Cats and Dogs is a wonderful ecise that I highly recommend everyone do daily. Cats and Dogs reminds our pelvis and spine to flex and extend and it unlocks our body from the constant flexion many of us spend our days in. Cats and Dogs also restores symmetry and balance to our bodies by reminding both hips, shoulders, and sides of our back to do the same thing. Many of us are one-side dominate which creates rotation and/or elevation of our hips or shoulders, and cats and dogs can help restore balance. I recommend doing at least 10 cats and dogs every morning and evening, but feel free to do them anytime you want. 

I was interviewed for an article about upper back strength by mapmyrun and provided three simple exercises to improve posture and upper back strength and function which will allow you to run more efficiently and help prevent injury. 

Check out the entire article and try the exercises today and notice how it impacts your running. 

Have you ever dealt with pain from bunions, hammer toes, plantar fasciitis, or Achilles tendonitis? 

Do your feet get tired or sore by the end of the day? 

Are you dealing with corns, calluses, blisters, or ingrown toenails? 

Do you have balance issues, feel unstable, or frequently sprain your ankles?

These are all very common side effects that come from losing good foot posture and function which can be caused by not-ideal footwear and the loss of foot/toe strength and mobility. 

Walking is almost as essential for human health as drinking water and eating food is. The human body is designed to walk and walking helps maintain our physical, mental, and emotional health. Every movement a baby makes from birth to 1-year-old is to help prepare for walking. Walking is essential to for brain development, immune response, digestion, and circulation. 

Walking has been shown to lift our mood, boost creativity, increase metabolism, improve sleep, boost brain power, decrease pain, and decrease stress. Walking, like other exercise, can add up to seven years to our life and is considered a miracle drug because it helps prevent cancer, diabetes, heart disease, lung disease, and many other problems. ​

Laughter is good for our health. Since today is April Fools Day, I thought an April Fools Day Newsletter would get a good laugh or at least an interesting reaction from all my wonderful clients. I hope everyone figured out the newsletter was a joke and didn't think I had lost my mind! If you didn't receive the newsletter, here are some highlights with commentary below each article: ​

Nothing could be further from the truth, as real research shows us that good posture has many benefits and slouching has none. ​

This is part 2 of Understanding Human Psychology and Chronic Pain. Part 1, talked about the 4 classes of experiences and how engaging in less class 3 and 4 experiences and more 1 and 2 experiences will have a very positive impact on our health. 

Part 2 is going to explain how everything we do in life is driven by the 6 Human Needs and how we can choose positive or negative ways to meet these needs which will determine whether they are an empowering or destructive force in our lives and on our physical health. After introducing the 6 human needs we will examine how these needs play into chronic pain and whether people are able to become pain free again. 

What are you imagining? If you are the typical person in pain, you are imagining the pain getting worse, limiting your ability to work, play (you might have already forgot what that is), and enjoy your life. You are imagining having to get that surgery you have been trying to avoid and imagining having the long hard recovery that you heard people have to go through to get better. You are imagining that your health will continue to get worse because of course you’re getting older and that’s what happens.
 
But what if you chose to imagine something different? What if you chose to imagine your pain decreasing and going away? What if you chose to imagine being able to get well without needing surgery? What if you chose to imagine being able to resume a pain free and active life full of joy? What if you chose to then help others imagine the same for them?
 
If Albert Einstein is right (and he usually is), then what you choose to imagine right now, and each moment from now on, is what you are going to experience. So the question is: What do you chose to imagine?

For help imagining a pain free and active life, contact me for a free posture evaluation and consultation and I'll help you understand what you need to do to achieve your goal of living pain free and enjoying peace of mind. 

To truly understand why someone has chronic pain and why they are not enjoying better health, and to help them achieve a pain free active life and enjoy peace of mind, we must understand their psychology along with their physiology. Only addressing someone's physiology and ignoring their psychology is often why people lose 30 pounds only to gain it back 6 months later, or go in and out of episodes of back pain, or have repeated surgeries for chronic pain. 

The Wall Drop is an Egoscue e-cise that uses a Slant Board to create bilaterally symmetrical ankle dorsiflexion which creates a chain reaction throughout the body to improve postural alignment. 

How does the Wall Drop affect posture?
The Wall Drop takes advantage of gravity and uses the position your feet are in and the wall to cause reactions and postural changes throughout your body. When you position your feet hip width apart and straight you are creating symmetry and balance in your foot position and this will create a chain reaction up your legs, into your pelvis, up your spine, and affect every joint and muscle in your body. ​

We all want to be flexible. Flexibility is beautiful. Flexibility helps with injury prevention. Flexibility improves performance. People who have flexibility are graceful, fluid, and effortless in their movements.