Living Energy Blog

The future of healthcare in the USA is encouraging. Many thanks to Tom Main and Adrian Slywotzky for  their article “The Quiet Health Care Revolution” in the November 2011 issue of the Atlantic Magazinethat publicizes a new model for elder care.

CareMore, a company in Cerritos, CA is showing that you can improve quality of care while simultaneously lowering health costs. CareMore’s model provides early intervention — including free rides to appointments when needed – which is resulting in significantly lower overall expenses. This is welcome and exciting news! CareMore is spending money where it makes sense and adds value. As a result, their members are receiving better care and have better outcomes at a lower total cost. Early intervention costs less.

According to Main and Slywotzky, CareMore operates 26 care centers across the Southwest, serving more than 50,000 Medicare Advantage patients. CareMore has achieved  a hospitalization rate 24 percent below average; hospital stays are 38 percent shorter; and the amputation rate among diabetics 60 percent lower than average.

There is a good chance that we will see this model spread. Main and Slywotzky report that in August CareMore was acquired by the insurer and health-services provider WellPoint, which serves 70 million people nationwide directly or through subsidiaries, and has plans to expand the CareMore model.

While so many in positions of influence continue to complain about the cost of healthcare, it is encouraging to learn of a company that has done something very remarkable about it.

Read the article.

Related articles

• Upstream Medicine (andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com)
• Disease management + short takes on Kahneman, Podcasts, Merck, Design Thinking, Consumer Health (forbes.com)

From a NY Times article

… The researchers report that those who meditated for about 30 minutes a day for eight weeks had measurable changes in gray-matter density in parts of the brain associated with memory, sense of self, empathy and stress.

M.R.I. brain scans taken before and after the participants’ meditation regimen found increased gray matter in the hippocampus, an area important for learning and memory. The images also showed a reduction of gray matter in the amygdala, a region connected to anxiety and stress. A control group that did not practice meditation showed no such changes.

Britta Hölzel, a psychologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School and the study’s lead author, said the participants practiced mindfulness meditation, a form of meditation that was introduced in the United States in the late 1970s. It traces its roots to ancient Buddhist techniques….

“The main idea is to use different objects to focus one’s attention, and it could be a focus on sensations of breathing, or emotions or thoughts, or observing any type of body sensations,” she said. “But it’s about bringing the mind back to the here and now, as opposed to letting the mind drift.”

Generally the meditators are seated upright on a chair or the floor and in silence, although sometimes there might be a guide leading a session, Dr. Hölzel said.

… a 2009 study suggests that meditation may reduce blood pressure in patients with coronary heart disease. And a 2007 study found that meditators have longer attention spans.

Previous studies have also shown that there are structural differences between the brains of meditators and those who don’t meditate, although this new study is the first to document changes in gray matter over time through meditation.

Ultimately, Dr. Hölzel said she and her colleagues would like to demonstrate how meditation results in definitive improvements in people’s lives.

“A lot of studies find that it increases well-being, improves quality of life, but it’s always hard to determine how you can objectively test that,” she said. “Relatively little is known about the brain and the psychological mechanisms about how this is being done.”

In a 2008 study published in the journal PloS One, researchers found that when meditators heard the sounds of people suffering, they had stronger activation levels in their temporal parietal junctures, a part of the brain tied to empathy, than people who did not meditate.

“They may be more willing to help when someone suffers, and act more compassionately,” Dr. Hölzel said.

Click here for the article:

http://http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/28/how-meditation-may-change-the-brain/?src=me&ref=general

It is easier to develop the quality of acceptance when the stakes are not too high. Begin with small things and those close to home. Begin with yourself. Notice the occurrences in your day that seem to invite you to become willful, argumentative, or insistent on your way or the highway!  Notice areas of your life or situations where you may feel (or assign) blame, shame, fear or even embarrassment.  For instance, how do you really feel about your body?  Do you accept it as is or are you always hoping or wishing for a different weight or a different shape?  How about relationships?  What challenging or difficult relationships do you engage in regularly?  Is there someone in your family or perhaps at work that always seems to “push your buttons?”  Are you comfortable with your Self?  Do you genuinely love and truly accept yourself just as you are or do you try to be someone you’re not?  How about your financial situation?  Do you accept it as is and move forward from there or do you blame others for where you are?  After you take a true look at yourself, broaden the circle and look within your family.  Widen it again and look around your neighborhood and so on.

 Notice how you feel about each situation.  Notice if you collapse into feelings of overwhelm or even anger, feeling as if the deck is stacked against you, or as if things will never change. Any situation that doesn’t feel good is an opportunity to try a new approach, to elicit feelings of acceptance and let things be for a time. Think of it as an experiment. Try it purposefully on everyday situations and gradually you will get the kind of feedback that encourages you to keep on building and go on to higher and higher skill levels.

 If you find it difficult to develop acceptance about personal issues, begin with something as common as the weather.  Suppose you had your heart set on a gorgeous warm and sunny summer day to spend outside either by yourself or with friends and family.  You wake up and it’s pouring rain or cold and gray.  You plans need to be set aside or adjusted.  How do you usually react to such situations?  Do you go along with it, accept it and adjust to it?  Or do you let it consume your energy, leaving you frustrated, tired and depleted? Perhaps you’ve already established options and you know how you’re going to spend your time regardless of the weather.  You know that if the weather is sunny you’ll go with Plan A.  If the weather is less than favorable, you’ll move forward with Plan B.  No matter how the day turns out, you’re ready for it; you accept it as is and adjust accordingly.  You are able to let go and simply make the best of what comes up.

 Look for “energy leakages” in your daily life.  These are situations that aren’t balanced or situations that don’t feel good. They are situations where you expend more than you take in.  They are perfect opportunities to practice building new skills and to develop emotional intelligence.  When you practice acceptance, you broaden your perspective and allow different points or view.  You don’t need to be right and have someone else be wrong.  You accept situations as they are and you work towards mutually agreeable terms or conclusions.  You open yourself to personal growth and development.  You get to the heart of a problem without blame and you determine the proper course of action. You are able to do this objectively without making others feel bad or feel rejected.

 Acceptance is about inclusion rather than exclusion.  When you are inclusive, you are flexible and you are open to different ideas, situations and people.  You set judgment aside and you work with “what is” … whatever it is. As a result, you open yourself to more opportunity and awareness. You open yourself to the bounty of life

 Listen carefully and pay deep attention to your inner self. You will notice your areas of resistance and where you cause yourself physical, emotional and/or spiritual pain. As you notice, you can choose the path of acceptance.  Doing so leads to real freedom! 

 It is important to remember that we cannot strong arm ourselves into a new mind set with our thoughts alone. Tools such as breath work, EFT, and other energy techniques can help bring relief from old patterns at the level of the body-mind where our beliefs live and “drive our bus” without our conscious permission.

The exercises in our recorded programs are particularly well suited to helping you reworks your system so you can be free to move into acceptance and the ease that it brings.

Your energy system has a direct influence on your mind, body and spirit. It impacts your health, your moods, your outlook on life and much more. By setting up your energy at the start of the day and then tuning into your energy level throughout the day you will feel better and begin to develop a foundation for being able to expand your ability to manage, focus and channel your energy.

1. Upon awakening, before you even get out of bed, notice how you feel. If you dreamt something that has a negative hangover effect, consciously release it. Use whatever means you can to accomplish this: EFT, breath-work, imagery and pivoting can help you shift your feelings.
2. Choose you emotional state for the day. Yes, you can! Let yourself feel ease, peace, well being to whatever level you can and imagine flowing that good feeling out from your deep inner center into your day.
3. As you move through the day notice what expands and opens you and make it a point to settle into these feelings often. Appreciate and feel gratitude for all that is present and adding to your life. ( feelings create very real biochemical and neuro-hormonal changes.)
4. Notice what triggers negative feelings or thought patterns and consciously release them as best you can as they arise. At times there may be a need for more than you can manage in the moment. If the latter is the case, schedule time to do what you need to in order to collapse those patterns more thoroughly from your bodymind.
5. As you notice what diminishes and drags you down can you also begin to think about how you can consciously make choices that eliminate those situations from your life. That may not be possible in all cases, but you may be able to let go of more than you realize. In the meantime do what you can to build and strengthen your energy so you can change your habitual way of interacting with what is negative for you.

We are taking a break from our radio show to focus on completing our Caregiver Burnout Prevention program and book. You can access a year’s worth of programs and download any of them to listen at your leisure until Dec. 31, 2010.   Use the link below or go to: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/living-energy-works

Each program focuses on a particular theme having to do with energy, stress, higher consciousness, change, power of the mind, co-creative abilities etc. There is also a meditation/relaxation/imagery technique for you to experience at the end of almost all programs. The technique is specifically focused on the theme of that program. There are several interviews with authors that have great topics and insights to share as well. Enjoy!

Becoming more heart-focused in everything we do is one of the most effective things to begin to shift  and open to higher awareness. It also helps to improve health, enhance relationships and develop greater creativity, problem solving and intuition. Becoming more heart focused not only benefits ourselves, but also everyone we come in contact with. 

 To begin to become more heart centered, tune into your breath, and feel as though you can flow your breath in and out through the center of your chest, your heart space. Practice being absorbed in that experience or sensation. Create a sense of ease and flow through this part of your body and let your mind rest in feelings of openness and spaciousness.  Feeling gratitude or appreciation flowing with your breath can help ground you more deeply in this experience.  As you do this let yourself observe and directly experience people. places and things without judgment.

As you begin to play with this different point of view, your mind will of continue to throw up thoughts, judgments and its running commentary on the state of things! It is just what it does. Remove your attention and go back to the more open free flowing sensation of resting in your heart. 

As you practice being centered in your heart, over time you will discover that your stress level diminishes,your  attitudes begin to shift, and your overall experience of life deepens in a satisfying way. In addition, you will also notice changes in those around you and how they respond to you! Magic!

 When we learn to live more from our hearts, judgment is replaced by understanding and compassion.  Rather than feeling that we or others are right or wrong, we begin to understand perspective, how it forms and how seeing through a lens of right or wrong, good or bad keeps us locked in struggle.   We begin to see our way out of that prison and find our way to freedom.

 When your actions are heart-based you are operating outside the mind and outside the ego.  You begin to live and act out of a deep inner sense of love. This is more a state of being than a feeling of sentimentality, romance or attachment. It is a space you uncover, discover, and learn to live from independent of externals. Developing this way of being can help move you on toward enlightenment one human step at a time.

There is a tendency to associate letting go and grief with only death or other major loss. The truth is that we experience grief and loss in many other circumstances over the course of a lifetime. We experience it as we move on from a particular life stage, age, change jobs, leave relationships or places. Grief and loss are a normal part of our human experience.  Whether the transition is large or small, it is important to give it attention, respect AND a process for completion.

7 Steps for learning to let go:

1. Honor your experience by speaking or writing it out. Telling your story, honestly stating how it was for you without laundering it into what you think is acceptable, is crucial. Experience needs to be claimed and witnessed in order to be processed and released. The witnessing, whether by yourself or with another, is best if it is nonjudgmental and compassionate!

 2. Engage in a spiritual practice. Practices that help you connect with aspects larger than your ego self help make you feel that you CAN hold all your experience and not be shattered by it. Later you will realize that you can feel it AND let it go; this will give you more ability to feel what is there with courage because you can trust that you do not have to feel it forever.

 Spiritual practice also helps you to not feel so empty or isolated. It can provide an infusion of loving, supportive energy that assists you and holds you up when you cannot do it all alone.

 3. Seek out others who have been through similar situations. Sharing your experience, weaknesses and strengths is very healing. Both giving and receiving are a part of the natural flow of life. ..a core expression and rhythm of love.

 4. Take breaks in your process. Especially if your grief is a large one, it is crucial to the process to give it both active and receptive attention. It is okay to let things rest and gestate for a time.

 5. Provide an outlet for release of all thoughts, emotions and beliefs that have been stored up as a result of this loss for you. Create rituals, use intentions that help you to not only uncover and articulate but also for the letting go part.

 6. Channel your energy into something positive.  One family channeled grief about the loss of a child into a foundation that now raises money for research into childhood illnesses.  Another family is honoring the memory of their child by funding a house for families to stay nearby when their sick children are hospitalized.  These are two wonderful examples of turning grief into positive action … to process the grief and honor the past while improving the situation for others.

 7.  See a professional grief counselor if you feel that your grieving process has gone on too long or you feel stuck.  A professional can help you reclaim your Self.

 Grieving is healthy.  As you experience it, feel/ know that you are OK in spite of whatever pain or discomfort you feel.  Let go of resistance to all emotion, allow yourself to feel the sadness, despair and loss fully. Sometimes the simple act of not resisting and fully experiencing is enough for a natural letting go to occur. If not you may need to use intention and opening to the sensation of letting go.

 We are meant to grieve our losses, but not forever! Giving each phase of experience its proper place is the key to balance.

Deborah Duda, longtime caregiver and therapist for the terminally ill and their families is the author of “Coming Home: A Practical and Compassionate Guide to Caring for a Dying Loved One.” Terrified of dying, Deborah Duda called Mother Teresa while visiting Calcutta and met her at the Sisters of Charity Convent in the hopes of overcoming her fears. When Duda asked if she could help her care for the dying, Mother Teresa replied, “No, my child. Go home. There is sadness and suffering right around you at home.” Wisely following Mother Teresa’s advice, Duda has cared for and counseled terminally ill patients and their loved ones for 30 years. Having participated in the home deaths of her mother, father, two close friends and many others, Duda offers physical, legal, emotional and spiritual support for caregivers in making a loved one’s final weeks as relaxed and meaningful as possible in her acclaimed guide. Now in the fourth edition, previous editions of “Coming Home” have been endorsed by Mother Teresa and Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, author of “On Death and Dying,” has been reviewed by “Library Journal” and “The Los Angeles Times” and has been used to train hospice workers for decades. Learn what Mother Teresa taught Duda about caring for our dying – What caregivers can do for their physical, mental and emotional health – How to honor a loved one while grieving their loss – Activities you can do with your dying loved one – What dying can teach us about living joyfully.

Another useful concept for navigating the process of change, whether it is initiated by us or from the outside, is that of support. All growth and development requires adequate support in order to be successful.

Support does not mean the same thing to all people. What are your particular needs? Take some time to identify what support means to you. What works for one person may not work for another. Also, you may need different types of support at different times as you navigate the stages of change. It is always wise to have a variety of tools available to help you navigate change as well as your path in life. 

 So begin by asking what support means to you. What types are important to you? Where can you look for that help? This includes people, places and things! How often will you need these resources? Obviously there will be things you can do for yourself, but you may also need others. Who are they? Can you ask them ahead of time to be available to ensure that what you need will be forthcoming? Do you need professional support, a group or some skill building?

Having a list of all the ways that you may be able to offer yourself support can be useful. When we are stressed our thinking mind tends to shut down and we may not be able to sort out what we need. If it is available to you in written form it can really strengthen your chances of success.

Perhaps also writing out the positives that will result from the change you are going through can help give you some confidence when the going gets rough. You may also want to write out some encouraging statements on index cards and carry them with you. A friend who has committed to be an aid can be of invaluable help….especially if they have gone through similar circumstances.

 These approaches may seem self evident in a lot of ways, but they tend to be things we overlook…. maybe because of their simplicity. Nonetheless they can help make a difference in whether you just survive or thrive through transition.

Great conversation with Lori LaBey of Alzheimers Speaks. Here are some questions that she suggested that help caregivers (or anybody!) differentiate between healthy caregiving and enabling.

1. Do I want to do __________ for this person?
2. Am I motivated by love, fear or guilt?
3. Am I doing what I am doing because it is expected of me?
4. Is it what I want to give of myself?
5. Does this feel right to me?
6. Am I putting more effort into this than they are?
7. Will doing this make me feel good and why?