Christian Goodman

Author at Blue Heron Health News

Hi, I'm Christian Goodman.

I was born in Iceland in 1973 and trained as a therapist. Early in my career I learned something I've never been able to unlearn: most of what shows up in the body starts in the mind, the breath, and the tension we carry without realizing it.

I learned it on myself the hard way.

A few years into my practice, my own blood pressure climbed to 185/129. I was the alternative health expert who couldn't fix his own health. I was eating well. I was exercising. I was taking every supplement on the shelf. And I was terrified — not of dying exactly, but of leaving my wife and children without me. I felt like the carpenter who couldn't build his own house.

What finally pointed me toward an answer wasn't another supplement or another specialist. It was a quiet line of research out of Harvard Medical School — Dr. Herbert Benson's work on how a handful of simple mind/body exercises can reset the brain's blood pressure control center.

The first time I sat down and did them, something in my chest unclenched that I hadn't realized was clenched. I'd been bracing against my own body for years. I refined what I learned over the following months into a daily practice I could teach other people.

Snoring was the other one.

I snored my whole life. As a married man, my wife and I ended up in separate bedrooms — and the resentment that grew in that silence nearly ended our marriage. The breakthrough came one morning over breakfast. My wife — a classical singer turned voice teacher — was listening to me describe my latest dead end when she stopped and said, "That's what I teach my students every day." The very exercises she used to open up her singers' breathing passages were the ones I'd been searching for.

That's how most of my work has been born — in a kitchen, in a marriage, in a quiet moment with someone I love.

Today I've written 13 programs covering everything from blood pressure to vertigo to insomnia to migraines. At the heart of most of them is the same conviction that started me on this path: that the body, given simple tools and a little attention each day, has a remarkable capacity to restore its own balance.

If any of this sounds familiar — the frustration, the shame, the feeling that you've tried everything the normal way and are quietly running out of options — then I wrote these programs for you. I'll take you by the hand and walk you, gently, toward something that feels a little easier.

Warm regards,
Christian


Articles by Christian Goodman
This “Bad” Ingredient Cuts Blood Pressure in Half

This “Bad” Ingredient Cuts Blood Pressure in Half

Now this may go against everything you’ve ever heard about how to lower blood pressure. In fact, if you’ve ever had your suspicions, this may prove that you were right all along and the doctors and other “health experts” were leading you the wrong way by telling you...
Is Sleep Apnea Caused by Your Childhood?

Is Sleep Apnea Caused by Your Childhood?

Sleep apnea is most often blamed on lifestyle factors such as lack of exercise or being overweight or obese. But that is not necessarily the case according to a new study published in Respirology. On the contrary, the root cause may be something that happened in your...
This Computer Game Heals Anxiety Disorder

This Computer Game Heals Anxiety Disorder

Cognitive behavioral therapy is considered to be the most effective treatment for social anxiety disorder (SAD). But a study just published in the journal JMIR Mental Health reveals a simple computer game that seems to be just as—or even more—effective. And wouldn’t...
Can Spouses Cause Dementia?

Can Spouses Cause Dementia?

This article is not meant to cast blame. A loving spouse would never intentionally cause dementia in their partner. However, a new study published in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry reveals that some attributes of a person can lead to dementia in their...