Asking the Right Questions: Body Awareness and Stretching

Asking the Right Questions: Body Awareness and Stretching

“The expert in anything was once a beginner.” I truly take that to heart. Body Awareness takes time, but we can all achieve it.

Since I was young I always tried to be active and I was really flexible. It wasn’t until I got into weight lifting that I noticed how flexible I was. Because of the weight lifting I got very thick and stiff, and I saw that I could not stretch as far back as I wanted. So, I started to listen to my body and I realized it does not want to be so big and bulky. It just wants to function and be healthy.

To have Body Awareness to me means that you are one with your body: that you are listening to what your body is telling you, and are exploring how you can help it. Take a second to scan over your body and see what areas seem to be tight, or need some attention. Check in with your body by asking yourself questions.

Take neck pain as an example. You want to ask yourself questions like:

·         Why does my neck hurt?

·         In what direction is it bothering me the most?

·         Is it only when I do a certain activity?

By asking specific questions you will be able to feel out where the muscle is hurting or is sore. Instead of saying “my neck hurts,” “my shoulder or my back hurts,” you will be able to say “my back only hurts when I reach above my refrigerator” – now you have more detailed information to work with, and you are starting to be aware of what movements are bothering you.

Once you are choose to listen to your body, you will get a better understanding of what areas need stretching. Whether you sit all day or your lifestyle is more active, the best thing for you to do is stretch, because it helps prevent injuries and gets blood flowing to the area in need.

Let's look at quick routine for neck pain:

First, place your arms behind you and reach for your elbows. Doing this will lock your arms and bring your shoulders down. If you cannot reach your elbows, then grab your hands behind your back and pull down. Remember to have your shoulders down.

Next, gently bring your ear to your shoulder; you should feel the stretch from just under your jaw line down to your shoulder. Repeat on the other side.

Then slowly point your chin down to the one side of your hip. This should stretch more of the side of your neck. From this position you can also look up. This will stretch the front part of your neck – the SCM or sternocleidomastoid muscle.

Finally, you can simply look down. Try playing around with it - move your neck in different directions, but move gently into the stretch. Don't just rush into it.

After you finish the routine, ask yourself: “how does my neck feel?” “Does it feel looser? More fluid? More blood flow? Lighter?” These are important questions to answer because you always want to be aware of how you feel. If you feel stiff, the muscle is not performing at its best - you could get cramps, or in the case of the neck, you can get headaches.

Wish you could feel looser, or know what stretches to do and when to do them? Then give us a call to set up a Bodywork Session at Evolve Restorative Therapy! When you come in, we will be able to personally show you more specific stretches, and tailor them to your specific needs. At Evolve, our mission is to teach you how to listen to your body and what are the best ways for you to take care of it.

Call 908-233-2226 to book your Bodywork Session and start stretching your way to better Body Awareness!

Diego Trejos is a Licensed Massage Therapist, graduating from Sanford Brown Institute of Iselin, NJ in 2009. With 950 hours of education at Sanford Brown he was trained in traditional massage techniques such as Deep Tissue, Swedish, Prenatal, Hot Stone, and Sports Massage.

Body Awareness through Unbinding Restricted Muscle Tissue and Stretching

Body Awareness through Unbinding Restricted Muscle Tissue and Stretching
“You are only as young as your spine is flexible” - as spoken in the words of my yoga instructor.

Personally, I am a physically active person both during my working hours as a bodywork therapist at Evolve, as well as during my free time, when I swim, cycle, and practice yoga. I also compete in one or two sprint triathlons per year. I have come to the realization that I reach the peak of my own Body Awareness when I am either practicing yoga or receiving a bodywork treatment.

During yoga I become acutely aware of my physical and mental state of being as I move through each pose. During a bodywork session, I am usually looking for my shoulders and neck to be released but often am surprised how locked my gluteal muscles are when the therapist works on my hips. But I’m not walking around in my day-to-day life noticing tightness in my glutes the same way that I notice tightness in my shoulders and neck. This a discovery I make as my Body Awareness increases during a bodywork treatment.

Listening to your body is a skill that every being is capable of acquiring, but few take the time to develop regularly. How many times have you woken up in the morning, only to realize how stiff you feel when you stand up and take your first step out of bed? This initial stage of having Body Awareness - which I refer to as Recognizing Restrictions - is the first step towards making a change in improving the way you feel.

However, most of us have a train to catch, a child to get off to school, an appointment to make. You overlook the actions necessary to overcome your body’s trauma (i.e. stretching the spine) and push your way into the day. Imagine how much better you would have felt if you had taken the time to lie down and pull your knees into your chest, cross your legs over to one side and then the other, and stand up and fold your body forward, hands reaching for the floor. What I have just described is one of the key components of “unbinding” locked muscle tissue – stretching to open and elongate muscles. Stretching is the fastest way to release a restricted muscle, and you can learn do this with ease and grace as you become more tuned in to your body’s ability to
move.

The cycle of improving your Body Awareness and subsequently improving your ability to perform certain exercises correctly will come when you include stretching into your daily routine.

What will you accomplish by stretching? Your brain’s relationship with the muscles and joints will improve because it can now monitor muscle receptors and reflexes involved with muscular coordination and function. This is a way for people who are not natural athletes to become more in touch with their bodies.

But many people just go through the motions when it comes to stretching. What should be included in your stretching routine are the following techniques:

• Breathing steadily throughout each stretch
• Patience while enjoying the process
• Knowing how far to take a stretch and when to back off and relax
• Clearing your mind so that you can focus on stretching and body awareness
• Practicing body awareness by listening to when a muscle is tensing up and then easing off enough so that the muscle can stay relaxed in the lengthened position and improve to a new and longer length
• Using proper posture while stretching – avoid slouching or sagging by activating your core
• Make sure a muscle needs to be stretched or not – some muscles should actually first be strengthened to maximize joint stability

Another tool that will assist you in increasing your Body Awareness is to allow yourself to experience a bodywork treatment in Myofascial Release. This is an unbinding technique that involves having a therapist apply gentle sustained pressure into the myofascial connective tissue, to break up scar tissue that has adhered to bones and muscles.

Each joint in your body performs a function that allows you to move bones and muscles. Sometimes a joint is restricted in completing its full range of motion, perhaps due to overuse or trauma. One of the most important results of this therapy is that it can restore the range of motion in restricted joints by smoothing out the connective tissue, aka. the "fascia," that covers your muscles and tendons. For example, while the therapist is elongating and stretching the muscles in your legs (i.e. quadriceps), you might notice that you have a restriction in your range of motion that prohibits you from bending your knee more than 90 degrees. This new information becomes available to you by experiencing a treatment in unbinding your muscle tissue.

If you are at a point where you want to increase your Body Awareness but don’t know where to begin, consider coming in for an Unbinding Bodywork Session at Evolve Restorative Therapy.

During your session, you will be asked how you are doing along the way. Don’t be surprised if you discover things about your body for which you had no conscious awareness. We will be teaching you how to take care of yourself when you leave our office by continuing your journey of Body Awareness.

Call (908) 232-2226 to book your bodywork session and bring Body Awareness to the forefront of your life!


Elyse Breit is a licensed massage therapist who has been practicing for over 20 years. She specializes in Myofascial Release unbinding techniques coupled with stretching.

BODY AWARENESS BY VICTORIA

Developing Your Body's Consciousness
Beginning the Journey to Body Awareness

Having a healthy sense of Body Awareness is extremely important if your goal is to live and move pain free, because it enables you to monitor, improve, and effectively, heal yourself.

Personally I believe that Body Awareness is a goal or destination; it is a sense, similar to the touch/feeling sense, can be developed if the connection is compromised. As such, a great gateway to an increased sense of Body Awareness lies in actively noticing and observing the sensations in your body. This entails practicing an ongoing and working relationship with your Body's Consciousness (or point of view). 

To be blunt, I'm saying that you need to personify your Body, and listen to what "he" or "she" has to tell you. I know you may think this sounds like a strange thing to say, but bear with me for a moment.

Consider this - that through the persona of your Body's Consciousness, you set an intention of (re)discovering another layer of your Self, and as your relationship with this information / personification develops, so will your sense of Body Awareness. Play with it, and don't knock it 'til you try it!

But let's take a step back for a moment. How often now do you ignore the signals your body sends you through physical sensation?

Most people prioritize sensations of ache or tightness as less important than enacting their preconceived goals for the day. For example, ignoring the pang of hunger spreading in your abdomen at work, because you just have to answer that email (and another, and another), ignoring the tightness in your neck that nags quietly - or loudly, at times - behind you as you sit at the computer, or perhaps even ignoring that dryness in the pit of your throat after shaking hands with someone who has a dry cough. These low-level pain signals are all warning signs that something is brewing systematically in your body, and although they may have not yet bumped you out of your comfort zone, they can, if left unaddressed, stop you in your tracks.

But, of course we all know to wash our hands after touching icky people.

Here's the problem: all of those examples are of you only noticing, and ignoring, pain in your Body. Watching your pain doesn't lead to a functional sense of Body Awareness, instead it leads to an endless Pain Cycle: if you don't feel pain, you look for it, and what you seek, you'll find. This limits the language of your Body's Consciousness to only communicate with you through pain, and it is dependent on you being Reactive to pain. To build a truly functional sense of Body Awareness, you must have balance between Proactive as well as Reactive communication with your body.

So what do you do to be Proactive? Meditate. Regular meditation focusing on feeling mundane body sensations is a Proactive way of cultivating your relationship with your Body's Consciousness. This is the easiest way to expand its "vocabulary" to inform you how you are when you are healthy and relaxed, instead of just when you are in pain, or sick.

In meditation you relax, and in that relaxed state you can dedicate your focus to observing mundane sensations, such as the sensation of your feet on the ground, how your shoulders stack on your hips, or how a deep breath physically feels versus a shallow breath, et cetera. Also, in a relaxed state your sensitivity to these sensations is heightened naturally, which causes you to more vividly experience them, and in turn, recognize and acclimate to them. 

As you regularly focus on re-connecting with experiencing non-pain signals from your body in meditation, over time, your Body's Consciousness not only learns, but even remembers them during your normal waking state. These "muscle memories" of your Body's Consciousness can and will inform your daily activities, such as running at the gym or receiving a stressful phone call, when you least expect it, to focus on more than just searching for the pain. For example, while running you will be more Aware of how your feet feel in your shoes as they hit the ground, which gives you mental space to adjust and correct your foot placement. Or, as another example, when the person on the other end of the line is screaming into the phone, you breathe deep into your belly, rather than holding their emotion in your chest with shallow breaths.

Not sure how to meditate? Or perhaps you feel like you can never find time? That is where we at Evolve come in.

A great way to start is with a Reiki Session!

Reiki Sessions immerse you in a meditative state, not only through the use of one-on-one coaching and guided visualization, but with the additional benefit of flooding your body with Ki (or "Chi" as the Chinese say; it means "healthy energy"). Ki accelerates your relaxation process, which helps you move into that meditative space faster and cleaner than you can on your own. And by having a regularly scheduled session, you set time aside for cultivating your Body's Consciousness, rather than scrambling to find the time. It's also easier to focus when you have someone guiding you.

And remember, having a healthy sense of Body Awareness is necessary if your goal is to live and move pain free, because it enables you to monitor, improve, and effectively, heal yourself. This way, you can break free of the Pain Cycle, and move into the greater journey of Self healing and discovery.

Call (908) 233-2226 to book your Reiki Session and start your healing journey today!


Sensei Victoria Whitfield is a Master Teacher of Usui-Tibetan Reiki and member of The International Center for Reiki Training and The International Association of Reiki Professionals. She teaches Reiki and Meditation at Evolve Restorative Therapy in Westfield, NJ and Interweave in Summit, NJ.