Broccoli Cupcake

Hello from Disney World!  I’ve committed this week to my family so I’m not blogging, checking email or doing any other work.  But I have lined up a series of guest posts that I hope you’ll find interesting and informative.   The first one comes from Brenda Oakes, a Postural Alignment Therapist and owner of BVibrant.  I recently met Brenda and was so moved by her story that I asked her to write a guest post for Broccoli Cupcake.  I hadn’t heard of postural alignment therapy, but two things really struck me about her story.  1.  She became a PAT as a result of a personal struggle and her desire to help other people find the healing and relief she found.  (I can relate to that.) 2.  After drugs and other forms of therpay failed, she found a natural way to heal her body.  (This isn’t always possible, but I think she has a great story of hope for anyone living with chronic pain.)  Read on and check back soon for the next guest post. 

 

While vacationing in the beautiful and majestic Smoky Mountains this week, I’ve enjoyed the pleasure of getting some physical exercise as I have gone hiking. One of the trails I was on, led me to an old two room sturdy log cabin that was built in the 1800s. This cabin was built by Mr Noah “Bud” Ogle who was a descendent of the first settlers to the Gatlinburg area.  As a Postural Alignment Therapist (PAT) who helps people get out of chronic pain by doing therapeutic exercises based on the fundamental, anatomical, physiological and biomechanical principles, my mind took me back to Mr. Ogle’s day where active body motion was so vital, just to be able to live and survive. Everyday of these settler’s lives, was a day in motion.

 

When the Industrial Revolution came to be and machines began to do the laboring for us, we had a slow decline in full body motion. In Mr. Ogle’s time, there was no need for exercise classes, gyms, fancy health clubs, etc. because daily musculoskeletal movement to accomplish chores was a part of life.  Even though machines and technology have helped to eliminate such vigorous labor, the results haven’t been totally positive for our joints and muscles. We  have become spoiled to a degree when it comes to not having to engage our bodies in hard labor. Because of the high technology we have, many of our jobs require less movement. Yes, we have developed a motion weakness, called “motion starvation”.

 

Motion has become more of a negative word, than a positive one. It has gotten so out of control that we need a remote control to change the TV channels, because we don’t want to get up and walk a couple of feet. The remote does the motion for us!  Since we have an epidemic of living a sedentary life, we have seen numbers rise in chronic pain and obesity with all ages of people.. With the rising number of people in musculoskeletal pain, we now have a higher prescription drug problem as individuals are getting addicted to them for pain relief. Not only this, but our lack of “right” motion has caused us to develop dysfunctions in our load bearing joints, which causes muscle compensation. When this happens, we may find ourselves in such pain that we end up at the orthopedic doctor’s office, being told that the only way to find relief is to have surgery (you can read my testimony on my website).

 

My heart has achedas several of my clients have come to me as a last resort because they have taken the route of pain meds and surgery and are still in pain, not to mention loss of mobility where they had their surgery. Many times when we are faced with a dysfunction (other than from an accident or born with a deformity) and our pain gets worse, perhaps our body is crying out for the “right” bilateral motion. This is where PAT is greatly beneficial, because it works and treats the whole body as a unit to bring the posture back into balance. Well, even though we are no longer cutting down trees with a hand saw to build a log cabin, like Mr. Ogle’s  did, we can still live a healthy life of motion through proper exercises where we work all muscles thus giving our bodies a healthy musculoskeletal system. To that  end, I say NEVER NEVER NEVER STOP MOVING! Be Blessed, B Vibrant and live PAIN-FREE!  Click here to contact Brenda with questions about postural alignment therapy.