Here's a page were we can discuss the connection of the rhythms that nature and humans share. I'll update it as the questions emerge. Please feel free to submit any new ideas, comments or confusions at the link provided.
MoonTalk #1, part 1 - April 15th, 2013 University of Phoenix (Dr. Dian Allen)
MoonTalk #1, part 2 - April 15th, 2013 University of Phoenix (Dr. Dian Allen)
The Mood Cycle
David Alan Goodman, a neuroscience graduate of the University of Chicago and the University of California at Irvine, has spent his productive life in innovation. Following graduation holding a doctorate in Neuroscience, he left government and corporate research in 1975 in order to pursue a career in mental science. Recruiting three associates working in the University of California system, he set up the Newport Neuroscience Center (NNC) in Southern California to discover through empirical research on the mathematics of human emotions and dreams to find the key to deciphering how the brain works. Now, NNC as a sole proprietorship holds rights to the science of mental function known today as Mental Chronomics (MC). At core is the primary data set collected daily and nightly without interruption between 1977 and 2005. Mathematical analysis of more than 10,000 dreams thus far has provided credible evidence that the human unconscious mind represents serial operations of an analog processor. NNC continues to do research and publish from headquarters in Escondido, CA. Scientific papers have included fifteen published, including in Nature (London), and Cancer and Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology & Biological Psychiatry. He is presently at work on a monograph comparing Mental Chronomics and mental drugs, and is completing a book on the long-term benefits of Mental Chronomics for parents and children.
Dr. Goodman can be reached at davegoodman@juno.com
NNC mailing ddress: P.O. Box 803 San Marcos, CA 92079-0803.
NNC v-mail: 760-736-1975
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Dr. Goodman’s work involves nothing more than a simple act of consistency. His work unveils how we live enmeshed in interlocking rhythms that govern and guide us. The aim of his self-directed work involves fostering a restoration of prefrontal lobe function. In Dr. Goodman’s view, society has been denied access to a full complement of what this region of the brain can afford us, namely creativity, self-healing, and foresight. What we do develop, analytical thinking, is often locked into patterns that deny us flexibility and a capacity to draw our own conclusions based on our own inner wisdom. His focus on dreams over the last 30+ years clearly demonstrates our need to tap into that now.
For the next 70 days (minimum) keep a record of your mood as you begin each day. If you forget or skip a day, just enter a rating for that day afterwards and put “+” sign in a corner of that date’s box. If you can engage your partner, family, co-workers or friends to join in, it would enhance your learning. For more on the rising moods as it relates to the lunar cycle, click here.
Mood Charting Protocol
1. Select a large calendar.
2. Turn to the present month.
3. Look for the date box
4. Be prepared to write in the box..
5. If you feel "low," write an "X" in the proper space.
6. If you feel "very low," make the "X" larger.
7. If you feel "high," write an "O" in the proper space.
8. If you feel "very high," make the "O" larger.
The Soma & The SuperWave
Irving Dardik, a former surgeon and developer of the controversial SuperWave theory, argues that everything in the universe moves in waves, and that illness results when we stifle those waves within our body. Science writer Roger Lewin explores the exercise regimen Dardik created to fight disease, as well as the scientific implications of the SuperWave theory in a new book. Making Waves: Irving Dardik and His SuperWave Principle. Dr. Dardik believes that once we recognize that the rhythms of nature are real and do affect everything, we will realize that modern life has isolated us from nature's survival mechanisms. In the advanced technological world, we do not depend on the rhythms of the day and year to give us light, food or comfort. Instead, we have come to act as if we exist outside the natural world, putting lights on at night, ignoring the body's need for a siesta in the afternoon, forcing ourselves awake with alarm clocks. He spent 15 years developing the cyclic exercise program believes that the ability to enhance heart rate variability is the common factor associated with all healthy individuals. Ary Goldberger, MD, of The Margaret and H. A. Rey Institute for Nonlinear Dynamics in Physiology and Medicine and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Medical School, stated that Dr. Dardik's "novel cyclic protocol designed to train both the activation and recovery phases of exercise may increase vascular fitness, heart rate variability and enhance mood in healthy patients."
Dr. Dardik can be reached through his customer support, Victoria Vitelli at vicki@lifewaves.com
Whereas Dr. Goodman’s protocol was a mere matter of keep a recording of your moods, Dr. Dardik asks us to re-examine how we use our energy throughout the day. By aligning ourselves with the larger and more coherent rhythm of the monthly lunar cycle, we entrain our physiology to function in harmony with its environment and, most of all, condition ourselves for both exertion and recovery. This effects growth and repair processes down to the cellular level. Since this waveform holds true on all levels, we experience its impact globally. Our overall well-being works as a function of our capacity to cohere, which is best defined for our purposes as a capacity to hold together in a mass that resists separation1
What Dr. Dardik’s work is revealing is that what we perceive as matter or form results from a clustering of coherent waves waving within waves. In somatics, we speak of tensegrity, which is the capacity a system has to redistribute tension and retain the same physical shape. Our manifested reality, from the infrastructure of our cells to the street grids of the towns and cities we live in, possess a tensegrity that applies Dardik’s theory. And just like everything else in nature, there exists a life cycle, a pulsing rhythm, that guides the construction or build up and the deconstruction or break down of every single element at every single level. Our aim with his protocol is to cohere your rest-activity cycles to the waveform of the monthly lunar cycle by varying the time and intensity of your physical exertion and recovery. Your heart function reveals the degree and extent you're accomplishing this assignment. Dardik’s research points to the relationship between peak heart rate and high heart rate variability (HRV) as integral to restoring health and vitality.
Those Pesky Neurotransmitters...
Everyone is so interested in the self-regulatory aspects of this work as it relates to the fluxuations of the four NT's that are connected mostly closely with the brain's frontal lobe activity. As I mentioned on the live call and mentioned on the talking points audios, this material-based model of brain function and communication is a false god to me. From a somatic view, the regulatory NT's are like filters or traffic signs for consciousness, in this case in the form of the lunar phases, to entrain the individual to a particular energy and focus. The question for us is do we on the self side of self-regulation equation respond to that cue or not? The more we involve the body in the brain's conversation with itself, the easier it is to attend to the subtle shifts in the environment that are life-enhancing...
For those in the old school mindset, here's a wiki sampler of each of the NT we discussed...
Acetylcholine (often abbreviated ACh) is an organic, polyatomic cation that acts as a neurotransmitter in both the peripheral nervous system (PNS) and central nervous system (CNS) in many organisms including humans. Acetylcholine is one of many neurotransmitters in the autonomic nervous system (ANS) and is the only neurotransmitter used in the motor division of the somatic nervous system (sensory neurons use glutamate and various peptides at their synapses). Acetylcholine is also the principal neurotransmitter in all autonomic ganglia. read more
Serotonin pathways are pathways that help to regulate mood control.[1] Dysregulation can be association with obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety disorders and depression. read more Approximately 90% of the human body's total serotonin is located in the enterochromaffin cells in the alimentary canal (gut), where it is used to regulate intestinal movements.[6][7]The remainder is synthesized in serotonergic neurons of the CNS, where it has various functions. These include the regulation of mood, appetite, and sleep. Serotonin also has some cognitive functions, including memory and learning. read more
There are 8 dopaminergic pathways...The neurons of the dopaminergic pathways have axons which run the entire length of the pathway. The neurons' soma produce the enzymes that synthesize dopamine, and they are then transmitted via the projecting axons to their synaptic destinations, where most of the dopamine is produced. Dopaminergic nerve cell bodies in such areas as the substania nigra tend to be pigmented due to the presence of the black pigment melanin.read more
Norepinephrine is synthesized from dopamine by dopamine-hydroxlase in the secretory granules of the medullary chromaffin cells.[9] It is released from the adrenal medulla into the blood as a hormone, and is also a neurotransmitter in the central nervous system and sympathetic nervous system, where it is released from noradrenergic neurons in the locus coeruleus. The actions of norepinephrine are carried out via the binding to adrenergic receptors. One of the most important functions of norepinephrine is its role as the neurotransmitter released from the sympatheic neurons affecting the heart. An increase in norepinephrine from the sympathetic nervous system increases the rate of contractions. read more
Click below to learn our "Recipes For Addiction"
I found a few basic videos that describe the function of each of the 4 self-regulatory NT's as an FYI for everyone. See if you can map the tone of each video to the signatures of the 4 domains? LOL ;)
The Male/Female Brain Differences
As we discussed in the live call, there are documented differences between male and female brains. The easiest introduction to them is the popular books by Louann Brizendine, MD. The overlap with what we're discussing concerns how mature male and female brains relate to the lunar cycle, which is a naturally occurring infradian rhythm. It's well known that both the menstrual and lunar cycles are about the same in duration (~28 and 29.3 days). Dr. Goodman's research shows that “female rhythms are lunar-chronomic and male emotional rhythms are removed from the moon…” He asserts that only 10% of males naturally synchronize with the lunar phases. In a recent e-mail, he further clarified that his focus is on individual adaptation: The key to understanding is to know that each modulator can change in frequency and amplitude, therefore stability, during a month or year." As you heard during the class and again in my talking points review here, I DON'T CARE about these differences because the focus in this approach isn't about individual or gender biases, it's about what remains in common for all of us. That's why it's much easier/practical/simpler to track HRV data over time than EEG changes...
Thanks for your interest!
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