Psalms, Prayers, and Visions: the music of Roger Petrich

Yesterday at St. Thomas More, we vocalists ad instrumentalists presented a program called "Psalms, Prayers, and Visions." It was a collection of pieces written entirely by our Music Director, Roger Petrich. Some pieces were for vocal solo, some included voice and instruments, some were for small vocal ensemble, and a couple were sung by the whole choir. Many of the pieces had been done several times at St. Thomas More in the context of various liturgies, but some were completely new to our ears. I think we all had a great time learning and performing Roger's pieces, and hopefully some of the newly-heard works will appear in future liturgies.

Donating my body to science-the results

The results are in, the stats have been run, the lab report has been written, and the powerpoint presentation has been given. I have the results of the exercise/cold exposure experiment for which I was a subject (read my 3 prior posts for a description of the experiment). Briefly, we found that the combined exercise/cold exposure trial elicited a significantly greater cortisol response than either exercise alone or cold exposure alone, but only during recovery. Secondly, we found that salivary cortisol levels change more significantly over time than do plasma cortisol levels. Thirdly, we found that plasma cortisol levels and salivary cortisol levels are positively correlated, however this correlation was only significant during the combined exericse/cold exposure trial.

Since I was also a co-lab director for this experiment, I did a joint powerpoint presentation today with the other co-lab director, and we presented the results of this experiment, along with a discussion of potential physiological mechanisms. This particular lab analysis was difficult to do because existing research studies involving exercise and cold exposure are scarce, but I think we did alright with what we had.

The completion of this particular lab experience also marked the completion of class for the semester. Yes, classes are over and finals begin on Monday. I have a take-home final for my research methods class due on Tuesday, and my lab oral final is on Wednesday. I am also proctoring and grading finals for my PE classes (2 on Tuesday, 1 on Friday, and 1 the following Monday). Oh, I almost forgot! my final exam in my advanced exercise physiology class is a cookout at my professor's house. Since we just finished a 3-week module on exercise and aging, our assignment is to bring an anti-aging food to the cookout, along with an explanation of why that food is considered "anti-aging." Maybe I will bring my awesome blueberry crisp, although I'm not sure if the ice cream and the crunchy topping cancel out the effect of the blueberries. . .

Donating my body to science: a 3-part series

PART 3. On Friday, we completed the exercise/cold exposure lab. To recap; on Monday, I did the exercise-only trial and on Wednesday, I did the cold exposure-only trial. On Friday, we put the two together, so I arm cranked for 30 minutes with my feet in the 10 degree Celsius water. I didn't notice the cold water as much this time; I was more focused on completing the exercise bout, which felt noticeably harder than it did on Monday. Also, it is really hard to generate 2mLs of saliva after exercising for 30 minutes and breathing into a mouthpiece (we breath into a mouthpiece for several minutes at a time in order to collect inspired/expired gases which we used to calcuate oxygen consumption and other metabolic data). But I am finally done donating my body to science, and now we can start analyzing the data to see what kind of cortisol reponses I had to each stress. Once we run all our assays, I'll post the results.

Donating my body to science-a 3 part series

PART 2. Yesterday, we did the second of our three trials for our lab experiment, looking at exercise and cold exposure effect on cortisol. Wheras on Monday, we did the exercise-only trial, yesterday we did the cold-exposure only trial. This time, I sat in a chair for 30 minutes with my feet and legs immersed in water that was 10 degrees Celsius (about 50 degrees Fahrenheit). Let me tell you, that is FREAKIN' COLD!!! I felt a couple different sensations, all simultaneous, and all for the entire 30 minutes. It was fairly painful, but mostly just on the tops of my feet and my toes; like someone was shoving pieces of wood underneath my toenails. Also, I felt sort of a constrictive feeling, like I had rubber bands around my legs and feet. The coolest thing that happened was that my heart rate skyrocketed right when I stuck my feet and legs in the water, but it slowed back down after a couple minutes. Walking was a bit difficult after I got out of the water, kind of like when you try to walk in your normal shoes after you've been ice skating for a long time, but much more pronounced. Lastly, it took a good hour-plus before my feet and legs warmed back up completely.

Tomorrow is the 3rd session, where we put exercise and cold exposure together. So I'll be using the arm crank ergometer while putting my feet and legs in the cold water bath. Should be eventful!

Donating my body to science: a 3-part series

PART 1. This week, we're conducting our last experiment of the semester in Assessment of Physiological Function. I have previously referred to this class as "the monster 3-credit-hour laboratory class." Despite the fact that this class was time-consuming, it wasn't as bad as I initially though it would be, and I have enjoyed working with my classmates on the experiments.

So anyway, in this last experiment, we're looking at the effect of exercise and cold exposure on the stress hormone cortisol. We're doing this in 3 trials; 1 trial with just exercise, 1 trial with just cold exposure, and 1 trial with both exercise and cold exposure. For this lab, I am both the subject and the co-lab director. As the latter, I work with my other co-director classmate to design the lab, work out all the logistics, assign jobs to our other classmates, and compile all the data. As the former, let me tell you what I did today.

So today's trials was the exercise-only trial. I did a 30-minute submaximal exercise bout using an arm crank ergometer (think of taking a stationary bike and just having one wheel with the pedals, which you'd turn with your hands instead of your feet). I had to do the exercise at a high enough intensity to theoretically elicit a cortisol response, but not so high that I couldn't complete the exercise bout. We were shooting for an intensity of about 50% of heart rate max using the Karvonen formula, which comes out to an exercising heart rate of about 130 beats per minute for me. In addition to the 30-minute exercise, I gave blood and saliva samples at 3 time points: before and immediately after exercise, and then 30 minutes into recovery. We'll analyze my fluids later in the week in order to measure the cortisol response. All in all, the session went quite well today, which me and the other co-lab director are pleased about.

Our next session is on Wednesday, where I will be performing the cold exposure only trial. Stay tuned for more exciting details!