Tag Archive for: breathing

What Does Wearable Technology Mean for Myeloproliferative Care?

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What Does Wearable Technology Mean for Myeloproliferative Care? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

Myeloproliferative neoplasm (MPN) patients can add wearable technology as another part of their MPN care toolbox. Watch to learn about monitoring that wearable devices may provide, what it means for MPN care, and future developments from wearable technology.

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Transcript:

Wearable technology has expanded and improved at an impressive rate in recent years. With exercise and health tracking technology with devices like Fitbits and Apple Watches, wearable technology includes devices issued from healthcare providers for the monitoring of heart activity, breathing, brain activity, and more.

Advancements in wearable technology offer advantages to myeloproliferative patients in providing more opportunities for remote monitoring and also for delivering treatment via wearable drug delivery systems. And these technologies provide improved care, more frequency of gauging patient health metrics to improve quality of life, and optimal patient health over time.

With technologies advancing at such a rapid rate, there could be even more opportunities to improve care for myeloproliferative patients. Perhaps miniscule blood draws could even be carried out by wearable technology to provide even more convenience for patients while also protecting them from virus and infection risks in clinical settings.

Please remember to ask your healthcare team what may be right for you.

Am I Meditating Correctly? Getting the Most Out of Mindfulness

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Am I Meditating Correctly? Getting the Most Out of Mindfulness from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo. 

Dr. Jennifer Huberty explains how mindfulness, such as meditation and yoga, can have an impact on your overall health and well-being.

Dr. Jennifer Huberty is an Associate Professor at Arizona State University. She focuses her research on the use of complementary approaches to manage symptoms and improve quality of life for patients living with myeloproliferative neoplasms. More about Dr. Huberty here: chs.asu.edu/jennifer-huberty.

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Transcript:

Dr. Huberty:    

If someone is wondering if they’re meditating correctly or not, or if two minutes of meditation is enough, if you turn to the science and the literature in terms of how much meditation you need, nobody knows. For every study that says five minutes, there’s a study that says 20 minutes, there’s a study that says an hour. I think it’s really important that the individual gets in touch with “what works for me.”

I think the most important thing is that if you’re sitting for meditation and you choose to sit for meditation, just simply listening to your breath – when you realize you’re off, thinking about what I’m making for dinner tonight or what’s gonna happen over the Thanksgiving holidays with my family, then you just say, “Oh, thinking,” and then you come back to, “Okay, where’s my breath? I’m breathing in, I’m breathing out. I’m breathing in, I’m breathing out.” So, it’s just being able to do that and not say, “Oh my God, I’m not doing this right, this isn’t working for me.” There is none of that. It’s supposed to be nonjudgment in the present moment.

“Oh, the present moment – I’m thinking. Now, in the present moment, I’m gonna go back to my breath.” So, it’s really understanding that, and I think it’s also important for people to understand that you don’t have to be seated in meditation. You can be standing in meditation, you can be laying in meditation, you can be kneeling in meditation. I think with MPN patients, not all sitting positions recommended in meditation might be comfortable. If you need a pillow under your tail, put a pillow under your tail. There’s no rulebook to say how you need to sit in meditation. I think that’s important.

And, there’s also other ways to be mindful. Coloring can be mindful. Walking and exploring the leaves and the landscape can be mindful. So, I think in our studies, yes, we’re encouraging meditation, using an app, but that’s to give people structure, education, and a background about what is meditation, but then, there is room for expansion to other things.

It’s pretty much the same thing with yoga. You’re quieting your mind; you’re focusing on your breath. There’s no rulebook that says you have to move a certain pace. You’re supposed to move with your breath, so if your breath is slow, your pace is slow. The other thing is that there is no right way to do a pose.

So, again, patients wanna know, “Am I doing this pose right?” Well, I can tell you that if you feel good in the pose, nothing is hurting you, your shoulder doesn’t feel like it’s doing something it shouldn’t, your head doesn’t feel like it’s in the wrong direction, and you’re watching the video and looking at what the instructor’s doing, you’re probably doing the pose just fine.

I think we get stuck on “Is this correct or not?” What we wanna be careful of is safety. You don’t wanna be standing on your head and wondering if you’re doing it correctly. You wanna have a basis, and that’s what we do in our programming, is it’s very basic, very foundational poses that you can learn the practice of meditating in the poses.

A Yoga Technique to Increase Relaxation and Reduce Anxiety

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Certified Yoga Therapist Raquel Jex Forsgren shares a short yoga and breathing technique to help you reduce anxiety and increase relaxation. You can refer back to these practices in stressful situations to help control your mind and breath.

You can check out more of Raquel’s videos on her YouTube channel, Yoga With Raquel.

Transcript:

Raquel Forsgren:

So what I’ll ask all of you to do, even those of you that are on‑‑joining us with Andrew‑‑and Dr. Subbiah, you can do it as well‑‑I’d like all of you to feel really comfortable, just to sit in your chair or if you’re watching this in your bed lying on your back, just wherever you are I want you to just simply close your eyes if you feel comfortable doing that.  And immediately feel the surface of whatever it is that’s supporting you, the chair, the bed, see if you can sink into it, even 5 percent more than you were initially.

Wherever your hands are, feel the bottoms of your hands, maybe the bottoms of your feet, your toes, your heels.  Just feel the body itself.  Now notice your breathing and don’t judge it, just notice what it’s doing, if it’s nice and slow and fluid as you inhale and exhale or shorter little breaths or sticky or clunky in any way.  Don’t analyze it.  Don’t go into any thinking other than just noticing.

Begin to expand your muscles in your ribs as you take your next inhale.  Just think about expanding your ribs out just a little bit more, taking two more nice, slow inhales and exhales.  And I want you to bring to mind one thing you’re really grateful for today.  One thing.  The next before we move on, bring to mind a goal, an intention.  It could be how you want to feel for the rest of the day, emotionally or physically.  How do you want to feel or what do you need?  Beautiful.

Softly begin to open your eyes and bring your hands right in front of your heart with your palms placed together.  We’re going to do just a few movements of our arms so that you can see what it’s like to connect movement, your body and mind and breath together, and also thinking about lung cancer just something that helps expand the lungs and just activate all of those muscles themselves that need to be nourished.

So as you inhale just open your arms like an (? cast) or goal post.  And you’ll need to adjust this.  If you have had surgery along the central plate, take it nice and easy, just open, inhaling.  As you exhale bring your arms together, touching your palms together, elbows and forearms.  Inhale, open the arms again.  Exhale, closing the arms together.  Just take two more only moving with your own breath.  And closing.  One more time just like that, beautifully opening and relaxing.  And releasing the palms back down on your hands.

Close your eyes one more time.  I want you to notice if anything has changed within your body, your mind or your emotions, and there’s nothing wrong if nothing’s shifted.  I just want you to notice.  And softly blink open your eyes again because I want to show you and have you go through with me one of the best anxiety reducing breathing techniques that can be done.  It’s published in the literature.

It’s called alternate nostril breathing.  You can do this while you’re waiting at the doctor’s office for results, if you starting to feel panicky or anxious, when you’re inside an MRI machine or a CT scan, when you are just waking up in the middle of the night with racing thoughts and you can’t seem to shut them off.  So you’ll take two fingers, sometimes it’s the outer fingers but sometimes with arthritis in older hands it’s a little tougher, so I like to use two fingers, you’re going to bring them up to your nose, and you’ll be closing off one nostril at a time.  And I want you to breathe normally and naturally, okay.  So this isn’t anything forced.

Close off the right nostril first, and just delicately push it.  You don’t have to push it clear into your nose.  Just delicately push it.  Exhale all the way out the left side of the nostril.  Then inhale through the left nostril, exhale out the right nostril.  Inhale through the right nostril, exhale out the right nostril.  We’re going to do three more of these.  Inhale through the left, exhale out the right.  Inhale through the right and exhale a little longer out the left.  One last time.  Inhale through the left and exhale longer out the right side.

Bring your hands back down to your lap and close your eyes again.  Take a nice normal, natural breath.  And I want you to notice what’s different in your breathing, if anything.  Just notice it.  Notice your heart beating.  Come back to that intention or that goal you set for yourself.  And softly blink open your eyes with a smile.  I’m expecting all of you watching to be smiling even though I can’t see you.  And Namaste.