Archive for the ‘Rehabilitation’ Category

Improve eyesight – and throw away your glasses

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Posted 05 Jul 2010 — by Todd
Category Rehabilitation

Are you tired of wearing glasses and disappointed that your prescription continues to get stronger every year?  It doesn’t have to be that way.  I was wearing progressively stronger lenses for my nearsightedness until ten years ago I accidentally stumbled upon a method that allowed me to acheive 20/20 vision and throw away my glasses within a year.  For the past decade I have not worn glasses or contacts, but I am able to drive, read, and see everything clearly and sharply.  The secret was learning how to actually change my eyes so that they could focus clearly on any objects — near or far, without wearing glasses.  The method I used is one of the best examples of the self-strengthening technique called Hormetism, the focus of my blog, which I’ve applied to improve my strength and resilience in many other areas.  This is not an infomercial: The method requires several weeks or months of diligent effort, with periodic followup, and results may vary. But for this relatively small investment of time and effort, you may consider the possibility of lasting freedom from prescription lenses to be worth investigating.  It worked for me and numerous others who have tried this approach.

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Overcoming addiction

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Posted 14 Apr 2010 — by Todd
Category Psychology, Rehabilitation

One of the most difficult challenges to overcome in life is getting out from under the grip of an addiction, whether it be drug, alcohol or nicotine dependency, a food addiction or eating disorder, or compulsive activities such as gambling, shopping, pornography or Internet addiction. Taken to the extreme, addictions can become highly self-destructive, antisocial or criminal activities such as self-mutilation, kleptomania, or pyromania. At the other end of the scale are ordinary activities, such as exercise or work, which in normal degree are healthful but when excessive can become addictive. There are also minor compulsions which might best be considered bad habits rather than addictions, such as nail biting, hair pulling and the like. Broadly speaking, an addiction can be any habitual behavior which takes over one’s life, interferes with social relations and personal achievement, and threatens one’s autonomy. There are many ideas about what addiction is and how to treat it, but unfortunately success rates are low and relapse rates are high. However, there is a recent approach to snuffing out addiction based on the emerging sciences of neuroplasticity and behavior modification, which holds out the promise of lasting change. The approach is called cue exposure theory, and it goes against the conventional wisdom. I will discuss it after first reviewing the more conventional approaches. And I’m going to do something else unusual at the end of this particular blog post: I will apply this methodology to an “addiction” of my own and follow my progress in the Discussion Forum associated with this blog.

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The paradox of barefoot running

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Posted 28 Mar 2010 — by Todd
Category Fitness, Rehabilitation

Christopher McDougall’s sensational book Born to Run has been credited for an upsurge of interest in barefoot running over the past year, and its publication probably also explains much of the increased sales and visibilty of the once-esoteric and comment-provoking Vibram “Five Finger” running shoes.  Besides being a paean to the joys of running without shoes, McDougall’s book is certainly one of the best written, most entertaining adventure books of recent memory.  It sucks you in with tales of the mysterious hidden tribe of Mexican mountain runners, the Tarahumara, and an unforgettable cast of hardy and eccentric ultramarathoners. The adventure culminates in two exciting and unpredictable ultramarathons through the wilderness — one in the Colorado Rockies, and the other in the Copper Canyon of Mexico — with the protagonists of the book running shoeless over trails and boulder fields for 100 miles. While I’m not a total convert, after reading this book I’ve adopted a habit of alternating my runs between barefoot, Vibrams, and regular shoes. After some initial soreness, stiffness, and development of calluses, I found that my calves were strengthened in a way that significantly benefited my endurance and speed in running.

Other than recommending this book as a great vacation read or a way to rekindle your passion for running, I’d like to concentrate here on one of its central claims about the biomechanics of barefoot running, because it resonates so strongly with the thesis of Hormetism and Edward Tenner’s theories about the “revenge effects” of technology — and because it has implications that extend well beyond the sport of running. McDougall’s seemingly paradoxical assertion is that running without shoes makes one less susceptible to injury than using modern engineered running shoes, with their high-tech cushioning. Says McDougall: “Running shoes may be the most destructive force ever to hit the human foot.” (BTR, p. 168)   …How can this possibly be true?

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