Intune Massage & Bodyworks

Online Appointments

2011-09-13T12:12:00.001-07:00

For easy booking I have added an online booking option!

2011-08-18T14:17:00.000-07:00

Great article in Massage magazine about the benefits of using massage and exercise to help with arthritis.

Arthritis is a growing problem, rising along with the rates of aging Americans. Fifty million Americans have been diagnosed with arthritis, and that number is expected to rise to 67 million by 2030, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The good news is massage therapy is an effective way to address arthritis pain and stiffness. New research indicates that although exercise also benefits arthritis sufferers, not enough people with arthritis are engaging in the recommended amount of exercise.

Physical activity can help people with arthritis better control and lower pain, and improve general function. Some studies indicate exercise may delay or even prevent disability in people with arthritis, said Dorothy Dunlop, associate professor of medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and lead author of the study.

Despite exercise's positive effects, the new study shows more than 50 percent of women and 40 percent of men with arthritis are "virtually couch potatoes."

This is the first study to use a device to objectively measure the physical activity of people with arthritis and determine if they meet federal guidelines, according to a

university press release. Past research relied on self-reported accounts of exercise and activity.

Researchers asked more than 1,000 people with radiographic knee osteoarthritis to wear an accelerometer—a small, sophisticated device that looks like a pedometer—to measure their physical activity for one week during waking hours. The participants are part of a larger national study called the Osteoarthritis Initiative and are 49 to 84 years old.

"We had assumed that people might be overstating physical activity in past self-reported data, but were surprised to find that the physical activity rates were much, much lower than what was previously reported," said Dunlop.

The federal guidelines recommend that adults with arthritis participate in 150 minutes per week of moderate-intensity, low-impact activity. That amounts to an average of slightly more than 20 minutes per day. Previous studies estimated that a quarter of people with arthritis met those guidelines.

2011-07-08T09:14:00.000-07:00

Great article from Health.Com

Why Gardening Is Good for Your Health

Digging in the dirt can ease stress, keep you limber, and even improve your mood

Istockphoto

Gillian Aldrich started growing vegetables in her backyard three years ago, and she's now working on planting a bed of hydrangeas, butterfly bushes, rose campion, and—her favorite—pale-pink hardy geraniums along one side of her property.

As she digs in the garden, her 8-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son often play around her, sometimes taking a break to dig for worms or pick strawberries. Instead of just watching them, Aldrich is playing, too—"my kind of play," she says.

"When you sit at a desk all day, there's something about literally putting your hands in the dirt, digging and actually creating something that's really beautiful," says Aldrich, 42, a magazine editor in Maplewood, N.J. "There's something about just being out there that feels kind of elemental."

Aldrich isn't the only one who feels this way. Many gardeners view their hobby as the perfect antidote to the modern world, a way of reclaiming some of the intangible things we've lost in our busy, dirt-free lives.

The sensory experience of gardening "allows people to connect to this primal state," says James Jiler, the founder and executive director of Urban GreenWorks, a Miami-based nonprofit that creates garden and park programs for low-income neighborhoods. "A lot of people [understand] that experience. They may not be able to put it into words, but they understand what's happening."

Working in the garden has other, less spiritual rewards. In addition to being a source of fresh, healthy produce, gardening can ease stress, keep you limber, and even improve your mood.

Here are just a few of the ways gardening can benefit your physical and mental health, and how you can start harvesting those benefits for you and your family.
Stress relief
A recent study in the Netherlands suggests that gardening can fight stress even better than other relaxing leisure activities. After completing a stressful task, two groups of people were instructed to either read indoors or garden for 30 minutes. Afterward, the group that gardened reported being in a better mood than the reading group, and they also had lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol.

"We live in a society where we're just maxing ourselves out all the time in terms of paying attention," says Andrea Faber Taylor, Ph.D., a horticulture instructor and researcher in the Landscape and Human Health Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Humans have a finite capacity for the kind of directed attention required by cell phones and email and the like, Taylor says, and when that capacity gets used up we tend to become irritable, error-prone, distractible, and stressed out.

Fortunately this "attention fatigue" appears to be reversible. Following a theory first suggested by University of Michigan researchers in the 1980s, Taylor and other experts have argued that we can replenish ourselves by engaging in "involuntary attention," an effortless form of attention that we use to enjoy nature.

Trading your BlackBerry for blackberry bushes is an excellent way to fight stress and attention fatigue, Taylor says, as the rhythms of the natural environment and the repetitive, soothing nature of many gardening tasks are all sources of effortless attention.

"The breeze blows, things get dew on them, things flower; the sounds, the smells," says Taylor, herself a home gardener. "All of these draw on that form of attention."

Better mental health
The effortless attention of gardening may even help improve depression symptoms.

In a study conducted in Norway, people who had been diagnosed with depression, persistent low mood, or bipolar II disorder spent six hours a week growing flowers and vegetables. After three months, half of the participants had experienced a measurable improvement in their depression symptoms. What's more, their mood continued to be better three months after the gardening program ended.

The researchers suggest that the novelty of gardening may have been enough to jolt some of the participants out of their doldrums, but some experts have a much more radical explanation for how gardening might ease depression.

Christopher Lowry, Ph.D., an assistant professor of integrative physiology at the University of Colorado at Boulder, has been injecting mice with Mycobacterium vaccae, a harmless bacteria commonly found in soil, and has found that they increase the release and metabolism of serotonin in parts of the brain that control cognitive function and mood—much like serotonin-boosting antidepressant drugs do.

Digging in the dirt isn't the same as taking Prozac, of course, but Lowry argues that because humans evolved along with M. vaccae and a host of other friendly bugs, the relative lack of these "old friends" in our current environment has thrown our immune systems out of whack. This can lead to inflammation, which is implicated in a host of modern ills, from heart disease to diabetes to depression.

"By reintroducing these bacteria in the environment, that may help to alleviate some of these problems," Lowry says.
Exercise
Gardening gets you out in the fresh air and sunshine—and it also gets your blood moving. "There are lots of different movements in gardening, so you get some exercise benefits out of it as well," says William Maynard, the community garden program coordinator for the City of Sacramento's Department of Parks and Recreation.

Gardening is hardly pumping iron, and unless you're hauling wheelbarrows of dirt long distances every day, it probably won't do much for your cardiovascular fitness. But digging, planting, weeding, and other repetitive tasks that require strength or stretching are excellent forms of low-impact exercise, especially for people who find more vigorous exercise a challenge, such as those who are older, have disabilities, or suffer from chronic pain.

As a pleasurable and goal-oriented outdoor activity, gardening has another advantage over other forms of exercise: People are more likely to stick with it and do it often.

"It's not just exercise for exercise itself, which can become tedious," says Katherine Brown, the executive director of the Southside Community Land Trust, a nonprofit that supports community gardens and other urban agriculture in and around Providence, R.I. "It's exercise that has a context, that reinforces the limberness of your limbs and the use of your hands. You've got a motivation for why you want to grip. You're not just gripping a ball, you want to pull a weed."

Brain health
Some research suggests that the physical activity associated with gardening can help lower the risk of developing dementia.

Two separate studies that followed people in their 60s and 70s for up to 16 years found, respectively, that those who gardened regularly had a 36% and 47% lower risk of dementia than non-gardeners, even when a range of other health factors were taken into account. These findings are hardly definitive, but they suggest that the combination of physical and mental activity involved in gardening may have a positive influence on the mind.

And for people who are already experiencing mental decline, even just walking in a garden may be therapeutic. Many residential homes for people with dementia now have "wander" or "memory" gardens on their grounds, so that residents with Alzheimer's disease or other cognitive problems can walk through them without getting lost. The sights, smells, and sounds of the garden are said to promote relaxation and reduce stress.
Nutrition
The food you grow yourself is the freshest food you can eat. And because home gardens are filled with fruits and vegetables, it's also among the healthiest food you can eat. Not surprisingly, several studies have shown that gardeners eat more fruits and vegetables than their peers.

"People who are growing food tend to eat healthy," says Brown. "The work that we do here with kids demonstrates it on a daily basis, throughout the seasons."

Studies of after-school gardening programs suggest that kids who garden are more likely to eat fruits and vegetables. And they're a lot more adventurous about giving new foods a try, says Anne Palmer, who studies food environments as the program director of Eating for the Future, a program based at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health Center for a Livable Future, in Baltimore.

"I've watched a lot of cooking and gardening classes with kids," Palmer says. "It's amazing how many of them will try things like radicchio or some kind of unusual green that has a pretty strong flavor, like arugula, and they'll say, 'Wow, this is good.'"

Not to mention that homegrown produce simply tastes better. "It's incomparably more delicious to eat something that's fresh," Brown says.

How to get started
You don't need a big backyard or a green thumb to benefit from gardening. If you have very little space or experience, you can start out with just a few houseplants, or you could even try gardening in containers.

"You can grow a wonderful crop of cherry tomatoes in nothing more than a five-gallon bucket that you've cleaned really well and put holes in the bottom of," Brown says.

For novices who want to learn the basics of gardening, a huge—and somewhat overwhelming—variety of information is available on the Web and in bookstores. But one of the best ways to get started is to meet some other gardeners, who can be found in local garden clubs and community gardens in just about any town or city.

For some great gardening tips, just start up a conversation with one of the gardeners next time you are passing by a community garden. "Most will love to share their gardening savvy," Brown says. "That's a really nice way to start."

health tip!

2011-05-15T13:31:00.000-07:00

Found this great article about strawberries! everyone's favorite summer treat...........we are almost upon strawberry season so get picking if you are lucky enough to live near a strawberry patch or grow your own!!!

Red, ripe and delicious, strawberries are a little fruit that work overtime for your health.

Peak strawberry season is just around the corner, so now is the perfect time to add strawberries to your menu for summer weight loss. From farm stands to your local supermarket, these luscious berries are sure to turn up just about everywhere.

And don't forget about the amazing organically grown strawberries that come from California year round.

The exciting research that is being done shows that the special nutritional components in strawberries might be able to stimulate your metabolism and help suppress your appetite. They can control blood sugar and can also help you lose weight.

It is no wonder that scientists across the United States, in Sweden and other countries have been researching the wonders of the strawberry and discovering more evidence of its health benefits. There is no doubt that strawberries have joined the other rock stars of super nutritious fruit such as blueberries, cherries, cranberries and pomegranates.

What Gives Strawberries Their Nutritional Punch?

Strawberries are a healthy food to eat to lose weight, because there are 49 calories in one cup of strawberries. They are also loaded with Vitamin C, 3 grams of fiber, and some calcium, magnesium, and potassium.

Strawberries are rich sources of phenolic antioxidants that can help:

reverse inflammation
aid in weight loss
reduce the risk of chronic disease.

University of Illinois researchers found that the most abundant antioxidants in strawberries are ellagic acid, as well as the flavonoids quercetin, kaempferol anthocyanin and catechin. They further pointed out that strawberry extracts have shown to inhibit COX enzymes in laboratory experiments. This would mean that strawberries could have the potential to help reduce inflammation and pain.

Learn more about fruit anthocyanin's ability to reduce pain in Cherry Season: Fight Pain and Inflammation.

Research on Strawberries and Disease

Research results indicate that strawberries can provide nutritional support to fight aging and disease:

In vitro laboratory experiments from Cornell University suggest that strawberry extracts may help inhibit the growth of liver cancer cells.
Studies with laboratory animals demonstrated benefits of strawberries for the aging brain.

Writing in the Journal of Medicinal Food scientists from Clemson University examined the cancer fighting potential of various berries. They note: "Plants are proven sources of useful anti-tumor and chemopreventative compounds. Hence, identification of phytochemicals useful in dietary prevention and intervention of cancer is of paramount importance." Evaluating the results of their experiments the Clemson researchers concluded: "Juice from strawberry, blueberry, and raspberry fruit significantly inhibited mutagenesis."

Strawberries Help Protect the Heart

Strawberry extracts have direct anti-inflammatory effects, inhibiting the activation of genes and enzymes that promote inflammation.

Most of this benefit is due to another group of phenolic antioxidants called anthocyanins, which help give ripe strawberries their lush red color. Anthocyanins decrease the risk of heart disease and stroke by protecting blood vessels from the effects of wear and tear.

Strawberries Promote Weight Loss

The ellagic acid and anthocyanins found in strawberries aid weight loss in at least three ways:

Chronic inflammation blocks the hormones involved in keeping you lean. Anti-inflammatory foods like strawberries help restore normal function to weight-reducing hormones.
Anthocyanins actually increase the body's production of a hormone called adiponectin, which stimulates your metabolism and suppresses your appetite.
Both ellagic acid and anthocyanins slow the rate of digestion of starchy foods, controlling the rise in blood sugar that follows a starchy meal. This effect is used to control blood sugar in people with adult-onset (Type 2) diabetes.

Learn more about making your weight loss hormones work for you in my article: Increase Metabolism with the Fat Burning Hormone Leptin

Organic Strawberries Have More Nutrition

I recommend organically grown strawberries. Organic strawberries have been shown to have higher levels of vitamin C and than conventionally grown strawberries, due to a higher content of phenolic antioxidants.

In a fascinating study, researchers from Washington State University compared organic strawberries and farms to conventional strawberries and farms. They found the organic strawberries to be higher in quality, and the soil to be healthier. Specifically, in comparison to the conventionally grown berries, the organic strawberries had higher total antioxidants, ascorbic acid, and total phenolics.

Enjoying Strawberries

Strawberries give you flavor, color, and aroma, awakening your taste buds to the fresh, natural foods your body needs to be healthy and vital.

When shopping for berries, freshness is important. Identify strawberries that are bright red and firm.

Strawberries are a great snack or dessert, and add color and flavor to healthy recipes. Naturally sweet and juicy, strawberries are a sublime pleasure and make a great healthy treat.

Simply add a handful of sliced strawberries to:

Cereal or granola
Hot oatmeal
Smoothies
Yogurt

You can eat fresh or frozen strawberries as a snack or dessert anytime.

Here is a recipe featuring strawberries from my book, The Fat Resistance Diet, an anti-inflammatory program.

Banana Strawberry Smoothie

1 cup nonfat plain yogurt
1 banana, sliced
1/2 cup fresh or frozen strawberries
1 tablespoon freshly ground flaxseeds
1 tablespoon whey protein concentrate

Pour 2 tablespoons water into a blender. Add the yogurt, banana, and strawberries and blend. Put in the ground flaxseeds and whey protein. Blend until smooth. Pour into a tall glass and enjoy! Serves 1.

I hope you enjoy the healthy pleasure of strawberries now and throughout the year.

Article taken from : Here

Coffee Massage?

2011-05-15T12:38:00.001-07:00

Looking into this....getting a massage with a coffee infused cream is supposed to be energizing and great for the skin....especially in getting rid of cellulite! yes..you heard me......... stay tuned.

2011-05-06T08:32:00.000-07:00

I will be updating the blog with pictures and more info in a bit....I also will be posting articles pertaining to massage and health and general lifestyle...... Here is an interesting article I pulled from the Huffington post regarding Massage Therapy and Reiki in cancer healing.

Modern medicine has transformed death and dying. Whereas a "terminal" diagnosis once meant that death was more or less imminent, increasingly "terminal" illness refers to a chronic and potentially fatal disease. It begins with a diagnosis. That can lead to a protracted process that includes treatment, remission, possible relapse, treatment again and so on. In this way, death has become a process for millions of us, as opposed to the sudden event it once typically was.

In the course of writing "Saying Goodbye: How Families Can Find Renewal through Loss," we interviewed a great many patients, caregivers and family members. We were looking for common themes and experiences in an effort to draw a rudimentary "road map" of what families can expect -- and what they can do to make this process more manageable. One of the themes that emerged was the increasing use of alternative and complementary treatments (ACT's) conjointly with treatments such as chemotherapy, radiation therapy and surgery, all of which can have pernicious side effects.

As I did in my first blog on complementary treatments, I have tried to base this material as much as possible on objective evidence that can be found through the National Institutes of Health, the National Cancer Institute and the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM). Recognizing that there are many advocates for various kinds of complementary therapies, I should make it clear that I am a clinical psychologist, not a massage therapist or Reiki practitioner. As a psychologist, however, I am well aware that it is possible to obtain testimonials attesting to the effectiveness of virtually any treatment. That is not to say that those treatments did not help those individuals. But that is not the same as controlled clinical research. I carry no brief for any complementary treatment, and I am open to the possibility of their effectiveness.

My previous blog looked at acupuncture. This one focuses on two additional therapies: Massage and Reiki. Conceptually, they are thought to work in somewhat opposite, yet perhaps complementary ways. Massage is a hands-on therapy that is based on manipulating tissue. Reiki, in contrast, is a hands-off (or light touch) therapy that seeks to free up innate bodily energy (ki) that is believed to have healing power.

Reiki
Reiki, in its original form, is a self-administered treatment; however, it cannot be self-taught. One must learn Reiki from an experienced practitioner and it involves three levels of learning. As a complementary treatment, it has been used to treat many conditions. Although Reiki can theoretically be performed at a distance, in the cancer treatment centers where it is used, it is often applied in-person at one-to-one sessions lasting anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes. In these sessions the Reiki practitioner places his or her hands close to or lightly touching the patient's body, using as many as 15 different hand positions. The idea behind Reiki is that the practitioner is able to feel the flow (or lack of flow) of the body's energy (ki) and to free it up so as to facilitate the patient's overall health. Reiki can be a very calming and reassuring therapy for the patient who receives it.

Is Reiki Effective?
The Journal of Alternate and Complementary Medicine recently published a review of 12 clinical trials of Reiki. While nine of these investigators reported positive effects for Reiki, 11 of the 12 studies had serious methodological flaws, such as the lack of a control group and/or a comparison treatment. It is therefore impossible to say whether the reported effects were due to patients' expectations of benefit -- the placebo effect. In another review of research published in the International Journal of Clinical Practice, 205 studies were evaluated and boiled down to nine that were scientifically sound. The most common benefits of Reiki that were reported in these studies was in the area of relieving depression and anxiety. There were no substantiated results for pain relief. Finally, none of these studies has been replicated to show that the results can be reliably repeated.

If Reiki is effective, then, it is most likely to be with respect to patients' overall emotional state. That, of course, matters: Depression and anxiety are two side effects of medical treatments for cancer that are often overlooked.

Massage
According to NCCAM, the leading reason why Americans turn to massage therapy as an adjunct to cancer treatment is to help relieve pain. To the extent that massage is effective in relieving the physical aspects of stress (tight muscles, etc.), we could say that massage is also used to relieve stress. And surely treatment for cancer is stressful, for the patient as well as loved ones!

There are a variety of "schools" of massage therapy, but all of them involve the direct manipulation of bodily tissue in one way or another. In addition, the majority of massage therapists I spoke with said they incorporate a variety of techniques in their practice, including the use of pressure, deep muscle massage, body alignment and so on.

Is Massage Therapy Effective?
Keep in mind that we are talking specifically about the use of massage as a complement to cancer treatment, not its effectiveness in general. In a study funded in part by NCCAM, 380 participants were randomly assigned to receive either six 30-minute sessions of actual massage therapy or six three-minute sessions of simple touch therapy that did not include the kinds of methods cited above. Both groups showed significant reductions in reported pain, physical and emotional distress and overall mood. However, these effects were greater for the group that received actual massage therapy.

Two things strike me as important about the above findings. The first is that touch -- any kind of touch -- appears to be beneficial when you are fighting cancer, including the side effects of medical treatments. Second, the fact that these beneficial effects were not sustained after the massage therapy ended suggests that this form of complementary treatment needs to be ongoing as opposed to a one-time intervention.

One final note on massage: A treatment known as manual lymphatic drainage, in which massage is used to move fluid away from areas where lymph vessels are blocked, appears to be effective in reducing lymphedema associated with surgery for breast cancer.

Both Reiki and massage therapy are available to patients who reside (for free) at the Hope Lodge in Boston while they undergo treatment in one of that city's several major cancer centers. However, as people have commented in response to my earlier blog, it is a mistake to assume that a cancer treatment center -- even an expensive or well-known one -- will offer such services. Their availability may reflect in part the bias of the center's administration regarding the effectiveness of complementary treatments. So the best advice I can offer to these patients and their families is to pursue these options on your own if you think they might be worth a try.

Insurance may not cover complementary treatments; on the other hand, they are much less costly than any medical treatment, such as chemotherapy. And some have commented that it may be possible to negotiate rates, especially if several patients get together and seek a discount.

Perhaps as more rigorous research is conducted and reported we will learn more about which complementary treatments do what, and for whom. Surely all of the above symptoms -- anxiety, depression, pain -- complicate cancer treatment. To the extent they can be ameliorated, it makes sense to include them in a comprehensive treatment plan.

The "new grief" that is the result of the transformation of death and dying will affect every one of us eventually, if it hasn't already. Families do best when they approach terminal illness by learning about primary treatment as well as complementary treatment, and bringing both to bear.

taken from :

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-nowinski-phd/complementary-cancer-treatments_b_852673.html

Welcome!

2011-05-03T20:29:00.000-07:00

Hello and welcome to the new Intune Massage blog...stay tuned as I am new to blogging!