Your brain has a ‘delete’ button – Here’s how to use it
In this concise article, the author describes the importance of good sleep and mindfulness in ‘cleaning’ your brain to build and strengthen positive neural connections. Your brain gets really good at whatever it does all the time, so you need to devote time to the things you want to be good at, whether that is studying for exams or playing golf. If you constantly think negative and anxious thoughts your brain will get much ‘better’ at being anxious. Sleep is when the brain embeds the pathways that you are forming during the day, so without good sleep, all the practice and studying will not be fully effective.
Read the Full article, ‘Your brain has a ‘delete’ button – Here’s how to use it’
This academic article explains how ankle sprains create ongoing issues on the body if left untreated, which may result in further sprains and changes up the kinetic chain resulting in pain and injury almost anywhere else in the body. At 
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Following on from last month’s blog post about the benefits of cold water swimming, I want to talk a little about the common habit of icing injuries. I have recently become less convinced that the ongoing use of ice following a soft tissue injury is a good idea. You are probably familiar with the use of ice to control local inflammation following an injury. In fact ‘Rest Ice Compression Elevation (RICE)’ is considered by most to be the gold standard treatment when they have pulled a muscle or sprained an ankle, along with popping a few NSAIDs. However, whilst this approach may relieve the pain from injured tissue, it actually slows the healing process.
Okay, maybe this title is a little extreme. However, this article makes a strong case as to why we should be strength training rather than running or performing other long slow distance – or LSD – activities. The author breaks down a number of reasons why ‘chronic cardio’ is less effective at improving your health, and can actually be detrimental to it in some ways According to the article, Strength training, in contrast, is much more beneficial as the basis of a fitness program, with less of the negatives.
Proper breathing technique is something we focus on at Backs Etc in both our therapy and training appointments. Without addressing poor breathing mechanics, it can be hard to make lasting changes to a patient’s pain or dysfunction. Often the problem stems from the inability to build intra-abdominal pressure (‘IAP’) using diaphragmatic breathing, and so there is an over-reliance on neck or back muscles that become painful.
Spring is in the air and it’s time to get your feet out of their ‘coffins’. This article describes the importance of footwear that allows your feet to move naturally, especially for the next generation. However, it is so important to both transition gradually and do some foot exercises to strengthen the muscles rather than just take up wearing barefoot shoes 24-7. Vivobarefoot have even launched a shoe with an app to help with this. I haven’t tried it myself but I roll my feet every day and do some basic activation exercises.
We think we eat to feed ourselves, whereas in reality for health it is of utmost importance to feed the