Article Archive

The Nose Knows

Aromatherapy Promotes Healthy Living

Aromatherapy in its simplest form — enjoying the fresh smell of a just-peeled orange, picking rosemary from the garden, steeping mint leaves for tea.

What’s old can become new again. Take aromatherapy. Aromatics have been used for more than 10,000 years, while the use of aromatherapy and essential oils dates back at least five centuries. Today, a renaissance is occurring in homes, spas and treatment rooms, as health advocates breathe new life into this tried and true practice.

Diabetes

Massage as an Adjunct Treatment

What is Diabetes?

Diabetes is a disease of impaired carbohydrate metabolism that results from inadequate production or utilization of the hormone insulin. This vital substance is necessary to convert food into energy by facilitating the transfer of glucose (sugar) from the bloodstream into the body’s cells. Of the 16 million people in the United States with diabetes, most can be categorized into one of the following types:

The Secrets of Russian Massage

Tenacity, Technology and Touch

Down South, people who know massage spell relief with a capital “R.” And that stands for Russian. Their champion is Vladimir Chubinsky, a 44-year-old immigrant, who, in the dozen years since making Atlanta home, has proven his abilities by meeting and exceeding the expectations of people who know a good massage when they get one. Great wealth, Chubinsky explains, presents more occasion for massage and with experience comes the capacity to judge quality. “They can afford more frequent massage,” he says, “and they know what is good and what is bad.” Hands down, Chubinsky passes the test.

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

Prescription for Relief

Colleen entered massage school with all the hopes and dreams of someone searching for the perfect, mid-life career change. She simply wanted to help people, while making a decent living in the process. Little did she know the repetitive use injury she would fall victim to began early in her training — while she was still attending massage school. Unfortunately, as a new massage therapist, Colleen could help her clients’ pain, but she didn’t have the knowledge necessary to remain pain-free herself.

Tai Chi

Multiple Benefits for the Elderly

The body movements of tai chi, so graceful and fluid, have long been practiced by both young and old in Eastern cultures. This ancient conditioning exercise, also referred to as tai chi chuan (T’ai Chi Ch’uan or TCC), is rooted in martial arts folk tradition, with “chuan” meaning “boxing,” sometimes referred to as shadow boxing. An exercise in mind and consciousness, the movements are representative of the circular, encompassing state of the universe, bringing “serenity in action and action in serenity.1

Waves of Energy

Taikyo Shiatsu

Ping Lee’s training as an engineer comes in handy when he’s explaining the concept of energy. “Conceptualize the word air,” he says. “The Chinese have a lot of expressions with the word air. It sounds insignificant, so when you say something is air, what type of thing is it? Can you picture a steam locomotive, do you know how powerful that is? When we use the word steam we think of a cloud, but it is only a condensation of air — energy. What I teach in class, when we talk about energy, is seeing the word air as energy. You can feel a person’s presence, that’s energy.

Healing Triumphs Over Domestic Violence

Unlocking and Responding to a Client’s Trauma

Grandfather, Look at our brokenness. We know that in all creation Only the human family Has strayed from the Sacred Way. We know that we are the ones Who are divided And we are the ones Who must come back together To walk in the Sacred Way. Grandfather, Sacred One, Teach us love, compassion, and honor That we may heal the earth And heal each other. – Ojibwa Prayer

Sickle Cell Anemia

Alternative Treatments Promise to Ease the Pain

Thousands of years ago, malaria swept parts of Africa, India, the Mediterranean and the Middle East, ravaging the human population. Among the survivors, it is surmised, were children carrying a mutation of the hemoglobin gene — hemoglobin S, or sickle cell trait — which protected them from the invading red cell parasites.1 Some of their descendants, a variety of ethnic groups including Africans, Greeks, Italians, Turks, Iranians and Asiatic Indians2 passed on the trait as they intermingled and migrated to other areas.

A Shiatsu Story

Tokujiro Namikoshi Remembered

The passing of an influential person, like Tokujiro Namikoshi, often demands a retrospective of the contributions they made to society and the positive changes they helped to implement. His death on September 25, 2000, at the age of 94, cast a formidable shadow on Japanese bodywork. Namikoshi was instrumental in the development and proliferation of Shiatsu, the Japanese technique of thumb and palm pressure on a pattern of certain points over the body to relieve pain, promote relaxation and stimulate blood and lymphatic flow.

Breast Massage

On the Brink of Understanding?

When it comes to breast massage as a therapeutic, professional modality, there are two questions which come to mind. Are we on the brink of understanding? Or are we putting our heads in the sand? These are dichotomous questions � each having a real place in the discussion of breast massage as a therapeutic means toward breast health.

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