More on Meditation

Study Reveals Gene Expression Changes with Meditation

Released: 12/6/2013 4:00 PM EST
Source Newsroom: University of Wisconsin-Madison

Newswise — MADISON - With evidence growing that meditation can have beneficial health effects, scientists have sought to understand how these practices physically affect the body.

A new study by researchers in Wisconsin, Spain, and France reports the first evidence of specific molecular changes in the body following a period of mindfulness meditation.

The study investigated the effects of a day of intensive mindfulness practice in a group of experienced meditators, compared to a group of untrained control subjects who engaged in quiet non-meditative activities. After eight hours of mindfulness practice, the meditators showed a range of genetic and molecular differences, including altered levels of gene-regulating machinery and reduced levels of pro-inflammatory genes, which in turn correlated with faster physical recovery from a stressful situation.

"To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper that shows rapid alterations in gene expression within subjects associated with mindfulness meditation practice," says study author Richard J. Davidson, founder of the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds and the William James and Vilas Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

"Most interestingly, the changes were observed in genes that are the current targets of anti-inflammatory and analgesic drugs," says Perla Kaliman, first author of the article and a researcher at the Institute of Biomedical Research of Barcelona, Spain (IIBB-CSIC-IDIBAPS), where the molecular analyses were conducted.

The study was published in the journalPsychoneuroendocrinology.

Mindfulness-based trainings have shown beneficial effects on inflammatory disorders in prior clinical studies and are endorsed by the American Heart Association as a preventative intervention. The new results provide a possible biological mechanism for therapeutic effects.

The results show a down-regulation of genes that have been implicated in inflammation. The affected genes include the pro-inflammatory genes RIPK2 and COX2 as well as several histone deacetylase (HDAC) genes, which regulate the activity of other genes epigenetically by removing a type of chemical tag. What's more, the extent to which some of those genes were downregulated was associated with faster cortisol recovery to a social stress test involving an impromptu speech and tasks requiring mental calculations performed in front of an audience and video camera.

Perhaps surprisingly, the researchers say, there was no difference in the tested genes between the two groups of people at the start of the study. The observed effects were seen only in the meditators following mindfulness practice. In addition, several other DNA-modifying genes showed no differences between groups, suggesting that the mindfulness practice specifically affected certain regulatory pathways.

 The key result is that meditators experienced genetic changes following mindfulness practice that were not seen in the non-meditating group after other quiet activities - an outcome providing proof of principle that mindfulness practice can lead to epigenetic alterations of the genome.

Previous studies in rodents and in people have shown dynamic epigenetic responses to physical stimuli such as stress, diet, or exercise within just a few hours.

"Our genes are quite dynamic in their expression and these results suggest that the calmness of our mind can actually have a potential influence on their expression," Davidson says.

"The regulation of HDACs and inflammatory pathways may represent some of the mechanisms underlying the therapeutic potential of mindfulness-based interventions," Kaliman says. "Our findings set the foundation for future studies to further assess meditation strategies for the treatment of chronic inflammatory conditions."

Mindfullness, Cortisol and Stress

PTSD: Mindfulness Exercises Improve Symptoms, Cortisol Level

Norra MacReady

May 31, 2013

Mindfulness-based stretching and deep breathing exercises (MBX) may elicit symptom relief in intensive care unit nurses with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a new study shows.

PTSD is associated with disruption of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, Sang Hwan Kim, PhD, and colleagues write in an article published online May 29 in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism. This change, characterized in part by abnormally low levels of cortisol, "is one of the distinct neuroendocrine profiles that differentiates PTSD from other mental illnesses," they write. Citing a study showing a high level of PTSD among intensive care unit nurses, because of the stressful and often traumatic nature of their work, the authors investigated the effect of low- to moderate-intensity exercise on regulation of basal cortisol levels in this population. They included a mindfulness component to help with cognitive function and emotional regulation.

The participants were recruited through advertisements at the University of New Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque. At baseline, each volunteer completed the PTSD Checklist-Civilian version (PCL-C), in which they rated 17 symptoms on a scale of 1 (not at all) to 5 (extremely). Participants scoring at least 28 in total or at least 3 on 1 or more individual items were considered positive for PTSD and randomly assigned to either the MBX or the control group.

The 8-week MBX intervention consisted of twice-weekly hour-long sessions that included stretching and balancing movements combined with breathing and a focus on mindfulness. The authors describe mindfulness as "a quality of consciousness that is associated with control of attention and awareness promoting a direct awareness of bodily movement, sensations, and surroundings, thus often inducing positive psychological and behavioral responses." There was no specific intervention for the control group.

Of 29 nurses who met the inclusion criteria, 22 had PTSD and were assigned to either the MBX or the control group. Seven volunteers without PTSD were placed in a healthy group (BASE) to provide comparison data for cortisol levels. The researchers measured serum cortisol in all 3 groups at baseline and at weeks 4 and 8 of the study. For the MBX group, they also measured it at week 16. PTSD symptoms also were assessed at baseline and at weeks 4, 8, and 16.

Twenty-eight women and 1 man enrolled in the study, with 11 participants each in the MBX and CON groups and 7 in the BASE group. One participant in the control group dropped out because of family issues.

At baseline, the mean PCL-C score in the MBX group was 43.1 (standard deviation [SD], 11.2); it was 42.6 (SD, 12.7) in the control group. The BASE group had a mean PCL-C score of 21.8 (SD, 3.4). At 8 weeks, the mean PCL-C score in the MBX group was 24.3 (SD, 3.3), for a difference of 18.8 points (95% confidence interval [CI], 11.7 - 25.9), or a 44% decrease. In the control group, the mean 8-week PCL-C score was 41.0 (SD, 16.3), for a decrease of 1.6 points (95% CI, −6.3 to 9.5), or 3.8%. The mean changes between the groups were statistically significant (P = .01).

Mean cortisol in the MBX group was 9.6 µg/dL at baseline (SD, 4.1) and 14.6 µg/dL (SD, 5.7) at 8 weeks, for an increase of 5.1 µg/dL (95% CI, 2.0 - 8.1 µg/dL). In the control group, mean cortisol at baseline was 12.9 µm/dL (SD, 6.9); it was 13.8 µg/dL (SD, 5.7) at 8 weeks, for an increase of 0.8 µm/dL (95% CI, −2.2 - 3.8 µg/dL; P = .01 for mean changes between the groups).

The researchers found that every unit increase in cortisol was associated with a mean decrease in PCL-C score of 0.75 points, "demonstrating that as PTSD symptoms improved cortisol levels normalized." The changes in the MBX group persisted at week 16.

"During the eight-week program, some participants reported that they experienced improved sleep, stress resilience, energy levels, and emotional regulation under stress, and a resumption of pleasurable activities which they had previously discontinued. At the end of the intervention, over half of the participants expressed a desire to continue," the authors write.

Study limitations include the small number of participants and a paucity of male participants, which might limit generalizability. Nonetheless, the authors conclude, "[c]onsidering that early intervention is critical in ameliorating the development of PTSD and that PTSD symptoms are strongly correlated with the degree of distress immediately following trauma, mind-body interventions such as MBX may provide an effective non-pharmacological treatment for individuals with PTSD symptoms."

The authors have disclosed no relevant financial relationships.

J Clin Endocrinol Metabol. Published online May 29, 2013. Abstract

Pouring

Pouring

By Lee Wedlake

The term “pouring” is a popular one used in describing how one transfers weight from one leg to the other when doing tai chi. I feel it’s a good one for getting the mental picture of just how that transfer occurs.

“Shifting” is ok but just does not quite illustrate how we want the change to occur. The word pouring describes a controlled moving of a fluid from one vessel to another. This bars our notions of pouring down rain or emotions verbally pouring forth since they impart the idea of an uncontrolled event. Using the thought of pouring water from a pitcher to a glass is much better.

We don’t dump the weight from one leg to the other, an equivalent of splashing. One who plods or stomps along is splashing their weight. The tai chi practitioner carefully, mindfully moves weight from one leg to the other in a slow, controlled manner. We know what it is like when a clumsy person attempts to fill a glass; missing, splashing or over-filling it. It’s not the picture of what we want to do when we step.

If we think of chi as a fluid, pouring is the perfect fit. As we move from posture to posture in our slow, controlled way, we transfer that fluid from one place to another without missing (not the right weight moving), splashing (stomping) or overflowing (too much going everywhere). Our goal is the perfect pour every time.

This takes time and thoughtful practice. One goal is developing the discipline to do this since it’s not prone to immediate and consistent results. In the long term we want the ability to unconsciously place the weight where we need it so that when our step is disturbed by catching a toe or an unstable or slick surface, our practice allows us to compensate in a flash. It’s the basis behind using tai chi for fall prevention.

Pouring, as a term, is a nice tool in getting our mind and body to work together in this process since it produces a valuable visual to work with. I’ve written of it in the context of shifting weight but the idea works with the whole body. Since the legs are the base for the rest of the body it stands to reason our focus will be there, particularly for beginners.

I believe we should do this with conscious efforts, the aforementioned mindfulness, to get the feel of how it works. As we progress we’ll make it more subconscious and be able to sense the movement of chi and later be able to direct it, should be we desire.

Until next time,

Lee    

More on Meditation from Harvard University

Meditation’s Effects on Emotion Shown to Persist

By TRACI PEDERSEN Associate News Editor
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on June 23, 2013

Meditation affects a person’s brain function long after the act of meditation is over, according to new research.

“This is the first time meditation training has been shown to affect emotional processing in the brain outside of a meditative state,” said Gaelle Desbordes, Ph.D., a research fellow at the Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital and at the Boston University Center for Computational Neuroscience and Neural Technology.

“Overall, these results are consistent with the overarching hypothesis that meditation may result in enduring, beneficial changes in brain function, especially in the area of emotional processing.”

The researchers began the study with the hypothesis that meditation can help control emotional responses.

During meditation, a part of the brain called the amygdala (known for the processing of emotional stimuli) showed decreased activity. However, when the participants were shown images of other people that were either good, bad, or neutral for a practice known as “compassion meditation,” the amygdala was exceptionally responsive.

The subjects were able to focus their attention and greatly reduce their emotional reactions. And over an eight-week period, the participants retained this ability.

Even when they were not engaged in a meditative state, their emotional responses were subdued, and they experienced more compassion for others when faced with disturbing images.

Around the same time, another group at Harvard Medical School (HMS) began to study the effect of meditation on retaining information. Their hypothesis was that people who meditate have more control over alpha rhythm — a brain wave thought to screen out everyday distractions, allowing for more important information to be processed.

“Mindfulness meditation has been reported to enhance numerous mental abilities, including rapid memory recall,” said Catherine Kerr of the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging and the Osher Research Center, both at HMS.

“Our discovery that mindfulness meditators more quickly adjusted the brain wave that screens out distraction could explain their superior ability to rapidly remember and incorporate new facts.”

Both studies used participants that had no previous experience with meditation.

Over an eight-week period and a 12-week period, both groups showed a marked change in their daily normal brain function, while they were meditating and while they were involved in medial activities.

Some researchers believe that meditation might be the key to help ease off dependency on pharmaceutical drugs.

“The implications extend far beyond meditation,” said Kerr.

“They give us clues about possible ways to help people better regulate a brain rhythm that is deregulated in attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and other conditions.”

Source:  Harvard University

Antioxidants

Comment from Doc Rowe on this article from the Journal of Physiology - My conclusion, when possible get your antioxidants from natural products, tea, spices, herbs, fruits and vegetables because the "package" is important and the body knows what to take and what to leave.  If you have an inflammatory condition such as  gout, chronic  viral infection, or arthritis supplements may be a helpful way to hold low grade chronic inflammation in check and suppress flares.

 

Antioxidants counteract benefits of exercise

A compound in red grapes, including red wine, has been shown to potentially counteract exercise benefits, research shows.

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In older men, a natural antioxidant compound found in red grapes and other plants – calledresveratrol – blocks many of the cardiovascular benefits of exercise, according to research published in The Journal of Physiology.

Resveratrol has received widespread attention as a possible anti-ageing compound and is now widely available as a dietary supplement; much has been made of its role in explaining the cardiovascular health benefits of red wine, and other foods.

But now, new research at The University of Copenhagen surprisingly suggests that eating a diet rich in antioxidants may actually counteract many of the health benefits of exercise, including reduced blood pressure and cholesterol.

Opposite effect

In contrast to earlier studies in animals in which resveratrol improved the cardiovascular benefits of exercise, this study in humans has provided surprising and strong evidence that in older men, resveratrol has the opposite effect.

What is emerging is a new view that antioxidants are not a fix for everything, and that some degree of oxidant stress may be necessary for the body to work correctly. This pivotal study suggests that reactive oxygen species, generally thought of as causing ageing and disease, may be a necessary signal that causes healthy adaptations in response to stresses like exercise. So too much of a good thing (like antioxidants in the diet) may actually be detrimental to our health.

Lasse Gliemann, a PhD student who worked on the study at The University of Copenhagen, explains how they conducted the research, and the results they found: "We studied 27 healthy, physically inactive men around 65 years old for eight weeks. During the 8 weeks all of the men performed high-intensity exercise training and half of the group received 250 mg of resveratrol daily, whereas the other group received a placebo pill (a pill containing no active ingredient). The study design was double-blinded, thus neither the subjects nor the investigators knew which participant that received either resveratrol or placebo.

"We found that exercise training was highly effective in improving cardiovascular health parameters, but resveratrol supplementation attenuated the positive effects of training on several parameters including blood pressure, plasma lipid concentrations and maximal oxygen uptake."

Ylva Hellsten, the leader of the project, says:"We were surprised to find that resveratrol supplementation in aged men blunts the positive effects of exercise training on cardiovascular health parameters, in part because our results contradict findings in animal studies.

"It should be noted that the quantities of resveratrol given in our research study are much higher than what could be obtained by intake of natural foods."

This research adds to the growing body of evidence questioning the positive effects of antioxidant supplementation in humans.

Michael Joyner, from The Mayo Clinic USA, says how the study has wider implications for research: "In addition to the surprising findings on exercise and resveratrol, this study shows the continuing need for mechanistic studies in humans. Too often human studies focus on large scale outcomes and clinical trials and not on understanding the basic biology of how we adapt."

 

This was sent to me by Doc Rowe.

Susan Smalley, PHD, is  a hard nosed researcher in genetics (Professor Emeritus, Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA). She wrote this about herself as a scientist who had something happen to her ( a melanoma) and as a result she took time to look inside herself and it changed her life.

Why Mindfulness Matters

If someone asked me 13 years ago, if 'mindfulness matters' I would have said a resounding no, and then rolled my eyes at them for their 'new age' thinking. That was a time when I felt rational thought was the only means of understanding the nature of reality and applied it through my work as a scientist in genetics. One year later I had a freckle removed from my arm that proved to be an early stage melanoma, a disruption in my extremely busy life (raising three kids and being a prof at a major university). The deadliest form of skin cancer raised my stress level to high alert and I took a short leave of absence from the university to 'get well'. During that break, my brain had a bit of a reorganization as well and suddenly I was open to exploring anything and everything alternative that might help prevent cancer. Yoga, meditation, macrobiotic diet, shamans, etc. etc., I dove headfirst into an alternative world of healing. In it I suddenly discovered something beyond the physical healing I so desperately sought. I experienced a profound sense of our deep interconnected nature - what I called a 'oneness of theuniverse' - and with that arose a giant sense of compassion, joy, and bliss. Negative emotions of greed, envy, and anger couldn't find their way into this voluminous space of love. And, I found myself in the present moment, fully aware of the beauty in moment to moment experiences.

In the aftermath of that epiphany of sorts, I returned to the university and began to study meditation and other practices that invoke a state of mind comparable to what I had experienced. I discovered it was called mindfulness and that there was a growing body of research around it - spanning neuroscience, immunology, genetics, psychiatry and other fields. (sound familiar?)

So if you had asked me 10 years ago, 'why mindfulness matters', I would have told you because it has the power to heal oneself and help find authentic happiness.

Today, if you asked me why mindfulness matters, I would add to that sentiment one more thing, perhaps the most powerful reason to venture into the world of mindfulness. It is a means of discovering our interdependent or interconnected nature, to not only 'know' it from a lens of reason (i.e. genetics, ecology, psychology) but to experience it firsthand, to feel and know intuitively that we are 'one', all part of a unity that might be called evolution, humanity, or to those spiritually minded, some version of the concept of God.

I recently discovered an object of art that reflects this value of mindfulness visually and textually. It is a fishing vessel or vat from India created by Indian artist Subodh Gupta. The vessel is 65 feet in length and crammed with objects - fishing nets, an old television, tables, chairs, a bed, pots and pans, tea kettles, etc. - everything a single fisherman might collect in a lifetime. The title of the piece is 'what does the vessel contain, that the river does not', a quote from the Muslim poet Rumi in the 13th century. The river is the metaphor for the oneness that I experienced and we all may find through an awareness of consciousness, self, and the nature of reality from an intuitive experience. The boat represents an individual life and the collection of objects - life experiences - that are unique and a reflection of our single lifetimes.

But the saying implies that we are all a microcosm of the whole, as we each evolve and unfold, so too does our shared humanity, so too does our 'whole', our 'oneness'. As we evolve, we discover our own evolution. As we discover, we begin to know the constancy of the continuum of change itself, the river.

A.A. Milne - the author of Winnie the Pooh stories - understood this well. He saw the river as the metaphor for this constancy of knowledge, of understanding. He wrote,

Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge and lean over to watch the river slipping slowly away beneath you, you will suddenly know everything there is to be known.

So take time to find a river and watch it flow. It may be realized in a practice of mindfulness of whatever sort - yoga, tai chi, meditation, reflection, pondering, sitting in silence, attending to the present with your full attention.

This is perhaps the greatest reason behind 'why mindfulness matters'.

Push hands for beginners

Push Hands

The well-known martial arts author, the late Robert W. Smith, said he thought “pushing hands” should be renamed as “sensing hands”.  It makes sense but I don’t think it caught on. Pushing hands is more commonly called push hands. It’s one of the three legs of the tai chi stool, the others being the form and the sword. If you’re unfamiliar, it’s the two-person applications done in a flow. One goal is to be able to unbalance a partner with the classic four-ounces of force. The purpose of this article is not to expound on all the aspects of doing push hands. Books have been written on the subject. It’s a basic explanation of what the reason for doing it is.

It’s probably not a good idea to be exposed to push hands right of the bat. One should become very familiar with the basics before moving to this. Traditionally the Oriental arts are taught with many months or even years of basic training before instruction in form or application. The Western society we live in wants results NOW and we tend to spend less time on those basics. This contributes to the frustration many of our students have but many will stick with it and trust their instructor to give them the “good stuff” when the time is right.

Time spent of getting the postures correct will pay off well in the push hands. Get the stance and Six Harmonies (fingers/toes, elbows/knees, shoulder/hip) right and there’s less of a challenge in learning and doing the push hands.

Al this is done “in the air”, meaning there is no physical body before you, no incoming forces to measure and deal with-and no ego other than your own. The story changes when these elements are presented.

The basics you learned in the practice of the form include four components you’ll need to start the drill. They are ward-off, roll-back, press and push. And that’s the order you normally do them in the form, so it’s ingrained. A challenge in the push hands is that the sequence gets changed, along with the side on which you do them. You’re likely used to doing roll-back with the right foot and right arm forward and applying the move. In the push hands you’ll have to do it right foot/left handed. This throws most people off, so don’t be alarmed if it “feels funny” and you’re not getting it right away.

My teacher, Tom Baeli, taught me there was a push hands form in which you practiced it in the same sequence as the applications as I wrote above. It helps. Yet, for many of us, having the body there can facilitate learning the sequences.

Be advised there is etiquette to starting the exercise and that is to allow the senior to choose whether to give or receive. For example, when I approach my teacher he either holds up his ward off, meaning I give with push, or he holds up his push and I receive with ward-off. You set your feet proportionally; front foot parallel to front foot and aligned so the toes are aimed at their rear foot. It makes a kind of box that you work within.

Know also that this is the hardest version to work with because you don’t get to move your feet to escape force. It forces you to deal with what’s there with limited tools and that’s an idea used in many systems. Once you get better at dealing with the movement and the variations to come, then you get to move your feet, as in real combat, and you start the Dance of Death, which what fights were called by some.

The presence of another human being “in your space” changes the context of what you’ve been practicing just to get here. Now you’re faced with handling incoming and outgoing energy, the probability of ego getting involved since some are more aggressive than others in this practice and dealing with the mental aspects of this sensory and emotional input. You will have to work on getting your timing and position right so you can handle the physical energies. You’ll be pushed off-balance often until you get it. That can be frustrating. How others interact with you and your energy is also key. You’ll find that everyone you push with has a different feel to them and that’s a huge value. Being a bit introspective about how you react, or don’t react, to that will teach you about yourself, too. Nobody says it’s easy but the payoff in increased confidence, physical and mental discipline and even more strength and flexibility can be substantial.

What you learn as a beginner in push hands should be done gently, with that “sensing hands” idea in mind. Using strength alone just intimidates, feeds the ego and generally produces poor technique. Competition push hands is a different animal and that’s not what we’re after right now. So hang in there, kid, you’ll be ok.

Until next time,

Lee Wedlake

The Theoretical Basis of Tai Chi Ch’uan by Robert Burns Amacker.

A serious book for a serious student.

I met Bob many years ago when he did a tai chi seminar at my studio in Florida. I was immediately impressed when he said “If you can’t throw a side kick, you’re not doing tai chi”. He’s a fighter. This book could not be written by someone with less years and experience. It’s technical and conceptual, and that means it’s not a quick read. It’s nicely chaptered and that makes it easier to absorb the related subjects. He starts with defining “the Principle” and moves to yielding, adherence, discharge, the civil and martial tai chi and more. This is not a book for the dabbler.
He only had 150 printed, hardbound and they even have a gold fabric bookmark. I hate to tease you but I don’t know where you can get one, Bob sent a copy to me. He says it may appear in e-book form on Amazon.  

Meditation and wellness

Doc Rowe sent this to me and it's from an article. Attribution at the end.

How meditation and yoga help reduce stress and enhance wellness

A new study has found that elicitation of the relaxation response - a physiologic state of deep rest induced by practices such as meditation, yoga, deep breathing and prayer - produces immediate changes in the expression of genes involved in immune function, energy metabolism and insulin secretion.

The study from investigators at the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind/Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) combined advanced expression profiling and systems biology analysis to both identify genes affected by relaxation response practice and determine the potential biological relevance of those changes.

"Many studies have shown that mind/body interventions like the relaxation response can reduce stress and enhance wellness in healthy individuals and counteract the adverse clinical effects of stress in conditions like hypertension, anxiety, diabetes and aging," said Herbert Benson, MD, director emeritus of the Benson-Henry Institute.

"Now for the first time we've identified the key physiological hubs through which these benefits might be induced," he stated.

Towia Libermann, PhD - director of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) Genomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics and Systems Biology Center and co-senior author of the study - added, "Some of the biological pathways we identify as being regulated by relaxation response practice are already known to play specific roles in stress, inflammation and human disease. For others, the connections are still speculative, but this study is generating new hypotheses for further investigation."

The current study examined changes produced during a single session of relaxation response practice, as well as those taking place over longer periods of time.

The study enrolled a group of 26 healthy adults with no experience in relaxation response practice, who then completed an 8-week relaxation response training course.

The results revealed significant changes in the expression of several important groups of genes between the novice samples and those from both the short- and long-term sets, with even more pronounced changes in the long-term practitioners.

A systems biology analysis of known interactions among the proteins produced by the affected genes revealed that pathways involved with energy metabolism, particularly the function of mitochondria, were upregulated during the relaxation response. Pathways controlled by activation of a protein called NF-?B - known to have a prominent role in inflammation, stress, trauma and cancer - were suppressed after relaxation response elicitation. The expression of genes involved in insulin pathways was also significantly altered.

After eight weeks of performing the technique daily, the volunteers gene profile was analysed . Clusters of important beneficial genes had become more active and harmful ones less so.

The boosted genes had three main beneficial effects: improving the efficiency of mitochondria, the powerhouse of cells; boosting insulin production, which improves control of blood sugar; and preventing the depletion of telomeres, caps on chromosomes that help to keep DNA stable and so prevent cells wearing out and ageing.

Clusters of genes that became less active were those governed by a master gene called NF-kappaB, which triggers chronic inflammation leading to diseases including high blood pressure, heart disease, inflammatory bowel disease and some cancers.

By taking blood immediately after before and after performing the technique on a single day, researchers also showed that the gene changes happened within minutes.

For comparison, the researchers also took samples from 26 volunteers who had practised relaxation techniques for at least three years. They had beneficial gene profiles even before performing their routines in the lab, suggesting that the techniques had resulted in long term changes to their genes.

"It seems fitting that you should see these responses after just 15 to 20 minutes just as, conversely, short periods of stress elevate stress hormones and other physiological effects that are harmful in the long term," says Julie Brefczynski-Lewis of West Virginia University in Morgantown, who studies the physiological effects of meditation techniques. "I hope to see these results replicated by other groups."

"We found that the more you do it, the more profound the genomic expression changes," says Benson. He and his colleagues are now investigating how gene profiles are altered and whether these techniques could ease symptoms in people with high blood pressure, inflammatory bowel disease and multiple myeloma, a type of bone marrow cancer.

Manoj K. Bhasin, PhD, co-lead author of the study and co-director of the BIDMC Genomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics and Systems Biology Center, noted that these insights should provide a framework for determining, on a genomic basis, whether the relaxation response will help alleviate symptoms of diseases triggered by stress and developing biomarkers that may suggest how individual patients will respond to interventions.

Benson stresses that the long-term practitioners in this study elicited the relaxation response through many different techniques - various forms of meditation, yoga or prayer - but those differences were not reflected in the gene expression patterns.

Built-in Frustration

My teacher told me the system has built-in frustration. This is facet of a discussion you’ll probably have regarding how long it takes to “get it”. He said that if one person takes 10 years and the next takes 20, what difference does it make as long as they both reach their goal? That’s connected to the thinking that we compete with ourselves, not with others.

If you’ve done only one lesson in the arts you have probably told yourself that it is harder than it looks. Being that most humans will seek the path of least resistance in most things, it may be easier to tell yourself that the activity is not worth it. That’s where we start to see the frustration factor.

I have had people come in to take a class and decide that it’s just too hard. One only took 15 minutes to make that decision. She holds the record for the shortest intro lesson. Discussing this with other people we have the opinion that she’s the type of person who needs it the most. She succumbed to the frustration factor.

Preconception is typically what hurts us in this matter. We see it and think it’s easy. We try, and find it’s not. It’s the beginning of a logic tree. See it- decide to try, yes or no. If no, we go to the next idea. If yes, we find a class. We take the class and decide if it’s for us – yes or no. If no, we invested some time and effort and move on to something else. If yes, we return for more. Now we may have built an artificial timeline of goals. “By June I’ll know the short form, by December I’ll have the long form,” etc. Any number of events may occur to slow us down or even prevent us for making those goals. That’s frustrating.

We have laughed about how we come to class thinking this will be a great thing to relieve stress, improve health, calms the mind and so on. Then we find that it’s more difficult than we thought and get rather wound up about not knowing the next step in a sequence or that we don’t have the breathing right. More frustration. This path has resistance.

The logic tree says we need to make a decision. Do we continue or quit? My teacher told me that in the traditions of tai chi, you were required to do it for three years once you started. Only then were you experienced enough to make an informed decision. Not a Western type of thinking at all.

You have to work through the tough parts. This is where the art teaches or reinforces discipline. The benefits are not given, they are earned. If you quit or do not get yourself on a regular practice schedule, you don’t get the fruits of the labor. Frustration is part of the dues paid.

The Western mind does not want to hear a “you get it when you get it” statement. The teacher is a guide and can give you some direction but the rest is up to you.

Until next time,

Lee    

Sugar is Toxic

This was sent to me recently and supposedly is an extract from a book called Fat Chance.

 

Refined sugar (that is, sucrose) is made up of a molecule of the carbohydrate glucose, bonded to a molecule of the carbohydrate fructose — a 50-50 mixture of the two. The fructose, which is almost twice as sweet as glucose, is what distinguishes sugar from other carbohydrate-rich foods like bread or potatoes that break down upon digestion to glucose alone. The more fructose in a substance, the sweeter it will be. High-fructose corn syrup, is 55 percent fructose, and the remaining 45 percent is nearly all glucose. It was created to be indistinguishable from refined sugar when used in soft drinks.

By the end of the 1970s, any scientist who studied the potentially deleterious effects of sugar in the diet, , and talked about it publicly, was endangering his reputation. What has changed since then, other than Americans getting fatter and more diabetic? It wasn’t so much that researchers learned anything particularly new about the effects of sugar or high-fructose corn syrup in the human body. Rather the context of the science changed: physicians and medical authorities came to accept the idea that a condition known as metabolic syndrome is a major, if not themajor, risk factor for heart disease and diabetes. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now estimate that some 75 million Americans have metabolic syndrome The first symptom doctors are told to look for in diagnosing metabolic syndrome is an expanding waistline. This means that if you’re overweight, there’s a good chance you have metabolic syndrome, and this is why you’re more likely to have a heart attack or become diabetic (or both) than someone who’s not. lean individuals can have metabolic syndrome, and are also at greater risk of heart disease and diabetes

Having metabolic syndrome is another way of saying that the cells in your body are actively ignoring the action of the hormone insulin — a condition known technically as being insulin-resistant.

1. You secrete insulin in response to the foods you eat — particularly carbohydrates — to keep blood sugar in control after a meal. 2. When your cells are resistant to insulin, your body (your pancreas) responds to rising blood sugar by pumping out more and more insulin. 3. Eventually the pancreas can no longer keep up with the demand “pancreatic exhaustion.” 4. Now your blood sugar will rise out of control, and you’ve got diabetes.

Not everyone with insulin resistance becomes diabetic; some continue to secrete enough insulin to overcome their cells’ resistance to the hormone. But having chronically elevated insulin levels has harmful effects of its own —heart disease, for one. A result is higher triglyceride levels and blood pressure, lower levels of HDL cholesterol (the “good cholesterol”),

Researchers believe the cause of insulin resistance is theaccumulation of fat in the liver. “when you deposit fat in the liver, that’s when you become insulin-resistant.” Feed animals enough pure fructose or enough sugar, and their livers convert the fructose into fat. The fat accumulates in the liver, and insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome follow. Similar effects can be shown in humans, When Tappy fed his human subjects the equivalent of the fructose in 8 to 10 cans of Coke or Pepsi a day — a “pretty high dose,” he says—– their livers would start to become insulin-resistant, and their triglycerides would go up in just a few days. With lower doses, Tappy says, just as in the animal research, the same effects would appear, but it would take longer, a month or more.

So the answer to the question of whether sugar is as bad as Lustig claims is that it certainly could be. It very well may be true that sugar and high-fructose corn syrup, because of the unique way in which we metabolize fructose and at the levels we now consume it, cause fat to accumulate in our livers followed by insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome, and so trigger the process that leads to heart disease, diabetes and obesity. They could indeed be toxic, but they take years to do their damage. It doesn’t happen overnight.

What are the chances that sugar is actually worse than Lustig says it is? One of the diseases that increases in incidence with obesity, diabetes and metabolic syndrome is cancer. Insulin resistance may be a fundamental underlying defect in many cancers, as it is in type 2 diabetes and heart disease. The connection between obesity, diabetes and cancer was first reported in 2004 in large population studies by researchers from the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer. It is not controversial. What it means is that you are more likely to get cancer if you’re obese or diabetic than if you’re not, and you’re more likely to get cancer if you have metabolic syndrome than if you don’t.

 

To summarize a couple of things that the PLoS One study clarifies. Perhaps most important all calories are not created equal. By definition, all calories give off the same amount of energy when burned, but your body treats sugar calories differently, and that difference is damaging.

And as Lustig lucidly wrote in “Fat Chance,” it’s become clear that obesity itself is not the cause of our dramatic upswing in chronic disease. Rather, it’s metabolic syndrome, which can strike those of “normal” weight as well as those who are obese. Metabolic syndrome is a result of insulin resistance, which appears to be a direct result of consumption of added sugars. This explains why there’s little argument from scientific quarters about the “obesity won’t kill you” studies; technically, they’re correct, because obesity is a marker for metabolic syndrome, not a cause.

The take-away: it isn’t simply overeating that can make you sick; it’s overeating sugar. We finally have the proof we need for a verdict: sugar is toxic.

Duality

Using the Chinese symbol for Yin and Yang is probably the best known “ad” for tai chi.  It’s a symbol used to illustrate duality, the opposites. Typically it’s black and white and each color has a small dot of the other in it to show that they have a little of the other within them. There are arguments about which color should be on which side and if they should be aligned vertically or horizontally. For this article, it makes no difference; I just want to briefly touch on the duality the symbol represents.

The symbol being a circle represents they are one unit with two parts. We need to understand that the parts represent opposites and the grey areas between them. The Yang side is the dark-colored side, the Yin is light. The Yang side is regarded at male, the Yin side is female. For example, that the male side has a dot of the opposing color could be said to mean a man may have a feminine side. Vice-versa for a woman. For what we do in tai chi, we look at this play between the Yin and Yang in a variety of ways.

Yang Cheng-Fu, whose tai chi lineage we come from, supposedly said that tai chi has a “dark” (martial) side and a “light” (civil) side. The majority of tai chi is taught on the civil side, being for health and fitness. The martial applications are the Ch’uan (fist) applications, the martial side.  I believe a student should have at least some instruction in the martial side to enhance their understanding of the art and give more meaning to the movements done for exercise.

The practicality of understanding the duality is shown in knowing that we have an empty leg and a full leg (opposites) when we step. It stands to reason that one cannot step, or pivot with the full leg without jumping or twisting and possibly hurting the leg. Using knowledge of empty and full allows us to determine which foot steps without having to have an instructor there to tell us.

Yin and Yang movements get us to expand and contract, to rise and drop, to advance and retreat. We work right and left for balance, flexibility and coordination. We exercise the outside of the body but the inside is being worked as well. And as the body is exercised, so is the mind. That’s the striking part of tai chi, the meditation in motion. Ultimately, the mind is still as the body is in motion.

There is much more to all this, volumes have been written on the subject. I wanted to write this to give the reader something of a primer, a look into the Oriental mind.

Until next time,

Lee  

More on Meditation

The Dana Foundation linked this article on meditation and how it's not such a "black box" anymore.
http://dana.org/news/features/detail.aspx?id=40404

The “Fist” Applications

 

The teaching of tai chi seems to fall into two broad categories; the health/fitness and the martial art sides. Ideally, they’re taught as one but I’ve found many teachers separate the aspects. “Fist” sets are applications of the movements used for self-defense. You’ll find the difference in the label in a class being called a tai chi class versus a tai chi ch’uan class. Tai chi means Grand Ultimate, Ch’uan (ch-wan) means fist. When you see the whole tai chi chuan term used it usually means they teach the fist applications.

I like the martial applications, they appeal to me as a 40+ year practitioner of the martial arts. They are interesting and have value. As a teacher I have discovered that even my 80-year-old grandmother student’s eyes light up when they see another use of the moves they learned for exercise. Tai chi has been facetiously labeled as magic-arm waving. That term indicates is has no real value and that people do it expecting results beyond the realistic. Not so, Grasshopper.

Tai chi ch’uan did not become known as “The Gem of Chinese Culture” by magic arm-waving. It is akin to an onion in that you peel one layer and another appears. First you learn the basic physical movements to re-establish the proper body mechanics. I say re-establish because it older students who take up this art and they have to relearn much of what they have been doing for decades. The body begins to realign and strengthen, often along with some discomfort. After all, we’ve been doing it one way for years and now we have to do it another way. You become more flexible and strong. Internal systems are stimulated. All being connected, the body and mind reacquaint, shake hands and start working together. Along the way we are learning about how our body has changed, recaptured some abilities we thought we lost and feel better. Now, time to engage the brain a bit more.

If the moves are done “in the air” there’s a gap. It’s a visualization gap. By showing a fist application the brain gets a look at another way this move can be used. If I show you that this move can be a strike, lock or throw, the brain recognizes that and has reason to accept. When it does so, it becomes yours. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard some variation on “I get it now” after showing a fist application. Movement generally has a better quality if you genuinely “get it”.

Bear in mind that you’ll learn in stages, starting with the “arm-waving”, move into function, chipping away at better form, timing and touch on application. (The Gem includes philosophy, medicine, history and more.) The fist applications are layered, too. You’ll see the striking application, joint-twisting, takedowns, weapon work and more as time goes by. As a lot of time goes by.

The various facets of the art such as sword and push-hands serve to illustrate the other aspects. Your teacher will determine what, how much and how fast you will be exposed to it in order to get you the most benefit.

Until next time,

Lee