Exercises for Seeing Mindfully: Mindfulness Practices for Persons with Parkinson's Disease - Paperback

by Robert Rodgers Phd (Author)

Stress is a primary instigator of symptoms associated with Parkinson's Disease. A practical and powerful way to reduce stress is to become more mindful which, simply put, means we are present in the moment rather than agonizing over the past or anticipating the future. The Parkinsons Recovery Mindfulness Series is designed by Robert Rodgers PhD from Parkinsons Recovery to help persons diagnosed with Parkinson's disease reduce their stress levels by adopting a mindfulness practice. Once stress levels are well under control, symptoms of Parkinson's will have enormous difficulty presenting themselves. The Mindfulness series consists of nine volumes that span the topics of seeing, hearing, noticing, doing, eating, thinking, feeling, being and intending.Exercises for Seeing Mindfully is the first Volume of the Parkinsons Recovery Mindfulness Series. Six exercises and their long term implications for seeing mindfully are introduced. Contents include: Vision Quest, Celebrate Light, Notice Trees, Notice Red, Notice Yellow and Notice Blue. Each exercise is followed up with an explanation of its deeper significance for persons who currently experience symptoms of Parkinson's disease.Among all of the factors that are implicated in causing symptoms associated with Parkinson's Disease the most critical is stress. When people experience stress, their symptoms get much worse. When stress levels are under control, their symptoms subside. Everyone who currently experiences symptoms of Parkinson's disease confirms the powerful link between stress and the presentation of their symptoms.The idea behind mindfulness is to become totally and completely present to each and every moment of our lives - to live in the present moment - not in the past or the future. Stress exerts an unrelenting pressure on our bodies when we slip into the past with our thoughts or jump into the future with our worries. If we fixate on rehashing past experiences that were traumatic or hurtful or unpleasant - we will insure that our body releases an onslaught of stress hormones throughout the day. If we worry about what the future holds in store for us, we fixate on events that rarely even happen. When thoughts are centered in the past or future our body is sustained in a continual state of stress. Cells are flushed with a continuous blast of adrenaline. This leaves little energy to manufacture dopamine. Symptoms flourish under such conditions. They thrive on stress that is caused by worry, fear, regret, guilt and anger.What is helpful in reducing stress is to reset our routine way of being in the world, to reset our habit of thinking so that we focus on the present moment. This is most successfully accomplished through a regular practice of mindful exercises where we re-wire our habits as they are currently structured in our neurological network. A total system reset is required for most of us to become mindful.Becoming more mindful of each and every moment changes the patterns embedded in our neurological system that sustain high levels of stress which thunder through every system in our bodies. Without a conscious mindfulness practice we fall back into the same neurological rut that stimulates the production of stress hormones. We continue to access precisely the same pathways out of habit. Our neurological system freaks out eventually. Recovery is obstructed because breaking these habits is genuinely challenging.Stress is reduced by redirecting our attention to the present through becoming more mindful. It is no small step to jump from harping on the past and fearing the future to enjoying and relishing the present moment. The exercises in the Parkinsons Recovery Mindfulness series have been created to help strengthen a successful mindfulness practice that succeeds in reducing stress levels as well as helping to reverse symptoms of Parkinson's disease.

Author Biography

Robert Rodgers, Ph.D., has a passion for helping persons with chronic diseases feel better using natural methods. His mother, diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, elected to take a variety of prescription drugs to treat her Parkinson's symptoms, her depression and other medical problems. She eventually died from a coma that was aggravated by the deadly combination of medications she had been taking. After graduating from Vanderbilt University with his undergraduate degree and Cornell University with his master's degree, Robert earned his Ph.D. from Michigan State University in 1981. He served as a faculty member at the University of Texas at Austin in the 1980's and was a professor and Director of the Ph.D. and MHA programs at the University of Kentucky during the 1990's. Robert resigned from academic life as a tenured professor to establish Parkinsons Recovery in 2004. The focus of his research attention for the past decade has been on helping persons with Parkinson's symptoms discover ways to reverse them using natural methods and approaches. He continues to pursue his passion for discovering natural remedies that are helping more and more people today who have been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. Through his work at Parkinsons Recovery Robert is dedicated to spreading the word that the body really does know how to heal itself. It simply needs a gentle nudge here and there remembering how. His research evidence shows that the belief Parkinsons Disease is degenerative is untrue. Once a person discovers the reasons for their symptoms they can set in motion a strategy for reversing any and all symptoms. It may take time and a large dose of patience but more and more people with Parkinson's Disease are healing every year as they journey down the road to recovery.