Month: August 2011

More stormy weather and neuroplasticity. The legacy continues…

    Two weeks ago I went to visit my sister and her 2 young children. One of my duties was to help my niece with a school project. It was a summer project that was due on the first day of school. Yikes! I’m glad they didn’t assign summer projects when I was a kid.     One afternoon, my niece and I sat at the dining room table and worked on her project. My nephew was upstairs alone playing wii. All of a sudden, the sky grew dark and thunder began to rumble in the distance. My niece looked around nervously as lightning started to light up the sky. I asked her if she was scared. She said no. What about your brother? She assured me that he would come downstairs if he got scared.     The storm got quite violent. After a particularly bright bolt of lightening and ear deafening thunder...

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Sugar Plum Tree

                                                         THE SUGAR PLUM TREE     “Have you ever heard of the Sugar Plum Tree? ‘Tis a marvel of great renown! It lies on the shore of the Lollipop Sea, in the harbor of Shut-Eye Town.” This was my absolutely favorite nursery rhyme when I was a small child. I would beg my mother to read it to me over and over and over again. Of course, she did. She would hold up the book and show me the magnificent picture of my Sugar Plum Tree. Over and over and over again. My 2 older sisters would patiently listen to the story and dutifully look at the pictures. Over and over and over again.      I  loved that story. And that tree was very real to me. One day, in my childhood wanderings around our yard, I found a seed from a sugar maple...

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Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement(R) in the Rocky Mountains

I was honored to teach a workshop for the Gestalt Equine Institute of the Rockies during their recent intensive training segment. To teach Awareness Through Movement in an open mountain meadow with students sensing themselves in the sun or the shade, in the wildflowers or next to a lake was the ultimate somatosensory experience. Our support staff consisted of a gracious and dignified mountain dog, as you can see in some of the pictures. The mountains and the sound of the horses whinnying in the background completed this spectacular classroom with a view! To learn more about the Gestalt Institute of the Rockies and the wonderful work they do as well as their training programs, go to http://www.gestaltequineinstitute.com/ You won’t be disappointed! Be healthy! Cheryl Ilov, PT,...

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Unlock your jaw….with Feldenkrais®

A lot of people experience neck pain, jaw pain, tooth pain, headaches and TMJ dysfunction when they simply do not have to. Often times our aches and pains are a result of unnecessary tension in our muscles, or from faulty movement patterns. After a period of time, these habitual patterns can cause excruciating pain, joint dysfunction and joint destruction. Not only can the pain make you miserable, it can become debilitating and incapacitating, resulting in a diminished quality of life. However, you can interrupt the harmful patterns by introducing new ones. Would you like to learn how? Try this simple but highly effective movement exploration based on The Feldenkrais Method®. 1) Lie on the floor on your back with your knees bent, or place a large pillow under your knees to eliminate stress...

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Support yourself for better sleep and a healthy spine.

        A lot of people complain about waking up with pain that they didn’t have when they went to bed, saying that “they slept wrong”. As someone who truly appreciates the value of a good night’s sleep, I don’t believe that there is a “wrong” way to sleep. However, there are ways that you can support your spine in a neutral position by using pillows at night to decrease the incidence of waking up with musculoskeletal pain that you didn’t have when you went to bed. Here are a few suggestions:     1) If you sleep on your back.         Use a pillow under your knees to support your low back in a neutral position. Play with different sizes until you find the one that is the most comfortable for you. Be sure that the pillow you use under your head...

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Stormy weather, cucumbers, and neuroplasticity.

    I love storms. I love the way the sky darkens and the wind starts to build. I even love the clap of thunder and the lightening strikes (as long as they aren’t too close). I love to sit outside and watch them, but of course I go inside when things get a little too intense. Why am I not afraid?     When my sisters and I were small, a particularly violent thunderstorm started developing. Terrified, we cuddled together in the kitchen with my mother, who kept trying to distract us and keep us calm. Suddenly, my mother opened the refrigerator and pulled out several cucumbers. She started slicing them, and we all sat around the kitchen table eating cucumbers and playing games. Although we still jumped at the closest lightening strikes and the loudest thunder, we kept talking, playing...

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The balance challenge continues….

So, what would happen if you did fall? I remember skiing with my father and my husband about 20 years ago. My father (who was an excellent skier as well as a martial artist) took a very bad tumble.  My husband witnessed the fall, and quickly skied up to him to offer assistance. My Dad was laughing as he got up, and my husband was stunned that he wasn’t hurt. He said, “George, you fell like a 30 year old!”  And he got up again like a 30 year old. At the time, my father was in his early 60’s. My Dad knew how to fall. Most of us do not, which leads us to develop a fear of falling. After all, most of our activities as adults are performed in an upright posture: standing, walking, running, dancing, sitting, etc.  As a result, we lose our connection with the ground, we...

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