The Number One Form of Self Care

We can change our posture and health simply by changing the way we breath.

How to identify if you are using the right muscles when you breath:

-Locate the diaphragm by placing your hands lightly around the lower rib cage.
-Now take a big inhale

If you notice that you initiate your breath from your shoulders and they move up, more than your ribs expand out or you find that it is difficult to take a deep breath without initiating from your shoulders, then you are likely using secondary breathing muscles and your diaphragm could use some training and reeducation.

Other common symptoms of poor breathing pattern include but are not limited to head aches, tight neck and chest muscles, anxiety, depression, fatigue, sleep disorders and digestive problems.

Breathing is the foundation of all movement and functions of the body. When we are not breathing well, we are not living well. The breath goes through many adaptations a day. Some times the breath gets stuck and does not return to normal function. This is common when responsibilities pile up and the mind races, through repetitive activities or when we don’t let go of an emotional experience and stressful states. Because we have voluntary control of respiration, we can use it as a tool in our health care program to help restore healthy respiration. Different types of breathing styles facilitate different functions and activities.

Types of Breath Techniques and Applications:

1. Holding the Breath, is good for heavy load baring activities like lifting weights or quick movements because it creates a back pressure that supports the integrity of the spine. Holding a deep breath will also increase lung capacity and is used to train deep sea divers.

2. Directing the inhale or exhale, deliberately trains the capacity of the lungs and stretches and strengthens the diaphragm. This is commonly used in cardio training, child birth, lifting weight, regulating extreme emotions and pain control. It focuses the mind with a goal. Often this directed breathing is performed with a set count like 5 seconds of inhalation and 5 seconds for exhalation. The number seconds will vary based on needs, ability and practice.

3. Passive breathing, is the ability to allow the breath to move uninhibited and without directly trying to change it. This is the breath that we should use all day as well as for creating states of relaxation. It involves the ability to deepen the breath by moving out of the way and trying to release tension in the body so that the breath can fill the lungs fully with very little effort. The motto for this style is make the breath ‘long, smooth, slow, deep and even.

In the beginning brining attention to the breath is usually easier to practice in a comfortable quiet place or where you can focus easily. As you get more accustomed to breathing, practice it throughout the day. For example in the car at a stop light, in the grocery line, just before bed, during exercise. The more you practice the more you will restore your natural respiration and support a happy life.

Learning How to Relax

How much challenge is too much? How much emotional, physical or psychological stress can one handle?

The question is not how much challenge can we handle but how well can we recover and return to homeostasis after we have been challenged? One of the first questions I ask my clients is how do you relax. Most are taken back by the question because in the fitness industry, it is only recently that the value of relaxation has been recognized by medical health professionals to be directly related to our ability to have a healthy and happy life.

The ability to relax and recovery from a sympathetic nervous system stimulation varies from person to person and is influenced by a host of factors including but not limited to history, temperament, and type of challenge. What is stressful for one person may be difficult for another person to assimilate. Knowing what challenges you and tracking your reaction is key. Do this by listening to how your biology responds. Does your heart rate increase, can you sense tension in your body, is your breathing restricted?

Exercise: Practice a full body scan. Begin in a comfortable place where you can focus on your body like in your bed, chair, or lying on the floor. Start by tensing the muscle in your feet, then while maintaing the tension in your feet began to tense your entire leg. Then both legs are tense. Continue to systematically tensing the muscles in your body until your entire body is tense. Once every muscle is tightened, hold a few seconds, then all at once relax everything. Let go of all the tension more and more, breathing freely and deeply. Repeat the exercise until you feel a deep sense of release on the letting go phase of the exercise.

This exercise will help you to learn what tension feels like and what relaxation feels like. Practice checking in on your state of relaxation throughout your day. This is a good beginning in learning how to sense your body, feeling the contrast between contraction and release.

A Breathless Lifestyle

How do we avoid breath creating distortions and return to a natural state of breathing?

A breath distortion can effect any part of our breathing cycle; Inhalation, Exhalation and Pause. The Pause cycle of the breath is where most problems occur. The 'Pause' happens at the end of the exhalation and is the time in which we are gathering energy for the next inhalation. Without the pause our organs are compromised and will remain in a state of chronic tension and poor function. Also our nervous and circulatory system are compromised. Our overall sense of well being becomes limited.

Any event in our daily experience can cause a change in our breathing cycle and with each experience our breath is adapting as we integrate or digest our experiences. Like a tree adapts to stillness after being moved by the breeze. The problem arises when we interfere with our ability for our breath to normalize. For example, if you did not allow your breath to normalize after doing a running sprint and then went into a intense conversation with your boss or loved one, the stored tension in the breathing muscle would quickly form a habit of breathing that is distorted and will be carried through to all your future experiences.

Another example deals with being parents or caregivers. Think of a child that is crying. The neurology of a child lacks the experience to self regulate and adapt to this completely new experience of intense emotions. The child sensing the environment changing relies on the parent for cues of comfort. If these cues are not effectively communicated, the child will begin to build an internal tensional habit that will effect their breathing physiology for a life time. Parents are initially responsible for supporting their children in returning to a natural breathing state.

We currently live in "Breathless Society" or a society in which most of the citizens participate in a lifestyle that does not allow for breath awareness and adaptation. The speed at which we transition from activitiy to activity has a lot to do with how our breath is able to return to a normalized state.

Symptoms of a distorted breath pattern include and are not limited to:
Chronic Anxiety
Prone to Anger
Depression
Chronic pain
Digestion Issues
Sleep disturbances

To develop a relationship with your breath will take a kinesetic sense or a sense of your body as it is breathing. If you are not familiar with your breath in a natural state seek out a teacher, like me, to help you learn an invaluable skill.

Work the Breath Muscle

The Diaphragm, the primary breathing muscle, is the only muscle that lies perpendicular to the spine in the body. When we don't use our diaphragm to breath we can end up with what I call a paralyzed diaphragm. A paralyzed diaphragm occurs when we use secondary breathing muscles like the commonly used pectorals,sterno-cleido mastoid and the scalene muscles. If one has a paralyzed diaphragm it is also likely that other primary breathing structures will be inhibited as well, such as the ribs. The rib muscles, tendons, cartilage and ligaments all move with every cycle of breath. It is important that every rib moves with expansion and contraction. Unresolved, intense past emotional experiences are one reason for breath distortions and can remain stuck in ones breathing cycle.

Exercise: Try bringing your attention to the place where the air is just entering your nose. This is the gate from the outer world to your inner world. As the air enters your body begin to track how it outlines your inner landscape or the space that is inside of you. Use your breath to find how each rib moves exploring the entire dimension of your rib cage with each breath: The front ribs, the side ribs and the back ribs. On inhalation, feel your ribs began to expand from the lower ribs first. Then like a ladder how each rib expands upward until you get to the very top of the rib cage at the base of the neck.

Types of Tired

There could be many reasons for fatigue and the feeling of being tired but the top are as follows.

Top Five Reasons for Being Tired:
1. Lack of oxygen due to restricted or shallow breathing patterns- Hyperventilation breathing cycles are common with low grade stress and chronic anxiety. This means that every time you inhale you don't get enough oxygen and this creates a signal that the body interprets as stressful, creating a cycle of restricted inhalations.

2. Dehydration- We need approx. 1/2 your body weight,in ounces, in water a day. Example if you are 150 lbs. you would need 75 oz. of water daily. If you drink diuretics like coffee and tea or sweat while exercising you will need to drink more. Most of the time when we are looking for something or have some confusion of what to do next, we are actually looking for water.

3. Over work or lack of rest- Are you tired from over-stimulation, doing to much and you need to rest because your adrenals are overworked. Adrenal fatigue is common and a simple test from your Doctor can help you get a diagnosis.


4. Under worked or lack of movement-Are you tired because you have stagnate blood and poor circulation of nutrients, lack of oxygen and stimulation.A good way to know is if your energy levels increase or decrease after moderate exercise.


5. Nutrient Deficiency, Allergies, Blood Sugar Fluctuations- These are common and often less obvious causes of fatigue. A Doctor of Naturopathy or nutritionist are the best for diagnosing and treating these issues. Secondarily, I would not recommend your general practitioner because they only get nutrition as an elective in college and often an average nutritionist will know more.

The Power of Isometric Exercise

Postural muscles are different, so we train them differently. Right? Well not always true.

The other day I asked one of my clients, that does regular heavy lifting, to hold a back extension for 30secs. At about the 20sec mark they were shaking and showing signs of noticeable muscle fatigue. Yet this person can lift a tremendous amount of weight in the gym. That same person is required to hold a short range isometric position for even longer while doing daily activities, and also complains of pain. I the complaint of their back pain during daily activities comes as no surprise. This person has good strength muscles and weak postural muscles.

If you are in an occupation or participate in an activity that requires endurance of postural muscles I recommend you learn the exercises that train those muscles. For example, Working in a Kitchen, Mechanic, Office Worker etc. Isometric exercises can help to prevent injury.

Isometric exercises or exercises that are held in a static position for a duration of time often use postural muscles. Core strengthening exercises that strengthen the back and abdominal muscles as well as shoulder and pelvis muscles, also help to maintain posture. Examples are the plank and back extensions.

Include isometric exercises in your weight training routine to balance and complete your strength and prevent aches and pains.

Are You Getting What You Want From Your Exercise?

What is the goal of your exercise program?

The answer is not the same for everyone and your answer shapes your exercise/lifestyle routine.

Examples of why people exercise:
1. To look or be more physically attractive to another person/to impress others based on social standards.
2. To feel better: increased energy, relieve aches and pains
3. To achieve something and challenge the bodies limits
4. Increase longevity and quality of life

If you are planning to partake in a marathon or take up a professional sport, it will likely not lead to your longevity or reduce aches/pains and in your body. However, it will give you a sense of purpose and achievement as well as relief from boredom.

If you want to feel energized and increase longevity, than a balanced movement program, that includes a variety of different activities, is what you want. This includes: moderate cardio activity, mind/body practices, strength training and outdoor activities like hiking and biking. Doing a little of all these activites would create a balanced exercise program.

For best results a weight loss program focuses on eating habits. The estimated ratio for weight loss results is 80% diet and 20% exercise. That means that you only eat what you need to stay strong and energized and use exercises like interval training to get your metabolism to increase. Don't suffer unnecessarily thinking more exercise is better. It is the regularity of exercise and healthy eating habits that will help you reach the goal of weight loss.

Your style of living is leading you somewhere. Where is yours leading you?

Strength training can benefit older adults

Peter Denny says he is stronger than he's ever been. And he's ready -- for whatever life might throw his way. The 72-year-old Boulder man has already made it through a complete hip replacement, recovering ahead of all of the doctor-set benchmarks. He mountain-bikes. He has been helping his wife recover from cancer for five years, and he says he has energy to spare. His secret: Muscle. Denny's got a lot of it. And he only started building it about seven years ago -- very slowly, at first. As people grow older, they hear a lot about staying "active." But building muscle is just as important, experts say. In fact, the YMCA says strength training is the only way to maintain muscle and metabolism as we age, and should be a part of every senior fitness program. Denny works out at Functional Fitness in Boulder twice a week for 90 minutes. His trainer, Wendy Woods, says she started by educating him about his body, getting him stabilized, stretching to improve his imbalances and correcting his biomechanics. Then she added light weights, and they worked their way up. This methodical process helped Denny build muscle while not creating more injury. She says she doesn't hold back on him now. She knows his history and his abilities, and they go for it. "You can teach an old dog new tricks," Woods says. "His gait has changed completely." Denny says by building up his smaller muscles, by learning how to move more efficiently and use the correct muscles, he has completely erased his knee pain. "My goal now is to keep building my strength, because it feels good," he says. "But also, I know that as I age, things are going to happen, and I want to be in a good position to be able to recover." Still, one of the main reasons seniors don't work out is they get used to their pain and don't realize it is something they can rehabilitate or rebuild, says Boulderite Denny. Other times, people simply don't think they can take on another commitment, especially a physical one, he says. Some are looking for a quick and temporary fix, like a pain pill. "It means you are going to go through a fair amount of new adjustment at an age where that might not seem so attractive," Denny says. "But a even a minor amount of strength training for older people is really worthwhile." Read more: Strength training can benefit older adults - Boulder Daily Camera http://www.dailycamera.com/lifestyles/ci_17774899#ixzz1IxB0vK5U DailyCamera.com

Are you Moving toward balance?-Longevity and Micro Trauma

The Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies, Wallden explains that the average person takes around 10,000 steps a day. With each step a person received a compressive force of about 1 to 3 times their body weight. If we take an average person who sits at a desk for many hours with a flat- backed (hypolordotic) posture and look at how this, plus compressive forces effect his/her potential for micro trauma, we use this formula.

The equation is 10,000(steps a day) x 145 lbs. (average weight) x 3 (return ground force)= 4,350,000 lbs.(The maximum amount of weight that the spine receives daily!). This is 4,350,000 lbs. a day on a spine that does not have a balanced tension in the muscles that causes a misalignment of bones.

Not having a balance of pressure on the bones result in micro traumas. Walden, goes on to explain that the integrity of the spine is severely compromised with this combination of a flat- backed position coupled with activities like walking,exercise and all the varieties of other movements we do daily . The body looses it ability to reset to a neutral position, the longer it is in a non-neutral position. (p.354, vol. 13, 2009) 4 Ways to better understand balance in your body. - Get a postural analysis from a fitness professional. - Become aware of opposites. When something goes up something else has to ground down. - Work with speed, how fast can you go or how slow. - Practice balancing on a unstable surfaces, to understand dynamic tension. Not too tight, not too loose.

Exercise and Extreme Sports As A Form of Self Harm

Exercise is a great activity that can improve your sense of well being, but can exercise become a form of self abuse. The Edinburgh Psychology Centre in Scotland believes it is possible that your mind set when you workout could be contributing to form of self abuse.

Here are some tips to help you boost the positive effects of your workout:
1- Set an positive intention at the beginning of your workout that creates a loving feeling for yourself.

2- Keep that feeling during the whole workout and let negative thoughts sail by.

3- Check-in, are you working yourself to exhaustion because you are your own worst critic.

Extreme workouts/sports could be an indicator that you are pushing yourself too hard.

Remember that working out should help you feel better inside and out. Self harm can be subtle. The Edinburgh Psychology Centre states, "Self harm describes a wide range of things that people do to themselves in a deliberate and usually hidden way. In the vast majority of cases self harm remains a secretive behavior that can go on for a long time without being discovered."

Enjoy the full article.

The Feeling of Strength

Making weight training part of the standardized health care program after cancer treatment will help the millions that have been affected by cancer recover to live better than normal lives. They may even be stronger than they were prior to the cancer treatment. A fitness professional should be part of your health care team. So many of my clients use my personal training instruction as well as a massage therapist, acupuncturist or other health care professionals to help them manage and recover from diseases.


It is not only until recently that the value of weight training is climbing in popularity. I believe this to be because people are now recognizing weight lifting is different than cardio or other forms of exercise. It can be used to strengthen specific muscle groups and achieve the desired results for an individual. For example if cancer survivors increase blood flow in their muscular system they will inadvertently increase the flow of all fluids in the area effected by cancer as well as throughout the entire body. Moving fluids, deliver vital nutrients to the tissues for healing and carrying away unwanted waste. The stimulation of the muscular system by lifting weights is a way that we can help to facilitate the body’s natural fluid pump system.

For further information on a 3 year study on how weight lifting can help to recover from cancer reference the article from Science Daily Weightlifting Slashes Lymphedema Risk After Breast Cancer Treatment, Study Suggests.

Many Thanks and Enjoy Moving