Peninsula Sports & Spinal Rehabilitation

Sensorimotor Retraining, a New Approach for Treating Chronic Pain Sensorimotor retraining aims to correct a disruption within the nervous system that causes lower back pain by changing how people process sensory information from their back.

Standing on one leg is a sign of good health – and practising is good for you too Practising standing on one leg has also sorts of benefits, research shows

Chronic Pain Treatment Should Include Psychological Interventions Pain is the body’s way of alerting the brain to injury and disease, but some people experience chronic pain that persists after an injury has healed or has no easily identifiable cause. Researchers have explored how psychological interventions can be part of a comprehensive plan to manage chronic ...

[RESEARCH] Can Improving Cervical Lordosis Help With Cervicogenic Dizziness? how to treat cervicogenic dizziness, does cervical lordosis matter, Harrison Vaughan, The Eclectic Approach

Keep moving!

Exercise positively influences neuronal reserve by increasing BDNF expression which promotes neurogenesis and synaptic plasticity, reduces oxidative stress and inflammation, and enhances cerebral and peripheral blood flow, which stimulates angiogenic factors that lead to positive changes in the structure and morphology of brain vasculature.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnbeh.2020.626769/full

Great tool for stress reduction.

Heart Rate variability (HRV) is a marker of biological aging.

Our heart rate variability is greatest when we are young, and as we age the range of variation in our resting heart rate becomes smaller.

Although the age-related decline in HRV is a natural process, having abnormally low HRV for one’s age group can be associated with an increased risk of future health problems.

Reducing stress and implementing the regular practice of HeartMath coherence-building techniques can help restore low HRV to a higher level.

Learn more about heart rate variability here> https://bit.ly/3Cj6Dok

New Research Finds Time Spent Among Trees Might Help Kids' Brains Grow And Develop As a child grows and develops, the neurons in their brain are said to branch like trees. Being around this very type of foliage could actually help the process along.

Visually Induced Dizziness - "Supermarket Syndrome" Visually Induced Dizziness, or Supermarket Syndrome, is an umbrella term for vestibular symptoms which are triggered by visual stimulation.

The bottoms of our feet have more receptors than anywhere else in our bodies. When our kids are running barefoot from grass to concrete, to sand or dirt, they are flooding those receptors on the bottoms of their feet with information which can activate the brain. All of that sensory information can help develop spatial awareness and balance.

How interesting 🤨 🤷‍♂️🧠👣 “ The decrease in balance control suggests that participants prioritized cognitive performance over balance control during these dual-task walking conditions. This work offers additional insight into the automaticity of walking and task-prioritization in healthy young individuals and provides the basis for future studies to determine differences in neurologically impaired populations.”

The influence of cognitive load on balance control during steady-state walking - PubMed For an individual to successfully walk, they must maintain control of their dynamic balance. However, situations that require increased cognitive attention may impair an individual's ability to actively control their balance. While dual-task studies have analyzed walking-while-talking conditions, fe...

See how the brain wobbles with each heartbeat in incredible new videos New, incredibly detailed videos capture how the brain jiggles inside the skull as blood and other fluids flow through the squidgy organ.

Just breathe.

Breath and Brain: Attention to Breathing Boosts Brain Health

A recent study from 2018 titled Coupling of respiration and attention via the locus coeruleus: Effects of meditation and pranayama discussed how focused attention to breathing can help improve brain health and increase your focus and concentration.

How it does this exactly is through an area in the brainstem called the locus coeruleus (LC). The LC has well established functions in respiration and attention. The LC is a chemosensitive area within the brainstem that can automatically activate the phrenic nerve (the big nerve that connects to the diaphragm) to increase respirations when increased levels of CO2 are detected, to help bring oxygen up and CO2 levels down.

The LC is also an area that produces much of the brain's norepinephrine. Norepinephrine gets released into the bloodstream when you are exercising, focused or emotionally aroused. It enhances your attention to detail and improves overall brain health by promoting the growth of new neural connections by connecting to several key regions in the brain.

Too much norepinephrine can happen when we are stressed out and unable to focus, too little and we may feel too sluggish to think straight...but there is a sweet spot where we are able to think clearly...and this may happen with our breath.

When you breath in, activity in the LC increase (potentially raising norepinephrine) and when you breath out, activity in the LC decreases (potentially lowering norepinephrine).

Breath-focused meditation has long been shown to have numerous cognitive benefits such as improving attention, increasing positive emotions and decreasing emotional reactivity. This paper showed that there is a direct link between breathing and natural levels of norepinephrine.

“This study has shown that as you breathe in, locus coeruleus activity is increasing slightly, and as you breathe out it decreases,” says Michael Melnychuk, PhD candidate at the Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience and lead author of the study. “Put simply, this means that our attention is influenced by our breath and that it rises and falls with the cycle of respiration. It is possible that by focusing on and regulating your breathing you can optimize your attention level and likewise, by focusing on your attention level, your breathing becomes more synchronized.”

Practicing breath-focused meditation on a daily basis can have a profound impact on brain health, but it is also a great way to short circuit panic, stress and fear. When we experience stress and fear, we can feel it in our body. Our palms get sweaty, our respirations increase in number and shorten in depth. These bodily cues are signals that the fear is about to take over our body and shut down our thinking brain.

A simple breathing exercise to realign the body and brain is this!:

1. Slowly inhale through your nostrils to a count of 4.

2. Hold your breath in to a count of 4.

3. Exhale slowly through your mouth to a count of 4 or more.

Repeat this until you feel your heart rate slow down and your body begin to calm. It really can be that simple!

Full blog post and link to paper: https://thebrainchat.com/brain-chat-blog/f/breath-and-brain-attention-to-breathing-boosts-brain-health

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The Hidden Connection Between Sleep and Dementia New research has identified associations between poor sleep and increased risk for Alzheimer's disease and related dementias. More than 2,800 older adults pa...

Food for thought 💭

Regular Exercise May Help Protect Against Severe Covid People who tended to be sedentary were far more likely to be hospitalized, and to die, from Covid than those who exercised regularly.