going to be a grim couple of days.”
And immediately, poor old Anyang – or wherever I happen to be, because this is not a pattern that has anything to do with the objective qualities of a place – has been damned on the basis of rather faint evidence: one person doing something mildly unappealing, somebody else doing what anybody who doesn’t want to be crushed underfoot does when in a station in China, and… well, and that’s about it. Sometimes it goes the other way, and my mind says “Oh, look, this place is clearly great because I’ve just seen a cute cat by the station entrance.” Which is equally spurious stuff.
What is interesting here, I think – and what is interesting in the story about Courbet’s friend (as retold in an essay by Foucault, which is where I read it) – is the sheer hunger that we the mind has for casting judgement. It does this, more or less, of its own accord. It wakes up yelling “I want to judge! I want to judge!” Sometimes, at least, as time has gone on I have got better at ignoring its cries. Or better at putting its rapid judgements to one side, and leaving the door open for a bit more evidence to come in. Sometimes, however, I find myself succumbing.
I do still wonder what is going on here. Maybe it is a kind of attempt to control the future, or to deal with uncertainty. When you arrive somewhere new, the possibilities are wide open. The fact is, very often, you simply don’t know what a place holds, what it is like, what will happen. And the mind, poor little thing, doesn’t like not knowing. So perhaps this is why it spins webs of judgement over vast abysses of ignorance.
It is interesting to see the mind do these things, and to let it go about its business without taking its judgements too seriously. In the end, it gets fed up and stops, at least for a while. It is not that the faculty of judgement is not useful; but the proper exercise of judgement is very different from these curious little outbursts. And I’ve noticed that, if I don’t take these stories seriously, very soon they subside. Cities, and people too, are complex things. They cannot be easily summed up. Experience is constantly shifting and nuanced, hard to capture in judgements as simplistic as these. And when experience simply comes and goes without this layer of judging, it takes on a very different character, as the heat goes out of it. It just becomes that which happens.
Incidentally, I should say in the city’s defence – and if I have to come to some kind of provisional judgement – that Anyang has been a charming and fascinating place to spend a couple of days…
Image: thanks to Michael Kan on Flickr
#2 · Lilian Nattel
22 August 2010
This made me smile and chuckle. I think
it’s possible that quick judgment evolved
in a time when it could have been life-
saving to quickly assess a new environment.
It’s left-over from hunter-gatherer days.
Your post reminded me of my 2 trips to
China. I came here via Tasting Rhubarb and
so glad I did.#3 · Robert Ellis
22 August 2010
I find it creditable that you distinguish your ‘curious little outbursts’ from judgement in general. In general I think I’d want to argue that not using judgement is just as much of a problem as using it too readily: for example as a teacher of philosophy and critical thinking to 16-19 year olds, I find that learning always takes place when students are willing to exercise their judgement, even if crudely (as it can then be refined through challenging discussion), but if they don’t engage it at all and just greet a new argument or experience with blank indifference, I have much more of a sense of failure as a teacher. Your snap judgements about Anyang are the first indication that you are engaging with it (and thus to some extent, appreciating it). The refinements and the complexity can come later, but you need something to work with.
Of course the ‘curious little outbursts’ of judgement that you note also might be a bit of a problem if you were to take them too seriously. However, as a seasoned traveller, I’d be very surprised if you were in any real danger of doing so. I think you could take these stirrings of judgement much more positively and see them as crudely-formed clay.
#4 · Will
23 August 2010
Thanks for the comments folks. I’m not entirely sure that the snap judgements lie on a continuum with genuine judgement, however. I wonder if they are rather different processes. They certainly feel rather different, not just in extent but in kind. And certainly we do need to make judgements about this and that if we are to make any headway at all in the world.
But there is something different going on in this restless stamping of usually moral evaluations upon things.
#5 · Sabio Lantz
25 August 2010
“And the mind, poor little thing, doesn’t like not knowing”
—-> fantastic !#6 · star
4 September 2010
Wonderful example you provide of the way our minds seek to name and categorize everything. I like Richard Gombrich’s explanation that one of the reasons the Buddha used the metaphor of fire so often is because fire appears to be “appetitive” — it seeks fuel. Our minds are just like that, aren’t they? If I ever get my mind to settle down in meditation, I can feel the bubble of a thought “wanting” to arise, like a little pressure — it hasn’t got a shape yet, it’s just the desire to be thinking, to be doing — anything but just sitting silently! Surely this is a left over survival mechanism — the more quickly we can judge a situation, the less likely we are to get eaten by the bear?
via thinkbuddha.org
A nice piece on judgement. Of course being in a state of awareness in the present moment without judging is the basis of mindfulness.
Mice Show Heritable Desire For Exercise
via rss.sciam.com
You can blame the genes! Great! Exercising is a behaviour determined by your belief about what it is and what it does. Identifying the barriers to exercising and of course adherence is important.
Monday, 6 September 2010
Wednesday, 1 September 2010
Stress resilience returns with feeling for rhythm
via sciencedaily.com
Providing accurate information about stress and the links with pain (mind-body) via the SNS and immune systems is a fundamental part of the treatment programme. It is about perception of threat. The task in hand is the task in hand. How is it perceived? This will judge the response. Why zebras don't get ulcers is a classic book as a great start point.
Mindfulness meditation increases well-being in adolescent boys, study finds
via sciencedaily.com
Mindfulness is gaining exposure as a really useful mode of working. Remaining in a state of non-judgment certainly gives you clarity, the presence of the now and removes feelings of discomfort associated with dwelling in the past or future. In terms of pain, observing and not judging or giving value to the sensation can be a valuable skill to lessen the impact.
A Randomized Controlled Trial Comparing Manipulation With Mobilization for Recent Onset Neck Pain
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via archives-pmr.org
Phew! There I was thinking for a minute that I would have to start manipulating necks! No chance. You just cannot really know if that neck is safe to 'click'
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