Sun Porch Yoga and Mobility

05/01/2025

📣 Attention Mt. Juliet & Old Hickory Friends!

Starting Tuesday, May 20th, I am launching Lunchtime Classes at Focal Massage (14665 Suite B, Lebanon Rd, Old Hickory, TN)!

🧘‍♀️ Tuesdays & Fridays | 12–1 PM
✨ First class is FREE – come try it out! - Sign up link: Class Sign-Up:

https://www.vagaro.com/focalmassageandwellnessclasses/classes

Perfect mid-day reset to stretch, breathe, and recharge. 💆‍♀️🧘‍♂️

Send a message to learn more

05/10/2022

I roll on anything & everything but proof is in the results! Had a bad headache starting today, turning migraine. Tried all my tools…but those Roll Model therapy balls did the trick!

Relieve stress, unwind knots, and loosen locked muscles with these invaluable therapeutic tools that provide targeted self-massage therapy, helping to pe*****te through layers of skin, fascia and muscle and massage deeply into your high tension areas. Learn specialized techniques to create a self-ma...

04/12/2022

Why should we be thinking about limiting sugar for our kids?

New research studies show that:

➡️ High blood sugar over time caused by a high carb/high sugar diet leads to impairments in thinking, memory, and language and ultimately brain shrinkage

➡️ High blood sugar over time also damages an enzyme in the brain called migration inhibitory factor which inhibits the ability of the brain to make glial cells needed for brain function

➡️ Regular consumption of sugary beverages (sodas and juice) is related to signs of preclinical Alzheimer's disease such as plaques, tangles, brain shrinkage, poor episodic memory (eg what you had for dinner last night)

➡️ High fructose (fruit sugar) reduces brain plasticity and long-term memory.

Thanks to for this great post.

Ok now parents are thinking, how on earth do I do this?

Here are some tips on how to be more mindful of sugar.

Sugar adds up fast, here’s how:

• Cereals are a concoction of sugar and refined flours which break down to (you guessed it), sugar! We need to stop feeding our kid sugar.
• Fruit juices, these will quickly exceed sugar
• Fruit snacks.
• Yogurt snacks or frozen snacks marketed at kids are usually
• For babies fruit purees provide a sugar rush for a young baby.

Considering that the Cleveland clinic recommends children under 2 have NO sugar, then it’s hard for parents to discern between ‘healthy’ packaging of fruit-based purees. I’ve never given these to our kids.

Personally, I’ve found a few rules to completely remove added (and fruit sugar) from my young kids’ diet.

• Eggs and bacon for breakfast – always
• Whole or fermented dairy
• No bread, biscuits, cereals, pasta, or sweet fruits to prevent carbohydrate-style craving.

If you're wondering about a whole philosophy on diet to reduce sugar and a 40-day meal plan, you can check out my book The Dental Diet.

Does your household struggle with sugar?

04/11/2022

Hard Rollers+ Vibration vs. Soft Balls and No Tech.

One of our trainers has an opportunity to work with a pro sports team who use pricey hard vibrating tools as their self-myofascial release tool. He’s wondering how he can compete against such fancy tools with a bag of squishy grippy Roll Model balls.

People love splashy tech-laden gadgets. I get it. They seem more clinical with all their flashy lights, different settings & edgy packaging.

But are they really worth it?

Vibration is a great application. It can quickly move fluid into & out of areas, it can stimulate a variety of proprioceptors/mechanoreceptors in the area that respond to vibration. This can create a temporary numbness that may allow you to roll into an area that was previously painful. Vibration tools work quickly on the nervous system but they are typically large & encased in very hard materials to protect you from the motor.

The “LARGE & HARD” variables tend to be problematic when it comes to servicing the multiple tissues that you’re trying to administer therapy to.

Hard tools tend to initiate a protective muscle bracing response. The autonomic nervous system will engage muscles that are targeted by a hard tool to protect itself. Thus, HARD often makes you feel pain where the tool is rolling, because you feel the muscles in that local area bracing against the pressure.

Hardness does not equal depth when it comes to tools.

Softer tools mitigate the muscle bracing response & allow for the soft tool to actually find the tissue target and mobilize fascia to promote glide. Roll Model self-massage tools grip & compress tissues & because of their softness are able to mobilize tissues in & around joints where movement matters most.

Soft Roll Model balls also enhance proprioception at every level due to being able to sneak into small recesses where mechanosensors can be contacted & stimulated for proprioception gains. Larger hard tools bypass these regions - and the body protects against having hard tools dive into such spaces in the body.

Roll Model Balls are also portable, and don’t need plugs or chargers.

02/05/2022

https://www.facebook.com/110363193695269/posts/804498334281748/?d=n

Amazing

10/20/2021

How do you keep your bones strong?

World Osteoporosis Day — World Osteoporosis Day is October 20. Do you know all the questions you should be asking your doctor about healthy bones?

10/09/2021

I had a bad case of vertigo this week. I knew it was my ear. When I sleep with earplugs this happens. I treated with colloidal silver in my sinuses through inverting head and dropping into nostrils. The vertigo immediately disappeared. Crazy. This article gives me more to think about. 🤓

There’s an interesting connection between teeth, jaws, and the ears.

In kids today I’m seeing more and more crooked dental arches. However, parents often report these kids also have frequent ear infections.

The link isn’t commonly known, but breathing helps balance the ear drum. The Eustachian tube, also known as the auditory tube links the nasopharynx to the middle ear to maintain pressure in the eardrum.

Breathing correctly through the nose keeps the ear draining as it needs to.

Glue ear is a common condition in kids, that may be linked to a narrow palate and mouth breathing.

Nasal breathing balances the sinuses throughout the head, mouth breathing creates imbalances of pressures through the nasal sinus.

One interesting therapy is the use of nasal balloon therapy. It involves blowing up a balloon with one nostril while the other is blocked.

The treatment is not meant to treat ear infections caused by bacteria, but rather when there is a problem with the eustachian tubes. These tubes connect the ears to the throat, and drain fluid from the ears. The tubes also maintain air pressure balance in the ears

A clinical trial of 320 children aged 4 to 11 found that after three months of regular use, 49.6 percent of children using the balloon cleared the fluid, compared with 38.3 percent of children in the control group, a statistically significant difference in improvement. Balloon users also were snoring less, sleeping better, doing better in school and were less irritable and withdrawn,

Right now the only effective treatment for glue ear is to insert grommets, or ear tubes. But otitis media with effusion is so common — it may be a non-invasive alternative to surgery or as an approach for recurrent cases.

The patent use of nasal breathing techniques has many benefits. Through the prevention of mouth breathing it can help prevent sleep disorders and help encourage the wide growth of the upper palate.

Did you or a child ever suffer from ear infections?