It feels so good

To run...
To ace exams...
To help others...
To feel that you know it...
To study till you can hardly speak...
To challenge yourself...
To improve...
To grow...

Cortisol (hydrocortisol)

Cortisol and why it's important to you!

I'll try to keep this simple and easy to follow.
Your adrenal gland releases cortisol into your bloodstream after receiving signals from the hypothalamus.

• Cortisol acts to suppress your immune system.

This sounds boring but it's actually really important. You get more prone to bacterial, viral and fungal infections. Nasty stuff.

• Aids in glucogenesis

A.k.a raises your blood sugar (amount of sugar in your blood). This is bad, it leads to insulin resistance which is diabetes type 2.

It is released in response to stress to restore homeostasis in your body but in excess it's bad bad bad for you. The syndrome is called Cushing's syndromeSo, in essence you get all the stuff that you don't want. You can get this syndrome from either pro-longed intake of corticosteroid drugs or by a tumor on any of the gland in the hypothalamo-pituitary-adreno pathway which upregulates their secretion.
But that's bad stuff!

So I hope it's clear now that cortisol is in most cases bad.
It's not all bad though because would god have "planted" cortisol in us if it ain't did us good?
Don't think so, in small doses it's good in response to stress.
* It can give you a sugar kick when needed
* Increase your blood pressure in a flight or fight response
* Increases your short memory function
* After strenuous exercise it can act to inhibit excessive inflammation.

However after we've returned to homeostasis it needs to go away which it doesn't always do in our high stress society. So if we keep our levels high

Most of the time you want to keep your cortisol levels low because prolonged high levels may cause...
* Destruction of cells in the hippocampus area, responsible for memory
* Decrease in muscle tissue
* High blood pressure
* Depressed immune system and slower wound healing
* Increased abdominal fat (which is where you defenitively not should have your fat)

Increased cortisol levels have been seen in..
* Depression/stress
* Illness/fever
* Trauma, fear, pain
* Physical exertion/ temp extremes
* Too much caffeine
* Sleep deprivation
* Burnout
* Cortisone levels may be altered in people with Autism and Asperger's

Pain is an interesting one, so there is a correlation with being in pain and a suppressed immune system! Especially if it's chronic pain. What if you walked around with back-pain all the time, for years? Your cortisol levels would most probably be elevated and your immune system suppressed.

I cant believe it's such a big no-no to talk about these things. It seems like a sensitive topic to talk about but I don't care. This is a real thing and people are afraid of talking about it?
This shouldn't be something hidden away from people.
It's cool that what the old time Chiropractors claimed to be able to do, science is now on it's way to explain parts of it.

And now for the good stuff that you want to bring in to your life
* Magnesium supplement after aerobic training (Unfortunately not seen with weight training)
* Omega-3 intake
* Music therapy
* Massage therapy
* Laughing, humor
* Crying
* Vitamin C intake
* Black tea
* Regular dancing (Argentine tango)
* Regular sexual intercourse
* Meditation

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The above may be completely off since it's not referenced at all.
Just be critical to everything you see or hear because there's is probably a lot of stuff out there that's not right. Even though I try to make sure the stuff I'm writing about is 100% right you should be critical. This is just a good way for me to express what I'm reading about at the moment and things might be completely off since I don't have the time or feel the need to reference things when I'm just free writing like this.
Stay critical and don't believe anything that is not referenced.
Not even what your lecturers tell you and especially not me.

But hopefully you have a better understanding of what cortisol does to you by now.

Fremantle

Such a nice day today, sun is shining, 25 degrees. Me and my room mates have just cleaned out the garden and everyone is just happy. Weights in the gym felt like peanuts this morning. Also Caroline the girl I used to gym with came along today, was really good to see her again.

It's working out well at uni, getting some grades that I'm pleased with so far. Next year looks tougher thou. All the 4th years are complaining but hey everyone always have something to whine about I think it'll be just fine. We have such a good team in our class that we'll do just fine.

In a couple of weeks Linda will be coming down, I'm so so so looking forward to that. We'll stay in my tiny room so that will be a challenge, especially since I got my exams coming up but I'm sure everything will work out since both of us are so cool.

This is the view from my window, pretty awesome!

Brain plasticity

Back in Sweden for a few weeks. It’s so cool and quiet over here. It’s quite a difference from the non-stop work mode back in Freo.

I’m observing my Chiropractor in the clinic almost every day and I’m outdoors painting houses a couple of times a week. It’s so green and lush everywhere, a typical Swedish summer.

A new and Swedens first cablepark has opened 1 hour from me so I’ve been hitting it up a couple of times. I really enjoy flying around with my wakeboard. It gets me so pumped. Yesterday I landed over a handful front2blinds, which is my favorite move atm. They look sick, feel sick so hopefully I’ll get them filmed and uploaded here.

Anyways been reading quite a bit about ADHD, brain plasticity and what effect different things have on our magnificent brain. This is the subject that really makes me tick.

So lets write something about what I’ve been reading about and make it into a coherent article?! Cool

Funny thing, my grades on my first three essays at Murdoch was 27, 34, 48%. Something I wanted to learn during my uni years was to write properly and on my most recent essay I got 86%. That’s cool, I think writing this blog has contributed at least a bit towards that.

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I picked up “The brain that changes itself” and read it. One of the many things that were brought up in the book was how in 1969 a neuroscientist; Bach-y-rita did experiments on congenital blind people (born blind). He put together a chair with around 400 vibrators attached to it. He connected a camera to the whole thing and dark areas vibrated a lot where as light areas didn’t. These persons who had never been able to see the world could now point the camera and say that that’s Johnny and he’s mouth is open. These days blind people get to have a small chip on their tongue.

Someone showed me this documentary of a boy who got cancer in his eyes and had them removed when he was 3 years old. He makes a clicking sounds and sees just like a bat, using echoloaction.

Well all these experiments and many more got me interested in what the brain was and what it could really do. The more I read the more I realized that we can make it do some incredible things.

It adapts really well but yes you got to stick with things a little longer then the average commercial break. When we are at the topic of TV I would like to bring to your attention how it affect your 1400gram, oatmeal lump.

More then a hundred studies have shown that the rate at which TV stimulates us is not at the same rate as our normal brain waves are at. But since the brain is so fantastic it rewires to the rate at which the environment gives us stimulation.

How might a child’s brain be impacted by the onslaught of technology-driven activities that are super stimulating to the senses (and therefore the brain) such as videogames? And what is the effect of the 24-hour-a-day “real time” coverage readily available today on television, of unfolding events, and detailed and repetitive visual coverage of disasters and violent crimes?

This rewiring has had some interesting side effects. A 20-years study by The rational Psychology Association in Munich, Germany, looked at the effects of technology on the brain. The study of 4000 subjects every five years yielded some very interesting findings.

In 1980, the study found that it was becoming increasingly harder to stimulate the cerebral cortex. The results indicate that our sensitivity to stimuli is decreasing at a rate of about one percent per year. !!!

My take on this is that we will have a harder and harder time appreciating details and small things in life. Like walking in nature where it’s quiet. Quite a coincident that young people all over the globe walk with ipods plugged in.

Look, I’m not saying that this is bad, maybe we can’t do anything about it but it can certainly contribute to ADHD and ODD (Oppositional Defiant Disorder) which five to fifteen percent of children and adolescents in the United States meet the criteria for. In inner city Detroit and other US cities up to 60% of the children are diagnosed with ADHD.

Our brains are continually molded after what we’re exposed to on a day-to-day basis. I guess not everyone want to chuck out their TV’s and couldn’t really give a damn about things like this but I do think that everyone should get taught it in school somewhere so that everyone is aware of this. That’s only fair.

Another interesting study on London taxi drivers show that their hippocampus gets larger for every year they work as a cabbie. Meditators and meditational teachers have a thicker insula, a part of the cortex activated by paying close attention. Their amygdala doesn’t fire nearly as easy as on a normal person. The amygdala in an ADHD kid is what fires madly and their cortex is unable to inhibit it – interesting.

A recent study of more that 2600 toddlers shows that early exposure to television between the ages of one and three correlates with problems paying attention and controlling impulses later in childhood. For every hour of TV the toddler watched TV each day, their chances of developing serious attentional difficulties at age seven increased by 10%. Forty–three percent of U.S children two years or younger watch television daily and twenty-five percent have TV’s in their bedrooms.

About twenty years after the spread of TV, teachers of young children began to notice that their students had become more restless and had increasingly difficulty paying attention. When those children entered college, professors complained of having to “dumb down” their courses each new year, for students who were increasingly interested in listening to sound and intimidated by reading of any length.

At the same time it was pushed for more RAM and gigabytes in the class computers instead of the attention spans and memories of the students. The medium that the students get their information from is far more important then the actual message. We process words differently when hearing, reading or vision them. Each medium leads to a change in the balance of our individual senses, increasing some at the expense of others. However it’s not known if this is harmful or not.

Almost everything can be found in either “The brain that changes itself” by Doigde Norman, or “ADD/ADHD DRUG FREE” by Frank Jacobelli and L.A Watson.

Well there is so much to be written on this topic and I find it highly interesting but it’s late and someone just put the TV on and I can’t keep my eyes off it so I better stop writing now and watch some TV before going to bed.

Halvvags igenom

Idag Fredag gjorde vi varan sista exam for den har terminen.

Sa nu var halva min kiropraktor utbildning fardig.

Kanns som jag har mycket mer att lara aven fast jag har lart mig sa otroligt mycket.

Jag laser ganska mycket bocker utanfor om kiropraktik och far mig en uppfattning om vad jag vill rikta in mig pa. Just nu tycker jag neuro delen ar valdigt intressant.

Men det finns flera saker jag ska lasa om. Har bestallt en bok som Lance Armstrongs kiropraktor har skrivit. Vi kan namligen gora en Sports Chiropractic degree i 4de och femte aret och sen examinera oss i Syd Afrika under ASP touren i 5te aret, jag vet att Martin ar valdigt sugen pa det.

En spannande framtid blir det

Falu brannvin

Idag ar jag sa sugen pa att dricka en kall ol och det ska jag banne mig go right now. Cyklar ner pa stan nu.

Pa sondag ar det State championship i O-lifting, far se om jag har tid att vara med.

1 vecka kvar och sen ar det Sverige som galler. Fick se realtime video fran mitt hus hemma i Falun idag. Det var saaa fint, sa gront och lugnt och stilla och katten och hunden busade med varrandra. Sa kul med katter och hundar.

Sen ar jag saaaa sugen pa att aka cablepark igen. Det oppnar tydligen en i Fagersta, 1h fran mig.

Kanske far bli en vecka i Danmark ocksa for i ar SKA jag lara mig en front2blind med grabbbb, jag vill sa garna. Den ar sa snygg.

Hoppas din kvall blir lika kul som min :)

Half way thru (almost)

Tomorrow is our last day this semester, half way thru after we have written our exams.

Cool stuff.

For me; Uni is much easier these days and a whole lot of more fun.

Looking back at first semester in 1st year is amusing. I almost failed that semester - two units. I was confused when I got my grades, something definitively had to change.

I remember the day in first semester in my 2nd year when I got the "Faculty Dean's Encouragement award in Chiropractic". It's basically to the student who improved the most from 1st to 2nd semester. I was proud. On that same day I got a Swedish newspaper in the mail box, my dad was interviewed about chiropractic. I think I almost let a tear come through on the bus to uni that day.

I started viewing uni as I used to view kiteboarding. That became what I was thinking about most of the day. Things I did started to go in line with it. I have to say that it was quite a big change and I did quite a lot of reading on work ethic, efficiency, and similar subjects. Now almost 2 years later it feels like it will work out eventually. But I expect it to be another 5 -10 years of intense learning till I feel that I master this. There's a really good book written on the subject; "Mastery" by George Leonard. Highly recommended.

Other inspiring books are 7 times Tour De France winner Lance Armstrong's book "It's not about the bike", Michael Jordan's biography and "The power of full engagement".

Yesterday me and Martin booked weekend tickets to Sydney. There will be a Gonstead seminar there in August. That will be so cool, we'll be going with a few Chiropractors from Perth. A few of the big names from the States are coming over. We will be doing the beginner course which will be great. I really enjoy the gonstead classes we are doing and right now that is what appeals to me the most. It's a really precise and thorough technique but it's also considered the hardest one to learn.

But it's okay, I like when it's hard.

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Teachers I respect say..

- Don't believe what anyone says, and especially not me, go and look it up for yourself!

If I could give myself two advices coming into first year it would be

• 1. It's actually easier to take the "hard" way. Do precise notes, go through lectures every evening and so on. Don't go for the easy option, you're only cheating yourself. Because you will have to learn it anyways, today or tomorrow why not do it straight away?

• 2. Implement habits; they will probably only make a 0.001 percent difference on a day-to-day, but adds up over years. This one is massive. Some of the ones I've been experimenting with this semester is

* Practicing chiropractic technique 40min every morning before uni.

* Meditation before study sessions

* Reviewing each lecture for 10min in the evening

Please, if you're reading, leave a comment.

Linda ♥

Things I've learnt being a Uni student

1. People always say that they haven't studied. BUT!!! They have. So you better study as well!

2. Use an egg timer. I've found that setting the timer at 90min and then doing what you're supposed to do increases you focus multifold. If you get ideas or realise that you have to do something, jot it down on post-it notes and stick them to the wall. During the time, nothing else is allowed to happen, no facebooking or eating. You gotta pay attention to when you drift away. After the 90min you have 15-30min off (with the egg timer) were you do something you really want to do, juggling or reading something you really want to read. You can get tons done in this way, instead of the steady state 8hours in the "grey zone" way.

3. Do notes when you study. It's way harder, annoying and you just can't be asked. But the sooner you realise that if you do notes you have to make sense of what you read and you can at anytime just go back and have a quick look through what you have done, life becomes so much easier. It's great because you have to use another part of your brain. Best way for me is to read and do notes, then quiz myself without any notes. Then in the evening you can look through your notes in just 5 min.

4. Put aside 10min for every unit every evening and review what you've done during that day.

(I have just started doing this and I think it's great)

Seriously, if you're on top of your stuff, Uni is so much easier and so much more fun. Hahaha it's funny but it takes some work in the beginning to get there.

Study break

I've been writing heaps for the blog but I ain't satisfied with the stuff. Lots of brain stuff since I get more and more fascinated with the brain and nervous system as each day go by.
BUT I promised myself to keep posting so I can always update with what's going on in my life...

Went and saw this awesome guy Dr "S". That was really cool and it felt like I got a deeper understanding about what we actually do and how we do it.
Because if there is something I'm not gonna become its a B-shitter that don't know his thing.
I'm enough of one as it is as Sara so nicely pointed out yesterday ;)
It's easy to look at the surface of people, always try to look deeeeeep when you look at people.

Funny enough, some guy said something about Chiro "S" the day before I went to see him.
- I don't like him because he's rude, cocky not nice etc

But I do not care if he's rude, not treating me like a princess. Look deeper!
This guy was one of the best in his class, has practiced extensively, acquired the most precious skills. That's what I'm there for. I'm not there to be treated nice, I'm there to learn and I do not give a damn about him not being super nice to me and want to be my friend or whatever.

And yup' it was a really cool experience and that's the kinda skills I want.

From one thing to another, there is an O-lifting competition in two weeks. I might join that one and you can be sure that I will post the videos here!

Just gotta get my shit (uni) together and my shoulder needs to at least see the light in the end of the tunnel. But yeah I think I'll do it, maybe I can get a 50kg snatch and a 75kg C&J

Back to study
Peace

Concentration

Today I'm going to bust out something quick - unedited.

We're in our second week and we're doing Neurology and I find it very interesting.
Massive workload though, in the first two weeks we're supposed to read 100 pages and we're not talking about an easy read hehe.

I was thinking about focus and concentration because it is something I always try to improve since it's so vital. I mean if you don't want to study 16hours a day you better focus and concentrate during the hours you do it. And have fun the other hours of the day. Interestingly enough 60% of the kids in the US have ADHD, a number that used to be much lower. That and a lot of other interesting stuff is what we're going to be introduced to.

Time to go to bed -> read -> sleep -> do everything again

Tomorrow I'll bring Linda to uni, that should be fun, will see if she can understand anything of our lecture tomorrow, "Neurology as a clinical tool". She used to be smarter then me haha just goes to show that you can pretty much do anything if you just cut the sh** out and focus.

3rd year

Ranting two days before I enter my 3rd year over here at Murdoch Uni.

Got asked how life is over here and I might as well write a bit about it, really need to keep up the blogging since it's so good to write regularly. Will make it a habit to post on here once a week this semester.

It's actually amazing that we're starting 3rd year. It went fast but everything in life goes fast when you do stuff you like. Life here is truly amazing. I'm thinking and saying it out loudly almost every day. Sure we all have days when we think it sucks and that whatever we do is pointless but for the most part, shit is good.

Last semester we studied these units.

Anatomy all muscles and nerve innervation, bones and brain.
Was a great course and it's hard to believe that I didn't know all that before because it's second nature to me now.

Biomechanics What muscles do in your body, forces acting on your bones and some basic palpation of all the joints in the body (adjusting them will come this year)

Physical Examination What you basically do is that you do a physical examination of the patient's lungs, heart, head, skin, intestinal or other system.
Was a great deal of work and me and another classmate have committed to practice our skills once a week for this semester since these skills are so important to know from the top of your head. Our teacher used to say that he was going to phone us at 3am and drill us and damn the one who could not answer, funny guy and I really liked his teaching style.
You definitely did your homework before each class because he would throw questions at you all the time and would not hold back on the humiliation factor if you didn't knew the answer.

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This semester we're finally being taught officially to adjust. I'm looking forward to this a lot. WE have a great teacher for this course as well. In fact, many of our teachers are great. I mean the kind of persons you rarely meet.

However I've been going to evening classes every week of this semester since the Chiropractic technique (Gonstead) taught there really impresses me. The University does not allow this technique and their clinic. They only go with a technique called Diversified. Which with my limited knowledge seems easier to learn, but don't take my word on this since my knowledge is virtually zero when it comes to this.

I can see what Murdoch is trying to do. They are trying to legitimatize the education we get as much as possible. Making it more medicine oriented but that puts more pressure on the student to get out there and learn and practice adjustments and hands on stuff, since there is not enough time spent on that at Murdoch according to me. But that's just fine and I just have the feeling that this is the way it goes. We do 5 years here and they do 8 years in the states so more responsibility to the student to get good on their own over here.

I don't have any references on this one but I think they learned 3 or 4 different techniques at Macquarie in Sydney where's at Murdoch we are only being taught one which is Diversified.
Politics politics...I still think that what you get out of your education is exactly what you put in. I've changed a lot since I first got here. These days we've been going in to Uni just catching up on stuff every fortnightly. I've now a deal with a good class mate of mine to arrive at uni 30min before we start to get some practice in everyday, that's how you learn - I know!

We had one guy in our class that after the first year transferred over to England and I spoke to him a month ago. Now this guy know what he wants and got his head right. He said that the academic standard over there was very low and their facilities were crap.
Result: he's coming back to study with us.

I've also been out there, observing Chiropractors. That has been of even greater benefit than I'd previously thought. They practice with different styles and techniques so you get to develop your own thought of what you want to do in the future. I think this is important questions to have in your head from the start.

I've now twice been observing the Chiropractor who is doing our Tuesday evening classes and this guy is amazing. Every time you walk out from his office you feel fresh and motivated.
It's been great to see that this stuff actually works. I was very skeptical and still is even though my Dad and Grandpa were Chiropractors. You should always be critical even if the person sounds very sure of his thing. Always do your own research.

Enough for today, now I'm going to enjoy my last two days of summer break before I'm back to were every minute is scheduled again.

Also have to add that I've started with Olympic weightlifting and will hopefully compete in State Championship in June 2011