Spring into Wellness

Either way, don't neglect your self now that the warm weather is finally here to bring us all out of hibernation. Your local practitioners offer wonderful complementary health services to help you feel your best - no matter how you enjoyed the winter.

An holistic approach to self-care is the best guarantee of a positive mind-body-spirit connection. 

Whether you need to warm up sedentary muscles or ease the stiffness of over-stressed ones, there are many body treatments available. Aromatherapy massage is wonderfully evocative with its use of essential oils.  The fragrant oils lift your spirits, while their properties address specific conditions in the body.  Clinical massage treatment with a Registered Massage Therapist works on freeing up tightened muscle groups. 

Trager Movement Therapy, Reflexology, Shiatsu Treatment, Acupuncture, Acupressure - these are just a few of the many body work practices gaining mainstream popularity.  Their aim is to maximize your range of movement and free up blocked areas.  A less invasive session of Cranial-Sacral Massage, Therapeutic Touch, Healing Touch or Reiki helps to centre a stressed-out body.  It's just a matter of finding a method and practitioner with whom you are comfortable.

Remember as you start your spring activities that these are valuable maintenance treatments.  They can help prevent a crisis.  Once the body starts to compensate one problem area by straining another, before long you are completely out of whack.  So why wait for difficulties that can be avoided?

Group dynamics also create warmth and energy.  Besides aerobics classes and fitness routines, the meditative practices of yoga, Tai Chi, sacred circle dancing or oriental martial arts put you in touch with your body.

While you're working on your body, pay attention to your mind and your spirit.  An art class, a writer's workshop, a course in spiritual reading can open a whole new area of your self. This is particularly valuable for  those who have been suffering from the "winter blues."

So don't just enjoy the renewal of spring, renew your self as well.

Gertrude King is an Aromatherapist and Reflexologist in private practice in south western Ontario.