Health & Fitness, Massage Therapy

Study Tips for Going Back to School as a 40-Something Adult

A friend of mine recently asked what apps I use for school and how I keep myself organized.  As I typed up a massive text to her, I was realized this kind of info is better relayed via blog post where I can be my typical wordy self. 🙂

A little bit of background on where I am coming from.  When I turned 40, I decided to move to Florida (with my long-suffering husband) and go to school for massage therapy.  But not just any massage therapy – I chose to attend a neurosomatic therapy training program that consists of an intense 18-month course where you learn about all the organs, muscles, and systems of the body and how to treat  all of them.

My BA in Accounting and MBA did not quite prepare me for this program.  Also, being out of school for years and years also did not adequately prepare me for this program.  Also, being 40-years-old and accustomed to nice things like organic food, eating out, and cars that do not break down every week meant that I wanted to continue working while going to school, which meant I would not have a ton of time to study.  So I was on the struggle bus when I first started!

Here is how I managed to make it through 3/5 of the program whilst working 26 hours/week: organization and apps!

  1. Pomodoro Blocks.  I was introduced to this concept while listening to this book.  The pomodoro technique involves working for 25 minutes (completely focused) and then taking a short 3-5 minute break.  After completing 2 or 3 pomodoro blocks and breaks, you take a longer break of 30 minutes.  This approach was invaluable to me. I would tell myself, “Heather, just 25 minutes.  Just do 25 minutes of studying.  Then you can look at Facebook or Instagram or eat some chocolate and almond butter.  Just get in your 25 minutes.”  And I did!  Breaking up work into small chunks like this made it more manageable and helped reduce my severe procrastinative tendencies.
  2. An adjunct to the pomodoro block is my Brainwave binaural rhythms app.  This is an app that shoots frequencies into your ears (via headphones) to sync your brainwaves to a specific goal.  I would set the app to Memory Boost, set the timer to 25 minutes, and start studying.
  3. Essential Anatomy.  This app is so helpful for getting a 3 dimensional view of muscles and understanding the layers of muscles.
  4. Voice Record Pro.  For my first 1.5 semesters I used Voice Memos to record the anatomy lectures.  Then one of my fellow students told me about this program, and it CHANGED MY LIFE.  Ok, maybe a little dramatic there.  But this really is an awesome app for recording lectures.  You can easily skip forward or back 10 seconds, you can speed up playback, you can set bookmarks.  HUGELY useful!!  We learn in school that you need to hear something 7 times to remember it.  So hearing the info in class, writing up flashcards on the material, and then listening to the lectures again (while walking outside each morning), means I’m about 1/2 way there.
  5. Flashcards brings me to the next point:  Quizlet.  I personally prefer to use paper flashcards, because I learn better when I write and draw out things versus typing them.  But for people who like electronic flashcards, I’ve heard great things about Quizlet.
  6. Bullet Journal.  I have experimented with a few other planners – the Passion Planner, Panda Planner, etc.  But I couldn’t find one that had the flexibility I wanted.  So I created a Bullet Journal.  This is my second iteration of it, and I really like how it works.  I set up one page with the whole month listed on it, and then each day gets 1/2 a page.  I separate each day into two vertical columns. The larger column on the left is where I put the list of things I want to get done.  Completed items get a line through them, and items that need to be moved to the next day get a <.  In the right-hand column, I put my major goals for the day (e.g. meditation, study, reminders to slow down, etc.). I also recently started a section where I track the “language of the world” as I understand it from The Alchemist.  These are numbers, creatures, synchronicities I see in the world that make me feel as if I am on the right path.  This structure gives me flexibility,  and all the blank pages in the back give me lots of room to track the other random stuff I need t0:  meanings of numbers, ideas for workshops, goals, reminders on how to build confidence, trainings I want to take, things I want to draw, etc.  It’s a good brain dump location.  Here are some pics:

I have about 2.5 months left of school, so hopefully these tools see me successfully through to the end.  Let me know if you have any helpful study tips! Do you use a Bullet Journal?  If so, what helpful hints do you have?  What study/memory tricks work well for you?

Thanks for reading, and chat with ya’ next week!!

 

Health & Fitness, Massage Therapy, Meditation, Uncategorized

The Electricity of Touch

I’ve long been fascinated with science fiction.  I grew up watching Dr. Who, Star Wars, Star  Trek, Misfits of Science.  I loved Madelaine L’Engle’s books, as well as The Girl With Silver Eyes, Dune, anything by Ursula K Le Guin, Lord of the Rings.  I was so hopeful that there was magic in the world, that we are not just flesh, bone, and blood.  I wanted powers.

And as I get older and find some moments of quiet and observation, I realize that I DO have powers.  The world really does not operate in a linear, A+B = C function.  It’s wiley and impressionable and moldable and multifaceted.  With every interaction, there are innumerable forces at play, most of which cannot be seen, felt, or heard.  Or maybe they can be, but we’ve lost the art of reliably, consciously doing so.

And what is truly fascinating, is that now there are studies that prove that that as humans, we are energetically entangled with each other.  You can read one of the studies here.  The gist of it is, there is an exchange of electromagnetic energy when people touch (especially with the right hand) or are close together (within 18 inches).  If a person consciously adopts a “sincere caring attitude,” it could positively affect the heart rhythm of people within their proximity!!

Here is a quote from the study that I find really intriguing, “…when individuals focus their attention in the area of the heart and consciously generate a positive emotion, the heart rate variability patterns become more orderly and coherent,” and “…individuals who intentionally increase their cardiac coherence by maintaining a focused state of sincere love or appreciation can induce changes in the structure of water and the conformational state of DNA.”  The study goes on to imply that a therapeutic technique could become more effective by the practitioner adopting a “sincere caring attitude.”

This gives me so much hope!  I have learned so much in the past 14 months, but I know I still know NOTHING!  But at least, now I know, if I really care about my patients, my touch will be beneficial to them – even if I’m not treating the exact muscle that needs to be treated.  My touch, generated from a place of compassion and positive intent, can be a “magic” power that helps my patients feel better!

What do you think of this article?  Do you notice effects in your body when you are around a positive person versus a negative person?  Do you think you can affect people solely with your positive atttidue?  I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments. <3

 

Health & Fitness, Massage Therapy, Uncategorized, Yoga

Adding Adductors to your Body Body of Knowledge

Yes.  I purposefully tried to make the title of this blog as confusing as possible.  Why?  Does it mean I’m not a good writer?  Does it mean I don’t care about the edification of my readers?  Does it mean my brain finds pleasure in confusing word play that takes a couple of moments to figure out?  Because, No, No, and Yes. 🙂

So, Adductors.  If you are like me, you probably have only ever heard of adductors as a glump of muscles that get “stretched” in wide-legged yoga poses like prasarita padattonasana (wide-legged forward fold). Before starting school at the Center for Neurosomatic Studies (CNS), I had only a vague notion of some muscles in my inner thigh that were super tight, and which did not allow me to do wide-legged poses without getting a cramp in my butt.  Thank you, CNS, for helping me understand with specificity what these muscles are.

Your adductors are made up of several different muscles that connect from the lower portion of your pelvis to the back side of the long bone of your thigh (the femur).  I realize the pelvis can be a bit of mystery as well, so here is brief overview of the points we need to know about.  The pubis is the bone on the front of your pelvis.  If you are like me, you often accidentally ram this into countertops/tables, and it hurts like a mother.

Directly underneath the pubis is the ischium.  Sit on your hands.  Go ahead – it’s okay.  Sit on your hands.  You feel those bones pressing into your hands?  Those are your ischiums (commonly called “sit bones”).  The pubis and the ischium are the superior (aka “upper” or “northern”) attachment points for the adductors, as you can see in the drawing below (which is a view of the pelvis from the front).  Disclaimer:  these are drawings I did quickly for my own personal study aids, so they are not 100% accurate.  They’ll give you a gist of the anatomy, however. You can click on the pictures to make them bigger.

The adductors are made up of the Pectineus, Adductor Longus, Gracilis, Adductor Brevis, and Adductor Magnus muscles.  You can see the specific attachment points in the illustration below. (Please note that my anatomy text led me astray in regards to the attachments of Gracilis and Adductor Longus.  They should actually be flipped).


From the pelvis, the adductors travel at an angle to connect to the back of the femur, as you can see in the illustration below.  I used to think that the back of the thigh was made up of just the hamstrings.  But there is a lot going on back there! All the adductors connect there, as well as many of the quadriceps.


Why are the adductors important?  For SO many reasons!  They have trigger points that can present as pain in the front and inside of the thigh and in the genitals and rectum.  They can cause the sacrum to tilt, which forms an uneven base for the spine, resulting in a functional scoliosis.  Also, the adductor magnus can pinch the greater saphenous nerve, causing the knee to collapse while walking.

At CNS we learn how to treat the adductors, which can relieve the symptoms described above.  But sometimes releasing a muscle is not what it needs. Sometimes it needs to be stronger.  Weak muscles can contribute to pain, just like over-active muscles can.  I love the Adductor Slides Yoga Tune Up® pose; it helps you tune in to your adductors and strengthen them in a fun and slightly excruciating way.  Here is a demo from Trina Altman.

Well, I hope you learned a little something about your body today. If you try the adductors slides, let me know what you think.

Thanks for reading today!