The questionnaire (If you haven’t done it yet, you absolutely should!), really made me think about a few things that I hadn’t expected prior to practicing…

1)    How differently we all practice!
Yes, all osteopaths studied hard at university and we all answer to the same national registration standards. But that doesn’t stop endless discussions and healthy debates among colleagues and peers. Why? Because our practice has been shaped by our individual experiences, which has led to an array of perspectives and techniques.  I am excited to know what we all do and how we all work.

2)    How many decisions I have to make about business
Running my own practice? Being an associate? Renting a room? Where do I stand with my peers on this? I have worked in my own practice – on my own without reception. I’ve run my own practice within a GP practice. I’ve even rented a room within a multidisciplinary practice and I’ve also been an associate numerous times.

Sometimes things aren’t what I expected them to be. For example, many people assume running your business is fabulously liberating. But I learnt that the process can be quite lonely, especially when I started out and was building up patients. I enjoyed the GP practice but I especially love working with other osteopaths, sharing ideas and learning.I am constantly assessing and reassessing opportunities and decisions that can ultimately affect business, my own career, patients and even my lifestyle.

3)    How much I would keep learning
I knew we had to do 25 hours of CPD but I never thought I would have so much choice and have such difficulty deciding what courses to do. I personally use lots of different techniques – structural and indirect – and I think both are effective.

The fact that there’s so much information out there is a wonderful thing and it makes me wonder, what don’t I know? I enjoy learning from my peers and finding out what treatment techniques are effective perhaps more than others. Continued learning from courses, webinars, articles and studies like ORION not only benefit me as an osteopath, but it will also enhance patient care.

I’m sure there will be many more lessons to come but for now, I look forward to the ORION results and learning about the perspectives, experiences and outcomes that will help strengthen our profession.

What are some things you’ve learned on your journey as an osteopath?

Everyone gets given all kinds of advice, some wanted some not. Having just had my second baby just over 4 months ago, I would like to share some personal and professional insight into a happy healthy pregnancy. The personal advice worked for me and may not work for all….

My personal recommendations:

1)     For morning sickness – alkaline green drinks helped me in the morning, (green powder you just mix with water). I used the Melrose brand (Barley Grass) and I found when my morning sickness stopped me from getting out of bed, these helped.

2)     Exercise – I kept up my exercise right through, I jogged up until I was about 5 months pregnant – with a good belly support belt –not far (3-4km) and not fast but it felt good to keep it up. I also went to the gym with a personal trainer right up to the end and did yoga twice a week. All really helped me feel good and helped my breathing, flexibility and strength for the birth.

3)     Meditation – helped with breathing and keeping calm before the birth (and during)

4)     Calm Birth – I did Calm Birth classes with Lael Stone and Jules Brooks (see contact below). These classes were invaluable and I used what I learnt in both my first and second labours.  I loved these classes and it really worked. These classes give you the tools to prepare for a wonderful birth but like anything practise makes perfect so I did practise my breathing and listen to the meditations daily from about 27 weeks. Even if you end up with a caesarian, the breathing will still help with a beautiful birth.

5)     Staying well hydrated.

Top 5 osteopathic tips for pregnancy:

1)     Exercise – walking, yoga, pilates, gym with a trainer is recommended unless you are well versed in exercises during pregnancy. Ideally you would be doing these before falling pregnant but if not just make sure your teacher / trainer is experienced with pregnant clients.

2)     Get some appropriate exercises off your osteopath or other practitioner to do on a daily basis just to keep your body strong and flexible – 5-10 minutes a day.

3)     Get regular osteopathic treatment during pregnancy, if you have no aches or pains you can even book monthly to start off with and then can increase to fortnightly towards the end of the third trimester.  This will help keep your pelvis aligned, increase your mobility in upper back which often gets very stiff and decrease tension in neck and other areas among many other things.

4)     Drink lots of water – 33ml per kg of body weight is the recommended amount normally but you need more when it is hot and if you are exercising more.

5)     Eat well – if you need advice please get help from your GP or naturopath. Lots of fruit and vegetables and good grains – because we all know there will be a bit of chocolate here and there (in moderation totally fine!!)

My contacts:

Yoga: yoga school of india www.yogaschoolofindia.com.au

Personal training: www.trewhealth.com.au

Green drinks: http://www.melrosehealth.com.au/health_products/General_Wellbeing/Barley-Grass.aspx

Calm Birth: www.aboutbirth.com.au

With sleep being such a vital component of our health, it’s wise not to be complacent about it. But, before you feel pressured by being told to get to be earlier, exercise more, or practice mediation (which are ALL important for your health as well!) consider how you can nutritionally support you body to feel happier and healthier, aiding its healing and recovery as you dream the nights away…

Nutritional Suggestions

Bananas- These superfruits are filled with potassium and magnesium, two minerals that help muscle relaxation. Magnesium deficiencies are related to restless leg syndrome and night-time muscle cramps, two conditions that can certainly interfere with sleep.

Cherries- All varieties of cherries are naturally high in melatonin, a hormone that makes you sleepy. Eat a cup of whole cherries as a late-night snack or drink 1 cup of tart cherry juice to aid sleep.

Fish- Fish are rich in tryptophan, a natural sedative, with shrimp, cod, tuna and salmon having the highest levels, even more than turkey.

Chamomile- Chamomile has been used as an herbal remedy for insomnia for thousands of years. It calms the nervous system, increases circulation and is easy to find in all supermarkets.

Spinach- As well as being rich in potassium and magnesium, spinach is high in calcium, another mineral that plays an important role in sleep. Calcium helps the body produce melatonin, the hormone that helps your body maintain its circadian rhythm. (deep restorative sleep) You can get the same benefits from other dark leafy greens, such as Swiss chard, kale, turnip greens and collard greens.

Low Fat Dairy- Along with spinach, airy products are also rich in melatonin-boosting calcium.

Almonds- They’re full of magnesium and another source of calcium. You can eat a handful of almonds or spread some almond-butter on a piece of whole grain bread.

Carbohydrate/Protein Combination- Getting tryptophan from high-protein foods can work against your sleep rhythm, because for some people, protein can prevent tryptophan from entering your brain. But when you combine high-protein foods with carbohydrates (healthy carbs!), the insulin your body produces in response to the carbohydrates makes it easier for tryptophan to break through your brain’s barriers. For example, oats or warm quinoa porridge with bananas and almonds, or whole-grain cereal with organic milk.

Lemon Balm- Mint- This lemon-scented member of the mint family is most effective in combination with another herb called Valerian. Both can be purchased as supplements, or you can make a tea by steeping 1 to 2 teaspoons of dried lemon balm and 1 teaspoon of valerian root in 1 cup of hot water for 5 to 10 minutes. (If you take other medications, check with your pharmacist or gp about any potential herb-drug interactions.)

Winter is coming to an end, and as the sun begins to shine, most of us are getting off our couches and starting to get fit and well for the coming summer. Many people do aerobic activities to improve their cardiovascular system and burn fat, while others lift weights to build strength, build muscle or maintain muscle mass. Most, unfortunately, fail to address one of the most important parts of any fitness program, being flexibility training.

One of the most common clinical presentations I see in clinic is stiffness around the low back region, especially in the morning or after a long day at work. What surprises me is that a lot of people tend to just ignore their symptoms, rather than doing something about it.

The benefits of a good flexibility program include performance improvement in sports, decreased chance of injuries, improved posture, as well as a good control of stress levels and relaxation. For those of us who are not elite sportspeople, the positives also apply to us. Whether we are feeling a bit stiff in the morning or having trouble getting out of bed, or our back is causing us to labour through the day, doing some simple flexibility exercises will greatly help our overall wellbeing. Like any sort of training regime, flexibility will increase with regular training. And the best part? It’s simple and easy to get started.

Here are two simple, but very effective exercises to help decrease stiffness along the spinal region and increase your general flexibility. These exercises are a great way to start your flexibility exercises, and are tailored to anyone, whether you are an elite sports star, a weekend warrior or just your typical 9-5 weekday desk worker.

1. CAT and CAMEL exercises

• Gently move your back into alternating flexion and extension
• Be sure not to hold your breath
• Only work within your pain free limits of movement.
• Repeat  10 x’s

1. Lumber roll

• Lay on your back on a hard surface, with your legs and feet together and knees bent
• Arms should be straight out on your sides
• Start the exercise by taking your legs and hips over to one side. Keep your upper body on the floor. Your hips and feet will lift off the floor as you take your legs over. Only go as far as you can without lifting your upper body off the floor. Return them back to the centre.
• Repeat on the other side
• Repeat 5-10 times

If you are injured, stiff, or sore, don’t put up with it.  Visit one of our osteopaths for more information on the right treatment for you. Call us on (03) 9889 5885 to get yourself back to feeling great!

You do not need to be stiff and look like you left the coat hanger in your top to have healthy posture! As health professionals, we view good posture as the maintenance of a healthy curvature of the spine, and it helps to re-assure my patients that this simply means a position that puts the body under the least amount of physical stress when it is both moving and stationary.

To explain this a little more, imagine that you were looking at your skeleton from one side. What you would notice about the spinal column is that it has a series of natural balanced curves from the neck area down to the coccyx. These curves are an important design feature of the spine, for its role as the supporting structure of your body. Deterioration of these curves can occur over the process of time and through the activities of our lifestyle.

When we are seated in a hunched position over desks for long periods, the shoulders can roll forward and the muscles of the neck and upper back work harder than they are designed to. This is not an optimal position for our body to be in the long-term.

You can look after your spine by considering ways to maintain those natural curves:

•             Raise your ‘posture awareness’ as you move and carry out daily activities and try to keep a relaxed posture. To help you visualise how good posture should feel imagine there is a fine piece of string attached to the top of your head, which is gently lifting you into a taller and relaxed body position.

•             Get active with regular whole-body physical activities that you enjoy like swimming, walking, team sports, cycling, gardening, yoga, dancing etc.

•             Specific physical activities advised by your Osteopath to strengthen your core muscle groups can assist posture by acting like a brace for the back muscles. It is important to make sure your body is in structural and functional balance before commencing such activities, so your Osteopathic consultation and treatment is your first step to better posture, and reduced pain!

Contact Us or Call us on (03) 9889 5885 to get your body back on track!

 Women’s running shoe by Vivobarefoot

How I was soled!

I was certainly interested in barefoot shoes. I had at this point been to the ‘great footwear running debate’ – where barefoot running shoes were certainly favoured over ‘big soled shoes’ for performance by the presenters and I had purchased my first pair of New Balance ‘vibram’ soled running shoes which I was transitioning to very slowly, but these vivobarefoots are even more barefoot than those.

Intentions.

The idea behind the barefoot shoes is to increase proprioception – or to increase awareness of our body in our environment which is involved in balance and movement.  By being able to feel the ground under our feet, neural feedback from our feet to our brains is increased and therefore our proprioception is increased. Among other things this helps to improve our posture and decrease injury.

When do I wear these?

So as everyday shoes these are great, I can feel the ground under my feet. You may be thinking that this sounds uncomfortable but seriously, it feels as if it should be this way! It is like being barefoot but having a puncture resistant sole in place to avoid injury. I was Ireland last year with my husband and son and we went into a Cathedral and it was like having a 4D experience, we could both feel the mosaic tiles under our feet which was seriously amazing.

Distance running.

As running shoes… well I would recommend getting appropriate advice from either where you purchase the shoes or better still Soled in Hampton are involved in running clinics to help with your new barefoot running technique. The technique is totally different to running in ‘big soled’ shoes. In big cushioned shoes we tend to heel strike because we can – due to the substantial cushioning. It could be very painful to heel strike in barefoot shoes, in your running style, like heel striking in barefoot, we just wouldn’t do it. Running barefoot should be fluid and we should forefoot strike. As most of us have spent our whole lives heel striking when we jog we need to take lots of time to transition to avoid pain. I ran 2km first up and had pain for 3 days afterwards because my calves were so tight. It took me about 6 months to comfortably run my usual 5km mixed-surface track in the barefoot footwear but I must say I haven’t put my asics back on since I started, these shoes just feel right.

 Men’s running shoe by Vivobarefoot

Kids are most pre-qualified to wear these thin soles!

Barefoot shoes are fantastic for kids, they love being barefoot and these shoes allow them to feel the ground, and develop good proprioception. A great deal of kids’ shoes have thick rigid soles which don’t allow for optimal movement and prevents the muscles from developing in the best way possible.

Vivobarefoot shoes are available from Soled in Hampton, Suey and Gary have a great team who are very knowledgeable in barefoot shoes.

www.soledshoes.com.au

If you would like more information on barefoot running jump onto this website: www.vivobarefoot.com

If you are unsure just try a pair of casual shoes to start, you won’t look back!

Also check out Soled FB Page at https://www.facebook.com/this.is.soled.shoes?fref=ts