October stretch of the month

This stretch is a good one! 

If you have pain or tension in your back between your shoulder blades the following suggestions are for you!

You can also place your full forearm from elbow to wrist against the door frame - elbows at 90 degrees and then bring your arms up to a 120 degree angle - hands near the top corners of the door.

Hold the stretch for 10-15 seconds and remember to breathe the whole time, only move forward to the point that you feel the stretch, not to where you feel the most pain. Repeat 3-5 times. I suggest doing this stretch through out the day if you can, it is really great to do when you get home from work, or really any time you are feeling tension in your back between your shoulder blades.

Another fantastic feeling thing to do is to roll a bath towel up lengthwise and lay it on the floor (you can also use a bolster or a foam roller), lay on top of it so it runs the length of your spine, and breathe, to increase the stretch you can place your arms at a 90 degree angle or straight up above your head. Lay there for as long as you like! or aim for at least 90 seconds at a time and repeat 2-3 times.

If you have any questions about these stretches or would like some alternatives, please don't hesitate to let me know, you can email me anytime at info@omniawellness.ca
You can also book a massage online at www.omniawellness.ca!

How Often Should You Get A Massage???

This is a really common question, and each therapist has a method to determine this, and not everyone is the same! It does depend on the situation in which you are getting a massage, if you are in the process of rehabilitating an injury, or if you are trying to maintain your health and wellness the answer will be different.

Personally I would love to have a massage once a week, but that isn't really plausible (except for when you are in massage school...how I miss it sometimes!) If you are in the process of rehabilitation, there will be a structured time line to improve your muscle function that should be adhered to that is completely dependent upon the injury. For maintenance of your health and wellness or reduction of tension and stress once a month is certainly ideal, if that fits your budget, or your insurance coverage, or your desire.

What it really comes down to is listening to yourself, it's incredibly important and it's the key to truthfully answering that question. When you start to notice the discomfort that brought you in for a treatment is coming back, that is the right time to come back in for another treatment whether that is 6 weeks or 6 months. Or when you feel like you want a massage, its the right time to come in. It is that simple.

The Subtle Intuition

I consider myself a very intuitive person, and how intuition works has always been an interest of mine, so I have devoured a lot of literature on intuition, and how to improve it, understand it, trust it, and hear it.

I had a really great moment of clarity and understanding the other day about intuition and I really have to share! We are all intuitive, I think that it is often that we don't really chalk things up to intuition, its usually just a moment of being glad you did something.
I was talking my brothers amazingly adorable dog out for a walk at an off leash park, we go there at least once a week. I parked beside a giant puddle and when he got out I made sure to grab his leash so he didn't go through the puddle - here is the intuition part, I don't care if he goes in a puddle, I have a towel on my back seat because I have been taking him to the river often and he is always still wet by the time we get back to my car - as we came around my car there were two other dogs there, they sniffed each other and then there was a minor altercation between my dog and one of the others. Thankfully they were both still on leash and it was really easy to get them apart without any real harm done, the other man apologised for his dog (Oliver is a really kind and gentle dog, and hes a bit of a chicken so I knew it wasn't him) so we just left and went to another dog park instead - the one with the river!

So here is my realisation, my intuition was working amazingly well, with out my conscious knowledge! So I have been trying to bring my consciousness more into awareness when things like this happen, mostly because I think it is so awesome. I do however, feel like I now know that it isn't always about me being able to know that my intuition is working, I can actually just sit back and let it do its thing, because it has always been doing it; and that is the important bit of information that I feel has been missing, and I wanted to share!