Welcome to Our Blog!
All the flowers
of all the tomorrows
are in the seeds of today.
-Chinese Proverb
NEW Group Yoga Class Oct. 2022
Yoga can help us to nourish ourselves during times of transition. Whether it be the seasons changing, moving jobs, losing a loved one, going back to school, or just getting out of bed in the morning. We take ourselves wherever we go. We take our conditioned thoughts, our potentially easily activated nervous systems, our pain, our memories and joy. It is all inside of us at any point and yoga invites us to ask ourselves how we are holding it. How are we holding ourselves during difficult times or periods where it feels unsteady?
About That Serotonin…
We take the time to review and discuss your family history, sleep, nutrition, and social support. We offer genetic, microbiome, and other testing to evaluate and recommend healthy lifestyle modifications that will help manage your symptoms and diagnosis. Our providers can help you identify and understand the connections between symptoms of stress, mood, inadequate sleep, and inflammation in the body…
Finding the Best Type of Fasting for You
Fasting levels can range from skipping just one meal, to an entire month of fasting. While a 3-day fast is a very common, useful, and effective way to fast, there are many other lengths. The longer you plan to fast, the more planning and medical attention it will require. If this is the first time you’ve fasted, you should start out slow. Discuss with your physician and choose from one of these fasting methods…
Why Should You Fast?
Fasting works for everyone, you just have to figure out which type is right for you. It’s literally in our DNA. Fasting can help you lose weight, reduces cardiovascular risk, cholesterol levels, inflammation, risk of dementia, asthma, wheezing, and chronic pain. Fasting helps slow down and in some cases even reverse type 2 diabetes. Fasting helps normalize hormone levels, including human growth hormone, insulin, dopamine, serotonin, and adrenaline. Learn more…
Manual Lymphatic Drainage for Health & Wellness
In a healthy lymph system, it is constantly working behind the scenes, and is a major part of the process to collect waste materials from the body and reabsorb them into the bloodstream to be processed and filtered. MLD can be used to improve a variety of other conditions as well and has many benefits for even the healthiest among us. Effective in treating autoimmune disorders, sinus and headache issues, anxiety, hypertension, and lymphedema.
Six Tips for Back To School
It is that time of year again. The time of year where we get to send our precious kiddos back to school. While those summer memories we were making were so beautiful and I will cherish them for the rest of my life. We need a break too but not before transitioning back to school which is stressful. I literally drive myself insane trying to balance out everything that needs to get done!
Rise Above with Positive Reframing
So many things impact our thoughts and decision making. Positive reframing can help us to avoid so many issues if we take the time to assess the situation and determine what ALL of our options are. What are the issues you are facing currently that the resolution of “Rise Above” might support you in making a positive decision? Here are some suggestions on ways to utilize positive reframing to get control and “rise above.”
Spring Into Wellness
Spring is a great time to put in place some healthy habits. We often feel refreshed, energized, and motivated in the spring months with the warmer weather, longer days, and beautiful scenery. Here are some ideas to help “put some spring in your step!”
Mind-Body-Spirit—A True Wellness Model
Our blended model to wellness is truly a unique approach. Each year of growth has brought an additional offering to where it is now—mental health, physical therapy, nutrition, massage, primary care and life coaching. We understand the benefits of each discipline and how each one acting alone can benefit all by acting together. Our organization is focused on the prevention and active participation of improving your health.
Nutrition for Overall Well-Being
Nutrition is not only important for physical health, but also has significant effects on mood and mental well-being. Lacking certain nutrients may impact the quality of our mental health. Americans are often deficient in essential vitamins, minerals, and omega-3 fatty acids and patients experiencing mental health issues are often exceptionally deficient. You can improve physical and mental health by focusing on your nutritional well-being.
Self-Care During the Holiday Season
As we are well aware of, the holiday season can be a happy and joyful time, but it can definitely be a stressful and challenging time. Schedules can be chaotic. We often have many places to be and we often feel pulled in many directions. It can also be an emotional time for many. Self-care during the holidays is important for all of us. It is essential we are mindful of our mental and physical health.
Positive Effects of Massage for the Chronically Ill
The good news is that making some small intentional changes can make a world of difference, and there are many things a person can do to improve their quality of life while dealing with a chronic condition or illness. One of those things is seeking a good massage therapist and building a regular bodywork program with them to help you or your loved one throughout the journey.
Suicide Prevention: Building Empathy and Understanding
I would like to share some thoughts on how all of us can help reduce the frequency of this collective tragedy. First, I wish to acknowledge the incredible difficulty of this topic – especially for the many of us, myself included, who have personally lost loved ones to suicide. The weight of this issue can be overwhelming and painful. However, I truly believe the more openly we discuss suicide as a community, the less scary and daunting it will be.
A Time To Heal
If you’ve made it out of this past year without being hurt, devastated, attacked in some way, alone, abandoned, anxious, afraid, or angry then you are one of the few lucky ones who were able to wrap yourself in a bubble, unaffected by others and the world around us.
I have started to wonder if we will ever get to a place of healing. I am the forever the idealist and I say yes! I do believe we have what it takes as humans, that we have been equipped with the ability to heal from hard things. I believe that we can heal as individuals, families, communities, workplaces, as a nation, and in our world. As the old saying goes, there is a time for everything under the sun. We are entering into a time to heal, if we are willing to do the work to get there. I’m ready! Are you with me?
It’s Okay to Not Be Okay: Thoughts on Postpartum Depression
Depression, unfortunately, is a struggle that many in our country are all-too familiar with. The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) estimates that 16.2 million people, on a yearly average, have a depressive episode. But one of the most common, unspoken forms of depression is Postpartum Depression. An estimated 50-75% of first-time moms experience "baby blues." Fifteen percent of this group of women develop further, more severe symptoms that develop into Postpartum Depression.
Essential Oils for Beginners: Start simple, start small.
As someone who has used essential oils in both their profession and personal life for the last decade, I have heard many different thoughts, opinions, and tips on oils and their benefits. The amount of information (and misinformation) available on oils these days can unfortunately be overwhelming and, ironically, stressful to someone new to oils.
My goal in this blog post is to give you a place to start. If you are new to essential oils, unsure where to start, or feeling overwhelmed, you are in the right blog!
Expressive Arts…. Another Way of Healing
If you have been at the University Ave location, occasionally you will hear the sound of my steel tongue drum and wonder what is going on in that therapist’s room. My interest in expressive arts therapy started a couple years ago when I was co-leading a group that focused on using expressive arts to promote healing at the University where I was working.
How to Make Real New Year’s Goals
Many of us are ready for a new year. 2020 is behind us and we are not sad about it! There are a lot of things we would like to leave behind from this past year, but there may also be some lessons learned and wisdom gained that we would like to carry into this new year as well. January is often seen as the big “reset”. We are inundated with advertisements for decreasing weight, exercising more, reorganizing our homes and lives, and setting new goals. Choosing a “word of the year” is quite popular as well and while some of this may be inspiring, it can also feel old, exhausting, or out of reach.
Coping with Grief During the Holidays
The holidays feel different for each person among us during a normal year. Gatherings, gifts, memories, and traditions come with expectation and joy for some, and stress, anxiety, and pain for others. Sometimes it can be a mixture of both! This year brings a new brand of “different” for many as we navigate the holidays with a myriad of changes to what we consider normal. Anytime we experience the loss of what we once knew, feelings of grief are bound to follow.
Grief is oftentimes associated solely with death, but any loss in our lives can evoke grief and it is important that we listen to those feelings and allow them to have their place. Suppressed grief will find a way to make itself known and as difficult as it may feel, grief serves a purpose.
Using Gratitude to Cope with COVID-19
This is traditionally a season of being thankful for all that we have. But gratitude might feel hard to come by these days, when all of us are fed up with COVID, quarantines, and social distancing, and when many of us may not get to see our families this Thanksgiving. But gratitude is a powerful tool that can train our mind to look at the positive (something we could likely all use right now).