Easy Self-Massage Tricks for Upper Back Pain

Many people live with chronic upper back pain.  If it is due to muscular irregularities, you can try these easy self-massage techniques – all done with a tennis ball!

Using a wall is the easiest and most convenient way to use a tennis ball to massage your back.    Lean in to it gently and roll around until you find your tight areas.  Press in on them with as much or little press as is comfortable for as long as is comfortable. 

The ball can go anywhere on your back - EXCEPT your spine.    

Alternative placement:  Place the ball between you and a firm-backed chair.

Again, move the ball around anywhere on your back, avoiding the spine.

No chair or wall?  Try placing the ball in a sock and pulling it around on your back using both hands.  This is a little more difficult than the chair or the wall, but still feels really good.

A fourth method is to use the floor.  This would be the same positioning as the wall and chair, only horizontal instead of vertical.

The most important thing to remember is listen to your body.  Press in when it feels good and lighten up if it hurts.  If you are not sure, ask your professional massage therapist or your doctor.

Please visit our massage therapist in our clinical practice, the University of Maryland Center for Integrative Health & Healing, for more tips and a healing massage.

_________________________________

**Please note:  This does not take the place of a doctor's advice and is only to be used as a self-help tool.  Please check with you doctor if you have any concerns about your health or well being.**

Refreshing Anti-inflammatory Summer Salad

Photo by "South Carolina Girl" (Food.com)

In our opinion, food should both taste good and be good for you.  Healthy and delicious, three of the main ingredients of this recipe – spinach, strawberries, and walnuts – are extremely nutrient dense and all contain anti-inflammatory properties.  For example:

Spinach contains health-supportive nutrients called “glycoglycerolipids” that helps protect the lining of the digestive tract from damage, especially damage related to unwanted inflammation.

Because of their amazing combination of phytonutrients, including anthocyanins, ellagitannins, flavonols, terpenoids, and phenolic acids, strawberries have potential anti-inflammatory properties, and recent research has shown that the regular consumption of strawberries can decrease chronic inflammation.

Walnuts contain many phytonutrients, including tannin tellimagrandin and flavonol morin, which are rare and valuable as antioxidants and anti-inflammatory nutrients.

Dr. Chris D’Adamo, Assistant Professor and nutrition expert at the Center for Integrative Medicine, adds that you should try to buy organic versions of these ingredients to cut down on pesticide consumption for an even healthier meal.

Chicken and Strawberry-Spinach Salad

Recipe from Food.com (http://www.food.com/recipe/chicken-and-strawberry-spinach-salad-380158)

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons apple juice
• 2 tablespoons strawberry all-fruit spread
• 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
• 1 lb boneless skinless chicken breasts
• 8 cups bite-size pieces spinach
• 1 cup fresh strawberries, stems removed and strawberries cut in half
• 3 tablespoons crumbled gorgonzola
• 2 tablespoons chopped walnuts

Directions

1. In small bowl, mix the first three ingredients until blended; set aside.
   
2. Spray 10-inch skillet with cooking spray; heat over medium-high heat. Cook chicken in skillet 15 to 20 minutes, turning once, until juice of chicken is clear when center of thickest part is cut (170°F). Remove chicken to cutting board.
   
3. Cut chicken into slices. Among 4 plates, divide spinach. Top with chicken, strawberries and cheese. Drizzle with dressing. Sprinkle with walnuts.

Creative Stress Reducers

Throughout history, visual self-expression has been used for healing.  Even subconsciously, most children find themselves using a form of art to sooth themselves or satisfy an unmet need – who didn’t decorate the pages of a textbook, draw a picture of their favorite (or least favorite) teacher, or create and then destroy a clay sculpture or lego tower?  Even now, many adults I know make little doodles in the margins of their notebooks, file folders, and Post-It notes.  Why do we do this?  Simply put, because we need to! 

“Art has the potential to change lives and in profound ways. When words are not enough, we turn to images and symbols to tell our stories. And in telling our stories through art, we can find a path to health and wellness, emotional reparation, recovery, and ultimately, transformation,” says the International Art Therapy Organization [IATO] (www.internationalarttherapy.org).

Even something as simple as doodling is considered art and a form of “artistic self-expression.”  According to the American Art Therapy Association (www.americanarttherapyassociation.org), “the creative process involved in artistic self-expression helps people resolve conflicts and problems, develop interpersonal skills, reduce stress, and increase self-esteem and self-awareness.”

What are some easy, inexpensive, and time-sensitive ways that you can use art in your daily life to help find the path to health and wellness?

     1)    Doodle:  Sketch pictures that describe your mood, your feelings, or anything else that your hand and brain want you to create.

     2)    Scribble:  Create abstract pictures that are representative of your moods, feelings, or state-of-mind.

     3)    Paint (watercolor, finger paints, and acrylics tend to be the easiest to use and clean up):  Use colors as your means of artistic communication – abstract patterns and still-life works are equally helpful.

     4)    Stamp:  Colorful inkpads and fun shaped stamps can help those with less confidence in their doodling and painting abilities, and can be just as satisfying.

     5)    Cut or Punch:  Take a pair of scissors or a hole punch (there are even scissors and hole punches that make neat shapes) and create a new “canvas” out of a sheet of paper.

For those of you who don’t want to waste the paper or buy supplies, there are numerous “apps” for smartphones and tablets, as well as for the computer, that allow you to doodle, color, paint, stamp, and more.

One last note:  these works of art are for YOU.  No one else has to see them.  Some people keep them as a visual diary, others throw them out or recycle them, some paint over them, and some re-use them.  It’s your art, your self-expression, a piece of you.  Lose your stress and find yourself.

***********************

Need some inspiration or a place to start?  You are welcome to join our Yoga & Art Class in August 2012.  Visit www.regonline.com/yoga-art-with-lolly for more details and to register.