Integrative Bodywork

Headache Relief: Let Gravity Help

At the base of your skull, lots of muscles connect and overlap with each other.  As these muscles constrict, this can reduce flow of blood, oxygen into and out of the head.   Paradoxically, pressing firmly here can re-set the body's message to constrict, therefore restoring flow.

Here are some self-care tips to try at home:

1                     Begin by lying down, face up, and putting your hands behind your head.  Apply pressure with your thumbs and fingertips along the ridge of base-of-skull bone (occiput), and just underneath, toward the neck.   Direct your pressure toward the front of the head, moving from spot to spot along the ridge of bone.   Allow the weight of your head to fall onto your fingertips, varying the pressure.  Try rotating or tilting your head to locate areas where pressure brings relief.  These areas might change day to day.

2                     A more passive version of this utilizes a “still point inducer”.  You can purchase one, or you can make one yourself.  Put 2 racquetballs inside an athletic sock; tie a knot.  Lie face up, positioning the 2 balls side-by-side in the sock under your head, supporting the base-of-skull bone (occiput) comfortably.  You may want to slightly tuck your chin as you begin.  Allow the weight of your head to sink with gravity over several minutes, adjusting your position as needed for comfort.   

Earthquake Relief Project, Sichuan Province

In March 2009, I spent two weeks as part of a USA-based team of six, training helping professionals in a brief trauma-stabilization model.    Trauma Resource Institute's educational model is physiology-based, modeled on Peter Levine's Somatic Experiencing -- an approach I have studied and incorporated into my own practice since 2000. 

In the TRI model, stabilization skills are presented in a condensed format, accessible across cultures.  Throughout the 1-, 2-, and 3-day trainings, I witnessed training participants practicing skills they could use immediately --- for themselves as well as in their work as physicians, nurses, psych counselors, hotline volunteers, teachers.   The six of us from the USA team relied on our translators -- brilliant young psych students from Beijing --  but the enthusiasm we felt from many of the participants transcended language.

This multi-phase project to help Sichuan province was initiated at the request of Rob Blinn, a psychologist in Beijing who had met Peter Levine  just months prior to the earthquake.    World Health Organization has funded much of the project, which concludes with phase 6 in May 2009, when TRI returns with another team, to consult, train, and make new contacts in Sichuan province.

Our travel to different training locations over the two weeks brought us past many damaged structures: Next door to the empty psych hospital, residents make do in blue-roofed temporary housing erected by the government.  Along a dirt road, makeshift shelters of branches and plastic are abandoned for newly built concrete houses.   With piles of new bricks and bags of cement, some families are still in the process of re-building their homes by hand.  As our bus passed through the misty landscape of terraced fields bursting with vibrant yellow flowers, we acknowledged in silence the pain amid the beauty, the scenes of loss, the hard life that, for so many, pre-dates this earthquake. 

The community-based re-building we witnessed in the countryside also reminded us that resilience is fostered through cooperation.  Though this training project draws to a close, it has planted seeds that may germinate and grow.   As phase 6 of the project coincides with the quake anniversary, this group will be seeking ways to continue its outreach for people in need.

Balance Rocks

Balance:  an active process of moving toward equilibrium, or alignment .  It's a process (not a static state) ever changing and moving, sometimes even taking us OUT OF balance.   And then, inside our human bodies, built-in systems can rock us back into balance.....naturally.  Like when we use both feet to stand, but shift from side to side. 

When we're feeling stressed, this can really help.

Rocking, back and forth, up and down, or from one foot to the other.  If I put a crying baby in your arms right now, you would start rocking.  Sure helps to bring comfort.  And you didn't even really think, just responded to what might work to quiet that child.

Even without the baby, you could try rocking right now in your chair.  Just allow the movement to come forth on its own,  letting the body go with it a little.  Stand if you want to try using your legs for balance, or continue sitting with feet on the floor.  Is it side to side, or front to back?  See what it feels like for you.

Feel OK?  If not, rest awhile.  Notice what IS still feeling OK, even the slightest bit, before going bac.

Springing Ahead

It's that time of year when I notice the sun is rising earlier.   If we're out  before 6, my dog and I sometimes catch a glimpse of the deer feeding on newly greened-up hillsides.   Or coyotes--- like yesterday, when we listened to a pair trilling at us from just a few yards away. 

It's the light.   Earlier in the season, I'm not out at this time.  But, drawn to rise even before it's light, my  morning walk is rewarded with wildlife sightings.

Because we've done this for years --- the early morning walk with the dog --- I know that seasonal change affects my behavior pattern.  Even without a walking routine, every year about this time brings a spring:  not only the name of the season, but a jump-y kind of spring.

A spring ahead.

Our brains lay down tracks that we call memory.  This invariant representation ("this is how it is") is then used when we later run into something similar -- a pattern like seasons changing.  The memory that goes with, "Spring brings with it earlier sunrises," follows a parallel track to "Summer comes after spring."

I like summer.  Summer is coming soon.  Spring is on the way to summer, so spring is positively associated.

I'm therefore more motivated, mobile, movement-oriented --- in spring.

Springing ahead.

Not necessarily springing forward; that would indicate too much structure.  Ahead could mean, to the side, or Up, Along, On, Over, and so many possibilities. 

And possibilities infers that I must look ahead in time. 

Hope for the future.