Acupuncture Girl

Meditation’s Influence on Brain Activity

By Rick Nauert PhD Senior News Editor
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on March 26, 2010

The growing popularity of meditation has stimulated scientific investigation on how the technique influences brain function.

“Given the popularity and effectiveness of meditation as a means of alleviating stress and maintaining good health, there is a pressing need for a rigorous investigation of how it affects brain function,” says Professor Jim Lagopoulos.

Lagopoulos is the principal investigator of a joint study on changes in electrical brain activity during non-directive or mindfulness meditation.

The brain always has some level of activity whether we are mentally active, resting or asleep. In the study, researchers monitored the frequency and location of electrical brain waves through the use of EEG (electroencephalography).

Participants were experienced practitioners of Acem Meditation, a nondirective method developed in Norway.

They were asked to rest, eyes closed, for 20 minutes, and to meditate for another 20 minutes, in random order. The abundance and location of slow to fast electrical brain waves (delta, theta, alpha, beta) provide a good indication of brain activity.

During meditation, theta waves were most abundant in the frontal and middle parts of the brain.

“These types of waves likely originate from a relaxed attention that monitors our inner experiences. Here lies a significant difference between meditation and relaxing without any specific technique,” emphasizes Lagopoulos.

“Previous studies have shown that theta waves indicate deep relaxation and occur more frequently in highly experienced meditation practitioners. The source is probably frontal parts of the brain, which are associated with monitoring of other mental processes.”

“When we measure mental calm, these regions signal to lower parts of the brain, inducing the physical relaxation response that occurs during meditation.”

Alpha waves were more abundant in the posterior parts of the brain during meditation than during simple relaxation. They are characteristic of wakeful rest.

“This wave type has been used as a universal sign of relaxation during meditation and other types of rest,” comments Professor Øyvind Ellingsen from Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).

“The amount of alpha waves increases when the brain relaxes from intentional, goal-oriented tasks.This is a sign of deep relaxation, but it does not mean that the mind is void.”

Neuroimaging studies by Malia F. Mason and co-workers at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire suggest that the normal resting state of the brain is a silent current of thoughts, images and memories that is not induced by sensory input or intentional reasoning, but emerges spontaneously “from within.”

“Spontaneous wandering of the mind is something you become more aware of and familiar with when you meditate,” continues Ellingsen, who is an experienced practitioner.

“This default activity of the brain is often underestimated. It probably represents a kind of mental processing that connects various experiences and emotional residues, puts them into perspective and lays them to rest.”

Delta waves are characteristic of sleep. There was little delta during the relaxing and meditative tasks, confirming that nondirective meditation is different from sleep.

Beta waves occur when the brain is working on goal-oriented tasks, such as planning a date or reflecting actively over a particular issue. EEG showed few beta waves during meditation and resting.

“These findings indicate that you step away from problem solving both when relaxing and during meditation,” says Ellingsen.

Several studies indicate better relaxation and stress management by meditation techniques where you refrain from trying to control the content of the mind.

“These methods are often described as nondirective, because practitioners do not actively pursue a particular experience or state of mind.

“They cultivate the ability to tolerate the spontaneous wandering of the mind without getting too much involved. Instead of concentrating on getting away from stressful thought and emotions, you simple let them pass in an effortless way.”

Nondirective meditation yields more marked changes in electrical brain wave activity associated with wakeful, relaxed attention, than just resting without any specific mental technique.

I can’t recommend highly enough the practice of breathing.  Not just as a constant habit, but the intentional practice of paying attention to the breath.

Three deep breaths, it is said, changes the acid/alkaline balance of the body, leading to better health overall.  An overly-acidic body has a poorer immune system and is more prone to disease. 

Meditation is a fabulous practice of stilling the mind. In today’s culture, almost everyone could use more stillness.  Try it.  It will improve your life and your health.

Breathing:

Hyperventilation: Notes on Trance States and Suggestion in Martial Arts From the Abstract of the presented paper:

• This paper examines the relationship between hyperventilation, defined as breathing in excess of metabolic (physiological) requirements, and the phenomena of…

Chinese medicine speaks of three treasures - Jing, Qi/Chi. and Shen.  These are the key to longevity and vitality at any age.  You are born with a certain amount of Jing - like a trust fund - and then your body creates Jing from your everyday activities (food, water, breath, rest, meditation, exercise). This post-natal Jing is like your every day checking account.

While you inherit some of your essential energy, the more important thing is to cultivate your post-natal jing through a good set of habits and moderate lifestyle.  You age more quickly if you expend too much energy and have to overdraw from your ‘trust fund’ in order to keep going.  The way to vitality, youthfulness, and longevity, is to use your energy wisely each day, and to cultivate more ‘daily’ energy through adequate rest, good nutrition, drinking water, and meditating and doing daily moderate exercise. 

Most Westerners abuse their bodies in so many ways to numerous to explain here.  Suffice it to say that the Western lifestyle contributes to the general lack of good health in society.  “Artificial Jing” through coffee, Red Bull, caffeinated sodas, and pharmaceuticals actually drains the ‘trust fund’ more quickly.  People eat poorly and get little sleep, and then feel ill more often than good. 

Here is an article that talks about losing jing:

• People often write me saying they are old and weak and lost too much jing .. what should they do?
• taosim says to practice emptiness meditation and because one thereby cultivates shen (awareness without clinging), this will in time give rise to jing and chi. Why? Jing transforms into chi and chi into shen and vica versa.
• Anything else? Some schools say to eat sesame seeds, which Chinese make into a tasty black soup. A Delicious desert we’d eat in Hong Kong all the time though I like Almond soup a little better.
• The Indians say to eat pistachios and also the marrow from lamb bones.
• Whatever you do, don’t eat the stimulating herbs with ginseng, oysters, etc. that stimulate but do not help renew the body.

The jing-chi-shen phenomena is very profound and hard to realize if you only think of all three as physical phenomena. Anyone into internal arts will wax poetic about the Three Treasures but not many will do much to experience them. Unfortunate too, is the simplistic formula “first jing, then chi and finally shen”. If you have a lot of rice, the pot still won’t cook itself, and if you don’t know what you are doing, you still won’t get a good pot of rice! I prefer the following formulation that I came up with: If you don’t lose your jing (all the forms of it), chi MIGHT manifest (providing you are authentically cultivating) then it is possible to get shen. This is a realistic way to look at it.

Related:

Ritual Purification & Popular Culture

Boosting Kidney Qi

On Breathing and Dantien Cultivation

This support group will serve women and couples in the DC and MD area who are looking for natural alternative to enhance their fertility.    Meetings start in April and will include peer-to-peer support and short informational sessions on natural options for couples who are trying to conceive.  No fee to join, minimal donations to off-set the cost of meeting space.  Acupuncture demonstrations and presentations by herbalists along with handouts and practical advice on how to conceive.

Tell your friends!

A criticism that some make of this science is that acupuncture works, but  it “must be just a placebo effect”. To that I say, check out animal acupuncture, which is visibly effective for the animals who receive it.  Can an animal be subject to a placebo effect, the effect of expectations?  I say, NO. 

Here is the WSJ article, excerpted below:

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Acupuncture has long baffled medical experts and no wonder: It holds that an invisible life force called qi (pronounced chee) travels up and down the body in 14 meridians. Illness and pain are due to blockages and imbalances in qi. Inserting thin needles into the body at precise points can unblock the meridians, practitioners believe, and treat everything from arthritis and asthma to anxiety, acne and infertility.

Does It Work?

While scientists say further research is essential, some studies have provided evidence of acupuncture’s effects.

• Arthritis of the Knee: Acupuncture significantly reduced pain and restored function, according to a 2004 government study.
• Headaches: Two 2009 reviews found that acupuncture cut both tension and migraine headaches.
• Lower Back Pain: Acupuncture eased it in a big study last year, but so did a sham treatment where needles didn’t penetrate the skin.
• Cancer: Has proven effective in reducing nausea and fatigue caused by chemotherapy.
• Infertility: Improves the odds of pregnancy for women undergoing in-vitro fertilization, according to a 2008 review of seven clinical trials.
• Addiction: Often used to help quit smoking, drinking, drug use and overeating, but there is no conclusive evidence that it works.After decades of cynicism, Western medical experts are using high-tech tools to unravel the ancient mysteries of how acupuncture works.

As fanciful as that seems, acupuncture does have real effects on the human body, which scientists are documenting using high-tech tools. Neuroimaging studies show that it seems to calm areas of the brain that register pain and activate those involved in rest and recuperation. Doppler ultrasound shows that acupuncture increases blood flow in treated areas. Thermal imaging shows that it can make inflammation subside.

Scientists are also finding parallels between the ancient concepts and modern anatomy. Many of the 365 acupuncture points correspond to nerve bundles or muscle trigger points. Several meridians track major arteries and nerves. “If people have a heart attack, the pain will radiate up across the chest and down the left arm. That’s where the heart meridian goes,” says Peter Dorsher, a specialist in pain management and rehabilitation at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla. “Gallbladder pain will radiate to the right upper shoulder, just where the gallbladder meridian goes.”

Many medical experts remain deeply skeptical about acupuncture, of course, and studies of its effectiveness have been mixed. “Something measurable is happening when you stick a needle into a patient—that doesn’t impress me at all,” says Edzard Ernst, a professor of complementary medicine at the University of Exeter in England and co-author of the book, “Trick or Treatment.” Acupuncture “clearly has a very strong placebo effect. Whether it does anything else, the jury is still out.”

Even so, the use of acupuncture continues to spread—often alongside conventional medicine. U.S. Navy, Air Force and Army doctors are using acupuncture to treat musculoskeletal problems, pain and stress in stateside hospitals and combat zones in Iraq and Afghanistan. Delegations from Acupuncturists Without Borders are holding communal ear-needling sessions to reduce stress among earthquake victims in Haiti. Major medical centers—from M.D. Anderson in Houston to Memorial Sloan-Kettering in New York—use acupuncture to counteract the side effects of chemotherapy.

In a 2007 survey, 3.2 million Americans had undergone acupuncture in the past year—up from 2.1 million in 2001, according to the government’s National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

The most common uses are for chronic pain conditions like arthritis, lower back pain and headaches, as well as fatigue, anxiety and digestive problems, often when conventional medicine fails. At about $50 per session, it’s relatively inexpensive and covered by some insurers.

It is also generally safe. About 10% of patients experience some bleeding at the needle sites, although in very rare cases, fatalities have occurred due to infections or injury to vital organs, mostly due to inexperienced practitioners.

Most states require that acupuncturists be licensed, and the Food and Drug Administration requires that needles be new and sterile.

Diagnoses are complicated. An acupuncturist will examine a patient’s tongue and take three different pulses on each wrist, as well as asking questions about digestion, sleep and other habits, before determining which meridians may be blocked and where to place the needles. The 14 meridians are thought to be based on the rivers of China, and the 365 points may represent the days of the year. “Invaders” such as wind, cold, heat, dampness, dryness factor into illness, so can five phases known as fire, earth, metal, water and wood.

View Interactive

“It’s not like there’s a Merck Manual for acupuncture,” says Joseph M. Helms, who has trained some 4,000 physicians in acupuncture at his institute in Berkeley, Calif. “Every case is evaluated on an individual basis, based on the presentation of the patient and the knowledge of the acupuncturist.”

Dr. Helms notes that Western doctors also examine a patient’s tongue for signs of illness. As for qi, he says, while the word doesn’t exist in Western medicine, there are similar concepts. “We’ll say, ‘A 27-year-old female appears moribund; she doesn’t respond to stimuli. Or an 85-year old woman is exhibiting a vacant stare.’ We’re talking about the same energy and vitality, we’re just not making it a unique category that we quantify.”

Studies in the early 1980s found that acupuncture works in part by stimulating the release of endorphins, the body’s natural feel-good chemicals, much like vigorous exercise does. Now, a growing body of research suggests that it may have several mechanisms of action. Those include stimulating blood flow and tissue repair at the needle sites and sending nerve signals to the brain that regulate the perception of pain and reboot the autonomic nervous system, which governs unconscious functions such as heart beat, respiration and digestion, according to Alejandro Elorriaga, director of the medical acupuncture program at McMaster University in Ontario, which teaches a contemporary version to physicians.

A specialized MRI scan shows the effects of acupuncture. The top two images show the brain of a healthy subject. In the middle two images, a patient with carpal tunnel syndrome registers pain (indicated by red and yellow). The bottom images show the calming effect (indicated by blue) in the brain after acupuncture.

“You can think Western, you can think Eastern. As long as your needle goes to the nerve, you will get some effect,” Dr. Elorriaga says.

What’s more, an odd phenomenon occurs when acupuncture needles are inserted into the body and rotated: Connective tissue wraps around them like spaghetti around a fork, according to ultrasound studies at the University of Vermont. Helene Langevin, research associate professor of neurology, says this action stretches cells in the connective tissue much like massage and yoga do, and may act like acupuncture meridians to send signals throughout the body. “That’s what we’re hoping to study next,” she says.

“ My former spouse had shingles. Doctors told her that the terrible pain would probably last 2 or 3 years. She got acupuncture treatments, plus some Chinese herbs, and the pain was totally gone with 6 weeks. ”

—Alan Agardi

Meanwhile, neuroimaging studies at the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston have shown that acupuncture affects a network of systems in the brain, including decreasing activity in the limbic system, the emotional part of the brain, and activating it in the parts of the brain that typically light up when the brain is at rest.

Other studies at the Martinos Center have shown that patients with carpal tunnel syndrome, a painful compression of nerves in the wrist, have heightened activity in parts of the brain that regulate sensation and fear, but after acupuncture, their brain patterns more closely resemble those of healthy subjects. Brain scans of patients with fibromyalgia show that both acupuncture and sham acupuncture (using real needles on random points in the body) cause the release of endorphins. But real acupuncture also increased the number of receptors for pain-reducing neurotransmitters, bringing patients even more relief.

The fact that many patients get some relief and register some brain changes from fake acupuncture has caused controversy in designing clinical trials. Some critics say that proves that what patients think of as benefit from acupuncture is mainly the placebo effect. Acupuncture proponents counter that placebos that too closely mimic the treatment experience may have a real benefit.

“I don’t see any disconnect between how acupuncture works and how a placebo works,” says radiologist Vitaly Napadow at the Martinos center. “The body knows how to heal itself. That’s what a placebo does, too.”

Increasing numbers of my friends are going gluten-free, and while I tolerate gluten well, I understand the health benefits of switching to more complex carbs instead of wheat and other glutenous products.   

And, I often wish to cook for my beloved GF friends. 

Here is a wonderful resource for what could be tasty, healthy, and possibly  more expensive ways to cook GF-free.  I say ‘possibly’ because if you consider the costs of the over-indulgence in refined gluten products in our country, it might be more cost-effective if everyone gave up refined flour and switched to Almond Flour and Almond Milk.  But I haven’t done the math to prove this. 

Click here to read more:  Almond Flour

March 17, 2010 — Meditation increases pain tolerance, but you don’t have to devote your life to the practice to derive benefits, new research shows.

Even very brief training in mindfulness meditation had a positive impact on pain perception in the study, conducted by researchers from the University of North Carolina, Charlotte.

They recruited college students who had never meditated before and gave them a single hour of meditation training, spread out over three consecutive days.

Over the course of three experiments, all the study participants were subjected to harmless, but somewhat painful, electric shocks of varied intensity as the session progressed.

The researchers measured the participants rating of pain at “low” and “high” levels, and they also measured changes in the participants’ general sensitivity to pain.

They found that the meditation training appeared to influence pain perception even when the trained study subjects weren’t meditating.

“We have seen the effect in monks who were skilled meditators,” study researcher Fadel Zeidan, PhD, tells WebMD. “But it appears that you don’t need extensive training to benefit. You don’t have to live a monastic life or go to a cave in the Himalayas or spend thousands of dollars on training.”

Meditation Reduces Pain

In the initial experiment, Zeidan says he was not too surprised to find that meditation had a positive impact on pain perception, because meditation is a distraction and distractions are known to influence pain.

“There is only so much that the brain can attend to,” he says.

In another experiment, both meditation and performing math problems were found to reduce high-level pain, but only meditation reduced both high-level and low-level pain.

“This suggests meditation isn’t just a distraction,” Zeidan says. “It is a little more powerful than that.”

The study appears in the March issue of The Journal of Pain.

Zeidan says he believes meditation is effective because it reduces emotional responses to pain, including anxiety and anticipation.

“The main idea behind mindfulness meditation is that everything is in the present moment,” he says. “We know that when someone is expecting a painful stimulus they feel it more. When you focus on the breath in a relaxed way, you are essentially taking that expectation out of the equation.”

3-Minute Meditation Exercise

Psychologist Elisha Goldstein, PhD, who practices in West Los Angeles, has written several books on mindfulness meditation.

He says the practice can reduce physical and emotional pain by helping people break long-held, ineffective patterns of thinking and acting.

And he is not surprised that even minimal meditation training can change the way people perceive pain.

Goldstein says people without formal training can learn the technique by practicing a three-minute exercise he calls ACE a few times a day:

    * Awareness: Spend a minute becoming aware of what is happening right now in your thoughts and emotions.
    * Collecting: Spend another minute collecting your attention on the breath. Notice where you are aware of the breath most prominently. For some people it will be the nostrils, for others the chest or belly.
    * Expanding: Spend a third minute expanding your awareness into your physical body and noticing sensations like tingling, warmth, pulsing, pain, and coolness at individual sites.

“People who practice this two or three times a day, even when they are not experiencing stress, will be more likely to be able to grab on to it during major stress triggers,” he says.

SOURCES:
Zeidan, F. The Journal of Pain, March 2010; vol 11: pp 199-209.
Fadel Zeidan, PhD, postdoctoral research fellow, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Wake Forest, N.C.
Elisha Goldstein, PhD, psychologist, West Los Angeles; co-author, The Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Workbook.
News release, American Pain Society.

From WebMD:

By Salynn Boyles
WebMD Health News

Reviewed by Laura J. Martin, MD

This study only had an N=24, and only compared acupuncture to itself (so-called ‘sham acupuncture’).  I think I can find better studies!  The study does at least give some hope that acupuncture works. 

Excerpt:

Twelve female office workers with chronic neck and shoulder pain received 10 sessions of standard acupuncture and acupressure techniques; another 12 workers had the needles placed in spots a few millimeters away from the points used in a standard treatment.

The intensity of pain reported by the real acupuncture group fell by 70 percent over the course of treatment, and three years later remained at about half the pretreatment level. The pain reported by those in the sham treatment group dipped slightly during treatment, but crept back up afterward; they were in more pain three years later than before the experiment began.

The treatment group also reported a bigger and more lasting drop in headaches.

The highest rate of triplet births, including those which were the result of IVF, was between 1987 and 1991 — before regulations began limiting one embryo transfer at a time.

Acupuncture has been shown to decrease the incidence of “multiples” (twins, triplets), and to help the embryo implant more successfully. 

Before you try IVF, consider acupuncture to enhance your fertility.

————————————-excerpt ——————-

Researchers attribute today’s higher rate of what they call “natural” triplets births  to increased maternal age and an increase in the use of ovulation stimulating drugs.

Also high is the death rate for triplet births, which is nearly 10 times higher than that of singleton births. But the study showed that triplets fare dramatically better when allowed to gestate beyond 28 weeks.

Excerpt:

As a pain physician specialist at LRMC, Major Nguyen recruited his most challenging patients with whom traditional pain treatment offered limited relief. Within minutes of the short golden studs inserted on their ears, many said they enjoyed a pain reduction of up to 75 percent.

A reduction of 25 percent would be considered a success with traditional pain medications, Major Nguyen said. In one case, a patient broke into tears when the severe pain he had been suffering from for more than a year subsided within moments.

…

As an Air Force acupuncturist, Colonel Niemtzow has trained hundreds of his military counterparts. Battlefield acupuncture focuses on locations on the ear that he said have been known for hundreds of years as effective areas for pain control. The ear is also practical because it can be readily accessed whether on the battlefield or in a hospital bed.

Acupuncture can also be a practical means for treating pain in the military, he said, in instances such as a Soldier who develops a migraine headache at the onset of a mission. Where pain medication could cloud the mind and compromise the mission, acupuncture could offer long-lasting relief within minutes.

Introducing acupuncture to doctors trained in traditional Western medicine often meets with raised eyebrows, but the reception is warming.

“In the beginning, many people were skeptical, but after seeing it demonstrated on patients and the benefits achieved — especially in the area of pain — the majority of physicians embraced it and learned how to use it in their practice as an adjunctive therapy,” said Colonel Niemtzow, who is the consultant for alternative and complimentary medicine to the Air Force surgeon general.

The ancient form of medicine was readily received at LRMC, said Col. (Dr.) Stephen Princiotta, the deputy commander for clinical services here.

“The doctors who saw it in action and heard about it have been very excited about the opportunity to add acupuncture as an adjunctive therapy to what we already have been able to accomplish with western medicine,” Colonel Princiotta said.

One LRMC doctor previously trained under Colonel Niemtzow as well as well attending the Helms Medical Institute at the University of California in Los Angeles for an additional 300 hours of acupuncture training. Maj. (Dr.) Teri Simpson is an anesthesiologist by trade, but uses acupuncture one day a week at the LRMC pain clinic with great success.

“I love it,” Major Simpson said. “It can be life-changing when the patient responds immediately and looks at you like you’re a magician.”

Major Simpson said she tells them she doesn’t completely understand how it works but is always happy to see a patient break into a smile who was in misery only minutes before.

In addition to using the small studs that resemble a small pierced earring, Major Simpson uses the longer needles more commonly associated with acupuncture. The frequency of application and the duration of relief vary with each patient, but treatment can progress from about two times a week to as little as once a month or longer. In some cases, further acupuncture treatment may not be required.

Acupuncture doesn’t work for all of her patients; however. About 15 percent do not respond to acupuncture, Major Simpson said, but of the patients that do, their pain reduction often averages about 75 percent.

One of those patients was Army Spc. Bradley Phillips, an Army scout whose back pain while deployed to Iraq increased to the point where he required treatment at LRMC. Specialist Phillips, a 21 year old with the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment out of Fort Hood, Texas, had successfully received acupuncture treatment before by an Army medic and enthusiastically agreed to for the opportunity to be a part of the battle acupuncture program.

Specialist Phillips said he preferred acupuncture because it allowed him to avoid taking pain medications and their side effects. As Major Simpson applied two studs in his left ear and five in his right, as well as a few probes into his lower back with a longer needle, Specialist Phillips’ pain slowly eased away.

“While I’m just standing here I feel a lot better,” he said. In addition, the young Soldier edged the closest he’d been to touching his toes in six months.

For Senior Airman Jillian Sandbothe, traditional pain medication could never ease the headaches and upper back pain resulting from whiplash caused by a rear-end collision last April.

“It was amazing,” she said of her initial acupuncture treatment that provided total relief from her headache. “I couldn’t believe it the first time it happened. I could almost function like a normal person again.”

Studs used for battlefield acupuncture barely penetrate the skin and fall out in about three days. When that occurred, her headaches returned and Airman Sandbothe arrived at the LRMC pain clinic for follow-up treatment. As before, the pain diminished as Simpson plied her acupuncture craft.

“I don’t know how it works and I don’t really care as long it keeps working,” said Airman Sandbothe, who is assigned to the 52nd Component Maintenance Squadron at Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany.

Realize it’s possible, instead of telling yourself why you can’t.
Become aware of your self-talk.
Squash negative thoughts like a bug.
Replace them with positive thoughts.
Love what you have already.
Be grateful for your life, your gifts, and other people.
Every day.
Focus on what you have, not on what you haven’t.
Don’t compare yourself to others.
But be inspired by them.
Accept criticism with grace.
But ignore the naysayers.
See bad things as a blessing in disguise.
See failure as a stepping stone to success.
Surround yourself by those who are positive.
Complain less, smile more.
Image that you’re already positive.
Then become that person in your next act.

Focus on this habit first, and you’ll have a much easier time with any other.

Excerpt:

[Conscious Breath] engages what scientists call the parasympathetic nervous system, a complex biological mechanism that calms and soothes us.

How does slower breathing help? In stressful times, we typically breathe too rapidly. This leads to a buildup of oxygen in the bloodstream and a corresponding decrease in the relative amount of carbon dioxide, which in turn upsets the ideal acid-alkaline balance - the pH level - of the blood. This condition, known as respiratory alkalosis, can result in muscle twitching, nausea, irritability, lightheadedness, confusion, and anxiety.

In contrast, slowing the breath raises the carbon dioxide level in the blood, which nudges the pH level back to a less alkaline state. As the blood’s pH changes, the parasympathetic nervous system calms us in a variety of ways, including telling the vagus nerve to secrete acetylcholine, a substance that lowers the heart rate.

Excerpt:

OBJECTIVE: To estimate the efficacy of acupuncture for depression during pregnancy in a randomized controlled trial.

METHODS: A total of 150 pregnant women who met Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (Fourth Edition) criteria for major depressive disorder were randomized to receive either acupuncture specific for depression or one of two active controls: control acupuncture or massage. Treatments lasted 8 weeks (12 sessions). Junior acupuncturists, who were not told about treatment assignment, needled participants at points prescribed by senior acupuncturists. All treatments were standardized. The primary outcome was the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression, administered by masked raters at baseline and after 4 and 8 weeks of treatment. Continuous data were analyzed using mixed effects models and by intent to treat.

RESULTS: Fifty-two women were randomized to acupuncture specific for depression, 49 to control acupuncture, and 49 to massage. Women who received acupuncture specific for depression experienced a greater rate of decrease in symptom severity (P<.05) compared with the combined controls (Cohen’s d=0.39, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.01-0.77) or control acupuncture alone (P<.05; Cohen’s d=0.46, 95% CI 0.01-0.92). They also had significantly greater response rate (63.0%) than the combined controls (44.3%; P<.05; number needed to treat, 5.3; 95% CI 2.8-75.0) and control acupuncture alone (37.5%; P<.05: number needed to treat, 3.9; 95% CI 2.2-19.8). Symptom reduction and response rates did not differ significantly between controls (control acupuncture, 37.5%; massage, 50.0%).

CONCLUSION: The short acupuncture protocol demonstrated symptom reduction and a response rate comparable to those observed in standard depression treatments of similar length and could be a viable treatment option for depression during pregnancy.

Dean Ornish talks about simple, low tech, low cost, ancient interventions to create/ restore health.  Pet Scans show that they work, without drugs, without surgery.

The real epidemic is loneliness and depression.  If you watch until the very end, Dr. Ornish explains the real difference between Illness and Wellness.

I’m a big fan of Michael Pollan’s Food Rules.  Alas, the US Government has not read Pollan’s book.  This ignorance must be why they are making it possible through the magic of food subsidies for McDonald’s and other restaurants to bring us McMeat and other non-food items.

Pollan says:  “Make no mistake: our health care crisis is in large part a crisis of the American diet — roughly three quarters of the two-trillion plus we spend on health care in this country goes to treat chronic diseases, most of which can be prevented by a change in lifestyle, especially diet. And a healthy diet is a whole lot simpler than the food industry and many nutritional scientists — what I call the Nutritional Industrial Complex — would have us believe. After spending several years trying to answer the supposedly incredibly complicated question of how we should eat in order to be maximally healthy, I discovered the answer was shockingly simple: eat real food, not too much of it, and more plants than meat. Or, put another way, get off the modern western diet, with its abundance of processed food, refined grains and sugars, and its sore lack of vegetables, whole grains and fruit.”

More from Michael Pollan:

#11 Avoid foods you see advertised on television.

Food marketers are ingenious at turning criticisms of their products — and rules like these — into new ways to sell slightly different versions of the same processed foods: They simply reformulate (to be low-fat, have no HFCS or transfats, or to contain fewer ingredients) and then boast about their implied healthfulness, whether the boast is meaningful or not. The best way to escape these marketing ploys is to tune out the marketing itself, by refusing to buy heavily promoted foods. Only the biggest food manufacturers can afford to advertise their products on television: More than two thirds of food advertising is spent promoting processed foods (and alcohol), so if you avoid products with big ad budgets, you’ll automatically be avoiding edible foodlike substances. As for the 5 percent of food ads that promote whole foods (the prune or walnut growers or the beef ranchers), common sense will, one hopes, keep you from tarring them with the same brush — these are the exceptions that prove the rule.

From “Food Rules”:

#19 If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don’t.

#36 Don’t eat breakfast cereals that change the color of the milk.

This should go without saying. Such cereals are highly processed and full of refined carbohydrates as well as chemical additives.

#39 Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself.

There is nothing wrong with eating sweets, fried foods, pastries, even drinking soda every now and then, but food manufacturers have made eating these formerly expensive and hard-to-make treats so cheap and easy that we’re eating them every day. The french fry did not become America’s most popular vegetable until industry took over the jobs of washing, peeling, cutting, and frying the potatoes — and cleaning up the mess. If you made all the french fries you ate, you would eat them much less often, if only because they’re so much work. The same holds true for fried chicken, chips, cakes, pies, and ice cream. Enjoy these treats as often as you’re willing to prepare them — chances are good it won’t be every day.

#47 Eat when you are hungry, not when you are bored.

For many of us, eating has surprisingly little to do with hunger. We eat out of boredom, for entertainment, to comfort or reward ourselves. Try to be aware of why you’re eating, and ask yourself if you’re really hungry — before you eat and then again along the way. (One old wive’s test: If you’re not hungry enough to eat an apple, then you’re not hungry.) Food is a costly antidepressant.

#58 Do all your eating at a table.

No, a desk is not a table. If we eat while we’re working, or while watching TV or driving, we eat mindlessly — and as a result eat a lot more than we would if we were eating at a table, paying attention to what we’re doing. This phenomenon can be tested (and put to good use): Place a child in front of a television set and place a bowl of fresh vegetables in front of him or her. The child will eat everything in the bowl, often even vegetables that he or she doesn’t ordinarily touch, without noticing what’s going on. Which suggests an exception to the rule: When eating somewhere other than at a table, stick to fruits and vegetables.

Ask yourself, for the sake of what do you rush from activity to activity?  Does it really serve you, your family, your loved ones?  This blog post is not a theoretical exercise, but the experience of a real girl with real kids, making tough choices about how to spend her time.

This is healthy.