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...