As a massage therapist, I am very fortunate to be given the opportunity from time to time to massage professional sports teams like the Sydney Roosters. To be honest, before I received this opportunity, I didn’t follow NRL at all, but since then, I’ve been watching a lot more games (it also helps that my partner is a mad Penrith Panthers supporter), and the thing that strikes me the most is the amount of head injuries that the players sustain during the game.
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Ahhhh breathing… it’s something that is so subtle to our systems and yet is one of the most important aspects of our physical being that we completely take for granted. Take a moment now to notice your breath – are you breathing from your chest or above, or are you breathing from your belly? Most of us breathe from the chest and up. Unfortunately, that’s not how we are designed to breathe. The diaphragm The main muscle of respiration in the body is actually your diaphragm (as a side note, isn’t it funny that the diaphragm’s shape is very similar to the shape of the lungs). So, during inhalation, the diaphragm contracts (i.e flattens out) and pushes down on the abdomen, and during exhalation, it relaxes and the pressure is taken off the abdomen. This means that it’s your belly that should be the main mover during breathing as opposed…
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Christmas season has arrived and this means that life can get a bit crazy with finding the time to come up with ideas for Xmas presents for your loved ones who seem to have everything, shopping for the presents, and then let’s not even talk about what the Xmas dinner is going to look like (or who is going to prepare it)! During this time, I’ve found that, contrary to the expectation that work should be winding down for holidays, it gets busy, with everyone wanting everything done before Christmas so that they can all go for a break! Xmas is a prime time for stress – and a physical symptom of stress is sore/tight neck and shoulders (with this potentially leading to the development of migraines and headaches). Here’s a couple of ways you can try to alleviate the pain or reduce headaches: Massage the base of your skull…
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In this day and age, we really struggle to get by without technology. Technology like smart phones, laptops and tablets have been great in terms of keeping us constantly connected and allowing us work that bit more efficiently (although some may argue technology actually makes us slower!). However, with the upsides of technology, there are also downsides – and one of the downsides is having a detrimental physical effect on your body. Every day we are constantly looking down at our phones and tablets and busy on email, chat, Facebook, social media, etc. Look around you as you are walking to work or catching public transport to work. How many people are on their phones? Most of them. Constantly being in this position eventually translates to having many people having a forward neck posture, the effect of which stretches and lengthens the back neck and upper back muscles and shortens…
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