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Jodi Cohen, award winning journalist and founder of Vibrant Blue Oils, discusses the benefits of essential oils in functional neurology. By stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system, essential oils can shift the brain out of fight-or-flight mode and begin the healing process. Applying oils to trigger points on the body can benefit the entire system of the body, and aid in the recovery process in unexpected ways.

• Points of Interest: 
  • (2:11) Jodi is a best-selling author, an award-winning journalist, functional practitioner, and founder of Vibrant Blue Oils. She has helped over 50,000 clients with brain injury related conditions.
  • (3:32) Youngest child was super sensitive to foods, started getting into nutrition. Husband became severely depressed to the point that he needed to be moved into a residential treatment facility. Jodi became burnt out, and one of her friends introduced her to essential oils to rejuvenate herself. Started a business: sold out of product at a nutrition conference, started making blog posts and filling out orders once her kids were asleep, and the business grew from there.
  • (7:44) Essential oils are concentrated essences of plants. Oils are derived by boiling plants, where the oil separates from the plant through steam. Pharmaceutical drugs have begun incorporating more chemical constituents that are found in plants.
  • (14:49) Activating the parasympathetic branch of the nervous system helps heal the brain. Often, people will get stuck in a paralyzing “fight-or-flight”, and they can shift out of this through the parasympathetic branch and the vagus nerve. The more you can help the vagus nerve shift into the parasympathetic state, the better you feel more quickly.
  • (16:48) Stimulating the Mastoid bone (right behind the ear lobe) helps the vagus nerve because it is most accessible there. Jodi started applying stimulating oils to increase blood flow to that area, and the best combination was clove and lime.
  • (22:07) Point of application is more important than the type of oil. Good places to start include the chest, heart center, inside of the arms, and on the soles of the feet. Oils have a systemic effect regardless of where you apply them.
  • (24:22) “There’s really no wrong way to use an oil.”
  • (27:30) Oxygenating oils help combat brain fatigue by increasing oxygen flow to the brain.
  • (28:56) Anxiety and overwhelm is the right frontal lobe of the brain, and the best way to balance this is to stimulate the left frontal lobe. The easiest way to do that is to smell something, usually through the left nostril.

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Mindfulness is all about allowing ourselves to be in the present moment — not worrying about what happened yesterday, or stressing about something that we have to do tomorrow — it’s about being in the right here and now.

The easiest way to practice mindfulness in any situation, is to simply bring your awareness to your breath. Allowing yourself to feel your chest rise on the inhale, and fall on the exhale. Begin to look around you and notice the colors and shapes surrounding you. Remind yourself that everything is OK. You are safe. You are present for yourself. 

Practice this simple exercise whenever you feel stress and overwhelm begin to creep in.

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by Amy Zellmer

Accessible yoga has become a buzz word in recent years, but what does it really mean?

In the United States, yoga has become more of an ”exercise class” in recent years — if you’ve ever attended a Core Power Yoga class, you know what I’m talking about. Don’t get me wrong, these classes serve a purpose for those seeking high-intensity cardio, but it’s unfair to call these classes ”yoga,“ as yoga should be accessible to everyone and every body, and high-intensity cardio isn’t necessarily accessible.

In order to be truly accessible, the teacher has to first and foremost know how to help students modify poses for a variety of reasons that could include mobility, balance, injury, dysautonomia, or trauma. Of course, no one teacher can be expected to know how to modify for every single issue that could arise; however, they should have a solid basic understanding of how to help their students.

I have been in classes where the teacher tells the student to just stay in child’s pose if they are not able to do whatever “big” pose they are working on in class. That’s simply not fair to the student who would like to learn how to do the pose in a safe, modified way. For some, it would mean remaining in child’s pose for almost the entire class. Some studios promote themselves as “accessible,” and meanwhile you have to walk up two flights of stairs to get to the studio … this is NOT accessible.

It’s not entirely the teacher’s fault; they just haven’t had the proper education in their teacher training (or perhaps didn’t even take a teacher training course). Another reason could be that they never considered themselves in the shoes of someone with a different body from their own (such as a bigger body).

I know that in my early college years when I was thin and bendy, I still had large boobs that got in the way during a low lunge. I would instinctively modify the pose by placing both hands on the inside of foot (instead of one on each side). The teacher came over and asked why I was doing that, and I told her because my boobs were in the way. She kind of giggled and said, “Oh, OK.” Clearly, she had never experienced squished boobs in low lunge pose.

The same holds true for a larger body, a body with thick thighs, a weak body, an older body, or a disabled body. Every single body can do yoga. You don’t have to live in that body in order to know how to help that body modify their yoga in order to receive the incredible benefits of yoga.

In 2014 I suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI). I had a lot of physical injuries in addition to my brain injury symptoms, which include dizziness, balance issues, eye tracking problems, cognitive fatigue, and so much more. I turned to my yoga teacher to help me find yoga poses that I could do, even with all of my injuries. She gave me five poses — that’s it, just five —including tree pose holding onto a chair, eagle arms, seated twists, cat-cow with my neck neutral, and puppy dog pose. 

I did these five poses every single day for 10 minutes. During this time, I began to truly understand the healing benefits of yoga. My body became stronger and I started to gain back more mobility. My balance improved, and my dizziness lessened. If I had not had a teacher who understood how to make yoga accessible to me, I may have never experienced such a transformation in my own recovery.

My own experience is what has motivated me to help others experience the power of yoga in their own recovery, whether it’s from a TBI or a different injury or illness. Or maybe they are just looking for a way to de-stress in their busy lives. Whatever their reason for coming to yoga, I am passionate about helping them realize their full potential and helping them get better tuned-in to their bodies. Many will not need modifications, but for those who do, I am confident in my ability to help them get the most out of their yoga session.

I teach all of my classes how to do a full yoga practice seated in a chair without an inversion. Even a fully able-bodied individual may want to understand the benefits of chair yoga, because you can truly get a full workout by staying seated! 

So back to the question of what does accessible yoga mean?

For me, it means that every single person who walks through my door (or in today’s world, comes into my zoom room) is going to be able to experience a complete yoga practice whether they stay in a chair, don’t participate in inversions, or have to modify every single pose to their ability level. 

Of course, not every single pose can be modified for a disabled or weak body, but we can always find something similar so that they feel they are fully participating … and not just sitting in child’s pose for the entire class. 

Yoga is so much more than just exercise. It has so many amazing benefits including reducing anxiety and stress. A regular yoga practice can help us become stronger and more flexible, while getting in touch with what our body needs in any given moment. Our bodies are constantly telling us everything we need to know, and yoga is an incredible tool to help us listen.

When you begin to unlock the benefits and uncover the ”mystery” of yoga, you will be amazed at what your body is capable of, no matter what body you may be in at the moment. 

Join me for monthly accessible yoga classes via zoom for only $10/month … visit my Patreon site to register. 

Watch my 20 minute brain yoga practice HERE.

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, so let’s explore a few therapeutic strategies.

There are many therapeutic strategies in mental health, and each depends on the patient and the diagnoses.

For example, therapist will often use what is known as eclectic technique therapy for group meetings. The focus of this therapeutic strategy is to get the patient to stay focused, voice their values and beliefs freely without feeling threatened, learn to pay attention, teaching the patient to accept responsibility and so forth. In most events, the groups consist of Interpersonal, Psycho educational, support, and psychotherapy groups. Many of the patients that attend each of the groups have difficulty socializing, staying focused, trusting others, and are often emotional immature or underdeveloped.

Most of the patients were subjects of harsh society and impractical parent/educational up bring. The patients were probably ridiculed, mocked, punished, and so forth. The point then is to bring the patient to a point of survival that does not include fear.

Another strategy used in therapy is the life-picture map which is a method used to bring a person back to the current times. Often the patient will draw pictures that link to their past finally focusing on their status in life, and then onto their goals in life. For example, what do you see in the picture? I see myself standing on a bridge and a car is nearby but I cannot see the man’s face. It is evident that this bridge, car and man is outdated and may have brought forth fear in the individual. Therefore, we can ask the patient did this man hurt you. I am not sure, I feel uncomfortable, but I do not know why?

Ok, let us move on and look at the picture drawn that illustrates you status in life. What do you see in the picture? I see a person confused and hurt. We can see that the person was hurt from this experience, so our next step is to bring the patient to the point of acceptance after opening up the doors to the past. Next, we move onto the goal intended, which is the patient’s future. What do you see in the picture? I see a person striving to obtain his goals. I see that the person has obstacles that he must overcome to reach those goals. Great, now we are on the road to recovery. The patient sees hope. We must achieve this goal. 

Schema-Focused Cognitive Therapy is a strategy utilized in therapy to bring the patient (s) to a level of feeling and understanding his or her inner being and what caused the areas of trouble. For example if a person has a pattern of self-destructive behaviors, such as outrageous outbursts. This means the patient was taught to shout, scream, kick, fight or what-have you and the therapist needs to reconstruct the patient bringing him or her out of the habit and helping them to relate to a new way of dealing with the problem. It is obvious the patient was taught incorrectly and he or she may have endured pain and suffering related to abuse, neglect, and/or violence.

Systematic Desensitization is geared to help patients that are diagnosed with anxiety disorders and/or symptoms. The technique is a trigger-anxiety strategy that helps the patient sees where the triggers are in his or her attacks. For example if the patient has difficulty when the phone rings, since he or she is behind on the bills, it may cause an attack for the patient. The patient obviously does not know how to deal with the problem and is threatened by the sources on the other end of the phone.

The patient will need to learn management skills that will help him or her find a method that works best for him or her to relieve the problem area. The patient also has an issue with avoidance, so therefore we need the patient to take responsibility and face up to his or her problem. We can also see that the patient has suffered a degree of abuse, neglect, and/or underdeveloped growth. Therapy is proving far more achieving than medications and today more strategies and techniques are in development, helping the mentally ill to the road of recovery.   

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