continuing education – Swellness Vibes

Ayurvedic Nutrition

I’m taking this course as part of ongoing training for my Yoga Alliance membership recertification. In the future, I don’t foresee me keeping this recertification up–not because I don’t love learning, you know that–but I don’t think it’ll be necessary for my future as a teaching yogi. We shall see.

Either which way, I’m taking Ayurvedic Nutrition through My Vinyasa Practice. I’ve had my eye on this company for a long while now–I had even considered doing my yoga training through them! They also have several other courses I look forward to taking in the future, and apparently I can even apply to work with them at some venture! That might be fun. But for now, let me wrap up this ramble and move onto some of my take-homes in regards to the course.

At this point in my training (a little more than halfway), my biggest AHA! is how imperative it is for future clients–as well as myself–to develop a better relationship with ALL foods. The instructor says ALL foods have some sort of nutritional value. In the past, I’ve poo poo’d certain foods by saying the exact opposite. The creator of the program is right, though–all foods are made out of something.

I’ve already tried to correct the language in my own house. I’ve had this line for years with my kid about how certain foods, that is, junk food, has zero nutritional value. He’s looked at me cross-eyed as I’m now trying to convince him otherwise. I hate that he thinks of junk food as a reward. I’ve always asked him if he was still hungry before embarking on the junk, but now I’ve started to ask him what nutritional needs he is trying to get out of the food. He’s playing along, but again — cross-eyed.

I think a big part of becoming an Ayurvedic Nutritionist means becoming a guide for others through the lens of Ayurvedic notions. The most major idea is to recreate one’s relationship with foods by simply considering a food as nourishing rather than good or bad. Another major idea is to tackle one’s relationship with nutrition by discovering which doshas, or rather, disposition, you were born with, which one you lean towards now, and how to bring them all into balance. There are three major doshas to choose from and generally speaking, one will be a little more glaring obvious than the others. Yes, as humans, we are a blend of all three.

I have such a wide and varied knowledge base at this point. I always say, master of none, but lover of all… and so I feel like I can really create a unique experience creating plans of enrichment for clients. About 15 years or so ago I created a holistic health questionnaire and never went anywhere with it. I think with the nutrition part added to it, now, I can really combine my offerings together into a cohesive document that clients can bring home and expand upon. I’m excited to look into this more over the coming months.

If anything else, it is always fun and enlightening to discover more about oneself.

Stay tuned! Only good things.

Continuing Ed Topics: Pain

This post wraps up the current series of continuing education, although I’m sure the next time I need to renew my license, I’ll have another series of the same.

Today’s topic is a great one, from a human perspective, from a bodywork perspective—pain!

Pain is such a complicated and fascinating facet of existence. The word ‘pain’ is derived from Greek and means punishment or penalty. The continuing ed class I took was slightly dated–from 2013 I believe–so it goes without saying that the statistics from the class have since been updated. Yet, I assure you, the sentiment is going to be the same.

Here are the stats compiled for that 2013 class:

Pain is the number one reason why people go see doctors, and also the most common reason for seeking out alternative and complementary treatments.
In 2011, the Institute of Medicine reported that 100 million Americans reported chronic pain and that the price tag associated with said pain, annually, was $635,000,000. You know that price has just gone up.
100 billion aspirin tablets are used annually in the world.
The shape and color of pain tablets significantly change the effectiveness of the drug.
Here’s a fun one to ponder: people over 60 tend to have less pain than those under 60.
Talk therapy and back therapy both help with back pain…statistically about the same.
Pain was considered a spiritual punishment prior to the 1600s. Only then did Rene Descartes attribute pain to tissue damage.

This model of tissue damage being the only source of pain creates a wall when chronic pain is compared to acute pain. With acute pain, you can usually point fingers to the source of the issue. When you remove the issue, pain theoretically goes away.

Chronic pain usually doesn’t have a straight line connecting multiple dots. It typically has many lines creating a crazy pattern, thus making this type of pain unpredictable. Even if you remove all that seems to be causing the pain, the pain may not resolve. (This also makes me think of how you can cure something but not heal it, and vice versa.)

These facts lead to a rather large and looming factor about pain: Pain is an illusion. (But so is reality, right???)

I’m not sure about you, but this one sits sort of -eh- with me. But… as stated in the course packet for the class I took, “Tissue damage is not necessary or sufficient for pain.”

From a personal bodywork perspective, I cannot tell you how many times–almost on a weekly basis–people will present with the same feel of the tissue. It could be a tightness, a knot, a collection of aggravated muscles–but one client will be miserable and the other one will tell me s/he feels great.

You know how much I love the brain. A client and I were just talking about the pain impulse coming only from the brain and not from the tissue or affected area at all. What then? (Ok, we know this can’t be the only way, just like the other way isn’t conclusive, either.)

There’s a study from 2004 (Derbyshire) that states “Brainwave patterns in people who think they are receiving painful stimulus but aren’t are almost identical to brainwaves of people actually receiving painful stimulus”.

The plot thickens…

We’ve all heard about phantom limb pain… again… our friend, the brain.

Under this umbrella, it kind of does look like the brain is causing the pains and not the other way around! It’s receiving the sensory input from the affected area, but depending on context, the person receiving it, memory, cellular memory… only then does the brain decide whether or not the sensory input painful.

Here’s the thing. And I’m not going to go into the particular population that likes pain–that’s another topic–but for the most part, we don’t like pain. We stray away from it. We do things to keep ourselves from being in pain.

Pain often alerts us when something is WRONG and needs attention. It keeps us from making more damage by asking us to change our behavior (like touching something hot). It can activate healing by encouraging us to get care (massages, chiropractic, etc).

But. Pain can stop being of use when it’s no longer necessary for those responses.

According to this class, it’s believed that that brain processes pain like an emotion. Whether or not something reads as good or bad is an emotional assessment. Apparently brain studies have suggested that the midbrain is affected when something is painful, much like an emotion affects the midbrain. Pain can also be activated by the upper brain–for instance, if anxiety is an issue, pain can be perceived as worse.

The point of the class, I think, is that by observation or learning about pain, pain can be changed. There are studies suggesting that those who are invested in studying pain have less of it. If you can understand where it is coming from, it can lose its hold on you (whether or not you still feel it).

Of course, there’s the issue of chronic pain leading to brain conditions like depression, hypochondria, aforementioned anxiety, lack of sleep, cognitive impairment among others… which of course… can make pain worse.

It’s a slippery slope. I think the best way to deal with pain from a bodyworker’s perspective is honestly just to be attentive to the needs of the client. Offer validation by listening to the client and then palpating the affected area. Hopefully the combination of hearing the client as well as actively working the tissue is enough to offer even a tiny part of relief as part of a whole care regimen.

Thoughts about your own pain?

In Closing

Interestingly enough, when I typed in pain to find an image suitable for this post, the first images were all of emotional pain! And because of this emotional pain, these people were tightened into balls…which restricts movement..which can cause physical pain!

I’ve also purchased additional textbooks on the matter, so don’t be surprised if I talk about this fascinating topic again.

Thanks for reading!

Continuing Ed Topics: Brain Waves

Oh, you know I had to go there. I love the brain; it fascinates me like you wouldn’t believe. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again–bet I was a neuroscientist in a past life!

So let’s talk about the lovely placenta-looking mass (yes, as gross as it seems, you know I’m speaking the truth) that resides in our head. It operates in different brain wave types — you’ve got beta, alpha, theta, and delta.

Delta is the slowest frequency; this is where we are having dreamless sleep, or perhaps deep meditation. This is where the body heals at a cellular level. Theta moves faster, and is where we are asleep or deeply relaxed, but vivid imagery can come into play. Alpha is still faster, but the person can be calm and relaxed while still attentive to the outside world.

Now let’s bring this back to bodywork.

Beta is what is present when a client appears for the session. The fastest mover and shaker of the brain waves, these beta waves will express your client as excited, perhaps even tense. Through bodywork, the goal is to achieve a slower oscillation of the brain’s impulses.

What if the client (or you) speaks during the entirety of the session? Here’s the thing. Plenty of people love to talk during a session. Plenty of people never peep out a word. Sometimes someone will speak during their session; other times this same person will fall asleep the very next time.

Regardless if the client is talking throughout the session, his/her body will still sink into alpha waves. This is why, for the most part, whenever you leave a bodywork session, you’re going to walk away more relaxed than when you started. Even if you chatted the whole time, even if you had a hard time relaxing.

There are ways to try to induce slower brain waves in your client–and I think this is a really fascinating approach to bodywork. As a bodyworker, I tend to follow my client’s lead for the day and provide whatever they need/want in that moment.

But if a client is quiet, I think I’ll approach the next massage I give from a brain-perspective!

According to Erik Dalton in his article ¹Give Your Bodywork a Brain Wave Boost, there are specific techniques that can help induce these states. (And even if you yourself aren’t a bodyworker, you could always ask a friend or partner to try these techniques on you!)

While the client is supine (face-up), use a slow, rhythmic breath as you massage their sub-occipital muscles (the short little buggers who lie just at the bottom of your head).
Use slow, lower back techniques such as taking the elbow to strip across the lowest part of the back at the hip line while the other hand is placed on the opposite side of the back.
Push down on the top of the sacrum while sliding/gliding the forearm gently up the spine

I think adding a spinal flush (which is little friction circles along the spine, but not just a massage technique but also an energetic one) would be a nice touch as well.

Dalton also suggests using talk to let a client know that their muscles are relaxing. (I think I have a tendency of sharing this anyhow.) He also will help direct his client to breathe more slowly, by either verbal encouragement or “shadowing” the client’s breathing to help slow it down.

By simultaneously stimulating proprioception through tactile stimuli and interoception (awareness of their internal sensation) through cueing, the client is able to embody a healthier, deeper brain wave state. The moment a client is touched brainwaves begin to change.
²Dalton, Erik

Ahhhh, the amazing power of touch!

^1,2 Information taken from July/August 2022 edition of Associated Bodywork & Massage Professionals magazine.

Continuing Ed Topics: Emotions

This next blog post in regards to continuing education topics is broader than the first topic. Not only does it relate to massage therapists as practitioners, it also relates to the human condition at large.

The big question is: are emotions contagious?

In short, the answer is yes. While, yes, we are spirits inhabiting a body as experience, it’s safe to say that our brain is also always creating an emotion during the experience. ANY experience. ALL experiences.

A point made during the course was that even being rational is considered an emotion. Upon researching the lovely web, I found that ‘rational’ is actually considered a category for emotions. Some emotions are rational, some are irrational. I’m not sure how that can even be because things become rational or irrational due to judgment, and judgment is usually formed because of an emotion…

I digress.

The class teaches that we are never not without emotion, and that emotion is what drives us for thought or movement. Emotions are what keep us alive; they’re used as signals for other animals. Threat oftentimes drives emotions.

Braintively speaking (see what I did there?), emotions are tied to the parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest) as well as the sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight).

Apparently there was this terrible study where the sympathetic nervous systems were severed in cats to see how they responded to stimuli. The study was trying to prove that organs and/or the sympathetic nervous system generated emotion… However, these poor kitties still had emotion even with it being severed.

There was another study of when epinephrine was given to human subjects to see if the epinephrine caused an emotional response. Nope. Picking up on emotions of others in the room is what caused an emotion in the subjects, not the hormone.

According to a Psychology Today article in 2010, emotions were considered cognitive appraisal and body perception. It stated that not only were emotions contagious, but so were behaviors. I think we all have personal experiences with both.

Why does this matter to massage therapists? So much is communicated through touch. I think people come to see us not just because of how much we can retrain muscle tissue or neural impulses to help them relax, but also because, as calming practitioners, our clients literally catch the emotion we are emitting, like a signal.

You can read my first post about continuing education topics here.

Continuing Ed Topics: Longevity for LMTs

I have to have a bunch of continuing education hours for massage therapy finished by the end of February, so I figured I’d pick a topic or two to dissect in the Swellness blog.

This week’s topic is licensed massage therapists themselves — “principles of longevity”. In other words, how to make your career last longer than the typical 5 years or less for therapists. (Now, having said that, I do know plenty of people who have practiced much longer, including myself!)

Let’s talk alarming statistics, and please note — these stats are at least 10 years old! 77% of massage therapists experience musculoskeletal issues due to the nature of their work. About 40% get diagnosed with an official issue, and 20% have to take time off because of said injury. I think this explains why therapists tend to turn to other types of work after the 5-year mark.

I have certainly injured myself due to the nature of the work. I’ve tweaked my back, my shoulders, my hips, my arm, and my thumb. And that’s just off of the top of my head! I’ve never turned down a massage because of the injuries, but I’ve also sighed some relief while injured when realizing some of my appointments are Reiki and not massage! 🤪

Tips for Massage Therapists to Lengthen Their Careers

Use less oil. Think about it: if you use too much oil, there’s easier glide on the body you’re working on. Less oil means more resistance, which means it’s easier to use your bodyweight as a tool in your practice. Otherwise you’re flopping around, finding zero stability.
Create a friction point while doing cross-fiber techniques. Drape an arm across another arm to create the fulcrum! Think smarter, not harder!
Saw the jaw with the palms of your hands rather than jabbing it with your thumbs. Aye! This is definitely something I plan on doing. I do jaw work on a client I see monthly. I bet the sawing method feels good, too. Anyone want to try it on me???
Rock your client’s hips into the fist of a hand you are using. Great idea!
Use a forearm to press a foot bottom into the fist of your other hand. I just tried this last night on my kid. He’s obsessed with foot massages.
“Save your wrist, use a fist!” Yes, yes, I think LMTs already know this one.
Use your patellar tendon as a massage tool, or knees in general to glide along quads, hamstrings, lower backs and hips. Apparently this isn’t as hard as it sounds, but I have yet to try it.
TOOLS. Get them. Use them. I definitely need a thumb saver tool, I honestly don’t know why I haven’t tried one yet.

Happy massaging!