Your pelvis is a ring of bones held together by ligaments and muscles. These muscles engage every time you walk, sit, stand, run, or even breathe! Weak stabilizing muscles cause your pelvis to move too much and surrounding muscles contract to control the excess movement, leading to chronic muscle tightness. By strengthening the core, our bodies are able to withstand these forces without muscle spasms. Some of the best exercises for core involve maintaining a neutral spine position and resisting forces. Your physiotherapist can give you specific exercises to improve your strength, while relaxing other muscles through manual therapy techniques.
Community News
Exploring Art Therapy
Art therapy combines the creative process and psychotherapy, facilitating self-exploration and understanding. While using imagery, colour and shape as part of this creative therapeutic process, thoughts and feelings can be expressed that would otherwise be difficult to articulate. Connecting with the art and the self, you will walk a path of healing and transformation with your therapist. An example of an art therapy directive: think of your definition of a beautiful day, and create this in any art form that feels right to you. The image can be literal or abstract, created on paper or with found objects in nature.
Thank you, Live Life Alarms
My husband is in the early stages of Alzheimers. He continues to enjoy riding his bike and I used to get very worried as he would sometimes have difficulty finding his way home. Getting him a Live Life mobile alert was the best thing we have done as now I can readily find out quickly where he is. He recently went out cycling and was gone for some time so I called him on his alert pendant. Not only could I talk with him but the Mobile Alert sent me an automatic return text showing his exact location on Google Maps. This has given me so much confidence now and allows him to continue doing what he loves. ~ Vicki Ogston.
Which Sunscreen is Best?
When selecting a sunscreen, go for the “broad spectrum” protection. Sunscreens with this label protect against both UVA and UVB rays. Make sure your sunscreen has a sun protection factor of 30 or higher. The SPF number is the level of protection the sunscreen provides against harmful rays. Higher SPF numbers do mean more protection, but the higher you go, the smaller the difference becomes. Secondly, look at the ingredients. Physical blockers (titanium dioxide, zinc oxide) provide the best protection and cause less skin irritation than chemical sunscreens.
Healthy Gut = Heathy Life
Did you know that there is a direct connection between the immune system and nutrition? The intestinal tract is the main route of contact with the external environment and is a pathway that contains microbiomes that aids digestion as well as the absorption of nutrients. This makes it critical for us to consume a balanced diet with the right nutrients while maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Make sure you consume an adequate amount of protein such a fish and lean meats. It’s also important to maintain a daily intake of vitamins and phytonutrients, especially Vitamin C. Increase your intake of probiotics and omega-3 fatty acids as they enhance the functions of immune cells.
Spinal Manipulative Therapy
Spinal manipulation is a treatment technique that involves a high velocity, low amplitude thrust, which is performed by the practitioner on a joint segment of the patient’s spine. The treatment is often accompanied by an audible ‘pop’, which is a change in pressure within the synovial joint. Manipulations can be very helpful in providing pain relief to a specific injury, but the effects are short-lived. The long-term rehab plan for your pain/injury should focus on active-based programming such as exercise. The combination of manual therapy followed by exercise provides more permanent results and better patient outcomes. Ask your practitioner if this is right for you!
Flattened Curve- NOW What?
NOW is the perfect time to strengthen your immune system and increase your body’s ability to fight off infection. Medical experts fear that Fall will bring a double whammy of the flu virus and Covid-19. NOW is the time to get prepared. Just as you need to stock up on essentials such as, food, sanitizer and masks, your body needs to stock up on the immune boosting essentials it requires to fight these viruses. Specific nutrients for the adrenals, spleen, lungs, and lymph nodes are vital to boost your immunity. NOW is the time to give your body what it needs to prepare for the months ahead.
A Summer of Finding Your ‘Yes’
With restrictions, social distancing and festivals closed, a summer of finding your Yes might just mean digging a little deeper and going back to the basics. Asking yourself what simple pleasures would increase more joy, laughter, ease, flow and play into my life? Spending time immersing yourself with the elements; playing in the waves and waters, walking in the forest, finding new bike paths and discovering new places, awakening the passion within with bonfires, decluttering and finding more space to breathe. Detaching from time and routine filling back up again allows the elements to awaken, nurture and bring us back to our yes within.
D’Arcy Bruning-Haid, Masters in Counselling Psychology
Words to Live By
“Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.” -John Wooden
Product Review: RELEAF Stick
ACTIVE RELEAF aims to encourage active wellness through the use of nature’s most powerful ingredients. With a synergistic blend of coconut oil, shea butter, essential oils, and broad spectrum cannabinoid-rich hemp plant extract, ACTIVE RELEAF’s topicals offer a natural alternative for pain relief. Try the Original Formula RELEAF Stick as a reliable remedy to soothe everyday aches and pains. For extra stubborn discomfort associated with joint stiffness, and inflammation, the Extra Strength RELEAF+ Stick is specially formulated to soothe quickly and be long lasting. Apply liberally to affected areas 3 – 4 times a day or as needed.
Book Club: Untamed by Glennon Doyle
Soulful and uproarious, forceful and tender, Untamed is both a memoir and a galvanizing wake-up call. It offers a piercing, electrifying examination of the restrictive expectations women are issued from birth; shows how hustling to meet those expectations leaves women feeling dissatisfied and lost; and reveals that when we quit abandoning ourselves and instead abandon the world’s expectations of us, we become women who can finally look at ourselves and recognize: There She Is.
