My Teacher

If I am able to help a lot of folks, it is partly because I've had such wonderful teachers. Anyone who has received a massage therapy treatment from me in the past 5 years or so knows about belly breathing, or diaphragmatic breathing. It's your normal breath!

Well, sure enough, my teacher Leon Chaitow, is now busily blogging away from his home base in Greece. Here is a link to a recent post of his, amplifying the importance of this topic:

Chaitow.

Changing long-held breathing patterns is easy, though it may take time....a few weeks of daily practice usually. Bad breathing is nothing but a habit.

Think of the benefits! and there is no cost! except a few minutes per day of your time...................wow.

Music Changes Everything

Wow! What a discovery!
I have a friend who is fond of saying "everything is vibration" and this used to mean nothing to me, but now I get it.
I was in a funk the other day, and put on a piece of music and lo! ............everything changed. I felt like exercising. I went into gear. I felt buoyed up, restored, hopeful, potent and alive. I was then ready to go back to the books and study hard.

Metaphysics teaches us that this is a field of consciousness that we're living in, and that it's seamless, from the subtlest to the densest, the finest to the most gross, all is made up of particles and waves, and that even A THOUGHT has (is) vibration. Hence, all is vibration.

Dense vibrations feel heavy, like depression, and high, fast vibrations feel enlivening, uplifting, energizing.
Music is vibration and so are our bodies. The higher vibration of certain sounds can lift us up, even banishing depressive states, if held in our attention.

If you want more understanding of this, you can visit Abraham-Hicks.com. This is the site of Jerry and Esther Hicks. Esther speaks for the non-physical realm with the voice of "Abraham", a wise voice she says is many, many spirits speaking as one.

So, knowing this, I'm ready to do it again.....let's see...Gnarls Barkley, anyone?

"My Back Hurts"

"My back hurts."........ "My back went out." .........."Everyone in my family has back problems....."

I hear these words everyday. What's going on here?

As a massage therapist, I see people in pain all the time. Many live with chronic nagging if not debilitating pain all throughout their adult lives. The literature says that fully 60% of reported back pain is not attributable to any lesion or defect in the tissues or bones.

I believe I know what is responsible for a lot of this suffering and what to do about it. Back massage per se will not help, because the affected muscle(s) is too deep to contact directly. I use an indirect and gentle approach.

Of course, the long-term solution lies in one's own hands. The proper strengthening and stretching of the offending muscle(s) will be necessary. But in the short-term, muscle re-education techniques, or "pnf", applied very specifically, will relieve the spasming and pain that shut a person down.

Call or email me for more information, or go to the "Ask me about" page of my website.

More later.

Gail

www.health-is-balance.com

Staying Out of Trouble.........

The other day, one of my clients was lamenting how many of her friends and acquaintances have or have had breast cancer. Didn't I think it was unlike anything we knew before?

Well, yes, in fact, I believe we're in the middle of an epidemic of cancers of all types. It's not uncommon to hear of 30 and 40 year olds losing their lives to colon, skin, breast, lung, even brain cancer.

A few years back, I came across an interview with Samuel Epstein, M.D., in my favorite magazine, The Sun, by writer Derrick Jensen, in which he (Epstein) describes how society still blames the victim, rather than actually admitting what we intuitively know, that the cause is really what we've done to our environment...........the soil, the air, the water, the food additives, consumer products, etc.

Dr. Epstein created the Cancer Prevention Coalition in 1994 to help empower people with information and networking about common carcinogens in their households, in their food and other lifestyle choices.

The entire interview will be available for downloading from my website in a few days, or you can find it in the March 2000 issue of The Sun.

Both the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society come out looking pretty bad. Prepare yourself to be shocked and saddened.

Your Kid On Drugs?

No this is not about illegal drugs, but prescription pills. Can you imagine that the American Academy of Pediatrics is recommending cholesterol-lowering drugs for kids as young as 8 years old? You think I'm kidding, read this NPR story. A friend sent me the link today. It aired last week.

I think if physicians had more training in nutrition, we'd never see this. In fact, heart disease and magnesium deficiency are more closely related than heart disease and cholesterol levels. Calcium gets a lot of press, not so magnesium. The two are so closely related that they should never be mentioned separately.

The thinking is that we used to get magnesium in the soil and water, but now the soil is depleted and the water filtered and softened. The more calcium you take in, the more magnesium you need.

Please read "Magnesium Miracle" in Protein Power Lifeplan by Michael and Mary Dan Eades, MDs., c 2000, Warner Wellness Books, N.Y.

Please visit my website........ www.health-is-balance.com...... to learn more about the importance of magnesium.

Rotation.......Rotation.......Rotation

Yes, that's the good word. Rotation is going to save us. From what? From the decline that comes with "aging" and all that that implies.

Every day I see joints in distress, mostly shoulders, but hip joints as well. Think of it. When you were a little kid, you swung from the monkey bars, you rolled around on the floor wrestling with your brother, you played day and night, any game you could think of.

Now, you have your routine, most of it focused straight ahead, looking at this screen, driving, sitting reading a book or the paper. There isn't a lot of variety here, and the spine gets habituated in certain fixed positions. The arm and leg bones are used to certain limited orientations in space.

Range of movement is lost. Muscles tighten and therefore shorten. The "joint space" shrinks. Nerves and blood vessels are cramped, pain results. Posture fails. The "shuffle" of the elderly begins.

The remedy is simple. Gentle range-of-motion exercise, not weight-lifting and not stretching, just flexibly moving the joints through the range they still have. Stand in front of a mirror and move rhythmically and fully. Arms reaching up and across, or back stroke or swaying like a weeping willow. You don't have to sign up for a weekly class unless you can't motivate yourself otherwise.

Just 5 minutes a day will bring tremendous benefit. I know, I've experienced it and so have my clients. It's like greasing the wheel....it's so simple, it gets overlooked. Within just a few days, chronic pain lessens. Ease of reaching and bending will be restored.

If you need more coaching, come and see me. I'll get you started. Really, 5 minutes a day can really change the status quo and get you back on track.

Blessed

Two weeks ago, my baby toe met the leg of an oak coffeetable at high speed. Yes, it's broken. Now I have to be absolutely vigilant so that I don't smack it again. I'm told it will take two months to heal.
This and the new braces on my teeth, I'm really complaining. What a tough life!! Well, I need a massage.
The leg and foot massage I get this evening will enhance the circulation, calm the muscles in the calf and speed the healing of that little bone. The jaw massage will ease the tension I feel all through my face with these new metalworks on my teeth. Any headache that tries to take hold will be banished.

I am blessed. I know the value of a good massage treatment.....and I'm worth it. You, too, can ease life's little stresses with massage. Check out my website and see if this will work for you, too........www.health-is-balance.com.

Gail