Summertime is a time of sunshine, renewal and activity. It’s a time to get outdoors and reconnect with nature. It’s time to be happy. Well, usually.
Depending on your current circumstances, sometimes summertime can bring on sadness. While others seem carefree, you’re feeling a little sad or stressed, or both. You wonder why you feel like you’re in a daze or just don’t feel like engaging with other people. Welcome to summertime sadness.
Think about the last time you made a decision about something. It may have been something trivial, like taking a different route during a morning bike ride. It may have been something major, like reaching out to someone with whom you’ve had an argument to patch things up. It may have been health-related, like giving up sugar for a week. Decisions, however trivial, can have a huge impact on your life. And your process for decision-making can dramatically affect the impact of the change created by your decision on your mind and body.
The process of getting your head around the challenges and opportunities presented by life’s choices usually begins with your method for decision-making. Some people run away and avoid the decision, and it usually comes back to haunt them. Others seek advice and counsel from others. Some make decisions quickly, some slowly. Still others find a way to hear and listen to their own inner voice.
There’s a reason that lower back pain is one of the most common chronic conditions affecting Americans. More than 80% of us have it at least once in our life. More women suffer from chronic back pain than men. Older-age adults are more susceptible to back pain than younger adults or children.
The bones and muscles in your back work hard to keep you upright and serve as pivot points for everything from running to grabbing the pen you’ve dropped on the floor. Turns out there are some very common ways to mess your back up. Knowing these helps be proactive to avoid the pain before it’s too late, or, at least, recognize a possible cause of back pain if (and when) you get it.
1. Don’t take your eyes and fingers off your smartphone–ever. Today’s always-connected lifestyle is creating new problems with more aches and pains in shoulders, necks and backs. Look around. See anyone else hunching over thumb-scrolling for many minutes at a time? The research is growing about the impact all the poor posture created by mobile device use is having on all of us.
The solution: Limit the time you spend on any hand-held electronic device to no more than 15 minutes without a break. Sit up straight and don’t hunch over when you’re texting. Keep your elbows at a 90 degree angle.Watch the screen time on your laptop or desktop computer, too. Take breaks at least every 45 minutes for at least 2 minutes per break. Continue reading “Seven Ways to Mess Up Your Back”
The sartorius muscle is a long, thin, band-like muscle in your interior thigh. It’s the longest muscle in the human body. The muscle primarily helps flex and rotate your thigh at the hip joint. The muscle is so long, it also crosses the knee joint, where it helps flex the leg.
In your daily life, you’ll notice that the sartorius:
During a recent visit to a discount store to buy some batteries, I stopped to hold the door open for a young mother and her 4 year-old daughter. Right behind them was a businessman carrying a large box. I held the door for him, too. Each said a polite “thank you” as they went through.
As I entered the store I noticed the mother and daughter still standing near the door. The daughter asked the mother why I had held the door open.
“He is a nice man,” replied the mom.
The daughter looked around, stared at the door, and replied “Oh.”. Continue reading “Make Kindness a Habit”
It’s true. Some people feel a little awkward the first time they get a massage. It’s mostly concern about the unknown; wondering what it’s like and if you will enjoy the experience.
In reality, awkward feelings fade away very quickly when you’re in the hands of a qualified professional massage therapist. They provide a safe and comfortable experience. They will talk you through the experience so you won’t feel embarrassed or uninformed.
There are a few things to know beforehand, though, that will help you feel more comfortable when you arrive for your massage. Here’s a short list:
Iliotibial Band Syndrome (ITB Syndrome) is one of the most common overuse injuries among runners. You’ll know it when you have it because the “IT band“, the ligament that runs down your outer thighs from pelvis to shin, is super tight, swollen, and often inflamed. The result? Pain, sometimes severe, when flexing the knee.
Some causes of IT band syndrome
ITB syndrome usually results from running on uneven surfaces, wearing work-out shoes, running too long a distance without proper training, or running too many track workouts in the same direction. ITB syndrome affects about 1 in 10 runners and is more common among women and anyone whose hips tilt in a way that causes their knees to turn in. Continue reading “Management of IT Band Syndrome with Massage”
Like any fast-growing profession, the field of massage therapy is evolving all the time. As licensing and certification standards rise, and more and more massage therapists graduate from education programs that treat massage as a holistic skill, the profession is gradually expanding from a focus mainly on relaxation and overall wellness to a focus on outcome-based treatments.
Outcome-based treatments allow qualified massage therapists to use evidence-based analysis to create highly personalized session strategies focusing bodywork on achieving a specific goal or goals. Clients report longer lasting relief from pain and therapists get intense satisfaction knowing they have created real and positive change.
When you seek out a massage therapist, your goals for the session can vary widely. Sometimes you want to relax, sometimes you have a specific complaint about an ache or pain, sometimes you’ve been referred by a medical professional or physical therapist.
The skin is actually the largest organ in the body. It protects your bones, muscles and organs, helps resist disease, and allows you to sense and ract to stimuli like hot, cold and pain. Your skin sheds close to 50,000 cells every minute.
Virtually everyone will suffer some sort of skin condition at some time in their lives. Whether it’s something like acne or skin tags, or something more chronic like basal cell carcinoma, treatments and proactive and preventative measures can shorten the duration of the condition.
When it comes to getting a massage, you should always disclose to your therapist any skin conditions you are aware of before the session. A qualified therapist is well trained to made decisions about how (or if) they will massage the affected areas. In some cases they’ll send you back to your physician for clearance before a massage session.
