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~ Rejecting the gods of our culture since 1998.

cultural atheist

Monthly Archives: January 2017

10 Questions for Better Health

31 Tuesday Jan 2017

Posted by braddahr in health, Observations, recovery

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Chiropractor, exercise, healing, health, mental health, witch doctor

As part of my health and wellness journey, also know as “the keep Brad sane plan,” I check in with physiotherapists, chiropractors, and massage therapists and ask them to perform their magic on me. Since moving to our new location, I have become a patient, and dare I say friend, of Dr. Shenaigh Newman (on Twitter @drshenaigh) a chiropractor who practices at ChiroCare Centre in Edmonton.

I tease Dr. Newman about being my witch doctor but I have really appreciated her help with a handful of injuries I have had. I like how she’s patient focused, doesn’t take herself too seriously, and she laughs at my jokes. Recently, I had the crazy idea that I would interview her about being healthy and then share her answers with all of you so that we can both become internet famous.

These are the first five of ten questions.

BD: If you knew you were going to reach millions of readers through my blog, what’s the most important thing you would want them to know?

SN: Motion is lotion! Movement is so important for the body. We were made to move. I don’t care how you do it, just get out and move. Walk, run, swim, crawl; at the end of the day it doesn’t matter what you do, just move. Our body was never made to stay in one position for long but for some reason that’s exactly what we force the body to do. Whether it’s sitting, standing, lying down- we should never stay in one position for long. I recommend my patients to try and change positions or move around every fifteen minutes; setting an alarm on their phone always helps!

BD: If I could do only one exercise what should it be?

SN: The forearm plank. It is such a simple exercise but it works basically your entire body from head to toe. Primarily, this exercise works the erector spinae muscles in your back and the rectus abdominis and transversus abdominis in your front, all of which are a large majority of your core musculature that is important to strengthen in order to prevent lower back pain. Secondarily, this exercise also recruits stabilizing muscles to help hold your body in that position. Some examples of stabilization muscles that are activated in the plank are the trapezius, rhomboids, the rotator cuff muscles, deltoids, pectoralis muscles, gluteus maximus, hamstrings, and quadriceps. When doing this exercise, it is important to ensure that your entire back is flat and that your elbows are in line with your shoulders. Initially, I give my patients the goal of holding the exercise for thirty seconds.Once they can hold this with no problem I will introduce a few more advanced moves to keep it interesting.

BD: I use weights, run, swim, and bike, and sometimes do yoga. What are the three things I must do to ensure I can still walk when I am older?

SN: It is actually quite smart to do such a variety of exercises because each and every one of them works a different part of your body to form a well-rounded complete workout routine. Some important things to remember to ensure that you will be able to continue this lifestyle for years to come are as follows:

1) It is important to continue to listen to your body throughout your workouts and make sure that you are adequately resting. If your body tells you to stop then listen to it. There’s nothing wrong with taking a few days off to rest because it’s better than having to take weeks or months off due to injury.

2) Ensure that you are properly fueling your body with all the nutrients you need including drinking enough water throughout the day and during your workouts.

3) Warming up and cooling down before and after your workouts are just as important to do as the workout itself. You are more prone to injury when your muscles aren’t warm. It is more important to spend an extra five minutes to prevent an injury down the line.

BD: What are three popular exercises people consistently do wrong and end up hurting themselves?

SN: I’m a huge fan of doing exercises either with free weights, resistance bands, or bodyweight only. You’ll notice I didn’t mention weight machines most commonly found at the gym. Although these machines are good for beginners, they usually only exercise a specific muscle while letting all other muscles take a back seat. I’ll admit when I first started working out at the gym and didn’t know better I just rotated from machine to machine because that’s what I thought was best. But now that I know better I find much better results and less injury using free weights and body weight for most of my exercises. I also find that with a machine, the muscle is only worked in one way and is not necessarily worked in a way that is functional or in the way that we need the muscle to work in our day-to-day life.

Seated Knee Extension/Flexion: This is a popular exercise used to work our quadriceps/hamstrings however when the weight is high and the knees are in full extension it places stress on the knee joint. The knee joint isn’t designed for this type of shearing stress at higher weights and you can end up injuring the knee. You can work out the quadriceps just as well with basic squats and lunges, add some weight or some plyometric jumps and you should be good to go.

giphy-2Inner and Outer Thigh Machine: Here’s another popular machine used at the gym that just needs to go! This machine works the adductors (inner thigh muscles) and the abductors (outer thigh muscles) in two separate ways. My biggest issue with this machine is the fact that it does not strengthen the muscle in a functional way… I mean how often are you doing this action in your day-to-day life? It is very important to strengthen these muscles as they are important stabilizing muscles for our hips but there are much better ways to strengthen them. You can do standing or lying adduction and abduction exercises with resistance bands or just the weight of your leg or do lateral lunges or skater squats for a more difficult workout.

BD: If you could wave a magic wand and make fitness trainers and exercise promoters stop teaching people to do three popular exercises, which three would they be and why?

SN: Hovering Leg Lifts: This exercise requires you to lie down on your back and lift your legs straight off the floor to hover a few inches off of the ground. The primary goal of this exercise is to work the abs, which it does, but at the cost of placing a huge amount of stress on the lower back which can cause injury. There are many other ways to work your abdominal muscles without loading the low back that should be used instead.

Superman: This one is a classic, I’ve seen it in so many pilates and yoga classes and it is so frustrating! I had a professor one time call this the “spine crusher” because at the base anatomic level, that’s exactly what it is doing. If you think about it, by raising the legs and the arms all of the weight is getting concentrated to your lower back and overtime it can lead to lower back pain. Although it is fun to pretend you are a superhero there are many other alternatives to avoid hurting your back.

Upright rows: This exercise requires you to lift a barbell with your hands close together and bring your hands up under your chin. I find many of my patients get shoulder pain while doing these because the exercise bangs the humerus against the acromion compressing the AC joint. Depending on how much space is in the shoulder, it can compress nerves and damage the cartilage in the AC joint. Instead of this exercise, try bent-over rows by bending forward 90 degrees at the hip and holding the weight down with hands a little more than shoulder width apart. Then lift the weight straight up towards your chest so your elbows and shoulders form a straight line. This puts less load on the AC joint which helps prevent injury and degeneration in the shoulder joint.

Check my next post for her answers to my last five questions.

*Check this out: I found Dr. Newman because she started handling the Twitter account for the clinic which happens to be walking distance from our home. I recall she liked something I wrote so I figured she must be a quality person.  Anyway, I made an appointment and started going to see her a couple times a month. A few weeks ago, I was being poked, prodded, and twisted by her and we were chatting about life stuff. Long story short, it turns out her good friend’s parents, her second mom, is my wife’s best friend from Yellowknife!  How random is that?!?  

How to Set Healthy Boundaries — MakeItUltra™

30 Monday Jan 2017

Posted by braddahr in Observations

≈ 7 Comments

MakeItUltra™ Founder: Eric C., MA., PhD Candidate (USA) Website: MotivateInspireUplift.com “I encourage people to remember that “No” is a complete sentence.” ~ Gavin de Becker 1. Identify current boundary crossers The first step in setting healthy boundaries is identifying who it is that is the boundary crosser. How does this person make you feel? Most likely, telling […]

via How to Set Healthy Boundaries — MakeItUltra™

Dreams and Wishes

29 Sunday Jan 2017

Posted by braddahr in Inspiration

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

dreams, Heart, humour, wishes

Dreams are wishes your heart make.

If that’s true, my heart is often wishing for a series of disjointed, sometimes really distressing events, around work, that usually include talking bears.

Personal Puppet

28 Saturday Jan 2017

Posted by braddahr in health, Observations, recovery

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Abuse, healing, health, help, personal, recovery, relationships

Another great insight from Shannon Thomas’ book, “Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse.”

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Is It Your Weight to Carry?

27 Friday Jan 2017

Posted by braddahr in health, Observations, recovery

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Abuse, personal, recovery, relationships, Responsibility, toxic

Check this out.

I recently discovered Shahida Arabi on Twitter. She is the author of two #1 Amazon Bestsellers, “The Smart Girl’s Guide to Self-Care,” and “Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare.”

Being a Threat

26 Thursday Jan 2017

Posted by braddahr in health, Observations, recovery

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Abuse, healing, help, hope, self-care, Shame, toxic

No joke, we witnessed this up close when a person we love was shamed, blamed and yes, told they were being selfish for wanting healing. It was so shocking to us we couldn’t wrap our brains around it. Now we get it.

Check out Shannon Thomas’ book, “Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse.”

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Fundamental Content Problem

26 Thursday Jan 2017

Posted by braddahr in Inspiration, Observations, Spirituality

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Church, God, Holy Spirit, Jesus, Love, Sermon, truth, Ty Gibson, Witness

Recently, Ty Gibson, a pretty awesome guy I follow on Twitter (@tyfgibson or check out Digma) tweeted a sermon. Besides me thinking that tweeting a sermon is brilliant, his message was profound, transformational, a paradigm shift. So I asked him for permission to share it here so your mind can also be blown.

Sermon by Ty Gibson

I’ma preach a Twitter sermon this morning y’all. Opening prayer: Lord, wake us up to YOUR agenda. In the name of Jesus, Amen!

Scripture reading: Jesus said, “the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness ABOUT ME.”

And Paul tells us precisely what the Spirit’s mission is: “GOD’S LOVE has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.”

Praying for the Spirit in “latter rain” power while fostering a dysfunctional spiritual environment is an exercise in “pagan” futility.

We have a fundamental content problem—not a power problem, a program problem, or a logistics problem. The WHAT must precede the HOW.

Will it ever occur to us that maybe God isn’t sending the Spirit upon us because we simply aren’t saying to the world what He wants said?

God won’t add supernatural power to the church until the gospel of His healing love defines our message & pervades our fellowship. Ouch!

We need to align ourselves with God’s agenda of non-condemning love (John 3:16-17) if we want God to take our voice viral.

So let’s pray for humility & repentance for making the church a place of controversy, argument, politics, personal agendas, and division.

Let’s pray God liberates us from our deeply embedded theological pride, legalistic coldness, lack of love, and missional narrowness.

And then, when it is evident that our message is Christ and Christ and Christ in all His unparalleled beauty…

…and when, in the light of His love for us, it is evident that we love one another more than our opinions, positions, & power plays…

…then, and only then, will the Holy Spirit descend upon us with latter rain power & the whole world will be lightened with God’s glory.

Closing Prayer: God, forgive us for expecting You to empower our agenda. May we humbly align ourselves with Yours. In Jesus’ name, Amen!

An Unfortunate Metaphor

25 Wednesday Jan 2017

Posted by braddahr in Observations

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Children

You may not be aware of this but in this world there is a spirit of murder towards children. I believe that Count Olaf (A Series of Unfortunate Events) is a metaphor for that spirit. And just like the adults of this world are largely clueless to the spirit of murder, so to the adults around Count Olaf are clueless to his machinations.

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Diversion Tactics – Projection

25 Wednesday Jan 2017

Posted by braddahr in Discovery, health, Observations, recovery

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Abuse, accountability, healing, help, hope, narcissism, projection, recovery, toxic

Lately, I’ve been discovering common behaviours of Narcissists, Sociopaths And Psychopaths. Keep in mind that those are personality disorders and it’s not a good idea to go around labelling people just because they’re jerks. These posts will cover just a few common behaviours that might alert you to possible mistreatment. Please check the link at the bottom for the full list. If these things are happening to you, please seek help so you can have hope and healing.

The following is a summary from an article by by Shahida Arabi at http://thoughtcatalog.com/shahida-arabi/2016/06/20-diversion-tactics-highly-manipulative-narcissists-sociopaths-and-psychopaths-use-to-silence-you/. Shahida Arabi is a poet and the author of the book She Who Destroys the Light: Fairy Tales Gone Wrong.

Toxic people such as malignant narcissists, psychopaths and those with antisocial traits engage in maladaptive behaviors in relationships that ultimately exploit, demean and hurt their intimate partners, family members and friends. They use a plethora of diversionary tactics that distort the reality of their victims and deflect responsibility. Although those who are not narcissistic can employ these tactics as well, abusive narcissists use these to an excessive extent in an effort to escape accountability for their actions. Here are diversionary tactics toxic people use to silence and degrade you.

Projection

One sure sign of toxicity is when a person is chronically unwilling to see his or her own shortcomings and uses everything in their power to avoid being held accountable for them. This is known as projection. Projection is a defense mechanism used to displace responsibility of one’s negative behavior and traits by attributing them to someone else. It ultimately acts as a digression that avoids ownership and accountability.

giphy-6

While we all engage in projection to some extent, according to Narcissistic Personality clinical expert Dr. Martinez-Lewi, the projections of a narcissist are often psychologically abusive. Rather than acknowledge their own flaws, imperfections and wrongdoings, malignant narcissists and sociopaths opt to dump their own traits on their unsuspecting suspects in a way that is painful and excessively cruel. Instead of admitting that self-improvement may be in order, they would prefer that their victims take responsibility for their behavior and feel ashamed of themselves. This is a way for a narcissist to project any toxic shame they have about themselves onto another.

Don’t “project” your own sense of compassion or empathy onto a toxic person and don’t own any of the toxic person’s projections either. As manipulation expert and author Dr. George Simon (2010) notes in his book In Sheep’s Clothing, projecting our own conscience and value system onto others has the potential consequence of being met with further exploitation.

Narcissists on the extreme end of the spectrum usually have no interest in self-insight or change. It’s important to cut ties and end interactions with toxic people as soon as possible so you can get centered in your own reality and validate your own identity. You don’t have to live in someone else’s cesspool of dysfunction.

 

#1 Question to Ask

24 Tuesday Jan 2017

Posted by braddahr in health, Observations, questions, recovery

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

family, health, help, hope, personal, recovery, relationships

I saw this and first thought, interesting question. Then the more I thought about it I realized it’s very powerful; like having a clear vision that you can use to filter decisions.

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