Embodied Anatomy

What is the best way to get to know the body from the inside out?

Written by Jacob Tyson, DPT - Physical Therapist, Yoga Instructor

While countless hours spent poring over anatomy textbooks in physical therapy school was helpful for learning the names of all of our internal structures, the most meaningful anatomy lessons have been on my mat, alone with my body and breath. Without complementing textbook knowledge with movement, there will be little relevance to real life. However, movement alone is also not enough- without having some background knowledge of the intricacies of our structural body, there may be blind spots in our awareness as we move through our day or move on our mat. This is why informed movement is so important- it can help one to avoid injury and move more efficiently.

Having a better sense of the biomechanics and anatomy of the physical body can help to improve mind-body connection and kinesthetic awareness by allowing us to move with intention and embodied intuition. For example, one might lack awareness that, unlike the hip or the shoulder which move in all planes, the knee is designed to perform sagittal plane movement alone, known as flexion and extension. By better understanding the structure and function of the knee, we can move the knee with intention, rather than trying to force it into a position that might be detrimental to our joint health. The same awareness can be applied to all individual joints, which we can integrate into whole body movement as well.

Through PhysiYoga Fluid: From Ground to Crown, I hope to share the anatomical knowledge I have in the context of a dynamic movement experience. These yoga classes will contain tidbits of relevant anatomy and kinesiology as we shine our awareness throughout different areas of ourselves. We will start to form an embodied understanding of how our parts move separately, together, and relation to our connection to the earth and to gravity. By starting from the ground and working our way up to the crown, we will learn more about ourselves, help to prevent unnecessary injuries, and develop the knowledge and tools to get the very most out of our yoga and movement practices.

I hope to see you on the mat!

The Elusive Obvious: How Better Movement Heals the Whole Person

How are stress, anxiety, movement challenges (e.g. balance issues, neurological disorders, musculoskeletal injuries), chronic pain, and even long-term symptoms of COVID-19 related to our approach at The Wellness Station?

At The Wellness Station, our clientele present primarily with issues of musculoskeletal pain, movement disorders, balance challenges, and various stress-related conditions. Our therapeutic approach is neuroplasticity in action, with the goal of helping people achieve their goals and live healthier, more active lifestyles. We provide movement lessons that emphasize working with one's body, rather than on one's body. These lessons help to establish and strengthen motor pathways that facilitate efficiency of movement and inner calm in order to move towards a more fulfilling and pain-free experience of daily life.

Our approach, based on the Feldenkrais Method and therapeutic yoga, helps to shift the autonomic nervous system into the parasympathetic state with all of the various organ systems working inter-dependently in a homeostatic, rhythmic flow. And thankfully when the body is more in a state of calm and balance, that systemic harmony allows for healing to occur in a variety of our bodies systems.

Our focus on decreasing the body's stress response (fight or flight) goes beyond improving movement and decreasing pain. Much to our delight, our clients often report that other health issues also improve, including sleep quality, gastrointestinal distress, memory and cognition, energy levels, and positive management of blood pressure and other heart-related conditions. While we do not claim to treat those conditions directly, research and our experience as healthcare providers can tell us that lifestyle choices- how well and how often we move, our ability to manage stress, the choices of what we put in our bodies, and our daily practices of self-care can have major influences on our mental and physical health.

For example, COVID-19 can lead to long-term symptoms including cognitive issues, labored breathing (dyspnea), pain with deep breaths, loss of smell and taste , and overall malaise. And all of the above create tremendous fear and anxiety about one’s present and future capacity for functioning well -the sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system becomes over-stimulated, and fight, flight, or freeze characteristics prevail. By learning tools to regulate the nervous system through mindful movement and other daily practices, our clients develop the self-efficacy, knowledge, and wisdom necessary to combat or prevent the symptom manifestation of many diseases.

Coming full circle with the above health challenges, at The Wellness Station our emphasis on improving the quality of how we move, think, feel, and sense regularly resolves musculoskeletal pain, improves balance and movement difficulties, and also has many positive effects on the various organ systems.

It is wonderful to hear our patients report improvement with memory and other cognitive issues, high blood pressure and cardiac disorders, various gastrointestinal challenges, sleep quality, and expressing “I feel I have my life back again!”

In the words of Moshe Feldenkrais, we help our clients "make the impossible possible, the possible easy, and the easy elegant."

Just For Fun: Playful Movement to Nourish Brain and Body

According to “Kids Beyond Limits,” in the first three years of life, the brain grows four fold, reaching 80% of its adult weight. This increase in size is due primarily to an increase in the number of connections between nerve cells.

(Kids Beyond Limits: The Anat Baniel Method for Awakening the Brain and Transforming the Life of Your Child With Special Needs by Anat Baniel)

And, of course, a playful engagement with and in the world is a major contributor to the exuberance and thrill of child development.

How does this relate to we adults, wanting to live a life of spontaneity, joyfulness, and well-being?

When we live a life frequently engaging in movement of many varieties, done with curiosity and attentiveness, it stimulates our imagination, engages those billion trillion synapses in each of our brains, and provides a life of spontaneity and pleasure!

We look forward to seeing you in the four week Feldenkrais series with Paul Mcandrew, Just For Fun: Playful Movement to Nourish Brain and Body.

What is Mindful Movement?

What is mindful movement, and why do I need this in my life?

Mindfulness

Mindfulness is the state of being aware of something in the present moment. In a state of mindfulness, one calmly and non-judgmentally acknowledges and accepts emotions, thoughts, and bodily sensations. Applying mindfulness to movement allows us to feel more fully what is going on in our bodies in order to improve our quality of movement, steer clear of pain, strain, and injuries, and become immersed in the pleasurable sensations that accompany the motion of our bodies. A mindful movement practice has a different purpose from traditional exercise, which tends to be prescriptive, and focus on external outcomes such as weight loss and muscle building. While mindful movement practices can also lead to these outcomes, the focus is more so on the journey, rather than the destination. Mindful movement tends to be more exploratory and creative, and cultivates a state of self-kindness and self-compassion which has carryover into our daily life. Mindful movement tends to be performed in the parasympathetic state of our nervous system, which brings about a sense of calm and ease, rather than the sympathetic state which is associated with our fight-or-flight response, an elevated heart rate and blood pressure, and a sense of anxiety.

Yoga

Yoga is an excellent movement practice that can bring about powerful health benefits when performed in a mindful and consistent manner. A yoga practice can cultivate a powerful mind-body connection, instigate self-healing behavior, instill a love of movement and exercise, and grant us a sense of agency and control over our lives. We can go upstream of many chronic illnesses, pain and dysfunction by developing the tools we need to live active, healthy, and informed lives. The mindfulness cultivated in yoga may elucidate any destructive forces at play (e.g. self-destructive behavior, maladaptive movement patterns, over-eating, postural tendencies developed from staring at screens all day, sedentary lifestyle, overactive stress response, poor self-image), and consistent practice can grant us the tools and agency necessary to improve our health and the quality of our lives. Not to mention improve our overall performance, cognition, physique, mental health, and much more! This practice can benefit our minds, nervous systems, tissues, all the way down to every cell inside us. Yoga can change us; yoga can change the world.

PhysiYOGA Fluid Class

Our latest class series, PhysiYOGA Fluid, seeks to integrate all the positive benefits of a mindful movement practice, while also providing an energetic flow to help improve the strength, responsiveness, and suppleness of our musculoskeletal system. We will navigate through a wide variety of movement patterns, juicy stretches, and will end our practice with a mindfulness meditation. We will use the power of our breath to create lasting change in our bodies and minds. By remaining mindful of what we are doing and how we are feeling throughout the class, we seek to enter a parasympathetic flow in which we are learning more about our bodies and nourishing each and every cell within us. Take the time you need for yourself this year, and join us on the mat for PhysiYOGA Fluid!

The Sea Squirt: Lessons on Brains and Pains

Have you come up with any resolutions or intentions for 2021? We hope you’ll add this sea squirt inspired idea too: You can improve brain and body health with ONE activity! What’s the ONE activity? Read more to find out!

Brain Synapses

The human brain is incredibly complex and diverse. It contains 1 billion trillion synapses! (Yes, one billion trillion is grammatically correct!) The synapse is where neurons meet to send messages for communication.

Brain synapses contain approximately 1000 different proteins, and each and every synapse is diverse from any other.

What does this tell us about the purpose of the brain and the nervous system?

And, even more importantly, what does this tell us about how to keep our brain and ourselves healthy?

The Sea Squirt

Did you know that without one particular phenomenon occurring in any organism, there would be no brain present?

Let’s see if thinking about a tad pole like organism, the sea squirt, can give us a clue as to why we have brains…

The sea squirt has a brain and a spinal cord connected to a single eye and a tail for swimming. But once it attaches itself to something, it no longer moves. It then actually absorbs its own brain!

It no longer needs it because it is no longer moving!

Photo courtesy of Brittanica.com.

Brains are for Movement

Yes, movement is why we have brains!

And what of the quality of movement do you think keeps the brain active, engaged, and thriving?

You got it! —movements that stimulate curiosity, activities that engage in a variety of shapes and rhythms—three dimensional movements that keep us young and healthy!

If you will, please visualize the following:

• children who have just been let out for school recess

• the joy of participants in recreational sports and dance

• dogs romping at a dog park

• the sheer ecstasy of an infant discovering the ability to crawl and eventually walk and run!

The variety and pleasurable aspects of movement are what keep the brain flowing, maintaining the complex synapses as well as the simple ones.

Pain Prevention

Sadly, most of us decrease the complexity and variations of our movement experiences as we get older. The old “use it or lose it“ saying.

Our body and brain suffer—less variety of movement creates more tension in the tissues and pressure on the joints, and thus pain and diminished mobility result.

What can we do to prevent and even reverse these changes?

The good news is with what we know about neuroplasticity, we can always revitalize and create more functional brain tissue for greater mobility and pain-free well-being.

Movement Classes

And the key to that is movement…

…especially of the nature that you will experience in the Feldenkrais “Awareness Through Movement“ educational classes.

The movement class series “Superflow” begins in January and continues through March. Get more information about the classes, and sign up for one class…or sign up for a monthly series… or sign up for all three months!

Remember, “As the brain flows, so the pain goes!“

We look forward to joining you in 2021 as we achieve happier and healthier bodies and lives!