At Home Care for Health and Wellness

Tension headaches are muscular headaches that present themselves in various ways. One of the main reasonings behind this is that the muscles associated with the headache may have activated trigger points. You may remember from prior posts that trigger points are minor muscle contractions that refer pain to other parts of the body. For this post series we are going to look at primary tension headaches, in which the headache and associated muscular tension is the main cause of the headache itself. The other kind of headache is known as a "secondary headache," in which there is another cause of the headache that may be more severe, such as head trauma. Depending upon the person, tension headaches can be a rare occurrence, or you may get them daily. Chronic daily headaches can lead to other issues such as decreased range of motion in the head, neck, and shoulders, postural imbalances, troubles sleeping, or secondary headaches from other trigger points being activated afte...

Breathing is something that we do everyday without much thought, yet many of us are doing it improperly. When you watch a newborn at rest, you will notice that they breathe into their belly first, and then the rest of their lungs inflate. Between infancy and adulthood, we lose this natural instinct to breathe diaphragmatically, and instead tend to breathe into our upper lungs only. Not only does this cause muscular imbalances within our system, it also does not supply us with as much oxygen as we could be getting. Try these exercises at home to start learning how to breathe diaphragmatically and incorporate that into your life and meditation practice. Exercise 1: Lay down on a couch or bed (preferably with little to no distractions). You can put on calming music in the background if that helps to soothe you. Take one of your hands and place it on your stomach, just above your belly button. Take your other hand and place it on your chest above your heart. When you go to take a...

Kinesiology Taping, Kinesio Taping, Elastic Therapeutic Taping: three names for the same concept. Many of us have seen athletes running around with bright pink, blue, and black tape on their bodies, but what is it and is it effective? The Kinesio Taping Method™ was originally developed by Dr. Kenzo Kase  who realized that while in house treatments for patients was good, providing them with something that could continuing providing therapy after treatment would be even better. After trying other types of tape that did not allow people to move through their range of motion, he designed a tape that provided stability to joints without over-restricting people. Since then many different brands of Kinesiology tape have come out: Kinesio Tex , Rock Tape , and  KT Tape  just to name a few. As far as differences go, I find it depends upon the person or practitioner using the tapes. Personally, Kinesio Tex Gold has always been my favorite since I find less people tend to h...