Wellness on the Move

24/10/2025

‘When life breaks you, it is because you are ready to be put back together differently.

Every piece of you that feels shattered is a piece that will find a new place, a new purpose, a new meaning.

Trust that the cracks are where the light gets in. And sometimes, in our brokenness, we find our greatest wholeness.

We find the courage to rebuild, to reimagine, to redefine what it means to be strong.

You are not broken; you are breaking through.’

14/10/2025

Music literally hits the brain’s reward system. It releases dopamine, the same feel-good chemical triggered by food, sex, and money. Brain scans show that right before and during the most emotional moments in a song, the nucleus accumbens and caudate - core parts of the brain’s reward network - light up. These regions handle both anticipation and pleasure, and they respond even more strongly when a song gives you goosebumps.

EEG studies also reveal bursts of activity in emotional centers like the orbitofrontal cortex and right temporal lobe during frisson, that spine-tingling rush you get from powerful music.

This is why music can lift your mood, reduce stress, and even rewire your brain over time. It’s not just sound, it’s your brain’s built-in way of regulating emotion.

Source: Nature Scientific Reports (2022) - Longitudinal changes in auditory and reward systems following receptive music-based intervention in older adults

14/10/2025

Today marks Allied Health Professions Day. The 2025 theme, Stronger Together, celebrates the power of collaboration in delivering comprehensive, person-centred care.

Remedial massage therapists and myotherapists make a valuable contribution to multidisciplinary healthcare – supporting recovery, mobility, and wellbeing through skilled, evidence-informed practice. Their work enhances outcomes across many areas of health and community care.

Today we recognise and celebrate all professionals who work together to keep Australians healthy and thriving.

14/10/2025

08/10/2025

07/10/2025

Growing up in a remote area, in the days of less travel, we had limited health professionals available.
The Royal Flying Doctor Service provided a monthly clinic in various tiny towns and stations, treating an incredibly wide range of patients and issues. And of course, if something went wrong "call the Flying Doctor" - our family has made welcome use of this throughout our lives!
Currently, I'm
raising funds for the Royal Flying Doctor Service this October and I need your help! Any small amount or share of this post are most welcome

Please donate today and support my challenge

I'm going further this October and I need your help! I've registered for Oceans to Outback, a month-long challenge to raise vital funds for the Royal Flying Doctor Service. I'll be pushing myself to the limit, going a long way and testing my fitness levels, but I'm determined to go further to ensure...

05/10/2025

In Israel, scientists conducted a remarkable study. A single drop of a participant’s blood was placed under a microscope and projected on a screen. What they saw was captivating: bacteria slowly moving around… and macrophages — the “clean-up crew” of the blood — just lying dormant.

The bacteria were wandering freely, as if on a peaceful evening stroll. The macrophages? Fast asleep, ignoring their job entirely.

Then something unexpected happened. The participant was shown a funny movie — and as their mood lifted, the macrophages suddenly “woke up.” One of them rolled over to a nearby bacterium and started devouring it with real enthusiasm.

This wasn’t lunch time. This was science.

🧠 Our mood directly influences our immune cells.

Here’s the twist: the blood sample had been separated from the participant and was in a different room. Somehow, the change in the participant’s emotional state affected the blood at a distance.

When researchers switched to horror film clips, the opposite happened. The bacteria became energized, multiplied rapidly, and even started attacking the macrophages, forcing them to retreat.

👉 The state of our consciousness plays a critical role in maintaining our inner ecosystem.

And it doesn’t stop with us. Since our relatives share our bloodline, our emotional states can influence their immune systems too — even across continents. This is what some call “family immunity.”

A watchmaker once shared a story: whenever his left index finger would start twitching — making his delicate work impossible — he wouldn’t massage it or take supplements. He’d call his mother, thousands of kilometers away, and say:

“Mom, you’re worrying again! Stop it — I can’t work like this!”

Even mild maternal anxiety was enough to affect his physiology.

🌿 The takeaway:
The old saying “It’s my life, I’ll do what I want” is outdated. Our mental state impacts not just our health, but the well-being of those we love.

So, find ways to cultivate joy, laughter, and inner harmony — not just for yourself, but for your entire “immune tribe.”

PS: This reminds us of Norman Cousins, who famously healed from a terminal illness through laughter. His story, told in “Anatomy of an Illness” (1976), showed that positive emotions can activate the body’s healing systems. Turns out, “Laughter is the best medicine” isn’t just a saying — it’s physiology.

01/10/2025

When you learn something, you should be able to teach it to people. You should put the same effort into teaching as into learning. And if you want to teach, you should be humble enough to learn something. Then you can teach. If you try to teach just because you know something, you cannot teach anything. When you are ready to be taught by someone, then, if necessary, you can teach people in the true sense of the word. So. To learn is to teach and to teach is to learn.

~ Shunryu Suzuki, 1905–1971 ~
Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness: Zen Talks on the Sandokai

15/09/2025

"Eeyore sat quietly in the tall grass, the night wrapped around him like a soft blanket, while tiny fireflies painted the darkness with their golden light. He wasn’t looking for answers, nor was he trying to fix the heaviness that sometimes lingered in his heart. Instead, he simply let himself be still, watching the gentle glow drift and dance around him. For the first time in a long time, he realized that even in the quiet, even in the shadows, there were little sparks of beauty waiting to be noticed. Perhaps life didn’t always need to be cheerful or loud—it could also be tender, soft, and quietly kind. And so Eeyore breathed deeply, and for that one moment, he wasn’t just the gloomy donkey—he was part of the magic of the night, surrounded by light, reminded that even the heaviest hearts can find peace when they pause long enough to see the fireflies."

25/05/2025

Have you heard of the condition known as ME?
This is waaaay beyond fatigue and cannot be fixed by rest!

🦋 May is ME Awareness Month 🩵

HOW TO HAVE M.E. SUCCESSFULLY

1. Do NOT consider having ME unles you have a downstairs toilet. (You will not be going up and down stairs more than once a day).

2. Acquire a cleaner, gardener, cook and general handyman, before you embark on the disability.
* If this is not possible you should find a rich, devoted, non-talkative partner who has few outside interests.

3. It’s essential to have a budget and plan for ME as you will be buying an answer phone, tumble dryer, dishwasher and many other supposedly “luxury” items.

4. Pets are a help, but must be self-exercising and quiet.

5. All visitors should be advised not wear any fragrance body products or laundry products, be non-smokers/vapours and not use deodorisers (air scent) in their home or car.

6. Only but dressing gowns or PJ’S that are suitable for public viewing.

7. Before embarking this illness, make a badge -
😁“Looks Alright - Feels Awful”. ☹️
And also create a selection of explanatory leaflets that explain the disability.

8. The leaflets to be carried and handed out on as many occasions as possible to avoid misunderstanding, ignorance and down right nastyness.

9. The person with ME needs others to know that their care- needs will change from day to day without notice, and those who help inappropriately will get their heads bitten off.

10. The person with ME is not bored and trying to drop any hints by falling asleep in the middle of a conversation.
It’s that their batteries went flat and they are on rapid recharge - wait five minutes and you can start up the conversation again.

23/05/2025

In a tiny corner of the human brain, smaller than the head of a pin, lies a universe. A universe that, for the first time, has been mapped with detail that borders on the unimaginable. A team led by researcher Alexander Shapson-Coe decided to focus their gaze—and the full power of electron microscopy—on just one cubic millimeter of the temporal cortex. The result: a nano-resolution map that reveals not only neurons, but synapses, vessels, connections, and patterns previously invisible to the eye of science. That tiny piece of brain generated 1.4 petabytes of information. To put it into perspective: it's more than a thousand times the amount of data stored in an entire library. What's incredible is that they didn't just observe... they also shared. They created a free tool for anyone—from neuroscientists to knowledge enthusiasts—to explore this cerebral microcosm. What's published in the journal Science isn't just a technological feat. It's a new door opened to the secrets of the human mind. A map that not only shows what we are... but what we still have to understand.
image credit:Chabely VG

read more:
https://blog.philhealthid.ph/?p=70