2017 Hits : Vol. 1 : Other Good Stuff

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Other Good Stuff

• “Complexity is the enemy of execution” -Tony Robbins

1. More bad news for our phone addicted society. Using your phone at night decreases your alertness the next day. 2. You should watch the documentary, Minimalism, on Netflix.  You don’t have to start throwing away stuff, but you might want to utilize their concepts: true values, needs vs. what we can afford, seeing through capitalism's traps/brainwashing, and spending time where it matters.  It’s definitely worth the watch.3. “As a maker, you tend to do too much, because you’re there with all the tools and you keep putting things in. As a listener, you’re happy with quite a lot less.” -Brian Eno4. This 10 second video explains why our country is having so many problems. 5. Singularity, when artificial intelligence escalates to a point of runaway technological growth and change the word, is a very interesting concept.  Maybe it’s what needs to happen to save our species and our planet?6. Look into your dog’s eyes. It will release oxytocin and make you both feel better. 7. ”People have always gotten their values, social skills and aspirations from their family, local community and circle of acquaintances. Are we approaching a tipping point where people start to get those things from commercial advertising and entertainment, news, and social media?”  In this case, we could be confirmation biasing our way towards bad morals…8.  In 1967, Kathrine Switzer was the first woman to finish the Boston Marathon.  She faced great adversity from those who believed women shouldn't be able to run in the race. The organizer of the race, Jock Semple, even tried to physically stop her.  Hindsight is 20/20 (for most).  But consider the injustices that exist in our current society. There are many still out there that don't have basic human rights and equality.  Fight for these people.  Fight for human rights.  Fight for equality and peace.  Be on the right side of history.  Everything will be better when we race together.9. A great achievement that all countries should strive for:

“98.2 percent of Costa Rica's electricity came from renewable sources in 2016.”

10. This guy gets it. The next I industrial revolution is in the form in AI. Watch this if you want a glimpse of the future. 11. “Use common sense, and don’t be seduced by the details. Eventually, someone will discover the errors in those details.” -Jared Diamond12. “The transactional mindset of self-interest is the problem of the modern world.  If you were to let go of the pursuit of happiness, what would you do? To put it a bit more dramatically, suppose you were told that no matter what you did, you would never be happy. Never. What would you do with your life?”13. "Why does music, being just sounds, remind us of the states of our soul?" -Aristotle14. “In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we've discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We've learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose.“ -Jimmy Carterhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCOd-qWZB_g

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The main reason I do this blog is to share knowledge and to help people become better clinicians/coaches. I want our profession to grow and for our patients to have better outcomes. Regardless of your specific title (PT, Chiro, Trainer, Coach, etc.), we all have the same goal of trying to empower people to fix their problems through movement. I hope the content of this website helps you in doing so.If you enjoyed it and found it helpful, please share it with your peers. And if you are feeling generous, please make a donation to help me run this website. Any amount you can afford is greatly appreciated.

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2017 Hits : Vol. 1 : Intermittent Fasting / Time Restricted Eating

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Intermittent Fasting / Time-Restricted Eating

• Definition: intermittent fasting or time-restricted eating is an umbrella term for diets that cycle between periods of fasting (no eating) and periods of non-fasting (eating)

I’ve been experimenting with intermittent fasting for several months now.  I first heard about it when I was in grad school.  One of my clinical instructors quoted a study that showed the only proven way to prolong life was through fasting.Recently, I’ve been seeing more and more studies, blogs, and people talking about intermittent fasting.  My friends Seth Oberst and Jeff Ford have both told me about the profound benefits of this “diet”.  So like all health interventions, I thought I’d take a look at the best study out there...an experiment on myself.At first I was skipping breakfast and only eating from 12pm-8pm.  This was terrible.  It really threw my system off.  I didn’t feel great.  I didn’t have any energy.  And I gained weight.  But I was responsible for a big part of this failure.  By the time I got home from work around 5:30 I was starving.  I started eating a ton of pre-dinner snacks as I was cooking dinner.  Then I’d over serve myself for dinner and finish it.  I was essentially eating most of my calories between 5-8pm.Then I read some studies on the circadian cycle and how important it is when it comes to diet and weight loss (future post on this in Vol. 2).  So I started trying to simply cut down the hours of eating per day.  I started to trim the hours back from the latest meal.  I tried to make my last meal earlier in the day.An 8 hour cycle isn’t socially possible as a physical therapist.  I can’t eat my breakfast eggs while working on someone’s shoulder.  Well, maybe if it was a breakfast burrito, but that wouldn’t be good for business.So instead I try to eat my last meal before 7pm.  It usually ends up being a 10-11 hour feeding time.  I also try to prepare a shake a couple times a week and skip dinner to cut the feeding time down even more. With this type of early time-restricted feeding I’ve had a lot more success.  It allows me to reap the benefits without sacrificing my social life or developing orthorexia nervosa.  I feel better, have lost some weight, and have more energy.And another important benefit...it makes day-drinking much more acceptable!1. Some of the general benefits of Time-Restricted Feeding:

Weight loss, improved health, decreased morbidity, increased mortality, and more freedom in diet  

The last benefit is worth pondering.  By using time-restricted feeding as the global focus, it allows for individual variability in the details.  In other words, it doesn’t limit specific foods or cause a purge from prolonged suppression.  It allows people to use whatever diet works for them (paleo, vegetarian, ketogenic, etc.) in a more efficient manner.

2. Here’s a list of some of the specific benefits

Increased human growth hormone, improved insulin sensitivity, better cellular repair, improved gene function, increased metabolic rate, reduced inflammation/inflammatory markers, reduced LDL cholesterol/ blood triglycerides//blood sugar/insulin resistance, increased BDNF, increased rate of nerve cell growth, and improved resistance to oxidative stress

3. It can prevent heart disease, cancer, obesity, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, neurodegenerative diseases (alzheimer’s), and increase lifespan.Think about how many lives could be saved, how much quality of life would improve, and how much money our country could salvage if everyone understood and implemented this...4. Intermittent fasting or early time-restricted feeding/eTRF (only eating 8am-2pm) helps with weight loss.  

“The human body has an internal clock, and many aspects of metabolism are at their optimal functioning in the morning. Therefore, eating in alignment with the body’s circadian clock by eating earlier in the day may positively influence health...Researchers found that, although eTRF did not affect how many total calories participants burned, it reduced daily hunger swings and increased fat burning during several hours at night. It also improved metabolic flexibility, which is the body’s ability to switch between burning carbs and burning fats.”

5. Skipping dinner is better than skipping breakfast for intermittent fasting.6. Listen to Rhonda Patrick.  Here’s a quick summary of some of the research.“Recent studies suggest that…

Eating within an 11-hour window was associated with a decreased breast cancer risk and reduction in recurrence by as much as 36%.

Earlier meal timing associates with improved effectiveness of weight-loss therapy in overweight and obese patients.

For each 3-hour increase in nighttime fasting duration was linked to a 20% lower odds of elevated glycated hemoglobin (HbA1C), which is a more long-term marker of blood glucose levels.

For each 10% increase in the proportion of calories consumed after 5pm there was a 3% increase in the inflammatory biomarker c-reactive protein otherwise known as CRP.

Eating one additional meal during the day (instead of the evening) was associated with an 8% decrease in CRP.

Eating within a 12-hour window improved sleep and increased weight loss in normal weight people.”

7. The Authority Nutrition always has good stuff:

Intermittent fasting 101

10 evidence-based health benefits

8. Jess Miller has a thorough article covering the benefits of fasting, the different types, and some example protocols.9. Keep in mind it’s not for everyone.  The human species has a ton of variability.  Interventions need to be tailored to the individual's variability.  A one-size fits all approach never works when it comes to health.10. Bill Lagakos recommends caution with intermittent fasting:

“Can some people benefit from intermittent fasting?  Sure, but best choose your fasting/feeding schedule wisely; keep in line with circadian rhythms as meal timing is an important zeitgeber.  That means eating when the sun is up; frequency is up to you.”

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 The main reason I do this blog is to share knowledge and to help people become better clinicians/coaches. I want our profession to grow and for our patients to have better outcomes. Regardless of your specific title (PT, Chiro, Trainer, Coach, etc.), we all have the same goal of trying to empower people to fix their problems through movement. I hope the content of this website helps you in doing so.If you enjoyed it and found it helpful, please share it with your peers. And if you are feeling generous, please make a donation to help me run this website. Any amount you can afford is greatly appreciated.

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2017 Hits : Vol. 1 : Diet

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Diet

1) Eat spicy food.  Live longer.2) Addictions come in many forms.  

“Cravings for gambling, food, sex and drugs all seem to activate the same brain networks, according to new research published in the journal European Neuropsychopharmacology.”

3) 10 portions of fruit and vegetables a day will help you live longer4) Mushrooms are the best. They’re the 3rd food kingdom we rarely think about.  They’re biologically distinct and nutritionally unique.  Eat more of them. It s good for everything.5) I will always support coffee research.  

“These results suggest that caffeine has a specific benefit for memory during students’ non-optimal time of day – early morning.”

And they're now finding it helps to block chronic inflammation.

6) Diet and mental health are very interconnected.

“New research finds that increasing fruit and vegetable consumption may improve psychological well-being in as little as 2 weeks.”

7) Over 90% of serotonin is produced in the gut.  How you eat affects your mental health.  One method of improving gut and mental health is using probiotics:

“According to researchers, probiotics can help relieve symptoms of depression, as well as be beneficial in helping to treat IBS.”

8) Drinking more water is one of the easiest things we can do to improve our health.  Here’s 7 benefits, plus ways to help others gain access to clean water.9) This is a phenomenal concise summary of the dangers of processed foods by Robert Lustig.  Here’s just one of the many gems:

“Furthermore, 11 nutritional properties distinguish processed food. (1) Too little fiber. When fiber (soluble and insoluble) is consumed within food, it forms a gelatinous barrier along the intestinal wall.This delays the Intestine’s ability to absorb nutrients,instead feeding the gut microbiome. Attenuation of the glucose rise results in insulin reduction. Attenuation of fructose absorption reduces liver fat accumulation.”

10) Medicine is better understood through a historical lens.  The Case Against Sugar.

“Thinking of obesity as an energy-balance disorder is as meaningless as calling poverty a money-balance problem”

“obesity is not an energy-balance disorder but a disorder of excess fat accumulation and so, clearly, a hormonal and metabolic disorder – the result of an ‘endocrine disturbance’, as it was phrased in the 1930s by Eugene Du Bois, then the leading American authority on metabolism. By this logic, the foods we eat influence fat accumulation not because of their caloric content but because of their macronutrient content, the proteins, fats and carbohydrates they contain. This paradigm attends to how organisms (humans, of course, in particular) orchestrate the careful ‘partitioning’ of the macronutrient fuels they consume, determining whether they will be burned for energy or stored or used to rebuild tissues and organs.”

“By this way of thinking, refined sugars are indeed toxic, albeit over the course of years or decades. We get fat and diabetic not because we eat too much of them – although that is implied tautologically merely by the terms ‘overconsumption’ and ‘overeating’ – but because they have unique physiological, metabolic and hormonal effects that directly trigger these disorders”

“Bauer argued that fat cells are clearly being driven by these factors to hoard excessive calories as fat, and this in turn would deprive the rest of the body of the energy it needed to thrive. In this hormonal/regulatory conception, excessive fat-accumulation causes hunger and physical inactivity, not the other way around.”

“if insulin is a fat-forming hormone and Type 2 diabetes is a disorder of insulin resistance, it then follows that high circulating levels of insulin in the blood, rather than insulin deficiency, could be the cause of the disease and obesity as well.”

“Perhaps the obese get that way not because they eat too much or exercise too little, but because they have elevated levels of insulin or their fat tissue is excessively sensitive to the insulin they secrete”

“The sugars and refined grains that make up such a high proportion of the foods we consume in modern Westernised diets trigger the dysregulation of a homeostatic system that has evolved to depend on insulin to regulate both fat accumulation and blood sugar. Hence, the same dietary factors – sugars and refined grains – trigger both obesity and diabetes. By focusing on the problems of eating too much and exercising too little, public health authorities have simply failed to target the correct causes.”

11) Obesity is one thing.  Diabetes is another.  The sugar epidemic is going to cause ALOT of problems in the future.  Not only for our health, but also for our economics.

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 The main reason I do this blog is to share knowledge and to help people become better clinicians/coaches. I want our profession to grow and for our patients to have better outcomes. Regardless of your specific title (PT, Chiro, Trainer, Coach, etc.), we all have the same goal of trying to empower people to fix their problems through movement. I hope the content of this website helps you in doing so.If you enjoyed it and found it helpful, please share it with your peers. And if you are feeling generous, please make a donation to help me run this website. Any amount you can afford is greatly appreciated.

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2017 Hits : Vol. 1 : Social & Communication

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Social & Communication

1. Social interaction is an important aspect of health. Specifically, the people you are around the most influence your decisions more than any health practitioner can in one visit.  Researchers are starting to wonder if this social support is an easy change that healthcare is not taking advantage of. Here in this article they introduce a 5 step ladder to social support. 2. Tell people in pain to find a social circle and get optimistic.  

“An optimistic outlook, positive coping strategies, and strong external social support are common characteristics found in individuals who returned to sport after hip arthroscopy for femoroacetabular impingement.”

3. Nature AND Nurture.  

“When preschoolers spend time around one another, they tend to take on each others’ personalities, indicates a new study by Michigan State University psychology researchers.”

4. Read this one.  Why facts don't change our minds.

“sociability is the key to how the human mind functions or, perhaps more pertinently, malfunctions”.

5. When you have expectations on how it should be, you'll never see how it is.  

"Research on marriages with high levels of conflict finds that more than half of the couples in these marriages have disputes involving the failure of one or both partners to conform to unspoken expectations. (Philpot 2001)"

6. I heard Carl Jung say all of his patients were in psychotherapy due to a secret that they had not been able to tell anyone.  #Communication #CloseFriends #SomeoneThatListens7. We shouldn't normalize ridiculous behavior.

“People appear to have a systematic tendency to focus on the possibilities they see as normal and to ignore the ones they see as abnormal.”

8. Eric Barker and Robert Cialdini on Motivation

“There’s a study of epilepsy sufferers who were having trouble being regular with their medication regimen. They were given an “if, when, then” statement to make, such as, “If it’s eight o’clock in the morning and I’ve finished brushing my teeth, then I will take my prescribed medication.” That statement increased compliance with the regimen from 55 percent to 79 percent. The key is to be specific about the place and time that serves as a cue for you to take the step that you want to take.”

“The best persuaders become the best through pre-suasion— the process of arranging for recipients to be receptive to a message before they encounter it.”

9. We’re wired to unconsciously mirror other people.  It’s a complementary behavior.  If someone is nice, we’re nice back.  If someone is angry, we’re angry back.  But sometimes if we want to change the course, we should try non-complementary behavior.  Think about this next time you’re in an argument or an uncomfortable social situation.10.  Vulnerability is important.  Especially in conversations.  It's important to know the magnitude of what we're saying at an emotional level.

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The main reason I do this blog is to share knowledge and to help people become better clinicians/coaches. I want our profession to grow and for our patients to have better outcomes. Regardless of your specific title (PT, Chiro, Trainer, Coach, etc.), we all have the same goal of trying to empower people to fix their problems through movement. I hope the content of this website helps you in doing so.If you enjoyed it and found it helpful, please share it with your peers. And if you are feeling generous, please make a donation to help me run this website. Any amount you can afford is greatly appreciated.

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2017 Hits : Vol. 1 : Exercises & Movements

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Exercises & Movements

• “The more voluntary suffering you build into your life, the less involuntary suffering will affect your life.” -Tim Ferris

1. A nice way to use the wall to progress lateral loading during a lunge. 2. I like this external cue to assist with spinal dissociation in quadruped.3. The great Pete Hwang displays a nice quadruped sit out exercise.4. Sam Hodous shares a 4 part physioball anterior core exercise progression (1, 2, 3, 4).5. I like this quadruped hip extension lift off.  And I like it even more that it's the general population in the video.6. Christine Ruffolo expands on hip internal rotation mobility7. Solid hamstring eccentric progression from a simple bridge walk out to a single leg slide out. 8. I like this bird-dog row progression from Zack Long.  Building strength on stability is always a good idea.9. Low reciprocal cable row10. Dan Pope shares 4 exercises to improve the anterior pelvic tilt, focusing on decreasing lumbar extension: foam rolling, q-ped sit backs, rabbit pose, wall roll-outs.11. 4 Exercises to reduce Upper Trapezius Tone12. A bottoms-up coaching cue for teaching the single leg deadlift.  Find the bilateral deadlift position, then lift one leg.13. Make sure you’re following Dynamic Sports PT on instagram.  Tons of great stuff including this advanced single leg hip exercise combo.14. A novel way to integrate trunk control with throwing15. These are some great get up variations16. A very creative bird dog variation from Ruffolo. Taking away the distal anchors to make it more proximal. 17. This looks like a fun rotational drill from Don Reagan

Exercise of the Month

The Bowler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4XAl2OTuvwI saw Chris Johnson performing this exercise and thought it was a missing piece to my single leg training.  I enjoy the increased proximal stability demands, the novel vector forces, and increased range of tension.  But I really like that it challenges the frontal and transverse plane control of the pelvis at a high level.  Many patients have difficulty with trendelenburg/hip drop-type movement compensations.  Especially when using hip and knee flexion/extension patterns (running, jumping, stairs, etc.).  This exercise trains the ability to turn uncontrolled movement into controlled movement.I progressed with slide boards, to tapping the foot down, to elevated open chain on an uneven rock with water around me.

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The main reason I do this blog is to share knowledge and to help people become better clinicians/coaches. I want our profession to grow and for our patients to have better outcomes. Regardless of your specific title (PT, Chiro, Trainer, Coach, etc.), we all have the same goal of trying to empower people to fix their problems through movement. I hope the content of this website helps you in doing so.If you enjoyed it and found it helpful, please share it with your peers. And if you are feeling generous, please make a donation to help me run this website. Any amount you can afford is greatly appreciated.

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2017 Hits : Vol. 1 : Training / Strength & Conditioning

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Training / Strength & Conditioning

• “Give people what they want and they will like you for now. Give people what the need and they will value you forever.” -Simon Sinek

1. This is a phenomenal response to those who say exercise doesn’t help you lose weight.  So much good stuff in this article.  

“To sum up, training and diet work synergistically. You need both, and stalls in weight loss can often be countered by doing whichever one you aren’t.”

2. “We should contraindicate people from exercises, not exercises from people” -Eric Cressey shared a valuable post on individualized exercise prescription and the variables that matter.   3. If this was in pill form everyone would take it.

“Elderly women who sit for more than 10 hours a day with low physical activity have cells that are biologically older than their chronological age by eight years compared to women who are less sedentary, research shows.”

4. Squats and ankle dorsiflexion get a lot of attention.  But what about squats and hallux extension?  For this, try the hack squat.  “The Hack squat will also mobilize your toes and strengthen your calves, as well as open your chest and hips. Together with prying goblet squats and Cossack squats, it is helping me on my quest to the roadkill split and side split.”5. The downdog will improve your seated press.  The seated press will improve your downdog.6. I hear my older patients complaining about aging all the time.  One time, as a patient was complaining about the difficulty of aging, another older patient argued with a smile, “it’s better than the alternative!”.  I try to educate my older patients that aging does not equate to getting weak and unhealthy.  It's simply a number.  It’s never too late to improve fitness and health.  This article uses sport, research, and sound logic to make that point.7. Most of the chronic injuries I see in non-professional athletes come from three errors:

1) poor programming

2) under-recovery

3) lack of internal practice

Unfortunately, these 3 errors have become very popular in mainstream fitness.8. “People underestimate how much they enjoy exercise because of a myopic focus on the unpleasant beginning of exercise, but this tendency can be harnessed or overcome, potentially increasing intention to exercise.”9. Brett Jones shares some wisdom from 15 years of kettlebell training. 10. Fitness Business from Cressey

• be pessimistic

• value addition leaders

• the big 3 business aspects (lead generation, lead conversion, retention)

11. Want to squat more?  Try mental imagery.  It can have effects in just 3 days.12. It's well known that different types of exercise affects the body differently (e.g. weight lifting builds strength, running improved endurance, sport practice improved coordination, etc). Now researchers are focusing on how different types of exercise affects the brain differently (e.g. weight lifting improves problem solving, running improves memory, long-term sport practice improved focus).  You might be able to assess someone’s mental ability by assessing what exercises they’re doing.(image source)13. Fascinating 3 minute video on perceptual thresholdshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXVQAP-__sg

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 The main reason I do this blog is to share knowledge and to help people become better clinicians/coaches. I want our profession to grow and for our patients to have better outcomes. Regardless of your specific title (PT, Chiro, Trainer, Coach, etc.), we all have the same goal of trying to empower people to fix their problems through movement. I hope the content of this website helps you in doing so.If you enjoyed it and found it helpful, please share it with your peers. And if you are feeling generous, please make a donation to help me run this website. Any amount you can afford is greatly appreciated.

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2017 Hits : Vol. 1 : Pain

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Pain

• “I believe he is suffering from memories” -Sigmund Freud

1) Greg Lehman is giving away his latest pain science workbook, Recovery Strategies.  It’s a very indepth source on pain with a self-assessment at the end.2) Which bias do you want to confirm?  Derek Griffin thinks we should use this research to support SiMs not DiMs.  Support your patients beliefs that they’ll get better.  "Humans update self-relevant beliefs to a greater extent in response to good news than bad news."3) Expecting severe pain may make it more intense4) Pain science education is much more than what the practitioner knows.  The key component is communication.  Especially being able to read people and perceive how they’re reacting to what you’re saying.  Very similar to how a comedian develops their jokes.6) Exercise is medicine.  "Our data suggest that low levels of sedentary behavior and greater light physical activity may be critical in maintaining effective endogenous pain inhibitory function in older adults"7) “Unexpectedly, we found that RVM GABAergic neurons facilitate mechanical pain by inhibiting dorsal horn enkephalinergic/GABAergic interneurons. We further demonstrate that these interneurons gate sensory inputs and control pain through temporally coordinated enkephalin- and GABA-mediated presynaptic inhibition of somatosensory neurons. Our results uncover a descending disynaptic inhibitory circuit that facilitates mechanical pain, is engaged during stress, and could be targeted to establish higher pain thresholds.”8) It’s a relationship. Not all relationships are advantageous. “When influencing pain with treatment, a patient’s perceived working alliance during treatment does predict pain reduction and improvement in physical functioning. It is recommended to inquire about a patient’s working alliance during treatment in patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain”9) “One stops being fearful when they are flush with exposure.” -Christine Ruffolo10) Chronic migraines are complex.  “Psychiatric symptoms and pain catastrophizing were strongly associated with severe migraine-related disability. Depression and chance locus of control were associated with chronic migraine.”11) Don’t let your knowledge make you arrogant.  “There is a trend towards thinking we need to simplify the pain message in order for patients to ‘get it’.  I think this is a mistake. I also think it conveys a subliminal message that they cannot possibly understand what we do – that somehow we are more capable. People pick up on these cues and it immediately erects a barrier to effective communication.”12) Pictures to decrease pain?  “Pictures of varying emotional content and arousal value all reduced affective and sensory perceptions of pain. Viewing photographs of loved ones reduced pain intensity more than viewing other picture types. The association between picture type and decrease in pain intensity was mediated by picture valence.”13) “Dr. Charles Kim, MD and professor at New York  University, told Everyday Health that being physically active could greatly enhance people’s lives. "People who exercise and maintain a good aerobic condition will improve most pain conditions," he says. Heat therapy, fish oil and mediation are several other alternatives to popping a pill.”14) My old boss used to walk by me, smile, and say “CBT” after he used safe exercises, humor, and positive communication to help chronic pain patients feel better.  Here’s some research showing it rewires the brain.15) Read this great article on predictive coding by Todd Hargrove

“By learning more about the science of perception, we necessarily learn more about pain and how to treat it.”

“To some extent, we perceive what we predict.”

“top-down "shakes hands" with bottom-up, and disagreements are discussed and compromises are struck”

“If the error (or disagreement) is relatively small, it is disregarded as being random noise or "close enough." Higher levels of the nervous system are not informed of their prediction errors, and the world is perceived exactly as expected. If the error is large, higher levels are notified of their mistake so they can update their model of the world.”

“The strength or confidence of the prediction has a big effect on how prediction errors are treated.”

“The bottom line is this - a great deal of what can help with pain in the short term is violating an expectation that something will hurt.”

“Getting better at movement is therefore very much about improving your internal models for movement and your predictions for what kind of sensory feedback you will get during the movement.”

16) Cafe Wall Illusion.  Are these lines parallel?  Are you sure?

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The main reason I do this blog is to share knowledge and to help people become better clinicians/coaches. I want our profession to grow and for our patients to have better outcomes. Regardless of your specific title (PT, Chiro, Trainer, Coach, etc.), we all have the same goal of trying to empower people to fix their problems through movement. I hope the content of this website helps you in doing so.If you enjoyed it and found it helpful, please share it with your peers. And if you are feeling generous, please make a donation to help me run this website. Any amount you can afford is greatly appreciated.

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2017 Hits : Vol. 1 : Physiology Influencing Psychology

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Physiology Influencing Psychology

• “if I can interfere with a posture then I find I’m free of both the emotion and the thought tied to that posture.” -Jerry Brewster

1) Here’s an article I wrote on how our physiology can dictate our psychology.  It also summarizes an important study on breathing and emotions.2) What's the difference between a physiological response to a stimulus and a conscious emotional reaction? Are we really angry, or are we just labeling an unconscious physiological process that we can't consciously understand? There's research out there that supports this train of thought. 3) Having an emotion and feeling an emotion are two different things. Listen to this 8 minute talk from Antonio Damasio.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsSv1KzdiWU&app=desktop4) Artificial Intelligence won’t be able to catch up to humans.  At least not until they understand embodiment.

“But the point is that long before we were conscious, thinking beings, our cells were reading data from the environment and working together to mould us into robust, self-sustaining agents. What we take as intelligence, then, is not simply about using symbols to represent the world as it objectively is. Rather, we only have the world as it is revealed to us, which is rooted in our evolved, embodied needs as an organism. Nature ‘has built the apparatus of rationality not just on top of the apparatus of biological regulation, but also from it and with it’, wrote the neuroscientist Antonio Damasio in Descartes’ Error (1994), his seminal book on cognition. In other words, we think with our whole body, not just with the brain.”

5) Amy Cuddy’s book, Presence, is a summary of the body-to-mind effect.  She dives into the research and reasoning of how the body dictates the mind.  I think anyone that works in medicine or movement should read this one.  #Expand #TakeUpMoreSpace #Embodidment6) Sure, there’s been a study that refuted Cuddy’s famous posture study.  But this is just one study.  It doesn’t discredit the large body of work (no pun intended) and overwhelming empirical evidence of the benefits embodiment.  The physical body matters in more ways than we’ll ever understand through science. 7) Hangry may be more than a funny commercial.  It influences our culture, behavior, and socioeconomic classes, “hunger is an important mediator of the relationships between socioeconomic variables and the behavioral/psychological outcomes”8) Treat the body to treat the mind.  

“Botulinum toxin A injection in the glabellar region was associated with significant improvement in depressive symptoms and may be a safe and sustainable intervention in the treatment of [major depressive disorder].”

9) What is the mind? It's much more than a bunch of processing neurons.  

“In other words, even perceiving our mind as simply a product of our brain, rather than relations, can make us feel more isolated. And to appreciate the benefits of interrelations, you simply have to open your mind.”

10) Labeling and expectations plays a role here as well.

“Earlier studies have demonstrated the cognitive manipulability of bodily states produced by the injection of epinephrine. The present study demonstrates that, within the limits of plausibility, the labeling of naturally occurring bodily states is similarly manipulable.”

11) Schacter and Singer’s two-factor theory on how physiological arousal influences emotion.  “According to the theory, when an emotion is felt, a physiological arousal occurs and the person uses the immediate environment to search for emotional cues to label the physiological arousal”

Two famous studies you should read about

Epinephrine Injections and Emotions

Bridge Romance

(image source)12) Misattribution to arousal - “a term in psychology which describes the process whereby people make a mistake in assuming what is causing them to feel aroused”13) I wonder if the high physical arousal caused by high-intensity exercise classes/clubs/boxes leads to the cult-like following?  People get their heart-rate up and hormones raging with exercise, then psychologically fall in love with their exercise group and facility.  Sounds like a good business plan.14) It’s transferring one state to another (but not limited to thoughts and emotions).  

“Excitation-transfer theory purports that residual excitation from one stimulus will amplify the excitatory response to another stimulus”

15) "More thoracic breathing was reported for fear than any other emotion" -Pierre Philippot16) It’s not just hangry.  It’s a loss of self-control.

“This review suggests that blood glucose is one important part of the energy source of self-control. Acts of self-control deplete relatively large amounts of glucose. Self-control failures are more likely when glucose is low or cannot be mobilized effectively to the brain (i.e., when insulin is low or insensitive). Restoring glucose to a sufficient level typically improves self-control.”

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The main reason I do this blog is to share knowledge and to help people become better clinicians/coaches. I want our profession to grow and for our patients to have better outcomes. Regardless of your specific title (PT, Chiro, Trainer, Coach, etc.), we all have the same goal of trying to empower people to fix their problems through movement. I hope the content of this website helps you in doing so.If you enjoyed it and found it helpful, please share it with your peers. And if you are feeling generous, please make a donation to help me run this website. Any amount you can afford is greatly appreciated.

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2017 Hits : Vol. 1 : Psychology, Mental Health, Mind Training

click here for this edition's table of contents

Psychology, Mental Health, Mind Training

• “Stress is now the achiever word for fear.” -Tony Robbins

1) Empathy and self-control reside in the same area of the brain.  

“Empathy depends on your ability to overcome your own perspective, appreciate someone else’s, and step into their shoes. Self-control is essentially the same skill, except that those other shoes belong to your future self—a removed and hypothetical entity who might as well be a different person. So think of self-control as a kind of temporal selflessness. It’s Present You taking a hit to help out Future You.”

2) Develop some authentic pride to become a better person.  

“While a desire for authentic pride pushes people to put in the kind of work that might earn them higher grades, hubristic pride pushes people to work hard when doing so might impress others”

4) 50% of people “remember” events that never occurred.  This is a problem, especially with today’s social media frenzy and the fake news problem.5) “Catch them when they're good. It reinforces the good behavior and builds self confidence” -Ivan Joseph6) Pets are the best mental health drug you can get!  

“Caring for a pet also gave owners a feeling of being in control, as well as a feeling of security and routine. This provided participants with a sense of ontological security, by generating a sense of order and continuity to their day-to-day activities.”

7) Thinking out loud will make you smarter8) Develop a creative hobby.

“Everyday creative activity may lead to an “upward spiral” of increased wellbeing and creativity in young adults, new research from New Zealand’s University of Otago suggests.”

9) 21 ways to improve your mental health10) "The biggest distractor is not your iPhone — it’s your own mind. You can’t stop your mind from secreting thoughts, but what you can do is not be caught by them. That’s an art form and that’s what mindfulness training is about." -Jon Kabat-Zinn11) The answer is in the eyes.  It’s a subliminal way we communicate.  

“We use others’ eyes – whether they’re widened or narrowed – to infer emotional states, and the inferences we make align with the optical function of those expressions”

12) Sex, drugs, and rock & roll.  They all release opioids.  “When researchers blocked the production of natural opioid substances, people no longer liked their favourite songs as much”  Maybe we need less pain-killers and more good music.12) “blood vessel growth is modulated by neurons”13) Yin/Yang, Excitation/Inhibition, Glutamate/GABA, and complex systems.  

“To better understand SOC (self-organized criticality), Bak and his colleagues imagined a familiar scenario: building a sandpile at the beach. The sandpile grows bigger until its slope reaches a certain steepness that results in a critical state. Adding more sand then triggers avalanches of various sizes. In fact, the critical state persists even as you add more sand—it is truly self-organized.”

 (image source)

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 The main reason I do this blog is to share knowledge and to help people become better clinicians/coaches. I want our profession to grow and for our patients to have better outcomes. Regardless of your specific title (PT, Chiro, Trainer, Coach, etc.), we all have the same goal of trying to empower people to fix their problems through movement. I hope the content of this website helps you in doing so.If you enjoyed it and found it helpful, please share it with your peers. And if you are feeling generous, please make a donation to help me run this website. Any amount you can afford is greatly appreciated.

 [subscribe2]