June 2015 – Wellness Focus

Massage for Seniors Top Five Benefits

There is a lot for most seniors to celebrate. All those years mean you’ve grown in wisdom and pretty much figured out the world. You have had many life experiences. You have built routines in your daily life that help you stay on top of things. You may have family and friends that delight you. You might get a kick out of pursuing a hobby or interest. Senior life can be very good.

It’s not always a bed of roses, though. There are the not-so-celebratory parts of senior life. Sometimes you get achy or ill, sometimes you get lonely, sometimes you feel like you just need to get away for some well-deserved rest.

The frustrations life brings are pretty much the same no matter what age you are. Stress and strain brought on by working, dealing with day-to-day life, family, responsibilities, and getting adjusted to life as a senior can take its toll on you.

Many seniors have turned to massage to help improve the quality of their lives. It’s completely natural, incredibly effective when delivered by a qualified therapist, and has many benefits for seniors that counteract the frustrations you experience.

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Four Kinds of Stress

Ahhhh STRESS. Everybody has it, but few know how to deal with it Many different things can cause stress — physical elements (illness and injury), psychological elements (such as fear of falling or snakes) and/or emotional (worry about your family or job). Identifying what may be causing your stress is the first step in learning how to better deal with it.

Here are four common sources of stress: Continue reading “Four Kinds of Stress”

5 Steps to Better Physical Balance

As you age, the biological factors that can negatively affect balance begin to emerge. Balance is primarily driven by sensory input from your eyes, along with a correctly functioning inner-ear system, plus an awareness of the position and movement in the feet legs and arms. Over time, nature begins to play with each of these elements, making a lack of balance a key cause of injuries, especially in older adults.

Almost one in five adults over 55 sustain injury due to a lack of balance. (Health.com, 2013)

There are lots of factors that can affect your physical balance. Some come on slowly, like waking muscles in hips and legs and low blood pressure. Others, like contraindications of prescription drugs or symptoms of other disorders, can come on quickly.

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Has Your Massage Therapist Passed The Test?

Licensing and certification are important for any profession. They indicate levels of education, knowledge, and experience that the public can trust. We license drivers for safety. Your architect is licensed. So is your doctor. Your contractor is too. These licenses give us a little peace of mind that the practitioner actually knows what they are doing and, at minimum, has demonstrated that knowledge. Many times, that demonstration of knowledge comes in the form of an exam. It’s the same for massage therapy.

In massage therapy, a professional exam is now required in many states (but not all) in order to become a “Certified Massage Therapist” (CMT) and to get a license to work or do business. The nationwide professional exam is called the MBLEx, an acronym for Massage and Body Licensing Examination. It’s a challenging, well constructed evaluation tool created with input from many medical and wellness professionals (including experienced massage therapists) and governed by the Federation of State Massage Therapy Boards (FSMTB).

What does the MBLEx exam cover?

The MBLEx checks knowledge, comprehension, and application focused on eight areas:

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Five Factors That Affect Your Flexibility

Some people can bend themselves into a pretzel, while others can barely get up after sitting for a while. How about you? Flexibility, or limberness, refers to how freely your joints move and the length in muscles that cross those joints. Regular massage can, and will, help most people improve and retain their normal flexibility. You’ll feel better because you can move better.

How flexible you are depends on factors, some of which are in your control, some that aren’t. Here are five factors that affect your flexibility: Continue reading “Five Factors That Affect Your Flexibility”

Five Tips for a Busy Mom

Having trouble finding the time to take care of yourself and get the exercise you need? You’re not alone.

Most non-parents think “summer break” means mom (or Mr. Mom) can kick back and do what they want while the kids entertain themselves. Not always true! In fact, pretty much never true.

No matter what, most moms have trouble finding time for themselves while the kids are out of school. And that lack of “me-time” can have pretty significant impact on your mental and physical wellness.

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Massage and Old Injuries

Injuries like chronic back pain, trick knees, tennis elbow, and sticky shoulders are not necessarily something you just have to live with. Massage techniques might hold the key to unlocking and decreasing these, and many more, old pains. The benefits of massage will depend on the extent of the injury, how long ago it occurred, and on the skill of the therapist. Chronic and old injuries often require deeper and more precise treatments with less emphasis on general relaxation.

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A Short History of Massage

Massage therapy is an intuitive, healing art that has been around for thousands of years. When you get a stomach ache, you rub your belly. When you turn an ankle, your natural instinct is to rub it. When infants cry, parents rock and rub to calm. The natural instinct to use purposeful touch has evolved into a healthy professional industry. Over the years, techniques have been developed that activate natural healing process, stimulating blood flow, guiding hormone production and helping your body heal itself.

The English word “massage” likely comes from the Arabic “mass’h”, which literally translates to “touch”. But may also have its root in the French (“massage”) or Latin “massa”. May believe that massage therapy is the precursor to physical therapy and chiropractic and orthopedic medicine. Continue reading “A Short History of Massage”

Move It or Lose It!

No matter your age, it’s important to just move. Movement gets your heart going, burns calories and has a significant positive impact on your ability to be mobile and flexible. It’s also critical to maintaining strength and flexibility throughout your entire life.

Babies need exercise for muscle development and strength, so that they can eventually learn to roll, sit, crawl and walk. Movement and touch, through massage, for example, can also help to promote calmness and promote restful sleep. Children’s brains need to make brain-muscle connections that allow them to enjoy activity and regular exercise and reduces the likelihood that they’ll be overweight. Movement can improve attention span, boost self-esteem and reduce anxiety.

In early adulthood, movement is critical for weight-control and movement has fitness benefits, boosts energy, increases confidence, maintains bone strength and helps develop a healthy heart and lungs. Sedentary existence – which largely starts here – is one that can very quickly get us into negative, lazy habits.

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