Lifting the Head Off the Spine

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neck_alignmentYears ago my (Carol) first qigong teacher made the provocative statement that the world would be a different place if everyone’s heads were correctly held, in the proper position.

What did he mean by this? Most of us have the bad habit of letting our heads fall back, with the chin lifted, or forward, in a slouched position. First of all, the average human head is 8 to 12 pounds! That’s a lot of weight to carry around, and we’re too distracted, between work and other stressors, to notice.

This mal-positioning creates a constant blockage, leading to headaches, neck strain, shoulder strain, and worse, nerve impingement leading to numbness and tingling down the arms, to the fingers.

Ready to give it a try? Lift your sternum (the bony area at the center of your chest), tuck your chin in slightly, and lift the crown of the head center skywards, giving a slight tug to the muscles at the back of the neck. At the same time, let your shoulders drop. You are now lifting your head off the spine! Practice: hold it for several seconds at a time, any time, and soon your body will crave the correct position. Some examples of practice are when waiting (for a red light to turn green, for the water to boil, when listening to someone speak, or when you’re on hold), meditating, or during your daily peregrinations when you are called upon to be still for a moment.

soft_palateA related area to this is inside the mouth, where there are a number of muscles no one ever thinks of. These are: Tensor veli palatini, Levator veli palatini, Palato glossus, Palato pharyngeus, and Musculus uvulae. When you practice lifting your head off the spine, think of softening the muscles of the soft palate. This will create more space to free up the components of the jaw and neck.

Lifting the head off the spine is really a qi gong practice in that the focus is on the bones, allowing the surrounding tissue to lengthen, become stronger, and relax all at once. When you hit the “sweet spot,” you’ll know it, and with practice, will be able to hold the position for longer moments, then periods, of time.

http://mountaintopacupuncture.com/lifting-the-head-off-the-spine

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At Mountaintop Acupuncture, we have over 30 years experience. To read more, please click here.

If you have questions and concerns about acupuncture treatment, we offer a free 20-minute phone session: click here for contact information to call or e-mail us. We practice at The Highlands Ranch Medical Pavilion in Littleton, Colorado.

Insurance is welcome and accepted.

Filed Under: All Things Exercise, Health Tips, Philosophy, Stress Busters, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , ,

Keep Moving!

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millet_the_gleanersWhen I (Carol) took the Memorial Sloan Kettering online oncology course for acupuncturists, the recommendation for healthy people to exercise 30-60 minutes a day was the standout detail from the entire, 30+ hours of lectures.

That’s 30-60 minutes, seven days a week of formal exercise, not including the time you may spend traveling, changing, or cleaning up. And movement for our daily peregrinations, though better than nothing, doesn’t count.

Why, I wondered, did they advocate 30-60 minutes a day, and then it hit me: our DNA is programmed to move a lot more than we do in the 21st Century. It’s only been about 250 years since the Industrial Revolution, and many conveniences we take for granted didn’t exist before then. For our ancestors, chores and travel demanded constant physical effort; physiological evolution doesn’t change as quickly as our world has, so we have to accommodate our body’s needs by moving more.

Moving is one of the main ways to reduce your risk of getting cancer, because where there is blood flow, free radicals cannot pile up. When you regularly engage in steady, sustained movement, blood perfuses throughout your body.

Once I grasped this fact, I took up the challenge, and found it easy to justify the time spent, because being cancer-free is a compelling motivator. Viewed in this light, choosing to move is as simple as standing on one side of a line and stepping over it to the other side.

Regular exercise has many benefits, including leveling out the stresses encountered in a day.

If you are new to exercise, begin slowly and build up to it. You will find the body grows stronger exponentially, for it’s designed to do this. Expect some aches and pains as you make progress, but pay attention to the quality of pain to avoid injury (so you can continue working out!). If you overdo it, don’t give up, just take a break and get some acupuncture or a massage to speed the healing.

http://mountaintopacupuncture.com/keep-moving

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At Mountaintop Acupuncture, we have over 30 years experience. To read more, please click here.

If you have questions and concerns about acupuncture treatment, we offer a free 20-minute phone session: click here for contact information to call or e-mail us. We practice at The Highlands Ranch Medical Pavilion in Littleton, Colorado.

Insurance is welcome and accepted.

Filed Under: All Things Exercise, Health Tips, Stress Busters, Theory, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Tom’s Too-Thick-To-Drink Fruit Smoothie

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Too Thick to Drink Fruit Smoothie

As the title suggests, this smoothie is chock-full of fruit and added nutrients. The supporting players give the smoothie its body and complement the fruit flavors: you can actually taste the cherries and blueberries and banana separately. We make it so thick we use a spoon. The spoon will slow you down but gives the added benefit of allowing your body more time to absorb the gorgeousness of this anti-oxidant rich meal.

Please note: if a thick smoothie isn’t your thing, just add more (veggie) milk or juice to thin it out- you’ll still get the benefits and the yum body feel.

This smoothie is fantastic after a workout or as breakfast in the hot summer months. The additions are rough suggestions and change with what’s on hand, so feel free to add what you like best to make your own concoction.

 

Yields: 2 servings in 12 oz. glasses

Ingredients:

1 C blueberries (fresh or frozen)                               2 T Green Vibrance

1 C cherries (pitted fresh or frozen)                          2 tsps chia seeds (Mila)

2 bananas, ripened                                                2 tsps milled flax seeds

2 T coconut flakes                                                 2 tsps nutritional yeast

½ C soy, rice, or almond milk                                 2 tsps lecithin

½ C plain Greek yogurt, 0% fat

 

1.Slice bananas into a blender and add the milk liquid; puree until smooth.

2. Add the blueberries and cherries (Costco sells organic both) and puree or liquefy.

3. Add yogurt and all other ingredients and blend until everything is well incorporated.

4. Enjoy

 

Nutritional Notes:

The blueberries and cherries are full of antioxidants.

Green Vibrance is a green-based product made of powdered vegetables, fruit, and herbs- real food- to provide a whole host of nutrients and probiotics.

Chia and flax seeds contain high amounts of both Omega 3 and 6 from a plant source, which makes it more balanced, and trace amounts of minerals.

Nutritional yeast has a high percent of most of the B vitamins, and good amount of magnesium, both of which are highly beneficial to nervous system function.

Lecithin is a fat emulsifier and many claim its health benefits include reducing cholesterol, boosting liver function, fighting heart disease, and improving brain function, but we looked it up and the research to back these claims is inconclusive so far.

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At Mountaintop Acupuncture, we have over 30 years experience. To read more, please click here.

If you have questions and concerns about acupuncture treatment, we offer a free 20-minute phone session: click here for contact information to call or e-mail us. We practice at The Highlands Ranch Medical Pavilion in Littleton, Colorado.

Insurance is welcome and accepted

 

Filed Under: All Things Food, Cooking Basics, Health Tips, Nourishing You, Recipes, You Are What You Eat Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Trigger Points

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Trigger Point

A trigger point is an area of the muscle where normal physiologic activity has become disrupted, causing local pain and sometimes in an adjacent area. I (Tom) frequently see that trigger points in the sternocleidomastoid (SCM) muscle at the front of the neck responsible for causing headaches on the side of the head. Trigger points also can reduce the normal range of motion in a muscle or cause it to be weak.

Trigger points can be caused by overuse or continuous contraction of a muscle, poor posture, traumatic injury, and even emotional stress. Let’s say for example, that when you sit at your computer, you are continually gripping your mouse. The muscles involved in this action stay shortened an unnatural length of time, and this creates trigger points that may produce carpal tunnel syndrome.

The only diagnostic test for a trigger point is palpation. When examining through touch the muscles that might be involved, a nodule (tightly bound area) or taut band of tissue is found to be exquisitely tender, evoking a response of recognition- as in, “yes, right there.”

Anatomy of a Muscle
A muscle contains many muscle fibers or cells that runs from its origin to its insertion. A nerve axon is attached to each muscle fiber. The area of attachment is known as the motor endplate or motor point. Motor points are usually found in the body of the muscle. Normally, the neurotransmitter acetylcholine is released at one end of the motor endplate across the neuromuscular junction, to connect the muscle fibers, but where there is a trigger point, no acetylcholine is making the jump. Acupuncture with electrical stimulation invigorates this mechanism, effectively restarting it and knocking out the trigger points.

Most trigger points are usually found in the body of the muscle or at its origin or insertion. Every muscle has an origin and an insertion. The origin of a muscle attaches to a bone and does not move that bone. The area of insertion is where the muscle attaches to another bone, and when the muscle contracts, the insertion area moves closer to the origin. Muscles usually crosses a joint, this is what allows muscles movement.

Most trigger points are near motor points, and interestingly, a lot of acupuncture points are also located on or near motor points.

Trigger Point Types
There are two types of trigger points, active and latent. An active trigger point is the full manifestation of symptoms, from local and referred pain, to muscle weakness. A latent trigger point may show as loss of range of motion to a muscle, and may be accompanied by some local tenderness in the muscle.

Here’s where it gets tricky and why it’s important for an experienced practitioner to assess your problem: active trigger points can set off latent trigger points in the same area and become active, and this cascading effect can cause much discomfort. The aim is to knock them all out with treatment, not leave some behind!

Case Study
A patient came into my office complaining of sciatica pain down the back of her leg. I had her lay face down on the table, and proceeded to palpate her lower back and gluteal muscles. I found a taut band and exquisitely tender knots on her gluteus minimus muscle that elicited the pain that she had been feeling down the length of the leg. Based on experience, I knew it was a trigger point problem, and treated this muscle with acupuncture and electrical stimulation. The sciatic-like pain was gone after 3 treatments of releasing the trigger point and allowing her neural pathways to adjust.

Conclusion
Trigger points do affect the quality of our life in one way or another, but this does not have to be, for they can be treated easily and affectively with acupuncture. One way to prevent trigger points is through injurious habits. Be aware of repetitive movements at work and play that put unnecessary stress on muscles: this includes postural habits you may not be aware of.

It is important to see a western doctor for tests to rule out the origin of the pain, because trigger points sometimes mimic other conditions. Diagnostic tests for pinched nerves, slipped discs, or arthritis can determine if there is another underlying problem.

Why suffer with physical pain if you don’t have to? Put yourself on a pain-free path by taking care of you, through by proper exercising, diet, and receiving bodywork when needed. Be well!

Trigger Points

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At Mountaintop Acupuncture, we have over 30 years experience. To read more, please click here.

If you have questions and concerns about acupuncture treatment, we offer a free 20-minute phone session: click here for contact information to call or e-mail us. We practice at The Highlands Ranch Medical Pavilion in Littleton, Colorado.

Insurance is welcome and accepted.

Filed Under: All Things Exercise, Health Tips, Integrative Medicine, Stress Busters Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Joint Pain in a Nutshell

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Joint Pain in a Nutshell

joint pain

Most people think of muscles when they think of being flexible, but our bones equally give us mobility. Without our bones, our muscles would enable us to move like worms, but with our bones we become erect and perform a myriad of functional activities. Our joints are the articulations between bones, and vary depending on what kind of movement is required.

Types of Joints

Joint structures allow range of motion and accentuate a specific movement. There are three basic types of articulations: fibrous, cartilaginous, and synovial joints.

1. Fibrous joints have no joint cavity so the two bones must form a tight fit, and this achieved with fibrous connective tissue, that holds the bones together. This type of joint allows for very little movement. Sutures that connect the cranial bones and allow enough movement for the pulsing of the cerebral spinal fluid is an example of a fibrous joint.

2. Cartilaginous joints don’t have a joint cavity either, and the bones are held together by cartilage. The vertebrae of the spinal column and the pubic symphysis are examples of cartilaginous joints.

3. The synovial joint has a joint cavity, which allows for greater movement. Protective tissue surrounds the bone to cushion it for a lifetime of wear-and-tear: hyaline cartilage, a wrapping of ligaments, bursa sacs, and synovial fluid inside the joint reduce friction and maintain proper range of motion. Synovial joints are in the major articulations of the body: the knee, elbow, hip, and shoulders.

Directions of Synovial Joint

 

The synovial joint can move in many directions.

Gliding back-and-forth (ankles, wrists)

Rotation turns bone along its axis (flip hand palm up palm down)

Circumduction (rotate whole arm)

Angular increases (i) or decreases (d) between the two bones involved:

Flexion- bends  (d)

Extension- straightens (i)

Abduction- away from midline (i)

Adduction- towards and crossing midline (d)

The Injury and Healing of Joints

High-quality nutrition and regular exercise are the key ingredients for healthy joints. Our joints are susceptible to normal wear-and-tear, with age and gravity adding further stress on the tissue. The ligaments, tendons, and cartilage in the joint spaces get little or no blood supply, and it is for this reason that injuries seem to linger.

Studies have shown that acupuncture can speed healing in a wide variety of joint problems, both chronic and acute. From a Chinese medicine perspective, joints are places where things can get stuck, creating the sensation of tightness and pain. Acupuncture and its modalities facilitate local activity at the site of injury.

It is our recommendation that to keep your joints healthy and pliable, eat the best possible nutrition, keep moving by including stretch  and strengthening qi gong exercises in your routine, and when needed, decompress the joints when possible, and finally get some acupuncture to correct the problem before it gets worse.

Joint Pain in a Nutshell

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At Mountaintop Acupuncture, we have over 30 years experience. To read more, please click here.

If you have questions and concerns about acupuncture treatment, we offer a free 20-minute phone session: click here for contact information to call or e-mail us. We practice at The Highlands Ranch Medical Pavilion in Littleton, Colorado.

Insurance is welcome and accepted.

Filed Under: All Things Exercise, Conditions Treated, Health Tips, Integrative Medicine, Nourishing You, Stress Busters, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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