Balanced Body Health

It’s almost spring!! Don’t let stress or anxiety be the dominant element in your story. With a focus on self-care you take a step towards feeling better! Schedule a session!

Regular sessions help keep those aches and pains, among other things like stress, anxiety, & mental health under control.
You’ll be amazed at how you feel with a monthly massage.

It’s New year!!! As always, I’m excited to help you reach your health goals this year. Here’s a special tip for those that use HSA/FSA funds:

Massage therapy can be a qualified medical expense, as long as a physician recommends it with a written prescription. The IRS rules states that medical care expenses must be primarily to ease or prevent a physical or mental ailment. Examples of illnesses that qualify include frozen shoulder, piriformis syndrome (commonly referred to as sciatica) stress, back and neck pain, arthritis, diabetes, fibromyalgia, anxiety, depression and pain management.

What you need first

All you need to do to first set up massage as a qualifying expense by paying your primary doctor a visit and tell them you have an FSA or HSA and you'd like to use some of your funds toward massage for treatment or prevention of your ailment or medical complaint.

Your physician will need to provide the following information on a prescription form (to show IRS if needed) :

1. The medical necessity: why you need massage therapy (example: to relieve back pain)
2. The frequency they recommend: number of sessions per month (example: minimum of two sessions per month)
3. The duration: length of treatment (example: 12 months)

Once you've obtained the prescription, file it away in case you are ever asked to back up the expense. It's not necessary to bring the prescription to appointment, but you should bring your FlexCard or HSA Debit card (if you have one) to pay for your next visit. If you don't have a FlexCard, simply pay for your massages and turn in your receipts for reimbursement. Note that you can't include tips.

Back pain can be frustrating. Take a step towards feeling better. Set up a session online.

Make a little time for yourself this week!!

Some cool tips cuz I know a lot of you who love your pets a ton!! As we should!!

Interesting article!! We don’t think much about inflammation and what it does to our health. Some great tips and solutions. Enjoy!!

This Silent Killer Is Making You Fat And Sick. How To Know If You're At Risk And What To Do About It. For years you have been hearing about the importance of maintaining a healthy diet to maintain better health and optimal weight. Study after study links poor diets that are highly refined and loaded with sugar, preservatives and saturated fats to nearly EVERY chronic disease.

Ditch the stress for a day! You need to recharge and feel better.

Managing stress is a huge part of a healthy routine. Regular sessions drastically help even out the ups and downs of life.

Sleep and rest can be a hard thing to come by in our busy daily lives, and acute or chronic pain only adds to the difficulty. Lying down with a sore back or neck can often feel unbearable. How many times have you been ready for bed, laid down, and the pain wakes you, keeping you from relaxing and healing the body during those vital sleeping hours?...

https://balancedbodytherapy.wordpress.com/2021/08/06/sleep-and-how-to-get-it/

Sleep and How to Get It Sleep and rest can be a hard thing to come by in our busy daily lives, and acute or chronic pain only adds to the difficulty. Lying down with a sore back or neck can often feel unbearable.How many …

Have you ever wondered if essential oils can help beyond their awesome smells?? Let’s talk about it.

Tip #1: Anti-Inflammatory Drinks 🧉🧃

Inflammation is a natural response by the body. When your body senses harm, infection, injury, or toxin, it attempts to heal itself. In these instances, cellular destruction then triggers your immune system.

The immune system releases antibodies and proteins while increasing blood flow to the affected area.

For acute inflammation, the process lasts just a few hours or days. However, for those with chronic inflammation, the body gets so used to the response it stays in a steady state of alert. Research has shown this state can play a role in multiple different conditions, from asthma to cancer.

To help reduce the inflammation in your back, keeping an anti-inflammatory diet can help reduce the response and the pain.

We will discuss anti-inflammatory foods later in this series , but similar drinks also play a vital role and are easily consumed daily.

Below are several anti-inflammatory drinks you can drink to stave off pain and inflammation.

♦️Turmeric Milk
The positive effects of Turmeric are utilized across the world, and there is a reason for that. The Asian spice contains an abundance of antioxidants that help to reduce inflammation and ease arthritic pain.

Turmeric is available at just about any grocery store in the spice section. To make the milk, simply pour 1⁄2 teaspoon of Turmeric into a glass of warm milk. Sweeten to taste or drink as is. If dairymilk increases inflammation for you, try adding the spice to warm almond milk instead.

It is best to drink this at night before bed, to allow the antioxidants to work in your body as it rests.

♦️Cherry Juice
A very accessible and antioxidant-rich drink is cherry juice. When you look for the juice at the grocery store, make sure it is low or free of added sugars and includes Tart Cherry Extract. The extract holds the bounty of anti-inflammatory ingredients.

♦️Green Ginger Tea
Both green tea and ginger are known to decrease inflammation in the body after prolonged consumption.

You can purchase both green tea and ginger tea separately but also combined for convenience. Try making a cup of tea an everyday addition to your lifestyle to help ease your discomfort.

Anti-inflammatory drinks should be free of chemicals and added sugars.

Always attempt to eat and drink clean ingredients to keep harmful chemicals from the body. These chemicals can have adverse effects on both inflammation and mental health.

I’ve said it before but I cant say it enough.

If you’re serious about
🔷 your health,

🔷living without dangerous toxins,

🔷keeping your immune system strong,

🔷or just overall wellness

✅ you HAVE to check out the Wellness Club.

From the 17th-30th you can try out the store for FREE!! No annual fee for 6 months!(like sams or Costco fee but cheaper)

🔅 90 day money back satisfaction guarantee so nothing to lose.

🔅 You get $100 in products over the first 5 months

THERES TOO MUCH TO LIST. Just watch the video!! Bit.ly/Inspired4health

DM me with questions!

Getting a session at least once a month is not a luxury. Your mind & body deserve it.

In one way or another, we ALL have stress. The difference is in how we manage it, everyone does it differently. If you’ve never tried massage therapy you’ll never know how it might help you. Stress doesn’t have to define who you are nor dictate the terms on how you enjoy life.

Have an awesome weekend!!!

Did you know:
Eight out of every ten people suffer from some sort of back pain during their lifetime‼️. 😱

In fact, over two million emergency room visits 🏨 each year are due to lower back pain,
which also happens to be the leading cause of disability in the world.

Stay tuned for a running series: Natural Ways to Help Reduce Back Pain

Now OBVIOUSLY this is not recommended “in place” of medical care. If you’re having a medical emergency ...seek assistance.

But as a therapist, familiar with back pain,.....or just as a human....I am going to share 10 ways to help prevent back pain and get you on the road to feeling better.

We’d love to hear any experiences and results you’ve had if they apply. Drop comments in the posts coming up.

Make it a great week!!

INVISIBLE ENERGY: Fact or Myth?

Reflexology Massage, which is also known as the zone therapy, is an alternative medicine technique in which massaging, stroking, squeezing, pressing, rubbing and pushing on very specific areas of the feet, hands, and ears is applied to promote or stimulate beneficial effects to other corresponding remote parts of the body such as the vital internal organs (heart, liver, brain, stomach, bladder, sinuses, spleen, gall bladder, pituitary grand, adrenal gland, pancreas, kidneys, ureter, colon, small intestines, thyroid, bronchial tubes, coccyx, lungs, and appendix) and other essential systems (voice, neck, throat, eyes, ears, armpits, shoulders, arms, breasts, solar plexus, sciatic nerve, diaphragm, and Peyer’s patches)....

https://balancedbodytherapy.wordpress.com/2021/05/11/invisible-energy-myth-or-fact/

Invisible Energy: Myth or Fact Reflexology Massage, which is also known as the zone therapy, is an alternative medicine technique in which massaging, stroking, squeezing, pressing, rubbing and pushing on very specific areas of t…

Happy Monday‼️

balancedbodytherapy on Instagram: Make it a great week!! #healthy #wellness #greensmoothie #greens #vitamin #nutrition #selfcare #body #mind #spirit #doitonpurpose The O'Neill Brothers Group • Here Comes the Sun

HAPPY May!

You may know this, but in case you didn't, my wife and I have loved shopping online wellness club for years. We get tons of stuff like, our multi-vitamins, supplements, health foods, essential oils, non-toxic cleaning and laundry supplies, etc.

The thyme based, natural, CDC approved for COVID-19, disinfectant has been a gem this last year.

ANYWAYS, they are doing a special promo on club membership for only $1 for the next couple weeks. Just wanted to let you know in case your looking for a change!! 🙂

If you want to know what it's about, check out this 5 min video we put together!! http://bit.ly/Inspired4health Totally recommend it, there is something for everyone!!

Enjoy!

Happy Monday‼️

Some days it can feel like your head is about to explode. Here’s some interesting details on the history of head massage and some things you can try to reduce the tension. Or even better, tell your therapist and the next session to give some attention to that ol’ brain cage. 🧠....your head.

Head Massage has origins that stem from an Indian remedial and grooming practice which had been and continues to be part of the Indian daily ritual for over 4,000 years. The ancient Indians believed that when energy channels become blocked and the flow of positive energy is obstructed, negative energy builds up and increasingly leads to a wide array of ailments and dysfunctions such as stress, depression, poor sleeping habits, localized and remote pains and aches, hampered and sluggish blood circulation, overall poor health, as well as loss of hair or baldness. The main focus and intent of the Indian Head massage, therefore, is to open up the blockages and to allow the positive energy to flow freely through the entire body and in the process to get rid of the amassed negative energy.

Here are some things to help relax the thinker:

* The shoulders. Gently squeezing the trapezoid muscles at the base of the neck and moving outward toward the shoulders. This is repeated three times while slightly increasing the pressure.

* The neck. The neck is massaged with small circular motions, beginning at the collarbone and ending at the hairline. This is repeated three times.

The sides of the neck are then stroked with a rolling motion beginning under the jawbone and ending at the shoulders. This is repeated three times.

Avoiding the vertebrae, the back of the neck is pressed with a gliding and rotating motion from the collar bone up to the hairline and it is repeated five times.

* The head. The head is moved slowly and gently forward and backward three times.

The entire area of the scalp is massaged with rolling gentle pressure four or five times and then the scalp is rubbed briskly without causing pain for a full minute.

* The hair. Fingers are run through the hair from the forehead back three times.

* The temples. The temples are worked with small circular massaging and pressing movements three times.

* The end. Slowly stroking the entire head area from the forehead to the back for a minute and progressively making the strokes lighter and lighter.

Happy Wednesday‼️

Is Sports Massage only for Athletes⁉️

Describing it in a nutshell, the Sports Massage is a specialty massage technique that was created and developed with athletes in mind. And as such, the Sports Massage prepares the bodies of professional and amateur sportspersons for their best possible performance before participating in a sport and it then helps their bodies to recover afterwards.

However, just because the Sports Massage was designed for those participating in sports, you do not have to be an athlete to reap the benefits from it. After all, athletes are not the only people who get injured and they by no means hold the monopoly on pain.

The Sports Massage is, in effect, one of several forms of the Swedish massage and it promotes an increased circulation of blood and lymph fluids in the body. To break down or dissolve adhesions, which are painful clumps or knots within the muscles, and to widen the range of motion of stiffened joints, trigger point therapy is incorporated as part of the Sports Massage session. There are four different types of Sports Massage therapies and their distinction is made primarily by its time of performance in relations to the athlete’s sport activity. In other words, it is mainly their timing which makes them different from one another. The four types of Sports Massages are designated as follows:

🔹Pre-Event Sports Massage. The Pre-Event Sport Massage is a vigorous but shortened massage treatment that lasts anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes and is performed right before the sports event. Its main focus is on those specific parts of the athlete’s body which will be most intensively involved in the action.

🔹Post-Event Sports Massage. The Post-Event Sport Massage is performed within an hour or two of the event and its aim is to return bodies to their normal state by helping them recover from the hard work in the shortest time possible.

🔹 Restorative Sports Massage. The Restorative Sports Massage is applied while the athlete is in training and it helps him or her practice harder while, at the same time, decreasing the chances of incurring injuries.

🔹 Rehabilitative Sports Massage. The Rehabilitative Sports Massage is there to pick up the proverbial pieces by treating the injuries which resulted from the exertion of the sport. The foremost objective of Rehabilitative Sports Massage is to relieve pain and to return the body to its former, pre-injury state.

So, whether you are a professional or an amateur athlete or simply a citizen of the world who happens to have a precise problem such as a sore knee from your morning jog around the block or a frozen should because you slept on the wrong side of the bed or a stiff back because you forgot to use your legs when lifting the grocery back and so on, do yourself a favor and see a Sports Massage therapist.

And the best way to find one is by getting referrals from reliable sources or by doing some research. The National Certification Board for Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork (NCBTMB) and the American Massage Therapy Association (AMTA) suggests that you ask the following questions when interviewing a potential Sports Massage therapist or any other type of massage therapist, for that matter:

✅ Did you graduate from a program accredited by the Commission on Massage Therapy Accreditation (COMTA)?
✅ Are you licensed or registered as a massage therapist in this state?
✅ Are you certified by the national Certification Board of Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork (NCBTMB)?
✅ Do you have training in any specific massage modalities?

Beyond all that, you should just relax and enjoy the process while your body is being directed onto the path of healing.

Happy Monday‼️

Ready for a little massage history⁉️

Massage Therapy is just one persuasion from a wide array of other very effective and closely related persuasions such as Acupressure, Body Work, Manipulative Therapy, Manual Lymphatic Drainage, Structural Integration, Alternative Medical Systems, Mind-Body Intervention, Biologically Based Therapy, Energy Therapy, Shiatsu and Tui Na. And all these as a group come under the wide umbrella of alternative medicine and body-based methods.

Massage Therapy is a procedure in which various methods are utilized to manipulate soft tissues of the subject’s body such as the muscles, tendons, ligaments, skin, joints, connective tissues as well as the lymphatic vessels and organs of the gastrointestinal system.

The primary goal of Massage Therapy is to affect physical, psychological and functional curative changes by performing manipulative functions which involve moving or stationery pressure, structured or unstructured force to strategic points, vibration, stroking, kneading, and so on.

On occasion, mechanical devices are used as tools of the trade, but for the most part, Massage Therapy is applied manually with the therapist’s hands, fingers, elbows, forearms and feet as the recipient is fully clothed in a massage chair or partially to totally undressed but covered with a sheet on a massage table or on a mat on the floor.

Ancient scripts have attested to the fact that massage therapy dates back into antiquity and it has been a fundamental practice in many different cultures such as the Roman, Greek, Japanese, Chinese, Egyptian, Mesopotamian and Indian. Even Biblical writings from c. 493 BC speak of daily massage with olive oil and myrrh being applied to the wives of Xerxes (Esther, 2:9-12) as part of their daily beauty routine. Hippocrates of Cos, a Greek physician of the fourth century BC who is also considered the “father of medicine” and after whose teachings the famous Hippocratic Oath was named, wrote that “The physician must be experienced in many things, but assuredly in rubbing.”

Advancing to more modern times, Massage Therapy gained its popularity in the United States when it was presented by two physicians from New York in the 1800s. Their techniques were an adaptation from the Per Henrik Ling Massage Therapy which was developed in Sweden. With the introduction of new and exciting innovations in medicine during the 1930s and 1940s, the popularity of Massage Therapy waned but was revived again by the athletic community in the 1960s and 1970s. Massage Therapy was provided as a central medical service for the first time in the United States during the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia.

Etymologically speaking, the word “massage” in English comes from a long line of derivatives as follows: the French word “massage” which means “the friction of kneading,” which comes from the Arabic word “massa” which means “to touch, feel or handle,” which comes from the Latin word “massa” which means “mass or dough.” The Greek word for “massage” is “anatripsis” and the Latin word is “firctio.” However, the oldest known origin of the English word “massage” comes from the Biblical Hebrew word “me-sakj” which means “to anoint with oil.”

All in all, a pretty interesting history of something that still has a huge impact on our health and wellness! The key to a successful massage routing is regularity!! See you at your next session!