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
Why acid reflux can leave you deaf

Why acid reflux can leave you deaf

Acid reflux isn’t just a problem for your esophagus or throat. Surprisingly, it can damage your ears and even leave you completely deaf. That’s according to a new study in the Journal of Otolaryngology and Head & Neck Surgery. Unlike the more commonly known...
To cure sleep apnea don’t lose (this) weight

To cure sleep apnea don’t lose (this) weight

Obesity is commonly believed to be one of the strongest predictors of sleep apnea. And losing weight is therefore the answer, right? Not necessarily says a new study published in Diabetes, Metabolic Syndrome and Obesity. There are many ways to define the categories of...
Untreatable Vertigo Cured

Untreatable Vertigo Cured

If you have been suffering vertigo for a while and no treatment options worked, chances are that you have an underlying Ménière’s disease. Ménière’s disease is a disorder of the inner ear that can lead to vertigo and hearing loss. Worst of all, it is extremely...
This Prevents Dementia

This Prevents Dementia

Young-onset dementia, a condition affecting people under 65, has traditionally been attributed mainly to genetic factors. But a new study in JAMA Neurology reveals that it is not all in our genes. In fact, six out of seven causes of dementia are completely...