Hello, good people!

Evidence of a strong push by the military to educate and prepare its service people about combat stress can be found on this web page from Camp Leatherneck in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. This is a simple explanation of how combat stress can manifest once a warrior is back home, and it’s just a sample of a fresh, enlightened approach toward posttraumatic stress and traumatic brain injury that is making its way through each branch of the service.

The Veterans Administration is also opening up to new methods - including guided imagery- as never before. Individual VAMC’s have always been inventive pioneers in bringing effective new tools to their vets.  But up until recently, top-down interest was fairly limited to a very narrow range of techniques, some of which are just not practical for cross-country implementation. This is now changing too. 

Listen up, guided imagery lovers.  At long last, a scholarly book on PTSD gives serious cred to guided imagery as a viable treatment option for posttraumatic stress.  Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: Basic Science and Clinical Practice, a volume edited by Peter Shiromani, Terrence Keane, and Joseph E. LeDoux, got reviewed in the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association.
 
The book focuses on epidemiology, neurobiology, MRI studies, animal models, arousal and sleep issues, clinical trials, and treatment strategies for clinicians.

Three treatment strategies are discussed: guided imagery, pharmacologic treatment and virtual reality exposure therapy. Jennifer Strauss wrote the chapter on imagery.

Hello again.

Well, there are two more weeks of free Tuesday teleseminars on posttraumatic stress from NICABM, featuring nationally recognized experts, Diane Poole Heller and then Peter Levine of Waking the Tiger fame….  Check out this rare opportunity to learn from these nationally acclaimed experts here.

When I was first introduced to Playaways (preloaded digital audio players), I wondered why someone would use them, over, say, a CD or a download.  But just last week, an old college friend of mine helped shake out one answer to that question.

Huffington Post, along with Health.com, is featuring a series of articles on ways to de-stress during the month of May, called Unplug and Recharge.  Each day they add more approaches.  There’s some really good stuff in here - even if some of the content is not completely new to you, you’ll find good reminders and new ways of thinking about the suggestions - about breathing, yoga, how to eat, exercising, positive mind-tricks, changing the way you use time, clearing away clutter, and lots more.

I got to add a little piece of my own, describing guided imagery, complete with a link to a free audio stream. That’s here.

Hello again.

I recently listened to our Weight Loss imagery (to see if it could still goose my wheezy old metabolism the way it used to - and I think it’s making a dent, although not to the degree it did on my sprightly, 45-year-old self!)…. and imagine my surprise when I heard some seriously whistling sibilance with some of the s-sounds.  Yikes.  It sounded fine at the time we made that recording, back in the mid-90’s, but every year Bruce the Engineer upgrades his equipment and we’ve gotten spoiled.  He’s had superb sibilance reduction for years now.  So we’re now in the process of re-mastering those older audios and bringing them up to speed.  Hopefully you won’t even notice the difference, but we sure do.

Hello again, everyone.

We heard from a lot of you - on the blog, on Facebook, by email and phone - about your displeasure (if not downright outrage) at the way posttraumatic stress is being portrayed as incurable in recent AP and NYT articles, and on a couple of radio interviews, too. 

It really is misinformation (well-intended but ignorant) - and you all inspired me to submit a rant on Huffington Post, which you can find here.  Please check it out and add your 2 cents worth under the piece - it all adds up and has a real, cumulative impact, and that’s what we want.  In fact, these pieces seem to spread out on other news feeds and blogs that are read by military and veterans organizations, and yes, even branches of the armed services.  So please have at it, people!   It makes a difference.

Well, last week I finished recording the new Spiritual Guide imagery and then kept my fingers crossed while awaiting Bruce the Engineer’s verdict on post-editing sound quality.  I’d taken some extreme measures to ensure my voice would work OK. This entailed imbibing gallons of water, sleeping with a gigantic humidifier, avoiding dairy and wheat, letting up on the coffee and avoiding wine altogether; and liberally spraying my throat with the Divine Martha Howard’s Chinese medicine (a dark green dust made from mold grown on the rind of watermelons… I kid you not.  Could I make this stuff up?)
 
Well, it worked.  Got the thumbs-up from Bruce.  So now it’s onward to mixing the music with Bruce and Steve while Cindy’s team whips up the packaging.  Now I can focus on writing the new imagery for heartbreak, abandonment and betrayal.  Thanks to your generous feedback and insights, I’ve got everything I need to roll.

Lynne Newman’s wonderful, new CD, Divine Alchemy, is flying out of the warehouse (not to mention our download server) and, as you can see, getting rave reviews.

Like Lynne’s other work, this guided meditation comes from some kind of special higher wisdom channel she’s got, and it’s pretty inspired and profound.  This program addresses transforming your life, transcending difficulties, connecting with powerful spiritual sources and - um - helping the rest of humanity.  (Lynne does not mess with the small stuff.)  This is big medicine and listeners immediately feel the authenticity and power of its unique mojo.

Hello, everyone.

Cheryl tells us this is Parkinson’s Month.  As most of you know, PD is a fairly common neurological disease that affects a small area of cells in the mid-brain called the substantia nigra.  When these cells degenerate, there’s a reduction in levels of the neurotransmitter, dopamine.  Andy Weil suggests that PD may also be related to deficiencies in omega-3 fatty acids.

The most familiar symptoms are tremors in hands, arms, legs, jaw or face; a generalized slowness or stalling of movement (bradykinesis); stiff limbs; rigid facial expressions; low-volume speech; problems with balance or gait; and sleep disturbances.  Depression often precedes the onset of these physical signs, and mental function can sometimes deteriorate in very advanced cases.  Many people can stay in very good shape for years with this.  So far, there’s no cure for it, but its progress can be slowed down and new research results and discoveries are happening all the time.

Hello again.

I was intrigued and puzzled by the results from last week’s Virtual Reality research, showing that a session of virtual reality relaxation actually increased the perceived pain by 30% of burn patients getting their dressings changed (already a very painful procedure).  I wondered if it had anything to do with giving the session ahead of time (instead of during the procedure), thus increasing the anticipation of pain; or if it had to do with using straight relaxation content, as opposed to distraction content.  (An older study with chemo patients showed that distraction was far more effective at alleviating anxiety and distress than relaxation imagery during that procedure.)