Are you ready for a SASSY month of balance, joy and vitality? We’ve got the information and connections you are seeking to truly find balance: body, mind and soul. This month’s newsletter is filled with juicy tidbits to get your life steadily moving forward towards optimum health. Our articles this month focus on ways to find whole body health through touch, exercise and emotional fitness. Our community connections spotlight leads the way to work/life balance! In the coming weeks, we’ll tell you more about our business spotlight of the month and offer another give-away, so stay tuned and stay sassy!
The Power of Touch By: Cathy Ulrich (continued)
Massage for Children
Those early statistical studies showed how vital touch is to developing infants. Researchers are also finding that giving massage to premature infants can improve their growth and overall health. A study conducted by the Touch Research Institute (TRI) at the University of Miami found that when stable premature babies were given five, one-minute massages a day, they gained 47 percent more weight than their counterparts who didn’t get massage.
A 2001 study conducted by TRI showed that when mothers gave their infants a 15-minute massage before bedtime, these sleep-challenged kids went to sleep more quickly and were more alert during daytime hours.
Conversely, clinical research and sociological studies link touch deprivation with aggression. A 2002 study reported that adolescents with a history of aggressive behavior showed less aggression and were less anxious after receiving a 20-minute massage twice a week for five weeks.
Massage also reduces the symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder so kids can concentrate better, and it’s even been found that the right kind of touch can help kids with autism relate better to teachers and family members.Massage for Elders
People confined to nursing homes rarely get more than daily hygienic care in terms of touch. Yet elders need touch as much as infants, studies show that when they receive regular massage, the elderly have less depression and anxiety, experience better physical coordination, and show a decrease of stress hormone in their saliva.
Geriatric massage is a growing field requiring specialized training, and many massage therapists offer it in their practices. Some nursing homes now provide massage to their residents. Elders appear to respond as well to bodywork as, if not better than, their younger counterparts.Moving Through Life
Moving Through Life By: Sonia Osorio (continued)
Exercise As Medicine
Krucoff, who co-wrote the book with her husband, Mitchell, a Duke University cardiologist, advocates movement as preventive medicine, saying it’s an ideal way to combat the increasing number of inactivity-related health conditions such as heart disease and obesity. This could actually be expanded to include stress-related conditions. In fact, it’s often this combination of inactivity and increased stress that wreaks havoc on our immune system, endocrine system, and circulatory system. Every system in our body, in fact, responds to stress and inactivity. But, if this is true, then the inverse is also true: every system in our bodies will also respond to movement and pleasure. To make movement pleasurable and to use it as a way to reconnect with our bodies is, in many ways, the perfect antidote to the cycle of inactivity/hyperactivity and stress. As we move more in this way, we gain energy and health, we feel rejuvenated and relaxed, and we become more physically and emotionally aware.
Personal Health
Begin by checking in with yourself as you’re moving through your day: How does your body feel right now? How are you breathing? Where is this movement taking you? Do you feel good? Are you satisfied? Are you happy? If not, then change something. Change how you’re moving, where you’re moving toward, or look at what you’re moving away from.
