Ahwatukee Living’s Ask the Experts

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Shall We Dance at Living Inline

We are starting to serve a lot of dancers and athletes at Living Inline and our Balancing sessions at Living Inline are starting to be known as the Performing Artists' and Athlete's secret weapon, helping a whole host of challenges from stage fright, (now referred to as performance anxiety) to improved voice production to injury prevention to improved dexterity and facility.

In addition to these more physically based results, people often report clearer thinking, a sense of peacefulness and an awareness of how their own habits of thought can create physical tension and stress. The Balancing Sessions we deliver are truly starting to be a physiological body/mind tool.

When someone chooses to come for care we have an invaluable tool to teach them about the mastery of feeling ease in their body. The Balancing Sessions we offer are a robust addition to anyone's skills for living (whether suffering the effects or stress, or not) and offers a portable set of principles to assist you in self-care.

Basics:
To work with someone interested in managing stress and deepening their skill in tapping into the body/mind tools, we begin where we would with any other practice
member: evaluating choices and behaviors.

Many performers in addition to their rigorous practice schedule are also involved in complex tasks all day long, from work or home demands to managing the balance they carry as the load of creating a fulfilling life personally, and professionally falls on their shoulders. These demands show up in the spine, nervous system, and surrounding musculature.

Dancers and athletes are able to perform their performance activities without having to stop and think about them because they are habitual and familiar.
However, if they have less than ideal muscle deployment in the way they do these task, over time this can take a toll.

Our techniques at Living Inline give people unique tools as their body learns how to bring greater and greater efficiency and ease to the task of living and competing by knowing how to identify overuse of muscles, mental and physical energy, and lessen that overuse. That is pretty cool considering that is not something you even have to think about. A balanced nervous system simply responds better to life. Just like a fine tuned car runs smoothly on the road!

How do our Living Inline Balancing Sessions reduce stress?:
Dr. Hans Selye the famous cellular biologist identified the fact that most of us are in a perpetual state of "fight or flight syndrome", also know as the startle response.

If you have ever seen a newborn or young infant react to a loud, unexpected noise, you may recall their shoulders come up to their ears and their heads are pulled or fall back - they are clearly startled by the experience. In a few moments, as the event passes, they return to their prior state, which is relaxed, alert, and engaged.

As we grow up in our fast paced society, we face a constant onslaught of stressful events. We are in the process of recovery from one event when yet another stimulus hits our systems, and so we begin to function in a constant state of startle response. Because our nervous system adapts to the new level of stress, we cease to register it as too much and so never fully return to the easeful state of the newborn. Instead, we increase muscular effort throughout our lives. The analogy I use to describe this constant state of over-contraction is that of driving with the parking brake on. We use much more energy to perform simple activities than we actually need, which is a wasteful process.

Our recognition that this sensory feedback is heightened gives us a window into changing the chronic overuse of muscle effort to a more efficient, appropriate level when accomplishing one's activities.

By learning how to help performance oriented people inhibit this startle response upon receiving stimulus, not only are we able to change muscle tension in one's body, but we are also able to change the biochemical messages being sent through one's nervous system. What was once stressful when performed with the old habit patterns became easeful, poised and appropriate to the task at hand. This tool of inhibiting the old response is a strategy that can be attained and enhanced through our care. This is how balancing sessions can even reduce psycho-physical stress.

Examples of reducing stress with Balancing Sessions Back in early 2002 we were serving a very experienced dancer who performs in the valley. She was experiencing anxiety attacks, which most often manifested in a feeling like a rush of adrenaline through her body, lightheadedness, a sense that she couldn't catch her breath and she felt as though she was hyperventilating.

She started having anxiety attacks 1 month before she started care with us, and when an attack began she was not able to regulate her breathing

After receiving our care, we started helping her nervous system already gain a certain level of skill at inhibition and releasing the stress pattern.

As frightening as the initial rush was, her body had a tool to keep away from the panic and eventually she learned how to call upon these skills.

Later that year a Professor of Singing, with an active performance schedule, came to us for a group of sessions in January of 2001. She had only had a few sessions with us in January as she traveled for performances.

I saw her April of the same year, and she recounted how since our sessions and some reading she's done on her own, she has come to recognize herself as someone in a classic, chronic state of startle response. She is now very skillful at calming herself during traffic jams, releasing chronic vocal tension and improving her breath capacity for singing, and releasing tension is her arms and shoulder while she writes on the blackboard while lecturing.

She worked hard on realizing how she created tension in her body and is now starting to release that and we enjoy helping her stay clear and balanced as soon as she flies into town.

Conclusion:
As health practitioners Elissa and I serve people as viewing them as whole as opposed to seeing them as a condition.

When someone comes to see us who has stress, we work with them in the same way we would with someone who came seeking a better golf game, relief from health challenges or a desire to improve their skill on an instrument. The simple tool of inhibiting excess tension while teaching the body to create an efficient, simple way to perform any task has the delightful side effect of reducing stress levels and dramatically improving one's overall quality of life. We truly enjoy that!

Thank you for all your loving support and we send you our best thoughts of appreciation.

PS_ If you know any friends or family who are runners, dancers, or gymnasts, please tell them that they are better with a spine that is balanced as this prevents injury and enhances performance- we would love to help them with that!

Jason, Elissa and
Chanda Schrader the
Awesome Office Coordinator

Living Inline-
Experts in Balancing Body, Food and Mind

4221 East Chandler Blvd. Suite 114, in Ahwatukee Phone# 480-704-2787 www.livinginline.com

Just 1 mile west of the I-10 freeway on the south side of the street
1 block west of the Ironwood Library
1 block east of the new Trader Joe's

Voted Best of Ahwatukee 5 years in a row- With Appreciation!

Posted on October 12, 2005