Archive for the ‘Anatomy’ Category

Conscious and creative laptop posture

Saturday, May 15th, 2010

Do you do the fol­low­ing with your lap­top? The very –/–\– crooked red lines –/–\– tell a sad story and will guar­an­tee you end­less treat­ments and hefty bills from the chi­ro­prac­tor or osteopath in the future.

On the couch.

The ——- lovely straight great green lines ——- carry the mes­sage: PREVENTION BETTER THAN CURE! Pre­ven­tion is also bet­ter for your bank account.

It’s all about the right angles!! Remem­ber to try keep every­thing at right angles, or get as close to them as pos­si­ble and your pos­ture will always be good.

Use some books to raise your laptop.

Prop your­self up with some pil­lows for a straighter back.

Remem­ber to drop your eyes down instead of bend­ing your neck.

Or pur­chase a note­book stand or plat­form.

Use a tray on the books so you can use your mouse.

Blokes: It’s espe­cially impor­tant for you to not have you lap­tops directly on your laps.

At the table.

Put a pil­low behind you for a straighter back

A solu­tion from a Time Online arti­cle.

If you’re refer­ring to books, create your­self a book stand. Be cre­ative and think about what your body is doing.

We lead very seden­tary lives so remem­ber to move your body about every 40 min­utes. And of course, go for the occa­sional mas­sage so the ten­sion from repet­i­tive pos­ture pat­terns can be released.

Here are some more tip from the NHS.

Or pur­chase a note­book cooler or riser.

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Posted in Anatomy, body / mind / spirit / planet | 3 Comments »

Fluid Fascia and the Energy Body Workshop

Wednesday, April 14th, 2010

Date: May 22nd 2010
Time: 9.30am for 10am start — 6pm
Loca­tion: The Old Chapel, 125 High Street, Marsh­field.
Cost: £55

I’m organ­is­ing a CPD mas­sage work­shop for the lovely Susie Legge. If you’re a prac­ti­tioner and you’re inter­ested in attend­ing, please con­tact me.

Work­shop Out­line:
This one day work­shop will be an edu­ca­tional and exploratory jour­ney into the most per­va­sive tis­sue of the body: fascia. Through med­i­ta­tive aware­ness and inves­tiga­tive con­nec­tive touch, we will learn how to recog­nise fas­cia, pas­sively stretch it and pave the way for deep trig­ger point work, free from unnec­es­sary effort or pain.

The day will also include guid­ance on how to facil­i­tate and sup­port the release of hold­ing pat­terns in both the phys­i­cal and energy body.

About Susie:
Susie was first intro­duced to yoga phi­los­o­phy and prac­tice at the age of 11 when her par­ents met their mas­ter and trained as yoga and med­i­ta­tion teach­ers. Nearly 10 years later she began to explore yoga and heal­ing work. Curi­ous about the power of ener­gy­work, and fas­ci­nated by the work­ings of the body, she trained in shi­atsu and a num­ber of other heal­ing arts, includ­ing Ayurvedic,Thai,Tibetan,Western mas­sage and reflexology.

For the last 13 years, Susie has worked, stud­ied and trav­elled around India, South East Asia, Europe and the Americas, sharing what she learns as she goes. She cur­rently spends her win­ters teach­ing yoga and mas­sage in India and the sum­mers in Europe where she leads yoga retreats and mas­sage train­ing workshops.

www.yogaswaha.com/teachers.htm

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Posted in Anatomy, Workshops | 2 Comments »

Smiling when sorting out a problem

Saturday, November 7th, 2009

A few months ago I needed to call Sains­burys as the inter­net deliv­ery was sent with around £30 of unde­liv­ered  (but charged for) food. A few bags must have not made it too our door.

smileI always aproach these calls with a calm and polite demeanour and, most impor­tantly,  with a smile in my voice. Yes, there were gro­ceries miss­ing, but no point get­ting my knick­ers in a twist about it. I spoke with a friendly chap who helped sort out the prob­lem and refund the money. We had a lit­tle chat while we waited for his com­puter to do stuff and it was a pleasant interaction.

Dur­ing the call I could not help think­ing about help desk peo­ple who must get some irate callers. I realised this chap sounded glad to be deal­ing with some­one polite and I hung up the phone feel­ing incred­i­bly happy. I was happy that I’d han­dled the call the way in which I did. I was happy that he sounded happy and that I’d made it pleas­ant. Being nice to him made me feel good. I had a pretty big smile on my face and a lot of warmth in my heart for a while after.

david_hamiltonThis post has been in my drafts box for a while. I have not found the time to fin­ish writ­ing it and on Wednes­day it became clear why.

I received a newslet­ter from Dr David Hamil­ton, whom I saw speak a few months ago in Bath. He is inspir­ing and his work and knowl­edge are fan­tas­tic! Below is the newslet­ter and it’s self explana­tory why I felt so good after that call. (Check out all the mind expand­ing arti­cles on his site)

Why Kind­ness is Good for You

Did you know that when you are kind to some­one it actu­ally ben­e­fits your health? New sci­en­tific stud­ies show that kind­ness, and also com­pas­sion and grat­i­tude, pro­duce chem­i­cals in the brain that impact the body. One of these chem­i­cals is a neu­ropep­tide known as oxytocin.

Recent research shows that oxy­tocin is car­dio­pro­tec­tive. Know what that means? It means that it pro­tects the heart from dam­age. In other words, when you’re kind to some­one you are actu­ally doing your heart some good.

Many stud­ies have shown that a kind nature reduces the chances of your arter­ies becom­ing hard-what is known as ath­er­o­scle­ro­sis. A 2008 sci­en­tific study inves­ti­gated the process of ath­er­o­scle­ro­sis and actu­ally found that oxytocin-the chem­i­cal pro­duced when you’re kind to someone-halted it in its tracks.

Kind­ness, grat­i­tude and com­pas­sion also impact the brain. A few good deeds here and there actu­ally cause struc­tural changes to the brain in a ben­e­fi­cial way.

So not only do the peo­ple we’re kind to ben­e­fit from our good deeds, but we ben­e­fit too. It has been said that you get back what you give out. Well, a host of recent sci­en­tific research is now show­ing the phys­i­o­log­i­cal truth in this.

This is a snap­shot of some of the mate­r­ial from my new book, Why Kind­ness is Good for You (avail­able from Hay House UK, 1st Feb 2010). I’m also speak­ing on it in Birm­ing­ham on Sun­day 8th Novem­ber. Come along if you want to learn more.

This arti­cle will soon be archived on my web­site feel free to visit the site to read other inter­est­ing arti­cles in the health and mind-body field.

Please feel free to share this arti­cle with others.

David R. Hamil­ton PhD
www.drdavidhamilton.com

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Practitioners Group — in and around Bath

Thursday, September 10th, 2009

If you are a ‘hands on’ prac­ti­tioner in or around Bath and you would like to join a net­work of other prac­ti­tion­ers, please con­tact me and I’ll give you some more details.

I have started a group that meets once a month and it’s a great place to meet prac­ti­tion­ers of all kinds, to learn and develop together.

The group com­prises the fol­low­ing types of modal­i­ties:  Sports Mas­sage, Chi­ro­prac­tic, Holis­tic Mas­sage, Indian Head Mas­sage, Thai Mas­sage, Rosen Method, Osteopa­thy and On-Site Massage.

If you do any of the above or any­thing else ‘man­ual’, please do join us.

We’d love to meet prac­ti­tion­ers  who do Cra­nial work, Physio Ther­a­pists, Shi­atsu or any­thing we’ve never heard of.

If you are a prac­ti­tioner of a dif­fer­ent nature (Acupunc­ture, Energy work, Home­opa­thy, Life Coach, Hyp­nother­apy etc) you are wel­come as a guest.

If you are look­ing for a rec­om­mended prac­ti­tioner in Bath, please see my links list.

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Posted in Anatomy, Events | 1 Comment »

What is bodywork? Who is the bodyworker?

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009

I was so delighted to read this next quote. It really res­onates with my inten­tions and backs-up my belief.

“A point worth remem­ber­ing here is that in this edu­ca­tional expe­ri­ence it is not the body­worker who is “fix­ing” the client. The body­worker is not attack­ing a localised prob­lem with spe­cialised tool, con­fi­dent of achiev­ing cer­tain results. Instead, he or she is care­fully gen­er­at­ing a flow of sen­sory infor­ma­tion to the mind of the client, infor­ma­tion that is not being gen­er­ated by the client’s own lim­ited reper­toire of move­ments — new infor­ma­tion that the mind can use to fill in the gaps and miss­ing links in its appraisal if the body’s tis­sues and phys­i­o­log­i­cal processes. It is then the mind of he client that does the “fix­ing” — the appro­pri­ate adjust­ment of pos­ture, the more effi­cient and judi­cious dis­tri­b­u­tion of flu­ids and gases, the fuller and more flex­i­ble rela­tion­ship between neural and mus­cu­lar responses.

The body­worker is not an inter­ven­tion­ist; he is a facil­i­ta­tor, a diplo­matic inter­me­di­ary between a phys­i­o­log­i­cal processes that have lost track of one another’s proper func­tions and goals, between a mind that has for­got­ten what is needs to know in order to exert har­mo­nious con­trol and a body politic which increas­ingly utilises dis­rup­tive demon­stra­tions, ter­ror­ist tac­tics, and even the threat of all-out civil was to regain its governor’s atten­tion. Touch­ing hands are not like phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals or scalpels. They are like flash­lights in a dark­ened room. The med­i­cine they admin­is­ter is self aware­ness. And for many of our painful con­di­tions, this is the aid that is most urgently needed.”

Deane Juhan – Job’s Body (Intro­duc­tion xxix)

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Posted in Anatomy | 4 Comments »

Belly grumbling during massage

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

Vagus nerveThere are 2 main sys­tems in the body that we are con­cerned with when it comes to mas­sage; the sym­pa­thetic and parasym­pa­thetic ner­vous systems.

The sym­pa­thetic ner­vous sys­tem (fight or flight response/stress response) is the sys­tem that helps us ‘keep going’ when we are under stress and the parasym­pa­thetic ner­vous sys­tem (relax­ation response) is the one that helps us chill out. The Vagus nerve is respon­si­ble for the func­tions of the relax­ation response.

The pic­ture above shows the Vagus (mean­ing ‘wan­der­ing’) nerve starts in the brain and extends to all the main organs in the chest and abdomen. It is the only nerve that does this. By breath­ing deeply, we stim­u­late the many Vagus nerve end­ings which results in the switch­ing on of our relax­ation response.

Amongst other won­der­ful things, mas­sage slows down our breath­ing result­ing in the afore­men­tioned: relax­ation on, stress off.

So, we’re on the mas­sage table, we’ve got a nice and relaxed stom­ach, colon and small intes­tine. Diges­tion is increased and our bel­lies start rum­bling. It is there­for not uncom­mon to have escap­ing gas, from either end, dur­ing a mas­sage. In fact, it’s a sure sign that we are nice and relaxed. Your mas­sage prac­ti­tioner won’t even expect you to stir from dream­land to excuse your­self.

As and aside, this is why mas­sage is great of any­one with diges­tion chal­lenges.

So next time you have a mas­sage and you expe­ri­ence this, don’t be shy, it’s all part and par­cel of our bod­ies amaz­ing response to the good you are doing it by get­ting on the mas­sage table.

All hail the Vagus nerve!

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Posted in Anatomy, Why have massage and Bodywork? | 3 Comments »

The Iliopsoas muscle group

Thursday, August 13th, 2009

Psoas muscle groupA few days ago I went to see Jay Rud­dock who does Struc­tural Integration/Rolfing in Bath. The treat­ment was inter­est­ing and effec­tive, as expected. Now I’ve now got some of my miss­ing mobil­ity back. Thanks Jay!

I still find it fas­ci­nat­ing how manip­u­lat­ing attach­ments (where mus­cles and lig­a­ments attach to bone) can have such a great effect. Proof that work­ing on one thing affects another.

We spoke briefly about the Psoas mus­cle (which amaz­ingly attaches our spine to our legs) and I asked him if he’d seen this picture.

So, here you go Jay (and any­one else who finds it). Isn’t she a beauty?

As an aisde, Liz Koch has ded­i­cated her life to the Psoas mus­cle. Imag­ine that? One life, one mus­cle. Fan­tas­tic! I won­der which mus­cle she’ll choose in her next life.

Pic­ture credit: Bonkless.wordpress.com

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Movement

Sunday, August 9th, 2009

“No only is it true that the ner­vous sys­tem stim­u­lates the body to move in spe­cific ways as a result of spe­cific sen­sa­tions; it is also the case that all move­ments flood the ner­vous sys­tem with sen­sa­tions regard­ing the struc­tures and func­tions of the body. Move­ment is the uni­fy­ing bond between the mind and the body, and sen­sa­tions are the sub­stance of that bond.”

Deane Juhan – Job’s Body (Intro­duc­tion xxvi)

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