Love your neck!

Some of you know that 'Text Neck' is fast becoming a huge issue in out health. Not just adults, but adolescent and even children, suffer neck pain and head ache due to excessive use of mobile devices. Everywhere you go, you'll see people looking downwards to their devices and soon the muscles of the neck become extremely tight and stretched or shortened.

More specific info you can read at this great article: 

Text Neck

Opening a spine with my thumbs

Sometimes we need an Advil or too to help with immediate pain, but I hope that you all understand, and explain to your children, that painkillers never correct any factors or issues behind the pain. Any kind of pain is  an important signal from your body that yells: something is wrong!

Client helping with 'wings up'.

Usually neck pain and headache will  just gradually get worse if we don't remove the tightness of muscles attaching to upper spine and neck area and correct the posture. That is what I do in my work: correct the posture with clients help.

If you have neck/head pain, my main goal is to bring back the flexibility of mid and upper spine, which allows your a better, natural, posture. And I am not talking just how you're supposed to constantly think of sitting/standing with your head up, but allowing those deep postural muscles to do their job. And for that they need nutriens, blood and mobilization, since the lack of blood had been immobilizing the deep muscles (think how the motor of your car needs oil, our joints and muscles need circulation the same way).

Client helping with 'wings down'.

With special technique that I have learned the mid and upper body treatment is being done in seated position! That allows the spine movements and gravity to help in the process. The prone (face down) positioned massage  won't allow me to use all the natural movements of the spine (flexion, extension, side flexion and rotation), so that's why I add seated part (15-45 minutes) to my type of spine massage. And I strongly suggest you to join to my excellent spine stretching workshops every Wednesday @11!

Relieving subscapularis muscle - I will not force
it, so there is NO PAIN.

So help your neck and relieve the balance of your muscles. Keeping our posture upright is hard work and I can not do it for you. But I can re-activate and soften the muscles, make sure that joints are moving in their best range of motion and help your nervous system function in its best. And all that I do, in painless, gentle and there is no manipulation of bones! (I can refer you to an excellent chiropractic care in case I suspect there is something out of alignment in vertabrael level.)

Welcome to an evaluation for $25 or just book the first treatment for $60 (70minutes!). It's Kata's Way that keeps you in balance. And Balanced is Painless!

No Stretching your Spine 1/27!

But will be back Wednesday 2/3 @11!

(I have some dental issues with my ontodontist...)

At this moment

Right now I'm listening to how the sun is shining. It's beautiful. I am lucky that noticed it when most of the day all I have been feeling is coldness and frozen feet. 

In January it's perfect time to calm down, listen to your books and stretch a bit between clients. No planning ahead, struggling with Quicken or worrying about taxes. In the beginning of new year it's time to make new habits. Like listening a book in the middle of workday. Jeff Menapace's Bad Games is almost too scary though! 

How do you enjoy your January?

January 2016

Hello all my friends!

First I want to thank you all for being my clients. I have enjoyed this interesting journey to become a better functional and structural therapist. Past year and a half has been enjoyable and empowering time for a newbie in this business in this country. If you don't know me yet (or long enough), I will just briefly mention, that I got my license in North Carolina in June 2014 and started to work at Ballantyne Chiropractic Wellness for two days a week at that point. I was also an employee in another chiropracters' office for a 8 months (1-2 days a week), but soon realized in which way, with who and where I truly want to work.

My journey in this field is to learn more about human body and it's functions. But I also want to use my original Finnish techniques and that is,  because so far I have found nothing better nor even close to this technique in this country. But I'll keep searching and widening my perspectives, because that's what this journey is about.

At this point of my journey I have also learnt something really important: I need to take care of me better. I love my job and have been giving almost all my energy to it (that's what you are supposed to do when you start a business, right) and enjoyed every single day! But I also have suffered some wrist issues and low back trouble, just like we all. I am lucky to have such a great group of therapist around me, so I am taking good care of, but it reminds me that (even) I am not getting any younger.

So in the beginning of 2016 I will not do resolutions, but I am promising to take better care of myself, find time for my exercise and make sure that I have enough time for relaxation. If all this goes well, it also means that I'll have more energy to search for interesting continuing education, time for my study groups and best of all: opportunities to explore and develop new products and my ways of helping you to feel better!

I am so very certain, that I know the best techniques in the world, but there is so much more we can do together. I am continuing my journey to better and optimal health and will be sharing what I learn to all of you. At this point it means reducing my working hours a bit: I will be available Wednesday and Thursday evenings, but can not take any clients Thursday morning or Friday afternoons. I will stick into my taichi class on Tuesday afternoon, so my last appointment time on Tuesdays will be at 3pm. That will still leave a plenty of options for your care.

Mondays 10-5.30, Tuesdays 8-4, Wednesdays 8-7.30 and Thursdays 1-7.30. Fridays by appointment only (8-2). This sounds complicated, but only thing I did, was blocked 2 hours for taichi, 1 hour for tennis and opportunities for gym and walk. These activities deserve to have a spot in my schedule!

As a reminder, I will continue my awesome Stretching Classes for Spine Health every Wednesday @11am. If you haven't tried it yet, please do so. YOU need to take care of YOU and I need to take care of ME. Let's do this together! If you have any new ideas, please let me know. I am always open to new things.

But my number one goal for 2016 remains the same: Let's balance your body and keep that pain away. I can help you both in structural issues and in functional imbalances. Balanced is Painless: that's Kata's Way!

In this picture I'm checking my clients ankle (joint between calcaneus and talus bones; tibialis and fibularis muscle groups).

Season Greetings

Sorry that I haven't written for awhile! It's been kind of hectic lately since my calendar was filled up with lods of clients and great happenings. I just love this time of the year when (the loooong November is finally over)  I can start preparations for Christmas. Since Christmas is my favorite holiday.

Here are some remarkable and important things about my Christmas time as a Southern Girl with a Nordic Soul:

• I got to spend Thanksgiving in Savannah, GA, at a sunshine and with one of my best friend and her family. She will be starting to do same kind of treatments than I do in Florida in the near future. She just needs to finish her school to get licensed and then there is two of us! 
• Past couple of weeks the weather has been the best! Yes, I do wish white Christmas, but not here. Let it snow in Finland, it is very much needed there.
• http://jouluradio.fi .That is a radio station which only plays Christmas carols 24/7 the whole December. All in Finnish!
• I have been in 2 awesome concerts and there is one more to come! The first two were special since my daughter was performing. 
• We are going to have Pikkujoulu (=Little Christmas) with my best girls and their families this Saturday! Pikkujoulu is celebration with your friends or collegues before the real Christmas, that is more a family thing. I get to bake Finnish goodies & pastries and serve some glögi!
• I can make my own traditions. My front yard has a plenty of lights and even a figure and my daughter thinks I've gotten crazy. I'd never ever done that in Finland. We have also had Christmas tree decorated for almost two weeks at this point, even though I know that is's supposed to do only at Christmas Eve morning (or the evening before that) in my original way. 
• This year is super-special since my dear and oldest friend (we have 42 years of history) is arriving to Charlotte in 5 days, 23 hours and 17 minutes... who's counting?
• Santa will come to our house on Christmas Eve! No climbing in chimney, but ring the doorbell and we'll be singing him before he hands out the gifts (if we have been good enough to get any).

I am so much looking for the New Year! Meanwhile I wish that You can enjoy your life, meet some family and eat good food and prepare Yourself: 2016 will be the best year so far. I am so happy to meet new challenges with all of You. I am on holiday pretty much 12/21-1/3.

Season Greetings!

Peace

Our Feet

Those of you who already know me, also know that I like feet. Not just my own, but also my clients. That´s simply because everything starts there. Feet are like a basement of a house and you sure want to have a firm, healthy and stable base to built your house on.

Here is some facts (http://www.webmd.com/pain-management/picture-of-the-feet):

The feet are flexible structures of bones, joints, muscles, and soft tissues that let us stand upright and perform activities like walking, running, and jumping. The feet are divided into three sections:

• The forefoot contains the five toes (phalanges) and the five longer bones (metatarsals).
• The midfoot is a pyramid-like collection of bones that form the arches of the feet. These include the three cuneiform bones, the cuboid bone, and the navicular bone.
• The hindfoot forms the heel and ankle. The talus bone supports the leg bones (tibia and fibula), forming the ankle. The calcaneus (heel bone) is the largest bone in the foot.

Muscles, tendons, and ligaments run along the surfaces of the feet, allowing the complex movements needed for motion and balance. The Achilles tendon connects the heel to the calf muscle and is essential for running, jumping, and standing on the toes.

 My job is to make sure that each and every one of those joints are movable, muscles and soft tissues are flexible and there is no ischemia. What does that mean?

In my treatment I will check all the joints between each parts of toes, toes and metatarsals, between metatarsals, between cuneiform and cuboid, between cuboid and navicular etc, you get the picture. Sometimes the muscles and tendons are so tight that the first session goes on more superficial (soft tissues) work, since a big part of the picture are muscles of the shins (peroneals, tibialisis, soleus and gastrocnemius) and only in the second session we can try to move those ligaments to open the joints.

Opening the joints is essential because we want all the nervous tissue be free of any kind of impingement and discomfort. Is it painful? Definitely no, if it's done in a right way. When I am opening your joints, it happens with time and you probably don't even feel it. If we have more stubborn foot, I might ask you to flex and extend your ankle, so that you are always in charge of the movement. That is if I have a slightest idea that my work would give you any pain.

Why you want your feet to be flexible? Because that is how they are meant to be to keep you going. If we wouldn't need the flexibility all those joints give us, we wouldn't have that many joints in our feet!

Most of you have also heard about Reflexology, that addresses all the pressure points at the souls of the feet to help in a huge variety of issues. And yes, I do some reflexology, but that is not my specialty or the field where I am in my most comfort zone. In my believe, you can't get all the benefits of reflexology if you feet lack blood, are swollen or immovable. If the signal from the brain (like keep your feet warm) can't reach the feet, how can the signal from the feet (reflexology) make it's way to a different parts of the body? At least the reflexology session is much more helpful to you if your feet are healthy.

Okay, I will not start to explain about how an imbalance in one ankle affect to the knees and hips etc. You can read about that in my other blog posts (About Posture, More about Soft Tissues) . But what I want to tell you, is that I am able to help you so many issues with your feet: plantar fasciitis, bunions(!), rheumatoid arthritis to a certain point, achilles tendon issues, edema, calluses(!), corns, heal spurs, fallen arches, mallet toes and claw toes (depending on situation) and sometimes even in Morton's neuroma. My treatment is helpful also in cold feet or even peripheral artery disease and peripheral neuropathy if it is supervised by a medical doctor.

Unfortunately I can not help you, if you have gout, fraction, any kind of infection or osteoarthritis or osteoporosis (unless your doctor is working with us). I also need to know and be prepared, if you have warts, athlete's foot or any other kind of fungal infection.

And if you don't have anything special going on with your feet, just come and relax. I know some relaxation techniques that make you sleep in my table.

Loving your feet is healthy!