Cheer Up…It’s January! --Somatic Remedies for S.A.D.

24!

No, it’s not a reference to the TV show about Jack Bauer.  I’m talking about the snowstorm of Dec. 27, 2012 where, at our home anyway, we received about 24 inches of mostly powdery snow.

It’s that time of year where the sun is at the lowest angle to the horizon, and the days are still short (but getting longer!).  With the diminished sunlight, many folks experience Seasonal Affective Disorder.  We’ve all heard about it—when you become depressed because there is less sunlight during the winter months.

Natural Cures for Depression

There are some very effective remedies for seasonal depression.  Here are a few of our favorites:

• The Mayo Clinic suggests these easy and natural remedies for S.A.D.:

·         Make your environment sunnier and brighter. Open blinds, trim tree branches that block sunlight or add skylights to your home. Sit closer to bright windows while at home or in the office.

·         Get outside. Take a long walk, eat lunch at a nearby park, or simply sit on a bench and soak up the sun. Even on cold or cloudy days, outdoor light can help — especially if you spend some time outside within two hours of getting up in the morning.

·         Exercise regularly. Physical exercise helps relieve stress and anxiety, both of which can increase seasonal affective disorder symptoms. Being more fit can make you feel better about yourself, too, which can lift your mood.

·         Vitamin D3 can also help with S.A.D. symptoms.  Up here in the northern latitudes, short days, and cold weather make it nearly impossible to get adequate levels of Vitamin D from sunshine alone.  What many reports don’t mention is that adding Vitamin D3 to your daily regimen should really start in September, before your levels (and the sunshine) really start to decline.

• Bodywork for Depression?

“It is well known that chronic pain induces depression, anxiety, and a reduced quality of life.”*  In addition to our common sense notion that pain and emotion are related, there have also been quite a few studies showing specific brain chemistry and nervous system changes as a result of chronic pain. 

Depression and anxiety are frequently more amenable to physical touch than verbal therapies.  It has been shown that a multitude of hands-on techniques can help release deeply held or repressed emotions.

Bodywork can also help release some of the toxins that have built up during the short winter days.  (Watch this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FtSP-tkSug for one possible explanation how toxins make our fascia sticky/fuzzy and how movement helps to lubricate the fascia and purge those toxins.)

One of the basic tenets of Rolfing^® Structural Integration is working with the fascia (connective tissue) of your body. Rolfers encourage you to meet your Rolfer’s contact from your inside (core, emotions, movement patterns) to your outside (skin).  This allows you to become more aware of your body, while less focussed on your mind, anxieties, and emotional upsets.  Rolfing Structural Integration is a specific kind of contact (with varying degrees of pressure) that enlivens your tissue, and results in freedom from chronic or acute pain, standing taller, moving with more ease.

Physiologically, there are other explanations for bodywork’s positive impact on depression.  A good discussion of these effects can be found at http://www.integrative-healthcare.org/mt/archives/2007/09/bodyworks_thera.html.)

So if the short days, lack of physical exercise, or the 24 inches of snow have got you feeling a little blue, give Rolfing a try.  (And if the 24 inches of snow has got you excited about hitting the slopes, check out our recent article: Ski Better, SkiStronger.)

Join Robert January 9^th, 2013 at 5:30pm at Healthy Living Market Learning Center for a class designed to help you re-connect with your body, while allowing your mind to catch up to the vitality in your body.  In addition to exercises & explorations, you will also get to experience how Rolfing^® bodywork can improve your mood, energy, and sense of well-being.

*Reference:  Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology re: study at University of Toyama, Japan and http://structuralintegration.info/2008/08/25/what-does-structural-integration-have-to-do-with-emotions-this-time-with-detail/

Ski Better, Ski Stronger!

Stand up.  Sit down.  With ski/snowboard season upon us, that remains a powerful mantra that can help you return to the most simple joys of moving your body.

Skiing/snowboarding is both simple and complex.  It's simple because it can be as easy as  "stand up, sit down."  It's complex because it requires a very active and aware presence of your core, as well as your continuous orientation to where you are on the mountain.

The "stand up, sit down" mantra (thanks to my friend, Tyler Gould for this) works like this: the muscles you engage when you move to "stand up" will force you to push into the mountain, and thus, you'll turn. The movements required to "sit down" will allow you to rest into a more aerodynamic position so that your body can enjoy your speed and fluidly absorb the shocks from moguls--until the next turn.

You can learn to turn more efficiently by practicing this simple exercise: From a bent knee position, try standing up by pushing into the balls of your feet.  Where do you feel tightness?  If you're like me, you'll feel it in your quadricep muscles and your low back.

Now try standing up by pushing into your heels (if you can do it without falling backwards).  Do you feel tightness in your hamstrings and low back?

Now try standing up from the center of your feet--what is sometimes called "the eye of the foot," or in Traditional Chinese Medicine, Bubbling Spring.  Do you still feel tightness in your quads or  hamstrings?  Or do you feel a lengthening of your quads, hamstrings, and low back simultaneously?  Pushing up from this strong diaphragm of the foot reduces strain on your leg and low back muscles, which in turn gives you more strength, stability, and flexibility.

Rolfers refer to this as a "palintonic" stretch: while your feet are pressing into the mountain, your head is being lifted against gravity. This lengthening is the sensation you feel as your body's  fascial network re-maps itself--awakening and strengthening your core, improving your stability and flexibility.

In a previous blog post, I talked about stretching the postural (or tonic) fibers of your hamstring muscles. This is also a good pre-skiing (and post-skiing) stretch that will assist your body/mind to feel your core, and help orient you to the space around you (on the mountain).

Another great series of exercises for both before and after skiing/snowboarding are the spinal flexes (video at link).  I don't agree with the video's suggestion to do the first part of the exercise faster:  Instead, I would recommend that you keep a speed that is comfortable to your body for all 3 parts.  You can either time yourself and do each exercises for 30 seconds to 3 minutes, or exercise for a count of 25, 54, or 108 inhalations--whatever is most comfortable for your body.

A daily regimen of these stretches, as well as other yoga exercises can keep your fascial network free and lubricated.  A Rolfing tune-up can also assist you with feeling that palintonic sense of lengthening throughout your body.  

Join Robert this Sunday, December 9th at 11am at the Healthy Living Market Learning Center in South Burlington, Vermont to explore these and more exercises...or you can make an appointment for a Rolfing session.

Can 2 much texting Agrv8 Ur #Backpain?

There has been some fanfare across the internet due to an article from Newsweek/The Daily Beast.  Entitled “Is the Web Driving Us Mad?,” delves into some of the newest peer-reviewed research correlating excessive web exposure (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) and our mental health.  There are even new diagnoses like Facebook addiction, and phantom-vibration syndrome floating around therapy circles.  These basically boil down to forms of ADHD and OCD at best, and “reactive psychosis” at worst.

As a Rolfer^®, my interest is what happens to our physiology, our posture, our relationship with ourselves and with others as a result of all our internet usage.  In Rolfing™, we talk about “core” and being balanced in gravity.  [Our perspective on “core” tends to be different from personal trainers, yoginis, Pilates and Gyrotonic instructors—click here for a great article describing “core” from one Rolfer’s perspective which I think sums it up pretty well]. 

As you work with your laptop or smartphone in front of you (while reading this article), notice where your hands are, and what fingers you use—where the tension is in your hands or fingers; does it take you a few seconds to uncurl your last two fingers? 

Notice how your shoulders feel—are the elevated, do your muscles feel tense or tight?

Notice the position of your head, neck and eyes—do you feel tension here? 

Have a full breath—do you feel breath up to your collarbones, or does your breath stop around the middle of your chest? 

And finally, notice how your back feels—are you slouching while you’re texting?

This brings me to another concept of Rolfing:  we have two centers of gravity. We are the only beings on earth that stand and walk upright on two legs.  For our “core” to be active, both centers of gravity need to be in balance.  The lower center of gravity (approximately around our navels) relates us to the ground, and ourselves.  Our upper center of gravity (approximately around the middle of our sternum, or our heart center) relates us to our skyhooks, and to others. This is how we stay in relationship with others. And a balance between the two allows us to dynamically feel and stay in connection with our core while being in relationship with others.

Can too much lower, or too little upper center of gravity lead to ADHD or reactive psychosis?  I don’t know.  But I do feel confident in saying that slouching over our heart center (upper center of gravity) can lead to decreased lung capacity, neck and/or lower back discomfort, while continuing to separate us from each other in lieu of our technology. 

In his essay “Is the Web Driving Us Mad?,” Tony Dokoupil concludes that:

“…it doesn’t matter whether our digital intensity is causing mental illness, or simply encouraging it along, as long as people are suffering. Overwhelmed by the velocity of their lives, we turn to prescription drugs, which helps explain why America runs on Xanax (and why rehab admissions for benzodiazepines, the ingredient in Xanax and other anti-anxiety drugs, have tripled since the late 1990s). We also spring for the false rescue of multitasking, which saps attention even when the computer is off. And all of us, since the relationship with the Internet began, have tended to accept it as is, without much conscious thought about how we want it to be or what we want to avoid. Those days of complacency should end. The Internet is still ours to shape. Our minds [body/mind/spirit] are in the balance.”

So, stop reading!  Turn off your laptop or smartphone, and take a walk, ride your bike, swim in your favorite swimming hole/lake, and breath our fresh Vermont air—preferably with a friend.

...And check out my new class at Healthy Living Market Learning Center, Can 2 much texting Agrv8 Ur #Backpain?, Sept 9^th at 11am (please call Healthy Living to register for the class, even though it’s free)

Calming Down: Fight, Flight, Freeze, and Release

I may have told some of you about my son, whom we adopted when he was two weeks old, and his heightened state of alertness.  Peter Levine calls this a “global high activated state,” where one’s sympathetic nervous system (the part responsible for “fight or flight”) is cranked up and/or frozen from a traumatic situation.  This can happen from car accidents, emotional abuse, and even neo-natal or uterine stressors. 


A highly activated sympathetic nervous system (which can also mean an under-functioning parasympathetic nervous system) can affect your digestion and other organs, your ability to process certain foods (which can look like an allergy), as well as alter your ability to emotionally relate to others.

At a recent playgroup, I was finally able to see this clearly in my son from a third person perspective (as opposed to a parental viewpoint).  My son perked up his ears as each new child entered the playroom.  His sympathetic nervous system became more activated from this attention (flooding his system with more and new stress hormones, specifically cortisol).  Through simple body awareness movements--that allowed him to feel his body instead of the outside world--I witnessed his parasympathetic nervous system start to dampen down his sympathetic response (the way it’s supposed to work), and he was able to play for the whole hour and a half without the use of headphones, and without him acting out.


As a parent this brought me to tears, realizing that I can teach my son how to deal with the cards he was given from conception through birth, and even help him overcome his global high activated state.  As a practitioner, it gave me new insights into trauma, pain resolution, and Rolfing^®.

Here are some interesting research articles about trauma, new understanding of what causes pain, and how research is starting to understand how brains work: 

·        http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120606164936.htm -- children experience more intense and lasting stress, and studies show that children score lower on tests for spatial working memory, and have trouble navigating tests for short term memory.  This can be, in part due to how stress affects the gray and white matter in the brain.  But it's not irreversible!  

·         http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/national/body-keeps-score-as-traumatic-events-show-affects-years-later/story-e6frfku9-1226340691109 --one of the tricky things about trauma is how one’s nervous system tends to layer one episode on top of a completely unrelated other one. This can make the unraveling, re-integrating, and healing work take some time.

·        http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/music-its-in-your-head-changing-your-brain.html 

      

      ·        http://www.bettermovement.org/2012/when-pain-doesnt-hurt/ 

·        http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2012/06/body-sensitive-people-are-tuned-into.html -- folks who are more sensitive to their bodies, are attuned to subtle changes and feelings in their heart and stomach.

In my ever-evolving understanding of  Rolfing^®, through continuing education classes, new pain science and neuroscience research and other trade articles, I believe “structural integration” cannot be accomplished without taking the nervous system into account.  In other words, in addition to manipulating fascia around your muscles, nerves, organs, bones (the structural part of our work), I must also pay as close (if not closer) attention to:

·        how you perceive the ground below you, and the sky or horizon above you,

·        what primary reflexes may be stuck in an earlier phase of development which could affect your perceptions, coordination, and/or structure.   As the following article illustrates so clearly:  each neuron is like a player in a band.  it's the summation of all the neurons that allow for a cascade of fluid and accurate motion that we call movement.  (http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/06/the-neural-rhythms-that-move-your-body/258094/),

·        where trauma (through your nervous system) may be stuck in your body affecting all the above. 

I think real healing happens when all of these categories (structure, perception, coordination, and trauma resolution) are re-integrated into your system.  And is why deep pressure work--on one’s psoas for instance--can sometimes be detrimental when one’s nervous system is not ready or is too activated (especially when there are alternative techniques to the same result).  Most times trauma and the related structural, coordinative, and perceptual categories can be re-integrated within a series of sessions. 

Sometimes, like in the case of my son, this can end up being a lifelong process to be able to maintain his center and his poise relative to other people he has met or will meet throughout his life.  

Tight Hamstrings, Quads, or IT Band? Where's your balance?

Wherever you are right now – stand up.

Feel your feet on the floor, and notice if you are favoring your heels more than your toes, or vice versa.

If you’re favoring your toes, what do you notice about the front of your thighs (the quadriceps muscle group).  Do they feel tight like they are working all the time?

If you’re favoring your heels, what do you notice about the back of your thighs (the hamstring muscle group)? Do they feel tight like they are working all the time?

There are many reasons that muscle groups become tight – and they can get locked long (overstretched), or short (overuse).  If you favor your toes, then your hamstrings are probably locked long, and your quads are probably locked short.  If you favor your heels, the opposite is likely the case.

When your muscles get locked tight and short, the fascia supporting these muscles continues to add more fascia to support the overuse pattern.  With stretching, that fascia can loosen up and allow the muscles to carry less tone (and less tension for you).

There are many types of hamstring stretches (in yoga, pilates, etc); most of these exercises stretch what I call the action fibers of the muscles.  These are the fibers that are ready to go at a moment’s notice.

But muscles have another type of fiber, too, which I like to call postural fibers.  These muscle fibers are working all the time to keep you from falling down – sort of like the background music that sets your mood (overall tone in your body).

Even if you do hamstring stretches as part of your daily routine, you may find that your hamstrings still feel tight. In this case, it’s possible that you need to lengthen the postural fibers.  Postural fibers respond to slow, willful movements so that your nervous system has a chance to respond to the new conversation you are introducing.  This can lead to lasting change.

While some of you may have tried to loosen your hamstrings and quadriceps by stretching your ITB (Ilio-tibial Band)—myself included—this is counter-productive as this article nicely describes (http://thebodymechanic.ca/2012/03/17/stop-foam-rolling-your-it-band-it-can-not-lengthen-and-it-is-not-tight).  The ITB is a band of thickened connective tissue that is meant to provide balance between the quads and the hamstrings.  Trying to change the ITB affects the equal sign (=, or rather the < or > sign), but  doesn't affect either side of the equation (ie, the quads or hamstrings).  Thus, if there is an imbalance before foam rolling, that imbalance will likely remain after foam rolling.

The rest of this article describes one of my favorite exercises for lengthening the postural  fibers of the hamstrings.  In addition, a colleague, Lu Mueller-Kaul, writes about one type of hamstring postural fiber stretch on her blog (http://lumuellerkaul.wordpress.com/2012/02/13/tight-hamstrings/ ; she has made this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPWekWTFXKM&feature=youtu.be).  This is a great passive exercise.

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Mobilizing the Origin of the Hamstrings

(courtesy of Lael Katherine Keen)

You need a surface/floor upon which it is possible to slide.

Start seated on the floor, with knees bent, feet on the wall (works best on a wood or tile floor). Place a folded blanket (or towel) under your sitbones:

With your feet still on the wall, have a friend slowly and lightly pull on the blanket, allowing your pelvis to slide backwards—using the hamstrings insertion as the fixed point of the stretch and mobilizing the origin. Continue sliding back until the shortness in the hamstrings begins to show up. If the hamstrings are quite short, they will prevent the knee from fully straightening. If they are a little longer, the client’s legs will straighten but his back will get pulled short from below.

============================

After you’ve tried this exercise, stand up.  What do you notice about how you stand on your feet, and how the front and back of your thighs feel?  Hopefully, you’ll feel more balance in your feet and your thighs.  Another test, if you’re having trouble noticing any different sensation is to bend forward to touch your toes:  does the tension in the back of your thighs/calves feel different?

Posture is an ongoing and dynamic activity in our life that fees on our activities, relationships, and work.  The postural fibers in our muscles, as the background music/tone of our body are a major key to maintaining our overall posture, especially as we get older.

Do your diaphragms look like the roads of Vermont?

Most of us think of our breath when we think of the diaphragm, but in fact, your body has about seven (7) diaphragms—that help to regulate internal pressure.

A diaphragm is quite simply a membrane dividing two volumes of pressure.  Think of a crossbar on a kite.  When you pull that crossbar toward you, the long bar shortens, and the kite covering also becomes smaller in area.  This creates more wind (or drag) behind the kite so you can get more control over it.

Our bodies have diaphragms in several places to help us react to changes in pressure.  These diaphragms are like the East-West roads in Vermont, helping to regulate and redirect traffic flow along the central North-South axes (Route 100, Route 7, etc).

1)      The arches/ankles of our feet relative to the ground.  Think of Route 9 between
      Bennington and Brattleboro.

2)      Our knees relate our thighs and legs.  Think of Route 30

3)      Our pelvic floor relates our belly to our legs.  Think of  Route 4 between Rutland and Woodstock.

4)      Our respiratory diaphragm relates our lungs to our belly.  Think of Route 2 between Burlington, Montpelier, and eastern Vermont.

5)      Our thoracic inlet relates our thorax and our neck – a big pressure bottleneck (pun intended) where many syndromes like Thoracic Outlet Syndrome, and stiff necks get stuck.  Think of Route 15 connecting the Burlington, Cambridge, Jeffersonville, and points east…especially when Route 108  is closed in the winter.

6)      The floor of our mouth relates our cranium to our jaw and neck.  

7)      Our eyes are another diaphragm as there is an important bone inside our skull, called the sphenoid which can be responsible, or at least aid, in balance, and managing our vestibular system.                              

If one of these diaphragms get tugged out of alignment, it can shorten your central axis (spine) and also tug the other diaphragms out of alignment, causing scoliosis, low back pain, neck pain, etc.

Whether these tugs are caused from ankle sprains, surgical scar tissue, emotional scar tissue, our body’s internet – the connective tissue matrix called fascia – begins to change the rest of our system in order to adapt to the tugs.

Now think of Vermont, especially in the days immediately after Tropical Storm Irene.  Many of our East-West roads were damaged or washed out.  Not only did this disrupt traffic flow (pressure) along Vermont’s central axes (Route 100, Route 7), but it forced stranded communities to carve out new pathways (more pressure) to their closest central axis.

While these changes may be necessary in the short term, over time they can become cumbersome, and put increased strain on tissues that are not meant to handle such loads. 

Here’s a short exercise that can help you sense the alignment of your body’s diaphragms:

            1) Stand up with your feet on the ground

            2) Have a normal breath

            3) What do you notice in your feet:  are you standing more on your left or right    

                 foot, in your heels or toes, on the outside or inside of your feet.

            4) Now have a full breath (with easy shoulders), or a few full breaths

            5) What do you notice about your feet now? What has changed?

If you noticed your feet are balanced after your series of fuller breaths, it probably is a sign that one of your diaphragms has tugged out of alignment.  Stretching, yoga, Pilates, Rolfing^® Structural Integration and even the above breathing exercise can help re-orient, even re-align, your diaphragm.