Category Archives: Wellness

Finding Inspiration

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I am honored to introduce Michelle Pino who offered to write an inspirational post in honor of National Women’s Week. Sweet Michelle works at Skana Spa in Upstate NY. She truthfully stated to me through e-mail: To me, the daily stresses and life’s challenges, make it so important to make health a priority and inspire us to treat our body right. That motivation morphed into habit once I knew how great taking care of myself felt!

I couldn’t agree more with Michelle. I will let her explain how she keeps health a priority:

Finding Healthy Inspiration

Typically used by wedding and event coordinators, inspiration boards are an assortment of different images that encourage you.  Inspiration boards can be used as a natural way of brainstorming.  Whether your goal is to plan a party or do a closet rehabilitation, inspiration boards will assist you in planning out the necessary steps required to make the process more streamlined.
Here are some easy guidelines to follow when creating an inspiration board:

1. Start looking for images.                                                                                                 This can be done on a poster board or electronically.  Electronically, you can search the web to search your favorite sites to find images.  If you’re creating a tangible poster board, clip images from catalogs or magazines.  The simplest way to do this is by making it a point to not look for any specific thing but rather find images that simply catch your eye.  With the right photos of fitness activities, relaxing destinations, recipes, health food or music lyrics, you can create the perfect inspiration board.

2. Find your focus.
What similarities do your gathered pictures have?  Do you notice a trend?  Is it a particular detail?  A color-scheme?  Find the picture that will be the centerpiece of your creation.

 3. Connect the images.                                                                                               Continue narrowing down your collected items to images that are a better connection to the centerpiece of your project.

 4. Mix it up.
Try a certain combination, look at it for a while and then try another.  Try different combinations of images.  Do this until you find one that satisfies you.  For fresh perspective, you may want to leave your project for a few hours, then come back to it.

 5. Begin creating your inspiration board.                                                                            You can bring your finished board with you when shopping for supplies or selecting new paint.  Don’t be shy about modifying your board as you go, particularly if you discover that some aspect of the board isn’t working and needs tweaking.

 Here is an example board:

Relaxing BoardPhoto Credit: New York Golf Club | Beach Yoga| Paintbrush | Cabin on the Lake |

What inspires me to be active and aspire to live a healthier life is the outdoors.  I love to travel and see new places.  To me, there’s no better feeling than enjoying the outdoors.  I’m really inspired by yoga for a number of reasons.  Yoga focuses the mind and body, teaching ourselves to find a spiritual balance.  I also love that yoga can be done anywhere, even the beach!  Simple yoga poses are simple stretches that can be done in the comfort of your own home or when traveling.  Yoga is great for beginners and the more advanced athlete.  I love the idea of doing yoga on the beach.  The beach is so relaxing, a great place for yoga or walking. 

The outdoors is what truly inspires me and I’ve used for the center of my inspiration.  I’ve been taking lessons near my work at New York golf club, Shenendoah, as a way to spend more time outside. Golf is great because not only is it less strenuous activity, but you also have the opportunity to enjoy the outdoors.  Another relaxing activity I’d like to try is painting.  I think painting is a great stress reliever, even if you’re not an artist, it can be a relaxing hobby.

It’s hard to make lifestyle changes that stick over time.  The key to persisting with any healthy lifestyle is balance.  Whether you want to eat more organic food, start exercising daily or just master certain fitness goals, an inspiration board can help you figure out those goals and fine tune what makes you tick so that you stay focused on getting your health together.

Michelle Pino has provided these tips in hopes to educate others on how to lead a more motivating and less stressful life.  Michelle believes more focused approach put on our health will result in more balanced life.  Her hobbies include cooking, DIY projects and learning about healthy lifestyles.  Michelle is thankful to have had the opportunity to work with Alison and together share their ideas on “­­­­­­­­­Berry Happy Bodies”.

Thank you Michelle!

 

Opening Your Heart to Change

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Change is difficult, eye opening, and most of the time arrives when you least expect or desire it.

However if we open our heart to shifts in our day to day, a new level of awareness suddenly enters. Sometimes, we get into these patterns or ruts.

carmel valley

Visualize a dirt path with deep, well worn groves. For awhile this rut may serve us, enabling us to travel down a worn road with little resistance. Over time, this groove limits us to expand beyond it’s directed path, and physically may cause us pain.

motivating pelican

Usually what limits us from leaving the comfort of the directed path is fear. Our minds question the uncertain future when we step into uncharted roads. This is the time to listen to the heart. Put, your intentions and focus on where you want this new path to lead.

open heart sequence2

Maybe take a few minutes to practice some heart and chest opening stretches, while visioning where you want your new path to lead. When done consistently over a matter of weeks you will begin to notice how deeper your breaths are, more confidence in your decisions, and an ease of movement in your body.

refeclted wheel

 

Balance

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Life has it’s ways of throwing us off balance.  Like swimming in the rapids of a rushing river, when you really just want to be floating along in a inner tube soaking up the rays. Of course, we all strive to swim with the stream, floating over and around obstacles effortlessly. Inevitably, some days are better than others. Sometimes we find our self off course, and swimming upstream.

pinchya balance

In the past when this would happen I would freak out, wondering when my next breath would be. Over time I developed tools to pull me back into balance, and back into my flow. I also began to realize, swimming up stream is not always such a bad thing. In the middle of the experience, it may be difficult to breathe, my muscles may burn, and my center maybe off. However, it is during the letting go and just moving forward that I grow and learn from the struggle. Then when I make it to smoother currents,  I realize how much I’ve overcome and how much stronger I am.

pinchya balance3

The tools to help you find the current to drift again vary from person to person, or even day to day. For me, when I feel my heart rate quicken and anxiety rise I to take a step back. Then I slow my breathing and focus on a solution. If it is a situation that may take days or weeks to resolve I find maintaining good nutrition, exercise, meditation, downtime and sleep in as close to my normal rhythm as possible helps me to just take it day by day.  It is not always perfect and some days many deep breaths are needed, but overall I feel I am better able to drift with the ups and downs of life.

 

pinchya balance2

Awareness

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Life is busy. We all move so fast.

bigsur awareness

The other day I locked my self out of work. Fortunately, the timing worked well with my boss as she was on her way back to the office for a meeting. At that moment I was in my head and unaware, instead of being present. I was floating around with my “to do” list, as well as reviewing the day. Which is necessary, but probably should not be performed while multitasking.

This brings me to bigger issues: awareness and pain. In the Physical Therapy clinic we focus on bringing an awareness to body positioning during daily movements, or static positions, to reduce or prevent pain. Easier said than done, since most of us multitask throughout the day.

beach articstic bridge

What I learned through my lock out is I need to slow down and be more aware. Maybe, we all could benefit from creating a little more awareness throughout our day. Quality over quantity at times. Instead of performing 3 tasks, just do one, while being present with a better awareness. With better awareness, there is less a chance for mistakes, injury and pain. Because, in the end we all seek happiness, right?

 

What is Lumbar Stenosis?

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Unfortunately in our society Low back pain, and its associated problems, are very common stated by the National Health Institute and several research articles published in the Physical Therapy Journal. If you look on NIH’s site, you will notice there are a variety of reasons as to why Low back pain occurs. One common diagnosis is Spinal Stenosis of the low back.

Broken down, the word Stenosis means narrowing. When applied to the spine, Stenosis means a decrease of space in the spine.

lumbar spineThis narrowing of the spine typically occurs over time due to anything deceasing the space between the vertebrae and spinal canal. Some examples include: disc herniation, vertebrae stiffening, ligament thickening, bone spurs, arthritis, postural changes,  muscle strength and length imbalances.

Pain is caused by the stiffening into this position, and occasional pinching or irritation of the nerves and discs or vertebrae.

What can you do if you have Stenosis? See a Physical Therapist where you can learn exercises, to lengthen and strengthen muscles as well as assist you in getting your vertebrae moving more freely again.

To prevent it is best to start performing a daily stretching program, especially if you sit frequently, lengthening your hip flexors to avoid an anterior tug on the pelvis and spine.

For further details, and more pictures, visit NIH for their article on Spinal Stenosis.