American Fitness Professionals & Associates

by Karen F. Riley

A wise man once told me that I was about to undertake the journey of a thousand miles.  I don’t think I quite comprehended the weight of his words.  I also didn’t realize at the time that the journey would take me to the depths of my soul and back - feeling more alive than I ever thought I could be.

I spoke to a friend of mine yesterday; I have known her for almost 30 years.  We have a lot in common and even though we sometimes fall out of touch for a few years, we can pick right back up as if we had continued to speak daily.  She is at a crossroads in her life right now.  She is in a loveless marriage and feels trapped.  It’s not that she doesn’t love her husband; she does with all her heart and always will, it’s just that she married for security rather than love and now that she’s come to that realization, she wants her freedom to move on.

I feel sad for her, but at the same time, I am happy.  She, like myself, is only beginning to discover who she really is.  Sometimes love doesn’t conquer all.  I know a wise man that loved his wife desperately, but because she could not love herself and seek help for her problems, she dragged them both down.  Fortunately, that story has a happy ending - the man moved on and found his soul mate.  I have every confidence that my friend will find her way also to a happy ending.

What does all this have to do with health?  Why is an article dealing with love on a website chronicling health issues, documenting diseases, expelling fitness myths?  Because love has everything to do with health.  And if you don’t realize that, perhaps you have your own journey of a thousand miles to undertake….

You see, dear reader, a person is like an equilateral triangle.  Physical, mental and emotional planes form the sides of the triangle.  If these are not in balanced proportion, then your triangle is no longer equal.  If too much stress is put on the structure - as the architects of the Twin Towers found out - the structure implodes.  

This balance is necessary for optimal health.  Yes, in this world of rising obesity and diabetes rates, it is important to exercise.  Muscles need to be pushed, tested, toned and rebuilt.  The heart, our most important muscle, needs to be exerted on a regular basis to remain strong and healthy.  No one is disputing that.  But what I’m saying is that if the other planes of the triangle are ignored, you will never reach the peak of fitness.

In this age of cloning and genetic research, I question how a scientist thinks some DNA manipulation can produce a human being, albeit a perfect one.  Don’t get me wrong, I think there have been some significant breakthroughs in science and their dedication is to be admired.  But we have yet to realize the significance of how one mineral, one imbalance, one excess of a chemical, an amino acid or hormone can cause a domino effect.

Years ago, I developed chest pains.  I went to an internist and a cardiologist, who felt there was nothing wrong with my heart.  
The anxiety of knowing something was wrong but not knowing what was enough to magnify my symptoms.  Repeatedly, I was told it was stress and to relax.  Eventually, I did and the pain subsided.

Then, a year later, I awoke in the middle of the night with a stabbing pain in my heart that radiated down my arm.  I was convinced that I was having a heart attack.  A trip to the emergency room yielded no answers, other than my heart was fine and again stress was the diagnosis.  I was going through a particularly rough period in my life, so I had to reluctantly accept that I was causing my own heartache, literally.

But just to be 100% sure, I had an extensive workup done on my heart at Deborah Heart & Lung, a renown center for the diagnosis and treatment of cardiac and pulmonary dysfunction.  It turned out that I had mitral and tricuspid valve regurgitation, with mitral valve prolapse syndrome.  That’s a clinical way of saying that two of my heart valves were not working perfectly and were allowing some of the blood that they were pushing forward to flow backwards.  When the valves constricted, more blood backflowed and caused the pain.  I learned that extreme stress, as well as strenuous exercise done in a forward leaning posture, aggravated the problem.  

So, here was a classical example of the triangular impact.  Unable to rationalize or mentally resolve certain problems caused me anxiety, which in turn constricted the heart valves causing physical pain.  What began as a problem in one triangular plane, because it was not dealt with and resolved, impacted the other sides of the triangle.

There are thousands of examples of this: asthma, phantom limb pain, headaches, acid reflux, constipation - physical ailments that may be rooted in a different plane.  Deepak Chopra, M.D. has long been a proponent of mind-body medicine.  Through his understanding and teaching of Ayurvedic medicine in his bestselling books, many have become familiar with his philosophy and found help.

In “Perfect Health” Chopra outlines the basics for understanding how these principles govern and impact our health.  Reading his book was like finding the light at the end of the tunnel, as my mind was opened to all sorts of possibilities.  As I researched further through many sources, I discovered all sorts of connections.  Neurons in the brain produce neurotransmitters - chemicals made of various compounds such as amino acids and peptides - and release them into the synapses in the brain where they travel to receptors that take up the neurotransmitter.  Insufficient production of neurotransmitters, inability of receptors to “accept” them or excess production can cause a multitude of symptoms.  

What is fascinating about this process is that what appears to be strictly a chemical reaction on the surface can be easily altered by emotional or mental factors.  They are also suspected to be the cause of these as well, leading to the classic chicken and egg debate.  Deficits of neurotransmitters nor-epinephrine and serotonin are believed to cause depression and sleep disorders.  
High levels of serotonin are believed to trigger aggressive behavior, whereas low levels are linked to fearfulness and shyness.

Serotonin is also believed to regulate food intake.  Women, who produce only two-thirds of the amount of serotonin produced by men, are also more likely to suffer from depression and obesity than their male counterparts.  Studies are being undertaken to better understand this chemical reaction.  Psychiatrists are starting to believe that the origin of mental illness may in some cases be linked to the disruption of this process during the developmental years.  Furthermore, severe emotional trauma is believed to alter the “hard wiring”, causing the path of neurotransmitters to be altered from their original course.  

Treatment with drugs that replace these neurotransmitters, increase their effects or allow for their uptake has produced positive results.  However, patients who wean off their medication after the prescribed time either remain free of their prior mental illness or slip back into their previous state.

Emotional reactions - anger, hatred, fear - are conditioned responses to cognitive thought.  When these thoughts are considered unreasonable, it can be difficult to retrain these thoughts, and consequently the behaviors that follow, without recognizing the cause of the inappropriate reaction.

In cases where neurotransmitter imbalance is suspected, it is crucial that patients undertaking medication address these imbalances and concurrently seek treatment to “reprogram” their cognitive patterns.  Treatment with this two-pronged approach yields greater results of patients able to overcome their mental illness permanently.

This, to me, is proof, of the need to balance all sides of the triangle when treating health problems whether they are initially considered mental, physical or emotional.  The truth is that all three are intertwined.  Webster’s dictionary defines disease as the “absence of health”.  When our minds are truly ready to accept this, then we are ready to begin our own journey of a thousand miles.

References:

The Role of Dopamine Receptors in Schizophrenia, 1996 Rupinder Mann and Koni Stone
http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/S/Synapses.html

The Journal of Neuroscience, June 15, 1998, 18 (12):4588-4602
www.pallidotomy.com/pathology.html

www.southalabama.edu/psychology/P310SA15.pdf

http://www.brainmachines.com/body_neurotransmitters.html

Perfect Health by Deepak Chopra, M.D.