Is deep pressure in a massage ever bad?
One of the first things you learn as a massage therapist is that everyone wants deep pressure in massage. This is because no one wants a light fluffy massage because they feel there will be no benefit and they have wasted both their time and money.
The second thing you learn as a massage is that everyone has their own idea what deep pressure is and what would be light pressure for one person is deep pressure for another person. Even if you take one client, the pressure they consider deep on their tight shoulders will be different from their idea of deep pressure on their legs. So there is no fixed concept of what deep pressure is, it varies from client to client, and with the same client it varies treatment to treatment and depending up on the part of their body your are treating.
Given all this how do we work out pressure in clinic. First, we base it on our experience, your body type, the tension in the muscle we are working on. But most of all we talk to you about how the pressure feels to you and respect your preferences for pressure.
I am sure most of you have heard me talk about good pain. Its based on a phenomenon that I have seen in clinic over the years. This is where someone comes into clinic in pain, we apply pressure and the pain turns into a good pain – because the pressure is a source of relief. For some people this “good pain” just feels right. This good pain is strong but welcome and came sometimes be described as a “sweet ache”. For some clients the good pain, is such a welcome relief that pain doesn’t even seem the right word.
A word of warning, I like all my other therapists are only human and sometimes we get it wrong. This can be if we have missed a trigger point that is very sensitive, and we go into deep or the opposite can happen where a muscle locks up and we apply pressure and you as the client can’t feel anything. These situations can also arise due to change with your body i.e. an intense gym session or longer work hours than usual so lots of extra time sitting at your desk.
I try to ask all my clients regularly without sounding like its some automated message, do you want the pressure deeper or lighter and if so let me know. I know the other therapists in clinic do this as well.
In clinic we always want you to get the most out of your treatment. So please remember we always welcome feedback on pressure throughout your treatment.
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Back Stretches
These stretches can either be done as a complete series or individually. The aim of stretching is to relax the muscles so it should never be painful. Each stretch should be held for 15 seconds and repeated twice. Ideally you should stretch daily. Back
- Clasp elbows in front of your body at shoulder height, making big circles in front of you - push out and look down. This will stretch your upper back.
- Lie on your back and raise your legs with your knees bent and hands palms down at right angles to your body. Move your legs over to one side of your body keeping your knees together and bent. Repeat for the other side of your body.
- Lie on your back with your arms at right angles to your body. Raise a leg with your knee bent and let it drop over to the other side of your body. Now repeat on the other side.
- Kneel on all fours, then sit back with your buttocks on your heels and your head on the floor and your hands outstretched in front of you (child pose for those who know yoga). This will stretch your entire spine.
- Kneel on all fours, look down whilst arching your back upwards (like a cat) hold for 15 seconds, then slowly drop your back down and stretch your head up and hold for 15 seconds.
- Lie on your back with your right knee up keeping your foot on the ground. Place your left ankle on your right knee, letting your left knee drop outwards. Clasp your hands below your right knee and pull towards your body, this will stretch out your gluteals. Now repeat on the other side.
- Lie on your stomach with your arms by your side and gently raise your head slightly. If these feels comfortable then you can also raise your feet of the ground and raise your arms above your head in from of you. This is very strengthening and especially good for people with straight backs.
Are you an eMail Junkie?
Most people now have at least one smartphone, normally a work phone, a blackberry and a personal phone. With our professional and personal inbox's bulging, is constantly checking our email turning us all into unproductive email junkies? An article in this Thursday's Evening Standard called "Supertask me", made me think. Now that we live in a world where we only are without email on a flight (a blissful respite that I am sure we will loose soon) are we all email junkies? Checking your email is a double edged sword. On the one hand if you check it too often then it becomes too frequent an interruption, you feel very busy but checking it too often will adversely impact your productivity. On the other hand we’ve constantly got to be checking it, or risk the wrath of the bosses and co-workers that are trying to communicate with us. If we don’t respond to an email within 5 minutes, we’re seen as lazy or unproductive. As calling a co-worker when you want an urgent response has been replaced by email, the temptation is to constantly check your emails to demonstrate you are at the top of your game. With the amount of email we receive now and need to respond to now, its very easy to feel overwhelmed. In today's world we are all adept at multi-tasking but really this means we are great at switching from one task to another. So how often so you switch from your real work to checking our email? This constant switching requires more mental effort than our actual work. Remember there’s a huge difference between being busy and being productive. So how often should you check your email? There is no accepted norm, and you know your job better than any expert, so take the time to reflect on what will work best for you. Some experts suggest that you don't check your email first thing in a morning or you only check your email first thing in a morning. Personally I think these strategies only work if you are very high up on the food chain. Rod Kurtz of Business Week argues that you ought to be checking your work email five times per day. “Check your inbox only five times daily–first thing in the morning, mid-morning, after lunch, mid-afternoon, and end of day. Or even less if you are capable. This works when you turn off the automatic send/receive function, allowing you up to two hours to focus on your work, rather than to be continually interrupted. It works when you group the sorting of your e-mail, making you more productive and efficient in dealing with it.” With regards to dealing with email, every time you open a new email, ask yourself 3 basic questions: 1. Is this relevant? 2. Can I solve this? 3. Will it take less than 2 minutes of my time to deal with this? - If so deal with it straight away. Make sure that you schedule your email time in such a way that you avoid confusing the being busy with email and real work. If you approach your email with the correct attitude, you can boost your productivity by leaps and bounds and you free yourself from being an email junkie.
The superfood that can combat metabolic syndrome
Every few months a new super food seems to emerge into the public domain. Avocado seems to have caught the british public's imagination as sales soar. With Avocado the hype seems to be justified. The fruit slows down and even reverses metabolic syndrome, a cluster of conditions -
- high blood pressure
- high cholesterol
- high blood pressure
- high body mass index (i.e. overweight)
