Keeping Muscles Healthy   Muscles are our primary movers, they enable us to move our body from point A to point B. Muscles need proper rest, proper use, exercise, nutrition, water, stretching, detoxification and massages!

1. Proper Rest: When we rest/sleep our muscles should not be working, if we sleep on our tummy or side are muscles have to work thru the night to keep us in those positions so they are not getting their much needed rest! Sleeping on our back is best, and if you do sleep in either of those positions make sure you are properly supported with pillows.

2. Proper Use: That is not abuse, so not overworking our muscles, and good posture thru ought the day including sitting, standing and working. Try and be aware of your posture, take a deep breathe and allow areas of tension to release. Avoid repetitive activities, as you can or modify the position continuously.

3. Exercise: If we don’t use we lose ‘em! So walk, take the stairs, hit the gym, swim, bike, blade, skate, just get active!

4. Proper Nutrition: Muscles use Calcium, Magnesium, Potassium and Sodium, every time they contract. So keep them topped up with the juice that sustains them! These are the best sources of: Calcium: red & green vegetables, spinach, broccoli, seafood, tofu and dairy foods. Magnesium: apples, bananas, avocados, apricots, and the same foods as calcium. Potassium: potatoes, winter squash, yams, and the same foods as the others. Sodium of course is your table salt, so you are more than likely getting plenty!

5. Water: Every cell in your body requires water to function properly including your muscles. So make sure your getting sufficient water every day, more when our very active and in dry spells like the dead of winter and in the summer hot spells. To determine the right amount of H2O for you: divide your body weight (lbs.) in half, that will give you your total fluid ounces per day, then divide that in to 8 that should be the typical glass size 8 ounces. Then you will arrive at a number like 6 or 8 or 10; that’s how glasses of water your body needs every day! To keep from being up in the night going to the bathroom stop drinking about 2 hours before you go to bed.

6. Stretching: It increases circulation of nutrients into the muscles and the toxins out of them. It helps keep your muscles flexible and elastic. It helps them maintain their natural recoil; when muscles are overworked, i.e.due to poor posture or repetitively straining activities, the muscles become less flexible and no longer properly recoil, the tissues then become adhered and tight, no longer able to recoil completely.

7. Detoxification: Doing a cleanse/fast or detoxification once or more in a year helps draw out any remaining toxins in your muscles and connective tissue. It helps draw toxins out of every system of your body.

8. Regular Massages & CranioSacral Therapy: To help those muscles that are abused, injured and not getting enough rest, have a maintance massage; as you need it. It is recommended that you have a general full body massage once a month, every 6 weeks if you are good to your muscles in the 1-7 categories listed. Having a thorough muscle kneading is not only good for the muscles, but good for your mental outlook too. We hold a lot of emotional tension and memory in our muscles, massage is an excellent way of releasing that tension. CranioSacral helps keep muscles limber too….ask me how?