How The New Wellness Center Can Deepen Your Yoga Practice!

Yoga Tree Wellness CentreThis month, Yoga Tree opened our new Wellness Center at the Bay & Dundas studio, offering the full services of Chiropractor Dr. Elysia Baldassarra and Registered Massage Therapists (RMTs) Paul Gilbert and Gleb Savchenko! I got to speak with our amazing practitioners and learn about some of the lesser-known benefits that massage and chiropractics can have for yogis.

Chiropractics

As both a chiropractor and certified yoga instructor, Elysia offers a unique chiropractic experience geared specifically to your yoga practice. You can go to her with pose-specific questions, and the information that you receive from your body during your yoga practice can be of great use in the treatment process. I also learned from Elysia that, alongside massage therapists, going to see her for a chiropractic appointment can also be extremely relaxing and tension-relieving.

In addition to back, neck, and joint-related pain and injury, Elysia informed me of some lesser-thought-of ailments that she can treat as a chiropractor, which include:

  • – Arthritis
  • – Carpal tunnel syndrome
  • – Headache
  • – Whiplash
  • – Vertigo

Massage Therapy

Whether it be an injury that needs working through, or a goal for a pose that you wish to achieve, RMTs Paul and Gleb work to discover where physical imbalances originate, and provide knowledge about how to maintain your body and thus improve your overall well-being. I got to speak personally with Gleb, who is also certified as a Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS), about what approach he takes when treating clients. By providing regular treatment as well as educating individuals about postural awareness and which muscles should be activated in certain movements or yoga poses, Gleb gives clients the tools they need to balance strength and flexibility, a balance necessary for a healthy body in yoga class and in life!

Why YOU Should Visit the Wellness Center…

While all yogis have both heard about and felt the physical effects of a job that involves sitting at a desk all day (pigeon pose, anyone?), one of the most surprising things to come out of my conversation with Gleb was the internal effect that sitting has on the body. He explained that muscle flexion is the body’s response to pain and fear – think about how you tense up when something scares you, or how your body recoils from pain. While sitting, many of your muscles are also in a state of flexion. Now here’s the interesting part: “There have been medical studies that show… that your body can’t tell whether the flexion is due to being scared or in pain, or whether it is just sitting,” said Gleb. This means that on top of the muscular tension it creates, prolonged sitting leads your body to produce a similar chemical response as it would if it were reacting to stress. The result? A stressed-out body, both inside and out.

Additionally, many yogis have heard teachers say that we store emotions like stress in our physical body, such as in our hips and shoulders. As described above with sitting, our posture can affect our body in many ways, emotionally and physically. This explains why going to get a massage or seeing a chiropractor can be so therapeutic – all that stress and emotion that you carry around in the form of muscular tension gets worked out.

wellness-opening2

So, going to see an RMT is not just a spa-style luxury, and a chiropractor has much more to offer than merely back and neck adjustments. From our specialists, you can expect help in achieving balance in your body, increased body awareness, and yoga-specific advice that will help you deepen your practice – all in an inspiring environment where the energy of other people practicing yoga and self-wellness surrounds you. With excellent pricing and the benefits that both massage and chiropractics can have on your yoga practice, I encourage you to take some time for yourself the same way you do by coming to yoga and booking in to see one of them soon!

For more details about our location and practitioners, check out the Bay & Dundas Wellness Center page on our website under the “Our Studios” tab.


Divider

Video is created by The Art of Grace