Getting or staying healthy can feel like a full-time job sometimes. Are you eating well, hydrating, exercising, maintaining healthy relationships, sleeping, meditating, and stretching? How are you managing your stress and do you have the right rolodex of providers to help you prevent, manage, or heal from injuries or illness?
Like many in the wellness space, we prefer a holistic approach to health at Ohana. While we recognize Western medicine has a time and a place, we prefer an Eastern approach for overall wellness, which takes into account the whole person – physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual – as opposed to focusing on the symptoms alone. Eastern medicine offers a more preventative approach to health care that ensures you are feeling and functioning at your best.
We are working on a comprehensive list of some of local healers in the Denver area for our members and community that you can access for ongoing wellness support. While we build the list, here’s a teaser of some of the healing modalities you’ll find in the Ohana wellness directory.
Reiki
Reiki therapy is based on an Eastern belief that vital energy flows through your body and by moving this energy the body can return to a state of relaxation to better heal from stress, injury, or disease. A Reiki practitioner uses gentle touch — or places their hands just above your body — to help guide this energy in a way that promotes balance and healing.
Reiki is linked to a range of physical and emotional health benefits including better sleep, improved mood, and pain relief.
Rolfing
Rolfing addresses the structural and functional aspects of chronic pain by loosening and manipulating fascia, which is the connective tissue that surrounds bones, organs, and muscles. (We talk a love about fascia in restorative yoga, as this is another way to manipulate this connective tissue). Rolfing can be helpful when chronic stiffness, compression from injury or surgery, bad posture, or repetitive stress injuries are creating poor movement patterns.
The idea behind Rolfing is that the body works best when it is in alignment. When the body is out of alignment, it moves in a way that is unbalanced, which can result in discomfort and pain. Rolfing helps improve and optimize movement patterns, reduce inflammation and chronic stress, as well as provide improved athletic performance.
Massage
Therapeutic massage is widely available and there are many styles to choose from including Swedish, hot stone, aromatherapy, reflexology, deep tissue, and sports massage, to name a few. The benefits of massage, regardless of the style you choose, are numerous with relaxation and stress reduction topping the list. Regular massage helps:
- Reduce stress and increase relaxation
- Improve sleep
- Reduce pain and muscle soreness
- Decrease joint inflammation
- Improve circulation
- Lower heart rate and blood pressure
- Improve immune function
Massage therapy involves using different pressures, movements, and techniques to manipulate muscles and other soft tissues in the body. With a goal of slowing down your nervous system, massage therapy can be used to release stress and tension, provide relief from symptoms, heal injuries, and support overall wellness.
Acupuncture
Acupuncture stimulates the balance and flow of Qi energy that in Traditional Chinese Medicine is considered essential to health. When the body is healthy, Qi (pronounced “chee”), flows smoothly through the meridians that make up a conceptual network of pathways throughout the entire body.
Treatment involves the insertion of extremely fine needles into the skin at specific points to help stimulate the central nervous system, which releases chemicals into the muscles, spinal cord, and brain. This helps relieve pain by releasing endorphins, the body’s natural “feel good” hormone, and by affecting the part of the brain that governs serotonin. Acupuncture works particularly well on, menstrual health (Symptoms of PMS, Irregularity, or when trying to conceive), inflammation, chronic pain, stress, anxiety, tension headaches, and migraines.
Chiropractor
Chiropractic care involves hands-on spinal manipulation to improve postural alignment and help the body heal without surgery or medication. Proper alignment of the body’s musculoskeletal structure not only improves your posture but it can also help reduce pain, improve range of motion, boost immune function, and expedite healing.
Chiropractic treatment is beneficial in treating chronic conditions like osteoarthritis, headaches, neck pain from whiplash, or other neck and back issues. Seeing a chiropractor regularly can be a useful tool to maintain a healthy and flexible spine and to keep you active and free of injury.
Therapy
Therapy can benefit anyone struggling with emotional difficulties, life challenges and changes, stress, anxiety, relationship problems, or mental health issues. So, basically everyone!
The American Psychological Association suggests seeing a therapist when something causes distress or interferes with some part of life. If you generally feel overwhelmed, fatigued (despite getting enough rest), depressed, angry or resentful, anxious, apathetic, hopeless, or socially withdrawn, it might be time to seek a professional therapist to help you work through the issues causing these feelings.
Regardless of the healing modality or form of therapy you choose, make sure your provider has all of the appropriate accreditations and experience for their area of expertise. Ask questions and get recommendations and if it doesn’t feel like a good fit, try someone new.
Stay tuned for our complete list of Ohana recommended healers and if you’d like to see another modality included on this list, leave a comment below!