Sleep Strategy

Can't go to sleep?  Can't stay asleep?  Here is a strategy to get a better night sleep:

Part 1 During the Day

From Ch.3 of "Move Your DNA"

by Katy Bowman www.katysays.com

A) Do more activity.  Use your body in any way you can and it doesn't need to be exercise.  Movement is key.  Any little thing helps; take the stairs, park further away, manually grind your coffee.  Also, sitting at the computer or in your car all day long, then spending an hour or two exercising - DOES NOT undo the effects of sitting all day.

B) Get into the Sun, often.  The sun is not our enemy, and the human race is designed to be in it.  Sunlight provides vitamin D and a lot more than that as well.  It's still just beyond science's grasp of understanding, but it is known that sunlight has other essential qualities to human health beyond Vit D.  And the more sunlight exposure during the day leads to better sleep.

C) Work with purpose.  When your emotions are satisfied with how you spent your time during the day, your mind will shut up better at night.  Enough said.

D) Oscillate between engagement and disengagement.  Your brain has a "high" and a "low" mode while awake and asleep.  High Awake is when you're alert and going - the way we spend nearly all our waking hours, driving, talking, reading, texting, etc...  Low Awake is day dreaming, chilled out, stillness,, but not bored (if you feel bored you're still in high mode).  High Asleep is when you're sleeping shallow, and possibly dreaming.  Low Asleep is deep sleep, even past the dreaming state, the time of most productive body/brain recovery.

So, here's the problem; your brain is made to make habits, and if you spend all your time in high mode when you're awake, your brain makes a habit of it all the time.  And it's much harder to fall asleep at night, stay asleep, nor get the best recovery from your sleep.

The answer is to give your brain more practice at switching.  A five minute moment, spread here and there through the day, when you are still and quiet.  Breathing slowly and deeply, will act like mini practice sessions for your brain on how to not stay stuck in high mode.  In essence creating a well used neural pathway to reach a state of disengagement, and not be habitually locked into engagement.\

An adjustment is soft and gentle
enough for people of all ages.

E) Try Chiropractic Care.  A chiropractic adjustment to the spine is gentle and often feels good.  It has many positive effects related to sleeping better.  Probably more than anything else the chiropractic adjustment helps a brain relax and overcome the habit of being over engaged (D).  And as mentioned above (A) your brain needs stimulation from activity and the effect a chiropractic adjustment has on the brain helps with that.  Lastly, people hurt less, usually a lot less, when getting chiropractic.  And not hurting certainly helps with sleep.  No surprise there.

Part 2 Pre-Bedtime 

A) No stimulates, sugar, caffeine - obviously.

B) No beverages at least one hour before sleep.  If you are woke during the night because you have to pee, this advice is particularly for you.  Give your kidney's enough time to filter it out so you have better chances of a less full bladder all night.

C) Turn off the electronics.  At least one hour before sleep for adults, two hours for kids, the visual stimulation has been shown to cause more delay in falling asleep, and more tossing and turning - a hint of less restful sleep.

Part 3 In Bed (no, this is not a fortune cookie)

A) Rub your eyes just like a child does.  When you put pressure on your eyes it will slow your heart rate and signal your nervous system to relax.  It's called the occulo-cardiac reflex and it's why children do it innately.

B) Progressively relax.  Bring your attention to your feet.  Notice them, and feel if your are holding them in any particular position.  Notice if you are using any muscle action in your shins and calves.  Keep doing this all the way up your body.  Anywhere where you notice your muscles are working, tune into the area and relax them, slowly melt into the bed.  This will also help if you're mind keeps going and going on tasks, or ruminates on worries.
This will give a useful place to put your minds attention, because sometimes it's far too difficult to think about nothing.


C)  A Dark Environment.  Your brain believes it's time to sleep when it's dark, time to wake when it's light.  TV and other electronic lights will disrupt your brain's patter of activity.  Blue light has the most disruptive effect, and that disruptive effect is worse on women.  In fact the chances of breast cancer increase for women sleeping with light pollution in their sleeping environment, blue light being the worst.  In my own experience with people, it's working at night and altering the natural human sleep cycle that is TERRIBLE on health.  It will slow someone's healing as much as anything else I've seen.


Resources:
Mercola.com
Power of Full Engagement Jim Loehr & Tony Schwartz
Move your DNA by Katy Bowman
The Great Courses, Stress and your Body, by Robert Sapolsky PhD
Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor PhD
The Great Courses; Mysteries of Human Behavior by Mark Leary PhD
The Great Courses; How Colors affect you by Professor William Lidwell
Ultralongevity by Mark Liponis
Spark by John Raty MD
Mindfulness by Helen Langer PhD
Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi PhD

Where do you carry your stress?

Almost all of us carry stress in our body when we get uptight.  The real art is how to pay attention to it.  Recently I've had people in my practice talk to me about:

1) clenching their jaw
2) headaches
3) neck aches
4) pain in the shoulders that causes headaches
5) loss of appetite
6) heartburn
7) loss of sleep
8) anxiety
9) getting sick
10) diarrhea

In each of these specific incidents all these things entirely related to stress in their life.  But more than just the fact that stress was present - that is universal for us all from time to time - it's how they responded to it.  When we suffer with things like this we typically go with how we have been trained; ignore it.  Sometimes with our force of will but often with medications.

I believe a wiser approach is to ask "what is my body trying to tell me?"  Be present to what hurts, lean in to it.  Most of the time, for most of us we need not suffer nearly as much if we would simply push ourselves a little less.  Go to bed when we're tired, one more show is not worth it.  Say "no" to the one-more-thing trying to squeeze it's way into your to do list.

If we listen better to our own needs of rest, recovery and sleep, if we say no a little more often rather than saying yes through gritted teeth, if we have a little more tolerance for outcomes we were trying to control against, in short; listen a little better to the wisest and best within us, we will suffer less.

A Flourishing Life

Below is the outline to a recent class I gave in my office.  This class received a lot of notice so I've posted the outline of the class for those of you who are interested.  If you would like to hear the talk, click this link to access the audio file from Google Drive.

A Flourishing Life

by Aaron Rossi DC

December 11th 2013

I. Mindset

   A. Growth (getting better) vs. 

   B. Fixed (being good)

II. Flourishing – P. E. R. M. A.

    A. Positive emotions 

       1.“Happiness comes from within, and happiness comes from without. “

           a. Set Point 50%

           b. circumstances 10%

           c. outlook, choices, behavior 40%

       2. Exercises

           a.“What went well?”  

           b. A Kind Act – most powerful mood enhancer

       3. Practice of Self Esteem

           a. Self acceptance

           b. personal integrity

           c. self assertiveness

    B. Engagement – 

       1. Flow; where challenge and skill meet, Presence of mind

       2. Drive; Autonomy, purpose, Mastery

    C. Relationships

       1. Communicating with Children

           a. Praise Effort not outcome, 

           b. Positive Constructive Style, 

       2. Communicating with Partner

           a. 5 love languages – Time, Gifts, Touch, Words, Service

           b. 5:1 ratio positive to negative interactions – sarcasm the killer

    D. Meaning / Purpose-

       1. Intrinsic - meaningful relationships, personal growth, community contribution 

       2. Extrinsic - wealth, beauty, fame, power

    E. Achievement 

       1. Grit – perseverance and effort

       2. Goals 

           a. Hard to achieve

           b. and Expect them to be

       3. Happy successful effort/work results from:

           a. 25% training and education

          b. 75% positivity, support, perception of stress (challenge or threat) 

III. Your Mind and Your Health 

     A. Positive Emotions and life and death and colds

     B. Your Brain

        1. Relationships

           a. Longevity

           b. Loneliness

        2. Meditation

            a. genetic effect

           b. parasympathetic response

        3. Exercises – 

            a. brain damage insulator: off-hand, cross-crawl, learning cognitive reserve 

            b. Naperville Ill., Texas Public schools

            c. Depressant 

        4. Brain Chemistry changes: received, given, observed

IV. The Weird

    A. Molecules of Emotion

    B. Earth Grounding, Brain Magnetic Sense

    C. Heart Magnetic Field

    D. DNA – selective change and magnetic influence

    E. Placebo Knee surgery

Internet RESOURCES

Heartmath – heart and emotion research   

www.Heartmath.com   http://youtu.be/QdneZ4fIIHE      

John Gottman – Relationship expert     

http://www.gottman.com/

http://www.azgrowth.com/4Horsemen.pdf

Brian Johnson's Philosophers Notes
http://www.entheos.com/philosophersnotes

Success Magazine (They're my curator for good stuff- I love this magazine)
http://www.success.com/

TEDx talks: 

Brene Brown on vulnerability: 

http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability.html

Shawn Achor on Happiness:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXy__kBVq1M

Health newsletter:    

www.Mercola.com             

University of Penn

Signature Strengths Surveys

http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/Default.aspx

Book RESOURCES

Flourish by Martin Seligman PhD

Mindset by Carol Dweck PhD

Succeed by Heidi Grand Halveson PhD

How of Happiness by Sonja Lubimurski PhD

Why we Do What we Do by Edward Deci PhD

Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt

Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi 

Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor

Drive by Daniel Pink

Switch by Chip and Dan Heath

Super Brain by Depak Chopra MD

Molecules of Emotion by Candice Pert PhD

Spark by John Ratey MD

Relaxation Revolution by Herbert Benson MD

Think Smart by Richard Restak MD

Health is a state in process

The latest idea I'm bringing to focus in my office is a more accurate understanding of health.

Health is not a fixed thing that you do or do not have.  That you have lost or found.  Broken or repaired.  Health is a state, and is constantly in process.  Applied properly, Chiropractic moves the process forward, where ever the state of health currently is.

It takes diligent applied effort to achieve mastery at work.  It takes conscious, frequent attention to make family life harmonious.  It takes concerted regular action to make health flourish.  And there is no upper limit of achievement, fulfilment or expression of these or any other worth while endevor.

Nothing happens TO you, It only happens FOR you.

The title of this post is a fundamental premise of how I look at health.  It's based upon this assumption:  Life only perpetuates life.  It does this in 2 ways, life protects itself or it seeks to grow itself.

Ultimately I believe that all expressions of health, or illness, is in someway the intelligence of the life within us either protecting or growing itself.

Nature would not select for any function devoid of evolutionary benefit.  If the body can do it, it exists in service of life.

When does the process end?

I had the pleasure of working with a great couple as new patients in my office today.  After we went through the things I usually do and a few things I specifically did we sat down and talked a little more.

She said that what we spoke about made sense, and that she understood that the care I was suggesting to her was a process.  And then she asked "but when does the process end?"

I answered her in two ways; 1) chiropractic is like anything else you can do in life that delivers ongoing benefits.  Exercise, dating your spouse, sleeping well, showering all help ongoingly, and so does Chiropractic.  2) I told her in my own life I don't get adjusted because I'm in pain, or have some ailment to treat.  I get adjusted because I want optimize my nervous system, my health and my life.

So ultimately, even though you are free to stop when ever you want.  There is no end to the process.

Chiropractic explained in 5 steps

In my time as a Chiropractor, based on my own observations, education before and after college, research study and experience the following 5 steps explain Chiropractic as simply, completely and congruently as I can.

1) A Physical event takes place and causes some kind of a distortion to the spine. 
This can be a quick trauma or slow repetitive strain in bad posture.  The first of these events is often at birth or very young while a baby is developing.

2) Protective mechanisms kick in.
From step 1 if a bone in your spine were to go completely out of place it would either paralyze or kill you depending on the location of the bone.  The natural survival mechanisms can't have that, so in an instant, small muscles and reflexes engage, locking down portions of the spine preventing life threatening harm.  The lock down mechanism is good for temporary survival, but will alter nervous system function and is bad for full thriving when prolonged, even minimally.

3) The brain makes a habit out the protective mechanism.
The brain is nothing if not efficient, relatively quickly turning new learning into automatic habits.  This means that the nervous systems' responses (step 2) to any stimulus significant enough or repetitive enough (step 1) can pattern itself into the circuitry of the brain.  Whenever a stress experience occurs step 2's protective spinal lock down will kick in along with the rest of the body's fight or flight mechanisms.  Importantly the triggering stress doesn't need to be the same physical event (step 1) to trigger it.  It can be any non-physical threatening stress - an angry boss or a traffic jam - and that can return the physical lock down mechanisms to the spine as readily as a physical trauma. 
What I have been describing, in essence, are a few of many aspects of a subluxation.

4) The Chiropractic Adjustment breaks the habit.
The adjustment to the spine affects the entire nervous system, lighting up the brain with activity.  This kind of increased activity is a resources, and with it the brain can create new responses and break old habits.  Over time the responses that were good for short term survival, but compromising of ongoing health can refresh.  The pattern, negatively prolonged, is interrupted.

5) The benefits of Chiropractic care are dependent on how often you do it.
While the before-and-after comparison on health can be highly dramatic for some with only one Chiropractic Adjustment, repetition will provide cumulative benefits.  While the optimum frequency of adjustments varies, overall cumulative benefits are the common effect over time.  There is no upper limit to the benefits of Chiropractic care when applied as an ongoing lifestyle.  Every properly applied Chiropractic adjustment will measurably affect the function of your nervous system.  Research, big and small as well as multitudes of patients have reported; cognitive, emotional, digestive, immune, reproductive, hormonal, sensory, strength and balance positive changes, including an overall increased sense of wellbeing. 

I think of Chiropractic care as a key part of my strategy to bring out my best, and give the most from my life.  I eat, exercise, rest and love consciously.  I know my purpose and work towards it and I get adjusted regularly.

Life Death and Emotions

I learned this information some time ago, but recently again in much greater detail.  It's worth knowing - to the extent you express genuine positive emotion; the less chances of death.

It sounds strange, but put in another way; the happier and more you express it, the better chances of a longer life.


The numbers on the left represent the relative chances of death. 
The "Low, Moderate, High" on the right is refering
to the level of positve emotion expression.

I got this information from a magnificent book Flourish by Martin Seligman.  I recommend it.

Your First Technique

When I was in Chiropractic college at Life University, I remember the very first day of adjusting.  I was half way through my Doctor of Chiropractic program and just entering "Student Clinic."  This is where young untested Chiropractic students start learning how to adjust - upon each other.

There was a group of 12 of us, young students, coincidentally all male, gathered around in the space of a large hallway intersection in the crammed, drab student clinic building.  We were all neatly dressed in ties, slacks and fresh pale blue clinic jackets.  Most of them still showing creases from being recently unfolded out of their package.

There was an air of great excitement and anxiety.  This is the time in school that the whole academic experience begins to shift.  Going from strictly academic to incorporating hands on practice.  Some were terrified, some exhilarated, both for the same reason; beginning the marque experience of being a Chiropractor.  The moment was further charged with a feel of competition as well.  Chiropractic students become deeply clanish, picking certain techniques and vocally promoting it above all others.  To be sure, we were ripe ground for those attitudes.

Gradually our attention turned down the hall.  We watched as a old gentlemen approached.  A few scattered hairs upon the top of his head, round spectacles, brown suit and tie, a bent but distinguished posture, complete with a wooden cane.  We watched speechlessly as he stode to the center of our group and  he slowly looked around, passing his gaze upon each of us.  He spoke slow, deliberate and quiet.

"Gather round men, gather round.  My name is Dr. Oliver.  I learned Toggle from BJ (the actual developer of Chiropractic and that technique) and I've been a Toggle Man for 60 years.

"But regardless of if you do Thompson, or Gonstead or any other,,  your FIRST technique gentlemen, is love.  Remember that."

I always have.

Who's raising my children?

When I focus on my children, when I intentionally respond to them in a way that's congruent with the kind of father I want to be, everything is good.  Little conflicts.  No elevating of arguments.  Everyone is heard, respected.  Happy kids, happy me. 

The problem is; I don't always give them my intentional, congruent response.  I often will react, or simply let my habits present the example my children are watching.  The scary thing is, I don't even know how often that is.  That's kinda the point.  When I'm unconsciously living - I don't know it.

Excluding the extreme examples...  Anyone can be an outstanding parent - when they're trying, consciously.  But mostly it's our habits that raise our children.

Lets stand for the best within us.  Lets all do a little better tomorrow; One little conscious choice victory at a time.

My personal Motto

Work hard toward a purpose worthy of you.  Love your family and make sure they know it.  Know yourself and be true.

In Short:
Work hard, Love your Family and Be true to yourself.