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 Keeps Hypertension At Bay

Add lower blood pressure to the laundry list of benefits ascribed to healthy sleep. According to a new study older adults who get enough deep wave sleep –a type of sleep associated with healthy sleep habits—have 83%  lower hypertension risk than those that don’t sink...

Little Known Vertigo Cause

Adding to the mounting evidence of heart health to vertigo, a new study conducted by Chinese scientist found that high levels of a heart disease risk factors known as C-Reactive Protein was predictive of severe vertigo. C-Reactive Protein is a marker of inflammation...

How do you lower high blood pressure?

Stacking together a “portfolio” of cholesterol-reducing foods is more effective than cutting down on saturated fats, a new study published in the “Journal of the American Medical Association” found this week. In this study, a group of Canadian adults with high...

What is the HCG Diet?

We get questions all the time about this diet or that diet, and generally, they are all related to the latest ‘breakthrough’ that claims to have discovered the secret to why people gain and store weight.  Upwards of two thirds of US adults, and a full third of US...

Hair Loss Caused by Medications

A few months ago, a reader had written in asking about hair loss creams.  The list of side effects for the topical solutions was concerning to him. He and his wife wanted to have a baby, and there were firm warnings on the label about not handling the stuff if...