Once you learn to believe you have power to make the changes in life that are important to you, you can begin to smile big smiles inside as you experience your inspiring ability to move forward and achieve with confidence, the personal success you’re capable of dreaming.

When you learn to use the theatre in your mind to make good pictures of your new and exciting ability to live the life you’ve always wanted, it will be natural to find every healthy way to get there quickly. Then, you can begin to step into the sound and feel of those good pictures that will allow you to experience this new reality for yourself moment after moment.

Because, if you can feel it now, the way you’ve always dreamed it’s possible, you can begin to step into these pictures of how you want to live with a renewed sense of quality moment after moment. Then, finally you’ll have power to experience the life you’ve always wanted right now within this moment.

By now, I feel certain you already believe it’s possible for you to accomplish great things in life.  Naturally, as you aim to make this truth a reality it’s important that you aim to:

Overcome Stress. Everyone knows that when you learn to relax, you’ll feel better, smile more, enjoy healthier relationships, and have even more fun in life!

Get Motivated.  When you learn to feel motivated enough to accomplish things in life that are important to you, you’ll feel incredible moment after moment as you enjoy the quality of life you have power to create for you and the people you care for the most!

Overcome Fears & Phobias.  When you learn to dissolve old un-resourceful fears and phobias, you can begin to move beyond the old limitations and experience a whole new world full of the exciting possibilities!

Resolve Relationship Issues.  There’s a lot you can to do on your own to repair, preserve, and enhance relationships in life that are important to you.  This is one of the easiest and fastest ways to create happy and healthy environments for you, family, friends, and co-workers to enjoy!

Overcome Depression.  As you overcome symptoms of depression, you’ll learn to feel energized and inspired enough to see the possibilities in your bright future once again!  

Increase Your Confidence.  As you learn to increase your confidence, it will be natural to develop the feelings and have the choices you’ve always wanted to finally get ahead in life!

Overcome Anger Issues.  When you can learn to replace the old “hot” buttons with a series of more resourceful “cool” buttons, you can learn to feel better, smile more, enjoy healthier relationships, and bring the fun back into your life!

Manage Mental Disorders.  In many cases, the creative resources available within your own brain can be used effectively to manage, decrease, or even eliminate negative symptoms and behaviors associated with classic mental disorders!

Overcome Addictive and Compulsive Behavior.  Once you learn to use addictive and compulsive tendencies in order to generate and experience more and more resourceful states, then instantly you’ll be able to choose to exercise the winning sense of control you desire in life!

Optimize Your Life.  It’s important to optimize your thinking ability to achieve the goals that are important to you.  Everyone knows that no matter how great things are, you can always do better.  When you learn to make yourself better and better day after day, everyone can enjoy the benefits!  And…

Double the Feelings Of Joy and Appreciation.  Since we have access to the thinking technologies you need to “Get The Life You Want”,  why not learn to Double the Feelings Of Joy and Appreciation right now!

As you continue to make good pictures in your mind and step into those pictures to experience the sound and feel of your successful ability to live the life you want, the same quality in life you’re capable of dreaming can instantly become the quality you can choose to experience now within this moment!

Nate Fegan offers highly effective Life Coaching, NLP, and Hypnotic Change Work over the Phone and In Person.  To Learn more, simply visit www.JourneyToDiscover-SelfHelpConsulting.com or call 732.741.1219

To date, in our past articles on pain management, we have defined what pain is and how we feel pain through our bodily processes. We will now get into one of the reasons that there is a variation among people and even the same person from one time to another regarding how they experience the intensity of pain, which brings us to part three of our series of articles, and that is inflammation and mental attitude (depression).

In the study of pain, another area which is becoming more understood, is the inflammatory response of the body. Inflammation is one of the body’s defenses that are naturally produced by the immune system. We also create it through means of physical (nutritional) and psychological (stress). From a nutritional standpoint, the food and beverages that we consume create either an acidic or an alkaline environment in our body. The PH of our body should be slightly alkaline. However, due to our nutritional habits and deficiencies our bodies tend to be acidic. Therefore, if your body is in a more acidic state than it is supposed to be, you are putting it in a condition where it will respond with greater discomfort, than, if it were at its normal, more alkaline pH level.

Steps that can improve or rid the body of inflammation:
• Eating a healthy diet is imperative in reducing inflammation in the body.
• Inflammation is a sign that the body is overly acidic and in order to cut down on that inflammation we must bring the body to a more alkaline state.
• Elimination of processed foods, acidic beverages, sugars and artificial sweeteners can help to reduce inflammation.
• Dehydration is another key factor in inflammation. The more dehydrated the body, the more acidic it becomes and in turn the inflammation increases.
• Reducing stress from your life will cut down on inflammation. Stress causes the body to become overly acidic, causing more inflammation.

All diseases and disorders of the body can be traced to either some type of deficiency, or to some type of outside interference. When the body and mind are working together, we find ourselves on the path of great health and well being. By providing the body with the raw materials it needs, the body can heal itself.

Steps to improve your health:
• Remove internal stress by eliminating friction between mind and body.
• Provide proper nutritional support.
• Provide proper exercise.
• Reduce intake of external stress.
• Reduce ingesting external toxins.

Another area that creates increased pain sensitivity is depression. Depression adds unwanted stress to the body and in turn the body becomes more acidic. Depression and pain are closely related as pain creates depression, and as we mentioned depression creates greater sensitivity to pain, and in turn creates more pain, which creates more depression. It’s a downward spiraling action. The Harvard Medical School has found that people with Chronic Pain have three times the risk of developing psychiatric symptoms which are usually mood or anxiety disorders. Depressed people also have three times the risk of developing chronic pain. Unlike Acute Pain which is short in duration and may make you feel sad or even angry at the pain; chronic pain which has no sign of hope, can lead to depression. It is also found the people who are somewhat depressed usually have more aches and pains, such as headaches and backaches.

Pain and depression share a common pathway into the emotional region of the back brain and has been researched that the chemical messengers that control pain also control mood. That is the reason why antidepressant medications have been used for pain. It is interesting to note that a study in 1992 showed that clinical or major depression is four times greater in people with chronic back pain than the general population. Yet, whether pain causes depression is still something that is being debated.

Our next article will be devoted to nutrition regarding pain management and weight reduction.
copyright Patricia Pedersen and Robert Brienza 2010
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Patricia Pedersen is a Natural Healer, Certified Clinical Hypnotist, Certified Acupressurist, Nutrition Consultant and is completing her studies in Naturopathy. Patricia is a teacher, counselor, coach and a partner with you in your quest for health and wellness.
Robert Brienza is a Master Hypnotist, Mental Trainer, Certified Master NLP Instructor, Reiki Master Teacher and Certified Sports Enhancement Specialist. He has continued his course of study in Healing and Pain Management and is a Therapeutic Massage Therapist. Robert helps people to overcome fears, stop smoking, meet weight reduction goals, improve golf games and overcome addictions.

Patricia & Robert have been interviewed many times on NY Talk Radio, are presenters at Essex County College and travel extensively giving workshops on such subjects as Complementary Health, Stress Reduction, Pain Relief, Weight Reduction, Nutrition & Herbs, Past Life Regression, Sports Enhancement and Mental Training for Sales & Marketing.

To speak with Patricia or Robert you may call (201) 424-2234 or (908) 206-1497.

To begin your powerful Journey deep into the exciting world of Natural Healing, simply allow yourself to Relax and Meditate as you Read and Experience the powerful intention within the following text.

As you continue to read, I recommend you learn to breath deeply and naturally. Then you can establish a natural posture that allows you to sink deeper and deeper into your body’s confident structure until you begin to experience a deepening sense of focus and relaxation…

Now you can use your powerful and intuitive senses to experience and appreciate subtle changes within your healing body as you become inspired to move forward one step at a time on your new and exciting journey to achieve perfect health and happiness…

Let’s Begin… Now you can begin to heal your beautiful body and mind as you explore the unmatched power of complete forgiveness. In this moment you can allow yourself to let go completely and dissolve your sense of self importance (ego) until you can forgive absolutely everyone and everything (including yourself)! When you can allow yourself to forgive completely, you will feel like an enlightened being! Once you make a clear decision to embrace complete forgiveness, instantly you can begin to experience a lighter, happier, and healthier body and mind!

~ Without ego you can begin to expand and condense your powerful awareness into every direction until the entire universe becomes your beautiful body and mind’s only experience.

~ Once you establish your powerful ability to regulate your ego, you can begin to use your clear and positive intentions to heal your beautiful body. Minus the typical confusion and resistance of the ego, you can begin to feel like a master as you aim to experience the mystery and wonder of natural healing.

~ Now you can breath deeply and naturally as you begin to relax yourself into perfect posture… Then you can simply let go and allow yourself to experience perfect health and happiness!

~ Now you can experience complete forgiveness as you dissolve and regulate the ego… Then you can begin to heal your beautiful and healthy body and mind!

~ Now you can begin to feel warm and flexible as you learn to stretch beyond
unnecessary limitation to seek new boundaries… Then you can enjoy your new and exciting sense of confidence as you learn to move with a mindful sense of ease, fluidity, and grace!

~ Now you can feel like a master as you learn to embrace the power of natural healing… Then you can feel safe, happy, and healthy, as you discover a deepening sense of quality within each moment!

Naturally, your healing list can simply go on and on… It’s simple, fun, and easy to create your own unique and healthy concept of “Now”. Just choose the qualities you would like to experience, then you can simply think it, feel it, and let it become your new and exciting reality!

Once you learn to experience natural healing for yourself, you can get inspired to share your positive and healing intentions with many others!

Remote Healing… It’s common for many of us to experience powerful and sometimes mysterious connections between people and objects within the universe. Perhaps you receive phone calls (emails, texts, visits, etc) from friends only seconds after they enter your thoughts. Perhaps you feel yourself being pulled as if by magnetic force to people, places, books, and other objects that later prove to be the life changing “next step” along your unique and powerful path in life. Perhaps you or a loved one is spared from injury during an accident that by all other logic should have been disastrous, allowing you to move safely forward with yet another valuable lesson under your belt. Perhaps a person or object appears as if by magic only moments, hours, or days, after you become aware of your important need for such a person or object to appear. Perhaps you become overtaken by a deep sense of knowing that allows you to predict and therefore better navigate future events. Perhaps you are able to sense injury or sickness within others that otherwise remains invisible to the naked eye. Perhaps you are able to sense the needs of others even before you have physical contact with them. Perhaps you have discovered your powerful ability to influence future outcomes using the power of your positive intention.

As you seek the boundaries of human potential, it’s exciting to know you can still encounter many strange and powerful possibilities! The question is, “How will you learn to navigate all of these invisible and otherwise unknown forces?”

The truth is you must learn to balance yourself within this incredible playground of mysterious possibilities. The best way to keep these forces on your side (from my experience) is to naturalize your body and dissolve your ego enough to experience deep love and appreciation for every single particle in the universe. When you can think and act with this kind of love and appreciation, you will feel a deep and immediate connection with God itself (I use the term “God” to describe the ultimate truth we all share. Please
feel free to use a different term if you prefer).

Once you learn to embrace your deep and immediate connection with God itself, then you can begin to wake up and get inspired to feel alive as you re-explore and redefine the concept of “life” within the context of a much deeper and more satisfying level of existence.

As you begin to experience this deep and immediate connection for yourself, it will become natural to share your great health and happiness with the rest of the world and beyond! This can be as simple as a kind intention to offer your gentle and loving smile to people in need all the way to your powerful intention to give within the context of remote healing.

With remote healing I believe you have power to connect with others in need using the same energy structure that allows you to experience the powerful and often mysterious phenomena mentioned earlier.

Each day I practice remote healing meditation to share positive healing intentions with people in need. Naturally, I make no claims in this area, but I will say the results are often uncanny to say the least! For me, even an ounce of success is plenty to feel inspired as I continue forward to seek the boundaries of mystery and wonder!

While there are many ways you can connect to offer the powerful benefits of remote healing, here is one simple and powerful technique that will allow you to experience intriguing results…

Meditate until you’ve naturalized your body and dissolved your ego. Once you feel certain you can regulate your ego you can begin to expand and condense your awareness outward and inward toward infinity. At this point you can use your powerful imagination to fill the outline of the receiver’s body and mind with your enlightened body and mind of pure awareness. Now you can begin to share your positive and healing intentions with your receiver in the same way you give positive and healing intentions to yourself (think it and then feel it). Once you feel good inside about your healing message, you can simply use your hands (within your mind’s eye) to close the outline of the receiver’s body as you release them from your healing thoughts. From here you can open your hands to place your enlightened body and mind within another receiver, or you can simply bring your healing meditation to a closing point.

You can also use your powerful imagination to share your positive and healing intentions with the entire universe instead of just one being. Using the technique described above, you can simply send your healing message outward using infinite waves of intention after you’ve taken time to expand and condense your awareness. For example, you might send the following message for all to enjoy, “Now you can feel safe, happy, and healthy.”

In the end, what matters most is that you begin to trust and allow yourself be guided by your deepest levels of wisdom and intelligence. Use your powerful and intuitive senses to choose behaviors that lead you with confidence to experience perfect health and happiness!

Create Your Powerful Foundation For Natural Healing… Naturally, when you feel healthy (inside and out) it becomes simple and easy to enjoy a deepening sense of love and appreciation for life. Once you begin to understand this connection, it’s easy to get inspired each day to cultivate greater and greater health within your beautiful body and mind. For example:

Yoga with its meditation and stretching is a great way to focus, relax, and begin to naturalize your healthy body. Tai Chi on the other hand will help you to uncover powerful secrets of the body so you can continue to maintain your focused, relaxed, and naturalized body moment after moment as you move freely through each day’s activities.

It’s important to understand you must build your own foundation for natural healing. Get ready to feel happy, healthy, and enlightened as you find time to meditate, stretch, exercise, eat healthy foods, enjoy proper rest, smile, love, and appreciate life everyday!

Copyright 2010 Nate Fagan

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Nate Fegan is an E~bm Tai Chi Instructor and Yoga Teacher.

To learn more, please visit www.EffortlessBodyAndMind.com

Get ready to discover and embrace Natural Healing, the common thread that connects all healing modalities including Tai Chi, Qigong, Yoga, Meditation, Placebo Effect, Acupuncture, Acupressure, Jin Shin Jyutsu, Reiki, Shiatsu,
Massage Therapy, Myofascial Release, Hypnosis, Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), Raw Food, Macrobiotic, Vegan, Homeopathy, Energy Healing, Chakra Balancing, Metaphysical Healing, Spiritual Healing, Crystal Healing, Law Of Attraction, and more!

It is a fact of human nature that which we receive for free is valued less than things we have a vested interest in. If you have ever been to a Convention or a trade show you know what I am talking about. You walk around picking up items that you may or may not need or want. You bring a bag full of “stuff” home and you may or may not ever use any of those things. But if you purchased an item at the show you would keep track of it and use it as soon as possible.

Have you ever been out doing massage at an event and have someone ask you if the massage was Free? Why do you think they do that? Massage Therapy is growing by leaps and bounds. We have employed several approaches over the years to nurture this growth pattern. In the mid 1980’s our tool was Sports Massage. We took massage,via Sports Massage events, into a very public forum with a high level of success. Doing this permitted people to view massage happening in a favorable light…the light of day.

The year we formed the AMTA National Sports Massage Team was 1985. I know because I was one of the original founding Co-Directors with Bob King from Illinois and Tom Fink from Pennsylvania. The Bud Light United States Triathlon Series was our first national event series. In those early days and for years to come we gave away our services at Sports Massage events all over the country.

This work with Sports Massage took our message of massage all over the country into the media and the positive press began in earnest. The dichotomy of doing all of this good for massage therapy and our profession is that people began to assume massage in a public forum is Free. Massage Schools and practitioners continue to perpetuate this image today.

I would be truly surprised if any other health profession gives away more hours of their services than we, as massage therapists, do.

The politics of free is affecting our function as massage therapists especially with respect to Seated Massage. Being a very public system we constantly have people asking, “ Is this Free? We respond that , “No, this is a professional service we provide for this event”. But why does this happen? I think the history I have described above explains part of the story. We have been told Seated Massage is a great public relations/marketing tool, which it is. We have been told Seated Massage is great for Stress Relief, which it is. But do you ever see your Dentist or your Internist out in the park on a Sunday doing free work? Why would you expect to see any other health care provider out doing free work.

My suggestion to correct this has a simple solution. When ever we do Seated Massage at a function that is not a revenue producing event we take donations for a worthy cause.

This has multiple positive outcomes. First it continues to allow us, as massage professionals, to use Seated Massage to promote our practices and profession. It allows us to give people that initial massage experience and allows them to show their gratitude and be vested in the experience by making a donation to a good cause, such as a homeless shelter or some local organization that helps people. Additionally, people realize that you need to make that energy exchange with your massage therapist. The massage therapist expends their energy giving you a massage. You then give your massage therapist some “green energy” that they use to do energy exchanges with other people in their lives or, as in the instance of the fundraiser the massage therapist takes that “green energy” and gives it to a worthy cause that can turn that green energy into good works. In my mind this is the best of all possible outcomes a win-win-win scenario. Plus the massage therapist is connected to something in the community that the community holds in high regard.

Massage Therapy has several public image issues and this is one that directly effects our ability to make a living. I think we need to address this immediately.

One way you as a massage therapist can deal with this is when you rent a booth at a show or festival where you expect to charge for a massage be clear with the exhibit coordinator that no one is going to be there giving away free massage. Put it in your contract for the event. Talk to your massage school if they are out there doing events and giving away massage at events. Your massage school should support you in the education of the public.

Make sure whether it is a revenue producing event or a fundraiser that you get the names of everybody you work on for legal reasons to list who you worked on and who did the work. With a revenue event(where we are charging for each massage)collect the money before they get on your chair. This avoids the confusion of “Free” before they get on the chair. If it is a fundraiser get their name before they get on your chair and AFTER they receive their massage you say to them, “I hope you enjoyed the Seated Massage. If you would like to make a donation to this event you can do it at the sign-in desk”. Or whoever is collecting the money. If you are working with a charity or a not-for-profit group it is nice to have a representative at the event to talk about what they do and how the money will be used.

In my opinion all Seated Massage events are either fundraisers or revenue producing events. It behooves us to do this while we educate the public about the benefits of massage therapy as a necessary part of their health care system.

Now with that said please be clear that I know and understand that if you and I go out to the women’s shelter to do massage we are not charging or taking donations. If we are at an emergency scene we are not charging. If we are doing a “give-back” we are not charging for the massage.

We can do good and do well for ourselves at the same. Ben Franklin called it “Doing Well By Doing Good”. We can improve the public’s perception of massage therapy by getting them invested in the outcome.

Copyright Raymond Blaylock 2010.

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Massage Today called Raymond Blaylock, “One of the true pioneers of the Seated Massage Concept and producer of a top selling video on the subject.”

ABOUT THAI MASSAGE (NUAD BO-RARN)
Nuad Bo-Rarn is the traditional massage of Thailand, and is translated as ‘ancient healing way’. Thai Massage is a key component of traditional Thai medicine, an ancient holistic approach to healing the body, heart/mind, and spirit. Thai medicine strives to treat the underlying cause of any illness by addressing imbalances in these three essences. Each essence affects the others, so the most effective treatment addresses the whole person. Traditional Thai medicine does this by encompassing the use of herbs, diet and nutrition, spiritual practices (such as meditation), and thai massage.

HOW IS THAI MASSAGE DONE?
Traditional Nuad Bo-Rarn Thai massage is performed on a mat on the floor rather than a raised table. This allows for many movements and procedures that are not practical or effective in table work. The client remains fully clothed except for the feet. Clothing should be light and allow for flexible movement. Here in the west, thai massage has been adapted to be done on a massage table, with the client clothed or unclothed and draped.

The work itself consists primarily of pressure on energy lines and points, and a large variety of stretching movements. Pressure is exerted with the palms of the hand, the thumbs and the feet; at some points the elbows may be used. The pressure and stretching movements are combined in a comprehensive strategy that may be performed in as little time as an hour, or may be extended to 2 1/2 to 3 hours for a full program. Two hours is frequently considered an ideal length of time for Nuad Bo-Rarn.

HOW DOES THAI MASSAGE EFFECT THE CLIENT?
The stretching movements in Nuad Bo-Rarn affect the entire body by increasing flexibility, releasing both deep and superficial tension, and helping the body’s natural energy to flow more freely. The effect of these stretching movements, in which the client plays only a passive role, is similar to yoga. This is sometimes referred to as passive yoga, or “lazy man’s yoga.” The result is an opening of the body which leaves one feeling both relaxed and energized at the same time.

Copyright Rose Griscom 2010

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Introductory classes in Thai Massage are coming up at The Red Bank Holistic Learning Center. Read more about thai massage at www.thai-massage.org, or www.thaihealingalliance.com.

As I lay on the floor with my back pounding and head spinning I wondered: Was I ever going to feel better, feel normal and return to my active life? My pain was so debilitating that I couldn’t work for over three years, I couldn’t sit for more than five minutes, walking to the bathroom from the bedroom was a major excursion. I felt like a prisoner in my own body and mind. My prison resulted from a combination of two horse accidents, and three car accidents – causing head, back, and neck traumas. There was no joy remaining in my life only pain and struggle.

After years of trying every traditional and alternative therapy I could find including Physical Therapy, Chiropractic, Acupuncture, many forms of Massage, Rolfing (structural integration) and myriad of doctors including Orthopedists, Neurosurgeons, Pain Management Specialists, and Osteopaths, I was incredibly frustrated. Understandable when the results were only temporary pain relief for up to two hours from each of these modalities. Furthermore, I was in more pain than when I began my quest for the Holy Grail (Myofascial Release) of lasting pain relief. I liken the temporary pain relief to the short hunger relief that I experience after eating Chinese food. Standard medical tests that I had taken including MRI, CT, and X-rays do not show soft-tissue (fascia) damage.

The doctors told me that the “Good News” is that all I have is soft-tissue damage and that surgery would not help me – “I just have to live with the pain”. Of course the doctors were happy to write me prescriptions for the rest of my life for muscle relaxers and pain relievers -other than that there’s nothing they could do for me. Finally I realized that if I was ever to get out of this pain I had to find an alternative therapy that treated the cause of my pain – not the symptoms – and delivered lasting pain relief effects.

One day about three years into my journey I found someone who said that Myofascial Release (MFR) therapy would help me. I had no idea what MFR was, yet I was out of options and willing to try anything that could possibly help me out of my constant excruciating pain. In my first MFR treatment my body and my mind knew that this therapy was different than any other treatment I had experienced.

MFR is The Missing Link in my treatment of the source of my pain and involves manipulating my fascia – the connective tissue that surrounds every muscle, bone, nerve, organ, brain, and spinal cord – and is present in every cell. It is gentle, safe, highly-effective and a hands-on therapy. Long lasting results that I achieved with MFR include decreased pain and stress, increased energy, increased flexibility and strength, feeling more balanced, and restored movement and function. With MFR I did not have to endure pain anymore and I now live a pain-free active life without drugs and surgery. I found the Holy Grail!

After experiencing the transformational power of MFR, I learned MFR so that I could share its healing qualities with other people who are in pain to assist them in returning to a pain-free active life without drugs and surgery.

 Copyright Olympia Hostler 2010

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Olympia Hostler, CMT, RYT, is the owner of The Lasting Pain Relief Center in NJ and NYC. She is a Veteran Myofascial Release Therapeutic Bodywork Therapist and Yoga Instructor with a passion to assist you in your healing journey by providing a safe, supportive and comforting atmosphere that focuses on facilitating your individual and unique healing process through a combination of MFR and Yoga therapies. You can reach Olympia at www.LastingPainRelief.com  and 917.288.7477. Offices are located at 621 Shrewsbury Ave, Shrewsbury, NJ 07702 and 214 W 27th Street, NY, NY, 10001.

Cleaning out your nose may not seem like the most glamorous way to detox, but it is a technique that has been around for thousands of years. One of its modern champions is Doctor Oz, host of The Doctors and frequent guest of The Oprah Winfrey Show. “A lot of folks that have allergies, who have sinusitis, that have conditions that we treat with medications are equally well treated by actually washing the areas of your body,” he says. “When you think about it … you wash your underarms. You have bidets. Why wouldn’t you wash a pretty important part of your body, your sinuses, in the same fashion?” In India and South Asia, using a neti pot cleanse the sinuses is as much a part of everyday life as brushing one’s teeth. In the Auvergne region of France, the rich volcanic mineral baths of Mont Dore provide the water for nasal irrigation, and it is reputed to cure allergies, asthma, and other respiratory ailments.

The inside of the nostrils and nasal passages are delicate, and dry winter air can create microscopic tears which allow viruses and bacteria to enter the body. This is the main reason people catch colds, and the reason for the myth that cold weather leads to the common cold. Using a neti pot can protect the delicate nasal passages and clear away dust, pollen, bacteria, and environmental pollutants. Neti pot enthusiasts report decreases in sinusitis, headaches, eye strain and allergy symptoms after a few sessions.

To clean your sinuses, fill the neti pot with warm water and non-iodized salt. About 1 teaspoon of salt to 1 liter of water is ideal. The cells of the body thrive in a salty environment, so omitting the salt with cause your nostrils to feel an unpleasant burning sensation. Lean forward to avoid swallowing the water, and breathe through your mouth to avoid a feeling of drowning. Turn your head to the side, insert the spout into the top nostril and relax as the warm water pours out of the bottom nostril. Take a few breaths, then repeat on the other side. The sensations will take a little getting used to, but most people find nasal irrigation a pleasant experience. You will feel an immediate reduction in sinus pressure, and the benefits accrue as you continue the neti pot practice.

Suppleness is a property of muscle. It means that muscle can easily accommodate the individuals ability to reach with great ease. Stretching is a whole body asset to your well-being as well as to your particular sport of choice. Even in today’s age of better health and fitness awareness, there is still a large population of fitness enthusiasts that do not possess the mindset necessary to achieve a total body, mind awareness of what it takes to achieve a healthy state of suppleness in their bodies. Stretching is a pleasurable experience. That pleasurable experience is limited to a select few individuals who know how to derive the maximum benefit of their reaching effort because they become one with the stretching muscle or muscle group at that moment. To become one with your anatomy means to have a conscious sense of relaxing into your stretch with a total focus on the elastic sensation you are feeling at that moment.

Stretching is like a relationship, the most important factor is the connection between you and your significant unique anatomy. How you interpret yourself as either tight or loose is a purely subjective experience.I have experienced that flexibility in how you choose to adapt to the daily stress of living plays a significant role in how your anatomy reacts to your current state of thinking about yourself as a human being. If you are tight and rigid in your character then you might possibly be the same way in your anatomy. There are many stretching techniques out there but without being tuned in to the sensation of your muscle-fascial tightness you will not know how to get the best of your reaching energy.

Each individual has their own dynamic reaching potential. The saran wrap in your body is known as fascia. It is your connective tissue foundation that holds every organ, nerve, blood vessel, and muscle in place. The saran wrap in one individual is tighter than another. So what is the real benefit to all this mindset I speak about. Stretching not only increases the elastic energy of muscle, it brings a cerebral state of well-being to your nervous system. Stretching is a form of meditation in which you are able to tune down the frequency of stressed muscles to a level that resonates relaxation throughout your entire being.Try the following stretch for your hamstrings, the muscle group that runs from the bottom of your posterior hip bone down toward the back of the top of the knee.The saran wrap also envelops the hamstrings and further descends past the knee joint right down into the heel and the bottom portion of the foot. This is an anatomical position of tissue many lay people are not aware of but plays a significant role in getting the best elastic potential from your effort.

Place your right leg upon a chair or table, preferably at the level of your navel. Reach forward by bending at the waist, keeping your knee slightly bent. Notice where you initially cannot go any further, this is the innate protective mechanism known as the stretch reflex. Now breathe in through your nose and then exhale as you continue the downward extension force and hold 10-15 seconds using 50% of your maximum effort. When you repeat this motion, this time attempt to bring your toes towards your knee and notice this different sensation. This is because you have influenced the fascial attachment from the bottom of the foot. You will notice a greater tension sensation but it becomes a highly relevant factor in achieving the best out of your stretch. Release your downward reaching tension and notice how relaxed the tissue is starting to feel. Zen means to meditate. Meditation means to be in non-attachment to your surroundings and your worldly concerns. In this stretch you are one with the muscle and its fascial attachment you are stretching. When you are stretching you just stretch so that the outcome produces not only a new lengthening potential but a sense of inner peace to your entire nervous system.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Henry Roth, DC began his career as a kinesiotherapist at a V.A hospital working with disabled veterans for 16 years. Within that time frame he studied the art of Swedish massage with a blind physical therapist and progressed thru several bodywork therapy certifications. He was a US Olympic team massage therapist at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Canada. In 1991 he became an apprentice to a master physical therapist at Carnegie Hall, NYC working with the classical musicians and dancers and their overuse syndromes. He currently holds workshops at AMTA and private facilities in the Muscle Normalization techniques which utilizes the principles of PNF and Muscle Energy techniques. He has also design-patented a heated stone for application in hot stone massage.

Dr. Roth’s greatest passion is speaking in front of his fellow peers instructing them in several of his technique workshops and observing the immediate benefit to the therapists as they expel sounds of phenomenal relief in their own anatomy as a result of his demonstrated stretch applications.

You can reach Dr Roth via his web site: http://www.amtamembers.com/drhenryroth