Short interviews with three local sound healers.
Posts filed under Healing
Wonder-twinning™: Activating Healing Through Faith and Energy
In 2017, Vicky Lovell and Danielle Groth crossed paths for the first time. They met during milestone transitions in both of their lives. Lovell was graduating from seminary and answering her first call into ordained ministry and Groth was recovering from breast cancer and in the midst of her own healing. It was a friendship, built on the foundation of their faith, that took time to grow.
Talking While Walking
My name is Fran Adler, and I’ve been a licensed therapist in private practice for over two decades. Over the years there have been many aspects of this work that I’ve greatly enjoyed. But, there is one thing about being a therapist that I’ve never been crazy about—too much sitting!
Collaborative Therapeutic Massage
I view what I do as a collaboration between myself and my client—and sometimes, indirectly, between my client, other practitioners, and me. I expect my clients to work alongside me to ease their muscles, take further steps in their own healing, and work at shifting their posture.
Healing Hands Physical Therapy: Amira Tal-Henig's Labor of Love
The caregiver’s heart is characterized by a few simple, yet powerful traits: empathy, commitment, and action. This holds true across diverse homes, occupations, and settings. The call to nurture another being is one of humility and hope. It is knowing that even when logic says nothing else can help, there is still love and presence to provide.
Shadows that Illuminate
I invite you to get curious with me before you read the rest of this article. Look around the room and find an object that catches your eye. Study it closely. Look at where the shadows and light meet each other, and wonder at their points of engagement. Do you see areas that abruptly go from light to dark? Any areas that softly and gradually transition through more subtle lighting? Notice lines and curves, and how they reveal details about your chosen object. Can you tell which direction the light is coming from and how it affects the shadows being cast?
Mind and Spirit — A Return to (Psychedelic) Plant Medicine
If you live in America today, you might have noticed a mental health epidemic unfolding. While debate rages over the cause of the decades-long upswing in depression, anxiety, and PTSD, one thing is clear: most of us know at least one person who has been, at some point, dangerously depressed. Worse still, we probably all know someone whose depression has not responded to first-line medications like SSRIs.
Understanding Energy Modalities & Myself
What’s in a name? That which we call energy therapy by any other name would be valued the same. Or would it? History, Hollywood, and cultural bias have long pitted healing philosophies against each other and, in some cases, ostracized or executed people (in some countries even today) for even a suspicion of one’s involvement with energy manipulation.
Sustainable Health: Ask for Help!
The weeks and months after my first child was born were some of the most difficult I have ever experienced. I was depleted from blood loss, and it felt like all the nutrients in my bones and muscles were being concentrated into the growing baby and breastmilk. For the first few days, my husband carried me down the stairs. He changed every diaper for the first month. However, the sleep deprivation, the intense emotional changes, and continual nutritional depletion converged to bring me to a point of stress in my system I was unprepared for and had little facility to manage.
A Physician’s Journey: Yoga & Meditation to Holistic Medicine-- Excerpts From a New Book by Dr. Dennis Chernin
Excerpts From Yoga & Meditation to Holistic Medicine: A Physician’s Journey, a new book by Dr. Dennis Chernin.
Healers of Ann Arbor: HeartMath™ with Rachel Egherman
“HeartMath™ is heart-focused breathing, or breathing through the heart space,” Rachel Egherman said of the gentle form of self-care that helps you check in with your body, your heart space, and feel supported. “This is something you can do yourself in the grocery store line. It’s a way to quickly self-regulate.”
Divine Order-- Not Disorder: How Sarah DesJardins' Personal Journey Informs Her Equine Therapy and Energy Healing Work
Down a country road and around a corner in lovely Manchester, hot tea and home-made chocolate-chip cookies (my favorite treats) awaited my arrival at Souls at Play Center for Creative Therapy. This was my third time seeing Sarah DesJardins. The first was at the Spring 2015 Holistic/Psychic Fair of Ann Arbor, where as a guest speaker, she presented a powerful seminar―“Psychic Awareness: The Silver Lining of Trauma”―maxing the venue’s capacity.
Back to Basics Health with Julie Johnson
Imagine receiving results from an air quality and blood test showing that your home needs remediation—and so does your body. There were astronomical levels of mold and fungus in your blood. You suffered from pneumonia and had so many x-rays taken that you almost glowed in the dark. The medications prescribed were barely treating the symptoms but were further depleting your already near-extinct immune system. Your doctors finally admit that they have no effective options for your condition; their final suggestion was to wait and see if your body began to win the fight on its own.
Conversations with Nature
There is a reason we feel more peaceful when we spend time connecting with our pets or hiking in the forest. Nature is in perpetual energetic flow and does not manipulate energy the way people do. Humans continually try to divert, filter, suppress, create, and extinguish energy. Because of this, when we are immersed in the flow of nature, our body’s energetic response is to line up with that frequency. We let go of a little of that human tendency to control energy. It’s relaxing, and when we are relaxed, we are open to receive communication from our own intuition as well as Source (the name I will use in reference to God, Universe, Deity, Divinity).
Healers of Ann Arbor: Acupuncture with Dr. Cynthia Esseichick
You can try a new type of massage or read a chiropractor’s online reviews, but how do you really know when a healing modality is right for you? Columnist Laura K. Cowan goes in depth with local healers to give you a behind-the-scenes look at what they really do to help people relax and heal.
Bowenwork for Gentle Healing
I had been suffering from neck and shoulder pain for many years due to a car accident. Although weekly chiropractic and massage helped, my problems never fully resolved. Over the years I tried many healing modalities with no lasting relief until a friend suggested I try Bowenwork. I found a practitioner and gave it a try. Since I was used to vigorous massages, I was surprised with how little force was used with Bowenwork. After the second session, I started noticing some wonderful changes. Eventually, my neck and shoulder issues resolved, as well as other issues that I had not communicated to my practitioner.
Gut Feelings and Your Brain ~ The Bidirectional Communication Between Your Brain and Digestive System
By Meghan Marshall
Anyone who’s ever had a “gut feeling” or felt the stomach-sinking effect of bad news probably believes in some kind of connection between the brain and the gut. These people would be right. However, the strong bidirectional communication between the brain and the digestive system is much more complex and intertwined than most people realize.
Bidirectional means that there are messages being sent both from the brain to the digestive system, and from the digestive system to the brain. The digestive system even has its own nervous system—the enteric nervous system.
The brain sends nerve signals, which are either carried out by the parasympathetic nervous system or the sympathetic nervous system. The parasympathetic nervous system is known as the “rest and digest” system, while the sympathetic nervous system is what responds during dangerous or stressful conditions. Consequently, when the parasympathetic nervous system is responding, gut function is stimulated while the sympathetic nervous system inhibits gut function.
These signals are sent using nerves, hormones, and inflammatory molecules. The vagus nerve is one of the key components of this brain-gut connection. The connection of the vagus nerve between the gut and the brain can influence factors like appetite, food intake, pain, mood, and more. Interestingly, most of the signals sent via the vagus nerve go from the digestive system to the brain; for example, when the stomach is empty, ghrelin is released from the gut to stimulate feelings of hunger from the brain. The information generated in the gut that reaches the brain is then interpreted by the brain and sent back to the gut in order to adjust its functions.
Knowing about this strong and intimate connection between the gut and the brain, it only makes sense that emotions, or a certain state of mind, can considerably impact digestive functions. Particular emotions can even be a predictor of certain diagnoses, like irritable bowel syndrome or chronic constipation. How can this be possible? Well, as mentioned, the body reacts via different systems depending on the present situation. When stress or danger is signaled, the sympathetic nervous system responds, moving blood away from the digestive system to help negate the threat (i.e. bringing blood to the muscles so you can run away), inhibiting the vagus nerve and slowing digestion. The hypothalamus in the brain releases a molecule called corticotropin releasing factor (CRF), generating a gastrointestinal stress response and also releasing the stress molecule cortisol.
Read related article: Why Your Gut Won’t Heal – And What You Can Do About It
During very high-stress or anxiety-inducing situations, the gut signals are felt more sensitively, which is what can lead to an immediate response of diarrhea or even vomiting during these types of situations.
This response is very helpful in life threatening situations. However, it becomes problematic when this response is chronic; common in our high-stress, demanding lifestyles nowadays. With persistent unpleasant emotions—as in someone with an anxiety disorder—this can lead to changes in the enteric nervous system over time. These changes can induce continual, increased gut sensitivity and lead to symptoms like bloating, stomach pains, or constipation. This dysregulation in the digestive system can eventually lead to diagnoses like IBS, indigestion, or chronic constipation or diarrhea. Unfortunately, each of these can be a “catch all” diagnosis when physicians can’t seem to find a physical explanation for the cause of these symptoms. Treatments for these conditions are usually aimed at minimizing symptoms instead of correcting the root cause for the dysregulation, and relief from the symptoms can be hard to come by even with these therapies. New studies are now being conducted on the effectiveness of psychotherapies like cognitive behavioral therapy, mindfulness, and hypnotherapy for IBS and similar conditions with promising results.
Stress isn’t the only emotion that can have an impact on the digestive system, however. Depression, sadness, and hopelessness can result in a decrease in peristalsis, which are the wave-like contractions along the digestive system that help to move the food through the intestines, possibly causing constipation. Anger and aggression can trigger the contractions in the lower intestine.
Furthermore, your body has the ability to store responses and memories of a traumatic or stressful event, which can elicit reactions after the event occurred, even years later. Childhood and even generational stress can cause a predisposition to the gut overreacting to stressors, leading to gut-related symptoms.
On the reverse side, dysregulation in the gut can also have a negative impact on a person’s mental and emotional state. One type of dysregulation could be the makeup of one’s microbiome, which is the name for the trillions of microorganisms that populate the digestive tract. The activity in the brain or state of mind can influence the microbiome, and the microbiome can reinforce emotions and even prolong them. Not surprisingly, the microbiome has the ability to also influence risk for digestive diseases. Some of the non-beneficial or harmful microbes are able to increase their numbers with the metabolites that result from stress. This imbalance of “bad” bacteria in relation to the beneficial bacteria is called dysbiosis. Dysbiosis can also lead to undesired gut-related symptoms.
Studies are even starting to show the association between neurodegenerative diseases and the gut. Parkinson’s disease, a progressive neurodegenerative disease, may be one example of this. Some recent studies have found that even before characteristic Parkinson’s symptoms materialize, the enteric nervous system goes through the typical Parkinson’s nerve degeneration and is accompanied by a change in the gut microbiome.
With all of this evidence contributing to clear proof that the mind and the digestive system are strongly interconnected, what should you do with this information?
One recommendation is to avoid eating whenever you’re experiencing high, short-term stress. The body’s focus won’t be on digestion during this time, which can lead to acute gut-symptoms like stomach pain and bloating.
For someone who’s chronically stressed or overwhelmed, therapies aimed at relaxing the mind and body can be beneficial. This could include yoga, meditation, walking, or spending time in nature.
In regard to supporting the microbiome, fermented foods are ideal. Some recommended sources are kimchi, miso, sauerkraut, and unsweetened yogurt or kefir. While food sources are optimal, supplemental probiotics can be an alternative. However, desired results can vary depending on probiotic strain, so it is recommended to begin these under the supervision of a qualified medical professional. A healthy diet with plenty of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains is also favorable for gut health and supporting the microbiome. Avoiding antibiotic overuse and not purchasing antibiotic soaps or household products can further benefit the microbiome and help to reduce the risk of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
Being aware of this impactful gut-brain interconnection can help lead you to a happier, healthier life.
Meghan Marshall is a Registered Dietitian with a master’s degree in Nutrition and Functional Medicine. Meghan currently works as both a clinical and community dietitian, and is the owner of Black Moon Nutrition + Wellness. She is the creator of and writer for the new blog, Black Moon Nutrition Blog blackmoonnutritionblog.com.
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The Raindrop Technique
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Kintsugi and the Art of Mending the Broken Heart
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