November 2004 | Letters from Readers

Flash From a Fan

This may not be the flashiest thing in your eventful lives, but it was wonderful for me when I came to L.A. that you printed a listing for a workshop I gave. Thank you so much. People really do read these listings!

— Rose Rosetree, Washington, D.C.

I am so pleased to see all the activism and political coverage in your recent issues. Integrating our spiritual work with our work in the world has never been more important than it is right now. Thanks so much for leading your conscious readers down this path of engagement.

— Susan Mainzer, West Hollywood

Muscle City

The photo of a most impressive female runner (cover, October, 2004) showed me something special. Ms. Joanna Hayes exhibited a fully flexed massater muscle while running. Individuals engaged in physiologic protective activities like teeth clenching are concentrating on more important things — winning a race, driving an automobile, sleeping — and aren’t aware of what is happening inside their mouths.

Our bodies adapt to keep body processes normal. When the body is being challenged, the jaw naturally clenches. It’s a protective reflex.

Dentist Harold Ravins and I proved that jaw position could have an influence on sporting event results. For an athlete, the little bit of energy expended on jaw clenching could make the difference between winning and losing a race.

There is a connection between jaw alignment and energy expenditure. For example, people who lose teeth are more prone to experience chronic head, neck and low back pain as the result of trauma. Many pain problems go untreated due to the poor understanding of jaw physiology, commonly referred as TMJ or TMD.

Dentists make appliances that help change the relationship of the lower jaw to the upper jaw, which effects a change in head posture. Correct head posture results in balance within the torso, which takes the stress out of overworked spastic muscles and reduces pain. The same concept allows athletes to put more energy into their focus area and less unconscious energy into the natural protection of their posture.

Thanks for the great photo.

— Dr. Arnold Loel, Century City

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