Transcription of Breathe #9
Male Speaker 1: You are listening to the Doctor Lisa radio hour and podcast, recorded at the studios of Maine Magazine in Portland, Maine and broadcast on 1310 AM Portland. Streaming live each week at 11AM on wlobradio.com and available via podcast on doctorlisa.org. Thank you for joining us. Here are some highlights from this weeks program.
Dr. Lisa: Their absolutely is great news when you think about twenty years ago and how much indoor air pollution we had due to cigarette smoke and the wood stove smoke. Most of that is really done away with.
Tom D.: Most often there is a belief that when they stand up there they can be right or wrong, that there is a right way or a wrong way to do this. What I try to teach people is that if you are comfortable in your own skin, if you just be who you are, it is really impactful. People will receive you really well and love you for it.
We don’t think of kids having problems, we think of them as needing additional assets so we try to do that by getting caring adults outside the home to engage with them and getting great counselors and things like that, that give them a really safe place to go and feel good about it.
Male Speaker 1: The Doctor Lisa radio hour and podcast is made possible with the generous support of the following sponsors: Maine Magazine, Tom Shepard of Hersey, Gardner, Shepard, and Eaton, Mike LaPaige and Beth Franklin at Remax Heritage, Robin Hodgskin at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, Whole Foods Market, Dr. John Herzog of Orthopedic Specialists in Falmouth, Maine, the University of England UNE, and Akari.
Dr. Lisa: Hello, this is Dr. Lisa Belisle welcome to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast. This week our show is show #9, which is airing on November 13, 2011. Our show this week focuses on the theme of breath and breathing. The importance of breath can not be overemphasized, it is something I deal with regularly in my practice when my patient’s come in to see me. All to often people are not taking the time to breathe deeply and be reflective in their own lives.
Breath is both physical and emotional. We will start our discussion today with Dr. Dora Mills, who is the former head of the Maine Center of Disease Control and Prevention. We will talk about breathe as it relates to our lungs and the importance of clean air. We will go on and have a conversation with Seth Rigoletti, communication coach, who will speak about breathe and authenticity. We will finish up with a conversation with representatives of Camp Ketcha, who are allowing children to go out into the wilderness and learn how to breathe.
Thank you for joining us on today’s Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, we hope you enjoy it.
Each week on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, my co-host Genevieve Morgan and I sit down and what we call the Deep Dish. It is great to have you back here with me deep dishing, Gen.
Genevieve: I always love the Deep Dish.
Dr. Lisa: Yes, we have fun with this. I have fun every week going in before I start this process of thinking about the Deep Dish, going over to Whole Foods. They are our sponsor for this program because we talk a lot about locally grown foods and the importance of eating locally. This time of year we are getting out of the place where there is so many locally grown foods. It is getting colder, not as many things growing.
Genevieve: Yeah, I think the Farmer’s Markets are only around for another week or so.
Dr. Lisa: Yeah they are almost done, but there is still stuff being sold that is local. Whole Foods is still providing us with this great array of food. I was able to find some locally prepared apple cider, some apples from Ricker Hill Farm, we have been eating these all fall, they do a great job for us, I also found these interesting sort of pale vegetables …
Genevieve: They are, they look different, yet strangely alike.
Dr. Lisa: I guess they are, they are interesting. They actually, each of them has their own different taste and not everybody knows how to use them. I have done some playing with these because I used to get them as part of my farm share, so I have used them all before.
Genevieve: You are holding one that is palm sized and looks like an acorn almost.
Dr. Lisa: It does, this one happens to be a rutabaga. A rutabaga is related to the turnip family, these are root vegetables like the parsnip which is also a root vegetable.
Genevieve: Which looks like a huge white carrot.
Dr. Lisa: Looks like a huge white carrot. The nice thing about parsnips is that they are very tender and sweet. Both rutabagas and actually turnips and parsnips can all be cut up into maybe half inch or inch sizes, mixed in with a little olive oil, a little salt and pepper, you throw them on a baking pan, maybe you want to throw in some other root vegetables, some beets, some potatoes and you can have some nice roasted autumn vegetables. You put them in there maybe at 450 and just cook them until they are a little tender with a nice little crust around them.
These are all interesting. This time of year is interesting. They come up with things that are not just your standard apples and carrots anymore, you have got rutabagas, you’ve got turnips, you’ve got parsnips. This little guy, not even little, look at this thing Gen.
Genevieve: Yeah, it looks like a planet.
Dr. Lisa: It does.
Genevieve: A meteor.
Dr. Lisa: Yeah or actually even like there is something brain, alien looking … This is celery root or celeriac. I had to spend quite a lot of time figuring out how to use this. Ultimately, I think last winter I went to a place called Bar Lola up on Munjoy Hill in Portland here. They had this really lovely, finely matchstick cut salad made out of celeriac or celery root. It was quite tasty. What, traditionally, celery root is used for is if you peel it all down, you can cook it like potatoes. You can have pureed celery root instead of mashed potatoes or pureed potatoes. It is really quite tasty.
Genevieve: And you can use it in soup that way too, right?
Dr. Lisa: You can also use it in soup. The interesting thing about this is that it is a little bit of work to play with it, but it’s still kind of fun. You can bring your kids in and you can say, “Hey look at this weird looking food.” Yet, it is still grown locally and it is still good for you, lots of good fiber.
Genevieve: I am also interested too … We talk a lot about diet but one of the things we are talking about is breathing. I know that is really important. As eating is basic, breathing is probably more basic. If we are adding these vegetables into our diet and then we are thinking about slowing down and breathing more, like you said, what are the benefits of that?
Dr. Lisa: I am glad that you asked that question. We have talked in prior shows about the mindfulness that’s required when someone actually cooks. Mindfulness and breathing are very much tied in. There are many studies that show that mindfulness, meditation, yoga, and breath are all very good for our health and well being. As part of The Core Balanced Diet, the book that you wrote with Marcelle Pick, who was one of our guests in the past, that actually talked about something called Heart Math.
Genevieve: Yes. Actually we did reference Heart Math in the book, but also Marcelle and her practice uses Heart Math. It is a fairly well known form of … There are many techniques to it, but it is a mind-body relaxation technique. Particularly they put forth the idea that paying attention to deep breathing, particularly when you are walking, can make your heart rhythm more coherent which is better for your health and fitness.
By coherence, I mean that the spikes going up and down if you look at an EKG, the spikes on the up and down will be less spiky, there will be less peaks and valleys and more calm … That, supposedly, helps the whole machine not wear out as fast, which is sort of what we are talking about when we are talking about aging and health. We talk about it with how we can support the machine, feed it the right fuel, and then we talk about how we can make it last, which is maintain it well. Heart Math uses breathe as part of that.
Dr. Lisa: We have known about this, and I have used Heart Math in my practice, and people who have done biofeedback before, this is sort of a related thing. We have known about this as part of what is called the relaxation response. Dr. Herbert Benson out of Harvard actually did a lot of work with this several decades ago. He has done a lot of work with meditation. Also, the Center for Mindfulness at the University of Massachusetts and Jon Kabat-Zinn wrote a book called Wherever You Go, There You Are.
We know that taking the time to breathe and be mindful kind of gets you in sync with yourself. This is actually a tradition that has been well known in Eastern thought, I mean Thich Naht Han is a very famous spiritual leader who wrote a book called Pieces of Your Step in which he talks about breathing and walking, and actually smiling. Breathe and wellness, they are all tied in, they are all tied into lung health and well being.
Genevieve: You talk a lot about mindful eating, how does that play in? I know we were saying that you have to be mindful in your cooking, but when you actually sit down to eat, what are some tips?
Dr. Lisa: It is interesting because I always talk about what is ideal and then what is real. I have three children of my own, I work, I have a busy medical practice and do a lot of different things. I am just as busy as your average individual. At the same time, as a doctor, I know how important it is to sit down and be mindful while you’re eating. Some of the things that I try to do, once I prepare my food not sit down and eat it in front of a television. Actually I don’t really watch television that much, that’s not that hard. Try to actually sit down, as opposed to standing at the counter.
Genevieve: Yep, not over the sink.
Dr. Lisa: Try not to eat over the sink, yes. Try to actually taste the food. That is one of the benefits when you actually cook your own food is you kind of want to taste it. If you just pick up a box of Cheez-Its, it doesn’t really matter what it tastes like, but if you take the time to actually matchstick up some celeriac, you are going to want to taste it, it is kind of a lot of work.
Actually tasting, smelling, and enjoying when I can and this is not all the time because my children are just as busy as I am, I like to actually sit down with them and maybe have a hopefully not stressful conversation and actually ask them, “How was your day?” Really try to connect. This is one of the things that families can do on a regular basis if at all possible is to sit down and be together mindfully as a group.
Genevieve: I think that is a great point Lisa. I think that if you aren’t having time to breathe, you’re probably not having time for some of these moments that you’re talking about. In a larger sense it seems that what you’re really talking about is just slowing down a little bit.
Dr. Lisa: Yeah. I think that the just slowing down piece is important. We used to, when we sat down, talk about, I remember we used to do this traditional grace, we would sit down with our families and it would be sort of, “Thank you for the food …”
Genevieve: Yeah, we made space.
Dr. Lisa: We made space. We thought about where the food came from and we were grateful that we actually had food in front of us. That is happening less and less in our lives. I think if we do make the space for gratitude and understanding the work that went into the food that was prepared and the fact that we actually have food at all, I think that everybody in the family benefits from that.
Genevieve: Beautifully said.
Dr. Lisa: Gen it has been great talking to you on this broad variety of topics related to breath and breathing and food and locally grown food and mindfulness. We will talk to you again about this next week.
Genevieve: I look forward to it. Thanks Lisa.
Speaker 1: This segment has been brought to you by Whole Foods Market of Portland, Maine, and by the University of New England, an innovative health sciences university, grounded in the liberal arts, UNE is the #1 educator of health professionals in Maine. Learn more about the University of New England at UNE.edu.
Dr. Lisa: This week we begin a segment which is sponsored by the University of New England, a very innovative school just down the street from us here in Portland, Maine. Our segment is called wellness innovations. We will be discussing events and things that are happening in the research and wellness world that we think will be of relevance and use to our listeners. Because this week is the week of the Great American Smoke Out, we thought that this was an appropriate place to begin.
We will be talking to Dr. Dora Mills coming up soon about smoking and lung cancer. On November 17th, 2011, right before Thanksgiving, people have a chance to actually stop smoking. We encourage people to take advantage of this Great American Smoke Out, there are many resources available to them on www.cancer.org. We also encourage people to go to their own physicians and find help when they need to, take the time to bring the importance of breathe back to your body in a very physical way and stop smoking.
We are sitting here today with Dr. Dora Ann Mills and Genevieve Morgan, our co-host, as we come in every week and start with our main guest. We are pretty thrilled to have Dr. Mills in studio. She has been doing great things for the state of Maine for the last 15 years and now she is doing even more great things in a slightly different capacity. I am going to let people know who are listening a little bit about your background. You were recently name the Vice President for Clinical Affairs at the University of England. Prior to that you were the director of the Maine CDC, which is the Center of Disease Control and Prevention under Governors Angus King and John Baldacci.
We know that you have done a lot with public health including reducing Maine’s rate of tobacco use, teen pregnancy, and childhood obesity. You have established numerous statewide partnerships with hospitals, agencies, and schools including Healthy Maine Partnerships which provide public health programs on a local level. You received your medical degree from the University of Vermont College of Medicine, which is my alma mater so hooray! and your Master of Public Health from Harvard University. You are quite an esteemed individual Dr. Mills.
Dr. Dora Mills: I don’t know about that but thank you very much for the introduction.
Dr. Lisa: This month is American Lung Cancer Awareness month I believe, and we have the Great American Smokeout coming up on November 17th. This is one of the reasons we thought it would be such a great idea to have you in to talk to us because as the director of the Maine Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, you know a lot about this.
Dr. Dora Mills: Unfortunately I do know a fair amount about lung cancer in terms of the statistics and it’s pretty grim. I actually think if you think for a minute, if you ask most women which cancer do more women die from than any other cancer, most of them are going to answer breast cancer, right? Yet, the tragedy is that it is not, it is actually lung cancer. Tragic diagnosis. Occasionally people can live longer, but most people who are diagnosed with lung cancer, very tragically end up dying from it.
Dr. Lisa: It is tragic. My grandfather actually died of lung cancer and it came on it seemed fairly suddenly. Not that anybody wants to have cancer but if you are going to have cancer, this is a hard one to die from. It really impacts you in a very negative way and most people don’t do well and they die fairly easy. It’s a hard thing to watch.
Dr. Dora Mills: Especially when you think about 90% of all lung cancers are preventable.
Dr. Lisa: That is what I wanted to ask, do you have the statistics of what percentage of lung cancer is directly associated with smoking and what is the statistic for secondhand smoke?
Dr. Dora Mills: Yeah it’s about 85-90% of lung cancers are due to tobacco. There is a little bit of a leeway there because there is also a percentage of lung cancer that is secondary to radon exposure. We have a lot of radon in Maine.
Dr. Lisa: Right, tell us why we have a lot of radon in Maine.
Dr. Dora Mills: Radon is a gas that’s emitted, primarily is found in granite, and of course you don’t have to go too far in Maine to realize that Maine is on one big bed of granite. We do end up having a lot of radon, especially in parts of Maine where you see a lot more granite than in other parts of Maine. Radon itself can cause lung cancer, or is associated with it, but radon coupled with tobacco smoke ends up increasing your chances of lung cancer by quite a lot. There is this overlap where you can’t say that all lung cancer is just only caused by tobacco, but there is a certain percentage that is associated with tobacco but also associated with radon, and then some is just radon alone. If you add radon to the formula then you are up usually over about 90% of lung cancer is due to either one. Of course radon is preventable in that if you test your house for it, which is required in Maine at the time of the sale, but you can do it any other time as well, then you detect it, and there are ways to ventilate it to get rid of it so that you are not exposed to it.
Dr. Lisa: There are a few other things that people can do if they know that there is radon in their house as well, when they have their showers going you are supposed to leave your door open a crack, you are not supposed to sit in the steam, that sort of thing.
Dr. Dora Mills: Yeah it is kind of more around ventilation, but you want to test your water and your air for it to see if you have it. Very often you don’t, but if you do, it is something that you can mitigate.
Dr. Lisa: We have talked about smoking. I pulled up a few statistics, smoking is responsible for 21% of deaths worldwide in high income countries. That is interesting. 52% of preventable deaths are from lung cancer.
Dr. Dora Mills: That is pretty astounding, isn’t it?
Dr. Lisa: Yeah. Smoking, that is big, the radon we have talked about, what other things contribute to problems with lungs and lung cancer specifically?
Dr. Dora Mills: Of course secondhand smoke you mentioned a few minutes ago and that absolutely is as well. We know that about 7 deaths due to smoking, one of them is due to secondhand smoke. That is reducing as we speak because of course our indoor air is getting clearer and clearer of secondhand smoke. Still we know that a number of people who do smoke, who are addicted to tobacco, do smoke in their homes. That is why one of the efforts over the years by a lot of people in public health has been at least, if you cannot quit, at least smoke outside, and getting our indoor public places smoke free, such as restaurants and all other work places.
We have been very successful in those endeavors here in Maine, very fortunately. Of course in other states, not so successfully. If somebody is smoking at home, their other family members and household members are exposed to the carcinogens that are in… the cancer causing chemicals and secondhand smoke. A lot of people don’t realize that the secondhand smoke actually has higher concentrations of cancer causing chemicals than the primarily inhaled smoke. The reason is cigarettes have a filter so some of those cancer causing chemicals are actually filtered out when you are inhaling a cigarette.
Dr. Lisa: That is so ironic that they are filtering it out so the person who is smoking doesn’t get the stuff but everybody around them does.
Dr. Dora Mills: Yeah, and you still get tremendous doses of it if you are smoking cigarettes yourself, but it is ironic as you say that the people around you may actually get a higher level of it than yourself, if you are smoking.
Dr. Lisa: Children, this is a big secondhand smoke problem for them. We have been talking about lung cancer because of lung cancer awareness month, but asthma and allergies, and lung problems in children have been on the rise as well.
Dr. Dora Mills: Absolutely. Secondhand smoke is really deleterious to children’s lungs. If you think about just even what lung tissue looks like, or you can imagine what it looks like if you haven’t seen it, lung tissue in anybody is a very sensitive tissue, it is not like your skin that is thick and a lot of things can bounce off from it. Lung tissue is very porous, it is like a very delicate sponge. When you are young, when you are a child, it is even more so, and it is very susceptible to the effects of pollutants, especially when you are a baby or a child. You can imagine if you throw cigarette smoke on top of that very delicate king of sponge like tissue when you are a child, it has very deleterious effects and what we see.
As you mentioned Dr. Lisa, is the fact that these children do have very high rates of asthma or more severe asthma than they would have otherwise, as well as ear infections, pneumonia, lung infections, and many other infections and diseases that you wouldn’t think they would necessarily have, like ear infections. It turns out that cigarettes thicken up all of their secretions so when they get a cold then their secretions are kind of thick, they don’t clear them as well, and then they’re more likely to get things like ear infections which happen when you have kind of sometimes when you have thick secretions building up in your ear and then the bacteria take hold.
Dr. Lisa: That is an interesting point. I have had a number of patients, thank goodness, over the years who have quit smoking and what I’ve noticed in my practice is that patients will quit smoking and then their lungs actually get worse for a time, it’s almost as if there’s some sort of purging that needs to take place.
When you were talking about secretions, that’s what reminded me of that, that all the patients that will come in they are like, “Dr. Lisa, you told me I should quit smoking, but I feel so much worse.” I am like, “You know what, you’ve just got to hang in there because your body is trying to get rid of something that it’s been dealing with for a really long time.” It’s this thick, hacking, disgusting, something that eventually does go away. People who are going to quit smoking on November 17th which is the Great American Smoke Out, or another day, just stay with it, your lungs are going to get better.
Genevieve: I’d love to hear you talk about that a little bit more Dr. Lisa and Dr. Mills. I have a couple of friends who are still smoking. They have tried and tried to quit. It’s just such an addiction, it’s very difficult. Can you both speak to that because you’ve treated it through Chinese medicine and there are other policies and programs that you have, so it is an interesting 2-way approach.
Dr. Dora Mills: The main thing I would say is don’t quit quitting. The average successful quitter has tried quitting 7 times before they’re successful. It doesn’t mean a lot of them aren’t successful on the first try or the second try, or the tenth try, but don’t quit quitting. Just because it doesn’t work for you once, don’t quit quitting. There are medications that are very effective. There are also some ways to increase your chances.
I would recommend people calling the Maine Tobacco Quit Line which has free consultation by phone, it’s anonymous, you can also get vouchers for free or low cost medications, quitting prescription medications, and they will stay in touch with you and help you through it. I can’t say it’s easy. We know some of the newer science data shows that nicotine is as addictive to the brain as heroin. I got protected because I have asthma. When I was a kid, a young adult, I never even thought about picking up a cigarette because I couldn’t inhale secondhand smoke so how could I inhale primary inhaled smoke?
I feel very fortunate but I know that I have a lot of friends and acquaintances over the years that did pick up a cigarette and it’s very highly addictive. They didn’t want to keep smoking, it was very tough, but many of them have successfully quit as well.
Male Speaker 1: We will return to our interview after acknowledging the following generous sponsors. Akari Salon, an urban sanctuary of beauty, wellness, and style, located on Middle Street in Portland Maine’s Old Port. Follow them on Facebook or go to Akaribeauty.com to learn more about their new boutique and medispa. And by Robin Hodgskin, Senior Vice President and financial advisor at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney in Portland Maine, for all your investment needs call Robin Hodgskin at (207) 771-0888. Investments and services are offered through Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC, member SIPC.
Dr. Lisa: We have been talking about smoking, we’ve been talking about radon, lung cancer, a little bit about asthma, let’s talk about some of the other air quality issues maybe. What about outdoor and indoor quality in Maine, what can you say about that?
Dr. Dora Mills: Unfortunately Maine does have both issues, major indoor and outdoor quality issues. Outdoor air quality issues we have, you wouldn’t think so … You look around at our landscape and it’s so beautiful and picturesque and pristine and yet we have major air pollution issues and outdoor air pollution issues. The main reasons is that we are kind of on the tailpipe of the country. Picture a map of the United States and look at those arrows of the jet stream, they generally come across the United States, across the Midwest, and then it makes this left hand turn going up north, right across the northeast. There are a fair amount of pollutants that get carried along, get picked up by the jet stream, and then as the jet stream hits the cold air of the northeast, ie Maine …
Dr. Lisa: Right, we are pretty cold up here. Especially at the end of November
Dr. Dora Mills: Right. Those pollutants actually precipitate out and cause more air pollution here than you would see, say in Connecticut or in southern parts of the south and Midwest. Particularly when you look at the pollutants from the states in the Midwest that have a lot of coal producing plants, or use coal as fuel, they emit a lot of pollutants that then get carried here. That is also one reason why we have of course when you combine high heat in the summertime, we end up having of course a lot of high ozone days, more than you would think being in Maine.
Dr. Lisa: Can you talk about that? What is that? What does a high ozone day mean for people?
Dr. Dora Mills: What these high pollutants mean in our outdoor air is that we do have high asthma rates. Maine has the highest asthma rates in the country. It is probably for a number of reasons, but one of the main reasons is because we have high levels of air pollution. We end up having a very high proportion of people in Maine, about 1 in 6 adults in Maine have asthma, for instance. That is about the same with our children.
Asthma is one of the few chronic diseases actually is higher rates in children than in adults. It’s a chronic disease that we see in adults and children. We have very high rates of asthma. For people who are asthmatic, the outdoor air pollution makes their asthma much worse. If you had asthma and you lived in a state with cleaner air, you would be less severely affected by it than the fact that …
Dr. Lisa: We would do well to have as clean an indoor air quality and outdoor air quality as possible, whether it is from smoking or otherwise. This show is about breathing and so far I feel a little overwhelmed because of all of this sort of bad news, but I know there is good news. You are going to tell us a little bit about the positive health trends that are going on in the state of Maine.
Dr. Dora Mills: There absolutely is great news. When you think about 20 years ago and how much indoor air pollution we had due to cigarette smoke and indoor wood stove smoke and yet most of that is really done away with now in terms of, all indoor public places in Maine are smoke-free … Restaurants, even bars, and any workplace is smoke free. Then there’s wood stoves that most of them have been replaced in the last 23 years.
We’ve got great news and we are seeing the effects that our lung cancer rates are actually starting to stabilize and even come down, it is great news. People are generally much more aware that if they are addicted and they are unable to quit right now, then at least to keep it away from other people. You do see that, people are generally very cognizant of taking it outside or being careful.
Dr. Lisa: We even have people, and we haven’t talked about this that much as far as cars and car exhaust but we now have no idling zones in front of schools and in front of public buildings. When it’s cold people are less likely to sit in their car and just keep it running indefinitely.
Dr. Dora Mills: Absolutely.
Dr. Lisa: There are good things happening.
Dr. Dora Mills: Absolutely. We are much more aware of these things. That’s good. It’s making us all shift gears and change our behavior a bit and it’s making all of us healthier.
Dr. Lisa: Speaking of good, you are doing really good things over at the University of New England. I was over there visiting you the other day and you were telling me all of these amazing things that are happening. For a small university, you’re a powerhouse over there.
Dr. Dora Mills: Oh, it is a really exciting place to be. University of New England is our largest educator of health providers in Maine. That is, if you ask health professionals in Maine where they got their education, more of them got their education at UNE, or University of New England, than any other university. It is an exciting place to be, it is a university where an undergraduate campus and medical school is located in Biddeford Maine, on a spectacular oceanfront campus.
Dr. Lisa: It’s beautiful, I can’t believe it’s a college campus.
Dr. Dora Mills: Oh it’s absolutely beautiful. In Portland, on Stevens Avenue on the old Westbrook College Campus, is also a beautiful campus where the most of the other graduate schools of health professions reside. Brand new Pharmacy school that is absolutely stunning there, that is right on Stevens Avenue. Opened up two and a half years ago. We are just completing the dental school, which opens up in 21 months or so in 2013. We have a nursing school, nurse anesthetist school, physician assistant school, masters of social workers school, masters of public health program, and a dental hygiene school. I am going to miss one but occupational therapy, physical therapy …
Dr. Lisa: And that is just in the medical school within the health sciences.
Dr. Dora Mills: That is in the graduate school for health professions located in Portland. We have 11, will be soon when the dental school opens up, 11 graduate degrees in health professions. 10 of those located in Portland on Stevens Avenue on this beautiful campus. The other, the medical school and the undergraduate school and then other graduate schools in sciences like neuroscience are located in Biddeford. It’s a vibrant place to be, I am very excited. If you know of any kids who are thinking about college or you, yourself, are thinking about graduate school, look us up at UNE on the web. It is a great place to be, very innovative university.
Dr. Lisa: Wow. We will also provide a link to the University of New England. I have been there, I have visited there, it’s an amazing place, we have actually done some work with them. I am 100% behind what you are doing now.
Dr. Dora Mills: Great. Thank you very much. I should mention, a lot of our courses, too, are offered online as well. That is another thing to consider. You can be anywhere in Maine, or anywhere else, and obtain a masters in public health. We have an accredited masters of public health program that you can obtain entirely online.
Genevieve: That’s great.
Dr. Lisa: Yeah, this is exciting stuff. I know we had to talk about the breathing, the smoking, and the air, and all of this that is something we still need to think about. We don’t want to scare people, but it is out there, so we needed to talk about all that …
Genevieve: When is the smoke out date?
Dr. Lisa: The Great American Smoke Out is November 17th, we will make sure people are aware of that.
Dr. Dora Mills: Thursday before Thanksgiving.
Dr. Lisa: Yes, Thursday before Thanksgiving.
Dr. Dora Mills: Okay, all you smokers out there, November 17th.
Genevieve: Smoke your turkey, not your lungs.
Dr. Lisa: There you go. There are things you can do about air quality, there are things you can do about health education. Dr. Mills, you have been working on all of these things for a number of years …
Dr. Dora Mills: As you have too!
Dr. Lisa: Thank you for coming in.
Dr. Dora Mills: Thank you so much for having me.
Dr. Lisa: We appreciate the time you spent with us. We look forward to all the wonderful things you’re going to do at the University of New England.
Dr. Dora Mills: Thank you.
Dr. Lisa: Each week on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast we feature a segment we call Maine Magazine Minutes, which is hosted by our all the time co-host Genevieve Morgan.
Genevieve: Thank you Lisa. Today we are joined in the studio by Seth Rigoletti who is a leadership and communications coach at Valico Group. As part of Valico group he works with politicians, engineers, scientists, executives, and authors to teach them how to have a greater presence, communicate in a clear fashion, and deliver a more impactful message. The focus of his work is on genuineness, resonance, and helping clients to be more persuasive in their communication. Which, actually, has a lot to do with our topic today which is breathe. I want to welcome Seth Rigoletti to the studio, hi Seth.
Seth R.: Thank you. Hi.
Genevieve: We have a lot of people come into the studio, obviously, and some are really nervous and some are not. It seems to me that that is a common problem for anyone involved in public speaking. That is exactly what you are trying to address.
Seth R.: There is a lot of things that are happening for me whenever I am speaking in front of a group of people. In this particular case there is all of this stuff around, so one of my goals, one of the things that I try to work with people about is really staying present with the people that you’re talking to. If it’s a room of 500 people or if it’s a room with 3 people, the problems are still the same, which is if I get too much in my head, if I start thinking too much about what I want to say or how am I being perceived, or what did I just say, then what happens is … I have noticed this in my own body and in other people’s body as well, I will stop breathing, or I will hold my breathe. You can hear this in people’s voices. It’s not that they don’t project or you can’t hear them. Some people have wonderful, beautiful deep voices, but they’re still not breathing.
Genevieve: There’s a tightness, the constriction, right?
Seth R.: Right. An example, and I don’t really know how well this will play out in radio, but an example would be if I were holding my breath and I was talking, my voice would kind of rise up a little bit and my voice would start speed up, some of my pronunciations would get a little slurred, and I would start to say things like this? Where there are these question marks at the end of my voice?
Genevieve: I think I can recognize that.
Seth R.: That is really like a tightness in my diaphragm. If I sink that down and I go down deeper and I just breathe through my voice, what happens is my vocals become more resonant. Rather than just sound coming through my mouth, there’s actually more of a vibration that comes through me. For a bigger audience, even though you are mic’ed, it does actually have an effect on how people receive you and how they hear you.
Genevieve: You can train people to do this through your work?
Seth R.: Yeah. The funny part about all this work is that there is training to it. I want to be specific that the work that I do is not necessarily maestro work, I am not trying to help people become master technicians, I am trying to help people become more themselves. Our bodies are designed to be resonant, we are designed for voice. There is this thing on Kristen Linkletter who is a teacher at Columbia University. She designed this whole type of vocal work called the natural voice, the Linkletter work which she applies to Shakespeare and acting.
It’s really about the idea that if we brought ourselves back to a more natural place with our breathe, if we relaxed our vocal cords, if we didn’t feel like we had to control our voice it would be beautiful and resonant. We would be able to be clearly communicating not just the words that we want to say but all the range of emotions that we want. What I focus on with people is to understand what interferes with our breath. There is this part about exercises that help you open up and help you practice how to breathe and how to be more resonant. There’s all these things that we can do to make that happen. The number one thing is what hijacks you, what is it that brings you out of the moment?
Genevieve: That can be very individual, so your work is client by client, I imagine. you don’t have a set plan for every person?
Seth R.: It is individual, absolutely, it is client by client, but it’s also very much … There are universal things that happen. For example, there are some people who are terrified of public speaking, some people who when they get up to the idea of speaking in front of a group of people, whether it be just a few, a handful of people, or as I said 500 people, they are terrified. For those people it is really about identifying what it is that they are terrified of.
Male Speaker 1: We will return to our interview after acknowledging the following generous sponsor, Dr. John Herzog of Orthopedic Specialist in Falmouth, Maine, maker of Dr. John’s Brainola cereal. Find them on the web at orthopedicspecialistsme.com.
Genevieve: For those listeners out there that might be facing a big presentation at work this week or my personal favorite, a toast at a wedding or a family gathering, regular public speaking that you might not think of as public speaking but can still be terrifying in its own way. Do you have any general tips or ideas for how to do what you’re saying, be yourself?
Seth R.: One of the biggest mistakes that people make is that they think the content is the presentation. We think that we’ve got this content that I’ve got to give you. You see this with PowerPoint all the time, people just load all of their content on the PowerPoints and they really just read through them and click through them. It’s death. It can be 35 minutes of absolute hell for people in that meeting. There’s this Dr. Meradian did this study back in 1957.
Genevieve: Whose that? Dr. Meradian..
Seth R.: He started doing some studies about what is likability, what is this? I think he was a psychologist and he started doing this study which is basically what makes us like somebody. This is an often quoted statistic because he made this discovery and then people like me were like this is great news for us.
Basically what it came down to is that only 7% of the reason why they like other people is because of the content of what they say. “Hey, I like your dress,” is not the likability piece. 55% of it is non-verbal. 55% of it is how you physically said that, how you physically were when you said that. I think 38% of that is oral, how I hear you say that. For actors, this is obvious. Actors know that you can have the same line and you can say it 10 different ways and mean 10 different things.
Genevieve: So it is not the message, it is the messenger …
Seth R.: Right. In acting they would call it the intention, what are you trying to accomplish in this moment? Coming back to the presentation piece, what I tell people is that you have to know what effect you want to have on your audience. The effect needs to be something, you want to think about it like I try to say, what do you want people to leave with? If all you have is, “I want them to leave with the content,” then I say do them all a favor, print out the content, give it to them and tell them the meeting’s over. They will leave with the content, won’t necessarily read it …
Genevieve: They’ll digest it on their own time.
Seth R.: They may or may not, but they’ll thank you for not holding them hostage for half an hour. Let’s say in my presentation I want this team to take a leap of faith and we are going to increase our budget, we’re going to go an extra mile and I am asking them to work a little harder, even if we’re increasing our budget, work a little harder, give more effort towards this goal, and it’s going to be a short term goal so it’s going to be a lot of work in a short term period of time.
In order to make that convey, in order to have that effect on them, I have to share something, I have to share something transcendent with them, like, “I really believe that this will change the way that we do business, I really believe that this will make our business better or make our company better, or make our lives better in some way.” I have to be clear about why I believe that and what it is about me that is excited about this opportunity, why do I want to work harder?
Genevieve: That’s what I hear overall about Valico, not only is it about coaching people in public speaking, but it’s actually about coaching people to understand who they really are so that when they stand up in front of a bunch of people it can be genuine. Let’s bring it back to breathe though, how does breathe connect with all of this? I know it’s important.
Seth R.: Right. I heard this in a yoga class one day and it really resonated with me which is that breath can only happen in the present. When you think about that, it’s pretty helpful. As long as I’m in my head, I’m not in my heart. If I’m in not my heart, then I’m not being present for everybody here. What breathe does, it’s a mechanical process. If I breathe then I tell people politicians, business people, whatever, I say, “Breathe through your mouth.” Just that act of doing that, I don’t mean to be all mystical, but brings the energy down into your midsection and then once you’ve done that it’s really hard to stay up in your head. You can go back to your head, but the breathe reminds you, I have to be present.
Genevieve: Those very simple maneuvers are very basic things that you teach. If there are people out there listening today who want to get in touch with you in terms of more individual or sophisticated techniques, how do they get in contact with you?
Seth R.: I have a website.
Genevieve: What’s the address?
Seth R.: www..valicogroup.com. Valico is an Italian word that means the crossing points between mountain peaks. It’s all about connecting who you are to who you want to connect to and what you want to say.
Genevieve: Seth, thanks so much for coming in today, it’s been really interesting. I have learned so much already, thank you.
Dr. Lisa: Thanks for coming in Seth.
Seth R.: Thanks.
Genevieve: Seth Rigoletti is one example of people doing inspiring work in our community. At Maine Magazine we like to turn the lens on these individuals and give you the opportunity to learn more about them. Please visit us online at themainemag.com or pick up an issue at your local newsstand or bookstore.
Dr. Lisa: Each week on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, we read from the book Our Daily Tread. Our Daily Tread was written in honor of our late friend, Hanley Denning, and all proceeds go to benefit her organization, Safe Passage. Learn more about Our Daily Tread on islandportpress.com or visit safepassage.org. This weeks quote is from Howard Cutler.
“Once that we conclude that the basic nature of humanity is compassionate rather than aggressive, our relation to the world around us changes immediately. Seeing others as basically compassionate instead of hostile and selfish helps us relax, trust, live at ease. It makes us happier.”
Male Speaker 1: This segment of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is made possible by the support of the following generous sponsors, Thomas Shepherd of Herzy, Gardner, Shepherd, and Eaton an Ameriprize Platinum Financial Services Practice in Yarmouth, Maine, dreams can come true when you take time to invest in yourself. Learn more at ameriprizeadvisors.com, and by Mike LePage and Beth Franklin of Remax Heritage in Yarmouth, Maine, honesty and integrity can take you home, with Remax heritage it is your move, learn more at rheritage.com.
Dr. Lisa: Each week on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast we feature a segment we call Give Back in recognition of the fact that health and wellness go beyond the individual and the family and reach out into the community. This week on our Give Back segment we have two people joining us. We always like having more than one on the other side of the microphone because it brings the energy up, we have Tom Dougherty who is the executive director, and Heather Petralick, a board member for Camp Ketcha. We are talking about breath or breathe and breathing so it is an appropriate day to have you here. Thanks for coming in.
Heather P.: Thank you.
Tom D.: Thank you very much.
Dr. Lisa: Camp Ketcha is a year round non-profit organization serving the southern Maine community with programs in youth development, family enrichment, and summer day camping. Their 107 acres of meadows, forests, streams, and wetlands, essential to their mission, which is to get youth, children, and families outdoors to appreciate what nature has to offer. We are especially to have both Tom and Heather here today because their 5th annual fall fundraiser, the martini madness and auction is coming up November 19th. Thank you for coming in.
Tom D.: Thank you Dr. Lisa, this is a wonderful opportunity to talk about this event and what Camp Ketcha is.
Dr. Lisa: I am fascinated by this because I thought Camp Ketcha was a camp. I love day camps, I love camps in general, but when you and I were talking, and I know Genevieve is pretty interested in this as well, you’re doing things like a Montessori preschool, you have nature based after school care, where did the Camp Ketcha campus come from? Was this land that was purchased?
Tom D.: It was purchased back in 1964 to use as a day camp for children. Ketcha is a Native American word for little camp. The organization had a larger camp up in Richfield, but this camp was a small one meant for younger kids. We serve kids from 3-14 with primarily day camping programs. We do a lot of the character building, outdoor activities. Things are done in small groups, children learn to work together, they learn about how to develop friendships.
We do a lot around developing these essential assets, these 40 developmental assets that kids need to thrive. We don’t think of kids having problems, we think of them as needing additional assets. We try to do that by getting caring adults outside the home to engage with them and great counselors and things like that, that give them a really safe place to go and feel good about it.
Genevieve: Heather, I’m wondering as a board member because I am on a board of a local youth group as well, we are always struggling with fundraising, how you as a board came up with Martini Madness? What an exciting idea.
Heather P.: It’s really exciting. It’s a lot of fun too. It’s a nice way to bring those into camp who can see it in a different way than most people think of it. It was introduced about five years ago by, was it Jennifer that started it?
Tom D.: Mmhmm (affirmative)
Heather P.: Jenn Van Dyne is still currently a board member and this was sort of her baby. Martinis are a fun way to get people excited about auction items and dancing. There aren’t a lot of places in Maine that you can get all dressed up and go out and have a good time. It is for a really good cause as well.
Tom D.: A lot of our parents come. It is an exciting event for them because they are young parents of kids in their 8-9-10 year old range, it is a great night for them to get out and cut loose a little bit without the kids. Obviously with martinis there, there is no children. It’s a way for us to say thank you to them, give them a great night out, and for them to say thank you to camp.
Genevieve: Do you have any transportation available for people?
Tom D.: We don’t but we encourage folks to set up some good designated drivers and we check that a lot. Obviously the last thing we would ever want to have is a problem with that. We love our parents and our kids, that would be a tough situation.
Dr. Lisa: It is true that your camp is not very far away from Portland, it’s not very far away from Route 1 or I-95, having been out there myself. It is a bit of an oasis.
Tom D.: It is, it is a wonderful place. From my office you can hear the surf on a nice day. I also can just ride my bike down from my house in Portland, it is a pretty easy ride.
Dr. Lisa: I know I will also be at your 5th Annual Fall Fundraiser, the Martini Madness and Auction, which is going to take place Saturday, November 19th from 7-11PM. I don’t know how much martinis or madness I am going to get into but I’m excited to be there and support you, I thank you so much for coming in. Genevieve and I are happy to have you here today.
Heather P.: Thank you so much for having us.
Tom D.: Thank you so much.
Dr. Lisa: For more information on Camp Ketcha or the Martini Madness and Auction go to campketcha.org, which we will link to off of the doctorlisa.org website. As part of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast each week we read from my Bountiful Blog. Bountiful Blog is available at bountiful-blog.com. This weeks post is called Just Breathe, from July 27, 2011. It references a time in my life that is full of transitions. Transitions that I know are not an uncommon thing to those of you out there who are listening.
“Starting where we are, though logical in its premise can be an interesting challenge. Many of us when we are in a state of transition are hard pressed to know exactly where that place of starting may be. This place is officially the luminal space which is everywhere and nowhere, simultaneously. Physically, emotionally, and psychologically we may be truly all over the map. At that point it helps to remember that within each of us exists a still, small voice available for our guidance.
“Liken it to a metaphysical GPS. Accessing our GPS is as easy as breathing, really. Our bodies are built to survive. As the medical school saying goes, blood goes round and round, air goes in and out, it is that simple. We are homeostatic organisms meant to be in balance, we are perfectly designed for life on this planet. When we forget this, it is good to return to body basics. Circulate bloods, breathe. The former doesn’t require much. In healthy, intact humans, blood circulates no matter what. If we want to encourage this movement further we can engage in what I call body play, otherwise known as exercise.
“The latter, i.e. breathing, doesn’t require much either, but there are sometimes we forget this. Most of us get so caught up in our doings that we fail to breathe deeply or enough. We hold our breath often without even realizing it. Perhaps we’re waiting for the next bad thing to happen or anticipating something better than what we are currently experiencing.
“Breath holding keeps us out of the present, it decreases our body’s oxygen supply, making it harder to stay in balance. It also limits our access to that all important still, small voice. There’s nothing better than breathing to help us through a transitional time. There’s nothing better than breathing, period. Just try going without it.”
To read this blog post and others like it visit bountiful-blog.com. This week on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast we focused on the theme of breath and breathing. We spoke about the importance of breathing from a physical standpoint but also from an emotional standpoint. We spoke with Dr. Dora Mills former head of the Maine Center for Disease Control about the importance of air quality inside our houses, outside our houses, and everything involved in what we bring into our lives. We talked with Seth Rigoletti, communication coach, with the importance of breath when it comes to how we present ourselves to the world. We also spoke with representatives from Camp Ketcha.
We talked about the importance of breathing and taking the time to be mindful in our lives. We hope you’ve had a chance to breathe as you’ve listened to our Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast this week. More importantly, we hope that you will be reminded to take the time to breathe regularly in your lives. Make a space for it. It is a lot easier than you think. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. Thank you for listening this week and thank you for being part of our world. We hope you have a bountiful life.
Male Speaker 1: The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is made possible with the generous support of the following sponsors: Maine Magazine, Tom Shepard of Herzy, Gardner, Shepard, and Eaton, Mike LePage and Beth Franklin at Remax Heritage, Robin Hodgskin at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, Whole Foods Market, Dr. John Herzog of Orthopedic Specialists in Falmouth, Maine, the University of England UNE, and Akari
The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is recorded in downtown Portland at the offices of Maine Magazine on 75 Market Street. It is produced by Kevin Thomas and Dr. Lisa Belisle. Editorial content produced by Chris Cast and Genevieve Morgan. Audio production and original music by John McCain. For information on our hosts, production team, Maine Magazine, or any of the guests featured here today, visit us online at doctorlisa.org. Tune in ever Sunday at 11AM for the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour on WLOB Portland Maine, 1310 AM or streaming WLOBradio.com. Podcasts are available at doctorlisa.org.