Healthy Mother's Day

Neolithic groups (stone age) worshiped the mother. Ancient Germans worshipped the virgin Hertha holding her child. Scandinavians worshipped virgin Disa holding her child. In ancient Egypt it was Isis with infant Osiris. In India, Devaki had Krishna (also by virgin birth). In Asia, Cybele and Deoius. Chinese holy mother Shing Moo held her child in arms. Christian missionaries to Tibet, China, and Japan found that holy mothers depicted with splendid light around their head and holding a divine child had been worshiped long before they got there.

In Rome, the goddess was Demeter, meaning Earth Mother, wearing wreathes of braided corn in her hair. In ancient Greece, Demeter was called Ceres, the great mother with baby at breast. From her name "Ceres," we get the word "cereal" (grains), "which made man different from wild animals."

In the spring in ancient Greece, celebrations were held in honor of Rhea, the Mother of the Gods. Christian Europe celebrated the spring festival of "Mother Church" who (they believed) would protect them from harm. During the 1600's, England celebrated "Mothering Sunday" on the 4th Sunday of Lent, honoring the mothers of England. All cultures worshiped the divine, the Mother, who gives life and food, compassion and love.

So. How to celebrate this Sunday on Mother's Day? I'm in favor of some goddess worship, probably involving some rocks and food and chocolates and compassion and love. Not so original, but time tested and universal:

• Visit Mom (or a Mom) and give her a massage (if she wants one). Neck, hands, feet, back. Good for circulation for giver and receiver. Touch can be healthy. Ask her stories.
• Teach her a Nice Neck Stretch
• Make her (and you) something healthy to eat. For light teas, try cinnamon, cloves, grated orange peel, or ginger in hot water.
• For a cold treat without unhealthy junk food, mash a frozen banana with crushed raw walnuts or flax seeds. Use a food grinder or get free exercise by mashing them yourself in a bowl. It will taste like creamy ice cream. Flax seeds and walnuts have been found to be effective to help bone health as vegetarian sources of omega-3 (n-3) fatty acids. Raw walnuts (as part of a general low fat and cholesterol diet) have also been found to have a beneficial effect to decrease cardiovascular disease risk, among other benefits. This treat has fiber and is non dairy, both associated with lower breast cancer risk.
• Goddess worship often is helped with chocolate. The primary chemical in chocolate is theobromine. "Theo-" means God and "broma" comes from a word meaning food. The theobromine in chocolate was named for "food of the gods." Theobromine is an antioxidant, weak diuretic, stimulant, and mood booster, opens breathing airways, and relieves coughing. Dark chocolate has more theobromine than lighter chocolate, with flavonoids and phenolics, plant substances that are good for the heart. People who get a kind of vascular headache called migraine do better not to eat chocolate. For others, get plain cocoa, unsweetened, not junked up with sugar. Add the unsweetened cocoa to the frozen mashed banana and walnuts for a healthy sweet wonderful treat that tastes better than you would expect. For exotic flavor and more health benefit, add fresh grated ginger root.
• Sit outside in the air and sun to have your tea and frozen banana. Warnings on the dangers of overtanning are important for preventing skin cancer for people who work outdoors, who over-tan for cosmetic purposes, and a few other populations. Another group to consider is those spending too little time outdoors. Sunlight exposure is increasingly documented as crucial to bone density, healthy immune function, positive mood, sound sleep at night, relief of symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis, MS, and other health issues. A nice massage and tea and chocolate outside in the sunlight could be made into a wonderful Mother's Day. Nice excuse to buy a hat.
• Make Mom (or a Mom) some homemade healthy skin lotion. Commercial products have preservatives, dyes, and chemicals. Try combinations of grape seed oil, tea tree oil (very small amount), vitamins C and E, ginger, honey, tea, fresh aloe, and fragrances from oils, fruit, flowers like lavender, or leaves like mint. (Don't wear citrus oils like lime out in the sun.)
• Help out at a woman and child shelter. Or help at a men's shelter to help the guys get back on their feet to help their own families.
• Celebrate Mother Earth - go out and pick up litter. It's good exercise. Bend right.
• Make a trip to look around a home improvement center to see about some do it yourself solar projects, even if only to replace a few lights.
• Go do gardening for your mother, or your mother Earth. Lift and bend right, reach right, carry in healthy ways.
  
• Do some cooking, shopping, vacuuming, and cleaning for Mom (or a Mom). Water their plants. It's good exercise for you and a nice thing for them.
• Be good to each other - all the children of Earth.
• Follow the advice of the unknown who said, "The most important gift a father can give his children is to love their mother."
• If that doesn't work, take the advice on the side of aspirin bottles: "Take two aspirin, and keep away from children."

Labels: circulation, holiday, massage, nutrition, osteoporosis, spirit, stretch

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Fixing More Fitness Myths

On April 1st, I covered some fun fitness myths and how to change myth into healthier exercise. Today continues with more fun ways to get more exercise and reduce injury at the same time:


Heart Health

Myth - Anger has no health effects. Instead, turn contempt and anger for others to healthy dialog with:
Healthier Heart.

Understanding How "Sticking Out in Back" Isn't Neutral Spine:

Start with this one to see what overarching the lower back means, and how correcting it lets you do more in healthier ways:
Fixing the Commonest Source of Mystery Lower Back Pain

Then try Using Abdominal Muscles is Not Tightening or Pressing Navel to Spine to visualize how you simply tuck enough to make the belt line level when standing, not tilted. A small inward curve in the lower back remains when you shift to neutral spine, but not large enough to cause degenerative pinching on the facet joints, the joints of the lower spine.

Then feel the difference of tucking until neutral: Throw a Stronger Punch (or Push a Car or Stroller) Using This Back Pain Reduction Technique

and Change Daily Reaching to Get Ab Exercise and Stop Back and Shoulder Pain

Here is how to try it during squats: Free Exercise and Free Back and Knee Pain Prevention - Healthy Bending

Here are some abdominal exercises using these principles: Change Common Exercises to Get Better Ab Exercise and Stop Back Pain

Here is what it looks like not to use abs:
What Abdominal Muscles Don't Do - The Missing Link
What Does It Look Like to Not Use Abdominal Muscles?
and Healthier Carrying - Get Free Ab Exercise and Stop Pain.

Abs and Tightening:

Myth - Pressing navel inwards to tighten abs is the way to strengthen your abs or fix your posture. Fact - tightening will not move your spine out of unhealthy position and it impedes normal fluid motion:
Using Abdominal Muscles is Not Tightening or Pressing Navel to Spine.

Exercise Injuries

Myth - Exercise injuries are usually overuse and aging.
Fact - Simple misuse is easily fixed: Why So Many Aerobics Injuries? and What is "Fitness as a Lifestyle?"
A recent injury survey by US military revealed that 62% of American injuries in Iraq are occurring in the gym. Welcome to the Fitness Fixer tells more.
Some top docs say the military press should be avoided. I think it is a functional exercise and can be done in ways without upper body injury: Safer Overhead Military Press.

Dispelling Myths about Circulation and Massage:

Keeping Thai Massage Healthy Part III - Should You Do "The Blood Stop?"
Making Thai Massage Healthier Part II - Avoid Snapping Elbows or Knees Backward
Changing Thai Massage to Be Healthier Part I - Avoid Pressuring Lower Back Discs.

Sitting and Rising:

Myth - The way to sit and rise from a chair is to lean forward and stick out in back. Here is a way that uses muscles more:
Get Better Exercise From Your Chair
and
Aren't You Supposed To Stick Your Behind Out to Sit Down or Do Squats?

Dispelling the Myth That The Best Ab Exercise Means Crunches, Leg Lifts, and Bending Forward:

Abdominal Muscle Exercise - Better, Different, Not What You Think
Throw a Stronger Punch (or Push a Car or Stroller) Using This Back Pain Reduction Technique
Change Common Exercises to Get Better Ab Exercise and Stop Back Pain.

Knee Pain:

Myth - to avoid knee pain you must avoid impact activities or exercises that bend the knees. Here are ways to do all you enjoy and get stronger healthier knees:
Understanding positioning and impact: Healthy Knees.
For full squatting to the heels: Save Knees When Squatting
For half squatting for bending and exercise: Free Exercise and Free Back and Knee Pain Prevention - Healthy Bending.

Backpacks and Back Pain:

Myth - Carrying the weight of backpacks makes your back hurt. Fact - You can change the source of the back pain by how you carry the same pack:
Healthier Backpack Carrying to Get Better Exercise and Stop Back Pain
and
Carrying Schoolbooks Is Not the Cause of Back Pain.

Back Surgery:

Myth - surgery is necessary to avoid later problems. Fact - Studies have now found that is it not true that you necessarily risk future consequences if you do not have surgery. Surgery itself can be a source of later trouble:
Fix Disc Pain Without Surgery
and
Studies Say Back Surgery Not Needed.

Squats:

There are medical people who say that squats are bad for the back and knees. I believe that healthy squats make daily life and exercise healthier and smarter, and can prevent much back and knee pain:
Bending Right is Fitness as a Lifestyle
How Often Should You Be Healthy?
Free Exercise and Free Back and Knee Pain Prevention - Healthy Bending
How Good Would You Look From 400 Squats a Day - Just Stop Unhealthy Bending.

Cause of Disc Degeneration and Herniation:

Myth - Vertebral discs just go bad without warning, from small provocations like a sneeze or reaching or from aging, so it doesn't matter what you do. The good news is that discs are not soft "jelly donuts" as often described. They are tough like truck tires. It takes years of the same, specific, problem to break them down and move them out of place. See the mechanism:
Disc Pain - Not a Mystery, Easy to Fix

Then see examples during daily life:
The Cause of Disc and Back Pain
Are You Making Your Exercise Unhealthy?
and How Often Should You Be Healthy?

Brain Damage:

Myth - knocks to the head are funny and harmless. In reality, long-term damage may be common and serious. This has far reaching implication for law enforcement, domestic violence, full contact sports, and extreme entertainment:
Rocky IV and Head Injury.

Sitting and Back Pain:

It made headlines when researchers seemed to say that sitting up straight was wrong. Here is what they really meant:
Don't Fall for "Don't Sit Up Straight."

When you exercise for health, are you sitting in unhealthy ways? Are You Making Your Exercise Unhealthy?

and here are two for more comfortable sitting:
When Did Health Become Thinking Out Of The Box?
and Exercise and Stretch for Long Travel Sitting.

Upper Back and Neck Pain

Breasts Causing Upper Back Pain is a Myth

Myth - All neck stretches fix neck pain. Fact - there are some stretches that increase neck pain:
Upper Back Exercise and Neck Pain Prevention Too
and The Stretch You Need The Least.
Here are stretches that work better:
Fixing Upper Back and Neck Pain
Thumbs Can Show Tightness That Leads to Upper Back Pain
Nice Neck Stretch
and Quick, Feel-Good Upper Back and Chest Stretch.

Dispelling the Myth That Any Exercise or Stretch is Good For You:

The Stretch You Need The Least
Is Bad Martial Arts Good Exercise?
Common Exercises Teach Bad Bending
Sitting Badly Isn't Magically Healthy by Calling It a Hamstring Stretch
Common Exercises Teach Hip Tightness When Kicking, Stretching, and on the Stairs
Healthier Hamstring Stretching
and Better Achilles Tendon Stretch.

Is More Calcium is the Answer for Bone Density?:

Exercise is More Important Than Calcium Supplements for Bones
and
Collapsing Astronaut Gives Healthy Reminder.

Making Peace

I have taken many classes where the teacher claims their exercise system gives focus and calm, then they lose all their concentration if a student arrives late, if a phone rings, or if the class next door is too loud. These posts give things to try instead:
Which Ancient Exercise Gives Focus and Concentration?
Exercise Common Sense Discipline
The Story of the Black Belt.

More myths - Fixing Fitness Myths

Labels: abdominal muscles, circulation, facet joints, holiday, knee, lordosis, massage, myths, nutrition, squat

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Keeping Thai Massage Healthy Part III - Should You Do "The Blood Stop?"

The previous three posts have started telling about Thai Massage. Thai massage is done lying comfortably on a soft mat on the ground. No table is needed. It is done clothed, except for bare feet. Most places in Thailand have Thai massage going on in the stores, on street corners, in the internet cafes, at restaurants, on the beaches, and other organized or impromptu sites. Southern Thai Massage style concentrates more on pressure points. Northern style adds wonderful stretches.

Thai massage is generally helpful, but there are a few moves to avoid. One is the "blood–stop." There is much discussion about this maneuver, both for and against. It helps to understand what is really going on to be able to decide.

The practitioner may press their palms, knees, elbows, forearms, shins, or feet over the big blood vessels that bring blood to your legs, or over the arteries that conduct blood to your arms. They press enough to slow or stop blood from flowing to your legs or arms as long as 30 seconds, a minute, sometimes more, depending on the style and school where they learned. When they release the pressure that was restricting the blood, blood flows back down the limbs in a warm rush that some people enjoy. Thai massage practitioners are taught to never do the blood stop on anyone with high blood pressure, varicose veins, heart or circulatory problems, or pregnancy. But it turns out that it is also not healthy for others.

It is often taught in massage schools that the blood stop helps unplug clogged arteries. The theory is that if there were deposits that block the artery, the rush of blood returning would "unplug" the blockage and carry it away, like cleaning a clogged plumbing pipe. This does not work for several reasons. First, the rise in blood pressure from stopping (or slowing) blood flow is small and not enough to dislodge anything when flow is released. You increase your own blood pressure more from ordinary walking and exercise. Next, even if it could dislodge anything, anything that dislodges from your big blood vessels can travel to a smaller place to become a foreign clog there - in the same way that damage occurs from a brain clot or heart attack or phlebitis.

Another idea taught is that slowing arterial blood helps draw away "stagnant" venous blood from the limbs. This is not how circulation works, even if it sounds good. Even though the blood stop will not help, you can easily do exercise that improves circulation both arterial and venous. When you exercise, the contracting muscles squeeze your limb vessels and push blood that pools in the limbs. The post Collapsing Astronaut Gives Healthy Reminder explains more on blood pooling and what exercise does for circulation.

Another of the theories of the blood stop sometimes taught in massage schools is that it helps counter the phenomenon of "legs falling asleep" during long sitting or meditation. The belief is that "legs falling asleep" is caused by lack of blood flow, and the blood stop will strengthen or increase circulation to alleviate that problem in the future. A little knowledge of physiology shows why neither is true. Compressing arteries to slow or stop blood does not cause any increase in the number or size of blood vessels, or ability to pump blood, any more than having clogged arteries improves circulation. The blood stop does not reroute the blood or encourage the body to find new pathways which give circulatory benefit. Exercise will increase all these good things, but doing the blood stop does not, even if we wish it does, or were taught that it does. Next, when a limb "falls asleep" it is not lack of blood flow, but nerve compression. There is no reduction in blood flow when you get the tingling and the "pins and needles" feeling of a limb falling asleep. The tingling is called neuropraxia, which just means a temporary interruption of sending nerve signals resulting in pins and needles feeling. During the blood stop maneuver, there is no pins and needles feeling, and when you stand up after your legs "fall asleep" there is no warm rush of blood as after the blood stop. They are two different things.

The next problem is an interesting phenomenon. When you stop blood to an area, it is not healthy for the area. Cells starve. Nerve cells are the most sensitive to lack of oxygen. Thai massage practitioners are sometimes taught that it is not stopping blood but "opening the wind" to release stagnant blood or energy. Still, no matter what you call it, lack of blood flow is not great for the area. Then the interesting paradox occurs. When blood flow, called perfusion, is restored to any body area that was deprived, oxygen flows back into the area. That would sound helpful, but the oxygen itself causes a second injury. It floods the area with a kind of oxygen that is not healthy along with other harmful products. It causes a serious injury called a reperfusion injury. This same kind of injury occurs with heart attack or in a limb that may have been crushed or caught under something, depriving it of blood. First, areas of the heart or the limb that are shut off from oxygen begin to die. When blood flow is restored, oxygen flows back into the area and with it, and a cascade of oxygen damage.

You may have heard of anti-oxidant compounds in foods. Many processes can damage your cells by oxidizing them. Oxidation is a natural process and needed for many things. But too much is not healthy. Free radicals were thought to be involved in oxidative damage. Your body naturally produces anti-oxidants to balance this and other oxidative stress from other sources. Many people take anti-oxidant vitamins hoping that more is better, which is not always the case, and only works to sell products. Separately, anti-oxidant vitamins and your own body's defenses can't do enough to protect you against a sudden reperfusion injury. Much interesting work in high-pressure oxygen science deals with trying to understand and avoid the paradox of the reperfusion injury.

There is more, but in short, none of this means that Thai massage is not good, just that it is best to avoid the blood stop move. It is easy to avoid the pitfalls and hype of massage, and use Thai massage and other kinds of massage for the benefits.

Photo by Nagyman

Labels: circulation, massage

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Making Thai Massage Healthier Part II - Avoid Snapping Elbows or Knees Backward

The previous two posts told a little about Thai massage and some of the benefits and pitfalls.

Some massage practioners say that Thai massage is an "energy-based" system, not a physical one. However, there are direct physical moves that bring direct physical change, both good and bad. Many of the stretches of Northern style Thai massage can be helpful to restore length to tight muscles so that you can restore healthy body positioning. For example, in the photo at left, the legs are lifted upward so that the front of the hip is gently stretched. The practitioner puts their foot on the back of the the person's hip to prevent the lower back from being overly-arched by the stretch and to concentrate the stretch more on the front hip muscles. This is a beneficial stretch because the front of the hip is often tight from long sitting and faulty standing positioning. This Thai masage stretch restores length to the front hip muscles.

There are also a few moves to avoid. Sometimes in the course of a massage, the practitioner may straighten your elbow or knee too quickly and too much, sometimes adding a forceful snap. The elbow and knee joints are not shaped to hyper-extend. Hyperextension means to go more than a normally straight position. Hyperextending the knee or elbow can damage the joint and strain the cartilage.

No joint should be snapped to reach the end of its range of motion. Although many of us learned to do this in massage school, and were taught that the snapping and hyperextending motion has benefits, it is better to skip joint snapping and do all the other moves that have benefit without harm.

Labels: elbow, hip, knee, massage, stretch

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Changing Thai Massage to Be Healthier Part I - Avoid Pressuring Lower Back Discs

In the previous post, What is Thai Massage? I explained that many moves in Thai massage are beneficial, with a few to avoid. One of these less than healthy moves involves the practitioner pushing your back and neck forward into a stretch.

The post Disc Pain - Not a Mystery, Easy to Fix explains why sitting and bending over eventually breaks down the discs of your lower back. In one of the pushing stretches, the practitioner sits behind you to push your back forward, leaning their weight to assist your forward movement, as in the drawing at left.

In another move they add putting their arm under your arm and around the back of your neck. In wrestling, this move is called a half-Nelson. This move is used to bend your neck forward. From there, they push your back and neck forward, leaning their weight to assist your forward movement

Don't let people push your back or neck to round forward, whether to stretch or to make a cracking noise. Avoid treatments that include manipulation to the neck, which has been found to sometimes tear the blood vessels leading to the brain. There have been deaths and even Western chiropractors have been cautioned not to crack the neck with these moves.

A second assisted stretch to avoid is similar to the move above. The practitioner may sit behind you or to the side, and put one or both of their arms under your arms then around the back of your neck, in a move that in the West are called a "half Nelson" and "full-Nelson." From there they may swing you slightly to the side, then again with a wider swing, then a third time with force. This sometimes makes a cracking noise in your back. Anatomically, the greatest force you can put on your discs and low back is bending forward with a twist. Politely decline anyone who would do this to you.

Labels: disc, lower back, massage, neck, sitting, upper back

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What is Thai Massage?

There are many claims for massage, some real and some exaggerated or false. I searched for methods that provide real benefit. I studied sports massage in India and Nepal, and in certification programs of Shiatsu in Japan, TuiNa in China, and Nuad Borarn, (which is Thai for "ancient massage") in programs in the United States and Thailand. We are here in Thailand now, working on many projects.

Thai massage has been called "Yoga Done For You." You rest comfortably on the floor on a soft mat, clothed, except for bare feet. There is no rubbing as in Swedish massage, but pressing and wonderful stretches.

The person associated with founding or codifying Thai Massage was Shivaga (or Jivaka) Komalaboat. Some practitioners in the United States call him Dr. Zhivago, like the main character Yuri Andreyevich Zhivago in the Russian epic by Boris Pasternak. But that is just a funny mispronunciation.

The "Father Doctor" or "Hermit Doctor" Jivaka is reported to have been born in northern India, and became a doctor of traditional medicine. According to some sources, he was a contemporary, even advisor, of The Buddha and great kings. He moved to what is now Tibet. His teachings came to Thailand and Burma over a thousand years ago. Father Jivaka is so important to traditional medicine throughout all these areas that he is also called the "Thrice Crowned King of Tibetan medicine." Drawings and statues of him, many with small shrines, are common in massage and medicine schools and pharmacies.

Many Thai massage stretches and movements are used in traditional Western sports medicine to reset resting muscle length, and find and relieve unhealthy muscle and joint tensions. I learned these techniques in school in the United States when I studied orthopedics. When I first came to Thailand to train and compete in martial arts, I was surprised to find they were established techniques for massage, and helpful for boxers recovering from injuries and strenuous training and matches. The photo, to the left, shows a nice stretch for the front of the hip. Several past posts explained how important it is to stretch the anterior hip. Most people keep the hip bent forward in a shortened position all day for sitting, then only bend forward more to exercise with crunches, pilates moves, toe touches, and others. A tight, shortened anterior hip contributes to many pain syndromes, and results in not being able to use hip and leg muscles properly when walking and exercising.

Many Thai massage moves are helpful. There are a few Thai massage moves that can be unhealthy. When I give or teachThai massage, I omit the unhealthy moves. When I get Thai massage at home in Thailand, it is an art to politely manage to stop the tiny practitioners from holding you in an iron grip to calmly apply these moves. I will cover what is beneficial in Thai massage and what to avoid in posts to come. If you want to come study Thai massage with me in the States, see my web site.

Photo by Jolie

Labels: hip, martial arts, massage, performance enhancing modality, yoga

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