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 Common Food Causes Dementia

This Common Food Causes Dementia

These type foods are tasty and convenient, but a range of previous studies have linked their consumption to cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and even depression. A new study in the Journal Neurology now adds dementia to this list. In fact, consuming a lot of this...
This Food Beats Dementia Drugs

This Food Beats Dementia Drugs

Most elderly people are advised to cut down on one type of food and eat more of another type. But a new study published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease decided to turn these diet recommendations on their head. And the results were breathtaking. In 6 weeks the...
Sleep Apnea is Caused By These Two Hormones

Sleep Apnea is Caused By These Two Hormones

Researchers have had difficulty finding the cause for sleep apnea. Without a cause, there is no way to develop a cure. Being overweight is just about the only contributing factors they’ve agreed on. But a new study published in the journal PLOS ONE may change this....
This Healthy Vegetable Causes High Blood Pressure

This Healthy Vegetable Causes High Blood Pressure

Most advice about avoiding high blood pressure involves eating more fruits and vegetables, but now there’s some confusion about one vegetable that a lot of people eat. A new study from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School points the finger at this...
This Sense Causes Dementia (Save It!)

This Sense Causes Dementia (Save It!)

Researching the causes of dementia has been mostly focused on the brain, such as brain-cell death, plaque buildup in the brain, or lack of oxygen and nutrition delivery to brain cells. So what does one of your five senses have to do with dementia? Maybe everything,...