Archive for the ‘PBS’ Category

Fibromyalgia and cure?

Sunday, September 20th, 2009

” I dwell in possibilities”, Emily Dickinson

The death of Mary Travers of the  Peter, Paul and Mary trio this week saddened me. Last evening I watched a PBS documentary on them which I had seen before. However, watching it again had a profound effect on me. Tomorrow is International Peace Day and I began to reminisce about the past and all they had accomplished in their lifetimes of social activism. How did they continue this phenomenal work, day after day, year after year without giving up hope for a better world? A world with exquisite beauty much of which is constantly being bombarded by destruction. quilts 014

I am of the view that those of us with fibromyalgia ‘feel things too deeply’ and are unable to let go of the pain of our lives or of the world. Yet I looked into the eyes of those three phenomenal people and others featured in the documentary and have known how they too deeply felt the pain of the social issues that plague the world. How do some ‘let go’ of personal and social trauma, (not to mean they do not care but do not let it seriously affect their health) and others become unable to let it go and suffer? This question can only be answered by more research into the ‘psyche’  and nervous system of the highly sensitive person because until we understand this phenomenon there will be no cure.

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Fibromyalgia: Hope for “Music Therapy”

Saturday, July 11th, 2009

“Music is the shorthand of emotion”, Leo Tolstoyadam

I have been reading the relatively new books on music and the brain and watching PBS documentaries recently on this very subject. In particular neuroscientist Daniel J. Levitin has produced excellent programs featuring such musicians as Sting whose brain has been examined through MRIs while playing and composing and even thinking about music. The results are astounding. This has led me to the question of whether or not music could be used for treatment of fibromyalgia, as in music therapy. The book and movie Awakenings and the further work of Oliver Sacks has made me reach the conclusion that music is a therapy for many neurological conditions. I watch that tiny infant in the picture  as she listens attentively to her uncle playing his guitar for her and know that she is mesmerized. She is calm and content.

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