I went back to visit my sister and her family last month. For the first time in 33 years, I drove past the exit that took me to my hometown and to the house where I grew up with my four sisters.  The house that my father had built. The house that my mother had made into a home. I tried not to look at that sign as we drove in the opposite direction, away from the place that I referred to as “home” for over fifty years. Both of my parents died last November. My younger sister  moved away from the area and closer in to the city 2 months ago.     As my husband and I drove passed the exit and continued on in the opposite direction, I wanted to grab the steering wheel out of my husband’s hands and turn the car around. I wanted to yell, “No! We go this way”!  ...

    I remembered this helpful tip when I strained my neck last week. Give it a try and see if it can help you, too. For the sake of simplicity, I will give instructions for working with the left side of your neck. However, feel free to turn the directions around to work with the right side if you wish.     1) Sit on the edge of a firm chair with your feet on the floor. Slowly and gently turn your head side to side. Notice how far you can easily turn without stress, strain, or the feeling of tension. Pay attention at what point the tissues of your neck begin to tell you to stop moving. Do not go beyond that point.     2) Take your right arm across your chest and place your right hand gently on the left side of your neck. Keep your thumb together with your fingers. Gently explore the soft...

We use our hands constantly during the day. But, do we really appreciate the quality of our touch? Our hands and fingers are highly sensitive with many nerve endings that send messages back to our brain and tell us how to respond to our experience of touch. So, how can we awaken our sensation of touch?  Try this little exploration: 1) Sit on the edge of a firm chair with your feet on the floor. Place your dominant hand gently on your leg. Take a moment to allow your hand to soften. Let your hand contact your leg and your leg contact your hand. Take a few moments to fully connect with the sensation of your hand and leg touching each other. 2) Begin to gently lift and lower just your palm away from your leg and back down to your leg. Your fingers stay in contact with your leg the entire time....

    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...

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,...

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...

        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...

A lot of people are concerned about losing their balance and have a fear of falling. So, what can we do to  improve our balance? Let’s start with some basic exercises in standing. 1) Single leg standing: Stand in front of a counter top or other stable surface. Gently place your hands on the counter top for safety. Lift one foot off of the floor so you are standing on one leg. Don’t rest the lifted leg on the standing leg, just let hang relaxed in the air. You can lift your hands off of the counter, but it’s there if you need it to steady yourself. See if you can balance on one leg for 30-60 seconds.You may feel your ankle or hip wobble a bit, but that’s fine….you are actually training the nerve endings (proprioceptors) in your feet, ankles, knees and hips how...

    Most of us are afraid of falling, especially as we get older. Why is that? Of course, we don’t want to get hurt, and many of us either know someone or have heard of someone falling and experiencing long term injuries. But it doesn’t have to be that way.     As babies and small children, we lived, played and crawled on the floor. As we grew, we continued to frequently get down on the floor. The occasional spills we experienced were no big deal, and we would bounce back up and be off on our next adventure. But as adults, we keep ourselves upright. We stand, walk, sit in chairs and lose our intimate relationship with the ground. As a result, we develop a fear and distrust of the ground, of our ability to fall safely (yes, there is such a thing) and gracefully get back up.    ...

      Have you ever wondered what Pilates can do for you? Here are a few examples: 1) The Pilates reformer provides a supportive environment which is very important for people who are recovering from injury, surgery, trauma, or are deconditioned (out of shape). Springs provide resistance (instead of weights) which more accurately simulates natural muscle activity. The springs also provide assistance for you in the early stages of physical rehabilitation.     2) The reformer provides immediate feedback to the client in a partial weight bearing position to allow for postural corrections and healthy movement patterns to develop. Clients experience changes in their movement patterns in a stable environment, without trying to fight their habits in full weight bearing against gravity.     3)...