News Author Ann Constantino
We’re In This For the Long Haul
Photo by Anna Shvets from Pexels How is that adjustment going? Two weeks ago we talked about the stages of grief and a psychological condition called “adjustment disorder” in reference to the reaction to sheltering in place that we may be experiencing. Back…
Going Viral
Photo by Ashkan Forouzani on Unsplash Have you adjusted yet? It would not be surprising if your answer were a resounding “No!” You might even be feeling a kind of grief for your former life, the one in which you…
Facing the Coronavirus Pandemic Together
Photo by Adam Nieścioruk on Unsplash Published in the Humboldt Independent on March 24, 2020 While Humboldt County’s lone official positive case of Covid-19 has recovered, the highly infectious and deadly disease caused by a novel coronavirus that emerged in…
The Pain in Spain Stays Mainly in Your Brain
Photo by Andrew Neel from Pexels Suppose your beloved but clumsy dance partner steps on your foot and you immediately feel pain, identified by your brain as clearly being in the crushed appendage, but what exactly is that sensation and where does it…
May Be Habit Forming
Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash Around this time of year, the end of one and beginning of another, many people are inclined to make some changes. Spurred by the sense of renewal that turning over the December page can…
The Deep End of the Gene Pool
Photo by CDC on Unsplash The old scientific debate of nature vs. nurture has taken on some promising new directions since the field of epigenetics has been developing over the past few decades. Every living thing carries a genetically coded…
Whatever Happens in Vagus, Stays in Vagus
Photo by Kelvin Valerio from Pexels There is a nerve in the human body that regulates heart function, influences digestion, informs you when it’s safe to relax, and promotes efficient swallowing and speaking. This longest cranial nerve (originating in the brain) also receives…
Don’t Cramp My Style
Photo by Imani Bahati on Unsplash What happens when the nerves within your muscle tissue become abnormally excitable or confused? That muscle will involuntarily contract, tense and shorten, resulting in what is called either a spasm or a cramp, or any number…
It’s a Stretch
Photo by Anupam Mahapatra Can you touch your toes without bending your knees? Can you scratch that itch in the center of your back? How about doing the splits the way you could when you were on the Cheer team…
Fascia-natin’ Rhythm
Photo by Geert Pieters on Unsplash Around the exercise and movement world, connective tissue known as fascia was once scraped aside as unimportant by anatomists studying the more self-explanatory tissues such as muscle and bone. These days fascia is being…