Enjoy this quick video for a 5-minute stress relief break and get some good flexibility back in your hands! Our wrist and hands are overused daily with smart phones and technology while our minds are constantly on overloaded and in stress-mode. This video combines a simple breathing technique along with stretches for the hands and wrists to alleviate tension from excessive use with cell phones or other repetitive activities. Thanks for watching and please remember to subscribe!
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.
Thanks for watching and please remember to subscribe!
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.
There are many ways to treat pain and inflammation in our body and the research available to make sound evidence-based choices is increasingly telling us that the usage of essential oils is an excellent answer! Copaiba, Frankincense and Wild Orange are three great options that treat both pain and inflammation and this video will teach you how to make a roll-on to apply to muscles and joints to ease symptoms. Enjoy!
Thanks for watching and please remember to subscribe!
A Huge Thanks To: https://stores.relaxtheback.com/greenville
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.
Thanks for watching and please remember to subscribe!
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.
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
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
Thanks for watching and please remember to subscribe!
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.
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.
Accessing the Healing Power of the Vagus Nerve: Self-Help Exercises for Anxiety, Depression, Trauma, and Autism (Affiliate Link): https://amzn.to/2MagEel
Thanks for watching and please remember to subscribe!
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!
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!
Thanks for watching and please remember to Like and Subscribe!
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.
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.
Thanks for watching and please remember to subscribe to our Youtube Channel!
Why not another fitness routine
or sport to aid health?
Are you a young adult striving to
change your fitness level or lose
weight? Perhaps you are an aging adult
trying to stay healthy or reduce the
effects of age. The research is clear:
Yoga is one of the few movement
activities (Tai Chi and Qigong are the
others) that combines strength AND
flexibility and can be performed
regardless of age.
Yoga “dynamically” stretches the body,
strengthens muscles and stabilizes
joints to reduce the risk of injury -
truly doing “triple-duty" for your
physical body and health. In addition,
yoga also has positive effects on the
health of the mind.
A research review1
informs us that “static” stretching -
meaning putting tension into your body
and holding it for a period of time
without movement - actually reduces
performance in strength by about 30%.
It also decreases speed and power of
an activity, and does NOT reduce the
risk of injury. Meanwhile, a research
article by Iwata and fellow
researchers2, tells us that “dynamic” stretching
(yoga falls into this category) has
long term effects on avoiding muscle
injuries, increasing joint flexibility
and optimizing performance of sport
and life.
Yoga is considered a “functional”
exercise. This means that it trains
the muscles of the body to work
together to prepare them for daily
tasks by simulating common movements
one might do at home, at work or in
sport. It combines usage of
strengthening muscles of the upper and
lower body together and emphasizes
stability of the trunk, while at the
same time balancing the body and
creating flexibility in other muscles.
One could say that running or doing
weight lifting definitely falls into
the category of functional exercise.
However, both put specific tensions
into the body and do not involve
flexibility to balance those tensions.
Therefore are they as efficient as
yoga in keeping the health of our
body?
Yoga is very different than
traditional stretching. Yoga increases
body awareness while also using
movement patterns that are very
different than the poor habitual
postures we use in daily life.
Examples include inefficient sitting
and standing. Yoga uses different
directions (multi-planar) and
multi-joint movements to enhance
“neurogenesis” or the growth and
development of your nervous system.
Our nervous system is definitely KEY
to the overall wellness of our bodies
since it is the guiding system to all
of our function!
This month, HEAL’s newsletter includes
links to some videos to help you learn
how to use yoga to balance the
flexibility and strength of your body.
This video below is a great place to
begin! A gentle and easy class to
begin your morning to get those
muscles moving, flexible and strong
for all that the day has to offer
you!
1 Kovacs M, The Argument
Against Static Stretching Before
Sport and Physical Activity. Human
Kinetics. Athletic Therapy Today
(2016) 11(3), 6-8.
2 Iwato M, Yamamoto
A et al., Dynamic Stretching Has
Sustained Effects on Range of Motion
and Passive Stiffness of the
Hamstring Muscles. Journal of Sports
Science and Medicine (2019) 18,
13-20.
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.
Flexibility Muscle -
HAMSTRINGS!
The hamstrings are definitely
one of the muscle groups of the lower
body that contributes to discomfort
and injury related to the low back
area. This video will help you
understand how to use yoga to create
flexibility AND strength in your
hamstrings to balance your body and
protect your low back from injury.
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!
Strengthening - The
CORE!
Finally, the best way to
strengthen our body is to begin at the
“core”, the center of the trunk. Think
of an apple and how the “core” of the
apple is the center and strongest
component of the fruit. Just like an
apple, our body has a “core” that is
often not only weak but disconnected
to the nervous system and therefore
unable to know how and when it should
work. To improve the “neurogenesis” of
the “core”, watch this video…and maybe
take a quick moment to have a laugh!
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”.
Please connect, follow and have a
conversation with us on YouTube,
Instagram and Facebook - search HEAL
Wellness and Therapy!
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”.
Thanks for watching and please remember to subscribe to our Youtube Channel!
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 don’t know about you, but I don’t want to just live a long life. I want to live a long, happy, healthy and present life where I enjoy every minute! I think most people understand that there is no magical fountain of youth and there is no perfect recipe to avoid all illness and disease. What we do know through research is that sleeping, or rather lack of sleep, is strongly associated with many chronic diseases. Sleep dysfunction affects over half of our population with conditions such as: sleep deprivation, obstructive sleep apnea and insomnia.
So think about this…humans are the ONLY species that voluntarily deprive themselves of sleep for no apparent reason! According to Dr. Matthew Walker, PhD, and author of Why We Sleep - Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams, routinely sleeping less than six or seven hours a night demolishes your immune system, more than doubles your risk of cancer, and profoundly disrupts your blood sugar levels. This contributes to our current epidemic of obesity and diabetes. Sleep deprivation is THE key lifestyle factor to the development of memory loss and Alzheimer’s disease. It also contributes to many major psychiatric conditions, including depression and anxiety. If we were to just think about how much money it takes our health care systems to treat the above conditions and epidemics, I think it is fair to say that billions are being spent.
What if you could change that? What if you changed your habits of sleeping and took control of your health rather than rolling the dice and hoping for the best when you have the “golden ticket” in your body…the ability to sleep well! And it’s free…no deductible, co-insurance or paying for a prescription!
So, that’s the big deal with sleep. Now, here is one of the challenges we face: No one ever taught us HOW to sleep. The only “how” about sleep that most of us know is that we need it to survive. If we’re lucky, maybe someone told you not to sleep on your stomach, but that’s it! If you think of the many things that we do every day like brushing our teeth, typing on a keyboard, or driving a car, my guess is someone taught you something about HOW to do these things. With sleep, you “just do it” like the Nike slogan says. Well, not so quick! If you want to unlock the power of sleep as an agent of healing your body, you need to know how to sleep. HEAL Wellness and Therapy is here to help! Check out our YouTube video on 10 Tips for Sleep to begin working on your habits of sleep and improve your sleep hygiene.
Ideas on how to take the habit of sleep and change it to create the best healing environment for your body to get the most efficient sleep.
If you’re tossing and turning and have no idea HOW to position yourself for sleep, check out our two videos below to teach you how to sleep on your side and back efficiently. Yes, it requires more than one pillow! Beds are flat but our bodies are not boards but beautiful shapes that require support!
Instruction/education on how to efficiently sleep on your side to have a restful and healing night’s sleep.
Instruction/education on how to efficiently sleep on your back to have a restful and healing night’s sleep.
If you are having difficulty falling asleep at night, watch our therapeutic yoga video to aid you in falling asleep. You can do this right in your bed before closing those eyes and heading into the best slumber of your life!
A guided yoga class that you can be perform before bedtime to help encourage your body to be relaxed and restful.
Dr. Walker reports that sleep is a superpower and also the greatest public health challenge in the 21st century. Sleep is NOT an optional lifestyle luxury, it is a non-negotiable biologic necessity or rather your
life support system!
There is so much to say about sleep but I think that’s a good start. Stay tuned for more videos and education from HEAL Wellness and Therapy on ways to test your sleep and how to know if you are getting a “good night’s sleep”. We’ll also discuss nutritional sleep aides and the difference in mattresses/pillows for sleep - so much to learn!
Final thoughts for this month…we have established social media accounts! Please connect, follow and have a conversation with us on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook - search HEAL Wellness and Therapy!
