Deep Relaxation

Whenever someone is serious about taking care of themselves, I recommend them to go to Revyve. Not only are the services designed to empower people on a holistic journey, but you also get ample opportunity to combine services for your own personal needs. Personally, I love combining chiropractic care with massage therapy. I am a mindfulness enthusiast. I love expanding my awareness of my body every day. In this way, visits to the chiropractor are a reoccurring opportunity to learn something new about myself and my body. I love talking to the doctor about what muscles could be causing misalignment and what I can do to alleviate the situation. Did you know that training with certain exercises while under-utilizing your glutes can create tension in your hip flexors? I know they say that squats are a full-body exercise, but I never imagined myself to experience so much misalignment due to a lack of awareness of my hips. Adjustments are a great way to realign yourself after days/weeks/months/years of bad posture or unconscious movements. However, adjustments are a temporary fix. After I get an adjustment, I am on the lookout for what unconscious behavior of mine creates the very misalignment that was just resolved in my adjustment. Sometimes, I am disappointed to find out that I am misaligned again shortly after my appointment! What part of my body is so tense that it can create misalignment so quickly? This is why I love doing a massage directly after my chiropractic appointment. Some people like to do the massage before the chiropractic appointment, because it makes their adjustment easier. However, my adjustments are already pretty easy. For me, doing a massage right after a chiropractic adjustment helps me relax whatever muscles are unconsciously creating misalignment. In this way, I can maintain my aligned state/posture for much longer! In fact, if I approach my massage as a meditative experience, I can even prevent the misalignment permanently. In this way, I essentially approach my massage therapy sessions as an assisted body-scanning meditation. I have found that if you can be present with the muscles in your body that are tense, you will find that your muscles are unconsciously contracting/activating. These are the same muscles that unconsciously contract to create imbalance and misalignment! If you can be present with this desire to activate these muscles, you can even understand why you are unconsciously contracting these muscles in the first place. Typically, you will find that you are doing this from a place of fear or anxiety. If you can be present with the anxiety as well, you will actually notice the tension being released! We tend to live very stressful lives. It can be stress from work or physical stress from training. This stress often results in anxiety, and we tend to create unconscious behaviors to cope with this anxiety. This can range from unconsciously clenching our jaws or shrugging our shoulders to unconsciously leaning on your right leg when you run. All of these behaviors create tension and/or misalignment. When I am present with my body during the massage (or assisted body-scanning meditation), I am actually able to be aware of the very thoughts that are telling my muscles to contract from a place of fear! I am actually able to realize, "oh, my right hip is tight because I tend to lean to the left when I drive". I am even able to feel the underlying anxiety of crashing. When I can be present with the underlying anxiety driving the unconscious desire to contract certain muscles WHILE a licensed massage therapist is working away at the muscle, you can bet that all of the tension will be released. Of course, not everyone is able to experience this much from chiropractic or massage services. After all, the holistic journey is about your relationship with your mind and body, not what health providers can provide for you. If you would like to get more out of your chiropractic appointments, I highly recommend you to check out yoga! Learning how to be more aware of your body and its movements is key to understanding why you keep coming to the chiropractor every week with the same misalignment. You do not have to live with back pain forever! If you would like to get more out of your massages, I highly recommend you to check out body-scanning meditation! Learning how to be present with all of your body without needing to do anything results in an amazing peace on a physical, mental, and emotional level. As always, remember that your holistic health journey is a journey! Every day is an opportunity to open your mind to learning something new about your mind and body.