Light up your Digestive Fire through Nabhi Abhyanga – Ayurvedic Abdominal Massage

Rousing yourself after a deeply relaxing Ayurvedic massage treatment is never easy – you just want it to go on and on. The nourishing, herb-infused oil used warms the body as the skin laps it up. The strokes are nurturing and purposeful without being deep or uncomfortable.

Ayurvedic Abdominal Massage is a great example of how these treatments are not just pampering ‘treats’ but also go a long way to fulfilling their aim of bringing the body back into balance.

A client who recently experienced the treatments says,

"Despite feeling myself float away during my Abdominal Massage, the treatment was so effectively detoxifying that getting off the massage couch became surprisingly easy, as I felt positively rejuvenated. This massage feels like it definitely kick starts the metabolism.  After my treatment, I headed straight for the ladies! Not only that but I felt extremely hungry." 

Ayurvedic Massage is often heralded as a great treatment for assisting with weight loss. In Ayurveda, the reason for this is explained in terms of ‘Agni’ and ‘Ama’. ‘Agni’ is the digestive ‘fire’ within the body that governs the metabolism. If this ‘fire’ is strong then the digestive system is healthy and the body can effectively convert food into nutrients.

In Ayurveda there is a saying: ‘A person is only as old as his or her Agni’. It is that important to our health.

‘Ama’ on the other hand, equates to toxins or impurities in the body. Ama is produced when undigested, unabsorbed food particles accumulate in the gastro intestinal system. Before receiving massage, it is best to detoxify the body so that Ama is eliminated out of the body. Here’s some tips for treating Ama and stimulating Agni (digestive fire):

• Drink a glass of warm water followed by Ginger and Lemon tea

• Consult an Ayurvedic practitioner on herbal supplements such as Pippali or Triphala

• Practise yoga, incorporating cleansing breath exercises into your practise

• Avoid eating meat, nuts, seeds, sweet fruit, bread and pastries

• Eat plenty steamed green vegetables and mung beans as well as sour fruits such as grapefruit

• Take some Ginger before each meal

This thoroughly nurturing abdominal massage can be an hour long treatment in it’s own right for maintaining healthy digestive organs and good skin and muscle tone, making it a great Postnatal treatment. Alternatively, we can incorporate massage techniques to the abdomen during your regular treatment.

For best results, we recommend following the suggested treatment plan of weekly treatments enhanced by an ‘Agni’ boosting diet.

For more information or to make a booking, please contact KnotStressed. 

Guest Blog: Managing your Muscles

As a personal trainer I rely on complementary therapies to help my body recover and rehabilitate from exercise. Any serious sports trainer knows the value of regular ‘body work’, but it’s also important for the casual exerciser. Here’s a brief explanation of why.

There are three main forms of exercise:

1. Cardiovascular (pulse raising) like running or swimming

2. Strength (weight bearing), this can be either body weight exercises (i.e. press ups) or using resistance (i.e. weights)

3. Flexibility, or stretching

A good exercise programme will encompass all three.

Firstly, cardio is important not only for burning calories, but also training your heart (it’s a muscle that can be trained to become stronger) and burning body fat. If you undertake regular cardio, you might find you get repetitive strains. For example runners might get sore legs, cyclists, sore shoulders. This can occur especially if you are doing a lot of the same type of exercise, for example preparing for a marathon. Knots and strains can build up into muscle pain with time, and regular massage helps ease these points of tension and speed up recovery time. Leg massage is essential for serious runners, and will also address any muscular imbalances.

Secondly, strength exercises tone muscles by putting them under resistance. When challenging the muscles to work against a resistance, the muscle fibres actually experience miniscule rips and tears. It is the consequent healing of these muscle fibres bigger and stronger than before that creates growth in the muscle tissue. If you imagine scar tissue, you get the general idea. It sounds painful, but this is good, as it means your body heals stronger than before.

A strength programme progresses by slowly increasing the resistance the body works against. You will understand also the importance of rest and good nutrition if you understand that exercise puts your body under a certain stress that it needs to recover from (hence ‘rest days’ in a weights programme).

Flexibility does assist stretching the muscle fibres so that the individual doesn’t end up with tight muscles. However sometimes even a good stretch is not enough. Personally I stretch my major muscle groups twice a day, however after a busy week of fitness, a good massage is what my body cries out for.

Massage helps rid the body of built up toxins (lactic acid in the muscles is a by-product of exercise), and also assists the healing process. Add to that, it just feels lovely and relaxing. It is a true reward for sticking to your exercise programme. And yes, you’re worth it!

Personal Trainer Tracy Griffen runs Griffen Fitness, 3 Balfour Street, and is also the author of the newly published Healthy Living Yearbook, full of seasonal fitness ideas and easy healthy recipes.

www.getfitandenjoyit.com

www.healthylivingyearbook.com

Twitter: www.twitter.com/tracygriffen

Facebook: www.facebook.com/griffenfitness

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Small print from KnotStressed: whilst we are very grateful to all our guest bloggers for taking the time to submit their thoughts for posting on our website, we would like to make it clear to our readers that the Guest Blog Series does not necessarily reflect the view taken by KnotStressed therapists, or our wish to endorse specific therapies. 

Guest Blog: Finding your 'Basic Instinct'

We’ve all been there:

Relationship problems? 

“Oh, there’s this great book I read that can help.” 

Baby not sleeping?

“I’ve heard of a fantastic sleep guru that has the answer”. 

Hate your job? 

“Did you hear about that new career-planning app?” 

 OK, so I made that last one up, although I’m sure there is one out there if you looked hard enough!  But the point is that there is a plethora of resources out there telling us how best to live our lives, manage our careers, relationships and families, be the best partner, parent, or just simply be the best. 

Ironically, this increasing reliance on external sources to solve our problems often adds to our feelings of self-doubt.  As a result, self-confidence dips and so we seek more and more help.  Top this off with pressure from the media to fulfill overly-ambitious stereotypes and it’s no surprise that we can end-up feeling disempowered and inadequate. 

But wait.  It’s not all doom and gloom.  What if there was an alternative close at hand?  One that already knows the answer and, best still knows us intimately as individuals.  There is and the beauty is it’s in each and every one of us.  Call it instinct, intuition, common sense or even a sixth sense.  That feeling of just knowing, having a hunch, or a gut-feel. 

But gradually along the path of our amazing evolution we’ve become scared of it.  After all, it’s not clinically-proven, scientific or backed-up by experts.  It is, however, invariably right! 

So how do we go about letting instinct back into our busy lives?  Thankfully, it’s not about fitting in any more thinking time.  It’s exactly the opposite.  It’s about allowing ourselves and our minds to be still, for just a small amount of time, each day.  Have you ever gone to bed to “sleep on” a problem, only to wake in the morning with a wonderful clarity and insight that makes it seem all so simple?  It’s that kind of stillness that I’m talking about. 

You can do it formally through guided meditation classes or by visiting a qualified hypnotherapist.  Or you can do it simply, and through practice, by time-out and relaxation.  All these techniques allow you to be in the moment, shutting down the frantic scrabbling of the conscious mind and delving into the cool, calm recesses of the subconscious. 

So next time you have a problem, stop.  And start with yourself.  Do anything that allows you to step out of your busy world for a few minutes, calm your mind and access your own wonderful, beautiful instinct.  Take a bath, go for a run, listen to music, whatever it is you do to free your mind.  And have faith.  You have the answers to all the questions within you.  Listen to your inner voice, visualise your problem and feel your own way. 

If you’re interested in learning more about how to tap into your basic instinct, then Neuro-Linguistic Programming (or NLP for short) is just for you.   NLP forms the basis of all hypnotherapy and is simply put, the study of human communication.  Through guidance from a qualified practitioner, it will help you evaluate your values and beliefs, allowing you to work towards creating an emotional state that best serves you and your life goals. 

Find out more about me, Jane Evans, and NLP by contacting KnotStressed. 

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Small print from KnotStressed: whilst we are very grateful to all our guest bloggers for taking the time to submit their thoughts for posting on our website, we would like to make it clear to our readers that the Guest Blog Series does not necessarily reflect the view taken by KnotStressed therapists, or our wish to endorse specific therapies. 

Guest Blog: When is a Therapy not a Therapy?

Metamorphic Technique is the only therapy I know that’s not a therapy, and it can often get surprisingly positive results for clients.

The treatment lasts about an hour and uses a light touch on specific parts of the feet, hands and head.  Unlike most therapies, the practitioner is not directing the action, quite the opposite: the practitioner is required to be detached from the process, rather than a participant.  In this way, it is the client’s life force or energy, which determines the outcome of the session.

Most people find it very relaxing and it seems to create a healing space in which the client can reconnect with their inner resources - confidence, positivity, creativity, strength, compassion, healing.  Any change is determined by the client’s life force and so it’s quite exciting to discover how the client is changed by the session.

What I like most about Metamorphic Technique is the assumption that we are already, all we can be.  Searching outwith ourselves will not help us find that connection, we need to go inwards and that’s just what Metamorphic Technique allows us to do.  This means we’re not broken, and don’t need to be fixed, rather we may perhaps just be a little lost or distant from the source of our power and authenticity - our inner selves.  It’s really much more a personal development tool than a therapy!

A colleague describes Metamorphic Technique as having the effect of hitting the factory reset button and I think that’s a pretty good description.

The technique was developed in the 60’s by Robert St John, a Canadian Naturopath and Reflexologist.  He began to work exclusively on the spine reflex of the foot and over time and through careful observation of both physical and psychological effects of the sessions, he developed the theory.  He theorised that the spine reflex (from the top of the big toe down the inside of the foot to the heel) represented the time from conception to birth and that patterns, set up during this period, could be repeated subsequently throughout life.

He began to work with clients who were affected by pre-birth patterns, such as, physical and mental disabilities and learning difficulties.  Over time he observed an improvement in these clients and called this new approach Metamorphisis.  He was joined in his work by Gaston St Pierre who renamed the approach Metamorphic Technique.

The birth process can set up patterns which are repeated in everyday life, and Metamorphic Technique can help us to reconnect and perhaps resolve those patterns.

Some people are drawn to Metamorphic Technique who, although they are unable to articulate clearly what draws them, have a strong sense of having undergone some pre-birth or birth trauma. 

In my experience, people can benefit from Metamorphic Technique if they are stuck, in transition, uncertain, or feel they’re struggling – people who feel a lack of flow in their lives.  Metamorphic Technique seems to have the effect of flipping them into flow and they often find they feel more confident and optimistic, able to make decisions more easily and sometimes even having their wishes and desires handed to them (in my more lyrical moments, I like to think of this as the fairy-dust effect!). 

I’ve had two clients recently who have had direct experience of the fairy-dust effect:

Client No 1 had been thinking about visiting family in Australia, but was afraid to go on her own.  After a couple of Metamorphic Technique sessions, she received an invitation to visit a family wedding in Australia and felt sufficiently confident that she accepted.  Her Christmas dinner in 2011 will have been on the beach!

Client No 2 had been looking for a job - but not just any old job – she wanted a job that would fit around her ideal lifestyle, rather than having to fit her lifestyle around her job.  After about three Metamorphic Treatments, and having gone through a period of some confusion, she was offered a job which she feels at the moment is the perfect fit with her lifestyle.

There doesn’t appear to be any situation in which Metamorphic Technique cannot be used.  It is gentle and non-invasive and it can be used safely by many different people: young or old, including children, pregnant mothers, people who are dying and even people who have no limbs.

The Technique can be received on its own or alongside other approaches, whether conventional medicine or alternative and complementary therapies.

By Doris Wylie, Lothian Reflexology 

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Small print from KnotStressed: whilst we are very grateful to all our guest bloggers for taking the time to submit their thoughts for posting on our website, we would like to make it clear to our readers that the Guest Blog Series does not necessarily reflect the view taken by KnotStressed therapists, or our wish to endorse specific therapies. 

Guest Blog: Smash Your 'Get Fit and Lose Weight' New Year Resolution! A New Year, A New You...

Another New Year has dawned and many of us will be embarking on a long list of New Year resolutions.

Usually, top of the list is ‘get fit and lose weight’ but how do we actually achieve this regurgitated resolution? What are the things which are going to keep us on track and reach our goals? 

Perhaps this goal will bring you to the door of one of Edinburgh Gym Health Clubs - a great idea but a costly one if your enthusiasm dwindles. Some annual subscriptions can be as much as £800 a year!

An alternative would be to enlist the support of a Personal Trainer. An experienced Personal Trainer will keep you motivated, educated on your goals, consistently focused with their in-depth exercise knowledge, will accelerate your exercise results and help you smash your targets.

This personalised approach to exercise is being increasingly recognised as the most effective way to help folk get in shape at a pace that suits them.

So, where does diet come in?  Nobody really likes to cut food out, or feel like they are starving themselves, to save calories and lose weight.

That’s why the word diet should be scrapped from the start and instead a healthy nutritional lifestyle approach embraced instead. Yes, you've heard it many times before: a balanced diet is the answer!

Cut down on lazy sugary convenience foods and move towards more natural healthy whole foods like nuts, green veg, oily fish, white meat and quinoa. With a little organisation and a mind set shift towards wholesome foods you can make a dramatic difference to your energy levels, physical glow and appearance.

Wrap these pearls of wisdom into a bundle and incorporate them into your life and you will be a huge step closer to achieving your health and fitness goals.

To give you an idea of the kind of exercises a Personal Trainer might go through with you, here are some simple exercises to get your body moving and that metabolism burning.

• Side Lunge

• Overhead Squat

• Prisoner Squat

• Plie Squat Jump

• Alternate Split Squat Jump

• Bicycle Crunch

• Hip Flexors Stretch

• Piriformis Stretch

Download these exercise and stretches in a PDF format.

Enjoy, and I wish you all the very best in achieving your New Year Resolutions!

If you need a helping hand and are keen to try the Personal Trainer approach, then do feel free to contact me, Phil, at Fitness and Wellbeing Training or email: enquiries@fwtltd.com (please start your email with code: KS12)

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Small print from KnotStressed: whilst we are very grateful to all our guest bloggers for taking the time to submit their thoughts for posting on our website, we would like to make it clear to our readers that the Guest Blog Series does not necessarily reflect the view taken by KnotStressed therapists, or our wish to endorse specific therapies.