Natural Pain Relief

admin — Fri, 31 Jul 2015 19:15:12 +0000

Common painkillers may only relieve acute pain sensation. None of them remove the cause of pain. Some painkillers containing caffeine may help to dilate contracted blood vessels, but they may also cause unpleasant side effects on your heart and blood pressure. The mechanical skin stimulation increases blood flow to a target area and dilates the blood vessels — the same as caffeine can do for your headache, but without any side effects. Relaxation of neck and shoulder muscles due to the ASHA action also has a beneficial effect on headaches. As a potent natural relaxant, the ASHA is able to ease spastic muscle backaches, and for managing spinal disk problems, it is an excellent addition to chiropractic treatment. We have reports that even 2-3 weeks’ regular use of the ASHA can significantly improve spinal adjustment by a chiropractor. Relief of headaches and back pain is the most reported benefit in our pilot study (1). Neck and low back pain relief were recently reported by a group of researchers from Complementary and Integrative Medicine, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany (2).

Sources

Zilberter T, Roman J. Reflexo-Therapy with Mechanical Skin Stimulation: Pilot Study. International Symposium on Integrative Medicine. New York: Omega Institute, 1999
Hohmann C, Ullrich I, Lauche R, Choi KE, Lüdtke R, Rolke R, Cramer H, Saha FJ, Rampp T, Michalsen A, Langhorst J, Dobos G, Musial F.. The benefit of a mechanical needle stimulation pad in patients with chronic neck and lower back pain: two randomized controlled pilot studies. Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2012;2012:753583. Epub 2012 Sep 11.

Stress and stress-related conditions

admin — Fri, 31 Jul 2015 18:53:28 +0000

Any efforts, which exceed a person’s level of tolerance can bring on stress. Exercise is stressful for the sedentary, but is easily tolerated by physically trained people. Likewise, socializing may be very stressful for shy person, but fun for an extrovert. Stress is a psycho physiological reaction of the human organism to above normal effort. Stress is not a disease: a fit body is able to withstand health conditions resulting from stress. Applying any kind of mild stressors regularly helps keep our bodies fit for inevitably occurring stressful situations. This phenomenon, called Hormesis, reveals itself in any forms of stress, for instance, low doses of toxic substances, periodic exposure to cold or caloric restriction elicit a protective responses that shields us from further stresses.

The part of our bodies called the Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS), is specifically designed to control emergency body functions. It prepares us for “fight or flight” — all functions needed for immediate use are activated, while all functions that can wait are inhibited. Heart rate and respiration, for example, are increased by the SNS, while intestinal functions are decreased. Due to our stressful environment, the SNS is usually over stimulated. Swedish researchers Olsson & von Schéele showed that mechanical tactile stimulation activated the Parasympathetic Nervuos System:

Olsson, E. M., & von Schéele, B. (2011). Relaxing on a bed of nails: an exploratory study of the effects on the autonomic, cardiovascular, and respiratory systems, and saliva cortisol. The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine,17(1), 5-12. Read article

ASHA Healing » Pain Relief

Natural Pain Relief

Stress and stress-related conditions