Bowen Therapy Rockhampton, Hypnotherapy Rockhampton and online.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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:
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!
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).
So… here’s some real talk about chronic pain and illness (from someone who’s been there).
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.
Do you have pain in your back, neck or shoulders?
I encourage you to watch my short video and learn the correct technique for sitting when you have pain.
It can help you avoid aggravating the pain and making it worse.
Correct posture is such an important factor to consider when you have structural pain.
Give it a try and let me know how you go!
If you need more help with your pain, please book in for a session.
As an Advanced Bowen Therapist with over 23 years experience working with clients, I can honestly tell you that Bowen Therapy is an amazing therapy that can help so many people in so many different ways!
An Australian physical therapy, the Bowen Technique, was developed by the late Tom Bowen (1916–1982). I had already qualified as a massage therapist prior to studying Bowen Therapy and found it to be such an intelligent, unique and beautifully gentle way of correcting structure and posture while working with the body to achieve healthy balance and function.
Since I already had a working knowledge of anatomy and physiology and had developed a ‘tissue sense’, I could see and feel the changes in the client as we did the Bowen moves. Tissue sense is an ability that a therapist can develop from experience and working on people – just by placing hands on a person or through gentle palpation, extra information can be gained about circulation, contraction in muscle fibres, hydration, etc.
It was amazing to see and feel the muscles release on the table after the Bowen moves, and that was just the first day! Because I was so aware of its potential in helping relieve the suffering of others, I accelerated my training. Finally I’d found a therapy that could give similar results to what I had experienced all those years ago. A bonus was that it was so gentle while still being profoundly effective.
Bowen Therapy has given me the tools to assist thousands of clients, and to be able to help someone gently without adding trauma is wonderful. While more forceful body therapies are also valuable, with the gentleness of Bowen, I’ve found that the body does not go into defence or protection mode, so muscles do not tighten up and the body is not further stressed.
People who are in pain or have been traumatised, are already in sympathetic stress or in ‘fight or flight’ which can increase pain and hamper recovery. Bowen has the unique ability to switch off that stress switch and place the body into parasympathetic mode, instantly calming the body and letting the focus be on pain relief and healing.
Bowen is an intelligent way of de-stressing the body, taking the pressure and contraction out of muscles and joints so that the body can relax and repair. And while many people come to Bowen for assistance with musculoskeletal issues, from my personal and clinic experience, it has potential to help with so many other conditions including being useful before surgery. It enables the body to be in the best physical and structural condition before going into surgery and then helps with healing and recovery afterwards.
The added beauty of Bowen is that it is complementary and can work well with existing conventional medical treatment. It is a gentle and safe therapy that can help with muscular, structural problems and the pain associated with:
There are huge benefits of Bowen Therapy for athletes. Bowen is a particularly effective treatment for long-term sports injury prevention. Athletes being treated with Bowen report remarkable responses in terms of fewer injuries, as well as faster recovery after minor injuries.
My athlete clients come from a variety of sports such as athletics, swimming, basketball, football, tennis, martial arts, gymnastics, trampolining, gym, dancing, yoga and crossfit. Because they have great muscle tone, they usually respond quickly.
Bowen is also wonderful for strengthening, maintenance and prevention programs. I personally have regular Bowen sessions to keep me going through the busy times and operating at the top of my game. I also have many hard-working business professionals as clients who have regular Bowen to relieve their pain, reduce stress and the possibility of downtime from injury or illness.
Have you had Bowen Therapy before? What has been your experience?
Find out more about my Advanced Bowen Therapy sessions here.
Read some testimonials about how Bowen Therapy has helped clients here.
Did you know that pain is processed in the brain?
I’m not being dismissive or saying that it is imaginary but from an anatomical and physiological point of view, pain is evaluated and processed in the brain (via the spinal cord). As chronic pain continues and progresses, negative changes can occur in the central nervous system and pain signals can be reinforced and continue to remain active even when not necessarily triggered and a hypersensitivity can develop.
The human brain is very clever at conserving energy and conscious attention by continually learning, strengthening and reinforcing nerve pathways and learned behaviours, so repetitive actions, thoughts and emotions can easily become habitual and require no conscious effort. While great for learning a sport or new skill, this ability can be massively detrimental in long-term pain conditions.
Anything that you practice or repeat frequently whether it is a thought, emotion, action or reaction can become an ingrained and habitual response. This can also happen with pain signals to the brain. With chronic pain, because of repeated stimulation and reinforcement, nerve pathways transmitting pain messages to the brain can become entrenched and easily triggered.
Neuroplasticity or brain plasticity is a fast developing field of research that has implications for pain management. Contrary to previous medical belief, the brain has now been found to be able to form new neural connections and reorganise itself even into adulthood. So the brain can form and grow new nerve connections to compensate for disease or trauma.
In the book The Brain That Changes Itself, Dr Norman Doidge lists numerous studies which prove the wonderful pliability and plasticity of the human brain and how repeated thoughts and actions can actually rewire nerve pathways. This is why people with brain injury can restore body function by using different parts of the brain and establishing and developing new neural pathways.
It then follows that it is possible to train or use the brain to process pain signals differently and therefore relieve pain. We just have to learn how to stop using those ingrained neural pathways.
And while I am not saying it is easy, it certainly is possible.
Would you like some support and assistance with retraining your brain? Get in touch and book your free 15 minute discovery call to chat about how I can help you.