Resources

This is an essential read for everyone. Particularly if you experience sinus problems, sleep apnea, snoring, anxiety, asthma or any other breathing complexity.  There are also breathing exercises available on his website, www.mrjamesnestor.com but I highly recommend reading the book because it will give you so much insight into why changing the way you breathe could change your life and when we have more knowledge and conviction we are much likely to maintain positive habits.

I am a massive fan of Brené Brown and this is the most accessible and widely relevant of all the books of hers that I have read.  Ostensibly, it is a catalogue of human emotion and experience and offers clarity and deep exploration of the wide range and nuances of human emotion.  Why is this relevant to bodywork? Hopefully, you'll have come to an awareness of the intrinisic connection with how our bodies feel and the emotional experiences of being human.  By gaining a language with which to express fully our thoughts and feelings, we can gain greater resiliance and self compassion.

"Our emotions and experiences are layers of boiology, biography, behaviour and backstory.  Every single day, they show up in our bodies, they're shaped by where we come from and how we were raised, they drive how we show up, and each feeling has its own unique backstory.  Understanding these emotions and experiences is our life's work."

I will often have said in my clinic.  "You're being rather hard on yourself, would you say that to your best friend if they were suffering?"

Understanding the patterns of our self talk and how we show up for our own vulnerabilities and flaws is an essential part of promoting health and well being.  You can take a kind of self-compassion audit on Kristin's Website which I highly recommend. Click on the icon above to go to the self-compassion website.

Trauma specialist Bessel Van der Kolk writes this seminal text on how the effects and treatment of trauma lie in connecting with the ways in which trauma is held in the body.  It is a heavy read, but it is essential for anyone wanting to understand the long term physical impact of traumatic experience and developmental trauma and gives tools of how to connect with a meaningful path to understanding and recovery.

There isn't really another author currently who writes with such depth and breadth of experience and research into the connections of the body and mind in the manifestation and treatment of disease.  With scientific research into the cycle of connection in the bio-psycho-social model of health and healing and many relatable real life case studies to support an understanding of how our bodies can literally say "no", especially when we ourselves cannot.

Biomechanist and author Katy Bowman explores foot health with practical easy to understand explanations and exercises.

She is has videos on you tube and is on Instagram.

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This is just such an excellent podcast that explores the whole of the menstrual cycle through a biological, historical and cultural lens.  I would recommend it to anyone affected by the presence of a menstrual cycle in their lives and homes, so pretty much everyone.

It's available on BBC Sounds and Spotify.

I reall like to follow this instruction for intra-oral massage.  It is especially good to do this daily if you have TMJ problems, tight jaw, jaw clenching, tooth grinding, tension headaches and migraines.  It helps to follow it online, because you are more likely to give it the time it needs..

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