How to Live an Energized Life

There are many different reasons why we need energy. Thermal energy is used to keep our body warm, mechanical energy helps us to move, and electrical energy sends nerve impulses and signals to and from our brains. Energy is stored in both food and in our bodies as chemical energy.

We are in constant need of energy. We need it while we are awake, while we are sleeping, working, repairing injuries, having a shower or a bath. We need energy for everything.

So Where Does Energy Come From?

Energy comes mostly from the food we eat. It’s actually better to eat small meals and snacks every few hours rather than three large meals a day. This approach can reduce your perception of fatigue since your brain has a steady supply of nutrition.

Eating foods with a low glycemic— whose sugars are absorbed slowly — can help you avoid the lag in energy that typically occurs after eating quickly absorbed sugars or refined starches. Foods with a low glycemic index include whole grains, high-fiber vegetables, nuts, and healthy oils such as olive oil. In general, high-carbohydrate foods have the highest glycemic indexes. Meanwhile, proteins and fats have glycemic indexes that are close to zero.

Exercise is another way to create energy. It almost guarantees that you’ll sleep more soundly. It also gives your cells more energy to burn and circulates oxygen. Getting into an intense exercise regime might sound overwhelming, but a brisk walk is always a good place to start.

Another way energy can be boosted is through controlling your stress. Stress-induced emotions consume huge amounts of energy. Talking with a friend or relative, joining a support group, or seeing a massage therapist can all help to diffuse this stress. Relaxation therapies like meditation, yoga, and tai chi are also effective tools for reducing stress.

Bottom line; make sure you eat a balanced diet, exercise, sleep enough and work to decrease some of your stress, if you want to live a life full of energy.

Whether you are seeking the benefits of Massage Therapy and Holistic Nutrition in combination or separately Freedom of Movement is here to help. Check us out on Facebook or give us a call today (416) 738-1148.

Here’s to Your Health,

Karen

How to Decrease Muscle Tension

How to decrease muscle tension - stretches for sore shoulders - is sitting bad for you - Freedom of Movement and Karen Theimer in Newmarket

We’ve all had that tight, uncomfortable feeling in a muscle at some point in our lives. Perhaps from pulling or twisting the wrong way, lifting something incorrectly, or from sitting in one spot for too long. But what exactly is muscle tension? Here is the dictionary’s definition of muscle tension:

“Muscle tension refers to the condition in which muscles of the body remain semi-contracted for an extended period. Muscle tension is typically caused by the physiological effects of stress and can lead to episodes of back pain.”

Did you know it only takes approximately 10 – 15 minutes of sitting and not moving for a muscle to become tight? So think about it, how long do people sit in their cars every day or sit at a computer? It’s a wonder that your whole body isn’t just a bundle of tight muscles.

There just isn’t enough blood flow or oxygen getting into our muscles when we sit in a shortened or lengthened position all day. This is one reason why we can get neck, shoulder and back pain.

It isn’t just inactivity that can be the culprit of muscle tension. Muscle tension can also be caused from physical or emotional trauma. Because of their abrupt nature they are harder to avoid, but there are things that can be done to help if you’re suffering from tight muscles.

Tips to Decrease Muscle Tension

  1. Stretch every day
  2. Get up and move around at work every half hour
  3. Drink plenty of water
  4. Regular massages

Taking those few minutes out of your day to stretch, go for a walk, or grab some water will pay off mightily in the end to keep from having to endure the pain of muscle tension.

Whether you are seeking the benefits of Massage Therapy and Holistic Nutrition in combination or separately Freedom of Movement is here to help. Check us out on Facebook or give us a call today (416) 738-1148.

Here’s to Your Health,

Karen

The Importance of Proper Breathing Techniques

Did you know that our breathing is the only major body system that happens automatically, or we have the power to control it? Every psychological state and every emotional state, has a corresponding breathing pattern. The way we breathe when we are peaceful and calm is different than the way we breathe when we are angry and upset.

We can stay alive for long periods of time without eating, drinking or sleeping, but if we stop breathing for just a few minutes, we’re dead. How amazing is that?

Unfortunately, most of us don’t think twice about our pattern of breathing… because it is automatic and we all do it on average 20,000 times a day.

So why is breathing so important? Well, for one if we want to stay alive, we need to. But breathing also brings in oxygen, which we need for our cells, and releases toxins that we inhale all day by exhaling.

Improper Breathing

So what keeps up from breathing properly? Well for one, most of us sit more than is healthy and normal for the human body. Often slouched over computers or desks, our lungs are compressed and not getting enough oxygen. Sitting that way, it’s hard to push out our stomach to fill up your lungs. Poor posture can also cause our spines and ribs to become restricted and then we cannot create enough space for our lungs to expand.

We also often don’t do enough physical exercise, especially cardio; which encourages us to focus on our breathing and strengthen our lungs.

Constant stress and tension with work and busy lives can negatively affect our breathing. We tend to breathe shallow and fast when we feel stressed, and this exacerbates the problem. Then these poor habits become ingrained.

These can all have serious effects, ranging from spasms and seizures to fainting, numbness, tingling, hallucinating, increased heart rate and an inability to control our emotions.

What Are the Benefits of Daily Breath-Focused Practice?

1. It relieves anxiety, stress and tension in the body.

2. It helps our psychological state, and the regulation of our emotions. It can help stop panic attacks, freezing or choking under pressure and lowers our stress arousal levels.

3. It assists in bringing our heart rate into a range that’s conducive to optimal cognitive and physical performance.

4. It helps detoxify the body.

5. It helps to optimally oxygenate the body and all its organs to allow us to heal better and live longer.

6. It leads to greater inner peace, focus and thought control.

7. It boosts athletes’ performance as it helps them to control their physiological and psychological reactions to stress.

8. It strengthens the important diaphragm muscle, which tends to weaken as we get older.

9. Breathing into the stomach or using the diaphragm activates the calming receptors situated there and activates the parasympathetic nervous system.

10. Using the diaphragm muscle helps massage and move the inner organs and aids digestion and detoxification.

11. It helps you control your anger and fear so you can react appropriately.

12. It lowers the release of stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline in the bloodstream.

13. Diaphragmatic breathing stops the overuse of the upper chest and intercostal muscles – this occurs when we just breathe into the upper third of our lungs, leading to tight and shortened muscles in the neck, shoulders and chest. It can therefore help us have better posture.

14. It helps us deal with pain and breathe through it.

15. It strengthens your lungs.

16. Oxygenating your body in an optimal way allows you to also flex your muscles more intensely. In sports, this can offer performance benefits.

So remember to breathe. It matters more than you think.

Whether you are seeking the benefits of Massage Therapy and Holistic Nutrition in combination or separately Freedom of Movement is here to help. Check us out on Facebook or give us a call today (416) 738-1148.

Here’s to Your Health,

Karen

Headaches and Migraines Explained

Did you know that headaches are one of the most common reasons people use over the counter drugs?

While these drugs are generally safe and effective when used as directed, their use has been associated with certain risks. They can cause overload to our livers, affect our digestive tracts, and more.

Chronic headaches—whether tension or migraine—can be caused by a bunch of health problems, ranging from totally minor to pretty major.

Headaches are a pain—literally and figuratively. Sometimes, they can be harmless and disappear on their own. Other times, headaches can stop us in our tracks. And while chronic headaches can be innocent, they can also signify a deeper health issue. Did you know there are three primary headache classifications? Migraines, tension, and cluster.

What Causes Headaches?

There are many triggers that can cause headaches or migraines:

  1. You are taking too many headaches meds. Sometimes taking too many pills can backfire and mess with your body’s pain response. It can alter your brain’s ability to regulate pain. Which is why people who take lots of painkillers, still struggle with pain.
  2. Sinus problems. They say that most sinus headaches are migraines with sinus symptoms. Chances are if you have pain in your facial area, this is a migraine.
  3. Your estrogen levels have dropped. Before menstruation many women experience PMS related headaches. This can be one of the biggest triggers for migraines in women. Any time your body experiences a hormonal change there is a great chance for headaches.
  4. Headaches can be common with people who have diabetes and fibromyalgia.
  5. You’re dehydrated. This is one of the most common reason why people get headaches.
  6. You are stressed. Our head gets so full of thoughts the muscles in our head, neck and shoulders can actually tense up. These muscles can send pain to different parts of our head, which in return gives us headaches.
  7. Food and alcohol. Many foods and beverages have preservatives in them which will cause headaches and migraines. And some people have food sensitives that can also cause headaches.
  8. Poor posture, especially from sitting at a computer or in our car too long creates a lot of tight muscles in the back of our neck. This in turn will affect our head.

How We Can Help

Massage can help with releasing the tension from the muscles that cause headaches. It can decrease stress and calm the nervous system down. Massage can also help with postural dysfunctions. Getting on a cleaner diet and going back to whole foods again can also help with decreasing symptoms.

Let’s Connect

Whether you are seeking the benefits of Massage Therapy and Holistic Nutrition in combination or separately, Freedom of Movement is here to help. Check us out on Facebook or give us a call today at (416) 738-1148.

Here’s to Your Health,

Karen

How To Deal With Different Types of Pain

Pain happens for one simple reason; to protect you and stop you from doing what caused it. Pain is a symptom. For example, we stub our toe, a signal gets sent up to our brain that something has happened to our foot. Then a message goes back down to the area telling us to pay attention to that part of our body. We deal with it and the pain goes away.

There are different types of pain we can experience as well, muscle pain, digestive pain, mental pain. Pain can also come from too much inflammation in our body.  And there are two classifications of pain: acute and chronic. Acute is short term, usually occurring after an accident or injury. Chronic pain is experienced almost constantly for example, Fibromyalgia or Arthritis. These are diseases directly due to having too much inflammation in our body.

How To Deal With Pain

There are different techniques you can use to decrease the pain in your body and reduce some of that inflammation, these include:

  • Deep breathing: Breathing helps to calm our nervous system, which will decrease pain.
  • Sleep: Our body heals while we are sleeping.
  • Massage Therapy: Helps to relax the body and muscles, increases blood circulation to that area, loosens up tight muscles, and increases range of motion
  • Proper nutrition: There are many anti-inflammatory foods that can actually help decrease pain.  Ganoderma Lucidum also know as Reishi Mushroom, turmeric, dark leafy greens, lean proteins, and tomatoes all have anti-inflammatory properties. And remember to stay away from sugar!! It will add to your pain.
  • Acupuncture: Helps stimulate blood flow to the area and opens up the energy
  • Meditation: Helps to change the way we are thinking and feeling.

Any of these methods used alone or in combination can be beneficial when dealing with pain. And remember the biggest thing you can do is to pay attention to pain. It’s your body’s way of telling you to give it some TLC.Whether you are seeking the benefits of Massage Therapy and Holistic Nutrition in combination or separately Freedom of Movement is here to help. Check us out on Facebook or give us a call today (416) 738-1148.

Here’s to Your Health,

Karen

Why is Sleep SO Important?

Why is sleep so important? Holistic health and wellness Newamrket. Registered Massage Therapist

Most of us understand that we “need” sleep, or we wish that would could get “more sleep,” however, there is so much more to sleep then we realize. Here are a few reasons why getting a good night’s sleep is so important:

When we are sleeping our bodies are healing, digesting and producing hormones.

When you have a cut or injury it is when you are sleeping that your nervous system finally gets a chance to shut off so your body can heal. Your stress hormones called cortisol get to take a break, which is why you feel good in the morning and why you wake up hungry.

When we sleep and sleep well, we feel mentally and physically healthier, plus we perform better during the day. This is partly due to the fact that many hormones are released during sleep, for instance melatonin. Melatonin controls your sleep pattern. Levels increase at night and make you feel sleepy. And while you are sleeping growth hormones get released to help you grow and repair.

Sleep can improve your concentration and productivity, especially if you are an athlete. It can improve your performance. Good sleepers tend to eat fewer calories.

And did you know that your brain is actually processing what it learned during the day and is sorting our stuff and filing it away? This is an important process for the creation of long-term memories.

Experiencing Poor Sleep?

So, what happens when we don’t sleep enough or sleep too much?? Well, poor sleepers tend to gain weight. It disrupts the daily fluctuation of appetite hormones.

They also have a greater risk of heart disease and stroke. And poor sleeping patterns can affect your sugar levels and put you at a higher risk of Type 2 Diabetes. Lack of sleep is also linked to depression, long-term inflammation of the digestive tract, irritable bowel disease, and your body’s inflammatory responses. Sleep deprived people can even lack in social skills and the ability to recognize people’s emotional expression.

Bottom line: we need to have proper sleep to be healthy as much as we need good nutrition and exercise.

Massage can help with promoting sleep and relaxation of the body and mind. Whether you are seeking the benefits of Massage Therapy and Holistic Nutrition in combination or separately Freedom of Movement is here to help. Check us out on Facebook or give us a call today (416) 738-1148.

Here’s to Your Health,

Karen

Nutritional Tips for a Healthy Liver

Did you know that your liver performs over five hundred different functions? That’s a lot of work. The liver is actually one of the body’s largest organs.

To give you an idea of just how busy your liver is, here are just some of the functions it serves. It helps to break down fats to produce energy, it removes alcohol from your blood and gets rid of by-products let over from the breakdown of medications. It has the ability to convert the nutrients in our diets into substances that the body can use, it stores these substances, and then supplies cells with them when needed. It can also absorb toxic substances and convert them into harmless substances, or makes sure they are released from the body.

The liver has an incredibly important role when it comes to the thyroid hormone metabolism. And did you know that your liver and intestines make up 80% of the cholesterol you need to stay healthy?

With all of that going on, we want to make sure we keep our livers happy and not make them sluggish.

A Sluggish Liver

Just like with any other part of our body, if we don’t care for them properly our livers will begin to function in a suboptimal way. Here are some signs of a sluggish liver: chronic fatigue, swelling in the legs and ankles, hypothyroid issues, moodiness, dry itchy skin, vertigo, waking up between 2am – 3am, constipation, irritable bowel syndrome, and right-sided shoulder pain.

But there are things we can do to keep our livers happy. Such as eating foods like; garlic, grapefruit, broccoli, beets, carrots, green tea, dark leafy greens, Ganoderma lucidum also known as Reishi mushroom, lemon water, turmeric, plus many more. You can do a quick Google search for a more complete list. Or stop on by for a consult with us, we’d love to chat.

Whether you are seeking the benefits of Massage Therapy and Holistic Nutrition in combination or separately Freedom of Movement is here to help. Check us out on Facebook or give us a call today (416) 738-1148.

Here’s to Your Health,

Karen

Poor Posture While Driving When commuting wreaks havoc on your overall body alignment and health

 

If you are like many people out there, you probably spend a significant amount of time commuting to and from work, as well as depending on your car for your day-to-day needs.

Driving is an excellent way to get to your destination quickly and efficiently, particularly in areas when you can’t rely on public transportation.

On the other hand, spending too much time sitting in a car with the wrong posture could pose significant threats to your overall health and undermine your body alignment.

Thankfully, there are many things you can do to improve your posture. Keep reading to find out more!

SIT CORRECTLY

Your posture in the car largely depends on how you sit. Make sure you keep your seat as high as you can while remaining comfortable and able to drive safely. Some drivers might keep their seat a bit too far from the wheel, meaning that they need to bend forward to be comfortable. Try keeping your seat closer, so you don’t need to be all hunched over the wheel. This way, you will be able to align your back in a neutral position.

Incorrect position while driving could cause a wide variety of health issues, ranging from chronic pain to headaches, sciatica and more.

TAKE FREQUENT BREAKS

If you take long car trips, you might also consider taking breaks throughout the journey. Even stopping for 5 minutes to stretch out could make a positive impact on your body, and the added benefit is that you can also recharge your focus and refresh after many hours behind the wheel.

WATCH YOUR ELBOWS

The positioning of your elbows is also critical. Make sure you keep your elbows low, allowing the arm to follow its natural curve towards the wheel. If you keep your elbows up or leaning on the side of the window, your posture will not be good.

Regular massage therapy treatments are a great way to help the body’s alignment and make it easier to correct posture related issues. Let us know how we can help!

Four Simple Ways to Lose a Little Weight at a Time Massage Therapy Newmarket

healthy-lifestyle-weight-loss

Making Big Changes in Small Steps

There is no shortage of extremism in the world today. The constant pressure to be the biggest, best, fastest, top-performer is relentless, and it when it comes to your weight loss journey, it can be downright discouraging. Luckily, there is evidence that the latter need not be a source of such stress. As it turns out, when it comes to shedding the pounds, even losing a little weight can make a significant improvement in your overall health.

Just a five percent decrease in total body weight boasts such benefits as improving heart function, increasing self-esteem and lifting your mood, preventing inflammation, and protecting your joints from osteoarthritis. With a list like that, you have plenty of amazing reasons to treat every pound lost as a victory. Here are four easy ways to drop a few ticks on the scale, make progress toward your ultimate weight loss goals, and start reaping the health benefits immediately.

  1. Drink more water. It has long been assumed that drinking a glass of water before a meal can help suppress appetite, and in middle-aged and older adults, this is true. However the reasons to drink water when trying to lose weight go deeper than previously thought. In fact, drinking water can increase energy expenditure (and thus calories burned), for up to an hour after you finish the glass. So if you’re trying to take the pounds down, be sure to ‘bottoms up’ on a regular basis.
  2. Pack your lunch. Although it can be tempting to grab a fast-food combo during your mid-day break, evidence suggests that brown-bagging it may be better for your health. Preparing meals ahead of time makes you more likely to make a healthier choice – one that will ultimately lead to better progress toward your weight loss goals. If you’ve had trouble getting into the swing of making lunch in the morning, try preparing it the night before so that you can sleep those few extra minutes. Better yet, try prepping meals on the weekend that will take you through the whole week. Make foods you can freeze, and/or use in many different ways to ensure freshness and add a sense of variety.
  3. Eat more fermented foods. These tangy treats help balance the flora (bacteria) in your gut. This can help heal inflammation in the lining of the digestive tract, which leads to better absorption of nutrients from the foods that you eat. When your body can access more nourishment from each thing consumed, it is less likely to crave excess food, especially those that are particularly sugary or laden with bad fats.
  4. Keep your curfew. Studies suggest that giving yourself a bed time can lead to a decrease in body fat. Apparently, it isn’t only the amount of sleep that affects your body weight (between 6.5 and 8.5 hours seems to be best for many), but the regularity of your sleeping schedule as well. Apparently, laying down and getting up at approximately the same time every day can help with your weight loss goals. It also ensures you an awake, alert brain capable of making more healthy decisions throughout the day. When it comes to weight loss, getting proper amounts of shut eye can be the key to unlocking your next five pound drop.

Remember, everything – including your journey to better health – happens one step at a time. Try a few of the suggestions above to take another small advance toward your personal finish line, and celebrate feeling more energized, happier, and confident right away.

The Benefits of Losing a Little Bit of Weight This Season Massage Therapy Newmarket

These holidays I’m Helping More People Lose Weight for the Upcoming Christmas Season here in Newmarket.

I put a 30-day nutritional coaching program together for my Newmarket Holistic Nutritional Weight Loss. In addition to my Newmarket Massage Therapy Programs. I am accepting 20 new patients for this program. If you are looking for someone to coach you and help you lose weight, look no further I am here to help you lose weight and live a healthy lifestyle that promotes freedom of health.

Here Are Some of the Many Benefits of Losing A Bit of Weight…

  • Strengthening Your Circulation
  • Living Better
  • Improving Your Mood
  • Warding Off Inflammation
  • Keeping Joints Squeaky Clean

30-Day Program Details includes

  • 2 Packages of Flavourful Protein Shakes
  • Nutritional Coaching
  • Nutritional Plan
  • Weigh-ins With Measurements Weekly

Space is filling up quickly, lose weight for the holiday and don’t feel guilty about Christmas eating!

Call – 416-738-1148 to Book your First Nutritional Coaching Session.