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Welcome!
| Posted on 27 February, 2013 at 12:49 |
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Welcome to the Bon Accord Massage blog! I'm forever bookmarking links to interesting articles & websites, particularly related to health & wellness. I'm going to post the links here so that you can enjoy them too, with the caveat that I'm not necessarily endorsing the opinions in the articles, simply posting them here for your interest. Let me know what you think. I'd love to hear of anything interesting that you come across too. |
18 Things Your Feet Say About Your Health
| Posted on 27 February, 2013 at 12:48 |
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It's easy to ignore your feet, especially in the winter when they're wrapped up in slippers and boots most of the time. But, as this article by Paula Spencer Scott at Caring.com says, the state of your feet and toenails can give you a huge amount of information about your overall health. So don't ignore any of her 18 "Red Flags": "You can detect everything from diabetes to nutritional
deficiencies just by examining the feet," says Jane Andersen, DPM,
president of the American Association of Women Podiatrists and a spokeswoman
for the American Podiatric Medical Association. Together the feet contain a quarter of the body's bones. Each foot also has 33
joints, 100 tendons, muscles and ligaments, and countless nerves and blood
vessels that link all the way to the heart, spine and brain. Unresolved foot problems can have unexpected consequences.
Untreated pain often leads a person to move less and gain weight, for example,
or to shift balance in unnatural ways, increasing the chance of falling and
breaking a bone. So when the feet send one of these 18 warning messages, they
mean business. Click on the links for more information. 5.
Cold feet 10. Pitted toenails 12. Dry, flaky skin 17. "Phee-uuuuw!" 18. Old shoes |
Secrets of People Who Never Get Sick
| Posted on 23 February, 2013 at 13:19 |
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It seems like we've been in cold and flu season for months already with no sign of it moving on. I found these tips on Health Magazine a while back and have tried following some of them - regular massage, yes please; cold shower, hmmm not so enthusiastic! But I have managed to escape relatively unscathed this year so maybe there's something in it. Have a look and see what you think... |
Food to Avoid
| Posted on 16 February, 2013 at 7:13 |
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The one about the strawberries is  horrifying - 13 different pesticides applied by men in Hazmat suits. Corn is even worse - much of the nation's corn supply is genetically engineered to produce its own pesticide supply within the plant! |
Age Rewind
| Posted on 14 February, 2013 at 21:02 |
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Why is it that the older you get the quicker your birthday seems to come around? It's mine next week and I'm already wondering where the last year could possibly have gone. It's easy to see the external signs of aging and we are constantly bombarded with products promising to reverse all of those; this article focuses instead on what's inside - your brain, lungs, DNA, heart and bones - it describes what happens to them as we age, and then tells us what we can do to rewind the clock and stay 35 forever. In my case I think 35 might be a bit optimistic - if I can stay feeling like I'm on the right side of 50 I'll be very happy! |
Humans of New York
| Posted on 13 February, 2013 at 20:47 |
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This link has nothing to do with massage but the website makes me smile so I guess I can put it under the "stress relief" tag! Brandon Stanton is a portrait photographer and the website is his "photographic census of New York City". |
A Pain in the Butt!
| Posted on 12 February, 2013 at 19:58 |
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Do you ever get that ache, deep in your seat muscle, sometimes even extending down the back of your thigh? For me it always comes after a long day of driving - too much sitting with my feet held in a turned-out position - but other people can get it after sitting at a desk for long periods of time or even after a lot of walking. The culprit is most likely the piriformis muscle, a small muscle that runs between the outer edge of your sacrum and your hip joint. It's deep in your buttock, deeper than the gluteus muscles, in fact right on top of the sciatic nerve. When it gets shortened and bunched up - which it does when the foot is turned out for extended periods of time - it can press on the sciatic nerve, causing that deep ache and sciatica-type shooting pain. So what can you do??? Well, what's been working amazingly well for me lately is the TheraCane - a strange looking hook with knobs on. Here's a picture if that description didn't quite capture it!  Finish with a good, long stretch. Again, lying on your back, knees bent, soles of your feet on the floor. Cross the knee of your painless side over the knee of your painful side. Then, making sure your hips stay planted on the floor, use your upper leg to gently pull your lower knee towards the floor. It probably won't move very far, but you should feel a great stretch right across your buttock from sacrum to hip joint, right along the length of that piriformis. |
Benefits of massage
| Posted on 10 February, 2013 at 19:51 |
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A good massage can make you feel totally relaxed, give you that aaaahhhh I don't want to get off the table feeling! This article by Kristyn Kusek Lewis at Health.com refers to studies that have been done showing all sorts of other benefits from that hour on the table - pain relief, a reduction in stress, anxiety & depression and a boost to your immune system amongst other things... |
