What a great way to use a part of your rebate - some time on my massage table. ]]> http://www.paulbrown.net/journal/2008/05/16/a-little-stimulation-with-your-stimulus/feed/ http://www.paulbrown.net/journal/2008/05/12/team-bear-send-off-party/ http://www.paulbrown.net/journal/2008/05/12/team-bear-send-off-party/#comments Mon, 12 May 2008 21:21:57 +0000 Paul Brown http://www.paulbrown.net/journal/2008/05/12/team-bear-send-off-party/

I’ll be there with my massage chair, doing massage for donations to Team Bear. Also, I’ll be raffling off a two-hour massage gift certificate (not a one-hour like it says). Sister Mary Juanita High will be blessing the riders and roadies, too, and we’ll have music - lots of music! Ejector and DJ Agent Adam will both be providing music.

B-Unit is located at 2111 Franklin Street in Oakland at the Bench N Bar.

If you can’t make it, you can donate here.

1. Have a regular time for sleep. Spend the final hour of your day preparing for sleep. Have a sleep ritual that includes things like brushing your hair and teeth, massaging your feet, hands and shoulders, taking a warm shower, spend a short amount of time reading. These things done nightly will start to prepare the body and mind for sleep.
2. Prepare a quiet, dark, distraction-free place to sleep. Make the environment in the room where you sleep as relaxing as possible. Quiet is a relative term, of course, as some people like white noise in the background while some like no noise at all. White noise can be the ocean, a fan blowing, the sound of cars on the highway, anything that provides a general regular background sound.
3. Avoid caffeine at least a few hours before sleep. Even if a person can sleep while stimulated by caffeine, its action on the body is disruptive to the regular cycles of sleep (moving from stage 1 > 2 > 3 > 4 > 3 > 2 > REM > repeat). Each stage of NREM and REM sleep is important to the proper functioning of our body, and moving from the various stages in order allows for sleep to have the most beneficial effects.
4. Receive regular massage. Massage and other bodywork like Reflexology and energy work like Reiki, have been shown in studies by the Touch Research Institute and other organizations to improve the quality of sleep. The mechanism of this is not fully understood, but some think that massage calms the sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight) and activates the parasympathetic nervous system (relaxation response), and that the decrease in cortisol levels in the body contributes to better movement through the stages of sleep cycle.
5. Exercise regularly. Having a regular exercise program, or even doing something like taking a walk for between 30 minutes to an hour a few hours before sleep is not only good for your physical fitness, it also can improve the quality and length of your sleep. Note here that exercising immediately before sleep is not recommended, as the body needs the time to come back from the stimulated state of exercise to properly sleep.
6. Light evening meal. The lightest meal of the day should be the dinner/supper meal in the evening. Several small meals throughout the day is best, but if you are going to eat three meals a day, then start big and end light. Breakfast should be the largest meal, then lunch, and finally dinner. Our bodies use a tremendous amount of energy in digestion, which distracts us from repairing and resting and processing our brain’s work while we sleep.

As you can see, these things are not just a part of good sleep hygiene, but they are also a good part of a healthy lifestyle.

Multi packs are available in 30, 60, 90, 120 minute lengths. And unlike a gym membership where many people will go for a while and then it sits like an albatross ’round the checking account, you’ll actually want to come to the massage table! (Yes, I know, all you gym-lovers, this doesn’t apply to you!)

Commit yourself to improved health and well-being by buying a multi-pack today!

He experienced pain and/or limited range of motion in shoulder flexion, abduction, lateral rotation, protraction and retraction. Was unable to upwardly rotate shoulder. Extension, adduction, medial rotation, retraction were within normal limits. After assessing his range of motion, we began the session.

Working on the elderly requires a very deft and gentle touch. Their skin is very fragile and easily torn, and it is important to work to create a comfortable group of positions for them to recline, as their joints are often painful and makes difficult prone or supine positions for very long.

This particular man required trigger point work in his subscapularis and serratus anterior muscles, which have insertions on the anterior surface of his scapula, which means going in through his axilla to access the muscles. Also, his infraspinatus, supraspinatus, levator scapula were all very tight and required work as well. Using very slow, gentle pressure, I was able to get the subscapularus trigger points released, as well as relaxing the posterior rotator cuff muscles and levator scapula.

Recommended a weekly appointment for the next four weeks to continue making progress.

So, why not Book Now!  Want to just make a direct donation?  Click here for my ALC Page.

The primary benefits of Line of Force are greater efficiency in transferring energy and decreased risk of injury. Every turn or bend in a joint wastes energy as the force has to change direction, thus our bodies have to exert more effort to maintain a non-stacked posture. In addition, stacked joints are more stable, as the torque applied to rotated or flexed joints increases the chance of injury. We work smarter, not harder, with good posture and line or force.

A corollary to the Line of Force is the Hierarchy of Power. It says that the tranmission of power via the Line of Force decreases the more joints we travel from the hara, or center. Stacked fingertips cannot transmit as much force as knuckle, palm, forearm, elbow. Or in the legs, the hierarchy is toes, plantar surface of foot, heel, knees. But the increase in power is bought a decrease in palpation ability. The fingertips are vastly more sensitive than the skin covering the olecranon process of the ulnaris bone (although with lots of use and practice, it does become much more sensitive).

Similarly, the broad, flat surface of the forearm is ideal for certain types of strokes, just as the fingertips are perfect for highly detailed work. Every tool has strokes for which it is best suited. It’s sometimes fun to play around and see how to achieve the desired therapeutic result by using different tools and strokes. Something else I like doing is trying to shape my hands to match the shape of the muscle, especially if all I am doing is very obliquely angled strokes. Strokes where my arms are almost completely parallel to the client’s body are excellent for this hand-shaping.

The forearms are great for things as simple as effleurage, and into deeper work, like myofascial release-type therapies. One thing I like to do is open up the erector spinae by pinning the thoracolumbar aponeurosis down with one forearm, and with the other engaging the muscle tissue of the erector spinae in a superior direction, and applying moderate pressure, stretching the muscle apart.

Applying these two important concepts to bodywork marshals a therapists’ energies, and keeps us safe. We are much less tired and sore at the end of the day, and our careers can be long and with fewer injuries.

I did some psoas release work on this client to help balance out the interplay between erector spinae and iliopsoas. I am going to have to do some work on the muscles that do ankle plantar flexion, as well as glutei minimi and more abdominal work, although I did do a decent amount of abdominal work on this client today before I did the psoas release.

The psoas and abdominal muscles are sometimes antagonists and sometimes synergists, and it’s important to keep them in balance. Having a six-pack can actually be unhealthy for a person. It’s not uncommon for people with really tight abdominal muscles and psoas muscles to be chronically constipated, as tight psoas muscles can impinge upon the lumbar plexus, which controls the intestines. As well, overtight abdominals can restrict breathing, as the ribcage is pulled down and forward, and also can cause the body to waste energy by engaging the erector spinae in having to work harder to keep the body upright to counterbalance the abdominals’ flexion motion of the spine.

As the iliopsoas muscles are rotators of the femur, the glutei minimi can also be very tight, as they are antagonists in rotation as well as synergists in hip flexion. So it’s important to get them to relax as well when doing a release of the psoas muscles.

With good attention to detail, balance can be brought to this important system, and a dramatic reduction in back pain can be introduced. The flexibility of the pelvic region cannot be stressed enough in maintaining a high quality of life as we age, and psoas release techniques, combined with work on the abdominals, glutei minini, and plantar flexors will help keep us pain free.

In the study, 239 patients were evaluated - these patients either had not improved after diagnosis or treatment for a herniated or damaged disc. 7 of the patients were found to have torn disc related conditions, such as annular tears, and were successfully treated with spine surgery.

The 232 patients who remained underwent a new kind of magnetic resonance technology called magnetic resonance neurography to evaluate the sciatic nerve. 69 percent of the patients - 162 - were found to have piriformis syndrome (where the piriformis muscle traps or irritates the sciatic nerve), and the remaining 31 percent had a number of other nerve, muscle, or joint conditions in varying locations that were not seen by a standard MRI.

Only 62 patients needed surgery to correct the piriformis syndrome - such surgery included Open MRI guided imagery, where the MRI scanner guides a deep injection of a pain medication into the muscle or nerve. This treatment corresponds with what Janet Travell and David Simons recommend in their groundbreaking book, Myofascial Pain and Dysfunction - the Trigger Point Manual. In the book, they recommend a physician inject a local anesthetic into the location of a trigger point, causing its release.

The other patients in the study received manual therapies, such as physical therapy and exercise, and had successful outcomes as well.

A massage therapist who is trained in releasing trigger points can effect the kinds of changes brought on by the Open MRI guided imagery, as well, by using ischemic compression and other techniques. The beauty of science research is that for over 70 years, medical professionals thought that sciatica was caused by damaged or herniated discs. Now we know that the vast majority of cases are muscular in origin, and that other methods of treatment are as or more effective than surgery.

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center (2005, February 2). New Way To Diagnose Sciatica May Point To A Different Cause. ScienceDaily. Retrieved December 12, 2007, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2005/02/050201192443.htm