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Whole Body Revolution

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Healthy Aging

55 April 13, 2020 Healthy Aging

My Furniture Free Minimalist Living Room

Note: this post contains affiliate links.

Welcome to my furniture free minimalist living room!

I mentioned that I was decluttering and creating a minimalist living room in a previous video. I thought it was time to give you a tour.

Although…there’s really not much to tour. Because there’s nothing here.

But you’re probably wondering why I decided to go furniture free, in my living room at least, and whether you should consider doing it too?

I’ll share all the benefits of a furniture free minimalist lifestyle in this video. Plus, I’ll also dish about what caused me to make this radical decision.

Related:

  • 5 Reasons Why Posture Correction Exercises Don’t Work
  • The Best Office Chair For Sitting Long Hours, According To A Posture Expert
  • Why Your Morning Stretching Routine Is A Total Waste Of Time

Going Furniture Free Minimalist

So first, the why.

I noticed over time that I had accumulated a lot of mismatched furniture. Nothing really went together. It didn’t fit the space and I was tired of tripping over random objects that I felt like I should have a use for…but really didn’t.

The first step in creating what you want is to clear out everything that you DON’T want.

Second, I noticed that I’d gotten into a habit of relaxing with a Netflix show or two at the end of the day. I told myself it was a harmless habit. We all need ways to decompress.

But I also constantly talked about all the things I wanted to do, like stretching more, learning about polyvagal theory or, you know, making videos, like these…but I never had any time.

So I made the decision to get rid of my tv. And if I was going to ditch the tv, I didn’t need the tv stand, either. And it just sort of cascaded from there. I realized, why am I hanging on to any of this stuff? I feel so confined in this room and I just want space to spread out.

And third, furniture is part of our social conditioning. Everyone in the western world pretty much has a sofa and some arm chairs. It’s assumed that that’s a comfortable way to live. 

But actually there are tons of benefits to sitting on the floor, or at least changing up the way you sit. From a strength and mobility standpoint, the more varied positions you can use throughout your day, the more flexible you will be. And getting up and down from the floor builds strength, too.

Movement Is Good For Your Body AND Your Brain

Research shows that more diverse and complex movement patterns improve thinking, creativity and problem solving skills.

Babies who miss movement milestones show delays in cognitive development as well. Dancing has been shown to protect against dementia in senior citizens.

Personally, I find that I get my best creative ideas when I’m moving. Going furniture free in my living room naturally means I move more.

I find that having this wide open space naturally prompts me to stretch and move around, plus I have this big basket of movement tools handy so I can just grab a yoga wheel (Amazon) or a ball (Amazon) and play around whenever I want, I don’t have to mess around with moving a bunch of furniture or bumping into things.

Movement Improves Self Awareness

And this helps me to start listening to my body more, too, which is something most of us are terrible at. Most of us learned early on in life not to pay attention to our most basic biological urges. We had to go to school and sit still and not fidget. We had to ask permission to go to the bathroom even.

So that can really stifle your creativity, and your thinking. Companies like Google and Amazon know that your environment is crucial to your thinking. Your environment literally shapes your neural processes.

The more diverse your movements, the more neural connections you are building in your brain.

Should You Go Completely Furniture Free Minimalist Or Keep Some Furniture?

So, there are people who have gone completely furniture free in their homes. You can find furniture free home tours all over YouTube. Of course, I still do have some furniture in my house.

I still have a regular bed, and I have a daybed that I use as a sofa and a bed for guests when they come to stay. But I’ve pushed it aside so that I have this open space to move around in.

Now, I did used to sleep on a shikibuton instead of a mattress, which is basically like a very slim Japanese style futon. A lot of furniture free minimalists sleep on these. And I did for years.

It was fine for a long time. But what I ultimately found was that my hip bones would sort of dig into the futon and cause a crater in the middle just because that’s where there was the most pressure.

Eventually I just decided that I wanted something with a bit more stability to it to prevent that hole from forming. So now I actually sleep on an Avocado mattress which is a mix of inner spring, natural latex and wool, and I love it. 

The Bottom Line

So there you have it, my furniture free minimalist living room and why I got all crazy and gave everything away so that I could sit on the floor.

I’m curious if you’re going to go furniture free too, or if you’re just going to dedicate one minimalist room to creative movement, so leave me a comment and let me know what you think about all this.

Of course if you’ve liked this video, head on over and subscribe to my YouTube channel so you never miss a video update. 

9 November 12, 2019 Healthy Aging

5 Tips for Dissolving Anxiety With Embodied Grounding Techniques

If there’s one universal truth that’s as constant as gravity, it’s that change happens. And when change comes, it can really twist your world upside down and sideways.

There’s nothing more frustrating than feeling like you’ve finally got your life in order—essential oil bottles neatly alphabetized, yoga practice on point, and a bevy of friends to laugh and celebrate with—when, WHAM! Life throws you the curviest of curveballs.

Whether it’s the unexpected death of a family member, a relationship ending without warning, or apparent job security up and vanishing, any sudden change is sure to leave a few scars.

You’ve probably heard that you should try to keep a positive attitude in these moments, but that’s easier said than done. Platitudes and good advice don’t help much in the moment. What you really need are solid practices to help you calm your nervous system, to be more resilient, and to embody emotional flexibility.

In other words, when unexpected change comes around — demanding you rise to the challenge — it’s body-based practices that will help you bend like a vital green twig under the stressful forces of change rather than snapping like a dried-out branch.

Here are five embodied practices to help you handle change better:

Related:

  • Can Better Posture Reduce Anxiety?
  • Is This “Normal” Sign of Aging Actually a Symptom of Something Worse?
  • What Does Burnout Have to Do with Muscle Tension?

1. Practice physical awareness.

When change strikes, it’s easy to let your mind spin out, worrying about what the uncertain future will bring. But these what-if fears are like paying interest on a debt you don’t owe.

Further, excessive stress and worry could potentially push you into hyper-arousal — a state outside your neural window of tolerance in which it’s difficult to think and act clearly.

Mindfulness meditation—a practice of “presence focused awareness”—has been shown to attenuate anxiety. But rather than try to corral worrisome thoughts directly, you can work with sensations in your body to calm your nervous system.

Psychologists define sensation as the raw data input traveling into your brain through sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste, while perceptions are your brain’s interpretation of that data. Since sensory input streams in real time, bringing your awareness to your current physical felt experience effectively focuses your mind without the arduous task of chasing down scattered thoughts.

When you feel mentally overwhelmed, fragmented, and like you’re losing track of yourself, try this practice:

Notice your breath rising and falling in your chest, the weight of your pelvis on your chair, the rustle of clothing against your skin. As your nervous system settles and you feel calmer, deeper physical sensations might arise. Those can include feelings like tightness in your stomach, buzzing around your heart, or even the pulse of blood flowing in your veins.

2. Get physically grounded.

Stress can cause you to sense that a situation is just too much to handle. I’ve noticed my clients physically pulling up and away from the ground, tightening their knees, calves, ankles, and toes when they’re overstimulated.

Your body notices when tissues stretch, elongate, and contract, so locked-down muscles reduce sensory input to a drizzle. Proprioception—your physical sense of self—is how you know your body belongs to you. When you lose it, or it becomes diminished, you can feel as if you’re also losing yourself, as described by famed neurologist Oliver Sacks.

Grounding is another term for centering—rooting yourself in the here and now. Many practices teach a grounding visualization of growing tree roots into the earth, but connecting to sensory information from your feet (rich in nerve endings, like your fingertips) adds an additional layer of physical stability.

Whether you’re feeling stressed by unexpected change now or you’d like to cultivate resources to help you handle unforeseen future events, you can employ simple practices to wake up dormant feet, thus restoring lost sensation and reducing muscular tension.

Resuscitate your sleeping soles by walking barefoot on varied textures (like grass, pine needles, fluffy carpet, and rough stone) or rolling your feet on myofascial release tools such as lacrosse balls or even a simple wooden dowel.

You can also increase the surface area of your foot that comes into contact with the ground—literally giving you a wider base and thus broader sensory input—by spreading your toes and releasing tension between the long, thin metatarsal bones. Interlace your fingers with your toes while using your hand to bend and stretch your foot, noticing how all that tight fascia opens up.

3. Create space inside your skin.

You’ve probably heard about stress being related to your fight-or-flight response, which is your body preparing to deal with danger. But did you know you also have a relaxation response?

Detailed by Dr. Herbert Benson in his 1975 book of the same name, the relaxation response can be elicited through the simple act of focusing on your breath.

Tension in and around your rib cage or diaphragm—the primary breathing muscle—constricts your lungs and limits the amount of air you can bring in.

Breath will fill your chest like water poured into a container. If the container can stretch, like a water balloon, it will expand. A tight, rigid container will constrict your breath. We know that reducing muscular tension through modalities like massage has a direct correlation to decreased stress levels, but you can also release tight muscles from the inside out using your breath to increase space within your body.

Start by exhaling completely—and I mean all the air in your lungs. Emptying your lungs allows your diaphragm to fully relax, preparing it to take in a full, deep breath. A muscle can only contract to the extent that it first relaxes. For example, you can’t pick up a coffee mug if your hand is in a fist; first, you must open your fingers before you can close them around the mug.

You can also try this practice anytime you feel yourself tightening up against change:

Bring your attention to your breathing and sense the shape that it’s making in your body. Does it stay high and small in your chest? Can you feel it spread laterally to your shoulders? What about deep down in your pelvis, is there any movement there?

As you focus inward, notice how just bringing awareness to the edges of your breath starts to soften tension in your body without any additional effort. Spend at least five minutes simply exploring these edges with your awareness.

4. Release unnecessary tension.

Stress and tension are inherently linked. Whenever you face a perceived threat—such as impending financial instability, an unexpected change in relationship status, or a major health event—your body prepares to fight the danger.

Short-term danger is easily dealt with, and the resultant stress effects quickly discharged. But ongoing stress can cause habitual patterns, like clenching your jaw or hunching your shoulders. Many people hold onto way more tension than necessary simply out of habit.

Core muscles, particularly the deep abdominal psoas, are intricately linked to your enteric nervous system. According to Liz Koch, author of The Psoas Book, chronic tension in this area can exacerbate your fight-or-flight response.

Operating out of fight-or-flight causes you to react first and ask questions later. Ultimately, operating from a survival state means your life is driven by unconscious impulses that serve only to get you away from an immediate threat, not to set you up for success down the road, which can lead to less than optimal decisions in a moment of panic.

But settling your nervous system and bringing you out of this reactionary state can be as simple as releasing unnecessary tension. Just like massage reduces stress by relieving tight muscles, relaxing your own body can bring you back to center.

I recommend you practice this regularly to avoid accumulating excessive physical armoring over time.

Simply lie down on the floor with your legs straight and arms at your sides. Once you’re there, use your awareness to scan your body from your feet all the way up to your skull, noticing any areas that seem to be “held up” off the floor. See if you can breathe into those spaces and let the floor support your body entirely. As you do this, you’ll be letting go of excess tension that has become an energy leak for your body and brain.

5. Cultivate balance.

Sometimes language reflects physical reality, as it does when we say that we’ve been “knocked off center.” We might mean it metaphorically, but literally centering your body can actually improve your capacity for handling change.

Your brain’s muscular coordination center is linked to executive function—a set of mental skills that helps you manage time and get things done. Balance and coordination exercises have been shown to improve working memory because they force you to adapt to changing terrain and environments.

Sound like something that might help you navigate the dark waters of change? Absolutely. But when times are tough, you don’t have to get fancy about it.

Simply practicing standing on one foot is a great start. If that’s too easy, step up the challenge: Turn your head side to side, close your eyes, or stand on an elevated surface like a bench. All of these will fortify your ability to stay centered.

It’s best to develop your balance skills before you need them. You don’t want to be tiptoeing across a high wire when you first decide to challenge your equilibrium.

The Bottom Line

These five tips will help you get grounded when anxiety rears its ugly head. But if you want a deep nervous system reset, I recommend you get on the waitlist for my signature movement program which is designed to be a total mind-body overhaul.

Click here to get on the list and be the first to know when doors open for registration >>

277 November 5, 2019 Healthy Aging

Heal Your Gut: How Chronic Muscle Tension Harms Digestion

If you suffer from digestive issues, you’ve probably tried a lot of stuff to heal your gut.

Gut health is a hot (and relevant) topic these days. While the physical symptoms are unpleasant enough on their own, evidence continues to link digestive distress with cognitive issues like brain fog, fatigue, anxiety, and depression.

You might be able to “gut out” a brief case of indigestion. But ongoing intestinal issues could indicate more insidious and systemic health issues.

If you suffer from regular bouts of digestive upset, abdominal pain, cramps gas, bloating, diarrhea, or constipation, it’s worth taking a look at your gut health.

Unfortunately, not only are these conditions are profoundly unpleasant, their prevalence is also on the rise. So how do you know if you need to heal your gut?

Read on to learn more…

Related:

  • The Secret to Eliminating Gas, Bloating and Indigestion, For Good
  • What Does Burnout Have to Do With Muscle Tension?
  • Proteolytic Enzymes for Pain And Inflammation: What They Do, How They Work, And Where to Get Them

How Do I Know if My Gut Is Healthy?

You might think your gut is doing just fine, thank you very much.

I mean, sure, you get heartburn every morning after breakfast and you’re unbuttoning your jeans in the evening before reclining heavily on the sofa to accommodate your post-dinner swollen gut that looks like you swallowed a football.

But you’re fiiiiine.

Let me just point out that these things are not normal. Chronic constipation isn’t normal. Regular bouts of diarrhea aren’t either. You have probably figured those things out for yourself by now because they’re pretty uncomfortable.

But even if you don’t suffer from overt discomfort like the above, there are lots (LOTS!) of other symptoms of impaired gut health, many of which aren’t localized in your abdominal region — so you might not initially think to check for gastrointestinal issues as a potential cause.

Symptoms of digestive health issues can be physical, psychological, emotional, or a combination of all three. They can include any of the following:

  • joint pain
  • sore muscles
  • muscle tension
  • sleep issues
  • food sensitivities
  • autoimmune disorders
  • bloating
  • heartburn
  • abdominal pain
  • skin rashes or itchiness
  • cramps
  • diarrhea
  • constipation
  • brain fog
  • headache
  • inability to focus
  • memory loss
  • nervousness
  • restlessness
  • depression and lethargy
  • anxiety
  • fatigue
  • stress

As you can see, the symptoms are widespread and not exactly linear. They affect your body, sure, but also your brain.

While addressing potential gastrointestinal dysfunction is crucial in the management of many diseases — particularly those with an autoimmune and/or inflammatory component — it’s also essential for anyone who wants to optimize physical and cognitive performance.

You can’t show up as your best self if you’re fighting through curtains of brain fog and chronic pain, after all.

How Common Are Gut Health Problems?

Honestly, with respect to the question of whether or not your gut is healthy, in today’s modern world the answer is “probably not.”

Not only are gut health diseases on the rise, it’s nearly impossible to avoid foods and environmental substances that disrupt your intestinal microflora.

According to a recent survey conducted by the Center for Disease Control, over 3 million adults in the United States have been diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), including Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis.

SIBO, or Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth, is another common digestive condition caused by an imbalance in gut flora.. The symptoms are unpleasant, ranging from belly aches and bloating to more serious issues like vitamin deficiency resulting from impaired nutrient absorption.

Experts don’t know exactly how many cases of SIBO occur each year in part because it’s frequently misdiagnosed.

But these are the most extreme levels of gut dysbiosis. Even if you don’t have a severe condition like those above, many of the above-listed symptoms result from a more prevalent and sneakier condition called “leaky gut syndrome.”

Leaky gut means that the epithelial lining of your intestine — the most rapidly regenerating tissue in your body — has become overly permeable, allowing large molecules of food and environmental irritants to enter the bloodstream.

Symptoms are varied and range from digestive upset to skin problems and even brain fog or memory loss. Leaky gut has been correlated with autoimmune diseases such as diabetes and Lupus.

So, the answer is: gut health issues are pretty freaking common. But why does it happen?

What Causes Gut Health To Go Bad?

Why are we all suffering from gut health issues? I mean, digestion isn’t even something that requires conscious control. You eat food, your body breaks it down and uses it for fuel…easy-peasy.

Right?

Well, yes. In an ideal world, your gut would be pretty low maintenance. Its sophisticated design is finely tuned to absorb nutrients and fuel your daily life. But we don’t live in an ideal world.

There are toxins in our food supply. Yes, toxins. I’m going to invoke that controversial word, the one that makes MDs roll their eyes at hippie-foodies chugging green smoothies and espousing lemon juice detox diets.

I never understood why this word was so polarizing. I have seen statements to the effect of “if a health professional even so much as breathes the word ‘toxin’ you have destroyed your credibility and entered the world of crystal-waving quackery.”

Be that as it may, it is an irrefutable fact that our food supply is contaminated by our own environmental waste. Plastics, for example, literally surround our bodies inside and out. Micro-particles have been found in the digestive systems of birds, fish, whales, and now humans, too.

One researcher who pulled a fish out of the Great Lakes was shocked to see tiny filaments of plastic weaving themselves into the fish’s digestive system.

It turns out that even our clothes are polluting the environment. Fleece jackets (yes, even the fancy ones from Patagonia) shed on average 1,174 milligrams of petroleum-based fuzziness per wash. About 40% of these fibers wind up in rivers, lakes, and oceans where marine life ends up eating them.

So, while detox diets are still up for debate, there’s no doubt that you — and everyone around you — are eating petrochemicals on a regular basis. Do these contaminants pass harmlessly through your body, having no impact on your health?

More research is needed to determine exactly how they’re affecting us, but there’s ample evidence that plastic trash isn’t exactly doing us any favors. Crabs fed petrochemical based plastic, for example, showed altered behavior.

Fish fed plastic that had been soaked for three months in seawater to allow it speed degradation had evidence of liver damage, and oysters exposed to styrofoam particles showed diminished reproductive function.

More directly related to gut health, exposure to Bisphenol-A (BPA) commonly found in plastic water bottles and the lining of canned foods disrupts the balance of normal gut flora. And if you’re smugly choosing BPA-free options thinking yourself safe, those may be just as harmful.

And all of this is just the effects of plastic. I use these as a primary example because you can’t avoid them — even if you eat organically grown food prayed over by Buddhist monks and harvested on a new moon.

Petrochemicals are in our air, water, and our food.

But there are other substances that disrupt gut health, including chemical pesticides, heavy metals, antibiotics, and pharmaceutical drugs, not to mention just plain diet.

Food quality is a contributing factor to gut dysbiosis (microbial imbalance) and inflammatory bowel disease. Food allergies or intolerances, diets high in processed foods, a lack of pre- and probiotics, and enzyme deficiency can all contribute to impaired digestive function and its associated symptoms.

So if you think your gut is fine, the truth is, it’s probably not.

And all those annoying things you associate with “just getting older” like joint pain, stiff muscles, and forgetfulness?

Yeah. Those can be the result of a gut that’s struggling to do its job under less than ideal conditions.

But What Do Tight Muscles Have to Do with Gut Health?

If diet is the issue here, it seems like diet is where we should focus our attention. If chemicals in the food supply are disrupting our gut flora, then choosing organic produce and supplementing with probiotics seem appropriate.

And it’s true. As they say in the world of fitness, you can’t out-train a bad diet.

Basically, you can’t eat Whoppers and milkshakes for breakfast every day and hope to get six pack abs, no matter how hard you work in the gym.

The same also goes for gut health.

If your diet consists of prepackaged, processed foods, or you’re eating things that irritate your gut lining due to allergy or intolerance, or if you’re simply ingesting large quantities of endocrine-disrupting petrochemicals, your gut health will suffer.

End of story.

But if you’re intentionally nourishing your gut lining and microbiome yet still experiencing digestive issues like bloating, constipation, stomach pain (that you’ve ruled out medical causes for, of course), or even acid reflux, there may be another frequently overlooked element at play: stress.

Stress And Gut Health

While psychological stress has been proven not to be a cause of IBS, it’s still a factor in functional gastrointestinal disorders, especially those where no obvious physical cause is present.

Even in cases of IBS or SIBO, addressing lifestyle and stress are integral to a healthy treatment protocol.

You might think of stress as a “top down” phenomenon where you have a thought that makes you feel stressed or anxious. Your brain then sends corresponding signals through your spinal cord to your body, including your digestive system, causing a flood of stress hormones and tension.

But actually, it often works in reverse.

Your brain and body are constantly checking in with each other to assess the present situation. Which means your body is also sending signals to your brain.

Muscle tension signals your brain that all is not well. Those clenched shoulders and rock-hard hip flexors mean that you’re not safe.

Even if all is well, your brain will interpret your tight muscles as a sign that danger is near. It will then start to prepare for survival the same way that it would if a cougar were stalking you in the forest.

Your brain and body will switch into the fight-flight-freeze branch of your autonomic nervous system — the sympathetic branch.

This affects gut health because in life-threatening situations, your body — sensibly — pauses digestive function and mobilizes blood away from your internal organs in preparation to defend itself.

When your sympathetic nervous system is highly active — as it is in a survival situation — digestive secretions and gut motility (the wave-like motion that moves food through your intestines) are inhibited.

Which, you know, kind of slows down your digestion.

That whole food thing kind of gets pushed to the back burner. After all, it’s not super important to digest your lunch if you might not live through the end of the day.

Tension and Your Gut Brain

While muscle tension definitely keeps your body stuck in sympathetic activation and thus impairs digestion, it also has a more direct and mechanical effect on gut health.

Your viscera—or more colloquially, your guts—all have something called motility, which is an inherent movement or wave used to push food through the digestive tract.

Tension and rigidity in your deep core muscles impairs motility and thus food can stagnate, causing constipation, cramps, gas, bloating, and other symptoms of poor digestion.

Motility is a function of the enteric nervous system, a component of your autonomic nervous system which regulates biological functions that are beneath your voluntary control (breathing, heart rate, etc.). The enteric nervous system is local to the digestive tract and has at least as many neurons as your spinal cord (some experts say that the enteric system has more).

Because of this, the enteric nervous system is often referred to as the “gut brain,” a source of localized intelligence in your viscera. Some people consider the gut brain to be the source of intuition, giving rise to “gut feelings,” as they’re so often called.

And in fact, one function of the enteric nervous system is sensory, which means that it’s reading information via sensory receptors located in the mucosa and muscle of your intestinal wall — like skin, but on the inside of your intestines.

While these sensory receptors respond to various stimuli — including that from food that you’ve ingested — most relevant to the discussion of muscle tension and gut health is their ability to respond to stretch and tension.

Deep muscles in your core that have become locked and rigid can negatively influence a long chain of nerves running along the front of your spine related not only to safety but also to digestive function.

The Psoas-Gut Connection

If you haven’t heard of your psoas muscle (pronounced so-az), then you’re likely lucky enough to never have had a massage therapist dig their fingers deep into your abdomen to release it.

Your psoas is a deep core muscle that spans from roughly the middle of your spine down behind your internal organs and finally attaches on the upper inside of your thigh bone.

It is the only muscle linking your spine to your leg, and it has a unique relationship with your gut brain. Because of its location along the front of the spine, your psoas has a direct influence on a set of nerves that also reside in the same area called the sympathetic trunk.

These little bundles of nerves called sympathetic ganglia are part of that autonomic nervous system we talked about earlier. Essentially, their role is to regulate biological functions that are below conscious control — like digestion.

Your psoas is a particularly interesting muscle not only because of its direct, physical connection to the communication system that feeds your gut brain, but because it also seems to be a sort of sensory antenna.

This puzzle is starting to take shape now, right?

Digestive function relies on communication between your enteric and central nervous systems. This communication happens via the sympathetic nerve ganglia — the very same ganglia that co-habitate with your psoas.

If there is rigidity and constriction in and around your viscera such as happens from a chronically tense psoas muscle, the enteric sensory receptors will communicate back to the brain that there’s a problem.

The brain will then signal to the body to slow down digestive function and conserve energy to fend off an impending threat. Thus gut motility (the process that moves food along your intestinal tract) will be reduced.

And digestion will slowwwww down. Which you might experience over time as gas, bloating, constipation or other unpleasant physical symptoms.

Lose The Tension, Heal Your Gut?

On the flip side, reducing muscle tension — especially in the delicate psoas which is intrinsically linked to sensations of safety and connection — can improve gut motility and digestion.

Your psoas, due to its location behind your viscera, acts as a sort of hammock into which your internal organs settle.

Or, should settle. If your psoas is supple as a health psoas should be.

A healthy psoas will gently massage your organs as you walk and move. However, a taught, rigid psoas becomes a stiff guide-wire supporting your spine — not doing its job to facilitate gut motility.

What causes a tight psoas? Or any tight muscle, for that matter?

There are many causes of muscle tension. One prevalent factor is mental and emotional stress. When you’re under pressure, the same biological response to threat — your sympathetic nervous system — is activated, resulting in physical tension.

Stress isn’t a problem unless it’s relentless and offers no breaks, or if your nervous system gets frozen in this place as sometimes happens in cases of childhood trauma or with a deep emotional shock.

In fact, an emotional wound can be just as painful as a physical one — literally. There’s evidence that emotional trauma such as social rejection activates the pain centers in your brain in the same way as if you had suffered a physical wound.

Commonly, once an emotionally charged event passes, if a person hasn’t had the opportunity to discharge the stored physical stress, the body will become “frozen” in time, responding perpetually as if the stress were still present — whether you’re consciously aware of this or not.

Symptoms of this “frozen” state are varied but often include chronic muscular tension, muscle “guarding” and some level of hyper-vigilance — tight, darting eyes, shallow breathing, sensitivity to noise or other environmental stimulus, anxiety, constant scanning of surroundings, etc.

While treatments such as psychotherapy can help you to make sense of events that happened in your life, cognitive strategies frequently don’t quite reach the deep biological effects of chronic stress and stored emotions in the body.

These effects can dissipate, however, by working from the body level up to release the stored physical tension related to old memories, embodied emotions and even negative or limiting self-beliefs.

This approach brings your body back into balance (and takes the strain off your digestive system so your organs can function again).

Mindful Movement for Nervous System Health

While it’s imperative to address digestive diseases such as IBS and SIBO with appropriate medical treatments which may include drugs, herbs, probiotics, and diet modifications, the importance of regulating your nervous system for digestive health cannot be overlooked.

Many people in our stressful, fast paced modern world are walking around with big balls of knotted muscles in their necks, shoulders and guts. Tension in the abdomen and hip area is common because these regions of your body are related directly to survival.

In a life or death situation, the human biological response is to curl toward a fetal position to guard the vulnerable viscera and reproductive organs. While you may not be huddled under a desk with your arms wrapped around your knees, every time you experience even micro-stress, there is a subtle contraction in the hip and core, a movement toward guarding.

Over time, this tendency toward curling shows up as a rigid psoas, lower back pain, inflexible hips — and digestive distress (to name a few symptoms).

Fortunately, as I mentioned, there are some excellent and readily available tools to help you dissolve this stored nervous system activation — namely, movement.

The practices I teach in my signature method are designed to thaw the tension in your tissue, like hitting a reset button on your body — and brain.

It’s not yoga. It’s not exercise. It’s an entirely new take on life.

Enrollment is currently closed, but you can get on the waitlist and be first to know when we open up the doors again. Click here to get on the list >>

3 October 29, 2019 Healthy Aging

Why Stretching is Probably Overrated

If you have tight muscles, you probably think you should stretch more.

It makes sense. Stretching helps your muscles to relax, increases flexibility and eases pain.

Right?

Err, maybe not.

Recently I had a question about why I’m not very pro-stretching. And it’s true. I talk a lot about the fact that stretching alone won’t necessarily improve mobility or relieve musculoskeletal aches and pains.

And that’s true even if you’re in a happy mindset, filled to the brim with self-love and compassion.

So if mechanically stretching your muscles isn’t helpful, why do we see expert advice everywhere to “stretch more” when we’re tight and achy?

The sad truth is…

Merely stretching won’t help much, and here’s why.

Related:

  • Why Your Morning Stretching Routine Is A Total Waste Of Time
  • Want To Be More Agile? Stop Stretching And Read This
  • 4 Stretches For Back Tightness And Pain

Why Stretching Doesn’t Actually Work

The reason I talk a lot about stretching not being as beneficial as we tend to think is that on the whole, we’re pretty hyper-focused on what we’re doing.

Not so much on how we’re doing it.

Obviously what you’re doing is important. But it only accounts for about 20% of your results. Eighty percent of it is where your attention is at.

We’re kind of stuck in this model of Cartesian duality where the mind is separate from the body and, though they’re connected, on some level we think of them as being able to function independently.

Your muscles are unintelligent lumps of meat that just need to be pulled longer. (#sonottrue)

In reality, tension is a function of consciousness. If we put you under anesthesia, you’d be a floppy yogi and we could tuck your foot behind your head.

But wake up, and all that tension comes right back.

Tension is in your brain — not in a too-short rubber band of a muscle.

If your operating system is malfunctioning on your computer, you don’t take the hard drive out. You reboot the operating system.

Same for your muscles.

Mental focus and attention are fundamentally important to movement and mobility practices — whether stretching or otherwise.

In fact, long term neuromotor maps in your brain (your movement patterns) don’t shift without some level of awareness.

Experiencing Movement Is As Important As Doing It

Doing the stretch is not the same as experiencing it.

I’m sorry, what?

I know, heady stuff…

Listen, most of us have been taught to largely ignore signs and signals from our bodies. Even when pressure — from a foam roller, say, or a vigorous massage — is aggressive and painful, many people when asked will say it’s “fine.”

If pressed, a few may admit their muscles feel sore. But they didn’t think that was relevant.

Why?

Because we’re taught that pain is productive. That without it we’re not getting anything done.

(Don’t even get me started on the larger cultural constructs related to this line of thinking…AHEM toxic work culture.)

We are taught to ignore what our bodies tell us. Therefore, we live up in our heads, narrating our experiences rather than feeling them.

And when I say feeling, I don’t mean emotionally. I mean sensorily. As in, the sensation of an experience.

What your muscles feel. Not what your brain thinks about what your muscles feel.

Most of us skip right over the former and go directly to the latter.

When you pay attention to what your body feels during a stretch or movement, you’re giving your brain a surge of new information that it can use to re-map movement patterns in new and more efficient ways.

But that physical experience has to be there. You can’t just intellectualize it.

You gotta feel it.

Sensory Experience And Self-Locating: Why It’s Important

It’s twelve p.m. — do you know where your body is?

Umm, hopefully with you. If you are reading this without a body, you are officially a ghost and you should email me because I have questions. So many questions.

Okay, but in all seriousness, most of us are sort of “missing” from our bodies. Like, there’s a buffer between the you that you identify with and your physical self.

Many fitness practices focus on overriding your body through willpower and aggressive approaches that basically subjugate your body. The mentality seems to be: “You will behave.”

This aggressive approach to stretching creates a neural tug-o-war where you’re fighting against your own muscle guarding. When you stretch aggressively, you’re trying to override your body’s defense systems.

And your body is no dummy. It doesn’t want to give up so easily.

But if you give your nervous system new input by focusing your attention and awareness on what you’re doing, it allows your brain to get a better idea of where you are in space and adjust tension patterns accordingly.

This is called self-locating, and it’s like hitting the master reset button.

Providing what we call “novel proprioceptive input” (don’t memorize that, it’s not worth it) — or basically new sensations — gives your brain the opportunity to recalibrate its movement maps to better suit your environment.

It gives you the space to start changing mobility, flexibility, and pain without having to override your own self-protection.

So, Is Stretching Totally Useless?

Stretching alone might not be all it’s cracked up to be, but that doesn’t mean you should give up. Again, how you’re doing what you’re doing is equally as important (or more!) as what you’re doing.

I have found personally and with clients that intention is essential, and so I tend to focus on movements designed to stimulate your brain with novel sensations which bolster neuromotor coordination.

This is what we do inside my Posture Rehab course, and while enrollment is currently closed, you can still get on the waitlist to be first in line when it’s re-released.

The practices I’ve cultivated aren’t so much movement or exercise as they are an entirely new take on life.

Click here to jump on the waitlist and see what it’s all about >>

3 October 15, 2019 Healthy Aging

Why Stiff Muscles and Aching Joints Aren’t Just a Sign of “Getting Older”

*Affiliate links used wherever possible.

You know the drill. You wake up in the morning with a stiff back. Sitting up hurts. Walking makes you feel like you’re ninety. And you gimp across the kitchen to the coffee pot because with all these aches and pains, you’re just not sleeping like you used to.

You might assume you’re just getting older. Stiff, aching muscles are simply part of the aging process. However, muscle pain isn’t something to ignore. It can actually be a sign of underlying physiological imbalances which are dangerous to your health.

Magnesium Deficiency: The Underdiagnosed Epidemic

Muscle tension is a common complaint. But for as many people as it afflicts, it’s too often ignored or dismissed. If anything, your doctor might hand over a prescription for pain pills, physical therapy or maybe a massage if you’re lucky, alongside some vague advice to “stretch more.”

Few medical professionals address a surprisingly common mineral deficit in their aging patients. This mineral, in addition to affecting muscle pain and tension, plays a critical role in cardiovascular health, mood and sleep quality.

What is this magical mineral of which I speak?

Related:

  • 8 Healing Foods For Pain Relief
  • Muscle Aches And Tension? Why Stretching May Be Insufficient (But This Mineral Might Help)
  • 17 Slightly Unusual Ways Not to Look Old

Magnesium.

Magnesium deficiency is rampant. While caloric consumption is up, the nutrient content of our food is declining, making us overfed but nutritionally undernourished.

Even worse, magnesium deficiency can be difficult to test accurately. As a result, it’s drastically under-diagnosed.

In fact, according to cardiovascular research scientist and author Dr. James J. DiNicolantonio, magnesium deficiency is so dangerous that it should be considered a public health crisis.

Magnesium and Aging: Why Deficiency Shouldn’t Be Ignored

Magnesium is a naturally occurring mineral found in soil, plants, water, and animals — including us humans.

Your body requires magnesium to complete more than 300 different biochemical reactions — everything from building DNA to protein synthesis, energy creation, skeletal muscle contractions and nervous system regulation.

A deficiency in magnesium can do more than make your muscles stiff and sore. Studies suggest that magnesium deficiency promotes cellular deterioration and causes apoptosis — cell death — in cardiovascular tissue.

In short, not having enough magnesium in your body accelerates the aging process by making it harder for your body to repair itself.

However, increasing magnesium levels in your body is a simple and inexpensive way to combat this biological deterioration.

How Magnesium Alleviates Muscle Stiffness and Pain

While it’s true that your body undergoes biochemical changes with age, certain lifestyle interventions can impact muscle stiffness and pain.

Your muscles rely on a balance of calcium and magnesium to regulate muscle contractions. Two proteins — actin and myosin — in your muscle tissue shorten when a muscle contracts, and then lengthen when it relaxes. Calcium is the fuel that powers the contraction, while magnesium is the key that unlocks it once finished.

Basically, if your body is deficient in magnesium, it’s physiologically impossible for your muscles to relax.

Stretching, foam rolling and massage may give you temporary relief, but they have no effect on your body chemistry. Your muscles will remain tight until they get sufficient quantities of magnesium required for relaxation.

This is probably why people assume that muscle pain and stiffness are part and parcel with aging. Little benefit is seen from typical muscle relaxation practices, and so we all shrug and assume it’s an unavoidable aspect of getting older.

In addition to its muscle relaxing powers, magnesium is also anti-inflammatory. Aging, exposure to stress, free radicals, processed foods and environmental toxins can all increase inflammation in the body. Magnesium has been shown in animal studies to play an extensive role in inflammatory processes.

Even moderate magnesium deficiency over a long period can markedly increase inflammatory stress. Chronic inflammation causes muscle stiffness and joint pain as well as increasing your risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and other autoimmune disorders.

Magnesium Helps Soothe The Nervous System and Calm Stress

Stress and magnesium deficiency are deeply correlated. Heightened stress actually causes your body to dump your magnesium reserves, excreting everything out through the urine.

Your body burns through magnesium faster than a ‘57 Chevy in stop and go traffic.

The reason stress results in magnesium wasting is due to the mineral’s critical role in brain function. When you’re in a survival situation, it’s important to have neurons firing on all cylinders. Usually life and death situations are fleeting, but in today’s world stress is often unrelenting.

This daily assault on your nervous system causes you to tear through your stores of magnesium rapidly. And since the typical modern diet supplies insufficient magnesium to replenish your body, your deficiency compounds over time.

According to board-certified neurologist Ilene Ruhoy, magnesium also boosts the function of GABA — a calming neurotransmitter — in your brain. Increased GABA helps you to handle stress more effectively with less of a negative impact on your health.

How to Get More Magnesium into Your Body

Since dietary magnesium is generally insufficient to raise your body’s levels to high normal, supplementation can be useful. However, it can be a little confusing.

Not only are there different types of magnesium, but there are also two different ways to get magnesium into your body.

Here’s what you need to know:

First, while magnesium is magnesium is magnesium, in order to stabilize it for consumption, it has to be bound to a carrier molecule, forming salts. That’s why you see all the different names for magnesium — glycinate, malate, citrate, etc. Those second words are the molecules to which the magnesium has been bound, and that molecule can affect absorption.

Second, you’ll notice that you can either take magnesium orally or rub it on your skin.

Oral supplements are generally capsules that you swallow, while topical magnesium comes in the form of a spray, gel, or lotion. You can also add magnesium salts to bathwater and absorb it that way.

Both have their pros and cons. Oral supplements can quickly boost deficient magnesium levels, but digestive issues such as IBS, celiac disease, leaky gut, SIBO or other digestive disorders can decrease absorption. Magnesium is also a natural laxative, so it can be hard on your gut.

This is why I’m a fan of topical or transdermal magnesium. Applying it to your skin bypasses any gut absorption issues. Plus, you can spot treat any stiff, sore muscles by rubbing it directly onto the area that hurts.

Over time, topical application of magnesium will still boost your body’s magnesium levels and you’ll reap all of the same benefits as oral supplementation without the negative digestive impact.

Conclusion

Stiff muscles and aching joints may be a common symptom amongst older people, but that doesn’t mean you should just put up with the pain. Your body may be trying to tell you that you are deficient in magnesium — a surprisingly common condition.

Magnesium is a natural muscle relaxer as well as having an anti-inflammatory effect on the body. It’s also critical for cardiovascular health, optimal brain function, mood, and sleep.

There are two different ways to get more magnesium into your body. Oral supplementation delivers large quantities of the nutrient, but absorption can be impacted by poor digestive health.

Topical or transdermal magnesium boosts magnesium levels while bypassing gut absorption issues and is an excellent way to spot treat sore muscles.

For more help with easing muscle pain and tension, click here to download my free guide No More Tight Muscles >>

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