Dr. Steve Blake
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 Magnesium and calcium work together to coordinate muscle contraction and relaxation. These two minerals maintain normal cell membrane electrical potentials. Increased calcium in muscle cells triggers contraction. Increased magnesium in muscle cells counteracts the contraction, resulting in relaxation. Calcium and magnesium also work together to contract and relax capillaries. Magnesium is a potent vasodilator, opening blood vessels and lowering blood pressure. |
Pam Montgomery
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 The vibratory essence was that of 'ah-h-h,' a whole body relaxation. After this I felt different. I was able to look at the flip side of what drags me down, rising above it and not being negatively affected. Valerian helped me to make a breakthrough and see why certain things were happening in my life. The relaxation I encountered in the 'ah-h-h' resonance turned into the enlightenment resonance of 'aha.' I had to relax before I could have an opening. Often with plant spirits, I encounter them in my own personal life and then I know how to use them with others. |
Lynne McTaggart
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 In a study of karate, using relaxation techniques before carrying out the intentions did not improve performance.21 It was useful only if the participant was nervous and needed to be calmed down in order to perform better.2223 relaxation and hypnosis used with intention have worked to improve aim—say, for basketball shots or accuracy in chipping in golf. But as with Davidson's Buddhists, the most successful athletes manage to work themselves into peak intensity—a state of calm hyper-awareness. |
Andreas Moritz
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 During relaxation, the body, mind, and emotions move into a mode of performance that supports and enhances all the functions of the body. Contracted blood vessels open again, digestive juices flow, hormones are balanced, and waste is eliminated more easily. Therefore, the best antidote to stress and its harmful effects are methods of relaxation, such as meditation, yoga, spending time in nature, playing with children or pets, playing or listening to music, exercising, walking, and the like. |
| Stress-induced obstructions not only require deep physical cleansing, such as liver, colon, and kidney purges, but also require approaches that trigger relaxation.12
During relaxation, the body, mind, and emotions move into a mode of performance that supports and enhances all the functions of the body. Contracted blood vessels open again, digestive juices flow, hormones are balanced, and waste is eliminated more easily. |
Peter J. Whitehouse and Daniel George
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 Having practiced these forms from time to time, I can attest to their ability to contribute to relaxation and enhancement of mental well-being. Yoga and tai chi are low-impact and widely available, making them some of the safest and most accessible therapeutic options available to seniors. In addition to relaxation, yoga and meditation can promote mindfulness, allowing us to avoid distraction and maintain a sense of presence and coherence.
The best cure for the body is a quiet mind.
? |
Dr. Steve Blake
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| Increased magnesium in muscle cells counteracts the contraction, resulting in relaxation. Calcium and magnesium also work together to contract and relax capillaries. Magnesium is a potent vasodilator, opening blood vessels and lowering blood pressure.
MAGNESIUM AND BONE MINERALIZATION
MUSCLE CONTRACTION AND RELAXATION
MAGNESIUM DEFICIENCY
Serious deficiencies of magnesium are rare because magnesium is common in most food. Also, the kidneys limit losses of magnesium when intake is low. Nevertheless, average intake levels of magnesium in America are below the recommended levels. |
Rick Levy and Lou Aronica
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 Mental relaxation is not the same as physical relaxation. With a little practice, you'll learn to focus on the induction and relax your mind. The upside is that you will move your attention away from the pain in order to relax into the induction and also begin effecting advance treatment in the area where you feel pain. In later sections of the book, we'll use deep hypnosis to address pain and tension in the body.
Use the Alpha-I induction every day for five days (do not skip any days). As I said, this will be some of the most enjoyable "work" you've ever done. |
| The second part is a bodily relaxation procedure. I typically use progressive relaxation, which involves imagining a warm, relaxing, and comfortable feeling starting in the tips of the toes and going all the way to the top of the head. Sometimes I use a "Jacobsonian" approach, directing you to tense and then release tension in various parts of your body. This approach works better for people who carry a lot of stress. |
| Progressive relaxation techniques are often utilized as parr of a hypnotic induction but may be used at any time during hypnosis to promote further relaxation and deepen the trance state. Outside of hypnosis, PR techniques can be self-induced or utilized with the guidance of another person, such as a psychologist, social worker, or physical therapist. They reduce stress, anxiety, and physiological tension in the body and have the added benefits of lowering pulse rate and blood pressure.
Psychogenic—In medicine, of mental or emotional origin. |
| The second part is a bodily relaxation procedure, often a progressive relaxation method using direct suggestion. The third part involves deepening the trance state, often through the use of hypnotic guided imagery.
Integrative medicine—The term used to describe the combined use of conventional medicine with complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) for which there is some rigorous research-based evidence of safety and effectiveness. |
James Dowd and Diane Stafford
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 This leads to decreased power from poor contraction and impaired relaxation, which often produces symptoms such as cramping or twitching.
With severe vitamin D deficiency and metabolic acidosis, you don't produce protein; instead, your body breaks down muscle to buffer the acid-base imbalance. The upshot is weak muscles and reduced coordination. Higher vitamin D levels and supplementation are linked to increased power, improved relaxation, and enhanced coordination.
I n C VMMIVMIM U 1^ u n c
Dr. |
| In severe vitamin D deficiency, you lack the ability to get calcium into your muscles for contraction and get calcium out quickly for relaxation of muscles. This leads to decreased power from poor contraction and impaired relaxation, which often produces symptoms such as cramping or twitching.
With severe vitamin D deficiency and metabolic acidosis, you don't produce protein; instead, your body breaks down muscle to buffer the acid-base imbalance. The upshot is weak muscles and reduced coordination. |
Steven V. Joyal
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 Both forms of yoga can significantly reduce stress and promote total body relaxation.
Evidence that yoga promotes relaxation and reduces stress has been measured scientifically. Researchers at Boston University School of Medicine and McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts, measured the levels of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA; a chemical involved in mood) in the brains of people after they practiced yoga and compared those levels with people who spent the same time reading. |
J. Douglas Bremner
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 Transcendental meditation—a mental technique requiring deep concentration and focus to promote relaxation, reduce stress, and improve overall quality of life—has been shown to not only promote relaxation but actually lower blood pressure. Other methods like mindfulness-based stress reduction reduce anxiety and stress and probably are effective in reducing high blood pressure.
Exercise can also go a long way toward reducing blood pressure. |
Steven V. Joyal
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| Progressive Muscle Relaxation
Progressive muscle relaxation is a stress-management technique that was developed by the physician Edmund Jacobson in the 1920s. It is a remarkably simple yet effective technique for reducing and even eliminating muscle tension, anxiety, and stress.
No special props are required; all you need is about ten to fifteen minutes of uninterrupted time to practice the technique, which involves voluntarily and systematically tensing and then relaxing the muscles in your body. |
J. Douglas Bremner
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| Using relaxation techniques like deep breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, and meditation can be useful in preventing asthma attacks. Still, for many individuals with chronic asthma, medication is a requirement.
Th-:r Bottom Line
Remove things in your environment that can trigger asthma attacks. Develop a good diet and exercise regimen. Use over-the-counter medications for allergies; do not waste money on prescription drugs for these. Do not use OTC medications for chronic asthma. As needed use beta-agonist and steroid inhalers for chronic asthma. |
Anne Harrington
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 The authors of this report almost certainly had in mind best-sellers by medical authorities such as Meyer Friedman and Ray Rosenman's 1974 Type A Behavior and Your Heart, and Herbert Benson's 1975 The relaxation Response.
With so much going on, so many mind-body narratives serving so many functions, there comes a moment when we want to say: But which of them are true? My students generally reach this point sooner than I probably would prefer. |
| The link between the workaholic lifestyle and heart disease seemed about as solidly established as one could hope for; the relaxation industry was in full swing . . . and then things began to unravel. Skepticism had already been growing in some circles about certain aspects of the methodology used in the Western Collaborative Group Study (particularly aspects of the interviewing protocol), but they remained largely under the public radar screen until 1988. |
| Benson told the Dalai Lama all about his research on stress and the relaxation response and how he believed it cast light on the physiology of meditation. Then he admitted that he had a request of his own. He knew that there existed an esoteric Tibetan meditative practice called g Tum-mo (pronounced "tummo"), or "inner heat" meditation, during which advanced practitioners were said to be able to regulate their heat production in ways that allowed them to stay warm even in frigid weather conditions and without warm clothing. |
| Cowritten with a professional science writer, it used a number of distinctive rhetorical techniques to try to persuade readers to see the relaxation response Benson's way. |
| Even though it [the relaxation response] has been evoked in the religions of both East and West for most of recorded history," Benson reassured his readers, "you don't have to engage in any rites or esoteric practices to bring it forth."37 In short, Benson domesticated and medical-ized meditation. As one journalist put it in 1975, Benson had helped her appreciate meditation as "a terrific aspirin, a wonderful kind of bromide. |
Andreas Moritz
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 Quite immediately, the state of shock ceased and was replaced by a deep sense of peace, joy and relaxation, and your physical strength returned. The sudden good news elevated your feelings and brought the smile back to your face. One split second was enough to trigger a profound internal transformation that changed everything from within you. For a brief moment you experienced a state of utter illness and despair, followed by another moment of perfect health. Unwittingly, you discovered the ultimate causes of illness and wellness.
A German professor of medicine, Dr. |
Peter h. Fraser and Harry Massey
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 For instance, meditation and relaxation practices can beneficially affect our physical state, lowering our blood pressure, alleviating pain, and more. Researchers such as Candace Pert, author of The Molecules of Emotion, and others have shown that the neuropeptides—the molecules of emotion, which were once thought to be manufactured and circulated only in the brain (hence the term neuropeptide)—actually are found everywhere in our body. Researchers are beginning to understand what wisdom traditions have told us for thousands of years—that emotion is actually distributed body-wide. |
Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., M.D.
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 So even though relaxation, meditation, and regular exercise have demonstrable health benefits, for this program, they remained entirely optional.
It was clear almost from the beginning that six patients just did not grasp what we were trying to accomplish, and that they would not comply with the experiment. So by mutual agreement, I returned them to their cardiologists for standard care with the understanding that I would periodically check to see how they were doing. But the rest stuck with the program. They ranged in age from forty-three to sixty-seven years old. |
Jonny Bowden, Ph.D., C.N.S.
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 See also relaxation Response.
Menopausal Issues and Hormones
Books
The Wisdom of Menopause: Creating Physical and Emotional Health and Healing During the Change by Christiane Northrup, M.D.
Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom: Creating Physical and Emotional Health and Healing by Christiane Northrup, M.D. Absolutely anything by Northrup is worth reading— twice—but the first one listed above is a classic.
The Hormone Solution: Naturally Alleviate Symptoms of Hormone Imbalance from Adolescence through Menopause by Erika Schwartz, M.D. |
| Research continues to confirm the effects of this kind of practice, whether it's called meditation, prayer, or the relaxation Response. Recently my friends Dharma Singh Khalsa, M.D., and Daniel Amen, M.D., (along with Nisha Money, M.D.) teamed up to study a simple, twelve-minute form of kundalini yoga called Kriya Kirtan that's based on five primal sounds that are chanted consecutively. They performed SPECT scans—a type of brain imaging—on subjects at rest one day and then after meditation the next. |
| Heart rate slows down, muscles relax, breathing becomes more measured, and blood
How to Do It: Eliciting the relaxation Response
Set aside 10 to 20 minutes to try this technique:
• Sit quietly in a comfortable position.
• Close your eyes.
• Deeply relax all your muscles beginning at your feet and progressing up to your face. Keep them relaxed.
• Breathe through your nose. Become aware of your breathing. As you breathe out, say the word one silently to yourself. For example, breathe in ... out, (one), in ... out (one), etc. Breathe easily and naturally.
• Continue for 10 to 20 minutes. |
| The author of The relaxation Response and arguably the dean of mind-body physicians in America is Herbert Benson, M.D., an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. He cofounded the institute that bears his name, The Benson-Henry Institute for Mind-Body Medicine, which is a part of Massachusetts General Hospital. For more information about their programs, including a mind-bodv cancer program and a mind-over-menopause program, go to the site above.
See also Meditation and Stress Reduction.
Sugar Addiction
Radiant Recovery www.radiantrecovery. |
| One Step Away from Serotonin
For years health practitioners had used tryptophan to help people sleep and as a natural aid to relaxation and calm. A lot of people were very upset when it was taken off the market. But lucky for us, 5-HTP is even better. As explained above, it's only one step from 5-HTP to serotonin. In addition, in animal and human studies, 5-HTP, unlike tryptophan, has been demonstrated to increase catecholamine metabolism, specifically working on dopamine and norepinephrine—other "feel good" neurotransmitters that are involved in mood. |
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