This week at Herb School we are diving head first into human physiology, the scientific study of the chemistry and physics of the structures of the body and the ways in which they work together to support the function of life. Science! Chemistry! Physics! AHHHHHH!!!! These words make me want to go running for the hills BUT I'm not going to because, with a little creativity and some colored pencils, I know I can make this material come alive. The word physiology comes from Ancient Greek and means "nature, origin" and the "study of." Physiology is a sub-discipline of biology and it focuses on how organisms, organ systems, organs, cells and biomolecules carry out the chemical or physical functions that exist in a living system. Much of the study of physiology has centered on the body's tendency towards homeostasis. Homeostasis is defined as the state of steady internal conditions maintained by living things. But we know that nothing in life is really steady or static. That the only constant in life is change and that at the core of existing is a sense of everything always evolving and falling apart. Gosh, change is everywhere at all times and the world and life is dynamic. It is this very state of flux that presents opportunities for growth and innovation and creativity. But it can also be a source of great anguish. Scientists now recognize our fluctuating state of human baseline existence as Allostasis - maintaining stability through change or dynamic balance. As humans, we actually fluctuate constantly, like a tight rope walker, and we want to make sure our fluctuations are supple but not too extreme that we fall off the tight rope. For example difficult life situations, chronic health conditions, stress, gastrointestinal inflammation adding to stress levels (etc.) can all contribute to an allostatic overload. And now... for a story about spiders and allostatic overload. Lila the Spider Lila the spider lives in a chaotic household. Sometimes the roof leaks on her web and sometimes the wood stove gets cranking so hot in the cabin that her web gets dry and spindly. Lila never knows what to expect next - a broom from an angry human spraying chemicals and madly wiping the surfaces of her world, the cold draft and wind from a door left ajar or the vibrations from a loud stereo system and humans stomping on the floor. At times, Lila gets worn down and struggles to adjust to the load of stresses in her environment. She gets a bad cold, and has a predisposition to having her eggs knocked from her hips, and the broom wrath of the humans has continually disrupted her sleeping habits as of late. For Lila - after losing another round of eggs and not getting enough sleep - life is exhausting and sad. Her web swings wildly from these stressors. And then one evening, late in the wee hours of the night, Lila feels an excessive amount of heat radiating from the stove and she listens as a loud roaring noise emanates from the brick chimney. Smoke fills the cabin and Lila runs scrambling into a crack in the wall. But the crack becomes too hot and fills with smoke and she quickly parachutes to the floor and scurries out the door, narrowly avoiding the humans dashing in and out with buckets. Lila scurries up a tree and into a deep crack in the bark of an old maple tree and watches as the cabin roars up in flame and collapses in ash. This is spider allostatic overload. For awhile her web swung to and fro from brooms, vibrations and a heavy draft but after some illness, the loss of her children and the burning of the cabin she falls heavily from the fluctuating state of her lovely baseline spider existence. Adjusting to a universe of wet, damp and dew is challenging. Lila scurries through the forest, under leaves and over logs, and hurries far from the mound of burning ash that was once her home. She crosses a paved road, watches monsters on wheels roar by and climbs deep into the woods up the side of a mountain. After many days she finds herself in a clearing full of flowers and spies a woman with a long braid down her back digging in the earth. Lila feels at peace here. As Lila begins to rebuild her home in new surroundings, she meets some plant friends who instruct her to drink the dew on their leaves each morning. These friends - including Holy Basil, Ashwagandha, Eleuthero - speak kind whispers to Lila about their ability to help her adapt to stress, heat and cold, noise, high altitudes, loss, grief and other stressors. The woman with the braid loves these plants dearly and the plants love the woman. Lila wonders if some day she'll be loved and noticed by the woman with the braid too. Lila listens to the plant stories, their murmurs of secret adaptogen powers and finds that their morning dew elixir imparts the strength, energy, stamina, endurance and mental clarity that they exude. With time, Lila finds that she can deal with the world better and that fire, snow, wind and heartache does not rattle her web so fiercely. One morning, caught off guard by the woman with the braid, she receives a cooing "good morning, spider friend" from her human neighbor as Lila sips the dawn tulsi dew. With her tiny spider heart and her spider dreams- for flies and ions of children- she relishes in the unpredictability of the world and the many adventures and friends to be found here. Body and Mind as System Our body and mind is a system and when you inject a traumatic experience, exposure to toxins, a predisposition (genetic) to cancer, pathogens AND the way our body responds affects the WHOLE BEING - mental, physical and spiritual health. Adaptogens (like Holy Basil, Ashwagandha, Eleuthero mentioned in the story above) help generate adaptability and increase our allostatic load as we generate resiliency to face the unpredictable, ever changing flow of life. What's neat is that when you break things down to the cellular level, we have these layers of independently functioning units within our living organism that are constantly adapting and responding to our life experiences and lived events. Cells are the smallest unit. All living structures of human anatomy contain cells and almost all functions of human physiology are performed in cells or are initiated by cells. Molecules combine to form cells, cells combine to form tissues, tissues combine to form organs, organs combine to form organ systems and organ systems combine to form us- organisms. Cells have a nucleus that act as the brain of the cell, playing a role in cell growth, metabolism and reproduction. We have layers upon layers of brains and mission control panels. Check out this diagram I drew for more information on the various parts of the cell: The plasma membrane that surrounds each cell allows some substances to move in and out of the cell but restricts others. On average, humans have around 37.2 trillion cells in the body. That's a lot of nucleuses making a lot of decisions.... See below to learn more about the plasma membrane and the various modes of transportation into and out of cells. Guido Mase gave us a lecture a few months ago about how reality is self-similar on multiple levels and how many of the basic rules that exist on the quantum level can be seen in our world. It's fascinating to me that cells, the smallest independently functioning unit in our body, have a brain (nucleus) and we are made up of trillions of cells and trillions of mini brains that work together to create a larger brain in our head...... and if we keep going from there.... that reality is self-similar on multiple levels... what other bigger brains are out there, that we are a part of? Aren't we just a form of bacteria in the hugeness of the universe?
AND that life is hard-wired at the basis of the universe to dissipate and accomplish the goals of entropy or lack of order or predictability; gradual decline into disorder. As humans we chug along aiming to achieve allostasis, finding a safe rhythm to our fluctuations as we grapple with the duality of life and destruction. As herbalists, when we understand the basics of our cellular makeup and the nature of the universe in hand with our plant spirit connections and communications with a layer of modern technological enchantment we can help ourselves and our community heal through the chaos and diversity of life. We can encourage circulation, movement and a response towards vitality across all self-governing parts of our entire system. As we see even on the cellular level, encouraging flow and movement enhances VITALITY. As I study the components of the cell and the plasma membrane and diffusion, I'm struck by how relationships are way more important than the components of these parts of us. It all comes down to... relationship.
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AuthorThe adventures, studies, and musings of a student at the Vermont Center for Integrative Herbalism.
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