Category Archives: Health & Medicine

“Citizen contact tracers”

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(KMIZ TV) “The Cole County (MO) Health Department said in a Thursday morning news release it restructured how the department handles contact tracing. The new process instructs residents who have tested positive, to be their own contact tracers. […] Previously, health department staff reached out to people who may have been exposed to COVID-19. Now, that responsibility is in the hands of Cole County residents. […] The department said this was done in an effort to cut down on wait time and cut down on residents who may be unknowingly transmitting the virus.”

Sounds like the health department is overwhelmed. And “starting next week the department will no longer report active cases.” Uh oh.

So, we we won’t know how bad things really are? As for relying on friends and neighbors to let me know they might have exposed me to the virus… yeah, right.

Breath

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Breath: The New Science of A Lost Art (James Nestor)

(Amazon) “There is nothing more essential to our health and well-being than breathing: take air in, let it out, repeat twenty-five thousand times a day. Yet, as a species, humans have lost the ability to breathe correctly, with grave consequences.”

“Journalist James Nestor travels the world to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it. The answers aren’t found in pulmonology labs, as we might expect, but in the muddy digs of ancient burial sites, secret Soviet facilities, New Jersey choir schools, and the smoggy streets of São Paulo. Nestor tracks down men and women exploring the hidden science behind ancient breathing practices like Pranayama, Sudarshan Kriya, and Tummo and teams up with pulmonary tinkerers to scientifically test long-held beliefs about how we breathe.”

I found this book absolutely fascinating. Some of my favorite bits: Continue reading →

Slow breathing

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From a study on “The physiological effects of slow breathing in the healthy human“:

“Slow breathing practices have been adopted in the modern world across the globe due to their claimed health benefits. This has piqued the interest of researchers and clinicians who have initiated investigations into the physiological (and psychological) effects of slow breathing techniques and attempted to uncover the underlying mechanisms.”

I spend a hour a day (sometimes 90 min) on the meditation cushion and it’s pretty much just follow the breath. I experience both psychological and physiological benefits. My BP can drop as many as 15 points after a 15 minute session.

“While changes in the cardiovascular system can induce changes in respiration, the influence that respiration has on the cardiovascular system is reportedly stronger. Studies in healthy humans have found that controlled slow breathing, particularly at 6 breaths per min, is associated with an increase in fluctuations of both blood pressure and heart rate, compared to breathing at a typical rate.”

I average about four breaths per minute during a typical session.

Cardio isn’t enough

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A couple of years ago I added some resistance training to my workout (30 minutes a day on the treadmill). Started with little (5 pound) barbells working mostly on my upper body. Just trying to keep some muscle tone as I age. After a while I moved up to 10 pound weights and that seems about right. I had no idea if the weights were doing me any good but a piece in The Washington Post argues that cardio isn’t enough, you need resistance training, too.

The piece sites a couple of studies including research that shows weight training reduces your risk of diabetes, stroke ad heart disease. Similarly, “a 2019 study, which included nearly 13,000 people, performing resistance training for less than an hour per week was associated with roughly 40 to 70 percent decreased risk of cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality — independent of any aerobic exercise.” The article explains how resistance training yields these benefits.

So I’ll keep my little weight bench and my baby barbells and keep pumping till I can’t pump no more.

Day-tight Compartment

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Journalist and novelist Molly Jong-Fast calls herself “a pandemic-shutdown champion.”

I sit in my apartment day after day, week after week, focused on getting through the next few hours and not allowing myself to worry too much about, or even think too much about, the future. For this superpower, I have to thank Alcoholics Anonymous.

An older fellow in one of her AA meetings used to say he lived “in a day-tight compartment.” He only concerned himself with the activities in the current 24 hours. Back in March the author had to quarantine for two weeks but didn’t think of it as two weeks:

I thought of it as one day and then another day and another. The two weeks passed, but the pandemic did not. So I continued to live “in a day-tight compartment.” I still do. Every night at 8 p.m., I attend my Zoom AA meeting. Every morning, I think, Today I won’t drink and Today I’ll stay home and not contract the coronavirus.

Ms. Jong-Fast says she’s as obsessed with getting back to normal as everyone else is…

“…but I try not to worry about when that will be possible. I’ll lose it if I think in terms of hanging on until there’s a vaccine. Some people may find it helpful to tell themselves, It’s not forever. It’s just a few months. In my experience, though, when there’s no firm deadline for the end of an ordeal—and no one really knows when the pandemic will end—it’s better to focus on getting through the day. Life isn’t lived two weeks from now, or two months from now. Life exists in the moment and nowhere else.”

She knows this winter will be “one of the hardest, saddest winters of (her) lifetime. We all know it.”

“But it’s not winter 2020; we don’t live in winter 2020 until we do. All any of us have is right now. The only time we can possibly occupy is this moment of this day, and today I can drink my coffee, not my vodka, try to get my teenagers to talk to me, and do the next right thing.”