YOGA for BALANCE
Sunday, August 30th, 2009Here are some interesting ways to improve your balance
Here are some interesting ways to improve your balance
If you are having pain in your forearms or discomfort in your hands and fingers from typing or doing some other type of repetitive work, then you may be having the first signs of carpal tunnel syndrome. Carpel tunnel symptoms are experienced by millions of people every day. These are typists, construction workers and dentists. They all have one thing in common. They use their hands a lot! Understanding carpal tunnel syndrome and why we come down with this condition is a key to treating it.
When you think about really stretching out your body, you’ll find that your hands are usually not a part of that picture. The truth of the matter is that your hands work very hard and unless you take the time to take care of them, they might end up suffering. You put your hands through a lot of work all day long. You’ll soon realize that unless you take care of your ands, you are going to run into more problems. When you are looking at carpal tunnel syndrome, you’ll find that you need to stop the symptoms before they get going.
Carpal tunnel syndrome is a compression of the median nerve that runs down the arm and through the wrist. Everything there is locked together by the transverse carpal ligament. When you put too much pressure on the transverse carpal ligament through prolonged use and poor posture, then you are allowing the transverse carpal ligament to become tense and tight. This pressure is then put on the median nerve. The results can be debilitating and even depressing when one realized they can no longer work because of it.
But what are the symptoms of this condition? Because the median nerve is compressed, your hands can no longer function properly. You might lose feeling in your fingers or palms. You may experience a sensation of cold or even a tingling or numbness. In many cases, this can run up the arm to the elbow, and a burning sensation can result. In the very worst cases, many people lose functionality over their hands so that they can no longer perform their jobs. What a mess carpal tunnel can be! Can you imagine taking off work for weeks in order to rehabilitate your hands? Imagine the loss of money, productivity and personal discomfort you will experience.
When you want to get rid of symptoms of carpal tunnel syndrome, there are a few things that you are going to need to do. Any surgery that you undertake can be risky, and carpal tunnels surgery is no different. Essentially, your surgeon will go in and snip the transverse carpal nerve. This will relieve the pressure on the median nerve, and though the relief is immediate, you’ll also need to deal with the expense and the pain that can leave you feeling weak and debilitated.
If you want to make changes to prevent your carpal tunnel syndrome from getting bad enough to need surgery, make some changes to your daily routine. You should take more breaks and you should thoroughly stretch your body on a regular basis. You may want to bend your hands or even to shake them loose. This will relieve the stress on your hands, and you’ll find that it can relax you as well as prevent you from evidencing carpal tunnel syndrome symptoms. While it doesn’t take much time or much effort, you’ll find that you will be able to prevent the worst of the symptoms from being a problem for you.
Cat’s Claw is a tropical vine that grows in rainforest and jungle areas in South America and Asia. Some cultures refer to the plant as the “Sacred Herb of the Rain Forest”. This vine gets its name from the small thorns at the base of the leaves, which looks like a cat’s claw. These claws enable the vine to attach itself around trees climbing to a heights up to 100 feet.
The plant is considered a valuable medicinal resource and is protected in Peru. Although scientific research has just recently begun to explore cat’s claw, many cultures native to the South American rain forest areas have used this herb for hundreds of years.
POAs directly interact with white blood cells, which fight diseases we catch, such as colds and flu, along with diseases that start in our own cells, such as cancer and autoimmune diseases. Some POAs also help white blood cells called macrophages, which engulf and digest foreign material, work faster by engulfing more bacteria and disease causing microbes. This medicinal compound also increases the production of interleukin, a chemical protein secreted by macrophages that alerts resting white blood cells and forces them into action and helps make other biochemicals that are helpful to the immune system.
One particular such alkaloid, rynchophylline, is also believed to be of great benefit to the cardio-vascular system in preventing blood “stickiness”, or the potentially catastrophic formation of clots in circulating blood in the heart and brain. Like other anti-oxidants, cat’s claw may also help to prevent the oxidation of low density lipids (LDL), or “bad cholesterol”, and the consequent build up of deposits inside the arteries leading to atherosclerosis. Recent research also suggests that the anti-oxidant action of cat’s claw may also help to prevent the deposit of the plaques within brain tissue which are implicated in the development of Alzheimer’s disease.
The many potential benefits of cat’s claw make it a hugely exciting prospect for advocates of herbal remedies. But there is an important caveat in that most of the research so far has been conducted in the laboratory rather than on live human subjects. Against that, however, must be set the many centuries of use of the herb amongst older civilisations.
Other constituents contribute anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and anticancer properties. Many treatments combine the herb with different plants and natural products to increase the absorption and bioavailability.
But in the case of cat’s claw the only contraindications for its use appear to for pregnant women and those suffering from disorders of the immune system. For all others, the herb appears to be completely safe, although very rare cases of minor gastric upsets and headaches have been reported.
European clinical studies have used the extract from the bark in combination with AZT in the treatment of AIDS. It is also used in the treatment and prevention of arthritis and rheumatism, as well as diabetes, PMS, chronic fatigue syndrome, lupus, and prostrate conditions.
The majority of Americans will experience low back pain at some point in their lives. Beth Shaw, YogaFit’s creator and founder, demonstrates 3 poses that can help relieve low back pain in you and your clients.