Horse Anxiety and Curiosity

February 20, 2012

You may have problems with regulating yourself and your emotional states.  You may also have pain issues.  All these difficulties can combine and be very hard to untangle.  This clip is a little bit about my horses shifting between anxiety and curiosity as they explore leaving the barn for the yard near my horse trailer.  They knew the plan was likely about going riding somewhere.  The two horses have different attitudes about coming out into the yard and staying near the trailer.

I shortened a 45 minute period into 5 and a half minutes, so you can see a little bit about using the idea of stress ramping up and stress ramping down, approach and retreat concepts, and some of the idea of pacing.  I let my horses take a long time to decide that they wanted to come out into the yard.  This was an exercise for my horses in exploration within a certain amount of boundary.

People also experience a dynamic between anxiety and retreat, and curiosity and exploration when facing situations that are challenging.  A therapeutic approach for people and horses too, is to find a way to scale the challenge to a manageable amount.

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Head/Neck pain help exercise

February 10, 2012

Here’s the link to a video instruction  on regaining movement  in the region just below the head.  If this area is really tight, you will substitute movement in other parts of your neck. Lack of movement in this area, can be part of headaches, upper neck pain and pain lower in the neck.  Loss of movement here can come on from a number of causes including habit, accidents, posture, computer use, medical procedures or dental procedures when your head must be turned to one side for a long time.  It can also occur if you use one eye more than the other, or one ear more than the other.

This part of the body is called the suboccipital region.  The head bone in the back of your head is called the occiput.  Many very strong muscles attach from the occiput to the neck.  some muscles are long, like the Upper Trapezius, and others are very short and deep.  The short and deep muscle group is generally called the suboccipital muscles.  These are just lots of fancy ways to name the muscles below the skull.

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Help for Low back pain and stiffness

February 4, 2012

One important goal in decreasing back pain is to get your individual spine segments moving.  It’s an uphill battle however in the presence of arthritis, degenerative changes, narrowing (stenosis) and nerve pain (sciatica).  This simple “exercise” really helps because it triggers your spine segments to move while you rest and take the load off your [...]

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Tip Board Video for Back Pain

February 1, 2012

If your back is stiff, lacks movement, and gives you pain, you may benefit from the gentle movement this exercise triggers.  Here’s the link to the video on youtube. http://www.youtube.com/user/BoulderPT?feature=mhee#p/u/1/2EH4mc3-dnU

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Stretch for Ankle and Foot

February 1, 2012

If you have problems with turning your ankle or pain in the muscles of your foot, this video guided stretch can help you with your foot problems. Here’s the link:   http://www.youtube.com/user/BoulderPT?feature=mhee#p/u/0/K7FGDZ6UFiU

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RSD/CRPS new treatment helps pain

January 12, 2012

Using principles from a trauma treatment method, called Somatic Experiencing, and a new, gentle Physical Therapy method called Sensory-Motor Manual Therapy  you can make gains in recovering from RSD/ CRPS pain.  Some clients have a full recovery.  Some clients have significant but not a full recovery with these methods. RSD/CRPS stands for Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy [...]

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Using Emotion to Strengthen Movement: Instincts as Power

January 7, 2012

Let’s assume we are in a situation where there is no threat to our safety from people or animals.  Let’s also assume we are blessed to have a reasonable ability to walk and keep our balance.When we move about, we’re often on surfaces that cause the most minimal challenge to our balance and physical capacity. [...]

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Self Help tips for full recovery

September 13, 2011

You need to feel what movement you lost with the injury and gradually move into the tight places to regain all lost motion. For example, if you sprain your hip in a fall or a sport activity, you will have limited movement as your tissues heal. Gradually you need to seek out motion into the [...]

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Stress Management at Mind Body Physical Therapy

May 13, 2011

You may have health issues that have some relationship to current or past stress or trauma.  Body based stress reducing techniques may be of help to you in achieving the calmer states, patience, and self regulation that you seek. By being in calmer states more of the time, you decrease stresses on your heart and [...]

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Theories of Injury and Healing part 2 (video)

March 4, 2011

Boulder Physical Therapist, Rachel Katz, PT, SEP, continues the conversation about Muscle spasm, chronic pain, neck pain, Car accident , whiplash, Freeze Response, Shoulder pain, Shoulder injury, exercise, and Somatic Experiencing applications in rehabilitation.

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