Top 3 Winter Wellness Tips

Top 3 Winter Wellness Tips

How lucky we are to be able to experience all 4 seasons here in Wisconsin! While living in California for a year and half doing a PT travel assignment, it didn't take long to discover that it is was ALWAYS nice outside. I actually missed experiencing the changes in seasons. After moving back to Wisconsin, I decided the only way I could make it through the winters again was to officially embrace them and make the best of what they offer, instead of shivering and complaining for 4+ months of the year! 

When there is snow outside, my family and I love to go snow-shoeing, skiing, and snowboarding. Our 11 year old LOVES to go sledding, but this winter has not provided us that opportunity...yet. We got a new concrete driveway poured this fall, so we were actually looking forward to shoveling and snow blowing now that it is all level, but we still wait patiently for that opportunity. Of course it has been cold here this winter, another seasonal attribute we have learned to embrace with our fuzzy socks and sweaters. We have committed to the flannel sheets and down comforters on our beds to help us stay warm and cozy while we rest and slumber. 

Having the chance to stay indoors this time of year, we can take the time to go "inward" to reflect on our past year, release that which no longer serves us, and refocus our priorities, while receiving fresh insights for growth opportunities. How are you spending your time enjoying this Winter? What are you doing to embrace this season? My hope for you is that you are feeling great and that your body serves you kindly all winter long. Here are the Top 3 Winter Wellness Tips to keep you moving your best through this beautiful time of year. 

1. Optimize Vitamin D Levels

Vitamin D is known for its role in helping regulate Calcium absorption and bone health. According to an article from National Library of Medicine, "Vitamin D and its receptor are important for normal skeletal muscle development and in optimizing muscle strength and performance. Supplementation with various forms of vitamin D in older adults has mostly shown reduction in falls risk and improvements in tests of muscle performance." Who knew that boosting Vitamin D levels would be helpful for staying upright on the slippery, icy surfaces that often plague us this time of year!?! The sun is the best natural source of Vitamin D, but many winter days are grey and dreary with no sunlight, sometimes several days in a row! Using a light box can help to stimulate the production of Vitamin D, as well as getting outside on sunny days, with as much skin showing as you can tolerate out in the cold. Eating foods that are high in Vitamin D can also keep us healthy at this time of year. This article lists 15 foods that are High in Vitamin D--some of my favorites are fresh fish and mushrooms. 

2. Boost Body Temperature Naturally 

Keeping yourself warm during these cold winter months can be a challenge. According to this article from Pharmacy Solutions, "foods that take longer to digest can help raise your body temperature and make you feel warmer. The medical term for this process is thermogenesis, which is the process of your body producing heat caused by food metabolizing." These warming foods include bananas, oats, ginger tea, coffee, sweet potatoes, and butternut squash. More great ways to increase your body temperature while using many of your muscles at one time are by doing jumping jacks, walking, or performing this 4 Minute Workout video from Zach Bush, MD. This free workout offers a great way to increase Nitric Oxide in the body, which is responsible for body temperature regulation as well as nervous system balance. Drinking hot beverages is another way to warm you up from the inside out. Wearing natural fabrics like wool can also be helpful to keep you warm, as wool traps air pockets and helps insulate you from the cold. So many clients and I wear Smart Wool socks, which really work well to keep those tootsies warm this time of year! Cuddling up with a fuzzy blanket and a loved one tops the list of many people's favorite ways to boost body temperature naturally. 

3. Keep Walking, No Matter What! 

Walking is one of the easiest, cheapest, most convenient ways, and natural ways to achieve whole body movement, release muscle tension, ground and connect with the earth, and promote vibrant health. No matter how cold it is, how slippery it might be, or how much snow there is on the ground, it is important to keep walking throughout the winter months!  We have so many lovely lakes, parks, and neighborhoods in this part of Wisconsin, so there are ample opportunities to explore different areas, terrains, witness natural landscapes, and breathe in the various microbiomes around us to enhance our body's natural health and balance. Bundling up in hats, scarves, mittens, and warm jackets is the best way to tolerate the outdoor elements. One of the best inventions to help stay upright on icy surfaces are traction cleats for your shoes, like these Yak-Trax. These are a God-send when it comes to walking your dog, or taking a nice, brisk exercise walk, while feeling confident that you will not slip and fall. If outdoor walking is just not right for you, there are also many opportunities to walk indoors at area malls and at the Pettit Ice Arena. Maybe your office building is large enough that you can walk the halls and or stairways as you take movement breaks throughout your workday. Why not schedule a walking meeting with a client or co-worker, or meet a friend for a walk instead of a drink? Walking is the ultimate way to boost body temperature naturally, and can be enjoyed outdoors as you soak up the Vitamin D provided by the winter sunshine. What if your body is not feeling its' best while walking? You may have a movement imbalance that can be identified and corrected to make walking more enjoyable for you. I'd be happy to help you do that! 

Best Baby Boomer Immune Boosters

 "Wash your hands. Cough and sneeze into your elbow. Don't touch your face. Use Hand Sanitizer with 60% alcohol. Sanitize and disinfect frequently touched places. Wear gloves. Wear a mask. Avoid handshakes. Maintain a 6 foot distance between others. Avoid crowds. Stay home."

So many recommendations are being offered about how to avoid exposure to this new virus, however, not much has been shared about how to boost your immune system to protect yourself if your body does come into contact with unwanted pathogens. According to the CDC website, "8 out of 10 deaths (related to COVID19) reported in the U.S. have been in adults 65 years old and older." Those statistics are downright scary!! As Baby Boomers, it is especially important to not only do what you can do to limit your risk of exposure, but also boost the resiliency of your immune system to overcome this or any other health threat that may come your way. Here are some key tips for seniors to consider to keep your body working as efficiently as it can.

Stay Hydrated
Water is essential for many body functions, including immune responses.  Drinking 1/2 of your body weight in ounces of water per day is a common recommendation for adults. If your urine is clear, you're doing well. If it's gold or yellow, keep drinking. Remember to get those ounces in before 6pm otherwise it may interfere with your ability to sleep through the night without awakening for a trip to the bathroom. 

Choose Anti-Inflammatory Foods
According to this "Very Well Health" article (Click Here), we should choose from these foods high in anti-oxidants:

• Berries (such as blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries)
• Cherries
• Apples
• Artichokes
• Avocados
• Dark green leafy vegetables (such as kale, spinach, and collard greens)
• Sweet potatoes
• Broccoli
• Nuts (such as walnuts, almonds, pecans, and hazelnuts)
• Beans (such as red beans, pinto beans, and black beans)
• Whole grains (such as oats and brown rice)
• Dark chocolate (at least 70 percent cocoa)
• Oily fish (such as salmon, herring, mackerel, sardines, and anchovies)
• Flaxseed

There's also some evidence that certain culinary herbs and spices, such as ginger, turmeric, and garlic, can help alleviate inflammation."

Avoid Virus-loving Foods
Viruses feed off of eggs, gluten, dairy, corn, soy, pork and Canola oil, according to Anthony William, author of the "Medical Medium" book series. By limiting or avoiding intake of these foods, there will be less fuel to feed the viral cells and therefore less inflammatory response. 

Supplement Wisely

Vitamin C, Zinc and Glutathione are some of the most commonly discussed supplements to keep our immune system functioning well, especially for Baby Boomers and seniors, as their levels of Glutathione, a vital antioxidant, are typically lower. Vitamins D and B are also helpful to combat the effects fo the increased stress level this time in history has created for many of us. To find the correct dosage of supplementation for you, contact your primary care, functional medicine, or alternative health care practitioner. You can also find helpful information on Dr. Mercola's website (Click here). You can choose to sign up to receive his natural newsletter focused on holistic nutrition and fitness strategies to stay up to date with current recommendations for seniors.  

Keep Moving

Movement and regular exercise are especially important for Baby Boomers to boost immune health. The muscular system serves as a pump for lymphatic fluid, which carries out the body's waste products, so the vitality of the immune system is dependent upon moving on a regular basis. Unfortunately, many older individuals are not as active as they were in younger years due to reduced energy levels, limited mobility, chronic pain from stress or previous injuries, or fear of hurting themselves. Now that most gyms and health clubs are closed, it is important to maintain a daily movement or exercise program at home and outdoors if possible. Walking, gentle, progressive body weight resistance exercises or band exercises can be helpful for getting your muscles pumping to help your lymphatic fluid and waste products to move OUT of your system. Being sure that your body is working as efficiently as possible from head to toe is crucial to your immune system's vitality.

By following the recommendations above, Baby Boomers will be in the best shape possible to ward off whatever pathogens may come your way. Attending your regularly scheduled appointments at 1212 Bodyworks will ensure that you keep all your muscles firing and your immune system vibrant, and that you have the tools and techniques to use at home to keep you moving well! 

Looking forward to helping you keep your whole body and immune system in optimal condition. Be safe, stay healthy, and take good care of yourselves!

(Written June 2020)

8 Key Elements to a Well-Balanced Life: "A" is for...

"What you don't know can't hurt you"

Have you ever heard this phrase before? Well, when it comes to the human body, I beg to differ. 

The human body is equipped with a multitude of sensory signals that can help us understand where we are in space (called "proprioception"), whether something we touch is hot or cold, sharp or smooth, whether a muscle feels tight or loose, or a movement or position feels comfortable or uncomfortable, and the list goes on. These signals all boil down to the same basic message to our body, which is whether something is safe or unsafe. It is important to "listen" to the signals that our body gives us on a daily basis and adjust our activities to accommodate the messages we are receiving so we can keep moving well and prevent injury. 

It blows me away the number of times over the past 2 decades I have met clients who have not listened, or "heard" but completely ignored the signals their body was trying to tell them for a long period of time. However, it struck me that some people are just not aware that their body is trying to communicate with them. They may not know that something they feel may be abnormal and injury may result, and that someone like me is specifically trained to help them move and feel better to prevent or overcome injury.  It turns out, what they don't know CAN hurt them! Awareness is the 4th key for a well-balanced life. 

Luckily, some people are aware of their body and notice differences between how things look or feel on one side or the other.  Recently, I have worked with some clients who are feeling pretty good overall, however, they are aware of muscles firing on one side of their body, but not as well on the other side. They sought out my help to bring their body back into a balanced state and prevent injuries from occurring. Keeping tabs on how your body is functioning is important so that you have a baseline established and can gauge whether one of your body parts may be in need of some assistance to feel better. 

There are several important points to consider when becoming aware of your body's baseline. Bring your awareness to your posture and alignment (the blog post from June highlights all the key alignment points to consider). How are you lining up from head to toe when you are sitting or standing? Does one shoulder feel higher or lower? Do you feel any areas of muscle tension or tightness from right to left? Do you feel that you are bearing more weight on one side of the body than the other? Is it difficult to breathe and relax into these positions or do you have to exert effort to breathe, keep yourself upright or relaxed?  Now consider your body's baseline while you are lying down on your back. Do you need a pillow under your head for extra support? Does one leg rotate out more than the other? Does one shoulder feel higher or lower now? Are you aware of any tension or tightness in your body in this position? Is it challenging for you to breathe into all parts of your lungs in this position? Bring your awareness to how you feel when you are walking. Does one arm swing across your body more than the other? Are your thumbs pointed toward your body? Is it easier to push off from one foot than the other? Do you have pain in any of your joints as you take your steps?  

If you answered yes to these questions, you would likely benefit from a Muscle Activation Techniques assessment and treatment to identify and correct your unique muscle imbalances contributing to these sensations. If you are feeling good and not having any of these issues, you must be well aware of your body. Keep up your good work!

Awareness is a crucial element to know your body's baseline and manage it so you can move and feel your best for years to come.  Move well, my friends! 

8 Key Elements to a Well-BALANCED Life: "L" is for....

When I first hear the word Locomotion, I think of a train, or the hit song by Grand Funk Railroad, with the ultra-cheesy 1987 version by Kylie Minogue. When I asked my husband Bryan the first word that came to his mind he said, "engine". According to dictionary.com, locomotion means "movement, or the ability to move from one place to another."  It is interesting to think about how far locomotion has come, especially since before we invented all sorts of means for locomotion (boats, horse and buggy, hot air balloons, trains, bikes, automobiles, planes, etc) all we had were our bodies to get us around from place to place. As technology continues to advance exponentially over the years, our body's biomechanics have pretty much stayed the same. Unfortunately, along with the reliance on these efficient machines for locomotion, we are relying less on our own body's ability to get us around. We don't think twice about staying up to date with our car's regular oil changes, tire rotations, transmission or radiator flushes, and air filter replacements so we can prevent inconvenient break-downs and extend the life of our vehicle (which is usually only about 10-12 years). Why is it then, that we as humans usually wait until we have a "breakdown" to do something about our human "vehicle?" Our body is our ONLY vehicle for locomotion for our lifetime (which is usually about 80-90 years, if we are lucky these days). We may have the medical advancements to receive new body parts, such as new joints and new valves for instance, but our body is so much happier to simply maintain the body we were given at birth.  

The very first way we as humans learn to move around from place to place is through rolling. This very important developmental milestone prepares our core muscles for other more advanced locomotion activities. We roll from our back to our stomach, and from our stomach to our back. Remember putting your baby on their stomach for "Tummy Time?" How much did your baby like that? Mine did not! As a new mom, it broke my heart to hear Liam fuss and cry when he was on his belly, so I didn't usually keep him there too long initially (even though I'm a PT and know better...). That is hard work for a baby to maintain that position and hold up their huge head. But with practice and repetition, they get it, and then they roll over. The spinal extensor muscles, that run along both sides of the back of the spine, are so important for ultimately keeping us upright against gravity. Our abdominal and core muscles get a great workout rolling us over from our back onto our tummy. Rolling is a great way for babies and adults to train all the muscles in the spine, trunk and limbs. 

Try it now for yourself. See how it feels to roll from your back to your stomach, then from your stomach to your back. Roll to your right, then roll to your left. How different, easy, or difficult do each of these feel?  Tummy time and rolling are activities that I recommend for grown adults, as the spinal extensor and core muscles are some of the weakest muscles I find with many of my clients. 

Crawling integrates even more of our body's core muscles with the reciprocal movement of our arms and legs to get us around from place to place. This is a much more complicated activity for our brain to orchestrate.  Our hands, wrists, feet and ankles move into new ranges of motion and provide information about the surfaces underneath us as we move about. The muscles and joints throughout our core, hip, and shoulder get stronger as we carry more of our body's weight around from place to place. Our neck gets stronger as we hold our head up to look where we are going. 

Ready to give it a try? Crawl forward, backward, and side to side. How far and fast can you go? Can you feel your shoulder blade muscles and core engage? How do your wrists and knees feel? Thank goodness we learned to walk! 

Walking is the most complicated activity that our brains have to manage. This is why humans are the only species who can walk around upright on 2 feet for as long as we can. We need strength, control, balance, proprioception (sensing where you are in space) and endurance to walk from place to place. The arches in our feet are meant to be able to absorb shock as well as push off the ground to move us forward. Our arm swings back as the opposite leg is behind the body to maintain our balance and keep our head neutral, so our eyes remain level with the horizon as we move about. Our spine stacks on top of itself and supports the trunk rotation from right to left. Walking allows us to move efficiently from place to place. 

As a Physical Therapist, Muscle Activation Techniques (MAT) Specialist, and Healthy Foot Practitioner, I often work with clients who have pain while walking. Whether the pain is in their foot, knee, hip, shoulder, back or neck, they are amazed that when they have their unique muscle imbalances identified and corrected, then practice rolling and crawling, the pain is reduced when they walk. 

How are you feeling about your body's locomotion?  Being able to move around comfortably and efficiently while rolling, crawling and walking will help you extend the life of your vehicle. It may be time to take your vehicle in for a tune-up.  

Move Well!

Are Your Daily Movements Helping or Hurting You?

Picture this...You reach for your alarm clock as another day begins. You roll yourself over and use your abdominal muscles (or momentum) to sit up at the edge of your bed. Up you go, thanks to your legs, down the hall to the bathroom, where you perform yet another duty of the day.  Then, you walk to the kitchen to prepare your first meal of the day, often standing and moving about the kitchen, bending down or lifting up onto your toes to reach for things in the fridge or cabinets.  Finally, you get to sit and enjoy your breakfast. 

Most of us don't think about how we are doing any of these activities (especially first thing in the morning...) let alone think about if we are doing them correctly or in ways that could be stressing out different muscles or body parts. And this is just the beginning of our day!  I haven't even begun to mention what we do with our bodies to get ourselves showered, dressed, and ready for our day, then take care of others to get them ready, get ourselves where we need to be each day, perform our tasks, eat, use the bathroom, do housework, yard work, socialize...The list goes on and on. We just go, go, go, and assume that our bodies will be along for the ride. It isn't until one of these daily activities becomes difficult or painful that we start to wonder what went wrong!?!

Think about all of the activities listed above and how much longer they would take if you had to rely on someone else to assist you through these activities. How would that make you feel? Leave it to the "muscle nerd" to think about these activities, and share with you some helpful information to make sure that your muscles are being respected and appreciated, and you can continue to perform these functions independently for as long as possible.

After working several years with clients suffering from advanced Knee Osteoarthritis, I have realized that getting up and down from a seated position can be very challenging for them. If this activity is not performed efficiently, it can actually add to the wear and tear already happening at the knee joint, as we all perform this activity many times per day.  I take the time to instruct my clients in the proper way to position themselves and use their body's weight and momentum to efficiently raise and lower themselves. Then, each time they do this, it becomes an exercise instead of another activity that may be slowly wearing down the joint surfaces and stressing the body. Like any other new activity, it takes some extra time to think through how to do this efficiently at first, but with practice, the efficient movement pattern becomes automatic. 

Would you like to be sure you are raising from and lowering to the sitting position appropriately? Here are the step by step instructions I teach my clients regularly, and they find it very simple to change their ways!

1. Be sure your  hips are at the edge of the sitting surface from which you are rising. 

2. Position your knees hip width apart, and place your feet directly under your knees with both feet pointing straight ahead. 

3. Hinge forward from your hips while keeping your spine straight until your nose goes over your toes. 

4. Use your buttocks muscles to bring your body into an upright standing position, allowing your knees to straighten last. 

Doesn't that sound simple? It gets even simpler when I say "Nose over toes, use your butt to come up!" You know PTs--we are always abbreviating everything, so why wouldn't I abbreviate these instructions too! :) 

You may be saying, "I already do it this way," and to that I say "BRAVO!!" I will likely NOT be seeing you for knee related issues anytime soon, and to that you may be saying "GOOD!" 

For those of you who feel you need to use your arms for support or to boost you up, you can place your hands on your thighs, the arm rest of the chair you are sitting on, or the bathroom counter. Just remember to let your buttocks be the main muscle working to get your body standing straight. 

If you like these helpful instructions and are wondering if you are performing your other daily activities with the most efficient biomechanics, you may be interested in attending my upcoming workshop entitled "Movement is Medicine".  In this active learning workshop we will be exploring how natural movement is a form of preventative medicine, and can also be a form of healing medicine for injured or stressed out muscles and joints. We will discuss and practice the proper technique for sitting, standing, walking, bending, lifting, raking, shoveling, carrying little loved ones, driving, and other daily activities.  It is my goal to be sure as many people as possible are practicing "preventative medicine" with their daily movements, and they will remain independent as long as possible!  For more information or to register, click:  http://www.1212bodyworks.com/resources.html

Move Well!