Sleep to Improve Performance

Sleep should be one of the easiest, most natural responses to stress or dysfunction in the body, but a lot of people seem to be really bad at it. Many times it's the first thing to get neglected when we have a big project or important event coming up, to give ourselves more prep time. Sadly, high quality sleep is the thing we need most of all when it's time to lean into the hard work. 

According to an article published in the Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care in 2016, “Chronic insomnia was seen in 33% of the adult population sampled." It's such a high priority issue, that they recommend “...all patients, especially middle-aged and diabetics, should be screened for insomnia by the primary care physician…”

If you fall into the one third of people with chronic sleep disruptions, how bad is it really? It can actually create challenges in many areas of your daily life. The National Sleep Foundation lists several things to watch out for: Fatigue, difficulty concentrating, irritability, impulsive or aggressive behavior, and relationship difficulties. None of those traits sound like optimal performance to me. Physical or mental performance will certainly be impaired by lack of sleep.

If you are training to optimize athletic performance, quality sleep should be an even higher priority for you. Key body building and repair hormones Testosterone and Human Growth Hormone are only produced during deep sleep stages. Ladies, don't check out on me here, because you have T and HGH in your systems too, doing mostly the same jobs, just in different amounts. Testosterone can only be used by the body to repair itself during sleep. It cannot be stored in the body for use during the day, instead it breaks down into Estrogen, which is stored in fat, typically abdominal fat.

Dr. Shafiq Qaadri says in his excellent book, The Testosterone Factor, “Sleep is when you strengthen your bones, muscles, memories, blood, sperm and new learning. It’s when your onboard diagnostics and your immune system self-heal and detoxify. It’s when you repair both physical and psychological wounds. It’s when you grow both physically and psychologically.” He goes on to explain that “Testosterone leads, triggers, oils, oversees, contributes to, mediates or is involved in all of these restorative processes. The better you sleep, the more testosterone shines.  As this hormone level rises, it also promotes other brain chemicals important for quality sleep including, melatonin, serotonin, and human growth hormone.”

Definitely keep working out, because exercise, especially resistance training and high intensity interval training, pushes your body to produce more Testosterone naturally while you sleep. Just keep in mind, that if you don't get plenty of quality sleep after all the hard work in the gym, the results will never happen.

Thankfully, The Mayo Clinic has some suggestions on how to get better sleep. First of all, you need to keep a consistent sleep schedule. Start your bedtime routine at the same time every night and go to bed at the same time every night. Likewise, if your schedule does not allow for enough sleep at one stretch during the night, keep your daytime naps consistent as well. Another obvious tip is to limit your caffeine intake and even wean yourself off of caffeinated beverages entirely (we're looking at you, Coffee), if you're struggling with severe sleep disruptions.

Another key bit of advice from The Mayo Clinic is to be proactive about pain management. Since I'm a Licensed Massage and Bodywork Therapist, as well as a Certified Reflexologist, I'm obviously going to suggest that you start by managing your sleep disrupting pain by making an appointment with a well trained, properly licensed holistic practitioner, before seeking out pharmaceutical interventions. Sleep aids are notoriously habit forming and Opioid type pain relievers come with a host of side effects, including being extremely addictive. Here are some staggering stats from the CDC about the Opioid Epidemic.

Let's talk about Reflexology as an alternative for pain management and for encouraging sleep. There have been several studies over the past five years, published in reputable peer reviewed journals, that suggest that Foot Reflexology is highly beneficial for those needs. For example, The Journal of Clinical Oncology stated that "...plantar reflexology improved significantly the quality of Sleep" in breast cancer patients. According to the International Journal of Nursing Education and Research, "After receiving foot reflexology therapy, the subjects showed significant pain relief and improved sleep.” Even in a meta-analysis of 44 individual studies, the Korean Academy of Nursing concluded that "... Foot Reflexology is a useful nursing intervention to relieve Fatigue and to promote Sleep."

To find a knowledgeable, certified Reflexologist in your area, you can search on the Reflexology Association of America's site or check out the American Reflexology Certification Board to find one of my Nationally Board Certified colleagues. There are also state level Reflexology associations, like here in North Carolina where I’m a member.

As you can see, sleep is a priceless tool in maintaining your health. Since it can benefit you in so many areas, start taking advantage of it tonight to improve your performance in whatever you’re working on- physical or mental- so you can crush your goals and feel amazing!

The last thing I want to share with you is a Leonardo daVinci quote, "A well-spent day brings happy sleep."

Stress Threshold, Stress Awareness, and Migraines

Here are some thoughts about how we deal with stress daily, hourly, and even down to the second. Every little thing adds up so you have to be mindful of your personal "Stress Threshold" and what triggers set you off, so you can prevent critical events like Migraines or Painful Flare-ups elsewhere in the body. 

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How Much Water Should I Drink after a Massage?

The other day I got to speak with a particularly inquisitive massage therapy client, who likes to get each different therapist's unique perspective on his situation, by asking thoughtful questions throughout the massage. I like his questions, because I feel that he takes advantage of my hands and my brain.

When leaving this last time, he asked me, "How much water should I drink after a massage?" I have several stock answers, because it's a common question, but my most common answer is "The most important thing is to stay well hydrated all the time. One half your body weight in ounces- for example, if you weigh 100 pounds, drink 50 ounces of water daily, to maintain normal hydration. Then, drink a bit more, like you've had a good workout, to minimize soreness from the massage."

Hydration is very subjective, however. My inquisitive client got me thinking. Staying hydrated all the time is the key. It's just like sleeping habits. If I only sleep 4-5 hours a night with loud ambient noise and bright lights, most nights, then sleeping 12 hours on the weekend days isn't going to help much. I get clients who come in with a gallon jug of water and start chugging as soon as they stand up from the table. If they are primarily drinking energy drinks, diet soda and coffee most days, and only have a little bit of water daily, that gallon after the massage is an extreme change!

The body doesn't handle extreme changes well. Your body prefers consistent, well balanced habits. The gallon chugger probably isn't going to hurt himself, if he is already well hydrated from consistent intake of clean water as a daily practice. So, like getting a good night's sleep regularly, staying hydrated consistently will keep the body functioning optimally before, during, and after the massage.

Check out this Water Intake Calculator with several unit conversions.

*Notice I didn't say anything about "Toxins." Neither massage nor reflexology are flushing out Toxins into your bloodstream. That's been debunked as the science has advanced. Here's a good article about that from Massage Magazine. 

Fluid Movement

Something fascinating occurred to me, while studying the Urinary System in great detail during my Reflexology training. The fluid and mineral balance in the body is constantly changing and dynamic. This affects even the most rigid structures. We need to get away from the idea that the body has any truly hard, permanent, unchanging pieces. We're mostly made of salt water and our bones are like coral reefs- alive, growing, adapting to currents (habitual postural patterns) and interdependent with the sea water (blood) around them. 

I'm guilty too- I think about my body as being a solid mass of stuff that stopped growing after I got into my early 20's. The urinary system underlines the fact that I'm wrong. Water movement, filtration, and mineral exchange happens second by second. Hopefully, when properly hydrated, we should be peeing several times a day. A hard, rigid system, like a marble statue, would find itself highly stressed, if it had to convert marble to saltwater several times a day. We are not solid statues and thankfully, reflexology, massage, stretching and movement can promote healthy fluid and mineral exchange in a calming, balanced way, because our bodies are fluid and constantly adapting. 

What is Foot Reading in Reflexology?

Western Reflexology is based on the Nervous System and how it has connections to every part of the entire body. The extremities, namely the Feet, Hands, Face, and Ears, can be analyzed and manipulated to create balance in other areas of the body. A good starting point for visualizing this is by using Electrical wiring as a metaphor. 

You may have seen a Reflexology Chart or Map.

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And you may have seen a Fuse box labeled on a diagram, in your car perhaps.

93 Ford Mustang GT Source

Looking at the diagrams on paper only goes so far though. Without seeing the real thing, touching the switches, and making physical changes, you're not going to gain any understanding of what's happening- either good or bad. 

In your house, you have a Fuse box, which should have every major area of the house labeled. If the "Oven" fuse is blown, you know there is a problem with the Oven, but if the Air Conditioner fuse is blown, you're probably going to ignore the Oven when you're trying to fix the problem. Resetting the A/C fuse won't necessarily fix whatever malfunction is in the cooling system, but it's an indicator of where you should put your fixing/maintenance resources.

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Likewise, if you have a sore spot on your foot, hand, face or ear, it can lead you to where your body is in need of some kind of repair or balance. A Reflexologist is trained to look for many types of "Markers" beyond simple sore spots. For example, inflamed areas, redness, moisture, dryness, cracking, warts, callouses, and coldness would all have meaning when trying to figure out what's going on in the body. That's where the basic fuse box with its On/Off switches is an oversimplified example. 

Top Outside Inflammation Source

Dorsal Lateral Inflammation Source

The human body is a wondrously complex organism and the extremities are just reflecting that complexity. A better visual would be a city's Power Grid. 

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Having a huge, color coded display would allow an Electrical Engineer to have a much greater understanding of the interdependent dynamics of the electricity as it functions, or dysfunctions, in real time, in the grid. A Reflexologist looking at the feet can understand how the interdependent systems of the body are functioning now, or how they changed over time.  

The electrical engineer might be able to "Read" a blown transformer from the "Screen" that reflects the state of the entire system. 

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The Reflexologist might be able to "Read" a highly stressed Heart from the "Screen" of the Foot.

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Reflexology is a "Holistic" technique, which means that the goal during the session is to create balance in the entire body, instead of just trying to focus on one organ, like the heart, in isolation. In our blown transformer example, the engineer sent to fix it would need to look at many variables. Was there something broken structurally? Was there an outside stressor like Lightning? Were there tree branches slowly growing into and getting tangled around the wiring? Did a homeless guy build a fire in a garbage can that got out of control?

If the engineer just goes in and takes out the bad part and replaces it, without understanding the bigger picture, it's probably not going to actually be fixed- much less functioning optimally. 

Reflexology will aim to create balance and relaxation in the whole body, to take pressure off of the broken/inflamed/malfunctioning area, so that everything can work at the highest possible level. 

Big Picture Healing.

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What is Profound Therapies?

Let's start with some general definitions...

Profound- Having or showing great Knowledge or Insight, Demanding Deep Study or Thought, Extending to a Great Depth, Wise, Intelligent, Scholarly, Discerning, Perceptive, Thoughtful, Insightful.

Therapy- To Attend, do Service, Take Care of during a Remedial, Rehabilitating, or Curative Process; An act or task that Relieves Tension; a Healing Power or Quality.

As a Bodyworker (Licensed Massage Therapist, Certified Reflexologist, Certified Posture and Pain Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer) I have several core values that help shape how I can get the most "Profound" results for the clients and patients I see every day for Therapy.

Most people think of getting a Massage with a goal of having their Muscles Relax- and that's about it. Over years of experience and advanced training from many perspectives, I've learned that you cannot separate or isolate any specific system of the body. Each and every cell in the body is connected to Nerves, Fascia, and Blood flow. I cannot massage or stretch any specific muscle alone, and if I did, it would be meaningless taken out of context of the Holistic Body in the 3 Dimensional World.

The Brain is the director of everything that goes on in the body, using the nervous system to gather information from the world and then to distribute calls for action in response to that information.

Profound Therapies is built around respecting the Nervous System to benefit the Body as a Whole Structure. As a Therapist, I can communicate with the Brain in several ways- Massage, Reflexology, Stretching, Verbal Coaching, Functional Training, and Passive or Assisted Joint Movement.

So the biggest Core Value of Profound Therapies is that I approach Your Body on the Table with respect for Your Brain. You are the boss of what's going on. If your Brain thinks I'm attacking Your Body, it's going to put up walls and barriers against me, which is the opposite of the results we want. Walls are stiff and hard to move. You want to move better, with Less Restriction, right?

Ice

That's the difference between Deep Tissue Massage and Profound Therapy. You get to take advantage of my Thoughtful, Discerning, Knowledgeable, Scholarly training to get the Results you want, without being sore, bruised, and inflamed after the session. You shouldn't have to recover from a massage or training session. Brute Force does NOT benefit Your Brain or Your Body.