YOGA

YOGA THERAPY (1 ON 1)

MEDITATION

Yoga Therapy

Regent Health & Chiropractor Centre
is proud to announce a new service
that addresses the following through
Yoga concepts and techniques:

• Chronic Pain Self Management
• Stress & Psychosomatic Illnesses

Benefits Include:

• Improved Sleep
• Better Breathing
• Increased Strength
• Improved Circulation
• Improved Relationships
• Increased Range of Motion


No previous yoga experience necessary.
Techniques adjusted to suit the individual.
Sessions designed with you.

Special Introductory Price:
$70 per hour + HST

150 Locke Street South, Hamilton, Ontario L8P 4A9
For more information, call Heather at: (905) 525-2426
 

Heather Greaves, E-RYT500
Registered Yoga Therapist

In her over 20 years of sharing mind body wellness techniques, Heather has seen repeatedly how simple steps can significantly improve quality of life. Since 2005 she has trained those interested in natural healing in a certified therapeutic yoga teacher training program that blends yoga ayurveda practices and modern healing techniques.

Further Reading:

Aid for Sciatica
Involving the Brain

by Heather Greaves, Yoga Therapist

For the most part we are happily unaware of what our muscles are doing. We can bend over, lift things, and walk without a thought of the muscles involved. Our wish becomes a command to the brain, and the motion is carried out unconsciously.

However just let there be pain through the buttock and down the back of one leg, and movement suddenly becomes quite conscious. This pain is caused by pressure on the sciatic nerve. The sciatic nerve exits the lowest three vertebrae (L3-L5) of the lumbar spine (low back) and meanders down the back of both legs through the calves to the feet; think tailbone to toes. Usually sciatica is experienced down the back of one leg only. Sensations include sharp or dull pain, shooting or burning pain, and can be continuous or intermittent.

Why is there pressure on nerves generally? Automobile accidents, improper lifting, emotional stress, chemical imbalances, and prolonged sitting can cause spinal bones to shift out of alignment narrowing the opening through which the nerves pass.

There are three reasons why the sciatic nerve specifically is squeezed. The most common reason is a combination of tight muscles that produce "sway back" – (excess lordosis), and a side-tilt of the spine. The body assumes this postural habit that tires muscles and pressures the sciatic nerve.

Another less common cause of sciatica is a tight buttock. There’s a little muscle in the buttock called the piriformis. I first heard of this muscle from my chiropractor, Dr. Jim Lamontagne, when I was experiencing a regular pain in the right butt. If this muscle remains contracted for too long through long periods of sitting, or direct pressure from for example a wallet, then the vital sciatic nerve will be squeezed.

These two conditions of sciatica can be alleviated and ended fairly quickly when associated muscles are consciously made to relax, and certain movement patterns are practiced.

The third cause of sciatica is far less common and involves pressure on the nerve not from muscle rather from expelled spinal disc material or bone growth. Surgery is generally recommended for these cases.

Our bodies hold muscles in a contracted state as a way of protection - a nervous system reaction. For example, check to see if you have a tight jaw, shoulders, neck, low back, or butt. Muscles get tired and feel weak from the unconscious habit of being shortened.

Let’s involve the brain to become conscious of our own movement patterns, to feel, and control those self-contracted muscles. In the Aid for Sciatica Program (ASP) you can retrain movement and consciously relax, lengthen, and rejuvenate lumbar spinal and buttock muscles bringing ease to that long nerve wandering down the back of the leg,--- and more.