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Cheers to your health,

Dr. Lynk

http://DoctorLynk.wordpress.com

Check it out damn it!

I recently came across this article written by my good friend Dr. Kareem Samhouri and thought I would share it with everyone to help you reduce stress and improve your quality of life.

Cheers to your health,

Lynk

3 Step Stress Relief Plan
by Dr. Kareem Samhouri

Let’s face it – stress sucks.

Our bodies manifest stress as pain, headaches, nervous energy, and even fat storage. Chronic increases in stress level often result in higher cortisol levels, lower DHEA (a calming hormone in your body), and increased storage of belly fat.

From an evolutionary standpoint, this makes a lot of sense. Our bodies were stressed in the winter time since food was scarce and our environments were harsh. The natural reaction:

Produce a hormone (cortisol) to signal to the body that it’s time to store fat near the lower intestines and colon. This way, when we were starving, we could easily metabolize the fat and survive.

Alternatively, when we were being hunted or in extremely dangerous environments for prolonged periods of time, our bodies learned to stop producing a ‘relaxation’ hormone, DHEA. Thank goodness, as the hyper-alertness is likely what kept us alive.

Now, let’s fast forward to today… fluorescent lights, office duties, family obligations, loud environments, increasing responsibilities, and long hours… it’s no wonder that our bodies aren’t keeping up. It’s complete sensory overload.

Over the last 3.5 years, I’ve been slowly but surely developing and refining a technique to reduce stress in my patients and clients. In physical therapy school, you learn a lot about stress reduction techniques in order to reduce pain and ease a patient’s tension. I’ve taken these exact techniques, tried and tested them in various sequences, and mastered the fastest and easiest way to reduce stress quickly.

I recommend you treat the following as a 3 Step Stress Reduction Exercise Plan:

Step 1: Progressive Muscle Relaxation

You are going to be working every muscle in your body, nice and easily, in a very specific order. The goal is to alternate between agonists and antagonists from toe to head, allowing the concept of reciprocal inhibition to take place. This phenomenon allows you to actually turn off every one of your muscles, one by one, and decrease overall sympathetic nervous system stimulation.

Your sympathetic nervous system is your ‘Fight or Flight’ nervous system, and it controls your bodies release of adrenaline. By calming this system, you are controlling the prolonged state of being ‘hyper-alert.’

In order to do perform this exercise, alternate isometric contractions, as follows, for 10 seconds each:

1. Toe curling muscles / toe extending muscles
2. Ankle pointing muscles / ankle raising muscles
3. Knee bending muscles / knee extending muscles
4. Hip flexing muscles / hip extending muscles (glutes)
5. Abs / back extensors
6. Finger curling muscles (make a fist) / finger extending muscles
7. Wrist curling muscles / wrist extending muscles
8. Elbow flexing muscles / elbow extending muscles
9. Shoulder flexing muscles / shoulder extending muscles
10. Neck flexing (chin tuck) muscles / neck extending muscles

Step 2: Diaphragmatic Breathing

In this step, we are going to focus on activating our parasympathetic nervous system, or our ‘rest and digest’ nervous system. By engaging our diaphragm with each and every breath, we are automatically doing so.

Diaphragmatic breathing is ‘belly breathing,’ so it’s easy to know if you are doing this right by making sure your shoulders are not rising up and your stomach is expanding with each breath as much as possible.

When you take a sniff breath, you’ll automatically use your diaphragm, so a strong sniff breath is a great way to guarantee you’re recruiting the right muscles. Just be sure you’re not raising up your shoulders.

The goal is to breathe in for 2 seconds, hold for 1 second, and purse your lips (like blowing into a thin coffee straw) as you exhale for 4 seconds. This will bias you towards activating your parasympathetic nervous system to a greater extent that your sympathetic, and your body will naturally relax.

Make sure to take 15 breaths and count this as one rep.

Step 3: Describe Your Environment

In step 3, we are focused on making better use of our subconscious minds through conscious to subconscious influence. The idea here is that your subconscious mind is much more powerful than your conscious mind, so filling your subconscious with thoughts of relaxation and peace is like a shortcut to happiness and lower stress levels.

Here’s how I recommend you do this:

First, think of a time when you were completely relaxed and loving life. This may be your childhood at some point, out by the swing set, or on your honeymoon walking by the beach. Once you have this idea in mind, it’s time to find something in your immediate environment that reminds you of this specific experience.

For example, I like to use my honeymoon as the example, when I was in Thailand with Karen, sitting by the pool and enjoying the sun. We were sipping on a cocktail and dipping our feet in the water as we gazed over the ocean and enjoyed the warm breeze pass over our skin.

In order to replicate this feeling of complete peace and happiness in my mind, all I have to do is think about all 5 senses and find one thing that is around me to describe in full detail. This one thing only needs to share one common characteristic with my honeymoon.

In this example, I might walk outside and sit on a bench while I dangle my feet, feel the breeze, and describe out loud the feeling of the wind on my skin. I’ll notice the lightness in my legs, the smile on my face, and the horizon in the distance. Verbally, I’ll explain those common characteristics in as vivid of detail as possible, creating a link between this and my honeymoon subconsciously at the same time.

Because the vision and experience of my honeymoon is so clear in my mind, I will be able to associate ‘physical’ things with a feeling. This feeling will trigger subconscious thought process and, theoretically, allow my brain to take over and do the rest.

The goal here is to just ‘hint at your subconscious’ about your fondest memory, as it goes to work making you happy and fulfilled. Your body will feel an immediate sense of relaxation and your worries will somehow seem less important.

Repeat this process for 15 reps, 3x per day. This is an endurance exercise, so it’s best to train for long-term stress relief. The most important piece is repetition.

Mastering your nutrition and balancing your hormones are very important pieces of mediating stress. There’s one supplement that trumps all the rest when it comes to improving digestion and balancing out your body so you can get more from your food. You’re going to love it.

For more information on classes and scheduling, check out the website at http://www.thewintersolstice.net!

Specifically I would check out the classes that are being taught by some great presenters including Pyro Sadist (who will be featured in of my classes *evil grin*), David Lawrence, Dov, MChristian, Master Don and slave orja, Master Steve and slave tami, MargoEve, Elkor, and Ms. Khiki just to name a few. There will be multiple tracks for education on different days including Rope, Dominant, Submissive Master/slave, SM, Polyamoury, Singles, and more.

The special events are also going to be great!

There is a New Year’s Eve party in the hotel featuring food, drinks, and some of the best company you can ask for!

The Bootblack Brigade will be at Winter Solstice this year for your leather care needs and half of their tips they are generously donating to the Carter-Johnson Leather Library. The
Other special events include morning bootcamps on Saturday and Sunday morning for those of you who are fitness freaks like me or who are looking to get started early with your exercise resolutions for 2011. Who is the instructor for these mornings of torture…I mean…these energy boosting, fat burning workouts? Why its me! Your local Doctor of Physical Therapy and Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist.

There is also a “special event” that is occurring during one of the classes. Brian aka Pyro Sadist has graciously volunteered himself to be on my table as the Demo Bottom for my bodywork class. Now for those you who do not know, Brian is a Sadist (hence the name). The entertaining component of this situation is, so am I, and for those who have been on the receiving end of my handiwork know full well the “therapeutic” pain that Brian will be in for as the demo bottom.

Oh, and I nearly forgot to mention the presence of the phenomenal DJ that will be working this event, DJPet who has been the man behind the music at events like The Floating World and Dark Odyssey.

So check out the FetLife event page http://fetlife.com/events/23218 and the website http://www.thewintersolstice.net to help you start 2011 with the best crowd for some kinky fun!

I recently had the pleasure of getting to know Chris Ashenden who is the owner of a supplement company that produces a super food supplement known as Athletic Greens. Now, generally I am rather skeptical about super foods and many other supplements, but this one blew me away. I got a free sample of Athletic Greens from Chris and the first time I took its, I knew that it was everything he said it was. Within 15 minutes of taking Athletic Greens I noticed a difference in my energy. I didn’t need my morning caffeine and I physically felt better.

After this type of experience I just had to ask Chris what was in this stuff!! His basic answer was that it covered all of your supplements/nutritional except fish oil and any specific nutrient deficiency that someone may have (Vitamin D being a classic one). What is even better is how its made. Athletic Greens is manufactured in Australia using a TGA-registered facility with standards far in excess of CGMP and FDA guidelines. It is made clean and green by research doctorates and nutritionists with a 60 year combined experimental and clinical experience.

Chris actually went through thousands to determine what was missing nutritionally from his body. By the time he was done, he was carrying around a small duffel bag of pills just to get all of his nutrients each day. Needless to say, this became quite annoying (particularly at airports and country borders). So to solve this, he worked with several people to put together a supplement that can cover all of your nutritional needs without taking tons of supplements. He actually spent over 1.5 million in research and development to create this product.

By making Athletic Greens from the highest quality materials it dramatically increases absorption rate of nutrients so that you don’t waste any of the nutrients you are consuming. This stuff pretty much covers all of your nutritional needs including anti-oxidants, probiotics, and prebiotics, and you only need to purchase one supplement rather than taking a multitude of different supplements. Just check out the ingredients list on here.

Replace almost all of your supplements<———————Check it out!

Or go to http://budurl.com/SuperGreens for your trial of one of the best supplements I have ever seen. If you are still not sure, just check out some more reasons below.

Cheers to your health,

Lynk

9 Reasons

Why You Should Make ATHLETIC GREENS™ Part Of Your Daily Fitness Program

Reason #1

Phenomenal Nutritional Insurance: Nature loves Variety! ATHLETIC GREENS™ is packed with 76 specially selected natural ingredients in optimal amounts.  ATHLETIC GREENS™ makes it easy to avoid nutrient deficiencies and optimize total body health.

Reason #2

Energy: Boost your absorption of nutrients and feel the difference. ATHLETIC GREENS™ contains whole food sourced ingredients in their natural form, with co-factors and enzymes intact that are recognized as nutrients and absorbed by the body.

Reason #3

Alkalinity: ATHLETIC GREENS™ is massively alkaline forming, with more than 8 grams of nutrient dense RAW green super foods per serve.

GET THE ULTIMATE EDGE WITH ATHLETIC GREENS™ Order Now!

Reason #4

Absorption: ATHLETIC GREENS™ is packed with digestive enzymes, prebiotics and probiotics that all work together to improve digestion and gastrointestinal function.

Reason #5

More Time: Get it all in one with each 8 gram super serve. ATHLETIC GREENS™ is full of RAW greens, antioxidants, herbs, enzymes, co-factors, mushrooms, vitamins, scarce nutrients, adaptogens, trace elements and minerals, pre and probiotics.

Reason #6

Protection and Immunity: ATHLETIC GREENS™ is full of plants, fruits, herbs and mushrooms to detoxify and protect – each serving provides the antioxidant equivalent of between 10 – 12 servings of fruit and vegetables (ORAC 5000).

GET THE ULTIMATE EDGE WITH ATHLETIC GREENS™ Order Now!

Reason #7

No Compromises: ATHLETIC GREENS™ contains absolutely no synthetic chemicals, artificial colors, flavors, preservatives or sweeteners of any kind, no GMO’s, herbicides, or pesticides, no wheat, dairy, gluten, corn, lactose, sucrose, dextrose, egg, yeast, or peanuts and no animal products.

Reason #8

Suitable for Vegans or anyone on a special diet: Celiacs, Vegans, and Vegetarians can all use ATHLETIC GREENS™ without any problems.

Reason #9

No Risk: 30 Day Empty Bottle No Questions Asked Guarantee – if ATHLETIC GREENS™ isn’t the best supplement you’ve ever tried, simply return the bottle (even if empty) for a complete, no questions asked, 100% refund of your purchase price.

GET THE ULTIMATE EDGE WITH ATHLETIC GREENS™ Order Now!

Are you used to gaining 10-15 lbs over the holidays?

Well, my good friend and diet expert Joel Marion is putting an END to that by giving away not one, but TWO free reports specifically designed to help you LOSE (instead of gain) 10-15 lbs of blubber this holiday season:

TWO totally FREE holiday fat loss reports <——- Download here

The first is called the Holiday Fat Loss Black Book and is chock full of more than 15 practical strategies to have you *easily* dropping fat this holiday season.

The second–and this is where it gets really cool–shows you how you can naturally manipulate your body’s #1 fat loss hormone to lose fat rapidly this season without EVER missing a holiday meal, party, or dessert! In fact, you’ll use those holiday treats to help you shed fat faster!

Secrets to manipulating the most important fat loss hormone EVER discovered:

Get BOTH reports free <——- Download here

Joel Marion is a personal friend and I would recommend his products to anyone. I myself have already purchased this program from when it first launched and it is of very good quality. Even if you don’t want to purchase the program I would not miss out on these two great reports that can help you not only keep off the weight, but even lose weight over the holidays.

Holiday Fat Loss Black Book and Leptin Chronicles <———-Click here and download while the offer lasts

Have an awesome day and enjoy the free stuff!

Lynk

PS: If you are having trouble with the links above just copy and paste http://budurl.com/CheatYourWayThin into your web browser.

My friends and fitness experts Joel Marion and Arnel Ricafranca just released a DYNAMITE report entitled “4 Keys to 4xs FASTER Fat Loss”, and for the next few days it’s 100% freee to download:

4 Keys to 4xs FASTER Fat Loss <——- Click Here to download

In the report, they reveal 4 extremely unique “under the radar” methods to have you legitimately burning 1,000+ calories in a SINGLE workout, and WITHOUT having to work out for hours on end, either.

Burn a THOUSAND calories in a SINGLE Workout <——- *FREE* download, Click here

Frankly, the information they share in just the first 9 and 1/2 pages alone could easily retail for $29.95, but right now they’re GIVING it away (no catch).

Grab it here:

Burn a THOUSAND calories in a SINGLE workout <——- Click here to download

Enjoy!

Lynk

Body Transformation Mini Circuit <—– (FREEE Workout)
Easy video with no sign up

Do this once per day – it only takes 5 minutes
and you’ll shape up quickly – trust me.

For most people, the kids are back in
school now and your schedule is a bit
more clear.  That’s why it’s such an important
time period to get in great shape.  Dr. K put
together this workout for you so that you
can firm up your butt, tuck in your abs,
and stand up straighter —–> all in 5 minutes per day:

C’mon – You’re at least curious <——— (seriously, who doesn’t have 5 minutes to look great?)

The opportunity is now – holidays come
around quickly, and the next 30 days
can completely change your body for
the entire next winter.  Think about it…

That’s why he’s put together a special
video that you can download absolutely FREEE
and follow-along.  He guarantees to shape you up and
firm you up in the next 2 weeks with just
5 minutes a day of exercise.

You can grab your totally FREEE workout right here:

[Body Transformation Mini Circuit]<—– (FREEE workout)

Ever hear of John Sallis?

Well, this guy did some research and wrote
an article called ‘The Ugly Truth’  – basically,
people who are better looking get paid 12%
more, on average.  It’s kind of crazy.

….and many studies have been done on
how straight you stand up, the firmness of
your handshake, and your perceived confidence
based upon your posture….

This solves that problem, and it does it in
5 minutes a day.  Now that you know
you’re likely to be treated with more respect,
get paid more money, and feel more self-confidant,
don’t you think it’s worth listening to what Kareem
has to say?

Try These Exercises For 2 Weeks & Watch <—— (5 minutes & done)

have a great day,

Lynk

PS – there are only a few spots left
in the last fast-action bonuses as I
write this to you – I highly recommend
you jump on board while the getting’s
good – You’re going to love
Double Edged Fat Loss 2.0,
and you’re going to be blown away
by how much Dr. K actually cares
about you.

Seriously, you know you want to watch!

1. CHANGE YOUR WORKOUT ROUTINE!!!!!
   I don’t know how many times I have seen people in the gym doing the same routine each time that they come in to workout. The human body is an exceptionally adapting organism and to think that doing the same thing over and over again is going to yield results is ludicrous. To create change in the body you have to challenge the body. This is also known as Wolff’s Law that states that adaptation happens in the body when the body is stressed. If you stop stressing the body with different an challenging workouts, then the body will stop adapting and you will reach a plateau. So, change your workout! Change the order, they type of exercises, time of day, speed, weight, intensity. If you workout is not hard, then you will have a harder time to reach your goals.
2. Increase your intensity
   Although most basic information on exercise for health states that you should engage in moderate intensity exercise, moderate exercise will give you moderate results. Especially with regard to losing fat, you have to engage in high intensity exercise to get the results you want. Part of intensity is being willing to take your 10/10 (ready to pass out from working so hard) and reset it each time that you exercise. When you are engaging in high intensity exercise, I want you to think about the hardest thing that you have ever done and compare your current activities with that. If you are not close to the level of that hardest thing, that mean that you have more in you and can push harder. If you are pushing that hard, then I want you to mentally reset your level of difficulty each time to know that you can push beyond your limits. This will get you the results you want!
3. Posture
   Your body’s metabolism is made up of a series of smaller local metabolisms based around the joints of your body. Any time your joints are not in alignment, that metabolism is lowered because the body is primarily concerned with trying to prevent that joint from moving further out of place. Unfortunately, joint mis-alignments are almost never isolated. If your shoulders are forward that will impact your entire spine and suddenly, you have lost a large number of local metabolism. So, if you spend some time focusing on improve joint position through a series of postural exercise you can easily improve metabolism and decrease the risk for injury.
4. Cardio
   Cardiorespiratory exercise is great for the heart and lungs, but when it comes to breaking plateaus, losing weight, or gaining muscle, moderate level cardio is not going to cut it. The concept of the “Fat Burning Zone” is a myth because you would need to perform hours and hours of that type of cardio to effectively reduce fat in the body. In order to create effective fat loss with cardio you should be performing High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). Now there are a variety of HIIT, but the concept is still the same in that you alternate between high and low intensity. This can be done on a cardio machine, running outside, or body weight exercises. Check out this body weight cardio circuit I created here.
5. Resistance Training
   What I feel is even more important than cardio is resistance training. Cardio is great because it benefits a huge number of systems in the body, but only through resistance training can you create more muscle. More muscle equals a higher resting metabolism that allow you to burn more fat while resting. Additionally, after resistance training you can create a boost in resting metabolism for 24-48 hours after your workout, but cardio only results in a few hours of increased metabolism.
6. Core Stability
   Focusing on core exercises that are based around stability can help to increase the strength around the spine. This can allow for progressively more weight to be moved by the body through the extremities because the rest of the body can stabilize to allow for more effective strengthening away from the core. This doesn’t mean to go do 1000 sit-ups because they are not functional. It also doesn’t mean that you should focus only on the core. Instead, focus on maintaining core stability through all of your exercises. This allow for an abs workout while getting other parts of the body worked out as well, and also results in higher caloric burn during your workout. More core strength also translates to a decreased risk of injury to the lower back.

I hope that you find these tool to be helpful in breaking through your plateaus. If you are interested in a more in-depth program to help push beyond your limits check out http://budurl.com/TheFatLossSolution.

Cheers to your health,

Lynk

The good news is that there can be simple muscle energy techniques to help reduce and possibly even eliminate your headaches. One such exercise called a neck retraction can be found through a previous post that I wrote. Now, onto the good stuff.

First, you have to do a quick assessment. Easiest way to determine how to treat the headache is by feeling which side the pain is on. Many times these types of headaches will pick a side to affect. If you have only one sided pain or pain is worse on one side, jump right to Step 1. Otherwise continue reading here.

If you cannot determine which side is the primary source of pain or the feeling is like a metal band or vice on the base of your skull, you can assess with movement. Start with your head in a neutral position. Turn your head to one side and then look down as if you are trying to smell your own arm pit (breathing optional). While keeping your head in this position turn your head and look up toward the ceiling without letting your head move away from the shoulder. Feel for how far you are able to turn your head away from your shoulder. Now, repeat this to the opposite side. Most likely you are going to find that there is one side more limited. Great! That means you have the information on which side to start treating.

The side that you want to treat is the direction (left or right) that had more difficulty looking up toward the ceiling. So, if you had more difficulty when turning to the right toward the ceiling, that is the side to start treating.

Step 1: Lay on your back with a thin pillow under you head and your shoulders.
Step 2: Place two fingers on your temple of the side that you are treating.
Step 3: Place the other hand on the side of the head above the ear.
Step 4: Without moving your head, look with your eyes only as hard as you can as if you are trying to see your fingers on your temple. Hold for 3 seconds.
Step 5: Without moving your head, tip to the left against your other hand. Hold for 3 seconds

Repeat Step 4 and 5 for 3 repetitions each and then retest your motion and see how your headaches feels. Hopefully, your motion will be better and your headache will be reduced. If there is no change, repeat this to the other side by looking and tipping in the opposite directions as before. Repeat up to 10x to the affected side to alleviate headaches and follow up with neck retractions from this post. This is effecting the suboccipital muscles (top left of the picture) to decrease pressure over the nerves causing the headache.

In case the above exercise didn’t work, try laying on a hard floor and place a golf ball under one side of the base of the skull. This may be a little tender to start with, but allow the weight of your head to sink into the golf ball. The goal of this is to slowly gap the space between the top vertebrae and the skull. Allow at least 3 minutes in this position, and its probably good to do this on both sides. You can also try this with two golf balls, but this gets a little uncomfortable.

Now, here is the last quick trick to try to alleviate those painful tension headaches. Feel on the back of your neck just below the base of the skull. You should feel a bump right in the center. This is your second cervical vertebrae (C2). Trace down the center of your neck with your finger until your get to a second bigger bump. This will likely be C6 or C7. While laying down gently stroke downward from C2 to C7 with two fingers. Repeat this process for 2-3 minutes. This is working to decrease tension through a structure called the ligamentum nuchae that attaches to the base of the skull.

Hopefully one or all of the tricks above can help you to alleviate your headaches. If you have any questions feel free to contact me anytime.

Cheers to your health,

Lynk