Archives – November, 2007
Health Benefits
Fresh Scottish Salmon is a natural healthy choice containing many nutritional benefits.
For instance compared to hamburger, steak, and pork loin, salmon contains 20 % more protein.
Salmon is a highly digestible protein packed with vitamin A and carotenoids, which are thought to help prevent cancer.
Additional nutritional benefits associated with salmon, which have been well researched and documented in medical
journals include:
* An average portion of salmon provides over half the daily allowance of protein.
* In addition to vitamin A and carotenoids, salmon contains B vitamins, particularly niacin and vitamin D, which helps a body to absorb calcium.
* Salmon contains far less saturated fat than an equal portion of virtually any other meat or poultry protein source.
* Salmon is an excellent source of polyunsaturated fatty acids, known as omega-3 fatty acids – these are the “good” kind of fat, which have been associated with reducing heart disease and inhibiting the onset of inflammatory diseases.
* It is no coincidence that Japan consumes the highest amount of salmon per head, and has the lowest level of heart disease in the world.
* Omega-3 fatty acids are a nutritional benefit found in all oily fish and are not contained in any meat and few other seafood products in any significant degree.
November 16, 2007
Self Massage
There are simple massage you can do it yourself. This is a great “pick-me-up” after a hard day of work. You can also get benefits of massage by immersing yourself in a Jacuzzi with the water doing the massaging.
Many massage and wellness centers offer workshops on massages and partner massages. It may be worthwhile going for a workshop to get some familiarity with this technique.
For the exercises given below you don’t need anything other than a few tennis balls, a quiet corner and your own two hands.
Head Massage
Pressure points in your skull can relax your whole body. There are two very significant acupressure points at the base of the skull on what’s called the occipital ridge. If you apply consistent pressure there, you can achieve total relaxation.
How do you find these points and apply pressure on those spots? There is a simple solution. Put two tennis balls in a sock and tie the end. Lie on your back on the floor and place the sock behind the upper neck, so that the two balls each touch the skull ridge that’s right above the hollow spot. Stay like that for 20 minutes. If you like, you can listen to soothing music. The pressure on those acupressure points send messages down the spinal column to relax all the muscles and it is very effective.
Face Massage
Just touch your face. There’s no need to knead it. With a very light touch, cup your cheeks and temples with your hands using no more pressure than the weight of a nickel. Hold your hands there for a minute. The warmth of the hands relaxes the muscles and connective tissue, bringing on an overall sense of relief.
Jaw Massage
Pull the sides of your ears gently straight outward, then straight up, then straight down. Or, with your index finger, press the tender spot next to your earlobe where it attaches to your head. Press and release. Now do it on the other ear. Repeat, alternating ears, 10 to 15 times.
Torso Massage
Get a quick boost by rubbing the area above your kidneys. That’s at waist level where the tissue is still soft. Rub briskly with your fists in a circular motion. This energizes the whole body.
Feet Massage
Foot massage is very soothing. After you try the following techniques on one foot, switch feet and repeat.
- Sit on a chair and place one foot on the opposite thigh. Rub some massage oil or lotion onto your foot if you like. Apply pressure with your thumbs to the sole of your foot, working from the bottom of your arch to the top near your big toe. Repeat five times.
- Make a fist and press your knuckles into the bottom of your foot, moving from your heel to your toes. Repeat five times.
- Massage each toe by holding it firmly and moving it from side to side. Extend each toe gently out and away from the ball of your foot. Then apply pressure to the areas between your toes.
- Hold your toes in one hand and bend them backward holding them there for five to ten seconds. Then bend them in the opposite direction and hold for five to ten seconds. Repeat three times.
- Press and roll your thumbs between the bones of the ball of your foot.
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November 15, 2007
Face Massage
Massage can help prevent new tension lines and wrinkles from appearing. Massage does this by relaxing the muscles and by stimulating the blood vessels under the skin.
Before starting the massage, cleanse your face thoroughly. Now follow the procedure described below. Use basic movements - stroking, pinching and stimulating.
- Start by stroking the whole face. Use both hands and work up the neck, out across the cheeks, then glide gently inwards, work up and out over the forehead. Finish by applying gentle pressure to the temples.
- Stimulate the skin by using the back of your hands and loosely rolling your fingers up the cheek. This can also be used on the neck and under the chin.
- With your thumb and forefinger, gently pinch the skin along the jawbone and under the chin. This is very stimulating and helps prevent a double chin.
- To release tension around the eyes, firmly squeeze the eyebrows with your thumb and forefinger. Always work from the bridge of the nose towards the temples.
- For tension in the neck and shoulders make firm circular movements working up either side of the neck then out across the shoulders.
November 12, 2007
Mental Benefits of Massage Therapy
1. Fosters peace of mind
2. Promotes a relaxed state of mental alertness
3. Helps relieve mental stress
4. Improves ability to monitor stress signals and respond appropriately
5. Enhances capacity for calm thinking and creativity
6. Emotional Benefits
7. Satisfies needs for caring nurturing touch
8. Fosters a feeling of well-being
9. Reduces levels of anxiety
10.Creates body awareness
11.Increases awareness of mind-body connection
November 6, 2007
Massage may be the oldest and simplest form of medical care. Egyptian tomb paintings show people being massaged. In Eastern cultures, massage has been practiced continually since ancient times. A Chinese book from 2,700 B.C., The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine, recommends ‘breathing exercises, massage of skin and flesh, and exercises of hands and feet” as the appropriate treatment for -complete paralysis, chills, and fever.” It was one of the principal method of relieving pain for Greek and Roman physicians. Julius Caesar was said to have been given a daily massage to treat neuralgia. “The Physician Must Be Experienced In Many Things,” wrote Hippocrates, the father of Western medicine, in the 5th century B. C., “but assuredly in rubbing.. . for rubbing can bind a joint that is too loose, and loosen a joint that is too rigid.”
Ayurveda the traditional Indian system of medicine, places great emphasis on the therapeutic benefits of massage with aromatic oils and spices. It is practiced very widely in India.
Doctors such as Ambroise Pare, a 16th-century physician to the French court, praised massage as a treatment for various ailments. Swedish massage, the method most familiar to Westerners, was developed in the 19th century by a Swedish doctor, poet, and educator named Per Henrik Ling. His system was based on a study of gymnastics and physiology, and on techniques borrowed from China, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. Physiotherapy, originally based on Ling’s methods, was established with the foundation in 1894 of the Society of Trained Masseurs. During World War I patients suffering from nerve injury or shell shock were treated with massage. St. Thomas’s Hospital, London, had a department of massage until 1934. However, later breakthroughs in medical technology and pharmacology eclipsed massage as physiotherapists began increasingly to favor electrical instruments over manual methods of stimulating the tissues.
Massage lost some of its value and prestige with the unsavory image created by “massage parlors.” This image is fading as awareness of the value and therapeutic properties of massage grows.
Massage is now used in intensive care units, for children, elderly people, babies in incubators, and patients with cancer, AIDS, heart attacks, or strokes. Most American hospices have some kind of bodywork therapy available, and it is frequently offered in health centers, drug treatment clinics, and pain clinics.
A variety of massage techniques have also been incorporated into several other complementary therapies, such as aromatherapy, reflexology, Rolfing, Hellerwork, and osteopathy.
November 5, 2007
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