Category: Pain Relief

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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:

  1. Help relieve stress & tension – approx. 80% of today’s diseases can be attributed to stress and tension
  2. Improve blood supply and promote the unblocking of nerve impulses
  3. Improve the body’s immune system and energy flow
  4. Boost lymphatic function
  5. 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!

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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.                       

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How to sit correctly when you have pain

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.

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How can Bowen Therapy help you?

How can Bowen Therapy help you?

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:

  • Sport injuries
  • Accident recovery
  • Back pain & sciatica
  • Leg, knee & foot problems
  • Sinus & Asthma
  • Stress & tension 
  • Neck & shoulder problems
  • Migraines & headaches
  • Circulation problems
  • Abnormal posture
  • Constipation 
  • Hormonal problems
  • Body detoxification
  • and so much more!

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.

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Train Your Brain For Pain Relief

Train Your Brain For Pain Relief


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.

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Become a Body Detective

Are you aware of your body and what’s happening with it? This simple awareness can help you bring about positive change to any pain or discomfort. Become a body detective and get in touch!

Become aware of how you move. Tune into your body regularly throughout the day and night – how does your body feel? Are there certain activities during the day that trigger or aggravate your pain? Once you are pain free you want to be aware of and avoid anything that can cause re-injury.

Here are some questions you can ask yourself to start becoming your own Body Detective!

Body Detective Questions:
Where exactly is your pain?
Does it change position or is it always in the same place? 
Do you have it when you first get up in the morning? If so, what is your rating? 
No pain  | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | Most intense pain
Do you have it in the evening or later in the day? If so, what is your rating? 
No pain  | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | Most intense pain
When is it worse – in the morning or in the evening? 
How frequent is your pain? Is it constant? Is it daily? Is it weekly? Is it monthly? Other?
Does it affect your sleep?
Do you wake up in pain?
Is there an activity or position that makes it worse?
Be really aware of the activities you do today.
Before you do each activity, rate your pain levels. Write it down.
After the activity, how are your pain levels? Did they change?
Did this activity increase, decrease or made no difference to your pain?
If it increased your pain, can you change the activity so it doesn’t cause you pain?
Or do you really have to do that activity?
If it is necessary, can someone else help you or can they do it?

This is a great exercise to see what is actually impacting on your pain levels and with that awareness you can then bring change. If you are in intense pain just doing this for one day will bring some knowledge and insight. Even better if you can manage this for a week to really get an idea of the impact of the things you are doing daily. Respect and love yourself enough to do this little bit of homework.

It will be invaluable in helping you and your health professional identify what is happening in your life that triggers or aggravates your pain. Being a body detective, monitoring my posture and supporting my body as much as possible has helped me stay pain free for more than 30 years.

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8 Tips for Preventing Back and Muscle Pain

There are many small habits that we do everyday – the way we sit, stand, move and use our bodies that can cause poor posture, stress on muscles and pain in the long term. Here are 8 tips for preventing back and muscle pain.

1. When standing or sitting, stop crossing or folding your arms across the front of your body. That position tends to bring your shoulders forward and over time creates a cramped ‘round shouldered’ posture. Long term, this habit can create a permanently rounded upper back and associated weakness in the thoracic spinal muscles.

2. When sitting, do not clasp your hands together in your lap. If you are sitting upright, your elbows should be hanging relaxed and vertically aligned under your shoulders. Your hands resting gently on your mid upper thighs, allows your shoulders to stay back and for you to have your chest upright and elevated, breathing deeply into the lungs.

3. Carrying a heavy handbag repeatedly on one shoulder places enormous pressure on the nerves and muscles and over time can cause imbalances in the upper spine. Use the handle and hold the bag in your hand, changing sides regularly. Don’t keep your wallets and keys in your back pocket as they may create a pelvic imbalance when you sit.

4. Stand with your feet apart, not together. Standing and sitting with your feet together can put pressure on the iliotibial band which stretches from your hip to your knee and can create that outer thigh, leg ache. The wider you are in the hips, the further apart your feet may need to be. So simply changing the way you stand over time may help prevent pain.

5. Do not cross your legs (standing, sitting or lying) – besides putting pressure on nerve pathways and possibly triggering pain, that position can affect circulation and lymphatic drainage to the lower limbs.

6. When standing, take your weight evenly on both feet. Don’t slouch onto one hip or lean to one side. This places huge strain on the pelvis and back. If you are required to stand in one spot for any length of time, keep your body weight evenly distributed and simply bend the back of the knees ever-so slightly. Alternately place your buttocks and back flat against a wall and maintain weight evenly on both feet. If you find this difficult to do, it can be an indication that are structural imbalances and you may benefit from physical correction.

7. When lifting, first move in close to the object, bend your knees, hold your stomach muscles in tight before and as you lift. Do not over reach or twist. 

8. Be aware of how you are entering or alighting from a car. Getting out of a car, most of us tend to ‘throw’ a leg out and start walking. To avoid strain on the hips and pelvis, keep knees together, tighten stomach muscles and turn the trunk of your body to the open car doorway,, sit close to the edge of the car seat and swing the legs out together if possible, placing both feet on the ground. You can use your arms to lift your legs if necessary. Try not to get in and out of a car if it is parked on a slope, flat even ground is better for back and leg pain conditions.

I hope these 8 tips for preventing back and muscle pain have got you thinking! Do you do any of these habits? Is it time to change them up?

Please get in touch if you need further assistance with your back and muscle pain.

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Acute Pain or Chronic Pain?

What is the difference between acute pain and chronic pain?

Do you have acute pain or chronic pain?

Pain is a warning sign that will tend to amplify in duration and intensity if the cause is not addressed. Of course you can mask the symptoms with medication and that may work successfully for some conditions or be effective for a long time. But ultimately for chronic pain getting to the cause and dealing with it, is really the solution for living pain free!

Medical and health professionals will generally classify your pain as either acute or chronic but you are the judge of its intensity, whether it is mild, severe or anything in between

Here are some indicators of both acute pain and chronic pain.

What are the indicators of Acute Pain?

Sudden and usually short term.
Normal response to trauma.
Sharp, aching or throbbing pain which may worsen on movement.
Cause is known, typically resulting from trauma to body tissue eg., broken bones, burns, cuts, surgery, dental problems, pregnancy and childbirth.
Expected symptoms as per the trauma identified. Physiological signs such as wincing, grimacing, sweating, rapid pulse and breathing etc., which go away with healing.
Pain usually disappears when cause is treated or healed.
If not treated effectively can develop into a chronic pain.

Acute pain is typically caused by muscle, nerve or tissue damage as a result of trauma, injury or surgery. Since the reason is obvious, it is normally relatively easy to correct or remove the source of the pain. Accordingly acute pain will tend to decrease over time as the tissue damage heals or the source of pain is removed.

What are the indicators of Chronic Pain?

Long term, typically more than three months.
May be an abnormal response in that initial trauma may have healed but pain persists. Can be a condition or disorder by itself.
A mix of sharp, dull, burning or tingling pain, often experienced frequently or daily and includes neuropathic pain where the problem may be in the nerves, spinal cord or brain.
Cause may or may not be known. May result from ongoing, degenerative, musculoskeletal, infective, malignant conditions or no identifiable cause.
Varied symptoms eg., headaches, back pain, joint or arthritic pain, nerve pain, tight muscles, limited mobility, tiredness, anxiety, anger, depression, fear, etc.

Pain receptors may become hypersensitive and too easily activated or the brain and spinal cord may be unable to dampen or decrease pain signals. 
Pain persists after normal injury healing time or there may be no known cure.
Referred pain and compensation patterns often develop.

Unresolved pain that persists past three months is termed chronic and continues beyond the normal healing time. Its cause may not always be attributed to physical tissue damage. Chronic pain can also be the result of a degenerative or malignant condition or may have no readily identifiable origin.

Chronic pain activates the sympathetic nervous system, the body’s ‘fight or flight’ automatic response. It places the body in continual stress mode which can impact on issues such as heart rate and blood pressure, constrict blood vessels, etc. It is not good for the body to remain in that heightened stress response.

Acute pain or chronic pain? Which do you have? No matter which sort of pain you are experiencing, I can help with both physical relief and mindset.

Get in touch to book your free fifteen minute consult so we can discuss what you need!

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How to sit for pain free posture


Are you aware of how you sit? It might be causing you pain and creating bad posture.

Often lounge and TV chairs are made to look good, but they may not be the best for your back. They may tilt your back too far backwards and if they are too soft, you can really sink into the seating and then find it difficult to get up from that position. So while soft seems so inviting, in reality it may not be good for your back.

The ideal chair is one that allows you to keep your back relatively straight and vertically aligned. Generally you should be sitting slightly forward on your hips and tailbone – not leaning backwards with your spine past vertical. Push your buttocks into the back of the chair so you are sitting upright.

Extend and pull up through your spine – don’t sag into the chair and allow your rib cage to collapse onto your stomach and hips. Pull up through the crown of the head and rest your hands on mid thighs (not clasped together or crossed in front of your chest). Shoulders should be down and relaxed to help keep an open chest with your elbows hanging vertically.

posture chair bw.jpg

Chairs that tilt your spine back will make you (unconsciously) push your head and neck forward so that your body can find a centre point of gravity. Your body has an inbuilt balance mechanism that means when your body is tilted backwards, your head will automatically come forward to compensate. As soon as that happens, neck and shoulder muscles strain and tighten, circulation is affected and pain can be initiated or increased.

Most lounge chairs today are plush and you tend to sink deeply into the seat – I avoid those chairs because I know they can trigger my back and I want to stay pain free. Soft chairs can be a trap for people who end up sitting all day and maybe falling asleep in the chair. For many pain conditions, being ‘lazy’ and sitting all day can have painful consequences. If you have back issues, you should choose wisely how, where and how long you sit.

People also come with different leg and spine lengths so one chair design is not ideal for all. For example a too high chair can press on the hamstrings, the back of the legs of a shorter person and over time can compromise circulation and lymphatic drainage. This can result in tight calves and swelling of the feet and ankles. Pick a chair where your legs are not swinging but your feet comfortably reach the floor (or use a foot stool). Also flex your feet and stretch your legs regularly while seated to avoid circulation problems.

If you have back, hip or knee pain, and the length of the chair seat is too long, you may have difficulty getting out of the chair suddenly. Or if you’ve been sitting far back into a chair, do not stand up immediately from that position. First, bring yourself forward horizontally towards the front edge of the seat until you can get your feet firmly on the ground. Tighten your core or stomach muscles, lean slightly forward over your knees and then rise. Stand for a few seconds for your circulation to equalise and to regain your balance before you move away. Stop and visualise what you want to do next and then move – no need to rush. Do not jump up quickly from a chair that is not optimal for you.

If you go somewhere and the chairs don’t suit then stand up and walk around. Don’t allow other people to dictate that you remain seated and put your back at risk. Stand off to the side or at the back so that you can move unobtrusively and protect your back. 

You might think that sitting in chairs is simple because it is something we do all the time and often for many hours a day but it can be the number one thing that it is triggering your back or leg pain.

Do you need to improve your sitting habits?? Let me know how you go with these tips.

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DIY Muscle Rub Oil Blend

DIY Muscle Rub Oil Blend

If you are feeling stiff or have tight muscles, you can personalise your own relaxing muscle rub oil blend to use on the stressed areas.

My favourite recipe uses Young Living Essential Oils:

  • Ten drops of Release
  • Ten drops of either Stress Away, Valor, Wintergreen, Marjoram, Rosemary or Peppermint
  • 1/4 cup of cold pressed, unrefined coconut oil

Mix together well and store in a small sealed container, preferably a dark, glass bottle.

You only use a small amount at a time so your personalised mix will last for many applications.

Try it out and let me know how you go!

For information about Young Living Essential Oils, please click here.

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