Article Archive

Perfect Posture

Guidelines to Help You Exercise Safely

An estimated 80 percent of the population will have back problems at some time in their lives. If you’re part of that unfortunate majority, and you’ve started exercising to alleviate the issue, attention to your posture can help you do so safely.

Proper body alignment is extremely important in all fitness programs. Alignment simply means posture, or how you hold your body. Proper posture allows your body’s weight to be balanced, so you avoid overworking the back muscles.

Pregnancy Massage

Touch for the Mom-To-Be

Pregnancy is a beautiful and natural condition — nine transformative months full of excitement, planning and peering at the awesome unfolding of life. But this transformation also brings inevitable side effects, sometimes making a woman feel like her body has been taken over by an alien force. In the early months, there are mood swings from ecstasy to unpredictable crying; in later months, there are aches and pains more common to the domain of the elderly.

Flower Essences

Bouquets of Emotional and Life Path Support

The harmonizing and healing properties of flowers have been acknowledged and utilized throughout history. The ancient Egyptians as well as the Australian Aboriginals made use of flowers to heal the emotions. In the 16th century, Paracelsus described collecting dew from flowering plants, diluting it and using this essence to treat various disorders. Now, in the West, flower remedies have been used with great success for more than 65 years thanks to Dr. Edward Bach’s rediscovery and formulation of them.

Acupuncture and Addiction

Conquering Self-Destructive Habits

Millions of people have suffered from their own or someone else’s addiction. I’m not talking about craving a few brownies. I’m talking about gambling, cocaine, the Internet, heroin, alcohol, nicotine, crack cocaine, marijuana, caffeine, pornography, food, sugar and prescription drug addiction. Addiction takes a huge emotional toll on everyone, has profound financial and legal consequences, and dashes the hopes and dreams of families everywhere.

Calming the Inner Storm

Easing Autistic Behaviors with Massage Therapy

Jonathan Clark teaches children with developmental and communication disorders. He is also a certified massage therapist with a dream. “There are so many different things that massage helps adults with,” said Clark recently from his office at The Matthew Reardon Advanced Academy in Savannah, Ga. “I know it relaxes me to the point I can focus. I thought maybe it could help a child focus.”

The Body in Motion

Movement Education Provides New Models for Wellness

Someone may tell you it’s all in your head. Yet you know it’s not, because you’re feeling it, in excruciating detail, in your body. Movement education pioneers F. Matthias Alexander, Moshe Feldenkrais and Milton Trager agree that it may have started in your mind — way back when your body and your brain were learning together how to crawl, stand and walk — but it didn’t end there. Movement education theorizes that when the body establishes responses to its emotional or physical environment, those responses are carried forward long after the original stimulus is gone.

Finding New Paths

Using Complementary Therapies to Combat Addiction

Addictions come in all shapes and sizes. From the obvious struggles with drugs and alcohol, to the less recognized but often just as destructive bouts with gambling and shopping binges, addictions can hit anyone, from any walk of life.

Grief and Degrief, Part 3

The Art of Holding Space: Degriefing from the Therapist’s Perspective

“Grief is the most available, untapped emotional resource for personal transformation.”

Holding space is one of those phrases that evokes furrowed brows and quizzical expressions from the uninitiated. Like comedian George Carlin’s popularized use of such oxymorons as “jumbo shrimp” and “military intelligence,” holding space presents its own contradictory challenges in the world of grief and bodywork. Yet, it is a critical element in the Degriefing process.

Grief and Degrief, Part 4

Releasing Grief with Somatic Techniques

The use of somatic treatments to address grief is both the unique factor and the integral part of the success of the Degriefing process. Treating the physical body is what differentiates Degriefing from other therapies that rely solely on talk to affect the healing of grief after loss. Grief is the body’s innate reaction to loss and the symptomology is complex, multi-faceted and case-specific. As we approach the body filled with grief, we must recognize the work is like delicately peeling back the petals on a lotus flower.

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