Foot Pain and Massge

Feet are your bottom line - as you walk or exercise all your weight bears down on your feet.

it's only when our fee start to hurt - which can happen at any age- that we realize our feet need attention. Injuries, postural habits, and lack of exercise from being constrained in shoes -- all these can lead eventually to foot pain.

Many of us think expensive shoes or orthotics are the only solution to foot pain. But if you want to stop a sagging stomach, do you wear a girdle or start doing those abdominal crunches? If you are tired of flabby underarms or thighs, do you wear loose clothing or do you hit the dumbbells and strengthen your triceps and quads? Feet work by muscles just the same, and if the muscles of the foot are healthy and fully developed - you will not have foot pain.

Can it really be that simple? Yes! You may believe foot problems are heredity and unchangeable - like flat feet, because your mother had them. But everyone is born with flat feet! It's how we develop the muscles of the foot that create and support the arches. Well developed foot muscles and strong arches are essential - not only to prevent foot pain but also to support the rest of your body, and prevent low back pain.

The feet are one of the first places where the muscles begin to contract and restrict us as we age because we stopped exercising them - years earlier than anything else - when we stopped playing and going barefoot. They are confined in shoes all day, and with modern technology, shoes that are designed to immobilize the foot in the name of support!

Foot Architecture
The foot sets the stage for the whole body - when your feet flatten, your ankles cave in and your knees follow your arches, your pelvis drops and your whole spine settles into your lower back .

In today's world most of our feet muscles go un-used. We no longer move each toe separately from the others - but we have muscles to do just that! Can you fully flex or point your feet without cramping? When the foot muscles don't work, they are unable to function in their role as shock absorbers. Our paved walkways, driveways, and sidewalks make it unnecessary for all the muscles that balance the ankle and foot side to side to work at all. And it's not just the foot muscles. If you don't fully use your feet, the leg muscles get tighter after a workout, instead of moving more freely.

Vacation in Peru

Back from vacation in Peru - with a marvelous visit to Machu Picchu, surely one of the wonders of the world. In fact, right now you can vote to create a new, modern "7 Wonders of the World" and include Machu Picchu. I sure did!



We hiked the Inca Trail to the site, 4 days of pretty intense treking. We had a wonderful group, guided by PeruTreks, and saw hummingbirds, orchids, the lovely Andean Rose, along with amazing Agaves, bromeliads, and of course bamboo!



The city is truely amazing, even in the heavy rain we had all morning. Then the clouds lifted and thinned, and Wow! a magical city among the clouds and mountain peaks.









It's good to be back home too though. 2007 resolution: learn a little Spanish. South America is a marvelous place and I loved the people and culture of Peru. It would sure help to be able to converse a little better!

Shifting Baselines

An interesting article about shifting baselines, "the chronic, slow, hard-to-notice changes in things," from the disappearance of frogs in the countryside to the increased drive time in the area. (Definition is quoted from marine biologist Randy Olson.)

Shifting baselines can also be used to explain to clients how they get better from regular massage. Getting someone to note that their baseline for range of motion, time intervals between pain episodes, etc. has gotten better is so rewarding for both client and therapist! And it's easy to miss because the changes are slower to manifest. I love how this new term will make it easier to call attention to positive changes.

Massage goes mainstream!

Found a great article in the blog search on massage therapy as CAM!

CAM is a fairly new word, referring to "Complementary and Alternative Medicine. " This is a big topic for our health care system because they found they were loosing a lot of business to "alternative" therapies, and it has forced a new approach if they want to retain their standingns in the market. That sounds cynical, but the result has had a great influence on medical care!

Now this article, "Massage Therapy as CAM" comes from the NCCAM (National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine) of the National Institutes of Health. Now that's getting some high powered affirmations! It goes on to make the distinction:

Conventional medicine is medicine as practiced by holders of M.D. (medical doctor) and D.O. (doctor of osteopathy) degrees and by their allied health professionals, such as physical therapists, psychologists, and registered nurses. An example of massage therapy as conventional medicine is using it to reduce a type of swelling called lymphedema.

CAM is a group of diverse medical and health care systems, practices, and products that are not presently considered to be part of conventional medicine. While some scientific evidence exists regarding some CAM therapies, for most there are key questions that are yet to be answered through well-designed scientific studies. An example of massage therapy as CAM is using it with the intent to enhance immune system functioning.

"Making it" as an alternative health practitioner

It is an unfortunate reality that the majority of alternative health practitioners struggle to make a decent living from their business.

This raises the question: "Why are people who are dedicated and passionate about what they do failing to translate this into a successful business?" Having spoken to countless alternative health practitioners, I have identified why the majority of them are struggling:

• They often do not realise that their healing work can also be a successful business that makes them money.
  
• A deeper version of this belief is: They believe that it is not ethical or spiritual to make a lot of money doing this type of work.

Many alternative health practitioners start in their business more as a hobby or part-time. They get into this business because it is something they love to do and passionately believe in. Building a successful practice isn't always a top priority at first, but as they love the work, they want to do it full time. Making that transition does require investing time in some business building activities. You can do it! I know many successful alternative health practitioners and society requires many more.

Once you have accepted that you can have a thriving alternative health practice, let us address the belief that it is not ethical or spiritual to make a lot of money doing this type of work. Do you believe that in order to be spiritual or ethical, you should not charge for your work? It's easy to mix your "caring, heart energy" with your skilled time. But they are not the same: skilled time is scarce, and highly valued. It is a business service just like a carpenter, a programmer, a nurse. Heart energy and love are infinite and can't be quantified into a dollar amount or a session time limit. I've developed the distinction that "I bill for my time, the caring is free. "

Spirituality has no relationship to money. You can be very spiritual and be rich. You can also be very spiritual and be poor. You are able to make a bigger difference in the world and pursue your spiritual path more in-depth if you don't have to worry about how to pay the bills from week to week. A person's spirituality manifests by what they do with the money they earn, not by the amount of it.

On this Christmas Day, I send out hope to my many colleagues to understand and overcome these blocks so that you too can create a thriving alternative health business and make a good living while helping more people and doing what you love.

Erica Bliss Winston, LMBT
www.massage-therapy-cary.com

Starting up a blog as the year rolls into next - kind of cool :-)

More joy and peace in our lives... a good thought as the holidays draw closer. One of the key ways to get that joy and peace in our lives is to tame our gremlins! You know, the little voices/urges in our heads that are always questioning us: "are you doing the right thing here?", "are you sure?", "have you been a good enough person?" -- or often telling us we are not.

We ARE NOT our gremlins. After all, if we are listening to it, who is listening? So where are our gremlins and how do we tame them? By paying attention to our tension - tension in our bodies, tension in our thoughts (those thoughts where you sense the voice gets an electric charge, louder, more intense). Our tensions are our gremlins.

If we pay attention and unwind from that tension (through biofeedback or conscious stretching or good bodywork) we'll often remember the whole series of choices/decisions - many out of conscious awareness even -- that we've made over the years to get in our current tense spot. The choice to keep our lips buttoned over something we didn't dare say years ago that now travels up into a nasty migraine whenever we are especially "tactful."

We can learn we have to deal with the worry and stress in our situation - and take steps to resolve it. But we don't have to let our bodies get so involved in the process that we uncage a gremlin :-)

The result - more joy and peace in our lives, which I sure wish to all!

Erica Bliss Winston, LMBT
Licenses Massage and Bodywork Therapist
www.massage-therapy-cary.com