I also added jumping on the trampoline.

What I learned was when I have a sore ankle, swollen ankle or foot pain it is best to take a day or two off to rest.

As time went on and I continued part of my workout, my knee and back became very unhappy as well.

What it took to feel better was 4 days of rest, soaking my feet was a huge change and raping my foot.

I had been putting my foot up and icing it all week, but that did not seem to help much.   I had even added putting a pillow under my foot  at night to elevate it even more.   No longer running, still walking, it was amazing to feel that climbing stairs was a challenge and there was pain in my ankle.

I did do some Feldenkrais (R) Awareness Through movement lessons to help maintain flexible ribs and keep from living with hip, more back, neck and shoulder pain.

I am very thankful that I trained with Anat Baniel and learned to move away from pain and into pleasure.

What are you doing to feel better?    Who is your favourite teacher?   I find it very interesting how many people would rather take a pill then find the root cause and solve the problem at the cause.

When I do get back to walk/running, I will be curious as to how my running will change.   I have been doing barefoot running as it feels better to me then running heel toe as I had originally been taught.

My feet like the freedom of feeling the ground.  There is much science to back this up as well.   I always recommend that you do your own research to see what works best for you!

So thankful to be back to having my ankle move freely and pain free!

Sciatic nerve pain, can start in your low back and go down the side of your leg, as far down as you toes. There is either pain or a numb feeling.

This is something in my world that is caused by a pinched nerve in your lumbar spine.
What happens with sciatic pain is that the body is saying….. slow down, take a rest, you are not organized optimally.

Notice how you are turning to the right and to the left
Where is your weight on your feet, to the front, side back?
Is your weight distributed evenly on both feet?
Can you feel the difference as you turn right and left?
Is your sternum soft or are you holding your chest up?

Here are some steps you can take to change this are:

When you turn right and left make the movement smaller, slower and do the rotation to the smallest side, eg. Make both right and left sides the same size, using the smaller rotation.
Shift your weight forward and backward on your feet.
Shift your weight right and left on your feet.
Don’t force, but notice where your weight is on your feet.

Here is a 2-minute video that will help with the tightness in your sternum.

If there is pain, do not do these lessons.

Now available are skype lessons as well as in person.

Leave a message below to set up an appointment or email me at karen@healthybodymoves.com

Wishing you a Sciatic, pain free life!

20 minutes can fly by quickly.

I could feel the length of my spine increase over the time and enjoyed the subtle use of the massage tool.

Upon standing, I felt taller, more grounded and ready to enjoy a day at the beach!

If you are feeling short, one example clients notice is after a day at the office they have to adjust the rear view mirror, after doing a Pilates or Awareness Through Movement Class they feel taller, calmer and ready to finish off their day.
One of the first things they do is adjust their mirrors in the car, before driving home.

How would you like to gain height, naturally?

How would you like to increase your breathing?

Use of an inversion table, is a slow process, done gradually over time.

Start at the 20% inversion and increase the inversion over time.

Some people talk about putting their feet up.
This is a great way to elevate your feet, get the blood circulating in a different way.

Go to a store near you to try different styles of inversion tables!

Karen

Are you listening??

During my 4 year training with Anat Baniel, I learned to “listen” to my body.

What does it look like to listen to your body?

When a new stiffness starts, address it immediately!!

What does addressing it immediately look like?

Good Question!!

There are many skilled Feldenkrais and Anat Baniel Method Practitioners.

The skills that I learned was to listen to parts of the body that do not move.

Don’t push through.

Stop and try something else.

Keep finding the parts that move easily.

Learning to find more of the ease will make massive changes in the overall central nervous system.

When your CNS is calm your mind is calm, you can focus, there is no more pain to hold you back from living your life.

I love what Dr. Weil says about Feldenkrais Method helping with Fibromyalgia, and other neurological concerns!

A person that learns to slow down and listen to themselves, will live a calm life.

That calm can create abundance, a happy family, more joy then you can think of.

The art of listening, by Karen Toth

Yesterday was the day my son and my mom got their gardens planted.

It is great when you are young and healthy with no back problems, but over time, when you have used yourself improperly for a long period of time, you may find some pain and strain after gardening!

A great thing to do is stand tall, bend over and walk your hands down so each hand is just above your knees, eg, right hand above right knee, left hand above left knee.

In this position, start to round your spine to  look toward your belly button, then arch your back and look in front as you stick out your belly and your tail bone.

Repeat this 5 – 8 times!

This just might be the thing that lets you garden longer with less back pain and strain!

For more ideas of good back movement I suggest reading Move Into Life the Nine Essentials for Lifelong Learning, by Anat Baniel

Happy Gardening!

After reading

<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1612930298/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=stretchyourli-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1612930298">Think and Grow Rich</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=stretchyourli-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1612930298" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />

my focus become much clearer, as I defined my dreams and started to create a burning desire for it’s achievement.

Golf is high on some people’s priorities to be out, enjoying the sunshine, hitting the ball and hanging out with good friends!

Before you hit the ball it is recommended that you do some easy golf movements first.

Bend over having your hands above your knees, start by rounding and arching your back.   Do this 3 – 5 times to get your spine moving easily.

Standing tall, start to reach your right hand down your right leg, bending to the side.  Repeat 3 – 5 times on the right and repeat 3 – 5 times on the left side.

Start to do some slow, rotating movements!  Rotating to look over your right shoulder, then rotating to look over your left shoulder.

Next very, very slowly let your head look down toward your feet and up toward the sky, all as much of your spine as you can for example, when you look down round the whole back of your spine.  Can you do it as if your spine is lengthening at the back?

Then look up toward the sky, when you look up let your whole spine be part of the movement, for example, as you look up let your belly and chest go forward as your head and eyes look up.   Do this very slowly, with awareness, moving only where there is no pain, strain or stress.

After you do that slowly do some more rotation right and left.  Notice the weight transfer under your feet, and notice how much of your vertebra move with you!

When you are finished, you are all set to play golf with vitality, have fun and enjoy your game!

Karen Toth

We hold things in our body that may have started as a thought.    How do you clean your mind and body of negative thoughts that no longer serve you?

There are a few ways that seem to work faster and create a pain free life.   After starting to use my new knowledge, which for the benefit of your understanding, I will call it “intention”.    What is your intention to move or feel better?

When someone experiences a Functional Integration Session, based on the work of Moshe  Feldenkrais, they learn more about themselves.   Where they are moving, where they are holding and when they start holding.

One gal started holding her hip joint on her left side when she was talking!   Another gal was holding her head and not  aware of it.   This is very normal, that we don’t know our bodies well.  If we don’t know our bodies, do we know our minds?  If you take a little time and get a sense of your body and mind, you will know and feel what is causing the pain.

I can get your body moving,  awaken your brain and with intention bring more awareness to you!

It was very interesting today as I was using some words from Louise L. Hay’s book, “You Can Heal Your Life”.   She had sore knees.   I read the part about knees, it said, “stubborn, inflexible”   The student agreed with that, so the learning was easy.   By the end of the session her knees were flexible and soft.

So now adding movement to thoughts how much better can we get and live in this world.

Looking up back pain in “You Can Heal Your Life”, “Lower back –  Fear of Money, Middle back – Guilt, get off my back”, Upper back – Lack of Emotional Support, holding back love.”

Creating a  new thought pattern such as “lower back – I trust the process of life, middle back – I release the past.  I am free to move forward with love in my heart, upper back – I love and approve of myself.  Life supports and loves me.”

Add movement, intention and awareness to all this and you life will change very quickly.

As I am learning there are many ways to help oneself be well and live with vitality.   Add movement to your life, such as crawl, or roll around on the floor every day, move from sitting to stand, and watch how children move.   When you add these child like movements you will increase your neurological patterns in your brain and become much more flexible and youthful!

Wishing you all a great day!

Please feel free to share this information or comment on the subjects.

Karen

Have you ever heard yourself say something like this?

Well, I’m here to inform you that it is “ruining your life”, your sexuality, vitality and thinking!

I had a back ache twice in my life and was put off doing anything I liked.  Rolling in bed hurt, sleeping hurt, eating hurt.

What a way to live.   Chronic pain is debilatating.   The thinking that I’ll live with it is …. what are you thinking??

There are so many ways to heal pain, it may be a long journey, but what a way to learn who you are in this world.   What you life’s purpose is, open your mind to learning, creating a life you love.

Part of my learning was about The Feldenkrais Method (R), The Anat Baniel Method (sm), massage, chiropractor, EFT, Thought Therapy and other modalities to make me feel better.

I entered a four year training with Anat Baniel, openning my mind to learn up to a rate of 1.8 million new neurological connections per second.   She taught me about how my sexuality, vitality, and  thinking needed to be changed!   As we all know change is not easy, however when the desire to change is there, you change!

4 things I learned during my training:

• Back Pain - can be muscular, emotional or spiritual.    Learning which life lesson you need will help with changing that.   muscular pain is usually a twing that makes it very uncompfortable to move or enjoy life at all.    Emotional lesson can keep you trapped in the way you think for a long time, until you are ready to let it go.   Nutrution could be a part of all this as well.    Stresis will cause pain, holding you “back” from moving forward in your thinking or your actions.

• Sexuality -  The most pleasant sex for both partners is when the women has an orgasim.   This can happen when our pelvic floor muscles  work in unison, with free flowing hip joints,  and oxygen getting to every part of your body.   When doing these 8 healthy back movement lessons, you will find your diaphram frees to allow for more oxygen and blood flow.  There are some wonderful cues that teach you intrinsically how to move so sex will be much more enjoyable!

• Vitality - We can always enjoy the movements and vitality of a young child.  That need not disappear.  When was the last time you laughed out loud, played outdoors or lived with “wonder”.   When we get older we make our movements smaller, like instead of turning our whole body around to look behind, we turn our head only, this can cause pain in the neck, back or shoulders.   Look at the children in your life and start to crawl, turn and laugh more.

• Thinking - Ever notice how you think that aging is giving you a ” foggy brain” .   More blood and oxygen to your brain, more easy flowing movementsin your body will change not only the way you think, but turn on your “leaning switch”, creating more neurological connections.   Aging is now an excuse used by those that don’t want to change, to learn and to live full out!   What do your family and friends have you thinking?

There is much more to discover within yourself and your life.   Get moving and get your life back!

Karen Toth

http://healthybackmoves.com/videos/

Ways to get your back into shape before you start your yard work are important to do.
Taking a break to move in between long sessions of raking and weeding. Breathing deeply into your lower abdominal.

While raking you may want to try to inhale, then exhale and push the leaves into a pile. Sometimes make a loud, noise as you exhale and make the pile of lives. Great way to relieve stress in your body and increase the power of your lungs.

Over the years of raking, I will start raking one way, then switch and rake with the other hand. It is not as quick, and trying to match up the way raking is done from one side to the other is always a great challenge. Make it playful, fun and maintain a healthy back!