ASIS Massage Education Blog

Thank you Illinois Massage Staff

ASIS would like to offer a big thank you to our friends and

teaching faculty at our Illinois Campuses...

This makes 3 successful years!

College of Lake County

Rock Valley College

All Schools are currently enrolling students!

 Thank you Lynn Destry for the photos

Massage Therapist needed in Rockford Illinois

Massage Therapist needed in

Rockford Illinois

Illinois Licensed Massage Therapists & Guest Relations Representatives - Full and Part Time Positions - Must have flexible availability - Apply online at www.weismorrisdayspa.com 

Send us your resume - Stop in and fill out an application. - Please, no phone calls. If you know someone interested, please forward. Remember, we're just a few clicks away 24 hours a day...

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Let yourself be
silently drawn
by the stronger pull
of what
you really love — RUMI

Say Yes to all of Life

So each new day is a great gift, and gives us all another chance to say "YES" to all Life!

 Margaret Gregorie

Taken from a memorial plaque in Castine Maine

 

Cupping in Asian Bodywork

What is Cupping?

Most cultures around the world practice some form of cupping. Originally in China fire cupping was called the "horn method" because animal horns were used to dispel pus and clear infection. As the therapy of cupping evolved in clinical practice the materials used and methods practiced also evolved to include relieving colds and coughs, all kinds of pain conditions, abdominal disturbances and repiratory issues. Natural materials like bamboo were used to perform cupping as well as glass jars.



In modern times, cupping therapy mostly uses a glass jar attached to the surface of the skin to cause local congestion through negative pressure created from a vacuum. This vacumm can be created by a heat source or a manual pump. There are several ways to cup. Flash cupping is a quick contact to the skin and release using one or two cups at a time in a specific area. This encourages blood flow to the area and can confuse the muscle to assist it in relaxing. Stationary cupping uses specific acu points where cups are left for several minutes pulling old blood and stagnation out of an area. Sliding cupping feels wonderful and helps to lengthen the muscle tissue while spreading out the fasica.

Obesity, massage, health & wellbeing

What is the relationship of obesity and hypertension?

If you are obese, you might have heard from your doctor that you have to reduce your weight and loose that extra fat.
Obese patients often have hypertension due to an increase in the total blood vessel length caused by the additional blood vessels in their fats (adipose tissue). About 220 miles of additional blood vessels develop for each pound of fat.
The more fat you add, the more blood vessels you need, the greater the heart has to pump to supply.  That demand on the heart can be too much.

Government and private sector health experts now estimate that 65 percent of America’s adults are overweight and 31 percent of adults are obese and at risk for chronic diseases such as diabetes and hypertension. The link between obesity and hypertension is well known, but the exact nature of the association between the two disorders remains unclear.   Obesity is weighing heavily on America.

According to the population studies, it has been indicated that almost two-thirds of the people suffering from obesity are at risk of hypertension. Apart from an increased risk of hypertension, there are also risks associated to coronary heart disease and congestive cardiac failure.

Though the exact mechanism of how obesity is a cause for hypertension is unknown, but a lot can be attributed to the neuroendocrine mechanism and also the factors resulting from adipose tissue are considered to be a cause behind the link.

Obesity is found to affect a number of hormonal levels in our body, the worst affected is the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system. This system is responsible for controlling the blood volume of the body and along with the sympathetic nervous system; it controls the level of sodium and water retention in the body. Both these factors are responsible for the proper regulation of blood pressure and with obesity interfering with these systems, it can lead to hypertension. The adipose tissue deposition can lead to the irregular functioning of the kidney, which can lead to altering of the blood pressure.

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Happy Graduation ASIS Massage in Illinois

Chicago Massage Therapy Law being Changed! Beware!

What this means is that massage establishments would be omitted from the current ordinance to operate in areas typically used by small businesses and retail establishments along major thoroughfares that are meant to serve the community. It would move massage establishments into areas that are meant to be used by heavy-use commercial and industrial-type businesses such as outdoor storage areas and automobile lots.
The move is being vehemently opposed by the American Massage Therapy Association (Illinois Chapter). However, we sincerely believe that the motion sponsored by Ed Suarez (31st Ward) was a response to an issue of illicit activity in his ward and those of his fellow city council members rather than an attempt to thwart a legitimate, licensed profession that is recognized by the State of Illinois and the National League of Cities, of which Chicago is a member in good standing.
It stands to have a gross negative impact on the employers of licensed massage therapists, the schools that prepare them for their careers and continuing education providers.
While this particular action by the Chicago Committee on Zoning appears ominous, and task of opposing it onerous, your AMTA Illinois Chapter urges you to join us in the positive opportunities that exist in educating our elected leadership about the viability of licensed massage therapy in the healthcare industry and as an honorable and highly respected field and career.
As part of our strategy, we encourage all massage therapists, students, employers, schools and continuing education providers to participate in a grass-roots campaign by taking the following actions:
Do not take the motion personally. Alderman Suarez is a highly respected councilman who has set for many positive initiatives for the holistic good of the city and we do not wish to embarrass him. We are confident that, moving forward, he will become a friend to our profession and one of our greatest allies. Please treat him, his colleagues and fellow council members, and staff with the utmost respect.
Do become familiar with the Chicago Zoning Code Summary: www.amlegal.com.
Please write to your Alderman about how this measure will impact you or your place of employment. You should also consider visiting your officials' local district or ward offices. For the City of Chicago, visit www.chicityclerk.com.
Explore whether your personal or professional colleagues have connections to your ward or the issues that impact you or your profession.
Foster the relationship by inviting them to your place of business, special massage therapy events such as your grand opening, community events where massage therapists volunteer their services, or massage therapist "Meet-Ups".
Offer to be a resource for the alderman.
Leave your business cards. You may even want to leave one of the many valuable fact sheets about the benefits of massage therapy that can be found at www.amtamassage.org
Follow up with a thank you note for the time.
Keep them on your mailing list and forward them information about your business, profession and community events that you are participating in.
Please share this information with others who may not have access to this information such as non-members, family, friends, clients and patients. Let your AMTA-IL Chapter Government Relations Committee know about your successes and progress. We love hearing about Illinois LMT's becoming engaged and empowered. It's all about your license, your profession, your livelihood! Contact me at tracy@amta-il.org.

Tracy Smodilla, LMT
Chair, Government Relations Committee
American Massage Therapy Association - Illinois Chapter
 
American Massage Therapy Association-IL Chapter
email: info@amta-il.org
phone: 847.885.0674

US Health Scare - why reform is needed.

Giving birth in the U.S. is more hazardous than in ANY other advanced nation - and it continues to get worse every year.

According to CDC, two decades ago there were 6.6 maternal deaths per 100,000 pregnancies; and that rate has more than doubled, to 13.3 dead mothers per 100,000.  This data ranks this great nation as 41st in the industrialized world.

"This is a national disgrace and a call to action", says Elliot Main, chief of obstetrics at San Francisco Pacific Medical Center.  In a new report from Amnesty International, the U.S. has the resources to achieve a mortality rate of 4% per 100,000, as in Great Britain.  The report blames lack of health care, costs and lack ofdoctors in rural areas, and inner cities.

Which Dirt Should Your Baby Eat? Looking for Natural Immunities

Mapping how bugs and virus help child! ren develop immunity.
By Amanda Schaffer
Posted Wednesday, March 24, 2010, at 7:09 AM ET

Too much cleanliness can be bad for your baby—so goes the prevailing theory that hypersanitized childhoods may be partly responsible for allergies, asthma, and other diseases. The idea is that early exposures to germs teach an infant's immune system to regulate itself. Just as babies' brains need input, stimulation, and training, so, too, do their immune systems.

But if bugs and viruses are a form of education, which ones make up the perfect curriculum? The research doesn't serve up a neat answer, and, of course, pathogens that actually make kids sick come at a cost. Still, evidence suggests that some gastrointestinal bugs and viruses, which might or might not cause illness, may protect later against allergy, asthma, and inflammation. Baby respiratory infections, on the other hand, probably don't shield kids in the same way. So what's a tiny baby to do? Chew toys off the floor, play in the mud, go to the petting zoo. But stay away from the flu.

The idea that germs protect against allergies started to gain traction around 20 years ago. A researcher named David Strachan found that children with more siblings, particularly older brothers, were less likely to develop hay fever. Strachan's work (like most of the research that followed) didn't prove a causal relationship. Nor did it address how, exactly, kids might school one another's immune systems. But it spurred the theory that all manner of germiness, from dirty hands to runny noses, might help kids in the long run. Researchers also linked growing up on a farm to lower risk of allergy. Dit! to for attending day care early on. (Though with caveats. In one study , for instance, day care only seems to protect allergy-prone kids if they attend before they're 3 months old.) But what is it about farms or day care that might help train the budding immune system—the scat, the snot, or something else?

It could be the scat, at least in part. Last fall, researchers analyzed a treasure trove of data from the Philippines, which tracked kids starting when they were in utero, in the 1980s. The data included information on the households the kids were born into as well as the sicknesses and symptoms their mothers reported them having before age 2. The researchers found that kids who were exposed to more animal feces, and who had more diarrhea before they turned 2, tended in their early 20s to have lower levels of C-reactive protein, a key marker of inflammation. This could mean that they had less of the chronic inflammation associated with a host of ills, from rheumatoid arthritis to heart disease, and thus better immune regulation, says anthropologist Thom McDade of Northwestern University, who led the work.

Bugs and viruses that go for the gut also turn up in studies that show lower risk of allergic conditions and asthma Helicobacter pylori is a bacterium that lives in the stomach lining of as many as half the world's people, often without symptoms, though it's also associated with ulcers. In one paper, preschoolers who tested positive for H. pylori were less likely to su! ffer from the itchy skin disorder atopic eczema, a hypersensitivity reaction similar to an allergy. In another, H. pylori colonization was linked to a lower risk of childhood asthma.

Hepatitis A, a virus transmitted by contaminated food and water, seems to bolster immune training, too: Kids with a certain common gene variant who had been exposed to hepatitis A appeared to be less likely to suffer from a range of allergic disorders, according to this review by Graham Rook at University College London. (Hepatitis A seems to do this by tweaking the balance of different immune cell ty! pes.)

The silver lining of protection against later asthma or allergic conditions is harder to spot for respiratory infections. Papers that sort through the evidence generally find scant evidence that runny noses and sore throats help kids stay healthy later. In fact, children hospitalized for severe respiratory syncytial virus or bronchiolitis may be more likely to develop asthma later on according to Anne Wright of the Arizona Respiratory Center. The flu, too, might spur asthma's development. And early bronchitis or frequent common! colds seemed not to lower the risk of atopic eczema—bronchitis, in fact, seemed to increase it. The theme here seems to be: Ingest; don't inhale.

All of this makes some sense in evolutionary terms. Some of today's bugs and viruses have colonized and infected our ancestors, including other mammals, since way back when. In certain cases, we might have evolved in response to their presence. And so these organisms may now help to establish or maintain an aspect of our normal immune regulation. Respiratory viruses probably didn't play this role, Rook says, because they were sporadic and transient, present in some groups of humans but not others. Viral infections like measles, mumps, rubella, or chickenpox probably didn't either, for the same reasons. But pathogens like H. pylori and hepatitis A that infect the gut and are t! hought to be very old make sense as regulators of immune development. So do microbes found in mud, soil, and rotting vegetation. And so do little worms called helminths.

Note, however, that this is maddeningly hard research to do. Scientists must figure out which critters to pay attention to and then untangle how exactly these organisms interact with the immune system. And they must sort through other factors that probably affect how a child responds to the germy stew of life—like how old he is when exposed, what other infections have already occurred, and what his genetic predispositions are.

And so we're not likely anytime soon to have anything like a lesson plan for boosting your child's immune system by, say, exposing him to H. pylori at 1 month and parasitic worms at 3 months (especially given the risks of deliberate infection). But what we do know helps explain why that hour in the garden or cuddle with the dog is probably all for the good.

Art / Science / Homeostasis / Math & Beauty

 Mental Health Break

"Nature and numbers flow through each other with purpose to the tune of Wim Mertens’ “Often A Bird” in artist Cristóbal Vila inspired short, Nature by Numbers.

Click here for the magic and beauty: