Article Archive

Haute Cuisine

With Edible Flowers

Preparing a summer salad often means darting out to the garden for a selection of tender, green herb leaves to mix in with the other ingredients. But how about picking some fresh flowers for your salad, too?

Many edible flowers are high in vitamins C and A, as well as other nutrients. Flowers can be incorporated into baking, sauces, jelly, syrup vinegars, honey, oil, tea, flower-scented sugars, candied flowers, wine, and flavored liqueurs.

And many restaurant chefs and innovative home cooks garnish their entrees with flower blossoms for a touch of elegance.

Intuition 101

Polishing your Intuition

We’ve all heard stories about people whose “bad feeling” led them to cancel a flight, only to discover later that the plane crashed. That’s intuition. Your experiences with intuition might not be so dramatic, but they’re no less valid. Maybe you can’t shake the feeling that you should call your mother, and when you do, you learn she’s sick in bed. Or your “little voice” tells you a business deal is going to fall through—and the client withdraws right before the contract is signed.

Massage Medicine

For the Body and Mind

Do you remember your first massage? Maybe someone gave you a gift certificate for your birthday and that’s what first brought you to your massage therapist’s door. Maybe the promise of pain relief had you consider therapeutic massage as an option for the first time. Or, maybe it was a quest for renewed health and “balance” that prompted your initial venture into the world of bodywork.

The Science of Massage

Soft-tissue Techniques

Lisa sat on the side of the table after her first Rolfing session. Her eyes shone bright, her breath filled her chest easily, her shoulders rested comfortably on her rib cage. Her expression of puzzlement and wonder was one I’ve seen many times before. “What just happened?” she said. “I feel so different!”

Pregnancy Precautions

Essential Knowledge When Caring For The Mother-To-Be

Bubbling with excitement, your ten o’clock appointment announces her just-confirmed pregnancy. While you share in her joy, you also hope to maintain or even strengthen your relationship with her at a time many ordinary skin treatments aren’t suitable.

While there are some don’ts in caring for a pregnant client, there are many things you can do to help mom feel relaxed and pretty while she rides the hormonal roller coaster.

Dual practices

A Union of Massage and Skin Care

With consumers spending more than $14 billion on facial treatments in 2006,1 and the number of estheticians doubling between 2001 and 2005,2 skin care is becoming more popular than ever for consumers and practitioners alike.

It wasn’t long ago that the worlds of massage and skin care were very distinct, and some in the massage profession scoffed at the idea of the two practices being compatible with one another. Fast forward ten years and we see that not only do massage and skin care coexist, they sometimes depend on, and certainly complement, each other.

2007 Survey Results

Massage Therapy Continues to Earn Consumer Respect

Appreciation for the massage therapy experience has made new inroads with American consumers—one in six American adults sought out massage therapy in 2006—and more men and Midwesterners than ever are getting massaged. These are key findings of a January Harstad Strategic Research survey sponsored by Associated Bodywork & Massage Professionals (ABMP).i

Knee Deep in Pain

Promising Results for Treating Osteoarthritis

One of the most disabling chronic conditions for Americans is osteoarthritis. This slowly progressive degenerative disease is said to cause more physical limitation in adults than the diabetes and heart and lung diseases we see topping the health news these days (from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).1 Knee and hip joint replacements are now a common event on operating tables, while a plethora of ads tout the benefits of both conventional drugs and the less conventional glucosamine/chondroitin combo to stave off this end result.

Now, More Than Ever, You Need a Massage

Invest in Your Health, and Navigate Difficult Times with Grace

Consumers may be tempted to trim their wellness budgets when economic times are tough. Yet a recent national consumer survey showed most massage-minded Americans are committed to maintaining the health benefits they experience with massage. It only makes sense. The better you feel, the better job you can do of caring for yourself and your loved ones.

Posture, Perception, Breath

As the concept of holism gains acceptance in Western culture, it becomes increasingly commonplace to find ourselves impressed by the ways in which everything is connected to everything else. We embrace holism in our approaches to health. We pray for our leaders to embrace holistic understanding of our geographical and political environments. We find significance in the synchronous thoughts and events of our personal lives. “There are no accidents,” we say.

Pages