Christine Traxler

Hrv can indicate when the body is in distress and then you can slow down and be ahead of the curve

After 8 years of suffering from disautonomia symptoms, Dr. Christine Traxler found a creative way to heal herself. educating herself about heart rate variability (HRV) as an indicator to resilience and optimal health was the turning point towards direction of her healing. The brain and the body strated connect in an optimal way after she increased her HRV via a biofeedback method which she calls "biointuitive feedback". Her tenacity to heal and her curiosity made the healing process more playful. in this interview, this beautiful lady shares her empowering story and insights about the way to heal. don't miss this.

It all started at: 

It began almost imperceptibly with symptoms that fluctuated over time beginning in 2012.  The only stead symptom was weight loss and feeling like one meal a day was all I could eat. I had the sudden onset in 2014 of extreme sweating and incontinence, which stopped after a few months (although I thought it was medication that I was given that made the difference). I had severe constipation as well along with the sudden onset in 2018 of fainting each morning.

No one seemed to understand why I had any of these symptoms until I began to think about them myself. I realized that each of my symptoms related somehow to the autonomic nervous system, which regulates heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, GI tract function, sweating, bladder, and sexual function. I realized I had symptoms in each of these body areas. I was diagnosed with so many separate diseases, but the worst was the stomach problem. I lost about 165 pounds and was told I would die or need a feeding tube very soon.

I tried these modalities but they did not cure me: 

I went to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, USA, and saw the best experts in the world. After tests proved I had some type of dysautonomia, they could not tell me why I had it. Some people have this problem because of autoimmune disease, yet they could not find any similar disease to explain my symptoms. They said they had nothing to offer me.

Dark night of the soul: 

This time (in February and March of 2020) was a low point for me. I was angry that I could die of a disease no one could fix. I felt abandoned by the best medical experts. I started thinking about people who could do amazing things using biofeedback to control their heart rate, blood pressure, and so many other things. I decided then that I would start studying this and see if there was anything I could use to help my own nervous system.

Change in the plot: 

I stumbled on a topic I had not heard of called ‘Heart Rate Variability’ (HRV), which is a measure of one’s resilience to stress and disease. I read everything and bought the tools to monitor my own HRV numbers. It was very inexpensive (less than 170 USD) and involved a free application on my phone. They also offered practice sessions following heart rate variability using biofeedback. I studied HRV biofeedback but quickly realized there was a better way of doing it than even they understood.

By May of 2020, I had a plan and felt hopeful for the first time. Using HRV, I could be my own ‘patient’ and study the effects of different things on my resilience. I practiced yoga every day and practiced biofeedback. I met with a nutritionist who helped me begin to gain weight. I paid attention to my body, studied more on dysautonomia, and kept a daily log of anything I thought could help me determine the trends I was seeing in clearer ways. I ran short experiments to see the effects of certain things on my HRV, sleep, and weight, among other things. I chose doctors who respected that I wanted to be included in all decisions about my health.

I began gaining weight immediately. Every symptom I once had has disappeared (except that I do not sweat yet). It has now been 2 years on this new journey, yet my commitment to maintaining good health has not wavered. It is now simply easier to say that I have good health, even though I still work on it. Good health is nothing to take for granted; it is the least thing people should ignore or simply ‘hope for the best’.

How to cultivate a sense of safety?: 

Safety and genuine healing go hand in hand. Anytime your body is sending ‘frightened’ signals through your nervous system, a cascade of chemical signals is sent out to fight the imagined threat. Those signals inflame your body but do not help in genuine healing.

The human body is primed to heal best when you feel rested, happy, well-fed, and safe. Sometimes it is enough to have the felt-sense of safety for a brief period of time when real safety on a 24/7 basis is impossible. Things like yoga, meditation, biofeedback, and prioritizing healthy food and sleep give your body the tools it needs to do its job. Everyone feels safe in their own way. This is why paying attention is so important. What feels safe for you will present itself to you best when you are listening for the signals in your body telling you what feels good and what does not.

Babies know very little about life in general but almost all babies could tell you (if they could talk) what feels good and what doesn’t. That tells me that we are designed from birth to know exactly what safety feels like. Too many of us doubt our own innate ability to listen for our own personal cues of safety.

My best advice to fellow sufferers of chronic conditions: 

My advice to people with a chronic issue

  1. Read about your symptoms or your disease if you know it
  2. Pay close attention to your body (no one else will do that for you)
  3. Be your own advocate (all doctors make mistakes) and demand your voice be heard in all decisions about your health
  4. Never doubt the power of your mind/brain and its ability to help you heal
  5. Believe in whatever higher power you have faith in but don’t lose faith in yourself
  6. Your disease does not define you (ever)
  7. Your glass is always half full; ignore the empty space and it will feel even fuller than that.

Hrv can indicate when the body is in distress and then you can slow down and be ahead of the curve

recommended book: 

I couldn’t choose a specific book except to say I enjoy reading about real people and their own stories of survival. I would never read a book from anyone who claimed to have the ‘secret’ to survival or something that works for everyone. It is not possible to have that kind of secret unless you are trying to sell books to people too lost to realize the answer lies within. If I read a simple book on someone who survived and tells me what worked for them, then fabulous. I can take from them the parts I think I can learn from and simply be happy for them in their own success.  

about acceptance: 

This is tricky. Acceptance and denial are not polar opposites. In all things, you can choose what to accept and what to deny. If you have pain and you can’t avoid it, accepting the pain is part of what takes you out of being so upset by it, especially if you know the pain does not mean anything bad. Yet you can choose to deny it some of the time so you can do the things that make you happy, even when in pain. In that sense, you accept and make peace with that ‘illness part’ of you. That part is like an old friend who only irks you some of the time.

In my case, accepting that what I had was incurable would not have served me well. It was only when I became angry and denied it the chance to kill me that I became able to do what it took to become well. It is still ‘my old friend’ yet I chose to become its master and not its victim.

The power of lanuage: 
Thousands of language experiments have shown us that language means a whole lot when it comes to perception. Ask any attorney how they use language in the courtroom, for example, to sway jury opinions. So much goes into human communication that the exact same sentence spoken with different emotions will be perceived just as much based on the emotions behind the sentence as on the words themselves. Yet, we forget that the words we say to ourselves everyday also have the same impact. It’s unfortunate that there are few people in our everyday lives who can hear our self-talk or have the opportunity to correct it. A good therapist can do this for those few who can afford this type of talk therapy. Still, there is so much you can do. Affirmations coming from a person who gets paid to write them are nice, yet unless you internalize them, they are just words that bounce back out of our own personal value statement experience. I personally advocate writing and journaling in safe ways. There are books that can facilitate the process of uncovering yourself on paper. My personal advice is to start with something easy. I am not lying. It can be very painful to see your self-talk on paper, yet it is the only really good place to begin learning where you are at any point in your life. All journeys must begin somewhere. I began journaling at 9 years of age. More than 50 years into it, journaling continues to be a resource to help me write my thoughts on paper. I still believe it is one of the best tools I have to help me cope and sort out my thoughts.
Power of forgiveness in healing: 

I am mixed on this issue. I think some people jump too quickly into forgiveness before actually airing out their anger. Anger is as much part of the healthy expression of one’s feelings as are happiness, forgiveness, and joy. If a person chooses forgiveness, it must be an honest choice and not a blanket thrown over their anger – like trying to smother a smoldering fire.

BUT there comes a time when you fan the flames with your anger so much that you risk your own engulfment in it. If this happens – if you spend so much time being angry that you are harming yourself, it is time to let go and choose a path toward forgiveness.

There is much to be said about the definition of resentment (or holding onto anger). It truly is that it is like ‘drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.’ If you find yourself in that scenario, it is time to get out of that pattern and choose instead to 1) have a healthy expression of anger, 2) make the decision that you’ve been angry enough (and have been heard), and then 3) let go. Too many of us forget that all three pieces of this are important.

Present moment and healing: 

I think the people who emphasize ‘mindfulness’ are speaking to an audience who needs to hear it. These are the ‘worriers’ who do not appreciate the present-day little things – mostly because they are too wrapped up in worrying about the ‘what-ifs’ and too busy catastrophizing the future. Learning how to avoid that focus is wise and is exactly why learning mindfulness is important.

On the other hand, too much of any good thing is just that – too much. If a person never looks forward to the possibilities and simply hangs out in present time, years down the road may involve more regret as they realize that what they wanted out of life never came to fruition. It is not really a great idea to dwell on the past too much, hang out in present time without forethought, or live in any imagined future (good or bad).

My personal advice is to always have goals and aspirations, even if half are never realized. Break down gigantic goals into tiny, more manageable pieces so nothing seems overwhelming. Appreciate every step you take toward your goals and enjoy every journey.

If you set out to walk a journey of thousand miles, for example, realize it takes every step to accomplish that goal. Have fun when the days are easy and joyful but buckle down when every step seems like drudgery or, worse yet, painful. In my worst moments, I have simply set a goal to get to the next day (or next minute). If I really believed, however, I had nothing to look forward to past those difficult moments, I would have given up. I believed in my own future, even when I had none and even when I chose ‘in that moment’ not to think about it.