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

Tired of CPAP for Sleep Apnea? This works better

Continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) devices are widely used for sleep apnea. But a new review published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine looked at a different kind of mouth device, and the results were very promising. Let’s start with a quick...
Free fun activity eases Anxiety more than therapy

Free fun activity eases Anxiety more than therapy

For many older adults, living with chronic health issues often comes with an unwelcome companion: anxiety. The uncertainty of symptoms and the difficulty coping with them can quietly take a toll. Now, a new study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology reveals a...
Stubborn Vertigo? Here’s how to beat it

Stubborn Vertigo? Here’s how to beat it

One frustrating problem with vertigo is that even if you receive “successful” treatment, mild dizziness and balance problems may linger for months or years after the main spinning has stopped. Luckily, a new study published in Acta Oto-Laryngologica found that a...
The worst High Blood Pressure food

The worst High Blood Pressure food

There’s a ton of research out there which tells us what to eat and what to avoid to keep our blood pressure healthy. But it can often be hard to sift through the fads and ads to find the true information. So today we’ve done the work for you. We’ve identified the...
This massage reverses Alzheimer’s

This massage reverses Alzheimer’s

Your brain works incredibly hard, and just like any busy factory, it produces waste that needs to be cleared out. Now, researchers from the Institute for Basic Science in South Korea have discovered something remarkable. You see, gently massaging your face and neck...