Getting back to maximum mobility is often one of the gateways to wellness. Once you get moving, you can often start doing many of the things that lead to an overall higher level of vitality. You could get back to work, start exercising again, travel, engage in your favorite hobbies, play with family members, or do whatever makes you really feel alive.
Holistic care sees mobility as an important part of your wellness. Today, in this article, we’re going to look at how naturopathy approaches mobility, some of the things that often stand in the way of mobility, and how we might work together to increase mobility through the use of gentle, holistic care.
Naturopathy and Mobility
Naturopathy follows a specific order of care. We call this the therapeutic order, and it helps us understand how we might increase wellness and vitality. In general, we want to do everything we can without using invasive procedures or synthetic substances.
One of the first steps in the order of naturopathic care is removing barriers to wellness — and, in general, a sedentary lifestyle is often a major barrier to wellness. Therefore, it makes sense that we focus on mobility quite a bit with many of our patients who struggle with it.
Barriers to Mobility
Lack of mobility can be a barrier to wellness, but there are also many specific challenges someone might face when pursuing a higher level of mobility. Here are some of the top categories root causes of lower levels of flexibility, endurance, strength, and the other attributes that help us move in our daily lives:
- Injury: Recent or old injuries sometimes lurk in the background to hamper mobility, especially in cases where symptoms are heavily, artificially repressed by pharmaceutical substances.
- Weight: Weight that’s too much for the body’s internal structures to manage often leads to mobility problems. Nudging the weight down first with a holistic approach sometimes helps with mobility.
- Mental and emotional hurdles: That feeling of not wanting to move — mental and emotional issues, such as anxiety or depression, can sometimes create a barrier to reclaiming your ideal levels of mobility. As naturopaths, we look at mobility in terms of body, spirit, and mind.
- Age: Age doesn’t define us, but the natural wear over time on certain parts of your body can impact mobility. It’s important to understand your wellness in the context of the rest of your life — past, present, and future.
You can’t turn back time, but it is possible to make the most out of your unique situation. Everybody’s body has an ideal level of mobility, and removing (or working directly with) some of our challenges often helps us reclaim that ability to move.
Now, we’re going to look at some of the ways holistic care might help people increase mobility and feel better about moving through their daily life. Keep in mind that everybody’s situation is different. If you’d like advice that is personalized for you, please don’t hesitate to schedule an appointment with us at Olive Branch Wellness Center.
Importance of Exercise
Starting to exercise again is the reason that many people want to increase their mobility. However, we’re not talking about just jogging or swimming when we talk about therapeutic exercise.
As holistic care providers, we take a very specific look at your body and your current capabilities as well as any mobility challenges in my face. If we recommend exercise, it will be based on the details of your current level of wellness in all of your body’s systems.
Most people facing moderate to severe mobility issues start with gentle, easy exercises and sensible periods of rest between them. Then, as you increase your general level of vitality, your exercise plan might change to include some more vigorous motion.
Massage Therapy
At our South Elgin office here at Olive Branch Wellness Center, we happen to have excellent certified massage therapist partners. If this type of care is indicated in your case, it is usually because it could help you feel better while reclaiming or increasing your mobility.
Massage is gentle, non-invasive, and has various potential benefits when performed by a professional who understands the details of your situation. In fact, many of the most active and mobile people in the world — Olympic athletes, for example — regularly have massage sessions to promote circulation, manage muscle soreness, and generally maintain peak performance.
Infrared Sauna
If you’ve ever been to a sauna, then you understand the power of relaxing, penetrating warmth. An infrared sauna is similar to a steam sauna in the sense that it provides that deep, calming feeling, but the technology is much different and the application is more precise.
Our infrared sauna uses finely tuned, high-grade equipment that emits a specific frequency of infrared waves. It’s designed to penetrate as deeply as possible while being as safe as possible. Some people compare it to sunbathing — but this machine does not generate any of the dangerous ultraviolet wavelengths that you would be exposed to in natural sunlight.
New Habits
One thing that many people with mobility challenges need is to establish new habits that promote and maintain higher levels of mobility. That’s why we’ll have such an in-depth discussion in our first meeting with you — we need to truly understand what your daily life is like in order to find opportunities where you might be able to increase your mobility.
Forming new habits is a personal and sometimes difficult process. However, there’s usually a chance in everybody’s life to start incorporating these wellness practices on a regular basis.
Reasons To Get Mobile
When you think about increasing your mobility, what do you think about doing? The answer is different for everyone. Here are some of the big ones that we see at our center:
- Performing a job
- Taking up hobbies again
- Caring for animals
- Natural recreation and sports
- Mental wellbeing — moving around to clear your mind
- Interacting and playing with family members
- Giving time to charity
- Traveling
Reclaiming mobility is a challenge, but it’s also something that could unlock almost unlimited options for both guided and self-managed care. We’re here to help you through this stage — and we’re with you as you pursue wellness in all areas of your life. Please contact us today to schedule your first session, we’re looking forward to hearing from you!
