Colleen believes Yoga is the ultimate connection of mind, body and spirit. Yoga has been in her life for over 15 years and it has helped her cope with stress as well as provided a positive source of exercise to her life. As a yoga instructor Colleen aspire to inspire and motivate others to cope with anxiety and find peace by incorporating breathing techniques & meditation that students can use in their daily life. As an instructor she is knowledgeable about pre & post natal yoga.Colleen is continuing my education in Ayurveda & Yoga/Meditation for Trauma Release.
Meet The Noksters : Kate LMT
Kate is a New York State licensed massage therapist who has been practicing for over 3 years. Her desire to help heal people holistically is what led her towards pursuing massage therapy as a career. Kate's always finding new ways to approach the muscles from using different modalities such as deep tissue, trigger point, and a relaxing aromatherapy massage. With these different approaches she's able to treat those stubborn and reoccurring issues. She is a firm believer in the benefits massage therapy provides and will work hard to help with any issue you may be experiencing. No massage is the same and every person needs a personalized experience. Kate listens to how your body responds to treatment and focus the treatment towards your responses.
Meet The Noksters : Domingo
DOMINGO, IS A NEW YORK LICENCED MASSAGE THERAPIST AND REGISTERED YOGA TEACHER. CARIBBEAN RAISED, DOMINGO BELIEVES IN A MORE RELAXED LIFESTYLE. SO, IN HIS EYES MASSAGE AND YOGA ARE NOT LUXURY BUT LIFE.
FIRST INTRODUCED TO ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE IN HAWAII, HE BEGAN TO UNDERSTAND TO BE HEALTHY IS TO MAINTAIN A HEALTHY LIFESTYLE. AND MASSAGE AND YOGA ARE SOME OF THE BEST TOOLS TO DO SO. HIS FIRST TASTE IN PRACTICING MASSAGE WAS IN THAILAND WHERE HE COMPLETED COURSES ON TRADITIONAL NORTHERN STYLE THAI MASSAGE. A MONTH LATER HE RECEIVED A SCHOLARSHIP TO THE FINGER LAKES SCHOOL OF MASSAGE WHERE HE COMPLETED HIS CERTIFICATION TO BECOME A LICENSED PRACTITIONER IN NY.
SINCE RECEIVING HIS LICENSE DOMINGO CONTINUES TO TRAVEL AND EXPAND HIS SKILLS TO HELP BRING HIS CLIENTS AND KEEP THEM IN A HEALTHIER STATE. ONE ADDITION WAS COMPLETING HIS 200 HOUR YOGA TEACHER TRAINING IN RIESHIKISH INDIA. HE HAS SINCE SPENT TIME THROUGHOUT ASIA, EUROPE AND EVEN SOME TIME IN MOROCCO EXPANDING HIS KNOWLEDGE ON BODYWORK, YOGA , THERAPEUTIC OILS, MEDITATION, MINDFULNESS AND SELF-AWARENESS.
Meet The Noksters : Laura Parshley founder/owner
Laura, a senior Nookster, is a Licensed Massage Therapist and a Registered Yoga Teacher. Always interested in medicine, Laura chose massage because, what may hold her back in other fields, makes her excel in this. At thirteen, Laura began losing her eyesight, becoming legally blind. At this time, she heard of the blind therapists in Asia, and became interested in practitioners of alternative medicine.
Laura went to the islands of Hawaii to begin the journey of learning her trade. At the Maui School of Therapeutic Massage, Laura learned from some of the best massage therapists in the U.S., including the owner of the school, James Hackett. While in Hawaii, she also attended the Hawaiian Healing Academy, studying under Kumu ("teacher") Maka'ala Yates, and learned the healing arts of Big Island Style Lomi Lomi.
Laura has continued to grow in her field. She has traveled to Chiang Mai Thailand to study the ancient bodywork of Northern Style Thai Massage (or Yoga Massage),.She has studied some of the Thai use of herbs with massage and brought back Thai Herbal Compresses, a heated pouch or herbs that is massaged into the muscle to alleviate pain and swelling.
Laura keeps on with her exploration and expansion of knowledge in many fields of body work. She completed her 200 hour yoga teacher training while in Rishikesh India. And is providing one on one sessions to help clients use yoga asana's(poses) to therapeutically stretch chronically tight areas and recover from muscular injuries.
She has now annually returned to Asia in for over 5 years to study and grow as a practitioner and person. Her next adventure is tackling an aerial yoga teacher training on the island of Koh Phangan Thailand.
The Perfect Gift this Holiday Season...Time: Massage
Mom, Dad, your sister , brother, Uncle Alan, Aunt Valerie, cousin Josh, your best friend, the teacher that goes the extra mile for your kid, the list goes on and on for those you want to show how much you care and appreciate them this time of year. But what should you get everyone? And how many places do you need to run around to find everything? And will they even like it? Will they already have it?
Give something we all want, and can always use some more of. Time, healing, wellness, self care...and you can get all of this in a Massage.
We rarely take time for ourselves. And at this time of year we are running around even more . We sell our time to our job. We give our time to our kids. We use our time to shop, clean cook....A massage can be an hour, 90 minutes ore even two hours just to you. Time aside to yourself, your thoughts, and your peace.
This is also a great hour or two hours to heal. Increase circulation the lymphatic system, reducing swelling. Lowers blood pressure. Improve joint range of motion. Decrease pain and tension. Heal your body from head to toe and the inside out.
Massage therapy is a great wellness practice . Especially our mental wellness. Which is always on edge this time of year. Stressing about family dinners, holiday shopping and even just driving around this time of year. Massage can help reduce the production of stress hormones while increasing dopamine, one of or feel good hormone.
All of this coming together giving the gift of self care. Which we can all use . So, finish your shopping list with the gift of what everyone needs and wants...and while your picking up massage certificates for your loved ones, don't forget about your most important loved one...yourself.
Happy Holidays
Tips to Help your Tummy Through Thanksgiving
The end of November is here. Which means the intense roller coaster of family, fun and food has begun! Thanksgiving is many Americans favorite holidays. And why not, you get to hag out with those you love, watch parades and football, and of course eat like we haven't seen food all year.
Everyone has some wonderful family recipe to add, be it bacon covered turkeys or carrot souffle, Jack Danieles sweet potatoes and five different kinds of stuffing. And as our eyes widen, mouths salivate and taste buds dance our stomachs may star out excite s but often by the end of the night we are all bloated and babbling about how we ate too much.
Here are some tips to help you through
The simplest and yet hardest would be to just eat less, Take smaller portions so you can still try everything, but maybe just a bite of everything rather than a full serving. Honestly, though for me Thanksgiving is a day I wait for all year and no amount of self control is limiting me to a bite of stuffing …so on to the next tips.
For those of you like me that will be stuffing their faces more than they had stuffed the turkey, the rest of these will help with the bloating and discomfort...
Deep Breathing
This might seem silly and even like a little kids idea. But there is an actual anatomical reason this helps.
Deep diaphragmatic breathing(or belly breathing) will ad in digestion. When you breathe into your belly your diaphragm pressed down onto you stomach, down to the intestines and massages these organs encouraging the movement of food through your GI tracts.
Abdominal Massage
Continue the encouragement of movement in your digestive system with gentle massage to the belly. Even just lightly rubbing your belly in a clockwise motion can help calm the bloating.
*start at the right hip bone, slide your hand up till you feel the right ribs, slide across to just under the left ribs, then slide down toward the left hip bone. -You can also do smaller clockwise circle around the navel to get the small intestine*
Peppermint
Peppermint is one of my favorite essential oils. You can rub this directly on your belly to help with discomfort(you may want to mix with a carrier oil like coconut or grapeseed as it can be intense on its own). It provides a cooling sensation and alleviate bloating nausea and even heartburn.
You can even enjoy it as a tea to help with these symptoms (if peppermint is to harsh and increases your heartburn spearmint might be better for you)
Ginger Tea
Ginger is an amazing root . It helps with gas and bloating, it reduces inflammation, alleviate nausea . Enjoying a cup of tea after a big meal can help aid your digestion and make you feel better.
Easy Yoga
After a big meal you do not want to jump into any intense movements but easy, slow stretches and actually help feelings of bloat and promote digestion.
some poses to try
wind pose /Pavanamuktasana
supine twists /Supta Matsyendrasana
yogi squat /malasana
Hopefully with these easy tips you can have an even more enjoyable Thanksgiving this year!
Happy Thanksgiving!
Deep neck / shoulder streatched -video
Neck shoulder tension?
Try these three deeper neck and shoulder stretches I like to do when feeling stiff.
These are three deeper neck / shoulder stretching yoga poses or variations of them.
As always with any neck or shoulder injury please clear with your doctor before trying any extreme movements.
Enjoy!
Be to Calm for a Cold:How Massage Can Help You Stay Healthy!
Massage has many benefits, to many parts of our body and this does not disnclude our immune systems.
To better understand how massage helps your immune system , you need to understand stress and how it affects your body.
Stress, strain or pressure put upon you mentally of physically. Right now we are focusing on the mental stress. that could be from work, kids, school relationship and pretty much just life.
Adrenaline and cortisol are our stress hormones. Which are great when you are in fact being chased by a tiger. But fortunately on a daily we are not being chased by large predators. We just mentally feel like we are when we stressed about daily life.
Excessive production of these hormones fatigues the body. And when the body is fatigued it has a weakened defense and lower immunity.
Massage therapy has proven to reduce stress, and the production of adrenaline and cortisol as well as increase the production of sarotonin and dopamine, our "feel good" hormones.
This reduction in stress and fatigue throughout the body strengthens our ability to fight off those pesky microbes.
Massage also improves the circulation of our lymphatic system. Lymph node and the lymphatic system work as filtration in our bodies. The glands that get swollen in our neck when we get sick are lymph nodes. And they are usually swollen when they are clogged and overwhelmed with pathogens.
Light touch massage to areas of lymph nodes and centripetal strokes throughout the body may help flush out this system and any disease lingering within it.
And finally, studies have shown that massage therapy has increase the activity of lymphocytes , a type of white blood cell. The cells in your body responsible for fighting invading pathogens.
So, add massage to your wellness routine and stay your healthiest all years!
Low Back & Hip Stretches for at Desk-Video
Long hours at a desk can be rough. Looming deadlines and and grooling paper work and keep us stuck seating for longer then our bodies would like.
Here are some stretches I like to do to keep my spine happy and healthy !
Why Try CranioSacral Therapy?
By Kelly Mahoney LMT
First let's understand CranioSacral Therapy (CST). It is NOT a scalp massage. CST is a gentle, hands-on method of evaluating and enhancing the functioning of a physiological body system called the craniosacral system - comprised of the membranes and cerebrospinal fluid that surround and protect the brain and spinal cord.
Medical research has recognized and confirmed significant systems in the brain that can benefit from manual therapies, like CranioSacral Therapy.
1 - There is motion of the cranial bones.
2 - The brain has a waste removal system, the glymphatic system.
3 - The brain is directly connected to the immune system by lymph vessels.
After injury, the sutures between cranial bones can jam, decreasing the cranial motion, decreasing the craniosacral rythm and even causing the sutures to become calcified.
There is also soft tissue damage, the superficial fascia can send imbalances and restrictions to the dura mater (the protective membrane around the brain and spinal cord). This too, can disrupt the cranial motion, the craniosacral rhythm, create scar tissue and even block neurological function.
In acute stages of brain injury, a restriction of the cranial motion can cause a backup of fluids in almost any part of the brain. This backup of fluid causes pressure and swelling on the brain and inhibits brain function.
So you can now see how restoring cranial motion allows the systems of the brain to function properly.
Keep in mind restrictions of the craniosacral system can begin on the outside and work inward as well as start internally and work to the exterior.
Remember, everything in the body is connected... What can affect the craniosacral system? Stress, muscle tension, surgery, scars, injury, postural imbalances, medical conditions, the list is endless.
So when you go for massage, take care of the whole body system, not just the 'knots'
