Hacks for Whole Body Wellness at Home
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Aretha has a strong passion for promoting whole-body wellness by facilitating the body’s tremendous capacity for healing through therapeutic massage. She believes that educating clients to realize their ideal alignment, mobility and inner balance is the key to long-term wellness. As a quality-oriented therapist, Aretha prioritizes individual client care and will pull from her training in many different modalities to provide every client a unique and specialized experience.
This week, Aretha of Soulfish Wellness dives into the science behind how simple techniques like nose breathing, better posture, and even cuddling your pet can increase your whole body wellness (from right there in your living room).
Hack #1: Combat Touch Starvation
“Touch defines the shapes of our brains and the wiring in our minds, essentially creating who we are.”
- Sylvester Lee
Touch Starvation
Now, more than ever, the #PowerOfTouch is paramount to our well-being. When the physical contact that our bodies crave is hampered, the result is a condition called Touch Starvation. Touch starvation is felt by many more than ever due to pandemic-related isolation.
Touch starvation activates the sympathetic, or our “fight, flight, freeze or faint” response, causing ripple effects in our bodies:
Increase in stress, depression and anxiety raises levels of the hormone, cortisol
Cortisol increases heart rate, blood pressure, respiration and muscle tension
It also suppresses the digestive system and immune system, increasing the risk of infection
Problems achieving sound sleep further exacerbates mental health problems, resulting in a vicious cycle
Positive Touch
By contrast, when we receive touch in a positive way the parasympathetic, or “rest-and- digest” response, triggers release of oxytocin (the so-called cuddle hormone), which basically reverses the negative impact of cortisol.
Moreover, when we receive therapeutic touch, the results are multifaceted. Beyond the oxytocin and other endogenous opioids we benefit from with touch, mechanical manipulation of the tissue decreases tension in the body, diminishes swelling and inflammation, increases immunity, and positively affects the way our brains process pain. So, if safe physical connection with others, such as professional massage and bodywork or other manual therapies, is available to you, its many powerful physiological and psychological benefits are within easy reach.
Self Touch
There are are great benefits when it comes to self touch as well. While it activates different areas of the brain as compared to touch from others (as proven by our inability to tickle ourselves) intentional self touch can greatly soothe the nervous system, increase the body-mind connection and offer relief to burdened muscles.
Hack #2:
Don’t be a Mouth Breather
Nose breathing increases oxygenation of your blood.
Nitric Oxide and Oxygenation
The most important component of nose breathing comes down to Nitric Oxide, or NO, which is produced in the endothelial cells that line the blood vessels throughout your body to control blood flow and pressure (basically what makes viagra do it’s job).
Those same endothelial cells are found in the nasal cavities directly infusing our lungs with NO when inhalation is focused through the nasal passages. This leads to increase oxygenation in the blood and increased blood flow which means more nutrient dense blood being delivered more efficiently throughout the body optimizing your ability to function.
CO2 and Oxygenation
Another important factor is that nose breathing raises the CO2 levels in your body which allow for the hemoglobin to release even more oxygen into the bloodstream. Higher CO2 levels also create a cardio-inhibitory response in the vagus nerve activating our parasympathetic response which leads to improved metabolic function and naturally boosts your immune system!
Hack #3:
Use Oils for Immunity
Essential oils have been around for thousands of years and are still used as important plant medicine in many different cultural health and wellness practices.
While all essential oils have therapeutic benefits, there are some particular oils we should all have on hand to improve and maintain the health of our immune systems.
Tea Tree Oil
Tea Tree oil has been proven time and again, through medical studies, to be extremely beneficial in eliminating viruses, bacteria and fungi making it a go-to antiseptic wound healer with awesome anti-inflammatory properties too! But that’s not all; as an immune system stimulator Tea Tree has long been used as a cough and cold treatment when safely inhaled, but be careful when using it on sensitive skin.
Lemon Oil
Lemon oil (known affectionately as Liquid Sunshine!) is one of the most powerful anti-microbial oils of them all. Like Tea Tee oil, it’s also antiseptic and anti-inflammatory but also has purifying and analgesic (pain relieving) benefits as well as having been seen to relieve mental exhaustion and improve cognitive function which means fantastic benefits to both mental health as well as physical health.
Eucalyptus
Eucalyptus, again reputed for it’s antiseptic and anti-inflammatory qualities, also offers decongestant and immune boosting properties making it a dependable option to treat body pains, cold/sinus congestion, and even fever. It can be used on the skin or in the air to eliminate harmful bacteria and facilitate easy breathing, soothe nervous tension, and clear the mind.
Of course these are just the tip of the iceberg. If you’re interested in learning more, I would love to discuss some other powerful options that you may never have heard of, like Ravensara, Holy Basil, Red Thyme and Star Anise. Don’t hesitate to reach out!
*A note of caution when dealing with aromatherapy oils: More often than not the safest and most effective use of these oils will be in a diffuser, or as a balm/roller when diluted in a carrier oil. Please consult an Aromatherapist before beginning a regiment of ingesting these powerful plant medicines, and always ensure that oils are mixed with the safety of a carrier like honey, oil, or fats (butter). Oils consumed on their own, or even in water, can do extreme damage to your digestive system.
Hack #4:
Focus on the Building Blocks of Alignment
Your body is designed to operate with ease.
When properly stacked, the skeletal system performs optimally with minimal effort needed from the surrounding musculature. When we begin to look at finding the correctly aligned posture, it’s important to consider the relationship between the joints (or building blocks) that are being stacked, always starting from the ground up.
Block 1 : Feet and Knees
Feet should be hip width apart (the centre of the foot being directly below the hip joint, and not as wide as the outside of the pelvis. Most often this can be measured as 2 fist widths between the feet) and even pressure distributed between all four corners of the feet. It’s possible to have all of the other building blocks correctly stacked but still fall out of alignment if the distribution of the weight in the feet is not even.
Knees should be unlocked and soft, with kneecaps facing forward.
Block 2 : Hips
Imagine the pelvis is a bowl of water and to be in alignment means that water will not spill from the front or back of the bowl. The pubic bone and the tail bone will be even with each other while the prominent points of the hip stay in line with the bottom of the lowest ribs
Block 3 : Shoulders
To balance the shoulders we look at the distance from shoulder tip to shoulder tip as it compares from the front body to the back body. The distance between both lines should be the same. Avoid squeezing muscles together in order to correct misalignments as this will only lead to more musculature problems. The movements should come as small easy adjustments.
Block 4 : Head and Neck
Begin by gazing directly forward and the chin parallel with the floor. Ears should be directly over top of the shoulders when possible. Imagine an invisible string on the top of your head being gently guided ever upwards.
Your Plumb Body
When correctly stacked, a plumbline falling down the side of the body would hit at the ankle bone, the side of the knee, the shoulder tip, and the ear. It may feel foreign to stand in this posture as the muscles will have become adapted to the misalignments and struggle against the change, but we must be as relentless in our corrections as those bad habits that pull us out of alignment in order to find the ease with which our bodies were designed to operate.
If this concept of alignment is new to you, I encourage you to book an appointment with me to be guided through this process the first few times.
Hack #5:
Biohack Your Hormones
Use every day activities to trigger the release of oxytocin, endorphins, dopamine, and serotonin.
Oytocin
Oxytocin can be triggered through positive touch ( as we previously discussed) and playing with an animal, acts of kindness, or even giving and receiving compliments.
Endorphins
Endorphins can flow from laughter, exercise and dark chocolate.
Dopamine
Access dopamine by completing a task, self-care, and celebrating small wins.
Serotonin
The serotonin we gain from meditating, running/swimming/cycling, and being in nature allow us to find a sense of accomplishment that is key to wellbeing.
Share the Feel-Good Hormones
We can — and should — dole out gold stars to ourselves when we achieve these healthy tasks and fitness goals. But the benefits are exponentially heightened when we bring others into our circle. There are many creative ways to do this. Challenge a friend to a step-count competition, start an accountability group for meal planning, take virtual music or language lessons, or teach a friend a skill you’ve mastered. When you seek to inspire the community around you, you too will be inspired.