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
Sleep Apnea – Unexpected, Deadly Consequences

Sleep Apnea – Unexpected, Deadly Consequences

If you suffer sleep apnea, you know how being tired during the day can put you and others in danger. You may also know that sleep apnea can cause stroke, heart attack and even dementia. But a new study reveals more subtle consequences of sleep apnea. And one that’s...
Vertigo Cured By This Common Vitamin

Vertigo Cured By This Common Vitamin

There are many types of vertigo and many possible treatment options. Most of them unfortunately very ineffective. So, you can imagine it made quite a stir when a new study revealed that one vitamin can cure two of the most common types of vertigo. What’s more, this...
Why High Blood Pressure Isn’t Always Bad

Why High Blood Pressure Isn’t Always Bad

There’s no doubt that high blood pressure is dangerous, but a study in the Annals of Emergency Medicine suggests that you don’t always need to panic at the first sign of a high reading. The Canadian team behind the study set out to look at how often high blood...
These Blood Pressure Drugs Raise Cancer Risk 250%

These Blood Pressure Drugs Raise Cancer Risk 250%

Ask the World Health Organization which health problem is the world’s biggest and they’ll tell you it’s high blood pressure. 1.13 billion people are affected by it, and if they don’t get treatment then they’re looking at a heart attack or stroke at best....