www.http://athleticbusiness.com/articles/article.aspx?articleid=2070&zoneid=6
Adults Struggle to Overcome Longlife Fear of Water
by Michael Pope
@ April 2009 Athletic business
If you feel fettered (like 64% of American adults do) when approaching the deep water, beware that like any bad habit, the fear is acquired. Fear of water is not an inborn nor natural instinct for humans. But, before you start thinking of how to conquer the water and become a swimmer, consider A PARADIGM SHIFT IN LEARNING. Think how to heal the fear and become one with water first. In other words adapt yourself as there is no need to fight.
Overcoming a fear of water is the FIRST step towards re-establishing a full set of natural optimums for the body & mind. The quality of human kinetics (and wider – wellness) is directly commensurate to ability to control and overcome different types of fear. Aquaphobia is one of the major among them. We had not feared the water while we were part of it, from conception until birth.
To transform an aquaphobic adult into a swimmer, is a rather easy task to accomplish. It is just a tiny by-product, a natural consequence, of eliminating (acquired) fear of water.
Finally, another question is – and this is a biggie – what defines a swimmer? The American Red Cross says a swimmer is somebody who can swim X number of yards. We say that a swimmer is somebody who can stay afloat in deep and open water until help arrives, whether it’s 10 minutes or four days. That distinction in the definition is the difference between surviving and drowning.
www.occultcorpus.com/forum/showthread.php?13057-Humans-Breathing-Underwater
FUTURE HUMANS WITH ALGAE IMPLANTS COULD BREATHE UNDERWATER
Back to the future. Read about the the ingenious experiment that could enable humans to become amphibian species in a full sense of the term.
www.midwiferytoday.com/articles/birthingpool.asp
What I Learned From the First Hospital Birthing Pool
by Michel Odent, MD
(@ 2000 Midwifery Today)
A birth under water is a possibility. A newborn human baby has powerful diving reflexes and is perfectly adapted to immersion.
In the 1970s doctors discovered that: 1) the cervix can dilate out of sheer anticipation of immersion; 2) the birthing pool can induce irresistible contractions, replacing drugs; 3) birth under water is possible; and 4) the baby has rooting reflex to find the nipple during hour following birth.
www.midwiferytoday.com/articles/landmark.asp
A Landmark in the History of Birthing Pools
by Michel Odent, MD
(This article first appeared in Midwifery Today Issue 54, Summer 2000.)
Dr. Odent discusses an important and authoritative study published in the British Medical Journal on August 21, 1999. He explains the methods and results of this study, and then gives updated recommendations based on the study’s outcomes: “The first practical recommendation is to give great importance to the time when the laboring woman enters the pool.”
At the dawn of a new phase in the history of childbirth one can anticipate that, if a small number of simple recommendations are taken into account, the use of water during labor will seriously compete with epidural anesthesia. Then helping women to be patient enough and enter the pool at the right time will appear as a new aspect of the art of midwifery.
The main recommendations are based on the fact that immersion in water at the temperature of the body tends to facilitate the birth process during a limited length of time (in the region of an hour or two). This simple fact is confirmed by clinical observation and by the results of a Swedish randomised controlled study suggesting that women who enter the bath at five centimetres or after ( ‘late bath group’ ) have a short labour and a reduced need for oxytocin administration and epidural analgesia. Physiologists can offer interpretations. The common response to immersion is a redistribution of blood volume (more blood in the chest) that stimulates the release by specialized heart cells of the atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP). The inhibitory effect of ANP on the activity of the posterior pituitary gland is slow, in the region of one to two hours. When a woman is in labour this inhibitory effect is preceded by an analgesic effect that is associated with lower levels of stress hormones and increased release of oxytocin. Furthermore it is partly via a release of oxytocin that the redistribution of blood volume stimulates the specialized heart cells.
A Paralysed Baseball Star Walks Again
http://www.joe.ie/health/health-news/video-paralysed-baseball-star-walks-again/
The brain, it seems, is not needed for some basic motor functions, like walking. Some researchers claim that almost 90% of all our behavior pertains to our subconscious self. This could help trainers to change some of their patterns towards introducing methods of teaching motor skills that address senses (feel and touch) rather than ratio.