Halloween Spa Party!

It’s that time of year. Fall, family gatherings, fellowship, and food are all things that make the last few months of the year a favorite for so many. Halloween parties are always super fun, but you can always guess what to expect at them. Here are 5 tips to make your Halloween party into a spa party and stand out, while giving yourself some extra TLC in the process.

1) Creepy foot baths:

Call your friends over for foot soaks and scary movies. Then surprise them by adding some creepy fake eyeballs into their foot bath. This is fun, relaxing, and allows you to catch up on some well needed time with friends. Make sure you have yourselves a snack station set up before you begin, it’ll help you to relax during the festivities without interrupting your foot soak.

2) Pumpkin hand treatment:

Something as simple as making an easy DIY sugar scrub while having friends over can help make your party unique. There are hundreds of different recipes to choose from across the internet, but since it’s Halloween, we can’t help but love this pumpkin spice sugar scrub recipe:

https://www.theidearoom.net/pumpkin-spice-sugar-scrub/

Follow your sugar scrub up with a vanilla scented lotion, and not only will your hands be smooth and soft, but they will smell divine! If you want to go a step beyond that, you can make extra sugar scrub to send home with your guests along with a recipe that they can recreate.

3) Ghoulish Masks:

Everyone loves downtime that they can use to recharge from a busy month or prepare for a busy season. Face masks can be so relaxing and leave you feeling completely renewed. Invite your friends over for seaweed facials. Not only will this cleanse your skin and relax you, but it’s fun to slather your face with rejuvenating products while enjoying times with friends. Take your Ghoulish face masks party to the next level and buy or make some photo booth signs, letting everyone take pictures to remember the night.

4) Red Wine and Foods:

What would Halloween be without Red Wine (or should we say ‘blood’), and your favorite finger foods. Pinterest is of course one of the best ways to search for new recipes that you wouldn’t normally come across. We’ve searched Pinterest for you to find some easy, fun, and creative recipes you can enjoy at your Halloween Party.

https://www.prudentpennypincher.com/100-best-halloween-foods/

5) Nail Station with Decals:

How often is it that you go to a Halloween party that has a nail bar with decals? Go to Walmart or the nearest pharmacy and, stock up on Halloween colors. Orange, black, green, and white will give you plenty of variety. Add in some creepy spider webs, blood drops, or witch hat decals for extra fun and creepiness.

(info courtesy of My Massage World)

Just breathe!

We’ve all been breathing since the moment of our birth, but did you know that we’re often doing it wrong? While the way you typically breath will keep you alive, it’s often not as efficient at keeping you at peak performance. That’s because we all leave it up to our unconscious brain to keep up this basic function without thought, which is fine for the most part. However, if you take the time to think through your breathing and practice new ways to breathe, you can often alter how your brain and body work.

Depending on what you’re doing, or attempting to do, you may need to alter your breathing in order to achieve it. Try one of these techniques the next time you need to be more alert or you need to calm down.

WAKING BREATH

Whether you’re struggling to wake up in the morning, hitting that afternoon lull, or sitting through some long boring presentation that has you nodding off, instead of immediately reaching for a caffeine boost, try changing your breath. Take very quick, shallow breaths in and out through your nose for about 20-30 seconds. Think of a child getting ready to cry or throw a tantrum. Those short fast breaths stimulate the sympathetic nervous system, working to get your blood pumping and make you more alert.

RELAXATION BREATH

If you’re trying to calm down after a busy day and fall asleep, or just find a sense of calm in a stressful situation, a few deep breaths can help. While we often think we know how to take deep breaths, you may not be giving your lungs enough credit. Sit or lie still and take a full, deep breath until you see your stomach rise, then release slowly. Repeat and continue for at least 2-3 minutes, being sure that your stomach rises fully with each inhale. The exhale should take about twice as long as the inhale. This deep, diaphragmatic breathing stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system, lowering blood pressure, and calming the body and mind.

Taking just a little bit of time to focus and concentrate on HOW you’re breathing can alter how your body and mind function in a variety of situations. Next time you need to wake up or calm down, try these breath exercises and see the difference for yourself.

(info courtesy of My Massage World)

What is Chair Massage?

Chair massage was introduced in the 1980s, and while it had a slow start, it has since become a staple in the massage profession. You’re now able to stop and get a quick 10 or 15 minute chair massage at a health fair, your local mall, or even the airport. And now you’ll also find therapists performing chair massage in the corporate world. More and more employers are seeing the benefits of regular massage, even a quick chair massage, for their employees and are implementing it as part of their employee benefits program.

For those of you who may not be familiar with what a chair massage entails, here’s the basic rundown…

You’ll remain fully clothed and have a seat on an ergonomic chair that positions you in such a way that the massage therapist can easily work on your entire back, neck, shoulders, and arms. Many people like the fact that they don’t have to get undressed for this type of massage, whether they’re just in a hurry or have trouble undressing. It’s also great for those who may have trouble getting comfortable on their back or stomach on a massage table. Sessions on a chair can range from 5 minutes to an hour so you may be able to fit it into your schedule a little easier.

There are just a couple drawbacks though to chair massage. It may not be quite as effective of a traditional table massage due to the hinderance of clothing, and the pressure may not be as deep as you want with the leverage restrictions of a seated position, but the good news is that many of the benefits are the same as a traditional table style massage. 

• Lower blood pressure
• Reduced anxiety
• Relief of muscles aches
• Headache relief
• Improved sleep quality
• Increased productivity (in the workplace)

So whether you’re in a hurry on your lunch break, just want to try something different, or want to offer chair massage as part of your employee benefits program, give us a call. 

Relieve pain through meditation

While massage can do wonders for many types of pain, self-care is just as important, and meditation has been proven time and again to be one of the most effective forms of self-care to treat pain. In fact, just like massage therapy, studies have shown meditation to work better than pain killers specifically for low back pain.

Some people may scoff at the idea that you can just think away your pain, but that’s not what you’re doing with meditation at all. While some people prefer a visualization based meditation, many find it even more helpful to not to ignore the pain, but rather to focus so intently on specific sensations of the body that the brain can begin to recognize pain sensations differently.

Pain is a very complex subject, with much research and debate currently going on in the medical field; but what we do know is that a large amount of what we perceive as pain may be due to wiring within the brain more so than a physical cause. Nerve signals can sometimes be misinterpreted by the brain, giving different or exaggerated sensations than are physically relatable. An obvious example of this is Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (formerly known as Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy), but many forms of pain may have a minor form of this same misinterpretation. Obviously, this isn’t to say that the pain you’re feeling isn’t real, but that sometimes the brain makes it seem far worse than the injury or condition really is from a purely physical standpoint.

Don’t worry; you don’t need to spend an hour deep breathing and visualizing to feel the positive effects of meditation. You have to do what works for you, and even just 5-10 minutes a day can help.

Here’s a basic walkthrough to get you started…

STEP #1: Find a quiet place you can sit or lie down comfortably. Don’t force yourself to sit in a lotus position or in any other way that’s painful. The entire point is to relax and feel the minor sensations you often aren’t conscious of, not to focus on how uncomfortable your leg/butt/back feel because you’re sitting in a way that you think you’re “supposed” to.

STEP #2: Close your eyes and take deep, slow breaths. Don’t make it forceful, but be sure you’re breathing all the way down, until you feel your stomach push out. This is what’s called diaphragmatic breathing, meaning you’re engaging the diaphragm, which calms the nervous system. Focus on these breaths and the full sensation as you take in the breath and release it.

STEP #3: Starting with the top of your head and slowly moving down, focus on each and every sensation you’re feeling. Recognize how your hair may pull at the scalp, if your forehead is tense, feel the air flow in through your nose, sense any tension in your jaw. Work your way down all the way through the body, pausing to focus on each area; especially those that feel tense or painful and devote your entire attention to calming that sensation and relaxing as much as possible.

If you find that this body scan and focused attention isn’t lessening your pain or is even making it worse, try instead focusing on a mantra or visualization. You may focus on naming each thing you’re grateful for with every inhale and exhale. You may repeat a mantra, such as “I change my thoughts, I change my world” (Norman Vincent Peale), or “Every day in every way I’m getting better and better” (Laura Silva). Some people choose to focus on a visualization; so imagine yourself sitting on a beach, on the front porch of a cabin in the woods, or anywhere else you would find immense peace. Visualize everything, down to the smallest detail and stay there for a while enjoying it.

STEP #4: Now it’s time to come back to focus on the whole body sensation. Do your legs feel heavy? Are you feeling relaxed? Do you find it easier to perform that deep diaphragmatic breathing than when you started? Recognize even the smallest improvements and changes within your body.

STEP #5: Slowly bring yourself back to the present and begin to recognize your surroundings. Keep your eyes closed, but take in any noises you hear and anything else around you. Begin to move your fingers and toes, stretch if you want to, and slowly open your eyes.

Remember, this is only a basic guide. There is no right or wrong way to meditate. Regardless of whether you spend 5 minutes or an hour meditating, the key is to fully immerse yourself in it every time, and practice consistently. For you, that may be an hour every day or even just 2 or 3 minutes on your lunch break and another 2 or 3 minutes as you lay down in the evening. However you decide to meditate, getting started and being consistent is what makes the biggest difference in your pain.

(info courtesy of My Massage World)