Podcast - Page 7 of 7 - Pain 2 Possibilities
Pain 2 Possibilities

Breathe

Breathing is something that we often take for granted day in and day out. As a matter of fact, when I ran a Wellness centre for big Pharma, I would often joke with the employees that they should learn how to breathe. To which they quickly replied…I already know how to breathe. Ever wonder what’s actually going on in there when you take a deep breath? Simply put, it looks like this:
1) lung ventilation:
This is the initiation of external respiration through which inhaling and exhaling occur.
2) gas exchange:
O2 (oxygen) and CO2 (carbon dioxide) pass through the surface of the lungs.
3) gas transfer:
This is the transport of O2 from the lungs (through that inhale) and to the tissues, and of CO2 back to the lungs (for that deep exhale).
Go ahead. . . take another deep breath. Deep abdominal breathing encourages full oxygen exchange — that is, the beneficial trade of incoming oxygen for outgoing carbon dioxide. And this is where all good things begin!
Paying attention to our breathing serves many, many benefits. Breath increases energy, calms the nervous system by slowing down the fight or flight response, improves our respiratory system and all the muscles that support it (think Diaphragm, the intercostals between the ribs, into the shoulders and spine), improves our cardiovascular and digestive systems and can slow a busy mind. One of my favourite functions of deep breathing is in the management of pain. I could go on but this is a great start.
One of the simplest ways I can pass along to practice deep, rhythmic breathing is ‘four corner breathing’. Visualize if you will, the outline of a book. As you follow your eyes along the top edge of the book take a slow, deep breath in. When your eyes turn the corner and follow the book’s edge down, hold your breath. When your eyes turn the corner again to follow the bottom edge, breathe out slowly and completely. Hold you breath one last time while your eyes follow the outside of the book up to the start point. This is great for kids and grown ups alike!

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The Flatulent Car And Innocence Lost

‘Growing old is mandatory, growing up is optional’
This, by far is one of my favourite quotes from the wildly creative Walt Disney and it resonates with me now more than ever. So what exactly does a car with gas (which is quite ironic as you will see in a moment) and Walt Disney have to do with each other? Allow me to explain…
I was at my very part time corporate job (I run a small employee wellness program at a local engineering company) last week where one of the heads of a department pulled me into her car to show me something. It is a Tesla that has a woopy cushion feature that you can control where the sounds are coming from. Those of you who know me would understand that I instinctively found this to be very amusing! You can also see the irony in the whole thing as it is a Tesla and they do not run on gas…but I digress.
My point is simply this…getting back to your ‘child like’ self can be an extremely healthy adventure! I will take it one step further and say that in losing or misplacing our youthful creativity, we lose out on opportunities for personal growth.
Creativity starts with the willingness to to look at the world through innocent eyes. It involves shaking ourselves from our prejudices and and established thinking or doing habits.
Sadly, the world grinds away at our trust and our innocence. Experience often teaches us to doubt, to scoff or roll our eyes. Think back to when you were young, where the world was a place of limitless possibilities. Everywhere you looked, you found something new and different. This type of boundless clarity is often lacking in our behaviours as adults, especially when it comes to finding solutions to our ‘stuck state’ of wellbeing.
As Aldous Huxley once wrote, “The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which means never losing your enthusiasm.” Next time you are feeling stuck, ask your inner child…what would they do?
So, I challenge you. What can you do today that will help you get back to your childlike creativity?
What actions might you take to get you back to a giggly state where you really feel the ‘freeness’ of a deep belly laugh? For me it was simply saying yes (because it would have been very easy for me to say, ‘sorry I don’t have time’) to being in my co-workers car and having a fantastic giggle about something so deliciously juvenile.

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The ageing health gap

A review of the Global Burden of Disease study (2016), which tracks the prevalence of deaths and diseases worldwide, contains some good news: On average people are living about a decade longer than they were in 1980. Which probably doesn’t come as a surprise. But there’s a catch: Health hasn’t improved as fast as life expectancy overall, which means that for many, those long, final years are spent hobbled by illness and disability.
The study, published this week in The Lancet and conducted by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, uses a metric called “Disability Adjusted Life Years.” DALYs, as they’re abbreviated, combine the number of years of life a person loses if they die prematurely with the amount of time they spend living with a disability.
In rich countries, the number one cause of these DALYs is not surprising: ischemic heart disease, which is associated with well-known Western issues like high cholesterol and obesity. But the number two condition is a little strange: plain, old-fashioned, ever-present, low back and neck pain:
Even when you include poor and middle-income countries, low back and neck pain went from ranking 12th as a cause of DALYs globally in 1990 to ranking fourth in 2015, the most recent year. In most countries, it was the leading cause of disability. DALYs from low back and neck pain increased by more than 17 percent from 2005.
So what to do about it? Prevention and regular maintenance! In it’s simplest form…move, eat well and establish who your maintenance team is. Get up and away from your desk regularly, see your Massage therapist, your Chiropractor, whomever you choose to be on your ‘team’ and support it all with good, solid nutrition to nourish the demands placed on your body.

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