Building Unity Farm - The Trails

Unity Farm has a rich diversity of natural woodlands, wetlands, meadows, paddocks, and orchards.  The house and barn are located on an upland plateau surrounded by white pine, sweet birch, poplar, white ash, red oak, and red maple.   The woodlands to the south, west and north wrap the upper plateau.  The woodland zone includes a forested wetland that collects the upland water and directs it to the north via a swale.   To the east, the land is a grassy 6:1 slope from the top of the orchard to the edge of the forested wetland that connects to the meadow.

Over a mile of trails connects the natural features.    I've hand cut the trails with a Japanese sickle, Scandinavian Forest Axe,  and  Japanese folding saw.

Last weekend I added trail signs, made by the same company that creates National Forest Service markers.  Here's a virtual walk on the trails of Unity Farm:

Woodland trail
 This 1000 foot trail climbs through a fern grove and over a drumlin to a grove of old cedar that once lined a revolutionary war era pasture.  Old rock walls provide shelter for a variety of forest animals including foxes, fisher cats, opossum, skunks, and raccoons.     I've marked the trail every 100 feet with bird houses built from old cedar boards.   This year several busy Carolina Wrens raised their young in those houses.    A 12 foot bridge traverses the seasonal wetland in the lower portion of the trail.  I add two resting places along the walk - a painted bench at the base of an old pine and an Adirondack chair at the top of the drumlin.   An old Japanese stone lantern marks the end of the trail.   The Woodland trail connects to the Old Cart Path.

Old Cart Path
 Sherborn was founded in 1652 and town maps show an old cart path traversing Unity Farm, connecting surrounding orchards.   The Old Cart Path trail is 600 feet long and winds past our mushroom growing area, through a grove of sensitive fern, on its way down to our stream.   Another 12 foot bridge crosses the stream.   Along the way, a 30 year old teak bench sits in a sea of greenery next to a large pine tree.   This is one of the quietest and most contemplative places on the property.   The Old Cart Path connects to the Marsh trail.

Marsh trail
 We mapped our wetlands this year as part of preparing a general management plan for the property.   The Marsh trail is 800 feet long, starting and ending at our stream.   There are three 12 foot bridges along the path, carefully constructed to avoid shading native plants and to be completely non-intrusive to the natural landscape.   The trail passes an enormous old pine, a hand dug revolutionary war era well, and the site of an old windmill that pumped well water to supply the dairy farm that occupied our property in the 19th century.  The Marsh trail connects to the Meadow trail

Meadow trail
 A wildflower meadow borders the wetland and is home to woodchucks, ducks, wild turkeys, deer, and 4 of our beehives.    A 600 foot trail crosses the meadow and connects to the Orchard trail.

Orchard trail
 We created the orchard in 2013 and this 800 foot trail meanders between the orchard fence and the rock walls bordering the wetland.   The trail is lined with old cedar, maple, and oak.   Our Great Pyrenees enjoy running on this trail in search of rabbits, guinea fowl eggs, and deer.   A 6 point buck, a doe, and fawn graze along this trail, making for some interesting walks when 200 pounds of Pyrenees discover the deer (the dogs outweigh me by 35 pounds)

Although these trails have given us access to every portion of the property, there is still mystery to be found.  The forests, wetland, and fern groves are so dense that I'm constantly finding new artifacts,  animals, and plants.   Last week I found 3 intact Horlick's Malted Milk bottles from the 1920's on the Woodland trail, a fox den on the Orchard trail, and wild Concord grapes on the Marsh trail.   Building, maintaining, and walking the trails of Unity Farm could keep me busy for a lifetime.

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Yoga and the Mind-Body Connection

by Ram

Succulent Plant with Blossom by Melina Meza

Both the Bhagavad Gita and the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali provide several references to how a sound mental health helps to achieve a stable physical body. According to these texts, the goal of any human activity is to achieve a state of perfect understanding, clarity, and renewed strength that can be achieved only from a strong mind-body connection.The mind-body connection uses our thought process to minimize the negative effects and positively influence our body’s physical responses. Thus, positive qualities (including happiness, appreciation, selfless service, and so on...) help to relax the mind, which in turn strengthens the physical body.

The mind-body connection is described as follows in both the above mentioned texts:

“vita raga vishayam va chittam – Verse 1.37 Yoga Sutras (see here)

indriyanam hi caratam, yan mano 'nuvidhiyate
tad asya harati prajnam, vayur navam ivambhasi

Chapter-2 Verse 67, Bhagavad Gita  (see here)
Continuous thinking about the objects of senses creates attachment which leads to desire, and when the desire is not fulfilled, one gets confused. That in turn leads to delusion and loss of memory. The loss of memory causes destruction of reasoning due to which an individual loses his physical balance and is ruined. As a boat on the water is swept away by a strong wind, even one of the senses on which the mind focuses can carry away a man's intelligence. Contemplating on having a mind that is free from desires, the mind gets stabilized and tranquil.

Studies have shown that when you just think of a past traumatic experience, your mental and physical responses to that experience are similar to the responses you would have exhibited when the event actually happened. For example, if you recall a painful/agonizing experience, you will notice that your heart is beating faster, you may start to sweat, and your hands may become numb, cold or clammy. Thus, mind-body connection means that you can use your thoughts to positively influence your body’s physical responses. It is imperative that we minimize the negative thoughts and maximize the healthy, healing aspects of our mind-body connection.

So powerful is the mind-body connection that a new model of understanding human behavior and health has been put forward by leading psychologists and psychiatrists. The “biopsychosocial model,” requires that a healthcare team address the biological, psychological and social influences upon a patient's functioning for treatment of any diseases. In essence, the biopsychosocial model states that the stability of the physical body depends on the status of the mind, and the mental strength in turn depends on the physical stability. Poor mental health can weaken the physical body and puts an individual at risk from several physical ailments. According to the Anxiety Disorders Association of America, an estimated 40 million adult Americans suffer from some form of mental disorder. Treating these disorders costs the US more than $42 billion a year. When you are feeling stressed, anxious or upset, you tend not to take good care of your health. Thus, health is best understood in terms of a combination of biological, psychological, and social factors rather than purely in biological terms. This concept is now widely used in the medical field to address health and disease, especially chronic diseases.

How do we stabilize the mind and improve our mental health? Some of the simplest ways are:

• Try to reflect on your emotions and understand the causes that triggered these emotions
• Sort out the causes
• Express your feelings in harmonious ways and make changes to your lifestyle to improve your mental health
• Live a balanced and harmonious life
• Focus on the positive things in life
• Let go of events/things in your life that overwhelm or stress you
• Create a place of joy at home or your workplace
• Calm your mind and body
• Exercise your brain just like you exercise your physical body

There is now scientific evidence to support some of the above mentioned claims, especially the latter ones. According to a recent study, twenty minutes of yoga is better for boosting brain activity than vigorous exercise for the same amount of time. Researchers report that a single, short session of hatha yoga improves memory, speed and focus, more so than regular workouts. The study involving 30 female undergraduate students focused on seated, standing and supine yoga postures followed by a brief meditation and regulated breathing (pranayama). The students also completed an aerobic exercise session where they walked or jogged on a treadmill for 20 minutes. At the end of the yoga and exercise sessions, the students were all asked to take a short survey that tested their cognitive skills. The researchers were surprised to see that students showed more improvement in their reaction times and accuracy on cognitive tasks after yoga practice than after the aerobic exercise session. Nearly all of the participants were better able to focus their mental resources, process information quickly and more accurately and also learn, hold and update pieces of information more effectively after a yoga practice than after performing the aerobic routine. The researchers believe several factors could explain the results including but not limited to (1) enhanced self-awareness and mental clarity that comes with meditational exercises and (2) reduction in anxiety and stress after yoga, meditation and breathing exercises which may improve scores on cognitive tests.

An earlier study also found that regular yoga sessions can help fight off depression as it boosts levels of a chemical in the brain which is essential for a sound and relaxed mind. Researchers found that the levels of the amino acid GABA are much higher in those who practice yoga than those who do the equivalent of a similarly strenuous exercise such as walking. This suggests that yoga could serve as a safe therapeutic treatment for disorders such as depression and anxiety disorders that feature low GABA levels. (See sciencedirect.com and ncbi.nlm.nih.gov for more information.)

A week ago I wrote about the benefits of yoga in curbing inflammation and inflammatory diseases in my post Chronic Inflammation and Yoga. Together with today’s article, it appears that yoga can be adapted as a safe and effective therapy for inflammatory diseases and mind-body problems as well. Now I have a couple of choices to ease the rheumatic pain in my joints and reduce the fear in my mind. Either I choose the NSAID or I go for my mat.  The yoga mat in the corner of the room is beckoning me, so you may have recognized my next move: GOT YOGA!!!

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Cortisol and Good Health

by Baxter

Fallen Tree by Brad Gibson

We have mentioned one of the body’s important hormones, cortisol, on these pages a few times in the recent past, but always with the slant of it somehow being a problem child, a bad actor, a rotten apple, as it were. But cortisol, when it is working in harmony with a well-balanced body and mind, is part of a elegant system that tries to help us respond in the best way possible to short term stressful situations that are bound to arise in our daily lives. So on a daily basis, during the early morning hours - around 4-5 am, the body releases a bit of cortisol to get your inner furnace ready for the first foot hitting the floor in the morning. It releases a bit of sugar into the blood stream, sends a bit more blood to the brain and heart, and really gets us ready for action, however mellow or intense our morning will be. Then, if the day is relatively uneventful, the level of cortisol gradually diminishes to its lowest levels around 10pm.

When released in response to unexpected stressful events, it has many more helpful roles to play. It has a strong anti-inflammatory effect, which is helpful with acute injury, so it can act like a fire truck when the body’s immune response to infection is too strong by decreasing the life span and production of one of our white blood cells known as lymphocytes. Basically, it tries to keep a balanced approach to infections.

Cortisol has an effect on the cardio-vascular (CV) system by controlling the smooth muscles in the walls of our arteries. In normal circumstances, this allows cortisol to help boost our blood pressure in the short run when we need extra work from the CV system. It has effects on the central nervous system (CNS), too, influencing behavior, mood, excitability, and the electrical activity of neurons. When we put all that together, cortisol is designed to respond to stress by providing fuel in the form of glucose, mobilizing fat and proteins for back-up fuel supply, modifying the immune response, heartbeat, blood pressure, brain alertness and the response of the nervous system to get us through the rough spots.

The cool thing about cortisol is that is has evolved to enhance the body’s response to stress while also protecting from excessive response to stress. The key thing about the place that produces cortisol, the adrenal glands, is that they need time to recover after stressful events have passed. And herein lies the rub!  If we give the body some time to recover between stressful events, the adrenal glands can do their job well, cortisol levels are adequate to the demands of the body, and you stay healthy and ready for the next stressful event.

But if you are either under constant stress, or your mind is prone to brooding about the past or anxious musings about the future or even negative assessments about the present moment, your adrenals interpret this as an actual stressful event occurring right now, and cortisol gets released into your system. So cortisol levels remain high in the blood stream for greater periods of time, which can result in swelling of the gland itself, and an increased chance of the following negative effects: loss of immunity secondary to shrinkage of lymph glands, increased risk of stomach ulcers, increased risk of hypertension, heart disease and other vascular disorders, excess sugar in the blood stream and more chance of developing diabetes. Not a good outlook! 

And as I mentioned last week, chronic stress depletes your supply of cortisol and can steal the building blocks of your sex hormones (see Yoga and Male Menopause), thus negatively impacting your sexual function and your reproductive capacity. What’s a yogi to do? 

Supta Baddha Konasana (Reclined Cobbler's Pose)

The good news is that your regular yoga practice, if it includes those much needed restorative poses (see Restorative Yoga), yoga nidra (see Yoga Nidra and Deep Relaxation), long guided meditations and generous Savasana (see Savasana Variations), should be the perfect balancing act for keeping the adrenals healthy and the cortisol cycle in synch with your changing needs. One fact that might influence your asana and even your exercise regimen is that aerobic or effort-full exercise (and some forms of yoga definitely fit the bill) can cause a release of cortisol to deal with the short term “stress” of the increased physical effort. If you work out or do asana in the morning, when there is still a bit of cortisol around from the 4 am release, the effects of the brief elevation are minimal. However, a late day work out could be theoretically more problematic, with a negative effect on sleep patterns as one possible side effect. So I would recommend active workouts and asana for the morning, and restorative practices in the evening if you want or need to do something later in the day.

So remember, cortisol is a good guy just trying to do its job. It’s the stress and our reactions to it that are really the culprits. Fortunately, we have the technology to neutralize this threat to our healthy aging! 

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Yoga and Menopause: Frozen Shoulders

by Nina

When I was doing research for my post on menopause and headaches (see Yoga for Menopause: Headaches), I was very surprised to learn that the most common complaint that Japanese women have during menopause is not headaches (which is what I previously thought) or hot flashes (the most common complaint in the US) but frozen shoulder. As many of you probably know by now, I experienced two bouts of frozen shoulder during perimenopause/menopause. Although I knew this condition was common among women my age, no one I consulted about the condition really tied it directly to menopause, although there was some speculation that it might be related to hormonal changes. That's because they all said  no one really understands what causes this temporary (though very painful) problem. So it was very interesting for me to learn that in Japan it is considered a problem related to menopause. And because we've been focusing recently on menopause and I'm very, well, experienced, with this particular problem, I decided this would be a good time to write about it. (By the way, men also get frozen shoulders, and all the advice in this post will pertain to them as well.)

So to start, what exactly is frozen shoulder? According to the Mayo Clinic web site:

"Frozen shoulder, also know as adhesive capsulitis, is a condition characterized by stiffness and pain in your shoulder joint. Signs and symptoms typically begin gradually, worsen over time and then resolve, usually within one or two years.

Treatment for frozen shoulder involves stretching exercises and, sometimes, the injection of corticosteroids and numbing medications into the joint capsule. In a small percentage of cases, surgery may be needed to loosen the joint capsule so it can move more freely.

Frozen shoulder typically develops slowly, and in three stages. Each of these stages can last a number of months:

Painful Stage: During this stage, pain occurs with any movement of your shoulder, and your shoulder's range of motion starts to become limited.

Frozen Stage: Pain may begin to diminish during this stage. However, your shoulder becomes stiffer, and your range of motion decreases notably.

Thawing Stage: During the thawing stage, the range of motion in your shoulder begins to improve."

I'd like to expand on this a bit. First of all, your range of motion, especially if you're a fairly flexible yoga practitioner like me, is drastically reduced. Basically, at the frozen stage you can barely move your arm, in any direction. Even lying on your back, with your arms resting directly on the floor can be painful because your arm needs to be in a completely neutral Tadasana position to be pain free. And the pain is really pretty bad! Sleeping is difficult unless you prop your arm up on a pillow so it doesn't hurt, and of course if you move your arm around in your sleep, pain may wake you up. Some ordinary household tasks are difficult or impossible because you can't raise your arm or carry heavy objects, like shopping bags. Eventually lack of use makes your arm weak, so when you're over the frozen shoulder, strengthening is important.

It's essential to have an expert diagnose you for frozen shoulder because other shoulder problems, such as a torn muscle, are treated very differently. But the tests for frozen shoulder are very simple and not invasive, because with a torn muscle, someone else can move your arm for you, but with a frozen shoulder, your arm just won't move at all. So your doctor or physical therapist, will simply move your arm for you in various directions.

Once you have a diagnosis, how can yoga help? Well, first yoga provides a lot of good shoulder stretching exercises, which are recommended by the Mayo Clinic. The sequence that Baxter and I developed for tight shoulders (see Featured Sequence: Opening Tight Shoulders) was partly influenced by the routine I developed for myself to stretch my frozen shoulder. Try poses 2 through 7 from this sequence. Of course, when your shoulder is frozen, your arm will not be able to be straight up the wall as in the photos, but even if you have to bend your elbow and creep the frozen arm just partly up the wall, that will still be a good stretch. This is one case where moving into the pain is actually beneficial rather than harmful. And I actually found that stretching left me feeling better afterward, so that helped motivate me to practice through the pain. And, hey, look at me now! (See Living Proof for my testimonial about the effectiveness of shoulder stretches.)

To continue with your regular yoga practice, you'll need to modify your arm position in standing poses. For example, in Tree pose have your arms in namaste, in Warrior 2 pose have your hands on your hips, and Triangle and Extended Side angle poses, when your frozen arm is on top, just keep it tucked against your side or with your hand on your hip. In seated forward bends, you'll need to support your frozen arm, perhaps on a block, as you won't be able to reach for your feet. In restorative poses, be sure to place a folded blanket under your arms to support them so the frozen arm doesn't fall into a painful position. For poses you just can't do, like inversions or backbends, come up with an alternative. I did Standing Forward Bend and Widespread Standing Forward Bend with my head on a block instead of Headstand and Legs Up the Wall pose instead of Shoulderstand. You won't be able to do most backbends, so try practicing a passive, supported backbend of some kind to maintain mobility in your spine during this period. If you're in class, ask your teacher to help you find appropriate alternatives.

For the stress and pain associated with this condition, practice conscious relaxation in your favorite form (see The Relaxation Response and Yoga). When asana just seemed too hard for me because almost anything made my arm hurt, I experimented with a long version of yoga nidra.

Finally, after your shoulder is back to normal, your arm is going to be very weak from lack of use. Now is the time to do some arm strengthening poses! See Upper Body Strengthening the Easy Way and our featured upper body strengthening poses for ideas.

Of course, it is no fun going through this, but a frozen shoulder is a temporary condition. And with the help of yoga you can regain both flexibility and strength. Hey, I'm even back to doing arm balances!

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Friday Q&A: Back Stretches and Inversions for Chair Yoga

This week, we have a follow-up question to our Friday Q&A on chair yoga (see Friday Q&A: Chair Yoga) from one of our readers who actually teaches a chair yoga class

Q: I teach a chair yoga class which cannot go to the floor for healthy aging. How can I do a safe inversion or back stretch that does not stress the osteopenic back?

A: If you teach chair yoga, many students are older or infirm and not able to transfer from standing or sitting in a chair to the floor, where you might have them do any number of reclining poses that could stretch the back or approach an inversion, like Legs Up the Wall pose (Viparita Karani). 

If by “back stretch” you mean a forward bending action of the spine, like in Standing Forward Bend (Uttanasana), in light of possible osteopenic or osteoporotic spine, you need to be careful with most forward folding positions (see What is Ostepenia and How Can Yoga Help?).  It is not hard to do a seated version, however, if that is what you are looking for. One of my favorites that is fairly shallow and would not create too much force on the vertebrae of the spine would involve placing a second chair in front of the first, facing it away from you. Then ask your students to tip as much as possible from the hips and place their crossed forearms on the top seat back of the chair in front of them. This is similar to seated forward fold we showed for our Office Yoga series (see Featured Pose: Chair Forward Bend).

If, however, by “back stretch” you are referring to a back-bending action, then there is a bit less concern of hurting the spines of students with OP.  In seated Cat/Cow pose, the Cow variation is a nice, easy backbend shape that most could do in the chair. (See Featured Pose: Chair Cat Pose.)

Or, have the students stand behind the chair, use the top back rung for their hands for balance purposes and do a gentle standing backbend from Mountain pose (Tadasana).

As for inversions, this may be a bit tougher. You could have them put their chairs against the wall, and if they still have good hip mobility of rolling the pelvis over the femur bones, you could do a Downward-Facing Dog version with the hands on the seat of the chair, walking the hips and feet back into this higher version of regular Downward-Facing Dog, but with a slight downward slant from hips to hands. Make sure they bend their knees as they walk forward towards the chair at the end of the pose, and rise up slowly monitoring for any lightheadedness or dizziness. (See Featured Pose: Downward-Facing Dog (Chair Version)).

And you could show the class how to do Legs Up the Wall pose on the ground, demonstrating it for them, and suggesting they try this at home in their beds, swinging the legs up the headboard side of the bed if the bed is up against a wall. I’d have them only stay for 2 minutes or so at first, as you will not be there to monitor them. Of course give them all the usual precautions regarding inversions and high blood pressure and glaucoma, as the older your crowd, these conditions are more common. I hope these suggestions give you things to consider. And armed with the information from our posts on OP, you can be creative in your approach to working with your chair yoga classes.

—Baxter

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Practicing with Pain

by Nina

Needle and Ice by Melina Meza

When a man has mastered himself,
he is perfectly at ease in cold,
in heat, in pleasure or pain,
in honor or disgrace

—Bhagavad Gita, trans. by Stephen Mitchell

We get many comments on our blog, but every once in a while there is one that makes me feel sad, like this one, which one of our readers left on a post about menopause:

This will certainly be relevant for me (65). Besides ongoing extreme irritability, yoga is not the joy it has always been for me because of joint stiffness and pain. What little stability I felt in life came from yoga, and feel that slipping away when I need it most.

My first reaction to this was to write to Shari and suggest that she write about menopause and joint pain because I knew that she, too, was currently suffering from joint problems (see Yoga for Menopause: Joint Problems). But even after ensuring that this topic was going to be addressed, I was concerned about the underlying issue:

yoga is not the joy it has always been 

what stability in life that came from yoga is slipping away

The thing is, I don't believe that physical pain means that yoga practice needs to be less joyful, or that the stability that practice brings will slip away if your asanas hurt more than they used to. And I speak from experience. Now that I'm over two bouts of frozen shoulder (which, trust me, were very painful), I'm still living with an arthritic hip that's not going to go away. So for many years, I've experienced pain when I practice asana at home or during a class. And, of course, I definitely cannot practice many of the poses I used to do on a regular basis. However, practicing yoga is still a positive, life-affirming experience for me, and as joyful as it ever was.

Because, after all, what is yoga? Definitions of yoga in the scriptures vary from "yoga is equanimity" to "yoga is cessation of the fluctuations of the mind" but nowhere is there anything about practicing pain-free asana. Indeed, as the quote at the beginning of the post tells us, being a yogi means being equally at ease in pain as in pleasure.

Both Ram and I have written about cultivating santosha as an important part of yoga practice (see Santosha: Happiness and Longevity  and Yoga and the Pursuit of Happiness ). Santosha means "contentment" and TKV Desikachar defines contentment as "the ability to be comfortable with what we have and what we do not have." And I believe that being comfortable with what we have and what we do not have must include practicing asana while in physical pain and being comfortable with that. And as for the joy, the Yoga Sutras tells us in sutra 2.42 "Perfect happiness is attained through contentment."

So the path back to joy is not through the elimination of pain, but rather through cultivating contentment. In his post Achieving Stillness in Turbulent Situations Ram told us how his grandfather taught him to meditate in a train station in India because achieving stillness in a noisy, chaotic environment was what the practice of meditation was all about. Likewise, I feel that learning how to find contentment in our asana practice, even while in physical pain, is also the essence of yoga. (Of course, you should continue to use pain as a guide to practicing safely as Shari describes in her post Yoga for Menopause: Joint Problems.)

So dear commenter and all our other readers, while I hope you may find some helpful hints on this blog that will help reduce your physical pain, we cannot remove all pain from your life  But we can offer you something more valuable. For practicing yoga by cultivating santosha inside and outside the yoga room will help see you through life's challenges in whatever form they take. As I wrote in my post Yoga and the Pursuit of Happiness, the Yoga Sutras make it clear which steps to take on that journey:

1.12 Practice and detachment are the means to still the movements of consciousness.

1.33 Through cultivation of friendliness, compassion, joy, and indifference to pleasure and pain, virtue and vice respectively, the consciousness becomes favorably disposed, serene and benevolent.

1.34 Or, by maintaining the pensive state felt at the time of soft and steady exhalation and during passive retention after exhalation.

1.35 Or, by contemplating an object that helps to maintain steadiness of mind and consciousness.

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Building Unity Farm - Followup on Our Breeding Program

As I mentioned in last week's post, the next step after breeding alpacas (and llamas) is a pregnancy evaluation known as the spit test.

A male and a female are placed together and if the female, kicks, spits, and generally shows disdain for the male, she is pregnant.  

On Saturday, we placed Midas (our gold colored male) with Ella (mother of 2 alpacas) together in our pasture.  Immediately, Ella spit, kicked and placed her body against a fence line so that Midas could not approach her.   We quickly returned her to the barn.   It appears that she is pregnant but we'll know definitively in 11 months.

We placed Midas and Persia (a maiden) together in the pasture.   Persia nuzzled Midas and then placed herself in a breeding position.  She's likely not pregnant.  We left them alone for several hours and we'll try another spit test this weekend.

We found another Guinea nest in forest and now have 63 fertile eggs to tend.  We have two incubators  - one from Farm Innovations and another from GQF giving us a total capacity of 83 eggs.   We have a brooder from GQF and use heat lamps and large Rubbermaid bins for older chicks.

Guineas are wonderful birds and have kept our 15 acres of forest free of ticks.   Every night they come home to roost in the chicken coop - except when the females get broody and decide to sit on nests in the forests next to fox dens, fisher cat holes, and coyote hunting trails.   Needless to say, there is a high mortality rate for broody hens that stay out overnight and we've lost 4 birds this season.  Unless we keep the guineas penned 24 hours a day (which would be cruel), there will be attrition.   By collecting the eggs from forest nests, we'll be able to keep our guinea population stable.    Since the eggs we gather from the forest are of an unknown age and fertility, we'll likely see a 50% hatch rate and an 80% 4 week survival rate for the chicks.   Although adult guineas are much more robust than chickens, the chicks are very fragile.    So 63*.5*.8 means that a few weeks from now we'll have 25 more guineas running around the farm yard.  Transforming eggs from the forest to birds in the barnyard is definitely a learning experience for us and I'll report back on our success rate.

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Chronic Inflammation and Yoga: Combating the Fiery Killer

by Ram

Red Leaves by Melina Meza

Ever experienced an unexplained excruciating pain in the joints, ankles, knees that lasted for some time and then subsided? Or, maybe when you bent your fingers to hold some object, you experienced a burning pain in your fingers so painful that you were unable to straighten them for some time. Or, for some of us who do yoga regularly, we may have experienced pain, burning, numbness, or tingling in the buttock, hip, low back, knees, etc. Notice how this pain subsides when you are advised by your physician to take non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs like ibuprofen, or for some of us who have been living with this chronic agonizing pain, relief comes from those powerful anti-inflammatory steroid medications.

So, what is inflammation, why does it occur, and what are the best safe and natural options to curb this disorder? Let’s start by defining the term: From the Latin term "inflammo" (meaning setting alight or igniting), inflammation is part of the body's immune/defense response, the body's attempt at self-protection. The objective of inflammation is to remove damaged cells, harmful irritants, or toxic pathogens and begin the healing process.

When something harmful or irritating affects a part of our body, there is a biological response to try to remove it. This response takes the form of inflammation for the body to heal itself. While inflammation is not infection, an infection itself caused by bacteria, virus or fungus can trigger an inflammation process. Thus, you may appreciate the fact that inflammation in a true sense is beneficial when, for example, you develop a viral infection or if your back sustains a blow and the injured tissues need care and protection. The classical signs of acute inflammation are pain, heat, redness and fluid accumulation (swelling). Inflammation may also be associated with symptoms including: fever, chills, fatigue/loss of energy, muscle aches, headaches and loss of appetite.

Chain of Events that Occur during the Inflammation Process. Just as every country maintains an army, air force and naval units to defend itself from enemy forces, our body too has an excellent defense system (aka immune system) characterized by an arsenal of molecules. Acute inflammation is the initial response of the body to harmful stimuli and is characterized by the release of (a) specialized chemicals that create a conducive atmosphere for the defense molecules (pro-inflammatory molecules) to act and (b) specialized defense molecules/cells that fight the invaders. You may have heard from your physician or other sources terms including but not limited to: leukocytes, macrophages, dendritic cells, mast cells, bradykinin, histamine, and TNF. All these constitute our defense/immune system that is akin to a country’s defense system, with several layers of defenses of increasing specificity that culminate in the removal of pathogens and promote healing of any damaged tissue. Thus, in a perfect world or perfect body, the inflammatory process occurs just as it should, releasing defense/pro-inflammatory molecules when needed and then turning them off when the threat has been sufficiently addressed.

Negative Aspect of the Inflammation Process. Imagine if the defense forces take on their own country and its citizens! Similarly, chronic inflammation is characterized by a defense response that is aberrant, out of control and is not completely turned off or extinguished. Just like a slow-burning fire that does not ebb, in chronic inflammation the defense/pro-inflammatory molecules continue to be present in the body even when they are not needed. With the inflammation switch refusing to turn off, the body operates as if it is always under attack. Inflammation draws on our body’s energy and resources and having a constant, low-grade flow of powerful pro-inflammatory molecules can result in bodily damage with time. Furthermore, once this system goes out of control, it self-perpetuates and quickly spirals into disease in areas such as blood vessels (atherosclerosis), pancreatic tissue (diabetes), bones and joints (arthritis), digestive system (lactose and gluten intolerance), limbs, muscles and nerves (fibromyalgia), fat tissue (obesity), throat (thyroid issues)—just for starters. Sounds like the body going haywire in its own defense, with the immune system failing to distinguish between what is foreign and what is our own self, and making the body vulnerable to attacks from its own defense team.

Causes of Chronic Inflammation. As an aging researcher, I have learned that aging is one of the biggest risk factors for chronic inflammation because as we age, our bodies are less able to disarm the inflammatory process. Couple the aging process with a genetic predisposition, hypertension, or even smoking and it fuels the flames. In addition, stress (both physical and mental), environment, poor foods (sugary, processed, or fast food), high blood-insulin levels (type-2 diabetes), hormonal imbalance (estrogen and menopause) and obesity (leptin, adiponectin and other dietary hormone imbalance) are just a few of the factors that promote chronic inflammation.

Treatment for Chronic Inflammation. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) that include drugs like aspirin, ibuprofen, and naproxen, reduce the level of certain chemicals called prostaglandins that are involved in inflammation. Treatment with NSAIDs can lead to less swelling and less pain. However, extended use of NSAIDS can cause intestinal bleeding and serious damage to the stomach, liver and kidneys. Commonly referred to as steroids, glucocorticoids work to calm an overactive immune system and to decrease the level of inflammation in the body. People with multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and other chronic inflammatory diseases are frequently prescribed these steroids to calm the inflammatory response. The problem is that these come with their own baggage of side effects and extended use of steroids can trigger osteoporosis, glaucoma, weight gain, high blood pressure and a lowered resistance to infections. Finally, a nutritious diet is the basis for good health. Vitamins D, E and C and folic acid have powerful anti-inflammatory actions, and foods high in omega 3s&6s, fruits, vegetables, fermented foods and unrefined carbohydrates may help to reduce the body's inflammatory response.

Yoga as an Anti-Inflammatory Therapy. There’s also good news for those of us who have a regular yoga practice. Several studies now report that a regular yoga practice (a) brings down the levels of stress hormones that promote inflammation (b) lowers the levels of a number of pro-inflammatory molecules in the body and brings down inflammation that is beneficial in conditions like arthritis, (c) reduces a subset of pro-inflammatory molecules called cytokines thereby relieving severe pain seen in diseases like fibromyalgia, and (d) inhibits inflammation that in turn weakens and even kills cancerous cells in people with cancer. See Stress, Inflammation and Yoga Practice to read one of the original studies.

In a study that confirms nearly all of the above observations, researchers at Ohio State University in Columbus divided 50 women with an average age of 41 into two groups: new to yoga and experts. The researchers than subjected these women to a battery of stress-inducing tasks, including holding their feet in extremely cold water or solving difficult math problems without the aid of a paper and pencil. Blood samples were taken several times before, during and after the stressful activities and measured for the levels of several pro inflammatory molecules. The research team found that women who were new to yoga had higher levels of nearly all the pro-inflammatory molecules tested and a much greater inflammatory response to the stressful tasks than women who were experts - suggesting that yoga may help to tune down the stress responses. See Adiponectin, leptin, and yoga practice.

Yoga’s beneficial effects on inflammation are not confined just to people with inflammatory conditions. Remember, I wrote a previous post about caregivers and how yoga could help these Karma yogis. Turns out that caregivers who exhibit high levels of stress-associated inflammation and who often don't have the time or energy to bring on a little relief from the stress of taking care of a loved one will benefit from a yoga practice even if it is for a brief period daily as it lowers stress-associated inflammation. In a study published in the  journal Psychoneuroendocrinology, researchers found that caregivers who participated in a yoga practice experienced a change in the response of 68 anti-inflammatory genes, leading to a global decrease in inflammation.

After writing this article in one sitting I am experiencing an unexplained burning pain in my fingers. So, guess what? It’s time for me to roll out the mat and do a few yoga stretches. What a cheap and effective therapy for combating inflammation!

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