Final 2010 Available Appointments

How the garden ended up looking at the end of the Summer...

We had tons of Zucchini, Yellow Squash, jalapeño peppers, and green tomatoes. 

And exactly seven euphoria inducing strawberries.

Planning next years!

Am I sitting too close?

kitten cuddles dog's tail

A great way to get massage while on vacation

Instead of going to a Spa for massage on your next vacation (or stay-cation!) and chancing a hit-or-miss, but still expensive, massage, why not hire a tried-and-true local therapist to come to your vacation home and work on you and your friends? Since there is no spa or resort overhead to pay, you are likely to get as good or a better treatment, for longer, for sometimes HALF the price. Most vacation homes have great decks or private spaces for massage, and most have hot tubs and great showers for relaxing in before and after. It is also pure decadence to stumble from the massage treatment table to your comfy chair or bed! No driving or even fumbling around with getting dressed, just throw on your robe and lounge!

5/25 New York Times article on Sleep Apnea study reprint

Throat Exercises Can Relieve Sleep Apnea

By ANAHAD O’CONNOR

THE FACTS

For people suffering from sleep apnea, specialized breathing machines are the standard treatment.

The machines use a method called continuous positive airway pressure, or CPAP, which keeps the airway open and relieves potentially dangerous pauses in breathing during the night. But the machines are expensive, and some people complain that the mask and headgear cause uncomfortable side effects, like congestion.

One free and fairly simple alternative may be exercises that strengthen the throat. While they aren’t as established or as well studied as breathing machines, some research suggests they may reduce the severity of sleep apnea by building up muscles around the airway, making them less likely to collapse at night.

In a study published last year in The American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, scientists recruited a group of people with obstructive sleep apnea and split them into two groups. One was trained to do breathing exercises daily, while the other did 30 minutes of throat exercises, including swallowing and chewing motions, placing the tip of the tongue against the front of the palate and sliding it back, and pronouncing certain vowels quickly and continuously.

After three months, subjects who did the throat exercises snored less, slept better and reduced the severity of their condition by 39 percent. They also showed reductions in neck circumference, a known risk factor for apnea. The control group showed almost no improvement.

Other randomized studies have found similar effects. One even showed that playing instruments that strengthen the airways, like the didgeridoo, can ease sleep apnea.

THE BOTTOM LINE

For people with sleep apnea, throat exercises may be a cheap and useful therapy.

Plan for new courtyard entrance to Evan's massage practice

My good friend Ruth was kind enough to draw up some ideas for my front yard.

I started already by moving some raised beds from my backyard, to the sunniest part of my front yard, and they are in the future hardscape patio 'zone'.

Only hundreds more hours work to go!

Feet fascia stretching on golf balls

Since our fascia is a continuous net from our eyebrow ridges, skulls, to tip of our toes, a great way to add length into the supficial back line is to roll the foot fascia on golf balls on the floor.

Video of technique I will create and post later today!

IMG_0005.mp4

Thoughts on turning home baths into spa therapy grade treatments

This last winter I was folding laundry in a cold room early one morning while my body was un-warmed-up. While standing and pivoting on one leg to reach for some clothes out of the basket, I felt a twinge zing up into my lumbar region of my back. It felt like it "went out." It is scary to feel, and hard to believe for many, that it is not an actual disc bulging or slipped out of place.  But 9 times out of 10 we are just in a spasm cycle, that can actually last for days or weeks. 

If this ever happens to you, warm baths help. I like to incorporate Watsu-like jostling and wave motions of the spine and limbs, splashing around in the tub, creating massaging currents of water that swirl around back of the tub and my neck. By laying with my back on the tub floor, and making a gentle salsa-like motion with my hips, an incredible current of water is created, creating waves of unlocking oscillation in my spine. I try to get certain waves to also wash over my chest by how I am controlling the currents. I also like to treat the bath as a Finnish Sauna-type experience, by starting with a very hot bath, for only 2 minutes or so, followed by resting on my bed on top of towels while I sweat, relax, and meditate, followed up with two more rounds of increasing time in the baths with rest periods. Taking the body through cycles of hot/cold hot/cold hot/cold I believe creates a "pumping" effect on the lymphatic and circulatory systems, helping create the conditions for our spasm cycles to release.

Cinder's ride to Bend

Cinder was a very good kitten during her ride over the Santiam Pass!

First post...

I'm looking forward to having this blog up and integrated with my website, www.highdesertmassage.com. This is something I have been thinking about doing for a couple years now, and it is finally time.

I intend to use this blog as a jumping-off point for starting conversations about topics concerning the world of bodywork, fitness, and wellness.

I also intend to cover topics that come up verbally frequently during massage sessions, so we can talk about about them here in online time, so gradually then we can save your TABLE time for focussed breathing and silent, meditative healing time. I believe massage is most effective when we get into our sleep-like deeply relaxed and meditative state, which is, of course, not facilitated by lots of talking or obsessing about technical details.  Let's leave that for the blog!

Thanks for reading!

PS: I love Google Reader for tracking blogs and my favorite websites. Does anyone else here use it?