Welcome!

Rising UP! Take a Look at the Book!

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 20:20:12 -0500

Back Cover Text
Anna York has had multiple sclerosis since 1965. The disease crippled her, caused her excruciating pain, put her in a wheelchair and an electric scooter, and wreaked havoc on all aspects of her life. In 1996, she began an extraordinary journey of healing that reversed time and disability, restoring her to vibrant, healthy life.
Anna’s story is a passionate one of loss, despair, faith and hope. It speaks of the treasures of healing and wholeness that can be discovered when we learn to trust and share across the boundaries of race, culture and religion. It also discloses the pain and rejection that can occur when transformation takes place outside one’s accustomed social and cultural milieu.
Most of all, Anna’s story describes the triumph of the human spirit over impossible odds—a story that invites all of us to Rise UP! and meet the challenges we face in life with faith, hope and joy.

Back Cover Testimonials
Anna’s book is astounding. I share her remarkable story with the MS community daily. Lives are transformed, hope abounds, spirits are uplifted.
—Scott McDonald, Regional Director,
Multiple Sclerosis Association of America

Anna’s unwavering persistence in neurological training and her lifestyle and diet changes turned her multiple sclerosis completely around. As her Tai Chi Master and mentor for fourteen years I saw Anna bridge East and West to break barriers of doubt, fear and despair. Rising UP! is a story of faith and hope for everyone, especially those who have family members with debilitating trauma, chronic illness and life threatening diseases.
—Sifu and Master Teacher, Bruce Moran

Inside: Praise for Rising UP!

Read Rising UP!. You will be both inspired and edified . . . It tells how Anna York brought together Eastern (Tai Chi) and Christian spiritual practices to heal herself and create New Creation Body Prayer, the program that is used in churches and hospitals to help others. This book will get under your skin and into your heart. I highly recommend it.
—Don Browning, Alexander Campbell Professor,  University of Chicago Divinity School, Emeritus, and author of Reviving Christian Humanism: The New Conversation on Theology, Spirituality, and Psychology

When we pick up this book, we are in store for more than a good read—we are on the brink of an adventure. Our guide is Anna York, who is herself a multi-dimensional person, and the terrain is the several worlds in which she has taken up citizenship. She leads us into the deep and challenging places of these worlds—her amazing personal engagement with multiple sclerosis, her profound personal and spiritual journey, her “easternizing” her journey through tai chi and Chinese medicine, and her struggle to synthesize these elements with her western and Christian identity, all the while moving steadily toward her professional goals and ministry. But there is more to her story than any summary can convey—surprising turns, puzzling conundrums, and thrilling discovery. This is the kind of book that goes beyond information and inspiration—it transforms us.
—Philip Hefner, Lutheran Pastor and Professor Emeritus of  Systematic Theology at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.

Rising UP! is a valuable addition to narratives about life with disability, and in particular how one woman, after unsuccessfully navigating the traditional medical and religious structures, ultimately finds unexpected and creative solutions back to health and well-being.
—Kristi L. Kirschner M.D., Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation

As Anna’s pastor for fourteen years I shared her struggle for healing in an intellectual, spiritual, multi-cultural melting pot. She discovers that Christ does not always answer prayers in the way we expect. He is as iconoclastic now as he was in his own day, breaking down religious and cultural barriers and compelling us to see God at work in the world around us. Anna inspires all of us to persevere in seeking healing for ourselves and peace for our world.
—Rev. Dr. Shanta Premawardhana, Executive for Interreligious  Dialogue and Cooperation at the World Council of Churches

Rising UP! Table of Contents

Introduction: I AM One
The Rising Heritage
My Name is Anna
Growing Up Fundamentalist
Falling Down
Dorothy in Kansas
Signs in the Heavens, Signs in the Earth
Moving Out in Spirit
I Feared a Fear
The Price of Liberty
Doing, Doing, Doing Too Much
Our Little Girl Dies
The Fear Came Upon Me
Do-Be-Do-Be-Do
Will Power Is Not Enough
Future Shock
Demolition of the Past
Denial of the Present
Alone and Lonely
Does Anybody Know This Person?
Victimized
Unknowing
Seeking Who I AM
Seeking the Way
Finding “The Way”
Being Who I Am
Who I Am as Myself
Being Empty and Full
Meeting the “I AM”
A Rising Manifesto
A Mountaintop Experience
Snowstorm
I AM Faith
Window Watcher
I AM Joy
Never Christmas
I AM Hope
Broken Neck
I AM Love
Rising and Falling
Up and Down the Mountain
Coming Together
Everybody’s Mom
Parking Violations
The Man in My Life
Flashes in My Soul
Rising UP!
Jubilee
I Am Who I AM: Preparing for Ordination
Riding the Wind, Serving Tea: Ordination
Waving Palms: Healed by a Tai Chi Master
Born Again
Tai Chi: Exercise I Could Do
Easternizing My Healing
A Grace Place Healing
Food for Life
Walking Free!
A Traditional Chinese Medicine Diagnosis
Drug Free!
Body Prayer
Detoxing the Emotions
Roaring and Forgiving
Chi and Other Dilemmas
Clearing Out, Moving On
Cutting the Strings
The Falling Icon
Adventures and Vistas
Rising Costs
Photo Album
Epilogue
New Year, 2010

Rising UP! Introduction:
I Am One

My husband Don says I’m non-statistical. Since he is a chaired Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Chicago and has hundreds of scientific papers to his credit, I figure he should know. One of his favorite pastimes is calculating in his head, on the spur of the moment, such complex questions as the budget of a corporation, the resources needed for putting computers in every room of the Chicago Public Schools, the population of the world 50 years from now and the number of atoms in the universe. He calculates my personal non-statistical status by citing the following criteria: I have MS (one in a thousand); I am a vegan (he only knows three others in the world); I am a female Baptist minister (a species on the endangered list); I am a female Baptist minister who does Tai Chi (a set of one, as far as he knows); and I am a female Baptist minister with multiple sclerosis who has recovered with the help of a Tai Chi master (the only one in the universe). All of these peculiarities together make it impossible for me to share a category with anyone else; therefore, I am “non-statistical.”
Even though Don loves me unconditionally—and has proven it by sticking it out with me for all these years!—my non-statistical status is still puzzling to him. He depends on statistics and data to make measurements, interpretations and predictions about what is happening and can happen in the physical universe. In Don’s view, if there is just one event of a particular kind, there is no way to determine whether it is a random anomaly, an experimental error, or an indicator that there is a whole dimension of reality that is as yet unknown and unexplored and that waits on the horizon to be discovered. Scientifically, these kinds of questions fascinate him, and he’s built a career trying to make sense of them. Maybe that’s why he finds me fascinating and has stayed with me—I am one more mystery of the universe yet to be solved! Here are some of the facts he’s assembled in his attempt to understand my experience:
• I have had multiple sclerosis since 1965 (about 45 years as of this writing!) and was severely crippled for over a decade. Up to six MS attacks a year resulted in my using an electric scooter and being unable to stand or sit up straight for more than a few minutes.
• I was largely paralyzed in my lower left body and the muscles all over my body were atrophied.
• At times my hands were so weak I was unable to lift a cup or plate.
• While there are now drugs that help reverse the symptoms of MS, there is still no known cure, and many fight a losing battle to control their symptoms. I have not only controlled but also reversed mine, finding healing in body, mind and spirit.
• I am no longer using a scooter or even a cane, and my physical exams reveal excellent overall health. After being uninsurable for more than two decades, I have now been approved for life insurance! I stand straight and tall and fit into my wedding dress (45 years and 5 babies ago).
• I live a normal life, work 40 hours a week and love to travel and work out.
Don has seen me go through a lot of changes. No wonder he’s puzzled.
There are also others who are challenged by my non-statistical status. When I last saw my neurologist, in 2002, I had to register as a new patient because I had not seen him for so long. I wanted him to see my progress. He listened with raised eyebrows and then pronounced my current healthy status as being “lucky”—another way of saying “non-statistical.” My experience does not fit the normal categories of healing in the Western medical framework because I have broken out of it and departed into the unscientific and “anecdotal” world of natural, alternative, and complementary healing. Because my doctor does not have any data to support a regimen such as mine, he cannot bring himself to say that my “good luck” will continue or that it might be a possibility for anyone else.
Some people say I am a miracle, which is yet another way of saying I am non-statistical. This often happens with people who are not religious. They just go by their seat-of-the-pants observations that something has occurred that seems completely out of the range of normal experience. For these people, wide eyes and a sense of awe often accompany their perception of my miraculous status.
Those who are Christians, especially those who are from conservative backgrounds like mine, hesitate to call me a miracle, because my experience does not fit what they recognize as a canonical, Biblical healing. It did not fall on me instantaneously from on high but has taken place over a period of years and is still taking place today. Furthermore, even though the prayers of hundreds of people were instrumental in bringing about my healing, and even though one important healing occurred in a church sanctuary, much of my healing was accomplished in my home and in Tai Chi classes and workout gyms. Nor was it performed by a traditional “minister” or church “healer” but primarily through the expertise of a Tai Chi master who is highly skilled in Eastern healing arts. For some Christians, including some who are very close to me, these circumstances are disturbing and confusing. Part of my story is about my struggle to share my unusual experience with my Christian friends and loved ones.
From my own perspective, I do think of myself as a miracle. The Bible says that some miracles need to be “worked”— which means that a great deal of energy or dunamis (the Greek word from which we get our word “dynamite”) goes into creating something extraordinary. My experience has been a “dynamite” miracle of faith, hope, will, discipline, insight, adaptation and transformation. While it has been God working in me to accomplish the miracle, I have also been a co-creative partner, along with other people from outside my own religious faith and milieu who I never expected could participate in such a work of God. The miracle is not finished. I will be working it every day, day in and day out, for the rest of my life. Living means working miracles, never stopping, never giving up, rebuking the impossible, grasping God’s new possibilities, snatching life from death, rising up to live again.
While the story of how I received physical healing is important, I believe it has broader implications. It is a sign of hope, cooperation and understanding in our fractured, war-torn world. My experience is Western, but it breaks out of Western definitions and structures and speaks that we are not whole until we learn that the heritage of other cultures can be God’s gift of love to us. I am a Christian, and my experience is deeply Christian, but God surprised me by breaking through frontiers of time and space, through walls between nations and people groups, through barriers of the heart and spirit. My experience bursts out of traditional Christian patterns and dogmas and recaptures some of the iconoclastic nature of Christ’s original healing ministry. People of any faith, or no faith at all, can find hope in my story because it speaks once again, as it did in that ancient time, of a God who is great beyond all comprehension and whose love crosses all boundaries.
My journey has brought me from rural, fundamentalist roots in America’s heartland to the pluralistic, urban setting where I have experienced healing through the Eastern arts. For me, this journey is as unlikely as traveling to the moon. It has transported me from the familiar, comfortable doctrines of my childhood faith into the heart center and offense of Christ’s gospel—the gospel that there is a new humanity and that the walls of hostility are broken down among all people so that we may seek and discover the meaning of God’s love among all the diverse expressions of those who are created in God’s own image. It has taken me away from a passive, yielded faith to an active, co-creative participation in community with people of diverse nations and faiths. Within that community I commit myself to struggle and wrestle with the meaning of our similarities and differences and to assist each other in finding healing and mutual transformation so that we can have peace in our world.
My non-statistical status proclaims that I AM ONE. My story is unique. Even so, the fact that I have a unique story suggests to me that there is a whole world full of unique stories out there, if only we could tune in to hear them all. By sharing our stories we affirm to each other that even though there is anguish, loss and pain, there is also the possibility of hope, power and transformation. We say to each other, “No matter how bad things may seem, there is always hope. If I can get through it, you can too.” I AM ONE with all such stories that can and will be. Let us rise up together and share the journey.

Chi Kung & Mental Practice: Relax, Focus, Take Control!

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 18:39:43 -0600

Eighth Article in a Series
In a previous article we discussed how mental practice with motor imagery (thinking about doing a physical action without actually doing it) can help you perform better physically. Guess what! It can also help boost your mental power! That may seem obvious, but some of the mental benefits might be a little surprising.
Increase focus and concentration. Those whose attention tends to wander or even flit from one thought to another may find that the techniques used in mental practice help them in the ability to focus on many types of daily tasks or processes that require attention. In fact, mental practice employs some of the same techniques as various types of meditation in which the mind and body are refreshed by clearing out extraneous thoughts and focusing on one thing. Mental practice can help increase your power to concentrate.
Relaxation. Mental practice is most efficient when the body is relaxed and at peace. For this reason, part of the protocol for learning mental practice is often training in relaxation, especially progressive relaxation. In progressive relaxation one becomes aware of various muscle groups in the body and then intentionally tightens and relaxes them. Sometimes this is done in a sequential order, perhaps beginning with the feet and gradually working up the legs, torso, arms and hands, with the goal of being able to relax any part of the body at will. Thus, mental practice can help build relaxation skills that can have cross-over benefits for relieving stress in other aspects of life. You can imagine many stressful situations in which it would be a great advantage to just say to your body, “Relax!” and it would relax!
Decrease anxiety during performance. Those who need to do any kind of public performance can decrease anxiety by doing mental practice before facing the audience. Imagine a musician waiting backstage to perform before a panel of judges who will determine her entry into a prestigious school. She could pace back and forth with butterflies in her tummy, worrying about all the mistakes she might make, obsessing over her appearance, trying to calm jittery nerves—or she could get into a relaxing position and practice her performance mentally, gaining a sense of calm and assurance that she will perform well. When she goes out on stage she can be relaxed and ready.
Gain control over non-conscious processes. Some researchers think that motor imagery can assist a person in gaining awareness and control of processes that are usually unconscious. For example, motor imagery may help a person become aware of very small sensations that accompany movement. This was important to me when I was training unresponsive muscles, because I wanted to know if my work was paying off, if I was actually getting somewhere with all of the work and mental practice. When I could feel even very small sensations, it was an encouragement, a sign that I was making progress. Since multiple sclerosis dulled sensation in some parts of my body, it was good to get information that they were still alive. Chi Kung is especially helpful in achieving this kind sensitivity.
Mental practice helps develop awareness and control over sequential activation of muscles and muscle groups that are normally beyond our consciousness. I use a lot of motor imagery while practicing my gait on a treadmill—and in thinking about it when I am not actually on the treadmill. I want to sense sequential activation of specific movements, for example from the foot and up through the calf, the hamstrings, the glutes and into the lower and middle back. Sequential activation helps me develop a smoother gait. Mental practice and focus helps me fine tune my workout and evaluate whether I am achieving my goal. The slow, intentional movements of Chi Kung and Tai Chi are highly effective in developing this type of awareness.
We know that slowing down the breath also slows down the heart rate and lowers body temperature, all of which are important in reducing stress. Breathing, heart rate, body temperature, and other functions that are normally below the radar of our awareness can all become more conscious and controlled through mental practice, a fact that has been known by practitioners of Tai Chi and Chi Kung for over 4000 years. It’s great to hear that modern “experts” are now making this discovery scientifically and recognizing the benefits for both sports training and rehabilitation.

Copyright by Anna York, 2010

Chi Kung & Mental Practice: Gain Without Pain!

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 18:06:47 -0600

Seventh article in a series
Chi Kung is an ancient art that integrates mental practice and visualization into exercises for posture, movement, breathing, and energy work. Mental practice is one of the things that makes Chi Kung so powerful for rehabilitation. Below we describe some big advantages of doing mental practice in any form, including Chi Kung.
Gain without pain. Probably the biggest advantage of mental practice is that it provides additional practice without a strain on the body. This is good news for all kinds of people from professional athletes to those who are disabled and need to engage in extensive rehabilitation. One of the biggest limiting factors in training and rehab is that newly activated muscles are weak and get tired quickly. When they become fatigued, there is no choice but to rest and wait for recovery, perhaps a few minutes or hours later, or perhaps the next day. Mental practice extends the time for practice without creating a strain on the body—gain without pain! That’s really good news and could significantly reduce the amount of time and physical training needed to perform a skill.
Many people with neurological disorders have muscle weakness and have difficulty performing traditional muscle strengthening exercises, especially after long periods of inactivity or bed rest. There is hope that these people may be able to maintain some of their strength, enhance neurological signals, and possibly even gain some muscle strength from mental practice with motor imagery. (Motor imagery means picturing, sensing and feeling doing a physical action.) Especially when patients are in a recovery period when they normally would not be able to do any exercises, doing mental practice may accelerate recovery by stimulating the neuromuscular system.
Long lasting gains. Some research has shown that gains from mental practice last many weeks after training is completed. This suggests that the neural adaptations created during mental practice using motor imagery have a long lasting effect, perhaps similar to those generated when learning such activities as riding a bike, ice skating or swimming.
Rewires the nervous system. When there is neurological injury due to accident or illness, the body needs to find ways of re-activating the old neurological pathways or of creating new ones to replace those that are dysfunctional. We now know that exercise can help re-wire the nervous system, creating new neurons and synapses. Scientific data confirms that mental practice fires the same parts of the brain as physical practice—and more! There is now hope that this re-wiring can take place more quickly and efficiently than with physical practice alone.
Bi-lateral crossover. Research has shown that there is significant bilateral transfer of skill from one side of the body to the other after mental practice with motor imagery. That means that a person with an injury or impairment on one side of the body might improve function by using imagery on the other side of the body. Anyone who has broken an arm or leg knows how tough it is to recover when it has been inactive for an extended period. It may take a long time before the limb returns to normal strength and usage. Using mental practice can help get things moving more quickly. Benefit can even occur when there has been such long disuse and disability that a person forgets how it feels to move the limb and has difficulty imaging the action. This may happen with a person who has a neurological impairment and has no recent experience with how it feels to move a certain part of the body. Sensing and feeling how one side works and help one imagine, sense and feel what the other side could do.
Can shorten rehab. Using mental practice can potentially shorten long-term rehabilitation. Fitt’s law states that more difficult movements take more time to produce physically than do easier ones. This applies to imagined movements as well. However, combining different types of therapy, including physical and mental, could potentially reduce the time required for injuries that take a longer time and more practice. Examples are complex actions such as walking and those that require recruitment of several large muscles groups in the body, such as lifting a knee toward the abdomen.
Great for rehab follow-up. After patients are discharged from a hospital or rehab facility, they usually get much less intense and less frequent therapy, with a resultant loss of momentum and failure to achieve full potential. Mental practice used along with some physical practice could be used to help maintain gains and possibly lead to further improvement. Follow-up rehab sessions could then serve a broader function of evaluating progress, refining imagery practice and modeling new skills for both physical and mental practice.
Thinking is cheap. With today’s skyrocketing costs for medical and rehabilitation treatment, one of the biggest advantages of mental practice is that it is extremely cost effective. Many types of mental practice might require only a limited amount of training, and there is minimal equipment requirement. It can be initially assisted by those who are expert, but the practice can occur alone in a person’s own time and space, greatly reducing the need for professional time and attention. If assistance is needed, a friend or loved one can be trained to help.
Chi Kung is more fun! All of these benefits are available in Chi Kung when it is used as a daily practice for wellness or when it is used as part of an overall program for rehabilitation. Why not get all of that and have fun too!
Copyright by Anna York, 2010

Readings in Mental Practice:

Ruth Dickstein, Ayelet Dunsky, and Emanuel Marcovitz. “Motor Imagery for Gait Rehabilitation in Post-Stroke Hemiparesis.” Physical Therapy, Volume 84, Number 12, December 2004, p. 1168.

Norman Doidge M.D., The Brain that Changes Itself. Viking, New York, 2007, pp. 200-204.

Michael G. Lacourse, PhD; Jessica A. Turner, PhD; Elizabeth Randolph-Orr, BFA; Steven L. Schandler, PhD; Michael J. Cohen, PhD. “Cerebral and cerebellar sensorimotor plasticity following motor imagery-based mental practice of a sequential movement.” Journal of Rehabilitation Research & Development, July/August 2004, Volume 41, Number 4, Pages 505–524.

Jackson PL, Lafleur MF, Malouin F, Richards C, Doyon J. Potential role of mental practice using motor
imagery in neurologic rehabilitation. Arch Phys Med Rehabil. 2001;82:1133-41.

Francesca Morganti, M.S., Andrea Gaggioli, M.S.,Gianluca Castelnuovo, M.S., Daniel Bulla, M.S.,Marco Vettorello, M.S., and Giuseppe Riva, Ph.D. “The Use of Technology-Supported Mental Imagery in Neurological Rehabilitation: AResearch Protocol.” CyberPsychology & Behavior, Volume 6, Number 4, 2003.

Ranganathan, Vinoth K.; Siemionow, Vlodek; Liu, Jing Z.; Sahgal, Vinod; Yue, Guang H. “From mental power to muscle power—gaining strength by using the mind.” Neuropsychologia, 2004, Vol. 42 Issue 7, p944, 13p.

Ungerleider, Steven, Visions of Victory , Psychology Today, 00333107, Jul92, Vol. 25, Issue 4. 

Chi Kung & Mental Practice: The “Armchair Workout”

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 12:11:29 -0600

Sixth Article in a Series
How would you like to make progress in doing your rehab even when you are not doing the actual physical practice that is required to improve your performance? Is that even possible? The answer is YES!
You can make improvements by doing “mental practice,” which is a kind of “armchair rehearsal” of your workout or rehabilitation exercises. That doesn’t mean you can skip the physical workout! It does mean that you can improve it by adding the mental component. In this blog and others to follow, we will talk about what mental practice is, how to do it, and what the advantages are. We will talk about why Chi Kung is such a great way to do mental practice.
What is mental practice? Mental practice involves repeating a certain task over and over in your mind until you can perform it the way you imagine it. The goal is to learn or improve a skill by thinking about it without performing any observable movement.
Is mental practice new? Researchers are now scientifically validating something that has been known and practiced for a very long time by those who do Tai Chi, Chi Kung and other martial arts, as well as by top-notch athletes. They are discovering that doing mental practice can significantly enhance performance of many different types of physical actions. Researchers say that “imagery is now becoming one of the best understood higher cognitive functions.”
Here is a description of the process of mental practice by Dick Fosbury, an Olympic high jumper and creator of the famous “Fosbury Flop”:
"I began to develop my new style during high school competition, when my body seemed to react to challenge of the bar. I became charged by the desire and will to achieve success. Then I developed a thought process in order to repeat a successful jump: I would 'psyche' myself up; create a picture; 'feel' a successful jump--the perfect jump; and develop a positive attitude to make the jump. My success came from the visualization and imaging process."
A natural way of learning. Dick Fosbury and the others who do motor imagery practice are not doing something psychic or weird—they are tapping into a natural way of learning. Babies do it from the time they are born. Just recall watching a baby learn how to walk. You can see them watching Mom and Dad, trying it themselves, thinking about it, improving on past performance, increasing muscular responsiveness and coordination. Much of the learning humans do before the age of 14 is based on mental practice of imagery, even if we are not consciously aware of what we are doing. As we grow into adults, other types of learning begin to take precedence, but we continue to use imagery to learn and perfect a multitude of small tasks that make up daily life. We are just not consciously aware of what we are doing. Mental practice brings natural, non-conscious processes to awareness, placing them in the arena where will and intention can control them to accomplish certain specific goals.
Combination of mental and physical is best. Though less effective than physical practice, mental practice with motor imagery improves performance more than doing physical practice alone. The reason for this is that mental practice using motor imagery activates similar cerebral and cerebellar sensorimotor structures to those that are activated using physical practice. Mental practice also increases spinal reflex excitability at a level only slightly weaker than during movement, and corticospinal excitability is similar during imagery and movement.
Researchers have done studies on something that we can call “pinky pushups”—not their language! In these studies participants in one group were asked to think about contracting the pinky finger, doing 50 mental contractions five days a week for twelve weeks. Another group was asked to do the actual physical exercise. Those doing the physical exercise gained 53% in strength, and those doing mental practice alone gained an impressive 40%. This and other studies show that physical practice increases strength or skill more than mental practice, but mental practice can also be very effective alone. Most researchers agree that the most effective approach is to combine physical practice with motor imagery, which produces a greater effect than using either of them alone.
In sports mental imagery has been shown to enhance speed, increase muscle force and increase electomyographic activity in muscles that are targeted in the imagery task. Breathing and heart rate also adapt to match the activity that is imaged. There is even evidence that mental practice provides an “extra” neurological boost beyond physical practice because it builds up a neuronal substrate in the brain that is not built by physical practice alone. Therefore, mental practice can be a powerful complement to physical practice.
Chi Kung and mental practice: Chi Kung, an ancient Chinese art dating back to at least 2300 B.C., is unique in comparison to most forms of gym exercise and weight training, which often include mindless repetition of actions that are not part of daily life. In contrast, Chi Kung is an ancient art that integrates mental practice and visualization in every aspect, including functional posture and movement, breathing, and energy work. Doing mental practice in Chi Kung can help you learn to enhance your performance in your other workouts and in your daily life.
Copyright by Anna York, 2010

Chi Kung (Qigong) for Rehab: Pay Attention to What You Are Doing!

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 13:11:37 -0600

Fifth Article in a Series

When I go to Bally’s to work out, I see people all around me listening to music on headphones, talking on the phone and watching the big TV screens that fill one end of the gym. Many of us seem to think that we can put our bodies on automatic pilot and let our brains take us to whatever exotic destination they choose while our bodies just plod through the program. But can we really get the full benefit of our exercise when our attention is so divided? Recent neuroscience says no.

Researchers tell us we can make much better progress—and use of our time—if we pay attention. That is especially true for those who need to do significant rehabilitation to restore function from any disabling condition. Chi Kung is an ideal exercise for rehab because paying attention is one its core principles.

A study done by Michael Merzenich helps us understand the importance of attention. He studied monkeys who all heard the same music, but some were rewarded when they detected changes in rhythm, while others were rewarded when they paid attention to sounds or to other activities they were doing at the same time. Researchers mapped their brains to find out how paying attention affects physical changes in the structure and functioning of the nervous system. They found that paying attention could increase the brain activity by two-to threefold! Attention is indispensable for “neuroplasticity”—that is, to keep the brain active, sharp and growing. As Sharon Begley reports in Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain, “Attention pumps up neuronal activity.” (Begley, p. 158)

Researcher Helen Neville describes how attention is like a gate for information:

“If I tell you to sit here and read this book, and pay attention to it, and at the same time, I play sounds over a speaker, then the brain has a very tiny neural response to the sound. But then if I say, put the book away and listen to the sounds and detect every time the frequency changes, then you get a much more powerful signal in the auditory cortex. This suggests that attention works like a gate to open and let more neural information in. People think attention is some kind of a psychological construct, but you can touch it. It has an anatomy, a physiology, and a chemistry.” (Begley, p. 159).

Chi Kung is an ideal brain and body builder for rehabilitation because attention is built into the practice in a way that differs from regular gym and weight training programs that require boring, repetitive activities that have little or no relation to the activities of daily life. Chi Kung requires attention to do the slow, diverse, complex movements and to do the deep internal breathing and energy work. The body begins to come alive at the cellular level, as well as at the level of muscles and joints, stimulating the mind to attend to minute aspects of the body’s functions that were previously hidden. The mind comes alive, making new neuronal connections with many body parts and functions. Consistent practice establishes an array of physical benefits and also a robust neurological infrastructure that supports lasting change.

Michael Merzenich says we choose who and what we will become by what we pay attention to:

Experience coupled with attention leads to physical changes in the structure and future function of the nervous system. This leaves us with a clear physiological fact . . . moment by moment we choose and sculpt how our ever-changing minds will work, we choose who we will be the next moment in a very real sense, and these choices are left embossed in physical form on our material selves. (Begley, p. 159)

We make choices in every moment of who we will be, according to where we apply our attention. Keeping the mind active and focused during rehabilitation will give an added boost to our efforts.

Chi Kung builds our attention at the same time it builds our bodies and thus is a valuable part of any rehabilitation program.

PAY ATTENTION! COME TO CHI KUNG CLASS!

Copyright by Anna York, 2010