Make your New Year Resolution come true
Posted: December 28, 2021 Filed under: behavior, emotions, healing, health, self-healing | Tags: habits 5 Comments
It is the time of year when we once again make New Year resolutions, “I plan to exercise every day,” “I will stop drinking,” “I will eat less processed foods and more fruits and vegetables.” We use our will power and positive thoughts to begin these new activities; however, our will power often fades out and we quickly fall of the wagon. The reason vary such as, I had planned to jog today; however it is raining, I was planning to eat more vegies; however, I had dinner with a friend and ate a juicy hamburger, I had planned to meditate; however, I needed to help my son. So many other things took priority and the motivation disappeared..
Yet it is possible to be successful with starting and then maintaining new health promoting habits. The key is to increase the friction for the behaviors that you want to reduce and decrease the friction for behaviors that you want to increase. Friction is the extra work you need to do in order to do the task. For example, to eat fewer cookies, increase the friction by not having them in the house (you now have to go to the store to buy them) or by placing them somewhere where it takes greater effort to get them such as the top shelf for which that you need a small ladder to reach them. The extra effort (increased friction) brings awareness to the automatic behavior. At that point, you can interrupt your unconscious eating pattern and choose to do something else. On the other hand, to increase eating fruits, decrease the friction by having the fruit right in front of you on the table so that you can take one without thinking.
The key is to interrupt the habit chain of behavior you want to reduce and automate the habit chains of behaviors you want to increase. The more you do a behavior and the more pleasurable it is, the more likely will the new behaviore become an automatic habit. To learn how to change friction and how to be successful in creating new habits, listen to Shankar Vedantam Hidden Brain’s Podcast, Creatures of Habit.
Healing from paralysis-Music (toning) to activate health
Posted: November 22, 2021 Filed under: behavior, Breathing/respiration, emotions, healing, health, mindfulness, stress management, Uncategorized | Tags: chakra, chanting, music therapy, paralysis, quadriplegia, singing, Toning 8 CommentsMadhu Anziani and Erik Peper
In April 2009, Madhu Anziani, just one month prior to graduation from San Francisco State University with a degree in Jazz/World music performance, fell two stories and broke C5 and C7 vertebras. He became a quadriplegic (tretraplegia) and could not breathe, talk, move his arms and legs and was incontinent. He also could not remember anything about the accident because of retrograde amnesia. Even though he was paralyzed and the medical staff suggested that he focussed on how to live well as a quadriplegic, he transcended his paralysis and the prognosis and is now a well-known vocal looping arts and ceremonial song leader/composer.
His recovery against all odds provides hope that growth and healing is possible when the mind and spirit focus on possibilities and not on limitations. Alongside physical thereapy he utilized energy healing and toning/sound vibrations to recover mobility. Toning, the vocalization of an elonggated monotonous vowel sound susteained for a number of minutes tends to vibrate specific areas in the body where the chakras are located (Crowe & Scovel, 1996; Goldman, 2017). Toning compared to mindfulness meditation reduces intrusive thoughts and mind wandering. It also increases body vibration sensations and heart rate variability much more than mindfulness practice (Peper et al, 2019). The body vibrations induced by toning and music could be one of the mechanisms by which recovery can occur at an accelerated rate as it allows the person’s passive awareness and sustained attention to feel the paralyzed body and yet be relaxed in the present without judgement.
Watch Madhu’s inspirational presentation as part of the Holistic Health Lecture Series by the Institute for Holistic Health Studies, San Francisco State University. In this presentation, he describes the process of recovery and guides the viewer through toning practices to evoke quieting of mind, bliss within the heart, and a healing state of being.
For an additional discussion and guided practice in toning, see the blog, Toning quiets the mind and increases HRV more quickly than mindfulness practice.
Madu Anziani is a sound healer who endured being a tetraplegic (paralysis affecting all four
limbs) and used sound and energy healing to recover mobility. He is a SFSU graduate and most
well-known as a vocal looping artist and ceremonial song leader/composer.
http://www.firstwasthesound.com
http://madhu.bandcamp.co
REFERENCES:
Goldman, J. (2017). The 7 Secrets of Sound Healing. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House Inc.
the peper perspective 