Reflexology for conception, pregnancy and post-natal care

December was a fun time for some people guessing by the number of pregnancy reflexology emails I’ve had this month!

Reflexology is most definitely recommended in pregnancy and also to help you get pregnant. However, I do not suggest you have reflexology in the first trimester as your body is going through a lot of change. Once 16 weeks are up, it’s perfectly safe to have a course of treatments.

There are many reasons why women turn to reflexology when pregnant – to reduce nausea, to give relief from insomnia, swollen ankles, dizziness, constipation and heartburn to name just a few. Or perhaps an expectant mother just needs some time out to de-stress or to help calm any anxiety over the birth. Indeed, reflexology has been shown to bring about labour at the required time, which is often shorter and easier and less stressful for mother and baby.

During the treatments, certain reflex points, such as those relating to the endocrine system (hormones) are avoided, as are those relating to the reproductive organs because they do not require stimulation. However, from 36 weeks a pregnancy specialist will start to stimulate these points in extra ways. Regular reflexology throughout the pregnancy is fantastic but I would certainly recommend weekly from 35 weeks. Treatment can be given whilst actually in labour, subject to midwife’s consent.

It’s not just during pregnancy that reflexology can be used. For any would-be parents having problems conceiving, reflexology is a therapy that has seen good results. Tests may show an imbalance of hormones or it may just be unexplained reflexology. Either way, reflexology can help to balance hormones, de-stress the recipient and help the body to provide the best environment for conception. Both men and women could receive reflexology here if it’s unclear as to whose body is out of balance. During a consultation with me, we go through your lifestyle, not just your medical background, as we can also possibly find some areas that need addressing that you may not realise are hindering conception.

After the birth, reflexology is a useful tool to help rebalance the hormones, helps lift moods, boosts the immune system and regulate the sleep pattern. Again, it’s also a chance for mum to have some time-out to herself.

Babies, too, also respond extremely well to reflexology and I will be talking about this next month when I launch my Baby Reflex workshops.

UK Aware 16-17 April – ideas for a greener living

This time last year was my first foray into being green and thrifty. I think my bank account suggests I’ve been more green! Anyway, I discovered on my green journey this excellent exhibition, UK Aware, which I went to at Olympia (see my blog of 19th April 2009) and promised I’d go this year. Well, I’ve got my ticket and i’ll see you there on 16th or 17th April.

If you haven’t been before, then I highly recommend it, whether you’ve been living the greener, more ethical lifestyle for many years and this is your way of life, or whether, like me, you’re more of a light greenie.

The exhibition hosts over 200 exhibitors and over 15,000 vistors can listen to any one of 50 expert speakers. There’s everything from green energy to ideas for green business start-ups, clothes swapping, ethical travel, eco living and, if get hungry during the day, there’s plenty of organic and ethically grown food to try and buy.

Tickets are £15 on the door but follow the link below and you can get a discounted ticket for just £6.

UK Aware 2010 Discounted Tickets

National Heart Month – how can reflexology help?

Have you seen some of Britain’s major landmarks shining out in red? No, your eyes aren’t deceiving you – they’ve been turned red to mark National Heart Month organised by the British Heart Foundation (BHF).

The BHF is raising awarenss of heart disease and how to change your lifestyle to help prevent illness. Execise, not smoking, cutting down (or out) alcohol, losing weight and eating healthily will all play a part in keeing a healthy heart. To assess your lifestyle, the online check, at www.bhf.org.uk/beat, generates a personalised report with tips and recommendations on people’s lifestyle choices, weight, eating and drinking habits, physical activity levels, emotional health and smoking.

Conditions affecting the heart are (but not limited to):-

•Arrhythmia – a disorder that causes irregular beating of the heart.
•Congenital Heart Disease – conditions that the person is born with such as a defect.
•Heart Attack – a condition that occurs when blood flow to the heart is cut off or severely reduced, resulting in permanent damage to part of the heart muscle.
•High Blood Pressure – often the cause is unknown but this condition can be deadly if not treated or controlled.
•High Cholesterol – too much build up of cholesterol can lead to coronary heart disease and eventually a blockage resulting in an attack.
•Metabolic Syndrome – a combination of ‘risk factors’ that can lead to heart disease including belly fat, hypertension, high blood sugar, and high cholesterol levels.

So how can a complementary therapy play its part in keeping your heart healthy? Well, to begin with, I’m not looking at your heart in isolation, I’m looking at you as a whole person and considering the whole of you, the underlying cause for any circulatory or heart condition, and looking at your lifestyle. As the heart works in conjunction with the lungs, so the lung and diaphragm reflex points would be visited, along with the kidneys which filter blood constantly.

Reflexology is the practice of applying pressure to reflex points in your feet which are associated with organs, systems, joints etc in your body. By stimulating these points, an automatic reaction is created in the corresponding organ via the nervous system and energy pathways which then work to bring about a balance or homeostasis.

Taking high blood pressure, or hypertension, a reflexology treatment would entail me working over the whole of each foot but paying particular attention to, and working extra on the heart reflex, the lung reflex, the kidney reflex and the spinal reflexes relating to these organs. I would also discuss with you the possible cause of your hpertension. Stress is a major factor and the mere receiving of reflexology generally will calm the autonomic nervous system and help reduce stress.

Take my client, J, who had high blood pressure for many years. After just 6 treatments they felt a lot less stressed and could deal with life’s stressors just that bit easier. Around the 10th treatment, J had a GP’s appointment where they found out that their blood pressure was back to normal.

It’s important to let your GP know you are having reflexology so that they can monitor and decrease the medication as appropriate. Never alter your dosage without your GPs knowledge.

Of course, reflexology would and should not be used if you suspect a heart attack – that is a medical emergency but it could be used as an after-care therapy to help circulation, normalise heart rhythm and encourage healing. As reflexology affects your general well-being, it can be used safely as a preventative treatment.

Whilst reflexology is a very safe therapy, there are a couple of contraindications, one of them thrombosis. As circulation is improved greatly, there could be a danger of the blood clot coming away from it’s original site and travelling around the bloodstream, possibly lodging itself in the lungs. If you suffer or have any suffered from thrombosis then it is very important to seek your GPs approval before receiving reflexology.

Reflexology really is a true complementary therapy as far as heart disease is concerned as it is complementary to and works well with conventional medicene. Don’t forget that a healthy diet, not smoking and getting sufficient exercise are also important factors.

(Not quite) back to the beginning

When we moved, I thought I could keep my London clinic room going, but in the end found it was just wasn’t cost effective and the travel was difficult. So since I’ve got a fantastic treatment room at home, it made sense to leave Belsize Park.

Of course, that means I’m back to square one with building up my client book. Luckily, this time around I know who I should be speaking to in local publications, I’ve got the right internet sites bookmarked, I’ve already got the letter template to GPs from my last time around, I understand marketing a lot better, so hopefully I can get up and running just that little quicker this time. In fact, just a week or so after amending my website and all the internet directories, I had a new reiki client who is coming back for some Bowen, and the reflexology word is getting out there too. I need to do some more Law of Attraction stuff but I’m happy with the response so far in such a short time.

But it’s a never-ending task, this marketing lark. When I started out as a therapist, I heard someone say that for every 1 hour of treatment she had to do 7 hours of marketing. I hope I can cut that down considerably by getting my clients to do my marketing by word of mouth, but equally I know I’ve got plenty of work to do. The problem is, I get most people better or on the road to recovery, so they’ve no need to come and see me again so us therapists are always having to find new clients.

At my Women In Business Network meeting this week, we had a very interesting talk from one of our members, Suzie of the SRP Consultancy, who, amongst other things, helps people use social media as a form of marketing. By social media, I mean stuff like Facebook, Twitter, blogs, Bebo, forums, MySpace, LindedIn etc. Really, social media is the way forward and yet there were a lot of blank faces in the room. I’ve dipped my big toe in – as you can see, I have a blog, which can read from my LinkedIn account and which is linked to my therapy page on Facebook, which updates my Twitter page when I update my status. All clever stuff, but there is a huge amount more I can do and I want to stay ahead of others around me in the same industry. I also need to keep on top of my website itself, so that it is always bang up to date. Ha! I need a PA (I used to be one and now I need one).

I send out a newsletter (and if you’re not on my distribution list, why not?) which I’m pretty pleased with but I know I could do better. At WIBN, Suzie told me about a company called AWeber on the Net that can help with all of this. I’ve had a look at the website, had a ‘test drive’ and actually it looks pretty good. AWeber get the PA job!

Funny thing is, having been a PA for so long and always doing things for other people, I now actually really love doing it all for myself, making the decisions, controlling the budget, speaking with contacts. It’s a huge learning curve but, luckily for me, I’m a Sagitarrian and we love learning. I have a huge sense of freedom being my own boss, even if at the moment it’s only part time. I still have to make the tea though -
anyone for a cuppa?

Reflexology and Detoxing

January is detox month. Detox is the buzzword at the moment and you’ll find some sort of detox plan in most magazine and papers and all over the internet. Some are pretty good, some ok and some are plain silly and could be dangerous to your health.

In truth, the best form of detox is to increase consumption of fruit and vegetables, cut right down on fatty foods (we do need some fat in our diet but not hydrogenated), choose lean meat, oily fish (steamed, grilled, baked), beans, pulses and lentils and cut out the caffeine and alcohol (it’s only for a few weeks) and drink lots of water. Also, increase the amount of exercise you do each week, even if it’s just getting out for a brisk walk in the snow, and get plenty of sleep. It’s easy enough.

However, if you need a little boost to help your body find its way back to happiness then how about giving reflexology a try. Reflexology is the practice of applying light pressure to points on the foot known as reflex points. By working these points, the corresponding body joint, organ or system is stimulated to normalise function and rebalance.

During a treatment each foot will be worked on, but for a detox treatment certain reflex points will be focussed on. Extra pressure may be applied or the reflex point may be worked on for longer. In particular the liver, digestive system, kidney and lympathic system will be paid extra attention.

The liver has several important functions, including combating infections in the body, clearing the blood of particles and infections including bacteria and neutralising and destroying drugs and toxins. Giving the liver a boost will help to detoxify the body. Over the festive season, your digestive system will have had a lot of work to do and so may be quite sluggish right now. Reflexology can help with removal of waste and improve the action of the digestive system by increasing blood circulation and strenghtening the muscular walls. Working the liver reflex, by the way, also works the gall bladder reflex which will stimulate the gall bladder to release bile, an important fluid required in digestion and is also a very mild laxative. Finally, working the lymphatic system reflex points will stimulate the lymphatic system (our body’s waste disposal unit) to help fight infection and remove toxins in the body.

In addition to the above, a treatment is relaxing, destressing and a great way to boost circulation. You may see good results after just one treatment but for specific boost to detoxing and set your body on a healthy course for 2010 then I would recommend perhaps three or four treatments.

The Christmas Tree Man

I’m ordering my Christmas tree this weekend from The Christmas Tree Man.

Christmas Tree Man is Martin, a tree surgeon of 20 years, who is passionate about trees and aims to make Christmas a carbon neutral time. You pick your living tree, he delivers it along with advice on how to look after it and then he will collect in the New Year. He’ll take it back to the farm, replant it, ready for it next year. Fabulous idea.

The only reason you might not get your tree back is if a bird or animal has set up home in it!

We looked at trees yesterday at the local garden centre, but they were all chopped off at the roots and, frankly, for a few pounds more I think it’s far nicer to get a living tree that you know will still be alive next year.

No trees are wasted at Martin’s farm. Once they become too big for homes or offices, they are taken elsewhere to a good cause or home, such as a forest.

For each tree bought, Martin gives a donation to Help The Heroes and the Wildlife Trust.

Now I just need to decide what type and what height.

Good Vibrations

I have been subscribing to the Law of Attraction every since I watched and read ‘The Secret’ last year. For those of you not too familiar with this Law, it dictates that your thoughts (both conscious and subconscious) dictate what happens in your life. All thoughts have a vibration (as does every single living and non-living thing around us) and like vibrations attract like vibrations. So if we are thinking a negative thought, we will attract more negativity. Conversely, if we think positively, then we attract more positive energy to us. Think about what you want; feel, behave and know as if what you want is already yours and be open to receive it.

Just look at the mindset of people who always get what they want. You can bet your life that negativity, can’t or don’t is not part of their language. But are you sitting there, reading this, thinking, “well, I always want to win the lottery/make more money/find the perfect relationship” so why doesn’t it happen to me?! Most probably because you are actually focussing on what you don’t have – you’re really thinking that you don’t have enough money, or you’re not in a loving relationship. Forget that way of thinking (it’s hard to begin with, I know), but it gets easier. Look at the positives in your life, look at what is good, then from that positon of positivity then ask for more money, or a perfect partner to share your wonerful life with. I hope that makes sense.

Have a read of the Abraham-Hicks (Jerry and Esther) series of books – they explain it so well. It makes perfect sense to me.

Every now and then, I feel that the vibrations around me are just right, everything balanced and I can only think positively. I had one of those days yesterday. I gave a really good treatment, met a lovely lady who was also a Bach Flower Remedy Pracititioner and after that appointment I wandered up to Hampstead in the sunshine and had a wonderful lunch whilst reading some very interesting stuff about complementary medicine. It’s a lovely feeling when everything is balanced.

It’s not always like that for me, but when it isn’t I just focus on what I want, from a place of positiveness. I know when negative thoughts are creeping in; I feel a little anxious and slightly at odds. When I feel like that I just send out good vibrations and am soon feeling much better.

Try it. For one day only allow positive thoughts to flow. If a negative thought comes into your mind, turn it around to something positive. If you’re thinking about what you don’t want (to be fat, to be poor, to be alone etc etc) then think about what you do want and how you will feel when you have it. I guarantee your day will soon start to look a lot bright.

Let me know how you get on.

Placebo effect shouldn’t be discounted – expert report

The placebo effect can be a legitimate aspect of complementary treatments and therapies. And we need to develop rigorous research that takes it into account.

That is the message from an expert report: Assessing complementary practice, published by the King’s Fund recently.

Led by eminent physician Dame Carol Black – a former President of the Royal College of Physicians and of the Academy of Royal Colleges – a group of distinguished doctors and scientists has concluded that current assumptions about what constitutes good scientific evidence are too narrow.

New methods are necessary that can take account of the context in which treatment is provided, reflect the importance attached to treating the whole person – and accommodate the significant but often neglected fact that the relationship between cause and effect is not always straightforward. Then we can begin to establish a sound evidence base for which complementary therapies are effective and which are not.

Dame Carol Black’s report echoes the long held views of the Prince’s Foundation for Integrated Health. The Foundation hopes that government and medical research bodies as well as scientists and clinicians, will take careful account of this thorough and thoughtful analysis.

Professor Stephen Holgate is a Foundation Fellow and a member of the King’s Fund Advisory Group that produced the report. He said:

‘As scientists, we have often sneered at the placebo effect. But as doctors, we know it can have a real impact on the outcomes of treatment for our patients. What is it, after all, but a trigger to the body’s natural ability to heal itself? That is something worth encouraging.

It is often not appreciated that 80% of the money the NHS spends on patient care goes to treating long term, chronic illness. Conditions like arthritis, respiratory disease, all sorts of progressive diseases. They rarely attract headlines, but they have a huge impact on the millions who experience them.

If we are serious about alleviating unnecessary suffering – and if we want NHS money to be spent wisely – then it is essential we find a way of testing treatments that have the potential to improve the quality of life of these patients and perhaps support or even replace more costly technological medicine.’

Good news and about time.

Race For Life

Last Sunday, despite me suffering from a bad cough and my Mum with her bad arm, we joined a 1000 other females, young and old, to take part in the Race for Life at Windsor to raise funds and awarenss for Cancer Research.

Mum hadn’t managed to train for this race, as she did two years ago, but she was still determined to do it. The most she had walked over the last couple of months was a mile along the coast when we were on holiday in Crete. Despite this, we set off in a sea of pink t-shirts, leggings and tutus, around the 5k course. Race for Life started as a charity run but nowadays there are runners, joggers and walkers. We walked for the most part, albeit quickly and then broke out into a jog every now and then for 100m or so.

As well as the numbers pinned to our fronts, lots of women were wearing the RFL pink piece of paper on their backs saying who they were running for. Reading some of these, you realise just how much we are all affected by cancer. What’s the betting we all know at least one person who has suffered, whether or not they survived. I’m not ashamed to admit that I had a few tears, particuarly when a couple of ladies passed us whose loved ones had died just in the last 7 days.

I don’t know all the stats for cancer but the lady on the PA system was talking about higher survival rates nowadays, although those suffering has also risen. Mum remembered the time when she and Dad went to see a film in the early 1950s at their local cinema with their ticket money going toward cancer research. Apparently, the pre-film trailer promised that with their help cancer would be eradicated within 30 years!

I think one of the many issues to overcome is lifestyle. Yes, treatments these days mean more people survive but our poor lifestyles mean that more people suffer in the first place. Diet, processed foods, smoking, drinking, sun damage, pollution, chemicals in our foods, make up and toiletries, and so on, all contribute. Preventative measures really are the key. Education is imperitive. Can you believe we even saw three women taking part who were smoking!!!

Anyway, we completed the 5k in 58 minutes, and Mum jogged over the line. I’m so so proud of her. Not bad for a 77 year old (going on 57!).

Well done for everyone who has taken part in a Race for Life this year. We’re doing good.

Feel better but look like a Smurf

I read the health press every day. Some of it is very interesting, some of it old news, some of it makes me laugh, some of it just ridiculous.

This report made me laugh. Don’t get me wrong, it’s good news although there’s plenty more research to do into it.

It’s been reported that the compound Brilliant Blue G that turns M&M’s blue (and presumably Smarties too) can actually help mend spinal injuries by protecting the healthy spinal chord cells around the damaged area. Rats given BBG were found to be able to walk with a limp, with the lesion reduced and motor skills improved, whereas rats not given the compound never walked again. (Of course, this says to me that the rats were deliberately harmed and experiments on animals does not sit well with me).

However, the BBG compounds does stain the skin and left the rates with a blue hue, almost Smurf-like. Animal experiments aside, the site of a blue-pawed, blue-eared mouse did make me laugh. I guess also that if you eat too many blue Smarties then you might end up looking like Violet Beauregarde from Willy Wonka!

And how did they find this out? Why were they feeding rats with M&M’s in the first place?