The Tea House is all dolled up and cozy, ready for winter somatic adjustment appointments. Come reset and realign after the holidays and get your heart, soul, and body ready for whatever 2025 may bring.
Ready for Winter Appointments!
Category: Relaxation
Reclined Sun Salutation
This yoga sequence is designed for people who want to get some stretching and gentle strengthening, but who have issues that keep them from sitting or standing up (e.g., POTS). The entire routine is done lying on your back, and transitions between moves are slow. Some poses have legs and arms in the air, but alternative positions are suggested in case that doesn’t work for you.
As always, consult your healthcare provider before starting new exercise and don’t do anything that makes you feel worse!
If you prefer to follow along with just the pose names and no narration, see this version. Click “Play,” and adjust the sound options by clicking the Settings “gear” icon.
Tea Monk Needs an Ox, Right?
Ok, so I’m Psalm for the Wild Built, the tea monk drives an electric-assist “ox bike,” not an actual ox. But this weekend…
I learned about oxen and even got to try driving them!
It was difficult, fascinating, and astonishing. The last thing I learned that took this much coordination was tai chi.
Tea and Repose June 17 7-8pm
May’s Tea and Repose event at the Alchemy Holistic Collective in downtown Chelsea was a huge hit! Folks loved their unique tea blends and the hour of deep relaxation.
These events are also a very affordable way to get a taste of somatic bodywork!
A few quotes from participants:
Can we do this every week?
-Lisa
It’s amazing how such subtle movements just keep unwinding me!
– Stacey
I bet we’re all going to sleep really well tonight!
– Jennifer
The event is $20 and takes place at the Alchemy Holistic Collective 105. E. Middle St., Chelsea, Michigan. Space is limited! Pre-register here: Tea and Repose
Of dentists, adrenaline, and stress recovery
Fun fact: standard dental anesthetic contains epinephrine. So if your heart starts to pound when you get numbed up for a filling, it’s just because you’ve been literally shot full of stress hormones. This is a great example of how emotional reactions (feeling like you’re panicking) can come after a physical/hormonal change. This happened to me today when I got numbed up for a filling.
Here’s a bizarre follow-up. I’ve been having heart palpitations since January (just a flare-up of my periodic rumbles, already cleared as “no big deal, just annoying” by a cardiologist). Now that the drug-induced tachycardia has cleared up, my heart feels the most steady, and my resting heart rate is the slowest it’s been, in months.
I’ve long noticed that my body often doesn’t down-regulate after a stimulus (e.g., have trouble relaxing muscles after working out). In this case, the injection delivered a discrete amount of hormones, and my body responded with a strong relaxation response proportional to the amount of adrenaline in my body. But since my body wasn’t making new adrenaline, the relaxation response was able to overcome the epinephrine AND any background stress hormones that might’ve been making my heart do the wacky the last couple months.
What this is suggesting to me is that my body IS “able to create a relaxation response” BUT it is “unable to stop creating the stress response.” Like, I know how to put the brakes on, but I don’t know how to take my foot off the gas. So what happens is I hit the gas, then stomp on the brake without letting off the gas. It slows me down some, but the brake can’t overcome the gas, so I never fully get into the “off” position. I’ve always assumed that my foot came off the gas, but I didn’t know how to use the brakes, so I could only kinda-sorta coast to a stop. Maybe that’s not at all how my body’s been working.
It also stands to reason that this is incredibly draining – gas pedal is always on, AND I’m “braking” twice as hard…but not really resting. And it gives me some different ways to think of treating all this. The first things that come to mind are small doses of Sudafed or caffeine. I’ll let you know if anything works…
Dang. This is one of the most educational healthcare visits I’ve ever had.
p.s. You can totally ask your dentist for “cardiac-friendly” anesthetic that doesn’t have epinephrine. So, if you feel anxious at the dentist, go ahead and ask them to please not shoot you full of stress hormones.
UPDATE: I was back to feeling the same – or even a little worse – the next day. Which is not surprising; going through the adrenaline spike and recovery is hard on a body. So, there might not be any therapeutic breakthroughs with this info, but at least I understand why my heart rate spiked!