Happy New Year! 

In these rainy days when your body just wants to hibernate and eat comfort foods, get more rest, it can be a bit of a challenge to muster up the energy required to fulfill all the ideas you’ve come up with for your New Year.

With all the good intentions of your New Year’s resolutions, there are those few days after the holidays where you want to hang on to the potato chips and chocolate chips you’ve allowed yourself to indulge in. And when it is time, it’s Time.

And yet the weather has a certain darkness to it, the rain it can bring you into a more melancholy state. The comfort of being horizontal can be so alluring. And like a teenager after a party you may need to take your sweet time to recuperate.

I myself have been in a deep time space continuum of procrastination. I have a project I have been dreading and I have to do some serious adulting, and I am just finding any reason to not do it.

I have been getting it at the gym though and oh do I love pilates, barre and yoga right now.

Exercise is key to releasing into your stream potent hormones that trigger endorphins: a real deeply euphoric state. Importantly, stress hormones are greatly reduced.

So start moving your body with intention and purpose, to love yourself. It’s great to exercise and rest guilt free. We need to rest to regenerate from the inside in order to have the energy to produce in the three D world.

Integration is a time where there is a pause, a resting time where you’re not doing anything or going anywhere. In order for change to occur integration is essential.

It’s time to love yourself by taking better care and getting into a new set of habits that support your health and well being. It’s time to start that exercise program and decide which one. Time to shed the extra weight that has accumulated around the middle of you, and exactly how?

Maybe you’d like to release the fascial restrictions that have accumulated in and around your joints and muscles so you will have more symmetry and alignment to reach your physical goals. With Myofascial Release you can make the lasting structural changes you’d like to see happen.

Myofascial Release is a gentle safe highly effective therapy that uses the pressure of touch to release restrictions in the muscular fascial system.

Your fascia is an intricate web, where every living part of you is connected. Each cell is held together in a membrane, and each cell is wrapped in the fascial network. Every structure in the body from the organs, the fluid within and surrounding every sac, even bones skin and nails are part of the system.

Fascia connects your ankle bones to the base of your neck. Everything in you is connected, and can sometimes feel like there are compartments, segments and parts that feel disconnected.

When there is an injury or trauma the scar tissue and adhesions that form to stabilize the tissue are disorganized and can limit mobility. MFR organizes and aligns the tissue.

Releasing the restrictions with MFR creates space in your body, which means it’s easier to walk, sit down, get up, and get out to enjoy life.

A couple of my clients have come in seeking treatment for sciatica.

Sciatica is a result of the bundle of sciatic nerves being irritated or impinged. This could be a result of compression the lumbar vertebrae, the sacrum or the coccyx.

The sciatic nerve runs from the spinal cord through and along the sacrum and down the posterior side of the leg via the pelvis. Nerves are all located in slightly different areas because every body is unique.

The impingement usually happens because the piraformis and external rotators are tight. The piraformis is an external rotator muscle that runs from the middle of the lateral edge of the anterior side of the sacrum, spirals to insert at the greater trochanter of the femur.

There are smaller more intrinsic internal rotators at play as well. And greater, larger “gross” anatomy like the gluteal muscles that can add to the compression of the nerves.

Often times I look towards the feet to give clues about what is happening above. Yes the feet influence the position of the pelvis.

If your toes turn out pointing externally and the heels are closer together this going to bring the sits bones closer together and the tail tucks, this closes off the connection with and circulation down to the legs and feet.

The posture of what we call a duck walk contributes to a tight back and a loose abdomen, and hunched shoulders as well.

Moral of the story is when you are walking and standing point your toes in the direction of where you are facing and heading. This also creates a very tight side line and the IT band and fibula.

We want space in the back. Qi Kong is a great movement form that helps to open the back and start to run the energy down the legs.

We want a clear running line of energy from the dantien tien inches below the navel, breath deep into the belly and exhale visualize light traveling with your breath moving over around and through your sacrum, running down to the ischial tuberosity (sits bones on left and right side) down the back of the legs through the knees to the ankles the heal, the cuneiform, meta tarsals and the toes.

If you lay and meditate with this visual and breathe you will find better balance, and connection to your legs and feet.

I had a teacher of mine, when I had injured my back give me this guidance and I practiced it devoutly and found myself to walking again. This helped when nothing else could.

Give your body a map, and clear gentle instructions and she will find her way again.

Symptoms of sciatica like pain, weakness, tingling, numbness, aching in the leg, buttock, and or back can make it more challenging to sleep and I have so many people talking about waking up in the night with leg pains.

Leg pain can be a sign of compression in the spine and sciatica.

Some things you can do at home include replenishing your key sleep nutrient deficiencies: Magnesium Glycinate, B6, GABA/5-HTP, and Melatonin.

Focus on your sleep health. And STOP focusing on the pain.

Sometimes the pain can wake you up at night, it’s important to relax your nervous system before bed and establish healthy circadian rhythms: what’s called sleep architecture will help the body from becoming chronically restless.

Magnesium Glycinate is a combination of two separate compounds: the mineral Magnesium, and the amino acid Glycine. Glycine has a natural calming effect, and thankfully doesn’t have the laxative effect.

These nutrients can help you get better quality of sleep, help you sleep through the night and relieve pain.

Sciatica also has a lot to do with imbalance in the strength of the muscles of the legs, and the psoas.

We’ve talked about how important the psoas being toned lengthened and differentiated from the surrounding muscle groups. This can pull the back into flexion and compress the lumbar spine.

Quads often overpower the gluts so make sure you stretch the quadriceps and flex and release your glutes. Your cheeks, they are meant to smile. Make sure your engage your glutes as you walk, stand, exercise and move.

Establishing healthy sleep rhythms, physical fitness and making sure you’re drinking plenty of water are all good ideas for these winter months.

Some of these suggestions require awareness and the part of you that is curious, watchful turned on and tuned in to more subtle parts of you. And you ultimately can have influence and voice to help your body relax.

When we practice awareness these details are fun, and not fatiguing. You are not the mind, you are the awareness and consciousness that notices. Base here and it will get to be more fluent, natural and habitual.

Angela is a Myofascial Release therapist and an Injury Specialist. She works in Grass Valley at Sol Bodyworks. She treats clients with chronic pain patterns and those who are high functioning to optimize their health and wellness through Myofascial Release. She gets you out of pain and back to doing what you love.