twinsparksmassage.com

For years I have been fortunate  not been ill from cold or flu. Here are a few things that I did to prevent or shorten the duration of the common cold and flu.

When you are just beginning to feel under the weather is the time to go on the offensive.  Most bacteria and viruses don’t do well in an alkaline environment (the way your body chemistry is supposed to be). Unfortunately, many among us are too “acidic”; this actually promotes or encourages  these entities to find a home sweet home in your body. Let’s make them a bit more uncomfortable, shall we? 

Start drinking plenty of water,  adding just a spritz or two of juice from fresh lemons in each cup. Drink water at least once an hour while you’re feeling under the weather.  If you never drink water, don’t over do it. Onces of H2O is what your body needs, on average, say, 64 onces a day (8-80z. glasses). If you have a medical condition involving your kidneys, you need to consult your doctor as to how much water is appropriate. The water and lemon juice can begin to change your body more towards alkalinity, which makes you stronger and the germs weaker.

Also, this is  time to take your vitamins, like Vit-C, and minerals like zinc; both are stimulating to, and support  your immune system. The herb echinacea also stimulates the immune system to gear up. Your whole strategy early on is to prevent these pathogens from getting a grab hold. If you can hold them at bay for at least 3 days while your immune system gears up, the chances are you will beat your cold or flu before it really gets started.

If all that does not do the trick, I add some herbs and supplements that will directly attack these invaders. The list is long: I like garlic; high quality organic honey; oil of oregano; olive leaf extract;  cinnamon.

If you or a loved one are running a high fever  or  having difficulty breathing, please do consult your doctor.

Using the Yellow Pages to find a Therapist is probably not the best way to go, the reason being you don’t really know what your getting. The best place to start is with family and friends. They, at least can tell you about the experience they had with Massage.  Many of my clients have known me for years. They could probably tell you more about me than I could. It kind of feels like family, like a friend

Another good place to look would be medical offices. Chiropractors, especially often retain Therapists who know a bit more than the average about the human body and how it works. At minimum, they at least know when a Massage is the wrong thing to do. My background, before I attended Massage School, was in Physical Therapy. I was interested in helping people with real health issues, Accidents, Injuries, and otherwise serious conditions.  I then was inclined to work in Chiropractic offices.

In the city of Rancho Cucamonga,  where I work, the Therapist must have a minimum of 500 hours training. We are also required to carry insurance.

A client of mine really needed the services of a Chiropractor. I offered to help her find one. But not all Chiropractors are the same, and I didn’t want for her to go at it alone, and end up without good appropriate quality care.  When you have been worked  in several Chiropractic offices  within the inland empire,  you get to know how things work.  Your run of the mill, rack em crack em office, would be counter to my clients best interests. I was looking for an “activator” practice, and not just a DC who knows how to use an activator. There is a difference.

I called a local office that seemed to fit the bill, explaining that I wanted to refer my client to a DC. A few days later,  I dropped in to check out the office.  The receptionist, treated  me with utter disbelief, and disdain, that a Massage Therapist would go to  all that trouble for a patient?  Okay, goodbye, she said tersely.  I guess I was disturbing her work, so I left

Well, to me when you go to see your doctor, you’re actually not only being treated by the doctor but by his or her whole organization. They are all responsible to help you get better. Any office is only as good as it’s weakest link.  I will not expose anyone to that kind of treatment. Nor will I stand for it. It reminded me, years back, I witnessed  a patient taping out (having a heart attack) in the waiting lobby of a hospital, the receptionist never noticed,  it was only other patients in the lobby that finally got help for the poor man.  This is what happens when you have people going through the motions, who could care less about you, and who might only view you as a hindrance or problem instead of a live flesh and blood human being with real needs.

Whether your selecting a Massage Therapist,  a DC, or a medical doctor, if they don’t seem happy to see you…….they probably aren’t. Run!

What’s wrong with learning Massage from a book or video?  Not a thing, yet  there are advantages to getting home mentoring in the art of Massage. After all, Massage is a “hands on ” profession. You will learn faster and get better results. Why? Feedback!  A teacher can immediately identify a technique executed correctly right from the start. This is important because you develop  good massage work habits, bad habits are hard to correct, don’t get the job done, and you may end up physically  hurting  yourself, or your loved one. How good then is your Massage really? The techniques you learn from the “book” may not be appropriate  for the person receiving the Massage or the person giving. For example,  your  wanting to use  a technique involving direct finger tip pressure to your partners back.  Perhaps you are a smaller petite woman with small hands  and not a lot of hand strength. Your partner, on the other hand weighs in at 250 with muscles tight as a drum. Try as you may, pressing as hard as you can, he can barely feel you, and your wrist and fingers are beginning to throb. You barely have enough strength to throw that massage book away. Being out the $20 and whatever you spent on that wonderful table pales to the feeling of not being able to share this wonderful experience that Massage can add to your relationship.

With Massage, it is about the quality of the interaction. While all touch is good and nurturing, focused, educated touch yields even better experiences.

When selecting a Massage Therapist you will probably want to know about the different techniques available to you.  Well, this can be a problem, and perhaps not the best approach to take when making that choice.

For example, you might ask me if I do Deep Tissue , over the years I must have heard that question thousands of times. The term deep tissue is a general term. Several techniques used by any competent Therapist would fall under that heading.   “Muscle stripping” or “Muscle rolling” are some examples.

But the term deep tissue has little meaning. For one thing no two Massage clients tolerances are the same, what one client experiences as very light massage feels  like being crushed under a large boulder to another client. On top of that, no two Therapists are created equal, because of differences in training, skill levels, and the therapists  physical constitution.

Often, my experience has been, when a client asks if I can do deep tissue, they are really telling me that the last massage they received seemed superficial, and did not have any effect at all. For the massage to be effective the Therapist must find the optimal level of pressure the client needs to get the job done. No more or less pressure. To work on that level the Therapist needs to be skilled. You just cannot steam roll over a person that will just make the client tense to protect themselves. Deep tissue work requires a good deal of  trust to exist between you and your Therapist.

Some exotic types of Deep tissue Massage go further then to the bone! Take for example  CHI NEI TSANG, Chinese for Internal Organ Massage. This requires deep levels of relaxation to be achieved as the Therapist passes through  layer after layers of muscle and fascia to reach the organs to be massaged,  certainly that is deep tissue. Images of Aztec human sacrifices come to mind. Fortunately, there are other approaches to organ massage available to those who need it. Take for example Hatha Yoga,  works on the organs by moving the body around the internal structures thereby creating the space your organs need to function unimpaired. Locally, Sandy Jones is an excellent Yoga instructor.  She been teaching Hatha Yoga over 30 years.

htt://blueirisyoga.net/

The benefits include:

• Massage relaxes muscle contractions, spasms, and relieves general body tensions.
• Massage dilates the blood vessels, thus improving the circulation.
• Massage acts as a “mechanical cleanser” pushing along  lymphatic fluids and hastening the elimination of wastes and toxic debris.
• Massage increases the blood supply and nutrition to muscles without adding to their load of toxic lactic acid, produced through voluntary muscle contraction. Massage thus helps to overcome harmful “fatigue” products resulting from strenuous exercise or injury.
• Massage improves muscle tone and helps prevent or delay muscular atrophy resulting from forced inactivity
• Massage can compensate, in part, for lack of exercise and muscular contraction in persons who because of injury, illness or age are forced to remain inactive. In these cases, massage helps return venous blood to the heart and so eases the strain on this vital organ.
• Massage may sedate or stimulate  the nervous system depending on the type of massage administered.
• Massage can prevent or remove adhesion’s in body tissues.
• Massage  improves the general circulation and nutrition of tissues. It is accompanied or followed by an increased interchange of substances between the blood and tissue cells increasing tissue metabolism.
• Massage increases the excretion of  fluids and nitrogen, inorganic phosphorous and salt in normal healthy individuals.
• Massage helps the body retain needed minerals like nitrogen, phosphorous and sulphur, need for body repairs of tissues and bones. ( hip fractures).
• Massage improves nutrition to the joints. This lessens inflammation and swelling in those joints, which in turn alleviates pain.
• Massage reduces edema (swellings)  and in turn facilitates better movement.
• Massage will improve flexibility in body and body limbs.
• Massage instills a sense of well being.
• Massage benefits are not limited to this list.