physical therapy, pearl district, pilates

Sitting is Bad for Your Brain — Not Just Your Metabolism or Heart

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Article Found on ScienceDaily

Sitting too much is linked to changes in a section of the brain that is critical for memory, according to a preliminary study by UCLA researchers of middle-aged and older adults.

Studies show that too much sitting, like smoking, increases the risk of heart disease, diabetes and premature death. Researchers at UCLA wanted to see how sedentary behavior influences brain health, especially regions of the brain that are critical to memory formation.

UCLA researchers recruited 35 people ages 45 to 75 and asked about their physical activity levels and the average number of hours per day they spent sitting over the previous week. Each person had a high-resolution MRI scan, which provides a detailed look at the medial temporal lobe, or MTL, a brain region involved in the formation of new memories.

The researchers found that sedentary behavior is a significant predictor of thinning of the MTL and that physical activity, even at high levels, is insufficient to offset the harmful effects of sitting for extended periods.

This study does not prove that too much sitting causes thinner brain structures, but instead that more hours spent sitting are associated with thinner regions, researchers said. In addition, the researchers focused on the hours spent sitting, but did not ask participants if they took breaks during this time.

The researchers next hope to follow a group of people for a longer duration to determine if sitting causes the thinning and what role gender, race, and weight might play in brain health related to sitting.

MTL thinning can be a precursor to cognitive decline and dementia in middle-aged and older adults. Reducing sedentary behavior may be a possible target for interventions designed to improve brain health in people at risk for Alzheimer’s disease, researchers said.

Grounded in the belief we are all unique beings, we begin each new client with a meticulous bio-mechanical evaluation, assessing each joint in it’s relationship to the movement of the body as a whole. Our therapists are skilled at reading the unique story your body tells, and treating everything from the bottom of your foot to the top of your head.

Bodywise Physical Therapy is located in Portland, Oregon. The Bodywise approach is wholistic, individualized, and can benefit people of all fitness levels. While Bodywise has always specialized in general orthopedics, spine rehabilitation, and sports medicine, they have evolved into a truly wholistic practice integrating Hands-on treatments with Mindfulness, Pilates, Trauma Release Exercise, Women’s Health and Lymphedema.

physical therapist, pearl district

The Brain Has A Negativity Bias. Here’s How To Be Happy Anyway

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Article by Rick Hanson, Ph.D. | Found on MindBodyGreen

Let’s conduct an experiment: Take a moment to think back over your day; which experiences stand out for you?

For most of us, it’s the negative ones. Enjoyable, useful experiences—like smiling at a friend, finishing a task, or learning something new—typically happen many times a day, but they usually wash through the brain like water through a sieve, barely leaving a trace. Meanwhile, our stressful, often harmful experiences—like getting stuck in traffic and being late for a meeting, feeling brushed aside by a friend or misunderstood by a partner, or ruminating about worries or resentments—routinely produce lasting changes in neural structure or function. Read more

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A Lifetime of Regular Exercise Slows Down Aging, Study Finds

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Article Found on ScienceDaily

Researchers at the University of Birmingham and King’s College London have found that staying active keeps the body young and healthy.

The researchers set out to assess the health of older adults who had exercised most of their adult lives to see if this could slow down ageing.

The study recruited 125 amateur cyclists aged 55 to 79, 84 of which were male and 41 were female. The men had to be able to cycle 100 km in under 6.5 hours, while the women had to be able to cycle 60 km in 5.5 hours. Smokers, heavy drinkers and those with high blood pressure or other health conditions were excluded from the study.

The participants underwent a series of tests in the laboratory and were compared to a group of adults who do not partake in regular physical activity. This group consisted of 75 healthy people aged 57 to 80 and 55 healthy young adults aged 20 to 36.

The study showed that loss of muscle mass and strength did not occur in those who exercise regularly. The cyclists also did not increase their body fat or cholesterol levels with age and the men’s testosterone levels also remained high, suggesting that they may have avoided most of the male menopause.

More surprisingly, the study also revealed that the benefits of exercise extend beyond muscle as the cyclists also had an immune system that did not seem to have aged either.

An organ called the thymus, which makes immune cells called T cells, starts to shrink from the age of 20 and makes less T cells. In this study, however, the cyclists’ thymuses were making as many T cells as those of a young person.

The findings come as figures show that less than half of over 65s do enough exercise to stay healthy and more than half of those aged over 65 suffer from at least two diseases.* Professor Janet Lord, Director of the Institute of Inflammation and Ageing at the University of Birmingham, said: “Hippocrates in 400 BC said that exercise is man’s best medicine, but his message has been lost over time and we are an increasingly sedentary society.

“However, importantly, our findings debunk the assumption that ageing automatically makes us more frail.

“Our research means we now have strong evidence that encouraging people to commit to regular exercise throughout their lives is a viable solution to the problem that we are living longer but not healthier.”

Dr Niharika Arora Duggal, also of the University of Birmingham, said: “We hope these findings prevent the danger that, as a society, we accept that old age and disease are normal bedfellows and that the third age of man is something to be endured and not enjoyed.”

Professor Stephen Harridge, Director of the Centre of Human & Aerospace Physiological Sciences at King’s College London, said: “The findings emphasise the fact that the cyclists do not exercise because they are healthy, but that they are healthy because they have been exercising for such a large proportion of their lives.

“Their bodies have been allowed to age optimally, free from the problems usually caused by inactivity. Remove the activity and their health would likely deteriorate.”

Norman Lazarus, Emeritus Professor at King’s College London and also a master cyclist and Dr Ross Pollock, who undertook the muscle study, both agreed that: “Most of us who exercise have nowhere near the physiological capacities of elite athletes.

“We exercise mainly to enjoy ourselves. Nearly everybody can partake in an exercise that is in keeping with their own physiological capabilities.

“Find an exercise that you enjoy in whatever environment that suits you and make a habit of physical activity. You will reap the rewards in later life by enjoying an independent and productive old age.”

The research findings are detailed in two papers published today in Aging Cell and are the result of an ongoing joint study by the two universities, funded by the BUPA foundation.

The researchers hope to continue to assess the cyclists to see if they continue to cycle and stay young.

Grounded in the belief we are all unique beings, we begin each new client with a meticulous bio-mechanical evaluation, assessing each joint in it’s relationship to the movement of the body as a whole. Our therapists are skilled at reading the unique story your body tells, and treating everything from the bottom of your foot to the top of your head.

Bodywise Physical Therapy is located in Portland, Oregon. The Bodywise approach is wholistic, individualized, and can benefit people of all fitness levels. While Bodywise has always specialized in general orthopedics, spine rehabilitation, and sports medicine, they have evolved into a truly wholistic practice integrating Hands-on treatments with Mindfulness, Pilates, Trauma Release Exercise, Women’s Health and Lymphedema.

physical therapy, pearl district

When it Comes to Our Brains, There’s No Such Thing as Normal

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Article Found on ScienceDaily

There’s nothing wrong with being a little weird. Because we think of psychological disorders on a continuum, we may worry when our own ways of thinking and behaving don’t match up with our idealized notion of health. But some variability can be healthy and even adaptive, say researchers in a review published February 20th in Trends in Cognitive Sciences, even though it can also complicate attempts to identify standardized markers of pathology.

“I would argue that there is no fixed normal,” says clinical psychologist and senior author Avram Holmes of Yale University. “There’s a level of variability in every one of our behaviors.” Healthy variation is the raw material that natural selection feeds on, but there are plenty of reasons why evolution might not arrive at one isolated perfect version of a trait or behavior. “Any behavior is neither solely negative or solely positive. There are potential benefits for both, depending on the context you’re placed in,” he says.

For instance, impulsive sensation seeking, a willingness to take risks in order to have new and exciting experiences that has its roots in our evolutionary history as foragers, is often thought of negatively. Increased sensation seeking is associated with things like substance abuse, criminality, risky sexual behavior, and physical injury. “But if you flip it on its head and look at potential positive outcomes, those same individuals may also thrive in complex and bustling environments where it’s appropriate for them to take risks and seek thrills,” he says. They often have more social support, are more outgoing, and exercise more.

The same is true for anxiety. “You might be more inhibited in social situations and you may find it harder to build friendships,” Holmes says. “However, that same anxiety, if you think of it in a workplace setting, is what motivates you to prepare for a big presentation. If you’re in school, that’s the same anxiety that motivates you to study for an exam.” He also notes that we have more control over the contexts we’re in than we tend to think we do, which means that it’s very possible to end up in an environment that favors the way our brains work.

But if variation in any given trait is normal, that does raise questions about what makes for disordered behavior, which he stresses is very much a real phenomenon. “It may be the case that if you focus on a single phenotype, there isn’t a specific line that separates health from disease, and that we must consider multiple phenotypes simultaneously,” he says.

This makes it much more complicated to try to find biomarkers for psychological illness, something that Holmes has worked on throughout his career. The usual approach is to break down a disorder into its component pieces, find a specific associated genetic marker or biological process for a certain piece, and then look for that marker or process in the general population to see if it can predict the disorder. The problem, he says, is that “one single phenotype in isolation is never going to be necessary nor sufficient to cause an illness.”

“What we want to try to do is build multivariate approaches that consider multiple domains of human behavior simultaneously, to see if we can boost our power in predicting eventual outcomes for folks,” he says. Large, open-source datasets have been collected in recent years that can be used in these efforts, but Holmes notes that the work will almost certainly require collaboration between different labs and institutions — some of which is already underway.

What this does mean, though, is that it really isn’t appropriate to think of ourselves in terms of a single trait that’s either good or bad, healthy or unhealthy. “This is a broader issue with our society,” he says, “but we’re all striving towards some artificial, archetypal ideal, whether it’s physical appearance or youthfulness or intelligence or personality. But we need to recognize the importance of variability, both in ourselves and in the people around us. Because it does serve an adaptive purpose in our lives.”

This work was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health.

Grounded in the belief we are all unique beings, we begin each new client with a meticulous bio-mechanical evaluation, assessing each joint in it’s relationship to the movement of the body as a whole. Our therapists are skilled at reading the unique story your body tells, and treating everything from the bottom of your foot to the top of your head.

Bodywise Physical Therapy is located in Portland, Oregon. The Bodywise approach is wholistic, individualized, and can benefit people of all fitness levels. While Bodywise has always specialized in general orthopedics, spine rehabilitation, and sports medicine, they have evolved into a truly wholistic practice integrating Hands-on treatments with Mindfulness, Pilates, Trauma Release Exercise, Women’s Health and Lymphedema.

pilates, physical therapu, pearl district

Mind/Body Connection: How Your Emotions Affect Your Health

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Article Found on FamilyDoctor.org

People who have good emotional health are aware of their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. They have learned healthy ways to cope with the stress and problems that are a normal part of life. They feel good about themselves and have healthy relationships. Read more

physical therapist, bodywise, portland

Exercise Can Significantly Improve Brain Function After Stroke

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Article Found on Newsroom.heart.org

Structured exercise training can significantly improve brain function in stroke survivors, according to research presented at the American Stroke Association’s International Stroke Conference 2017.

Stroke is the fifth leading cause of death in the United States, and the leading cause of long-term disability. Studies estimate that up to 85 percent of people who suffer a stroke will have cognitive impairments, including deficits in executive function, attention and working memory. Because there are no drugs to improve cognitive function, physical activity –  such as physical therapy, aerobic and strength training –  has become a low-cost intervention to treat cognitive deficits in stroke survivors. Read more

physical therapist, pearl district, pilates

What is Brain Plasticity and Why is it So Important?

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Article Found on The Conversation

Neuroplasticity – or brain plasticity – is the ability of the brain to modify its connections or re-wire itself. Without this ability, any brain, not just the human brain, would be unable to develop from infancy through to adulthood or recover from brain injury.

What makes the brain special is that, unlike a computer, it processes sensory and motor signals in parallel. It has many neural pathways that can replicate another’s function so that small errors in development or temporary loss of function through damage can be easily corrected by rerouting signals along a different pathway. Read more

physical therapy, pearl district

Try Exercise to Improve Memory and Thinking

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Article Found on NeuroscienceNews

For patients with mild cognitive impairment, don’t be surprised if your health care provider prescribes exercise rather than medication. A new guideline for medical practitioners says they should recommend twice-weekly exercise to people with mild cognitive impairment to improve memory and thinking. Read more

physical therapy, portland, oregon

Your Breath is Your Brain’s Remote Control

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Article by Crystal Goh | Found on Mindful.org

We have all heard this simple saying during times of trouble: “Take a deep breath in.” Science being science, however, indicates that we may now have to update this old adage to read “Take a deep breath in it will help you be more emotionally aware but only if you inhale specifically through your nostrils and not your mouth—good luck.” Read more

pilates, physical therapy, pearl district

10 Ways Your Mind Can Help You Heal (According To Science)

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Article by Jo Marchant | Found on MindBodyGreen

Jo Marchant is an award-winning science journalist, with a PhD in genetics and medical microbiology. In her rigorously reported new book, “Cure: A Journey Into the Science of Mind Over Body,” Marchant explores the fascinating research into the mind-body connection, including its ability to help us heal.

Harnessing the healing power of the mind doesn’t mean simply thinking the pain away. We can’t wish ourselves better, however much we might want that to be true.

But by harnessing pathways such as expectation, distraction, and social support we can persuade our bodies to ease off on symptoms such as pain, depression, and fatigue, as well as influence physiological functions such as the gut and immune system. Read more