Editor's Note

Enjoy the Benefits

Welcome to this spring/summer 2007 issue. In these pages, we reflect the healthy characteristics of a way of living we like to call the Body Sense lifestyle. A major stepping stone along this path—and one of our favorite topics—is the inherent benefit of massage and bodywork. Every time we delve into the benefits of massage, the result is a beefier, more informative feature because of the continual wave of notable researchers in complementary and alternative medicine who confirm the myriad advantages.

Check out the cover story on page 8 by contributing editor Karrie Osborn. We think you’ll be surprised and comforted by the wide array of health conditions practitioners are soothing with massage. Then we go a step further on page 22 as bodyworker Cathy Ulrich details just how massage works, explaining soft-tissue techniques in general. The wisdom in these two features helps us move beyond the notion that massage is a luxury, letting bodywork take its rightful place in the palette of healthcare options.

As you know, the mind is one of the body’s most powerful healing allies. On page 18, psychologist Susan Apollon challenges you to get in touch with your intuition with a couple of insightful exercises to test your innate abilities. On page 32, we complement her feature with a discussion of how to keep your mind keen, no matter what your age.

As the perennial clock ticks, our skin is often the first thing to give away our age. Turn to page 28 and review the factors that may challenge your skin—the body’s largest organ—and what you can do to protect it.

Because this is the season of all things fresh and bountiful, we’ve included some fun and informative food and nutrition features for you as well. Learn how to make your cuisine bloom with edible flowers, page 12; consider how selecting the right foods can help you cleanse and heal your body, page 36; and smile wide as you learn how everyday foods and ingredients can help polish your pearly whites, page 38.

We hope you’ll reap the benefits these features hold as you do your own research into the Body Sense lifestyle. Healthy living until we touch base with you in autumn.

— Leslie

Massage
"Medicine" for the Body and Mind

By Karrie Osborn

Do you remember your first massage? Maybe someone gave you a gift certificate for your birthday and that’s what first brought you to your massage therapist’s door. Maybe the promise of pain relief had you consider therapeutic massage as an option for the first time. Or, maybe it was a quest for renewed health and “balance” that prompted your initial venture into the world of bodywork.

All of us come to massage for different reasons. And your reason today may not be your reason tomorrow. For some, that first experience of being touched with therapeutic hands is literally life changing. For others, the process of becoming one of the “massage initiated” is a slower evolution of understanding.

Whatever your experience, you know the value of massage in your life. And I’d be preaching to the choir if I tried to define that experience for you. Instead, let’s take a look at the myriad benefits of massage and see if some might fall on your list, too.

Massage, as a healing tool, has been around for thousands of years and in many cultures. Touching is a natural human reaction to pain and stress, and for conveying compassion and support. Healers throughout time have instinctually and independently developed a wide range of therapeutic techniques using touch. Many are still in use today, and with good reason.

Reinforced by Research
Research is showing us the enormous benefits of touch—benefits ranging from treating chronic diseases and injuries to alleviating the growing tensions of our modern lifestyles. Having a massage does more than just relax your body and mind—there are specific physiological and psychological changes that occur, even more so when massage is understood and utilized as a
preventative, frequent therapy. Massage not only feels good, but it can cure what ails you.

From the cradle to the nursing home, tactile stimulation and the emotional assurance of caring touch bring about a sense of well-being and security. In numerous studies conducted on massage for infants at the University of Miami’s Touch Research Institute (TRI), researchers have found improved weight gain and development in preterm infants and improved weight gain and decreased stress behavior in HIV-exposed infants. Full-term infants who receive massage also benefit with increased alertness and social behavior, less crying, and increased weight gain.

With more than one hundred research studies completed, TRI has also found massage to have positive effects on children with asthma (improved pulmonary function and less stress), arthritis (decreased pain), burn injuries (reduced pain and anxiety during wound dressings), cerebral palsy (decreased spasticity), Down syndrome (improved muscle tone), and leukemia (white blood cells increased), to name just a few.

Medical Might
Outside of the research arena, massage is being ever-more embraced by the medical community. Hospitals across the country have begun incorporating on-site spas into their paradigms at a quick pace. And it’s not unusual for a postsurgery or pain patient to now have the option of receiving therapeutic massage as part of their recovery process at many U.S. hospitals.

In hospices, where patients are living their last days, massage—for some—has become an integral part of the final transition. Finding safe, nurturing touch in the hands of a massage therapist helps many attain peace and comfort in their last stage of life. On the opposite end of that spectrum, massage of the most delicate nature works wonders in helping premature infants thrive during their daily, often painful struggles in neonatal intensive care units.

Stress Less
One of the most valuable aspects of massage is its role in reducing stress. Experts estimate that upwards of 90 percent of disease is stress-related. Massage and bodywork combat that exorbitant number by helping us remember what it really means to relax.

Relaxation is more than just the body unwinding; it’s also allowing the mind a chance to quiet itself and go inward. It’s what causes some clients to easily fall asleep on the massage table, while helping others “see” more clearly afterward. Finding a relaxed state lets the body slough off the shoulder-bearing burdens of the day, while letting the mind take a romp in the park, if you will. And that’s exactly what massage does.

Besides decreasing anxiety through relaxation, massage also lowers your blood pressure, increases circulation, helps you sleep better, and increases concentration. Like exercise, massage reduces fatigue and gives you more energy to handle the day’s stressful situations. 

Massage is a perfect elixir for good health, but it can also provide an integration of body and mind, a valuable tool for our often disparate lives. By producing a meditative state or heightened awareness of living in the present moment, massage can provide emotional and spiritual balance, bringing with it true relaxation and peace.

So, Pamper Me
While we often downplay the pampering nature of massage in favor of its medicinal value, there is great benefit in treating ourselves to some self-care on this level. In fact, self-care plays a huge part in how healthy we’ll be with each passing year. Father Time can devour us quickly if we sit back and offer no sort of healthy defense to his ravages. Massage offers that defense in so many ways.

Taking care of ourselves can never be a bad thing, whether it be eating a diet filled with fresh, unprocessed foods, taking a week’s vacation, or bathing in a hydrotherapeutic tub of skin-enriching oils and scents. Massage is no different. In fact, there’s simply no way to separate the luxury or pampering from the healing and therapeutic, because they are one in the same.

More is More
Experts say the incredible benefits of massage are doubly powerful if taken in regular “doses.” Dr. Maria Hernandez-Reif—one of the lead researchers at TRI who, along with colleague Tiffany Field, has been proving the efficacy of massage for years—says massage is not a “drug” on which you can overdose.

While the TRI studies have shown we can benefit from massage even in small doses (fifteen minutes of chair massage or a half-hour table session), Hernandez-Reif says they know from their research that receiving bodywork two to three times a week is highly beneficial. And if resources of time and money weren’t an issue, Hernandez-Reif has the ultimate prescription: “I feel a daily massage is optimal.”

In a touch-deprived society, there’s no denying the power of healthy, therapeutic touch. Regardless the adjectives we assign to it—luxuriously pampering or medically therapeutic—or the reasons we seek it out, touch therapies can be powerful allies in your healthcare regime.
And you know what else? They simply feel good.

Karrie Osborn is contributing editor for Body Sense.

Haute Cuisine
With Edible Flowers

By Wilma Fernando

Preparing a summer salad often means darting out to the garden for a selection of tender, green herb leaves to mix in with the other ingredients. But how about picking some fresh flowers for your salad, too? 

 Many edible flowers are high in vitamins C and A, as well as other nutrients. Flowers can be incorporated into baking, sauces, jelly, syrup vinegars, honey, oil, tea, flower-scented sugars, candied flowers, wine, and flavored liqueurs.

And many restaurant chefs and innovative home cooks garnish their entrees with flower blossoms for a touch of elegance.

History of Edible Flowers
The culinary use of flowers dates back thousands of years, with the first recorded mention in 140 BCE. Flowers have traditionally been used in many types of cooking. Early American settlers used flowers as food, and flower cookery has been traced back to Roman times and was especially popular in the Victorian era. Many different cultures have incorporated flowers into their traditional foods. Oriental dishes make use of daylily buds, Italian and Hispanic cultures relish stuffed squash blossoms, Asian Indians use rose petals in many recipes, and the Romans used mallow, roses, and violets.

Directions for Cooking Edible Flowers
Edible flowers are extremely fragile and cannot be conserved in the refrigerator, and thus must be consumed as quickly as possible. Flowers can be consumed raw, cooked in confit, or infused in sauce.

They liven up dishes, creatively complementing appetizers, main courses, or desserts. Nasturtiums, primrose, and dandelion are all eaten raw in salads. It is important to choose flowers according to their flavor, taking into consideration how each distinct taste will correspond with other ingredients.

• Blossoms should be harvested the day they are to be used. Try to pick no more than one day early. After harvest, place long-stemmed flowers in water and then in a cool location. Short-stemmed flowers should be placed between layers of damp paper toweling or in a plastic bag in the refrigerator. Gently wash the flowers immediately before using to remove dirt and check for insects.
• To candy flowers, whisk an egg white, then use a brush to paint a fine layer onto clean, dry, pesticide-free flower petals (or whole flowers if they’re very small). Next, gently place the petal into some superfine sugar, and sprinkle some more superfine sugar on top. Shake off the excess and lay it out on waxed paper to dry. Store preserved flowers in an airtight container in a cool, dark place.
• To preserve flowers, put them on moist paper and place together in plastic wrapping. If the flowers are limp, they can be revitalized by floating them on icy water for a few moments.
• Wash fresh flowers gently and set them aside to dry. Refrigerate them in plastic sandwich bags until you use them. The most common use of flowers is in salads, but you can incorporate them into sauces, tarts, preserves, pickles, and fritters.

Wilma Fernando is a Massachusetts freelance writer with an interest in holistic health.

The Science of Massage

By Cathy Ulrich

Lisa sat on the side of the table after her first Rolfing session. Her eyes shone bright, her breath filled her chest easily, her shoulders rested comfortably on her rib cage. Her expression of puzzlement and wonder was one I’ve seen many times before. “What just happened?” she said. “I feel so different!”

Lisa’s experience is not uncommon. Soft-tissue work can have a profound effect on the body. By freeing the connective tissue matrix, a therapist’s hands act as gentle guides to show the body a new way of organizing. But what’s actually happening in this exchange and how do soft-tissue techniques work?

The Connective Tissue Matrix
Aside from being the largest single organ in the body, the connective tissue or fascia is the immediate environment of every cell. Fascia is not made of living cells, but a web of protein fibers and a liquid/gel complex that makes up the spaces between the cells. Fascia forms the framework that holds the cells together, the sheets that bind and separate tissues, and the structural components of the muscles, tendons, ligaments, and bones.

Connective tissue lines all the body cavities, provides the framework for the minerals that create cartilage and bone, and separates the muscles and their individual fibers. It so permeates the body that if you were to remove every other kind of cell and leave the connective tissues in place, you’d still be able to see exactly what you looked like.

If you’ve ever prepared fresh meat for cooking, say a chicken leg, remember what the tissue looked like when you removed the skin. That thin white/clear film covering the muscle is fascia. Now imagine this fascia not only covering the muscle, but permeating the muscle belly, separating all the individual muscle fibers, dividing muscles from each other, and forming the structural framework for the whole body. This framework includes muscles, bone, skin, and organs.

Fascia does other things, too. Unlike a salamander that can grow back a severed arm, humans don’t regenerate, they repair. Connective tissue is the material that repairs broken bones, torn muscles, deep wounds, cuts, and surgeries by forming scar tissue. This same material can form web-like adhesions when it gets too enthusiastic, causing problems, especially in body cavities like the abdomen and pelvis. And it’s very strong. Connective tissue has a tensile strength of about twenty-two hundred pounds per square inch, which could explain why it’s so hard to stretch tight hamstrings.
Connective tissue possesses special properties that make it possible to change its shape and pliability. Bodyworkers take advantage of these properties to get the kinds of results my client Lisa experienced.

The Body as Jell-O
Connective tissue has the ability to change state, depending on its level of energy and activity. This property, called thixotropy, means that the fascia can move from a gel-like state to a liquid-like state and back. Just like Jell-O, fascia becomes more fluid when it’s warmer and more gelled when it’s cooler or more static. In fact, the gelatin in Jell-O is rendered animal protein and comes from exactly the same kinds of tissues as our own connective tissue matrix.

It’s easy to feel this in your own body when exercising. When you first start your workout, you may feel stiff and tight, but as you warm up, you notice greater ease and comfort. Your fascia is moving from a gel to a liquid state during the warm-up.

The same thing happens when your massage therapist works on you. But instead of your own movement raising the energy in your tissues, the therapist’s hands add heat, energy, and motion to the fascia. And her specific hand placement can free and mobilize places that exercise may not be able to get to.

Hydrogen Bonds—Good News, Bad News
Collagen is the basic building block of fascia. It’s not a living cell, but a long protein molecule that forms sheets, ligaments, tendons, the covering of bones (called periosteum), and the framework for the minerals that form cartilage and bone. These fibers are made by a special kind of cell called a fibroblast.

Fibroblasts can travel anywhere in the body that they’re needed (for example, to repair a cut or a broken bone). Once collagen fibers are formed, they’re directed by the body to organize into the appropriate structural formula, and they build this tissue by gluing to each other with molecular hydrogen bonds.

The good news is that hydrogen bonding causes collagen to build along lines of tension, making tendons and ligaments stronger. When you lift weights or begin a running program, you’re not only building joints, bones, and muscles, you’re increasing the tension in the connective tissue, which makes it stronger, too. That’s why it’s important to gradually increase your workout level. You’ll avoid injury by giving your muscles, bones, and connective tissues a chance to respond to the challenge.
The bad news is that collagen fibers also build hydrogen bonds when there are abnormal lines of tension. When you have poor posture or poor biomechanical patterns, you’ll develop a buildup of collagen that eventually holds you in those places. The hydrogen bonds glue your collagen to the point where you can’t stretch or exercise out of the pattern.

Inactivity also causes collagen to glue together. Anyone who’s been casted for a bone fracture knows that the hardest part of recovery is getting back range of motion in joints kept immobile for the six weeks it takes the bone to heal. This extreme stiffness is hydrogen bonds at work on the fascia in and around the joints.

Deep Soft-Tissue Techniques
Structural integration, Rolfing, Hellerwork, neuromuscular therapy, myofascial release, and many other bodywork approaches rely on specific techniques designed to soften and organize the connective tissue matrix. Collagen fibers are strong in tension—like cables or rope—but the hydrogen bonds that hold them together are weak against shear forces. A shear force is one that’s applied across the length of the fiber—like scissors or shears.

By applying gentle shear forces into the connective tissue matrix, a bodyworker trained in deep soft-tissue work can encourage the release of some of the hydrogen bonds and stimulate the collagen fibers to unglue themselves. And while the collagen isn’t actually a living cell, when its hydrogen bond glue has been softened, it will be more pliable and the body can then mold in a new way.
Clients frequently ask me what I mean by “releasing tissue.” My sense is that I’m accessing all of the properties of the fascia at once with my touch. I’m encouraging the gel part of the fascia to become more liquid-like, I’m gently breaking hydrogen bonds between fibers, and I’m communicating with the whole connective matrix regardless of where I’m working in the body.

It feels like releasing to me and to them. The tissue softens and melts under my hands, and I feel a flow that moves from my fingers and through my client’s body like a wave. Often the client will take a deep breath, an autonomic response to the change that signals a deep point of relaxation and the tissue is palpably softer.

What seems like magic to the client is simply the body’s natural response. The connective tissue matrix knows how to do its job. It changes with the right kind of input. It organizes itself along lines of tension so that we can move freely and confidently. It softens and deforms when it’s warmed, and it reorganizes throughout life as we grow, change, and age. And soft-tissue work can encourage it do all these things in a way that makes us healthier.

Cathy Ulrich lives, works, and plays in Fort Collins, Colorado. She’s an advanced Rolfer, physical therapist, and writer. Contact her at cathy@circleofbeing.com.

Food Your Body's Natural Healer

By Shirley Vanderbilt

Your body can heal itself from skin and digestive disorders, as well as a host of other maladies, if you just give it a chance. What does it take?

According to Scott Ohlgren, holistic health practitioner and proponent of nutritional  cellular cleansing, it’s as easy as changing what goes from hand to mouth. What’s difficult,
he says, is living with the diseased state your diet has created and the rounds of pharmaceuticals that never quite cure what ails you.

If you’re filling your body’s fuel tank with processed, or even fake foods, the machinery will eventually clog up and break down. The symptoms that result, whether a mildly annoying acne or more life-threatening colon condition, are a reaction to this toxic overload and dysfunction. Ohlgren says the first thing you need to look at is your diet. Change to a clean, nutritional intake and you can eliminate the symptoms.

To get you started on that path, Ohlgren has published, along with coauthor and whole foods expert Joann Tomasulo, a user-friendly guide for nutritional cellular cleansing—The 28-Day Cleansing Program (Genetic Press, 2006).

At the heart of this approach is the principle of cellular regeneration, a process our bodies go through on a continual basis. Cells are constantly renewing themselves, sloughing off used-up matter and regenerating with fresh matter. The materials they use for replacement are derived directly from what you ingest. What have you been giving them to work with lately?

Unwrapping Our Habits
The evolution of our eating habits from a nutrient-rich diet to processed grocery foods has led to a genetic breakdown, Ohlgren says, with each generation influencing the next. It’s not likely your body will have the same fortitude and disease resistance as that of your great grandparents, or even your next-door neighbor who comes from different stock. But rather than pointing a finger at someone in the past, he says, we need to focus on personal responsibility in the present. “I am in trouble. I have these conditions. Now what are the steps I need to take in order to strengthen my genetics, my well-being, my immune system?”   
 
Ohlgren suggests we start with “unwrapping our habits of eating.” The cleansing foods he recommends are basically what our ancestors ate—foods in a more natural state. Each has an important role in allowing the body to regenerate as nature designed and, in turn, support its innate healing power.

Get With the Program
Ohlgren’s first rule of thumb for cellular cleansing is to stop the body’s toxic load by eliminating processed food items and replacing them with a variety of grains, beans, vegetables, nuts, and fruits, along with healthy oils, soy products, and, of course, lots of water. To maintain hydration, divide your body weight in half and drink that amount of ounces of pure water every day. Eliminating animal protein is a personal issue, depending on your level of physical activity, but dairy products are out because of their mucus-forming properties.

Next come the three Rs—remineralize, rebacterialize, and reenzymize. Organic vegetables and sea algae grown in mineral-rich environments can provide these essential nutrients. Maintaining a healthy level of friendly bacteria is important to proper digestion and impacts other functions such as immunity and detoxification of harmful substances. Restock your gut-friendly bacteria with fermented cultured foods such as kimchi, sauerkraut, tempeh, and miso, but make sure the products are not pasteurized (a process that kills the bacteria and enzymes you need.) Ohlgren’s guidebook offers two hundred recipes, but as he points out, if you don’t have time to cook you can still find much of what is needed at your local whole foods deli. Flexibility is the key, and he’ll be the first to tell you there’s no dogma in this approach. 

To complement the diet, Ohlgren encourages including what he calls “physical transformers” such as skin brushing, saunas, alkalinizing baths, and colon hydrotherapy. He also recommends getting a few sessions of cleansing bodywork—deep tissue, Thai massage, and acupuncture, for example—and adding a cardiovascular workout three times a week. These active supplements will support the internal and external cleansing process, aid in lymph system circulation, and revitalize your energy level. 

After completing the four-week program, you can go back to eating as you did before, Ohlgren says, but chances are you won’t want to. The results of the cleansing program will give you cause to pause and consider the direct relationship between your food choices and your health. “It really comes down to self-empowerment,” Ohlgren says. “I want to get people to pay attention to an incredibly powerful action that we do every day and have done since the first day of our life.”

For more information, visit www.howhealth works.com.

Shirley Vanderbilt is a staff writer for Body Sense.

Natural Wisdom for a Healthy Smile

By Jimmy C. Wu