physical therapist, pearl district

The Brain Has A Negativity Bias. Here’s How To Be Happy Anyway

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Article by Rick Hanson, Ph.D. | Found on MindBodyGreen

Let’s conduct an experiment: Take a moment to think back over your day; which experiences stand out for you?

For most of us, it’s the negative ones. Enjoyable, useful experiences—like smiling at a friend, finishing a task, or learning something new—typically happen many times a day, but they usually wash through the brain like water through a sieve, barely leaving a trace. Meanwhile, our stressful, often harmful experiences—like getting stuck in traffic and being late for a meeting, feeling brushed aside by a friend or misunderstood by a partner, or ruminating about worries or resentments—routinely produce lasting changes in neural structure or function. Read more

bodywise, physical therapy, portland

A Lifetime of Regular Exercise Slows Down Aging, Study Finds

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Article Found on ScienceDaily

Researchers at the University of Birmingham and King’s College London have found that staying active keeps the body young and healthy.

The researchers set out to assess the health of older adults who had exercised most of their adult lives to see if this could slow down ageing.

The study recruited 125 amateur cyclists aged 55 to 79, 84 of which were male and 41 were female. The men had to be able to cycle 100 km in under 6.5 hours, while the women had to be able to cycle 60 km in 5.5 hours. Smokers, heavy drinkers and those with high blood pressure or other health conditions were excluded from the study.

The participants underwent a series of tests in the laboratory and were compared to a group of adults who do not partake in regular physical activity. This group consisted of 75 healthy people aged 57 to 80 and 55 healthy young adults aged 20 to 36.

The study showed that loss of muscle mass and strength did not occur in those who exercise regularly. The cyclists also did not increase their body fat or cholesterol levels with age and the men’s testosterone levels also remained high, suggesting that they may have avoided most of the male menopause.

More surprisingly, the study also revealed that the benefits of exercise extend beyond muscle as the cyclists also had an immune system that did not seem to have aged either.

An organ called the thymus, which makes immune cells called T cells, starts to shrink from the age of 20 and makes less T cells. In this study, however, the cyclists’ thymuses were making as many T cells as those of a young person.

The findings come as figures show that less than half of over 65s do enough exercise to stay healthy and more than half of those aged over 65 suffer from at least two diseases.* Professor Janet Lord, Director of the Institute of Inflammation and Ageing at the University of Birmingham, said: “Hippocrates in 400 BC said that exercise is man’s best medicine, but his message has been lost over time and we are an increasingly sedentary society.

“However, importantly, our findings debunk the assumption that ageing automatically makes us more frail.

“Our research means we now have strong evidence that encouraging people to commit to regular exercise throughout their lives is a viable solution to the problem that we are living longer but not healthier.”

Dr Niharika Arora Duggal, also of the University of Birmingham, said: “We hope these findings prevent the danger that, as a society, we accept that old age and disease are normal bedfellows and that the third age of man is something to be endured and not enjoyed.”

Professor Stephen Harridge, Director of the Centre of Human & Aerospace Physiological Sciences at King’s College London, said: “The findings emphasise the fact that the cyclists do not exercise because they are healthy, but that they are healthy because they have been exercising for such a large proportion of their lives.

“Their bodies have been allowed to age optimally, free from the problems usually caused by inactivity. Remove the activity and their health would likely deteriorate.”

Norman Lazarus, Emeritus Professor at King’s College London and also a master cyclist and Dr Ross Pollock, who undertook the muscle study, both agreed that: “Most of us who exercise have nowhere near the physiological capacities of elite athletes.

“We exercise mainly to enjoy ourselves. Nearly everybody can partake in an exercise that is in keeping with their own physiological capabilities.

“Find an exercise that you enjoy in whatever environment that suits you and make a habit of physical activity. You will reap the rewards in later life by enjoying an independent and productive old age.”

The research findings are detailed in two papers published today in Aging Cell and are the result of an ongoing joint study by the two universities, funded by the BUPA foundation.

The researchers hope to continue to assess the cyclists to see if they continue to cycle and stay young.

Grounded in the belief we are all unique beings, we begin each new client with a meticulous bio-mechanical evaluation, assessing each joint in it’s relationship to the movement of the body as a whole. Our therapists are skilled at reading the unique story your body tells, and treating everything from the bottom of your foot to the top of your head.

Bodywise Physical Therapy is located in Portland, Oregon. The Bodywise approach is wholistic, individualized, and can benefit people of all fitness levels. While Bodywise has always specialized in general orthopedics, spine rehabilitation, and sports medicine, they have evolved into a truly wholistic practice integrating Hands-on treatments with Mindfulness, Pilates, Trauma Release Exercise, Women’s Health and Lymphedema.

physical therapy, pearl district

When it Comes to Our Brains, There’s No Such Thing as Normal

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Article Found on ScienceDaily

There’s nothing wrong with being a little weird. Because we think of psychological disorders on a continuum, we may worry when our own ways of thinking and behaving don’t match up with our idealized notion of health. But some variability can be healthy and even adaptive, say researchers in a review published February 20th in Trends in Cognitive Sciences, even though it can also complicate attempts to identify standardized markers of pathology.

“I would argue that there is no fixed normal,” says clinical psychologist and senior author Avram Holmes of Yale University. “There’s a level of variability in every one of our behaviors.” Healthy variation is the raw material that natural selection feeds on, but there are plenty of reasons why evolution might not arrive at one isolated perfect version of a trait or behavior. “Any behavior is neither solely negative or solely positive. There are potential benefits for both, depending on the context you’re placed in,” he says.

For instance, impulsive sensation seeking, a willingness to take risks in order to have new and exciting experiences that has its roots in our evolutionary history as foragers, is often thought of negatively. Increased sensation seeking is associated with things like substance abuse, criminality, risky sexual behavior, and physical injury. “But if you flip it on its head and look at potential positive outcomes, those same individuals may also thrive in complex and bustling environments where it’s appropriate for them to take risks and seek thrills,” he says. They often have more social support, are more outgoing, and exercise more.

The same is true for anxiety. “You might be more inhibited in social situations and you may find it harder to build friendships,” Holmes says. “However, that same anxiety, if you think of it in a workplace setting, is what motivates you to prepare for a big presentation. If you’re in school, that’s the same anxiety that motivates you to study for an exam.” He also notes that we have more control over the contexts we’re in than we tend to think we do, which means that it’s very possible to end up in an environment that favors the way our brains work.

But if variation in any given trait is normal, that does raise questions about what makes for disordered behavior, which he stresses is very much a real phenomenon. “It may be the case that if you focus on a single phenotype, there isn’t a specific line that separates health from disease, and that we must consider multiple phenotypes simultaneously,” he says.

This makes it much more complicated to try to find biomarkers for psychological illness, something that Holmes has worked on throughout his career. The usual approach is to break down a disorder into its component pieces, find a specific associated genetic marker or biological process for a certain piece, and then look for that marker or process in the general population to see if it can predict the disorder. The problem, he says, is that “one single phenotype in isolation is never going to be necessary nor sufficient to cause an illness.”

“What we want to try to do is build multivariate approaches that consider multiple domains of human behavior simultaneously, to see if we can boost our power in predicting eventual outcomes for folks,” he says. Large, open-source datasets have been collected in recent years that can be used in these efforts, but Holmes notes that the work will almost certainly require collaboration between different labs and institutions — some of which is already underway.

What this does mean, though, is that it really isn’t appropriate to think of ourselves in terms of a single trait that’s either good or bad, healthy or unhealthy. “This is a broader issue with our society,” he says, “but we’re all striving towards some artificial, archetypal ideal, whether it’s physical appearance or youthfulness or intelligence or personality. But we need to recognize the importance of variability, both in ourselves and in the people around us. Because it does serve an adaptive purpose in our lives.”

This work was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health.

Grounded in the belief we are all unique beings, we begin each new client with a meticulous bio-mechanical evaluation, assessing each joint in it’s relationship to the movement of the body as a whole. Our therapists are skilled at reading the unique story your body tells, and treating everything from the bottom of your foot to the top of your head.

Bodywise Physical Therapy is located in Portland, Oregon. The Bodywise approach is wholistic, individualized, and can benefit people of all fitness levels. While Bodywise has always specialized in general orthopedics, spine rehabilitation, and sports medicine, they have evolved into a truly wholistic practice integrating Hands-on treatments with Mindfulness, Pilates, Trauma Release Exercise, Women’s Health and Lymphedema.

pilates, physical therapu, pearl district

Mind/Body Connection: How Your Emotions Affect Your Health

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Article Found on FamilyDoctor.org

People who have good emotional health are aware of their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. They have learned healthy ways to cope with the stress and problems that are a normal part of life. They feel good about themselves and have healthy relationships. Read more

physical therapist, bodywise, portland

Exercise Can Significantly Improve Brain Function After Stroke

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Article Found on Newsroom.heart.org

Structured exercise training can significantly improve brain function in stroke survivors, according to research presented at the American Stroke Association’s International Stroke Conference 2017.

Stroke is the fifth leading cause of death in the United States, and the leading cause of long-term disability. Studies estimate that up to 85 percent of people who suffer a stroke will have cognitive impairments, including deficits in executive function, attention and working memory. Because there are no drugs to improve cognitive function, physical activity –  such as physical therapy, aerobic and strength training –  has become a low-cost intervention to treat cognitive deficits in stroke survivors. Read more

physical therapist, pearl district, pilates

What is Brain Plasticity and Why is it So Important?

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Article Found on The Conversation

Neuroplasticity – or brain plasticity – is the ability of the brain to modify its connections or re-wire itself. Without this ability, any brain, not just the human brain, would be unable to develop from infancy through to adulthood or recover from brain injury.

What makes the brain special is that, unlike a computer, it processes sensory and motor signals in parallel. It has many neural pathways that can replicate another’s function so that small errors in development or temporary loss of function through damage can be easily corrected by rerouting signals along a different pathway. Read more

physical therapy, pearl district

Try Exercise to Improve Memory and Thinking

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Article Found on NeuroscienceNews

For patients with mild cognitive impairment, don’t be surprised if your health care provider prescribes exercise rather than medication. A new guideline for medical practitioners says they should recommend twice-weekly exercise to people with mild cognitive impairment to improve memory and thinking. Read more

physical therapy, portland, oregon

Your Breath is Your Brain’s Remote Control

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Article by Crystal Goh | Found on Mindful.org

We have all heard this simple saying during times of trouble: “Take a deep breath in.” Science being science, however, indicates that we may now have to update this old adage to read “Take a deep breath in it will help you be more emotionally aware but only if you inhale specifically through your nostrils and not your mouth—good luck.” Read more

pilates, physical therapy, pearl district

10 Ways Your Mind Can Help You Heal (According To Science)

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Article by Jo Marchant | Found on MindBodyGreen

Jo Marchant is an award-winning science journalist, with a PhD in genetics and medical microbiology. In her rigorously reported new book, “Cure: A Journey Into the Science of Mind Over Body,” Marchant explores the fascinating research into the mind-body connection, including its ability to help us heal.

Harnessing the healing power of the mind doesn’t mean simply thinking the pain away. We can’t wish ourselves better, however much we might want that to be true.

But by harnessing pathways such as expectation, distraction, and social support we can persuade our bodies to ease off on symptoms such as pain, depression, and fatigue, as well as influence physiological functions such as the gut and immune system. Read more

physical therapy, pearl district

LAUGHTER REALLY IS MEDICINE: HOW TO LAUGH OFF HOLIDAY DRAMA

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Article Found on Chalkboard Mag

DO YOUR HOLIDAY family gatherings feel ripe for an appearance on Overheard LA? Maybe your visits home conjur up scenes worthy of an emo indie film or the flight your currently on is as salty as your grandma’s gravy. What ever the case — we get it. In a season full of feelings, might we suggest amping up your sense of humor? 

Dr. Mike Miller is the author of Heal Your Heart, a compendium of compelling medical research that points to the benefits of positive emotions. Dr. Miller — who is also part of Pressed Juicery’s Medical Advisory Board — is known as a leader in the fields of preventive and behavioral cardiology. We’ve been blown away by his “Positive Emotions Prescription” that confirms the benefits of just about every form of mind-body wellness we love. 

Enjoy this excerpt from Heal Your Heart below. In it, Dr. Miller reminds us of the power of laughter – not just to improve our mood, but our health and longevity too.  

You could say that your brain chemicals “cross talk” with your heart chemicals, resulting in a mind-to-heart connection. It’s a beautiful process that highlights the mind-body connection, and more specifically, the interrelationship between emotions and the vasculature. Our studies were the first to show a direct connection between positive emotions and blood vessel expansion, strongly supporting the release of nitric oxide, and thus the host of healthy cardiovascular responses nitric oxide confers.

You really can laugh your way to health and well-being. Laughter has been shown to improve sleep, and people who get adequate sleep experience lower stress, improved memory and focus, and decreased effects of heart-damaging insomnia.

Let’s take a look at some of the best benefits of laughter, beginning with cardiovascular benefits and moving on to healthy effects on weight control, sleep, memory, and social connection…

LAUGHTER CAN PREVENT STROKES.For years, medical schools taught that regardless of lifestyle, human blood vessels progressively stiffen and narrow over the course of a life span, aging until one suffers a debilitating or fatal cardiac event. This stiffening or hardening of the arteries—commonly known as arteriosclerosis or atherosclerosis—was assumed to be a natural consequence of aging, as plaques containing cholesterol built up in the arteries, narrowing the arteries and making them stiffer. The narrow, stiff arteries impede blood flow and produce angina over time, and in the worst-case scenario, pieces of plaque can break off and create a full blockage, resulting in heart attack or stroke.

The results of arteriosclerosis are undisputed. But as we’ve seen, research studies are overturning the outdated explanation of “naturally” deteriorating blood vessels. In reality, one of the main causes of arteriosclerosis actually has a great deal more to do with our old enemy, stress—that ubiquitous and underappreciated risk factor.

We now know that experiencing positive emotions directly affects vascular health and that through the power of laughter, you can reduce the deterioration of your blood vessels. In effect, experiencing positive emotions that include laughter may help to maintain the youthfulness of your blood vessels in much the same way that sun-screen protects your skin—but without the chemicals, of course!

LAUGHTER LOWERS BLOOD PRESSURE. Most of us can rattle off a short list of factors that contribute to high blood pressure: high sodium intake, smoking, obesity, and lack of exercise. But the single most overlooked reason for hypertension is stress. If stress can cause your blood pressure to rise, can laughter that reduces stress also reduce your blood pressure?

In a 200-person study conducted in India and presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Hypertension in 2008, 100 healthy adult men and women participated in seven sessions of laughter yoga over 3 weeks. At the end of the 3 weeks, laughter yoga participants had lower systolic and diastolic blood pressure, lower levels of cortisol (a stress hormone), and less perceived stress than the control group.9 They experienced a similar reduction in systolic blood pressure (approximately 5 to 7 mm Hg) as the Japanese study found.10 It’s important to note that the Indian study’s subjects’ average blood pressure before and after the laughter phase (128/82 mm Hg versus 121/79 mm Hg) was not in the hypertensive range, and it would be important to repeat these studies in men and women with high blood pressure.

Still, these results are remarkable, as you could expect a similar reduction in blood pressure if you took a blood pressure medication, followed a low-salt diet (less than 1 teaspoon of sodium per day), or lost 10 pounds. If the entire US population achieved a drop in blood pressure of just 5 mm Hg, the risk of heart attacks or strokes would be cut by 5 to 15 percent. Translation? Even with a conservative estimate, that’s as many as 30,000 lives saved per year. These results alone are enough for me to prescribe laughter to all of my patients and to enthusiastically recommend it for everyone. But if you’re still not convinced, read on.

LAUGHTER TORCHES CALORIES + CRAVINGS.Laughter is great exercise. Researcher Maciej Buchowski and colleagues at Vanderbilt University found that laughing for 10 to 15 minutes can burn up to 40 calories. The reason appears to be the increased work of numerous muscles in the face, throat, and abdomen that are used during hearty laughter.

There’s also evidence that laughter can reduce binge-eating. Following a laughter therapy program allowed author Katie Namrevo to lose 35 pounds, diminish her stress-induced cravings, and gain more energy to pursue aerobic activities. She describes her experience in her 2004 book Laugh It Off! Weight Loss for the Fun of It. Mary Dallman, PhD, professor of physiology, and her colleagues at the University of California, San Francisco, have proposed that under chronic stressful conditions, people are subconsciously drawn to comfort foods. These foods, which are characteristically high in fat and carbs, in turn suppress the activity of the stress hormone cortisol. Laughter terminates this vicious cycle. The result is that regular engagement in laughter may result in significant changes in body weight that can reduce the likelihood of insulin resis-tance, diabetes, and heart disease.

LAUGHTER X SLEEP.It was once thought that high levels of the stress hormone cortisol produced insomnia, but a 2003 study suggested that the opposite is true: Chronic insomnia—which is often caused by chronic stress!—produces higher levels of cortisol.

In a Korean study of 109 men and women over age 65, research-ers found that just four laughter therapy sessions over a 1-month period were associated with more restful sleep as well as reduced feelings of depression. Insomnia is so common that nearly one out of every two people complains of poor sleep habits! But the sad reality is that not only does insomnia adversely affect our productivity and emotional state, it also increases our risk of depression, hypertension, metabolic syndrome, and heart disease. My medical advice? Before bedtime you should turn off the stressful news and look for comedy or lighthearted reading.

LAUGHTER X MEMORY.Here’s a fascinating fact: The right frontal lobe of the brain processes information related to memory and is also associated with the ability to appreciate humor. One can say that humor and memory work hand in hand, as studies have shown that people remember things that are perceived as humorous.

Because the brain processes that control humor and memory are closely linked, you can rely on humor as an aid to improve your memory. Humor helps your mind create visual images that become useful as a creative strategy for memory enhancement. When you recount incidents that occurred long ago, you likely find that vividly funny details jump readily to mind. My own experience in a summer job showcases this benefit of memory working in concert with humor. Numerous studies have concluded that humorous material tends to be recalled more readily than nonhumorous material, and memory books encourage readers to use humor as an aid in recalling lists of information. Some of my most effective teachers were also dynamic and funny.

LAUGHTER X RELATIONSHIPS.During prehistoric times, when our language was in its infancy, it is likely that laughter became an important and adaptive socialization skill. In fact, communication through laughter may have been an early test of survival of the fittest because early humans who did not engage in group laughter were likely to be alienated and left to fend for themselves. Even today, laughter is an important and early socializa-tion skill.

Laughter becomes essential for participation in groups and for achieving social acceptance. It not only relaxes us, it also signals others that they can relax around us. Laughing is a highly effective form of communication and it facilitates connection.

Laughter is also a key ingredient in successful relationships, yet people often underestimate its importance. Research by my colleague Robert Provine, PhD, pro-fessor of psychology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, has shown laughter’s important role in mating. On average, females laugh more than twice as much as males, while males are more likely to try to be amusing. The female’s laughter serves as a primary barometer in strong relationships, and the earliest hint of a problem in the relationship is when a woman no longer finds her partner funny. According to independent findings of psychologists Dr. John Gottman and Dr. Michelle Golland, the most important predictor of divorce is the absence of laughter in a marriage.Partners who recognize this important clue at an early stage can increase the likelihood of resolving underlying conflicts before any dis-harmony spins out of control. Doing so may save the relationship while also protect-ing the heart health of both partners—divorce is widely known to be one of the most stressful experiences people can endure.

It is absolutely clear that laughing with others—in love, in the workplace, or in any social situation—reduces tension while improving morale, cooperation, and cardiovascular health. So schedule time with your funniest friends, or reach out and reconnect with fun-loving friends with whom you’ve lost touch. Strong bonds are formed and strengthened when people laugh together, and laughter is always a more enriching experience when it’s shared with others.

Laughing promotes whole-body health, it relieves stress, it enhances memory, it facilitates social connection, and it’s simply fun. Yet for some of us, laughter doesn’t occur on a daily basis. While the average 5-year-old laughs as many as 300 times a day, the average adult laughs a paltry four times a day. Our lives are busy and often stressful, and not all of us have the built-in advantage of living with a funny person or having a close friend or colleague who’s particularly funny. This means that most of us are going to have to be quite intentional in seeking out our daily dose of laughter.

To lighten up each day, you can make small changes that relieve tension, release you from inhibitions, and foster positive emotions that become a platform for laughter. Here are a few tips I prescribe to my patients to help them find and create more laughter in their lives…

BOOKMARK IT Keep links to humor bookmarked, and then the moment you find yourself in need of a laugh—that is, in need of stress relief, an energy boost, and a heart-healthy dose of endorphins and nitric oxide—click away. Try: YouTube, The Onion, CollegeHumor, Reddit

GET THE APP Developers have designed dozens of apps to elicit laughter, and with everything from recordings of laughing babies to storehouses of jokes accessed with a tap of a finger to one-line “zinger” generators, there’s something out there that will appeal to every sense of humor. Try: “The Gift of Laughter” 

WATCH FOR IT Check out the American Film Institute’s 100 Funniest Movies, or this list of 100-plus funniest TV shows. Or this list of 290 comic novels.

Grounded in the belief we are all unique beings, we begin each new client with a meticulous bio-mechanical evaluation, assessing each joint in it’s relationship to the movement of the body as a whole. Our therapists are skilled at reading the unique story your body tells, and treating everything from the bottom of your foot to the top of your head.

Bodywise Physical Therapy is located in Portland, Oregon. The Bodywise approach is wholistic, individualized, and can benefit people of all fitness levels. While Bodywise has always specialized in general orthopedics, spine rehabilitation, and sports medicine, they have evolved into a truly wholistic practice integrating Hands-on treatments with Mindfulness, Pilates, Trauma Release Exercise, Women’s Health and Lymphedema.