Meditation
is the practice of focusing and training your mind to achieve an
alteration in mental state, whether bring the mind to focus on an image,
or trying to still the mind so that other areas become more apparent
and you “become one with the universe”. The images you probably have of
meditation probably involve sitting cross legged for hours at a time,
chanting “OM” constantly and this is often how it is presented in
popular culture, but it really doesn’t have to be like this.
There
are lots of different types of meditation that can be practiced by
people wanting to meditate and they are ways that give you something to
focus on and then allow it to drift away and the constant chatter that
happens disappears. Most of them are ways to encourage you to “live in
the present” rather than worrying about the past or future. This living
in the now is the reason I frequently suggest people do some sort of
meditation if they are stressed or anxious. Some of the different types
are:
- Visualisation:
Your focus is to see images in your minds eye. This can be imagining a
candle flame in your mind, or a walk in your favourite
woodland/park/outdoor space. This can be quite difficult to start with,
as your mind is likely to struggle
- Guided: This
is a mixture of methods where you are talked through the techniques by
someone else. This can be someone leading a meditation group or a
CD/tape of someone (it could even be yourself reading through a
meditation technique you want to do). Having someone telling you what
to do can be a very good way of keeping the mind focused on the
meditation and not getting caught up in your thoughts.
- Breathing: Focusing on the breath is one of the most basic forms of meditation and is something that is practiced all around the world.
- Mindfulness:
This is the buddhist form of meditation and its focus is many forms of
living in the present. Breathing is used as a focus initially, but the
stillness that this creates is then taken to other areas of your life
and you become aware of what you are doing throughout many other aspects
of your life.
- Chanting:
This could be the saying of a religious prayer, repeating an uplifting
motivational statement or chanting a short phrase (mantra) or making and
experiencing a sound (such as OM or Aum) to act as the focus for the
mind.
- Transcendental Meditation:
This is a form of mantra meditation that became popular in the 1950s
and 1960s and is still widely taught and practiced to this day.
- Other forms: This
is the extension of mindfulness so that all areas of your life can
become a form of meditation. You can meditate on the sensations of
texture/smell/taste as you eat a meal (or start with a grape if that’s
too much). The feelings/sounds/smells that surround you as you walk, and
even the footsteps that you take can be the focus (though this should
only be done somewhere safe, not on a busy high street). Some even talk
about meditating when washing up. Anything can be used as your focus
for your mind.
I
am also of the firm belief that you can spend a shorter amount of time
doing “quality” meditation more frequently rather than feeling guilty
about not being able to spend an hour each day doing it. Things like
breathing style meditations, walking meditations can be slipped into
your daily routine in short bursts, but it is always good to have time
to spend on other areas such as visualisation that need more time given
to them to really benefit.
Short Breathing exercise:
Try focusing on your breathing for ten breaths three times a day:
- really feel how the air moves into and through the body,
- what parts of the spine move and at what point in the breathing cycle
- do you feel your ribs moving? if so where (top, middle or bottom)
- Do
any thoughts crowd into your head? if so then note what they’re about
and return to watching your breath, you can deal with what they were
about after you’ve done the 10 breaths.
- When you finish do you feel any different?
Then when you have more time try doing the same for longer, or search out and attend a meditation group.
I
run a drop in meditation group every Monday at the Clerkenwell Clinic at 1pm.
For all the office workers out there... I feel your pain having worked in a job where I was sat in front of a computer all day for 7 years and developing the lovely aches and pains in neck, back and wrists that you might be suffering from. I thought that I would share a few ideas to help you look after yourself whilst you’re at work. Since changing my career to body work I have realised that a lot of my clients work behind desks and these are some of suggestions that I give to them to help keep as relaxed as possible as most people can’t afford to have a massage every day/week. So to help you maintain your well-being try adding these to your day:
1. Get up at least once an hour. This can be tricky if you’re really involved in something or you’re fixed to your phone but try to get up from your chair and ideally leave your desk on an hourly basis. This could be to go and get a glass of water, talk to a colleague rather than sending an email to them or even standing up to make a phone call. Your body gets used to being kept in a sitting position and the hip flexors get very used to being shortened when sitting and protest when you stand up, so keeping moving keeps them active and they’ll be able to keep you doing what you enjoy.
2. The 20:20:20 rule. This is to help keep your eyes healthy and the full rule states “Every 20 minutes, look 20 feet away for 20 seconds.” Constantly focussing on a computer screen gets the eyes used to seeing that distance and we’ve not evolved for it we’re meant to be looking all around and at different distances from close up work to long distance. So looking at something in the distance exercises the eye muscles and prevents them getting lazy.
3. Sit at your desk properly. I know how easy it is to slump when sitting in front of your computer, but this sitting position really doesn’t help your back and neck. Your back muscles will weaken over time and your vertebrae will be more likely to become displaced possibly leading to slipped disks and agony. The head is often held in a forward position putting extra strain on the shoulder muscles leading to aches and pains in the upper back and possibly headaches. Remember:
- that your spine should be more upright and take the weight vertically down through the bones.
- There should be natural curves in the spine so don’t sit bolt upright.
- The spine should feel lighter when all muscles and bones are working together to keep you upright (using less energy in the process). This lightness is something I introduce to my clients after a massage so they know what it should feel like, as I find it is easier to understand once you’ve experienced it.
I know from experience that changing the way you sit isn’t easy to maintain all the time, at least to start with so it is easier to try to change it in small stages. Start by sitting better each time you sit down , which will be at least once an hour (see tip 1) and over time you will get better at it until you start to catch yourself sitting badly.
4. Get your desk properly set up. Having your desk organised properly and your chair at the right height can really help to reduce the strains and stresses we put on our bodies, however the workstation assessment is seen as a chore by many office workers and is seen as a box to tick off by everybody concerned, and many companies are now using an online self assessment which means that corrections aren’t checked. I know that when my HR department came and checked my workstation I did everything correctly until they had left the room when I went back to my old habits. What I didn’t appreciate when I was younger was that getting my mouse/keyboard/monitor/chair set up properly meant I wouldn’t develop aches and pains as quickly. I will be spending more blog time on this, but in summary::
- when sitting up properly with your shoulders nicely relaxed, your arms should be at the keyboard height with your elbows at approximately 90 degrees,
- your arms shouldn’t be constantly reaching forward to the keyboard or mouse. If the arms of your chair hit the desk and prevent you getting close enough then get rid of the chair arms!
- move your mouse closer so you don’t have your arms constantly extended, and if your mouse mat constantly migrates away from you then try tacking it into position with something like white tack.
- if you need to raise your chair to get your arms at the right height and this means your feet come off the floor then put something underneath them (you do not want to cut off the blood supply to the backs of your legs),
- have the top of your monitor at eye height when you are sitting up properly (see tip 3) you should be looking very slightly down
5. Rest the backs of your hands. We’re typing away for long periods and often our wrists are bent slightly. The finger muscles start in the forearm and they are constantly being used to hold the fingers off the keyboard so when you need to break from tyling whilst you think about what you’re going to write next turn your hands through 90 degrees so you rest them on the side of the palm. This then gives the muscles on the back of your forearms a well earned rest and doesn’t take a great deal of effort.
6 Keep yourself hydrated. We are about 60% water and this needs to be maintained to allow good functioning of the body. Modern office environments are warm and dry so tend to dehydrate people. There are a lot of articles about how much you need to take in and 2 litres is often given as the minimum amount that you need to drink of water. I know that I feel better if I do consistently drink plenty of fluids but I also know that:
- a lot of the food we eat contains water, though bear in mind that salty foods like crisps can make us need more liquids,
- tea and coffee and alcohol provide liquids that the body can use, though they also make up pass more liquid out than they provide as well as overload the body with toxins that need to be excreted.
- Drink little and often, that way you don’t overload your kidneys.
- Your kidneys will constantly work to keep your body in homeostatis (balance) with regards to fluid levels meaning you need to pee less when you need to take in more and pee more when you’ve drunk too much. The colour of your urine is the best indicator of how hydrated you are, and during the day it should be straw coloured, darker than this and you should drink more, paler than this and you’re drinking too much and placing too much strain on your kidneys.
7. Take a breather. Getting stressed, mind losing its focus. Then stop what you’re doing and focus on your breathing, feel how it enters the body, travels down to the lungs, a short pause before you start to breath out, a pause before air enters the body again and travels down to your lungs, etc Do this “observation” of the breath for 10 inhalations/exhalations and then return to your work. You should feel more in control, less stressed or at least slightly fresher in mind than before.
Look after yourself on a daily basis and you will hopefully not suffer with too many aches and pain. If you do start to get pains or over stressed do something about it. You really don’t want it to build up to such an extent that your body shuts itself down in an effort to protect itself. Have regular massages/reiki treatments to maintain a healthy body and mind.
What is a muscle knot?
We’ve all probably suffered from an area (oh so frequently in the shoulders or upper back) of what we think is muscle but is really painful and hard feeling. This is what is described as a muscle “knot”: an area of muscle that is contracted and constricted and causing pain.
These points of pain can also be called Myofascial Trigger Points and they can be referring pain to a distant part of the body in recognisable patterns (to those that know anyway). These points only form in muscles but their impact can be felt elsewhere as they can pull on tendons and other connective tissue so that they pain they cause is felt remote to the actual site of the problem.
What causes the knots to form?
There are still a number of theories as to what is causing them but something triggers to the muscle to contract but then not switch off again so it remains contracted and this leads to muscle spasms. Ideas about formation of trigger points include
- acute or chronic muscle overload. Acute overload might be due to lifting or moving a heavy object leading to a spasm; chronic overload can be holding a phone between your ear and your shoulder, poor posture, raising your shoulders due to stress or badly positioned equipment.
- activation by other trigger points. The body is great at adapting and compensating so that it continues to function, so a pain in one muscle can cause problems in another as it is having to do more work than normal, or a task it really isn’t suited for.
- homeostatic imbalance. Homeostasis is the body’s control mechanism for temperature, glucose/salt/mineral blood levels, hydration levels etc.
- trauma. Either direct trauma to the muscle such as an impact or puncture or accidental, for example the impact of a car crash puts a lot of strain on the muscles.
- micro trauma caused during poor usage of the muscle damaging one or more fibre (a small component of the muscle) that then causes the surrounding fibres to work harder, which then quickly become fatigued and prone to damage so the issue spreads.
What can I do to treat them?
Massage is a great treatment for muscular knots and trigger points as there are a number of techniques that can be used by the massage therapist to get the muscle to relax. These can be from direct pressure on the trigger point itself, which can be painful initially, to manipulation of the surrounding tissues to trigger a relaxation response in the muscle. Massage also has the benefit in that it can help reduce any mental stresses that might be contributing to the formation of the trigger point.
Dry needling is also an option where an acupuncture needle is applied to the trigger point in the muscle itself. This is different to acupuncture in that the underlying theory on the siting of needles does not follow meridians but is directly into the trigger point.
I frequently get asked “How often should I have a massage?” or “How often should I have a reiki done?” and I always get a little anxious in answering it. Why do I not like answering? I am not a natural salesman, and I don’t like to come across as pushy so people asking how often they should come makes me feel like I’m going to be fleecing them if I say come back too often. Depending on the person asking I might joke and say “Everyday!”, which would be wonderful (and not only because I would be intensely busy) and it would be really nice if we could all do that (one reason to learn Reiki for yourself is that this can become a reality)
It is a question that is normally asked by those who are not suffering an acute episode, but not always. I generally suggest that you come back for three sessions in short succession (generally once a week) and then we review what is going on and make a decision on when next to arrange an appointment. The reasoning behind this is slightly different depending on the treatment:
Massage: The first session is where I find out about you, what your history is, what the problem is and I start to treat the most obvious causes for that issue. However as we are all individuals the problem might not be that straightforward and be caused by something else, this is then covered by the second session after a review of how things have been since the previous session, any necessary alterations to the treatment plan. The third session would then be aimed at reinforcing the good work that has been done and ironing out anything that has come up in the meantime. Having a series of massages in close succession does mean that any tensions in your body caused by poor usage have little chance to redevelop and overall the pain/discomfort they cause during the massage won’t be as intense. After this then we can discuss what is going to be best for you, and what you’re wanting treating.
Reiki: Again the first session includes a discussion about you, your history, what the problem is, your expectations, and gives you an opportunity to ask any questions you might have (generally if you haven’t had reiki before). The subtle energy of the reiki starts working straightaway, and continues to work for a couple of days. Having a series of three allows a greater build up of that energy to work at clearing the blockages in the energy system (think how water gentle laps at things and erodes it away)
After that initial series of treatments we can review the treatment plan and adjust it to suit you and your situation. I always want to get you to a point where you’re not coming to see me every week. This is often done in stages and I try to remind you that you can (and in fact should) come back earlier if the situation changes for the worse.
I like my clients and enjoy what I do but I really do want you all to get better and not see me all the time, but I would like you to come back and see me for maintenance. Your body remembers the treatments that you give it, and generally I would suggest an ongoing treatment plan of having something done every six weeks to couple of months. Some clients realise that what they most enjoy is a treatment every month, else it spirals downwards and their problem returns.
You look after your car and give it an annual service, why not do the same for your body?
What is Reiki?
In the West, Reiki (pronounced “ray -key”) is used to describe two things: the Reiki energy that is used within the Reiki system of healing.Reiki energy is present in everything within the whole universe and is similar to “Chi” of Chinese tradition and “prana” of the Indian yoga/ayurvedic traditions and is a “life-force”. However the “feel” of Reiki is slightly different to either of these, but the concept is similar. Reiki is normally translated as “Universal” or “Sacred Energy”The system of Reiki is a natural healing and spiritual development approach created by Usui Mikao in the early 20th Century in Japan. It involves training (called an attunement) where an individuals ability to connect to the Reiki energy is formed and enhanced.Usui Mikao used Reiki to heal others and taught it to a number of students before he passed away and all people who have been attuned to Reiki have a direct connection (teacher to student) from Usui Mikao this is referred to as a Reiki Lineage.Usui Mikao passed on a buddhist approach to his students (as was typical in Japan at the time) with an emphasis on improving the self through various techniques of hands on healing, meditation, mantras, attunements/blessings and the Reiki Precepts: “Just for today: do not anger, do not worry, be grateful, work hard and be compassionate”.
What does Reiki do?
The reiki is channelled by the practitioner through their hands and into the recipient. The recipient’s body then directs the energy to where it is needed to remove and clear away blocks in the energy system. This process helps calm the mind of the recipient and aids the release of emotions that are preventing the body being “in balance”, this can often result in the recipient having a sense of greater energy, calm and peace.
So what can it treat?
The Reiki energy stimulates the clearance of emotional blockages to promote a strong sense of well-being, which allows the natural healing mechanisms to function. It can help in times of stress (whether emotional or physical stress) and at times when a person feels run down. Providing a period of relaxation from the stress allows the body’s own natural systems to return closer to an equilibrium, alleviating the symptoms that have been caused by the stress.
I describe myself as a Complementary Health Therapist as that is the best description that I have that covers what I do. The Sport & Remedial massage that I do is a more physical effecting treatment than the reiki, which is more subtle and generally affects the mind (though I have found that working on myself it helps with physical issues, just these are measured subjectively and not objectively so not scientifically proven)
So I don’t feel that I can merely describe myself as a bodyworker, which is what a lot of massage therapists call themselves as they know that they affect the whole body with their approaches. There is also a desire to distance themselves from the seedier connotations of the words masseur and masseuse, which is a real shame.
Similarly I do not feel that calling myself an energy worker is right, although this is a good description of the work that I do with reiki and during the Emotional Realignment Therapy sessions I do.
At times I feel like I am straddling a fence of what I offer and do, as sometimes I am working on a purely physial level and others purely on an energetic level. However, I increasingly find that the lines are being blurred as I am becoming more intuitive about where I am massaging having felt a need to work a particular area (and a lot of clients are surprised on how precise I can be in finding the slightly sensitive areas that they have vaguely talked about). Similarly I can feel the areas that are being worked on and the anatomical structures affected by the reiki, though I will say that I try to stop my mind getting too involved in the reiki treatments as it can interrupt what is going on.
I really see that what I do can assist/support with Western Allopathic treatments for various conditions. One of my favourites being helping people with chronic pain in the sinus areas, who have been constantly taking medication to ease the pain they’ve been experiencing especially when they realise that since the first instance the pain may well have been held in the muscles of the sides of the head and these can quite rapidly be eased.
In fact what I think I really do is to help educate people about themselves, bring the aches and pains to their notice, and I really hope that what I do is to then help show them a way through the situation they find themselves in and ultimately in a better place. Some people don’t realise that this is what I’m trying to do, and others don’t want to go down that path, but I might well just keep showing them the door and hope that they will decide to walk through to see what can be found on the other side.
I have been toying with the idea of writing a blog for a while now as I have a lot of ideas bouncing around in my head that I think could be worth sharing. These are prompted by articles and books that I read as part of my continuing professional development, the similarities (and differences) of problems that I come across at the various clinics I work at and ideas that spring from conversations with clients.
Just to be clear, I will not be revealing anything about my clients in this blog and if anyone feels I am revealing anything about them then please email me directly and let me know and I will remedy it. However, the conversations that I have with people can trigger ideas in my head whether it be the questions that they ask about their specific treatments (what caused the pain? or what is that muscle you are working on?), or questions about the techniques that I am using and my approach to different issues.
The continual conversations I have with my clients is part of why I love my job. I hope to educate people about their bodies, what might be going slightly adrift (I work with theories of what is going on, and not diagnosing conditions which I leave to those that are qualified to diagnose) and reawaken an interest in themselves. Quite frequently I am also reminded that I should be doing more to help myself, I try not to be a hypocrite, but I’m only human.
Similarly the books that I read (and as I commute by public transport I have a lot of time for reading) stimulate me in a number of ways that is great. It is something I find fascinating about the human body is that we can do so much to it over the years and it continues to function (maybe in a slowly decreasing ability) and allow us to do what we need to do (maybe not what we actually want to do) and it heals itself. Then someone like me can, hopefully, come along and work with someone to make the body function in a better way.
This blog will then contain a number of ideas, thoughts and so on that reflect me and the way that I approach things. It will be a mix of thoughts about Sport & Remedial Massage and Body work techniques (muscles, techniques, training information etc), Reiki (meditations, esoteric approaches, self development (my own as well as for others)etc ) and self help (exercises, postural information, information from talks that I do) If there are any subjects that you would like me to cover, then please get in touch and I will see what I can do (and I won’t promise that I will cover everything).
I will do my best to provide supporting information about claims of effectiveness, but this is not always possible. I am also not a scientist and it has been a while since I studied statistics, so I will endeavour to not mislead people. However this blog is partially about me having head space to discuss thoughts and ideas, and I hope that this is clear in what I write.
My view on what I do is that it is *complementary* medicine, in that it should be seen as working alongside allopathic (“normal”, “western”) medicine and not as a replacement or alternative to. If something is worrying you about your body then please, go and see your GP or a qualified medical practitioner who can diagnose your condition. If I can then support you in your recovery I would be delighted to help, as long as it is ok with your primary medical treatment.
