A Massage Therapist’s Self Care Tips

I just came home from my ritual monthly spa day!  For me, spa days are a necessity for the long hours that I spend working.  Without self-care routines, my body starts to talk to me saying "sore shoulders, cranky neck, tired eyes, tired low back."  All of these are symptoms of stress.

As a society, Americans have learned to reduce the pain of stress through both positive and negative routines.  Some good routines are regular exercise, eating well, meditation, massage, tai chi, qi gong, reiki and all forms of energy healing. The negatives routines are the ones that suppress or mask pain.  Alcohol is one method many people chose to reduce stress and it's easy to see why.  It's highly social and accepted, it dulls most pain, and it heightens the senses.  But after the euphoria of alcohol dies away, the stress can come back and feel more acute and alcohol elicits depression as well.

The whole earthy crunchy tactic is stabilizing for many, but may not be appealing to all! I have many routines that I pick and chose. I love pedicures, facials, body scrubs and whatever is close by will often be sufficient when looking to destress. Locally, I run to Sugarhouseday Spa, I highly recommend the loving hands of Audrey Anne, but be aware, she is very different from the type of massage that I give!

I love a great Ayurvedic treatment called Abhyanga.  An Abhyanga treatment is a two-part treatment, first part is dry and the second part is herbal oil.  The dry rub is prepared according to your skin and body type, the sesame oil also has herbs added. Using a silk glove the therapist will rub the dry mixture on the skin helping stimulate the lymphatic system and it also increases the circulation helping the skin to detox. Then the therapist wipes off the dry rub and begins to soothe muscles into deep relaxation.

I tried this treatment when I visited Kripalu.  I left the massage, headed down to the sauna and let what was left of the oil and dry rub sink deeply into my body.  It was a great recovery from 3 days of intense snowshoeing in Vermont! Rest and recovery come in many different forms and varying treatment of stress is a wonderful self-exploration!

Feel free to share your thoughts and experiences!

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Backpacks for Kids, Are They Causing Back Pain?

Howdy Folks!  This is my first official blog so bear with me as I hope to improve over time.  Feedback is always welcome, provided you say only good things .  Just kidding,…I always welcome constructive criticism and often follow a small percentage of it.  🙂

Since it's BACK to school month (you can tell by the horrific DC metro area traffic being back to normal) I thought I'd send us all to BACK school.  I'm going to save my schpeel (how does one spell that, anyway?) about school backpacks for next month's blog as October is backpack awareness month, or something like that. Quickly, though, weigh your kids' backpacks and try to keep them under 10% of their body weight and try to convince them to carry them on both shoulders.

So, Back to school…

I find that the single most important thing I talk about in my office is posture.  Posture is controlled by voluntary muscles, while things like digestive function and blood vessels are controlled by involuntary muscles.  The brain is pretty busy, though,  so it's always looking for ways to be more efficient  There are countless nerve impulses necessary to get our muscles to hold us up against gravity, and as they're often the same firing patterns (called engrams) happening over and over, the brain subjugates the firing of them to more "menial" parts of the cerebral cortex, kind of like Willie Wonka making the Oompa  Loompas  do all the menial work while he gets to turn kids into blueberries.

There's so much to consider when addressing posture, but since the engrams are all programmed from usually years of doing the same thing, we have to put a little work in to re-teaching our bodies to make changes that will improve our quality of life ten, twenty, or even 70 years into the future.  Bones and joints adapt to the forces placed on them over time.  As an example, I spent 10 years as a respiratory therapist bending over patients' beds with my neck bent forward for 12 hour shifts, and when not listening to breath sounds, my stethoscope was hanging around my neck for easy access, which usually caused more forwardheadness (there don't seem to be enough words in the English language to get my points across so I make them up as needed) and shoulder shrugging so it wouldn't fall off.  During my internship for chiropractic, I was having radiating pain down my arms from my neck and x-rays at age 32 showed a straightened cervical curve and swiss cheese for the C4-5 and C5-6 intervertebral discs.  My clinician said I had a 60-year old neck.  Years later (no, I'm not going to tell you how many), after diligently working to keep my head more on top of my body, getting more regular chiropractic adjustments,  and adopting better biomechanics while working on patients in my office, I still have cheesy discs in my neck (there're more provolone-ish now) but I have gotten rid of the pain down my arms.  The last time I had x-rays done the curve had improved some as well.  I'm going to need my neck for a few more decades, hopefully, so I'm trying my best to minimize the stress on it.

My advice for this month is to start getting an idea of where your brain is holding your body.  Take a look at how you stand, walk, sit at your desk, on the couch, how you read in bed, etc.  Do you look down when you walk or do you greet the world head-on, so to speak?  Do you reach for your mouse every time you need it or is it right there next to your keyboard? Is your pelvis (which is like a bowl) level or is it tilting forward because your brain might have forgotten where your abdominals are? Do your arms hang at your sides so your hands are at a 30-45o angle to your body or do the palms face backwards (I call that "chimping")?  Don't stress over it, just spend some time becoming aware of where your body and its various parts are in space.  Do you have any aches and pains that are relieved by changing position?  Look at yourself in pictures that have been taken (or have someone take some).

The body is very plastic, in the sense that it can be molded.  Not the hard plastic of Chinese restaurant take-out bowls, but moldable plastic, like, um, well, I can't think of what comes in moldable plastic but I'm sure it's out there.  One guarantee is that it WILL adapt to the forces placed on it, so let's take a look at the forces we're placing on it.  We'll keep the good ones, and improve on the others so that our bodies will be there for us in decades to come.  Happy Homework!!

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Zen Meditation – A Beginner’s class

I believe that stress reduction is different things at different times.  John Bly, leader of the meditations for Potomac Zen Sangha, made a great comment when I was feeling guilty about turning down his invitation to sit, in favor of meeting friends at Grape and Bean.  He said, “There are all kinds of ways to refresh the soul!”  And he is right.

Every week I have the need to de-stress, but what changes stress into Zen can be different. Last week, it was actually writing and catching up on work, related to my diabetes advocacy.  The sense of accomplishment is comforting and I felt relaxed and happy. Is that Zen? Why wouldn’t it be?  But the true practice of Zen is about the attainment of enlightenment and the practice of dharma.

When I was studying massage and yoga at Kripalu Yoga Center, the hardest part of the day was meditation!  To quiet my mind and reach that place where I didn’t have lists going through my mind was excruciating! Toward the end of my 3 month stay,  I would get there only to find myself nodding into sleep, or trying too hard and giving myself headaches and a sense of loneliness.  But that effort did not go without reward.  The reward, was a wonderfully calm mind, my body learned to release deep tension and when my eyes would open after meditation, it was clear and easy to feel motivated.

I learned that silence and inner growth allowed me to put forth more focused energy and I got more done during the hours I needed to study.  The first two weeks there, I did a lot of sleeping, but once I started to really practice meditation, I also needed less sleep.  I chose to explore the hardest parts of myself: addiction, not to drugs, but to the lifestyle I had been living.  I gave up caffeine and most sugar, altho I kept fresh fruit in my diet, and I found I had more energy.   That detox was quite an experience and one that is worth doing again!

So this week is my week to renew and refresh some of my practices and see if I can find my way back to sitting, and probably feel a little sleepy while I’m there.  For anyone interested, Potomac Zen Sangha has 3 classes a week at the center.  To find out more, click here to go to their schedule.

 

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Massage and Muscle Fever

(This month, we decided to focus on the word heat to help inspire our practitioner’s blog topic.)

In massage, heat can be several things, a fever from illness, or something else called muscle fever, which is experienced after intense exercise.  If a client is suffering from a fever caused by infection, then best not to have a massage.  Sometimes a massage can spike the fever and make you feel worse. Plus if you have an infection, it may expose your practitioner to whatever is causing your fever.

Muscle fever is different.  Muscle fever happens after completing a hard workout and you’ve showered and works clothes are on , you suddenly find your continuing to sweat. Instead of dashing out the door to work, you are peeling layers of clothes off and looking for ice in an effort to temper the heat.  Theories abound, some say it is an increased metabolic rate, burning off more calories even though you stop exercising.  Some have said it was lactic acid build up, when the body can't remove the lactic acid and it builds up in the muscles. But according to NYTimes article published last year, those theories no longer hold up.

What we know is that muscle fever is not caused by lactic acid build up, nor is it caused increased metabolic rate.  In fact, researchers don't seem to understand all that much about it!

In 1977, an article was published about the discovery by East German researchers that through a blood test, lactic acid levels could determine an athlete's perfect training level.   By figuring out the lactic acid threshold, it allowed athletes to train at a level to build the strength they need for the best performance, without risking injury. It also appears that the heart muscle LOVES lactate for fuel.  And lactic acid threshold training will make your muscles stiff and sore, but it is unclear whether it causes muscle fear.

I have experienced muscle fever both professionally and personally.  My advice, and experience, is massage can't help muscle fever, it simply has to take it's course.  But if you feel like you want a massage, the good news is that a lighter massage won't inflame the situation! 😉

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