pain relief Archives - Page 2 of 2 - Health Tips From The Professor

Are Spring Allergies Ruining Your Time Outdoors?

The lovely month of May! The air is warm, the breezes are soft, and the flowers are blooming. We’re surrounded by nature coming alive as animal’s pair-up to again start the circle of life, and it’s all beautiful!

Hopefully, you are having the opportunity to go out and enjoy this wonderful time of year.

So many of us have been forced into inactivity due to all that is happening around the world, and not only does that add to your stress level, it also doesn’t benefit your body. Hopefully, you are doing some type of purposeful movement at home. My recommendation is:

Step 1: Exercise at home. There are many exercise programs on the internet so you can move along with the instructor.

Step 2: Self-treat the muscles you just exercised. Treat Yourself to Pain-Free Living or The Pain-Free Athlete books are perfect to show you exactly where to find the knots that are putting a strain on your joints. Find the shaded area where you feel tension/pain and then do the self-treatment to untie the knots in the muscle.

Step 3: Finish your exercise session off with stretching to release the tension in the muscle. There is a perfect safe-stretching routine taught in Focused Flexibility Training. It’s self-treatment of each muscle you’re going to stretch, followed by a 30-minute yoga routine.

Movement is important for the proper functioning of so many systems in your body, including your circulation, digestion, and your immune system.

Are Spring Allergies Ruining Your Time Outdoors?

This is a wonderful time of year to enjoy the great outdoors. It is a time to enjoy spring flowers, plant your gardens, and enjoy long walks, perhaps with your dog(s). But if you have sinus problems because of spring allergies, the outdoors is no fun. You may have sinus headaches. You may have sinus pressure that feels like you have a vice around your skull, pressing into your eyes and temples. You may even have a challenge keeping your eyes open.

I received several emails about sinus problems, most likely caused by spring pollen. As a result, I figured it would help the most people by talking about how to ease the pressure in your sinuses this month. I want you to be able to enjoy the outdoors this spring without worrying about sinus problems.

Relief From Sinus Pain

To relieve sinus pain, take your three middle fingers and put them onto your cheeks as shown in this picture. Your back teeth should be under your fingertips.

Press UP onto your cheekbones, as if you were trying to push your fingers into your eyes and the bone is in the way.

Alternate sides so you press up on your left side, hold for 5 seconds, then release while you are pressing up on your right side. Keep going back and forth.

You can move along your cheekbone, going all the way next to your nostrils. Then press the same way into the bone on both sides of your nose.

Finally, press into your eyebrows, close to midline, so you can be adding pressure onto the sinus cavities directly underneath your fingertips.

It will help if your head is tilted back a little so your sinuses can start to drain. Visualize pressing and squeezing your sinus cavities as that is exactly what you are actually doing!

By the way, this has also helped people who have a sinus infection because it enables the sinuses to drain, and then I always use a sinus rinse mixture and a squeeze bottle to wash the pollen out of my sinuses.

Trigger-Point Yoga And Focused Flexibility Training Update

Like so many people who are stuck indoors, I’m finding all kinds of projects that have been neglected for a long time. One that has been on my mind, but never had enough time to do anything about, is a wonderful safe-stretching program that was developed back around 2010.

It was actually put together by an incredible yoga instructor named Ana. Ana had a calf pain that wasn’t being resolved with yoga, so she finally searched online, and she found me. She bought my book, Treat Yourself to Pain-Free Living,” and she also had a telephone consultation with me (I didn’t do any online meetings yet) to discuss her situation. I told her which treatments to do and she was shocked that in just two days her pain and stiffness was gone.

The missing piece in yoga is stretching the muscle fibers without first untying the knots (spasms) that put a strain on the joints. Yet, doing some simple techniques releases the knots and you can stretch without overstretching the muscle fibers.

Ana looked into the self-treatments for her hips and she was surprised to find multiple spasms. After treating them her yoga got better. That inspired her to do the self-treatments for her shoulders and sure enough, she had spasms that she treated, and her yoga got even better. She knew this was something that needed to be shared with yoga-lovers everywhere.

After we met by telephone, she shared her ideas with me and Trigger-Point Yoga (TPY) was born. Ana did an amazing job putting the program together. I was filmed teaching an athlete named Scott how to do all the treatments taught in my book, which we called “The Foundation.” Then Ana designed and filmed two sessions, one for the upper body and one for the lower body. Each session starts with 15 minutes of self-treating the muscles that will be stretched, and then 30 minutes of yoga stretching.

I found that athletes didn’t want to take a yoga class, but when I changed the name to Focused Flexibility Training, they were excited to do the program.

If you would like to stretch safely, without potentially tearing tight muscle fibers, I suggest you bring Trigger-Point Yoga into your home. For only $67 you can do the entire thing in your living room or den and feel more flexible than you have in a long time!

Wishing you well,

Julie Donnelly

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

What Causes Stress Headaches?

Stress is an unfortunate byproduct of the festivities of the holiday season. The holidays are supposed to be fun. But you are adding all the festive gatherings, Christmas shopping, and family drama to an already crowded schedule.

Then the New Year comes. This should be a time you can relax. But no, the holiday bills start rolling in, and you have the stress of figuring out how to pay them. Then, there are New Year’s resolutions. You know you should be making resolutions, but you also know you’ve never successfully kept them in the past. Now, that is real stress.

That stress often shows up as tight muscles and muscle spasms that can cause headache pain. If you already have one of my books, especially either Treat Yourself to Pain-Free Living, or The Pain-Free Athlete, you have the tools necessary to get relief. You can look at the colorful charts and find the area where you are feeling pain or stiffness. Then look for the muscle name that is in the same color as the shaded area of your discomfort. Then, follow the arrow and it will bring you directly to the spasm(s) that cause the pain. The figures above show some of the muscles that can cause headache pain when stress causes them to get tight and spasm.

Relief From Stress Headaches

As you see in the charts above there are multiple places where spasms will cause headaches. Actually, there are a lot more than this, but that’s why I wrote my “Pain-Free Living” book. It’s just too much for a newsletter.

Each of the spasms noted in these two charts can be treated by applying direct pressure onto the spasm and then holding it for 15-30 seconds. Use as much pressure as you can, but it must always be in the tolerable range, this is NOT a “no pain-no gain” situation. It is going to hurt because you are forcing toxins out of the muscle fibers, and the toxin is an acid (from lactic acid) so it burns. However, you’ll find that as you continue holding the pressure it will lessen.

After 30 seconds, keep your fingers in the same place but take off the pressure. Wait for 5 seconds and then re-apply the pressure. It won’t hurt as much this time because blood has filled the void and it’s already starting to heal the muscle.

Keep doing this until you don’t feel pain anymore, and then look for another point. I call these points “hot spots” because that’s exactly what they remind me of.

Feel around your head, your neck, and your shoulders and apply pressure on each painful point. You’ll be pleased when you feel the results! If it’s stress related, your headache pain will be gone.