Jas Bdesha – Page 2 – The Fascial Effect

Sneezing season!

It’s summer! And that means hay fever is rife.

If you’re a hay fever sufferer (or suffer from other allergies that affect the sinuses) while the warmer weather is welcome, you’re probably not looking forward to that awful ‘bunged up’ feeling.

What causes the problem

Your sinuses are a honeycomb-looking arrangement, located near the nose, above and below the eye sockets. They’re lined with mucus to protect the sensitive lining and the tiny pollen particles carried in the air are breathed in and enter the sinuses.

For most people there’s no effect and they are completely unaware of it. The body’s processes simply eliminate these tiny particles. However, if you have an allergy your body’s reaction is to send mucus production into overdrive to protect the sensitive lining of your sinuses.

Treating hay fever

If you get hay fever you may suffer from any of these symptoms: catarrh, nasal congestion, pressure or a feeling of fullness in your face, headaches, popping ears, watery eyes and sneezing. It can be pretty miserable if you don’t treat it. It’s like having a really bad cold with a runny nose, sneezing and watery, itchy eyes.

Most GPS just prescribe anti-histamines or anti-inflammatories, but that doesn’t solve the problem, it just reduces the symptoms.

It may seem unlikely that a massage can help, but a myo-fascial release (MFR) massage gently works on the restrictions to allow the mucus to drain. This can help to restore the mucus membranes to normal and clears that bunged up feeling, releasing pressure, which puts paid to headaches and ear popping.

To finish the treatment, gentle cupping is applied to aid drainage of the mucus. If still infected, a carefully selected blend of essential oils with antiseptic, anti-inflammatory and decongestant properties is massaged into the sinuses to help reduce irritation so you feel better.

If Hay fever is the bane of your life, using a holistic treatment can remove much of the stress that dealing with hay fever creates.

For more information call Jas on 07775633798

Body

Heavy handbag? It can weigh you down

As life gets busier we start carrying more and more around in our handbags – actually some of the bags that you see couldn’t be described as ‘handbags’ – they’re almost suitcases!

So if you’re carrying your life around with you be aware that you could develop all kinds of physical reactions. If you feel:

Pain around your neck or shoulder area
Numbness or pins and needles in your arm or hand
Persistent headaches
Tightness on one side of your neck

You need to take action.

Rest won’t necessarily fix the problem, if your soft tissues are strained or stuck, you’re going to need some expert help to release the tension and get things moving again. This might include:

Myofascial release to loosen your connective tissue
Hot stones to warm and hydrate muscles
Cupping to increase blood supply and release toxins
Trigger point therapy to release pain
Stretching to restore flexibility

Your pain may not be caused by lugging a handbag, it could be carrying a baby or toddler or lugging any heavy items around on a regular basis. Don’t compound the damage by doing nothing, get treatment to relieve the pain and restore normal movement again.

Call Jas on 07775 633798 to find out more

Body

Tension in the Jaw….don’t grin and bear it!

When you’re stressed or anxious you tighten your jaw, even when you’re asleep stress can manifest as teeth grinding.

Your head has several bones, but only one joint – where the mandible (lower jaw) connects to the main skull structure. It effectively operates to allow us to chew and to talk. It’s also a hotspot for physical stress to accumulate.

Today’s lifestyle doesn’t always make it easy for you to sit up straight while tucking your chin in for more than a few seconds at a time – so you generally adapt a head forward posture, with clenched jaw.

What to look for

Your jaw locks or clicks when you open your mouth
You suffer from a dry mouth
You get headaches focused on your forehead or temple
You suffer from pain in upper teeth and cheek (sometimes identified as sinus pain) or pain in the lower teeth and jaw
You have buzzing or ringing in the ears

Myofascial release techniques can help by reducing the effects of physical stress in your face, neck and jaw. This treatment will help to ease the restriction of your fascia (soft fibrous connective tissue) and stretch the muscles and reduce the pressure in and around your jaw, that’s causing the problem.

To enhance the effects suction cups will further relax the tissues and assist in draining away excess fluid and toxins. In severe cases, deeper pressure on your trigger points may be needed.

Not only will your jaw feel lighter, but you’ll also feel relaxed physically and de-stressed mentally.

Find out more – contact Jas on 07775 633798

Nutrition

How often should you detox?

Do you think detoxing is a once-in-a-while dieting aid, or an important tool used to reset after a long string of poor eating choices and excessive alcohol consumption? While this sort of detoxing works for some, many I’ve spoken to consider it necessary but a struggle. Almost constant cravings, low energy, insomnia, mood fluctuations and anxiety being a few of the symptoms experienced during the detoxification program.

If you’re exposed to thousands of chemicals daily it makes sense to do something to combat their effects. Detoxing helps your body to clear out the stuff that does more harm than good. Your body is performing a constant balancing act, trying to combat environmental threats while helping you function. Excessive amounts of toxins in the body puts it into a fight/flight response. If this continues over a long period of time you get something called chronic inflammation.

Look at it like this; you go out and buy food to consume for a week. Some of it, peelings etc. you put in the food recycling bin. You repeat this again and again, but you never put the bin out for collection. The waste pile builds up and rots and becomes an environmental health hazard over time. To put the bins out for collection and disposal on a regular basis would have been much easier, but now it has become a huge and messy task.

Compare that to our body. The periodic detox program has most likely worked. but what your body has been storing away because it can’t be used as fuel or nutrition is now released and floating around in your blood stream. The liver and kidneys are overwhelmed and not able to get rid of these toxins quickly enough. This impacts on heart health and brain health and the hormone balance is completely off the scale!

If you struggle with blood sugar imbalances, mood swings, anxiety, oestrogen dominance, histamine intolerance, unpleasant menopause symptoms or any hormonal health condition, reducing your toxic load is going to be extremely helpful for you.

There is an alternative. Take it one day at a time and assist your body to detox daily.

While other organs participate, ground zero for detoxification is your liver. While you’re detoxifying, you want to show this organ some major love. To give your liver love:

Focus on reducing anything that potentially stresses it out – exposure to or incoming chemicals, toxicants and other environmental compounds.
Take control of your vices – alcohol, sugar, caffeine, take-away meals, smoking – if it’s too much to give them all up for a day, plan your day without at least one of them.
Give it the right nutrients to work efficiently. Take a sachet of Core – a nutritiously rich seed supplement, which acts as a detoxifier, cleaning and improving organ function. See attached PDF for more information.

To sum up, your body is a miracle! Give it what it needs to function at its best.

For more information contact me at jas@thefascialeffect.co.uk or visit my website.

Ageing

Is ‘The Change’ disrupting your life?

Menopause is often referred to as ‘The Change’, implying that your life will change to be different afterwards – but in reality it’s the actual process of menopause that is the biggest change. And it can disrupt not only the life of the woman who is experiencing it, but also those who live and work with her.

Menopause is a change in hormone balance that stops ovulation and the symptoms can include hot flushes, night sweats, brain fog, mood swings and depression to name few. In addition body fat accumulates mainly in the abdominal area as a result of oestrogen deficiency and blood pressure begins to rise adding to a greater risk of cardiovascular disorders later in life.

Some people can manage relatively mild symptoms, but the severity of the symptoms can almost be unbearable for others. Everyone is different.

A balanced diet high in plant foods alongside action taken to reduce stress and take moderate exercise can help cope with physical health and mental wellbeing during this time.

But what if you are not able to step off the treadmill of life just yet and want to keep living life to the full without the constant challenges of coping with the menopause? What if the small changes you make to your lifestyle are helping, but they are not improving the quality of your life as much as you would like? There are pharmaceutical treatments like HRT, but not everyone wants to commit to taking that for an unspecified number of years. However, there are natural alternatives.

I came across the Rain seed nutritional products at precisely this time and have never looked back. It’s all about getting back to basics – if a diet high in plant foods is good for you, the seed-based product is three times more nutritious, because it contains the fuel and genetic material to grow the plant in the first place i.e. everything is in the seed; vitamins, minerals, proteins, enzymes and plentiful Omega 3, 6 and 9.

The seeds used in these supplements cannot, as a rule, be added to your muesli! That’s why these products are brilliant, no chewing is required as the seed coat is ground and the oils are extracted in a cold press process so as not to damage any precious nutrition. This densely nutritious product is added to a solution to make it palatable and convenient to take.

SOUL is the product I started taking and most certainly the one I would recommend for symptoms caused by hormonal issues.

Menopause, peri-menopause and pre-menstrual tension are all hormonal imbalances and the symptoms are amplified by inflammation. Any anti-inflammatory agent can lessen the associated discomforts and optimize healthy endocrine function. All of the seeds in SOUL are known for their anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant properties.

For information on the ingredients view the PDF SOUL

If you would like to know how SOUL can help you then email me on jas@thefascialeffect.co.uk to arrange a consultation.

Ageing

Post-menopausal problem solving

Menopause is an important milestone in a woman’s life, but for many who struggle with their symptoms and identity, it doesn’t feel like something to celebrate. Falling levels of oestrogen are not the only trigger of menopausal symptoms; other lifestyle habits play a part.

A diet lacking essential nutrients, unhealthy levels of physical and mental stress and exposure to toxins eventually take their toll. The symptoms of menopause are likely to be more severe while the body is in a weaker nutritional and physiological state. Although menopause is anatural part of getting older, it may also speed up the aging process.

Throughout my career I’ve seen the impact of ageing on women, both the skin texture changes as hormones alter and also physically as their bodies are more subject to stiffness and reduced mobility due to aches and pains. While there isn’t a magic wand there are many things that you can do to reduce the post-menopausal symptoms.

Keep your skin supple

After ‘the change’ one of the visible changes is often a more noticeable lack of what is referred to as ‘volume’. This is what give your face that smooth, youthful ‘plumpness’ and as your collagen production drops off, the result is more wrinkles, lines and sagging. Not what you want when your confidence is probably not at an all-time high.

For those that can afford it, this is when they go off to an aesthetician to get Botox or fillers – but this is a radical approach and not for everyone.

As part of my research for my dissertation I developed a product-free facial massage, using myo-fascial techniques, that noticeably improved the skin tone and reduced the appearance of those ageing wrinkles.

That’s now been further developed into a 90 minute online training session so you can learn a simple massage that you can do for yourself. To book a Zoom Facial Workshop Click here

Look after your body

As you get older aches and pains seem to appear out of nowhere. The problem is not just the reduction in movement, but pain tends to reflect in your face – and that encourages more of those frown lines!

If you’ve over-stretched or strained something or are stiff or in pain when moving, get help sooner rather than later. More often than not it’s a situation that can be made better by myo-fascial release. This works with the soft tissues restoring flexibility and pliability.

Nutrition counts

In a perfect world we would all eat a perfect diet and be a perfect size with perfect fitness. But life isn’t perfect (and wouldn’t it be boring if it was?)

Of course, I’d advise eating a sensible diet with plenty of nutritional value – but who can resist the occasional takeaway or comfort food? A nutritional deficit often results in tiredness, lethargy or a general feeling of being ‘under par’. I know this because I’ve been there!

I’m always a little hesitant to recommend specific products, but when I discovered the Rain International range, I tried them and noticed a significant difference. Since then I’ve recommended them to friends and clients and the feedback has been hugely positive. They’re a natural cold pressed seed-oil based supplement and have literally transformed some people’s lives.

Whether you go the do-it-yourself route or find a supplement that gives your body what it needs – remember what you put in is the fuel that keeps your body running. Better to give it premium fuel, than low quality stuff.

To shop for healthy seed oil supplements Click here or if you have any questions on any of these issues – please drop me an email at jas@thefascialeffect.co.uk.

Body

Posture can tell the story of our life

Every one of us is born with inherited genes from our parents. Our structure is inherited and then life continues to further shape us with:

Physical trauma such as accidents injuries and surgery
Psychological trauma – stress, anxiety and moods
Movement patterns – overuse or lifestyle habits

All of these influence the fascia framework; a 3-dimensional connective tissue which connects by weaving a continuous web around the body from head to toe, from front to back and from interior to exterior. In a perfect structure the fascia would be well laid out and organised, but because life happens, it can become stuck, stretched and bunched! Many times this leads to pain and dysfunction.

If symptoms such as pain, tightness and a restricted range of movement are ignored, we become increasingly locked in a structural/postural pattern from within.

The English Dictionary definition of posture is ‘the position or way in which someone stands or walks’. However, posture is more than simply standing, walking or sitting up straight – it is the driving force of all movement and activities and has a profound effect on our health and wellbeing.

If we develop poor posture by constantly sitting in a chair that doesn’t provide the right support for our body or walk with a hunched back, it’s no wonder our body starts to complain. It wasn’t designed for the position we’ve been forcing it to adopt and that’s why we develop aches and pains.

The motivation to change or improve posture is usually pain or restricted movement. Efforts to change are quite often frustratingly ineffective because we focus on changing the outside structure. Overzealous activity can even cause injury and further restrictions.

While people talk about sports injuries, things like tennis elbow can develop even if you’ve never picked up a tennis racquet. It’s simply the result of a frequently repeated movement that irritates a muscle or tendon until it becomes sore. Then the fascia tries to protect it and needs to be released for healing to take place.

If we want to continue moving well, an inner awareness of our body and making gentle subtle changes to posture is the way forward to long-term health and wellbeing.

For more information call 0775633798

Body

Scarred!

Scars have the potential to create both a physiological and psychological impact. Scars are associated not only with cuts, surgery and wounds, but also by tears from injury or trauma. Pain-related conditions such as lower back pain, plantar fasciitis, shoulder pain and headaches can quite often be traced back to a scar.

Effectively a scar is an injury to the fascia, or soft tissue that wraps around all your organs, muscles, ligaments, etc. Scar tissue impedes the free gliding action of fascia inhibiting normal healing and movement processes.

Imagine a busy motorway; while traffic is free flowing there are no problems. When there is a blockage across the carriageways the flow of traffic will slow down or stop. There may be diversions to enable people to get from A to B, but it will take longer and cause disruption, stress and anxiety for the occupants of all the vehicles until the roadblock is cleared.

Now imagine a deep cut that penetrates the surface of the skin through to the deeper layers of the body. The body will immediately respond with an inflammatory response, which includes laying down collagen to reconstruct the injured fascia and close the wound.

The scar is visible on the surface, but the underlying repair job can act as a roadblock to the free flow of the essential body processes. This creates deficiencies in one area and excess in another area. For some it can mean long term pain and restricted movement.

Fortunately, there is treatment that can relieve the pain and help to remove the roadblock.

For more information or to book an appointment with Jas call 07775633798

Ageing

Beauty from within

There comes a time when the visible signs of ageing really start to show and we reach out for anti-ageing skin care products. We hope that the ingredients will slow down or even reverse the signs of ageing. However, the concentrations of these ingredients are so small that they barely skim the surface of the skin let alone penetrate deeper layers of fascial tissue where the new cells, collagen and elastin are formed.

Your creams will only do some of the work. So what else can you do, to keep your skin youthful for as long as possible? A healthy diet packed with nutritional ingredients is essential. But, if you’re anything like me, life is too busy to watch every mouthful and try to integrate all the nutrients your skin needs – even supposing you could work out exactly what foods to include, how much, how often and the exact quantities of each food you need to eat.

Seeds are a great place to start and they add an array of benefits for skin hair and overall health. The good news is that you don’t need to start a research project to benefit from them.

I always hesitate to recommend products – there are so many and many claim to do all kinds of amazing things and I wouldn’t recommend anything I don’t use myself. I’ve not only tried the Rain seed-based supplements, but noticed a significant difference. I’ve been using them a long time now and this is just to give you an introduction to one of their daily supplements.

Soul Red is a blend of pure oils from 3 types of seed of which work well together; black cumin seed, red raspberry seed and chardonnay grape seed oils. Scientifically tested and approved, Soul Red slows the ageing of our cells by almost 80%, it reduces inflammation, increases energy levels and improves the condition and function of your cells.

As you might imagine, less ageing on the inside means a more youthful appearance on the outside. Beauty does really come from within.

To shop click here or if you would like to talk to me, just call 07775 633798.

Body

What to do about whiplash

Whiplash is a neck injury which most people associate with road traffic accidents. It can, however, happen in any situation where the body accelerates forward and then quickly decelerates throwing the head forwards, backwards and sideways, for example:

During sporting activities such as rugby and boxing
A slip or a fall where the head is jolted forwards and backwards
While on a rollercoaster ride, especially if it stops suddenly!

The vigorous movements of the head put enormous strain on the neck, shoulder and upper back and injury occurs. After the initial shock, neck pain and stiffness can be followed with related symptoms such as headaches, jaw pain, dizziness, nausea and tinnitus.

Depending on the severity of the injury, the pain and stiffness will restrict movement for 2-3 days, but after this period, if it’s not treated:

Tight, inactive and injured muscles will shorten and weaken.
Muscles surrounding the injury will overcompensate and become strained.
Too much scar tissue will form in any torn muscle and reduce its ability to do what it normally does.
Fascia (connective tissue) surrounding everything including the vertebrae, thinks the new way of moving is normal and adapts to hold everything within their new positions, restricting movement even further.
Long term this leads to postural problems and recurring symptoms of whiplash.

This means that movement is more likely to aid recovery than prolonged immobilisation. Myofascial stretch and trigger point release will help in this process, softening the taut tissue and allowing muscles to move naturally as they are meant to do. Assisting the head and neck to “Unwind” is another advanced fascial release technique which allows the head and neck to move through a range of motions without force.

For more information call 07775633798