A great way to relax and combat symptoms of depression and anxiety is through the use of an essential oil inhaler. By introducing calming smells through inhalation and using a specific breathing technique, it will encourage the cranial nerves that are part of the parasympathetic nervous system to be stimulated and relax both your body and mind. This video will instruct you in how to make an aromatherapy inhaler with therapeutic and evidence-based effective essential oils.
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HAPPY HOLIDAYS to
you and your family from
HEAL Wellness and
Therapy!
Desk
workers listen up!
Did
you know that you use less energy when
sitting versus standing? According to juststand.org,
the average person sits for 12 hours
daily and physical inactivity has become
the 4th leading risk factor for global
mortality. Most of us understand that
the human body is designed to move, but
newer research has linked sitting to
something called “metabolic syndrome”.
This is a condition that includes the
trifecta of increased blood
pressure/hypertension, cholesterol
levels and blood sugar levels - which
lead to obesity. The cause of this
syndrome has been coined “Sitting
Disease” - which is associated with an
inactive lifestyle.
The Mayo Clinic analyzed 13 medical
studies researching over 1 million
people. It was determined that prolonged
sitting, defined as more than 8 hours a
day with no physical activity, carries a
risk of dying similar to smoking one
pack of cigarettes per day. While
quitting smoking can increase your
likelihood of a longer life, these
studies showed when prolonged sitting
for work was combined with 60-75 minutes
of moderate activity daily, the
mortality risk was countered. So, the
evidence shows that more physical
activity improves health but we have to
sit to work…or do we??? You might start
improving your health by simply standing
more and sitting less. Check out this
video to get ideas of how to stand
better while working.
Desk workers often struggle to get enough
movement in their life and therefore prolonged
sitting or prolonged standing at a desk can be
and issue for the body. This video will help you
determine if you should sit, stand or vary both
at your desk and also teach you techniques to do
it most efficiently.
The
research is clear. We need to sit less
and stand and move more! Start to think
about the activities you do while seated
every day that you could perform while
standing or walking. For example:
Stand or walk while on the phone
Walk
while “meeting” with a friend for
coffee
Walk
with colleagues rather than sitting
for a work conference
Stand
while watching TV or leisurely
reading on your smartphone or mobile
device
At
a desk all day, alternate between
sitting and standing every 30
minutes - there are so many options
out there for sit-stand work
stations and many won’t break the
bank
If
you work at a desk daily, check out
these tips to improve your efficiency of
sitting…and maybe even get an idea or
two for a friend or family member gift
for the holidays!
These 10 tips will teach you how to sit more
efficiently at your desk improving your posture
and help in preventing common repetitive strain
injuries that cause tension and pain to the
body.
It
will not take long to change a few
habits. Start now by moving more and
sitting less. Improve your chances of
avoiding metabolic syndrome due to the
“sitting dis-ease”.
Please
connect, follow and have a conversation
with us on YouTube, Instagram and
Facebook - search HEAL Wellness and
Therapy!
Please
join me any Tuesday or Thursday @ 10am
at Dance Theatre of Greenville located
at 1791 Woodruff Road, Greenville, SC
29607 for a Therapeutic Yoga
class.
Lazarus and Folkman, researchers in the
study of stress, define it in their book
Stress, Appraisal, and Coping as:
“a particular relationship between the
person and the environment that is appraised
by the person as taxing or exceeding his/her
resources and endangering his/her
well-being”.
WARNING: THIS INFORMATION IS VERY
IMPORTANT BUT HAS SOME BIG WORDS…DON’T
BE SCARED EVEN THOUGH IT IS ALMOST
HALLOWEEN!!!
Acute stress from a threat, such as avoiding
a motor vehicle accident or physical injury
to your body, results in your nervous system
responding by triggering the “STRESS
RESPONSE”. The stress response involves both
the central (brain and spinal cord) and
peripheral (anything beyond brain and spinal
cord) nervous systems. The main parts of the
brain that respond to stress include the
amygdala, hypothalamus, pituitary and
prefrontal cortex. The parts of the
peripheral nervous system that respond to
stress include the autonomic nervous system
and somatic nervous system (organs and
muscles).
The autonomic nervous system is the
autonomous control center of physical
responses to stress and is driven by the
hypothalamus as well as the adrenal glands
(that sit just on top of our kidneys in our
abdomen and release epinephrine and
cortisol). There are two parts to the
autonomic nervous system: the sympathetic
nervous system or “Fight, Flight, or Freeze”
response, and the parasympathetic nervous
system or “Rest, Relax, Digest and HEAL”
response.
The
amygdala regulates the
autonomic nervous system and
interprets contexts as potentially
threatening (like the pumpkin in
this picture) and then send a
distress signal to the hypothalamus.
The hypothalamus is the
communication center with the rest
of the body in times of stress and
gets the autonomic nervous system
activated to respond with the fight
or flight response. BOO!!!….were you
scared?? Here is the issue with the
human body - if stress persists,
then the same response that is
healthy in times of acute threat
happen over and over giving an
altered stress response - defined as
chronic stress!
With
chronic stress, regulatory
mechanisms in the brain and body
become dysfunctional. The central
nervous system stops regulating the
responses as efficiently. Specific
brain areas start having issues like
anxiety and depression symptoms.
Finally, there are systemic effects
like dysfunction of the organs and
muscular systems also causing
physical pain. Worse yet, the more
chronic stress lasts, the amygdala
gets larger in size and becomes more
reactive to stress responses while
the prefrontal cortex (the front of
the brain) actually shrinks in size
and the result is decreased
reasoning to stress responses and
limited higher brain function. In
fact, the American Medical
Association reports chronic stress
as the #1 proxy killer disease -
very scary!
How
do you know if you are stressed? A
great book by Stanley Rosenberg
called Accessing the Healing
Power of the Vagus Nerve
explains ways to determine if the
physical body is stressed with great
self-help exercises for anxiety,
depression, trauma and autism -
really an excellent
read.
You can simply determine if your body is in
chronic stress-mode by evaluating your
breath. Watch the video below to evaluate
this.
Breath Awareness can be used to determine if we
are in “Flight or Fight” mode or “Relax and
Renew” mode of our autonomic nervous system.
Follow along with this video to evaluate your
breath awareness to determine if your body is
“stressed” and then learn a controlled breathing
exercise to relax your body and calm your
nervous system.
What can we do about this? The simple answer
is to manage stress, but that is easier said
than done in most cases. HEAL Wellness and
Therapy designed and follows the Five
Pillars to Stress Management:
Mindfulness
is so important that it deserves the 1st
pillar job. What is Mindfulness?
According to Dan Harris, writer of
10% Happier, it is “to know
what is happening in your head at any
given moment without being carried away
by it and it is definitely the next
health revolution”! Research on
mindfulness is growing every year and
what we definitely know at this point is
that the brain is positively affected
with a regular practice of mindfulness.
The more mindful a person is, the less
active the amygdala’s response to stress
(research: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2012/11/meditations-positive-residual-effects/)
So,
where to start? Try this short video on
Alternate Nostril Breathing to learn to
relax the autonomic nervous system and
gain some control of stress!
Nadi Shodhana pranayama or alternate nostril
breathing is a breathing yoga practice that uses
balancing the breath on the left and right sides
of the body to create focus of the mind, relax
the body and calm the autonomic nervous system.
“Nadi” is a Sanskrit word meaning “channel” or
“flow” relating to the energy channels in the
subtle body and Shodhana means “to purify”. This
breathing practice can be performed anywhere and
anytime with no contraindications. The main
benefits of the practice of alternate nostril
breathing include infusing the body with oxygen,
supporting clear and balanced respiratory
channels, clearing and releasing toxins (don’t
be surprised if your nose is runny after
performing this), reducing stress and anxiety,
calming and rejuvenating the nervous system,
improving mental clarity, enhancing the ability
to concentrate, and bringing balance to the left
and right hemispheres of the brain
Please
connect, follow and have a conversation
with us on YouTube, Instagram and
Facebook - search HEAL Wellness and
Therapy!
Please
join me any Tuesday or Thursday @ 10am
at Dance Theatre of Greenville located
at 1791 Woodruff Road, Greenville, SC
29607 for a Therapeutic Yoga
class.
Sitting is a function we all do every day and is often a position that causes discomfort for the low back, pelvis and hips. In this video introduction, ideas on how to sit with an “open hip angle” are shown, followed by a 25 minute therapeutic yoga session to focus on opening up through the hips and pelvis to ease discomfort in sitting. Enjoy!
With neck and low back pain, often the part of the body that is the stiffest is the rib cage and middle back. The neck and back hurt mostly because they are over-used due to the in between part of the body not moving enough. This video will instruct you on exercises in sitting and laying down to help increase the mobility or range of movement of the rib cage and thoracic spine (middle back) to help ease pain, tension and tightness in the neck and low back.
Thanks for watching and please remember to Like and Subscribe!
The Piriformis muscle is a muscle in the buttock region that is very prone to problems because it has the ability to be tight and tense when the hip is straight (think standing or sleeping) OR bent (think sitting or sleeping) - it is the ONLY muscle in the region that has this feature. Because of this, individuals have issues with this muscle if they sleep, sit, and/or stand improperly and it is so special it often gets the diagnosis of “Piriformis Syndrome”. This is a problem when tension and tightness places compression or irritation on the sciatic nerve and causes symptoms in the leg. This video will teach you different exercises to lengthen and reduce the tension in this often dysfunctional muscle.
One of the key muscles of the hip that moves are back, pelvis and hip and stabilizes our spine is the PSOAS muscle. This muscle is often very short and tight, especially with individuals that are very active but do not perform any sort of flexibility exercises or for those that suffer from back pain due to sitting too long from work or leisure. This video will help you understand why the psoas needs efficient length and offer you various yoga/flexibility options to achieve that.
Thanks for watching and please remember to subscribe to our Youtube Channel!
The concept of the CORE is very confusing and often incorrectly described as just the abdominals. This therapeutic yoga class will allow you to not only learn what constitutes the “core” but also how to get these muscles to efficiently fire up to be used and then strengthen them. Included in this video is a short laughter yoga session and a guided meditation to help further understand the concepts of the “core”.
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This video is a great way to start your day! A therapeutic yoga class with a guided breathing exercise to get your spine moving and wake up your diaphragm, a modified Sun Salutation starting in kneeling to focus on control of the hamstrings and trunk without the worry of balance in standing, gentle hip opening and ending with a guided loving kindness meditation. Enjoy!
Thanks for watching and please remember to subscribe to our Youtube Channel!
The hamstrings muscles, located on the back of your thighs, are often the chief culprit to low back pain. This is caused when they are too tight or if they are too activated or turned on. This therapeutic yoga video will help you learn not only efficient ways to lengthen your hamstrings but also movements to stop over-using the hamstrings when you shouldn’t be using them in the first place!
Thanks for watching and please remember to subscribe!
I am so humbled and excited to say those words! What has seemed like already a VERY long journey is finally becoming a reality… I am giving myself permission to let my dreams come true and help anyone who wants help taking care of their body and mind how I deem necessary including for FREE using this online platform!
