How is your sleep?
You can improve your sleep with this simple hack.
Give it a go and let me know how you go!
Why We Need To Be Moving Regularly
We have all heard the saying, “move it or lose it” and it could not be more true!
Movement is a vital part of our overall health and wellness. As humans we are part of the animal kingdom and are made to move – in all directions, every day.
We were not designed to sit all day at a computer desk, be in a car driving around for hours or working a 12-hour shift in a mining truck etc. We are biped with long legs and arms for a reason – we are made to walk, run, jog, dance, stretch, climb and reach.
Our anatomy and physiology is such that if we don’t constantly move, our muscles and joints do physically become stiff and our fascia (connective tissue or membranes that surround line and separate our muscles, stabilises our bodies etc.) will actually start to fuse together and then limit our mobility.
Do you struggle with movement?
Seeing a structural therapist to correct your posture and body alignment should make movement, stretching and exercise easier for you.
If pain has kept you sedentary, then any movement is valuable. Even if you are chair bound there will still be parts of your body you can move. If you can’t move yourself, get someone to assist you.
Moving and stretching usually feels good, sometimes initially there is a little discomfort but never stretch into pain. Treat yourself with love and respect and most importantly don’t give up, your goal is to keep moving.
The benefits of movement
- improves your cardiac health, gets your heart pumping and improves circulation
- improves your breathing and lung function
- strengthens your muscles and joints and helps with balance and preventing falls
- improves flexibility, movement and will enable you to do everyday tasks more easily
- helps maintain bone density
- increased blood and lymphatic flow helps improve skin elasticity and healing
- helps you feel better, relieves stress and you will feel a sense of accomplishment
- you will look and feel younger with increased energy and stamina
It’s also important to protect yourself if you are getting help with your stretches and exercises – do not allow anyone to test or push you into pain. Numerous clients have come to clinic because they have over-stretched, hurt themselves in a too vigorous exercise routine or their pain has been inflamed in the process of being tested and diagnosed. You need to be honest with your health professionals and let them know when something is increasing your pain.
So the truth is that a movement program takes effort and commitment, however the benefits are immeasurable and the alternative is very scary. Getting started may not be easy but you just have to do it if you want to relieve your pain long term.
What do you do for movement? Do you need to be doing more?
If you need help to get your body moving better, please get in touch and book a Bowen Therapy session!
Why Grounding is So Good for Your Health
Start improving your health and wellness with this easy and free technique. Recent studies show just how powerful grounding is for our health.
Do you practice grounding? What results have you had? Comment below!
The Healing Power of Positive Language
Positive language and energy can nurture and help living things thrive!
How are you speaking to yourself and others? Kindly or harshly?
Listen closely and make changes as you need. Let me know how you go!
If you need help with this, please get in touch.
Migraine and Headache Relief
Do you suffer from migraines or headaches?
In this video, I share a case study about a client who had ongoing migraine issues.
Book in for a session and let me see how we can help you!
The Three Phases of Pain Relief after Structural Bodywork
Correcting posture and restoring proper body alignment can be the most important factor in becoming pain free and staying that way.
Having corrective bodywork was the first major step in beating my MS diagnosis, the associated chronic pain and rapidly deteriorating mobility. In recent years, my own clinic experience has shown me that many other pain and health conditions can also be improved.
I’ve had clients who were not prepared to do anything else to help themselves (for example making lifestyle changes) but who liked to come for treatments and they still had amazing results by relying purely on bodywork alone.
So corrective structural therapies can work to relieve pain very well by themselves but it also depends on the person and how serious and chronic the condition. Normally the more pain you are experiencing and the longer you have had it, the more strategies you will need to implement to speed your recovery.
When a structural imbalance and/or muscle contraction in the body is causing pain and it needs to be corrected, there are typically three steps or phases that are processed through to gain pain relief.
The first step is the physical release of tight or contracted muscles which also usually helps take pressure off nerve pathways. Circulation and lymphatic drainage are often enhanced.
Because muscles attach to bones, in the second step, that physical release then allows the bony structure or skeleton to rebalance and make minor adjustments and corrections.
The final third phase is that with the body structure more balanced, function and mobility are also improved and there begins a reduction in the triggering and firing of nerves, and so pain decreases.
Depending on the person and their pain condition, this three-phase pain relief after physical structural correction may happen very quickly or can take several days to process.
If you are interested in a Bowen Therapy session, please get in touch.
The Double Intake Breath
This simple breathing technique can help relax and deepen your breathing. It will also help activate the parasympathetic nervous system which will help the body rest and heal.
Give it a try and comment below how you went. I would love to hear from you.
The Benefits of Reflexology
The Benefits of Reflexology
I became a Reflexologist in 2004 and absolutely love this modality!
Reflexology is a science that deals with the principle that there are reflex areas in the feet and hands which correspond to all of the glands, organs and parts of the body. Reflexology is a unique method of using the thumb and fingers on these reflex areas. The Reflexologist’s thumbs and fingers apply pressure on client’s reflexes in the feet and hands, stimulating the body’s own healing responses.
It is a really useful therapy that has a long history (around 5,000 years) in Chinese, Egyptian and Indian medicine. In 1582, two European doctors published a book on zone therapy and British neurologist, Sir Henry Head in the 1890s, identified skin or head zones that corresponded to internal organs.
Modern reflexology then developed in the west, largely based upon the work of American Dr William Fitzgerald, known as the founder of zone therapy, and Eunice Ingham, the Mother of Modern Reflexology. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, many doctors used reflexology or zone techniques for pain relief. However, like most bodywork, it can be time consuming so as doctors needed to help larger numbers of people and drugs became popular, those body skills were mostly let go.
Reflexology primarily addresses the foundation of the body, the feet (although it also has wonderful applications with the hands, ears and face). Like a house or building, if the foundations are not sound or are structurally unbalanced it can have a detrimental influence on the integrity of the rest of the structure. Like Bowen Therapy, it also deals with the body’s fascia, circulation, lymphatic and central nervous systems.
Because areas of the body have associated reflexes in the feet (and the hands, ears and face), it enables a therapist to help someone who is uncomfortable with physical touch to the body or allows support for an injured area that cannot be worked on directly.
Nature & Health magazine reports that in a double-blind trial, migraine patients given reflexology found it as effective as Flunarizine drug therapy. And children suffering from chronic constipation given reflexology had significant reductions in their pain scores.
If pain means that it is difficult for you to be touched or get up and then down off a massage table, reflexology can provide further treatment options as it can be done in a chair or on a bed. Hands, ears or face can be worked if feet are not an option.
Reflexology can:
- Help relieve stress & tension – approx. 80% of today’s diseases can be attributed to stress and tension
- Improve blood supply and promote the unblocking of nerve impulses
- Improve the body’s immune system and energy flow
- Boost lymphatic function
- Help your body achieve homeostasis – underactive or overactive organs and glands can be helped to return to normal functioning levels
Reflexology is non-invasive (only the feet, hands or face are worked) and it works well with other therapies including conventional or orthodox medicine.
If you would like to try a session of reflexology and reap the benefits for yourself, get in touch for a session!
How To Do Body Testing
Learn how to tap into your body’s innate wisdom.
You can body test with these easy techniques and find answers to your questions.
Is this food good for me? Is this decision the right one? Anything you want to know!
Start practicing and let me know how you go!
If you would like further assistance with body testing, book in for a session and we can go through it together (online or in person).
Some Real Talk About Chronic Pain and Illness
Some Real Talk About Chronic Pain and Illness
So… here’s some real talk about chronic pain and illness (from someone who’s been there).
- Sometimes severe or chronic pain is the wake-up call you need to kick yourself into immediate action. We can get complacent with our health and think we can just take a pill and fix everything. That is not always the case, sometimes you have to step up and take urgent action to fix the situation.
- If you get a bad diagnosis, you’ll probably go through grief stages such as shock, denial, sadness and anger. You can use an emotive feeling such as anger to energise and fuel your fight back. Those strong feelings can focus and prod you into becoming your own health warrior and fighting – for yourself and your loved ones!
- You always have a choice. Whatever your pain condition, you can choose to get a second (or a third) opinion. The medical profession is so specialised that people can be experts in their own field but have little knowledge of alternatives outside their expertise. Medical professionals are also often overworked and are looking after numerous patients who are all unique. Sometimes they don’t have all the information needed to make the best decision (so do your part and always keep them fully informed) and occasionally test results are misinterpreted. There is a reason the term ‘medical opinion’ is widely used.
- You already know personally what pain is and how it can make you feel. It can keep grinding you down until you find it hard to remember a time when you weren’t in great pain. You despair of ever feeling good again and anxiety or depression can start to raise its ugly head.
- You also probably know how at first people sympathised with you but as the days dragged on into weeks and months, they began to get tired of you and your pain because while it exhausts you, it also exhausts those around you. Then people start to avoid you and slowly you become isolated and lonely in your pain.
- But you can fight back and you don’t have to continue to accept your current situation. You can get angry about it and totally annoyed with the unfairness of it all but then decide to use that anger. After all anger is just an emotion or ‘energy in motion’. So you can choose to use that energy in positive ways to your advantage, to motivate and become determined to conquer your pain. You have to dig deep but your power is there, just patiently waiting for you to step up and use it!
- Finally sometimes you, and everyone around you, can do everything right and you still get a bad outcome or no improvement in your pain. Sometimes bad things happen to good people but that’s life and beyond our control. It is still important to never give up because you only fail when you stop trying!
On a personal note, when I was diagnosed with MS, pain medications did not work for me and a big motivation at that time was finding relief. If my pain meds had worked, I may have sat back passively, accepted my diagnosis and would probably have rapidly deteriorated and passed away just as my neurologist predicted. Now when I look back, my pain was actually my saviour!
And so this is the power of pain. Once you become determined to fight and overcome it, you have a mission and a different focus, a distraction from your pain and then it becomes your powerful motivation. Because frankly the vast majority of us will do anything to avoid pain.
Then once you overcome it, you will become so empowered and strong. You will come to know that it is not a permanent condition and that you can beat it – you just have to engage the fighter, awaken the warrior in you.
“Pain does not have to mean suffering, it can actually be the birth of a stronger and more powerful you.”
Read more in my book, Drug Free Pain Relief.
