What A Find !
Thanks to Paul Barraclough for reading New Scientist and forwarding us a remarkably interesting article. It, along with a short reference from the ABC’s program ‘Catalyst’ conveys information directly relevant to the significance of receiving good bodywork. It is certainly very validating and inspiring information and forms the basis of this month’s article. I would also like to thank the ATO. The Australian Tax Office has booked me to present a class on posture next month as part of their well-being program. Please contact us if you would like to take advantage of a presentation in your work-place or area. Educating people in effectively developing and utilising their awareness of posture and movement is part of our area of expertise.
This month’s Body Harmony® update has five items:
A reminder about New Orleans in May. The time is drawing closer and you can still enroll . Call me 0n +61 (0)7 5485 3099 and check out the post at https://healthinperspective.org/general/neworleans2011/
Body Harmony® – the Gold Coast Sunday March 27 Upper Beechmont – afternoon information session and private sessions with Duncan Hogg. Contact Scott Quilliam for details.
Private treatments with Duncan Hogg for one day on the Gold Coast, Queensland. Monday, March 28. To book, email Duncan.
The One Month Program – is now open to your enrollment. To download the brochure please – follow this link. The event runs from October 15 – November 13 with Dr Don McFarland – the founder of Body Harmony® and a bona-fide legend of manual medicine. Read the article below and find out why this event will be of tremendous benefit.
Genes, Behavior, Movement & Body Harmony®
This article helps to convey a little more light on the value of Body Harmony® and it comes from a brief viewing of an Australian science television program called ‘Catalyst’, broadcast on the ABC network in Australia. This program aired in 2005. It was a study of the link between genes and behavior. In the study psychologist Dr Richie Poulton of Otago University in New Zealand asked the question, “Could there be behavior genes that were triggered by the environment?”
Well the answer to that question is yes. The concurrent study of life experience and genetics has been remarkably revealing. Genes were found for predisposition to anger and depression in times of stress. The findings, based on what is considered to be one of the best studies of it’s kind in the world, found that, put simply, if you have the violence gene and a traumatic childhood you become prone to violence as a behavioral expression. If you have the gene, but not the upbringing, the violent behavioral expression is absent.
For me, the logical question is how. How do these traumatic life experiences engage the ‘anger’ gene or other such behavioral predispositions? A likely contender from my point of view is posture. Yes, posture. Posture is the physical expression or embodiment of these events – the unresolved adaptations if you like. Perpetuated physical survival responses change the stresses acting upon and within your cells and cellular matrix. It changes the movement and energetic patterns of the individual. Let us consider the revelations of the ‘New Scientist’ article entitled “The healing touch – The secret to repairing our bodies and growing new organs is getting all touchy-feely”. The article is written by Bob Holmes.
Our sense of touch, it appears, is also experienced by our cells, – they have a sense of touch also. And it seems that this sense of touch, which can also be considered as the way the surrounding environment is being received by the cell, is having remarkably deterministic effects on the activities of each cell. In recent years the tools to register such tiny forces acting upon our cells has come in the form of devices such as Atomic Force Microscopes (AFM). To quote Wikipedia, “The AFM is one of the foremost tools for imaging, measuring, and manipulating matter at the nanoscale.” Denis Discher, a biophysical engineer from the university of Pennsylvania conducted some experiments with an AFM using ‘mesenchymal stem cells’ – which become or evolve into various cell types including muscle and bone. In the experiment they manipulated levels of stiffness – “the resistance of an elastic body to deformation by an applied force…”* each resulting in a different type of cell evolving from the stem cells. Essentially the direction the stem cell takes is influenced by it’s recognition of the environment in which it finds itself and this communication of ‘isometric pressure’ is effected through the cell membrane. And now my favourite quote from the New Scientist article,
“in practice, this means changes in external tension – such as differences in the stiffness of the matrix, or the everyday stresses and strains of normal muscle movement – can be transmitted into the cell and ultimately to the nucleus, where they can direct the cell’s eventual fate.”
Dr Don McFarland DC, the founder of Body Harmony® has lectured for decades about posture and mindset. He has stated for many years that “The issue is in the tissue but it doesn’t have to stay there”. Environment, whether it be the environment of your childhood, or the environment of your (internal) cellular matrix, is having a determinant effect on your well-being. The internalising of your environment and experiences of life – your process of ‘embodiment’ – becomes a personally incorporated influence apparently on and within your cells, which inevitable determines the quality of your experience, ie your day-to-day experience. It may just be responsible for ‘turning on’ (or off) certain genes. This physical process of embodiment, expressing in posture(s) may also be accompanied by areas in your body of movement restriction and energetic inactivity. And this becomes a point of reference for the interpretation of your world. These movement restrictions may also ultimately determine the behavior of your stem cells, if indeed the stem cells rely on information from their environment to determine what they actually become.
This New Scientist article (Mag issue 2747 – can be purchased online) is particularly validating for anyone who has spent time in the Body Harmony® classroom, or as a client. Our focus on pulsation, consent, wave motion and other salient features of touch, which have been evolved from listening to the feedback offered by many different bodies, may well have arrested the development of many disease processes along with supporting desirable behavioral change. It has certainly changed the life and health of many participants. Movement may well become recognised as the true medicine of our bodies. Not chaotic, jarring movement but pulsating, rhythmical, innate and flowing movement. Movement that brings harmony back to the entire organism, unifying the fragmented aspects of our internal relationships.
And so the question arises, – how are you, within yourself. Could you become a more cohesive physical, functional whole? How are you breathing? Do you need to bring some focus to your body? What new behaviors could you choose to make a difference. A new world awaits.
The 2011 One Month Program is open for enrollment. Early registration discounts apply. Payment plans available.
Health & Happiness
Duncan Hogg & Gina Carruthers
* Wikipedia definition