175.4 Sleeping More and Losing More

Today while working with Elizabeth, my Feldenkrais specialist, she mentioned that she had heard about an interesting study on NPR about the connection between sleep deprivation and weight loss during a period of "caloric restriction". I just looked this up on the NPR Science Friday website and found it! Ah, what a technological whiz I have become. The bottom line seems to be that with at least 8.5 hours of sleep combined with "caloric restriction" weight loss was achieved much more easily than for those who had 5.5 or less hours of sleep each night. Here's the link so you can go straight to the nitty-gritty scientific info. http://www.annals.org/content/153/7/435.short

But wait...I want to talk the the folks who can give me 8.5 hours of uninterrupted sleep! That would be a dream come true for this yo-yo sleeper. I just made that up! What to you think of that term for those of us who fall asleep and wake up a couple of hours into our sleep period and then bounce back and forth between sleep and wakefulness?

And for those who are curious about my voice/emotion work with Elizabeth, I can report that my diaphragm is much more relaxed, my upper lungs are much more open, and I'm beginning to feel more, little by little, which is probably much better than being hit all at once by a pent up wall of emotion that's been lurking within me for several decades. I think we are on to something and am very grateful for her help.

177.6 Making The Voice and Emotion Connection

When I write these posts I often picture you, the readers. Some of you I know well and some I have never met. I can't see who you are, but through the magic (?) of technology, I can see where you are, what part of the U.S. or world you are located in! And, since I have a fairly stable number of readers each day, for which I am very grateful, I feel a real connection to you.

So today I'll reveal a little more about myself that you may or may not know.

My voice shows the ravages of life and time more than my body! I used to sing in small groups and in church choirs. No, I was never a soloist nor did I have a great voice, but I could sing harmony and really enjoyed it. About 20 some years ago I suffered a major depression accompanied by big hits of anxiety. I was treated with a lot of mind numbing drugs and gained my first big chunk of weight. Along with the depression and anxiety, my voice quality was lost. It became quite hoarse and it still has a croaky sound to it most of the time. I also lost my ability to feel/express a lot of emotion. I've been off all these drugs for about 10 years, but the voice and authentic emotion have never returned.

So, now I am going to try to change that. Tomorrow I am having my first session with a specialist in voice work, and I'm quite excited about it. And, I have good reason to believe that by doing it, I may be able to get some emotion flowing within me. We'll see!