Hinman Healing Blog

Stretching has long been hailed as one of the best things you can do for your muscles, but what is it and is it really that important? What Is Stretching and Is It Important? For the next few wellness posts, we will be focusing on stretching. What is it? Why do we do it? When do we do it? How do we do it? These are only some of the questions we will be answering. This post we will be explaining what stretching is and the different kinds of stretching as well as some of the claimed benefits and a dive into whether any of these claims have merit based on science. From a young age we are taught to stretch our muscles to relieve tension, improve flexibility and even to improve our athletic ability, but does it actually work like we think it does? Yes and no. It depends on what you are hoping to get out of it.   There are different kinds of stretches that can be performed on individual muscles or muscle groups. The three major kinds are: Static, Dynamic and Pre-Contraction stretche...

  Is there a Massage Age Limit? Are you ever too old or too young to get a massage? In short: not at all! From birth, we are social creatures and reliant on touch to get our most basic needs met. It can be argued that touch is a basic need given the effect it has on the body, it is so important that without it babies suffer from failure to thrive and every person suffers from touch deprivation when they haven't been in contact with another human in a long time.  Read this  Psychology Today  article for more on the importance of touch.  So, with that in mind it can be claimed that massage can be used to benefit all ages and stages of a person's life.  In this post we will discuss different life phases and how massage can be used to benefit the well-being of a person in that phase of life from before birth to old age and even end of life.  Before Birth Prenatal massage has been shown to be beneficial for both mom and baby. For mom it helps her body ...

Massage Add-on Services and Spa Therapies, Why and What They Do #1: Essential Oils Wherever you go to get a massage, talk about add-on services will come up at some point. But what do they do for you and are they worth the extra money?  Some of the most common add-on and spa therapies that we are going to cover in this new series are: essential oils, hot stones, reflexology, paraffin wax treatments, facial/scalp massages, body wraps, body scrubs, dry brushing, and CBD massages. We are going to explain their therapeutic benefits and when you should consider paying the extra to enjoy them.  Essential Oils Essential Oils are commonly used for a variety of ailments and to achieve many different effects. Often called aromatherapy, essential oils are touted to cure muscle soreness, headaches, mood disorders and even kill bacteria. While they have been proven to affect mood based on the way scents enter the olfactory  system and reach the amygdala in the brain (the center of moo...

 Labor Day: Jump Starting Labor Methods to Try You are given forty weeks to grow a human during pregnancy, but what do you do when those weeks pass by and the baby has not made an appearance yet? You're feeling huge, sore and tired of being pregnant but baby and body seem content to just keep going so you are stuck still waiting. In honor of Labor Day I have compiled a list of some popular ways to try to start labor at home naturally and get the show on the road once the time is right. The most important thing to remember is to trust in your body and your baby. This is your first introduction to parenting: it never goes as planned and you should not force your body or your baby to do anything they are not ready to do. That being said there are many ways to encourage things to move along these are generally natural and low risk to try. Some popular methods include: Evening Primrose Oil, eating dates, Raspberry Leaf Tea, nipple stimulation, massage, physical activity, and sexual inte...

 My Massage Journey Today we are going to take a different route than usual. I am not going to use this blog to inform you about technique or self care. I am going to share my story, the how and why I do what I do and my personal wellness experience.  Early Days Growing up I had an insatiable curiosity. I wanted to know everything about everything: space, dinosaurs, animals, anything that was worth knowing I wanted to know all of it. So, when I started getting migraines and was shown that someone could put their hands on your head and fix the pain, I had to know how and why. Once I figured out that touching people and rubbing their muscles made them not in pain in some cases and at the very least made their day better, I was hooked. I would rub shoulders and necks, backs and hands. My body would get "bored" or "anxious" and I would find a body to rub on to recenter myself. In high school I had touched enough bodies to be able to tell more about a person by just touc...

The Myth of The “Good Baby”  Seemingly one of the first things people ask a parent when they see a new baby; right after how old they are and their gender, is about whether they are a “good baby” or not.  As a parent and person who has worked in a daycare for many years as well as a human that has been privileged to be around a large number of infants over the years I can honestly tell you this one thing: there is no such thing as an innately good or bad baby. We need to stop asking if babies are good and we need to stop making parents feel like they are somehow failing at parenting if their baby fails to measure up to this impossible and ridiculous standard of “good.” It is not fair to the parent but it’s even more unfair to the baby.  What Qualifies As "Good?" Well meaning family and strangers ask if your baby is sleeping through the night, whether they cry a lot or if they feed well etc. All of the things a baby is "supposed" to do in order to be a sweet little a...