You are currently browsing the category archive for the 'health' category.
Ozark Guidance – Torture is a Form of Trauma, Trauma Causes PTSD
Grief, interrupted: PTSD in the time of Tsunami and war
“The crayon on the wood took the abuse out of the present and put it into the past, properly, physically. The crayon marks told Sybil she no longer had to convince anyone of anything. It told her the therapist knew, and believed her and it validated her anger and pain.”
from The Internet Connects Trauma Survivors
The images, taken while patients remember a traumatic event, show how areas of the right hemisphere of the brain – those associated with emotional states and autonomic arousal – are lit up. The ‘imprint of trauma’ he says, ‘is located mainly in the limbic system, the part that interprets what is safe or dangerous in the world and in the brain stem that modulates arousal levels – sleeping, breathing, urinating and chemical balances. At the same time, parts of the frontal lobe that deal with the capacity to plan, to rationalise, to inhibit inappropriate behaviour – and specifically one area associated with speech – are shown to be shut down.’
What this suggests, says van der Kolk, is that ‘when people relive their traumatic experiences, the frontal lobes become impaired and as a result they have trouble thinking and speaking. They are no longer capable of communicating to others precisely what’s going on.’ Nor, he argues, are they capable of imagining how things could change. This ability is located in the prefrontal cortex of the brain, an area that needs to be engaged if someone is to have the possibility of transforming their experience and moving on.
Meanwhile, he says, research also shows the way in which the possibility to physically move at the time of the trauma is a key factor in a person’s experience. Movement, he points out, is organised in the limbic system where a part of the brain known as the amygdala acts as a ’smoke detector’, sending out alarm signals when a person is in a sensory situation similar to the trauma. The more immobile a person felt at the time of the experience when the original alarm was going off, the more sensitive this detector is likely to be in the future – and the more they are at risk of trauma.
The nature of this person’s ‘fight or flight’ response is also affected. For example, children – often less likely to be in a position to physically flee a traumatic environment – may well resort to freezing, numbing or dissociating as their only options for ‘leaving’.
from The Future of Trauma Work, British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy Journal
by Michelle Hancock
Not a day goes by that the word “cancer” doesn’t scare thousands of Canadians. Like a dreaded scourge, it hovers over us, presumably just waiting to claim its next victim.
But according to scientists in the growing field of mind/body medicine, the disease is not as much an external force as you might believe. Fear and anxiety–our thoughts and feelings–can impact our health just as much as a long list of cancer risk factors. “Psychoneuroimmunology”’ is the scientific term to describe the study of the mind/body connection. Carl Simonton, MD, is an oncologist who pioneered research in this discipline as early as the 1970s. His book, Getting Well Again (Bantam, 1978), shows how “an individual’s reaction to stress and other emotional factors can contribute to the onset and progress of cancer [while] positive expectations, self-awareness and self-care can ontribute to survival.”
Pessimist or Optimist: Live Long Enough to Find Out at Alive.com
Qi gong at the American Cancer Society (www.cancer.org)
Be Wary of Acupuncture, Qigong and “Chinese Medicine” at Quackwatch.com
Alternative Therapies – Meditation, with Dr Kathy Sykes
- Matthieu Ricard (French) - translator for Dalai Lama – Nepal, Kathmandu, meditation
- Dr Herbert Benson – the relaxation response - book
- Marharishi Vedic City
- Transcendental meditation, impact on coronary health
- pubmed.gov for papers
- “reviews” collate information from a number of papers, periodically
- Professor Mark Williams, Oxford
- Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT)
- Anti-depression/clinical-depression
- 80% mindfulness meditation, 20% cognitive therapy
- Uses meditation similar to that taught by Mattiau in Nepal
- Buddhist practices
- focus on breathing
- Observing without trying to fix
- Seeing thoughts as just thoughts
- Reduces risk of recurrence by up to 50% in patients who have had 3 or more depressive episodes
- Helps other anxiety – can help everyone (universal anxieties, self-doubts etc, awareness)
- Available to some on the NHS
- Dr Richard Davidson, University of Wisconsin – Madison
- Meditation shifts brain activity over time from left-hand-side to right-hand-side
- Dr Sarah Lazar
- Meditation over time is associated with increased cortical thickness
- Effects are cumulative (“every minute sitting counts”)
- Cortex associated with attention and sensory processing
- alters ability to concentrate
- alters response to “sensory” stimuli – physical sensations (pain, hunger etc) but also emotional sensations (fear, anger etc)
