The Chicken And The Eagle

There was a chicken farmer who was a very keen rock climber. One day, climbing a particularly challenging rock face, he came upon a large ledge. On the ledge was a large nest  and in the nest were three large eggs. Eagle eggs.

He knew it was distinctly unecological, and even undoubtedly illegal, but temptation got the better of him and he discreetly put one of the eagle eggs in his rucksack, checking first that the mother eagle wasn’t around. Then he continued his climb, drove back to the ranch, and put the eagle egg in the hen house.

That night the mother hen sat on the huge egg, the proudest chicken you ever saw. And the cock seemed pretty pleased with himself too.

In the fullness of time the egg hatched and the baby eagling emerged. It looked around and saw the mother hen. “Mama!” it squawked.

And so it was that the eagle grew up with its brother and sister chicks. It learned to do all the things that chickens do: clucking and cackling, scratching in the dirt for grits and worms, flapping its wings furiously, and flying a few feet into the air before crashing to the earth in a pile of dust and feathers. And believing above all things that it was totally and absolutely a chicken.

One day late in its life, the eagle-who-thought-he-was-a-chicken happened to look up at the sky. High overhead, soaring majestically on the thermal currents, flying effortlessly with scarcely a beat of its powerful golden wings, was an eagle.

“What’s that?”  said the eagle in awe to his farmyard neighbour. “It’s magnificent. So much power and grace. Poetry in motion.”

“That’s an eagle,” said the chicken. “That’s the King of Birds. It’s a bird of the air. But we, we’re only chickens, we’re birds of the earth.”

And so it was that the eagle lived and died a chicken; because that’s all it believed it was.

Taken from ‘The Magic of Metaphor’ by Nick Owen and credited to Fr. Anthony de Mello SJ

Watermelon Relieves Post-Exercise Muscle Soreness

Encarna Aguayo and colleagues from the Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena in Spain have published a study in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry that supports the use of watermelon juice to relieve post-exercise muscle soreness. They attribute the effect to the amino acid L-citrulline.

Meaning And Purpose Improve Health

Steven Cole et al. from UCLA have recently shown that having a deep sense of purpose and meaning in life can lead to positive genetic changes such as lowering the levels of inflammatory gene expression and strengthening the expression of antiviral and antibody genes. Theoretically, this could mean that those with a strong sense of purpose and meaning have a more efficient immune system and are less susceptible to inflammatory diseases.

Parallels can be drawn with Viktor Frankl’s influential book ‘Man’s Search For Meaning‘. In it, he relates his experiences of life in concentration camps during WWII. He believed that finding a meaning to life was crucial to survival in those terrible circumstances. After the war, he continued his work as a psychiatrist with logotherapy (a form of existential analysis) and became convinced that happiness was to be attained by finding meaning and purpose in life.

“An ounce of practice is worth several tons of theory”

Swami Sivananda

BBC Horizon’s – The Truth About Personality

Yet another great BBC Horizon production presented by Michael Moseley. This time Dr Moseley is on a quest to find out more about personality. In part fueled by a desire to cure 20 years of chronic insomnia and to find out whether he can change his self-confessed pessimistic outlook on life. As a qualified doctor and BBC presenter I guess his pessimism hasn’t served him too badly so far!

In the 70s, Oxford Ohio was the seat of an interesting social experiment. People over 50 years old were questioned and followed over several years to learn more about aging. Professor Becca Levy (Yale University) analysed the data and found that it was in fact attitude that determined longevity. People with positive beliefs about aging live an average of 7.5 years longer than those with negative beliefs. They put it into context by noting that curing cancer would only add 3-4 years life expectancy.

One of the most important personality traits is whether we’re optimistic or pessimistic. Being pessimistic, anxious and neurotic affects our reaction to the world but how can we objectively measure this? Well, it’s been found that these traits lead to an increased activity of the right frontal cortex compared to the left. To measure this, Dr Moseley visited Professor Elaine Fox (University of Essex). It turned out he had 3 times more activity on the right than the left. His pessimism was confirmed! In addition, Prof Fox had him take a test to check his reaction time to dots on a screen. The dots were either preceded by an angry face or a happy face. His reaction time was a lot shorter when the dots were preceded by an angry face. Possibly because he had a habit of focusing more on the negative than the positive.

At MIT Professor Rosalind Picard asked him to wear a wristband whilst they had a chat. The wristband measured his skin temperature and electrical conductivity which are both affected by the autonomic nervous system and so gave a good indication of his emotional state. Dr Moseley’s baseline levels were high, suggesting heightened arousal, even though he felt relaxed. That’s because intriguingly, the body tells us about a change in state before the mind realises.

So now he had evidence indicating he was pessimistic and possibly a little anxious. What could he do about it? Professor Fox suggested using Cognitive Bias Modification (CBM). He simply had to look at screen shots of mainly unhappy faces and spot the one happy face…repeatedly. In theory this decreases the unconscious negative bias by breaking the habit of looking for the negative. Evidence has shown that it helps combat anxiety but not depression. Dr Moseley confided in being self- absorbed, worrying about the past, stressing about the future and as a result being unable to savour the present. So he decided to use CBM 3x/week for about 7 weeks.

His next encounter was with Andy Puddicombe, a former Buddhist monk, who now teaches mindfulness meditation. He said that 10-20 mins of meditation a day would be enough to make a psychological and physiological difference. MRI studies of meditators have shown they have increased grey matter in areas that regulate emotion and increased activity in the left prefrontal cortex which is a centre for positive emotions. The meditation he was taught consisted of focusing on breathing. With training, the mind wanders less down negative habitual routes. So in addition to his CBM training, Dr Moseley decided to do 7 weeks of daily mindfulness meditation.

How does our personality come about? Is it nature or nurture? Professor Tim Spector (King’s College London) has studied identical twins for over 20 years. He believes that 40-50% of personality is based on genetics. His study of discordant twins has revealed that genes can change through life! This is the fascinating field of epigenetics. Genes can be switched on or off by stressful life events. If they can change in one direction they can change in the other, which means we can regain control of our genes!

Professor Michael Meaney’s (McGill University) studies on mice have demonstrated that the effect of good maternal care (more contact, licking) protects rats from anxiety by modifying genes and these changes are transmitted through generations. The hippocampus controls stress, emotion and memory. Better mothering increases glucocorticoid receptors in this part of the brain.

After 7 weeks of CBM and mindfulness meditation Dr Moseley confessed he was sleeping better than he had in the last 10 years! He repeated the tests and measurements with professor Fox and found that he now had less than 2 times more activity in the right frontal cortex than the left. The activity in the right frontal cortex was half of what it previously was. His reaction time was now better when preceded by a happy face than an angry face, which suggested he may be noticing more of the positive in his daily life.

Exercise Prevents Stress

A lot of us know from experience that exercise is a great stress buster. Elizabeth Gould (Professor of Psychology at Princeton) and her associates have clarified the process. Their research was published in the March issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.

Their experiments were performed on mice. The mice were divided into 2 groups:

• Sedentary group: no running wheel
• Active group: free access to a running wheel (mice run about 4 km per day when given a running wheel!)

Six weeks later the mice were exposed to a stressor (cold water). The sedentary group showed an increase in ‘immediate early genes’ (short-lived genes that turn on rapidly when neurons fire). Whereas the active group showed no presence of these genes suggesting no neuronal excitation secondary to the stressor. In the active group, inhibitory neurons were more active and more gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) was released in the brain. GABA is a neurotransmitter that calms down neural excitement.

Gould concluded that “the results suggest that running improves anxiety regulation by engaging local inhibitory mechanisms in the ventral hippocampus”. In layman’s terms, this means that exercise prevents stress and anxiety by suppressing brain agitation.

Acupressure Wristband Relieves Nausea

A few days ago Medical News Today reported on how wearing a wristband could affect nausea. Nausea is one of the most debilitating symptoms experienced by people who get migraine. Dr. Zoltan Medgyessy of the Berolina Clinic in Lohne, Germany studied 41 patients who experienced an average of 33.1 migraine days during the previous three months. Their average nausea intensity was 6.2 out of 10. Within less than 30 mins of wearing the wristbands, over 80% of patients experienced a decrease in nausea symptoms and the average estimated nausea intensity dropped to 2.9 out of 10.

The wristband stimulates the acupuncture point Pc6 (Neiguan) which has been used for centuries in Traditional Chinese Medicine to help relieve nausea. Dr. Medgyessy commented “acupressure wristbands are drug-free and that is an important advantage in using this therapy for migraine nausea as they have no risks for interaction with migraine drugs or the side effects commonly experienced with antiemetics, such as dizziness or tiredness”. The wristbands can also be used for nausea from morning sickness, motion sickness, chemotherapy and post-operative nausea.

“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light”.

Plato

Meditation Decreases Anxiety

It has been known for ages that meditation can decrease anxiety but until now the brain regions involved in the process have remained a mystery. Fadel Zeidan from the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center has recently shed some light on the process. They selected 15 healthy volunteers with no history of meditation or anxiety disorders. The volunteers took four 20 min classes to learn mindfulness meditation. They were taught to focus on breathing and body sensations and non-judgementally assess distracting thoughts and emotions. Anxiety reports and MRI scans were taken before and after the meditation training course. The majority of the subjects displayed a decrease in anxiety of around 40% following meditation. During meditation, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (controls worrying) and anterior cingulate cortex (controls thinking and emotion) were found to be more active and led to decreased anxiety.

Zeidan commented,  “Mindfulness is premised on sustaining attention in the present moment and controlling the way we react to daily thoughts and feelings. Interestingly, the present findings reveal that the brain regions associated with meditation-related anxiety relief are remarkably consistent with the principles of being mindful.” In short, if we focus on our breathing and body sensations in the present, it inhibits our ability to worry about imaginary problems in the future.

Yoga Improves Brain Function More Than Aerobic Exercise

A team of researchers led by Professor Neha Gothe from the University of Illinois recently studied the effects of yoga on mental function. Their subjects performed 3 different sessions:

• A 20-minute Hatha yoga session with progressions from sitting to standing and then lying in a meditative position whilst focussing on breathing
• A 20-minute aerobic work-out on an inclined treadmill with participants working at 60-70% of their maximum heart rate
• A baseline assessment

They found that mental performance after yoga was significantly better for both inhibition and working memory tasks (ie. shorter reaction times, increased accuracy) than after aerobic exercise and after baseline measurements.

Prof Gothe commented that, “The breathing and meditative exercises aim at calming the mind and body and keeping distracting thoughts away while you focus on your body, posture or breath. Maybe these processes translate beyond yoga practice when you try to perform mental tasks or day-to-day activities.”