PUBLISHED WORK SAMPLE:
Conquering Chronic Headaches: Somatic Self-care for Transforming Pain, by Jan Mundo
Charles used to visit my office in the throes of a three-day sick migraine. He began each visit nauseated and so weak that he could barely hold his head up; his face emitted a grey-green pallor. Forty years old, he had been dealing with his migraines, using one medication or another, since he was twelve. Following my one-hour headache treatment, his color would turn from green to white, and his posture would straighten. He would announce that his headache was gone and that he was hungry and ready to go home, eat, and sleep.
Charles is one of an estimated forty to fifty million people in the United States who experience chronic headaches. Fifteen to twenty-five million of them are debilitated by migraines, two-thirds of whom are women. Research studies show that employers and workers spend an astonishing $1.3 billion each year on medical treatment for chronic headaches. Missed and inefficient work due to headaches and migraines takes an even greater toll on businesses with an additional $13 billion in lost productivity annually.1
These statistics provide ample evidence that the conventional approach to prevention and treatment of chronic headaches doesn’t work. I invite you to explore a new approach, somatic self-care, which provides people with real solutions for ending the cycle of chronic pain.
© 2002 by Jan Mundo. All rights reserved.
Excerpted from Chapter 20, BEING HUMAN AT WORK: Bringing Somatic Intelligence into Your Professional Life, Edited by Richard Strozzi Heckler, PhD. North Atlantic Books, 2003.
Read the full chapter here.
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EDUCATIONAL SAMPLE:
Meditation, Relaxation, and Breathing
What is meditation?
Buddhist monk and teacher Thich Nhat Hanh wrote that “stopping is the basic practice of meditation” and that meditation brings “peace, joy, and harmony to ourselves and others.” We can achieve this peace by learning how to stop our worries, anxieties, agitation, and sadness. In mindfulness meditation, the practitioner focuses attention on the in- and the out- breath, which Hanh says is “essential for the practice of stopping, calming, and returning oneself to…the present moment.”
What are the benefits of meditation?
In his body-mind research, Herbert Benson, MD, found that meditation can affect stress levels and physiology by decreasing heart and breathing rates, blood pressure, and muscle tension. – can increase the likelihood of disease, including heart attack and stroke.
Are meditation and relaxation the same?
Have you noticed that you can relax in front of the TV and rest your bones, but not necessarily feel refreshed? Yet just sitting and meditating can elicit relaxation. You can meditate for five minutes and feel like you’ve had a vacation. Some people say that meditation is difficult because their thoughts get in the way, or they get restless. Relaxation is a skill and can be very different from doing nothing. As with almost everything, practice makes it easier — notice I didn’t say “perfect!”
How to begin
Simply breathing while sitting in a chair is one way to begin to meditate. We sit in chairs all the time but often without awareness, which changes everything.
- Situate yourself in a straight-backed chair.
- Put both feet hip distance apart and flat on the floor, with toes facing forward.
- Scoot forward in the chair, so your feet make good contact with the floor.
- Have your thighs parallel to the floor and your legs perpendicular to it. Feel your seat in the chair.
- Align yourself vertically in gravity:
With either hand, touch the same side ear, shoulder, and side of your hip. Then draw an imaginary line from ear to shoulder to hip, which should be in a straight line. Adjust your posture so they are. Check to see if your head is forward or your tail tucked. Are you leaning back? Make adjustments so you’re vertical. Proper alignment helps you settle into gravity, reduces upper body tension, and gives you “room to breathe.”
Recommended Reading
Benson H. The Relaxation Response. New York: William Morrow and Company, 1975.
Nhat Hanh T. Touching Peace, Practicing the Art of Mindful Living. Berkeley: Parallax Press, 1992.
Excerpted from “Meditation and Relaxation,” © 1995-2009 by Jan Mundo. All rights reserved.
These instructions are great, Jan. I’m printing a copy for myself. Thanks!
Vb