#wbv

[gazrgaleyart]

A scene in A Day at the Park (Warm-Blood vampires) where Molly and Richard are spending time together.

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Molly just likes being able to talk to someone. Richard is more focused on work but doesn't mind her being around.

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Personally, I love these two.

[gazrgaley]

Vampires seem to be in two categories right now. Either love interest with a dark past or grotesque monster. Ill like to think I could pull off both.

I have many different kinds of vampires in my world. Some are charming and capable of love well others just want to rip your thought out and eat your entrails.

DM me to ask how you can get your free copy of my first book. A Day at the Park (Warm-Blood Vampires) that consist of a novella plus three short stories.

[anomaly00-archive]

Happy Worldbuilding Wednesday! Let's talk about communication. What are the most common ways for folks to stay in touch with each other? What are some Uncommon ones? 

Thanks for the ask! Communication wise, things are pretty old school. You can send letters through different courier systems (the pony express to name one), get news from bulletins, etc. etc.

One of my favorite (though complicated and kind of a pain to use) forms of communication is learned by the majority of aristocratic women in the Raian continent. The Secret Language of Fans (which I go on and on about here) is a form of communication in which the ‘speakers’ use a variety of gestures with a fan to, well, send messages. It is absolute hell to decode messages if you don’t know what you’re looking for, and there are so many variations of gestures or messages that things might just sound like gibberish if one isn’t familiar with the specific version of the language being used. The LoF was even used during wars (and even in peace-time) for female spies to trade information with their contact (usually female ambassadors) in plain sight, which probably contributed to the rise of female ambassadors throughout the centuries. 

[spoonie-living]

[Image: a person in pink fitness gear does a stretch with a blank look on their face. They ponder the question, “What the heck is Whole Body Vibration????” Credit: Nathan Cowley]

What The Heck Is Whole Body Vibration?

So this was a new one on me: vibrating platforms for better health.

Honestly, even without getting more information, I was kind of already down for this. Something about full-body vibrations sounded so dang soothing.

And I was right! This sort of thing feels so nice, and has both science-backed and my-own-experience-backed health benefits. Standing and stretching on these things helped kick my joints into better alignment and probably helped with my POTS. Plus... I got to buzz for a while.

Read on for more info on this exercise technique, and my experience!

❤️, Editor Diane

Note (Jan. 2019) - If you’re near Portland, OR, there’s a place in inner NE, BodyQuirks, where you can try this for free like I did! And if you like it, consider getting a membership to support these folks; they need more members before the end of February in order to stay open and keep those machines available.

And no, this isn’t a sponsored post; I just really liked this and want to share and support them ☺️

I went into my vibration experience led by an enthusiastic friend, who told me it had made an enormous difference in her recovery from a traumatic head injury and some of the resulting chronic pain.

She told me this stuff has been researched by NASA, may help you get the benefits of exercise without as much work, and have produced some pretty miraculous results in certain patients---one adherent swears up and down that her mother’s Alzheimer’s improved significantly from daily use.

I was skeptical, but since buzzy stuff appealed to me anyway---and I do, after all, run a chronic illness and disability blog---I decided I should definitely give it a go!

Something you should know, and that I kinda figured, before going in: Whole Body Vibration (whole body vibration) is somewhat disputed. It’s not that it hasn’t been shown to help people (it has), but due to the varied ways one can practice it, the different conditions it’s been tested for, and the fact that it’s just a pretty new idea, results have been quite mixed. Here’s an article that breaks down the details of the inconclusive research.

Also, a caution: take it easy on this stuff, do your research, and talk to your doctor! Among other things, constant or frequent vibration is considered an industrial hazard, so you definitely don’t want to overdo it. Here are some things to keep in mind as you decide if regular vibration is right for you.

So all that said, it’s gonna be a hit or miss for you lovely readers. But as you may know with alternative treatments: when it’s a hit, it’s a hit. And it sure was for me!

I got a warm welcome from the gal at the front desk, who was also one of the folks who runs the studio. She gave me a whole tour of the machines and plenty of interesting anecdotes. Then she pointed me towards a “walking” machine and got me started, saying this would give me some of the benefits of walking without actually... walking.

The platform vibrated back and forth in a stepping motion (left side down, right side up; right down, left up), and I worked to keep my balance (that’s a tough one on this machine) while chatting with her and one of the gym members. The environment was really friendly and relaxed, and the clientele seemed to be mostly folks with chronic conditions or injuries.

As I stood, I found that lowering my center of gravity kind of changed where I felt the vibration the most, and engaged different muscles. As someone with joint hypermobility, I immediately liked that: engaging my muscles can often realign my joints, and I could feel things ever so slightly slipping back into place as the minutes passed. That immediately put me on cloud nine, because although I’ve found ways to kick some of my joints back into place, I definitely haven’t found the trick for all of ‘em.

It also occurred to me that this could be great for my POTS, since doctors literally tell you to bounce up and down, cross and uncross, and otherwise engage your leg muscles to improve circulation. Maybe that’s why vibrating sounded so viscerally delicious to me.

We moved to different machines, flat platforms where I got to try just sitting and lying down---both nice, and both engaging different muscles to different intensities. I tried a few PT exercises, wondering if their effects would be heightened since my muscles were going to be more mobilized. Inconclusive for me, but it sounds like, anecdotally, it can make a big impact on recovery.

One machine, which was programmed to move through different vibration speeds and muscle groups, was kind of weird: it did something bizarre to my pelvic floor, which felt like a big, full-pelvis yawn. I have a lot of weird muscle stuff going on there after a nasty run with vestibulodynia, so I’m not surprised. It wasn’t bad, though, and I wondered if my muscles were engaging in a healthy way for once in their ding-danged lives.

Speaking of pelvic floor stuff, one of my fun issues in this life is poor bladder control, so I wanna warn you: you get too much targeted vibes, and you’re gonna feel real concerned real fast. I felt like some muscles were relaxing a little too much, and got a couple of leaks and threats of worse. So be careful with that one.

All in all? I really loved it. If I lived closer, I would be going decently often and considering getting a membership. For me, it was kind of like going to one of the local spas (i.e., public hot tubs): feels nice, good for my health issues, a little spendy and more on the self-care side of things than some of my Vital Health Expenditures.

So I do fully recommend it: in fact, I passed it on to a couple people and several of my doctors. And now I’m here telling you about it!

As with most alternative or less-researched treatments, the info out there varies wildly in quality. I dug through and found a few decent articles for you to check out:

Whole-Body Vibration and Blood Flow and Muscle Oxygenation: A Meta-Analysis (Games, et. al.)

Six weeks of whole-body vibration exercise improves pain and fatigue in women with fibromyalgia (Alentorn-Geli, et. al.)

Whole-body vibration may be as effective as regular exercise in mice (The Endocrine Society)

And finally, if this isn’t something you can try out locally, one reader says they have and are happy with this home model.

[gazrgaleyart]

Not quite fan art. But I still got art of my character and I'm so happy about it. A historical fiction about some ancient vampires doing there thing and living there life.

Look how cute Grendel is. First book A Day at the Park (Warm-Blood vampires) available now. 2ed book will be coming out soon.

[cosmonautistic]

Thereafter positive effects of experimentally/therapeutically induced WBV were found, suggesting that, depending on the settings, WBV is a safe and effective way to train the musculoskeletal system and to improve physical performance. For example, increased muscle strength3 and reduced knee osteoarthritis symptoms4 have been reported. In addition, WBV improves physiological and health-related components of physical fitness, such as higher bone density5 and lower blood pressure.6 In elderly patients, WBV improves mobility, balance, general health status,7,8 as well as body composition, insulin resistance, and glucose regulation.9

[gazrgaleyart]

[gazrgaleyart]

this is a priest that will be making an appearance in the 2ed book. his name is Malichi and I will say no more