Category Archives: body

Why massage, yoga, shaking medicine, and movement make you feel so good

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One of the coolest things I’ve learned in my first two weeks of massage school, besides that I actually know something from my years of experiencing bodywork and that my hands love connecting with people, is about fascia.

If you don’t know, fascia is the name for a type of connective tissue, a thin membrane. It is labeled superficial when it is right under the skin and deep when it surrounds, binds, and separates muscle. It’s really all the same — these terms just differentiate the location.

The semi-transparent membrane on an uncooked chicken breast is fascia.

Here’s a new word: thixotropism, from the Greek for touch and turning. It refers to the fascia’s ability to change from one state to another. Fascia has two states: a thin fluid (sol) and a thicker gel. In its thin state, it is fluid, pliant, and elastic, offering a wider range of movement. In its gel state, it is tougher, more inflexible, and restricts movement.

When the body is out of alignment, such as when the head is jutting forward, the fascia supporting those straining neck muscles become more gel-like, stiffer, and supportive.

When you feel stiff, it’s because the fascia is in its gel state.

Through touch, exercise, and/or stretching, fascia “melts” from gel to sol and becomes looser, more flexible, and elastic. This allows the muscles to be manipulated in massage, increases joint range of motion, and frees the body from restrictions in movement.

When you move fluidly and freely in your body, your fascia are in the sol state. And of course, that feels fantastic.

This is at least one piece of the physiology of why it feels so good to get a massage, do yoga, warm up your muscles through work or exercise, and do the movements of TRE and shaking medicine.

They literally transform stiffness into fluidity.

Conversely, this is why it feels bad to sit for prolonged periods, and why we need to stretch after the stillness of sleeping.

If you want to feel free in your body, move, shake — and get massages.

A reader shares his TRE/shaking medicine experience

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In case you don’t read the comments on this blog but are interested in the trauma releasing exercises and shaking medicine, I’m posting a long comment from a reader as a regular post in order to reach more people.

Thank you so much, Richard, for sharing your experience.

Thank you, David Berceli, for bringing the world TRE.

Thank you, Bradford Keeney, for writing and sharing so much about shaking medicine.

I love the fluid body.

Hey Mary –

Been doing TRE for a few months now (think I commented here before possibly), and have taken a free workshop with one of the London trainers. I also notice I can allow it to come on at will, even standing up – the TRE trainer likened it to a hosepipe, and you can inhibit/disinhibit the flow, e.g. as if you were putting your foot on/off it. The explanation given was that humans generally walk around in constant inhibit-mode, and once you’ve done TRE a few times you gain the flexibility to allow it through. It took me about 4-6 weeks of daily practice to get to that point personally.

Btw, in terms of progress… it’s been plateaus with spurts of growth. Some things have changed drastically, others havent changed yet. The tension in my body has changed, and “getting stressed” now feels different in terms of the intensity and location of the tension that arises in my body.

I notice it never quite goes “how I want”… always how it wants. Some parts just shake for weeks, over and over, the same pattern, then suddenly shift in one session. Sometimes I think some things shifted and it comes back to that location for more, and sometimes new muscles start going at it that had previously been holding.

From what I understand TRE is a wildly individual process; very much a function of your personal trauma, your personal locations of chronic tension, and what emotions are entangled up with all of that. For me it’s very much about the abdomen, chest, and anxiety. For some people it’s depression, anger, etc.

What I do know for sure is a) it’s the only thing that gets me “unstressed” daily on a physiological level (and I’ve tried a lot), and b) I’ve gradually become much more the person I want to be; the person I feel I truly am; since starting with TRE.

Hope you and others are finding similar benefits!
Thanks
Richard

I notice that Richard started out with the TRE exercises and has transitioned to shaking medicine. My distinction is when you can stand up and shake at will, TRE has become shaking medicine.

I have a strong hunch that the vast majority of people need to learn TRE first, to learn how to allow shaking to happen. Once your body learns to trust the trembling and lets it move into various parts besides the legs (and of course that will take different time periods for different people), try it with your legs flat. Try it standing up. Try it sitting.

I agree that it’s like a pipeline you can turn on and off at will.

Eloquently said, Richard, that you’ve become much more the person you want to be, the person you truly are. This is truly energy medicine.

Thinking heats the brain up — cooling it aids sleep

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Saw a fascinating new finding in Time that cooling the brain helps insomniacs sleep.

That run-away monkey mind — doing frontal lobe activity such as planning — can keep people awake at night.

A psychiatrist was curious if this brain activity generated heat, and if so, if that was making sleep more difficult.

The body’s circadian clock, which regulates sleep and wakefulness, keeps the body at its warmest during the day and starts to lower body temperature in the evening to help us doze off. For those with insomnia, however, researchers found that the extra brain activity was keeping the brain too hot to sleep.

When Buysse’s group gave 12 insomniacs a cap to wear that contained circulating water at cool temperatures, they were able to get them to fall asleep almost as easily as people without sleep disorders: using the caps, the insomniacs took about 13 minutes to fall asleep, compared with 16 minutes for the healthy controls, and they slept for 89% of the time they were in bed, which was similar to the amount of time the controls spent asleep.

The article did not mention the possibility of training insomniacs to manage their minds. I mean, a person can pay attention to their inner dialogue (i.e., think), or they can  focus their attention on their breathing. It’s hard to do both at the same time. When attention wanders (usually to become literally “lost in thought,” as soon as you become aware that you’re thinking, bring your attention back to the breath. (Okay, so this is Meditation 101.)

The article didn’t mention that yawning cools the brain. This article suggests you can cool the forehead to stop yawning (and I presume, cool the brain and fall asleep). You know, get a gel-filled ice pack out of the freezer, wrap it in a towel, and put it across your forehead.

Inhaling through a rounded or “O” mouth and exhaling through the nose could be helpful as well. (Thanks to Susan Gobin for suggesting that on Facebook!)

Still, it might be nice to have one of those cooling caps to put on!

Anusara yoga’s revelatory spiral; trailer arriving my first day of massage school

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For the past week, I’ve been taking some yoga classes at Castle Hill Fitness, courtesy of a one-week pass I unexpectedly was given back in February. Most of my yoga training has been by Iyengar-certified teachers, and I like that emphasis on alignment because alignment just happens to be one of my major issues in this body, and I can use yoga as an awareness practice instead of just keeping fit.

At Castle Hill, I’ve been taking Anusara classes. If you don’t know, Anusara yoga is an offshoot of Iyengar yoga. Anusara yoga’s founder, John Friend, was a senior Iyengar teacher until he parted ways with B.K.S. Iyengar and created Anusara yoga.

Anusara is not that different from Iyengar yoga. In fact, it’s pretty similar but has Universal Principles of Alignment that everything is based on.

(If you’re interested in seeing a visual aid that groups the types of yoga, click here to see Alison Hinks’ awesome graphic, Kissing Cousins: The Wheel of Yoga. You’ll see that Iyengar and Anusara are right next to each other, way on the opposite site from Ashtanga and power yoga.)

These classes have challenged me in a really good way. My deep lower abs are still a bit sore from classes a week ago, and I’m feeling my shoulders and hips in a different way.

I’ve done Warrior 1 in nearly every class and gotten better at it. It takes a lot of strength and balance for me.

Most exciting, I finally got “the spiral”  that is a signature of Anusara yoga. Got it in my body, that is. Felt a shift. It was a revelation, widening the sacrum area, the back of the second chakra, creating a nice energetic opening.

Since this is a part of my body that has had troubles, it was awesome. How can I incorporate this into my life? 

I don’t know how to maintain it in various poses, so I’ll continue to take Anusara classes. My teacher today, Brigitte, steered me toward the Anusara Teacher Training manual, which I’ve ordered. I’m looking forward very much to reading about the principles of alignment and learning what I can learn from a book while my body learns experientially.

Also, Brigitte is beautiful, with the buffest body of any white-haired woman you’ll ever see. I’m so pleased to take yoga from a teacher with white hair who knows what she’s doing. She read a Mary Oliver poem at the beginning of class today with a message that served the class. I loved that.

Yogis can show the world what it looks like to age with grace.

~~

My trailer should be here Monday morning! I’ve been looking at cork and Marmoleum samples. Decided not to do radiant heated floors until I’ve lived in the trailer through a winter and seen how cold it really gets.  Contacted my handyman Ian and emailed him a list of things to do. Requested that the electricity be turned on — apparently can’t happen until Wednesday…

Still need to research air conditioners. Lot to learn there. Metal skins, condensation, ventilation, and so on…

It just so happens, with all the waiting for the title and then for flood waters to recede over the last few months, that my trailer is arriving on my very first day of massage school! I don’t even know what meaning to assign to that coincidence in the big scheme of things!  On a practical level, I can’t be in two places at once.

I don’t want to miss any of my massage education, but I think I need to be there when the trailer arrives. I’ll email the school and let them know and plan to get there as soon as I can.

Hello, major life changes. Good to see you! 

Don’t miss out on this new healing modality!

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Have you tried the new two-second ultimate healing? I’ve somehow missed out on a few of the healing modalities it replaces.

So… I’m thinking about doing this, although the price is a bit steep…

They say that laughter is the best medicine!

But…hmmm. Maybe I could become a practitioner of the two-second ultimate healing! Step right up, folks!

What you need to know about standing desks

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To counteract the ill effects of sedentary (from the Latin sedentārius: sitting) jobs, manufacturers are beginning to offer standing desks. Actually, they aren’t new. According to Wikipedia, standing desks were popular in the 18th and 19th centuries in the homes of the rich.

Furthermore, some of the world’s most talented writers wrote/write while standing. We’re talking Hemingway, Nabokov, Lewis Carroll,  and Thomas Wolfe.

Novelist Philip Roth, a great living writer, stands at a lectern to write and paces while he thinks, claiming to walk half a mile for every page he writes.

Who knows? Maybe writing is the one thing they did differently that helped them manifest their genius. It certainly seems to be better for the brain than sitting (see my previous post mentioning that movement of the sacrum pumps cerebro-spinal fluid, which nourishes the brain).

Perhaps before making the switch, you’re wondering how many more calories you would burn by standing instead of sitting. Here’s a calculator where you enter your weight and hours worked to find out the extra calories burned in a workday at a standing desk versus sitting. I’d burn 221 more calories per day. That’s very significant. I could lose a few extra pounds and then eat a little more!

Hmm. Could desk jobs be the real reason for the obesity problem in our society?

Adapting to a standing desk may take a week or so. Your feet may hurt from standing all day. You may be extra tired at first. Some people who’ve made the switch swear by a cushioned mat, like this writer, who had an adjustable IKEA Jerker desk (unfortunately discontinued) and switched it to standing mode. She writes about adjusting to it, which took her three days, and later using a mat and a footrest.

Of course, the least expensive way to create a standing desk is to simply put boxes, crates, or shelves on top of your regular desk and arrange your computer on them. You can create different levels for your monitor and keyboard if you like.

Personally, I’d put my big monitor at eye level and place an external keyboard at elbow level or slightly lower.

IKEA sells the least expensive standing desk that I found online, the Fredrik workstation for $119, shown below. There’s a wider version for $149. Assembly is required, of course.

Then there are the IKEA hackers — people who repurpose IKEA products to make what they want. Here’s an inexpensive conversion using PVC pipe.

Here’s another hack, the wide standing desk.

This article shows a couple of adjustable-height desks that allow users to flip a switch to adjust the height. This sounds great, for $700+.

Finally, here is a website devoted to creating your own treadmill desk. If you already have a treadmill, apparently you can do this for as little as $39, a significant savings over buying the top-of-the-line Steelcase Walkstation at $4,399, shown below.

Tips to counteract a sedentary job

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If you have a desk job that requires a lot of sitting and you’re concerned about the health risks now being associated with prolonged sitting, here are some things you can do that require no expense:

  • Use a timer to remind you to stand up and stretch and walk around every 30 or 60 minutes. Google “timer” to find a virtual timer you like. Aim for a few minutes of non-sitting movement every hour.
  • Find ways to walk more: Place your phone away from your desk, so you have to stand up and walk to it to make or answer calls. Use a small cup for your drinking water or beverage of choice (or fill your regular cup partway), and when it’s empty, get up to refill it. Don’t use the restroom that’s closest to your office — walk to a more distant one. Instead of emailing colleagues, walk to their offices to talk, when feasible.
  • Breathe fully and deeply, using your abdomen, moving your ribs front, sides, and back. Do 5 of these breaths, then return to normal breathing.
  • Take a yoga class on your lunch hour. Or do desk yoga (Google “rodney yee 4 minute”  to see videos of Rodney Yee doing seated sequences). You can evendo cat-cow ever so often while sitting: curl your spine forward and back a few times, exhaling when you curl forward, inhaling when you arch your back.
  • Close your door or put on your headphones, turn on your iPod or a music video, and dance!
  • Fidget and wiggle. Especially move your legs.

When you’re not at work, avoid sitting as much as you can:

  • If you drive to work and your car has no lumbar support, place two tennis balls inside a piece of pantyhose with a knot in the middle and at the ends. Put it behind your lumbar vertebrae and press into it as you drive. It will feel great — and you’ll know when you’ve had enough.
  • If you watch television in the evenings or on weekends, stand, use your treadmill, or bounce on an exercise ball while watching. If you sit, get up and move during commercials.
Sit on an exercise ball at work instead of a desk chair. It strengthens your core, improves balance, improves flexibility, burns more calories, and requires you to use your legs. You can get them for under $20. Get a 75 cm for the most height. 

All of these tips can make a difference, helping to lower blood sugar, triglycerides, cholesterol, and waist size; improve posture, breathing, and metabolism; and decrease back pain.

“If there’s a fountain of youth, it is probably physical activity,” says Yancey, noting that research has shown benefits to every organ system in the body.

Next: standing desks.

Graphic showing why prolonged sitting is unhealthy

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Here’s a graphic showing the health risks of prolonged sitting, which I’ve blogged about before:

Besides the reasons shown here and described in the NY Times article link, here are a couple of more reasons why prolonged sitting creates dis-ease and why movement is good for you:

  1. The lymphatic system aids the immune system in destroying pathogens and filtering waste, and it delivers nutrients, oxygen, and hormones to the cells. It has no central pump, like the circulatory system. Instead, the lymphatic system depends on muscular movement, breathing, and gravity to move lymph throughout the body. Frequent movement is critical to move lymph. 
  2. Walking moves the sacrum, which acts as a pump for cerebro-spinal fluid, the fluid that surrounds the brain and spinal cord. Cerebro-spinal fluid nourishes, removes toxins, and cushions the brain and spinal cord. 

Next, tips if you have a job that requires sitting.

Ecstatic shaking dance

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On Sunday morning, I was driving to Castle Hill and dancing in my car as I drove. On the way, I realized I didn’t want to do yoga — I wanted to dance. So I drove to the Austin Yoga School and danced with Ecstatic Dance of Austin.

It was a homecoming of sorts. I started doing ecstatic dance (Sweat Your Prayers, 5 rhythms, Gabrielle Roth) in 1995. That group evolved into Body Choir, whom I danced with, while continuing with 5 rhythms when available.

A few years ago (four? five?), I started feeling conflicted about going to dance, any kind of so-called ecstatic dance. When I went, my body didn’t want to dance, it wanted yoga! I felt some attachment to people in the community of dancers and kept going for a while, but my attendance tapered off. I felt less and less joy at dance and finally I stopped going. It felt unsafe, it was too crowded, and the community was too political. And my body really wanted yoga.

I entered into a peaceful time of pulling in my energy, a time of healing my body. I did more yoga, committed to a home practice, and later trained as a teacher. I began meditating. I did two rounds of NLP training. I began seeking and finding great healers — starting with Nina Davis doing cranio-sacral therapy and Patrice Sullivan doing acupuncture and myofascial release (plus Patrice’s unique magic!).

I had NUCCA chiropractic, which got my head straight on my spine, which unwound my scoliosis. That was awesome. Then because I was still having pain in my left sacro-iliac joint, I found Dr. Chandler Collins for applied kinesiology and Bo Boatwright, DC, another creative and effective bodyworker, and I began working with Fran Bell this year.

I learned that I had probably had a birth injury to my S2 nerve. Maybe that’s where the scoliosis came from. And the SI joint pain could be related to the IBS-like symptoms I had before I went gluten-free several years ago. It’s complicated.

Anyway, my body is feeling pretty good these days. I still have some aches and pains, but is that not common at age 58? I don’t know! I notice stiffness when I’ve been still for a while and then stand up and move. It takes longer to warm up and move fluidly than it used to. But I get there!

What’s new is that my left and right sides are more balanced than ever, in body and brain and energy field.

While I was away from dance, lots of change happened. Body Choir became Dancing Together, then Body Choir came back. (I’m not sure I have the story straight.) Then Ecstatic Dance of Austin started up, and when Lakshmi Jackman was telling me about it in Whole Foods, I started thinking about returning to dance. I got a “no” a couple of Sundays ago after meditating, but I knew a “yes” was coming.

It felt good to be back in a large dance studio with a sprung floor, plenty of space, and rhythmic music. Also, no puddles of sweat on the floor! It felt safe, and the energy felt really clean.

I had changed so much over the time I was gone, I needed to get acquainted with my dancing body again. I did some shaking (yes, I can shake while standing now and can induce shaking when I want to) and found that my dancing edge was surfing between voluntary and involuntary movements, letting the shaking arise where I needed to shake, and then surrendering to the beat in dance.

Several times I felt energetic rushes of pure ecstasy move from my center out! Chills, thrills, goosebumps, GUS (God Universe Spirit) bumps — totally that howling-at-the-moon feeling of abandoned joy.

It was a real breakthrough for me, a joy, a homecoming.

I’ll return.

Meditation and creativity

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A lot has been written about how the practice of meditation helps people become calmer and more centered. Here’s a link to an article about how it can help people become more creative.

…can intelligence and creativity really be as “neuroplastic” as memory and motor skills? Intelligence, much less creativity, has not been conclusively linked with any one area in the brain. The closest analogues are the so-called executive functions, brain systems involved in planning, integrating of sensory information, and abstract thinking, that are thought to be concentrated in the prefrontal cortex. There is, says Aronson, a way to improve executive functioning, and it’s the very same practice prescribed by Alexander: mindfulness meditation.

I particularly liked the description of creativity:

It involves the ability to make unexpected connections, to move fluidly among concepts, to consolidate past memories, ideas, or impressions and arrive at new insights.