Tai Ji with a heart:
Practitioner teaches meditative art
to cardiac patients
by Debra Melani, FIT Editor
Published in Boulder Daily Camera, Monday, September 20,
1998
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Focus on Cynthia Ghiron
Age: 39
Education: Ghiron holds a master's degrees
in guidance and counseling from the University of Colorado and a
dance therapy certificate from the Naropa Institute.
Background: Ghiron's main focus is tai
ji, which she has studied for 10 years. An art form that originated
in China, ti ji is a moving meditation that is used to reduce stress
and build strength and balance. Ghiron trained at the Lanting Institute
in the Wuyi mountains in China with tai ji master Chungliang Al
Huang. She completed her teacher's training under Al Huang and has
taught tai ji for six years.
In addition, Chiron has had advanced training
in the Hakomi method of body-centered psychotherapy, and is a Reiki
II practitioner. She was chosen lasst year to lead the stress-reduction
section of of the Boulder Heart Institute's Atherosclerotic Reduction
Program, which this fall will be held at the RallySport Health and
Fitness Clug for the first time. The rehabilitation is for heart-disease
patients and those at high risk.
Ghiron has lived in Boulder since 1982 and enjoys
the outdoors, hiking, and swimming.
______________________________________________________
What is your attraction to Tai Ji?
"My own personal love for tai ji comes through the movement,
the dance-like quality, the music. It's a poetry, and it is ever-changing
and ever new and dynamic."
The meditative art continually teaches Ghiron about herself and
allows her a release, she said. "It helps me let go of my worries
of daily life and return to the present moment, to smell the roses."
Tell me about the stress-management program you used as a model.
Ghiron studied the Jon Kabat-Zinn eight-week stress-management
program created at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center.
"It focuses not on the stress per se in one's life, but on
how you handle it," she said, noting that stress is recognized
in the medical field as having an adverse effect on blood pressure,
adrenal response and the development of heart disease and other
health progblems. The Kabat-Zinn program is used for a variety of
patients, not just those with heart disease.
What does stress-management do?
"The research shows that if people do 45 minutes of stress
management each day for an eight-week period, 65 percent of the
participants report a 33-percent reduction in chronic pain and a
significant reduction in anxiety, hostility and depression."
She said a three-year follow-up showed that those who continued
the work maintained the benefits.
What does this mean, why is it so important?
"Normally people respond to stress with the fight-or-flight
response, and that creates a hyper-arousal response." Ghiron
said. With the stress of the 20th century, not mitigating that response
can be deadly, she said.
"People will develop chronic headaches, back pain and other
physiological problems. It can lead to maladaptive coping patterns,
which can lead to substance abuse, like wanting to have more caffeine
to work harder, and over-eating. It can also lead to an eventual
breakdown, like a heart attack."
So how do you teach people to deal with stress?
"What we want to do is learn to respond to stress rather than
react to it. We do this by developing mindfulness. The research
shows that by simply bringing awareness to a stressful situation,
there's less of an adrenal response or rise in blood pressure."
During the first week of her eight-week program, clients are asked
to note what in their lives is stressful and what is relaxing. Then
they learn where they need to be more mindful, Ghiron said.
What stress-management tools do you teach?
"Full-body relaxation," she said, referring to teaching
clients how to, at home, lie down and relax by starting at the feet
and moving up the body, generally with a soothing tape Ghiron has
created. "Then we begin to focus on the breath. We teach them
to do more of a sitting meditation first. And then my passion, of
course, is tai ji, to get people to get up."
Yoga is offered as a tool, but Ghiron prefers tai ji. "The
advantage of ti ji is it's done standing, and you don't have to
hold particular postures, and you can adjust for your own pain threshold."
She said cardiac patients might be experiencing chest pain or shortness
of breath. And, Ghiron added, there is much more to it for them.
"There's the trauma of having gone through a life-threatening
event. And there's a lot of fear: Are they going to be OK? What
tai ji does is help people work with that fear and release stress
and deal with the risk factors. Sometimes stress is very deniable.
They don't even realize that they are stressed." They think
they are relaxed, but their hands might be in a fist. As we start
to do tai ji, they are like, "Wow, this is what relaxed
is."
What are your rewards?
"I think that these patients, because they have just come
through a life-threatening event, their heart is open, and they
are so willing to do something new and different, and there is such
an appreciation for them to be alive that they are so happy and
grateful. And it helps remind me of my attitude to life and my appreciation
for being alive."
What makes the Heart Institute program unique?
"Often, stress-management is a missing component in traditional
cardiac rehabilitation programs. Lots of programs primarily focus
on exercise and nutrition."
The Heart Institute program works with four components equally.
Ghiron said. It includes learning about heart-healthy diet, regular
cardiovascular program, stress management and the medical component.
"Dean Ornish (author, doctor) was the first person to scientifically
research this, and those four components have been shown to actually
halt or reverse heart disease." She said the recent move to
RallySport allows the clients to continue the cardiovascular section
year-round.
Participants in the H.E.A.R.T. program must be heart-disease
patients, either post-heart attack or at risk. There is a screening
process, and the program is limited to 12. A spouse or other loved
one is invited to attend with the patient. The next session begins
Friday. Call 303-449-4800 Ext. 336 or 255. Ghiron offers open tai
ji classes, with the first class for $15 and the six-week program
for $90. Call 303-440-4004.
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