Our everyday lives are filled with a considerable amount of uncertainty. How we choose to react may determine how we weather the storm.

Although Cranio-Sacral Therapy is a very gentle modality, it takes a different approach to many other therapies and this can be quite daunting for some people who haven't experienced it before. With that in mind, I have answered some of the commonly asked questions about the CST treatment process. ⁣

You can't help but feel a huge sense of awe and gratitude when you sit in the grounds of Codrington College. However, today was especially magical because it was the last Sense - Mindfulness Session of 2019

And just like that Cranio-Sacral Therapy Awareness Week comes to a close.

A few years ago, I realised I had stopped singing and laughing. When I say ‘singing’, I mean singing in the privacy and safety of my kitchen or shower. I had essentially lost my voice. It was a gradual process, so I didn’t even notice it had happened, but I knew why it happened. I was in situations where I felt I couldn’t express my true desires, thoughts and emotions, mainly for fear they would be rejected or for disrupting the status quo.

A cascade of events then unfolded starting with enrolling on the Cranio-Sacral Therapy training. I had received Cranio-Sacral treatment for several years before this, but the training provides a very different aspect to healing and I was forced to confront the fact I couldn’t hear myself. Laughter, and singing in a similar vein, is a universal expression of joy. Joy is not a transient emotion or experience, it is an internal state of being where you are present, grounded and contented. In contrast, happiness is much more dependent on our external world and what is happening around us. If we get that new pair of shoes or if we win an argument with our partner, we will be happy. I had a roof over my head, I had a job, I could buy good food, but I wasn’t able to express an internal joy.

There are hundreds of stories around the world of couples, happily married for decades who, in old age, die within hours or days of each other. Take for example the case of Judy and Will Webb from Michigan who, at the age of 77, started to experience almost identical severe health issues. The couple who had been married for 56 years eventually died in hospice care on the same day from their illnesses. There are also similar cases of non-romantic pairs such as Carrie Fisher and her mother Debbie Reynolds. On 27th December 2016, Carrie Fisher died following a cardiac arrest. The following day her mother Debbie Reynolds, who she had an intense but close relationship with, died of a brain haemorrhage. Following their deaths, Reynolds son Todd Fisher said, “she wanted to be with Carrie”.

In the 1990s, Japanese scientist Dr Hikaru Sato began to identify signs and symptoms similar to a heart attack in people, usually women, who had recently experienced acute emotional stress. The condition became known as taktsubo cardiomyopathy, stress cardiomyopathy or broken heart syndrome. Although this condition is reversible and rarely results in death, bereavement or grief can cause serious physiological changes, some of which may be fatal. During times of increased stress, such as the death of a loved one, the body mounts an acute stress response including a surge of adrenaline, increased heart rate and blood pressure and reduced immune function. This may last for 6 months or a number of years. What is it that can cause a couple or close loved ones to die within hours or days of each other? The answer may not be taktsubo cardiomyopathy but it may still lie in the heart.

When we say ‘cranio-sacral’, a literal definition would be referring to the head or the skull ‘cranio’ and the base of the spine or the sacrum ‘sacral’. Cranio-Sacral Therapy focuses on all the bits in between and around, including the limbs, the organs, the nervous system, etc. The sacrum lies at the base of the spine and is made up of five vertebrae that are fused by adulthood. It provides support to the spine and strength and stability to the pelvis and therefore helps to anchor us when we are seated, and is vital to our posture and the way in which we walk and explore the world around us.

Psychoneuroendocrinology may sound like something straight out of a sci-fi movie but it is the interdisciplinary approach to “psycho” – psychology, psychiatry; “neuro” – neurology, neurobiology; and “endocrinology” – the study of our hormones. In a nutshell, the way in which our thoughts and emotions can affect our nervous, endocrine, immune systems and overall physiology. It is the butterflies we feel in our stomach before taking an exam or the racing heart when we see someone we are attracted to.

Psychoneuroendocrinology is a fairly new discipline that fuses together a range of health sciences that had previously overlooked the significance of the emotions in the onset, deterioration or improvement of disease. Stressful triggers, or our inability to adequately process them can be indicated in cases of asthma, eczema, digestive disorders and cancer.

One of the interesting things about this branch of medicine is that it helps us to understand, not only the way our emotions affect our own bodies, but also how our emotions can affect or be affected by others. For example, the hormone oxytocin is produced during breastfeeding. This conditioned response, the oxytocin reflex or “letdown reflex” may be produced when a nursing mother hears her baby cry or thinks about her baby. If the nursing mother is emotionally overwhelmed or in pain, the reflex may stop.

As many of us have, I have been indoctrinated with the mindset that work has to be gruelling, monotonous and stressful, and anything that deviates from that is wrong.

Work patterns, habits and locations have changed significantly in recent years, but has our conscience followed suit?

The Caribbean Wellness Day on Saturday was incredible - spending the day giving treatments and meeting amazing people.