The Baseline: Happiness Science

A whole lot of marketing focuses on happiness. Almost every advertisement begins with the assumption that you are not happy enough and what is offered will make you happier. People ask all the time, “Are you happy?” Do we know what we are asking about? What is happiness? What makes you happy? How happy can you get? How long can happiness last? Is it good to be happy all the time?

BigThink has some research on this elusive emotional skill, psychology, practice, currency.

“Activities such as exercise, expressing gratitude, altruism, and taking time to savor or appreciate the good things in life have all been shown to influence short-term wellbeing very much, and there is evidence that they can nudge that hedonic set point up the scale in the long-term as well.

Additionally, the hedonic treadmill is due, in part, to processes of desensitization and adaptation — we get used to things. Because of this, variety is a powerful means of combatting the hedonic set point's inexorable tug. Persistently engaging in a variety of positive activities or varying how one performs a given positive activity can trick your stubborn brain into actually feeling good about things.”

Myofascial Memory

Very interesting view on the conversation about cognition, time, and tissue.

LearnMuscles.com

“Research has found that fascia is richly innervated with nerve endings, making it a “tissue of communication.” Under certain dysfunctional conditions, a neuro-fascial interaction may be responsible for the setting of a local tissue “memory” (peripheral sensitization). Thus, touch or manual therapy may “unload” the tissue, causing a change in neural input to the brain which may trigger the memory.”

Self Compassion Meditation

BigThink has a research article on the health benefits of Self-Compassion meditation.

Which brings us to a new study, conducted at the Universities of Exeter and Oxford and published in the journal Clinical Psychological Science on February 6. The research team assigned two short-term self-compassion exercises to 135 participants alongside control conditions that involved negative, neutral, and positive valences. The results: people feel better, physically and mentally, when they practice kindness.

Specifically, when practicing self-compassion, the volunteers experienced reduced arousal — heart rate and skin conductance, increased parasympathetic activation, heart rate variability, etc. Their nervous systems responded better when their mindset invoked kindness instead of excitability and agitation. It's an interesting finding, however "the underlying processes for this," as the researchers explicitly state, are still "not well understood."

Stretching Treats Inflammation, Does Help with Cancer?

Article discussing the effects of stretching and cancer treatment. Considering the amount of tissue winding and unwinding involved with internal arts method, this allows for a ringing out of the tissue as well as a stretching.

You Need a Bigger Cup

Clients ask how often they should get massage. My general answer is that getting a massage once a month is very helpful for a number of reasons. How often depends on how intense their activity is.  Are they an athlete, or has their body been through some kind of trauma? But massage functions best as part of a whole program, and is by no means a panacea.

The major function of massage is to place the soft tissues in the optimal state for recovery.  The metaphor I have been using lately, is that massage is the condiment on your therapy sandwich. You need a full physical program that includes range of motion therapy and restorative exercise that counter the physical habits or event that led to imbalance and discomfort. How does the sandwich analogy work with this?

Let's try another analogy. Your body builds up tension all day, like a cup being filled with water. Every time you deal with physical stress (inactivity is physically stressing), or mental stress, your cup fills a little. When you feel pain, that's when the water starts to flow over the top of your cup. Massage helps empty the cup. Yet, it doesn't actually change the cup. Massage makes the cup ready for change. That is, if you get a massage, but don't introduce compensating exercises or movements, then your cup fills up again quickly. However learning new movements to help train your body to deal with stress, increases the size of your cup.  

So consider this, coping with stress requires 2 steps: 1) empty your cup 2) build a bigger cup.

Anxiety, Pain, and Insomnia Research

Massage and guided visualization techniques tested.

"The dramatic improvements in patient self-reported scores in pain, anxiety and difficulty sleeping indicate the positive impact to patients' well-being," 

On Fascia

Research on fascia...it connects everything, but there is so little modern science understands about its roll.

Slow Movement Builds Coordination

Slow is better...bettermovement.org has a nice article on how slow movement builds better coordination.