Category: Uncategorized

For Somali women, health program eases the pain of war, exile

Posted on by Katy
ERIKA SCHULTZ / THE SEATTLE TIMES: Harborview nurse Bria Chakofsky-Lewy, in turquoise, practices yoga with a group of Somali women. The program, called Daryel or “wellness” in Somali, is designed to improve health and well-being. It also offers massage, health education and opportunities for socializing.

By Andrew Doughman

Special to the Seattle Times

Somali women who fled their war-ravaged homeland are finding compassionate, “culturally competent” health care at Daryel, an exercise, massage-therapy and social support group in Seattle.

 

The Harborview Medical Center nurse faced a conundrum.

Several doctors had told Bria Chakofsky-Lewy that a group of Somali women patients had aches and pains they could not treat successfully. Chakofsky-Lewy, who supervises a program for immigrants and refugees, reasoned the trouble could be a combination of physical trauma and emotional pain from fleeing war and relocating thousands of miles from their homeland.

One solution could have been a regimen of pills.

Chakofsky-Lewy had another idea: massage therapy.

So, on a Sunday morning in 2009, about a dozen Somali women in loose-fitting Islamic garb arrived at a South Seattle community center. They drank tea. And volunteer massage-therapy students kneaded the knots out of their backs.

read entire Seattle Times article here

I am so happy to be a part of this amazing and inspiring program. If you are interested in helping in any way with ideas, funding, time or massage, please let me know!

Plantar Faciitis: You pesky rascal!

Posted on by Katy

 

You wake up in the morning, step down on your foot and the heel pain has you hobbling first thing. As the day goes on, the pain diminishes here and there. No pain after the first few steps of your run but in the afternoon your foot is fatigued and achy and the pain returns right when you stand up or after standing for a bit. You sleep and repeat. Plantar Fasciitis is the sneaky- ninja injury that can come and go, seems to be resolved then hits you again full force when you least expect it. How frustrating!

A doc or physical therapist can diagnose your foot pain and let you know where to go from here. Plantar Fasciitis refers to repeat inflammation on the sole of your foot in the dense tissue that runs from the toes to the heel. It can be associated with a heel spur as a result of the injury that can be particularly painful to put pressure on. This injury can linger because as the fascia is healing and scar tissue is forming, especially in overnight rest as your foot is in relaxed flexion, the healing fascia can re-tear as soon as you step down on your foot with pressure. This can lead to built up adhesions and tension in the area over time that can be difficult to rest and heal.

Some things that might help speed your healing:

  • Icing the sole of the foot with a frozen water bottle in the evenings to keep inflammation down.
  • Stretching in the morning BEFORE getting out of bed, especially the calves. Try a seated forward bend while pulling a strap around the sole of your foot towards you.
  • Trying heat in the morning to limber up the fascia before you start your day.
  • Rolling a tennis or golf ball under your foot, as much as you can handle pain-wise, during the day to keep the tissue flexible.
  • Massage can help to keep the plantar fascia loose, especially as it connects up the back of the heel into the Achilles tendon and up into the calf. Muscular and fascial tension in this area can be a cause for the repeat nature of this injury.
  • Seeing a physical therapist can help to discover the origin of the issue, whether it’s how your foot is rolling as you walk, if you need orthotics or if a combination of strengthening here (gastrocnemius & soleus) and loosening there (calf fascia, hip flexors) is at issue. A night foot brace to keep your foot in extension might be a recommended help.
image thanks to: www.bodywork.com

 

BE HAPPY: The most awesome bus driver EVER (Chile, South America)

Posted on by Katy

It was 2005, and my hubby, some friends and I had traveled through some dusty desert to reach the town of San Pedro de Atacama. It was HOT at around 100 degrees and my Alaskan temperament was starting to wear my energy and attitude down a little bit. I needed a boost so we get in cue for the only bus that heads north to the swimming hole on the way. The bus roared up the dirt street towards us, stops and turns off its engine. A dude dressed in a Spiderman costume unloads and walks towards the building to get the list of next passengers. Spiderman is the bus driver! What….?!!!

Spiderman loads us all up and launches into his spiel that’s all about superhero bus riding. He cranks up the music that’s kept on repeat: Sol y Lluvia a revolutionary era band from the 70’s that, at least on this bus, inspires your inner Chilean patriot. Loud and awesome. The next few trips prove to be just as brilliant, traveling with Zorro and Superman who are just as funny and in character as the day before and has the same music blaring out the open windows along the way. This guy was so happy doing his job! His enthusiasm for what he does was infectious and you couldn’t help but be tickled by his effort and originality. Something you’d never expect.

A few days later, we found out about a salt lake way into the desert that you had to get dropped along that bus route and walk for about a mile to find it. It happened to be Valentine’s Day when we got on the bus and it was filled with helium red heart balloons. Check out the outfit on the right. He took the heart off to see but he’d pop it back on for the routine stuff at stops. The music was Chilean love ballads.  He stopped in the middle of nowhere, turned off the bus and got out for pictures with us, taking his time to explain the directions to us. Everyone looked on patiently amused, no rush! We headed into the trail-less desert with smiles.

What a gift this experience with the happiest bus driver ever was. I got onto that bus every time excited to see what the ride would be like and I felt so inspired about this simple thing, the value of surprises and the huge gift you give others when you pour enthusiasm and care into what you do every day. It’s a ripple effect, contagious and wonderful!

Springtime renewal

Posted on by Katy

spring grassIts springtime and a lot of people are getting the urges for springtime cleanses. The ritual of starting anew in the spring is an age-old tradition and there’s no better way than listening to the seasons to synch up with natural cycles of life. What does a springtime cleanse mean to you? For some it can be dietary focused with the intention of flushing out toxins from deep within the tissues and allowing the body to release and renew. For others it might be de-cluttering the home (my favorite!) where you can really be mindful of what you actually use and need in your life vs. what is simply taking up space. What physical things in your space fuel you with inspiration and pleasure vs. what things are distracting and cause you stress? Let those things go to make room in your life for growth and renewal. This is similar to how massage goers can view regular massage on a cellular level. Flush out the unneeded energy and waste stored deep in your tissues and let new healing circulation flow through.

My new springtime renewal ritual focuses on my self-care and is a chance for me to reinvigorate my “feel my best” routine. It starts with being mindful of the things that are most important to me to feeling my most healthy and energetic self every day. I choose a few things that I know are awesome things to do for myself and I allow those things back into my life with ease and enthusiasm. A few of the things I’m choosing this season are: drinking more water, stretching for five minutes before bed or in the morning, eating until I feel almost satisfied (not full), and enjoying a little more sleep.

Ahhhhh! If that’s how you feel after reading your own ideas, then you’re on the right track. The key is to allow yourself to be perfectly imperfect. Make some room for that sunshine!

A few moments to sunshine

Posted on by Katy

In these days of mellow winter energy, a great way to rev up in the morning is to take a moment to fill your energy tank to FULL before you head out. Here is my favorite mediation that I do as often as I can, in the morning or on a break in the day. It helps me to find my center, feel content in an imperfect world and create a little internal solar power.

Sit in a comfortable position in a quiet place with your eyes closed. Breathe thorough your nose and begin to notice your breath coming in and out of each nostril, filling your tummy and your chest and relaxing you with each exhale. Allow your breath to deepen and lengthen and notice any tight spots in your body. Release your tension as your breath comes in and out effortlessly. Imagine that there is infinite space around you that can fuel you with all of the energy, light, and love that you need.

 

On your inhale now, imagine that you are drawing light into your body. It’s a pure, positive light that fills every corner of your body. You can see the light  pouring into you like liquid. On your exhale, imagine breathing out any darkness and release that from your body. This can be any negative thoughts, fears or anything that feels dark to you, anything that no longer serves you. Just let that go out to the ethers.

3 breaths: breathe in light, breathe out darkness.

 

Now on your inhale, draw peace into your body. Fill your body up with calm serenity and let it expand within you. All is well. On your exhale, breathe out restlessness. There’s nothing out of place, no where else you need to be. Help your body to just let that go.

3 breaths: breathe in peace, breathe out restlessness.

 

Now inhale bliss. Let yourself fill with joy, happiness until you could burst with it. Feel that grow and settle into your entire being. You might find a smile. On your exhale, breathe out sorrow. Any lingering sadness or melancholy, let it go with your out-breath.

3 breaths: breathe in bliss, breathe out sorrow.

 

Allow yourself to sit for a few minutes, letting your body feel full of light, peace and bliss. Complete this meditation with three breaths:

Breathe in light, breathe out light.

Breathe in peace, breathe out peace.

Breathe in bliss, breathe out bliss.

 

And continue by having a beautiful, powerful day!

 


Personalize your self care

Posted on by Katy

A big part of my role as a massage therapist is to listen to clients express goals for their health and to find solutions together on how to get there. A pattern that I notice so much is that there is always somewhere we “should” be that we’re not with our overall routine. There’s always the yoga that we’re not making it to yet, but will soon. There’s the sleep we’re not getting to, the water we’re not drinking enough of, the exercise that we once did but aren’t doing as much now. There are these nagging things that we know we should be doing that we’re just not really doing. Yet.

What if we just for a moment throw away all of those “shoulds” and “really need tos” and just breathe deeply for a moment.

There is another way of looking at self-care, health, well-being and happiness that takes into account how much true satisfaction and contentment might play a role in every other part of your body’s health. There are so many layers and levels to your body’s wellness; your mind, your physical body, your sense of self and fulfillment, your emotional self, your spiritual side, your social side and beyond. Considering that nurturing each of these sides of ourselves is important for overall wellness, why do we focus only on the physical so much of the time? Why do we only see stretching, the gym and eating a certain way as the entirety of our self-care repertoire?

The other day I woke up to a sunny Saturday late morning and even before I was really awake, the usual shoulds of what my day might look like came to my mind. These  included a yoga class, yard work and some other things that can be put in the “making the most of my Saturday” category.  I decided to start the day with a ridiculously engrossing book and cozy in bed, I just kept on reading right past yoga, past breakfast and past the rest of my day, basically. How awesome to spend a whole day like that! I felt renewed and overfilled with self love for letting myself do what I really wanted to do that day. My mood was elevated and in turn, my body felt great, rested and in tune.

I’m not promoting that reading a book all day is equivalent to a yoga class for anyone else, but for me on that day, it was. What feeds your soul? What are the juiciest things you would love to be doing right now if you had an entire day to really choose? Remember your favorite, most peaceful and balanced moments in life and recreate them or invent new ones. Sometimes it takes a little love from deep within to refuel and re-inspire our idea self-care.

How do you react to stress?

Posted on by Katy

I remember going to the doctor years ago with a barrage of symptoms ranging from skin conditions to some painful gastro-intestinal upset, surprised at how my typically awesome immune system seemed to have taken a vacation. I felt helpless and confused. My doctor asked if I thought my body had been under much stress lately and I said that no, not at all I felt happy, like everything was going according to plan besides my health. After assessing my situation she looked at me bewildered and with her head cocked sideways she asked, “So, you don’t think that living and travelling in a foreign country, going through a break up and then relocating to a new city, new job and having financial strain is considered stressful for your body? ” In that stage of my life, the choices that I saw as part of living the essential adventures of my life weren’t connected in my brain to the stresses that were being placed on my body and my ability to stay healthy. My body was screaming at me “ENOUGH!” and I really didn’t get it until that awareness presented itself to me in illnesses galore.

This is not a lesson to be learned and to be done with. Our bodies are constantly changing, adapting and finding new levels of homeostatic balance at each new stage in our lives. With each choice that we make that concern our daily schedule, food, sleep, activities, exercise, movement patterns like sitting at a desk or driving, we’re asking our body to automatically adjust all systems to accommodate. Not to mention our powerful mental world where our stress response is activated by financial worries, doing enough, rushing, driving in traffic and waiting in lines. The following article highlights how stress can affect us in subtle and not so subtle ways:

http://www.helpguide.org/mental/stress_signs.htm

My best lesson recently was to realize that in extra busy times in my life, even when I feel like I’m “on top of things”, there are really subtle yet specific symptoms that will alert me to my stress before I may even be consciously aware of it. My stress red flags are: knotted up stomach, difficulty sleeping distracted, inability to focus, really falling off of my self-care (diet and exercise) routine (which is doubly counter-productive as these are the things that can keep stress under control). I’ll say things like, “I don’t have time for the gym. I’m too busy!” If you can learn to catch yourself with early warning signs, you may be able to stop stress in your life before it becomes illness.

Here are some articles that highlight common warning signs:

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/stress-health-effects-body.html

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/stress-symptoms/SR00008_D

So, what do you do when you realize you’re stressed out? We all need some tools in our toolbox to pull out when times are tough. Today we are barraged with information about stress relief and the point is: find something that you can and will actually do that will have some effect for the positive. It doesn’t have to be fancy, can be big or small, could take just a minute or it could be a long-term commitment to change. Often times if we can find just some space to put things in perspective, clarity will have its own neutralizing effect on some of the stress. Some small things to try to see if they fit your world:

Easy stretching, taking some deep breaths, journaling, taking a walk, talking with a friend, reading, watching a fun movie, turning off the phone, being in nature, meditating or just becoming more mindful of the moment, cleaning the kitchen, taking a nap, having a laugh attack,  being silly, playing with a pet, doing any kind of art, music or creating.

For larger stress issues in your life and chronic stress, it can be helpful to seek the professional and understanding ears of a therapist to help you navigate your best path to wellness. Other paths to wellness to try, with the recommendation of your doctor if you are seriously ill, are: regular exercise, commitment to a consistent food path that is in align with your health goals (more fruits and veggies!), self-care that includes:  relaxation, massage, hydrotherapy (sauna, steam rooms, swimming) and meditation, drinking plenty of water, and finding playfulness in your life that fuels your sense of worth and joy.

Here is a really cool NPR interview recording about stress:

http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=3911637&m=3911638

A more scientific look at your body’s reaction to stress and your immune system:

http://immunedisorders.homestead.com/stress.html

Ode to Injury

Posted on by Katy

Reflection

A recent arm injury reminded me of the great lessons that our body teaches us. As I went through the fear of not being able to work without a healthy body, I saw truths emerge that I would likely have missed without the physical jolt of pain and immobility.

There are some common and wonderful lessons to look out for with injuries that pose the following types of questions:

Am I resisting change in my life?
What can I change in my life to make my body and my soul happier?
Do I need to slow down?
Can I work on quality rather than quantity in any area of my life?
Is my body expressing something that my subconscious wants me to hear?
Am I happy with what I’m doing and how I’m doing it?
If I continue doing things the same way as always, will my body last?

Injury really gives us the opportunity to pause for a moment and reassess our choices and patterns. When we charge through recovery with only the end result in mind (like becoming pain free again) without that reflection, we might miss out on a great opportunity for growth and expanding awareness.

Thanks for speaking to me, body!

Why not?! Adventures In Self Care

Posted on by Katy

Boot camp. Week 5. Every day at 6:05 I am jolted into the reality of what the morning has in store for me and I head to the MKG gym for my morning fix of butt whuppin’ (me getting whupped). I enrolled in a 10 week, mixed martial arts, cardio and strength training course  and I’m in the thick of it. I felt like it was just really time for a taste of being in shape again, some consistency, follow through and hopefully results. The gym had become my nemesis. I loathed the stair master and any other machine that promised a sweat. I couldn’t do it anymore! Enter boot camp.

It’s been a long 5 weeks of pretty intense workouts that have engrained in me a sweet,  renewed sense of my body’s intrinsic strength. I feel great, actually. I have more energy (besides the less sleep thing), my body is changing slowly but surely for the better. I can see my arm muscles again, my pants fit a little nicer. The massive changes that I hoped to see immediately have still eluded me and I mark this as another reason to keep up. Before, I would get really gung- ho about the gym, only to find my enthusiasm wane at around two weeks. When I didn’t see an immediate six- pack of abs, I’d just loose motivation, realizing that the idea is to look long term, rather than a quick fix. Quite honestly, I’m a quick fix girl at heart.

We did a fitness test at the beginning of the boot camp and again last week. Every day in class, I swear I can only do five pushups before my arms give way and refuse to budge. Somehow for the test, by the same miracle that someone can lift a car to save a life,  I was able to do 28 pushups in one minute (Are you kidding me? I’ve told everyone who will listen).  If these entire ten weeks are dedicated only to eliminating these mind games that hold me back, it will be worth it. I realized that I just had to have someone say, “ I’m timing  you: GO!”  for me to see what I had in me all along. Awesome. Definitely worth it!!

Check ’em: www.mkgseattle.com

Move it like a kid

Posted on by Katy
Young ballerinas

This morning I had some enlightenment around a nagging injury I’ve had. Someone asked me to move in a way that I was convinced I couldn’t. I tried it despite my fears and I freakin’ did it! Why didn’t I think I could do a bent knee Ju Jitsu roll on the floor? Well, since martial arts training  is new to me, it had never occurred to me to do a rolling back kick to anyone’s face before. It just looked painful, wasn’t on the “my body can move in that way” list.  When I actually did the roll, my fears were put to shame, my body didn’t even complain a little bit. A ray of light shone on my sweet, formerly bum knee and its limber future of possibilities ahead.

I once wrote a poem called “Oh, knee of misfortune”. Maybe I had let that story sink in a little too deep, for a little too long and it’s time to reinvent my perception of what I can do, how I can actually move now, in spite of my fears. That my body is actually asking for new information constantly.

Look at this yoga teacher: Bette Calman, 83!

“No matter how much I move myself around, my strongest tendency is to move in the same ways that I have always moved, guided by the same deeply seated postural habits, sensory cues, and mental images of my body; but if I can succeed in surrendering to the movements that another person imposes on my body, without my own system of cues and responses interfering, it is possible to treat my mind to a flood of sensations that … [can] indicate what things I have been doing that have produced my aches and pains at the same time as they have reinforced my normal sense of self.” –Deane Juhan in Job’s Body   More about Yoga Teacher, Bette Calman, 83

Some ways to reconnect with your ever changing bod:

  • Join a new class at the gym just to see what it’s about like some Latin-inspired Zumba or a free movement class.
  • Every hour or so just shake your shoulders, your legs and your body. Shake it, shake it like you’re Jell-o.
  • Check out Yoga, Qigong, or Tai Chi. Slower movements with breath to create greater awareness.
  • Give yourself 5 minutes in the morning or evening to enjoy a good stretch. Watch a cat and learn.
  • Sit on a bouncy ball at work instead of your chair.  Try to be graceful.
  • Get a personal trainer session at the gym to check your form with familiar activities or to mix up your workouts a bit. Sometimes these are free!
  •  Eat a meal, brush your teeth or do anything with your non-dominant hand/side.
  • Float in water and be a fish for a while. Feel weightless.
  • Lastly, play like a kid more! Do some silly animal walks with your child, get down on the floor with them and roll around. Dance like you’re new! Watch children romp around and let their wacky wildness inspire you to explore and redefine your experience of your own new and precious body.

Watch this video for some serious inspiration!

Shake it like a three-year-old!