Trinity Health & Living

What effect does work have on your health?

This month I’m going to change the focus on health slightly from the physical to the emotional/mental side of things. As a massage therapist and energy healer, I really believe that health needs to be looked at from a holistic perspective and it is only then that we can start to make changes to our lives for the better. If we are to look at our lives currently, the majority of us can split it into three components – work, home/personal/family and social. I bet that for many of you, work takes up a good chunk of your day, and the other two components battle it out to share the little portion that is left. Given that we spend a lot of our lives working, it is important to actually be in a job that you like, you have a passion for, and that makes your heart sing. If you…

What causes knee pain? (and no it’s not old age)

One of the common complaints I get from my clients in clinic is in relation to knee pain. The knee pain can be anywhere – on the side of the knee, the back or front of the knee or below the knee. It can also range from just annoying to debilitating. There are a number of non-muscular causes for knee pain including bursitis, arthritis, a cyst in the knee (known as Baker’s cyst) or Osgood-Schlatter’s disease. However, I’m not a doctor or a physiotherapist so this article is really going to focus on the muscular (and structural) causes of knee pain. Muscles directly connected to the knee cap The muscles that attach to the knee cap are the quadriceps (i.e. the quads) – the main muscles at the front of your thigh. From a connective tissue perspective, the iliotibial band (i.e. the ITB, which is situated on the outside of…

Grounding – the best way to reducing pain and inflammation?

As an energy healer, the concept of grounding during energy healing sessions is crucial. Being grounded in that sense means that I am always aware of where I am, who I am and what is going on around me. This allows me to be calm and centered in dealing with whatever arises during the session and allows me to adequately hold a safe space for my client. I recently came across a film called “Down to Earth”, which goes into the more scientific side regarding the importance of grounding. Essentially, the short film discusses the fact that as humans we have a lot of inflammation in our body and inflammation, left untreated, ultimately leads to chronic pain. Fortunately for us, the experts in that film say that a very simple way to reduce this is to actually get grounded – i.e. walk with our bare feet on the ground. Why?…

The art of breathing – properly

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…