What We Hear Under Anesthesia Still Matters When we think about surgery, we often focus on the technical aspects—skilled surgeons, effective anesthesia, and a successful outcome. But what we hear during the surgery may also play a critical role in how we heal. Although research to date is inconclusive, clinical experience has repeatedly shown that not only do we …
Empowered Surgery (Part 5): The Healing Power of Words and Mindset
Empowered Surgery (Part 4): Surgical Trauma and Altered States of Consciousness
As stated in earlier blogs, surgical trauma is one of the more complex categories of trauma to treat because of the multiple factors that combine in a surgery. Immobilization, altered states of consciousness, physical injury, the body’s feeling that it is being attacked, as well as the sometimes thoughtless conversations that happen in the operating room can all work together …
Empowered Surgery (Part 3): Empowering Conversations with Your Surgeon
In this blog, I will discuss some tips for choosing a surgeon, and talking to them about your surgery. I am aware that in cases of emergency, socialized medicine or medical providers that offer limited options, that choice of a doctor is not a luxury that everyone has access to. However in all cases we have some choices and exercising …
Empowered Surgery (Part 2): The Tale of Two Empowered Surgeries
In this blog, I would like to tell my own story of two surgeries that I did, a year and a half apart, to replace my two hip joints. These surgeries became a pivot point in my recovery from some surgeries that I had undergone as a child which left a long-term imprint of terror in my body. I will …
Empowered Surgery (Part 1): Reducing Surgical Trauma
As a practitioner and teacher of Somatic Experiencing® for the last 30 years, and as someone who has undergone a number of surgeries herself, starting with some “harmless” dental surgeries as a child, I have had occasion to work with many different surgical traumas over the years, both in my own system and with my clients. Surgical trauma is a …
Unlocking Nose Breathing: The Power of Peripheral Awareness
In my last blog, I explored re-engaging our sense of smell as a way to begin to open the pathways to an easy, natural way of breathing through our nose. In today’s blog we are going to return to the subjects of previous blogs – opening the peripheral vision (blog 2) and becoming more present in the coronal plane (blog …
Nasal Breathing: A Key to Enhanced Well-Being
These days, it is common knowledge that breathing through the nose is much better for our health and many other physiological functions. Recent studies indicate that nose breathing (as opposed to mouth breathing) improves, memory, cognitive function, lung function, nitrous oxide production, circulation, and oxygen delivery throughout the body, to name a few. An impressive array of reasons to breathe …
Peripheral and Focused Awareness and the Planes of Space – Clinical Applications
Peripheral and Focused Awareness and the Planes of Space – Clinical Applications
Contralateral Movement, Grace and the Psychobiology of the Planes of Space
Anyone who studies kinesiology–the science of movement–will know that for the purpose of categorizing movement, three planes of space are used and any movement will occur in one or more of these planes of space. Movement that occurs in the sagittal plane–the red plane in the image above, is flexion and extension, or bending forward and bending backwards. The sagittal …
Peripheral and Focal Vision: Their Effect on Tension/Relaxation, Balance, Breathing and Vision
In last month’s blog, I explored how it is that our eyesight is enhanced or limited by the way that we breathe, and gave two tips for an easier, more fluid breathing, that enhance relaxation in the ribcage, the diaphragm and throughout the body and induce a global parasympathetic response, all of which reflect directly upon our vision. In today’s …
What does Vision have to do with the Breath?
Eyesight and Breathing are two essential functions that influence each other in many ways and into which we can touch with simple interventions that may help us to make big changes over time. In today’s post, I will write about some of the ways in which the breath affects vision. As a Bates Method of Vision Educator, I learned Dr. …