Do you stand or sit for long periods of time throughout the day? A common symptom I see clients exhibit is lower back and hip pain. Without variations of movement your body can experience postural problems which can affect the lumbar spine, sacral, hips and feet. Other problems that may occur are freezing or seizing of the hip joints, tense hamstring and in some cases tight quads. Read More
At 34, I was a passenger in a new car that was side-swiped by a vehicle in the neighbouring lane, damaging the driver’s side door. The impact took us by surprise, but it wasn’t a significant impact — or so I thought. All I remember is my right elbow hitting the passenger door.
An hour later I was in the police station, giving a statement, when suddenly I started feeling severe shooting pain from the right side of my neck down into my hand. The doctor diagnosed me with whiplash and soft tissue damage throughout my back. I lived the next nine years in and out of pain. The pain was aggravated by poor posture, as I had a desk job and did little to no exercise. What I remember during the first two years after the accident, was that I would choose health over money any day. Read More
Sometime in your life you may have heard of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. To keep it simple and non-scientific the sympathetic nervous system is our fight or flight response. This part of the nervous system can induces stress, anxiety or states of depression. I think of it as never turning off the lights, electronics, and anything with power in the house. The parasympathetic nervous system on the other hand is our rest or digest system. When you meditate you are basically telling your body to relax or shift down to a lower gear like in a car or when you fall to sleep.
The objective of this post, is to show you as the reader how to do a quick meditation in order to relax your parasympathetic nervous system. Your focus is on your breath not any external influences. This easy meditation will teach you how to relieve stress in your body by consciously listening to yourself breath in and out. Most people I’ve encountered tell me that they can’t meditate because they can’t quiet their mind, or they don’t have enough time to commit to it, or they need to be more active and meditation is too slow for them. The purpose of meditation is to connect with your mind, body and spirit and by doing this you have to tune everything else out. Meditation slows your mind down relieving stress a major cause of anxiety and depression, which can lead to other forms of disease within the body. Meditation teaches you to listen to what your body needs amounts other things.