Posted by David Attenborough

WHEN I AM AMONG THE TREES
by Mary Oliver
When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.
I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.
Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.
And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”

To me, moving with ease means making a complex thing look easy; having control in a chaotic environment; being able to access dynamic power; moving without fatigue or risk of injury. What does moving with ease mean to you?

We can get stuck in compensatory patterns from old injuries or postural habits, and our brain forgets how to move efficiently. Or perhaps we've only learnt how to run/lift/squat by copying someone else, forgetting that they have different body shapes to us!

 Poor movement - whether repetitive or just the once - can lead to pain and injury. We've all heard of someone who put their their back out putting on socks. While manual treatment can solve the pain problem at the time of injury, it doesn't always prevent recurrence.

I've been exploring the art of movement coaching with the fabulous Joanne Elphinston since the start of 2020 and it has changed the way I give patients exercises and stretches. It has also allowed me to explore my own movement and troubleshoot my dodgy ankle with good success. I've felt incredibly fortunate to have discovered this resource during the Covid-19 pandemic, because the format of movement coaching really suits Telehealth!

It is almost a separate beast from an osteopathic session, because the focus naturally shifts to the patient gaining an awareness of what is happening in their own body rather than for the practitioner to make the correction. While there are now there are plenty of online cardio or strength-based pilates and gym classes, what I am doing in these sessions are giving specific, individualised movements geared towards neuro-muscular integration i.e. how do we teach your brain to find the easiest and least painful way to perform an action?

Some ideas:
- Do an online course. Laurie Santos has made her Harvard course The Science of Well-Being available for free on Coursera. Or take up a language, there are many free apps for this like Memrise or Duolingo.
- Follow an exercise routine. I started a GMB paid programme last year but never completed it but this might be the time to restart! I loved feeling stronger when I was doing it. The Guardian has a round-up of the best home work out websites - regardless of your level of fitness. PE with Joe on youtube has fun routines to do with the kiddies.
​- Reflect on the irony of human existence - THIS is the moment where staying home and watching TV is the best thing you can do for your country. On my watchlist are Outlander and House of Cards, let me know if you have any recommendations!

- Take the time to say one nice thing a day to each person in your household. It can be easy to be short-tempered with someone, especially when there is so much anxiety around our health, our finances and our future. I follow psychotherapist @sitwithwhit who offers great bite-sized practical advice on setting boundaries and keeping a balanced outlook on life.
- Journaling in all its forms, whether writing a diary, or making art, is very therapeutic.
- Watch the animals at Melbourne Zoo via live cam while you take a break from work. I'm also going to be posting short 1-minute videos for what you can do in your work breaks to keep active, so stay tuned.

The Covid-19 pandemic is unfolding very quickly, and after reviewing all the current information, I will still be taking appointments unless instructed otherwise by health authorities. 

To help everyone and their families young and old stay safe, I will not be treating if I feel unwell, and appreciate that you will do the same. 
 
If you have been overseas in the last 14 days or in contact with anyone who has tested positive for Covid-19 AND feeling unwell, please call the dedicated hotline 1800 675 398. Find out the latest updates from Victoria's Health and Human Services here.

In the meantime, there are plenty of things you can do to help flatten the curve, including
​- Social distancing. Perhaps it's time to pick up a new indoor hobby?
- Washing your hands with fancy soap
- Checking in on others (see below for a card you can print out)
​- Looking after your own health and immunity with lots of sleep, good food and some exercise

Functional movement is the new buzzword in fitness circles, but what is it actually? This is how I have seen it being used so far:

• In a gym setting, with light weights and elastic bands
• Doing body-weight animal style movements like frog hopping and crawling
• Doing exercises specific to helping with everyday movements like sitting in a chair compared to improving the maximum weight you can lift.

I've just done a course that has blown my mind in terms of what functional movement is.
Joanne Elphinston is an Australian-trained physiotherapist who has come up with a different way of how we construct movement by going all the way back to proprioception - simply put, does your brain know where your body is in space?

You may think this is too basic, but I tried this with my dodgy left ankle and realised, when I touch the outside of my foot, I feel it both on the outside and inside of my foot! Freak out moment! So, one reason I keep re-injuring my ankle is because my brain doesn't know which side of my foot is in contact with the floor.

​Joanne showed us lots of cool ways we can re-engage this brain to body connection, as well as postural cues to help muscles, joints and ligaments work more efficiently together. It's dovetails  nicely with a central tenet of osteopathy, that the body functions as one unit. While there still is a role for strengthening and stretching, it is more important to ask, "why is this structure overused and how can we get other structures to share the load?" Are there other ways to move but the brain is avoiding them out of fear or poor body awareness?

I will be practicing these techniques on myself, and am happy to keep everyone updated on my progress, but do get in touch if you are keen to give this a go for your niggles.

Here is one simple exercise you can try:
Go down on all 4s, the starting position for cat and camel. Often, we can hold too much tension in our neck and mid back. Now, imagine you are a kitten (or lion cub), being picked up gently by the scruff of your neck by the mama cat. Feel how you automatically relax through your chest and neck? Meow!

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The Guardian has an interesting article about cartilage regeneration in joints. Here is an except:
"Contrary to popular opinion, humans can regrow cartilage in their joints, researchers have found. Experts hope the research could lead to new treatments for a common type of arthritis.Osteoarthritis, in which joints become painful and stiff, is the most common form of arthritis and is thought to cause pain in about 8.5 million people in the UK alone. It is caused by a breakdown in the cartilage that protects the ends of the bones, as well as the growth of new bone around the joint as the body tries to repair the damage.
It has long been thought that adult humans are unable to produce new cartilage, unlike a number of animals, including salamanders, which can not only repair damage to joints but grow whole new limbs."
​
What I've found in practice is that x-ray findings don't always correspond to pain. If you went out and x-rayed 100 random people on the street, more people would have evidence of osteoarthritis on film but not report any pain. In this group of assymptomatic people, perhaps their cartilage is able to repair better. 

What can osteopathy do for osteoarthritis? We try to deload the affected joint by improving mobility in the joints above and below, decrease the swelling, improve blood flow to help the body repair the affected joint, and finally, give appropriate exercise and other management strategies to help you continue in the activities you enjoy, eg gardening.