2015-may-june

meditation

MAY / JUN 2015

Healthcare Journal of new orleans

folks living in 21st Century Louisiana? Tulane

associate professor Nereida Parada, MD, is

emphatic that it is. The medical director of

Balance Integrative Health, a multi-faceted

wellness center in the NewOrleans Garden

District, she has also co-founded the Mind

Body Center of Louisiana- a non-profit that

focuses on teaching and raising awareness

of the benefits of mind-body medicine. She

asserts that the common health concerns of

Louisianans, such as heart disease, obesity,

diabetes, allergies, and asthma, are largely

due to poor wellness practices in the areas of

relaxation, nutrition, and exercise. While she

believes that exercise is the most important

of these three in the Louisiana patient popu-

lation, relaxation, whichmeditation can help

to achieve, is also vital.

Many chronic diseases commonly seen in

our culture and time are largely the products

of an imbalance between activation of the

parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous

systems. These systems, essentially physi-

ological opposites, complement each other

to respond to different survival needs. The

parasympathetic system is responsible for

functions like digestion, repair and heal-

ing, and sex— sometimes called the “rest

and digest” or “feed and breed” response.

These “peacetime” functions are all needed

for optimal survival during times of safety.

During times of danger, though, the sym-

pathetic system kicks in, with the “fight or

flight”, or stress, response—increasing heart

rate and contraction force, dilating the bron-

chioles in the lungs, and inhibiting those

“rest and digest” parasympathetic func-

tions. Blood vessels in skeletal muscle dilate

while those in gastrointestinal organs, kid-

ney, and skin constrict, diverting the body’s

resources to maximize defense in the face

of a threatening force. Whereas our bod-

ies evolved to move into the sympathetic

state while in danger, and then move back

to the parasympathetic state, the pressures

and complexities of modern life can lead to

staying in the sympathetic state for unnatu-

rally long stretches.

Dr. Parada asserts that while a state of

“sympathetic overdrive” might accelerate

productivity and performance in the short-

term, it is harmful in the long-term. When

in a constant state of stress, the body is not

allowed enough parasympathetic time, and

processes like repair and healing suffer. It

also leads to maladaptive immune system

activation. Chronic stress leads to chronic

inflammation, and stress is associated with

a broad range of health problems, as differ-

ent as cardiovascular disease, asthma, and

irritable bowel syndrome. First described by

Dr. Herbert Benson, the relaxation response

is essentially the opposite of the fight-or-

flight/stress response. The wellness idea

behindmeditation is to counter the sympa-

thetic overdrive of chronic stress by induc-

ing this relaxation response.

Benson’s idea of the relaxation response

is strikingly parallel to the traditional Chi-

nese medicine (TCM) idea of how medita-

tion works, as explained by Shi Deru. The

Chinese model is centered on the idea of

“Qi”, which could be roughly conceptu-

alized as life energy flow. Translating this

idea into the Western physiology view, Qi

Tulane associate

professor

Nereida

Parada, MD

medical director

of Balance

Integrative Health

The diagnosis of gastrointestinal

disease is improved by the use of

barium sulfate.

1906

Dye or contrast is used in x-rays to help visualize

blood vessels, gastro-intestinal systems, and other

internal systems for the first time.

1906

Wilhelm Einthoven invents a device to

measure and record the electric signature of

the heart—the first electrocardiograph (ECG).

1910