There are so many ways to take care of yourself, especially in this hot summer heat wave but what if you are injured, paralyzed or dealing with a serious health challenge, can water therapy help? The answer is yes! While in the water we are more buoyant and able to maneuver without the added weight of gravity pressing down on us. Especially when there is the need to rehabilitate, water or hydrotherapy is a reliable way to do the work in awakening our brains, nervous and musculoskeletal systems, in fact, all of our 11 systems that make up the human bodily functioning but that’s not just for us!

Many years ago I took my beloved Shembala, an English Black Lab for hydrotherapy to aid and improve her elbow dysplasia.  By the time we became aware of this condition it was too late to attempt surgery.  That is often done when the dysplasia is in the hip but elbows are another story all together and if a surgical intervention is to be considered it needs to be while they are still pups.  The results were impressive.  Shembala regained much mobility and although we could never get rid of this condition, we improved her ability to function and live life to her fullest while we had her in our lives.  And now here’s another story of a 6 year old cat named Nazzaning.  To learn more about this wonderful success story of Nazzaning who after an accident suffered with a paralyzed front paw and quickly rehabilitated the use of his arm and paw/fingers with hydrotherapy. To learn more, click here.

Working in the complimentary alternative medical field (CAM), I too often meet clients that want to be fixed. Something has happened in their life dynamics, they’re not happy, the pain becomes chronic and then all the justifications as to why this has happened develop. They’ve run the course of different disciplines still looking for an answer, is there one? The answer is yes and there’s something you can do about it!

“When you get injured, you limit movement to stop the pain. Once the pain is gone, though, you don’t start to move as if you were never injured — the brain still remembers the injury and protects the area,” says Elgelid. Such compensation can lead to further problems. “Unless you retrain those movement abilities, you limit yourself more and more.”

Our problems are not always from an injury but often from a lack of awareness as we move through our careers or sports passions, locked in habitual patterns of thinking and moving that limit ourself and lead to these debilitating concerns. Sometimes it’s simply that we’re not functioning or playing as well as we know we can.  How do we maneuver through this hurdles when the standard and honored approaches don’t do the trick? To learn more and find out what you can do now to improve how you live life so that you can do what you want when you want, click here!

This is really a must! Learn about how we learn and can reprogram ourselves to achieve our real desires.  Thoughts, imagination, movement and creating new patterns, for more information click here.

For those that live with Fibromyalgia there is hope!  When integrating a variety of complimentary alternative medicine (CAM) approaches there is considerable improvement for those living with this condition.  When a combination of CAM approaches are integrated on a weekly basis there is significant improvement in ease of function, reduction of pain and a greater sense of self.  One of my colleagues, Eveline Wu, GCFP worked with clients who alternated Feldenkrais (R) Functional Integration (R) sessions with massage, Reiki, hyperbaric oxygen therapy and Chiropractic specifically of the C1-C2 area and many had marked improvements in their symptoms.  I would gather that CranioSacral Therapy would also be another wonderful approach to integrate.  The one thing that impressed me the most was that it was essential that each of these sessions happen in a close time frame so that the benefits could integrate into the next modality for optimum learning and improvement of symptoms.  Diet is another focus to be addressed.

For more information to find a Feldenkrais practitioner in your area contact the Guild at www.Feldenkraisguild.com.  There are hundreds of practitioners throughout the world too!  To learn more, click here.

We all know that best intentions don’t always lead to desired results, and when they don’t, who’s to blame? We are too willing to give our power over to someone we consider an authority to teach us how to do something but are we really listening, sensing and feeling what we are doing? Too often the answer is no and then when we incur a problem we are frustrated, angry and sometimes resentful to try something new. We become jaded and either don’t explore other possibilities especially if immediate results aren’t guaranteed or we jump to the next trend in hopes it will be the magic bullet that fixes the problem! Thereafter, it’s the doctors office for a diagnosis and often a prescription to try and fix us or allay the problem we created for ourselves with the best intentions of improving our dynamic. So the question is do our actions best serve our intentions?

A little knowledge goes a long way and if we took a little more time to investigate and really sense and feel if what we are doing is the best approach we could stave off a lot of the compiling issues we create for ourselves. Well, good judgment is a by-product of bad judgment! How quickly do we learn from our experiences to make better calls that serve our intentions?

Stuart McGill, professor of Spine Biomechanics at the University of Waterloo, Canada has outlined a healthy, balanced approach to improve and maintain the concept of true “Core Stability” without straining, damaging and pushing our spines to the point of trauma. Have you ever heard of, it’s how you do what you do that matters, and “less is best”? What is your intention, to strengthen, flexibility, how about both! Think about saying yes and no at the same time! How easy is it to drink and talk at the same time, not very, so why is it so difficult to understand that there are times when we are saying yes and no in our musculoskeletal organization that compromise our actions and over time create a lot of the aches and pains, bulging, herniated, slipped disks that we as a multitasking, driven culture experience. It’s more about what we are doing and how we are going about it. Here is a site from the New York Times that dispels the myths of the latest trend of core exercises. To read more, click here.

So how do we quiet down, slow down to better listen to our bodies, to all of us? It isn’t about being a rag doll, lazy or without desire, but rather how to listen to our inner voice, our gut and mind-body to improve the areas where we feel stuck.

The Feldenkrais Method ® of Awareness Through Movement ® classes are a sure way to improve your life, enabling you to have more freedom in thoughts, movements and returning to the activities you may have felt you can’t do. If you want to, there is a way to restore your wellbeing to be able to have more ease, comfort, balance and vitality. To learn more read the Cover Story article in the Women’s Magazine here.

The importance of balance and how without it the quality of our lives is in jeopardy.  We’ve all learned of seniors who have fallen, broken their hip and their life is never the same.  What about athletes, performers and the average fellow maybe out to walk their dog or trip over the curb or jump out of the way of a turning car that is oblivious to the surroundings.  Being agile and balanced is essential and there’s a clear and effortless path to maintain it and restore it!  To learn more about the latest scientific study on balance and The Feldenkrais Methof (R) read more here.

All to often we are looking for the quick fix, take a pill, have somebody else do it to us so we don’t have to be responsible. There are so many reliable sources that share how this approach is dangerous. It is our body, mind and spirit and it is up to us to be more present and aware as to how to change things for the better. Here is an informative article/blog from Newsweek that shares a wonderful approach derived from the Feldenkrais Method (R) call Sounder Sleep (R). To learn more about how you can improve your life, get more restful sleep and not have to rely on another drug with all the side effects, read more here.

This is an interview with Dr. Michael Merzenich, neuroscientist and Anat Baniel noted Feldenkrais  (R) practitioner who has continued the evolution of organic learning, creating her own dynamic approach working with children with brain damage.  It is all about how our brains work and how to learn!   This is a must for anyone who wants to enjoy more of life, to be able to do what you want to do no matter what you age or issues.  You can learn and achieve beyond your limiting beliefs!  To learn more click here.

Research shows that “More than 10 million people in the U.S. suffer from TMJ problems, and 80% of them are women.” The symptoms range from mild discomfort to debilitating pain, including migraines and too often develop into chronic pain issues and destruction of tissue.

Current treatment options usually consist of splint therapy, attempting to mechanically correct the alignment of the jaw but in truth do not change your pattern of grinding and bruxism but only guard your teeth from further grinding, clenching and more deterioration. Then there’s sedatives, massage therapy, as well as various exercises to reduce the mental and physical stress levels of patients. And then, surgery, a last resort, irreversible and often unsuccessful due to never addressing the habitual musculo-skeletal tension and neurological patterns.

Dr. Frank Wildman, founder and creator of The Intelligent Body TMJ Program has developed a simple, effective and non-intrusive self-care alternative that complements traditional treatment options. What if it were possible to move beyond this troubling and painful dilemma! Would you be interested?

The Intelligent Body TMJ program contains 5 lessons based on the Feldenkrais Method® and uses a unique understanding of human neurology to reduce chronic tension in the jaw, face, neck and upper back. Each lesson is 10 minutes long. They are gentle, specific and ingenious movements that enable you to learn how to “recruit” and develop new and more efficient ways of employing your muscles. You can alter longstanding inefficient habits that use too much tension and stress and learn how to develop more functional and healthy patterns of movement.

To learn more about Dr. Frank Wildman and his approaches click here.