The trapezius. This one's a big boy, and can carry a lot of tension, so it really is helpful to be aware of what it is and what it does. For starters, its origin is the skull and spine. It starts at the back base of your skull, and rides all along your spine to just above the lumbar area. All of these fibers stretch across your back to insert into your scapula (information in my October section, haven't figured out how to link my posts yet - will do that soon!). So this one muscle connects your head, spine, and shoulder. You better be nice or it will f*$k you up! Heh. The primary functions of the trapezius are to support the arm and move the scapula around. The top part is used when you shrug your shoulders. The middle part is used when squeezing the shoulder blades together in the middle of the back. The lower part is used mostly for throwing, with some assistance from the deltoids. If you are so talented as to be able to keep you shoulder blades stable in one spot, then you can use your traps to move your spine and extend your neck. I just tried this and it was not so easy! When working together with some neighbors such as the rhomboids and serratus anterior, the trapezius can rotate the scapula (to lift your arms above your head) and bring it in towards the spine.

Last weekend I was watching football with my dad, and was commenting on the "delightful glow" in the face of the Seahawks coach. My dad (not usually one to comment on someone's emotional state) replied by saying how well known Pete Carroll is for his optimism.



Even when he's upset!



Then I noticed the coach of the other team -


(I tried to pick a good picture of him, not just one that would prove my point) You can just see more stress in his face. I barely know either of these gentlemen, but I can still see their dispositions show right through.

Remember what kind of face you want to show the world each day, because it will show you the same thing right back.

While perusing cooking classes this coming December, I noticed that 98% (ish) of them were for cookies and baking and chocolate and other things loaded with sugar! And this was a local, organic, co-op! How in the name of vegetarians is one supposed to stay healthy this holiday season with that kind of inspiration? I'm not saying you should give up treats during the holidays, but personally I crash and burn faster than a crappy paper airplane unless I get some protein and veggies in there too (trust me, I've tried ice cream for breakfast - as Ron Burgundy says, "milk was a bad choice"). So I think it's a good idea to get some tasty Paleo-style recipes in the mix too! If they are tasty enough, you'll look forward to those just as much as the carbo loads.
Here are a few that I found at Epicurious.com:

Kale & Smoked Bacon Salad with Zinfandel Vinaigrette

Sauteed Shredded Brussesl Sprouts with Smoked Ham & Toasted Pecans

Roasted Red Onions with Pomegranate, Orange & Parsley Gremolata

Green Beans with Toasted Walnuts & Dried Cherry Vinaigrette
I think this one sounds super yummy!

Lemon & Prosciutto-Stuffed Pork Loin Roast with Broccolini
Ok, this one sounds pretty damn good too.

Feta Walnut Date Cigars

Chanterelles (or Creminis) with Chestnuts & Pearl Onions

Beet & Tangerine Salad with Cranberry Dressing

Kale & Brussels Sprouts Salad
Yes, it's very green. Get over it. It's good for you.

Savory Pumpkin Pie Soup with Cinnamon Marshmallows, Pepitas Streusel, & Whipped Creme Fraiche
eeee...go a little easy on the toppings, maybe just one or two of them. Lots of fat and sugar, no bueno. But cinnamon marshmallows!!! YUM!!

Recently I found out a friend of mine lost their mother to Lou Gehrig's disease, or Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). She died within a year of diagnosis, and there is no cure. The best hope is a drug that will extend the time where quality of life is still high by a few months.

ALS [if you're interested in the breakdown of the language - "a" = no, "myo" = muscle, "trophic" = nourishment, "lateral" refers to the location of the deterioration, and "sclerosis"  = hardening, i.e., scar tissue] is a disease of the nervous system. In a fully functioning system, the brain sends messages down the spinal cord. When the messages have reached the place where they branch out into the body, they follow long nerves until the message has reached the muscle. At this junction, there is a motor neuron that transmits the message into the muscle. In Lou Gehrig's disease, this motor neuron degenerates. Because the neuron is not sending full messages to the muscles, the muscles begin to weaken until there is almost nothing left. There are voluntary and involuntary muscles in the human body, and ALS only affects the voluntary ones - moving your arms, walking, breathing. Your stomach and heart will still continue to function.
Muscle weakness and twitching are the first symptoms to be seen. They can worsen and speech may be impaired too, but it is impossible to accurately diagnose ALS without specific tests done by a physician. Most of the time ALS strikes in people ages 40 - 70, but it can occur in younger people as well. Only 10% of cases have genetic links; the rest are sporadic and there is no known cause. Expected lifespan is 2-3 years, but can be much longer or much shorter.

There are many days of the year to give thanks, not just one.

Last weekend I went to an event and they were raffling off prizes, which included a 3-month, 6-month, and 1-year membership to one of my favorite yoga studios. I wanted it SO BADLY. I was thinking how much it would change my life - maybe I would move near the studio, I'm pretty sure I'd be ready for teacher training by the end of the year, all the new people I'd meet and things I would try. Then they brought up the gal who won the year membership last year. And - hopefully you can feel me getting a little snarly here - she said she hadn't wanted to go to the party, nor did she even like yoga. She got dragged by a friend and then won. I was so bitter when I first heard that. How could the world give someone so ungrateful and disinterested something I wanted so badly? As her story unraveled, she now frequents the studio several times a week, and is a huge yoga devotee. She needed that one-year membership to bring something new and wonderful in her life. I was able to find it through some other channel. This was really a moment where I remembered that sometimes other people need things more than me. It's always easy to get caught up in your own wishes and desires, but being happy when others have things you don't can still bring great peace of mind.

Whenever you can, work out with a friend! Or several friends! I rarely work out alone, and as a result, I rarely dread my workouts. This morning I did some weights with two other gals who have similar goals to me, and it was great. Plenty of conversation (have to work on keeping that to a limit!), two other sets of eyes to keep track of your form, and three people to inspire each other. These parameters made me look forward to a 6 am gym sesh on a Friday, believe it or not!

Note: Possible side effects of exercising with friends may include lots of laughter and alcoholic beverages. Why let the exercise endorphins end with the workout?

Today I went to the dentist and they had this nifty new contraption - it looked like a space age hair dryer with blue lights coming out of it. She was scanning my mouth with it, and it turns out, looking for evidence of oral cancer. Apparently this type of cancer is really hard to catch until it is advanced to the metastasis stage, so this is a great breakthrough in oral health. Another interesting tidbit there is that the demographics of oral cancer patients is changing - from older men who are smokers and boozers to younger women. There is some hypothesis about it being linked to HPV, the sexually transmitted human papilloma virus. Not sure how they will ever establish a link, given the Guardasil vaccine, but I'm hedging my bets against cancer regardless! Another good reason to go to the dentist. Mine is super friendly and has a great magazine selection along with her anti-cancer equipment so I would be happy to give you a recommendation!

If you are looking for a healthy little taste of the season (between egg nog, stuffing, and holiday cookies, that can be hard to come by!) I suggest peppermint! Its assistance in digestion and relaxation is a fantastic complement to all of the heavy foods you will be eating, and their best friend, the nap. Peppermint's active ingredient, menthol, relaxes your muscles. This is why the stuff you rub on your chest when you have a cold smells minty. It can be good for your respiratory system, as well as your digestive system. When you feel tight, full, or cramped in your stomach, a dose of peppermint will help clear that up. Peppermint tea is the easiest way to get it into your stomach. If you have anything going on in your head, chest, or skin, a peppermint cream will help. Peppermint capsules are available as well.

Now for the queen's recommendation...

Get your own plant! It's a beautiful flower and will remind you of all that it can do for you. You can buy one here. If you are ambitious and want to make your own peppermint tea, simply dry the leaves and steep them in hot water, approximately ten minutes. You can drink as much peppermint tea as you want, there's no such thing as an overdose! [This does not apply to other methods of peppermint intake].

If you are really not into herbs or a calm tummy, then I will point you in the direction of buying the plant for its festive flower and grabbing a Starbucks Skinny Peppermint Mocha. While it may not relax your tummy, it will bring a smile to your face at a few less calories than the original.

Notes on Peppermint: Do not take if you have GERD (gastroesophageal reflux disease) as peppermint will further inhibit the use of your sphincter and make you much more uncomfortable and possibly increase your risk of cancer. For you, the Starbucks option may be your better choice.

If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow. - Chinese Proverb

 Now we have talked about all the shoulder bones. The point that I wanted to make overall was that raising your arms above your head in a useful manner is more technical than you might have imagined. Sure, you can lift them up right now, no problem. You can grab things off the top shelf. Small potatoes, people. If you want to use your arms for any activities that require real strength or stability, you need to know what you're doing (if you are totally happy with your computer life and bad posture and have no foreseeable future doing anything else, you can skip this post). Work with me here - the image here is of your right shoulder girdle. Imagine you wanted to lift your right arm. The humerus there will rotate out towards us, applying pressure backwards. Your clavicle does not have a mind of its own, so ignore that for now. The scapula, however, can sit wherever it likes. Look at that acromioclavicular point - the acromion - and now you might see that it could get in the way of the humerus' freedom to full extend. If the humerus cannot fully extend, it can neither maintain its stability, nor bear large amounts of weight. Think about trying to stand on one of your legs if you couldn't strengthen it and had to tilt all your weight off to the side. Reverse scenario: the scapula slides closer to the spine and down towards the pelvis. OUT OF THE WAY. Now the humerus is free to straighten out, and it can use the scapula for support, at the same time! Essentially you've gotten your leg in a straight line, your pelvis lined right on top of it, and you could hang here for hours.

Good posture will do you wonders. Straight spine. Shoulders back and down. Inhale and fill up your chest with air. Conquer the world.

This upcoming weekend is the Pineapple Classic, a 5k adventure obstacle awesome course to benefit lymphoma and leukemia. A muddy, slip-n-slide good time.

Leukemia is a little more widely understood, but personally, I've always been a little hazy when it comes to the details on lymphoma. Lymph nodes are small, roundish organs of the immune system, which you can find all over your body. You've probably had issues with them during ear, nose or throat infections. They house a variety of immune cells, including B and T cells. While your lymph nodes can become large and inflamed for all sorts of reasons, and all sorts of cancer, when they start to create the malignant cells and grow a solid tumor, that is when you have lymphoma. There are over 70 types of lymphomas, so maybe we'll get into that later.

Typical symptoms include fever, fatigue, weight loss, coughing and chest pain, swollen lymph nodes, unusual feelings in your abdomen, and soaking night sweats...hmm kind of sounds like the flu except you don't have the flu. Seems to make sense for a cancer in your immune system! And since you shouldn't go asking your doctor if you have cancer every time you want to take a nap, it's important to be listening to your body so that you can recognize a common cold and something more serious.

Treatment can vary, depending on the degree of the disease. Sometimes you just wait and see what happens, other times you can get radiation or chemotherapy, all the way up to a stem cell transplant if recurrences occur (hey! this is a good time to get on the bone marrow registry!).

Now back to pineapples and mudpits!

Mmmm, persimmons for breakfast. They are the perfect fall flavor.

Today:
Mid-morning interaction with an individual whom I needed help from. Something had come up, which I could not have predicted, he admitted I would not have been able to know about it ahead of time, and he single-handedly could have made things easy for me or really difficult. He chose the latter, and I was kind of worked up and frazzled about it - now I have to inconvenience someone else, be out of the office for a decent amount of time, and spend extra money, all because I encountered someone who was a bad listener and couldn't think for himself.

However, smiles were coming my way, because the aforementioned person to be inconvenienced was a dream come true. He was easy-going, polite, helpful, and patient. I was still upset and having trouble paying for the little parking tickets and he didn't blink an eye or treat me like the dummy I was acting to be. By the end of this interaction, I felt relaxed, calm, and not really worried about it.

My point here is that whenever you can be the easy-going, polite, helpful, and patient person, you just may be turning someone's day around. Someone just did that for me, so maybe tomorrow I will do it for someone else.

FTR: This was not a date.

Today I was feeling uninspired to write anything, just sort of lazy I suppose! It kind of bugged me that I felt that way, then I decided to let go and not do it if I didn't feel like it. That felt much better - then all of a sudden I decided to share that feeling, and now had something to write about! A lot of times it can be smart to let go and see how things unfold.

Seattle International Comedy Competition!

Yahoo for laughing! For almost every night of the week from now thru November 27, you can watch some of comedy's best live acts. Shows are all over Washington so you shouldn't have to drive too far...which probably works out so you can have a bevvie or two and make it home safe.

Check it out:
http://seattlecomedycompetition.com/

Now that we have discussed the three bones making up the shoulder girdle, you should be able to have a better visualization of what's going on in there. All three of these bones can easily be felt and seen, so it's easy to monitor their movement. When you are are feeling crummy and defeated (anywhere, though this can happen predominantly when seated), it helps to notice where your shoulder bones are, and where they should be. I almost 100% recognize that when I am feeling low or unbalanced, my scapulas have slid up my back, my clavicles collapse in, and my humerus is at attention. If I take the time roll them all out tall and proud, I instantaneously feel stronger. This can also be accomplished by taking big warrior breaths, where you inhale a substantial amound of air, and fill your chest so it rises. When it rises, it almost forces the bones back, and when the bones are rolled back, the chest is open and strong. If you do these things, you will also feel your spine straighten. Hmm, yeah, don't know anyone who doesn't like a straight spine!

Please don't give up on me, I'm working it out.

When the days starting getting darker, shorter, colder, and a lot less like the tropical island I wish I lived on, I try to remember something in particular to look forward to every day. For example, it's less than two months until the darkest day of the year, and then we're on our way out! No, just kidding, that is a bad example. Pretty much anything that involves counting it yourself can be a bad idea.

So when a day pops up where there is nothing on the looking-forward-to-it agenda, I can see it coming in the morning and force a good thing into the day! Although, as I'm thinking this through, I actually prefer to have a very good thing every few hours...even better, says the healthy hedonist.

Some things rolling around my life that are making me smile:

Attempting to make fried rice tonight
Attempting to put soy egg nog in my coffee (that one was actually a failure because it was too thin but I smiled at myself for thinking soy nog was a good idea)
Favorite yoga classes (where else can you lay down in 85 degree temperatures for 90 minutes for the next 8 months? Plus there's a few other things I like)
Finding friends to drink wine with
Going for a run before work and deciding that it was too dark to be safe, thus ridding myself of guilt for skipping out on early runs for the rest of the dark season
Thinking about New Year's Eve mischief
Doing absolutely nothing after work besides taking a bath and watching a movie
Putting cinnamon on everything
Finding favorite winter clothes from the back of my closet
Reading other people's vivaciously interesting blogs
Holiday parties
More holiday parties
More sleep because it's darker!
Little kids rolling around in jackets that are too big for them
Playing rockband

And a warm winter to all!

The last part of your shoulder girdle is the humerus (Want to hear a joke about an arm? No. Oh, but it's humerus! Yes, I do indeed enjoy bad jokes), the big solid bone in your upper arm. Tickets to the gun show? The humerus has got 'em. The round head of the humerus articulates with the glenoid fossa on the scapula, mostly held together by tendons - which is why it is so easy to dislocate your shoulder, but you rarely hear about a dislocated hip in the non-geriatric population. Taking a look at all of these tuberosity (more or less a protrusion of bone, something for muscles to hang on to) things we have going on, the infraspinatous and teres minor insert on the greater tuberosity, working to externally rotate the arm. By the way, this is the front view of a left humerus. Just in case you couldn't feel your own trochlea to figure it out...wink. The lesser tuberosity hangs on to the subscapularis muscle and coordinates the internal rotation of the arm.  Then in the groove between the greater and lesser tubercles, the pectoralis major, latissimus dorsi, and teres major attach to contribute to the internal rotation of the arm. One last one! The deltoid muscles gets its very own tuberosity, farther down on the arm. It helps lift your arm up and out laterally.

 

Ok, how about another bad joke to balance out all that terminology? I learned this one in chemistry class. What do we do with people that are sick? We Helium. What if we can't heal them? We Barium.

According to the World Health Organization, lung cancer causes more deaths than any other cancer - about 50% more than the second most deadly cancer. We have two things to thank for this: the first being the obvious tobacco, and the second being the lack of a reliable test for early detection [this is a good time to remind yourself to get screened for other types of cancer, ones we DO have reliable screening tests!]. Exciting news here at work!! Scientists have discovered protein biomarkers in mice that identify the growing lung cancer, and have been able to match these up with human proteins. There is not enough data yet to actually create the blood test, but it is looking like a very real possibility in the very near future. In the meantime, have a piece of gum.