Adventures in Breathing

If you've read my blog in the past, you may have seen me mention proper breathing as being integral to health and healing. How many of us even pay attention to how we breathe, let alone use specific types of breathing to further our healing?

My own history with breath work has been with traditional Qigong belly breathing. It was amazing how hard it was to take a proper deep belly breath when I first learned it. I had no idea how shallowly I was breathing before that.

Lately, I've added another type of breathing into the mix: alternate nostril breathing (or Nadi Sondhana), which is part of the yogic Pranayama tradition.
I'd vaguely heard of it in the past, but it never interested me until I read about the benefits of it in Balance Your Hormones, Balance Your Life by Dr. Claudia Welch. She comes from a Traditional Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda background. This is a seriously great book, as it gives real, practical context to things like yin, yang and energy flow and how they impact our health and hormones.

In the book, Dr. Welch discusses alternate nostril breathing as a powerful tool for brain balance and hormone balance, both of which I am striving to achieve right now. She even gives accounts of her patients having hot flashes and insomnia cease after implementing the practice.


Here are some of the alleged benefits:

-Improves brain function and brain balance. Deep breathing oxygenates the brain and alternating between each nostril activates both hemispheres. Favoring one nostril can also be used to activate the opposite hemisphere.
Who d
-A calmer mind. Who doesn't need that?

-Improves sleep. Breathing through the left nostril is said to especially activate a parasympathetic response and quiet the mind so your busy brain doesn't keep you awake and your body can relax.

-Regulates and balances hormone production through balancing the yin (feminine) and yang (masculine) energy in the body. For those who think that sounds wacky, consider that TCM medicine uses this as the premise for increasing fertility and balancing hormones and it has a great track record for getting the job done.


There are other benefits, too, but those are the big ones that appeal to me. Also, it's FREE, so how can I possible pass up trying it, right?

So far, I've only done a few short sessions, but it definitely has a profound effect on my mental clarity and it induces a nice, calm state. It also helps to clear my sinuses.


Here's a short video demonstrating the technique. She doesn't mention pausing between inhales and exhales, but it's really beneficial and quieting to the mind to pause between breaths. The usual pattern is to inhale for 4 counts, hold for 12 and exhale for 8. Long exhales really calm the mind and body and induce a powerful parasympathetic response.




Now, take a deep breath and enjoy!

-Erin

Insomnia Update

I'm coming back as a cat in my next life!


Wow, it's been a long time, eh? Sorry to leave you guys hanging. I'm just sitting here enjoying a cool, autumn-like morning (I love this weather!) and a cup of tea and I thought it would be a good time to do an update on my last post.

So, last time I checked in I was in the throes of early waking insomnia. Not fun at all. I bit the bullet and went to see my old O.M.D. (Dr. of Oriental Medicine, which is more advanced than a regular acupuncture degree) to get an herbal prescription. She examined me and took my pulses and she knew exactly what was up: a big imbalance in my heart energy, a classic underlying cause of insomnia and dream disturbed sleep (check and check!) which makes sense, since summer is the fire element/heart season.
If you have an imbalance in a particular element/organ, it will tend to flare and be exacerbated during the corresponding season (more on that here.)
This imbalance is secondary to my long-standing issues with kidney (read: adrenal) energy and is just a downstream symptom of that problem.

So, she formulated a custom herbal powder for me to take. I went up to northern Michigan for my summer trip and continued to wake at 5:30 every morning, but I was usually able to fall back to sleep as long as I had taken Benedryl the night before. Benedryl is not ideal, however, since it tends to deplete acetylcholine and when you deplete your acetylcholine, your short term memory suffers (which mine definitely did!)

So, I continued on, taking my herbs and my Seriphos (to inhibit early cortisol release) and I continued being tired all the time. It can be frustrating waiting for a regimen to take effect, but there usually isn't a quick fix.

Then, in the last two weeks, I began to sleep through the night. I had discontinued the Benedryl at the beginning of August, so I knew that wasn't it. I was no longer waking at 5:30/6 and if I did wake a little earlier than I wanted (usually only about an hour early), I was able to roll over and fall back to sleep. It took about a month for the herbs to start working their magic. I did go through a week or so of intense, excessive dreaming, which leaves you feeling exhausted when you wake, but now that seems to be easing up, as I haven't had that happen in 4 nights now.

Anyway, I'm definitely sleeping so much more normally and my daytime energy has improved just in the last few days, which is a relief. I've a few had days here and there with intense fatigue, so this feels like the light at the end of the tunnel.
I could still do better as far as sleep hygiene and getting to bed a bit earlier, but you know me: ever the night owl... I'll have to keep working on that.

-Erin

Insomniac

I've been meaning to post something new for awhile. I even have a couple of nearly completed posts that have been waiting for weeks to be finished. What is my lame excuse for not getting them done, you ask? Insomnia, I answer. Insomnia has been kicking my butt intermittently for about six weeks, and hardcore for the last two weeks. In fact, I've only had maybe two full night's sleep in the last two weeks and I don't function well like this.

Insomnia and I have an on-again, off-again history. Years ago, I went through a rough spell of waking every few hours or being awake for several hours in the middle of the night. Acupuncture/Chinese herbs took care of that. That combo has also made a difference in my tendency toward excessive REM cycling/lack of delta wave deep sleep (a lesser known sleep disorder), which can make you feel like you hardly slept due to the abundance of vivid, technicolor dreams that result. There are so many kinds of insomnia and some are easier to fix than others.

About a six weeks ago, a mixture of a couple of nights where I had a hard time falling asleep plus me being naughty and staying up late (being the lifelong night owl that I am) resulted in having a hard time falling asleep before 2 am. However, I had no problem sleeping in and getting enough sleep, so, other than being annoyed about waking up late at 10:30 every morning, it wasn't a big deal- more an issue of sleep hygiene than anything. I was able to get back to a more normal sleep schedule without much trouble.

But, then, a few weeks ago, something bad happened: Even though I was finally falling asleep fine, I woke up at 5:30 and couldn't fall back asleep. It happened the next day and the next. For some reason, I could only stay asleep for 5-7 hours (not good when I need 8.5-9 hours). I wasn't able to take a nap, either. The sleep just wasn't happening.

After a week, I was beginning to feel physically exhausted, with a constant headache, (all the while trying to avoid living on coffee) and by week two, my nervous system was beginning to get very out of whack and I began having a lot of anxiety about waking up early, which doesn't exactly help me to fall back to sleep... anyway, it's been hard to be productive, let alone have the brain power I need to finish those posts to my liking (they're a bit more involved than this one).

So, what happens when we don't get enough sleep? We start to build up a considerable sleep debt. Our brain keeps track of how many hours of sleep below our sleep need we're getting, according to Dr. William Dement PhD, the world's foremost sleep researcher and author of the fascinating book "The Promise of Sleep", which is my current bedtime reading. In order to have zero daytime drowsiness, we have to pay back all that sleep debt and sleeping in an extra hour here and there isn't going to cut it if you've built up a sleep debt of, say, 28 hours over the course of a few weeks (like I have).

So, at the moment, a lot of my energy has been taken up with trying to fix my sleep problem. I've decided to work on my sleep hygiene, since it's always been on the bad side, so I purchased The Effortless Sleep Method at the recommendation of a friend. It's a combo of book and brainwave enhancing MP3's, one of which is used during the day to enhance SMR brain waves, which insomniacs tend to not make enough of.


I also went to see my holistic doc and he suspects that my cortisol cycle is out of sync and that I'm releasing my morning cortisol several hours too early, so he had me start taking phosphorylated serine at bedtime, which inhibits cortisol release and normalizes the cortisol rhythm. It can take awhile to work- up to months for people with a long standing issue to normalize cortisol rhythm feedback, but hopefully I'll respond quickly since I've only had this issue for a couple of weeks.

As to why this suddenly started happening, I'm not really sure. The only other time this has happened was late last summer, after a period of intense adrenal stress, leading to adrenal fatigue. I haven't been in that situation recently.

One thing I suspect might be happening is progesterone deficiency, which is notorious for messing up sleep. I've always been deficient to some degree, but levels often start to drop off steeply around age 35 and I'll be 35 this year, so I may be at the tipping point, progesterone-wise.
I've added a small dose of sublingual bioidentical progesterone as a trial. I don't really recommend taking progesterone without saliva tests (which I plan on doing) but I know for a fact that I've never had anything less than somewhat low-to-low progesterone levels. The advantage of sublingual is that it doesn't build up in the body like the cream does, so if you take too much, it won't take months to clear it our of your body.

I've started to make some progress. The first day on progesterone, I was able to take a short nap in the late afternoon for the first time in weeks. It seemed to calm down my nervous system. I've also been taking l-theanine (my favorite chill pill) to help deal with my nervous system hyperarousal during the day. It's awful to be so tired and yet so wired and anxious and the theanine keeps me sane and even-keel.

The other night, between the progesterone and a dose of Nyquil (not something I like to take, but I was desperate!), I managed to stay asleep for 10.5 hours. What a difference that made! The following night of the same cocktail got me 8 hours, but I woke several times (I'm blaming the Nyquil for that). Last night I managed 7 hours without the Nyquil, so I'm rather tired, but at least I'm kind of getting somewhere.

I'll keep you posted about my progress. I know I'm not the only one out there not sleeping well. Wish me luck!

-Erin

Salade Niçoise

I've always wanted to go to the French Riviera; Nice, in particular. The beach, the wine, the food... it's my idea of heaven.

Mediterranean food holds a special place in my heart. I especially love food that involves fish, olives (and olive oil) and fresh vegetables. One of my very favorite dishes is Salade Niçoise, a fun, deconstructed salad involving tuna, crudites, olives, hard boiled eggs and vinaigrette. It's such a flexible dish- there are many versions. Some use canned tuna (high quality yellowfin in olive oil is nice) and some use grilled, some have lettuce, and others don't. Some have anchovies. No matter the construction, it's always easy, festive and I think, elegant.

My own version always involves grilled albacore, tomatoes, eggs, olives, green beans and capers. Those are my core ingredients.

For this Salade Niçoise I used:

-grilled albacore (I marinated it in a bit of coconut aminos, brown mustard and balsamic vinegar).
-hard boiled eggs (I boil them for 8 minutes so I don't overcook the yolks).
-grape (or cherry) tomatoes
-sliced fennel bulb (it has a nice crunch and a mild, anise flavor).
-niçoise olives
-blanched french green beans, a.k.a. haricot verts (regular will work, too).
-radicchio
-sliced radishes
-capers (just a sprinkling!)

I used a simple balsamic vinaigrette (similar to this one) to dress the salad.

Voila! Easy and pretty and certainly yummy.
Enjoy!

-Erin