A bio-behavioral theory of “burnout” in modernity,
adapted and paraphrased from a lecture by Kiiko Matsumoto
In a lecture during Grand Rounds at the Tri-State College of Acupuncture in 2008, Kiiko Matsumoto presented a very interesting theory about how modernity, with the bringing of stress closer and closer to the physical body contributes directly to our adrenal glands over-functioning and, subsequently “burning out.”
The theory is that in days of old, in pre-historic, pre-societal days, when we were hunter-gatherers, our relationship to our vision was established biologically. As we ran across the prairie, or rode across the savanna, our long distance vision was employed to find game, to hunt, to engage our survival instincts to the fullest in order to bring home food to our families. This long distance vision was also used to watch the horizon, to keep an eye out for intruders or warring parties, as well as to throw spears, to shoot arrows, etc… In other words, far-sightedness was primarily utilized while we were in fight-or-flight mode, the sympathetic nervous system.
Near-sightedness, or looking at objects and beings close to us, was primarily a function of nurturance. Cooking, taking care of a child, weaving, tanning, building, all these functions of nurturance and safety took place relatively close to one’s physical body, within an arm’s reach. Near-sightedness had an association with safety and ease, the parasympathetic nervous system.
Kiiko’s theory was that as society progressed, we began to feel how our survival was then directly related to how well we could produce results with functions that we could perform close to our physical bodies. I don’t know the exact statistics on this, but it does seem that higher stress levels are quite consistently found with people whose work is less manual and requires more hours sitting in front of a computer, stress mounting in regards to the messages coming through a screen less than a few feet from their faces. The theory goes that our bodies are then getting mixed messages about stress. We come to expect every activity that is happening close to our bodies may have an element of stress to it. It may become difficult to turn off this stress meter, and thus, over time, we burn out. In traditional Asian medicine, we refer to this as adrenal fatigue.
So, what can we do about it? Well, a few things. If your work is heavily computer oriented, I recommend taking eye-breaks. Every twenty minutes or so, just look away from the computer, let your eyes just rest for a few breaths. This should help the impact that the screen is having on your optic nerve and allow your adrenals to remember that you are simply sitting at a desk, regardless of how much stress your deadlines or your boss may be instilling in you.
I recommend taking time to work with what may be our natural orientation towards our vision. Take the time to cook, to cut vegetables, to wash your dishes by hand, to darn your socks, or sew buttons back on. Little tasks that seem to be busy work, may just give you the time you need doing safe and nurturing tasks in very close proximity to yourself.
Play sports or go bow-and-arrow hunting, do things that will help to reinforce to your system that fight-or-flight responses are necessary but reserved for certain activities. Right now I feel like this list is a little short, so any suggestions you might have, I am most open to.
Sleep well!! Getting a good night’s rest is perhaps the most consistently helpful thing we do for ourselves. You can help yourself get to sleep by A) beginning to lower the lights in your home about an hour before getting to sleep- this sends the message to your nervous system that the day is ending, B) take foot or full-body baths before bed- this harmonizes the whole system, C) restricting yourself from using the computer AT ALL after a certain hour- looking at a computer screen alone may be enough to confuse the nervous system, or D) drink a warm cup of chamomile tea to calm the internal organs.
And if all this fails, go live in a cave, find yourself a nice sharp stick and start huntin’! If you don’t start feeling better in a year or two, well, then I’ll toss this theory out forever.
For most of us, our natural mind or buddhanature is obscured by the limited self-image created by habitual neuronal patterns—which, in themselves, are simply a reflection of the unlimited capacity of the mind to create any condition it chooses. Natural mind is capable of creating anything, even ignorance of its own nature. In other words, not recognizing natural mind is simply an example of the mind’s unlimited capacity to create whatever it wants. Whenever we feel fear, sadness, jealousy, desire, or any other emotion that contributes to our sense of vulnerability or weakness, we should give ourselves a nice pat on the back. We’ve just experienced the unlimited nature of mind.
Imagine you’re a treasure hunter. One day you discover a chunk of metal in the ground. You dig a hole, pull out the metal, take it home, and start to clean it. At first, one corner of the nugget reveals itself, bright and shining. Gradually, as you wash away the accumulated dirt and mud, the whole chunk is revealed as gold. So let me ask: which is more valuable—the chunk of gold buried in mud or the one you cleaned? Actually, the value is equal. Any difference between the dirty nugget and the clean is superficial.
-from “The Joy of Living” by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche in The Best Buddhist Writing 2008
Isn’t that just the bees' knees? I think this sums up the Buddhist concept of equanimity of mind while being incredibly succinct.
I mentioned this piece to a dear friend, a New Yorker with a keen sense of our capitalist nature as a culture. She replied, “Well, yes, the two pieces are essentially of the same value, but my cousin the jeweler would probably respond that the work put in to the polishing of the gold would itself add to the market value of the rock.” That stopped me in my tracks. That’s true, there is value in that work of uncovering the nature of the rock.
I am then brought to one of my favorite aspects of Buddhism, of spiritual practice: the co-existence and validity of two apparently opposing perspectives simultaneously. In other words, yes, equanimity of mind is absolutely true, and simultaneously, we as humans do tend to place great value on beings who are clear-minded and able to enjoy their lives. To put that idea into yet another example, nearly all of us have some desire to live simply, love one another, and embrace every day and simultaneously are filled with ambitions and desires about our financial, creative, familial, or intellectual goals, to name just a few. These two directions, the horizontal and the vertical, if you will, exist simultaneously and are both very important to our personal ideas of success.
As I walked out of the studio at Laughing Lotus Yoga Center yesterday, I was struck by the similarities between Yoga and Zero Balancing.
In a good Yoga class, one moves gracefully through the asanas, or poses, with an open mind, receptive to the sensations in the body and gentle shifts in the spirit. The poses are designed as graceful accents to a dynamic flow of physical and energetic re-alignment of consciousness. Classes generally start with a prayer or insight for the class and/or a kinesthetic theme, a view from which to examine your physical experience of the class. The class then transitions into the vinyasa, or flow from one pose to another, bringing one’s attention naturally into the poses and how one pose transitions into the next. As the Yoga practitioner moves through the physical poses, with attention to the energies of the body, the practitioner’s mind absorbs the intention of the class, in one way or another shifting one’s own relationship to that prayer, insight, or kinesthetic viewpoint. When the class comes to a close, we generally end with an Om of gratitude and a recognition of equanimity (between teacher and student, between class and the day-to-day, between the sacred and the mundane).
In Zero Balancing, moments of direct attention given to held energy in the bones or joints (usually with either fingertips or with dynamic positioning) are called fulcrums. The idea of the fulcrum (or point at which change is made easy) is perhaps the central tenet of zero balancing. Moving from fulcrum to fulcrum, the practitioner moves through a fairly set protocol, and the zero balancing session takes shape. A session is begun with an intention or request with which to frame the experience for the client, either personal or physical or both, which is brought naturally into the session, as the practitioner and client's attentions move to the energies held within the bones of the body. Through that direct attention, the energy constellations therein transform and unwind, bringing with them the frame of the session. When a clear fulcrum is in place, the mind tends to get quiet, the parasympathetic nervous system kicks in, a positive sensation arises in the body, and one’s energy body re-organizes around that touch. Sessions end when the client and practitioner are clear that the work has been effective, and when the client is ready to return to the regular world.
This structure of ritual: this opening, transitional phase, and closing are clear in both practices. The correlation between asanas and fulcrums, as points of consciousness transformation is strikingly similar, both anatomically and in terms of their energetic function. This energetic function, this creating of a space for re-organization of body and mind, creates the space for the discovery of an internal harmony. We glimpse a limitlessness of our own beings, a potential for the refinement and expansion of our own happiness, a nourishing of our own deep vitality.
Yoga and Zero Balancing are clearly different in many ways as well. One obvious one is that Yoga can be practiced in solitude, while Zero Balancing is inherently a duet of balance. To further illustrate: Yoga, emphasizes the drishti, or a soft gaze which encourages internal awareness. Whether actually alone, or having a solitary experience in a classroom of other practitioners, Yoga literally translates to a ‘yoking of the self with the higher Self.’ In Zero Balancing, this goal of internal connection is the same, though logistically, it is simply not possible without both client and practitioner.
A second example, also physical, is that in Zero Balancing there is a focus on alignment through the Foundation Joints of the body, the joints that are, amongst other things, not accessible via the controllable movements of the soft tissue around these joints. Though Yoga asanas can have wonderful indirect affects on the Foundation Joints, the poses work more directly on core muscle strengthening, overall muscle and soft tissue stretching, and general energetic alignment. For direct attention to the energies held in the Foundation Joints, Zero Balancing offers a directness and clarity that I am yet to encounter through Yoga.
“Self-care” is what I call the many ways in which we restore our own vitality. Being aware of the many ways that each of us as individuals feel comfortable receiving care and self-care allows us to stay in touch with an attitude of abundance. Whether in Independence or Inter-dependence, in a core-building workout or a quietly engaging sense of receptivity, in a Yoga class or a Zero Balancing session, on a bright beautiful sunny day or deep in one's slumber, may each one of us find many, many moments of deep and total recharge.
| Species Average total sleep time per day | |
| Python | 18 hrs |
| Tiger | 15.8 hrs |
| Cat | 12.1 hrs |
| Chimpanzee | 9.7 hrs |
| Sheep | 3.8 hrs |
| African elephant | 3.3 hrs |
| Giraffe | 1.9 hr |
I grew up in an aesthetically Buddhist, culturally Jewish, Brooklyn-expatriate, evolving-hippie household in Woodstock, New York. Surrounded by all kinds of creativity and creative lifestyles, I came to see Buddhas in the background nearly everywhere I went and as a teenager began my exploration into what was so g-ddamn special about that particular fat guy.
I was all into the beats and buddhist scolars (read Jack Kerouac and Christmas Humphreys) and began forming my ideas about the world amidst those two quite different takes on Buddhism. One: the freewheeling, oh-my-god, I'm-so-free-and-so-drunk-and-everyone-around-me-is-so-Boddhisattva attitudes of the Beats, and two- a very structured approach to looking subjectively into how one's own mind can very easily create experiences of suffering and/or liberation. Post-high school, at Hampshire College and the Naropa Institute (it was still an institute at that time) I went deeper into these studies, experimenting with everything from traveling to India to meditate with Tibetan monks to participating in rituals with Brazilian shamans in the mountains of Colorado to doing month-long improvisation retreats. Determined to make some sense of all these experiences, I fell in love with the work of the modern philosopher Ken Wilber and his Integral Theory of human development. I finished college with a 90 page thesis on his work and the potential for Buddhist practice to help teenagers with psychological transitions. A grand vision indeed.
Finishing college with far-reaching visions of how to save the world, I found that I had no practical ways to apply myself towards the great human journey towards enlightenment nor a way to make the rent.
A good friend had gone to massage school and relayed to me his passion for the work and the benefits of the work's flexibility in schedules and locations. I was sold though, after a long morning's work doing deconstruction labor on a jobsite, when a friend gave me a shoulder rub on my lunch break. I realized in that moment that if touch can make such a difference so immediately in someone's experience, that it is a fantastic gift to give anyone. I signed up for massage school about two weeks later and I haven't looked back since.
I attended the Boulder College of Massage Therapy in Boulder, Colorado, graduating in 2002. I lived and practiced there for about two years before arriving in New York City. Since my arrival here I have continued my education with every body that I am given the opportunity to lay my hands on, and in my additional studies of Zheng Gu Tui Na, Zero Balancing, Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture. I am more inspired than ever by the depth of healing that touch has to offer. I am happy to have discovered modalities that I resonate with that can address so many levels of experience and health/dis-ease. Thanks for taking the time to learn more about me. I look forward to meeting you!
"There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique.... You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others."
~ Martha Graham to Agnes DeMille
