Archive for the ‘Injury’ Category

July Tip of the Month: Self Care for the Neck

Friday, July 23rd, 2010

I’ve been noticing a lot of neck tension lately, both on myself and my clients – someone recently described it as a feeling of being hung on a hook from the nape. So I thought it might be a good time to offer a few techniques for unhooking ourselves. If we think about it metaphorically for a moment, we can see the neck as the bridge between the mind and the body. If there is any conflict between them it will be the first to register. Maybe conflict is a big word, so we can think of it as an energy imbalance – our mind is full of things we need and want to do, but our body and/or our emotions are needing some quiet time or attention. Here are some ways to give the body attention:

SLEEP & REST MORE

1. OK, maybe this seems obvious but it’s the advice I personally could use most and the part of self-care that gets least attention in our hectic city lives. It’s also the one thing I am sure will work for everyone! Your head weighs about ten to fifteen pounds, so if your body is tired, you can imagine it’s going to want to take a break from carrying that load, especially if beyond the physiological weight you’re also carrying emotional baggage in there. As my Thai Massage master used to say to almost every westerner that walked into his studio: take off your backpack, at least for an extra hour or two.

USING YOUR FINGERS

2. On the Shoulders: sitting or standing, curve your fingers and place them on the back of the shoulders (trapezius muscles), close to the base of the neck. Keep the fingers hooked and simply pull the elbows closer in to your body to increase the pressure of the fingers without having to press harder. Let the muscles soften, breath deeply and relax your eyes and forehead.

3. On the Neck: sitting or standing, curve your fingers and place them on the back of the neck, right along but not directly on the spine. Apply pressure but not so much that you strain the fingers. Keeping the head straight, chin slightly down, gently press the back of the neck into the fingers on an exhale in order to increase the pressure. Then, keeping the pressure of the fingers into the neck, tilt your head back on an inhale and forward on an inhale. Play with moving the fingers up and down a little – getting the middle finger right into the base of the skull and tiltling back can feel very nice.

4. On the Head: sitting or standing, curve your fingers and place them thumb side down on the back of your head, right along the centeral line of the skull. Move along this center line, from the base of the skull up and over to your third eye, the point just above your eyebrows, applying pressure into the skull. Repeat from the base of the skull to forehead rather than reverse. Then, shampoo your entire head, especially around the temples and don’t forget your jaw.

5. Nutcracker: interlace the fingers behind the neck and pull your elbows in towards each other (below the chin) to create gentle pressure. For deep pressure, release your thumbs from the interlace and place the thumbs along the neck and then pull the elbows in.

USING THE FLOOR

6. Head Rolls: Lie on your back with your knees up, feet flat on the floor and gently pull your chin down towards your sternum, without creating tension in the front of the neck. You should feel the back of the neck lengthening and the back of the head widening into the floor. In this position, press the back of the head into the floor and maintain the pressure as you roll your head from side to side. Exhale as you roll the head to one side, inhale to center, and exhale to the other side. Stop anywhere along the way where the pressure feels good. Move on the exhale to the end of your range, but without straining.

7. Nose Circles: Keep the jaw, eyes and forehead relaxed and draw small circles clockwise with the tip of your nose. Feel the head moving fluidly through the circles – if there are any criks or snaps make the circles smaller. Reverse direction.

USING YOUR HANDS

8. Hanging over: Either standing up or sitting in a chair, let the weight of the upper body and especially your head hang down. To make sure the weight of the head is fully released, do little nods yes and no and check that the head can move freely, as if it were dangling off the spine. Now use your hands to pet the back of your neck, from the base of the shoulder down along the skull, as if you were wiping water off of yourself. You can use a lot or very little pressure – even touching very lightly with the fingertips as if you were tickling yourself can be effective, depending on what you need and like. Otherwise known as “nice nice” in Thai speak.



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Tip of the Month: Proactive vs. Reactive (9/09)

Friday, February 12th, 2010

(Originally included in the Force and Flow newsletter, 9/29/09)

The master I studied with in Thailand was always laughing at us Westerners, a strange people who didn’t think to apologize until AFTER we had done some misdeed – it seemed perfectly obvious that we should say sorry beforehand, which we proceeded to do on a daily basis in our morning prayers. Moments before entering that sacred time that my own culture refers to as the Day of Atonement, I remembered my teacher’s smiling face and broke out in a grin full of new understanding. After all, I thought to myself, our actions are not just a string of isolated incidents, but reflections of a pattern of behavior that we are embodying. And if we acknowledge ahead of time that there is a pattern that is causing pain and discomfort and regularly bring our attention to it, then we are more likely to act consciously to avoid it.

My body teaches me this principle over and over again, though I am grateful to my Thai massage teacher for the potent hint that the same applies to the realm of interpersonal relations. The key to my teacher’s way is that it encourages us to be proactive rather than reactive in our approach to well-being, to bring our attention to the patterns of mind and body movement that lead to discomfort and attend to them on a daily basis, before a full blown inflammation sets in and triggers a grief-ridden reaction.

This month’s tip is actually more of a hint or a reminder that your body, which is all too often treated as a beast of burden, is actually an amazingly enlightened teacher, if you take the time to listen. Over the years, the act of regularly bringing a little bit of attention to those areas in my body that are suffering from pain and discomfort has taught me more about my patterns of being in the world and given me more facility to change them than anything else. Note that this is not a formula for being pain free forever – for me that prospect is as unlikely as my never needing to apologize again : ) It is simply a suggestion for how you can use the physical discomfort you experience as a guide that can lead to more awareness about how your patterns of mind and body movement may be creating your current state.

Here’s a simple exercise that you can spend anywhere from 30 seconds to 30 minutes on a day: find a very comfortable position for your body, seated, supine or standing, and take a moment to tune in to your breath. Your breaths can be short or long, whatever comes naturally, as long as you don’t hold them at any point but allow the air to flow in and out easily. Then bring your attention to the area that feels tension and ask yourself two simple questions: what do you notice? i.e., what does the pain feel like? does it feel the same on both sides of the body? does it feel the same on an inhale as on an exhale? is it sharp, dull, widespread or localized? how long can you focus on it before your mind wants of move away? if a thought or memory crosses your mind, take note of it. Then ask of that area, what does it want? is there a stretch that would feel good? a little self massage? lying still for another few minutes? Maybe the pain requires more than what you can give it at that moment, like a hot bath or a massage – just take note and do what you can when you can.

Quantum physics is with me on this one, y’all – if you bring attention to the area of discomfort, it will change, and if you take a tiny bit of time to do it everyday, the transformation will be significant. If you decide that you’d like some more tools for attending to your body, or some extra attention from someone well practiced, I’m here to help with classes, privates or bodywork. I still do sliding scale, have never turned anyone away for lack of money, and am open to barters. Enjoy and see you soon!

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Tip of the Month: The Good & The Bad (8/09)

Thursday, February 11th, 2010

(Originally included in the Force and Flow newsletter, 8/10/09)

People often ask me what activities they should and shouldn’t do when dealing with an injury or chronic pain. There are of course specific exercises that can be helpful in strengthening or alleviating pain in certain parts of the body, but the real answer is, any activity you do consciously is good, and any activity you do unconsciously is bad.

To do an activity consciously requires both your mind and your body to be aware of what’s happening from moment to moment – a seemingly daunting task, but one that we can easily break down into a number of smaller, more manageable ones. Here are four things you can attend to that will keep you very safe and help you heal through any activity that you do.

The first two tasks are for the brain. It’s important to remember that your brain and your body think very differently, and your brain is NOT the expert on what’s good for your body. In fact, the brain is pretty much useless for making qualitative judgements about your body, but it is extremely useful for quantitative observation! We keep the brain busy by having it attend to alignment and engagement. Alignment refers to the placement of the bones, and engagement refers to the muscles that are supporting and mobilizing the bones. For example, if you are suffering from knee pain, then you should pay attention to the angle of the knee in relation to the ankle and to the engagement of the quads and calves.

Once your bones are aligned and your muscles are engaged in such a way as to support them, you can access the body’s innate intelligence by becoming aware of the dynamic of the movement, that is, the force and direction of the energy moving through your body. A good question to ask of your body is, does the movement feel elastic, i.e. stretchy? Your brain can look for an equal and opposite pull through the bones and muscles, your imagination can visualize it, and most importantly your body will feel the stretch and space that is created.

Even when you’re not sure what the best alignment, engagement, and dynamics are, you can still know if the activity is good or bad, you just have to ignore your brain for a moment and listen only to the body. The body, unlike the brain, is a great judge of what is and isn’t good for it and if you listen to it, it will be happy to tell you when things feel good and when they don’t (this goes for food and sex as much as for exercise!). The most important exercise you can do is to listen to your sensations from moment to moment: what are you feeling? How much weight do you feel and where is it falling? What is the sense of internal space in the injured area? DOES THE ACTIVITY FEEL GOOD? If the answer is no, then stop.

If you have specific questions about what alignment, engagement, and movement dynamics would best serve you in dealing with your specific injury or chronic pain, then I am happy to set up a private session. Once you have the tools to work with your injury consciously, your body can heal doing the very thing that may have injured it in the first place! I am available for private sessions at super reasonable rates: $80 for an initial meeting, and $50 for the next four sessions. I do sliding scale and am always open to barters. As always, you can email or call me at 646-644-9743.

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