Hellerwork is an integrated mind-body system that promotes personal growth through deep tissue body work. It expands on the work of Dr. Rolf, creator of Rolfing, by addressing the emotional aspect of a person. It seeks to promote internal change by beginning with the physical aspect.
Personal growth doesn’t always mean making a change from the inside out. Sometimes transformation can begin from the outside in, and can often produce powerful results, which is the case with Hellerwork Structural Integration. Many people intend to make changes to improve their health and wellness. Changing your diet, good nutrition and incorporating exercise into your life are great solutions for improving your overall wellbeing. However, beginning a lifestyle change can be challenging, even for the most determined and resolved. And sustaining such a change can feel so overwhelming that many people don’t even start.
Interestingly, you may still feel tired, unbalanced and stressed even after altering aspects of your lifestyle, especially when you make dietary changes. This often leads to old familiar patterns creeping back in, and can leave you feeling powerless. From the nutritional perspective, if you look at your body as a vehicle and your diet as fuel, what happens if the problem is actually one of suspension? The answer is that you’ll struggle to get around, even if you have a full tank of gas.
This brings us to your fascia, which is the connective tissue that holds your body together—your suspension system. Researchers have discovered that there are soft cell fibers in your connective tissue systems, which means that fascia is able to expand and contract. This also means that your body’s suspension system is adaptable, which is good news. Working with muscle, fascia and connective tissue can have positive effects on your whole body, and can be the missing ingredient to making any successful lifestyle change.
This suggests that a good place to begin a journey toward personal growth may be by addressing the imbalances that exist in your body first, such as correcting poor posture and ensuring that your body is in alignment. By doing so, this ensures that you’re able to move, support and express yourself in ways that promote good health. Being out of alignment can keep you stuck in old movement patterns and even stuck in your life, and makes change and personal growth difficult to sustain. However, by correcting physical imbalances, it also opens the door to address internal imbalances. Working on balancing your physical body provides the framework for internal personal growth to occur.
In addition to Hellerwork, a number of other healing systems address mind and body health as an avenue to healing, and these therapies are available at BodaHealth. Perhaps the oldest healing system to take into account the role of your emotions in the healing process is acupuncture and Chinese medicine. Ancient practitioners have said that the emotions are the cause of one hundred diseases. Acupuncturists today have a clear understanding of how specific emotions affect certain organ systems. Acupuncture treatments provide a pathway to addressing both internal and external imbalances to reduce pain and other symptoms, allowing for personal growth, change and improved health.
Exercise physiology at BodaHealth is a great way to promote your health from the outside in. Our practitioners combine manual therapies, massage, corrective exercises and education as a way to address physical imbalances. It also is used for injury rehabilitation and prevention and improved mobility. By correcting your body’s suspension system, exercise physiology is a means to promote confidence in your movements, better functioning, a way to live your life to the fullest and enhanced mental health.
Like Hellerwork, massage therapy addresses external imbalances as a way to facilitate internal change. By promoting circulation, loosening tight muscles and supporting better movement and range of motion, your registered massage therapist can help relieve pain. However, the benefits of massage don’t stop there. It’s well-known that massage therapy can reduce stress, promote relaxation and relieve muscle tension. It truly promotes emotional health by addressing your body’s suspension system.
While you may think of food as a way to fuel your body, you may be unaware of the link between food, your emotions and digestion. Scientists know that certain foods can affect your mood, and conversely, stress, depression and anxiety can trigger food cravings and digestive problems, from heartburn to Irritable Bowel Syndrome. At BodaHealth, our practitioners are experienced in working with patients to provide nutritional guidance that not only treats your physical symptoms but also addresses your emotional health.
We also offer cold laser therapy at BodaHealth, which is a low-level laser specifically designed to gently promote healing and relieve pain. This kind of laser painlessly enters deep into damaged and painful tissue and causes beneficial changes at the cellular level. Cold laser therapy is used to reduce inflammation, relieve pain and repair damaged tissue. It also promotes collagen formation, which is crucial to the production of healthy connective tissue—your body’s suspension system. In addition to pain relief, cold laser therapy can reduce disability and increase your range of motion and functionality.
Your body holds onto old injuries and traumatic events from the past, and this may cause you to compensate by changing how you move and how your body functions. Pain and loss of function, as well as structural imbalances also impact your emotional health. At BodaHealth, we offer our clients a way to heal once and for all. We can help you move differently, regain function and address the emotional impact of our increasingly stressful world.
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