​Millions of people suffer from headaches each day. While there is an almost countless supply of medication for headaches, wouldn’t it be great to find a natural, long-lasting solution? Luckily, relief is not far from reach! In fact, it may lie on my massage table.
 
The main causes of a headache are stress, hormonal/chemical changes, trigger points, dehydration and neck misalignment. Massage has been proven in multiple studies to be an effective solution for these types of tension headaches, and even migraines. Massage is beneficial for multiple reasons:
 
1.) Regulates (some) Hormones: Massage has been shown to decrease levels of Cortisol (the stress hormone) and increase endorphins. This combination has proven to enhance a patient’s relaxation levels.
2.) Relieves muscle spasms and tension: Massage loosens tight muscles. Commonly included in these muscles are those that attach to the base of the skull, which is a major cause of tension headaches.
3.) Decreases Trigger point pain: Trigger points are areas of sensitive and tender tissue. The pain from these trigger points often travels to the neck and head. Massage has been proven to relieve this pain.
4.) Increases blood flow: Because massage decreases tension, blood flow is increased in effected areas and further reduces pain.
 
Call me today to make an appointment and take the next step to fewer headaches forever!

​In an age where desks jobs are common and people spend most of their days sitting, posture is often sacrificed. Bad posture causes a misalignment in the spine, which can be extremely painful.
 
While the results of bad posture can be challenging, it is possible to correct and can be relaxing to do so. Fortunately, massage is one type of therapy that can be effective in reversing the effects of bad posture.  Massage allows the muscles that have been tensed to loosen up and be restored. Massage is also a natural solution as opposed to inorganic methods. It allows your muscles to naturally reposition themselves to where they were supposed to be.
 
After massage, you will notice your muscles may no longer be sore, your joints will experience greater freedom and your pressure points will be relieved. But, this is not a short process. Bad posture is developed over a long period of unhealthy habits, which means it can take a combination of massage therapy and strengthening to ensure not only that your body has returned to a state of healthy posture, but also that it will remain this way.
 
If you are a victim of bad posture, call me to make an appointment today so that we can begin the process to helping you improve your posture and your lifestyle all at the same time!

​Stress is your brain’s way of telling your body that it needs to turn on power mode and kick things into high gear.  Stress can produce major benefits; it can make us faster, more alert and more focused on the task at hand, but we tend to ignore the fact that this stress is unnatural and our bodies are not built to handle it on a regular basis.
 
When you become stressed, you suddenly find yourself under much more pressure than when you’re relaxed, and your body must quickly switch in order to cope with this stress.   
 
High amounts of stress affect multiple parts of the body:
 
1.The Immune System

• When we become stressed, our body is immediately signaled to release hormones in order to help it cope. Among these hormones is cortisol, which tends to suppress the immune system and inflammatory pathways. This causes a person who is under major stress to become increasingly susceptible to infections and other illnesses.

2.The Respiratory System

• Stress causes us to breathe more quickly and heavily so that we can distribute more oxygen-rich blood throughout our body. This is not necessarily an issue for healthy individuals, but for those with asthma or other breathing-related issues, this could cause serious problems.

3.The Musculoskeletal System

• Our muscles inevitably tense up when we become stressed, which is natural. However, repeated muscle tension leads to aches and pains in the shoulders, neck and head, which very commonly lead to tension headaches. Therefore, the more a person stresses, the more likely he or she is to suffer from pains and headaches.

 
These are just a few of the many ways that stress can affect our body. With this in mind, it is extremely important to regularly take time for yourself and participate in activities that allow you to escape from your everyday routine and take you to your “happy place.” Breathing exercises and massage are also great ways to reduce the negative effects that stress can have on you.
 
Make an appointment with me today and we can talk more about ways to reduce and control your stress.

​Most of us are born with healthy muscles, but this does not mean that they will automatically remain healthy throughout our lives. Healthy muscles prevent us from becoming easily susceptible to injury, and allow us to continue enjoying everyday activities such as walking the dog, dancing, cooking and taking a walk on the beach.
 
It is up to us to make sure that our muscles get the attention they need in order to withstand the pressure we place on them for the duration of our lives. The best way to do this is through movement and exercise.
 
Exercising your muscles is the same thing as practicing an instrument every day, or learning a language. The more regularly you practice that skill, the stronger it gets, and the longer you will retain the knowledge of that skill.
 
Our muscles play a major role in moving our skeleton. They are the very reason we are able to get up from the chair to walk to the kitchen to grab a banana. But if their functions are not used to their full potential, they eventually stop working efficiently and become weak from a lack of activity. This is why exercise is crucial for the vitality of our muscles.
 
Even just a daily, moderate 30 minutes of activity to get your heart rate up and your blood flowing through your body properly is sufficient. The important thing to remember is that 1.) you should never push yourself past your limits, because this may actually be a detriment to your muscles, and 2.) you should include exercise as part of your daily routine in order to ensure your muscles help you get the most out of life.
 
If you are ever injured or in pain, I am here to help relieve that pain through massage therapy! Also, if you would like to know more about my thoughts on exercise and what it does for your body, I would love to help! Make an appointment today!

This may come as a shock to many, but the Sun actually can do great things for your body. Just like with everything else in life, if you absorb sunlight in moderation, it can do such great things for your body.

Sunlight helps reduce a person’s risk of colon and pancreatic cancer and helps treat skin diseases such as eczema, jaundice, psoriasis and acne. But most prominently, aside from all of this, studies have shown that sunlight strengthens your bones and therefore reduces your risk of arthritis. This is due to the existence of ultraviolet-B radiation in the sun’s rays. This radiation helps create a greater supply of Vitamin D in the body, which is the main contributor to enhanced bone strength. According to the author of the book, The Complete Book of Bone Health, Diane Schneider, MD, adults under the age of 70 need at least 600 International Units (IUS) of Vitamin D in order to have healthy bones, and adults over 70 require a minimum of 800 IUs of Vitamin D. Fortunately, studies have shown that just 30 minutes in the sun, wearing a bathing suit, can lead Caucasian individuals to absorb up to 50,000 IUs of Vitamin D, tanned individuals to absorb up to 30,000 IUS and dark skinned people to absorb up to 10,000 IUs. These numbers have been linked to an immense reduction in the risk of arthritis. It is important to remember that these goals can be achieved even with the use of sunscreen, which is important in order to block the harmful rays from causing things such as skin cancer.

As the summer is quickly coming to an end, make sure to do as many outdoor activities as possible with your friends and family to ensure that you’re soaking up all the Vitamin D that you can and having summer fun at the same time!

I can’t wait for your next massage session with me to hear about all the fun ways that you have been soaking up the last rays of summer sun, and about how much better your joints feel because of it!

It is summertime and the kids are out of school and looking for something fun to do. Your go-to solution to keep them entertained is to take them to an amusement park.
 
They love riding the roller coasters and seeing the attractions, and you love spending time with them and knowing that you have made them happy.  The great thing about amusement parks is that no matter how old you are, you always feel like a little kid when you’re there. You love riding the rides, eating the food and acting like a tourist even though you’ve been to that same amusement park dozens of times.
 
One thing not many people realize, though, is the amount of stress that a roller coaster can put of your body, especially on your neck. During a roller coaster ride, your body is experiencing 2G or two times the force of gravity. This means that if you weigh 150 pounds, for example, you would feel what it is like to be 300 pounds in normal gravity because of the amount of gravity pressing against you at the time. This puts immense stress on your body and causes your muscles to tense up in ways they are not used to. Additionally, as obvious as this may seem, roller coasters protect your torso with a seat strap, but leave your arms and legs flailing with the wind, which also puts great stress on those affected areas. None of this compares to the stress that is placed on your neck. Your neck has your head, which weighs approximately 11 pounds, to support. As the roller coaster shakes your body uncontrollably, and your head wobbles along with it, your neck muscles are forced to immediately adjust to compensate for all of the sudden movements. Your neck is burdened with the responsibility of resisting all of the motion so that your spine does not endure more jolting motion than it should. 
 
To prevent serious damage that can be caused by roller coaster, try keeping your eyes open and your head facing forward; this allows you to be better aware of future movements and speed up your reactions. I understand that the intense wind speeds and excitement during a roller coaster may stop this from being successful, so if you go on a roller coaster and feel sore the next day, you can always make an appointment with me, and I will be happy to loosen up those neck muscles for you with a massage.

It is very common for your exercise routine to cause problematic pain to your joints and muscles, especially when you get older. This is because as we age, exercise has a larger tendency to cause inflammation and damage our muscles.
 
A research study conducted by the Buck Institute found that massage therapy helps to reduce inflammation of the muscles that were damaged by exercise. The study also found that the pain relief brought by massage therapy is similar to that brought by anti-inflammatory medication. A press release issued by McMasters University, who partnered with the Buck Institute on this study, stated:
 
“Most athletes can testify to the pain-relieving, recovery-promoting effects of massage. Now there’s a scientific basis that supports booking a session with a massage therapist: On the cellular level massage reduces inflammation and promotes the growth of new mitochondria in skeletal muscle.”
 
If massage therapy was proven to work with athletes who use their muscles much more often and to a much higher capacity than the average person, then it is safe to say that it can be proven to work for just about anyone. The press release also explained some of the logistics for how the research was conducted by saying,
 
“The study involved the genetic analysis of muscle biopsies taken from the quadriceps of eleven young males after they had exercised to exhaustion on a stationary bicycle. One of their legs was randomly chosen for massage. Biopsies were taken from both legs prior to the exercise, immediately after 10 minutes of massage treatment and after a 2.5-hour period of recovery.”
 
The bottom line is that it has not only been scientifically proven, but also tested on professional athletes that massage therapy can do wonders to ease the pain caused by inflammation in the muscles post-workout. So, keep that gym membership but make sure to come see me for a massage right after!

Your desk job affects more than just your mental stress; it can also impact your body. Sitting for extensive periods of time each day causes more stress on our bodies than we realize. Human beings were not made to sit for as long as most of us tend to, and because of this, the muscles in our upper back, shoulders and upper arms are heavily affected, which can consequently disrupt our posture.

Our bodies are full of trigger points, and there are five specific groups of them within our upper back, shoulders and arms that can be impacted by your desk job.  A trigger point is defined as “a sensitive area of the body, stimulation or irritation of which causes a specific effect in another part, especially a tender area in a muscle that causes generalized musculoskeletal pain when over-stimulated.” The five groups include: scalenes, shoulder blade suspension muscles, rotator cuff muscles, upper arm muscles and spinal muscles.

Have you ever felt deep pains in areas such as your chest, shoulders, arms and even hands, and sought conventional therapy that was unsuccessful at treating your pain? That pain most likely did not come from the area where you felt the pain, but more likely came from the scalenes, which are a group of three small muscles on the side of the neck. Stress tension and bad posture (common effects of a desk job) can cause pain in the scalenes.

Our shoulder blades have 17 muscles that are attached, each with the possibility to hold trigger points which result in irritation caused by bad posture or extensive sitting. Our upper back muscles also have multiple impacted trigger points. The rhomboid muscles attach to several vertebrae of the upper back and to the inner edge of the shoulder blade. Trigger points in the rhomboids can often lead to an achy pain along the inner edge of the shoulder blade. To prevent rhomboid pain, limit any habitual tension that keeps the shoulders up, because this stimulates the formation of trigger points in muscles. The serratus posterior superior muscles attach to the spine like the rhomboids, but they don’t attach to the shoulder blade. When these muscles are affected, you will feel pain under the shoulder blade, most commonly.

The shoulder itself has up to 20 muscles, each vulnerable to strain. The shoulder is one of the most hardworking parts of the body, because we use it even when we don’t realize it. The trigger points that are located in the four rotator cuff muscles are the most frequent cause of shoulder pain, loss of upper arm motion, and clicking or catching in the joint. The supraspinatus muscle, located in a pocket in the top of the shoulder blade also has multiple trigger points that can be affected by stress.

Your upper body takes on a huge amount of stress from your desk job; it’s not only your brain that is affected. The best treatment is to come to me, tell me exactly where you are feeling pain, and let me help reduce your suffering.

Massage is only part of the equation to living your best life. While a massage can be beneficial for reducing stress, reducing pain, relaxing muscles and overall helping you lead your best life, it alone cannot solve all of your problems. It is very important that you supplement a therapy session with other stress-reducing activities that you enjoy.

We tend to become so consumed in our everyday lives that we forget how important it is to take a minute and enjoy some of the amazing things this life has to offer.

Nature has always been my escape from life’s stressors, and the place I can turn to for true relaxation. I love anything that can be done outdoors, especially hiking, kayaking and camping. There is something about walking through trees, breathing in the fresh air and embracing the sound of crashing waves, rustling leaves or chirping birds that I find so refreshing.  

If outdoor activities are not for you, there is an almost infinite amount of other possibilities that you may enjoy. Reading, going to the gym, watching your favorite Netflix series or simply taking an hour out of your day to talk to someone who is special to you can make you feel better than you imagine.

​No matter what you enjoy, remember to take the time for yourself because even the highest priorities will not be done efficiently if we are pushing our brains and bodies to the max and feeling overwhelmed much of the time. So, I highly encourage you to stop what you’re doing and take that much-needed time for yourself to de-stress and do what you love the most.