Migraines & Headches

Best Breathing Method for Health

Buteyko Breathing Method

The goal of this breathing method is to affect not only the muscles in the body, but also the physiology of the body. While this breathing technique will produce relaxation and energy, it is important to remember that the fundamental concept is to limit your breath. If you would like to understand more about the physiology of this technique, you can start here: http://www.buteyko.co.uk/.

While it is best to do focused sessions of 15-20 minutes to help recalibrate your natural breathing rhythm, we find that any amount of this breath work will begin to improve your overall health.

How to Perform the Exercises:

All breathing should be done through the nose with mouth closed at all times. The mouth is for eating and the nose is for breathing. Focus on taking the smallest and most silent breath possible. Ultimately your breathing should be unnoticeable.

1. Begin by gently exhaling with little to no force. Don’t try to squeeze any air out, just let yourself deflate. If you exhale too far, you will feel your abdominal muscles contract to push extra air out, this is too much effort. Only release the air until you reach a natural resting state

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Holistic Mind Body Treatment: Relieving Head, Knee and Hip Pain

My aches and pains have been steadily diminishing since seeing Shmuel Tatz, PT, PhD for the first time but they hadn’t vanished completely – yet. Only because it’s been a long and winding road of minor injuries over the decades. This being my tenth visit, I didn’t know what to expect since there are a variety of problem areas in my small frame. Tatz, usually a man of little words, surprised me when he sat down and spoke at length before my treatment began. He was insistent that I understand, “People don’t always want to hear what their real problem is.” I was a little worried he had something unpleasant to tell me about my own health, but I listened.

First he told me that sometimes people have psychological problems and not physical problems. “I always tells my patients the truth but sometimes they get upset with me.” Very recently, he told one of his patients that she might want to consider talking to a professional about her emotional problems; she left in tears. He explained in cases of the mind, doctors such as bestselling author Dr. John Sarno are very good at helping people understand that they can heal themselves by addressing underlying emotional issues. He also noted that can only happen if there is not an underlying physical problem. He was very concerned about this patient of his.

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Headache Follow Up Treatment on Neck and Jaw

I arrived a bit early for my eighth visit with Shmuel Tatz, PT, PhD. His waiting room is a constant, relaxing oasis. There are three red velvet orchestra seats to choose from, numbered 13, 15 & 17. Or, there’s also a comfortable piano bench to sit on. Prominently placed in the waiting area is a beautiful bronze sculpture of healing hands. His two assistants are always kind, smart and soft-spoken. I’d had success with Tatz’ previous treatment, in essence with all his treatments, but last time Tatz had made a leap with my headaches. The head pain had disappeared for a few days and it hadn’t come back in its usual way. This time, my head was sore versus piercing.

Tatz whisked me into one of his private rooms, had me lie face up, and immediately placed cold laser therapy instruments on both sides of my neck and disappeared for at least twenty minutes or so. I’d become accustomed to the cold laser treatments from Tatz. From my understanding, the cold laser was first developed in Europe: A noninvasive form of light amplification. On this particular treatment I fell fast asleep.

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Physical Therapy for Severe Headaches

headache

When I went in for my seventh visit with Shmuel Tatz, PT, PhD, I was in pretty bad shape. Without exaggeration I was coming out of a three-day migraine, had been unable to keep food or water down, plus had heart palpitations on the right side of my chest which sent me into my local MD’s office – although the EKG checked out fine. During these dark hours of what I call a level nine headache, where communing with the outside world is not an option, I obsessed on what to do about these headaches and migraines that have high jacked my life. I was considering surgery as a possibility, for a previously diagnosed hiatal hernia, since some experts say that the GI tract can cause all sorts of headaches, dizziness and palpitations. For the record, my MD was not recommending it, more like I was desperate.

Tatz was, as ever, attentive and went straight to the problem that day: My head. He asked me to lie in the most comfortable position, in which I chose to be face up. His hands gravitated first to the crown of my head, in particular the top of my forehead. His fingers lightly massaged these areas as well as my temples. Then with the grip of his two hands he cradled the left and right side of my brain: the two hemispheres. He held them and massaged them in opposite directions. After awhile, he moved back to the temples, touching more firmly, then the neck and below the neck. Probing, and shaking and attempting to liberate the pent up tension. Then his touch become stronger across the surface of my entire head, especially the right jaw. Then he asked that I open, close and contort my jaw in constant motions while simultaneously his technique became more intense across all these areas of head and neck.

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Body Tuning for Intermittent Migraines with an Additional Knee Treatment

migraine

I felt bad the second time I saw Shmuel Tatz, PT, PhD because while I had initially gone to see him about my knee, what was plaguing me the most was the pounding headache I’d been having for four days solid. Well, I hadn’t even told him on his initial consultation that I’d had unsolvable undiagnosable daily headaches for over two years, not to mention intermittent migraines ten years preceding that. Sure I’d seen several medical doctors including a neurologist and many other practitioners. My greatest most painful attempt to end the headaches was the hugely scary six-injections-at-once of nerve block treatments, in which my head was painfully sore for a month. The second most alarming treatment was a blood pressure medicine ‘sometimes used for migraines.’ This put me into the Emergency Room after three doses. That said, most of the specialists were talented and kind, but no one, no treatment, thus far had solved the problems inside my head. Least of all me.

In any case, I confessed my headache sorrows to Tatz who immediately began to work on my head. Always gently. First, with his hands assessing and probing where my stress was being held: Primarily in the back of my skull where I once had a childhood cyst removed. Then he placed his left hand over my heart, while gently pulsing with his right hand across the sensitive parts of my head – which was just about everywhere that particular day. He then asked me to try opening and closing my mouth, mild cranial exercises while he continued the rest of the treatment: He put hands-on pressure on my legs – and later explained the pain in my legs was connected to my head and that a person’s entire physical body is all inter-connected. There are no separate parts! All this being his ‘body-tuning’ technique that he developed over the last fifty years. He told me to keep moving my jaw up and down gently while teaching me mild facial stretches, including scrunching up my nose. After he spent more time and intensive work on my head, neck and skull, I was already feeling better.

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